A Valiant Attempt

Even though he'd received multiple warnings—from Naruto and Sai especially—for some stupid, unknown reason, he'd decided to take her up on her offer and let her cook dinner for him. It was his birthday, and she'd insisted that he let her make him a meal so that he wouldn't have to do it himself.

He was now sitting awkwardly in her living room, listening to the sounds of a disaster waiting to happen in the next room. Since he'd arrived, he'd heard her yelp and groan in frustration countless times, and at one point he even noticed smoke coming out of the kitchen. A flustered Sakura, with her hair pulled up and out of her face had run into the room, opened all the windows, and smiled to him, excusing herself to scamper back into the kitchen.

She'd never cooked for him before, so he didn't know what to expect. Despite Naruto and Sai's advice that he kindly pass up the offer, he figured he'd give Sakura the benefit of the doubt. Her cooking couldn't be that bad, could it?

Besides, their alternate idea was for him to offer to take her out somewhere to eat instead. That plan was just something too embarrassing for him to actually go through with…

When the sound of a pan hitting the ground and a glass shattering reached his ears, he stood up, ready to walk into the kitchen and tell her to stop doing… whatever it was she was doing.

"I'm fine!" she yelled before he even took a step. "I'm almost done! Just another couple minutes!"

Sighing, he sat himself back down on the couch, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked at the clock on the far wall, realizing that he'd been there for over an hour now. It's not like he was really hungry anyway, but he just didn't understand why he was actually sitting there and waiting for a meal that he'd been told would hardly be edible.

Ten minutes later, just as he'd started to nod off in his seat—his exhaustion and sheer boredom almost getting the better of him—Sakura called his name from the kitchen, informing him that dinner was served.

But as he tentatively walked into the still smoke-filled room, he frowned as he looked toward the table on the far end of the room.

"I uh, left it in for a little too long, but I cut off most of the burnt part!" Sakura had started to defend her cooking before Sasuke had even made his way over to the table to peer down at the food on the plate.

For a moment, Sasuke wondered if it really was food.

Trying not to be rude—she was trying to do something genuinely nice for him—he sat himself down, tentatively cutting a piece of the blackened… whatever-it-was, and placing it in his mouth.

As soon as he started chewing the food, he regretted his decision immediately.

But Sakura was watching him, with a hopeful expression on her face, so he forced himself to swallow it.

"So?" she stood beside him, bouncing almost nervously, "How is it?"

He wanted to lie to her, to tell her that it was great and that she was a great cook and then he wanted to thank her vehemently.

But Sasuke was no liar.

"It's…" he paused, looking for the kindest words he could find in order to word his opinion, "chewy."

"It sucks, doesn't it?" she deadpanned, her expression falling as she threw the dirtied apron she'd been wearing onto the table in front of her. "I'm sorry! I know I'm not very good but I figured 'hey, this can't be too hard to make'. I've watched my mom make it hundreds of times but I'm just no good at cooking. I'm so sorry! Ugh!"

In a huff she sat herself down in the chair across from him, letting her head flop into her arms against the table. "I'm sorry I ruined your birthday dinner."

Sasuke almost wanted to laugh at the situation. It wasn't just their comrades who knew she was bad at cooking; even she knew it herself.

"Hey," he said after a couple minutes of her complaining to herself, "it's alright."

"No it's not," she groaned, "I ruined your dinner."

"Sakura," he placed a hand on her shoulder, waiting for her to look up at him before continuing, "it's not ruined." Pausing he thought to himself, letting his mind wander back to a conversation he had with a couple of teammates. "Why don't we go out somewhere?"

"Really?" She looked up at him with tears in her eyes, sniffling.

He smiled, trying not to laugh at the situation. "Really."

Maybe accepting her offer wasn't such a bad thing after all.