For the next few weeks they were almost inseparable, and Sakura began to expect to see Sasuke either waiting for her after work or for him to arrive at her house in the evenings, in fact it had become a rare occurrence for her not to see him at least once a day. He took her out to see films, for meals and at the weekend they spent hours together alone or with Sakura's group of friends. He began to argue familiarly with Naruto, because, somehow, they never saw eye to eye on things. Sakura was just glad that Sasuke seemed to, on the whole, get on with her friends and for Sasuke's part he was glad to make some friends, or rather to be able to build the relationship himself for the first time.
Sasuke had been persuaded to join Sakura on another night out with her friends, although it had become apparent to him by now that when Sakura and her friends all arranged to meet up at eight they really meant half eight or maybe even closer to nine. Unfortunately Sasuke was rather good at timekeeping and had arrived with Sakura to be faced with the prospect of making an attempt at polite conversation with Naruto, something that every time Sasuke tried it he failed in a few seconds and ended up wanting to cause him physical pain, or even contradict him just to see Naruto get angry. As Sakura was deep in conversation with Ino, Tenten and Hinata, Sasuke eyed Naruto carefully, the other man didn't seem too pleased about the way things had turned out either which, in a way, made Sasuke feel glad that he wasn't the only person not looking forward to a forced conversation.
Sasuke glanced up when he saw Sakura move next to him and watched as Ino threaded her arm through Sakura's as they walked to the bar with Hinata and Tenten, the reasons why women were unable to go up and do things alone was lost on Sasuke and, as far as he knew, was a mystery to most, if not all, men. Although they had only left after Sakura had leaned over and specifically warned both Sasuke and, with a more vivid description of what she would do if he didn't listen, told Naruto that they were both to be fairly nice to each other in their absence.
"Look" Naruto said after they had exchanged the usual civilities and had covered all the neutral topics like the weather, although Sasuke was tempted to argue with Naruto's description of it just to be pedantic and annoy the other man. "I want a proper answer from you for this, what do you really think of Sakura, I mean, do you really like her?" Sasuke studied Naruto silently trying to organise his thoughts, wishing he could genuinely answer his question without feeling so conflicted about everything. What did the other man expect him to say; 'I may very well like her but I'm not sure if it's because of some strange, mystic feeling that pulls me towards her and by the way a few months ago I technically didn't exist'. Naruto scowled at him, thinking he was just going to ignore the question, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for Sasuke, Naruto couldn't really pull off an intimidating look and instead only managed to look faintly disgruntled.
"I like her, she's nice" Sasuke settled for eventually as it was true enough. Naruto began to watch him carefully, but Sasuke only stared back at him, refusing to elaborate until Naruto gave an exasperated sigh as he ran both his hands through his hair as he sat back to stare at Sasuke.
"Where did you come from anyway?" He said and Sasuke started.
"What?" He said sharply but luckily Naruto seemed too lost in thought to notice.
"She's never mentioned you before, did you meet at work, or something?" Naruto elaborated.
"Work, sort of, we ran into each other, uh, quite literally, and she offered to fix me up" Sasuke said, beginning to feel nervous under such close scrutiny. It was as if the more Naruto watched a person the more likely they became to tell him the truth, or at least whatever it was he was asking. Sasuke looked down and began tracing patterns on the table top in the rings of condensation the drinks had left. At least that way he could pretend to be thinking about what Naruto had to say and could avoid looking at Naruto's blue eyes which seemed to have a permanent look of wide eyed innocence. It only served to make people trust him a whole lot easier but by now Sasuke had learnt to be suspicious of people and it was something he happened to be good at, although it probably wasn't a talent to be proud of.
"Whatever happens, you better not hurt her" Naruto said quietly "She seems pretty tough but she's still fragile, I guess, inside, she doesn't let people in easily, she tends to keep her boyfriends at arm's length but that doesn't mean she doesn't care" Naruto said and he glanced over at the bar to make sure they weren't coming over and Sasuke got the impression that whatever the other man had to say was important to him as the look he was giving him had intensified so gave him his full attention, instead of only half listening and giving some attention to what he had come to think of as the Sakura part of his mind.
"Sakura's just, well she's not the same as she was, she used to laugh and love people freely but now after everything with Tanzo-" Naruto cut himself off and Sasuke frowned at the guilty expression on his face.
"Who?" He said.
"No one" Naruto said too quickly and Sasuke's frown deepened as several things clicked into place.
"An ex-boyfriend?" He said and Naruto nodded jerkily "Is he the reason why she doesn't like having things sprung on her?" Naruto nodded again. "What happened?"
"I can't say" Naruto said and Sasuke frowned at him "No I really can't, all I know is stuff I've heard from other people, I've never really wanted to ask, all I know is that one day she sort of closed off from everyone, she was one of my closest friends and now she's just harder to get though too, I guess, she's not out at much and I see her at gatherings and I ring her but it's not the same."
"People change" Sasuke said and Naruto shook his head.
"Not like that, not Sakura and not that much" Naruto said stubbornly and Sasuke almost rolled his eyes at the other man's insistence "I think she still talks to Hinata, Ino and Tenten about stuff but to the rest of us she's just closed off and she doesn't decide to randomly do stuff anymore and before she was the worst out of all of us" Naruto gave him a wistful smile "I met Sakura at university on a pub crawl and within moment of meeting her she said she was bored with it and suggested we leave, so the guys I was with went off with her and her friends, it was a great night, we ended up in a dingy looking chip shop and I woke up the next day feeling sick"
"So a great night out with Sakura left you feeling nauseous?" Sasuke said and Naruto opened his mouth to argue with him and then he noticed the slight smile on Sasuke's face "I think I would have quite liked to see that."Naruto gave him a relieved smile.
"You better be serious about her that's all" He said and Sasuke made a noise of agreement as he turned his attention back to Sakura and her friends who were laughing at something at the bar, she always looked happy but he supposed there was always something bubbling underneath the surface with people, he only needed to use himself for an example to see that anyway.
"After my father recovered from the shock he sent us out but Neji's never lived it down" Hinata said taking a sip of her drink.
"So wait, Neji actually let you and Hanabi stick things in his hair?" Tenten asked and Hinata nodded as she bit the end of her straw.
"Oh yes, we'd plaited bits of it and everything"
"You ruined his manly image there" Tenten said and Ino rolled her eyes.
"Please" She said "When has Neji ever had a manly image
"Trust me he's all man" Tenten said with a grin and watched Ino's face twist into a look of horror.
"That's not really something I want to hear about my cousin" Hinata said and Sakura giggled.
"That's not something I want to hear at all, and how do you know that anyway" Ino said scowling at Tenten.
"Please I've been friends with Neji for years and sometimes you can't help noticing things, like the way he looks without a shirt on, amongst other things" Tenten trailed off slightly and cleared her throat. Sakura grinned at her friend as Ino continued to give Tenten looks of horror and glanced back towards the table they had been sitting at, she caught Sasuke looking across at her and ducked her head smiling slightly. Hinata caught the exchange and gave Sakura a small smile.
"Sasuke certainly seems fond of you" Hinata said to her as Ino and Tenten continued bickering.
"I guess so" Sakura said and a small smile crept across her face.
"You two are spending a lot of time together" Hinata said "It's quite sweet really."
Sakura glanced over at Hinata who gave her a faint smile. If it was Ino saying that it would have been a rather pointed remark, something like "and I want you to give me all the details of your so-called innocent little friendship right now please" but coming from Hinata it was just a simple observation, or maybe she just knew that Sakura wouldn't tell them anything unless she was ready.
Hinata didn't seem to have a mean bone in her body and had the belief that everyone was just as nice as she was, it was just sometimes hidden really far down, she had the same innocent idealism as Naruto which Ino had always said was annoying as neither of them had realised that they were practically perfect for each other yet.
"What's sweet?" Ino asked as her conversation with Tenten came to a halt.
"Sakura and Sasuke" Hinata said and Ino smirked at Sakura.
"Oh that" She said and by this time her grin was starting to make Sakura feel uncomfortable, "it's sickening really" She said and Sakura glared at her.
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" She said.
"That you two sit there making eyes at each other when you think no one, including the other person, isn't looking, it's enough to make people feel quite jealous and almost makes me want to find a boyfriend for myself"
"He's not my boyfriend" Sakura said "He's just a friend, nothing more" She said firmly, wishing that she could believe that herself, being "just friends" would make everything between her and Sasuke a whole lot simpler even if there was quite a large section of her mind that was saying that it didn't want simple and would take complicated any day if it involved Sasuke.
Ino just gave her a look that said she didn't believe her.
"Okay, if you say so" She said and Sakura was relieved for once that Ino wasn't going to start a full scale interrogation, she wouldn't be surprised if Ino revealed one day that she owned a set of thumb screws. "Let's go back shall we" Ino continued "We probably shouldn't leave Sasuke and Naruto on their own for too long" Sakura nodded and Tenten sighed.
"I thought Neji would have arrived by now, or Lee, I expect the others to be late but those two have punctuality ingrained into them" She said and Hinata smiled.
"It looks like Chouji and Shikamaru have just turned up" She said nodding towards the doorway.
"Chouji!" Ino shouted waving one of her arms madly, almost spilling her drink down Tenten's leg in the process "Oops, sorry"
They wandered back to the table together and with some careful manoeuvring managed to squish Sakura next to Sasuke, claiming that they needed more room for the late comers. However Sakura thought she saw Ino and Tenten exchange looks when everyone had been seated. The way the seating had turned out, with Hinata sandwiched between Naruto and Ino and with herself conveniently next to Sasuke made Sakura suspicious of the two.
Sasuke seemed to take all of her friends antics in his stride, even their reluctance to find some more chairs in the bar preferring the make everyone squish up in the booth they were sat at. When Sakura had mouthed "sorry" at him Sasuke had just shook his head as if he wasn't bother by them all and it wasn't long before Sakura found herself pressed against Sasuke as Neji joined them.
Another glance and Ino and Tenten, who appeared to be toasting one another, confirmed Sakura's belief that they had orchestrated this especially as Hinata was now bright red and practically sitting on Naruto's lap. Sakura squinted at the table trying to see if she could make some sort of picture out of the grain of the wood to try and get her mind onto other things but she could still feel Sasuke's warmth radiating against her thigh which only got worse every time he shifted as he held an animated conversation with Shikamaru about work.
Sakura had thought it was a strange coincidence that Sasuke and Shikamaru worked for the same company but as Ino had berated Shikamaru for not introducing them to Sasuke earlier, apparently he had deemed it too much of a hassle, Sakura had watched a strange expression form of Sasuke's face and when she had asked him about it he had brushed her off, saying it was nothing. It was just one of the many mysteries about Sasuke she had yet to uncover, along with why he always avoided talking about his personal life.
She gave Sasuke a small smile when he glanced her way.
"You okay?" He asked and Sakura nodded.
"I was just thinking" She said and Sasuke raised his eyebrows "how was it that you and Naruto managed to stay civil to each other for at least ten minutes" Sakura asked and Sasuke grinned at her.
"Oh, you know, by sticking to the kind of topics we couldn't disagree on the weather, why you all seemed to be taking so long at the bar, where everyone else was, and you" Sakura glanced up at him when he said the last part but he smiled at her still so she guessed that it couldn't have been that bad, but still.
"Me?" She asked and Sasuke nodded. "What about me?" Sasuke shrugged.
"This and that" He said and Sakura glowered at him.
"Fair enough" She muttered and Sasuke grinned again.
"Naruto was just telling me that you were drunk when you two met" He said and watched Sakura swell with indignation.
"I was not drunk" She said and then hissed at Naruto "what the hell have you been saying about me" Sasuke saw Sakura make a fast movement under the table and almost immediately after Naruto flinched and doubled over in pain and tried to hide his smile under his hand so Sakura wouldn't notice his amusement. Sakura turned back to Sasuke again with a smile on her face "He was exaggerating" Sakura said as if the last bit with Naruto had never happened.
"So what really happened?" Sasuke asked, as he wondered if she'd let him have a glimpse of the carefree Sakura from Naruto's memories.
"It was just, you know how it is at university, it was in the first few weeks of my first year and I was out with my flatmates at some university organised bar crawl and we were bored. I'd been talking to Naruto's group for a while and suggested that we all go off somewhere" Sakura said "It was a good night" She said wistfully.
"So the bit about ending up at a dodgy takeaway place was also made up?" Sasuke asked and Sasuke grinned.
"Oh no, all good nights were ended with a dodgy takeaway at university" She said. Sasuke nodded slowly, reflecting that although he apparently had a degree to do his job it had, just like everything else, appeared with him. Unlike Sakura and her friends he had never had any kind of experience like that. It was frustrating and a small part of him wished he'd met the Sakura who had so easily walked off with a group of people she'd just met quite spontaneously.
"I can remember we ended up in some seedy bar before we found this cocktail bar with buy one get one free on the drink, so of course we had to get two each" Sakura said and Sasuke watched her as she ran her finger round the rim of her drink with a faraway look in her eyes. "We were there until it closed and I think between us all we pretty much drank our way though the menu" A brief smile appeared "And then on the way back we found the takeaway place" She said and gave Sasuke a slight smile "I don't think I've ever drunk that much since, which is probably a good thing." Sakura shook her head slightly as if to clear her head.
"That was all a long time ago anyway" She said softly but there was an edge to her voice that suggested to Sasuke that she wouldn't take kindly to him asking any more questions and as Naruto was still rubbing his shin from where Sakura had apparently kicked him earlier Sasuke decided not to push it further. Not that she had told him much anyway, although for a moment there had been an excited look in her eyes that he hadn't seen before.
Sasuke watched Sakura carefully as she chatted to Ino and Chouji, she looked happy, but then again she always looked happy and Sasuke had thought, however arrogantly, that she was at her happiest with him but that apparently wasn't the case and for some reason that bothered Sasuke. If he was supposed to be everything she had ever wanted then why didn't she smile like that just at the sight of him. Sasuke scowled slightly and saw Shikamaru giving him a thoughtful look across the table. Sasuke nodded slightly in his direction and Shikamaru turned away to join Ino and Chouji, who were still deep in conversation with Sakura. There was something unsettling about Shikamaru, it was as if he knew more than he let on, as if he could remember the time when the person know as Sasuke Uchiha didn't exist, or maybe it was nothing at all and that he was just getting paranoid.
Sasuke turned his attention back to Sakura again, he was half listening to what Naruto was saying to him making the odd noise of agreement to seem like he was giving Naruto his full attention. Sakura was laughing as Ino was telling her a story about being at an all you can eat buffet and trying to out eat Chouji, something Sasuke gathered wasn't possible. As Sakura smiled and laughed expressively, sharing her own memories with the other three, Sasuke felt a stab of resentment that he couldn't coax a smile like that out of her even if he tried. Not that he wanted to try, he corrected himself, he just felt that if he was supposed to be everything she ever wanted them it was only right that he could make her as happy as her memories of her more carefree days did.
"Hey, Sasuke are you even listening to me anymore?" Naruto asked poking Sasuke's arm across the table.
"Not really" Sasuke said and Naruto gave him an indignant look.
"What if I was telling you something really important" He said and Sasuke raised his eyebrows.
"If it's coming from you then I doubt it would be" He said "anyway I'm going to get another drink"
"I'll come with you" Shikamaru said as he drained the rest of his drink and followed Sasuke away from the others, he noticed Naruto still scowling at Sasuke.
"You seem to be taking a lot of interest in Sakura" Shikamaru said as he rested both him arms on the bar. Sasuke shrugged slightly.
"What of it?" He asked and Shikamaru studied Sasuke's expression thoughtfully and then shrugged as well.
"I don't recall seeing Sakura's ex-boyfriend or anyone else for that matter ever watching her so closely." He said.
"This isn't about Tanzo again is it?" Sasuke asked "I already had a warning off Naruto" Shikamaru shook his head.
"I don't recognise the name" he said.
"I got the impression from Naruto that he was the reason she changed." Shikamaru's puzzled expression cleared and he nodded slightly.
"That was before I knew Sakura really, no one ever told me the guys name, I got the impression that it was a taboo subject" Shikamaru said "it's a terrible thing really" he continued thoughtfully "to lose your heart and never really get it back"
"Is it?" Sasuke asked "what if you never had one to begin with?" Shikamaru gave him a hard look and Sasuke hastily amended what he said "hypothetically, of course"
"Everyone's got a heart" Shikamaru said giving Sasuke a thoughtful look "I think maybe for some people it's just harder for them to find. Things come more naturally to some people than they do to others like Naruto wears his heart on his sleeve an always tells everyone what he's feeling of thinking. You seem to be the more thoughtful type I doubt you'll care for someone so easily. You say that but you still seem very close to Sakura, almost as if you've lost your heart to her in fact." Shikamaru said with a strange smile and Sasuke studied his face carefully, what did he know, Sasuke wondered, did he know anything would be the better question, but Shikamaru didn't seem to notice that Sasuke was putting him under such close scrutiny. "It's funny how "heart" can also mean something like courage or confidence, you can tell people not to lose heart but maybe people mainly need to be brave enough to show they've got one." Sasuke followed Shikamaru's gaze and saw that he had been watching Ino the whole time he said this.
"To have heart" Sasuke said thoughtfully and sighed, running his fingers through his hair "people are far more complicated than anything else I've had to deal with lately." He said.
"That's true enough of everyone" Shikamaru said "People are always changing, always learning something new about themselves and others, we live and learn" Shikamaru raised his glass in a sort of toast and Sasuke copied his movement.
"I guess this means there's hope for me then" He muttered before taking a sip of his drink and wandering back to the table to join Sakura. She smiled up at him when he slid in next to her and somehow, in that moment, Sasuke thought everything could turn out alright, but as she turned away the usual feelings returned, feelings of anger and jealousy that all the people here had something he didn't, the freedom to chose who they gave their heart to.