A/N: (Because I do require one right here)

So, I am so so so sorry for the late update! It's been an unholy combination of school, lack of inspiration, drama, personal project (It's another school thing), Russian lessons, and various other things that have prevented me from updating for a while. Either way, I do hope you enjoy. To the person who is getting her requested chapter, I will put that as the next one~

Reason Ten: Orochimaru?

Now, Sakura was almost certain everyone had noticed that a certain science teacher had his eyes glued to Sasuke every time they had science class together.

Heck, if it wasn't for Orochimaru's counseling group being full, Sakura was certain the teacher would have requested for Sasuke to be placed into his group. Sakura herself wasn't quite sure what Orochimaru saw in the black haired boy, he wasn't even that good at science. According to what Tenten had reported, Orochimaru had also leered over Itachi, despite him not really caring about science either.

Regardless of what Orochimaru's intentions were, whether he felt a weird father son relationship to the Uchihas, (Which really wouldn't make a single droplet of sense. From what Neji had told Tenten, Orochimaru hadn't known the Uchiha's at all before they entered the school.)

When Sakura woke up in the morning, she had instantly decided that today would be the day Orochimaru would act creepy towards her in relation to Sasuke. It had to be today! In fact, she just really wanted to get it out of the way. Orochimaru scared everyone more than anyone had the right to, and Sakura really didn't want to have to deal with his crap later on.

Besides, she'd get in far more trouble for beating up a teacher than she did for beating up Neji…

---

This morning was too important for leaning against her locker while waiting for Ino.

Sakura was even debating capitalizing all the letters of the title for today once she chose to dub it. Hmm… "Get Orochimaru's Creepy-ness out of the Way" seemed like a good name for the plan, at least for the time being. Sakura could always consult with her friends to get a better name. After all, her current name for the plan was only good as a temporary name, and it would suck in the long run.

So, due to the fact that the morning was designed to provoke Orochimaru into getting over whatever Sasuke obsession provoked thing he'd do to Sakura, Sakura was lurking outside of the science room.

Generally speaking, lurking outside of the science room was not a good idea. Orochimaru in the mornings before he had his coffee was quite dangerous. He had a habit of bringing fragile equipment to clean, despite being half asleep, and if students weren't careful, he'd bump into them and shatter the containers holding the dangerous chemicals, which would ultimately result in the hallway being closed down and more detentions for whoever bumped into the science teacher.

Sakura stood there, waiting for the psychotic teacher to exit the classroom.

…

…

…?

He didn't appear to be exiting his room. Sakura looked into the room, only to see Orochimaru just… sitting there. He wasn't doing anything! Well, grading some labs, maybe, but nothing evil or cruel or anything!

Sakura bit her lip and ducked back into the hall. No, she wouldn't let Orochimaru get the best of her! After all, Sakura had a feeling she had at least forty more days (Not counting weekends, of course), of all the reasons she had chosen not to date Sasuke appearing and making themselves even more extreme than before, and Sakura refused to leave the especially painful ones until last.

The fangirls had been evil, Karin had been insane, his family had made her uncomfortable, the song had been terrible, and the tomatoes… Oh dear god, the tomatoes. But all of those didn't matter! Orochimaru had them beat in all this regards. He was the ultimate in reasons!

And, as she had mentioned before, Sakura refused to leave the worst until last. It was a band-aid she had to rip off.

Sakura peeked into the classroom again. Damn it! Why did Orochimaru have to pick this morning out of them all to act temporarily sane? The pink haired girl knew that if she didn't get this done, it'd be on her mind all day. Yes, it had to be done. Sakura had hoped it wouldn't come down to this, but it seemed to be the only option.

Sakura would have to go and provoke her teacher. She took a deep breath. A small, little, girl would have to provoke her creepy and slightly homicidal teacher. What had the world come to?

It'd be simple enough. All Sakura had to do was go knock some chemicals down and Orochimaru would go into a rage that would blind the weak! It'd get whatever creepy Sasuke urges he had out of the way, most importantly, which was what Sakura was currently focusing on.

And without any more hesitation, as that would probably cause her to chicken out and force this unfortunate event to happen sometime else, Sakura entered the room.

All right, step one complete.

Orochimaru looked up for a second, only to look down at the unmarked paper below him again, "Sakura, nice to see you. Did you forget your textbook here again?"

Sakura blinked. This was not how her teacher was supposed to act. The mere act of him acting so… normal was almost enough to cause the pink haired girl to run screaming from the room before retreating thousands of miles away (Or, at a minimum, to her room where she could hide under her covers and cry just a little bit).

Sakura took a deep breath, "Uh… Yes! Yes I did!" It was a perfect cover! She could just inconspicuously look for her textbook and accidentally knock over something of value! The hotplates seemed like a good option, Sakura noted.

"I'm afraid I haven't seen it, but feel free to look around." Orochimaru replied, waving a hand before focusing completely on marking once again.

Sakura took a deep breath. Show time.

She walked to one of the counters, the one with the hotplates, and examined it. There was a textbook there, though Sakura was certain it wasn't her own. Her textbook was, of course, stored safely in her locker. Or... or was it? Sakura had a moment of panic wash over her. She did have habit of forgetting her textbook, after all…

Without another thought, Sakura grabbed the textbook carelessly to check for her name, unfortunately knocking over an expensive group of test tubes.

She froze.

Sakura had meant to knock over the hotplates, not the test tubes! The hotplates were cheap things, but the test tubes were expensive. She really hadn't meant to knock those over!

And even more unfortunately, Orochimaru was over there in less than a second, checking the damage.

Sakura would later blame it on the stress of the past days, and the shock of having knocked over expensive equipment, but for the time being, all Sakura could go was start apologizing hysterically.

"Oh my gosh! I am so sorry! Please forgive me! I didn't mean to!" Tears had begun to well up in her eyes, and Sakura couldn't seem to control a constant stream of apologies coming out of her mouth.

Orochimaru looked up for a second, and Sakura knew it would be the moment he'd snap and show his true insanity.

Of course, seeing as the universe didn't seem to like Sakura very much, he did the exact opposite. "It's all right, Sakura, it was an accident." He paused, "We can always order some new ones."

That was when Sakura snapped.

Because, of course, she knew Orochimaru had to snap at her, and he simply… wasn't. It was throwing the poor pink haired girl into extreme amounts of stress.

"JUST DO WHATEVER HORRIBLE REVENGE YOU'RE PLANNING AND GET IT OVER WITH!" Sakura wailed, earning more than a few confused glances from the people passing by the hallways.

Orochimaru stood up, giving the pink haired girl a concerned glance. "Sakura, are you feeling all right?" Sakura shook her head. The stress was just unbearable! She knew something bad would happen, it was just a matter of waiting, "Maybe you should go to the nurse's office, or phone home."

Sakura nodded, wiping a tear from her eye. "I… think that would be best." She replied, walking out of the room, "I'm sorry!"

---

It had been a somewhat success, Sakura mused as she sat in the school office, waiting for her mom to come pick her up. She did get a reaction out of Orochimaru, and he didn't end up murdering her! That was a win if Sakura ever did see one.

She smiled to herself, leaning against the wall, until the thought popped into her head.

Where did she put her textbook anyways?

---

A/N: Again, so sorry for the late update. I'll try to get them out quicker, I promise.

Thanks for reviewers, and please leave a review! I do enjoy getting them a lot, they inspire me to write~

Thanks and sorry to everyone!~