A/N: Hey guys ^^ This is the new chappy. I hate to say it but it's kind of like a..a filler type thing *hangs head in shame* Nothing exciting happens, no fights, no drama, no really jealous Sasuke. It's mainly just a way for Sakura to see him in a new way and to develop the characters. I have to say that I hate this chapter. Hate it. I prefer it when things go wrong :D So the next chapter will be filled with good stuff. okay? I promise *holds up right hand* Still, I hope you like this chapter a little bit. Just be patient until next time. Please review!!!
Warning: Mild Karin Bashing! If you like her, please don't hate me!
Disclaimer: Please stop making me do this! It's so painful to admit that I don't own Naruto and the chances of me ever owning it are non existant! *cries*
The Road to Recovery
6. Cut out the –Kun!! From now on you will refer to the man in question as Sasuke. NOT Sasuke-kun. The elimination of this suffix will not only let him know that you are no longer dying for his affections, but also you'll be subconsciously telling your heart to accept the fact that you don't want to be with him anymore. If you occasionally let a small "Sasuke-kun" slip out, quickly correct yourself. There's no room to be weak. Clear your throat loudly and proudly say "Sorry...Sasuke."
***
The sun rose the next day, and as Sakura looked out the window she prayed that the beautiful weather would brighten her mood. She was just so frustrated.
She wasn't sure if the list was necessarily doing it's intended job as of yet, but there was no doubt that it was certainly making her mad at him.
'There is no way in hell I'm apologizing to him this time.' She thought with a huff. He'd been acting so unlike himself. She had no idea what was going on with him, but it was confusing her. Half the time she didn't know whether she wanted to hug the man or to kick his ass.
'I need to finish the steps. That's the only way I know I'll be over him. If I don't...ugh. I just might become a fangirl. That or I'll murder him in the next fourteen days.' She rationalized in her head as she stomped around her room searching for her list.
"Where is it?!" She hissed. For one moment, she worried about whether she might have lost it at some point. Images of her list blowing away and landing in front of Sasuke's front door burst behind her eyelids.
"Aha!" Five minutes, and one disaster zone formerly known as her room, later, she'd finally found it. Relief spread throughout her system. It was amazing how one lone piece of paper could make or break you.
Sakura's eyes scanned the page quickly and a giant smile crept up her face. Oh...this step would be easy. She'd show him. She wouldn't be rude, because he was her teammate, but he would have to learn a small lesson on how to treat someone. It wasn't extreme, it was just enough to show that no longer would he be able to push himself into her business without her taking it to heart.
She knew that, due to how he'd attempted to control her and what she did last week, mistreated an innocent guy just because he took an interest in her and had taken jerkoff to a whole new level that cutting out his precious suffix would be simple.
Confidance was key and Sakura had tons of it.
'Bring it.' she smiled smugly.
***
Sasuke woke up early as he always did. After preparing himself for his own training session, he sat down for a few minutes to have a cup of tea and mull over everything that had been happening. He'd get to the training field in a few minutes. Right now, he needed to clear his head. He'd been feeling extremely...he didn't even have a word for it. It was the most bizarre feeling he'd ever felt.
Sakura had dressed differently than she normally did. He'd never seen her really change the way she looked, at least not that drastically, since the day she'd cut her hair during the Chuunin exams. It had taken him off guard. He can't say it was bad exactly. She had looked...decent. But he was an Uchiha and, for the moment, he had more important things to think about than the opposite sex.
That being the case, he was completely stumped by the fact that the image of her that day seemed to be permenantly ingrained into his conciousness. The picture of her walking towards them while they'd been training was literally stuck in his mind. Men from his family weren't known to be affected by women. It just didn't fit the "Uchiha" profile.
At the time he'd actually been a bit surprised and he was sure that Kakashi had heard him intake a breath. Uchiha's were never surprised. They knew things, they expected things, they assumed things. So to say that he had not expected her to come out so...decent looking was a huge blow to him and his ego.
Even before that afternoon, he'd been noticing changes in himself. After that day in the hospital, he'd even stayed outside her apartment out of guilt and concern. When he'd first met her in the forest after she'd been attacked, he'd abruptly thought of his own life without the Kunoichi in it, and he'd been worried that he'd have to face the future without the pink haired girl. Uchiha's were never concerned. They never had a feeling of helplessness like the one he'd felt on the mission. They weren't supposed to care too much.
And then there was the awful, almost burning sensation that had consumed his body the other day. He knew the feeling. He was painfully familiar with it, however it never had anything to do with Sakura before. The feeling was the same as the one he'd felt shortly before he'd left the village. When he'd resented Naruto and had craved to beat him. The desire to be as strong. It had been the final step to pushing him actually leaving. It was the same feeling he'd felt when he saw his father favouriting his brother. The feeling he got when he was rejected in favour of Itachi time and time again.
But what was it?
However it had been different this time. With Naruto, it had been that he'd wanted to improve and gain the strength that Naruto had, to move towards his goal. With his brother, it had been a longing to be loved just as much, to have even a sliver of the attention that Itachi got. But now, it simply created a desire to rip the arms off any man who thought to touch Sakura. To distance her from any other male. He tried to tell himself that it was because she'd been his teammate for so long and that to get involved with a man would throw off their team balance and distract her.
He never even fathomed the fact that he could have been jealous. Uchiha's didn't do envy, they were envied.
He closed his eyes, let out a frustrated breath and tried to find the answer. He hated to admit that he was confused, but that was exactly what he was. Uchiha's were not supposed to be confused.
He'd of never thought of the woman in that way. He hadn't even really thought of her as a real woman until now. She'd always been the annyoing, giddy fangirl that he'd left behind. But he saw the differences in their full glory now. But he wanted to know why. Why was he even thinking about her? Why did he care if another guy wanted to date her? Why was he allowing himself to be affected like this?
He had no answers but he knew that he wasn't interested in her. Like he'd said before she was just a teammate who annoyed him more than she should. She had just been a fangirl. He didn't care about her that way. He couldn't care about her that way. Uchiha's didn't really care too much about personal things like love. It wasn't like them.
He settled for just blaming the stress of everything that had happened lately. He was just stressed. His strange way of acting lately was just because he was tense and everything had happened so suddenly in one short time period. It had nothing to do with her. But in the back of his mind, he knew that Uchiha's had a habit of lying. Lying to themselves was no exception.
Sasuke stood up and was just about to put his cup away and leave the compound and these annoying ponderings behind when the thoughts of fangirls once again invaded his thoughts. Only this time he was thinking of anothed fangirl. He'd forgotten that that day was quickly approaching. It couldn't be that 'd been dreading that day for month's now, a couple years even.
The young sharingan user rushed to the small, plain and simple calendar he kept in his kitchen to remember important dates. He snarled.
It was that day.
Sasuke suddenly wanted to thrust a Katana into his gut and be done with it. Today promised to be one of the most horrendous days in history for him.
***
Sakura made her way down towards the training grounds, with a bounce in her step. She still wasn't allowed to train due to Tsunade's persistance that she wait a few more days, but she figured she could watch the others train and catch up on her reading.
The use of her chakra was forbidden due to how badly she'd strained herself before so she couldn't even practice any jutsus from the text books. The boredom was killing her. She knew that staying in her home would drive her completely over the edge of sanity so she opted to come watch her boys tear each other apart.
Once again, she put some serious effort into how she dressed, as it made her feel much of more confidant and she knew it bothered the Uchiha for some unknown and incomprehensible reason. She noticed the glances she was getting again and fought against a smirk. Things were going her way today.
As she appraoched she was practicing in her mind on exactly how she'd greet them all, one in specific.
'Hello Sasuke. Hey Sasuke. Hi Sasuke. Suck it Sasuke!'
But as she got closer she noticed that the pinnacle of her plan was missing in action.
"Hey Hag. Still Chakra less I see." Sai said to her with his fake smile plastered across his face.
"Shut it Sai. Don't forget who your healer is." She growled the last part under her breath.
"Sakura-chan! You come to watch me beat fake face here?" His greeting was shouted at her from far away, but with Naruto's voice, it was crystal clear.
"You know it Naruto!" She called out with a playful look in Sai's direction, which let him know that she was just kidding around.
She almost wanted to laugh at her team's relationship with their newest member. It was amazing to observe the varied reactions to him. Sai still had the capability of completely flustering and angering the blonde. No matter what they had been through and the fact that she knew Naruto considered Sai a friend, Sai could still get on the boy's nerves.
It was obvious that Sasuke and the man had a...strained relationship. Sai had replaced him in the team and was constantly making jibes about his "emoness" and "ass hair".
For some reason she had a strange suspicion that Kakashi had a wierd soft spot for the artist. Even though Sai was new to the team and Kakashi hadn't had the chance to really get to work with him very much until later on, they got along quite well. Kakashi didn't mind his insults and seemed to find Naruto's discomfort amusing. She had often found him chuckling at Naruto's frustration caused by the former Root member.
She herself knew she liked Sai and that insults aside, they were sort of friends. They had been through some tough missions and had gotten through them, which showed her that Sai could be trusted. It didn't change the fact that his face often had a few choice bruises thanks to his sharp tongue.
She went over to her sensei and teammate with a slight furrow in her brow.
"Hey Kakashi-sensei. Where's Sasuke?" She enquired. It wasn't like him to be late for training and absent was simply unthinkable, except when he was on a mission. Kakashi raised an eyebrow when she asked.
"You mean you forgot too? Sasuke came by earlier and told me he wouldn't be at training until later because of what day it was."
Sakura was puzzled. "Day? What day?" Kakashi raised his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for her to figure it out by herself.
She thought for a minute before images of the day Sasuke came home to Konoha after years of being away came back to her. There had been tears, slapping, grunts, screams, hugs, crowds... and three other people that had come along with him. One in particular stood out. Red hair, dark glasses, freakishly loud voice, annoying personality, big boobs. There was no way to forget about her...at least until now.
Sasuke had gotten almost entirely off the hook when he'd returned (something many of the villagers resented him and the Hokage for) because of the fact that he'd killed two of the villages biggest threats (after joining them that is). His companions however had done no such deed and ultamitely had to pay the price. They had been convicted for the past couple years. Today, they were being released.
"Oh. Oh! Oh god no." Sakura groaned. The desire to shoot herself was becoming increasingly frequent lately, but right at this moment it was at it's strongest.
"So I'm guessing he went to go meet them?" She asked.
"You're guess is as good as mine." Kakashi supplied. Obviously Sasuke hadn't wasted time filling anyone in on this little development.
She was about to ask when he'd be back when her thoughts were interuppted by an unbelievably loud squeal.
"Oh Sasuke-kuuun!" Her questions were answered as a party of four made their way towards the group. Sasuke was there with the red haired chick latched so tightly onto his arm she was sure that his hand was losing circulation. Behind them stood two other males.
One was about the same size as the Uchiha with silver-white hair and razor sharp teeth who was carrying the sword of Zabuza on his back, while the other was enourmous with bright orange hair, both of whom who's name she'd forgotten. However she remembered their faces and vaguely remembered their personaltities.
The shark-like one was exuberant and quite forward, while the taller one was quiet and withdrawn. She could remember the first time she'd met them. She'd almost lost her life. The orange haired man's body had erupted in the curse mark in the hospital while she was treating him. No one had known how to calm him down. The man had literally slammed her to a wall with his hands and had been strangling her before Sasuke had been informed and had put a stop to it.
"Ah. Hello there." Kakahi greeted. The rest of them were all staring at team Hebi. Sasuke meanwhile was looking at Sakura. She had dressed differently again. It was the first thing he'd noticed. She, once again, looked...decent.
"Sasuke-kuuun. Do we really have to be here? You could leave Suigetsu and Juugo to train and we could maybe just go back to your house and....oh I don't know. Ne Sasuke-kuuuun?" She asked while pressing herself, if possible, closer to his arm. He answered her by wordlessly pulling his arm out of her grasp and glaring at her before turning away.
Sakura giggled quietly at his dismissal of her crude request. She was silenced by the purely evil look at whats-her-face shot her.
"And who're you bitch? Who do you think you are? I wouldn't be laughing you whore! Who is this anyways?!" She yelled. Sakura's eyes widened and she didn't know whether to punch her lights out or burst out laughing. Why on earth was this girl being so defensive?
'I vote we punch her face in and then laugh." Her inner supplied. Sakura blinked. It had been a while since she'd listened to her inner self. She'd just been too busy to get all caught up in her thoughts.
"Karin." Sasuke warned. He gut jerked when Karin had called her a whore and he wasn't about to heacbr such crap coming from her mouth.
"No. No it's okay Sasuke-" Sakura offered. She stopped herself abruptly from adding her little honorific. "I think I'd better just go. I can't even train today, and with so many people here, I'll just get in the way. I might just go take a walk or hang out with Ino or something. Don't worry about your little girlfriend here."
Sasuke shot her the darkest glare she'd ever recieved from him.
"Damn straight Pinky." Karin gushed while clinging, once again, to Sasuke's arm. Sasuke could feel his eyes widen a fraction at the way she'd addressed him. Sasuke? Just Sasuke. It was unthinkable. For as long as he'd known her she'd added the once dreaded "kun" at the end. It was her way of showing him she cared about him.
After he'd betrayed them and join the snake sannin, everytime they confronted each other, the "kun" was always present.
Even after he'd come back. She'd been angry. Furious even. She's cried and yelled and hit, but no matter how angry she was...The "kun" always followed his name. And now she'd just dropped it as though it was nothing. Maybe it was just a once in a lifetime thing. He'd hear it again.
"So I'll see you guys later mm'kay? Bye Kakashi-sensei, Sai, Naruto, Hebi," She said, nodding at the three members, "Sasuke." There it was again! Sasuke's eyes were wide and he was staring at her. Something was wrong with her. She was sick, she was insane she was dying. The corners of his mouths were pointed downwards into a frown. By then all her old team members who knew about her suffix for him were shocked. When it came to Sakura, Sasuke and the kun went hand in hand. She waved casually and turned to leave.
Sasuke was too shocked to speak at the moment. He watched her go, before his thoughts were broken by the mindless complaining of his red haired teammate.
"Prison was really awful Sasuke-kun. They really don't know how to treat ladies in there."
"Ladies? I don't see any ladies here. The cutie just left Karin." Suigetsu informed her. Naruto burst out laughing at Suigetsu's joke.
"Shut the hell up Suigetsu! Unless you want my fist in your face."
"So ladylike." He muttered in between sniggers. The chuckles from Naruto multiplied.
"Suigetsu!"
Kakashi decided to speak up, before things got out of hand. Dealing with a bunch of fighting kids was not his idea of a good day.
"Well, considering the occaison, why don't we call it a day. It doesn't look like we'll be training much, and taking in the fact that training is probably the last thing you members of Hebi want to do your first day out I think team seven should just meet up tomorrow...so have fun kids." He said with a wave.
Suigetsu spoke up, with a new gleam in his eyes. "Actually, I've been dying to cut something up. Training sounds-"
Almost everyone present sweatdropped. Kakashi had already left.
Naruto was fuming. "That lazy little--!"
***
Sakura made her way through the park with a slight frown gracing her features. Hebi. His new team. She'd often wondered whether his bonds with them were stronger than the bonds he'd severed with them.
And now they were here and she couldn't help worry that Sasuke would now ignore them. All that she and Naruto had worked towards. She'd worked hard to become his friend once more. All she had was put into building up her bonds with the Uchiha, and they were in danger of being wiped away. Again.
The pink haired woman had always wondered if he'd going tired of a structured life in Konoha once more, and if once his team released, he'd leave with them again to continue whatever it had been he was doing with them. He had left before. Nothing was holding him back from doing it again.
She didn't think she could stand it if he deserted them again. Which team was he going to choose? Was he going to stay with her and Naruto and everything they had before he left and everything they'd created when he came back again..? Or was he going to leave with Hebi, his new team, the team he'd created himself and had traveled with for years?
She couldn't help but count on him leaving. She looked at Karin and felt disgusted with herself. The Red head was much more womanly than she was that was for sure. She had curves and a chest. She'd seen more of the world and she had nothing to tie her down. She'd be free to leave if that were what the Uchiha wanted. She must have had some sort of talent for the stoic nin to ask her to join him.
He'd never asked Sakura to join the team. He'd never asked Naruto to join. They'd been placed together against his will, and he'd never let her forget how much he disliked being on her team. One team he was willing to be a part of, while the other one he'd chosen to leave.
She just didn't know what to think.
'You are supposed to be getting over him.' Her inner reminded her. 'Why do you care so much? If he leaves, he leaves. There's nothing we can do about it and there is no reason to worry.'
She could see a young man making his way towards her. She'd been forced to turn down several guys today. She may have liked looking nice, but it was exhausting to have to stop in her tracks to listen to another set of corny pickup lines. She'd heard practically every line out there and she was pretty sure half of these guys were making them up as they went along.
He'd already approached and she could tell he was preparing himself to ask her out on a adte when she once again felt the ominous presence behind her. Sasuke glared the boy down until he was running away with his tail between his legs.
"Sakura." He acknowledged as though she were the one to come to him. "Sasuke- Hey Sasuke. What are you doing here?"
He didn't give her an answer. He just walked beside her. He was getting just a little bit angry. This was not right. She was supposed to be acting like her usual self and calling him what she usually called him. Not Sasuke. It didn't sound right; it wasn't right. The man was on a mission to find out why she was calling him by his name. He fought the urge to shake his head...That sounded ridiculous.
Sakura didn't know what to think. What was he doing? She could quite wrap her head around it.
He glanced at her quickly as they walked together. He felt calm with her right at this moment. She didn't seem hostile, so he knew that she wasn't still terribly angry with him over their little spat the other day.
She didn't seem like it was all some kind of joke. She seemed normal, aside from the obvious flaw that had him here in the first place.
He hoped it wasn't because of what he'd told her in the hospital. He hadn't meant it. She was a good Kunoichi and she'd come far. Even he could admit that to himself. She wasn't normally one to hold a grudge either so he'd just assumed that she'd gotten over it and understood that he had just been angry at the time.
Sakura, meanwhile, was still wondering why he was here. To miss training was like not eating for a month to the man.
"Sasuke." 'Without the kun' "I'm really racking my brains here. Why are you here and not with your precious team?" She asked.
"Hn. That's the last place I want to be." He replied bitterly.
Sakura raised her eyebrows. "Why's that?"
"Sasuke-kuuuuun!" They heard her before they saw her.
"Oh. I see." Sakura chuckled.
Karin walked up to them swaying her hips back and forth in some weird, twisted attempt to be sexy.
"Sasuke-kun." She whined. "I've been looking all over for you. Suigetsu's been driving me insane and Juugo's been acting kind of ansy. You might want to check up on him so he doesn't blow a fuse and kill some idiot-. Sasuke-kun. What are you doing here with Pinky."
He chose to ignore her, and just glared down at the ground. Sakura's fist was itching to connect with her face.
"You shouldn't be wasting you're time with her. We're you're teammates Sasuke-kun." Sakura growled. Did she even know the meaning of team? She glanced at Sasuke who's hands were balled into fists at his sides. She felt mildly sorry for him. Everytime she heard Karin say his name she wanted to throw up. She couldn't even imagine what it must have been like for him. And to travel with her for years.
Sakura was surprised he hadn't thrust a katana in his gut and been done with it.
"Sasuke-kuun. Do you want to come see my room in our apartment? I'd be-"
"I didn't mean what I said." Sasuke suddenly told Sakura. She widened her eyes and cocked her head to the side.
"What did you say?" She asked.
"Sasuke-kun! I was trying to ask you to-"
"Silence Karin. I said That ....I didn't mean it. At the hospital." He spoke quickly. It was difficult for him to admit it. Uchiha's were cool. They weren't normally the one's to apologize, and yet here he was practically...almost saying he was wrong.
Sakura could feel a smile tugging in the corners of her mouth. In Sasuke's language, that could almost qualify as a sorry. It was unheard of. She didn't recognize this version of Sasuke. He was so foreign to her, but she couldn't say it displeased her. After the crappy and uneventful day she'd had, her afternoon now seemed so much brighter. Everything about it felt better.
"Thank you Sasuke." She said with a smile that basically did the same thing for the Uchiha. At least he knew she wasn't mad at him. Still...Something was off when she called him that.
"Sasuke-kun! Could someone please explain to me what's going on?" Karin demanded with a stamp of her foot.
Sakura tore her eyes away from her companion and stared at the girl; she'd almost forgotten she was there.
"What..? Oh it's nothing really." She reached into her pocket, inconspicously, as she spoke. She groped around finding something small. She found a coin and held back a smirk.
"It was just something that happened- oh oops!" Sakura cut herself off by pulling the coin from her pocket and dropping it to the ground. She bent over to pick it up and as she did so, she thrust a chakra enhanced finger roughly into the earth which caused a small rumble to course through the ground.
Sasuke, being a trained ninja and used to Sakura's attacks, merely withstood the mini-earthquake and gave her an inquiring look. Karin, however, was shocked by the viberations in the earth and fell to her hands and knees, scraping them in the process.
"Ow! What the hell was that?!" She screamed. "Sasuke-kuuun! You didn't tell me that this godforsaken village got quakes!" She whined.
"Oh would you look at that," Sakura remarked sweetly, sugar lacing her tone. She was doing one hell of a job channeling the nurse from the hospital that had treated her. "You've hurt yourself! Come over here with me and I'll just heal those up. You go on ahead Sasuke." She said, emphasizing certain words.
He'd shown her kindness once again and had stepped out of his comfort zone to try and succeed in making her feel better. She in return could give him a moment's peace. Healing her knees and hands would take Sauke all of three seconds, but that would be enough time for the Uchiha to escape. She was aware that Karin had skill in tracking Chakra patterns, but she also knew that Sasuke was skilled in masking his, giving him a good hour of silence.
He quickly nodded his head and as the pair of girls turned around, he disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Sakura lead Karin to a bench and absent mindedly healed her minor scrapes, all while drowning out her annoying voice and complaints of "Sasuke-kuuuun" leaving her here injured. She smiled softly as she replayed his words in her mind over and over again.
After today and meeting Karin again, she knew that she'd never call him "Sasuke-kun" if she could help it. She could tell that Karin's constant calling annoyed him and the last thing she really deeply wanted to do was annoy him even further. That was just cruel.
She'd been a fangirl once, and as she watched one from another point of view, she couldn't help feeling a bit ashamed of herself.
'Did I really act like her?"
Sasuke had shown her once again that he was a good friend. He had no idea how much those few little words meant to her. She'd return the favour and stop calling him by some meaningless pet name. She didn't want him to suffer doubly now.
'Step six: Complete.'
***
To Be Continued
A/N: So theeeere it is. It has probably been the most "SasuSaku" Chapter so far...I hope you're all still awake. XD I'm actually really pumped to start writing the next chappy. I might start tonight even! I swear to you that it'll be good :D This chapter was iffy and a bit...*whispers* boring, but the next one will have something big happen in it. Oooohh! Suspense! It'll be my way of redeeming myself :D
Please review!! I'm plotting evil and intense things I'm my mind for the next few chappies, but I'm going need just a little bit of motivation! *wink wink* So take three extra seconds to tell me what you think and it might equal three extra pages on word, filled with good stuff ^^ Hope you liked it! BYE GUYS!!
By the way, I just wanted to say how much I love you all! I was worried about the last chapter, but all you reviewers made me smile! I love hearing from you! I swear! The nicest people in the world must the one's from ! Cookies and hugs for everyone! -Flies in airplane and drops chocolate chip cookies amongst all of you*
