Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Author's Notes: Congrats to any readers from Kosovo! I hear you guys declared independence from Serbia. On behalf of myself and my countrymen, I would like to wish you the best of luck in establishing your new republic.

Something Wicked this Way Comes

When school resumed on Monday, Sasuke was surprised to find himself surrounded by gaggles of giggling girls and frightened flocks of young men, bustling through the hall with eyes all aglow in delight or anxious anticipation. The reason soon became apparent as Sasuke passed through the main hallway of the school, where a banner was strung up from the ceiling. Parisian Paradise Prom 2008 Tickets on Sale Now! it read in big purple letters. The nervous grinding feeling that Sasuke got in his stomach whenever Sakura was around settle anew. He hurried to his locker and then to class trying to avoid eye contact with the opposite sex, who scoped him out with new interest.

Even his friends, whom he thought would be above such conversation, were stuck on prom. Naruto and Hinata were the first to declare their intentions to go together, prompting an entire conversation between the girls about what color dress she should purchase. (Ino was all for something fluffy and yellow; Sakura vouched for lavender.) Naruto, the epitome of a whipped boyfriend, asked Hinata what sort of flowers she would prefer while Sai doodled gowns on his notepad. Sasuke, however, was growing more frightened with each passing minute.

Prom, as he was painfully aware, was not only the climax of the year for girls, but on The List. Sasuke had only managed to complete two of the tasks; there was still the matter of getting his driver's license and doing something that they both enjoyed on top of the now critically impending dance. Fortunately for Sasuke, Obito was way ahead of him.

After soccer practice, Sasuke walked out of the locker room and was surprised to see not his mother, but Obito in the car waiting for him. Intrigued, he sat down in the passenger seat. Obito didn't wait for him to ask.

"We're headed straight to the DMV, Little Cuz!" The bottom dropped out of Sasuke's stomach. "But don't worry, I'm going to have my special friend test you!"

Where he usually would have been annoyed, Sasuke was petrified. He hadn't gotten a chance to practice behind the wheel since he got pulled over. Although the DMV was across town, to Sasuke it was all too short a drive and in no time at all Tobi had sent him up with his paperwork, then ditched him to get boba tea from a shop across the street. For once the office was nearly empty, and in no time at all a tall, blond Viking of a man came up with a clipboard in hand.

"Uchiha Sasuke?" he called. Sasuke stood up. "I'm Deidara and I'll be your examiner for today. Follow me, unn." Once they were in the car, Deidara ordered Sasuke to start the car. Hands shaking, Sasuke put the key in the ignition and twisted it. Turning over his shoulder, he carefully backed out of the parking space.

"If you hit the curb its an automatic fail, unn."

"You're Tobi's special friend?"

"If you call me that again, I'll make sure you never get on the road ever again, Uchiha."

"…Point noted."

Sasuke was careful to avoid the curb. Deidara directed him to get on one of the main roads in town, which the two drove down in silence. After a few minutes staring listlessly out the window, Deidara shifted in his seat. "Too quiet, unn," he mumbled and moved to turn on the radio to some death metal station that Itachi listened to all the time, but Sasuke had no particular fondness for. However, he actually found himself relaxing when he could forget about his quivering palms. This isn't too hard, he thought. But then, I'm not really doing anything. At first Sasuke was glad to have an easy drive, but when they were almost out of town, he started to get suspicious. How long were they going to stay on this road?

At that moment, Deidara raised his hand to the left. "Turn here," he said. Sasuke turned left onto a shade-covered side street, off which Deidara had him turn down three more streets. "Stop the car and park it in that driveway," he said when they had arrived at a small but cosmopolitan-looking house deep in the residential area.

"Wait here," said Deidara, who got out of the car. Utterly confused, Sasuke drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Is this part of the test? He sat uncomfortably in the front seat for several minutes as cars passed by on the street behind him and pedestrians walked along the sidewalk, earnestly going out their lives.

After about ten minutes, Deidara came stumbling out of the house, arms full of a massive body-shaped bundle wrapped in dark, heavy canvas. "Pop the trunk, unn."

After the bundle was loaded, the two were on their way again, back around town to more familiar territory for Sasuke. "Turn here," commanded Deidara, finally picking up the clipboard. Sasuke smiled; he couldn't fail on these streets, this was his stomping ground.

"Turn right… now left…. Another left…"

For the first time that day, Sasuke felt himself relax completely as he turned on to his own street. Deidara, who seemed to grow more bored with each passing minute, changed the radio station again, to hip-hop this time. Leisurely, Sasuke gazed out the window as they passed his house, with its wide porch wrapping around to the back, then Sakura's house with the trees in back and, and Sakura's cat Ryuu walking across the street-

Oh my god! She'll never forgive me if I run over her cat!

With three feet left between him and Ryuu, Sasuke suddenly swerved to the right, hurtling towards the neighbor's trashcans. He slammed his foot down onto the brake in an attempt to stop the car- and missed, hitting the gas instead. The car screeched and Sasuke veered sharply to the right, pulling the car into a doughnut at the intersection before finally locating the break. The car jolted to a stop and the air was still with the smell of burning tires. Ryuu hopped into Haruno-san's azalea garden and disappeared.

A shaken and flustered Deidara glared at Sasuke through his long blond bangs, now disheveled. "You fail, unn! Get out of this car!" He reached over and pulled the handle to open the door.

"What about Tobi?" demanded Sasuke, alarmed. "I need to go back to the DMV-"

"I'll take the car over to him, he can drive home himself. Go home, you- you-" he couldn't seem to find words strong enough to express his annoyance. "You menace! Unn!" With that, he roughly shoved Sasuke down onto the asphalt and sped away.

For a second, Sasuke lay on his elbows, shocked. He had been hoping that for once Tobi's extended network of acquaintances would work in his favor, but yet again his goals were thwarted. He got up and brushed himself off and set off down the street, the suburban walk of shame. However, when he got the sidewalk, he realized that right now, he didn't want to go home. Feeling suddenly rebellious, he forsook his own house and walked up to Sakura's without a plan. He knocked and Haruno-san saw him in, pleasantly surprised at an unexpected caller. She directed him to Sakura's room.

Sasuke was careful to bang long and hard on the door this time, and waited for Sakura to open the door. Confused, she peered at him from the doorway. "Sasuke?"

Sasuke surprised himself with his own daring. "Want to go somewhere?"

"Right now?"

"Why not. Can you drive?"

Sakura raised an eyebrow, but replied, "Sure, let me grab my purse…"

A few minutes later, Sasuke was sitting in the seat of Sakura's parent's car with the windows rolled down as she drove to the mall. Now that he was sitting there again, he realized how much he had missed it. Even though he and Sakura were on good terms again, she had still not resumed giving him rides. He couldn't help but feel that he had taken his position as her passenger for granted, but it was nice to be back, even just for the afternoon.

"Sasuke," asked Sakura, interrupting the sound of the wind in his hair, "why do you want to hang out all of the sudden?"

Sasuke rolled up the window so he could talk with her more clearly. "I just… I had a tough day, and…" He started to laugh, first a low chuckle, quickly growing into full, resonating laughter, like nothing he had done in a long time.

"What's so funny?" asked Sakura, alarmed.

"I failed my driver's test," he said simply, and smiled at her. Pretty soon she was laughing too.

It was just that time of day when the mall is fairly empty, although people were beginning to trickle in for evening shopping. Sasuke sprung for drinks, and he and Sakura strolled pleasantly to the other side of the mall towards the bookstore while Sasuke, in one of his rare garrulous moods, told Sakura all about the driving test.

"Well, thanks for not hitting my cat, anyhow. I'm very attached to him, you know."

"Yeah, I know." Sasuke secretly had a soft spot for cats, and was prone to petting Ryuu when he passed through the yard on the hunt for renegade mice. "Remember when we found him?"

"Sasuke, um… sorry to change the topic, but… why are you here?" She didn't say "with me," but Sasuke caught what lurked beneath her carefully composed question.

They had reached the bookstore now, but Sasuke stopped walking, surprised by her question.. Because I wanted to see you.Because I want to ask you to prom. Because you haven't been talking to me like you used to!His mind was more eloquent than this mouth. "Because… we haven't done this in a while, and… well, I like books, and you like books, so- didn't the latest edition of Jump come out yesterday?"

Sakura gave him an odd look. In response Sasuke pulled the door open and ushered her inside. He had not been lying when he said that he enjoyed books, and the familiar feeling of contentedness he got from being surrounded by them came over him. Sakura also relaxed, his awkward moment forgotten. She almost ran over to the comic section and grabbed the new issue of Jump from off the wall. Sasuke followed behind her, but got sidetracked in the science fiction section (another thing he secretly had a soft spot for). After a few minutes, Sakura dragged him to the teen fiction section.

"It's a good thing I brought money," she said, plucking a newly-bound paperback off the shelf. "Hold this…" She shoved the book at him, and picked up another by the same author. "Hmm… do you think I should get the sequel?"

"See if you enjoy the first," replied Sasuke, eyeing the cover. "Is it a series?"

"Yeah, Ino's been trying to get me to read them for months. It's about a girl who falls in love with a vampire, and-"

"Lame. Why is there an apple on the cover?"

"Oh, you're no fun," she joked, giving him a good-natured punch in the arm. "Ok, I'll settle for just the first one right now. What about this one?"

"It's great if you like books about killing God. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's got literary merit, but-"

"You sound like a book critic. We're getting it." She gave the book for Sasuke to hold with the first.

By the time Sasuke felt ready to go home, Sakura had a bag full of three new books to read, plus her weekly comic plug. Sasuke decided not to indulge himself, but Sakura swore that once she was done with it, she'd make him read the book about the vampire. As he was standing to get out of the car she ruffled his hair affectionately like she had the morning they had woke up on the couch, an act that had Sasuke walking on air all the way back to his house. Obito, however, was not amused.

"I can't believe you didn't pass the test!" he yelled, following Sasuke up the hall to his room. "Deidara-senpai was so disturbed with your driving that he almost didn't give me my telescope back?"

"What?"

"My telescope. I let him borrow it and he returned it."

That must have been the package. "Whatever."

"Forget that, there are more important things I need to talk to you about, Little Cousin. Sit down."

By now they were in his room. Sasuke flopped down on the bed, noting that there was now a telescope set up by Tobi's cot. "What's up?"

"Little Cousin, your brother and I have decided it's time you became a man."

End Notes: Once again, it may seem that this chapter lacks importance, but there is more to it than meets the eye and it acts as a good prelude to what I have planned next.