The real heartbeat Chapter 4: Unconditionally, and only by your grace, a naruto fanfic

::Chapter IV: Unconditionally, and only by your grace::

::The music of your lips,

Play the strings of my heart.

The passion of your scorching fire,

Has burned my mind.

And I struggled to not melt into the enigma of your desire,

Your cashmere voice spell bounding me,

I knew I should have not trade with the darkness,

But my light could only get brighter if there was only you.

Just you.

With me.

Lips like the most tender butterfly`s lustrous grace,

Have moistened my quivering owns,

The feel of your touch at its swell of ambrosia and euphoria,

Have broken the boundaries of intimacy.

I folded my inquisitive tempted hands around your shoulders,

As I gave myself away to lace with your guardian arms around my waist,

While you were careful to evanescence the distance between us,

Between our heartbeats.

And I was dancing on the pendulum`s unyielding ticking concerto.::

Both Hinata and Sakura`s hearts hoisted to their throats when Naruto`s boisterous voice rung through their eardrums, while he tapped their shoulders, coming to poke his head in between the two whispering and gossiping secretive ladies, totally amused. "N-Naruto-kun! Y-You scared me!" Hinata whipped her head around her shoulder, almost bumping her forehead on her lover`s, beat red and having an mixture of alarm, surprise and consternation on her angelic pale face, a hand flying above her heart, out of reflex.

"Watcha gossiping about? Us?" The sun kissed foxy Uzumaki winked at Sakura and Hinata`s funny looking scared and apologetically facial expressions, betting all his Ramen bowls collection that the love of his life, with her pearl translucent violet eyes and poetic lunar features has opened up the box of forbidden secrets about Sasuke and started to spill shameful things about his past. That was the reason why he decided to press her buttons more and closely followed both the ladies` reactions, just to confirm his suspicion. "Aw man, I hope it is good stuff. Ino-chan told me that ladies like to plot about torturous ways to dispose of us if we are treating you guys bad."

The worst part of their glamour blonde diva`s statement, was that she has meant every part of it. Among their small exclusive group of rebel fighters, the girls had an unwritten code and vowed to strive to be recognized as proud representative of their sex, and be infallible in terms of beauty, independency, wisdom and strength, without losing womanhood, grace and elegance. So they demanded –threatened- to be treated with respect and consideration, so the men of the group were left with two opposite choices: comply and take care of them, or die for good in a very painful way. It brought the goofy golden haired half vampire creeps rolling along his spine, making him shudder. He shifted his azure marine clear hues to Sakura and made the funniest scared figure in history. "it was sinister i am telling you!"

Even though Sakura was busy mentally registering that particular newfound information about her protector`s past, reminiscing about the mysterious lady in his life and the way she chose to continue her life without him, even though they swore each other faith and love, she couldn't prevent the escaping giggles, upon hearing Naruto`s confession, because he had that indomitable enlighten energy that made people forget their problems and curl their lips upward to laugh at him.

But her gleaming green jadeite orbs stroll to Sasuke`s indecipherable saturated onyx ones, sealing her gaze with his own, as she couldn't get Hinata's words out of her mind. The midnight haired elegant Uchiha was giving her a look that she couldn't decode, but then again, she overanalyzed his way he uplifted his steel impenetrable walls when in public, so that no one could actually interpret the things flaming into those bottomless obsidian eyes, hence not get to him and depict his foibles.

The rosy haired lady couldn't withstand the heaviness of the secret she has just came to learn and the fact that he was gazing straight into her emerald orbs, his vivid intensity surging into her mind, was a bit too much, she tucked a strand of hair around her ear, somehow realizing that Sasuke was decrypting each line of her heart, but she couldn't help but appertain with his fiancé`s situation, since she was also human, but that mysterious woman also did something that transgressed any moral or grace that Sakura had: she broke his heart.

Wasn't Sasuke afraid that Sakura might do the same?

And for that particular reason, Sakura couldn't help but feel another question arise from the pits of her investigating consciousness: wasn't Sasuke concerned that if he let her in so much, she might be bound to do the same, since the human`s condition wasn't infallible and their resolve was mellow and fell prey to their best interest and sway from the path of righteousness and virtue? Why did he trust her so much? then a frightening thought passed her mind, like a form of a painful electrical discharge of adrenaline, running along the column of her spine: what if he was nurturing thoughts of revenge, and was using her to alleviate that burden of his heart, since he couldn't take back at his fiancé for her disloyalty, simply because Sakura wasn't valuing her life to begin with, and didn't quite care about what might happen to her?

If she would acknowledge that horrifying thing about him, the emerald eyed lady would not find it hard to understand his logic: if she didn't care whether she died or not, then she wasn't a threat to him by living to torture his mind because she would never be his to begin with. Belonging to someone in such an intimate way, automatically implied a deeper and lyrical way to conjoin their feelings, thus claiming a certain possession over the other`s feelings, emotions and consequently, getting one step closer to his or her weaknesses and fragility.

That was exactly the reason why Sasuke didn't want to uselessly risk such a superfluous vulnerability, so he set up a mechanical self-defense by not allowing anyone near him or his heart, so that he was the one to pierce their hearts first, with his inquisitive shrewd eyes that unraveled their secrets, so that he was the one to remain in control and not the other way around.

Consequently, the main question lingered: was Sakura really ok with that approach? Was it any possibility for Sasuke to be that corrupt? Was he masking his flagitious ambitions with his unnatural and almost surreal elegance and refinement? Has she been tricked –mesmerized- by his allure, just because he had the upper hand of the superior race and education? She truly prayed she was overanalyzing everything, because that way of challenging logic in every single tiny detail, was her natural mechanism of defense against that cruel world who wanted to always trick her.

It was Hinata`s moonlight frail stuttering voice the one to make her snap out of her inquisitive state and unlock her eyes from Sasuke`s, being convinced that he could see anything that was going on in her mind. He just seemed to have that unparalleled ability. "S-Sakura-san and I h-have a p-passion for literature a-and r-r-romance." The Hyuga addressed the two men present, conveniently hiding the last part of their conversation, elegantly deciding to approach a neutral topic and also let Naruto and Sasuke know that they have found common interests and could easily carry on a friendly warm conversation, meaning she could be part of their group and be likable to them, even if she was an outsider and a human nonetheless.

Naruto couldn't have been any happier that Hinata has silently given her approval to Sakura, after she has smartly invited her to walk along the different paths that would unravel a person`s inner personality. Sakura`s passion for literature betrayed her sensible, elegant, romantic and poetic side, bringing the solar feminine side of her to the light, as well as her contemplative deep manner of thinking. She was also interested in history, especially of that of exotic empires, so she secretly cherished the beauty of unconventional sparkling wealth, rich different cultural inheritance and wasn't backing down from exploring things that were different from her world, meaning she didn't have anything against getting entangled with someone as Sasuke, who wasn't even human.

Plus, being interested by the origins of her people and ultimately her own lineage, crayoned a very insightful woman, with strong beliefs in the value of her ancestors` will and someone who wasn't as superficial as to be content with simply sharing a bed, a luxury house, a car and a bank account with a man, being interested in finding out the unaltered source of the generations that ultimately led to his birth and the ones that served as his role models.

History was the one to build a person`s or a vampire`s existence, because not having a past, meant being a shadow without a light: nonexistent and meaningless. It gave value, worth and also made someone bear both the burden of his ancestors` sins and shoulder the glory of their courage and realizations. Sakura was the type of person to go for details and find out the innate truth. She was not superficial, which was tremendously important for someone like Sasuke.

And that was something that his former lover was not. Hinata couldn't have been anymore jolly to having found that particular information. Yes, Sakura was an orphan and extremely poor, but not even once has she brought up the topic money in discussion and each time she referred to Sasuke, he didn't crayoned him as a hot man, emphasizing her attraction for his looks solely, no, she always pinpointed to his qualities and merits as a man –not even a vampire- and her appreciations for his efforts, not hiding it the fact that she was charmed by him, but she was willing to dig even deeper. "Really? Aww, that's so sweet. This Teme here," Naruto cocked his head towards Sasuke, who immediately praised him with a glare of choice for the nickname he used for him. "needs someone sweet in his miserable boring life, so she could remove that pole stuck up his brooding ass!"

Sakura couldn't help but blush at the cerulean eyed vampire`s words, and not because he was hopelessly blunt and didn't quite care about being exquisite and dignified, but because she has caught the not so subtle implication, choosing to bury her jade orbs into her half empty plate, while Hinata traded her natural shy demeanor, for a fuming one, puffs of smoke blowing from her ears, at the stares she got from the other customers who heard him.

Beside his usually annoying illegible bored expression, Naruto could feel it from his raven haired friend`s pressed roaring tone that Sasuke wanted to choke him with something, preferably his bare hands, but he did what he has been doing for centuries, meaning completely and rudely ignoring his ass, for he was such a party popper and a haughty bastard. "Dobe..."

"Anyways, Hinata-chan I have called Ino-chan and told her about the little emergency we have." He didn't have to develop his statement, for the lunar collected beautiful lover of his knew what was crossing his mind, she too thinking about the same thing, while Naruto turned to grin at a questioning looking Sakura. He went on explaining to the rosette how things really were, with such an exuberance, like he has just discovered that there was water on Mars. "When you hang up with people like Sasuke, the word birthday party is synonymous to business meetings. I mean what the hell!" he flailed like that concept was so utterly outrageous, and Sakura has come to learn that person didn't care for manners. "But but but...you now hang with cool guys like Hinata-chan and me and this is why the greatest chocolate cake is on the way to Teme's home!"

Vibrant emerald eyes shone with a luscious gleam bubbling like golden champagne the aureate ring around her viridian irises was blazing like a torch. "A cake?" No, by any means, Sakura didn't want to sound like a completely bimbo who hasn't tasted any cake in all her life, but she was a proud representative of eternal ineffable womanhood and she truly loved sweets and chocolate, so she naturally reacted to the mere idea of tasting a chocolate cake on her birthday party, since no one actually bothered to do such a sweet caring gesture for her and there they were, vampires she has just met, going as far as to feel totally comfortable in pampering her like that.

She didn't feel grateful to them, she was beyond that, she was blissed! They were so friendly with her and she didn't want to delude herself that their amity was just courtesy of her affiliation with Sasuke and they were indirectly respecting him by being polite to her. Hinata`s honesty was beaming through her pearl moonlike silvery eyes, she could read that easily, since the Hyuga was wearing her heart on her sleeve.

"Y-You called I-Ino-chan? Oh dear..." Hinata knew that the blonde was going to be a firestorm, especially when it came to glamorous tasty chocolate sweets and could create quite a ruckus just to make sure that everything went out perfectly and she kind of felt that Naruto has gone a little bit too far, but peeping at Sasuke who looked as close to horrified as someone as collected and tranquil as him could come, made her giggle. Ino would probably coax -drag- all the gang to Sasuke's stoic flat and throw the party of the century which almost always ended up with the neighbors calling the police or worse.

And Sasuke was the very epitome of courtliness, hence his family name forced him into keeping a flawless image, so having friends like that was a death sentence to him, even though Naruto always bitched him for being exaggerated and ridiculous, but he somehow needed to balance Naruto`s volcanic and extrovert personality.

"Yeah! She owns a famous pastry shop, so she can bring us a cake."

"A-At this hour?"

"Well...sure. Why not? There is still enough time till tomorrow!" Naruto stated as a matter of fact, shrugging once, totally forgetting that they had courses since he has never been an avid believer in the power of education, finding it more important to be himself and true to the others.

Vaguely, he heard his onyx eyed best friend mutter something along the lines of "your such a seedy idiot." But he didn't even felt insulted, because Sasuke didn't know how to properly curse him, to make him react. In fact, his boring stale outdated manner of speaking was not even funny, Naruto decided. His friend was so boring.

"Meanwhile...we can get the heck out of here and go celebrate Sakura chan properly, what`cha say?" He threw his hands around Sakura and Hinata's shoulders, urging them to stand and before the two ladies had the chance to question him, Naruto has dragged them both downstairs, leaving his friend behind to pay for the meal, knowing that since he had Sakura tagging along, he would follow.

"B-But, hold on a second, where are we..." Surprised forest green orbs travelled to Sasuke, as she spun her head over her shoulder, to peek at him past his tall golden haired best friend, finding an odd expression waltzing on his face. By any means, the Uchiha wasn't looking like someone pitiful and sulking for having been left behind by his acquaintances. The way he lazily slipped a hand into his pocket and the other tapping on the table, pose lean and straight like an imposing fire tree, brushing past the high clouds, looking solemn, composed and irresistible handsome was making her heart twitch.

Well, it was not like she had any choice, for she was being dragged by Naruto down and she had a hard time not tripping on the stairs and keep balance. "Ah, don't you worry Sakura-chan, let the bastard pay. He is not going to get lost, he is a big guy now haha." somehow that made her both laugh and blush. Sure, he was Naruto`s eternally best buddy and their brotherly bond was unbreakable and perennial, but she was a woman, and in her eyes, Sasuke was hardly a boy, he was a real man in all the splendor of his virility and demeanor.

She swore she heard Sasuke mutter a 'someday, I will kill this idiot' and their bicker was funny to see. She knew he didn't mean it, it was too obvious that Sasuke and Naruto were more than just friends, they were probably like brothers.

"W-What is y-your plan, N-Naruto-kun?" Hinata inquired, knowing exactly that whatever her hyperactive boyfriend had planned, was something that would cost her a lot of energy and she was hardly someone who enjoyed being amidst wild clamor and parties. "S-Shall we g-go s-shopping?" She tried, finding it extremely fitting for that occasion, plus she could buy something beautiful for her new friend Sakura, since she didn't bring any gifts, but Naruto shook his head and gave her a look that totally screamed 'you-wont-catch-me-dead-going-shopping-good-luck-in-talking-Sasuke-into-shopping', and she quickly regretted for bringing that into discussion.

"Nah. that is not something you do on your birthday party. I was thinking about the amusement park. What do you say?"

Hinata inwardly bubbled of joy, because Naruto`s idea was flawless. That was the perfect place for both spending time with friends, get to know the new ones better and also romance, it was entertainment in the purest form, but she kept her squeals fir herself, and only praised his good idea with a bright smile. "L-Let us have S-Sakura decided s-since she i-is the one we celebrate."

"Yeah, of course! So, Sakura-chan, what do you say? Should we go and break the record of who can ride the roller-coaster without crying and screaming until we go deaf?"

Both expecting beryl and moon margarite orbs sought for Sakura`s vibrant golden emerald ones, searching for any hesitation in her look, finding none. She would have love to go to the amusement park –who didn't- but she never had the chance to do so because it was far from her former foster home, the rides were expensive and she didn't have anyone to accompany her. "Actually...I have never been to the amusement park before."

Both Naruto and Hinata`s hearts sunk as their looks turned sad and sympathetic, because seriously, an amusement park was the imprint of anyone`s most spirited lovely childhood memories, but apparently Sakura has been denied the privilege of riding the carousels while her parents would take pictures of her jolly smile and guy her cotton candy. Sakura quickly realized that her confession would evoke elegiac feelings among their group, so she quickly tried to brush it off. "But is not like I didn't dream to ride carousel and get lost into the crowd of laughing happy people." She smiled to them in what hoped to be an assurance of the fact that it didn't matter that much to her.

Both Naruto and Hinata exchanged invisible knowing approving glances, then they smiled widely down at her nodding energetically. "Oh, then you are in for a good entertainment, because Hinata-chan and I love to go the the amusement parks! All of them! And the best part is that it pisses off brooding party poppers like Sasuke-Teme and Hinata-chan`s cousin. They say it is childish but we know is because they are scared shitless. hahaha!"

Sakura couldn't help but join the choir of laughing vampires, while they stroll outside the fancy restaurant, meeting the cool wind blow of the starry night, while she was having troubles in keeping her giggles at bay totally not picturing someone of Sasuke`s stature succumbing into the child in him and have fun in an amusement park. It just didn't suit him, and taking Naruto`s words into consideration, it was funny too see too.

"I am amazed you can use that mouth of yours while talking, dobe. Isn't it too much stress put on that paralyzed single neuron of yours?" All the three walking in front of him people almost jumped ten feet because no one heard Sasuke follow them, even if that was something ridiculously predictable.

Naruto whirled his head around and fluttered his clenched fist into his friend`s frowning face, as they stopped in the parking lot, howling at him. "Teme, what the heck man! Don't scare people like that, damn it!" Sakura immediately picked it up that Naruto hasn't had a simple slip of tongue, or was he extremely attentive and mindful of his choice of language to secure their hidden identities, since that restaurant was a refined choice for vampires, when he said 'people' and she understood what Sasuke meant by fighting along to befriend and blend into the world of mortals. Naruto, as an avid fighter of their cause, was having it encrusted in his reflexes to not put himself above the human race, automatically implying that he claimed some form of authority over them. well he was half human half vampire according to Sasuke so she guessed it was natural.

Sasuke caught their conversation and knew exactly where they were heading and that was making his mind roll around the core of insanity. He couldn't loathe overcrowded places like amusement parks more, since he wasn't a sociable man or vampire to begin with. It was already bad enough that Naruto has popped up in the middle of his pleasant dinner with the elegant Sakura, but he just had to come up with ridiculous suggestions. In all honesty, he would have rather go for his girlfriend`s suggestion and hit the –he couldn't even spell the word without cringing- mall. At least, it was easier to quickly drag Sakura in some shop and lose the two lovey-doveys, by making a run from there. "Your mental age never ceases to surprise me, Naruto. Or bore me."

Like usually, Naruto chose to just throw the Uchiha one of his choice doom glares, sticking his tongue out to a murderous looking onyx eyed friend of his, like a thirsty camel, and hollered to the two ladies. "Come on guys, let's take my car!"

Sasuke bit back a 'fuck no' in the last second, by clicking on his tongue and mentally cursed Naruto to all the Seven Pits of Hell and back, but didn't voice it out because there were ladies present and such an uncouth vulgar vocabulary wasn't fit of someone like him. His azure eyed friend, with the hairstyle of a sunflower and the radiance of the sun, was doing an amazing job in attracting attention and embarrass them. "Not in this lifetime. Or the next twenty ones." Taking into consideration that vampires lived forever, it meant that Sasuke would never get in the car with his friend.

Sakura was of course oblivious to why Sasuke would reject riding in Naruto`s car, while coincidentally much, the aforementioned 'dobe' has parked pretty close to Sasuke, as they wouldn't stay away from each other, not even if they meant to, being torn between following Hinata, who had a hand wrapped around hers and take a lift from the blonde vampire, or leave their side and join Sasuke. He seemed indifferent. "What is wrong with it?"

"Do you really want to die, Sakura?" She froze for a moment hearing his baritone silk voice address her for the first time after the goys returned from their journey and the way he said it made her froze in spot and her stomach twist, but then she quickly realized that he was joking. Her heart however, went million miles per hour, being blitzed by apprehension. "There is a high probability to crash into a tree in the next ten minutes if you take a ride with this idiot. That if you make it to the park." Which was just around the corner, as they took a turn to get to the restaurant.

She burst out laughing at the expression that the deeply insulted Naruto had, while Hinata`s hand covered her jiggling lips, because, seriously, the exchange of insults between Sasuke and Naruto was always a precious source of amusement, since they were completely opposite, hence having opposite approaches. And Naruto was quite the unique character himself, totally not giving a damn if people who passed him laughed at him and pointed at his boisterous grimaces. "Hey! You are such an ass, you know that? I am not THAT bad!"

Sasuke would have loved to tell him that he drove like a dead blind, Alzheimer and Parkinson suffering demented 109 years old illiterate hag, but he found it too much of a bother to argue with an idiot, with the IQ level of a snail, so he simply passed the group by and beckoned Sakura to follow him. "Let's go."

She turned to look at Hinata who gave her a nod and an assuring smile, detaching her hand from hers and she quickly tailed the raven haired Uchiha back to his car, wile Naruto held the door open for Hinata to get in. She found it really funny how he could spray so many colorful obscenities, but be a gentleman with a nonchalance almost on par with Sasuke`s, as the Uchiha helped her in, mirroring his movement, as all the four of them got in the two cars.

As soon as Naruto rolled the key into ignition, starting the engine of his shiny metallic orange BMW, he rolled the window down to screech at his raven haired friend, stunning him with the way he could maneuver his ridiculously colored car –it looked like a giant Halloween carved pumpkin- without looking in front and not crash the other cars. "Oi, Teme, I bet you I will get there before you do!"

The Uchiha didn't even turned his head to acknowledge him, turning the steering when to get out of the parking lot, shooting at Naruto`s grinning and winking goofy figure blazing from the passenger seat. "I hardly consider this to be a proper time to race."

"Bwhaha, you said the very same thing last time we did it, cos you know I will totally own your ass and embarrass you in front of the ladies." He allowed the dobe to speed up past him and take the lead, thanking all the Heavens above that Naruto hasn't scratched his car in the process, barely avoiding him, while he shook his head and mumbled to a totally amused Sakura, who was getting cozy on the passenger seat.

"I don't know why I even try."

"You said he is your best friend. You two are truly opposite. One would truly doubt that you two are friends. But you know what? Maybe this is what makes your bond so special and strong." Sakura could see it all too well that maintaining the linkage between people of such different personalities took a lot of compromise and mutual understanding so that was why she respected and appreciated the friendship that Naruto and Sasuke had, learning from Hinata that the other vampires friends of their, were also having different dominants of characters.

Sasuke knew she has figure out the way his and Naruto`s bond worked and he was thankful for her bright mind and for the fact that he didn't have to explain the unexplainable to her. He was so tempted to take a sharp U-turn and ditch Naruto and Hinata, but he has caught the way Sakura`s bright emerald orbs shone when Naruto brought up the topic 'amusement park' to her and he wasn't going to be the party popper that Naruto made him be and ruin it for her. "Aa."

"Are we really going to the amusement park?" As if reading his mind, she softly asked him, probably mindful of his aversion of such form of entertainment, but she truly truly wanted to go there.

"Do we have a choice? If we ditch them, I will never hear the end of it."

"Awesome! I have never been there." Sakura sang to him, while her emerald eyes followed the outlines of the tall buildings, the flashing panels and the crowded streets, gluing her forehead to the tinted window, like a child. "Is it far?"

"Half an hour, depending on the traffic." Without even being aware of it, Sasuke was deeply amused by Sakura`s characteristic bright young personality and her easygoing approach. She was flashing colors like a mini rainbow, her beauty was fresh and mysterious, her candid smile so astonishingly untouchable and floral and her glow was blitzing the darkness around, she was so solar.

"Do you have some music?" Sakura found herself asking, and her only guesses for her sudden boldness was the pleasant feelings she nurtured when in Sasuke`s vicinity, which was unexplainable since he was hardly a sociable entertaining man, or someone vivacious and cozy like his extrovert golden haired friend, but she couldn't help it. Not waiting for an answer –it was probably negative since Sasuke didn't strike like a hardcore party person- Sakura`s fingers dashed on what she guessed was the DVD player and pressed a random button, but instead of turning the FM or the mp3 player, on, she has changed the navigation coordination, setting it up to Suna, instead of the amusement park. "Oh! I am sorry."

Quickly wanting to fix her mistake, Sakura pressed another button which she hoped to be the good one, but instead she turned the AC, which was set on maximum and the next thing she knew, a strong cool air blew straight on her face, making her long coral locks flutter on her shoulders, while she averted her face, screeching. "Auch!"

Sasuke beside her was having a really hard time in stifling his laughter, and that was saying a lot since he was immune to clumsiness since he was friends with Naruto, but he couldn't help himself, that young woman was so helplessly oblivious and looked like Alice in Wonderland and her cuteness was contagious.

She was thorn from a typical cliché Disney story, where the main character was struggling to blend in a world that was unfamiliar, new and superior, but she was being so much like herself, so bright and unhandy that it amused him to no end.

Without even removing his onyx eyes from the windscreen, following the scorching car of a blonde idiot who was cutting the lines and speeding up on the fast line, urging Sasuke to follow the delirious clown character to the journey of Hell, he pressed the right button, stopping the air conditioning and turning the FM on. Naruto could mock him until the world might fall, but Sasuke would not fill his car up with useless items as audio CDs.

Wordlessly, a very flushed and completely embarrassed Sakura mirrored his movement, messing with the frequencies until she found a local radio station that streamed Christmas carols. By the suave soft voices of the artists, it was a choir of children. After a whole minute of completely silence from Sasuke and Sakura`s part, the jade eyed woman started to giggle and hum softly following the rhythm and the flow of the song, totally enjoying herself, like she completely forgotten the other presence from beside her.

Sasuke looked at her in a funny way, eyebrows slightly curbed up, while Sakura had her jade orbs squeezed, a delighted expression on her face, her lips pursed as holly tunes were leaving her mouth and she was swaying her fingers in front of her, like she was a conductor, completely feeling the music surging through her body.

"Do you like this?"

"Why not? Because there are eight more months until Christmas?" She casually asked, totally not bothered by the fact that she was being in an insanely expensive vehicle, with a pretty famous man and vampire driving said vehicle, listening to Christmas carols in advance, unperturbed and enjoying the suave melodic voices of innocence coming from the children`s hearts, through the stereos. Clearly an atypical woman. "It doesn't have to be for one single day. We can be better for the entire year. The holy spirit..." Instead of finishing the sentence she has started, Sakura simply trailed the rest of her words, turning on her shoulder and using her index finger to she was drawing hearts and stars on the foggy clouded window.

Then she accidentally put the volume up making them both cringe, before she quickly lowered it so that they will not go deaf. The short incident only made her smile more, because random people, especially teens were turning their heads to see the luxury car blasting Christmas carols, instead of the anticipated hot new hits.

Surprisingly, no acid or sarcastic remark came from Sasuke who kept his usual stoicism and the comfortable silence, and didn't say anything, and it wasn't because he was most of the times diplomatic and genteel, but because there was something in the way she smiled and laughed, pouring pieces of her heart into the tinker bell soprano giggles of hers, that was so unfamiliar and uplifted her entire aura to the level of divine and intangible, and that mystery surrounding her was intriguing him, because he couldn't place where was all that spirit was coming from, but its manifestation was at its peak when she beamed.

Was that woman happy without even being aware of it and she asked for a deeper insight of the aforementioned feeling of ecstasy, just because she didn't have a name for what she was feeling, consequently didn't recognize it when she experienced it?

Nonetheless, those small gestures she did, which were so trivia and unimportant, yet so full of meaning coming from an over analytical person like her, was something that made Sasuke shift his gaze to her more than he was comfortable with, because Sakura truly looked like she was having fun in his presence. Something that the other acquaintances, both vampires and human, found it a hard improbable thing to do, since Sasuke was definitely not someone who would be complacent with foolish entertainment.

But the way she turned the interior of his car into a blazing halo of shimmering lights, made it really hard for the Uchiha to keep his eyes on the road and properly drive. He set his mind on autopilot and commanded it to focus on the simple task of driving straight, keep up with Naruto –the idiot was already twice the speed limit- and ignore the soft bells jittering from the passenger`s seat, but it took all his will-power to be…himself. Sakura was conjuring a part of him that he has strived to tame down and eventually make it cease away and leave his system for good: his jovial teenage, wild and unperturbed crazy happy side, which was synonym to fragility and vulnerability and that was unacceptable.

"You are definitely something else." His velvet baritone voice made Sakura`s skin crawl in delight, as it reach her and enveloped her senses in a coat of dark chocolate. She both hated that fragility and inability to resist his imperial charms and feel elicited to be in his presence. She knew she was being childish, but she couldn't help herself, Sasuke was driving like his car wasn't even touching the road, distance was melting into the wings of the lights along the way, his smooth car was purring like a content cat and she was going to the amusement park in the company of a mesmerizing vampire and his totally sweet friends. It was evoking alien concepts inside her fluttering heart and she didn't know how to properly interpret and respond to the calling of the vibrant emotions she was feeling, but it was enchanting and she wanted to indulge into that warmth and sink in bliss.

"You are hardly the one to talk, Mr. Vampire Prince." She turned her head on her left shoulder to peep at the relaxed driving ebony haired Uchiha, taunting him, while taking in the seductive unsullied elegance of his stance and features as he focused on simple tasks. "I bet you don't like it when the others call you like this. Am I right?"

She has totally figured him up, but for an intelligent woman like Sakura it was not the most difficult thing to do, since she could easily see that Sasuke was not the one to exclaim triumph because he won a title to embellish his reputation, that he hasn't worked to obtain it. "What makes you think like that?"

"Because you strike like the type to work hard for everything and don't take anything for granted. You feel like it is a title that you haven't earned it thought your own hard work, so you don't accept it for free."

"Hn." The fact that he was still stunned to realize how well that stranger knew him and how easy was for her to sneak under the layers of his skin and reach deeper and closer to his real self, without trying to fake an image of her which was not herself, was well secluded from his eyes, but Sasuke inwardly praised her for her intuition.

Yes, he despised it when he was being called that way with all his might, because it was not only a title that he didn't deserve since he has earned it for free –a conceptualization of an outrageous pompous longtime tradition started by arrogant ancestors of his- but a label that he wasn't identifying himself with or related with it, since he wasn't pertaining with the notion and the ideal behind it. Sasuke didn't want to rule over the Vampire reign, he wanted to unite them with the human kind and melt the barriers between them, so they could coexist as one single superior race, living in peace and much desired harmony.

Accepting the fact that he was his father`s prideful and ferocious heir, meant he was embracing his ontology and preconceptions, while denying his purpose in life and concoct mischievous machinations to rule over the mortals and be a constant source of fear and a destructive threat, which was utterly repulsive for Sasuke. And Sakura has smartly guessed what his thoughts were, deducing it from the short things he has let her know.

"See? I can see tell this things about you." She let her jade inquisitive orbs lingered one more moment, which seemed like an eternity, to look at his profile, but she quickly got shy and looked away. "I always told myself that if I ever make it to the amusement park, I will have ice cream. It must be the tastiest there."

"I could recommend you two Italian gelato shops, if your desires are such."

"No, it has to be the tastiest there, because it is spontaneous, hence the mystery is not lost." Whether her cryptically words were meant to have the scouted meaning, Sasuke wasn't sure, but he has been very receptive to it, smirking at the glowing pink haired beauty, catching her –for the millionth time- taking subtle glances at him, trying her very best to not be intrusive, rude and obvious, but falling miserably because he was not human and consequently neither were his reflexes.

"Do you like mysteries, Sakura?"

"Don't you?" She grounded his question, throwing the ball back into Sasuke`s court, smartly challenging him into making it obvious that he found her fascinating just because she was a little bit more than the eyes could see, but to Sasuke, her ineffable didn't lie in her cultivation and vast acknowledge of philosophical lines, but her eternal womanhood. That was what threw him off each time she was doing something that he couldn't place in any stereotype, simply because she was pulverizing the concepts he had about women.

"This world hardly has anything more to offer me." The Uchiha simply answered and he wasn't lying, since he has been living for so long and witnessed the changes of the world, while he remained indomitable to its rapid flow, only adding to the vast foundation of his wisdom and education. "But it doesn't mean that there is nothing there left and yet to be discover to fascinate and intrigue me." And by that, he meant a woman like her, who was the embodiment of so many unexploited and unexplored to him universes such the suave enigma of feminine grace, the beauty and the strength of discovering so much strength into sensibility and frail, as well as the unadulterated raw purity of the smile embellished with diamonds.

"Are you a seeker for enigmas, even if you don't know what lies ahead? Didn't you like to be the one in control?" So Sasuke was not a control freak and there was a playful side taking shelter in the depths of that over abused self-control, huh? She couldn't help but be more and more fascinated by that ravishing beautiful raven haired vampire and Sakura was positive that an eternity wasn't enough to decipher all the conundrum that added to the complete piece that Sasuke embodied, but it was definitely worth the journey.

"Just because I tend to overthink things and not let emotions take the best of me, it doesn't mean I don't get bored too. It proves that you cannot read me as easily as you might think."

"More than a vampire? What can it be superior to this?"

His answer shocked Sakura in simplicity and depths of the concept, as Sasuke turned to grace her with a smirk so sinfully sexy, that made her heart tango on the strings of a sensual blazing Latino rhythm. "I am a man." As a vampire, there was not much that Sasuke could add to spice up his life, since his race was depicted by having reached the apogee of all that immortality had to offer, in terms of unparalleled beauty, sexuality, power and wealth, but as a man, his journey in unraveling the mystery of the ethereal in a woman has just begun. The intangible image of her purity, the protection, the need to dominate, poses, to make her dependable to him, make her love him, yearn for him, give herself to him, and give his heart to her, trust her, return to her as he made her the altar of his home, his shelter during storms, his umbrella during rain, the lighthouse during a sea storm.

Sakura`s ear lobes and her cheeks covered with a coral perusal when she understood the extent of his words and laugh at him, fumbling with her fingers on the radio just to keep herself busy and stop that upbeat feeling that made her airy and lightheaded, until she found a love song she liked, namely an old school love ballad. She let her fingers slide from the touch screen of the player and she peeped at Sasuke. she could see he was smirking at her obliviousness and she hardly contain a smile, finding it odd how she smiled, giggled and laughed more in the past 24 hours, than in her entire life, but she couldn't help herself.

Sasuke was so unpredictable, in his unrivaled mesmerizing resemblance to the ocean: he could be both serene, tranquil, warm and inviting, and, at the same time, unrestrained, wild, free, impossible to tame and be washed by dangerous rolling waves during his days of storm, knowing exactly how to adapt and mold to her switching moods, with the nonchalance of a reputed actor. Which mask he decided to wore, was the free choice of his exceptional genius and emotional intelligence.

Plus, the obvious was flashing before her eyes, cutting down the air supply from her windpipe, he was so breathtakingly handsome and there was also that trailing unreadable tension between them, which was not in the bit uncomfortable, and yet, the young lady with cherry blossoms carved in her long tresses didn't know what to do, for she has never feel anything to resemble what she was experience while in the vicinity of Sasuke, usually when there was something uncomfortable one would like to crawl out from there, but it was the opposite, she wanted to touch him and vaguely she asked herself how would it be to put her hand atop his one which was resting on the gear shift.

Would he retract it? Funniest thing was that Sasuke subtly followed the gestures and knew what she was thinking about, but he wasn't feeling uncomfortable by the things running through her mind in the bit, because beyond being aroused by the unreachable image of his perfection in forms and demeanor, Sakura was attracted by the depths of his character like she was mesmerized by a hard covered romance and mystery novel, seeking for the hidden message, which was yet to be unraveled.

Unlike the majority of the women whose eyes were talking the sultry of their minds, mentally undressing him and begged him to pleasure them in ways that only he could do, being turned into a sexual object of debauched fantasies and lecherous superficial and physical adulation, Sakura was falling into the category of enigmatic erotica, sliding along the swells of intimacy and sophisticated sensuality.

Maybe that was the reason why Sasuke has offered her the opportunity to go as far as to sleep with him, if she wanted to, not because he was the ultimate player, but because her contours were crayoned in the irresistible sepia shades of the supreme femineity which no man, be it mortal or vampire, could fight against. It was the call of nature, the ancestral spell of his every fiber, to respond to such a conjure, and Sasuke was powerless in front of the virtue shining so bright into her jadeite eyes.

Those eyes...two pieces of shimmering diamonds, radiating the glow of virginity, melting the light that was falling on the polished surfaces and stealing the colors of the rainbow, looking at him in a way that made him unable to avert his stare.

While Sasuke was trapped into a meditative state of mind, summoning all the most philosophical explanations for his abnormal attraction to a young lady so simple yet so intricate, Sakura was feeling a radiating jolly as they were getting closer to the amusement park, her eyes filled with twinkles while following the glowing lights of the park, unfolding before her mesmerized stare, in all the splendor of their jubilance.

Since it was already sunset and the last day of the weekend, the place was filled with people and families, of all ages, couples on a date, children and elders spending quality time together, and finding a good parking spot proved to be extremely challenging.

Miraculously, Sasuke has managed to spot a parking lot farther from the entrance, taking someone else`s place, who has just left, while Naruto found one not too far from them. As they get out of the car, the blonde immediately howled to them, waving energetically to them, foolishly thinking that they didn't see him –who could ever miss Naruto`s presence? "Teme, Sakura-chan, here! Let's go, we have so many rides to try on!"

Sasuke already felt his temples throb and the moment all the clamor, roars, cackles, loud laughters and screams touched his eardrums, he swore he was on the verge of getting back into his car and drive off that horrendous packed place, but he knew it was important to Sakura, who seemed to having been hit by a rocket of euphoria.

The Uchiha vampire Prince didn't like that place in the bit, it was crowded and childish, and he didn't see the point in acting like an immature teenager. Sure, he has also been a child and found the fascination of the place which looked like a thorn page from a fairytale, and he couldn't be a hypocrite and deny its appeal for a juvenile, but he was a grown up male and he couldn't be hypnotized by a pompous opulent display of golden red, bright green, orange and purple nets of beaming bright lights and loud annoying music.

He sighed and raked his hand through his ink jet ruffled hair, locking his car, while Sakura beside him was having an unusual glow of herself, her palms pressed together in a praying mode, intertwining her fingers and had the smile of a century plastered all over her face, she was glowing like the pale moon rising from the abyss of the velvet pink horizon and he couldn't peel his eyes off her. She was so beautiful. "Wow, it is...more amazing than I have imagined!" she breathed dreamy to Sasuke, while her orbs were gyrating to all the attractions that she could comprise in her field of view.

A star falling from the sky, taking human form and discovering the world around her, by touching it with the tip of her angelic small fingers, that was how her heavenly silhouette looked like and if the color of her dress wouldn't have been the archetype of sin and sensuality –vivid wine red- Sasuke could have sworn that she resembled a stellar snowflake, in the precision and perfection of tangled complex fractals and shape.

"Then what are we waiting for? Come." He beckoned her in that imperative yet gallant way that made her insides squirm in delight, as she followed him suit to an expectant Naruto and Hinata, as the sister of the bright fool moon quickly linked arms with her. Sakura didn't expect her to be so friendly and comfortable around a stranger, and her first reflex was to flinch but she didn't push her amity away, responding. The two companions were right behind them following close as they walked past the entrance, already finding themselves enveloped in the cheerful bright rhythm and the tumult around. "D-Do you like it?"

"Of course, who wouldn't? Look at all those lights and oh my, that one looks like something I wouldn't ride after dinner." Sakura pointed her index finger to the majestic roller coaster, while Hinata totally agreed. She also loved parks to death, having that jolly innocent child side that made Sakura a walking magic, and she also stayed away from dangerous rides, being all down to earth, careful and easily intimidated by obvious threats and adrenaline outbursts.

"That one," Naruto started, while his cerulean orbs turned into flashing heart shapes, taped her shoulder, leaning forward his head between them to talk, since the music and shouts were too loud for them to have a decent conversation. "is the biggest in the country! I have ride it for ten times in a row, then threw up on Sasuke-Teme`s new shoes. Bwhahaha, I couldn't convince the boring jerk to come, though. Maybe you could help me, I wanna see if he is that mighty as he claims he is."

Upon hearing Naruto`s statement, Sakura swirl her head over her shoulder giggle while Sasuke roses an eyebrow at her, figuring out that his golden haired foxy friend has said something stupid and embarrassing about him or them. He looked completely out of his element, like a fish drowning in salty waters. There was energy, laughter, loud, crowded and sweets, everything eh seemed to avoid, but he was trying to fight the amalgamation of vivid sparkling tiring energy of a never-ending mindless euphoria, with his normal weapons of choice, namely his apathy and self-control.

Sakura`s eyes were gyroscopes as she marveled at all the rides that were unfolding before her eyes in all the splendor of their appeal: water rides, train rides, pendulum rides, car rides, carousel, haunted houses and sweets all over. There was a heavy smell of caramel, peanuts and cotton candies, her eyes were twinkling like stars and the smile on her face never died. So many things to see, an endless source of childhood fantasies that she has been deprived of, and Sakura vowed to herself to make that night a memorable one. She couldn't have been in a more pleasant beautiful company, they liked her back and she was in a dreamy place.

Their small group stopped in front of the haunted mansion ride, since it was one of the most famous amusement park attraction and it was in their way as they lazily followed the endless line of strolling people, walking aimlessly to an indefinite target, the word 'spontaneous' being the supreme ruler there. "So? Where should we head first?" Naruto rubbed his hands, like a Goblin with naughty thoughts, being reminiscent to a kid in a candy store, during Christmas. He absolutely loved Haunted Mansions, as well as the house of mirrors, because he knew that Sasuke found them the most annoying things in the universe –beside him- and that way Naruto could fructify the opportunity to push his buttons further and fuck with him, which was funny by default.

"Home." Sasuke flatly answered and everyone knew that he was being bloody serious and that was the reason why the barely stifled their laughter, because, seriously, it was just so funny to see such a stiff serious person like the Uchiha vampire in a place that was so out of character and expressed everything that he was not.

Naruto of course, being Naruto, he didn't miss such favorable circumstances to laugh at his stuck up best friend and rub it in his face that he was stuck with them for a few hours, even if he liked it or not. "Ya` know, there is thins thing that we the normal not socially retarded ones do and it is called having fun. Party popper, don't mind this ass guys," The blonde turned around to grin at the two ladies, ,cerulean orbs going impossible wide as he took in the flashing board and the leaking blood huge letters on the rooftop. "What do you think of the haunted mansion?"

"I-I d-don't know w-what to say, i-it scares me."

"Ah, don't you worry Hinata-chan, this is why I am here, to protect you!" He winded his hand around her waist protectively and tapped his thumb on his chest, proving that he was a proud representative of his gender, and he wouldn't let any ghost approaching his lover as long as he was around.

It was Sasuke`s turn to snort at the blonde, knowing it all too well that the idiot would be the first one to dash out running for his life, since the topics ghost and paranormal activity were taboo for him. "You are the first to run and shout like the cry baby you are, dobe."

"There is no need, since nothing is scarier than your brooding and stuck up attitude, you jerk!"

Sakura couldn't help herself as more giggled escaped her lips. She didn't know what was funnier: the murderous look on Sasuke`s face or Naruto`s loud chuckles and mockeries. One thing was for certain: one could never get bored with those two friends tagging along, that was for sure. "I want to see why all those people are screaming." The rosette declared, being all too amused by all those couples and kids who were lurching on the entrance, stumbling and tripping on the narrow stairs, with their hair ruffled and a mild scarred expression on their faces. Then they would burst out in laughter and go buy another ticket.

"Then it's settled. Come on, let's go get tickets." They all followed the lead of Naruto, waiting in line –a pretty big one- to buy tickets to the tour of horror, eavesdropping at the ones who have just exited the house and claimed that it was the scariest thing, beside their mothers-in-law`s morning pillow hair and cucumber mask. A young dude in his twenties, dressed in a mummy, showed them the way to the entrance. "Watch your steps, this damn place is poorly illuminated." Sasuke`s baritone rung from behind the group, as he has advised his rose haired companion, who was walking in front of him, having her shoulders bent forward to not bump her forehead on a giant furry spider hanging on the door. Straight ahead, there was a maze of pitch darkness and blinding colorful blue and purple lasers, blinding the eyes and tricking the eyesight, hence the unexpected sinister touch.

"Right." Someone dressed as a dead person, wrapped in baggy ruffled dusty clothes, peeling decaying skin layers hanging on his bare arms and neck and bones protruding from the cut knees and his bald head, popped out from a giant mahogany coffin they have just passed, making a very convincible horror loud grumble, followed by a very suggestive 'BOO!', scaring the visitors shitless. "Oh!" Totally not expecting the…unexpected, Sakura whirled on her heel, heart bursting out of her ribcage and almost jumped on Sasuke who was keeping close to her.

Out of pure sharp reflex, his hands curled around her slim waist, as a short smirk bloomed on his thin lips, but she couldn't quite see amusement dancing on his handsome face, since it was dark inside, but she definitely felt his warmth percolating on her half bare skin as his mint fanned on her forehead. Wasn't she stupid and scared as a rabbit? "Haha, sorry." She tucked a strand of hair away of her eyes, blushing at the unexpected contact, while she couldn't help but inwardly poke her perverted inner self with a baseball bat, for chanting at her 'Now that is some good flirting opportunity, girl'.

Clumsily and feeling all that swarm buzzing inside her chest, she pulled back from Sasuke, smiling coyly at him, knowing that he could see her in the darkness and turned around, continuing her journey through the maze of narrow poor illuminated corridors, trying to anticipate where the next scary thing would come from. "He looked so real." Naruto on the other hand, was snickering in front of her, for he has totally caught the short intense sparkling scene. And Hinata did the same, though the last dressed in mummy person has scared the living daylights out of her, so she tightened her embrace of her boyfriend`s strong arm, sticking close to him. She was half tempted to activate her Byakugan and see every horror character that lurked from the shadows, or hid behind the coffins, funerary stones, graves and tombs or huge green jars with radioactive leaking substances, but she decided against it.

She stretched a hand behind her back, turning to whisper to Sakura. "They a-always change t-the decorations. E-Everytime is different and y-you can never anticipate what is next. They s-scare me."

"I like the chandeliers and the roses." The rosette pointed towards a pretty romantic and seductive decorated corner, that resembled a Victorian chamber for women, with red velvet and golden curtains and bed sheets and a four posted bed, covered with rotten red rose petals and jewelry. Then as she kept on focusing on that arrangement and a flickering chandelier on the nightstand, for a reason that she couldn't comprehend, a sudden sinister lecherous low pitched laughter roared through her eardrums as she cringed.

"See that brooding emo looking Frankenstein there?" Naruto who was too looking at the exact thing, pinpointed to a particularly interesting looking dressed up man or woman, who seemed to have a log instead of the right leg, a missing arm, ripped green and blue clothes hanging on his or her contorted body, a sinister grin, purple rouged lips and a very suggestive blood covered meat cleaver stuck in the middle of the head, in a very poetic way, fluttering his hand at the passer byes. "It looks like Sasuke Teme when getting shitfaced."

"I will kill you." Was the most intelligent and evocative thing that Sasuke had to say to his imbecile sugar rush blonde haired friend and Naruto didn't know which was scarier: the sinister character who was welcoming them on the journey through the haunted place or his raven haired friend`s alto pissed off voice echoing through the passageway. But unlike the fancy looking monster there, Sasuke`s threat was damn serious and far more menacing and promising pain, torture and a torturous agonizing prolonged death.

Then, as they continued to walk carefully, so they wont trip on something, especially the girls who were having high heels or bump their heads in the hanging horror elements on the walls –bats, witch heats, logs, spiders or ghosts miniatures- some hands shot to them from the improvised walls made of velvet curtains and tapped their shoulders, not enough to hurt or scratch them, but enough to freak them up. "AH!" Both girls stopped to shriek and cry out loud, while the tingles from the touches of the screaming hands from the walls lingered on their skin, amplified by the vivid imagination of their minds.

Sakura felt someone hold her shoulders steadily and she was one step back from slapping the hands off her body, but she calmed her nerves down when they pushed her gently forward., urging her to continue to walk and her body immediately recognized the getting familiar amazing grace of the owner and she silently complied, a hand flying above her left breast, where her poor heart was pumping furious blood running through her veins. Sasuke was breathing on her nape, giving her tickles along her forearms, as the tiny puff of hair from behind her ears perked up. "This is ridiculous."

No, as much as he let logic work in his favor, Sasuke simply couldn't comprehend the reason why Sakura and his two friends, as well as the rest of the people inside, were so damn scared about something so impromptu, absurd, completely fake and preposterous. He simply couldn't. Among all the other inhabitants of the getting annoyingly narrow passageway, he was the only one who was aspirational unfazed by everything that happened around him, like he was blind, deaf and insensible to the ones who were putting a lot of effort in proving it to the raven haired Uchiha that the money he spent –wasted- on the ticket was worth it, without success.

He even fought the urge to smirk when a particularly nonsensical half zombie, half mummy looking questionable frightening character approached him, walking like Naruto when he was dead drunk, with his arms stretched in his direction, mumbling incoherent shit as 'brain' or 'blood' or 'I need flesh' trying to be impressive, and the moment Sasuke shot him a doom glare which was perfectly blending with the thick indomitable darkness around, looking like he was pupil less as longer strands of his rebel locks cascaded down his equally jet eyes, all adding to the really sinister effect, said representative of the horror thematic tour visibly squirmed under his costume, gulped once and took three large steps back, tripping on a log and falling straight on his butt, muttering a vicious curse and a suggestive 'Auch' rubbing his throbbing stinging area, forgetting about his purpose there.

"They count of the fact that we don't know what is there to come up next." Sakura found herself explaining –more to calm herself, than to Sasuke- but she quickly realized that they had a similar discussion about the unforeseen in his car and the symbolic parallelism made her realize the reason why the handsome vampire behind her was leisurely walking like he was in broad daylight, strolling down the boulevards. "Is this why it doesn't faze you?" He didn't pull a muscle, but she could feel his beautiful big onyx silvery gleaming eyes cast on her, as their intensity made her skin crawl in pleasure.

Of course such thing was as fearsome as nonsensical, laughable and preposterous in his eye, giving the fact that he was who he was and his character was hardly baffled and confounded by such goofiness, but still, that place was betting on the innate inborn reflexes ingrained in a person`s nature, since the beginning of time, namely the instinct to survive and react to possible threats and Sasuke has once been a mortal and then he turned into a vampire with his senses running on haywire, being amplified to its peak, so she quickly come to understand that Sasuke hasn't lost those automatic body responses, but he trained them into following his will, nailed and honed them into fine weapons able of astonishing control, hence his tremendous power and fine lethal level of danger.

Her train of contemplative thoughts about the raven haired impressive male tailing –and guarding- her back were interrupted as she was being busy bursting out in laughter at Naruto who let out a short high pitched screech, bouncing on his feet, like an old nanny seeing white rats squirming around her legs, because a sharp split in three scythe fell in front of him and it was covered in blood.

Sasuke shook his head at the blonde hyperactive knucklehead, knowing it all too well that the dobe was truly and heartedly pissing off his pants, being scared till the core, not believing that it was precisely that one character whose skills were on par with his, finding it so ironic from Fate to mock him like that, having a dark, fine and unparalleled sense of humor and a way to prove it that his ways were puzzling and twisted.

"Why would it scare me since they have made their purpose clear? Plus...they try to take advantage of my easily aghast human side." Upon hearing his statement, Sakura couldn't prevent the shudders rolling down her spine, when her farsighted mind have realized the two implications nested into Sasuke`s words: he was not running away from the unpredictable and enigmas, but he would like to stumble across of a mysteries that he hasn't encountered as both living human and vampire, something unique, plus he wasn't discriminatory and he was more dangerous than the appearances and charades around, and they were the ones surrounded by danger even if it might seem the other way around, plus he tried to train his reflexes and sharpen and tame his human weaknesses, being the archetype of superior man who strived to achieve perfection. "I know there must be something spooky even for you. I will just have to pay attention." She turned around and grinned at the raven haired unflappable bored looking Uchiha, then turned back to laugh at bats and spiders falling from the wall on their shoulders.

Hinata was yelping and squeezing Naruto`s hand, while trying to bury her face into his broad chest, while said brave dobe was brushing off some insects falling off her violet long hair, as the scene was both cute and funny to see, since both were flinching and jumping at everything that came in contact with parts of their bodies.

As the small group was advancing, more fog and green lasers were shooting from anywhere, as well as flickering buzzing bulbs, creating an eerie creepy atmosphere. skeletons, demons, scary hags were loitering around, popping up from nowhere, laughing, smiling and looking demented and ready to strike and Sakura would admit that they tried to make it as realistically as possible, but her favorite part was the irony at its epitome in the form of someone dressed as Dracula, coming to offer flowers to all the ladies and beaming its fake sharp fangs, licking his lower lip. She definitely didn't stifle back her laughter, because she has learned the truth from Sasuke, who was, paradoxical enough, a real vampire. And definitely way sexier than that wannabies pale skinny dude who was trying.

Sasuke remained completely silent, only paying mild attention not to stumble on something that crawled at their feet or prevent the falling from nowhere to poke into his eye, and look like a total moron –Naruto-. Occasionally, something would brush over their ankles and Sakura swore that some zombie has touched her butt but she wouldn't be sure.

The moment they finally get outside, Sakura thanked all the Heavens that it was dusk so she wouldn't have troubles in adjusting her vision to light, but she saw twinkling colorful dots all around her field of view, from all the light effect. Naruto in front of her, was white as Casper`s twin brother and sweating like he has jogged to the marathon. They all laughed at his goofy foxy bloody scared figure, even Hinata who was equally scared but couldn't help herself. "Man, they get better every time I swear!" A hand was resting atop his ticking heart, out of reflex, as he was more perceptive than the pure blood vampires, since he was half human.

"What a dobe." His raven haired friend deadpanned at his cerulean eyed exaggerating friend, raking a hand through his disheveled fluttering locks, mentally cursing all the hands that had the audacity to touch his locks –probably women- while trying to scare him, with a bit too much passion. "Can we go to something less..." he tried to look for the proper words so that he wouldn't insult Sakura and Hinata with a vicious rude obscenity of choice. "...bizarre and harebrained?"

The only reason why Naruto hasn't come up with a street picked colorful insult to curse his friend back from probably insulting him in his own Uchiha fancy ineligible way was because he didn't understand half of his sentence, so he merely ignored him and shouted out loud. "The roller coaster!"

Hinata beat everyone to react to that horrendous idea, by voicing out her dissagreement. "I-I don't w-want to ride that one." She truly didn't, even though the moonlight enlighten beautiful vampires was not as panic-stricken and shy as anyone might foolishly underestimate her, but definitely riding the roller coasters was something that didn't have a privilege place on her 'to do' list, simply because she wasn't an avid runner for adrenaline. She was a down to earth level headed woman, with a soft spot for romance and sweets, not dangerous life threatening forms of entertainment. She has witnessed countless accidents happening in amusement parks, plus, her mind was doing flip flops while following the loops and rapid lurches of the said speeding train. People and vampires undercover were screaming at the top of their lungs for a reason, besides being trendy.

Sakura`s glance was divided between Naruto and Hinata, not actually too convinced to try it on and see for herself if its fame was on par with the terror crawling along her spine, based on the stories she has heard about roller coasters and she was kind of afraid. "I don't know what to say. Is it that bad?"

"Horrifying, but damn...you will not be able to walk straight for ten minutes. I couldn't get Hinata-chan`s cousin to ride it. Or this bastard here." Naruto confessed, pointing to Sasuke, who, didn't know the meaning of the word 'scared' or 'reticent', but, of course, he only found it unproductive and ineffectual, to the point of ridiculous and fruitless. What was so good in having your stomach turn and churn like he has been drowning in alcohol three days flat or have your sense of balance bombarded and crushed down? That masochistic side of some specimens was a foreign concept to him.

"Hinata?" Sakura turned to the coy Hyuga heiress and she shook her head at the emerald eyed woman, silently begging her to take her advice and not get a ride, with Naruto from all the people or vampires or anyone for the matter. The dobe was only brave as far as the roller coaster was on the station. Once operating, he was worse than the kids who tried to break each other`s records.

"N-No, I w-will wait here if you guys want to g-go. B-But I would suggest t-that you don't try it."

"We should all find something to enjoy." Sakura suggested, totally trusting Hinata`s judgment and clairvoyance, rubbed her chin and crunching her nose, so that she looked very contemplative and totally cute. "What about the Ferris Wheel?" she pointed her finger in the direction of the giant white shining gyrating wheel.

There were many movies with lovers and jolly families she saw on TV and it looked like a good opportunity to have a panoramic view over the city and be closer to the sky and the twinkling stars. Contrary to popular beliefs, Naruto knew exactly what he was doing. He would suggest ridiculously insane amusement rides so that Sakura and the others wouldn't agree, so they would chose the top cliché ones, meaning the most romantic, cheesy and less dangerous ones, since there were many couples wandering around ,enjoying their date, so he could totally fructify the chance to set his friend and Sakura up, taking advantage of their already scorching chemistry transpiring between them.

And it was all going according to the bulletproof plan. His wicked grin only grew tenfold when his naughty mind started to fill with steamy possible outcomes. Then he shifted his gaze to Sasuke who was openly glaring at him, probably reading his mind and grew aware of his intentions and his grin died down. Screw that smart ass observant Uchiha for spoiling his fun. Wordlessly, they followed Sakura to the suggested amusement attraction.

"I-I like the F-Ferris Wheel. Mother would b-bring Hanabi-chan, Neji-nii-san and me there, w-when we were little." Hinata told the pink haired woman absentmindedly, a small enchanting smile dancing on her plum full lips at the pleasant memory, it being among the few ones she had with her family so at peace and united.

"Then it's settled! Up to go!" And of course, Naruto wouldn't deprive the ladies of the fun, beaming of energy and pushed his fist up taking the lead once again, waltzing in front of their small group.

After paying for the tickets, they quickly observed that the structure of the elegant gondolas only had space for two people and before anyone had the chance to protest, Naruto winded a hand possessively around Hinata's shoulder and jumped in the first gondola, shouting at Sasuke and Sakura. "Sorry guys, this one is taken!"

"Clowns trying to be subtle..." Sasuke growled under his breath, knowing exactly that his friend was trying to throw Sakura into his arms, but was failing at being exquisite and insidious because he was just an idiot with too much free time at his disposal, although seeing that Sakura didn't catch what he was trying to do, probably not being the subject of a blind date before, hence lacked experience, he played along and brushed it off, getting the other upcoming gondola, following Sakura suit.

When the giant eye looking elegant started its lazy pace, bringing them higher and higher to the sky, Sakura couldn't contain her delight and Sasuke swore that her forest green eyes went a lighter shade, stealing the light of the stars above and radiating a warm inviting aura through every pore. "Oh My God, look at this scenery!" She sang like a canary, as her head was whirling in all possible directions, wide smile embellishing her angelic features. "Can we see your home from here?" She turned to question Sasuke as their gondola was almost to the peak, as it seemed to brush the velvet sky. "Yes, bring us to the stars!"

"No," The Uchiha simply answered to her, and refrained from telling Sakura something as futile and aimless as the fact that she wasn't able to see it, because his vision was on a whole new radius and foresight. "it is too far."

"Beautiful..." She said dreamy, as breathing into the energy and the beauty of the darkness around outside and full of colorful lights and twinkling stars, the lights from the city and then she looked at Sasuke, who was looking straight ahead, like he has been seeing that vista so many times before and grew unflappable to its beauty. An old man turning back to the secular oak tree, who knew his story and shared his memories.

Immediately, she got that fluttering inside her belly as her jade orbs were strolling along the precise exquisite outline of his masculine jaw and chin, then shifting to the almond shaped contour of his onyx eyes, sucking in a harsh breath when her insightful vision let her perceive the movie like atmosphere of romantic silence blending into the panoramic scenery and she couldn't help but notice the way their hands were curled around the golden lap bar, sticking close to one another and she felt sparkles under her fingertips as she wanted so much to let her hand slide towards Sasuke`s and tap his knuckles with her pinky finger, but decided not to cross that line and invade or abuse his privacy.

As the wheel lulled them with the lazy pace, offering them a splendid vista over the shimmering details of the park`s beaming colors and excited people, a cool wind brushed past their shoulders, making their hair flutter, making Sakura`s bare skin fill with goose bumps, as she was wearing a soft thin dress and nothing to cover her shoulders.

Sasuke cocked his head to look at his rose haired companion, who was rubbing her forearms intently, clearly shivering from the cool air blowing at that altitude and he mentally slapped himself from not noticing that she was cold and that mind blowing dress of her did nothing to protect her porcelain fragile skin from the wind.

He silently leaned backwards and let the black long coat he wore over his dark suit slide along his forearms, and wrap it around Sakura`s naked shoulders as she winced in surprise, turning her head to look at him and that has been a mindless mistake, since the breathtakingly irresistible vampire was still close to her as he folded his warm wool and cashmere coat upon her collarbone and her breath died on her throat for a nanosecond.

They entwined their gazes as his head was slightly askew, peeping at her from behind the silk veil of his haughty soft fluttering raven lock falling over his forehead and temples, not drawing back as Sakura didn't shy away either, getting tinted by a cute pink perusal that matched the elegant feminine color of her hair, dancing on the strings of the graceful wind behind her back, while keeping on looking deeply into his eyes.

She went lightheaded the moment his divine masculine perfume dashed into her nostrils, pounding on his pulse and oozing from his rebel silk hair and the warmth of his mint fanning on her chin almost made her evanesce the short distance between them and press her lips against his, seeing that their angled faces were perfectly aligned for a butterfly sweet kiss, but something held her back from doing so.

Maybe it was the overrated and totally cliché conjuncture, maybe it was because she would have given up to easy and out on a whim, or maybe she was so shy and inexperienced in how should she properly share her first kiss with that handsome stranger and not embarrass her completely or maybe she wanted a deeper transpiring scene between them than a simple ride in an amusement park.

They were not lovers on a date, he has just went on with the flow of her insistence and his friends` wishes the thing that had him come to a place he didn't want to visit, so Sakura kind of felt bad for taking advantage to the fact that Sasuke was in a susceptible position, being all sentient of his displeasure, consequently she didn't want to offer him an alternative to a thing he didn't enjoy doing, by making it better with a meaningless kiss.

Hollow and vague…this is why she didn't want to lock her lips with him in that particular moment, because Sakura didn't want to offer her first kiss to an inconsequential spur of the moment, nor give up the connotation of a first lip lock for a maiden so easily, even though she knew that from that point of view, her way of thinking was old school and unfashionable, but it meant dearly to her, so she didn't care.

She dug her nails into the collar of his coat, wrapped the warm material around her petite frame trembling frame, cheeks burning like charcoals as he kept that mysterious intense look into her eyes and even if her mind was denying what he could offer, her eyes kept on marveling at the nature`s artistic display of excellence, as she was breathing in the essence of his beauty. He was so undeniable handsome. It was that kind of unholy and impossible perfection in forms and contours, that made him almost frightening. His gorgeous looks were scary because she couldn't place it as part as her world.

As she took her time to rack her brain for a possible explanation of the windmill of emotions twirling inside her chest, Sasuke was peeling every layer of indecision shimmering into those gorgeous eyes she was having, but he was having a mind battle of his own. There was just something that transcended human, having a mysterious ray of light gleaming around the aureate ring around her irises that kept taunting him to try and penetrate deeper to uncover the ultimate secrets lying within the labyrinth of green garnet and gold.

She wasn't just a beautiful intelligent woman, she was even more than the magic of grace and elegance, it was in every gesture she made, in the way she sewed her childish shimmering angelic innocence into the rose kiss of womanhood entrapped into the light shade of her hair, pouring stardust of a heavenly glow around her ethereal appearance, that turned him into a powerless seeker for her enigma.

In fact, Sasuke didn't even realized how close he was to her, until he hasn't figure it out that the rosette was so stricken by their closeness, that she didn't realize she was holding her breath. That, until the crescent sexual tension growing between them has crumbled like broken crystal by the sudden jerk of their gondola, when the ferry stopped abruptly throwing them forward due to intertia force. "Ah!" Sakura gripped the lap bar with both her hands, as her long loose hair fell into her eyes and cascaded down her shoulders, pulling apart from Sasuke and breaking their eye lock.

"What is going on? Why have we stopped?"

Sasuke didn't answer at first, because he was focused on catching the instructions of someone who was shouted at them to remain calm, because someone cut down the electricity and they would fix the problem soon. Upon catching the meaning of those words reverberating into the night and following the buzz under her feet, she started to panic. Plus, it was just their bad luck that their gondola was stuck at the highest peak. Not only the rosette was claustrophobic, but she was afraid of heights too. "Sasuke, how much time do you think they are going to take to fix it?"

"I hope not much, or bad things are going to happen to a certain someone." Being stuck in a Ferris Wheel was the last of Sasuke`s concern. Meanwhile, he was busy with thinking about Naruto, who insisted on having them to go there in the very first place and then plot a very painful way to dispose of his dead body, after he boldly punched his face into oblivion, feeling his already thin patience consume as a candle.

Then he felt a light timid wrap around his forearm which made him snap from his evil plotting as he turned his head on his left shoulder to look at the petrified owner, rising a fine raven eyebrow up at her anxious looking figure. Sakura was tugging him probably out of reflex, without being conscious of what she was doing, her body language betraying how fidgety and uptight she was. Also, with his superior vision and keen eye, Sasuke could see everything and perceive every single detail, such as the cold glistening invisible roll of a drop of perspiration forming along pulse, running down her neck, her accelerated pulse, the pitch dilated pupils, the unconscious way to lean into him and scoop into his arms.

"What`s wrong?" He softly asked her, afraid she would break at the way her entire body was tense and apprehensive.

She shook her head in a messy way that Sasuke didn't quite place into any stereotype, while her bell like siren voice looked strangled, forced and deeply scared, almost bathed in tears. "I-I don't...being stuck in a place...I am claustrophobic. What if we are going to be here for hours? We can't go down on our own, not at this height, and it is not like we can fly or something."

A short buzz rung inside his pocket, as Sasuke dipped his fingers down to answer to his phone. There was a childish angry message from Naruto which said 'This sucks major balls! Can you do something?' while Sasuke knew exactly what went through his cerulean eyed friend`s mind, for he too flirted with some possibilities of taking them out of there.

He quickly tapped back to him, while he felt tickles rubbing on his chin as Sakura leaned fully on his chest, coming to rest her temple in the hollow of his neck, as he replied to the blonde. 'Not here. There are too many people around to witness.'

Someone was working frenetically downstairs, while people have gathered in a small crowd to look up to the gondolas, screaming soothing words to their relatives or dates, who were panicking and shouting or crying back, fidgeting in their respective seats. As three supervisors were trying to fix the mechanical problem and operate the Ferry wheel, they would occasionally cause a jerk along the rim of the wheel, hence the short violent shake of the gondolas.

For Sasuke, it was beyond annoying. For Sakura on the other hand, it was ten times more terrifying than the tour on the Haunted Mansion, because, true to Sasuke`s words, that was the real thing. The raven haired Uchiha felt her body starting to convulse and tremble beside him. She was visibly afraid and it was clearly depicted in her shaky soft hum. "S-Sasuke..."

If there was something that Sasuke absolutely loathed to see, was a lady suffering any form of torture, be it physical or mental. For him, it was the greatest sin ever done to the vulnerable sex, so he didn't miss a beat when he gently, but firmly bad the apprehended rosette.

"Get up."

She whipped her head to face him puzzlement written all over her face. "What? Why?"

"Just do it." To prove it to her that he was serious and make her snap out of her shock induced haze, Sasuke lifted the lap bar up leaving them unguarded by the metal bar and that made Sakura dizzy of fright, already feeling the gravity crawling along her ankles and drag her down to free fall.

He got up, even though there wasn't enough space for him to fully stand in all the splendor of his tall height, but it was enough to make him adjust into the gondola and god only knew how was he able to keep balance without faltering or causing unnecessary motion to the capsule. "What do you want to do?" Sakura looked horrified down and then back to Sasuke who hasn't pulled a single muscle or do any revealing gesture that he was affected in any way.

"Take my hand." He stretched his hand to the oblivious emerald eyed girl, opening up his palm, inviting her to wrap her fingers around his. "Come on." She did it automatically, placing her quivering hand into his own, curling her fingers tightly around his long lean appendices, as he clasped his hand around hers, while he hoisted her up, but she wasn't as graceful as he, and the high heels she wore weren't helpful in any way. "Whoa-"

Her knees trembled and threatened to throw her forward and let her fall, but Sasuke softly twisted her wrist and brought her flush into his chest, wrapping his hands around the curb of her back, as she folded her own hands around his torso, trying to move and do clumsy gestures as less as possible. "Why are we standing?"

"We are leaving."

She looked into his eyes disbelief written all over. Emerald vibrant eyes were looking into his onyx ones, seeking for that moment when he would tell her that he was freaking joking and just trying to make her feel psychologically better, but found no hesitation. "W-What?! B-But we are so high and we have been instructed to remain on our seats and we are so high and there is no way we can climb down on this-"

Words froze on their way out of her parted lips as a devilish smirk grew on the corner of his mouth, as she took in the way his eyebrows shot up, ideas seemed to dancing in between the rims of his fine wrinkles. "Who said we cannot fly?"

Logic and ration has overcome fright, as Sakura`s mill spun inside her mind, thinking back to the moment when she jumped off the bridge and took him with her, losing memories of what exactly happened there. Somehow, they didn't touch the water`s surface and touched the grass instead, landing safely on the bank of the river, but she couldn't remember how they did it. "You aren't serious, are you?"

"Do you want to be stuck in here instead?"

"N-No, of course not, but there are so many people around and i don't want you to-" she took a peek behind her back, summoning all her courage to look down at the squirm of agitated people visibly shaking."...I am very scared." she openly admitted, mentally cursing that feeble human weakness and fully realizing Sasuke`s strive to overcome that futile part of his previous alter ego, trading inborn dread to be on the crest of mental strength. Something she would never be able to do and in that moment, she felt like a total burden to him, coaxing and forcing him into dangerously expose his secret, in lieu of saving her ass. How selfish she was.

He tightened his embrace around her, giving her a little squeeze, as his palm slide down to rest on the swell of her hipbone, assuring her that all her fears were dumbfounded and it was no problem for him to do so. "Do you trust me?" He whispered hotly into her ear, as she felt his reassurance pushed back into her every fiber, relaxing if even for a moment, trying to melt into his warm embrace.

"W-Will you drop me?"

He chuckled darkly at her predictable cliché aphorism, sexily shaking his head. He dropped down, slipping a hand under her knees and the other around her waist, scooping her up, as her hands flew around his neck, wrapping them tightly as her fingers latched into his fluttering raven spikes. "Wha! Sasuke!"

"No. I will not let you fall. I promise you." She was dead scared as her brisk heart was doing flip flops down her chest. She opened her eyes to look at him once again close to her but she was too panicked to feel the foaming chemistry drizzling like expensive Champagne among them, but as the events unfold under Sasuke`s eyes in slow motion, he caught every single detail.

The satirical part of the predicament, was the fact that first, when she wanted to jump, her fate was solely in the palm of her hand to do as she pleased, upon her own free will, wanting to fall on the limbs of death, but that time, not only did she fear for her safety, but her destiny was depending entirely on Sasuke, and not on her, which was a funny ironic thing.

His tranquil demeanor was reminiscent to a gentle spring breeze and he perceived it through al his pores. "Hold me tight." He instructed and she nodded once, leaning her head on his shoulder and she tightened her grip. "What if someone sees us? You will have problems because of me-."

"Don't worry, it is too dark up here. Before someone has the chance to see us, we will be far away." She nodded once to him, burying her nose into his neck, inhaling his ravishing scent that calmed her mind and soothed her, while entrusting her life to his capable hands.

But instead of jumping like she has expected, Sasuke merely shut his onyx eyes, breathed once deep and slow, as he was doing Buddhist meditation, focusing the flow of his chakra in key parts, balancing it and drawing the exact dosage of it for the jutsu he was preparing and when he opened his orbs up, lavender bright blazed back on his left eye, as his right counterpart bleed rich red wine, in the familiar peculiar stellar shape. Sasuke couldn't believe that he was using The Deva Path of his Rinnegan for something as trivial as that, but he just couldn't see that smile wipe off Sakura`s face in a heartbeat of a malfunction of the ride. It made something clench into the coffins of his chest, evoking an unpleasant feeling of guilt at the thought of breaking his promise to keep her safe and make her happy, while she has complied with his request and allowed him to drink from his blood as much as he needed, not complaining.

That disagreeable feeling clasped in the sepulture of his heart burned him. His feet unglued from the gondola and when Sakura felt the wind splash over her face and her hair flutter like a bumble bee`s fragile jolly wings, she became even more panicked. "Oh God!" She couldn't help but exclaim, never removing her face from Sasuke`s neck, shrieking down his ear, as he was focusing to not lose the control of his chakra surging through his system.

He tightened his hold on her, somehow counting on the fact that if he did so, she would calm down and feel protected and soon they were defying gravity, floating like vivacious snowflakes dancing in the pink velvet horizon, as Sasuke was having troubles in focusing his chakra to be as swift and gentle as possible, while his dark clothes made them invisible to human eye, but he wasn't quite worried about that. "Are we there yet?"

"Open your eyes and see for yourself."

"No. I am scared. I will scream." Somehow she gathered a drop of courage to flutter her eyes open, feeling the wind making them moisten, and she looked at his profile, instead of peeping around to find themselves surrounded by the celestial curtain of the night, instead of people and buildings. Not feeling the gravity under her feet was scary she felt lighter and scared as hell. "What would you do if I scream?"

He set his eyes down to her and a little knowing smirk grew on his lips, keeping his answer silent to invite her mind to contemplate and figure the answer for herself. Jade orbs skimmed to his thin soft looking lips and it her heart missed a beat when she caught the meaning of his sinful words. He hasn't muttered a single thing, as they were continued to beat gravity on its own game, entrapped in an esoteric tango, and Sakura gulped once to alleviate a lump forming down her throat, as her eyes kept the regard they had on his lips. Focusing on the detailed sinuous contour of the outline of his thin firm lips, she couldn't help but learn that it was looking so moist, glistening, so soft and appetizing looking and so so close...

She shook her head and looked away immediately, finding it extremely dangerous to remained focused on his mouth and fall prey to his seductive, cunning and sexy trap.

But the moment Sakura decided to avert her eyes from Sasuke`s raw handsomeness and concentrate –divert- to something else, she did the mistake of looking down the earth and she saw the world unfolding under her feet. As her body grew conscious of the care and security that Sasuke`s presence was providing, coating her into his sweet mantle of protectiveness, a indescribable feeling crept along her spine as an electric bolt and she couldn't believe the emotions surging through her system. "OH MY GOSH! we are FLYING!" She couldn't believe she has been so afraid by whatever might happen to her, because it was beautiful and uplifting, comparing to nothing like she has ever experienced before.

Her jadeite pools were challenging the brilliance of the sky`s chandeliers, as they were gasping at the scenery flowering under their feet, in all the splendor of its shining colorful rainbows of lights, as if the energy and vitality of the never sleeping people was rising like a fine veil of fog towards the sky, tinkling their skin. There was nothing to rival the feeling of being light like lustrous fireflies dancing into the twilight, they were like clouds floating unperturbed in the embrace of infinity, and Sasuke was actually so gentle, delicate and his grace was blending with the elegance of the moon above. Trapped in the maze of the splendid conceptualization of a theory as ancient as the people`s dream to grow a pair of wings and be free, she failed to see Sasuke`s breathing becoming more and more alert and sharp, but the onyx eyed vampire was glad she didn't, because she looked enchanted, calm and less scared and that was exactly what he wanted.

Inwardly, he was having conflicted thoughts and a hard deal, because he has only used that new technique once since the revelation of the new powers rooting inside his ocular bloodline limit inheritance, yet he has ventured to use it in such an inappropriate desperate context, but he didn't see any other inconspicuous way out, yet he was aware of the fact that the first time he tried levitation on, he couldn't keep it for too long.

However, failing was out of question, because not only it would make them crush and blow up his cover exposing his identity, but he would endanger Sakura`s life as well and he didn't know what option was more terrifying. Brushing off the negative –realistic- thoughts out of his mind, he focused the last remain of chakra, which was rapidly going down the hill, catching the sight of an empty spot at the end of the parking lot where only some druggies were loitering around, completely dead to the world and getting high, lost in their world and some heavy make out sessions going on not far from the aforementioned gang, so he decided to land there. He felt his chakra flow waver but he managed to keep it balanced somehow, trying not to shake to much as they were approaching the ground.

"Are y-you ok?" They were slowly going down and Sakura`s empty stomach sank and got queasy in the same manner as when riding an elevator, but she put that on the a rack in the back of her head, because the moment she caught the way his eyebrows furrowed ever so softly, his forehead wrinkle, temples moisten with cold shivers of perspiration and lips slightly opened, worry nested into the golden cage of her pumping heart. "Sasuke?"

"Almost there." His voice was steady and silk smooth, divulging nothing of what he truly felt inside, however she brushed a fallen raven lock off his temple, where a tiny fine vein popping up, as an indomitable proof that he was focusing with all his might on something, and she suddenly felt guilty for creating havoc and force him into doing something that cost him a lot of energy. She bit her lower lip as Sasuke landed gracefully like a feather rolling down the sky, he gently bent down to let her legs slip from under his hands and touch the ground, steadying her.

Immediately, Sakura wrapped her right hand around his lean protruding shoulders, and the other fell on his chest, tugging at his shirt, while her heels did a soft click on the concrete, but out of reflex, she didn't let go of him and Sasuke did nothing to stop her from clinging to him either and once again she transgressed the barrier and stepped into his bubble, taking the chance to peep at his face and see his shoulders and stance relax all the while his eyes returned to the obsidian color. "This was insane!"

She the noticed how far from the amusement park they were, taking a look around to see an almost deserted parking lot, filled with cars of all types and some creeps wandering around minding their own business. "Sasuke, how did you do that? What was that?" He looked down at her, not responding to her question and she understood that it wasn't because he was trying to be impolite, but because it was probably an entire theory and history behind it and they were running out of time, but she couldn't help the tickles she got along her limbs and spine while he had a lazy mild grip around her waist, faces scooping so close to each other, eyes locked.

Should she kiss him? He was breathtakingly beautiful and what has just happened between them has not only been surreal, but extremely intimate and romantic as well, in a way she couldn't explain simply because her lips were not talking the language of her heart.

"Let's get back, shall we?" Sasuke breathed upon her face, letting her get intoxicated by his smell and breath fanning over her lips, he too wanted to kiss her but decided against it, since forcing himself on a woman was not elegant and reverential, so he let her decide the course of events and see what she wished for. Lead by the irresistible fascination she had for his entire being, Sakura arched her neck to come closer to him, but didn't press her lips on his. There was something that kept on preventing her to do it, constantly screaming at her that there was going to be a moment in their history when all the hesitation she felt would fly on the window as she wouldn't have any reticence to succumb into the yearning of her heart.

"Yes." They stayed entrapped into that moment for ten more seconds, until they heard a loud vicious gang passing them by, and it as in that moment when Sasuke`s hands fell from around her waist, slipping one into his picket, the other ruffling his rebel midnight hair, turning around to the rose haired woman, coaxing her into followed him back to the amusement park.

She quickly fell into steps with the Uchiha, who set up a lazy pace, mindful of the uncomfortable heels she wore, walking side by side and she wrapped his coat around her frame crossing her hands upon her chest, relishing into his smile and the warmth his cloth was providing. It felt like an incomplete date, she was...her heart was beating faster she was at the park, they had a stroll pace, crossing the parking lot, people, lights candles colors, happiness all around it was contagious.

But mostly...him. Without having any idea of what has come to her, Sakura started to smile uncontrollably like she has been hit by a Cupid`s arrow, getting poisoned with euphoria, she didn't know why her heart was fluttering like a restless bird striving to abandon its nest and claim its place on the infinite azurite sky, while her stomach was filled with a squirm of bees, making her innards waver and tremble and she felt like there was still no ground under her feet, even though her feet perceived the harshness of the abrasive concrete scraping under her slim heels. "What are you thinking about?"

"This feels like a dream. I don't want to wake up. I am afraid I will not like what I am going to see. I have been dreaming of this moment." As both of them made it back into the middle of the joyful beaming happy frenetic people, Sakura lifted her shimmering jadeite eyes to look at the multitude of crazy, intricate, inventive inviting rides and the jumping around bouncing couples. In the corner of her delighted dreamy orbs, she saw a flicker of a bright blazing pure red and sparkling golden, turning her head in the direction of the elegant fancy carousel.

"Can we ride that one?" She inquired, pointed her finger into the direction of it, while Sasuke followed her line of vision, narrowing his eyes, as it triggered an immixture of memories, embellished with a lots of feelings belonging to his childhood days. "Please. I know you feel uncomfortable, but we can leave right after that, I promise."

She shouldn't beg like that, Sasuke mentally added, for it was no big deal, and it was not that she has asked for anything scurrilous, outrageous or unattainable. He was used to impromptu occurrences in his life and he was used to do things he didn't like, plus, he didn't mind riding the Carousel with Sakura, it didn't bother him.

In fact, his legs robotically followed her where she was leading him, as her vivacious unique eyes that belonged to the forest raindrops and gold, her lyric smile, her empyreal bright aura has spell bounded him into bending to her coy simple request, as he nodded once following her. The rosette bloomed and smiled even wider, thanking him with those eyes that drowned him into her ocean of perennial adolescent jubilance and sensual womanhood, and for the first time in forever, his heart stopped beating for a nanosecond.

"Thank you!" She unconsciously gripped the hem of his sleeve, and dragged him after her, joggling all the way there. She was so beautiful in her childish angelic nonchalance and exuberance, dressed in a dress so light like her body was made of air and stardust, so feather like and fine, and his coat around her looked like a waterproof mark of his claim over her.

Sasuke bought them two tickets and stepped on the platform, waiting for Sakura to choose one of the proud gallant looking pony and he smirked when she gloated in exhilaration as she went straight for a pink horse, in the same shade as her avant garde hue of her floral long hair, while Sasuke took the dark one beside her, finding the subtle semblance something that would make his friend Hyuga Neji`s indomitable theory of destiny`s diligent mastery stand the test of time and logic.

Sakura carefully climb on it, side-saddling, since she was clad in a short dress that did little to conceal the modesty of her long slim gazelle legs and eagerly curled her fingers around the drop rod, smiling down at Sasuke, who simply leaned against the horse, in a similar stance as her, but more relaxed, having one hand wrapped around the rod, and the other resting into his pocket.

When they started to move, she started to giggle like a cherub taking his first journey on the puffy clouds, as the horse bobbled up and down, and since the pace was smooth and was slow and she could enjoy it to the maximum. Emerald delighted orbs stroll on the vivacious bright red and golden lights that embellished the elegant, velvet and glassy decorations, which all stole her breath away, there were mirrors and millions of colors reflecting the polished platform, that was glowing heavenly and the soft piano elegant music was creating a very retro romantic atmosphere.

Riding the carousel has always been part of a young girl`s arsenal, going back into the days where she would imagine herself exploiting the iconic panorama of the princess within her, exploring the fascinating world of symbolic childhood mementos, it being one of them. There were also many couples and enchanted pairs among the children and families, surrounding them and riding the carousel and Sakura fructified that chance to turned and stole a glance of Sasuke.

And he was, in fact, looking back to her, catching an chaste manifestation of a bright angelic smile, gleaming of exhilaration, joy emotion and gratitude. The elegant Carousel ride took him back into his childhood days, when his mom would bring him here and it was one of the last memories he had with his grandmother, before she moved from the city and retired to the countryside. Those were light and warm memories, filled with laughter and love and actually a particular memory danced within its mind, of an angelic Mikoto instructing him to bring his girlfriend here because riding carousels was something special, a fine veil between a fairytale love and reality.

And surprisingly enough Sakura was the first girl he brought there. Not his fiancé and not any other woman. His one soon to be spouse didn't enjoy carousels or amusement parks at all. She was crazy like the dobe, riding rollercoasters, he personality was vocal and boisterous. Totally unlike Sakura`s, who was a delicate ray of light, shyer, quieter, fragile celestial as a phantom of the wind.

Amidst the bright bell laughters, nocturne lights glowing around the touch of her beautiful hypnotizing smile, she was glowing brighter than all of the and outshined any tender sight of the overflowing happiness around, with the touch of innocence entrapped in every twinkle of her emerald orbs, as she turned in every possible direction, probably living inside her own reprimanded fairytale. And the way she shied away from his amused stare, as he totally caught her trying to catch a quick glance to him, blushing like a cherry blossom petal was extremely cute.

"I always wondered whether I would try to reach for a golden ring, if I were to ride the carousel." She didn't need to face him because Sakura knew that Sasuke was listening to her. "Am I another version of Phoebe?" Seeing that he didn't answer back, she turned her hear over her shoulder to face him, and he blinked once, making her confused and wonder whether he understood her.

"Have you read The Catcher in The Rye? I was blabbering about the-"

He cut her short, definitely getting the deeper implication of her poetic train of thoughts. His father has inflicted heavy education on him ever since he was an infant, so naturally he has read all the most representative books in literature, but the reason why Sasuke took so much to respond was due to the fact that he was busy looking at the way she stretched her hand towards the sky, looking like a swan bathing in the moonlight. "There is a Phoebe in all of us, when we came of age." He referred to the moment when all grow up and leave the age of innocence behind. His mind quickly did the parallel with the theme and the emblematic elements in the book. The Carousel was meant to be the symbolism of childhood, innocence and protection from the misery world of corrupted adults, while trying to reach dreams of growing up.

"I sometimes wish I didn't grow up." But there was another secluded meaning to the scene, which Sasuke was of course aware of it, coming to realize that Sakura didn't chose that particular book to engage him into a lyrical elevated conversation at random. During that scene, Holden, the main character, had the epiphany that he has been happy for the first time in his life, while witnessing the eternal innocence dancing around Phoebe`s character, as she was enjoying her carousel ride.

"Are you Holden, or Phoebe, Sakura?" Sasuke cryptically and smartly inquired, as he meant the kid or the adult who has discovered happiness, being emotionally washed by the image of a child reaching to her ideal and accomplish her dreams.

"Now, or in general?"

"The scene is symbolic and spontaneous." Sasuke cocked his head, just enough to let the longer strands of his midnight bangs fall along the outline of his sculpted fine his face. He unglued his tall frame from his horse and approached her, going behind her back as his hand encircled her shoulders, coming to coil around the rod, just above her own much smaller ones. There were many other couples who mirrored their stance, or simply held hands as they would ride beside one another and Sakura`s heart skyrocketed to Mars and back, at the speed of light. "You can't stop a child from growing up. Holden eventually realized it."

And by growing up, Sasuke meant both vampire and humans, as not even immortals could cheat on time and trick it into staying juvenile for eternity. "So it means you won't stop me if I were to try?" The dream, the ideal, the growing up were all symbols perfectly highlighted through the lines of the emblematic scene in the book, and Sakura actually saw people trying to get the golden ring and some even fell off the ponies, making the witnessing people laughed hard at their feeble attempt and she giggled along.

Sasuke leaned forward to whisper into the spiral of her ear shell, parting her hair on her side to cascade on her shoulder. "No. But I will make sure you will not fall." The words portrayed the notion of insurance, guardianship and shelter and Sakura couldn't help but blush at his velvet statement. He was so close to her that she could smell his ocean forest and fire scent, see his eyes as the onyx color glowed in the twinkling red and golden lights dancing around them, while the carousel rode its elegant pace, and Sakura found them playful, intriguing, inviting and tender.

"But Holden said that there is no problem in falling, because a child still must be left alone to try and grab it."

"Then don't fall." Sasuke simply advised, but the deeper meaning waved along the lines of taking care and never sway or falter from her purpose and dreams and fight for it with all her might, even acknowledging the risk of failing. "He eventually changed."

"Fine. Then watch me winning us a free ride then." She accepted his challenge and agreed to strive and see her dream unraveled before her eyes someday, so she stretched her hand when she was on the moment of grabbing the golden ring and Sasuke couldn't believe that he thought of her in a poetical, artistically way, as his mind flapped the scene of the book and made it transpiring in real life.

Some of the couples were trying to get the golden ring for fun, some were looking adamant, but Sakura had something that went beyond their ambitions, as her hand was so slim, graceful, her fingers danced in the silk nocturne starry sky, and when she brushed the golden band, the ring fell along two of her fingers. People and mostly children cheered and clapped at her, witnessing the scene of the beautiful pink haired lady taking the ring.

"I did it!" She turned to beam and flail at Sasuke, pushing her spread opened palm under his nose, while he smirked at her jovial childish behavior, but she looked so happy without even trying.

"Congratulations…for growing up." He playfully taunted her.

Was that an unadulterated manifestation of happiness that bloomrd into her heart? In the labyrinth of vivacious colors, spontaneous laughters, loving mothers with children, carefree families and cheesy couples, Sakura forgot entirely about Naruto and Hinata. In fact, she has forgotten her goddamned name, but she had Sasuke`s visage and words imprinted into her mind.

"Will you ride with me again?" Her nightingale suave voice tickled Sasuke`s ears, and he nodded once to her. Being all busy with living the span of the moment like it was the last spur of glee in her life, Sakura failed to realize the innuendo in her words, but Sasuke definitely caught it, though he was sentient of the innocence and purity churning into the depths of her artistic mind. Any other woman would have automatically thought of fucking him. But not her and that only drawn him into being more and more fascinated by her.

And that was why his answer has been silk and steadfast. "Yes."

Sakura didn't turn to face him again, but there was no way that Sasuke could miss the coy smile that was definitely distinctive for the one she had so far, blessing her lips, and he was almost tempted to smile himself at the way she inconspicuously and almost undetectably leaned her head on his stretched arm.

Heavens, if someone was to see him entrapped in that moment…

When the Carousel stopped, they wordlessly got off and Sasuke followed a jolly Sakura to exchange her ring for another ticket, being on the verge of tapping his pocket, take away his wallet and pay for an additional one for himself, when he caught the sight of a rooted in place jadeite eyed vivacious woman, following her line of vision to see whatever was she looking at so intently, his gaze softening right on the spot, ever so briefly. Sakura was gazing at a beggar child, and the little dirty image of the petite fragile looking girl, with golden curls cascading down her ruffled clothes, alone and looking longingly at the carousel, broke the rosette`s heart in half, as the image of a past self, strike her mind.

Her steps didn't miss a beat as she wordlessly approached the girl who in return turned to look at the mysterious slim shadow spanning at her feet and Sakura offered the ring to her so she could take the free ride, adding a honest small smile and a nod to go along with her gift. The girl bowed to her courtly, baby blue azurite big eyes twinkling with tears of joy.

Sakura`s eyes trailed to the delighted impatient girl as she took her ticket and jumped on the same pink horse that Sakura rode a minute ago, while she came to rest beside Sasuke. He on the other hand, couldn't believe the spontaneous and unaltered kindness of her heart, being similar to the exhilarating rich feeling of watching pure gold taking the shape of a fine piece of jewelry. She was so different from his selfish former fiancé. So. goddamn. different. She wasn't doing anything to impress another one, it was all so natural, candid and perfunctory.

"You made someone happy." He smirked down at her, while inwardly Sasuke added one more truth and that was that she was also making him happy, as well as that girl. Sakura turned on her heel and smiled to him, all the while her emerald orbs got even more glowing.

They stood like that, entrapped into each other`s presence, as random joyful unconcerned people passed them by, and everything went as natural as a mountain spring. Sasuke brought his hand on the level of her face, while he brushed a fallen lock of hair with the tip of his index finger, breathing in every single detail that crayoned a mesmerizing image of a beautiful beyond words woman, starting from the contrast of her glowing margarite smooth skin with the red dress, in the forbidden color of sumptuous wine and his long dark coat, her exotic features were being highlighted to the swell of madness.

Beautiful. She was beautiful like an angel, a bell flower and graceful like a swan.

Sakura`s breath halt on the journey to her chest when she felt Sasuke`s petal silk suave touch on her face. He was so gentle, a ray of light falling on her check, he was brushing his thumb on the outline of her rosy cheek and the heart shaped contour of her upper lip, the atmosphere was light, jolly, idyllic and romantic, his hand was so fine, so warm and he was so irresistible handsome. They slowly leaned forward, time freezing in the dusty pendulum, swings forgetting how to count down seconds, chins angling and aligning to mold perfectly, already being very close.

Their breaths fused in the span of lust, chemistry, want, need and desire. Sasuke sprawled his lean fingers along the outline of her jaw, cupping her cheek, tenderly, having the grace of a mother tending her newborn, and she half shut her eyes, senses going haywire, feeling everything, anticipating and wanting.

That was the moment she has waited for, that was the breath she has looked forward to feel spill on her upper lip, she could smell his scent, she perceived his alluring indomitable strength, grace, finesse and masculinity overwhelming her, she got electrically charged by the bolts of chemistry lingering around them, she felt tingles on her lips, her heart has stopped breathing as she almost felt the brush of his own lips against her, one more heartbeat and she would kiss him and he would give her the kiss she has been dreaming of-

"Busted!"

They pulled back like lightening has stricken between their almost touching mouths and touching foreheads, as Naruto's obnoxious intrusive howl cut their hearing and made Sakura almost jump, startled.

God, someone fucking put a sharp object –preferably a scythe or a really sharp blade- into his reeking hand so Sasuke could promptly and literarily take the scalp of that motherfuking imbecile dobe, who had the worst timing ever!

"Ah!" While Sakura was busy feeling her heart jump out of her chest, Sasuke was busy putting holes into Naruto`s skull and the sinister murderous doom glared he got from Sasuke was enough to haunt Naruto`s dreams for the upcoming two days. Seriously, the contorted way of his handsome features were so maleficent looking that the cerulean eyed half vampire had no doubt that if there wasn't anyone around beside the two of them to witness the things transpiring between them, Sasuke would have slit his throat in less than a blink of an eye.

"Are you out of your damn mind, Naruto?" Oh, the way he basically hissed the words in Naruto`s face, like a venom spilling snake fixing its prey and planning to neutralize it before eating it entirely, had the blonde wink even more. If anything, he would be damned if he was scared by the Uchiha`s glares or his lethal killer aura. So many decades spent in his proximity and skills to rival his own, left him immune to that, taking him to the other extreme where, the more brooding and bloody murderous Sasuke was, the more entertaining for Naruto it got.

Except from totally RUINING his chance to finally kiss Sakura as he itched to do ever since he first lied his eyes on her and had her in his arms, there was another thing that made Sasuke go crazy, namely the obvious way that brought Naruto exactly where they were, popping up out of nowhere in the middle of a freaking mass of people.

Was he high or that crack nuts?

That uber knucklehead who was in for a good beating, has used his father`s infamous Flying Thunder God Technique to teleport both Hinata and him to whatever place that Sasuke was, which wouldn't have bothered him that much, if he didn't freaking use it in a public packed place like an amusement park. He threw a quick glance around, to make sure that no one important has seen him, and, except from some kids and elders, no one particularly paid attention to him since they were looking at the rides absentmindedly.

He inwardly sighed and racked a hand through his hair, trying to calm down his raging bubbling nerves. One day, he would punch the idiot`s face so hard, that he would send him flying to the moon and stay there for eternity.

Of course, the blond didn't even bat an eyelash or pulled a single muscle, completely uncaring and unconcerned about the trouble and havoc he might have caused, resuming in taunting Sasuke for making a move on the girl. "You ditched us to go on a date, didn't ya?" he pointed his finger accusingly to the pair, having the time of his life. "How did you two got off the wheel?"

"None of your damn business."

Naruto's grin went even wider, guessing that he used one ridiculously flashy signature move to impress Sakura, though he couldn't quite pinpoint what exactly, since he kept his eyes on their gondola and from what he has seen, Sasuke didn't use Sussano`o to fly, as he would have anticipated, because the peculiar purple halo of light hasn't beamed, meaning he used another technique. "You are such a bastard. Did we interrupt something?" He winked to a red beat Sakura, who prayed for someone to stop the blonde.

"Wipe that idiotic look on your face off, dobe or I am going to do it myself."

Naruto still couldn't believe his eyes that Sasuke was actually trying to kiss Sakura and out on his own free will, without being drunk. It was too surreal to be true. For his friend to be willing to give love a another chance, was something that the cerulean eyed Uzumaki prayed for and Sakura was, in his opinion, the perfect candidate. She was sweet, but shrewd, shy, but intuitive and wise, cute, but extremely beautiful and she probably had a kind heart similar to his girlfriend. Hinata took her hand and tugged her on her side, while Sasuke was busy scolding Naruto for not being cautious, risking so much to expose them. "D-Do you l-like ice cream?"

It was in the moment Sakura heard Hinata asking her that, did she remembered she set her mind on buying some ice cream if she got the chance to visit and amusement park, but, not surprisingly, everything faded ni the distance when in the company of Sasuke. "Yes! I want a big one with chocolate, caramel and a lot of white chocolate drizzle."

Hinata nodded in agreement, applauding her choice of flavor and smiled to the rosette, vaguely hearing Sasuke still growling at the blonde haired Uzumaki things that came pretty close to insults, but probably forced vulgarities back since they were not alone and in their company. It was funny to witness them, even for her. "I like c-chocolate and p-pistachio." She declared, already having in mind the image of a big ice cream to sweeten her day. Hinata loved ice cream, just like Ino, they were addicts and finding another partisan to add to their group, was not something bad at all. "N-Naruto-kun," said boy whipped his head on his side, hearing the soprano jingle of his girlfriend, grinning at her, while totally leaving Sasuke blabber. "l-let`s b-buy ice-cream."

"It's a deal!" That was a delighted gourmand and Sasuke promptly rolled his eyes at the totally cautious less blonde Uzumaki not believing his eyes how oblivious could he be. Countless of times, Sasuke had to cover for Naruto and Heaven knew how did they manage to not expose the fact that they were not human. "C`mon Teme, you can brood and bitch while we walk."

"I swear I will murder you sometime."

"On his retarded emo language," Naruto encircled both Hinata and Sakura`s shoulder, while chuckling to Sakura. "it means he loves me." Laughter filled their mouths at Naruto`s confession, because the blonde didn't hold back to call the infamous Uchiha Sasuke names, like he deemed fit, while Sasuke only deepened the glare he was shooting Naruto`s skull with, with no effect. And he ruined his kiss with Sakura. He wanted to strangle the blonde.

It didn't take long to spot a pretty fancy French white and blue cart loaded with appetizing ice cream assortments. Sasuke and Naruto joined the long line, while the girls poked their heads through the other customers to decide which flavor would they like to have, all looking mouthwatering and extremely inviting. And when a woman decides for ice cream, it takes her just as long as to choose the favorite pair of shoes.

"I am keeping an eye on you, Bastard." Naruto groaned at him while keeping an eye on Hinata and Sakura, who seemed to have burst into an animated philosophical conversation about chocolate and vanilla. Good God, Shikamaru was right, women were scary and weird sometimes.

Sasuke shot an eyebrow up to assess the wannabe threat coming from his friend, finding it funny how the dobe was protecting Sakura from him, probably thinking that he would jump on her neck and leave her dry and dead. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You know very well what." Said Uzumaki dug his hand into his pocket and popped up a small transparent bottle with red oval pills and threw one into his mouth. "If you are honest about her, then I will cheer for you. But if your intentions are dirty, I will beat up your ass."

"You do realize that I can go on without any, for more than two months, right?"

"I know better than to assume anything about you, Sasuke. You hardly fall into any category, since you are not a stereotype." There was no visible amused or goofy fragment present into his voice, Naruto was dead serious and it was a posture that totally didn't suit him. "And neither is she."

"I am aware of that."

Meanwhile, Hinata whispered to Sakura while looking at assortments. "S-Sasuke-kun s-swore he w-would never ride the c-carousel with a-anyone, b-beside his mother. H-He didn't e-even took his f-fiancé there."

Astonishment nourished Sakura`s disbelief, jade gleaming eyes going wide as saucers, upon hearing Hinata`s confession. "No way! But why? I assume is not because he is scared, is he?"

It was not that Sasuke was truly an unemotional jerk, with an aversion for social contact or an anxious disorder, he being sociable with the ones who deserved his attention, being really selective in the people he allowed in his circle and that was the reason why he was laid back and hardly trusted the others without knowing them first.

Even though Naruto barely forced two words out of his mind, trying to beat him to a pulp into telling his friends the exact reason why he was so adamant in not taking his girlfriend on a tour in the amusement park, especially the acclaimed traditional romantic Carousel, but he couldn't tell for sure whether Sasuke simply found it juvenile, inconsequential and stale, or because Mikoto used to take him and his brother there, so he didn't want to taint the image of innocence he had in his mind, as a recollected memory of his childhood days. "I-I don't know. M-My guesses are t-that he w-wants to preserve the image o-of untouched innocence. I-I don't know a-about his future b-bride though." Even if she could detect Hinata`s attempt to taunt her a bit, Sakura felt her heart miss a beat –a thing that was very frequent while in the presence of Sasuke and honestly she had no idea how to deal with that floral flow of events.

"I didn't know. And there I was, asking him whether he would ride with me again. I won a golden ring, but gave it to a beggar kid." Hinata was stunned and her lilac pearl crystal eyes bloomed wide like the ring of the fool moon. Sasuke was willing to ride the Carousel again? Well, it was not that hard to envision his attraction towards the rosette, since she was the iconic image of innocence and Hinata had a sudden epiphany. Since Sasuke was pure himself, in terms of uncorrupted ambitions and humanitarian dreams, he was most likely naturally attracted to a honest counterpart, which was Sakura.

And she has snatched a well-known ring during her Carousel ride…a golden ring...with multiple meanings and parallel possibilities. She couldn't help but inwardly flail and squeal. Ino would adore that hot piece of gossip and she would definitely land destiny a hand and help them work things out, in her own fashionable way.

"I-I was never a-able to grab a g-golden ring. Naruto-kun t-took one for me. H-His hand is longer." They laughed heartedly while envisioning a foxy boisterous energetically Naruto, struggling to get his hands on a golden ring. When asked what assortment of ice cream they would like, the two girls had almost the same flavors on their lips, all leading to a lot of chocolate! Because they were ladies and chocolate was their sworn sister and best friend.

Meanwhile, Naruto was doing a very good job in annoying the living daylights out of Sasuke, who mentally listed all the subtle ways he had under his sleeve to bloody murder the blabbering idiot, in a way that wouldn't cause havoc or attract unwanted attention, fighting the itch to slap his nape just to see him choke on his spit. Maybe he would die of suffocation. "Good. Cos if you hurt her, I will shove that all ice cream cart down your throat." Naruto on the other hand, was having fun giving his raven haired brooding emo friend a fatherly talk, regarding how to properly woo a lady, plus he knew that Sasuke loathed ice cream or any desserts for the matter, which only doubled his fun. "And then tell Ino and Ten Ten that you disrespected a lady. They will castrate you." There was a slightly horrified look on the Uchiha`s face and Naruto cackled at him, knowing it all too well that Sasuke`s distress was justifiable, since Ten Ten and Ino would do it without batting an eyelash, be it Uchiha heir or not.

A wide ass grin rose on his goofy tanned face as he followed the silhouettes of Hinata and Sakura coming their way, both having their respective huge ice creams, as they both stuffed their cones with all possible chocolate assortments. A quick peek at his onyx eyed Uchiha friend almost sent him into hysterics. Sasuke felt sick and he definitely had a suggestive digested expression on his face.

How could someone shove those things down their throats, was beyond his level of understanding. Eating sugar was already disgusting enough, but eating frozen sugar was completely irrelevant, pointless and imbecile. Nonetheless, all his revolt against the world of sweets left his mind, the moment Sakura started to eat her own bloody ice cream, following the way her rosy tongue slowly whirled around the rim of the cone, licking the melting ice cream so that it won't leak down, coming from the base to the top of it, bobbling her lips down on a chocolate ball, suckling on it. He couldn't believe that Sakura could turn such a guilt-free activity as eating ice cream, into something erotica that had him gulp once, feeling his all muscles tense and blood amass in places it shouldn't. He turned to look at his blonde friend, who was having a knowing grin on his face, totally catching the way his friend was salivating at the innocent jolly Sakura and her peculiar way of enjoying her dessert, arms crossed upon his broad chest and Sasuke could feel it in his demeanor that Naruto was mentally cracking up, laughing his ass out at him.

A deep death scowl appeared on Sasuke`s face, seeing that Naruto had the audacity to wink at him, having a telepathic conversation between men`s secret language, about the wonders that women could do to lure them men ,without doing anything explicit. Sasuke decided on the spot that the idiot would soon be dead. "This is better than I thought!" Sakura jubilated yowling like a kid, as she and Hinata exchanged cones to tasted from each other`s ice creams.

It was Sasuke`s turn to smirk knowingly at the way Naruto`s face drawn of all the color, being suddenly paler than a wall in an insane asylum. While the azure eyed Uzumaki had his fair share of perverseness in him, he was nowhere imaginative and naughty as Sasuke, but seeing the exchange of…ice cream, between the girls made his head spin.

"C-Can we r-ride the tea cups?" Hinata found herself suggesting, not in the mood to call it a day and go home, because despite the unpleasant incident with a broken Ferry Wheel –they still didn't fix it- she was having fun along her boyfriend, her childhood Uchiha friend and the newest member of their group, Sakura.

Oh, wasn't life sweet?

Naruto didn't miss a beat totally snatching the opportunity to have fun, spending quality time with his lover and new friend, Sakura, glee like an delighted idiot without a care in the world and, not to mention, laugh at the way they were basically forcing someone like Uchiha Sasuke in all sorts of blinding colorful childish and dumb rides. Entertainment at its finest, he was contemplating the idea of taking photos just for the heck of blackmail. "Sure!"

Sakura`s jadeite orbs landed on the said tea cups and she quite liked the idea. They were cute and not dangerous and not to mention feminine and elegant. Sasuke on the other hand, had an indecipherable expression on his face and inwardly all the other three laughed at him because they figured he wouldn't like to be caught dead –twice- riding tea cups in an amusement park. Seriously, not even his childhood friend could decrypt the way his onyx orbs were flaming like burning charcoals, while his face had a sinister tranquility and unperturbed disdain for the poor tea cups.

His guesses were that Sasuke was mentally cursing them all to Hell and back.

"Ladies, if you would be so kind to choose a color." As Hinata and Sakura contemplated and pointed their fingers on the motionless cups, beaming of all the colors of the rainbow, Naruto prayed they would choose the most girly one. And when they turned to exclaim their chose of color –a hysterical bright flashing pink, with white and red decorations on the rim- Naruto threw his head back and burst out in a vicious mad laughter, while Sasuke simply couldn't stop himself. He kicked Naruto`s ribs once, not so gentle, but he was subtle enough so that he wouldn't make a fool of himself, making the blonde choke on his own spit, which was even better because on their way to the horrendous and outrageous should be banned from existence tea cups, the idiot has bought himself a hot dog and loaded it with mustard and ketchup, which was half spread around his mouth and nose. God was he a major imbecile.

Quickly paying for the tickets, the group got into the pink cup, much to Sasuke`s horror, sitting in circle with the girls safely seated in between Sasuke and Naruto. The moment they started to spin and whirl around, Sakura and Hinata already had grins beaming like the moon above.

Naruto on the other hand glued his amused cerulean orbs on his friend who looked like he would rather be somewhere else, throwing weary glances around, probably praying for no one to recognize him.

His apparently long time practice self-control and stoicism only lasted until the moment he spotted his freaking older brother riding a purple one with his fiancé.

Naruto followed his line of vision, seeing that his onyx eyed friend had a consternated pissed off expression on his face, guessing it was probably some good material and promptly dropped his jaw. "Oh my fucking-"

"-Don't even think about it." Sasuke warned him, making a form of a sinister growl at the back of his throat, cutting him short and his menacing baritone voice was enough to silence Naruto up for good, preventing him from howling at Itachi and make their presence known.

He sunk into the cup, leaning backwards, as much as his high stature would allow it, and placed a hand on his forehead. If Itachi that bloody taunting weasel saw him ride the tea cups in an amusement park, in the vicinity of Sakura from all the people, he will never hear the end of his mockeries. Never! That damned weasel was vicious and vindictive, plus he loved to mock his younger brother to no end. Good thing he was busy sucking faces with his fiancé, totally blind at whatever happened around them.

Sakura, seeing the odd behavior of Sasuke and Naruto`s failing attempts to stifle his cackles, turned to inquire the reason of the awkward thick atmosphere. "What? What are you guys looking at?"

"Nothing."

"Sasuke-Teme's cool brother is riding the tea cups with his fiancé." Naruto said in the same time, making the rosette`s forest green orbs shimmer.

"Really?" She shifted her eyes from Naruto to the other cups, trying to pinpoint the man that looked two drops like Sasuke and his beautiful fiancé. "Where?" Her scouting eyes were gyroscopes, studying each and every cup, while Hinata quickly spotted them and pointed her finger in said direction, to let Sakura know of their whereabouts.

"T-There. The purple one."

"Oh?" She turned to look at Sasuke, since the man was cuddling with the beautiful lady and she couldn't help but notice how look alike they were, but Itachi looked more of a retro aristocratic beauty while Sasuke was the stunning type who caught the eye and made heads turn. "He is so much like you!"

"He is another species of a nitwit bonehead, like this blonde one and secretly has the mental age of a three years old. Damn sweets obsessed freak..." Sasuke continued to muttered some more obscenities and Sakura couldn't help but giggle along Hinata and Naruto. He was brooding to slits but there was no hate in his words, only a brotherly bicker and most likely rivalry. Yup, relatives could be embarrassing.

Seeing that Naruto wanted to wave his hands at them just to taunt Sasuke, the Uchiha shot to him, in a way that had them all cower and wince. "If you flutter that hand, Uzumaki, you are going to lose it." And his was talking about his dominant one, as the Uzumaki quickly caught his implication-the right one. The symbol of yang, of the child of the sun.

"Oi, stop being so anti-social. you make us look bad and scare the kids."

As if on cue, from the honking golden huge teapot swirling in the middle of the cups, soap bubbles of all the imaginable gleaming colorful blew over the cups, enchanting the others, especially the kids, and Hinata and Sakura couldn't help but stretch their hands towards the sky to catch some in their palms.

Sasuke decided right on the spot that he wanted down and an aspirin.

Seven minutes. Seven fucking minutes of torture and Sasuke was the first to shot up from that atrocious...pink cup tea, grabbing Sakura`s hand and making Hinata and Naruto dash behind him, struggling to follow his large strides. He stopped only when he decided that he was at a safe distance from whatever possible dreadful encounter with Itachi and Konan. "What the hell Teme? We could have greeted Itachi and Konan-chan, ya know?"

"I would rather not." Konan was talkative feminist and a defender of the recognition of equal rights between sexes in a patriarchal society and protective soul by nature and his brother was mocking him and treat him like a kid, even though he was hardly a proud embodiment of innocence and juvenility.

Sakura on the other hand was crimson red laughing, enjoying the feeling of his warm soft hand enlaced with her own, finding it funny how Sasuke, even though he was a vampire, was having reminiscent figments of a normal mortal side, such as making a run for it when stumbling upon a relative. she was looking at their intertwining fingers, seeing that he hasn't let her go, as if it was a silent comfortable mutual agreement. Hinata caught it too, and tucked Naruto's sleeve in order to discreetly let him know about their silent trust. He grinned and nodded once, liking where that was going and the inborn unconscious responses of their bodies, while in each other`s presence.

"So? What's next?" Naruto beamed with energy like he was on high sugar rush, for he wanted to try the rollercoaster.

Hinata on the other hand spoke Sakura`s mind. "I-It is g-getting l-late. I suggest w-we call it a day."

"Yes. I am tired."

Oh FINALLY! It was everything that washed Sasuke`s mind and he didn't even give Naruto the chance to protest. "Let`s go." He wasted no more time in whirling Sakura`s wrist and taking her with him, as Naruto slipped a hand around Naruto`s, following Sasuke and Sakura sticking close to them, so that they won't lose the track of one another among the overcrowded place.

"Why so eager to go home so badly, Bastard?"

"Kindly go die, dobe."

They didn't rush to get to the parking lot, casually strolling and slipping past the amass of bubbling loud people and Sakura`s emerald orbs constantly drifted to their intertwined palms, while she couldn't explain the sensation of warmth she felt creeping up her body, in the form of a lingering pleasant soft energy making her insides tingle and her heart effervesce. she felt...happy? was that real happiness she was experiencing?

Sasuke was not even trying, he was so gallant, so gentleman, so graceful and caring, almost...loving. He was not suffocating her, he was watching her silently, not demanding and possessive, he knew the right dosage of intimacy like when he came in the carousel and...

He made her fly.\

LITERARILY, they FLIED!

As if karma was playing in their favor, shimmering bursting fireworks exploded on the night sky, as they all stopped to watch.

"Look, Sakura-chan, they have fireworks on your birthday!" Naruto smartly put two and two together and silently, Sasuke decided that his statement was the only intelligent thing he said that day.

It was so weird. She wished to watch fireworks with someone, she would go alone and on festivals or New Year but she was cold sad and alone. But she would go anyways.

The rosette and Hinata wow-ed when they made huge pink and purple rings then poured golden stars like star dust in the middle of them. Sasuke on the other hand, flickered his gaze to the young enchanted woman beside him, then racked a hand through his hair.

What was that? He kept on telling himself that he was only acting the way he did, because he wanted to keep his part of his promise, but...nothing he did felt forced, nothing was compromise, it didn't come to him as an obligation, it lacked the tension of a task he had to handle, everything being pure reflex as a man, and he was free to be himself.

Well, as much of his usual self as he could be, because riding cups and carousels was not exactly his style and his definition not entertainment was slightly different.

As more fireworks were embellishing the nocturne sky, keeping all the eyes up to follow the explosion of shimmering twinkles, Sasuke`s thoughts drifted back to the past, when his mother would take him to amusement parks, riding carousels and buying sweets, giving back warmth and he had that epitome of suave innocence and love, but Sakura...she did nothing to taint that image, because she was even more angelic than Mikoto. It suited her so much. Like the first kid love the girl next door he grew up to. That was why he didn't bring his former fiancé there. It only dawned to him that she...has never been so angelic. Never.

For fifteen minutes, star shapes, rings and lines of stardust continued to mesmerize their eyes, as fireworks burst in all the colors of the rainbow, much to the two ladies` delight. The moment it was over, a pleasant silence lingered between them as they walked all the way back to the parking lot.

"Teme, did Ino call?"

Sasuke knew that his friend was trying to question him about the cake that Ino swore she would deliver, among other promises of brutal impalement and threats of losing certain body parts for only letting her plan something like that, so late. "Not yet."

"I will call her then and see if she is ready with the...delivery."

Before Naruto had the chance to become even more suspicious, Hinata`s phone buzzed inside her clutch as her fingers fumbled down to gasp he beeping device, moonlight eyes glued to the screen, going wide as saucers, horrified and petrified. it was Hiashi, her father who probably found out about her little escapade and wasn't all that impressed by her rebel behavior.

Damn her cousin for not being able to keep a secret properly. Naruto, sensing the worry oozing from his lover`s every fiber, softly tapped her shoulder, dropping his cerulean eyes on the screen. "What is the matter?" Then he opted for an equally horrified expression as Hinata`s, which made Sasuke rose an eyebrow at the odd acting pair. "Uh-oh..."

Gulping once, placing a hand on her chest, Hinata squeezed her orbs shut and answered the call, her voice no louder than a mice`s. "Yes? F-Father?" Sakura observed how the gentle lady turned all anxious and looked like she was in the verge of crying. It was the same feeling that Sakura experienced each time she had to turn back to her foster home, so she totally understood her.

"What happens? Who is she talking to?" She turned to ask a motionless Sasuke, who was keeping hi onyx eyes glued to Hinata`s back, who had a hand on her unoccupied ear, not quite hearing clearly for the laughters and screams reached all the way to the back of the park.

"Her father." He told her that they don't approve of her relationship, and although Sakura didn't hear what Hinata told but she nodded once in understanding and her face sunk, feeling extremely sorry for the pair`s unfortunate harsh situation and for the fact that they weren't free to express their love without boundaries and restraint, just like a true love should be. It was heartbreaking and teary, but also extremely unfair. A lump formed down her throat at the view of a bright angelic Hinata`s aura turning a mass of grey thunderstorm clouds, lingering on her shoulders, as her all stance screamed for help and understanding.

"I-I am s-sorry, I-I h-have t-to go." She turned around to let them know, apology and sadness written all over her soft features. "F-Father has f-found out I was m-missing."

"I will go with you. Don't worry." Naruto was quick to fold her hands around her petite frame as she quickly embraced him back, hiding her face into his chest, with her nose resting upon his heart, being extremely serious, no trace of playfulness or goofiness carved into his tanned face. "Sorry guys, I am afraid you will be on your own."

Sasuke got the silent meaning of his words, understanding that he had to take care of the cake part. He nodded to his friend, as their gazes locked for a brief, soundlessly transmitting to his blonde friend that he had his undivided support and in case that something really grave was to happen, he would be by his side in a heartbeat, taking his side. Inwardly he was sorry for Naruto but he appreciated his friends loyalty to Hinata and openly cheered for him in front of Hyashi or anyone else. If anything, Sasuke`s lion wild spirit was an indescribable support for them, plus, the Uchiha was faithful and devoted to his friends. He has always been.

"Will you be all right?" Sakura asked Hinata, her tone reeling with worry and sympathy. If there was something she could do for the lavender eyed Hyuga, she would do it and she knew that the short curtly nod she has given her, was only half-heartedly. It was all written in her eyes, she simply didn't want to return home, and she would probably run with Naruto in a place that no one would find them. Something told Sakura that what happened was not the first time occurrence.

"y-Yes. D-Don't worry." After a short round of farewells, without any other unnecessary cheesiness and a short embrace, Naruto jumped into his orange care and speeded up down the streets, while Sakura followed the thin line of smoke oozing from the vehicle, until she lost its sight into the swallowing darkness, slipping into the passenger`s seat, beside Sasuke.

"Hinata's father...why is it such a sin for Naruto to be half a vampire? He clearly loves Hinata and respects her and she loves him back."

Sasuke kept eyes on the road, even though the streets were pretty empty, save for some machos and pirates of the road, who were passing them at top speed, claiming the night streets for themselves. Nonetheless, he was paying attention to his pink haired company and didn't hide the truth from her. "Hinata is the heir of the clan. A very prominent one. People would talk, their influence would waver. They cannot let this happen, as a leader. He is torn between duty for clan and as a father."

Something that his father Fugaku was not, simply because he dedicated all his attention and efforts into being the absolute leader of their family and not bothering himself with trivia details, such as his younger son.

"This is so unfair."

"No one said duty is fair, but each has to decide upon his judgment and the best interest of his family and sometimes, those two concepts don't have cohesion. It doesn't mean he doesn't love his daughter or doesn't want the best for her."

"But you have told me that Hinata`s dad doesn't agree with Naruto?"

"It is nothing personal. He just isn't from a prominent family, though his father has been an admirable noble man and his mother is from a reputed family. Not as great as the Hyuga, whose history starts from hundreds of years ago, but they are definitely part of the aristocracy. They lost most of their wealth due to some unfortunate circumstances. It was hard for Kushina-san to be the head of a clan who was already short on members and scattered all over the world. They have never been a compact clan nor did they have a terrific leader to get them united. I hoped the dobe would someday try and bring them together, but I am afraid that his big heart and his trust in the others, is not enough to compensate for his weaker part, which is the shrewd mind and logic."

"This is something that you have. You are an intelligent man, Sasuke. And you are also his friend." What intrigued Sakura was the reason why doesn't he help his friend back then or in any other time, but what she didn't know was the fact that Sasuke was one of the most vivacious defender of their relationship and had absolutely no restrain in using his position and family name into silencing the gossiping opposing mouths and stand before Hyuga Hiashi, defending Kushina and her son and certainly, no one would dare to disrespect him and it was not entirely because he was an Uchiha, but because Sasuke`s merits outshined the inheritance of his royal lineage.

"IT is more complicated There are other wealthy families of a great tradition who wouldn't accept another potential threat to rise and knock on their doors. They are having their personal exclusive circle and hardly accept rebel vampires who like to follow their heart and don't particularly stick to traditions." Sasuke explained to Sakura, who tried to understand the circumstances better and take as much as she could from Sasuke`s words and if the Uchiha vampire told her that it was more complicated, she believed him, because a man like him would never overreact or exaggerate facts. "My family was one of them." She understood it from his acrimonious caustic tone that he was ripped between his morals, his friends and family.

Sasuke run a hand through his ruffled velvet hair, leaning his left elbow on the window, lazily driving with one hand. "The world of vampires sounds more like a political battle than supernatural." Sakura couldn't help but surmise, based on what Sasuke was enfolding before her and actually, the moment she has come to learn about the world of vampires and understand their existence, she has expected a little more action and supernatural touch, but it seemed that the internal problems that rammed the countries from the inside, transgressed the world of vampires and it was, in fact, nothing so fascinating about having vampires fight for power, using wicked machinations to cling to their honor and position within their secret society. Money was also involved in the equation and that made her feel disgusted.

Definitely Sasuke knew exactly what kind of thoughts were running through Sakura`s analytical mind. "It is. Politics and selfish interests know no race and ambition makes no discrimination. Be it vampire or humans, they would always seek for power, wealth and reputation, but most of all, acceptance from the others. Who is not with them or obediently follow their rules, is a rebel."

"Like you?"

"And the others."

"You guys are awesome to fight for what you believe. I admire that." She was speaking the truth. While she has been the one to cuddle with the idea of suicide, choosing the easiest and most cowardly way, there were creatures like Sasuke who refused to let their voices be taken and that only made her wanna die out of shame. She never felt more pathetic compared to the others. "You make me look like a total loser." Because she has decided to give it up just like that, without even conducting a proper fight. A true hero died in battle, not licking his wounds, watching from the sidelines, as legends were born. Sasuke was proving it to her.

"If you want to die, then what was the use to have lived so far? How can you just end it like this, without remorse?" If anything, Sasuke couldn't simply comprehend Sakura`s motifs to even flirt with the idea of taking her own life, when there were so many possibilities to fully exploit and fructify the fact that she was young and free to decide for herself, with the power of her mind. She wasn't stupid as well and that only intrigued and puzzled him more. He didn't get her way of coming up with such a solution, not to mention he truly felt sorry for her. Letting Sakura die would be a waste for the society. The rosette still had more to offer but didn't get the chance to shine.

Sakura knew that Sasuke was a honest man, who didn't like to beat around the bush, his family`s upbringing and probably the pressure of the society has made him so blunt, but even if she knew he was so right, his words had the gift to cut deep into the wound, and it hurt her to the point he angered her. "You shouldn't talk since you don't know what I have been going through!" If she has raised her voice at him, she didn't mean to but she didn't realize she was being impolite. "Do you really think that I have not tried to change my life?"

Sasuke on the other hand, remained totally unperturbed and calm as ever. He would never fall prey to the temptation and the mistake to raise his voice and lose his cool, when his interlocutors did. It was the easiest way to degenerate into a conflict. Plus, he had more class than to argue and lose control. "Then you haven't given it your all, because someone who tries his very best, will always strive to surpass the one he has been yesterday and not decide to end his life."

There was a lien of fire burning under her eyelashes, as her green garnet eyes got crystalline and salty drops have aligned with the rim of her curbed long lashes. She has never realized how a man`s words, even sincere and lacking will intent, cut hurt so bad and Sakura was convinced that the effect was emphasized by the fact that Sasuke was someone whose opinion she respected and trusted. But she was powerless in front of her condition as a woman and she was sensitive. "I am not like you." She whispered, afraid he would detect the tears she was fighting to hold back, in her quivery voice. "You weren't alone." If there was something that angered Sakura was to cry in front of the others. Tears were meant to be shared between her, the moon and the sky above, a secret confined within her heart, then she would wipe them away and shine. But never present that weakness in front of the others, and definitely not in front of someone like Sasuke, who evoked so many emotions inside her heart.

Where were the pleasurable chills and the warmth of security she felt minutes ago, when they rode the Carousel, when he showed her how amazing was to fly, when he held her hand or when he tried to kiss her? He was also sincere back then and Sakura wouldn't be a hypocrite and admit that he didn't try to hurt her in any way. His sincerity was the way he repaid people for being loyal to him.

What Sakura didn't learn about Sasuke, was the way he has estranged from anyone, after he broke up with his fiancé. It was not like they were there to collect the pieces, he was the one to declare war to his family run from home, even change his college, support his brother and his best friend and there was no one beside his mother but he needed more than a good word.

He needed a real support and Naruto too had problems, as well as his older brother who ruthlessly cut the roots with his family`s traditions and run away with only a bag full of dreams, a half empty wallet and a ravishing beautiful mortal, who loved him tenderly. "Especially on night time...moon is the cruelest of judges." He started cryptically and Sakura could detect the hurt in his voice, solitude and tiredness. "Because it fools you. Not everything that shines radiates warmth. That is the time...when it swallows you." Solitude. Each to his own home and he would switch the light off silence screaming the truth of his loneliness since there is no one to pierce it.

Not even his own HEARTBEAT. That ticking was not a REAL HEARTBEAT. And then, there was Sakura talking to him about solitude. The merciless seclusion that transgressed from the void into his life caused by the one he loved, to the sepulture of his cold abandoned heart.

"I know what you mean." She then gulped once feeling a mild comfortable with the heavy restless blackout, nibbling her lower lip in anxiety, pondering whether she should ask him about what she has found out from Hinata or not, since he brought that up. "You haven't told me that...you had a...f-fiancé."

She didn't miss it, she saw it in the tinted window glass even if she didn't have the guts to face Sasuke, the way he tightened his hold on the steering wheel and as a human, she felt the rising tick atmosphere. You could cut it with a knife; it felt like it was strangling her. She was tempted to tell him to stop being silent...stop that silence it was killing her, it reminded her of a mistake in the spur of a moment. Sasuke has been so gallant so gentleman and her curiosity strike like a cleaver hitting ice. a sculpture made of ice and she destroyed the art between them.

it was silent for ten minutes, during which Sakura has ticked the seconds inside her mind, following the rhythm of her mad speeding heart and it was suffocating. Even the air turned awkward and uncomfortable, but she remained frozen and refused to move a muscle afraid that something bad would happen.

Sasuke wasn't mad at Sakura for having asking him such a thing. He was way past that woman and he was hardly someone to mourn over spilled milk for so long. He knew that Hinata wouldn't keep silent and he could bet his money that they were talking about them when Naruto caught them whispering. That was why Sakura locked gazes with him and looked almost so...disappointed? Sad? Surprised? He couldn't decrypt that emotion.

But he didn't know what to tell her. he was trying to forget those memories, even if he knew he should cherish the beautiful memories, but they were not part of his life anymore, it has been a long time, he cut her roots out of his mind, he was way past everything, shock, sadness, tears, he left him broken, shallow, there was a hollow in his heart, he could even hear the wind blowing through the cave of his chest, screaming silence, she was history, she belonged to the past, to the demons, to the memories, she was...

"Dead." He whispered softly to the emerald eyed woman, whose heart shot to her throat, making her flinch, not expecting him to answer her, and his voice didn't sound like his confident velvet baritone, for it was strangled, void of feeling, of inflexion, like his thoughts had not rhythm and if Sakura would have breathed -she didn't- she would have missed it.

"What?"

"She is dead. My former fiancé. I find it futile and ineffectual to talk about phantoms of the past. It is the future the one I am interested in." She was surprised and pained to hear him talking so cold emotional and heartless about the woman that was once so important to him, like it never mattered.

It almost pained her. Hinata told her he used to love her so much, yet from the nonchalant way to refer to her as trivia and ineffectual infuriated her. "But you used to l-love her, didn't you?" Why wasn't she shutting up? Her mind was screaming at her to stop walking on thin ice, but her mouth couldn't shut up, she couldn't stop even if alarming bells were alerting her brain to stop, she didn't. "She was important to you, you wanted to marry her!"

He was mentally counting down to ten, doing zen meditation, anything, everything to stop her from entering his mind again, to not snap at her, because it was not her fault that Sakura has found out about something so trivial, but it was human nature to find romance interesting, romance meant exploiting a weakness, loving and adoring someone was a fragility of his strong character, reminding him of how imperfect and vulnerable and prove that no character is indomitable.

He prayed in his mind for her to stop, but she refused to read the ancestral signs of discretion and shut her mouth. "This is not your business."

He tried to cut her short hoping she would understand. He has underestimated her unyielding independent demanding inquisitive personality, but it was him the one who refused to evoke the memories he was trying to forget back into his mind. Sakura grew on the streets, vulnerable, abused, without rules. She had a fragment from everything and having taken the worst blows and he tried his best to put himself into her shoes and decipher that curiosity.

"Hinata told me she is...was a human. I cannot help but relate to her, this is why I am intrigued." She was starting to get scared for a reason that she couldn't comprehend, but it was charging through every pore. That person clearly didn't love him enough if she chose to spend the rest of eternity with him, but she didn't imagine why would she trick a man like Sasuke, let alone deny him.

"This is preposterous and your logic is ludicrous if you think that you are anything like she used to be." What Sasuke truly meant behind his calloused words, was that Sakura was better than his fiancé, more graceful, and undeniably superior.

But Sakura ruined everything with her next statement just because she has misunderstood and misinterpreted his crude affirmation, feeling deeply insulted. She wouldn't take it, not from him and not that night. "I never dared to compare myself to anyone, especially someone that was so important to you, but I would definitely make my intentions clear from the beginning and not toy with the other`s feelings. Especially not the ones I love."

"What are you talking about?" She almost filched at the way he clicked his tongue on each syllable that left his mouth and she could see he was pissed off by the way his teeth were gritting ,his sharp jaw was clenched to the point she could hear his fine sharp bones crack, but she was too her blood boiled.

"If she didn't love you enough, then why would she go as far as to entice you to marry her, just to turn around in the end, and walk away and leave you behind?"

Wheels scratched down the abrasive empty road, smoke whirled around the shiny vehicle as it came to an abrupt halt, while Sasuke pulled the car on the right side of the road, jerking the steering wheel with an uncharacteristically lack of elegance and precision, and she would have jump through the windscreen if not for the seat belt to yank her backwards and prevent her from injure herself.

"What the he-"

"Before you start to make outlandish assumptions about me being inveigled by anyone else and talk about things you have no right to do so, I would suggest you to shut your mouth and mind your own damn business. Remember, Sakura," he hissed her name in such a vile vicious dark way that made her eyes sting, burn and pool with cold tears. "Curiosity killed the cat. Do you want to know what pretension did?" That rumbling low rich alto voice of his was menacing, evil, it lacked the playfulness it had while bickering with Naruto, his rage was pure, unaltered, honest and...she grew afraid of him for the first time since they met. She fumbled with the seat belt, squirming under his stare and the intensity of it.

It was pitch painfully dark on the road, there was no pole to illuminate the way or the surroundings, it was dark around, and she couldn't see Sasuke`s obsidian narrowed to slits eyes or the white of his eyeballs, as they were covered by his night raven hair, making him look like he was blending into the night, he looked like the hideous facade of a demon, of a devil of a...vampire. It only dawned on her that she went too far, she has pushed forbidden buttons, she transgressed the mutual agreement of coexisting in peace, mindful of the privacy of each other`s faults, but she chose to be disobedient and pay with the sin for her guilt violating his trust.

Sakura felt scared, afraid for the life she didn't value, he had the power to pulverize her in a blink of an eye, he could make it painful for her, torture her mind and spirit, that was not what her parents do, that was a dangerous man, the dominating race, the wielder of the night, the Prince of the immortals.

What could he do worse than killing her? she didn't want to find out, horrible images of movies with vampires -with his own confessions- ripping flesh, blood, mutilating, eating from her flesh, the pain, misery...her heart was bursting out of her ribcage, praying to open up her chest and let it fly away in dread, her hands were cold and sweaty, she couldn't blink, breath she was so afraid it killed the air around her cut short, everything was freezing.

Sakura didn't know how she literarily flew off the car, throwing the door open and the moment Sasuke realized that her curls of pink hair brushed past his car, has he realized what he has done and his first instinct was to bang his head on the steering wheel, as he was gripping the leather ring so fierce, that his knuckles turned purple bruised. He went too far. It was unnecessary, for it didn't hurt him as much as to do such a thing, but she didn't get it. She was better and she was the one acting hurt, like she tried to defend his fiancé in the name of their bond as humans and females, she was foolish and he was angry with her stupidity.

Quickly assessing the extent of the damage he made in the span of a moment of lowering down his guard in front of Sakura, Sasuke pulled himself together, and unbuckled his belt, throwing the door open, without bothering to stop the engine, simply pulled up the lever of the emergency brake and dashed after Sakura. He couldn't let her go like that, thinking that he was a total ass, who couldn't keep his delicacy and discretion in front of a woman. It was unacceptable.

Sakura was taking large steps, trying to half walk and half run on the extremely uncomfortable loud shoes, her heels burned on the concrete while her eyes were watery and her breath was undecided whether to stop or get haywire, it was extremely cold outside and the heavy darkness only seemed to highlighted the unfriendly environment, she was terrified till bones, hurt, feeling like a wrecking sinking ship, as she was gripping Sasuke`s long black coat -stupidly enough it was warm and smelled of comfort, because it was that part of him that she felt secure around- she refused to acknowledge that side of him, it was someone she didn't recognize.

Don't cry don't cry don't you even think of crying! She kept on chanting that into her mind but it was in vain, since she could feel her jadeite orbs shimmer of the tears that bathed her viridian golden irises, and Sakura couldn't actually pinpoint the reason why she was crying: was it because she was hurt and disappointed to find out that Sasuke had such an objective apathetic demeanor in front of love, or it was because for some reason she was so afraid of him in that moment, that she couldn't help but become the protagonist of a horror movie and she was the young prey who kept on running from a monster.

Nonetheless, her heart had a shutdown, as she heard heavy frenetic steps behind her, understanding that Sasuke wouldn't permit her to simply walk away like that, and that terrified her to the point of making her squeeze her eyes shut as more tears leaked down on the porcelain surface of her cheeks, and when a hand landed on her right shoulder making her stumble back as a physical reaction of intertia and stop dead in her tracks, she cried out loud at the top of her lungs, in a high pitched shriek that she herself didn't identify with her normal self.

"No! Don`t touch me!" The tremors and the dread touching her screech were painful to hear and almost had Sasuke go deaf, while she jerked her shoulder from his mild grip –he had a gentle touch on her, afraid of a possible extreme reaction of reject- and continued to walk away from him, with her hands folded around her quivering body, clumsy shaking steps, totally not helped by the beautiful heels she wore, her head was bent down as her hair was fluttering in the wind, but she didn't turn around to acknowledge him or welcome his presence.

It was in the moment he felt the acid rejection on his every bone, did Sasuke come up with the explanation for her unusual rigid stance. She was scared. And the worst part of it, was that she was AFRAID of him! That couldn't happen, his mind refused to let such ideas swirl inside, his eyes went blind of everything around but her fading into the limbs of nowhere silhouette, all because she came to envision him like a monster, like a nightmare, like someone she didn`t feel safe in the company of. And that made his chest burst like a torch, consuming him into ashes.

"Sakura..." No, Sasuke didn't back away, he wouldn't have her stray from him and live under the false impression that he would ever lay a finger on her and hurt her in any way and he would definitely not allow whatever started to bloom between them perish because of a fleeting apparently loss of his cool and control.

Easily catching up with her, the raven haired Uchiha came right behind Sakura and without paying it much need of what he was doing, he wrapped his fingers around her forearms, feeling something break like porcelain down his chest when twitched and tried to wiggle out of his reach, trashing into his arms and fighting to pry his hands away off her person, but he stubbornly resisted, knowing it from experience that she would soon get tired to fight him and give in.

Even though he wasn't facing her, as his chest brushed the swell of her should blades, Sasuke could tell that the emerald eyed lady scared. He softly tugged on her arms, and slowly, mindful not to do any demanding or rough moves, he brought her towards him, as the swell of her shoulder blades tapped his broad chest, allowing his warmth to invaded her personal bubble. His smell, the way he conjured her name so suave so soft like having a turn of personality, the nonchalance of his artistic easiness in flapping personalities was an obstruction for her mind to properly read his character, he was just as unpredictable as ice under fluffy fresh snow, dangerous, always on guard. "...I am not angry." he breathed into her ear, gluing his warm lips on her hair, inhaling the spring feminine floral scent entrapped into her cherry locks. She was still shuddering, her breath was ragged and uneven and Sasuke was mentally killing himself. She was tender like a butterfly. If he touched the golden pixie powder on his wings, she wouldn't be able to fly and she would perish.

Slowly, barely touching her, the onyx eyed Uchiha started to rub her forearms, running the tip of his fingers along her limbs, as she did a throaty soft sound which was forced like she was both afraid, uncomfortable but she also enjoyed the warmth he elicited inside her, by the grace of his touch. "I am sorry. My loss of discretion is unjustifiable." A harsh sob escaped past her lips, emerald eyes clutching, while she started to give in to the spell of his silk rich tranquil voice. That was the man she first met, that was the vampire who challenged the archetypes of supreme grace, finesse, elegance and eloquence, and that was the one to make her heart melt like caramel.

"Don't be afraid of me. I vowed to not hurt you, haven't I?"

She bowed her head once, shoulders collected to her front like she wanted to hide in a shell and cover in pearl. The Uchiha vampire slipped his left hand around her collarbone and embraced her in a way that was not putting any pressure around her shoulders, allowing her freedom, discretion and enough room to refuse him, stunning him with the unexpected concealed tenderness and for him, she leaned backwards into his touch, not entirely since she was still reticent, but at least she didn't protest or try to push him back.

He knew she was holding more sobs that threatened to leave her system and witnessing a woman cry was making his insides throb in agony. That was unacceptable, no man who had the audacity to call himself a man would make a woman cry. Never. It was the biggest sin. "I have principles...and I will stick to them." She whispered airy to him. "But your privacy...is not the territory I am allowed to transgress. I am sorry."

Slowly, Sakura let her eyes flutter open, and she rose her stare towards the starry arch of the sky, while Sasuke did the same, both following the curb silhouette of the beautiful crescent moon sharp glowing and twinkling stars, caressed by the gentle wind`s touch.

There was no hum coming from the world around, it was completely dark and still, except for the rhythm of their heartbeats. Sasuke felt Sakura`s pulse pump under the palm of his hand, while the rosette fought the urge to melt into his touch. He was treating her like a china, while she has deeply insulted him. She felt beyond guilty and remorseful and she didn't deem herself worth of addressing him any word. "Let`s go back into the car." his voice no louder than the twinkles of the stars above but more serene than the halo of the moon, lulled her into following him. He should not be so elegant and mesmerizing. It was not human his grace was out of that world.

She didn't deserve that privilege.

Sakura untangled from him and walked past the Uchiha wordlessly as he remained rooted in place for a moment, understanding that he should allow her privacy. She wasn't upset she felt guilty stupid and decided to shut up and not say anything stupid because Sakura would rather die on the spot than hurt him again. He racked his hand though his hair and followed her back into his car, sliding on the driver`s seat, he pulled down the parking brake, stepping on the gas and drove off. It was quiet ride, while Sakura did everything to keep her eyes on her lap and she refused to meet his eyes.

The elevator ride has been similar to the rest of their journey back home, quiet, tense, remorseful and awkward, and Sakura was yet to meet the onyx eyes that she grew to seek for being entrapped by their beauty, she would avert her eyes in all other possible directions, it wasn't difficult since the elevator was entirely made of glass and see through.

She couldn't wait to get into his home, undress of the fine clothes and curl under the covers of the comfy bed in her room, anything but escape his overwhelming presence. Wordlessly, Sasuke urn the key into the knob unlocked the door of his flat and stepped aside to let her pass first, mindful of everything that went through her mind. He knew she was being stupid for feeling so guilty, but he refused to voice out his thoughts, because he didn't want to hurt her again with the disgrace of his boldness.

The moment she stepped into the hall, Sakura quickly took of he the uncomfortable heels and she let Sasuke`s coat slip off her shoulders, wordlessly returning it to his owner. She burned to say something to him, anything, even if she didn't have anything wise to say, but she didn't get the chance because Sasuke turned his back on her, threw his car key on the coffee table and took off his jacket, stiffening his shoulders for a moment as if there was something that shot though him, but it was almost unnoticeable.

She remained rooted in place in the middle of the living room like an idiot, following his shadow traipsing to the mini bar on the other side of the room, carvel in a geometric especially cut wall, spreading his hands on the rim of the long narrow oak island, head bent forward, and supporting his body on his palms.

She stood unmoving behind him, eyes glossy and latched to the whitecaps of his slim sculpted back, with the tide of his tense firm shoulder bladess protruding from his slim fit shirt, observing and mindful that there seemed to be something wrong with him. She grew instantly worried. Was he angry and lied to her to lure her back to his home to do Heaven knew what crazy things?

Worry won over the unjustified fear while Sakura trudged in his direction, cautiously getting loser, stopping when there was a stretch of her hand between their bodies and almost whispered.

"Are you all right? Sasuk-"

"Go away."

A lump formed down her throat and she gulped heavily once to alleviate that knot constricting her windpipe, but she didn't shy away. That was not the tone of an angry man, it was reeling of something else that got close enough to struggle and pain. "Don't be so convincing, I might take your words to heart."

"..."

Seeing that the Uchiha remained silent and unmoving, with his fingers curled around the bar, knuckles turning blood crimson at the pressure he was applying, she went on. "I have no right to demand anything from you...but don't keep me at a distance."

"..."

"Please, Sasuke." There was just something in her plea, in her siren bell voice that jingled through his heart and reverberated through all his body, yet Sasuke savagely fought it back, wanting her out of his damn mind. She should be the one to stay away from him.

His rich baritone voice has lost its supple touch and confidence and the way he breathed the words to her was ruffled and ragged, and so much unordinary to his character."...I am...sorry...for being rude."

She shrugged once, brushing it off. He already said he was sorry and she accepted his apology, plus, it was not that the reason for her disquiet and uncertainty. "It's cool, I don't mind. I have always been abu-"

He spun around in a swift way that challenged the most seductive definition of the word speed and elevated his left hand towards a startled rosette, caressing the wine glass outline of her pearl white cheek, and the gentility of his butterfly touch blessed her with a round of rippling tingles skimming down her body and her heart stopped pumping life as well as her breath. "-no. Such behavior towards a lady is unacceptable and revolting."

She sought for his onyx eyes, lulled to the caress of his voice, but his obsidian pools weren't set on her, rather than her check, following the line of vision of his fingertips dancing on her skin, like trying to focus on something. "Women...should only be touched..." his fingers trailed along her jawline. "...with red roses..." his thumb fell on the contour of her upper lip, as his voice became seductive like the touch of silk on lace. "...diamonds..." His eyes ultimately entangled with her emerald ones, as his thumb brushed past her parted lips, going inside her full plum lower one, following her row of pearl teeth, whispering. "...kisses."

"S-Sas-uke..." She closed her eyes unable to depict the feelings he elicited by the sound of his spell and the grace of his allure. Slowly, as maneuvering fine crystal glasses, Sasuke slipped his index finger under her chin, bringing her face upwards to dive into his dark ocean obsidian deep eyes, while Sakura shudders and sweaty pants and squeeze her lips, green garnet sparkling Eyes fluttering like soft butterfly wings, lulled by the spell of the flower`s perfume.

The way that Sasuke seemed entrapped into a whirlpool of inner tumult, had Sakura frozen on the spot, as his chaste touch seemed to be the only anchor to reality, following the way he briefly frowned, before letting his hand fall on his side, turning around and slipping a hand through those rebel playful ink spikes, his voice suddenly flat and tired. He plants hands down and bowed head, sighing heavily. "It has been a long day. You must be tired."

"You want me to leave don't you?" she knew that stance and she recognized the hidden meaning of his polite words. It was a diplomatic way of sending her off and out of his life, mindful of not to hurt her in any way. Her own voice was graced by the cold feel of icy salty tears, pooling at the corner of her shimmering crystal emerald eyes.

Words…winding images that didn't abode into the realms of his mind anymore, backfired to him like a flaming boomerang, ringing into his ears, enveloping his vision and trying to drill into the walls around his heart and make their way in a place that they were intruders as Sasuke was trying to fight them back.

Fight back that voice.

Forget her and those damned images of her that she still haunted him with, were ricocheting back to her, all triggered by the sound of Sakura`s strangled voice.

"Why won't you say anything to me? Why are you always silent? How would I know what you feel if you never tell me?!"

"Are you…in pain?" The rose haired woman tried again, carefully and vigilant so that to not explore parts of his mind and life that weren't designed for her to take a peek at, her suave voice no louder than a caress of the summer wind, brushing past the green tree leaves.

"...no."

"You're lying. You are trembling and sweating."

"You have always been a dark horse. I cannot live an infinity of incertitudes."

His forehead was glistening with fine lines of perspiration, rolling down his temples and entangling into his midnight hair, that fell into his squeezed shut onyx eyes, like a velvet curtain, his thin lips were parted and inhaling sharply and uneven, his pulse has accelerated to the point in threatened to make his tensed muscles convulse, and he was slightly shaking, as the excruciating familiar pain burned his chest from inside out, making him go crazy. Quickly and clumsily, his left hand flew down his pants, fingering the familiar transparent box inside his pocket, but when he attempted to pop it open, because of his unfocused vision and trembling fingers, he dropped it down, mumbling a vicious curse in return. Red blood pills rolled down the floor, scattering in all possible directions, on the polished floor.

The low deep sound of pills hitting floor echoed through the stillness of the living room and it was as painful as a sharp razorblade scratching soft skin, making Sakura cringe and flinch, but her emerald eyes quickly took in the unfamiliar details of the mysterious pills, quickly venturing into taking a wild surmise, bending down to touch the almost empty box.

"Don't..." Sasuke`s throaty dry and hoarse voice rung through her mind as he half turned his extremely pale face to look down at her, but she was already brushing her fingers on the translucent object. She didn't need to see that or witness that embarrassing weakness of him.

"Is this..." Forest green eyes went wide as saucers the moment she realized that her conjuncture has been reality, rapidly drifting to his profile, seeking for confirmation. "These are blood pills...? But i thought that...?" She didn't need to complete the rest of her sentence, because it made perfect sense inside her mind. She cast her hues down so as if she was mentally coming into terms with her hypothesis, shot by the consternation of the truth, while she absentmindedly traced the outline of her pulse with her fingers. Her blood wasn't enough, even if he assured her that he could go on for two months without having any drop. "D-Did you...l-lie?"

She suddenly grew afraid, and her dreadful features turned into half of a frown, not accepting the fact that Sasuke came as a dark horse in their contract. Foe what was she angry, she didn't know but it just rammed inside her. Sasuke turned his head fully around to face her, and his eyes were ten shades darker than usual, seeming to have swallowed all the light and spill the pits of darkness around his barely visible irises, but she could see he couldn't quite focus on her losing the peculiar intensity and wisdom. And something in her chest was more intense than fright, while her feet unconsciously carried her towards his weakened looking face, cutting the distance between them, lifting her hand towards him, gripping his forearms, fine nails digging into the crest of his firm biceps.

Her touch burned him like he has been thrown amidst the melting mass of the blazing sun, and he felt like he was drying him of oxygen, making his lungs burn and his skin to crawl. "Sakura, please just-"

She didn't back away from him, understanding what he needed and what he tried to do, and her heart broke at the obvious pain that seemed to take him as a prisoner and ravage him from inside out, while he was visibly fighting it. Her hands run along his toned arms and even if he stiffened at the feel of her touch, she didn't shy away from him.

"Sasuke? Isn't my...aren't I enough? Do you need m-more of...my blood?"

He didn't answer to her, even if the truth was crystal clear and didn't need any more confirmation, yet he remained silent as a grave stone in November, perishing under the merciless perennial touch of time, while the name encrusted on the marble became a reminiscent memory of a soul. More past memories and lines he strived to cut down from his mind, were overlapping with the present, embodied into Sakura`s presence.

"I am sick of being just your unlimited source of blood! You don't love me you only want to drink every fucking single drop of my blood until I die! I don't want to die Sasuke! I want to live!"

Sasuke squeezed his onyx tight, like trying to get them out of his retina, but failing. Those dreams were clinging to him like plague, cursing him like Voodoo spells, as they were playing his heart around their wicked mad fingers, making his temples throb. "Leave." He told Sakura simply, without embellishing his words with unnecessary politeness, but she could clearly detect it into his voice that it wasn't related to her, but him alone. "Before I...lose...it."

She gulped once, feeling her throat go dry as her heart beat in unison with his growing visible pain, tracing her tongue over her dry lips to moisten them. "Lose what?"

"Control." His silk voice was a whisper entrapped in the curtain of the night and Sakura couldn't help the tears threatening to roll down her eyes. There was more he was trying to transmit to her, there was more of the picture he was trying to sketch to her, and she couldn't help but let her cheek glue to his back, shutting her eyes, in a vain hope to let his feelings sew into her own, and get whatever was torturing him so bad out of his mind.

"I don't want to die! You are a monster!"

"My dream is to die." The pink haired woman breathed to him, beaming of honesty and it was a truth that both of them knew, yet the unfaltering of her tongue startled Sasuke. He still couldn't withstand those cruel words coming out of her lips. Lips he was dying to kiss, to feel, to taste, to write verses on them, with the tip of his tongue. Steal another kiss from her.

"I want to live! I don't want a murderer as my husband!"

"No..."

"...humanity."

She was stricken by the implication the moment she faced his one single word. A vampire was struggling to deny himself the only source of vitality and power in lieu of the last figment of his once mortal self.

Self-control was one of the most precious value to human. As long as he respected life his promises he won't be just a walking corpse. It only came to her that Sasuke was melting on his feet to drink her blood, and what was he fighting was his urges because he wanted to keep his promise. He didn't want to bite her and have her blood.

Sasuke's perception was that not a beating heart was making one human. It was feelings and morals! As long as he kept promise suffer to not hurt her...he would feel human! She wanted to cry the moment she realized the span of her epiphany! He was willing to go so far to cherish mortality's most precious candor and she was willing to give it up and tousle it in the wind like nothing, for free.

She was pathetic and she felt accordingly. She could even taste it on her tongue. A dead vampire, the symbol of eternity's most sinful stigmata , the epitome of finesse, the temple of beauty , refinement, wisdom and strength...a vampire...was out shadowing her by being more alive than her, a mortal.

She felt prickling pearls of tears align with her eyelashes, not stopping herself from sobbing.

"Go away, I don't want you to get close to me again, Sasuke!"

"Please let me in...Sasuke." Words so opposite from his fiancé`s were fluttering from Sakura`s lips and he could feel the warmth of her touch on his skin, as she half embraced him from the behind. "And I shall let you have my everything."

Seeing that he didn't answer, but nor did he pushed her back, Sakura went on with her confession. She was quick to acknowledge that her feelings for Sakura transcended a simple contract of blood. He meant more to her than that. More than her blood. "I want to know your story. I want to learn about your deepest feelings, as you know mine."

"You don't care about how I feel! You only live on your own ontology of blood! You only want my fucking blood! You love it more than you love me!"

"...go to sleep Sakura." He tried one more time, coaxing her into locking the door of her bedroom and stay away from him, and he also implied the fact that he was not sending her out of his home. He just wanted her to leave danger, leave his thirsty side and leave him deal with his problems, all alone, like he has ever been. Solitude was not a mere song in Sasuke`s miserable life, it grew to be his most devoted companion, making the most sincere duet with his shadow. Children of darkness, clinging to his soul and destiny.

"You are in pain. Do you think I am blind?" There was reproach and scolding in her soprano high pitched tune, but Sasuke didn't mind, because he could feel it on his skin that she was dead worried for him. A thing that was so alien to him, yet the feelings she conjured inside the casket of his heart were genuine and pure. "Don't ignore me, please Sasuke."

"I am...fine." a lie so big that not even he believed it. He was beyond weakened and the agony he was feeling was making his innards rot and tremble. He needed blood. He needed it like a drug addict needed euphoria. It was too much and too powerful to withstand and fight back, even for him. Her blood…her red liquid of life was ambrosia, as she was more than a simple woman. In front of his blood, he was a slave of lust as he was a captive of her beauty.

"I don't feel safe around you! God only knows when you will not be able to control your thirst and attack me!"

His former`s lover kept on yelling and crying in the back of his mind and he wanted to thorn that page out of his mind and burn it to ashes.

He wouldn't have Sakura`s blood. He promised her he only needed it once in a blue moon. Even if it killed him and left him dry, he was forced to hold back. Pain and torment was flowing through his vein, along his dark lifeless blood. It was consuming, his teeth were clattering and his jaw was tensed to the point he felt his all damn skull would break and he was barely breathing.

"I am not scared. The promise I made...you already done more than enough. I shall keep it." Sakura let her hand trail down his petrified burning in some sort of odd fever arm until she wrap her fingers around his hand. "No one ever asked anything from me, no one ever needed something from me." She understood why was it important for Sasuke to keep his promise to her, but she couldn't see him in that stance. She was feeling his once radiating of striking breath cutting power turn light like a feather and leaving his body. She was feeling his heart crumble like porcelain at the sight of his pain. She couldn't take it, it was suffocating and she was unconsciously crying and pleading with him. "If it is my blood you need...I will not disagree."

Heavens, even a simple command as moving and talking felt tremendous for his lips. "I didn't bring you here to take advantage of you like this. You were supposed to be safe here. I was supposed to protect you. I vowed to keep you safe."

"You are!" The way he acted around her, like a mesmerizing lover trapped into her most romantic fairytale, treating her with a grace that no one did, making her reel in bliss for the first time in her life, was more than she could ask for. His kiss let her have the taste of Paradise even without dying first and brought her one step closer to a place she would never visit if she was to take her own life, an unforgivable sin. "You didn't let me die did you? You are a good man."

"Leave."

"Why?"

"Your blood...I can't stop. If it's you, I don't have control. If you stay you will day quicker. Leave before this happens. If anything, I don't want to be held accountable from your death."

It was too much the remorse and the guilt was making him burn like gasoline. Naruto has been right, he should have let her know, so Sasuke told her the truth. The painful truth that he was not only drinking her blood, he was drinking the very life out of her body. The porcelain doll in the form of a cherub suave face was mean to die because of him, he felt like a ruthless bloody dirty assassin for doing that to her.

She was free to run from him whenever and live. Live like his fiancé wished to. He only realized her plea when it has been too late.

"N-No." But apparently, Sakura was adamant to be stubborn and not accept –or care- the implication of his words. "I won't leave. In this moment, you are everything I have, Sasuke." He turned around to look into his eyes not believing that she was willing to still be with him even after finding out what he has confessed to her and his stare startled and thrilled her. "If I go back...it will be in the same place where we met." He got the silent message: whether she died slowly, but with a real chance to live her life at its fullest, was better than going back to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge.

"I can't live like this forever Sasuke. Leaving you breaks my heart...but in the end...between life and you...I decided to live."

"If you don't want me to stay...in the end, I will still chose death." There was so much determination and honesty into her eyes that left Sasuke powerless to try and convince her to back away and leave him. She had her fingers interlaced into his own, she felt her soft warm skin blazing into his own. He never wanted to let her go, it felt so emotionally right to hold her. "No one forced me to do this. I doing it willingly and today...when you gave me the necklace...introduced me to Naruto and Hinata...danced with me...hold hands...returning my embrace…and almost kissed me," He would have smirked at the way she blushed and whispered those words, if he didn't feel like his mouth would crack and fall off his face, "I felt this butterflies in my heart...and it was warm."

Such an alien sensation…a cherub singing carols in front of the illuminated Christmas Tree, amidst the dancing star shaped snowflakes, the purity and the suavity of the scene, replying before her eyes, his lips on her…it was more than poetry the way he made her feel. "It has never been warm into my chest before I met you Sasuke"

"There has been only blood and darkness since I met you Sasuke. I love you, but I have to leave!"

He let his onyx eyes close, as he was hearing two contradictory voices screaming into his ears. His fiancé…and Sakura. Yin and yang. Two suns: one ceasing him away from its orbit, and the other blazing to his sky.

"I will not leave you even of you throw me outside. Because for the first time in forever...I don't know why but...I felt like smiling and laughing without a reason." Sakura has never confessed such thing to a man and she had no idea what her words meant in the spur of intimacy, and maybe that was why she afforded the luxury of being so sincere and romantic, without realizing it.

And when her quivering nightingale voice aligned with the tears flowing in tiny lazy rivers along the outline of her cheeks, she overshadowed the fading shadow of the painful memory of his former spouse, as a new feeling that he thought died ingrained into his chest, having him wind his hands around her shoulders and pull her into a tight embrace, burying his face into her veil of coral pastel pink floral hair.

"...don't leave me." Even if Sakura knew that he was living a past memory, those words were meant to her.

"No! Don't leave! I love you, what else can I do to prove it to you"

"Let me go. If you love me like you say you do...then stop hurting me. For as much as it is left for me ...I want to be happy."

"I won't. For as long as you want me to stay here...I will not leave." Sakura didn't miss a single moment before she folded her own hands around his slim waist, returning his embrace, relishing in the strength that his hard rock body was oozing.

"I am sorry." He glued his lips to her ear and she shivered at the contact when he starts licking her neck and bare shoulders, rolling his slick hot abrasive tongue over her heated skin, making her insides burst into million flames and fireworks amassed to explode under her fluttering eyelashes. She didn't want him to stop. Out of reflex, she arched her long swan neck to repay him with more access to wander at the content of his heart, as she folded her hands around his neck, playing in his velvet hair.

"Mmnn..." Her heart was having a race with her maddening haywire pulse, while she got pleasurable tingles jittering down her entire body, as Sasuke kept on sending her reel in euphoria, with his brocade silk lips waltzing on her porcelain creamy skin. If felt like touching the starts above with the tip of her fingers. "S-Sasuke..." She gasped when his lips suckled on her chin and there was a knot clenching under her belly button, making her squeeze her thighs together as she felt the sensuality of his touch travel to her most secluded places.

"You taste...like dark cherries...exquisite and so damn...divine." She lost her mind at the sound of his voice completely, as his masculine scent was embracing her senses. No matter what Sasuke did, was uber irresistible.

"D-Does it...is it normal to f-feel this g-good?" Sakura couldn't help but ask, to make sure that the way he was arousing her was because of her own attraction to him. She didn't doubt it was. No sane straight woman would be able to not react to that man and vampire. None.

"Yes. It is compensation for the pain we cause. Pleasure, in exchange for your blood." She felt him smirk against her skin, while his fine lips stroll to her earlobe, kissing and suckling on the elastic cartilage, making her go beyond hot and restless. Her hands were massaging and tugging his rich raven hair, as her body unconsciously scooped closer and closer to him, until she was basically glued into his chest.

"Ahhh...I-I am in n-no pain..."

"...I haven't touched a drop of your blood...Sakura. The thing you are reacting to, is my touch alone."

She was the fire of the universe and he hasn't even pulled out his fangs to bite her! So her suspicion has been right, it was not to Sasuke the vampire she was reacting in such a shameful way, but Sasuke the man. She was a woman who had some feelings for him and it was undeniable. He knew that too, that was why he was touching her like that. In a way, giving her what she wanted.

A curtain of intimacy was veiling them in a maze of passion and sensuality, as he kept on covering the crevices and peaks of her collarbone, her shoulders, the hollow of her neck and her jaw with butterfly kisses, alternating the suckling of his sinuous moist lips with the tap of his rolling tongue and she swore she forgot how to breath.

His tongue rolling over her skin, in a tantalizing light as rain tango touching the grace of passion's most suave archetype of mesmerizing dark desires, appetizing sumptuous stolen caresses, waltzing over her skin, skimming along her quivering jelly spine, in the embrace of his sensual grace and finesse.

And then it happened. Before Sakura had the chance to formulate his next step into her foggy mind, Sasuke let the tip of his tongue skim along the column of her arched throat, up to his chin and then pressing it upon her parted lips, taking advantage of her startled gasp at the unexpected mesmerizing sweet contact, to let it slip past her lips and dash into the cavern of her mouth, forcing her to open it widely, angle her face and welcome his lips on her own.

He was truly kissing her, but that time, unlike his other previous touches of a dove`s feather upon her skin, he was sensual as dark chocolate poured into her mouth. She moaned deeply and longingly into his mouth, as he was massaging her lips with his own, letting his tongue reconnoiter the crevices and swells of her mouth, faces molding together and breaths entangled in the dance of their intertwined lips. Her hands locked around his neck, as the crowns of her nails scraped his scalp, stealing a dead sexy dark low growl from the back of his throat.

She wanted that so much, that it burned her!

There were twinkling sparkles all over where his lips were blessing her shivering skin, he was spanning hot rivers of saliva along the defined petal layers of her smooth pearl skin, she burned like the undivided evergreen charcoals scorching within the gleam entrapped into his onyx orbs, at the feeling of her touch and there has never been such a supreme ardent yearning to taste a man, like Sakura experienced in the moment his masculine chin brushed over hers and her breath forgot to escape past her lips.

There had been no phantom of a possible physical relationship with Sasuke that Sakura had in mind when accepting his proposal, let alone creating a web of romance between them. She was definitely a rather shy, discrete and careful respectful woman, she was keeping her modesty with the subtle tact and reticence of a diligent maiden promised to chastity and the young woman with rose petals un her blushing cheeks was hardly someone to easily succumb into corrupted sexual fantasies with a man.

Yes, she has come across many attractive men, some turning their heads to acknowledge her exotic ineffable, some never sparring her a meaningful look, but that was the most someone as modest and common as her ever got.

So Sakura too had come to have insignificant high school or elementary crushes being no different than normal girls her age, discovering the sinuous path of mysteries and unexpected surprises along the journey to womanhood, but that was all she got.

Having at least a ghost of a gentle caress under the limbs of the longing moon or sweet butterfly kisses in front of her front yard, was something that Sakura has only fantasized about in her deepest wildest dreams.

But what she was coming to perceive with Sasuke in the most tumultuous hours of her pitiful existence, transpired any definition of intimacy, romance and desire.

He was more than her mind could wrap and even more subtle and sublime than her reason could wrap. She didn't logically understood Sasuke, she felt him with her heart. That never yielding objective and not pertaining moist muscular abrasive organ was getting delirious in the beatitude of his moist lips or scorching eyes and she couldn't help but hum like a nightingale under the magic of his kiss.

She wanted him. Badly. And Sakura knew that Sasuke made it all too clear that she could kiss him or go further if that was what she wanted. But her careful wise steps were led by her ontology and inner morals so she decided to taste and take everything she could when she felt ready.

If she wanted to find real happiness, so then every little thing should be discovered and let to sink in, before she jumped inside the hurricane without a lifesaver. Any other ways she would sink trying to past the point of no return.

Sasuke was able to take her scattered dreams forgotten in the bottom of the ocean, yearning to be yet discovered, sewing them into a precious fine jewelry, like the luxurious breathtaking necklace she was wearing. He has only met her for one day and he was giving her such a gift...

Was it because it was no big deal for hum, it was something common to emphasize his hospitality or was it because he felt so indebted to her for what she was giving? Sakura was no fool. For her, letting Sasuke drink from her neck, even if the mind blowing reasoning coming along the path of his shocking revelation about vampires existence, was no such a drama to the rosette.

Being of a family belonging to the bottom of the chain, meant being desperate to find creative measures to make money. Beside doing the dishes to cheap fast foods for 3$ per hour was one of them, along with selling cookies, brooms or clean up homes.

No one would entrust someone like her a more decent as a baby sitter, but there was something she could do which was rather noble, civic, not humiliating -work never was- and brought her one day of free food and some cash, namely donating blood, which Sakura did trice or thrice a month.

Yes, God has been merciful with her and blessed her with a pretty healthy body. Normally, being underweight automatically made her ...to be a donor but the nurse from there pitied and liked her for her jovial and solar personality and faked her BMI. So to Sakura, having Sasuke suck her blood or donating it to the hospitals was almost the same. The feeling was definitely not the same!

Sure, minus the advantage that was in Sasuke's favor because donating blood never made her squeeze her thighs in the moist of lava boiling into the pits of her core when he touched her, nor did it made fireworks explode behind her eyelashes, but what the heck?

He promised her something rather impossible along with the privilege of living a life of a Princess. He was Hella rich and didn't a prick who worshipped money like the supreme definition of being an accomplished person or was he putting his bank accounts on a pedestal, so he had no problem in making her as comfortable as possible.

He shared the intimacy of his place with a stranger who might as well rob him then run away and even allowed her to touch him. And kiss him.

Soft lips like crystal butterflies suave wings were fluttering between her parted ones, coating her in a feather honey touch of infinite rivers of Eden. His touch and kiss was the gentle quintessence of sublime tenderness, his interlaced fingers skimming through her coral hair, kneading the back of her head, maneuvering her as close to him as possible melting the physical distance until it became an intangible phantom of ardor.

They were singing sonnets in canon, he was one beat faster than her, she was following the lead of his lips diligently, following the rhythm like jolly fingers caressing the keys of a majestic grand piano. His kiss was everything she wanted to experience: nowhere demanding, he allowed her enough room to draw back or come touching eager for more, a journey along the cool crystal sparkling sand of the coastline bathed in the moon's iconic rays and swayed by rolling lazy foamy waves.

His ravenous peace turned suddenly tender, emotional, mystical and enrapturing, it was slow, steady, precise and deeply meaningful, it was touching her heart, peeling every layer, understanding the fragility of her heart by the rolling honey feminine moans rippling out of her tongue.

She was not a helpless puppet in her mind, only her body wanted him so ardently, even as he kept her at a comfortable distance, she wasn`t jumping until passion like fire scorching blazing suns, she was rather inquisitive and curious. Not to mention incredibly delicate, a sylph with crystal wings, the eternal womanhood entrapped into the sanctuary of her chest, where her most suave delicacy's realm was.

The moment was erotic and deliciously intimate because she was unpolished, but educated, and she did the most shockingly sensual gestures, depicting the whirlpool of emotions conjured within the clasp of her heart, translated in fast disheveled heartbeats.

Sasuke observed one amusing peculiar thing she secretly seemed to enjoy, and that was playing in his silk soft raven hair. She was doing it so inconspicuously when her fingers found a long rebel tug of hair wind at the back of his head, wrapping her fingers around the spikes and absentmindedly stroking him and lulling him to succumb into her touch.

Only her mother, Mikoto, did something similar, loving to let her motherly endearing fingers comb his hair, but while her touch was embodying the sublime love of a mother, Sakura's was adorable, amazingly relaxing and intimate.

Like a lover would do.

She was probably doing it unconsciously but his hand lead her, for it knew precisely what it wanted. While he kissed her, he couldn't help but let his stiff throbbing muscles relax under her tender touch, while her slim small fingers lazily skimmed along his scalp and, by Havens, it was on a whole new level of intimacy he had with a woman. Even more mystical than his once fiancé.

No one was kissed by that sublime ineffable like Sakura was. Pure and rare like pearls shining from the heart of the deepest marine abysses, yet so intelligent, wise, mature and laid back. She was not the one to drive on the fast lane, with the wind blowing in her eyes and her mind running like speed of light until the span of the distance lost her track, no, she was careful, intuitive and very humble, but not servile.

Like she has never been just a poor young woman in the verge of suicide.

More. He knew she was more. More of everything.

He didn't care about anything, like he put the stares they got when dancing in the back of his mind, focusing solely on her forest green mesmerizing eyes. Read the gleam entrapped within and the sewing pearls of gold encrusted into the evergreen viridian irises. Eyes who were always seeking for his own.

He kept a laugh in the nest of his chest when he figured her out. She found him hot, she liked his eyes and his touch, but she had no problem in telling him no.

Feelings he knew entombed in the sepulture of his chest came swaying like winds fluttering wings, cloaking him with her perfume, as her lips were adjusting to the rhythm he was dictating, moving upon his, massaging, tasting, enjoying and losing her mind.

His heartbeat ticked like a pendulums dusty swing stirred by the times breathing life into and she felt exhilarated. Her body was electrically charged, a tingle was washing away her senses from that world, erasing her outer perception and her inner walls were throbbing. There was an odd wetness in the apex between her legs that she hasn't felt before, but the sensation was amplified with every stroke of Sasuke`s tongue, caressing her own and suckling on her lips.

He loved the way she was looking into his eyes and unlike the women before her, Sakura's was curios, intrigued, inquisitive, like a lost child in Neverland trying to grasp what the world was looking for. She was deep, her green garnet orbs were pure genuine void of lust and vulgar improper thoughts and he found himself both attracted and amused by that.

She wasn't just succumbing into her mortal primal carnal desires, shutting down the voice of reasoning. Her bright mind was spinning like a vigorous windmill, with a good blow of the wind, and she wanted to explore the prospect of finding the world's deepest wonders through all her senses.

Sakura was that minor part of the human population who lived to unwrap all the layers and discover the nimbi of light, in the form of its very quintessence. She was not looking for a moment of ecstasy. She wanted the real meaning of happiness. The most seductive finesse between the complex definition of the notion and the parallels between feelings and the concept. She was smart. Very smart and Sasuke hadn't been mistaken when he first met her. Sakura was not a woman to bore him. She could be many things to him beside the obvious part where she let him drink her blood: a confident, a friend, a younger sister, a lover.

When he pulled back, feeling the need of oxygen overwhelm her burning lungs, he gently leaned his forehead to rest on the crown of her own. "We are not playing Russian Roulette, Sakura. I am someone who promised to make you happy, not a gun at your temple."

She was very interesting and unique, this young woman, with so distinctive exquisite features. Unlike most of the people who could back away or refrain to engage themselves into a battle of holding gazes she didn't flinch away, staring right into his onyx pools, like she had the lifesaver that prevented her from freely exploring without sinking. And he wouldn't deny that her deep, almost methempshichotic star gaze wasn't a major turn on. But it was more than just desire and sensuality. It was praise and acknowledgment of how profound that woman was.

She smiled. She smiled in that way that made his mind drift to a swarm of majestic cranes heading to the pink blazing sunset. So real, so fragile, so beautiful and elegant, so uplifting and intangible. "Do you regret kissing me?"

"No. But I stole something from you that I wasn't entitled nor I deserve it."

"You haven't taking anything I wasn't willing to give." To prove her point she pressed her lips again to his, the passion was there, the skill was not, it didn't matter, it was meaningful, it was her heart talking, he listened and felt. She didn't move her lips, didn't know how, instincts she didn't have, but she was warm, soft and sweet. She just kissed him like a kiss between two children ,innocent and probing.

Before Sasuke had the chance to deepen their lip lock again and lead her, someone decided to conspire against them, because when they mutually decided to get emotional again, the door bell rung. They pulled apart quickly, all the chemistry starting to fade as questions started to form in the midst of their chests. Sasuke narrowed his eyes in the direction of the door, like trying to burn that damn bell down. "Are you expecting someone?" She asked in a whisper voice, unable to properly find her voice and breaths again.

Sasuke resisted the urge to cringe when he heard someone bang on his front door totally rolling his onyx eyes when he understand who exactly was interrupting their privacy. "Uchiha, open this goddamn door or I am going to take it down with my brand new Vuitton heels!" Oh, God, he asked for a goddamn cake, not her!

"Unfortunately, I don't actually had a say in this-"

The next thing they knew, someone has blast the door, making it fly off its hinges. Sakura more than threw herself on Sasuke, while the said Uchiha swore he would do some permanent impalement. Out of all their friends, it had to be his female doppelganger.

"Naruto told me there is an emergency!"

"Hn. Ino."

"To the rescue!"

A/N: Why, I am definitely sorry for being in such a rush, but I am spending the New Year`s Eve at the mountain, so while getting ready to jump into the car, hit the ski resort and ski until I wouldn`t be able to walk straight -I am an addict and I know it- I am definitely struggle to post this chapter as a gift to all of you and take the chance to wish you all my readers a HAPPY NEW YEAR, TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES! Please be safe, stay healty and happy and...oh my I cannot believe I am saying this, but see you in the NEXT YEAR!

I will definitely respond to all the reviews, I am sorry I do not have the time to do it, but I have read any and each of them and I just want to tell you guys that I truly love you, they amused me and made me happy and I am forever grateful, to all my readers.

Later...