Seven months later…

Queen Mikoto was worried.

Affairs of state were running smoothly, for once, as if all the foreign nations with whom the Konoha Crown sometimes quarreled had decided on a temporary armistice in anticipation of the Christmas holidays. Even the stubborn Duke of Oto, who Mikoto privately (and unapologetically) thought would be better off in prison had been quiet lately. The economy was thriving, the government had had a particularly productive session before breaking till the New Year, the people seemed happy, even her husband was in good spirits.

But since he'd come home from boarding school seven months ago, the queen's younger son had been acting strangely, and Mikoto couldn't shake her concern.

If the tabloids were to be believed (and they rarely were, she thought haughtily), the queen was icy, unapproachable, proud. She could admit that much of this was a charade, meant to impress upon any foreign dignitaries that the Uchiha Crown (figurative though it was) was not to be trifled with. The King and Queen couldn't be seen as pushovers, so they effected a front of solemnity and strength. Fugaku had much less difficulty with this than Mikoto did, but she'd learned.

Nonetheless, regardless of what any of her subjects believed of her, Mikoto's heart was ruled by one unfailingly rigid principle:

Her sons came first.

Her failures with Itachi had rendered her especially overprotective of Sasuke, given that she only had one son left to prioritize. The dull ache that resonated within her at Itachi's death had reaffirmed her devotion to Sasuke, and as such, whenever he was struggling with something, whenever he was in pain, angry, upset for any reason, Mikoto took it personally. If she had her way, her beloved boy would never want for anything.

But even royalty had limitations, and there was something Sasuke wanted. Something she couldn't give him.

He'd been moody and withdrawn since coming home from Iwa Enrichment Academy, even more so than usual. Itachi's death and the uncertain circumstances surrounding it had robbed Sasuke of much of his lightheartedness, but this moodiness was different somehow. Any happiness she might have felt at his decision to attend school in Konoha and commute from home was diminished in the face of his emotional struggles.

Mikoto suspected something might have happened with that girl Sasuke had so adamantly defended from his father, but dared not ask; she was terrified of pushing Sasuke even further away from her.

She'd already lost one of her sons. She couldn't bear to lose the other.

He'd finished his first semester of college with excellent grades and reports from all of his professors. Fugaku, always notoriously difficult to please, had found nothing to criticize, and Mikoto was bursting with pride at his academic success. Her son was home for Christmas, and she should have been happy about it. But he'd made almost no attempt to see his old friends – not even Naruto, the civilian boy Sasuke had established a strong friendship with over the years. Mikoto knew Fugaku disapproved of Sasuke socializing with anyone outside of his social circle, so Sasuke's friendship with Naruto had been kept under wraps.

It was one of the many instances Mikoto disagreed with her husband, and the disagreements had been piling up lately. She hated how hard he pushed Sasuke, at his controlling nature over Sasuke's relationships, at the impossibly high standards he established for their youngest son, standards no one could be expected to uphold 24/7.

She shook her head at these unwelcome thoughts as she sat in her garden; marital troubles would have to wait for another time. Sasuke was struggling with something, and everything else (her marriage, her responsibility, her country) would just have to wait.


"Anything you want for Christmas, honey?" Mikoto asked at dinner that night, having resolved herself to find what was wrong with Sasuke come hell or highwater.

"No thanks," he said quietly, in between bites of tomato bisque, his favorite soup. He didn't seem angry tonight, perhaps just tired, which made her think that it might be a good time to broach the subject of his recent moodiness.

"Speak up, son," Fugaku intoned. Mikoto spared him a withering glare; he could always be counted upon.

But Sasuke didn't seem to have the energy to fight with his father. "No thanks," he repeated more forcefully.

His lack of argument disturbed Mikoto. This tired-looking boy in front of her wasn't her Sasuke.

Feeling as though there were a host of better ways to go about this, she asked him timidly, "Honey, is there anything wrong?"

She expected his knee-jerk response, and received it. "No, Mom. I'm fine."

"You haven't seen any of your friends lately, sweetheart. Not even Naruto."

"That's hardly an issue," said Fugaku stiffly, before Sasuke could respond. "I've been saying for years that it's never prudent to befriend someone of lower social strata. When you inherit the throne, these aren't the sorts of people you'll be surrounded with anyway."

Mikoto wanted to hit him, but also recognized an opportunity when it presented itself. Steeling herself for Sasuke's unpredictable reaction, she went for it.

"Now, Fugaku, that's the same tone you took with Sasuke's school friend a few months ago. What was her name again, Sasuke? Sakura?"

She knew she hit the nail on the head when Sasuke sat bolt upright, his eyes filled with an intensity he hadn't shown in months. She almost felt guilty at the pain that presented itself on his face moments after, but any reaction was better than his surliness. At least he looked alive again.

"Does Sakura attend Konoha University as well?" Mikoto asked innocently.

Surprisingly, it was Fugaku who answered. "No. She's a student at Ame University."

"Keeping tabs on everyone I've ever spoken to, huh, Dad?" Sasuke's tone was biting, sarcastic. Again, Mikoto felt grateful to hear him almost back to his old self. Even discontent at the dinner table was an Uchiha family staple.

"If you thought after the scene you caused when we visited you at IEA that I wouldn't keep an eye on that girl," Fugaku replied with that insufferable superiority she'd always secretly hated, "then you don't have the brains you were born with. She was a troublesome influence."

Sasuke smirked. It was mirthless, empty, and Mikoto was beginning to regret this investigation altogether.

"Well, you've got nothing to worry about," he said flatly. "I haven't seen her since graduation."

Fugaku nodded over his pate' and looked satisfied, as though Sasuke had passed one of his countless tests. But Mikoto knew better. Sasuke hadn't pruned Sakura from his life like a dangerous canker; she sensed, from the unrestrained anguish on his face, that perhaps it had been Sakura who'd cut him.

She'd long suspected that that lovely girl onstage at Sasuke's graduation had had a hand in his recent attitude collapse, and now her suspicions were confirmed. Something had happened between them, and Sasuke had been hurt.

The knowledge that there were things in this world Mikoto couldn't protect her son from was worse than nearly anything else she had ever experienced. It was like losing Itachi all over again, watching Sasuke suffer; every time Fugaku opened his mouth to instruct, to criticize, to correct, she watched Sasuke move further and further away from her. Her lack of rebuttal to her husband's endless critique made her complicit, and she knew that if something didn't change, and quickly, she would lose Sasuke, too. Maybe not in the same way as Itachi – Sasuke had always been stronger in that regard – but soon, and perhaps just as permanently.

The rest of dinner passed without conversation, and when Sasuke stalked off to his room afterwards, Mikoto didn't follow.


There were a great many reasons for his social withdrawal, and Sasuke felt that he didn't owe it to anyone to explain what they were.

Had he had his heart broken? Yes.

Had he put everything on the line, all of his emotional hang-ups, had he risked everything to tell Sakura that he loved her? Yes.

Had she denied him, denied her own feelings for him, written him off like garbage and never spoken to him since? Yes.

Had his best friend Naruto, who coincidentally happened to be great terrific friends with Sakura, been relentless in his attempts to update him on Sakura's wellbeing, on what she was doing, what she looked like, everything he physically couldn't stand to hear? Yes.

On top of that, his mother spent most of her time hovering over him like a hen, clearly desperate for some information as to his withdrawn nature these days, and his father congratulated him – actually congratulated him – on moving away from 'destructive influences.'

There was no peace, anywhere, so Sasuke simply withdrew. He focused on his studies. He never missed a class and worked hard to pull off a 4.0 GPA his first semester of college. He worked out and attended social functions as dictated by his parents, but he kept to himself whenever possible, licking his wounds and hating himself for his stupidity.

Dinner had been a disaster. He'd lost his temper at his father again, because Fugaku demonstrated an impressive ability to never, ever understand him while simultaneously convincing himself he had. His mother, kind and loving though she was, had been handling him with kid gloves since he'd come home, tiptoeing around their situation instead of outright addressing it.

Would he tell her the truth, the reason for his depression, if she asked him directly?

Sighing, frustrated, uncertain, he threw himself across the plush sofa in his bedroom, and shut his eyes.

Ironically, this was exactly the kind of thing that he might normally have texted Sakura about.

Granted, he hadn't told her much about his family when they were friends, nothing besides the bare minimum. She could have figured out anything she wanted on her own, of course, given that his family was the most famous in the country and all of their information could be obtained from the Internet, but he gathered that she hadn't done some investigation on her own. She'd relied on him to tell her things about them, and he hadn't gone too far in depth, recalling her sensitivity to the subject of parents.

But she'd always listened, and when he asked, she gave great advice.

What would happen if he texted her right now?

Pride had kept him from attempting to establish any communication with her. She'd been the one to end things before they started. She'd been the one to tell him that they couldn't go further, and therefore couldn't have anything less either. Whenever he had the urge to talk to her, he reminded himself of the way she'd utterly destroyed him the night of graduation, and he stopped. No way would he be the one to reach out first.

I'm still such a fucking mess, he thought, glancing down at his iPhone. His thumb flicked through automatically to her name, and he paused on it, studied the letters until they blurred together and the word looked strange.

His feelings for Sakura hadn't ebbed, hadn't vanished the way he'd hoped they would. If anything, they burned stronger. For all of his hurt, he was desperate to know what had become of her. Where she was, what she was doing, if she was all right. He missed her more than he could articulate, and whenever anything happened to him, good, bad or in between, his first instinct was to tell her.

How could he have been such an idiot?

How could he have formed a bond in a few short months that felt like it would last forever?

Sasuke hated himself for falling into this trap. A million stronger men than he had been brought down by their love for the wrong woman.

He was nearly about to throw pride, caution, and better instinct to the wind and call her when there was a thunderous knock at his door.

Irritated, expecting to see his parents wanting an explanation for his sarcasm at dinner, he called out, "Come in," and squared himself for another argument.

"'Bout time, asshole!" Naruto Uzumaki snapped, nearly kicking down the door in his haste. He slammed it shut behind him as Sasuke sat bolt upright, shocked and instantly pissed to see his best friend. "ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE, YOU DICK, I'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET AHOLD OF YOU."

Naruto threw his backpack on the floor and looked about two seconds away from punching Sasuke in the face. Clearly he'd just gotten back to Konoha; term had let out at Suna University. The palace must have been Naruto's first stop home.

"You're a shit friend," Naruto informed him. "You SUCK."

But Sasuke didn't feel guilty at the sudden appearance of his best friend. He didn't feel guilty for the calls he'd been ignoring, the texts he'd been deleting, the emails he'd been leaving unopened and unread.

There was only righteous – irrational – anger.

Naruto had known Sakura all alone. Much longer than Sasuke had known her. For all of their differences, Sakura and Sasuke had had a connection all along that neither of them were aware of: their friendship with Naruto.

Sasuke couldn't explain why he hated that so much, but he did.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he snapped.

"I think it's obvious, dickweed," Naruto shot back. "Just got home from school, decided I had to come scream some sense into you, and then we can hit up the basketball court and I can school your ass in that, too."

Without further preamble, Naruto collapsed into his usual spot on the sofa, and said, "You're being a huge douche about this thing with Sakura."

Hearing her name mentioned aloud again that night made him see red. He threw his phone down and snapped, "I'm not getting into that with you."

"No, you totally are, because I'm sick of dealing with you like this and so's your mom. You're pissed because I know Sakura, too. You think I'm doing you dirty by staying friends with her. Dude, how the hell was I supposed to know that the girl you told me about was Sakura Haruno?!"

Sasuke was fuming, and Naruto kept going.

"You never told me her name. And I've told you a THOUSAND times when we were growing up about my cool friend Sakura, my pretty friend Sakura, my scary friend Sakura…it's not my fault you either weren't listening, or just flat-out didn't make the connection. It's not my fault you went to that snooty private school when we were kids instead of the public elementary school with the rest of us. It's not my fault you…"

"Stop. Talking. About her."

True to form, Naruto couldn't take a hint.

"All you ever said to me about her was that you had a friend who was a girl but not a girlfriend," he blustered on. "And you must not've talked to her about me AT ALL, because she was JUST as shocked to find out that you and I are friends!"

Sasuke opened his mouth to give Naruto the cussing out a lifetime, then closed it abruptly.

What an odd, bizarre coincidence.

He'd been friends with Naruto since before he could remember, but that friendship was kept under wraps on his father's order. Naruto had been friends with Sakura as well, but had never told her about his friendship with Sasuke because of the king's instruction. The convolutedness of the entire ordeal made Sasuke's head hurt.

Naruto looked triumphant at his ability to silence his friend, but his anger hadn't abated.

"All this sucks, bro," he said flatly. "Just because your dad's got a stick up his ass for common people, Sakura thinks she's not good enough for you, and you're over here pining for her like Romeo or some shit, and…"

"…she what?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "I can't believe this is on ME to fix! Dude, she's torn up about what went down between y'all."

Sasuke scoffed, immediately dubious of that possibility and yet strangely, sickeningly hopeful. Was it possible that he wasn't alone in his heartache? Was it possible that the girl who'd hurt him had been hurt as well?

After a long pause, he asked with all the reluctance in the world, "How is she?"

"Sakura? She's doing great, except for missing you. She's got a lot of friends at Ame, I hear she and Ino are tearin' it up pretty hard."

Sasuke found he didn't like the sound of that one single bit, but decided he no longer had the right to feel possessive over Sakura. If he ever did at all.

"Still the same science nerd," Naruto continued fondly, "but she seems happy now. You should call her."

"…you've got no idea what happened between us to say something like that." Even though I probably would've done just that if you hadn't stormed in my room five seconds ago.

"I know she's got a ton of prospects over at Ame, guys tripping over themselves to hook up with her, and she blows off every single one of 'em. I know she asks me about you to make sure you're okay and gets sad when I don't know the answer. I know she calls me drunk sometimes telling me things she wants to tell you, telling me things she regrets about what went down with y'all…no, I don't know exactly what happened but I've got a pretty good idea. The real question is why I'm not hearing ANY of this from YOU. You're supposed to be my best friend but you just completely suck."

Sasuke sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose. Naruto had a point: he DID suck, and he knew it. Perhaps lately more so than usual.

"Sorry, bro," he muttered hesitantly, awkwardly, but Naruto seemed cheered to have finally aired his grievances.

"You can't help being a huge dickhead," he said graciously. "Anyway, I know she wouldn't want me to tell you this or anything but everyone's coming out to Suna after Christmas, before school starts again, for a beach party. We're all renting a house from one of my friends out there, the weather's tits and it'll be a chance for everyone to hang out without our families around. You should come."

Sasuke saw a million holes in that plan, but Naruto was ready for them.

"It'll just be our group of friends," he insisted. "You, me, Sakura, Ino, a few of the other guys. No one else would have to know you'd be coming along. Tell your Mommy to assign a few extra bodyguards to protect your baby ass and come."

"If she wanted to see me," Sasuke said stiffly, "she'd call me herself. I'm not gonna just fucking show up somewhere."

"Trust me dude. She wants to see you. She hates herself for what happened between y'all. Ino's a little worried about her, she told me. Says that even though she's got all these new friends and she's having a great time at college, she gets a little sad sometimes and no one understands it."

Sasuke understood it. He'd spent the last seven months in a state of pure catatonia, punctuated by a few moments' unfettered rage.

His heart betrayed him, as it always did, thundering away in his chest at the prospect of seeing Sakura again, and so soon. Did she regret calling things off between them, before they'd even gotten started? Did she regret telling him she didn't love him, when every instinct Sasuke had told him she was lying?

If so, how could she have done this in the first place? He still struggled to wrap his mind around it all. What had been the deal-breaker for her?

Part of the reason their friendship had been so easy was the fact that she hadn't been bothered at all by his royal status. It was a fact as uninteresting to her as his favorite color. It did nothing to affect her perception of him one way or another.

Sakura thinks she's not good enough for you!

Naruto's words repeated themselves over and over in his head, and he was filled, as always, with a resounding hatred for his father. His father was the root cause of all of this. His father was the reason his best friend had had to sign a contract of secrecy, because it would tarnish the Uchiha image if it got out that they were consorting with commoners. His father had flown out to IEA to squash a prospective romance in the bud because he felt Sakura, a common girl, was poor company to keep; even after they'd been apart for months, Fugaku still kept tabs on her whereabouts, as if she were a dangerous disease Sasuke needed to be immunized against.

The fissure between himself and his parents was growing. He'd never been particularly enthusiastic about inheriting the throne someday – not when it was always meant to be Itachi who had done so – but never before had he felt such aversion to it. He was disgusted by the entire ordeal.

He was no better than his friends, no matter what his father might believe.

He was no better than Naruto, who was loud, obnoxious, tactless and overbearing, but the most fiercely loyal friend he could ever hope to meet.

He was no better than Sakura, who without a dime to her name had graduated at the top of their class, smart and ambitious and very, very kind.

His birth had been a matter of chance. He wasn't inherently better than people who hadn't been born into royalty. The fact that he'd been ignorant of this fundamental truth all this time was sickening.

"So you're gonna come, right?" Naruto pressed. "We're leaving the 28th, you'll be back before term picks up again at KU. Think about it, dude! New Years at the beach! You know what, whatever, you're coming, I don't even care."

Sasuke sighed.

He wouldn't fight Naruto too hard on this one. Picturing Sakura, her curly hair shiny in the sunlight, her eyes sparkling like the sea…miles away from all their problems, and back together…

"I'll think about it, dumbass. No promises."


Ino's lips split into a wide, gorgeous smile as she read Naruto's text.

From Naruto: He's coming to the beach house! DON'T tell Sakura!

She glanced at her friend out of the corner of her eye as she deleted the exciting message for good measure. Sakura was packing her suitcase for the beach, and oblivious to the shift her life was about to take. Good.

Their first semester at Ame University had been a huge success by most considerations. True to form, Sakura had finished with solid A's in every subject. She was Dr. Tsunade's darling already. Ino, too, had made excellent marks, and perhaps just as importantly, they were both extremely popular on campus. Ino knew Sakura had been quite lonely during her time at IEA, and had made it her personal mission to ensure she never had another boring, antisocial evening again.

But for all the fun they'd been having, all the academic success, Ino picked up on a bizarre sadness in Sakura that couldn't be readily explained by anything obvious.

Boys lined up for their shot at the pair of them, but Sakura remained almost devoutly single. Every advance was politely but firmly rebuffed, to the point where most of the guys on campus figured she had a boyfriend back home. Ino had picked up on Sakura's strange relationship with Sasuke, and even if they hadn't spoken in months, she had a very good idea why Sakura wouldn't hook up with anyone else.

She was frustratingly vague about Sasuke, only divulging intimate details when very drunk and unlikely to recall doing so in the first place. When Naruto revealed to her that he'd been friends all along with Sasuke, she'd laughed humorlessly at the sheer coincidence of it all – then gotten so drunk she almost missed her first period lecture the following day.

Ino and Naruto had worked fastidiously on getting their respective best friends to reconcile. Naruto had met with little success – Sasuke almost never even responded to his calls and texts. Sakura had been stubborn, as always, insisting that she'd done the right thing for both of them and that to go back on her word would just hurt them both again.

But that hadn't been good enough for Ino and Naruto, who decided that their friends deserved to be happy, and would only find that happiness with each other. Hence, the beach party idea was born.

Ino had been concerned that Sasuke wouldn't take the bait. Perhaps he'd moved on already. She knew that Sakura hearing about Sasuke in a relationship with another girl, regardless of what she said, would destroy Sakura.

She needn't have worried. She couldn't stop smiling. Sasuke was coming. He wanted to come. He wanted to see Sakura. Things were going to be all right.

She'll forgive me the interference when everything works out for her, she thought smugly.

"Not the one-piece!" Ino snapped, seeing the red fabric Sakura was folding into her suitcase. "God, come on, why do you even have that. Girls with abs like yours cannot be seen in one-pieces. Get that black bikini in there before I punch you."

"Oh for God's sake, swine flu!" But Sakura obeyed.

Ino smirked. And Sasuke will thank me for THAT!


After thanking the Yamanakas for another shared Christmas, Sakura found herself at the airport with Ino, ready for a pre-semester vacation. She'd spent every break and holiday with Ino's family since her parents had passed away; they'd taken her in as if she were their own, and someday, Sakura hoped she would think of a way to repay them for their generosity.

Cutting it short to spend a week at the beach in Suna didn't make her feel terribly guilty about depriving them of their daughter prematurely; she found herself uncomfortable in Konoha for too long. It was her home, and she loved it, but the idea of being so close to Sasuke made her stomach hurt.

She told herself it wasn't longing, but knew better.

Some time away from everything would do her a world of good. She would get to spend an entire week with her hometown friends, all of whom had dispersed to their respective colleges. She hadn't seen the sea in forever, and was dying to lie in the sun, soaking up the vitamin D and freedom of a few days with no responsibilities.

"We'll meet everyone in Suna tonight," Ino reported after checking her phone again and sliding it back into her purse. "Naruto says they're setting up a big bonfire on the beach. Gaara's sister agreed to buy alcohol for everyone, which is tits. We should get there with enough time to make ourselves our most ridiculously beautiful."

Sakura laughed. "Jesus, what does that matter, dude? We're not going to hook up with dudes, we're going to have shitty hot dogs with Naruto and build sandcastles. Not like this is gonna be a huge pick-up scene."

She wasn't sure she liked the sound of Ino's tinkling laugh, nor the response she gave:

"If you say so, Forehead. If you say so."


note.. just my way of saying thank you for the amazing response you've given this story and me lately :) to clarify, no I didn't change anything in the first chapter, there's a method to my madness I promise! i'll tie everything up nice and neat eventually but kudos to y'all paying attention. thank you so so much for the feedback, all these lovely reviews got a bitch wanting to update fast as hell. I love you!

xoxo daisy, MD :)