Writers are insane; they are slaves to words.

Again, thank you all for being great readers! I'm going to tell you right now that this story is actually going to twist around chapter 5 or so, so hang in there, I'm just giving you some background info on the characters, and mostly digging through Sakura's brain so you know where she stands with everything.

Yes, Sai is perhaps a bit OOC. But he's trained. He can deceive. He can act as anyone he damn wants. And this is fanfiction. :P Nah, well, sorry about the OOC-ness, I needed it for the story to flesh out.


Chapter Three:

scratching at the surface


She didn't awaken to any texts or alarms that morning.

"Hey," a gentle voice tapped her ear. "Sakura."

The rumble of the masculine voice was all too familiar. She was stirred awake by the excitement of hearing him again, eyes shooting open to take him in because she could feel how close he was, taking a deep breath to relish the scents that he carried. She rose from her bed, placed her feet on the floor, turned towards him.

Her lips parted. "Sasuke."

After not seeing or hearing from him in so long, Sakura thought she would have pounced on him the moment the day came when he returned. She expected herself to be crying her eyes out in both happiness and of relief; she even thought to make sure to constrain herself, otherwise she might have found herself kissing him or risk having much more of the raw emotions she felt about him spill out of her. And she knew that he hated that—seeing her, seeing anyone, all ripped out in sentiments like that.

But she saw him now, after all that time, and now she just calmly sat on the side of her bed, looking up at him with a small smile across her face, heart thumping into her throat but strangely controlled, calm, relaxed, mature.

He smiled back, lightly; perhaps he was surprised that she wasn't reacting as intensely as he was expecting her to? Perhaps he was surprised that she perhaps changed?

"Hey," he said again, and now sat down at her side on her bed.

God he was so close.

"How'd you get in here anyway? This is my house," Sakura said.

Sasuke shrugged. "You know that both Naruto and I know where you keep the spare keys."

She nodded, reminded. "So," she started. "Where were you?"

"Oh," he laughed softly. "I was wondering when you'd start attacking me with those questions. I was on a retreat with some friends elsewhere. It was impromptu."

"A really long retreat," she grumbled.

"Yeah..."

"And here I lay worrying about you every night before I went to sleep."

"I knew you would," he said. "Sorry."

She brushed the apology off. "Ugh, by now, I'm already used to be worried about either of you two."

"You seem really calm actually. I mean normally, I'd be expecting—"

"It's just because I woke up and I'm probably not thinking straight yet," she replied, and then added, "But I still don't understand why you couldn't have just sent Naruto or me at least one text or a call or something…"

Sasuke shrugged. "I know I should have, I just kept…not doing it." He turned his handsome face towards her. "I'm sorry," he repeated, and then when her eyes met his onyx ones, he gave her a smile and then leaned in to hug her.

His embrace awakened something in her. She felt herself starting to lose her composure, and she felt tears pooling in the back of her eyes, a knot tangle itself in her throat.

She really did miss him. Sakura lifted her arms and returned the embrace, and when he pulled back, she kept him close to her, putting her head on his left shoulder and looking off at the side.

She couldn't let him go.

But leave he did within the next second, slipping out of her grasp, and all that she had left of him was the bittersweet memories that hung over what she realized was just a dream when she later actually woke up.

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She needed to rid herself of these thoughts, and after waking up to a hollow sensation in her heart, she knew she had to run.

It was her meditation essentially, to wind out all her feelings before they compressed within her. She was trying to run away from Sasuke, run away from her worry and feelings of abandonment, but she found that her emotions just kept crawling back, catching up, stretching forward towards her and pulling her back down.

Run, run, run, and the familiar bounce of her heels on the ground and the stretch of her ankles soothed her. The wind blew her hair back; the air breezed past her face and pushed the staleness off her. She felt refreshed, she saw the distance ahead of her, a bleak outline of what to expect.

Stable, grounded, efficient, cleansing.

She was so focused on forgetting that she almost completely missed Sai, who was—again?—leaning on his car in the driveway—so early in the morning?—on the phone.

Just ignore him, she thought to herself. Why are you even interested in what he does anyway? He's just a neighbor, perhaps friendlier than the other ones, but that's no reason to get off track.

And then the thought suddenly occurred to her like cold water.

Oh god, don't tell me that I'm afraid of falling in love with him.

"…sweetheart…"

Her head snapped, turning to face him as she ran by, overhearing a clip of his conversation.

Sweetheart?

He was talking to his girlfriend?

And why was she concerned about that?

Did he even seem like the type to call someone 'sweetheart' anyway?

No. She had to stop thinking about him. Why did she even care if he had a girlfriend—

"Hey, Sakura!"

She stopped abruptly, watching him run up to her after tucking his phone back into his pocket. He gave her a small smile as he stopped in front of her, asking, "Are you busy tonight?"

Her heart skipped a beat, but definitely not for romantic reasons. "Uh…not really, I mean, it's a Friday night."

"Oh, okay, I was wondering if you'd join me for dinner later today. I have to pay you back for last week's meal," he explained.

"Sure, I, uh…sure!" she answered.

"See you then," he said and walked off, just as casually as he had approached her.

She stood in place for a moment before starting up her run again, her mind still busy but this time thinking about what had just happened as opposed to what had happened in her dream. She was more confused than anything else really. She didn't understand why he was even trying to be nice to her when he had a girlfriend.

And if he had a girlfriend, why did the two to have to be calling each other so early in the goddamn morning?

And if she was away, was he thinking of going on an affair or something?

Why was she even thinking about this? He could be just doing all this as a friendly gesture, the painting he gave her, the dinner that he just invited her to, everything.

Oh, she had to stop thinking. This was just ridiculous. She started to run to get things off her mind and now she was running with more.

But should Sai really be concerning her that much?

Maybe the fact that he did look like Sasuke was bothering her. And that he was being friendly to her was making her feel uncomfortable because it would be like his company was replacing Sasuke's.

And that would probably explain why…maybe, she was worried about…getting to know Sai more.

Coming to like him more.

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She sat on the side on her bed, looking down at her phone and hesitating before pressing the call button.

Three rings, four, five…

"The person that you have called is not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep."

Sakura let one second go by before she began talking. "Uh…hey Sasuke. I was just calling. Just wanted to know if you were alright. Haven't heard from you in a while. So…talk to you later, bye."

It was just like every other message that she had ever left on his phone.

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"Sakura?" Tsunade recalled Sakura back to reality.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Tsunade-sensei!" Sakura apologized sharply, realizing that she had lost her concentration to thoughts elsewhere.

Tsunade looked back at Sakura sympathetically. "Sakura, you're a brilliant student, but you've been very off recently."

Sakura looked down. "Yeah, I'm sorry."

"Do you think you'll need a break for about a week or so? I want you to fully recover so that you are fully focused on the work in front of you. It's not worth it for you to be here all the time and only have focused on what's at hand."

Sakura looked back up at Tsunade's concerned eyes. "I guess I'll take the break then," she said after a moment of consideration.

Tsunade's eyes softened. "Take next week off. Come back fresh as a mountain spring, okay?" And then after a moment, the senior added, "In fact, you look terrible, why don't you go home early today?"

Sakura nodded her head in gratitude and uttered a quick thank you before stepping out of the hospital and plopping down in the driver's seat of her car, a hard sigh escaping her mouth.

She was slightly disgusted by herself.

Naruto was throwing himself out in front of guns on the battlefield.

And she?

She could barely get through a day of work.

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"What? Why? What happened?" Ayame's voice chattered out from her phone speaker.

"Nothing, I'm just going to take a break for a week or something."

"Did something happen?" she heard Ayame's frown through her voice. "You can tell me; I don't mind listening."

"No, I'm just taking a break for the sake of taking a break. Besides, vacation days expire after a year so I'm going to use all the days I've rolled over so far."

"Ay…and you're going to leave little old me here alone to break my back working."

Sakura thought for a moment before replying. "Yes."

"Sadistic bitch."

"It's time for you to do your own work."

"You know, I could technically fire you right now at this second."

"And lose me completely, even after my week of break?"

Ayame groaned in defeat. "Alright, alright, but if there's something going on, you have to let me know, okay? You can't just keep all that crap building up inside of you."

"Yeah yeah," Sakura said, later ending the conversation before stepping out of the door to head over to Sai's house for the dinner.

divider

He was actually a good cook and Sakura realized this after a bite of the rice, and she told him just that.

He shrugged. "I'm too lazy to actually cook."

"And busy?" Sakura asked.

He shrugged again.

"How much painting do you do anyway?"

"Not much," Sai replied, sitting back into his chair and folding his arms over his chest. Sakura noticed he was wearing practically the same attire that she always saw him in: a slightly tight fitting plain black t-shirt and well-worn slim black jeans.

"So, do you actually get good money for being an artist?"

"Sometimes. It depends on the day."

For some reason, it seemed as though he always replied extremely vaguely, and it felt like she ended up with more questions after every answer.

"You don't have a stable job?" she asked anyhow.

He considered for a moment. "Not quite, I travel a lot anyway."

She nodded. "So, what was with all those papers on the table the last time I came in?"

Sai appeared to freeze up.

Perhaps he hadn't expected her to remember something like that from that long ago? Perhaps that was something a bit too personal that maybe Sakura shouldn't have mentioned? Perhaps he was starting to get a bit freaked out by how she was still carrying on this inquisitive conversation?

"Okay," he stuttered out finally. "I'll admit it. I'm working on a novel."

"Oh." Well that was cute, she guessed. He was just an artistic type of person—completely understandable.

"I just don't want anyone to see my writing until I eventually decide to publish."

In an effort to outstretch a friendly hand, Sakura said, "Oh, well you can trust me! I won't tell anyone, I'd just like to know about your work!"

He didn't hesitate to answer this time. "I'm really sorry. I'd rather not. It's not a personal thing against you; the writing is essentially for myself right now."

Sakura let the awkward moment pass by taking a look around his house once more.

Clean and neat.

Actually, it was the cleanest of all the guys' houses—and girls'—she had ever visited. Not even the meticulous and organized Sasuke was this pristine.

Hm, his girlfriend probably did all the cleaning.

The question came out before she could stop it.

"Sai, do you have a girlfriend?"

He looked quizzically at her and answered a slow, "No…" And to avoid any awkward silence that could follow, he returned, "So how is your boyfriend doing?"

"I, uh, don't have a boyfriend," she replied.

"Ah," Sai said. "You guys broke up recently? Sorry for asking."

"No…" Sakura wrinkled her nose. "No…I just never had one."

He nodded.

Before awkward ensued, she added, "You must have heard that at Ichiraku that day or something. Ayame was just joking around since…well…nevermind."

That would be even more unusual to be talking about.

Sai nodded again, abruptly asking, "Can I offer you something to drink?"

"No, I'm fine," Sakura ensured. "Well actually…" and she stopped him while he was midway off his seat to fetch a glass of something. "I wanted to ask if…I could watch you paint, like…I don't know, some day."

He had taken a sip of water a bit before she had asked this, and now she watched him gulp down really hard.

"You what?"

"It'd be relaxing for me, you know, to watch you paint."

Sai broke a soft smile across his lips. "Well, I don't exactly paint all day but I can let you borrow some paints and paper to let you make your own art. Besides, don't you usually have regular scheduled work? I paint on an irregular basis; I can't really guarantee that you'll be watching me do anything at any given time."

"Oh no, I'm asking now because I'm going to be on break."

He raised an eyebrow. "Bad day at work again?"

"Not quite. My boss just advised I take a break before going at it again."

Sai let a moment pass before getting up. "Well, instead of watching me, let me go get a set of brushes and paints for you." Sakura got up to follow after him, but he insisted that she stay there and to keep her seat.

After presenting her with a carefully packaged set of brushes and a box of paints along with a few rolls of paper, she took all of them carefully up in her arms and thoroughly thanked him, bidding him an awkward goodnight at his door.

"Um…it's kinda late," he commented, leaning on his doorframe looking out at her, who had just stepped off his porch. "Would you like me to take you back?"

Sakura flushed. "Oh no, that wouldn't be necessary."

"I insist," Sai said, closing his front door as he stepped out as well. "I feel bad and you have quite the load to carry back now anyway." He clicked open his car and held the passenger door open for her.

"Um, it's just a few houses down, but thank you," she mumbled as she looked around his car, which was interesting because she had never seen such a generic looking car that quite looked like Sai's. She spotted no overt company logo and there were a few extra dials on the dashboard that she didn't recognize.

She whistled in her head. Damn, this must be one of those expensive cars.

When she caught a glance to the back of his car, she spotted a change of clothes folded onto the backseat.

"Thank you," she said, opening her door to leave, facing him for another awkward goodbye.

"See you," he said, pulling the clutch back to drive.

"For everything," she added, gesturing to both the car and the paints and implying the dinner as well.

"Anytime." And he drove off.

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Saturday afternoon, the next day, Sakura received a text from TenTen:

But yeah we are going out

So there! NejiTen was a reality!

Wait until the gossip queen heard this bit.

Oh, speak of the devil, Sakura thought when her phone received an incoming call.

"Hi."

"Where the hell were you last night, billboard brow?"

"Um…"

"You weren't at work and I asked Ayame at the counter and she said that you had taken a vacation. And I called your number several times and you didn't pick up! I thought you went on a cruise without me or something—wait! Where are you right now? Don't tell me you're on a cruise ship."

"At home."

"Perfect. I'm driving over to your house and dropping these cookies that Hinata baked for me. She's too good of a baker and I really can't afford to gain weight right now."

Within the next twenty minutes, Sakura held open her door and Ino waltzed in, making her way to Sakura's kitchen counter where she dropped an aluminum-covered tray of said desserts. Ino whipped around to face Sakura, hands on her hips and looking quite serious.

"So," Ino stated. "Where were you last night?"

"I just checked my phone. I didn't get any calls from you last night," Sakura replied. But Ino wouldn't lie about something like that, not even to exaggerate a point she was making. Sakura's phone just probably didn't pick up the call at all. Or maybe Sai's house had poor reception and she had no signal in there.

"Sakura, where were you last night?" Ino repeated. "Don't stray away from the question."

"At a friend's house," the pinkette admitted finally.

"Who?" and Sakura saw the evil glitters in the blonde's eyes.

"A friend."

"You can be more specific."

Sakura shook her head. "You don't know him."

She realized the masculine pronoun slipped off her tongue once Ino's eyebrow cocked up. "What's his name?"

Sakura sighed, knowing she wouldn't be able to get out of this one. "Sai."

"Who's he?"

"He's…" Sakura made a gesture as though to forget about it. "He's a new neighbor, moved into one of the houses on sale."

Ino crossed her arms and leaned against the counter, concluding, "So Sasuke has competition."

"You guys really have to stop bringing Sasuke into everyth—"

"Show me him! Is he hot?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"He's a neighbor, isn't he? I'm sure I can just pop by and meet him or something!"

"Ino…"

By now, Ino was pulling Sakura out of her own house by the wrist. Sakura didn't thinking resistance would help her cause anymore and a few minutes later, Ino's flamboyant red car was parked at the side of Sai's house ("I will ring the doorbell that you lead me to, so don't lie and make a fool of yourself," said Ino in the driver seat.), and Ino was dragging Sakura to the front door.

Sakura tried to keep Ino from ringing the doorbell, but the crafty pig rapped hard on the door instead.

They waited for a few minutes but he didn't come to the door.

"See? He's not home," Sakura said, attempting to discourage Ino, and started her way back home.

Ino pulled Sakura back. "I'm not that blonde, pinky. His car is in the driveway—"

The front door swung open, revealing a rather nonchalant Sai in his usual attire.

"Hi!" Ino exclaimed upon seeing the man. "I'm Sakura's good friend, Ino Yamanaka! Glad to meet you!" She took his hand and shook it vigorously. "I had actually been looking into buying this house before," Ino lied, "but congratulations! It's a beautiful house and is at an awesome location and everything!"

Sai gave her a soft smile, placing his free hand over her right hand, to stop the handshake before taking both his hands back to himself. "Thank you. It wasn't difficult of a choice."

"Yeah, and I'm sure Sakura could help you out if you ever needed anything," Ino tucked Sakura into the conversation, and Sakura could only nod in affirmation of her friend's words. "Are you new to the area or are you just moving in from somewhere else?"

"This is actually the first time I've lived in East District."

"Oh, well I'm sure you'll enjoy it here," Ino assured.

"Right," he replied.

Sakura counted three awkward seconds before she jumped in. "Well, just dropping by to say hi. Bye!"

"Okay," was his answer, and Sakura wasn't sure what to make of the tone, while inconspicuously shoving Ino back toward her car.

"He looks like Sasuke!" Ino exclaimed once they were in the car. "Oh my god, Sakura, you definitely have some kind of a preference thing going on. Let's see…dark hair…more on the skinny side…white skin…black eyes…"

"Let it go, Ino, we were just having a dinner."

"You don't do that with every new neighbor I see."

Sakura gave a great sigh, and they pulled into Sakura's driveway but Ino didn't get out of her car even after she pulled out her keys from ignition.

After a moment, her friend finally spoke.

"I know you miss Sasuke, Sakura," Ino said, her voice dropping earnestly. "But you have to get over him."

Sakura looked down.

"I'm not saying to forget him or not be concerned about him at all, but this definitely isn't the first time he's just left without saying anything, and he definitely shouldn't be occupying your mind as much as he is right now. You can't have him intrude in your life."

"What are you talking about?"

"He looks like Sasuke, Sakura. It's like you're substituting someone to fill in the Sasuke role so you can like, I don't know, lie to yourself that he's close by or something."

"That's just coincidence," she denied. "And Sai's just an acquaintance."

"Whatever, I'm not going to argue," Ino said, looking out her side of the window before turning her head back to face Sakura. "But you also have to stop running your knees off." Ino unconsciously looked towards Sakura's calves. "I mean, a mile is already enough for every day, but you're pushing it a few." Ino paused for a moment. "And you're not even doing it for health reasons or to train for a marathon, you're just running off steam." Ino's eyes caught Sakura's, concern etched into her friend's blue eyes.

"Don't worry about me, Ino," Sakura sighed, looking away.

"Well…let me know if I can do anything," Ino discarded the seriousness, her tone lighter. "You know…if that boy needs charming up or something."

A smile stretched across Sakura's lips. "Okay then. Thanks Ino."

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"So I'm really sorry about earlier today," Sakura apologized, ashamed. "Ino is rather the social butterfly."

Sai was at the door again, in the same attire, as nonchalant as before. "It's understandable," nodding his head.

"Here," Sakura said, returning the art supplies he had lent her. "The brushes are from Amekagure? And the paints from Iwagakure? Did you get all that travelling to those places?"

"Yeah," he answered in a word while taking the stuff. "How'd the painting go?"

She laughed nervously. "Not too well; I'm not an artist."

He gave some kind of a side nod, and then suddenly looked at her. "Do you work weekends?"

"No…" Sakura answered, recovering from the abrupt eye contact.

"I have time too; why don't we go check your painting out?" he offered, and then smiled.

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He smiled again when he saw Sakura's work, which she had taped to the wall, arms folded across his chest and slightly leaning back. Amused, he inquired, "Is this supposed to depict any meaning?" He held two fingers out to mimic the curves of green that were placed sparingly across the canvas.

"Palm trees," Sakura clarified wryly, "on a beach."

His hand returned to his chin in a thoughtful pose. "Well it's good abstract," and his eyes followed her lips to see if she caught the insulting joke.

She covered her smile with a hand. "That's just a bad painting," she felt a blush creep up.

His eyes scanned it again. "No such thing as a good or bad art," he replied.

"Then I'm a bad artist," she said, gesturing over to the left where she had hung Sai's gift painting. Side by side, the paintings shouted contrasts to each other. "Maybe you can help me out and make a few 'minor' edits?"

His eyebrows furrowed like it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. "Nah," he said, shaking his head. "You don't correct someone's art."

"Well that's not art. You can change it up a bit."

"No," was his definite answer, placing his hands in his pockets and starting to walk towards the door.

"Or help me out a bit in making it look more realistic or something?"

He stood at the doorway, "Nope. That's all on you." Then he left, shutting the door behind him.

flashbacktime!

She dug her toes in and out of the sand, coarse grains sticking under her toenail. She leaned back against her arms and inhaled the salty air, the roar of the collapsing ocean waves as her skin soaked the orange and reds of the sunset.

She felt warm, under the sun.

She felt warm, next to him.

He lay on his back to the right of her, raven hair unkempt under his head and hands, bare chest tanner than it was a few hours before, wet midnight blue swimming trunks sticking to his skin and the sand, onyx eyes grazing the surface of the water.

She reached over to grab her drink, plastic cup sweating cool water over her fingers, and sipped once or twice before he suddenly stretched his arm out to swipe the beverage out of her grasp.

"What the hell, Sasuke?" Sakura exclaimed, putting on an exaggerated frown as she watched the level of the drink fall at least two inches in his one large suck at the straw.

Honestly though, she was amused. She liked it better when he was being playful than his usual dark and almost cynical self.

"Thanks," he replied, lying back down onto the blanket that Sakura had put out, and placing the cup back into her hand before closing his eyes.

"Hey!" Naruto's yell made Sakura turn away from watching Sasuke. The blond ran over to both his friends that were under a large umbrella, running and kicking some sand over the two of them accidentally. "How do you go to the beach and not get into the water?"

"You got sand all over us, usuratonkachi!" Sasuke cursed at the tan blond. Sasuke scooped up some sand on the side of him and hurled it at Naruto.

"Well, get up you lazy ass!" Naruto kicked up another wave of sand, this time on purpose, at Sasuke, who shielded his eyes with his hands.

"Dobe!"

"Teme!"

Sasuke threw another sand splash at Naruto, getting up at the same time to better confront Naruto, grains of sand sprinkling all over the place.

"Don't get sand in my drink, you idiots!" Sakura yelled, reaching forward to retrieve her refreshment, but Naruto swiftly bent down and scooped it up.

"I'll secure it for you then!" Naruto offered sarcastically and pulled off the top and straw of the cup and chugged what remained of it.

The two males returned to their fight, Sasuke shoving Naruto in the excuse of Sakura's reprimand, and then running toward the ocean to take the quarrel to the waters. Naruto followed right after him, throwing the empty smoothie cup down to the ground by Sakura's feet.

"Guys!" she exclaimed, discouraged. "You guys know I love strawberry smoothies and the one time I buy one you guys devour it!"

"I'll treat you later!" both of them promised her as they ran off.

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Sakura thought it would be a good idea for her to return Sai the favor of dinner and cook an extra portion for Friday night since he had done so the last Friday before. After preparing some baked tilapia and wild rice in a dish, Sakura headed over a few houses down to her neighbor's home.

Stepping towards the door, she cursed her clumsiness as she tripped over one of the steps on the way up and reached for the door handle, the nearest thing to hold on to.

However, apparently Sai's door hadn't been locked, and the door handle lowered when she applied pressure on it, and instead of being stable enough to keep her from falling, the door handle allowed to continue her fall right into Sai's house.

A blaring alarm bleeped upon her sudden entry.

He had a security system set up?!

She saw him practically tumbling down the stairs to see who or what was at his door at such a time in the night and once seeing her, pulled his right arm back behind him in surprise and quickly ran over to help her up.

"Ah shit, I'm so sorry," Sakura apologized, getting up on her own but placing the dish in Sai's free hand.

"You okay?" he asked almost immediately after, reaching up above his door to turn the alarm off.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess I should have told you that I was going to be making dinner for you today," she said. "It was Friday and I thought I would, um, keep the tradition of Friday dinners up, I guess."

She suddenly realized that he really hadn't been expecting her.

Being half-naked and all.

He looked down at the aluminum covered plate. "Um…thank you. Smells great." He stepped aside. "Have a seat." And his shirtless self went over into another room to grab an extra chair to join her at his table.

He placed the dish on his table and plopped down into the chair.

She explained, "It's just a dish for you…I, um, already ate, but I made extra for you, so…"

He didn't move. "Well, I'm not comfortable with eating when the person next to me isn't, so I'll save it for later, but thank you. I really appreciate it, and I'm sorry about the security alarm."

"Oh no," she insisted. "I should have told you that I was coming over." She started to fade when she once again noticed his strangely pale but toned chest and biceps. It didn't match; she felt like with that musculature, he should have been at least a bit tanner.

"Nah," he waved down a hand in disregard. "I don't mind. I guess while you're here, we can have a bit of a chat then."

She nodded. "So…how are you? How have you been this week?"

He suddenly got up, raising a finger. "Sorry, let me get a shirt right quick."

"Uh, okay!" she agreed and sat back in her chair while she saw his lanky figure turn and walk over to another—wait, what was that?

Was that black thing hanging out of the back of his jeans the handle of a gun?!

What the hell was he doing with a gun?! No, scratch that—why did he have a gun?!

Did it have to do with her triggering the alarm system?

Was he really that kind of a person? Because if he was, she completely wouldn't have expected someone with his cool and collected demeanor to possess any firearms!

While she recovered from seeing what she thought was a gun, she saw him come back to join her at the table, with his typical black shirt, and calmed herself down. She probably just saw his boxers or something; she doubted it was a gun or something serious like that. Sai didn't even look like he could hurt a fly! Well actually, she didn't know that, but he definitely wasn't one of those cold-blooded sociopaths!

"I'm good," he said. "Been doing well. What about you?"

She half stammered. "I-I, uh, I'm doing great. The vacation was definitely a good idea to take. I feel really well rested."

He nodded. "That's good, that's good. How's your guy?"

What?

She raised an eyebrow. "I don't know who you're talking about. I mean I—"

"Ah, sorry. While we were at your place earlier I noticed a bunch of letters from the Army or something. The ramen girl that you were working with mentioned you had a boyfriend and all," he explained.

Sakura forced a laugh. "Oh no, let me explain. Um, the Army guy is Naruto; he's one of my close friends from way back when and he just updates me on how he is fighting out there." Her talking started to quicken. "The guy that Ayame was talking about was Sasuke, and she was just joking really, because I've been so worried about Sasuke since we think he left the country and I haven't heard of him in a long time."

She was getting more and more nervous talking about this to Sai and she thought it was because it was extremely awkward talking about guys—well not that Sai knew Sasuke was perhaps her love interest—with Sai.

Especially to someone like Sai, who didn't seem to harbor any romanticism in him at all, which she admitted sort of disappointed her, since she was actually starting to get to like him.

Sort of.

One of his eyebrows raised and he appeared to pause and hold his breath for a second. "Left the country?" he repeated curiously.

"Yeah," she said, fumbling with her phone, looking down at her lap, checking for any missed calls or texts unconsciously. Hm, no signal here, she thought, seeing no bars and remembering about the call she missed from Ino previously before. "Sasuke just left. He didn't even tell anyone." She caught herself before she said anything more, smiling. "Sorry, I didn't have to tell you that. All that has nothing to do with you, I shouldn't have you worry about that."

Sai shrugged. "Feel free to say whatever you wish. I don't really mind."

She paused to think recollect her thoughts a bit.

"Well, since we're talking about going out of country anyway, where else have you been besides Amekagure?" she asked, remembering that his brushes were from there and his paints from Sand Country.

"I've been all over the place," he answered vaguely.

"So…where were you before coming to Konoha?"

"I was living in Kirigakure."

"All the way in Water Country?" Sakura asked, somewhat impressed. "That's pretty far."

Sai uttered a noncommittal grunt.

"So…you live temporarily everywhere?"

"I guess."

"…are you going to be moving out of here soon?"

Sai shrugged and made a small frown, appearing to calculate the possibility in his head. "Not soon."

Sakura was about to ask more, but refrained from doing so, afraid of being too inquisitive, letting silence settle over the two of them instead.

"Well then," Sai said. "Thanks for dinner. I'll be getting back to work."

"Work?" she blurted in question.

"Like work…out," he clarified.

"Ah," she nodded in approval.

"I mean, I just lift a couple of things around. It's nothing too intense."

She chuckled. "Keeping healthy?"

"Like how you run."

Sakura gave him a grim smile. She knew she ran for different reasons than for her own health.

"Alright then," she concluded, standing up. "Have a nice night. Enjoy the food."

"Without doubt."

flashback

"Hey Sak," Sasuke randomly blurted, forgetting the rest of the syllables of her name.

She loved it when he did that. It meant he was deep in thought, and the fact that he was calling her name while deep in thought meant he was going to ask her honest opinion about something that he thought was important. And that meant that her opinion would be important to him.

It made her feel special, she guessed, looking over his pensive face that was staring off at the traffic in front of him, left wrist resting on the steering wheel while his right hand supported his slightly tilted head.

After all, Sasuke was one of those idiots that didn't usually listen to anyone else's discretion.

"Hm?" she asked.

"What would you do if you found out you had a brother you never knew about?"

At the moment, she didn't think that whatever she said might have influenced him later on.

She would have never guessed that Sasuke might have actually taken her words to heart that one time.

"Well…" she had said then. "I'd go find him."


Well I hope this story isn't boring you guys too much! I promise the action's coming! ;)

thir13enth