Chapter Seven
Sai glanced over at his companion, who was giggling and muttering something incoherently to herself. Well, being drunk, she was more likely to blurt out the truth. It was better to ask now than to wait tomorrow, when she would be hung over and angry.
"Ugly...do you like me?" He ventured. Sakura's head lolled over so that she was looking up at him.
"I love you, Sasuke!" She slurred, smiling stupidly and fluttering her eyelashes at him. Sai bristled.
"I'm not Sasuke. Sasuke isn't here right now." He said in a slow, patronizing voice. He gripped the wheel in anxiety. "I'm Sai. Do you like Sai?"
"Haaaa. Sasuke. You're funnyyyy!" She squealed.
"Goddammit, you hag!" He grumbled. It had been a three hour drive in the car, and they still had an hour to go. He'd get it out of her within that time—he'd do it for sure. Then, when they got to his house...more importantly, his bedroom...oh yes, she'd cease her stupid declarations of love for that asshole, and then...
He just barely stopped himself from cackling evilly, and glanced over at Sakura again. She had removed her shoes and was slumped down in her seat, her feet raised in the air as she wiggled her toes and giggled randomly.
In the hour that passed, he managed to get out of her that she thought Neji had a cute butt and that she enjoyed red bean cake. This annoyed him on two counts: one, he hadn't asked about either of these two subjects, which meant she was just rambling with no awareness of him, and two, he still didn't know whether she liked him or not.
"We're here. Although, what's the point of telling you? You wouldn't notice if I pelted you with rocks, Ugly." Sai said bitterly, helping her out of the passenger seat. She stumbled and he had to carry her up the walk. He hadn't been at the house in a couple of months, and therefore it had been locked up for quite a while, but when he got there he felt a certain sense of peace. Nearby the ocean roared and the air smelled salty. He stood on the porch for a minute, enjoying the breeze and the calamity that was only brought by witnessing four am on a saturday morning by the beach...in the middle of winter.
"It's cold." Sakura whined, clutching closer to him and causing his heart to flutter. He furrowed his brow, even more determined now to get her to like him.
He hauled Sakura over his shoulder and used his free hand to unlock the door. Once inside, he let her down on the couch and closed the door, flicking on the lights and checking around the house. It smelled dusty but was clean enough. Besides, she wouldn't really have noticed either way.
He sat down on the couch with her, and sat her up so that she was leaning against the arm of the couch and looking at him dazedly. He gripped her shoulders, and she smiled at him, her eyes half-lidded. She leaned in, closing her eyes, and Sai's heart pounded in his chest wildly.
"Sasuke..." She murmured, missing his face by a long shot and falling off the couch. She landed with a painful thud on the hardwood floor, and didn't get up. She had officially passed out.
Sai cursed. So close...he had been so close... He sighed in resignation and lifted her up again, and dropped her unceremoniously onto the couch. He pulled the throw blanket from the back of the couch and haphazardly threw it on her before leaving and going to sleep in his own bed, grumbling and kicking things in frustration on his way.
--
"Naruto, if you deface those pictures any more, no one's going to be able to figure out who we're looking for." Neji said witheringly, gazing at the copy of Sai and Sakura's school photos that he was taping to a telephone pole.
"Where are we? I don't even recognize this area. Come on, Sai totally wouldn't take her this far." Kiba whined. Naruto added a moustache to Sai's face. So far, a giant heart was drawn around Sakura's face, and Sai had been given devil horns, glasses, a moustache, heavy eyebrows (much to Lee's chagrin), breasts, huge lips, buck teeth, and elf ears.
Meanwhile, Sasuke was standing at the gas station counter, demanding from the man there if he'd seen either Sai or Sakura. His attitude towards every person they stopped to ask was bordering on uncontrollably violent and was one fist away from winning them jail time. A heavy weight sat in his stomach, but he was determined to not sit and whine. He was going to find Sakura, steal her from Sai, beat the shit out of Sai, and claim Sakura as his woman.
The idea had a pleasant ring to it, and it calmed Sasuke down a bit. He left the gas station after the man shook his head, shaking and muttering something about how he had children and a wife at home, and joined the rest of his companions.
"Seriously, I'm sure she's fine!" Kiba added loudly. Akamaru barked. Naruto whirled on Kiba.
"Don't you understand?! Sai might be ravishing Sakura, at this VERY minute!" He cried, shaking Kiba's shoulders. Sasuke whacked Naruto upside the head.
"You guys are morons. Let's just go." He said sullenly, heading back to the car. He got in the driver's seat, and everyone piled into the car. Naruto sat in the front passenger, with Hinata on his lap (she wasn't sure whether to be ecstatic or horrified at the arrangement), and Shikamaru squeezed in between them, sitting on top of the spot technically designated for the cup holders. In the back sat Shino, Neji, and Chouji, and Lee and Kiba and Akamaru had been forced to sit in the very back. Thank god Kiba was rich and his parents had bought him a giant SUV; it came in handy for carting around several teenage boys.
"Sasuke...do you have to double the speed limit?" Hinata asked in an especially scared and tiny voice as they flew over a speed bump at seventy five miles per hour. Naruto clutched Hinata tightly, making her nearly pass out with happiness.
"Do you want to drive, Hinata?" He hissed, speeding up even more. Hinata shook her head, and he smiled a catlike smile before glowering again. "Then SHUT. UP."
"THAT WAS A STOP SIGN!" Chouji screeched in terror as they made a right turn, hitting something and knocking it away as they went.
"Not anymore." Sasuke said darkly. He was going to find Sakura, dammit!
--
"Ungh...my head..." Sakura sat up slowly, the blanket falling off of her as she clutched her aching head. Even that slight movement made the queasiness build up in her stomach, and she stayed as still as possible to make the room stop spinning.
Wait a second. Where the hell was she?!
She took in her surroundings, which mainly comprised an old television set, a coffee table, a plain rug, and the couch she was sitting on. How had she gotten here?
She strained her memory, trying to piece together the little fragments. She remembered a ping pong table...something about a plant...someone calling her ugly...a car ride...
What did it all mean? Had some of it been a dream? Where was she, and why did she feel like such crap?
Oh god. Had someone drugged her? Had she been kidnapped, doomed to forever remain here in the rather poorly decorated clutches of some insane person? No! It couldn't end like this! She wanted to at least finish high school before she died, dammit!
She sprung up, ignoring the dizziness and pounding in her head, and hurled herself at the door, expecting it to be locked.
When she flew out headfirst onto the porch, she realized it wasn't. Ouch.
She stood up, looking around. It smelled like the beach. But the beach was nearly four hours away...well, she wouldn't put it past a kidnapper to drive that far. She brushed herself off, squinting in the sunlight that hurt her eyes. Checking her watch, she saw that it was about ten am. Well, she'd just... walk away, then. She didn't have her cell phone so she'd have to find a restaurant or gas station and make a phone call there. This was all very strange, but she didn't want to wait and see who had kidnapped her. She took a step off of the porch.
"Where exactly are you going, Ugly?"
Sakura froze. Turning around slowly, she came face to face with her kidnapper. She twitched.
"Sai! Where the hell are we!?" She hissed. Sai held up his hands.
"Calm down, Ugly. You're very hungover and you need to at least drink some water--"
"HUNGOVER?! What happened?!" She shrieked. Sai smiled pleasantly.
"Well, you agreed to go to my beach house with me. You said you wanted to get away from Sasuke...ring any bells yet?" He sounded highly amused. Sakura froze.
Oh god. The party. She had been at Kiba's party and gotten drunk. Shit!
She bit her lip. "Approximately...how drunk...would you say I got?" She asked slowly, wincing at the word "drunk." Sai smirked.
"I would say...approximately...plastered."
Sakura winced again. She glanced at Sai.
"And did we...?"
"No." Sai looked decidedly irritated at this. Sakura let out a sigh of relief. Well, that was one thing off the list of possible embarrassing things she could have done.
Sai shifted and stared at Sakura heavily. "Just...come inside, and have some food." He said wearily, gesturing towards the door. Sakura nodded and walked back up the front steps. It was cold outside, anyway.
She sat down in the kitchen while Sai rummaged through the cabinets and refrigerator for something to eat. Finally, he produced some dry cereal, and they ate it without milk, crunching on it in awkward silence.
Sakura glanced at Sai across the table. He was wearing wrinkled clothes and looked like he hadn't gotten much sleep. He had taken her here for a reason, obviously, and it occurred to her that considering they hadn't done anything...perhaps he really did have a valid crush on her, and wasn't just being creepy. It was sweet...well, sort of. And at any rate, things with Sasuke were over. And she was going to get in huge trouble with Gaara when she got home. She winced when she realized she'd left Hinata at the party alone, too. On top of all of this, everyone had probably seen her drunk and leaving with Sai.
Right. This was why she didn't go to parties. In conclusion...she might as well enjoy herself now. She turned to Sai.
"So...do you...like me, or something?" She asked awkwardly, moving the cereal around in the bowl. Sai looked up from eating.
"I don't need the easy letdown, Hag." He said coolly, not meeting her eyes. Sakura sighed.
"Look...maybe we can work something out..." She said slowly, glancing back and forth between him and the floor. He stopped eating and pushed his bowl away.
"You like me?" He asked plainly. Sakura bit her lip.
"I..."
Suddenly, the kitchen was filled with a chirping noise. Both Sai and Sakura jumped at the sound, and Sai exhaled as he dug his phone out of his pocket.
"Hi Mom." He said flatly, pushing his hair back from his eyes. Sakura closed her eyes and tried to relax her muscles, but she couldn't. Did she like him? Maybe. Not as much as she liked Sasuke...but they were over. Maybe she should just move on...? "Yes mom. No. I'm at the beach house. No, I'm with a friend. No, a girl. I don't know. I'll call you—no, mom, I'm in the middle of something..."
Sakura felt increasingly awkward. A knot formed in her stomach that she knew wasn't a side effect of being hungover. She quite suddenly just wanted Sasuke to be there. She needed some sort of comfort...but no, she reminded herself, they were over. There would be no comfort from him.
Sai hung up the phone and snapped it shut.
"People are looking for you. Since you were last seen with me, some guys apparently came by my house at five am to bother my mother. She's pretty angry." He said this as though it were no big deal, and Sakura sank in her seat. Was one of them-- "one of them was Sasuke, apparently. My mom said some guy with really bad hair wanted to beat me up but I wasn't there, obviously."
Sakura's breath caught in her throat. Sasuke had been looking for her. He had been looking for her. He had been worried. When she looked at Sai again, he was staring at her.
"Don't bother lying to me, Ugly. Let's just go back to Konoha." He stood and grabbed both bowls, leaving them in the sink. Sakura couldn't help but smile. When they were leaving the kitchen, she grabbed Sai, and hugged him.
"Thanks." She whispered. Sai pulled away, smiling a little bit.
"I like you much better when you're sober, I think." He said, smirking, as they exited the house. He locked the door behind him.
