AN: Hey y'all! Here's Chapter 4! I've been really into the Sookie Stackhouse series lately! O_O (lol just a fun fact). Thanks for reading and commenting! To:

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Nobody Knows

Chapter 4

Late on Thursday night, we got a call from dad. My dad lived in Amegakure ever since the Big D, keeping all the awkwardness at a safe distance. We barely saw each other once a year – and that was if I was lucky. He'd asked if it would be alright with my mom if he visited for the weekend.

I was on the phone too at the time. Neither of them realized until I butt in with the grace of a limp elephant walking on a power line.

"Why?" I demanded.

"Sakura?" dad said. I'd become so accustomed to the way he sounded over the phone that I'd almost forgotten what he sounded like in person. "Hey, how are you?"

Rudely ignoring his greeting, I continued. "Why won't you stay over for Christmas? You'd get to spend a lot more time with us."

He paused. "Well, I'd hate to get in the way of your family time and–"

"What 'family time'? If you're talking about spending time with mom and the H– and Daichi," I pronounced his name like it was some deadly epidemic, "then we've already had plenty of that. I'd rather spend time with my real family, thank you."

"Sakura!" mom's voice became shrill. I could hear her voice not only through the phone but from the kitchen, which was on the opposite side of the house from my room. "Be nice!"

Because the Horse was always so nice to me.

"Sorry," I mumbled. "I'm just trying to make a point. Dad is part of the family, too."

Dad was quiet. I wasn't sure if he was angry, touched, or what. After a few seconds, he spoke again. "Sorry, sweetheart. But even if you say that, I have work to do." It was so obvious he was lying that I felt embarrassed for him.

This time, I didn't say anything. Instead I thought about how dad must feel sitting in a house with his pregnant ex-wife and her new (pet/mold/pain/amoeba/horndog/housefly) husband. I understood. I said nothing.

"Alright, then," my mom took charge of the conversation no one else seemed to feel like carrying on. "When's the soonest you can come over? We'll get the guest room ready for you." Translation: We'll get the house ready for you so that we can pretend that we clean regularly.

"Saturday morning would be best. I'll have to leave fairly early on Sunday; I have a meeting on Monday at around noon and the flight isn't short."

"Alright," mom agreed. "Which flight are you getting on? Which airport are you using?"

I hung up for the boring stuff.

I knew at least one thing: this would be the safest, most normal weekend I've had all year.

At least, that was what I had thought.

XXX

Ino wasn't the type of person to keep an opinion to herself. Once it crossed her mind, it was out in the air. For example: back in our blissfully simple kindergarten days, I'd trusted her with the secret that I didn't know how to tie my shoes yet. Of course, she yelled it out to the whole playground and left me hiding under the monkey bars in embarrassment. I'd decided then to never ever trust her with a secret again.

Anyway, on Friday morning she took one glance at my tired face and had a thought bubble up to the surface. She told me all about it, predictably enough.

"You know, Sakura," she said, "I've noticed lately that you seem tired a lot. I mean, seriously, it's like you never sleep. You look like a freaking raccoon these days. No offense. I love raccoons, by the way. They're so cute! Want me to put some cover up on you?"

I shook my head. She definitely wouldn't stop with the cover up and go to a full-fledged make over. I hated make up. It felt funny.

She shrugged in a "suit yourself" way. "Still, you really ought to get some sleep, girl. What if you end up sleeping through your classes again? You should really see a doctor. I think you might be getting insomnia. I've heard that insomnia can be fatal. You know, there was this one time when I couldn't sleep for four days straight! Can you believe that? I finally tried sleeping pills, and that did the trick. But my dad says that it's not healthy to rely on sleeping pills. What a hypocrite. He does it all the time. You know, there was this woman in a magazine I was reading once who said that having herbal tea relaxes you so you can sleep better. Oh my god, did I tell you what Sai said yesterday?"

Ino's earlier topic made way for her boyfriend. I zoned out to escape from the latest episode of The Unfreakingbelievable Dramas of Ino Yamanaka.

XXX

At lunch time, Kakashi-sensei asked me to come for a private discussion in his classroom. To be honest, it didn't sound a ton like something I'd want to take part in. Not when it would only be the two of us.

"Couldn't we just speak right here?" I asked, trying to sound casual. "Here" meant in the hallway, where teachers could see and hear us in their classrooms. He gave me a questioning look that I pretended not to notice.

"Alright," he said, shrugging. "I just wanted to ask you if you wouldn't mind staying after school."

Uh-oh.

"Why?" I asked, a little too quickly.

"Tutoring," he answered. "Naruto needs help with his tutoring today."

Naruto seemed to be popping up in my life a lot.

"Due to a set of unfortunate events, I have gotten behind in my work."

That was just another way of saying that being late to school every day has finally taken its toll.

"I won't be able to tutor him today, and he's so far behind that even a day makes a difference. It would really help if you could stay behind for an hour or two to watch over his work, give him some advice; that sort of thing. I'd be in the room to supervise, of course."

He'd be there to make sure we were only studying. Nothing else. None of those hormonal shenanigans, got it?

I thought about it. Two males + one female + deserted classroom = bad. I added the security cameras to the equation. Not so bad. I'd have proof if anything happened. In any case, I trusted Naruto (at least, I was pretty sure that I did). I trusted Kakashi-sensei to some extent; he was a teacher after all. Then again, teachers could be molesters, too. I was being too arrogant, though: there were much prettier and stupider students out there. What if mom needed help cleaning up? I scratched that out. She hated having help. She was a woman with too much pride. Even if she did puke on regular bases.

I didn't have any more reasons to object. "I'll help."

I think he smiled. It was hard to tell with that odd mask he always wore. "That's good. Now I can concentrate in peace. Thank you, Sakura. You can go have lunch with your friends now."

I did.

I told Tenten and Hinata (Ino was in the bathroom. To be honest, though, I wasn't all that fussed to find she wasn't there to listen.).

"You're tutoring…Naruto-kun?" Something about Hinata's expression made me feel uneasy, maybe even irritated. No, that was absurd. Hinata never irritated me. I got along with her better than I did with Tenten or Ino.

"Yes," I said.

"Oh." She looked down at her milk carton.

"Wow, Sakura," Tenten looked at me appraisingly. I had a bad feeling about that. "I never thought you were that kind of girl. Geez, you've been surprising me a lot lately, with you skipping and everything." She registered my look of confusion. She wasn't a quarter as oblivious as Ino. "You and Naruto – teens of the same age – in one room. Almost completely alone. Teacher-student scenario going on. Hello? Wake up and smell the cupids!"

I snorted. Naruto and I…wait. Naruto and I? That wasn't so – wait, no. Bad hormones! Bad, bad, bad!

A little voice from the deepest corner of my mind – or maybe my arm pit. How should I know? – told me I was being stupid. I should let go and fly off into outer space with a certain blond at my side, laughing his head off at the weird-looking passing aliens in their little high-tech hovercraft.

I told that voice to shut up. It was the stupid one. It didn't know anything. It didn't get what went on in their heads.

The voice said that not all of their heads were the same.

I asked the voice how it knew.

Apparently, it just did.

I shoved it back to wherever it came from.

Back on Planet Reality, Tenten was giving a slight laugh. "Just think about it," she instructed me.

I already had.

XXX

After the final bell, I grabbed my backpack and walked into Kakashi-sensei's classroom, checking that Naruto really was there before entering. They didn't lie when they said that school was totally different without people.

Without a word, I slipped into the seat next to Naruto and put my stuff down.

He saw me and looked surprised.

"What?" I asked, feeling self conscious.

"Ah, it's nothing," he said quickly. "It's just…Kakashi-sensei didn't tell me who would be coming to help." He hadn't expected me.

I wasn't sure how I should take this. "Well, now you know," I said lightly.

His smile returned. The world started moving again.

"So, where are you?" I asked.

He took a piece of paper out of an orange folder labeled Make Up Work and gestured to it. I gave it a quick glance. Quadrilateral equations. We'd done them as a review unit earlier in the year. He was way behind.

"Okay, what do you need help on?"

Fifteen minutes later, when I was struggling to demonstrate how to solve a problem (note to self: don't pick teaching as a future career), Naruto watched in amazement as I swept through it. He didn't get how to do it, but apparently he did get that I was good at it.

"Wow, Sakura-chan!" he said admiringly. "You're really smart!"

I turned to look away, trying to hide the flush that crept up my neck and was resting on my cheeks. "Not really," I said modestly. I noticed that Kakashi-sensei was staring at us over his papers. I could only imagine what was going through his porn-loving head at that moment.

When I started teaching again (if you could call it that), I could still feel the blood pulsing through my head.

Forty-five minutes later, Naruto got his first problem right. Mission accomplished.

XXX

I got home at around ten till six. The TV was on in the living room, but I didn't dare check to see who it was in case it was the Demon of Horniness by himself. I went straight upstairs and into my bedroom.

It took me a few minutes to realize my room had been cleaned; I'd never thought mom would bother with it since it was never all that dirty to begin with. I kept everything in order. Mom sometimes told me that she'd rather me have a dirty room than a clean one. After sitting at my desk with a book, I saw that the surface had been wiped free of dust.

mom was in my room she saw my stuff she cleaned it she might have looked under the bed what if she found them I'm dead meat mom must have seen them oh my god what am I going to do she saw them help me she saw them what if she found out help me what if she knows she must I bet she does oh my god somebody help me

My heart was trying to burst through my lungs, ribs, and skin and into the open air. With the hastiness of a maniac on the run, I dropped to the floor and reached an arm under my bed. Furiously, my fingers grasped around anything and everything it could touch. I felt the soft thinness of cotton and the fluffiness of dust bunnies, the hard wood of a music box, but none of those were what I needed to find.

"I wonder what you're looking for," my mom's voice said from behind me. Her voice was cold, hard. She was angry, no, furious. And disappointed.

I turned on the spot – which wasn't easy in my position – to look at her. More accurately, to look at what she might or might not have been holding.

I didn't need to search any longer.

she found them she knows I'm in such trouble oh my god oh my god oh my god how did this happen she's furious somebody help me she knows she'll know I'm going to die he's going to kill me oh my god god god

Ice cold emotions rushed through me. It was as if a waterfall was suddenly crashing on top of me. If I had been standing I might have fallen to the ground.

My mom held the pills I'd been hiding under my bed. The pills that I'd been taking to keep any more expectations from being added to the list. The pills I had taken at his instruction, because he didn't want to be found out.

"Here," he handed over a plastic bag.

Cautiously, I looked inside to see what it held. Birth control pills. I'd never seen them in real life before.

"I don't want to have any more kids. I don't want Suki to know about this, got it? Make sure you take them. And whatever you do don't let anyone find them."

Somebody had found them.

AN: That's the end of the 4th chapter! I know it was short, but bear with me, please? I can (probably) guarantee that the next one is going to be longer. ^^ Hope you're looking forward to it. :) Thanks for reading! Please comment! :D (Still loving reviews! Lol XD)