Sakura spent the rest of her day drifting in and out of attention. Kiba's last words played over and over in her mind, making focus impossible. The spot on her skin still tingled where he touched her cheek, and she wondered if he was always so tactual with girls he'd just met.
You really don't know anything about him, she mused, lips pursed in thought. He could be as transparent as he appeared…or he could be a very cunning tease. Sakura bit the inside of her cheek, not wanting to be so cynical, but she'd seen movies about this before. No, not Kiba, she finally decided. She couldn't quite place it, but she had a very strong gut feeling that Kiba wasn't that careless with people's feelings—not the way he seemed to carefully consider her, even though they'd just met.
Absently, she dragged her pen in lazy spirals in the margin of her journal. It was flipped open to the page with her thoughts about the boy in question. She hadn't expanded on them at all, but she had added a new entry since lunch, regarding Hinata—shy, studious, and inherently selfless, it began.
Sakura had also come to find out that Hinata had been close friends with Kiba since infancy—the kind that bathed together, which Hinata could barely stand to admit. That explained a lot, Sakura thought (or did it?) about the nature of their unlikely friendship. Then again, Kiba was constantly purporting to be the least superficial person in existence. It was just too bizarre to think that he might be into her, and actually Sakura had very little doubt that he was, after their last exchange.
Sakura tried not to think too much about her mother's teasing words that morning, or the way her belly warmed when Kiba called her "cute." She hadn't been that interested in the prospect of dating at Konoha High, but maybe his charm and roguish grin could yet change her mind.
At the end of the day, Kiba found Sakura and Hinata leaving class. He had his hands in his pockets as he approached, grinning. "Hey, let me walk you to your car," he told, more than asked, and Sakura felt her face warm up immediately. She'd been having such a good day, she'd completely forgotten about the school bus. However, she couldn't bring herself to mention it and mutely nodded, letting Kiba lead the way to the parking lot.
As they stepped onto the blacktop, Hinata pulled her phone from her pocket and made a small sound, quickly tapping out a text message before giving Kiba and Sakura an apologetic look. "S-sorry, I just got a text from my cousin. He needs a ride. But I'll see you both tomorrow?"
Sakura nodded as Hinata broke away in a hurry, leaving her alone with Kiba once again. Narrowing her eyes at the sea of colorful cars, she supposed it was now or never. "Speaking of rides," Sakura began. "I haven't been completely honest with you. I was actually going to take the school bus home today."
Kiba's mouth turned down at the corners. "Oh…okay," he mumbled, sounding dejected. When Sakura turned to look at him, he stared at her uncomfortably, causing the tips of her ears to flame with embarrassment. She could already feel his criticism as he stared at her dumbly. So much for not judging me, she thought, but then he opened his mouth to speak again, seeing her hurt expression mirror his. "No, I meant that's totally cool. I was just thinking I could give you a lift, but if you'd rather…?"
Sakura's eyes widened as understanding dawned on her. "Oh, I…wow, I'm so sorry. I just thought you…you know, never mind, I just didn't want to assume," she stammered, shuffling nervously from foot to foot. She thought the two of them bantering back and forth were probably the picture of awkward teenage romance. She didn't exactly like it, but she didn't hate it either. Taking a breath, she started over. "If you're asking me if I would rather cram myself into a narrow tube with a bunch of strangers who will make fun of my hair and my huge forehead, I would totally rather do that than get a ride with you."
Kiba slowly smirked at Sakura's sarcasm and nudged her on the shoulder with a fist. "Now I know you're making this up," he cut in, "because your hair is fucking cool. But if you're going to moan about it, you and your normal-sized forehead might as well hitch a ride with me." He dangled a set of shiny keys in one hand, tempting her. "What do you say? You don't even have to sit in the trunk."
He wasn't so forward as to take her by the hand, but he did lightly brush her wrist with his fingers as he guided her in the direction of his vehicle, stopping in front of a spicy red sports car. Sakura held her breath as she pretended to be unimpressed. Not knowing cars very well (especially expensive ones), she didn't even recognize the emblem on the hood ornament.
Kiba opened the passenger side door. "It's a really, really nice car," Sakura admitted, climbing in, letting out an unbidden moan when she slowly sunk into the supple leather. It didn't chafe like the threadbare vinyl of the Chevelle.
"Geez, you like it?" Kiba teased, shutting the door and crossing over to the other side. He keyed the engine, causing Sakura to give a start when the car began to vibrate smoothly beneath her—no bangs and clangs, just a gentle quiver. "Purrs like a kitten," Kiba added, rolling the R, and affectionately swept his hand back and forth across the spotless dashboard. "She's my second, though. Cousin wrapped the first one around a tree. Not my fault, before you ask."
"That's a shame," Sakura said, her jade eyes moving to the dash controls. Everything was so new and updated compared to the old knobs and buttons of the Chevelle. Kiba must have noticed her eyeing them because he smugly hit a button that caused the power roof to give a whir, retracting in one swift, mechanical motion. "Whoa, cool trick," Sakura mused, stretching her arms up over her head, feeling the sun on her face.
As Kiba navigated the lot, her attention was drawn to something familiar. The flash of platinum blonde hair on the sidewalk was unmistakable where Ino posed with her usual posse, though there was a new pair with them—a sunny yellow blond and another boy with a shock of jet black hair. The latter was snuggled up close to the cheer captain, his hand resting possessively on her hip. She saw it slip into her pocket.
Sakura made a small sound of disgust.
This caught Kiba's attention, his black eyes keenly following her gaze. "Ah, so Ino crushes the hopes and dreams of yet another naïve schoolgirl," Kiba narrated, trying to sound mock-somber. Sakura pretended not to notice the pinched look of jealousy that also flickered across his face.
"I'm not naïve," she protested, lightly shoving his shoulder. "I was just curious about Ino. How could I not be, after all the fuss you made?"
"Well, his name is Sasuke," Kiba added helpfully. "In case you were wondering. Friend of mine, actually. But you already know I'm not the biggest fan of his girl. And the other guy is Naruto."
Sakura made a small sound, regarding his disdain for Ino.
"I'll introduce you sometime, when she's not around."
After Kiba dropped her off, Sakura wasn't expecting to find her mother drinking coffee in the kitchen. "I thought you were working late," she said, leaning on the center island. "Did you finish up for the day?"
"I wish," Mebuki sighed, pointing to a plastic bag on the counter. "It's my lunch break. I just thought I'd bring you a sandwich, but I'll be leaving in a minute."
Sakura made a pleased sound as she retrieved her lunch, unwrapping the sandwich as her mother quickly guzzled down the last of her gas station coffee. "I just remembered—you got some mail yesterday from the gym. I left some money for the fees on the table, and I even found the box with all your equipment in it."
"Wow," Sakura said around a mouthful of lettuce and ham, carefully wiping her upper lip. "Thanks for all this, Mom. You didn't have to do that."
Mebuki shrugged, smiling. "It's no big deal. I hear they've got a great facility over there." Sakura nodded in agreement. She'd researched the area for a gym with a nice pool. Fire Fitness was a newer gym with a large indoor and outdoor facility that she could swim in all season long, though she doubted she'd have to worry about unseasonable or frigid weather in Konoha, not like Maru.
"Well, thanks again," she said, finishing her sandwich and throwing away her trash, about to excuse herself to work on homework when her mother turned to her with an eyebrow raised.
"What you showed up in didn't exactly look like a school bus," she said—a sly attempt at engaging Sakura in talk about boys, no doubt, but she wouldn't go that far. Sakura wanted to keep things as simple as possible with Kiba, at least until she could get to know him better. "Who was the young man?"
"His name's Kiba," Sakura said, giving a rather simplified answer to a complex question.
Mebuki made a low sound. "I'm impressed you managed to find a ride on the first day."
Sakura lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "It was nothing, really. He lives nearby. Seemed less objectionable than the bus or your 'carpool thingy,' so you can cancel that, by the way." She wondered if her attempts to downplay it were working, but her mother was tenacious as always.
"So much for a learning experience, huh?"
"The whole day was a learning experience, really."
Sakura's mother raised an eyebrow at that but seemed to chew on it for a moment, eventually giving her daughter a complacent nod. "Okay then," she said, tossing her gas station cup into the trashcan. She muttered something under her breath that sounded like, "What exactly did you learn?"
Sakura couldn't stand to hear one more second of her mother's teasing, so she kissed her on the cheek and excused herself to her room.
A couple weeks passed before Sakura saw Sasuke again. She hadn't really noticed him that first day until that afternoon in the parking lot, really seeing him for the first time when he had his hand down Ino's pants. That had been distracting. Otherwise, he seemed to fade into the background for someone so popular, always seated in the furthest corners of the classes they shared, far away from her.
There were only two: AP Anatomy and AP Literature, Sakura noticed, as she'd later learned from Kiba that the Uchiha was a graduating senior, like him. It seemed that Advanced Placement was their only opportunity to interact, though honestly there was really no abundance of "interactions" between them, far apart as they were. Socially, they had no reason to speak to one another, considering Kiba had yet to introduce them. Geographically, it was impossible and made things even more unlikely.
Then he surprised her one day as the class was filing into Anatomy. Sakura was one of the first to be seated, and Sasuke seemed to hesitate in the doorway, glancing between her and the far side of the room where she knew he usually sat. Sakura wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been causing a scene, holding up traffic and drawing annoyed sounds from their classmates. She quickly averted her gaze when she saw him scowl, muttering something vaguely threatening at the peanut gallery, then swung coal black eyes back towards the center of the room.
She'd busied herself with scratching meaningless doodles into her notebook, only stopping when she heard chair legs scrape the floor beside her. When she looked up, it wasn't her usual partner but Sasuke, looming over her workbench, looking ostentatious in stylish jeans and an expensive-looking sweater pushed up to his elbows, a grey vee-neck tee-shirt underneath.
"Are you…?" Sakura trailed off curiously, watching him sit down. Her jade eyes followed his backpack as he dropped it on the unoccupied side of her table. Lost? Confused?
"Sasuke," he answered, misreading her question. Sakura raised her eyebrows, surprised he'd bothered to sort of introduce himself at all. She half-expected him to brush her off as he seemed to do with others.
"Sakura," she returned, immediately moving to separate her side of the desk from his. She pulled her books away from the centerline and had begun scooching her chair away, since it appeared he was there to stay. He was surprisingly large up close, his broad shoulders more imposing than she'd imagined from a distance, and she continued to move her chair another inch so that their shoulders wouldn't touch.
Sasuke rolled his eyes, boldly reaching across the space between them, hooking two fingers beneath her chair. Sakura made a startled sound when he dragged her closer, back to where she'd started. "I don't bite," he said acerbically, giving her an odd sensation of déjà vu. Kiba had said the same thing when they first met, though the Uchiha's venomous tone wasn't nearly as charming or endearing, lacking the same effect.
"Sorry, I just thought—"
"Forget it," he said, silencing the words on her tongue. So he didn't like to mince words. That much, Sakura had suspected.
A beat later, he said, "Genma says you got a 100 on the last anatomy test, and you've only been here for three weeks."
Sakura realized he was referring to Mr. Shiranui just then, their anatomy instructor, and nodded dumbly. "Yeah, but why would he tell you a thing like that?" she asked, uncomfortable.
She could see that Sasuke seemed uncomfortable, as well, already staring at the clock on the wall above the door. "My coach told him to assign me a tutor," he said quietly—so quietly, Sakura almost didn't hear him. She raised a brow curiously but didn't dare ask him to repeat himself when he shot her a cutting glare.
"Okay…," Sakura started skeptically, slowly drawing out the word. "But why? Talk around the whole school is that you're some kind of boy wonder genius, right? Am I supposed to believe you just don't 'apply yourself' enough?" She nearly scoffed, but that would have been rude. Instead, she raised an eyebrow, waiting for his explanation.
Sasuke's glare turned into a bitter scowl, causing Sakura to shake her head in disbelief. "Are you serious?" she asked, her eyes quickly flicking over to Sasuke's side of the table. A spiral notebook sat untouched. It hardly looked rifled through, so Sakura was willing to bet she'd find blank pages inside where notes should have been.
It wasn't like her to turn down an opportunity to help someone in need, except that Sasuke hardly needed her, and he hadn't been that friendly, either. As he sat there with his elbow propped on the workbench, his chin in his hand, she could see the muscles jumping in his jaw as he clenched his teeth in mute frustration, glaring at the clock, already counting down the minutes until this class was over.
"If you don't really need a tutor, why would you even waste your time? Just do the work and raise your grades. Your coach will be off your back in no time."
Sasuke scoffed, causing Sakura's brow to furrow in anger. "Okay, well why would I waste my time, either?" she continued. She already hated the way he couldn't be bothered to look at her, even when asking for a favor. "I can already tell you'd rather have teeth pulled than be tutored by me, so do yourself a favor and forget it."
She huffed, starting to gather up her notebooks. If he was going to be such a dickhead, she'd rather fill his seat on the other side of the room, far away from Sasuke—just the way they belonged.
She'd barely risen from her seat when Sasuke reached out and snagged the fabric of her sleeve between his fingers, still never quite looking at her. "Wait," he muttered through clenched teeth. It clearly pained him to stop her, dragging his coal black eyes to hers as Sakura reluctantly lowered herself back into her seat, crossing her arms over her chest as she waited expectantly. "My coach already told my dad about the tutor. If I don't make an effort to meet with one, they're going to pull me from the game next week. It would be…pretty cool if you could just fake a couple sessions. And Genma said there's extra credit in it for you."
Sakura raised her brows. So Sasuke would be pulled from the big game if she didn't agree to tutor him? She felt a stab of guilt, but also a weird, heady sense of euphoria at the prospect. Did she really have something over the king of Konoha High…? While the extra credit alone wouldn't be enough to tempt her, at least it would be easy, and Sasuke would be in her debt….
"Well…," Sakura drawled, drumming her fingers on the tabletop in mock contemplation. Sasuke was still staring at the clock, his jaw jumping at her obvious amusement. "I guess I could. You know, for the extra credit, of course," she added smugly when Sasuke looked at her, surprised.
"So…we'll meet after school, or what?" he asked, finally looking her in the eye. She was surprised to see that his were coal black, even up close.
"I do something after school," Sakura replied. "Today, I mean. But how about tomorrow?"
"Tch, fine." Sasuke turned to the front as Mr. Shiranui called the class to attention, though Sakura noticed his jaw had relaxed and he was no longer glaring at the clock.
They sat through the lesson in silence, not quite ignoring but refusing to acknowledge the other, until the end of the class when Sasuke slid a folded note across the table. Sakura waited until the bell rang and she was certain that Sasuke had left before unfolding the paper, recognizing the ten digits as his phone number. Underneath, in surprisingly neat script, he'd scrawled, "text about tutor."
Sakura rolled her eyes. Really, what had she gotten herself into? She tucked the paper into her journal and packed up her things, already ready to be done with the sullen Uchiha.
Sakura met Kiba in the parking lot after school, surprised to find him already seated in his fancy convertible, top down. "Sorry, did I keep you waiting?" she asked, easily sliding into the passenger seat.
"No, I just got a little excited," he admitted, fumbling clumsily with the keys.
Sakura smiled as he turned over the ignition, the familiar gentle quiver of his car soothing the chaos inside her mind. "Yeah, me, too. It was a pretty weird day," she added, fastening her seatbelt and instinctively reaching for the radio controls. It was perhaps a presumptuous thing to do inside another person's car, but it was habit for the two of them now. Kiba drove. Sakura picked the tunes. "Can't wait to wind down."
"What was so weird?" Kiba asked, suddenly pulling a face at the song Sakura chose. She rolled her eyes and changed the channel until Kiba's grimace disappeared.
"Just something with Sasuke in Anatomy today," she admitted, thinking nothing of it, but this seemed to grab Kiba's attention in a big way. He perked up, almost like a dog, and his ears would have twitched if they could have.
"Sasuke?" he repeated cautiously. He hadn't heard Sakura say that name in three weeks, since the first sighting. "What did he want?"
Sakura shrugged. "He wants me to be his tutor. I guess he got in trouble with your coach? His grades started slipping, and he can't play next week unless he gets his test scores up." Sakura shrugged again, wrinkling her nose. "I can see why you never introduced us before. He's kind of a dick."
This seemed to abate Kiba's unease a little bit, though not completely. He ran a hand through his wavy hair until it came to rest at the back of his neck. Despite himself, he knew the right thing was to defend Sasuke then, even though the truth was that he'd avoided introducing them because he'd enjoyed having Sakura to himself these past few weeks. It seemed Sasuke's flame-like aura could always ruin a good thing for the Inuzuka. Girls were drawn to him like moths, often burned by his flames.
"He's all bark and no bite," Kiba assured. "I think he's too proud to be decent sometimes, but he's a good friend. If he messes with you, I will definitely beat him up, though."
Sakura laughed. "Good, because we're meeting for our first session tomorrow." She didn't tell him that Sasuke had basically asked her to "fake" being his tutor, which left her wondering what exactly he planned to do in their time together. "I'll text you if anything goes awry."
Ten minutes later, they arrived at Sakura's house, the pinkette deftly typing a pin into the keypad that automated the garage door.
"Is your mom home?" Kiba asked, and the girl might have suspected him of foul play if she didn't know him any better. It wasn't an invitation to "Netflix and chill," rather Kiba loved Mebuki, and Mebuki loved him. The two looked forward to any opportunity to chat, much to the pinkette's chagrin. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate her mother's approachability, or Kiba's reciprocation—it certainly made it easier for them to spend time together without drawing her mother's suspicions—but she sometimes thought her mom really wanted her to date Kiba because of it.
Sakura had already made it abundantly clear to her that she wasn't looking for that kind of relationship right now. Even though she liked Kiba, maybe a little more than she should, she was reluctant to lose focus and derail her studies so early in the school year.
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Yes, but I don't want to go inside," she said, moving towards the back of the garage.
Kiba looked around somewhat discerningly, noticing there was space for two cars but only the Chevelle occupied the space nearest the side door. "I thought you said your mom was going to get you that two-door she saw online?"
Sakura made a disapproving sound. "That deal fell through. Now she's changing her tune, trying to palm that ugly piece of junk off on me again."
Kiba looked surprised. "The Chevelle? She wants to give it to you?"
Sakura nodded, standing on tip toes to pull down the surfboard where it hung on the wall. Kiba helped, carrying it over to his car where they'd rigged up the roof rack only moments before.
Together, they stared at the shabby vehicle and sighed, though Kiba's had a sort of wistful quality to it. Sakura frowned, though she couldn't help thinking the ugly eyesore of a car might look better if given a little TLC. Kiba must have been thinking the same thing if his next words were any indication. "You know, this wouldn't be a bad ride if we could fix it up."
Sakura snorted. "Maybe if I had a couple thousand bucks to drop on the guts, too. You know people call the police when we drive through the neighborhood? It sounds like gunshots."
Kiba smirked. "The insides, too. Sure, it might be expensive, but not more than a new car. Besides, I happen to know a certain trust fund kid who'd be willing to donate to the cause."
Sakura deadpanned, shoving Kiba on the shoulder. "No, stop. You know I don't want that," she protested. "Besides, do you even know something about cars?"
"'Do I know something?' This is more than just a pretty face, you know," Kiba said, sounding offended as he pressed his fingers to his chest in mock-indignation. Sakura glared at him until he could no longer conceal his smile, cracking a grin at her cute, pouty expression.
Sakura let Kiba appraise the car one last time before pushing him out of the garage with both arms, groaning at his solid mass. "Just let me talk to 'my people,'" he said, with an air of conceit that she knew was manufactured, coming from him. "I think we could have a cool after-school project on our hands."
"You and your after-school projects," Sakura said, keying in the code that caused the garage door to slide shut. They were currently in the middle of one now, Kiba having taken it upon himself to teach Sakura how to surf. At least she liked this one. They were already on their fourth lesson.
Honestly, Sakura thought Kiba would have offered to do anything with her just to continue seeing her every day after school. He'd probably learn yoga or crochet if it pleased her. Absently, as they filed into his car and started down the road towards the beach, Sakura stared out the window and thought she'd miss their time together in the coming days, when Sasuke's tutoring sessions would take the place of Kiba's surf lessons.
It's only for the next week, she thought. And then things would go back to normal.
A/N: It took me some time and distance from this story to figure out how I really wanted to re-approach it. I'm trying to put a more mature spin on it, and if you read the original, you've probably already noticed that I've changed a lot of things. My new goal is eventually to show a little bit of their college lives, so I made Kiba and Sasuke seniors. However, my ideas with that involved a lot of relationship drama, and I'm still not really sure if I want to create that story that I typically hate. I'm much more of a happily-ever-after kind of shipper, and rocky relationships frustrate me. What do you guys think? I admit I do like jealous Sasuke.
Anyway, you may have also noticed a change in tense. I was going through a phase in the previous chapters where I was really into present tense, but I thought the past tense in this chapter gave the story a better voice. Of course, I'll stick to whichever style the readers seem to prefer, even though this chapter seems to flow better to me. If you have a preference, please be sure to let me know. Also, thanks for all the comments and reviews last chapter! I appreciate the feedback.
