A/N: read the story first. then read the a/n at the bottom? becuase they wont make sense unless you do it that way. :-)

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. (weeping)


The obnoxious slurping of ramen was always deafening when you sat next to Naruto. But then, Sakura supposed there was nothing new about that.

"Naruto!" She finally exclaimed, stabbing her chopsticks into her own bowl, half exasperated and half entertained. "Do you think you could at least try to be a little more polite?"

"Wuh?" Nartuo replied, noodle still hanging out of his mouth like a limp beard over his chin.

Sakura gave him a semi-disgusted look. With a nervous gulp, Naruto hastily swallowed the rest of the noodles down his throat, no chewing involved. Sakura and Sasuke both had to dodge the shower of broth as he sucked the empty carbs through his teeth.

After wiping her left eye with the side of her hand, Sakura glared at her blond friend. "Does Hinata have to put up with this whenever you take her out to dinner?"

"Nope." Naruto replied. "I don't take Hinata out to Ramen stands. Remember, Sakura? You were the one who told me to never take you or any other girl I was going out with on a ramen-date again."

"Um! Can I have more!" Sakura said loudly, standing up and offering her only half-finished bowl to the puzzled chef. It was a good attempt at trying to cut Naruto off, but it was a couple seconds too late. She shot a glance over her shoulder at Sasuke to see if he'd noticed the implications of what Naruto had said. From profile, it seemed as if he were listening to white noise. His expression, as usual, was stony and contained. For a moment it reminded her of Sai. But she wasn't relieved. She knew Sasuke had heard Naruto and seen her embarrassed reaction. … And … she was embarrassed about it? Since when?

The chef dalloped another thick wad of noodles and broth into her bowl, stirring Sakura out of her thoughts. Slowly, she sat back down with a bowl full of noodles that she didn't really want. She stared into the steam. Naruto was still busy being taken aback by her sudden outburst.

"…Oi, Sakura. Are you sure you're okay? You've been acting a little weird today." Naruto said. On Sakura's right, Sasuke didn't move his head from over his bowl, but his stare moved to the corners of his eyes, watching the conversation, now interested.

"What?" Sakura turned, her speech still quick from embarrassment. "What kind of question is that?"

"Well," Naruto started "Youjust ordered seconds on ramen before I did." He pointed out, his brows furrowed.

Sakura gave him a very deliberate look. As if rising to his challenge, she pushed the newly filled ramen bowl towards him. "Here." She said. "It's yours."

Naruto stared. "And just now you gave me something for free!" He exclaimed, looking up at her with a teasing smile. "Saaaakura-chan. That was actually nice of you. Are you sure you're not sick?"

Sakura blinked. "I'm always nice, you jerk!" She retaliated, smacking him on the back and making him catch the table with his hands to avoid face-dunking in his dinner. As it was, a little bit of it spilled over the side of the bowl.

"Ow, Sakura." Naruto sat up, cringing to reaching over his shoulder to rub his new injury. "That's too much." He said.

She gave him a look that said: deal with it.

When Naruto finished smiling, his face went very suddenly from light-hearted, to a little too serious. "But really, Sakura." His vibrant blue eyes glanced over to Sasuke. When he made brief eye-contact with the dark-haired boy, he was able to read from his eyes that the Uchiha was behind him on this one, almost pressuring him to interrogate Sakura. "Even today on the field, you were acting pretty strange."

Sakura frowned, and tilted her head fractionally. "What do you mean?"

"Like… the way you shattered that rock. I know! I know! You're strong." Naruto said quickly when he saw Sakura open her mouth in protest. "But… you really should have had more than a broken arm. Otherwise, Kakashi would never have stepped in… right?"

The boys watched as Sakura's expression grew darker, as if she were struggling with something. "I…" she frowned. "I don't really… remember."

Naruto leaned in towards her. "What? You don't? What do you mean? It was just this afternoon."

"I know." Sakura said, looking up at him. "I mean, I remember it." She frowned. "But it's all just kind of a blur." she frowned even more as her concentration deepened. "Like, I can't seem to make it out."

Again Naruto and Sasuke exchanged glances. That was odd.

"What about how angry you got afterwards when everybody was trying to help you?" Naruto asked. "You remember that don't you?"

Sakura's frown deepened, until she almost looked pained. Her hand moved up and rubbed at her temples, thumb on one side, and her middle finger on the other. It was what she did when she couldn't figure something out. That was when Naruto saw it. The threads of black glowing around her fingertips. His heart-beat quickened, eyes growing wider. His breath choked for a moment in his throat. He remembered that glow. But where had he seen it before?

The moment he blinked, the blackness seemed to dissipate. For a moment he wondered if he had imagined it. But he knew better than to question these instincts.

Sakura sighed and leaned back. "I think I'm just tired." She admitted. "I'm going to go home. If that's okay?" She asked, turning to Sasuke, who still hadn't finished his noodles.

With a stoic nod the dark boy pushed away the remains of his dinner and stood, hands heavy in his pockets. "Ready."

"Whose paying?" The chef pushed, appearing out of nowhere. Naruto flinched for only a fraction of a second. Only Sasuke with his inhuman senses noticed it.

"Him." Naruto jabbed a finger at Sasuke without missing a beat, his face straight and tone perfectly flat.

The chef turned expectantly at the scowling Uchiha. Who dug around in his pockets for coins and threw them at the guy behind the counter. He caught them with the ease reserved for a man who had been serving ninjas at his bar for years.

"I'll walk you guys." Naruto said, slipping off his stool. "You're on my way anyway."

Sakura frowned and looked at him. "No we're not. You apartments at south west, mines south east."

Naruto shrugged. "And the Uchiha manor is north. What's your point?"

Sakura looked hard at him. "That none of them are on the others' way. Especially not yours and mine. And what's Sasuke's house got to do with anything?" Sakura challenged, hands on her hips.

Naruto shrugged. "Nothing. Just pointing out that the three of us make a triangle."

With that Sakura glared at her blond friend, making him laugh. "I'm not heading to my house anyway." He said. "I've got something to take care of."

"What could you possibly-"

"Let it go, Sakura." Naruto and Sasuke said in unplanned unison, startling all three of them. Naruto blinked, Sasuke scowled, and Sakura looked between the two for a while before shaking her head. "Whatever. I guess I'll treat your wounds at my place." She said to Naruto, starting to walk.

"Deal." Naruto said, falling into stride with his two best friends. It felt good, to have them by his side again, the both of them. Team Seven, two of the only people in the world he could trust. All of them together again like this, which he'd fought so hard for - sometimes it was enough to make him grin. So he did.

Sasuke sent him a look as if to ask him what the hell he was so happy about. Naruto only let out a short laugh and then stared up at the sky. Everything was perfect these days.

Well… almost everything. He let his glance fall down to Sakura's hands. They looked normal enough now, and Sasuke hadn't seen the black threads or else he would have mentioned it already. Wouldn't he? Well, it didn't matter, because he, Uzumaki Naruto, had seen it. And he bet it had had something to do with Sakura's freakish display of power, her odd behavior, and her incapability to remember it at the ramen stand.

"Ok, don't pick at those." Sakura reminded Naruto as she pushed him out the door.

"I can't help it, Sakura, it itches in my sleep."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "You're such a baby. Show some self control why don't you?"

Naruto pouted. "But-"

Sakura laughed. "Get out, bum. I need to get to sleep."

"Ah, ah." Naruto said with a smile. "Good night, Sakura."

She smiled back at him. "Night, Naruto."

Smile still lingering on both their faces, Naruto tilted his chin up to yell back into the apartment. "Oi, Teme! Don't do anything stupid like you always do because I'm leaving!"

"So leave, Dobe." Sasuke snapped back from where he stood, leaning against the wall on the other side of the living room. Naruto could have sworn he caught a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of Sasuke's mouth. It was so slight that he just barely caught it. He smiled back.

"Alright," He looked at Sakura. "Goodnight." He said with a wave, and started down the hallway, disappearing around the corner. When he was out of sight, Sakura closed the door behind him and walked back into the apartment.

Sasuke was there.

Awkward silence reigned between them. "So." She said, crossing her arms. "You want anything before you go to bed?"

It was only 10:00 at night, she didn't even know if Sasuke had been thinking about going to bed. But she knew that in order to watch over him the two of them should go to bed at around the same time. It wouldn't do for her to be unconscious in another room and leave him to his own devices, what kind of supervisor would she be then?

"No." Sasuke answered.

"OK. Well, I'm going to take a shower. Unless you want to first?"

Sasuke shrugged and leaned his head back on the wall, closing his eyes, arms still crossed against his chest, ankles crossed on the floor, barring himself from the outside, and from her.

Sakura sighed. Sometimes talking to him was like beating her head against 12 inches of steel. And she was too tired for this right now. "Alright, I won't be long. Help yourself to the kitchen or TV. I'll be out in a bit."

She left the room and jumped in the shower, feeling instantly gratified when the hot streams of liquid cascaded over her shoulders and soaked through her strawberry pink hair.

Sasuke stood in silence for a while, listening to the sound of water periodically slapping against the bath floor. Finally, he stood, pushing off the wall and walked over to the TV. It was placed on the middle shelf of a five-shelf complex, surrounding it were all kinds of video tapes and DVDS. Aimlessly he picked through them, until his eyes caught on a black shoe box. Sakura's neat handwriting had labeled it with silver marker: Letters & Journal.

Without hesitation he picked up the box and opened it. He was met with about seven or eight video tapes. Pulling them out, they were all labeled different things. Graduation, 16th Birthday, Naruto and Me – Spring Festival… and it went on and on, dated and organized chronologically. Typical Sakura. And then he found one, somewhere in the middle, that caught his eye. Labeled with only one heading: Our Letter to Sasuke.

The tape was fully rewound and seemed to be staring at him expectantly. Emotionlessly, he turned on the TV and slipped the tape in. The machine accepted it quietly, eating the plastic and film straight from his hand. The screen went blue for a second, and then kicked to life.

He recognized the surroundings immediately – the woods of Konoha, a familiar training spot for team 7. In fact, this had been where Kakashi had preformed the bell-test for them all those years ago. The camera moved shakily around, filming trees with kunai marks sliced permanently into their bark, the leaves, the canopy, then back down to the forest floor. Sasuke sat down and stared at the video with contempt. Whoever was filming, they weren't doing a great job. Suddenly, the camera made a 180 degree turn that would have made any normal human being's stomach lurch. Sasuke's face crinkled in distain as the camera zoomed far too close into someone's face, then zoomed out until the face could be made out to be Naruto's. The blonde squinted at the camera for a while before grinning. Sasuke's eyebrows raised, his eyes still half lidded. Figures it was the Dobe.

"Hey Teme! It's me! Uzumaki Naruto! Heh!"

A muscle Sasuke's jaw ticked in irritation and almost reached for the power button before he changed his mind. It wasn't as if it was any more obnoxious than normal Naruto.

"Well," Naruto's voice continued as the camera moved back to filming the Konoha woods, the view shaking with each of Naruto's steps. "You're too stubborn to come home, so Sakura and I thought we'd send you a letter. Speaking of Sakura…"

Naruto's hand moved in front of a particular tree branch and moved it aside to reveal the river bank. "There she is, eating with Kakashi and Sai. She's gotten to be kind of pretty huh?"

Just as Naruto had narrated, Sakura, Kakashi, and a dark-haired boy that Sasuke recognized were sitting together on a checkered blanket, food spread out before them. Sakura and Kakashi were smiling and laughing about something that Sasuke couldn't quite here. Sai sat and watched them, looking content. Upon Naruto's compliment, Sakura's head snapped up. "Naruto! What are you doing with my camera?"

She looked younger, Sasuke noticed, than the Sakura he was living with now. In fact, she looked very much like the Sakura who had first met him at Orochimaru's hideout and tried to take him home with Naruto three years ago. The tape had probably been made either just before or after their first reunion.

"Ah, ah, Sakura-chan. I'm just making something for Sasuke-teme."

He saw the flash of surprise and hurt that entered Sakura's jade eyes at the mention of his name. She recovered quickly. She sighed heavily and then smiled at the camera "Naruto, when are you going to grow up, huh?"

"Psh, Sakura-chan, still grumpy as ever." Naruto complained, turning the camera away, from her to the silver haired man beside her. "Kakashi-sensei, do you have anything to say to Teme?"

Kakashi's unveiled eye crinkled with a smile and he waved casually at the camera. "Waiting for you to get back, Sasuke."

On that note the camera swiveled back around to a sloppily filmed image of Naruto's eyes, which were glaring at the screen. "Yeah, Sasuke, get your ass back here soon. Or else I'll kick it all the way back to Konoha? Got that?"

Sasuke scoffed and watched as the camera swung back to film the dark-haired ninja.

"Er – anyway, this is Sai." Naruto said. "He's our new teammate. He's a pretty special guy, but… I'll tell you more about him when you get back."

The boy stared expressionlessly at the camera. For a moment, Sasuke got the impression that he was staring at a blank slate. The boy's stoic stare held none of the contempt and boredom that automatically entered Sasuke's own stare. Sai's was just… blank. Sasuke disliked him immediately.

Finally, a very awkward, deliberate smile spread across the boy's face and he waved his hand. "Hello, Sasuke-kun. I hope you are well."

The tape then continued, Sasuke watched as Naruto and Sakura covered every inch of Konoha, reaching back into old Team 7 memories, and meeting up with their old classmates. He recognized each of his classmates, though they were considerably older than the twelve and thirteen year olds he had left behind, and younger than the nineteen and eighteen year olds he had returned to.

They all had things to say to Sasuke.

Ino was at first annoyed at being unexpectedly filmed at her flower shop and threatened to punch out Naruto's eyes. But when she heard it was a letter to Sasuke, she turned her classic flirtatious grin. "Hi, Sasuke-kun!" She called, voice coated with sugar. "I miss you so you'd better come home soon, okay? I've got flowers and cake waiting for you at my house so come over here first!"

Behind her, Shikamaru cringed at her overly-girly tone.

"Annoying." He grumbled to himself, turning away from the camera when it zoomed in on him.

Rock Lee on the other hand met the project with as much enthusiasm as Naruto had and convinced an unwilling Sakura to film a tandem martial arts routine expressing their mutual desire to return Sasuke home as soon as possible!

"For the sake of youthful rigor!" Lee chimed.

"What Furry Brows said!" Naruto grinned.

They struck a pose that was far too much like something Gai would have done. Sasuke almost blanched.

"OK, that's it." Sakura's voice interrupted as they were in the midst of tag-teaming an innocent tree which was mean to be Orochimaru. "I'm turning this off."

"WHAT!?!" The two boys halted abruptly and looked at her in horror.

"NO, SAKURA! WE HAVEN'T EVEN REACHED THE FINALE YE-"

Sakura's hand came in view of the camera, bringing up the lens cap to envelop the TV in blackness.

When the video came back to life they continued to film Neji and Tenten, who broke apart from their training to be filmed. Sasuke noticed that they stood much closer together than they used to, and Neji hardly said anything, leaving Tenten to say "we" a lot, speaking for him, which was abnormal.

Finally Naruto came back on the screen, and after delivering a couple more threats, he declared that the letter had been written and the tape cut off. Sasuke stared for a moment, and was about to hit eject when Sakura came back on the screen.

This time the footage was limited to just her bedroom, the old one that she used to live in before she moved out. It was dark in the room, and objects wee lit only by a green light from the camera. She was dressed in civilian clothes, it was obviously her time off. She had waited until she was alone to film this.

She had positioned the camera so that she could comfortably sit on her bed and be fully seen. She looked away from the camera absently, as if thinking, before she started talking. When she did, she looked right at the camera, her gaze direct and strong, nothing like the shy, indirect glances she used to offer him in their Team 7 days. For Sasuke it felt very different.

"Mmm, Sasuke, I know that in reality this tape probably won't get to you. And even if it does, you probably won't watch it. But in case you do, I'm sorry for how sloppy Naruto was with it. Knowing you, you'll probably think it's junk. But… we worked hard on it… Naruto really worked hard on it. I hope you appreciate it. And… we made this tape because… well, yeah, I guess" She hesitated for a moment. "I guess that's all I really wanted to say. So, hopefully, we'll be finding you soon, maybe you could even watch this… please watch it. I know it's more for us than it is for you but still… OK, well, I guess I'll turn this thing off now. Bye, Sasuke."

With that she leaned forward and reached behind the screen, and the tape went blank. Sasuke caught something in its last few second of taping, frowning, he reached forward and rewound Sakura's speech. When he saw what he wanted to see he pressed pause. Sakura was looking right at the camera, her mouth in mid-sentence. But it was behind her that Sasuke was focusing.

On the night-stand beside her table, there was a framed picture of her and the Dobe, embracing. His left arm was around her waist, his right hand holding the camera above them. Sasuke traced the lines of Sakura's arms, which were wrapped around Naruto's neck, her cheek pressed into the hollow of his shoulder and his neck. The Dobe grinned, Sakura was smiling, and Sasuke stared. Once again, the people in the picture were noticeably younger than the Sakura and Naruto he had returned to, but there was no questioning that they hadn't included everything that had happened to them in the letter-tape. Because that picture was definitely one of a boyfriend and girlfriend.

Sasuke stared at the TV a while longer before rewinding it and ejecting it. He found the tape that was directly behind it, labeled Naruto and Me - Spring Festival. Slowly, he put this tape in the VCR and pressed play. When the tape kicked to life, Naruto was filming himself and Sakura. They were somewhere on a street corner in the middle of the night, the spring festival was taking place all around them. Together they were laughing and touching, the camera moved from the two of them to the surrounding festival. They talked a while at the camera, held onto each other, and filmed the happy faces in the festival, faces that Sasuke recognized from childhood. Ino and Shikamaru were holding hands, which definitely had not been a part of his letter-tape, though they were only a few months apart in date. It made sense, Sasuke realized, now that he thought about it. Of course they wouldn't show them the couples, or the real full lives of the people he had left behind. Back then, they had still been enemies and the more you let your enemy know about yourself the more dangerous it was. That was why Ino and Shikamaru hadn't let on that they were together in his letter. After all, if he had actually cared, on his return to Konoha he would have simply had to hold one of them hostage to get the other to talk or help. The same with Naruto and Sakura. He was about to rewind the tape to re-watch the beginning when he felt someone behind him.

"What are you doing?" Sakura asked.

He could smell her shampoo. He didn't know how he hadn't picked up on her earlier. Sasuke remained still and regarded only the images flicking onto the screen before him. "I watched my letter." He said, his voice perfectly neutral.

Behind him, Sakura grew stiff. "And it was so fascinating that you decided to watch the festival too?" It would take an idiot to not be able to tell that she was being facetious.

Sasuke didn't reply. "I saw a picture on your nightstand."

He could practically see the frown on Sakura's face. "What picture?" She asked.

"Of you and Naruto." He said. "It was beside your bed when you filmed the end of the letter."

Suddenly the images were cut off, the TV screen went black. Sasuke stood and saw Sakura standing behind him in her PJs, remote in her hand. "We were sixteen." She said. "We'd just missed getting you back. It was only for a few months… and in the end we decided we were just close friends anyway."

Sasuke stared directly at her, his dark gaze piercing. "I didn't ask you to explain yourself." He said, tone low.

He saw the surprise and then anger flash through her eyes. "And I didn't ask you to pry into my past."

Sasuke was filled with the alien sensation of Sakura pushing him away for the first time in his life. The silence between them was deafening. Finally she turned away from him and started making his bed. He wanted to snap at her to stop. He could make his own bed for God's sake, he wasn't a little boy or one of her helpless patients. He could kill her if he wanted too. Looking down at her, he crossed his arms and said the only thing that came to mind. "You and Naruto." He said quietly, even though he'd just told her to drop it.

"Three years ago." Sakura said.

"Two." Sasuke corrected, not missing a beat.

"Almost three." She countered.

It was a complicated, dangerous battle they suddenly found themselves fighting. He had to calculate his next step.

"Do you care?" She asked, turning around to face him.

He felt the scowl distort his face. "No." His answer was obvious. It had been an unnecessary question.

"He's not as stupid as you think he is." She said suddenly, it was a challenge.

Sasuke scoffed, an automatic reaction, and started to walk away to the shower. Sakura's face creased in sudden anger and she cut in front of him. "What do you think you know about him anyway, Sasuke?" She asked. "You, who hasn't been here for years? We've changed. Konoha has changed. You can't just come back after six years and judge him."

"I'll judge whomever as I see fit." Sasuke cut her off, his tone venomous and low. "I wasn't the one volunteering to come back."

"You can't blame us for trying." Sakura snapped.

"Why come after me." Sasuke said. "Why go through all the trouble and make this piece of junk for me when you both knew I didn't want to have anything to do with you?" He asked, picking up his video letter and showing it to her. "Four years after I leave and the two of you are still so sappy and sentimental about it that you'd do something like this?"

Sakura stared at the video tape with cold green eyes. "We were friends." She said, never looking away from the tape, her voice began to rise. "The three of us. It meant something to me and it meant something to Naruto and that was all that mattered."

"This friendship ended years ago." Sasuke said, suddenly furious, the anger building up inside him, pulsing through his veins. "I ended it. It was stupid for him to chase after something that was already gone."

The tension built between them, and finally Sasuke looked away. "I'm going to shower." He said, turning angrily away from her.

"Hey!" Sakura's hand shot out of no where and wrapped around his forearm like a vice. Anger radiated from her skin, hot to the touch and far too tight for Sasuke's taste. Her newfound strength took him by surprise. It actually… hurt.

'Wrong move.' Sasuke thought. Furiously, he whipped around and yanked his arm out of her grip, hurting her. Before either of them realized what had happened he was right in her face, heat radiating from him. They were only inches apart.

"What." His voice was low and dangerous and laced with promises of pain.

He was so close to her that she could feel his heartbeat through the air between them. Amazing, angry heat was scorching her skin and she could almost feel it vibrating the nerves in her chest. It took all she had to hold his gaze, which was starting to turn crimson. He was irate, and she knew that if she made any wrong moves now it would all be over. Because this boy, her childhood friend, who she had loved for years, could kill her in five seconds. And he probably wouldn't hesitate either. The intensity of the moment rendered her a breathless, her chest started to ache.

Sasuke continued to stare down at her, anger making him see only red. When he saw the fear in her eyes he felt a touch of satisfaction. And then… it bothered him. It really bothered him. Struggling, he tried to formulate something he wasn't sure he wanted to say. He didn't even really know what it was. Finally, he turned away from her in heated frustration, wordlessly moving towards the bathroom.

Her voice stopped him halfway there.

"We made the tape because we missed you." She said suddenly, her voice quiet, but at the same time determined and unyielding, as if daring him to respond.

Sasuke turned around. Hurt and anger were swimming from Sakura's posture to her eyes, which were looking at the ground. Eventually they moved up and met his in that even, steady gaze that he was so unused to seeing on her.

Sasuke said nothing.


A/N: OK so its not a Sakura, Naruto fiction. Really, they're very close friends, which will serve to cause issues in the future between Sakura and Sasuke, but no, no romance anymore. Just extremely close friendship. And i mean, can you blame them? they went through hell together. I think that makes a bond. :-). laters.