Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, its storyline, or characters. However, this fanfiction is based on Naruto, and is my creation.
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Of Highschool: Music, War, and Crushes
Chapter Four: Pose, Smile, and Say "Puhleese"
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It was dark everywhere.
There...there! In the distance there was a glimmer of bright color...Pink? Well, it gave him hope that there was an escape from this hellish maze of monsters and demons.
He ran along some way towards the light, ignoring the ghoulish wails and the red eyes staring at him from dimensions unknown. He was drawing closer. Then he carefully approached the light...no, it was a figure. Could some other being be trapped in here, with him? Another monster? A victim of this terrible world, like he?
The figure turned around. It was Sakura, who gave him a smile so frighteningly beautiful that something in his cold heart stirred. Then, her eyes turned red and she bared her teeth, which were transforming into a jagged set most commonly associated with werewolves. Wait...that was familiar. He thought he saw something like this...but no! The valiant lad had no time to think for the she-demon lunged at him, hissing and brandishing sharp talons.
He had to escape...had to or he would die by the hands...or teeth...of that horrible woman! With fear taking over his mind, his feet automatically wind-milled towards the other direction.
But there was no way out and soon, the lad felt hot breath coursing down his neck and from the corner of his vision, he saw...TEETH!
"WAKE UP SASUKE! WAKE UP YOU STUPID IDIOT!"
Sasuke shot up from the bed and wildly looked around, searching for any glimpse of blood-stained teeth. Promptly, he was knocked hard on the head by some monster...
"It's just me, stupid."
Sasuke turned his eyes towards the direction of the speaker and slowly recognized his friend's face.
"Uh...hey Naruto. Where am I?" He looked around the white, blandly-decorated room. "Not my place, and not yours either. It doesn't have black furniture, or clothes thrown around with dangerously slippery ramen noodles lying about the floor," he continued on, throwing a direct look at Naruto. Sasuke shuddered in memory of his one-time visit to Naruto's apartment to help him with his homework. There was ramen noodles on the floor, suspicious brown stains everywhere, and clothes on every piece of furniture. Seeing only the living room, Sasuke reminded himself to go with an empty bladder so that he wouldn't have to suffer the sight and experience of using the bathroom.
"It's the hospital, dobe. You fainted last night at the movie theater...so Shikamaru and I brought you to the hospital." And Sakura-chan was the first to find out that YOU are scared of horror movies, Naruto added in his thoughts, chuckling a bit.
"You must've had a bad dream or something. Even though the nurse told us not to wake you up even after your faint turned into regular sleeping, I felt like doing so because you kept calling me a monster and screaming, "TEETH! OH MY GOSH TEETH!!!" Naruto shrugged, an annoyed expression appearing on his face. "And not only that, you called me "a pink-haired she-demon" in your sleep too. So I ended up waking you up...Wait! Pink-haired!?" Leaning closer to Sasuke's face, Naruto teased. "You weren't dreaming about...Sakura-chaaan, were you, Sasuke-chan?"
Sasuke irritably pushed him away and winced when his ribs twinged in pain a little. "Don't "chan" me, dobe. I'm not some pansy. And why are my ribs hurting? You didn't do anything, did you?"
Naruto faked hurt feelings and brought up a mask of pain to his face. "Why, little little me? I couldn't hurt a fly!" A little fly buzzed lazily around the room and stopped to hover around Naruto's ear. On a reflex, the dumb blonde swatted it and its little body landed on the floor and didn't move. Sasuke rolled his eyes.
"Well, ok. Maybe that was a bad example, but still, it wasn't me! It was probably Sakura. Afterall, she was sitting right next to you in the movie theater!" Naruto pushed on his plea for un-guiltiness, then added. "Her elbows are famous for giving wake-up calls."
Sasuke rolled his eyes again and gave a heart-felt sigh. "She's going to pay for this. I will have my revenge!" he muttered, cautiously feeling his sore ribs. In the background, Shikamaru snored from the hospital-provided couch and muttered in his sleep, "How troublesome."
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Sakura curled up her knees to her chest, smiling to herself. Ino's right, she thought. The spa is relaxing.
Beside her was Ino and Hinata, wrapped in towels and sitting in the steaming water. It had been an hour, and the teen was beginning to get sleepy. Sakura let her thoughts drift to a re-run of the previous afternoon. Then, she rediscovered a question she wanted to ask Ino...
"Gah! Ino, YOU tell ME about your plan of me sitting by my most-adored man." Sakura exploded. "You know how much I hate Sasuke! So why'd you make me sit by him?!"
"Seeing his face and his fall into a fainting spell was worth the seat," Ino pointed out. Her friend grumbled.
"Well...yeah, kind of. Still, tell! Or I'll...I'll tell your mom about how you ate the precious roses she was sending to a wedding when you were five, and how that made your mom panic and resort to making fake roses by sticking together petals of flowers that weren't roses but looked like ones!"
Ino gasped. "You wouldn't!"
"I would."
The blonde sighed and narrowed her eyes. Then, she covered her face in guilt and muttered something unintelligible.
"What was that? Sorry, couldn't hear. Please say it louder."
Ino sighed exasperatedly and blurted out, "OMGZoksoIlikeShikamaru'cuzhe'scoolandawesomelikethatandIdunnowhyorhowbutnowIdon'tlikeSasukeanymoresoIdesperatelywantedtositwithShika-kunandHinatawantedtositbyNarutoso...so...yeah."
Hinata patted her friend's back. "Calm down Ino. Say it again please?"
Ino gave herself a self-pity-ful sigh and said simply, "I like Shikamaru."
"GAH!"
"AHH!"
"SHUT UP IT'S NORMAL TO LIKE SOMEONE, YOU TWITS!"
Sakura tried her best to suppress a fit of giggles, calmed down, and snorted out, "You finally figured out that Sasuke's not worth your attention? Ino, Sasuke's sooo not good enough for you to chase after anyways. I'm glad you picked someone else to like." Hinata confirmed that her thoughts were one and the same.
Ino smiled into the water and whispered, "Thanks guys. Ah! Look at the time. We should get going."
The girls got out of the spa, feeling thoroughly refreshed.
When Sakura got home, she ate and went to her room to practice for the duet.
In ten minutes, her fingers were warmed up and ready to fly around the iron strings of her beautiful red-wood cello. After an hour of practicing and running through the duets, the dedicated musician welcomed the ache building in her fingers with a hiss of pain. The strings she pressed her fingers to for almost two hours every day were made out of steel and wood gluton, afterall. After her two hours of cello practice was done, her fingers were bleeding. Since Sakura had been playing the cello for almost thirteen years (She started at five years old) she was almost used to the pain since it happened once or twice a week.
The coral-haired teen packed away her cello and started to disinfect and bandage her fingers carefully. A single infection could destroy her music life entirely.
The rest of her Saturday afternoon and Sunday passed by pleasantly and school began its course again on Monday.
On Monday, Sakura's courses whizzed by and ended with a final class; Orchestra. The teen groaned loudly in complaint when she saw Sasuke nearby. But what did bring a smile to her face was the slight disturbance in his shirt near his ribs, as if there were bandages wrapped around him.
"What happened to your abdomen?" the devious teen asked sweetly when she passed by. He shot a glare at her. He knew that she knew that the fault of his mental and physical detriment was entirely hers. Before he could spear her with an insult, he was interrupted by their ever-so bubbly and somewhat ditzy orchestra teacher.
"Come, come, into your seats students," Ms. Azuki exclaimed, clapping her hands. When everyone was in their seats and silent for her to go on, she continued. "Now, may I welcome the fabulous Advanced Art Club of Konoha High. I'm sure you know some of them!" The conductor waved her arm to the back of the studio, where a handful of students were standing. Sakura glanced up from her seat, saw Hinata among the Advanced Art students, and gave a little wave and a smile.
"Well, you see students, the End-of-the-Year Festival is quickly approaching, and our orchestra and three special duets will play. (At this, Sakura and Sasuke shot each other glares) So, I specially asked the AAC students if they could draw some musicians holding their instruments in the playing position, for I think that portraits would suit more than photos for the program."
A murmur of excitement rippled through the orchestra. To have the best artists of the school draw a select-few for the orchestra concert program would be an honor.
The spokesperson of the AAC stepped up. "I am Yoshimune Sai, top of the Advanced Art Club. Now, if we could have the honor to pick the students?" he said, sliding on a smile that Sakura was sure of as phony. The fake smile slipped off as quickly as it had come, and Sakura could tell from his serious face that he didn't smile truly very much, if even at all.
"Go on," Ms. Azuki gestured grandly. After some decision and walking around the orchestra, the AAC students grouped together and whispered while the rest waited patiently. Some moments later, they had composed a list of the students they wanted to draw. Sai spoke again.
"We've decided. We would like to have Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura posing together with their instruments in normal playing posture, Amano Tsukiko with her viola tilted to the side while kneeling, Takiko Yuki with his cello, standing..." and so the list went on.
Sakura groaned softly to herself. To pose with her rival - embarrassing! And for a portrait too! Most likely, the AAC students would make them smile for the illustration. When copies of the program was released, the whole school would see Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura with their instruments, standing side by side and smiling for one of the pictures placed in there.
And yes, the whole school would laugh...knowing that the two were suffering from extreme IHCP, or Intense Hate for Close Proximity, as Ino put it. It was an invented symptom that Ino made up for Sakura and her rival, meaning that whenever they were close to each other, they would blow up in hate for each other but were forced to keep it inside.
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Sasuke groaned softly to himself. To pose with his rival - embarrassing! And even when he had already lost most of his fangirls over the spread rumor that he fainted at a horror movie - which was true - this portrait would make him a laughingstock! (And guess who spread it?) He rubbed his temple wearily to fruitlessly prevent the headache he knew was coming.
What could be worse that playing three romantic duets AND posing for a friendly-atmosphere, school-advertised portrait for the festival concert with the same, hated person? The two were about to find out.
---- To be continued ----