Author's Note: HAPPY (belated...by like three weeks... I'm sorry!) SINGLES AWARENESS DAY ^_^ *eyetwitch*

...Hello, my name is snooze2010 and I am I hopeless romantic. I write amorous FanFiction because I have no romantic fulfillment in my life and use writing as an outlet for all the emotions that I would otherwise share with a significant other. The ersatz companionistic relationship between you and I when you review/favourite/follow my story gives me gratification that I can't otherwise attain.
-Confessions of the recently Friendzoned.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything remotely associated with it.


My breath puffed out in front of me in little clouds. I imagined that that's what it would look like if smoke actually came out of people's ears when they were mad, like what happened in cartoons.

"You're going to have fun," Reiko insisted beside me.

"Obviously yours and my definition of 'fun' is not the same thing," I said flatly.

"You're not going to cause trouble tonight are you?"

"I could stay home if you have that little faith in me."

"Never mind. Stop being a downer."

I rolled my eyes.

Conned once again. Conned into spending my precious moments of alone time stuffed into a house that wasn't mine, doing activities I didn't enjoy, to make people I didn't care about believe that I wasn't as horrible as they had said I was. Yes, that was definitely 'fun.'


"Eh, you're here!" Ino called as we let ourselves into her house, as we were above knocking apparently.

"We're here!" Reiko called back cheerily as I took in the room.

Off the entrance hall was the living room to the immediate left. Sitting in a circle on the white carpet were Ino, Sakura, Hinata, Tenten, Temari, and a small handful of other girls from our school. All eyes turned to us. On the tables beside the gaggle of girls were open bags of chips, pretzels and clear glasses filled with multi-coloured, fizzing liquids. It appeared Reiko and I weren't the only ones who had brought snacks.

"You guys are a little late," Ino added in mock condemnation as she got up from the circle to greet us.

"Lei couldn't find her, uh... toothbrush. Leiko couldn't find her toothbrush."

"Her, toothbrush?" Sakura called from the living room, disbelief evident in her voice.

I mentally face-palmed. If Rei didn't want to divulge the real story of the fight we had had, where I had insisted that I wasn't going to go, that I wasn't going to spend my night with a group of 'cancerous, life-sucking wenches,' the least she could have done was come up with a more believable lie. Who loses their toothbrush of all things? You stick it in a porcelain cup in the washroom and it stays there until you get a new one.

"Yeah, you know, it was just one of those things," I shrugged unconvincingly.

"Well, come join us," Ino said after noticeably missing a beat.

Rei and I dropped our bags on the floor in the doorway as it appeared everyone else had done, and went to join the others in the living room. The circle of girls widened slightly as a lot of awkward shuffling took place to make room for us.

As I go to sit down I noticed that a large wine glass filled with slips of paper had been placed in the middle of the circle. That could only mean one thing: a party game. A game that involved revealing your deepest secrets or the risk of having an embarrassing task to perform was not my idea of a game at all. I lifted my glasses off my face and pinched the bridge of my nose. I started ruminating over just which one it could be.

Charades? No, there would have been more action, more shouting going on when Rei and I had let ourselves in. The same would be true for any moving-type game. That meant it was a quiet game, a sit-and-talk kind of game, a secrets game no doubt. Maybe the slips of paper were invasive questions you got to ask another player. Maybe the slips were the secrets and we all had to guess who they belonged to. I grit my teeth together inside my mouth. Any game that involved spilling secrets, in my own opinion, wasn't a game, but a form of torture.

I suppressed a sigh and plastered a smile on my face. "What are we playing?" I asked, teeth still grit together.

"Who Am I?" Sakura said with far too much enthusiasm.

'How do these people handle being that, excitable all the time?' I asked myself.

"It's my turn," Tenten called, reaching her long fingers into the wineglass and pulling out a slip of paper. With lithe movements she unfolded the slip and pressed it to her forehead where it stuck after a moment.

"Alright, you've got twenty questions. Go," Ino said, holding up her hands in front of her, ready to keep a tally of Tenten's queries.

'What ever happened to simple card games?' I wondered as game play continued around me.

"Am I a male?"

"Yes."

"Am I from Konohagakure?"

"Yes."

"Am I famous?"

This question was met with many uncertain glances across the circle, and numerous shrugs before I finally had to answer that, "Yes," the person whose name was stuck to Tenten's forehead was indeed famous in at least one respect... in a way.

"Am I still alive?"

"Yes."

"Am I older than thirty?"

Once again, as much as I tried to stay out of it, I had to answer this one by myself. "No," I informed. 'Ahh the burden of knowledge' I sighed to myself, already wishing I had picked a different topic for my Social's essay so I could non-guiltily avoid participation.

The questions and answers went back and forth until, with two questions left, Tenten finally came up with the correct response of Kakashi Sensei. The turns continued around while I got lost in thought. I found myself staring across the circle at Temari, Gaara's sister. What was she doing here? Obviously Ino had invited her, but why? Ino didn't know Temari and was certainly wary enough of her brother to make her rethink the invite of his sister. Then again, Temari really didn't seem anything like Gaara. Watching her across the room, she seemed... fun? Temari seemed light hearted and good natured. I guessed genetics only went so far when predicting personalities... unless Temari had gone through her own rebellious, emo-goth phase years ago.

What followed after Who Am I, Truth or Dare and Two Truths and a Lie, was a game of Never Have I Ever, complete with contraband. Alcohol.

After taking shots for: stabbing a 'friend' in the back, intentionally skipping class, lying to a teacher about anything worse than not having homework completed and thievery, I decided to make my call and said, "Never have I ever had a crush on Sasuke." I watched ninety percent of the girls reach for their glasses and the alcohol. Hinata and Temari were the only ones who refrained. If I had put more careful consideration into my 'Never' I could have horribly embarrassed Hinata by switching the name I used to Naruto instead of Sasuke. 'Next time,' I told myself, and sat back waiting for the next person to take their turn.

It didn't take a whole lot longer after that for the rest of the girls to become reasonably intoxicated and call it quits on the game. I had to laugh inwardly at them, having an exceptionally high tolerance for alcohol myself. I took a sidelong glance at Rei and found that she too, was having a harder than normal time balancing herself. Apparently genes only went so far when predicting your susceptibility to alcohol. While I would have just preferred to simply be better than her at something, I had to admit that my tolerance was probably a product of the past couple years that I had spent drowning in the stuff.

I retreated, for the next little while, into the dark recesses of my mind to ruminate on my thoughts in peace, until the phrase that signaled the coming end to the night caught my attention.

"It's getting late guys; we should get changes into our pyjamas."

All the girls wasted no time grabbing their bags which were still strewn in the doorway and slung them over their shoulders as they hiked up the stairs to the second floor.

Ino's house had always made me feel uncomfortable, unwelcome. It wasn't Ino's doing, but the house itself. It was so clean, so white, so sterile. The carpets were white, everything was always clean. Whenever I came over I was always hesitant to touch anything or disturb the neatness, the orderliness that embodied the house.

Ino's room wasn't much different. Being a teenage girl's room anybody would have guessed that there would be clothes everywhere, posters tacked up haphazardly on the walls and assorted nail polishes and sets of jewelry lying around. Well there were a lot of clothes, but they were folded neatly into drawers, or hung carefully in her closet. There were posters but they were systematically placed for aesthetic appeal; and the jewelry and other assorted girly things were all neatly stored on shelves which were otherwise free of clutter. It was the last place I'd ever expect to host a sleepover for a dozen teenagers.

"Uhm, I'm gonna hit the bathroom," I smiled dryly as Ino, Sakura and the all the other girls pulled out their pyjamas and unceremoniously began slipping into them in the middle of the room, unconcerned with their own privacy.

"Someone's shy," Ino winked as she lifted her shirt above her head.

I gave a small, contemptuous chuckle and left the room, closing the door behind me.

I crossed the hall to the washroom and was just reaching for the doorknob when it swung open away from my hand. Timid Hinata with her wide, innocent eyes stood in the doorway, pyjamas on her back and her regular clothes scrunched up in her hands. It hadn't even occurred to me until I thought back that I hadn't seen Hinata in the bedroom with the others. She was so quiet and withdrawn she often went unnoticed. It figured she'd scurry to the washroom to change as well. At least someone other than me had enough sense to be modest.

"Excuse me," I said curtly, and went to step around her.

"You know," she said softly, "I've been watching you. I can see it. You're not all that mean you know."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, caught off guard by her words.

"You're different when you're around him." She hadn't even said a name but my mind instantly fluttered in Gaara's direction. "I see it," she repeated.

"You don't see anything. You don't know what you're talking about," I snapped, shoving severely passed her and into the washroom. I was not going to have this conversation, least of all with her. I all but slammed the washroom door behind me.

What was it with people and having to have a theme washroom? What's more, what was it with ALL people having to have the SAME theme washroom? Dead relatives, family friends living and passed, ex in-laws, everybody I knew seemed to all have the same ocean theme. Sea stars, jars of sand with little marbles, paintings of sand dollars and conch shells, soft blue and green hues on the walls, assortments of shells in little dishes, porcelain toothbrush holders with fish painted on them. Why?

Putting the seashells out of my mind I stripped off my clothes and just stood for a minute staring at myself in the wide mirror over the sink. My skin was sickly pale and pulled taught over my slight frame. I was so ashen the fine white lines crisscrossing over my skin were all but invisible but the dark violet smudges under my eyes that had set in at age ten were ever present and unmistakable. Maybe one day I'd get a good night's sleep. Maybe one day I would be able to sleep through the night without waking white-knuckled and in a state of panic.

Getting far too working up at the thought, I shrugged on my pyjamas and checked myself over just one last time. I flattened a disobedient tangle of hair, and picked and plucked at my night clothes until I was satisfied with the way they hung on me. That was another reason why I hated being here, in situations like this. At school it was easier to ignore when the people would ignore or judge me. I could disregard it, or explain it away by telling myself that everyone was busy with their classes or extracurricular activities, that it didn't really matter what anyone thought because I didn't care about them. Here, being here and being ignored and judged would be at the forefront of my attention.

A demanding banging on the bathroom door jolted me from my bitter rumination.

"Snacks. Downstairs," Rei called at me through the door.

I sighed again, realized that I'd been doing that all day, realized I'd been doing that for years, and then swung open the door and trampled down the white shag carpet to the kitchen which was in total chaos.

Everyone seemed to be talking at once. Sakura and Ino were giving orders and directions as to where food was, what to bring out, where to put it and how it should be prepared. Everyone else was asking questions about where food was, what they should bring out and how it should be prepared. No one could hear each other because everyone else was talking. Then, all at once, no one could hear anything except the startled yelp that came from Tenten's mouth.

All heads turned to the brunette and to her right hand which was cradling the left. A small paring knife lay on the counter in front of her and a tiny stream of blood was seeping through her fingers.

It wasn't a reaction I even had to think about. I slammed my hand over my mouth to fight back against my immediate gag reflex. I tried desperately to tear my eyes away, or even to close them, but I couldn't. I couldn't move, I couldn't think; I dared not breathe for any type of reaction between my stomach and my mouth would surely trigger uncontrollable dry heaving.

Violent screams erupted in my mind as tiny moisture droplets formed in the corners of my eyes.

I was about to full on lose it when Reiko bumped into me, pushed me aside, and blocked my view.

"Oh sorry Lei, didn't mean to push; kind of tripped there, you know. It's just one of those things," she said, copying my phrasing from earlier.

It took a long moment to return my body's physiological response to baseline and then a much shorter moment to become enraged at my sister. I knew what she had done. She rescued me and I instantly hated her for it. I hated her for it because it now meant that I owed her. She helped me out, helped me save face and avoid embarrassment and now, by society's standards, I would have to help her out; as if what I had already done for her in the past wasn't enough.

Sakura and Ino look over to us, finally realising what's happened; the two of them being the only other two that knew about my... condition. Worried looks crossed their faces and I did my best to come up with a smile in order to avoid any pressing 'Are you okay?' questions.

"Well, it looks like you've all got everything handled alright in here. It's getting a little warm isn't it?" I asked, tugging at the collar of my shirt. I tried desperately to keep any quivering tones out of my voice, "I'm going to take a quick little walk outside alright." My speech fell on deaf ears as everyone was still attending to the miniature, yet apparently life threatening, cut on Tenten's finger.

I rolled my eyes, took a deep breath, fought a residual wave of nausea, and hustled to the mudroom to find my shoes and coat.


The sun had gone down hours ago by this point and the night had gotten at least twice as cold as it had been this afternoon, especially with the consideration that I was now in only my pyjamas and coat. The streetlamps bathed the remaining snow on the ground in an orange glow. It was reflected up into the clouds and the fog in the atmosphere creating the impression that the sky itself was orange. It was eerie and beautiful at the same time.

I started on an aimless walk, really just hoping to get away from everyone for a little while and clear my head. I passed houses and bridges and little thawing streams in ditches by the side of the road.

With no real destination in mind I ended up outside the city ball field. Baseball season would be picking up in no time; it wouldn't be long at all before there was fresh cut grass, and new chalk lines in the dirt. While I had no great aptitude for sports, I did, somewhat, enjoy them. Or I had at one point, I figured. I passed through the gate in the fence and clambered up onto the metal bleachers behind the backstop.

"Well, don't step on me," a snarky voice at my feet ordered.

"GAH!" I shouted in surprise at the sudden voice. I looked down to follow the voice and was barely able to make out a dark, hooded figure arched in the space between the bleachers.

The figure turned his head up towards me and dark, coal-like eyes met mine.

"Sasuke! What are you doing out here!?"

"Me? What about you?"

"I was just going for a walk. You're the one lurking in the shadows."

"I'm hardly 'lurking,'" he sneered.

"Lurking is exactly what you're doing. What are you doing out here?"

"I thought I was 'lurking.'"

"Don't get smart," I snapped. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to avoid annoying and nagging questions," he growled back.

If I wasn't so frustrated with his sarcastic comments and discourteous tone I might have laughed. That's why I was out here as well; to avoid the inevitable 'Are you alright's?' and to get the stench of hot, sticky iron out of my nose. "Whatever," I muttered childishly. "I'll get out of your way then." I didn't bother to hide the biting brevity in my voice.

"You better watch your attitude," he muttered behind me as I turned to leave.

"Is that a threat Sasuke?" I asked, facing back.

"It's a suggestion," he said sternly, rising from his knotted position on the bleachers.

He straightened to face me head on and I did the same. I wasn't afraid of him. I wasn't going to back down; not to the poor orphaned boy who thought he was better than everyone else. No, he and I were on equal terms in all respects and I was going to make him see that whatever it took. He wasn't any better than I was. He wasn't any stronger. No one was.


Author's Note: So, I'm really sorry this chapter was up sooo late! I could go through the usual of 'I had a lot of stuff to do' but really, it seems that I just have trouble writing 'filler'/'character development' chapters, apparently lol.