Notes: I'd catch a grenade for all of you who reviewed! I'm sorry, I'm kind of a fail at review replies, so I'm going to start replying from to your inboxes. MUWAHAHAHA. There is no escape. I love Tumblr, btw; .c o m… follow for follow? (:
Disclaimer:
Naruto doesn't belong to me. Ain't that a bee with an itch, ain't that a mother-trucker?


CHAPTER SEVEN

- Ashley -


Sasuke;

"Why weren't you at the assembly? You're the team captain, Sasuke, it was important. Every soccer team in the school for every grade was there and you, the person that half of those kids look up to, didn't show." Why did Sasuke even bother to stay behind?

"I'm missing class," He muttered, not even raising his head to look at the sports director. He wasn't interested in what Iruka had to say. He'd caught up on what the assembly had been based around from the guys: a tournament in three weeks time and two matches this fortnight.

"Which one is more important - your sports or your academic career?" Iruka cried, frustrated that the boy before him wasn't listening. He then immediately calmed himself down and realized what he'd just said, "Don't answer that."

"Can I go now…?" The dark haired Uchiha drawled, dragging his onyx eyes up to meet that of his teacher's. There was a scar across the man's tanned and pointed nose that Naruto had hinted was from a hideous accident involving a pizza man, a lasagne truck, and a sheet of glass waiting to be glued into a shop window. Sasuke didn't even want to know how the lasagne truck had been involved in scarring his teacher. "The guys explained to me what the whole talk was about." The teen continued, "You need to chill, man."

Okay, so now he sounded like a freaking hippie. Sasuke fucking loved his life.

"You can't loose any of the upcoming games."

"How could we?" Sasuke smirked, "You've got me, the Dobe, Kiba, Teeth and Hyuuga. Then on the side, we have Shikamaru. How could we loose?"

"By being overconfident," Iruka muttered. He jerked a thumb behind him towards the faux wood door and Sasuke casually stood up and took his leave.

Man, that teacher was such a fool. Did he really think that Sasuke was being overconfident? He and his team were legendary! Since coming together in freshman year, they'd won almost every single game they'd played. What made the tan man think they'd loose any of the upcoming games? Tch…

"Sasuke-kun…" Somebody called from the end of the hallway. The Uchiha paused outside of his math classroom. "Sasuke-kun, I know you're there," The voice called again, "come here. I need help!"

Sasuke heard the tremble in the feminine voice and sighed loudly, spinning on the heel of his converse and causing it to squeak as he swept down the hall to here he'd heard the voice. It wasn't one he recognized as one of Ino's friends, but it was obviously a fan, since it used the suffix.

"What's wrong?" Sasuke asked, his voice echoing through the empty hallway. "Who are you?" He turned the corner and glared. "The fuck do you want?" He deadpanned to the violet haired girl.

Ami eyed him as if he were a piece of meat. "I need to speak with you."

"So? Inbox me on Facebook." The Uchiha spat, whirling around once again and storming up the hallway.

What the fuck was with that chick.

"Sasuke-kun…"

"Sasuke!" Oh, thank fucking God. Somebody was here to save him! Sasuke looked up to find the last person he expected to be out of class during hours.

"Sakura, what are you—?"

"Sasuke-kun," Ami growled, appearing behind him, "I don't believe we were done talking." She placed a small hand onto Sasuke's forearm. He glared at her over his shoulder and shrugged the girl away from him lightly (he could never bee rough with girls. Unless it was during, ya' know, sex).

"Did you finish the assignment we had for the biology presentation today?" She asked, desperately. Sasuke thought for a moment and then nodded. He reached into his pocket and handed her the memory stick containing the PowerPoint presentation.

"It needs work." He added as she thanked him and began to walk. He wishedwishedwished she'd stay and save him from this creature behind him. He tried to show the pinkette with his eyes that he needed a savoir. Maybe she could put the past with all of the hatred and the fighting behind her and just maybe save his ass.

On the other hand, his math room was less than ten metres away. Maybe he could just blank Ami. Yeah. Be a dick, Uchiha.

"Uh, Sasuke?" Sakura nudged him in the chest with her finger, "Shouldn't you be in class?"

"Shouldn't you?" Ami hissed at Sakura from behind Sasuke; her voice nasally and poisonous.

Sakura appeared to shrink slightly, but Sasuke decided he ought to give some input before there was a bitch fight or something, "Shouldn't… you? Ami, I have no wish to speak with you, and if you try to corner me once more, I'm going to speak with my father about a restraining order. I don't care what you want to talk to me about, I'm not interested. Go."

Erm. Okay. Sasuke was surprised at how much of a jerk he sounded, but it was the only way he was going to be rid of that chick without banging her or something. That seemed to be what she wanted. Sasuke didn't look back, but listened to the skit, skit, skit of the violeteen's ballet pump shoes as they hit the grimy hallway floor as she made her way to class.

The Uchiha raised his eyebrows at the pinkette, waiting for her to either speak or leave. She chose the latter and waved shortly at him before turning and walking quickly in the direction that she had come from. Sasuke dropped the thoughts of bitch fights and girls and strolled into Kakashi's math classroom.

He wasn't surprised to see that the grey haired tutor hadn't arrived, and he surveyed the room with little interest. Karin and Temari were huddled on the desks at the back, pouring over something on their phones. Students were standing at one another's desks casually speaking to each other.

It wasn't the chaos that you see on bad cartoons. It was a classroom full of sociable teenagers minus the teacher.

The dark haired Uchiha teen stepped into the room, reaching into his irritatingly tight dark grey skinnies (Sasuke loved his skinnies. Loved.) and pulling out his cell phone as he strode casually to the back of the room to where Neji and Suigetsu were sitting.

"Suigetsu, it's not difficult, you can work it out yourself." Neji was saying. He was probably trying to help the white haired boy with his homework which had, no doubt, been left undone until now.

"But I can't." The youngest of the Hozuki brothers cried, his face falling onto his text book. Neji sighed and waved a hand for Sasuke to sit. And Sasuke did sit. Right in front of his two friends and leant over the desk to hand over his own math book to the amethyst eyed sixteen year old.

Suigetsu almost inhaled Sasuke's book the moment it landed on the desk. "You're a life saver!"

"Hn." Sasuke smirked at the fool. It was like feeding a starving beggar, the way the teenager swiftly glanced from page to page and then to the door to check that Kakashi had not entered the room before copying out each sum. "Neji," Sasuke spoke, drawing his sick amusement away from the youngest of the Hozuki family and eyeing his cousin with a serious look, "when are the games planned for?" He questioned.

Of course, Sasuke was talking about the next two soccer games planned for this fortnight. He didn't need to worry about the tournament in the third week because there would be a full week of prep and training, along with some cheerleader watching – Suigetsu, Kiba, and Naruto's favourite part – as they prepared themselves for the games. Neji straightened, "Friday the thirtieth and Friday the seventh." He told Sasuke, "Have you organised any training or do you think we'll be alright?"

"We'll have a training session Wednesday evening." Sasuke murmured.

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"I'll tell the others."


Sakura;

I've always loathed and hated history with a passion. Not that I'm not good at it. I score hundreds in every test! It's just that it's so boring and lessons just drag on, and on, and on… and, see? It makes me drag on, and on, and on.

Urgh.

Sarutobi-sensei is an awesome teacher, though. He's a super old dude, like a lot of the teachers at Konoha High, but he's really into what he's saying. And it's probably because he's so old that he teaches so well. Because he can recount certain parts of modern history as he saw it.

Ino, on the other hand, was never fascinated by anything history related. Not even the old dude's war stories. She had her face planted in her yellow exercise book and was snoring lightly as I scribbled down notes as the teacher lectured.

It didn't take me long to loose concentration though, as Kakashi's math class thundered through the corridor outside and I caught a glimpse of Uchiha Sasuke's absurdly spiky hair along with Suigetsu's loudmouth voice and Karin's giggle. They were probably heading to the library to transfer their text books.

Tenten nudged me, "Neji said there's a tournament in three weeks." She murmured, "that means we get to perform our routines." She grinned manically as my face slowly portrayed horror.

Our "routines" involved me skipping around in a pair of red and white shorts and then being launched into the air by three girls shorter than me. It was not what I wanted to do in public.

"How…?" I began in a panicked whisper, "How do we do that? It takes me ages to learn dance routines and the cheer is, like, impossible…"

"We're just going to have to do a shit load of practice, aren't we, my little bumble-bee?" The grin never left her face. I cowered into my text book.

These girls were so ruthless. I hadn't even agreed to take the place of Ami and, to be honest, I didn't think I was good enough. I wasn't strong; I didn't have the sass needed; I wasn't confident and I most certainly wasn't the type of person to accept the proposal of being tossed into the air. Ino was supposed to do that! Dammit. What in the name of fuck would I do if I fell?

Shit, shit, shit, don't think about that…

"So, what have you got planned for this week during school?"

"I have work on a biology project tonight, but I guess Sasuke and Naruto are going to be training or something." I said, thinking.

"Well, whatever, I'll ask Ino to arrange something."

Without me even uttering a single word, the brunette had whipped out her white Blackberry and was texting madly on it. I glared at the lines on the paper and inwardly groaned.


It was Naruto who had to ring my doorbell first later that afternoon. He said that Sasuke would be along soon and that he just had to finish some things in school.

As if! A little voice called from inside my head. I batted the thoughts that were so obvious away and invited the tall, tanned blonde into my tiny kitchen. How would these boys, who lived in such fancy homes, take to the home belonging to my mom and me?

Would they judge me for its smallness? Would they comment on how old looking my TV was? Surely not… they were boys. All they would want would be food, and mom had left me enough money to order out.

"So, Sakura!" Naruto said as he plopped down cheerfully into one of the sofas in the living room whilst I seated myself on the carpet and grinned up at him, "Will you be at mine and Sasuke's game on Friday?"

I glanced up, meeting his sky-blue eyes with a frown, "Yes." I muttered, "I'm on the cheer team, aren't I?"

"I know, but I wouldn't have thought you'd be ready for a game so early in."

"The routine isn't complicated," I explained, my eyebrows knitted together. How dare anybody underestimate Haruno Sakura and her skills. ROAR.

"Still," Naruto shrugged. I glared for less than a second before the two of us heard the sound of feet trudging up the gravel walkway. A moment later, the doorbell rang and a soft pattern of knocking followed. I got up and skipped to the door, ready to greet the belated Uchiha.

"Sasuke, where have you been?" I smiled, stepping out of the way and allowing for him to brush past me as he strolled into the kitchen.

The Uchiha rolled onyx eyes behind dark, swishy bangs and muttered something about him having to walk here because Kiba was out with Ino.

Kiba was out with Ino! Finally, things were going the way I had wanted them to for such a long time. I was so happy for them!

Sasuke, on the other hand, appeared slightly bummed out. "Yeah, well…" He straightened, reaching into his messenger bag and pulling out a dark blue folder with the words,

BIOLOGY PROJECTS

Printed on the cover ever so neatly in thick, black sharpie, "Naruto and I can't do anymore studying this week, so we better get down to it now…"


The thing was that when Sasuke had suggested that 'we' get down to the work, he had mostly meant 'me' doing all of the work and relaying information to a notepad instead of to Naruto where the blonde was supposed to be making notes but was, instead, flicking through the channels on the TV. I glared at both of them from the corner of the room.

YES. ACTUALLY. I WAS SITTING IN THE CORNER, BECAUSE THE BOYS HAD DECIDED TO WRESTLE WITH EACH OTHER EARLIER AND THEIR FEET KEPT BUGGING ME, OKAY?

What? …Feet are weird…

Okay, back to the corner I shall go.


Sasuke;

The Uchiha was slightly pissed. It was okay, though – he'd managed to take most of it out on Naruto. He had thought that he was totally over the idea of Kiba and Ino being together, but the thing was… he felt slightly possessive. He wanted her back.

It wasn't because he wanted to go out with her again or that he wanted to do any of the things that they used to, it was just that she was Ino and he was Sasuke and for six months, they had been "Sasuke and Ino, they're going out, aren't they cute?"

Now they were two separate things. Sasuke. And Ino. And for the youngest of the Uchiha family, the whole thing was weird. He hadn't actually been in a relationship that long before. A relationship, for Sasuke, used to mean that he was out almost every night with one girl for two weeks getting drunk, making out, and having sex.

With Ino, it had been pretty much the same for the first two weeks. But he'd sort of enjoyed hanging out with her. Even if she was friends with a bunch of psychopaths (TentenTentenTenten) and could never shut her mouth. So he kept her. And kept her and kept her until they just became an item.

…What was he even thinking about? He didn't want Ino… he wanted Kiba to be happy, so why was this bugging him?

"You guys, Kiba's outside," Sakura said as she stepped into the living room. Huh, when had she left? He thought she was still in her corner.

"Oh!" Naruto jumped to his feet and gave Sakura a tight squeeze, "Thanks for having us, Sakura-chan. See you tomorrow!"

"Goodbye, Naruto."

The Uchiha got to his feet and tugged his skinnies up (yes, he did have a belt, he just preferred not to wear it properly). He looked at Sakura for a short moment before picking up the Bio folder and nodding his thanks to her.

"Oh, and Sasuke," She called, halting him. Sasuke turned and raised an eyebrow, "Don't be mad at Kiba, you're just not used to the idea of Ino being single still."

How could she even know what he'd been thinking? Sasuke quickly looked away, uttering the simple, "Hn," and then calling out a thank you as he closed the kitchen door and made for the car where Naruto was already sitting up front.

Ino was in the back.


Notes: ASHLEY, BABY, YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO ALIVE. Yeah, I love that song. You know what else I love? American boys. Laik Brett. (L) Anyways, I'm sorry that this chapter was so short, and that nothing really happened and that my transitions suck so bad, but next chapter, we finally get to see the tension between Sasuke and Ino! :3 Reviews? We can make it to onehundred in the next couple of chapters, I bet we came.