Here's yet another installment of The Claude Monet. Will this have the satisfying conclusion you wish for the story to have? I doubt it. Because it's not done yet. Surprise, it's not a four-shot!

Man, you're lucky I have such trouble making stories short. Did you know I once tried to enter a oneshot contest where the limit was two thousand words, and I literally couldn't make my story's plot fit that?

Within the Diary of One Sakura Haruno

Maybe January 3rd?

I'm not sure about the date this time since I can't see my phone's time. It's cold as the North Pole down here and I'm shivering so much my handwriting doesn't even look like it's mine. I'm sitting in bloody jeans and a jacket with half a sleeve torn off, and the tee below that is no fuzzy cashmere sweater. If the pain of my broken leg doesn't kill me, hypothermia will. How long does hypothermia take to kill, again? I know this. I know.

This is even affecting my brain, see? I would know that in a snap any other day. I swear, I would rather this happened to me in the summer.

I stare at my leg a lot to pass the time. I t's actu (the pain again, sorry) better to look at it than my phone, sitting there just waiting for me to reach over and get it. For a little I considered just reaching over, enduring the pain. But then I thought that I have no idea how bad the injury really is. Too much movement could pull it even further from its socket. I could need amputation. I'd be one-legged for the rest of my life. Getting pissed at lizards 'cause they can grow their tails back but I'm a cripple forever. Nasty cricket munchers.

So just for the contradictory hell of it I tried reaching with my good leg, and burst into tears and screamed and bit my diary's pen at the fucking agony I was met with. I don't even know how it happened. I just stuck my good leg a few inches deeper into the dark pipe, being careful to avoid the injury, and it was like a nuke went off inside the bad one. It made me think of screaming up the pipe for help again. I did, I did till my throat started hurting and my neck got sore from staring straight up. There was no difference in the situation at all, exc rrange glow of fire is gone. Now all I see through the hole up there is darkness. Really, now I'm just writing all this to ignore the dream I woke up from five minutes ago…

(Description!) I had been mauled by flesh-eating, B-movie zombies. I crawled half-dead into town after town, looking for either help or a final, decisive death. I didn't find so much as a crumb of bread to suggest any person had even been i n th ose tow ns but me. I think this is infinitely scarier than the black darkness of the pipe that looks like it wants to eat me alive.

I'm trying to think of good things to get rid of the image of those deserted towns. I should make a list!

Zolei, my angel. Who came to me in a Christmas stocking and likes greasy, fatty ham and sleeping in my bed

My friends, ranging from prep to freak to jock to everywhere in between, who all have the amazing power to stand me as long as they have

Shion Haruno, who gave me birth and a home and love and so much unheard-of trust one teenager can barely contain it all

Soccer, which gives me as much ecstasy and adrenaline as intercourse

Deidara, who means so much to me I won't even bother writing it down

Nope, that's it. Deidara gets the honor of being last.

January 3rd? Daytime?

A while ago I suffered the worst pain of my life. I cried like a little kid and (at least for the first few minutes) I didn't even try to stop. I woke up from bad dreams to realize I'd moved in my sleep, moved, tried to lay on my side, except there was no soft, horizontal mattress to fall onto. There was a curvy stone pipe which my bare bone hit and scraped on and you can't imagine how much it hurt. I could hear my own heartbeatlike I was going into cardiac arrest. It's incredible, how pain can make the sharpest mind, the coldest person, melt into a babbling, screeching mess. It's shameful that I can watch surgical procedures on TV, see a man's spleen plucked out and squeezed, and then this makes me sound like a child with their first owie. Am I meant to be a doctor after all? Is this is? A wound and blood running down my already-bloodstained pants will ruin my life dream? Blood, which is nothing bu hey someone's calling my name!

January 3rd, Hallelujah!

And now for the chronicle of my super amazing rescue! People were calling my name as I started writing the word "bathroom" so I stuffed my pen and diary into my jacket, out of the way, and cupped my hands over my mouth and started screaming again. "Here! Here! In the pipe!" I heard rushing grass, and then the light above was blocked, and then snow fell on my face from above. I would have laughed if the situation hadn't been, you know. This.

"Sakura Haruno?" an unfamiliar guy shouted down.

I replied ecstatically, "Yes! Yes, I'm here!"

"Honey! Honey!" The guy's face was shoved away and I could see my mom's long hair outlined in daylight. "Sakura are you okay? Say something to Mom!"

I couldn't tell her anything good. "My leg's broken, Mom." I tried to say calmly and probably failed. "The bone's sticking out my knee." While I talked I heard the man from before running and shouting to some others.

"Why didn't you answer your phone, baby?" Mom sobbed down to me. I think I could see tears shining in her eyes. Is it sadistic to say that made me happy? "It took the police a whole day to track it, and they said if they can track it, it's still in one piece. I called you twelve times. Mr. Iwa told me he called fourteen."

"The phone's really close to me." I said, ignoring a certain, heartwarming comment for now. "I can't get it it. It's…" Then it hit me that as they pulled me up the pipe my leg would unavoidably bump on the walls. Horror filled my voice now. "It's right in front of the broken leg. I've tried—it hurts so much—I can't even reach over and get it."

"A compound fracture?" asked a second man. I couldn't see him but his voice was clear. I heard the second man saying something into one of those big walkie-talkies only police officers have. "Stay calm, Sakura. We can get you out. It'll help if you can tie a rope around yourself." I told him I probably could, but he would have to listen to my banshee yelling.

You know, it really surprised me that Deidara wasn't there (since he tried to call me more than my own mother) or Tenten or anybody I knew but my mom. On one hand, it was evening and people might be getting ready to go to bed soon. On the other, everyone in town used this road. Odds are, someone I know tried to head this way sometime in the past hour, and came up to roadblocks and police sirens. Whatever. I think I'm just lonely or something. Happy to have people back with me, as I didn't when I was alone down in the pipe.

When the rope came I gulped, stored my diary in my jacket and put my already-dented purple pen in my mouth to bite against the pain as I tied the rope around myself.

The men pulling went slow as they could, and stopped every time I made noise. Twice the bone knocked flat against the wall and I screamed so loud and it hurt like a knife wound in the eye. I can't make the average person understand and no, I will not stop talking about it. But I can tell you I bit my pen in half.

When I got up there were perhaps four pairs of arms on me and they didn't put me down on grass. It was smooth and after I was done (pathetically attempting) to stop my crying and shaking I noticed it was a stretcher. One of the men had to rip my mother off of me. I was left alone sitting there, bleeding and half-crying and shaking like I was having a seizure while this guy in a blue Nike jacket inspected my injury. Every poke and prod hurt like a burn and like frostbite at the same time. After a while he said, "We have to try and set it right now. Every second, your tissue is healing around it. It's going to be harder the later we do it."

"Okay. Okay." I murmured, sitting and leaning back on my hands.

I looked around. Saw the guy with pen and paper, probably a reporter. Saw the highway where the pileup had occurred maybe a hundred feet away, with the median and the bridge railing totally ripped off but all the cars towed away. I was staring at the bridge just to distract myself from what I knew was coming when a lithe black car just stopped in the middle of it. A beloved figure jumped out and started running down the hill towards me.

"You can use Mr. Hugh's spare pad," said the Nike jacket man, and handed me the reporter's writing pad.

I popped it into my mouth and felt my mom sink behind my back. She rubbed my scraped, bloody hip comfortingly. I could count on my hand the times I was happier to have my mother there with me than that moment. I could count on my hand the number of times I knew exactly what someone would say, and feared their saying it. And he said it.

"Start biting down on the pad now. It'll be better." I did. "You'll be okay, Sakura, I guarantee. This will definitely heal." He pushed down on my bone.

I screamed at something so excruciatingly painful my brain couldn't handle it. All noise and pictures around me blurred together. I saw...white.

My body shook and tried to curl into a ball. I heard voices and felt people touching and holding me and I didn't care what the fuck they were saying or doing. It seemed like forever till anything started making any vague sense.

"My baby!"

"Your baby?"

"Let me have her! Let me see her!"

"Type O, that's right."

"You should take the diary for now."

"Both of you need to leave her alone. She's not ready yet."

I woke up in the bed for the first time with, no surprise, my art teacher towering over me. He looked like a creeper, all silhouetted in fluorescent light, but the sight was still welcome. My eyesight adjusted (I noticed I still had my tee on, but I couldn't feel my jeans on my legs and was then really glad for the sheets). I groaned a little bit since I could still feel faint pulsing in my left leg. I looked closely at Deidara and saw his hands were clenched tightly on the bedsheets. I dared to look up at his face, and the sheer worry and horror I saw there just prompted me to smile a little and say: "…I'm okay."

Slowly he leaned down and took my head between his hands. He was trying to crush me in an embrace, I bet, and not wound me and didn't know how to do it, aww. I let him struggle for a bit and then put an arm around his shoulder. He used that leverage to pull me to a sitting position, and then gave in to his needs and crushed my torso.

"I thought you were gonna die." Just his tone of voice made me smile. That amount of caring can't be faked. He cares about me so much it's sickening. "When I got there they had just gotten you out. And you were screaming. I told you to stay awake, and you said, 'I can't'."

I have no memory of that. I tried to soothe him with fact, things I knew well. And could actually say without screaming right now. "The human body can take a lot of shit before it shuts down for good. It just... And my body...sank, I guess is the word. I wouldn't die from this wound but it had just occurred to me, without a doubt, that… "I'll just have to leave the soccer team." He must have known how much that meant to me. He sighed and smoothed my hair.

"Would you feel better if I told you I got a ticket, mm?" For a second I thought he meant…a driving ticket. Like, for speeding. Thank goodness I thought about it and didn't say anything. "Six in the morning on New Year's Day, I called in, they played a little Jimmy Paige, yeah. I guessed right and they mailed it right to me."

Deidara's ticket to Rockfest. It must be like his own little Christmas.

"That one can be yours." I promised.

"Fuck no. We'll end up with two tickets or none, allright? You go with me or you don't go."

Being with him was making me feel a little happier. I decided to joke with him. Familiar stuff. "Or I steal that ticket and have an awesome time with total strangers."

He adjusted our position so he could more easily kiss me. It was tender and Starbucks espresso-flavored, and there was no mouth-rape. Deidara's lips brushed mine as he spoke. "And I go and get you and drive you to South Dakota. Where I can legally punish you for it."

Which had to mean the legal age of okay I'm really gonna write this sexual consent in South-D is sixteen. Or seventeen. Either way my face screwed up in horror/fear/amazement that he'd say that, that he'd KNOW that! I still don't know if he meant it. He fondled my hair again and kissed my forehead. "Or I can just blab about your diary."

My blood turned cold. Turned to ice. The body temperature of one Sakura Haruno dropped five degrees and she felt it.

I hid my growing HORROR by digging my nails mercilessly into the sleeve of his shirt (Mmm. Hurley makes sexy tops.) and growled, "WHAT."

"Your mom was on the phone with somebody so the doctors took your diary and gave it to me. Dumbass must've thought I was your caring big brother or something and I'd wouldn't look in it." His smirk was like a gun being held to my head. "Seriously. Would you not read a little bit if you found one?"

"No!" I barked back. "I'm one of those people with things called morals and decency. Do you have those on Planet Traitorous Douchebag?" I grabbed the lock of hair that hung in front of his eye and pulled it painfully to the side. The now-exposed eye didn't open. "Which pages did you read?" I demanded.

My DOOMED significant other grinned. "The first one was October twenty-third, which is when—"

"Iknowwhathappenedthen!" It had been our first date. We'd seen a movie. There were details in that entry about his attractive smile, among other things. Oh my lord. "What else?"

"I flipped forward some. To this one entry where you drove me home—" I could see the affection in his eyes at that memory. Or maybe he liked how I wrote about my entire self melting at what he'd done to me.—"and then the one you wrote on Christmas. I didn't text then because I was waiting for you to text me, FYI. And then I flipped almost to the end. Where I got the 'honor of being last'." I pulled the lock of hair down, hard, like that would cover his view of me, realized it was really dumb, and lay down on the bed again with my hands laced over my eyes. "There's more about me in there than anyone else." he murmured like he'd just discovered it.

"You're my favorite teacher." I replied like quietly. I had tried to tell the truth. I did. But...it. Didn't. Work.

And then came the dreaded awkward silence. I was probably blushing like a complete dork with a crush and hiding it with my hands probably didn't make it less obvious and I felt as exposed and innocent as some prepubescent tween caught with porn. And I could just sense that he had read more than he was telling. And staring at me.

Lord above, it was the END OF DAYS.

"I didn't know you had nightmares that much." He noted a little later and a little less awkwardly. "You talked about them in class sometimes. More than most people. But there's a lot you don't describe." More awkward silence. I didn't know what to say. Did he want me to burst out with more nightmare stories for him? Should I tell him about the woman who chased me through a grocery store of vomit? A train I rode down a frozen mountain that came alive to save me from certain death? Or the Jewish father in Auschwitz who was going to be gassed, and told his little son he was just going to play Hide and Seek? What the fuck does he want anyway?

The silence went on and on and on and I started getting scared. Deidara was never one to stay quiet for long. Unless he had a purpose.

"Sakura. Where's your dad?" And there it was. I didn't answer. God willing, my mom would come in and hug me and not allow for anymore questions. "'Cause, I looked in the school records last May, and then at the beginning of this school year. His name wasn't even written in. It's like you don't have one."

This doesn't even matter to me. Doesn't even matter to my mother. But Deidara wants to know, so it matters now, so I tell him. "He got shot when I was in elementary school. He was really stupid. I was a fifth grader and I knew better than him. I knew better about everything." I stopped there. The story became less impressive when I go on to say my father liked to get drunk and act stupid, as in, stick his head in the oven and start singing. Thankfully, my pulsing leg started hurting. And I was thankful for the first time ever. I pressed on it and tried not to hiss at the feel of the pain.

Deidara was up immediately and I was about to tell him to sit down since this was not even close to how bad it was before, but he took a syringe out of his pocket and moved the sheets aside. Thankfully someone had given me boxers to wear, but unthankfully there was a huge, ugly red scar near my kneecap where my bone had been set properly in. He stuck the syringe mercilessly into my thigh. Were he a doctor, I would have commended him for stabbing me in the femoral artery with such accuracy.

"Doctor says this helps with the pain. I should give it whenever you need it, mm." he announced with a small smirk. I doubted the "whenever" part. Deidara had probably conveniently misheard the actual dosage. "There's ten more in the bag," he said, brushing hair over his shoulder. "And a bottle of pills that do some other shit, yeah. Those are once a day."

"Yes, sir." I said and tried to smile. "Really, you don't have to be my doctor."

"Yes I do," he practically scoffed. "Starting tomorrow I'm going to be. They'll keep you here another two nights, and then you're coming home with me." Since I was staring, like, a lot, he added, "Your mom and me already talked about it. You'll call her every two hours, and if you don't, she'll send cops to get you."

I banged my head against the pillow and pretended to be exasperated at her behavior while Deidara talked about what a beastly mastermind he was for convincing my mom to let him do this. And pet my hair while talking. About thirty seconds later Dr. Klein came in with my mom, and I guess the sight of this college boy fondling a "sleeping" young girl irritated my mom.

She said quietly, like a cobra preparing to strike, "Iwa, if you'd please." Lolz! My mom calls him Iwa! Too great!

"It's fine, Mom." I defended. She immediately came over to her and took my head in her arms (away from Deidara) and rocked me back and forth. It was some serious awkwardsauce since people were watching, but not nearly as bad as the End-Of-Days moment a bit before.

Dr. Klein had been talking with my mom, he told me, and they both agreed I was to stay out of soccer for a month, and to be on crutches the same amount of time if not more. Much as I wanted to I knew it would be useless to mope. I sat there with an emo face and agreed and concurred monotonously to everything he said. Mom and Deidara stayed in my room for another hour and I watched, amazed, as Deidara got her to show her somehow extensive knowledge of Nine Inch Nails and Bob Dylan. Well, I learned something new today!

Friday, January 6th

I spent the morning learning how to use crutches. It's really awkward and painful to go to the bathroom but at least I can do it. I remember when Marie Hugo in my freshman history class broke her leg snowboarding, she let me try her crutches and I was so, so sure I could use them like a pro. I so, so did not. Now I learned what I was doing wrong all that time ago. But even though I'm more experienced now it still hurts my armpits the same amount and makes them sore as heck. But at least the presence of these things means that the pipe experience is fading. I'll recover, it'll be over, and it'll be okay.

While I was practicing walking down a hall with a nurse, Deidara came up to me and said he had to go to the college to pick up something which he'd been putting off for a long time, and he didn't want to leave me here alone but he'd be back in twenty minutes and blah blah blah blarg blah.

While he was gone I took a break from my practice and thought about how ridiculous this was in hindsight that I have the most sexy and awesome human male at my feet. As in, if I ask him to strip, he'll do it (slowly) just to make me happy. I went back in my diary and made a few little notes, because I was sitting bored to death in a hospital. In hindsight, those aren't important.

My mom came after work so she could give me a bag with a change of clothes, my phone (which had been rescued from the pipe with a magnet, btw) and some feminine needs in it, and just worry over me. Deidara was glad to help with the worrying and he drove me away around eight-ish at night. I noticed Deidara drove a lot smoother than normal, probably to lessen any sharp turn/fishtailing/seventy mph pressure off my leg. When we were just a block away, sitting at a dark, lonely stop light, I told him that he was really nice to drive like this for me, and then I leaned over to hug him. He used just one arm to hug back but that arm had strength for two.

"In a week I'm going to go up some stairs," I told the minute we neared the elevator. "This has screwed up my soccer career and I'm going to get strong again as soon as possible. I can't have my best kicking leg turning weak on me."

"But now," he said, pushing me very gently into the elevator, "you're going upstairs the easy way and you're going to let me take care of you, yeah."

"Let you?" I giggled.

"Let me take care of you," he repeated as we started ascending. "You never do. You never want anything. Well, now you're a cripple and you've got no choice." And the oddest part of that was that he sounded completely serious. When we got into his place I was already feeling exhausted so I headed to the living area to walk around on the crutches for a little workout. My new legal guardian got the wrong impression. "Um, you are not sleeping on the couch."

I almost shivered. "Well, I'm not sleeping in your bed, either."

"Yeah, you are."

Then I did shiver. Visibly. "But—there—" I was reliving the memory of my first time in this room, discovering all sorts of college kid stuff I'm still too innocent to see, and I mean that. "There's…there's Playboy and Axe in there. A ballgag and a whip for all I know!"

"And there's a porno under the couch cushions. Go to my fucking room."

"How about I go to your room when it's actually bedtime?" I said. But really I was just stalling. I had a feeling that if I slept in his bed, Deidara wouldn't want to occupy the couch at the same time. "Eight-thirty hasn't been my bedtime for…eight years."

He stared and blinked in that way that people do when they don't want to admit they have no Plan B. (I see this on blonde people very frequently, I ought to note.) Then he grabbed his cell from his pocket and started tapping buttons. Next thing I knew Deidara was on the phone talking with someone…in Japanese.

Oh my god. I forgot how that language makes everyone sound like one of those guys at auctions. He was going like sixty words a minute! And in approximately 1.2 minutes (how many words would that make?) he handed the phone to me. "You can kill time with Hidan, yeah. He's wanted to talk to you for months. His English is really good, and he's got a, uh, good grasp of slang."

I put all my weight on my good leg so I could have a hand free to take the phone. Awkwardly I said, "Uh…hi?"

"Dude. You sound like such a Lolita. Has Dei tried dress you up yet?"

Um, whut.

"No! Never mind. I remember last year Dei told me this story that you told him about your chemistry class. You were using gas pumps or something…and your hair caught fire? Tell me that story, please, woman, it was the funniest fuckin' thing ever."

Well…I spent like two hours sitting on the couch, talking with Hidan, taking a break once to call my mom. I corrected whatever mistakes Deidara had told him about me. Did you know Deidara told this guy I'm innocent? I mean I've heard that before but...but...well, just but.

It was probably around the two-hour mark Deidara set a can of Sprite in front of me (he knows I love it) and told me with the traditional hair-smoothing he was going down to the parking lot to talk to a couple of his friends. When he left, Hidan asked if the sound of the door slamming was in fact Deidara leaving. I said yes. Suspiciously.

"Kami-sama, fucking finally! Took that bastard long enough! You know Dei's had fantasies about you?" I kept wisely silent here. What I had learned about this man from two hours' worth of conversation told me that he could very well be pulling my leg.

"Dammit, you're supposed to shriek 'WHAT?' and shake the whole fucking building, bitch." (Hidan called me "bitch" a lot but I think he meant it in a positive way. I think.) "Come on, they're all about you!"

"Uh…how many is 'all'?" I said with only mild-sounding surprise.

"Well, he's told me about…six. But one I know there was also one about that chick at your school who looks like him. Tino? Ino?" (Lawlz. Tino.) I told him Ino. "Yeah, Ino. He hates that whore like country music. But more importantly he's totally hot for you."

A question came to mind and I asked it before I could think of hiding it. "Do guys normally tell their guy friends about sex dreams?" I asked.

"If they're hot. Nobody ever talks about, like…one that's about their friend's mom. And, anyway, the ones Dei-chan had about you were like—" Hidan started to describe one of them and I can't write down what he said, partially because I know it'll stick in my head forever like a maggot infestation and partially because to write that down would be like writing the script for a porno. I'm feeling...odd right now so I will note that the word "catgirl" was said more than once...and...yeah. After he was done, Hidan said, "And after that one, he woke up ten minutes before his alarm. So, you gonna fuck him soon?"

"I'm sixteen, you dick!" I spat. "Contrary to popular opinion, most sixteen-year-old American girls like being virgins."

"Then when you're seventeen! And I thought you came from Japan anywa—"

"Shut it! When I'm seventeen there will be a very slim—like anorexic, slim—chance of maybe, and only if he still likes me then and I'd have to be raging drunk, which is not likely to happen, 'kay?And even then my mother will hate me and call me a slut and a skank and unfaithful and everything else she can do to make me feel bad."

"…I didn't hear anything after 'maybe.' I'll totally talk to you later, seriously, you're wonderful, but my bitch sister is—AACK! FUCK! Shinei, onna! Bye!" He hung up and moments after that I felt the true magnitude of what the guy had just said: my boyfriend, an older man, FYI, has had sexual fantasies about me at least six times.

As I write this, Deidara is still down in the parking lot talking to his friends. I don't know if I'll be able to act normal when he comes back up, so I'm just gonna go to bed right now so I don't have to talk to him. Better to sleep in the guy's bed than talk about how much he wants to screw me up the wall. God knows what my nightmares will be like tonight.

Saturday, January 7th

It's been Saturday the seventh for like two hours. Meaning it's two in the morning as I write this. (I gotta give all this writing a break or I'll be at the end of this year's diary by spring break!) but this can't be not written down. I'm writing by the light of Deidara's desk lamp, but I'm still sitting in his bed. It's crazy comfy.

(Oh and I dreamed that I found a steel baseball bat and beat Zolei to death.)

Anyway. I was snuggled under the covers around 10:30 when Deidara came back in. I heard him drop something on the floor and then come straight into his room. I felt him get a little ways onto the bed but I wasn't turned towards him so I couldn't see. Maybe he just put one knee on it. Anyway he whispered, "Sakura. You sleeping?"

I muttered "Yes" and then flinched in surprise when he stuck an earbud in my ear. He asked me what I wanted. I said something Nirvana would be nice, but to please keep the volume low since I was quite tired. He found my favorite of theirs, actually and put it on the perfect "background noise" volume.

He lay down next to/behind me and brushed my hair with his fingers for a little bit. It was really, really sweet and I had the feeling that, if I were watching that scene in a movie, I'd smile and curl my toes at the adorability. It didn't last long, though. That hand moved down and wrapped around my stomach instead. We were basically spooning.

His face was so close to the back of my head I could literally feel him smiling. "Hayden and Sean asked about you." I remembered Hayden The Flagpole and smiled a little too. "And Sean wants to meet you tomorrow, mm…Sakura?"

"Yeah?" I said sleepily.

He paused and then said, "…You take college-prep algebra, don't you?"

"I'm not doing your college homework, Deidara." He was quiet for maybe twenty seconds during which I got real sleepy and my mind slipped into the tunnel between sleeping and waking. But of course I wasn't allowed to actually sleep.

"Skylar lent me this movie called Alien, yeah. Him and Sean said I should watch it tonight. Or first thing tomorrow—like, before I breathe."

"You've been in America for seven years and you've never seen Alien?"

"Will you watch it with me?"

"Sure… I'm spending all of tomorrow…with you…right?" I was really getting tired now. I could barely hear the song playing in my ear. Was there even a song playing?

"Is it good?"

"There's this one scene…" Well…how to describe THE SCENE? I giggled a little and his hand went a little tighter around me. "…you just have to see it. You might not be the same after seeing it." And then there was another twenty or thirty-ish seconds of silence. More tiredness for me. I kept my eyes closed and I was halfway to dreamland when he spoke again.

"Sakura?" My response was one of those "Ughhhh" moans that sleepy people do. You know. "Are you gonna go to France this summer, mm?"

"No." I muttered. "I'll be…exchange student…next year, right before I get into college. Don't think I know enough…now…" Maybe the iPod wasn't even on anymore. Maybe I was that tired. Dunno. Another period of sweet, sweet silence came after that. I don't know how long this one was. I was way too out of it.

Deidara said again, "Sakura?"

I didn't mean to snap but I kinda did. "What?"

"I love you."

That...that's. Oh, God.

I was surprised at how not surprised I felt. Because in between the mouth-raping sessions and taking me up into his apartment and letting me sleep in his bed and the hair-touching thing that's been going on for months and a whole bunch of other shit I'm too tired to write right now, I could have and should have guessed. Only problem now was how to respond. I got a good, cute idea in seconds, thank goodness. He'd like this.

I started feeling around the pillow and headboard area, muttering to myself. "Where is it…where is it? There!" I felt Deidara's arm and pulled it under my head, then said quite meaningfully, "My pillow."

I don't know how much time passed since I may as well have been drugged then, but at some point his spare arm went around me crazy-super tight. Which must mean my response to his confession was…positive, I guess? It's a good sign. Whatever. I woke up a couple hours later with the memory of beating my poor cat to death, and did I mention the heartbreaking music I heard in the background? I can still remember it. It was eerily similar to the Lord of the Rings score. Hinata would have cried.

Thinking of that dream now, which normally would make me cry (cause I love my Zolei!) and of my boyfriend who loves me, I still feel happy, and that's good, isn't it? I turn and look at him sleeping next to me and think how wonderful in almost every way he is, I feel like everything around me is just perfect and in twenty years I'm gonna tell my kids about my devoted, funny, adoring high school boyfriend, and if I write more about how I feel this paragraph is never gonna end oh shit he's moving.

Monday, February 2nd

HA! I just KNEW I could go three weeks without writing! There were so many times I wanted to, like when I woke up the morning after Deidara's confession and found him lively and flippant as ever, and giving hugs a lot more. And we watched Alien while eating breakfast, and when the baby burst out of Kane's chest, Deidara screamed like a woman, "Jesus mother!" and squeezed me like a stress ball, and then he hid behind me when the scene was over. He asked in this hilarious choked voice like he was crying, "Is that gonna happen again?"

Or on Monday the 9th when school started again and the first theory kids came up with about my leg was that Deidara was an abusive boyfriend and broke it when he got mad at me. I explained it all with the help of kids who'd read about the story in the local newspaper, or had been held up by the roadblocks on that road themselves. (Bryan Graham was really happy to see me; somehow he read the story wrong and thought I died)

And I really really wanted to write on Saturday, Jan. 14th, when I went to our soccer game against Larsington and I was just a spectator for the first time. Holly, Tenten, Breanne, Chloe, pretty much all the girls said they missed me. But mostly I wanted to write then because Deidara took/forced me to meet all his friends after the game. We went out to eat even though it was nearly ten at night and I got examined up and down by a bunch of college guys (and two girls) who all shared the opinion that I was super cute and funny and pretty much everything good a girl can be. Their only complaint was that I wasn't adorably shy. I think they were hoping for a cute, Hinata-esque personality trait there.

Deidara's posse, btw, includes: Skylar, Sean, Hayden, June and Kayla. We went to Chili's and Skylar gave Deidara the idea of hand feeding me, like literally licking sauce and stuff off his fingers and I did, just once, so I wouldn't look like a bitch. But I did refuse to let him even touch my food. Surprisingly, I had fun.

BUT NOW…I guess I don't too many super interesting things real recently. I've gone to our last two games and haven't played in either, but by the next one in four days, I should be able to. Kayla and Sean (a couple, I just found out) want to come too. Deidara told them the story of my badass flip-kick goal in November and they want to see my athletic abilities at work. I aced my French test last Thursday, and by "ace" I mean get everything right plus the extra credit "translate this paragraph" thing at the end, meaning a HUNDRED AND EIGHT PERCENT, THANK YOU.

This stands in great contrast to the C that I got on my last algebra quiz. Deidara mocked me for this in Pottery, in front of everybody and I stabbed him in the eye with my eraser since he wouldn't shut up about it. And it was just as Josh said: "Oh! Oh! Rape in the EYE!"

Rockfest tickets are all but unavailable now. Whatever radio-giveaway thing they had going on before is gone now and the website hasn't said a thing about when they're going to be on sale again. The kids in my school who had been planning to go are getting scared because the tickets have never been this late before.

Oh, Hinata and Catherine came over last Wednesday and we sat in my room reading to pass the time (Maximum Ride is the shit) till the Lost season finale came on. Catherine just about threw her precious Gucci shoes at the TV when it was over, I guess since it was too short for her. Just after it, we saw a trailer for the new season of NCIS, and Catherine got pissed because Hinata and me knew all about it and she didn't, and Catherine hates to be out of the loop like that. Okay, now I really have run out of stuff to write. Homework time now.

Wednesday, February 11th

Afterschool today I went to the park since it was oddly warm for winter in the Dakotas, fifty-three-ish degrees. I asked Tenten to come with me so we could do a little soccer practice there. She came to my house with a jacket she'd bought just for me, a cute slimming black one with a soccer ball on the back. The spots on the ball are pink instead of black, and I love it!

Tenten brought her ball and we walked over and practiced hitting it past each other. It made me really happy. A couple days ago I was back to my offense position on the team in a game against Rooter High, and we won by two points, but it still felt good to just kick the ball around after the fiasco last month.

And of course, Deidara walked by with Skylar and June twenty minutes into our practice. I think his hair looked a little silkier than usual. Deidara said the jacket looked lovely on me, and he wanted to kiss me before he left, please, but I turned the tables by saying he could only if he could get the ball past me. Skylar and June could help if he wanted. Since he's Deidara and he'd be okay with tossing a grenade around, he agreed. Their attempts weren't pathetic, but with my aggressive footwork I stole it from them every time. Poor college students, falling on their asses in front of a high schooler.

"But Sakuraaaaa!" Deidara complained when he got up off his ass for like the twelfth time. "We gotta go to the college and spend all fucking day there! I really want a kiss!"

"Stop acting like a three-year-old and you'll get it," I said, juggling the ball on my knees.

"Actually, Dei, we have to go like now," preppy June chimed in. She was looking at her phone, which was one of those super expensive ones where you have a whole, pocket-sized keyboard to use for texting. "We were supposed to be there ten minutes ago. If we run—"

"God, fine!" June and Skylar just laughed at him, saying he wasn't getting any today. He trailed despairingly after them. When he looked back at me, I waved goodbye. I realized once they crossed the street I could have blown a kiss. If he acts emo in class tomorrow, he'll say it's all my fault, and he'll say it loudly. So when I got home I used my phone to take a picture of myself blowing a kiss (it took three tries to get one that wasn't totally gay) and sent it to him. Oddly I got no reply. Since I was bored after that I got out my Pokemon games and started owning the Elite Four with my favorites, Flareon and Blastoise.

I can be a nerd and a soccer player at the same time SHUT UP!

Sunday, February 14th

Deidara had to be at his college all day Valentine's Day, and that was a drag for him, or so he told me in so many text messages. As he texted me that, around nine in the morning, I was finishing up a card I'd started last night, touching up the colored bits with copic markers I had used maybe three times in my life. And I freaking out to more often. The card had a red phoenix on the front (position and style and whatnot totally not copied from Google Images or anything) since he so loves birds and wrote, in Japanese, mind you, "Aishiteru, Deidara-kun," on the interior of the card, surrounded by a flame motif. Me and fire go way back, you see. On the back, I drew two parrots, one wearing a Nirvana T-shirt and one wearing a Britney Spears T-shirt. Guess which bird looked happy and which looked ashamed.

I jogged up to the college and waited twenty minutes by the library doors for him to come out with his professor, and Hayden and Skylar. I stood up off a bench and put my hands behind my back, and let him come to me. Well, he didn't really come, he ran, and picked me up off the floor and kissed my neck and said I was so, so cute and so beautiful, and I made both his single friends jealous as hell and was that card for him? (Whew!)

I said, yes, it was, and he opened it. He looked completely dumbstruck that I knew any Japanese (despite being Japanese. Um, hi?). Okay, granted, I remember very little of it seeing as I came to this country before I could even write cursive. But I can say a few things. And that one impressed him.

"This is why I love showing you off to people. Look at this amazing shit you can do. You can do anything." He flipped the card over and saw the parrots. "Haha! Yes! Ah, aishiteru, Sakura." We kissed in front of his professor and his buds and I didn't give a damn. They would wallow in their single-ness someplace else.

Then Deidara slipped an iTunes giftcard into the pocket of my soccer jacket. (For a moment, he was holding me up one-handed and I had a passing thought something like, "Me likey a strong man~" But you didn't hear that from me.) I slipped it out again to look at it. It was worth fifty bucks! "Wh-whoa. Thank you! My iPod needs some updating."

"Hell yeah, it does." He scoffed. "Last three times we plugged in your iPod during class, the same five songs kept coming up. Thanks to you, I'm actually getting tired of 'Stairway to Heaven', mm. You see the shit you do to me?"

"That is called the repeat function, sir. You see, when one has a favorite song they can press this delightful button-" He shoved me up a little in his arms like a little kid and I barely kept from laughing out loud like one. 'Cause that would actually make me embarrassed that his peers were...still watching us.

"Excuses, excuses! Go forth and buy new songs!" He let me slip out of his arms and I started to walk away. I half-turned to wave at him, and then started jogging back home. My heart was aflutter. And I mean aflutter.

Friday, February 20th

Today there was an unexpected blizzard at about 10:45. They noticed it was coming at maybe 10:20 and school suddenly stopped. Ms. Nash from the guidance office came on the intercom during fourth period and said, "Attention all students and staff members, please gather your belongings and prepare to leave the building immediately." After everyone did the obligatory "YAAAAY!" we saw the seriousness of it, as in, this blizzard might just knock over trees and smother people and the school would rather we freeze off campus where they're not responsible. Heather, Shea and Bryan Graham all asked that I text them when I was safe at home, those sweeties. I couldn't find anyone from my special circle (Naruto, Hinata, Tenten, Catherine) in the mass of kids trying to get to their cars and the buses, but I did text Deidara to tell him I was taking my bus home. I got on my bus and of course the heater was broken so when kids got dropped off, and when I got dropped off, there was practically no change in temperature.

My mom was at work today and probably would have to stay there, but Zolei was right by me the whole time as I walked nervously through the house. I remembered the last time there was a weather crisis I made chicken soup and I did that again and even poured some in Zolei's bowl. It was nice because it tasted great and we ate it when the wind wasn't quite as violent as it had been before.

At 11:30 sharp there was a loud, persistent knocking on the door and it scared the shit out of me when I first heard it. It scared me so much for a second I really thought it was zombies or aliens or strangers coming to rape me. I acted like a stupid scary movie female star and opened the door and was for some reason surprised to see Mr. Iwa stagger in with about six pounds of snow, so much that I could barely tell what color his clothes were. I directed him to a rug so he could brush off all his snow and not damage any hardwood floors.

What came Since romance doesn't come naturally to me I had to just say what was most practical. "You realize my place is farther from the school than yours?"And he decided to speak with action rather than words again. He hugged me out of nowhere and because he was my boyfriend I realized I must reciprocate, and I hugged him back real tight.

"Do I really have to explain?" he said into my hair.

"…No." He sighed then, like he'd been expected me to say yes or something. I tried to make him feel a little better. "My mom's told me a dozen times about how solid the windows are, and we have good insulation, too. We're fine in here."

Deidara took off his jacket, the snowiest part of him, and put it on the coat rack then took my hand and dragged me over to the living room. He plopped onto the couch and made me fall quite accurately onto him with minimal pain to either of us. "Then it's okay if we chillax right here." he said confidently.

"Ah…yes?"

He kissed my forehead and I hoped I wasn't red. "I wish you knew how cute you are. You're kind of like a cat." Then he started his favorite pastime, messing with my hair. I lay my head on his chest and just left him to do as he pleased, which I know he absolutely loved. Once I saw him reach down to pet Zolei and that made me smile. Then he went back to me, and I smiled again, and thank god he didn't see that.

Eventually I fell asleep and had a dream that we got a new cat, Luna, pretty and patched black and white, to be Zolei's friend, and we got her a pretty collar and a new bowl with stars and moons on it, and when we went to the pet store to buy her, Zolei came with us, and licked her face. We brought her home and she and Zolei played with Zolei's old mouse toy together and it was so sweet—and then I woke up and there was no Luna. I was really sad to wake up from that one.

"Nightmare, mm?" he said to me. I didn't hear because the wind outside was really loud so he said it again.

"Not a nightmare, just…a disappointing dream. Why?"

"You were kinda, moaning."

Oh geez.

"…Yeah…Catherine says I do that sometimes."

"I liked it." I think he liked it even more when I looked around like a fool trying to avoid his eyes. I mean eye. Which was hard because it was the only big, bright blue thing in the room. Eventually he said, "Hey," and I still tried to be buttheaded and avoid him. When he actually put his hand on my cheek and said, "Look at me," and forced me to do so…I'm not sure what I felt then. Or if I was red or not. I saw one of those blush-inducing, masculine smiles, and a strange glow in his eye…that faded into normalcy when hail started battering the windows.

"That really ruined the mood," he growled. That made me giggle a little. Deidara got up, put his hands under my arms and lifted me up and held me against his chest like a little kid. I had to practically put my legs around his waist not to fall. And let's not forget his hands, to keep me there, were totally groping my ass. And he walked up to the nearest window and inspected the falling hail like it was the most serious thing ever.

"Is this…trying to make the mood come back?" I asked.

"Nah." He stepped away from the window and I felt my back hit the wall. I flashed back to my "being raped by strangers" thought I'd had a few hours ago, even though…you know. "But this is a really hot pose." He left a soft kiss on my cheek. "And great for kissing." The rest of the kisses were, I guess…playful? Definitely not mouth-raping. I liked them, but felt kind of retarded when about halfway through Deidara took my hand and guided it up and around his neck. Which is where it should have been all the time…yes?

Zolei's mewing interrupted us. Deidara was quite pissed this time. We crouched on the kitchen floor together and watched Zolei bat his mouse toy around. Deidara got bored or lazy or affectionate or something and randomly leaned (flopped) his head on my shoulder. I pretended to know what I was doing when I reached around and caressed his face. At that point he said, "You love me, right?"

I could have very well said, "Isn't that what I put on your Valentine's card?" and made it easy, and reasonable. I didn't. I just didn't know what to say...except what came right out: "Yeah."

"Cool."

After that I was totally expecting some mouth-rape, but it never came. I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Was he surprised I said yes, or disappointed or what? Usually I don't have to guess what Deidara's feeling since he usually wears his feelings on his face, but this occasion was pretty odd. After maybe five more minutes Zolei went to the litter box and I decided Deidara's head was making my shoulder numb. I shook him off and went to my room to get a movie for us to watch and he followed. And when I'd gotten a couple for us to choose from, he didn't want to leave. I remembered that the last and only time he'd been to my house, he'd only seen the kitchen and living room and bathroom downstairs. My room was new to him.

He gazed at my posters and drawings and figurines and everything else like he was surprised as hell I owned anything. He walked to one corner and inspected the posters there. "Is that FMA?"

"Yup."

He picked up a shirt that had been laying neatly on my dresser. That freaky smiley face for Nirvana was on it. "This looks like it'd be tight on you, mm." he said with great interest.

"Not really. Remember, I'm a stick."

Holding my shirt in one hand he turned around and smiled at me for what seemed like no reason. I stared back in confusion and in the background the hail and wind kept on going. After a minute I said, "What?" to which Deidara decided to be annoying and say, "Nothin'," and turn back to looking at my things. He's smiling at me, again, and all my things, too. The things that make me, me. And he likes me.

And...that makes me happy. If you didn't notice.

Well, now we know for sure Sakura has good taste. FMA and Nirvana, an anime and band which, respectively, are called simply fantastic by many people. And you can't deny that no matter your personal preferences. Even I, the author, can't deny it, even though I don't really like Nirvana.

And, no this is not the end. Because I'm StormDragon666 and I can't help but keep my stories long and detailed, this went from a oneshot (in my head) to a twoshot on this site to a threeshot to a fourshot to a full-blown story. Honest to god, I didn't mean for this to happen, but it just kept going and this "average American" life of Sakura's grew exponentially and I just love writing it, even the parts that were random and pointless like when Sakura and Tenten go to the park for soccer practice.

Random notes. 1: Aww, Deidara called Sakura his baby. How cute and odd. 2: He read her diary. Which makes him look like a total motherfucker in the eyes of some defensive girls with diaries. 3: Hah! He had no idea what was gonna happen in Alien! 4: Ah, the love confession you all wanted. Deidara did it awkwardly because he's not a master with words like my flawless self. 5: I'm sure I'll think of a fifth comment to put here later.

Enjoy this for now, before a fifth chapter takes up all your attention. Thanks for reading.