I apologize for my stupid mistakes I made. Truth is, I NEVER EVER check my work for ANYTHING. My teacher even got on me to that. She's all like: "Do you even proofread?" And I'm like "uhhh...nobody got time for that." But on a more serious note, I know, I KNOW, checking my work over is vital so I won't look like a complete idjit. But I'm not perfect. Oh, so far from perfect. So if you see something wrong, I thank you for pointing it out to me nicely. Haters gonna hate. Okay. I'll shut up now.
XX
"Father, I'm going to go with Sai," I tell my dad as I put on my shoes. I told him this two days ago, but I'm pretty sure that he forgot we even had this conversation.
"Sai?" my dad's nose crinkles a little in disgust. "Are you spending so much time with him that your grades are slipping? Sakura, I already told you I'm disappointed in you that you quit cheerleading, and I don't want to see any grade below a 95." Kate comes over next to my dad.
"I don't even know why you quit," Kate says. Of course she has to say something. She feels the need to always get in the conversation of me and my dad. Thinking about her, makes me think about my mom's journal in my book bag right now. "I totally loved being a cheerleader." I'm sure she did. "Besides, that Ino girl seemed very nice." Yeah, Ino is as nice as looking at a rat.
"You have to be here by nine," my dad says. "No exceptions." Most people would have curfew at twelve, at least Sai did. Me? Nine thirty. If I'm lucky.
"Maybe you should volunteer more since you're not doing anything. Maybe…shop with me?" Kate suggests. Oh anything but shop with her. I did once, for my dad, and she spend three hours in one store deciding if she wanted a lavender or purple purse. Then she forgot we were actually shopping for me to get a dress, and so I had to wear what I wore last year to some social party thing.
It was horrible. The shopping part and wearing a dress part.
"You should Sakura, since you have so much free time now that you're not cheerleading," my dad said.
I'm guessing I don't have a say in this matter. If I say no, my dad will just give me his death glares saying there is trouble to come, and he'll spout some crap about hurting Kate's feelings. And even though I'm not cheerleading, I still volunteer at the local nursing home and the daycare near my school that I needed to go this weekend, and I am still in many clubs.
"I'll see," I say, going out the door, a faint throbbing in my head forming. My dad always pressures me to do my best. Always. And even if I am, he pushed me even harder. Not once has he ever said he was proud of what I did. Because good just wasn't enough for him.
"Gosh, it took you long enough," Sai greets me as I go in his car.
"Sorry, I think I just made myself go shopping with Kate," I say.
"Oh fun," Sai deadpans. Sai really loves shopping, but shopping with Kate is to another extreme.
"Yeah, no," I say, putting on my seatbelt as Sai head to the nursing home.
"So…today," Sai says, raising an eyebrow. "What happened with Sasuke?"
"Nothing," I lie. But Sai just gives me a look. I sigh and I tell him about the study kit.
"Maybe you should have given him a chance to explain," Sai says, ever the logical one.
"There is no explanation! He showed Karin and obviously laughed at it," I say. "It was stupid."
"Make sure you have an open mind if he talks to you again," Sai says.
When we got to the nursing home, the three people we look after- Erina, Katsu and Yemi- were all sitting down and painting on a canvas. I know Sai inspired them.
"Why hello there, our favorite youngins, how are you faring today?" Erina asks, painting an apple. "And Sai, do you think this red is the right shade or is the lighting off?"
"No, I think it looks very good."
"I think we should do a still life," Yemi says. She's painting something that looks like a pumpkin.
"That would be a great idea. And it should be a female model," Katsu agrees. "Sakura? Any chance you-"
"Don't scare away poor Sakura," Erina says, pointing her red paintbrush at him. "But I say a male model would be good."
"Female," Katsu says. "I'm working on making my paintings more…real."
"The closest female you'll ever get to seeing is the ones in those magazines," Yemi snorts. She turns to us. "Why don't you guys sit and paint with us?"
"Well, I'm not good at painting," I say. Or drawing. I can't draw to save my life.
"No, no, you should try at least," Erina urges, sitting me down on a chair facing an empty canvas.
"Okay," I shrug and grab a paintbrush. The nursing home was pretty cool because while some old people like this man named Sarutobi were kind of bitter, there were others that were pretty cool. The volunteers that work with them only have to talk or do something with the elderly people they are assigned to. Thankfully, Sai showed them how painting could be fun and is better than playing bingo. Although, they do sometimes make us play some bingo while we're here.
"Sakura," Sai says, coming beside me.
"Yeah?" I ask, stroking the sky.
"Your tree looks like a broccoli."
OO
"Don't you guys ever get bored of playing basketball?" Karin is sitting on the one bench that is near the river court after school, and after Sakura was angry at me. Tomorrow I had to fix things. Basketball just makes me cool off. Besides, I had a basketball game tomorrow so practice wouldn't hurt. More practice than what the coach, Gai, gave the basketball team.
"Nope," Jugo answers, shooting. "You should try."
"Ugh. No thanks. I'd rather go to the beach and tan," Karin says, but she continues watching us, texting on her phone from time to time.
"Don't tell me you guys dropped out of school," I say to them.
"Nah, we're just ditching, you know, how we always use to do," Suigetsu says, stealing the ball from me and dunking it. The ball rolls into the grass. Suigetsu turns to me. "Don't tell me that you haven't ditched school yet."
"I haven't," I say, kind of proud of myself. In my other school, I did not have really good attendance record. I always wouldn't go, and my mom would get mad at me and Itachi would play his role as brother/father, and that more than anything annoyed me, so I did go to school and then just leave, just to piss off Itachi. It worked.
"Oh wow, look at you! You should win the dork award," Suigetsu snickers.
"I think that's cool, Sasuke," Jugo interjects. "You're finally getting serious about school. You're smart, so you shouldn't be lazy like Suigetsu is."
"Aw come on, Sasuke was the one that forced us to ditch school in the middle of the school day so we could smoke," Suigetsu says.
"Yeah, when I was stupid," I say. Suigetsu looks at me like I've grown another head.
"Changed man my butt," Suigetsu says. "You are pretty stupid still."
My smile falters, thinking of him and Karin. I was stupid then. Not now. "Well," I say, grabbing the basketball from the grass, and looking Suigetsu straight in the eye, "when it comes to relationships, I'm not going to be stupid anymore."
Suigetsu just gives me a blank stare and breaks out into a huge grin. "Which reminds me of this cute girl I met at the beach. She had pink hair."
"You met Sakura?" Karin asks before I do.
"Ya know her?" Suigetsu asks.
"She tutors Sasuke," Karin says smugly, looking at me.
"Woah, you have her wrapped around your fingers yet or can I have her?" Suigetsu asks.
"Neither," I say through clenched teeth. "Stay away from her, Suigetsu."
"Just say the word, and I'm off," Suigetsu says, but I see a little glint in his eyes. Like some sort of challenge.
XX
The next morning, Sai was busy with helping the art club and since the student council didn't meet for another two weeks, I didn't have clubs to think about. Just hanging around in the morning, being lucky if I saw Hinata. And it was raining too, and I forgot my umbrella, so my hair was kind of soaked. In the parking lot I also saw Rock Lee and wanted to say hi, but right when our eyes met and I saw his bruised face, he turned away from me and went the other direction.
When I went to go to my first period, the people I saw were Ino who was talking to Sasuke. Just the vision I wanted to see early in the morning.
"I'm so excited for the game today," I hear Ino say as I pass them. "I'm so sure you guys are going to win."
"You bet we will," I hear Sasuke say. Then, "Sakura!" a deep voice calls out to me. It was Sasuke's voice. I'm going to ignore him. "Sakura! Hey! Wait!" I keep walking though, and I can hear his footsteps behind me.
"What?" I ask, turning around, irritated. I don't even want to look at him right now. Did he not just hear what I told him yesterday? Maybe he's hard of hearing. Very hard of hearing. Because I am pretty sure I made my point across clearly yesterday.
Our eyes meet, and he gave me a lazy smile, one that I am sure melts all the girls' hearts in the world. "I love it," he says to me, looking at me earnestly.
"Love what?" I ask, but I don't think I have to. For some reason, I feel myself feeling a little happy about this.
"My tutoring kit," he replies.
"Yeah right," I scoff, remembering what Karin said.
"No it- she- I never showed it to anyone. She just saw it and touched it before I could," Sasuke tells me. "I just figured out after you were mad at me. I don't think anything you do is stupid."
I'm looking at him, and his dark eyes are boring into mines. We're looking at each other for a couple of seconds. Karin was in his room? What was his history with her? I mean there has to be something with them. Besides, she's really pretty.
"You really liked it?" I manage to say. Was he just messing with me?
"Yeah," he answers. "The note really inspired me." I laugh and swat him, then stop when I realize what I'm doing. He's looking at me, his crazy spiky hair flat probably because of the rain. I stopped breathing when he's looking at me that way. I think he's about to kiss me.
I quickly look away before I do anything stupid, clearing my throat. "Tutoring is still on today."
"Great," he says, still looking at me that way. He needed to stop before I did something crazy. Because I was already thinking about crazy things like kissing Sasuke Uchiha right then and there.
"Bye," I say, giving a small smile, walking away from him. Sai was right. I should have given him a chance to speak.
"Sakura?" he calls.
"Yeah?" I say, turning to him.
He places his hands in the pockets of his jeans looking bashful for once. My heart skips a beat. He looked too hot. It was impossible to look that good like Sasuke Uchiha. "I mean it, thank you."
After the school day is over, I head to the school library for the tutoring session with Sasuke. During the tutoring session, I explain to Sasuke about memorizing important dates, and he just nods his head. "Gotcha. So, are you coming to the game?" he asks. He leans in at looks at me.
"I'm your tutor, not your cheerleader," I reply.
"You coming to the game will increase my chance of acing my math test tomorrow by a hundred percent," he tells me smoothly. "And I think, as your job as a tutor, that you should increase my chances of passing."
"You're not even going to notice me," I say.
"Not true. I'm going to look for you," he tells me.
"I have other things to do," I say, getting up. "But I might." Sasuke gives me his contagious grin.
"I'll be looking for my number one fan," he tells me as he gets up and joins his other basketball teammates into the hallways.
"Y-you should go," Hinata is beside me, sneaking up on me. I narrow my eyes slightly. "It seems like Sasuke wants you to go."
"I'm not even sure why," I grumble. "Hey- are you going?"
"Wha- no way," Hinata shakes her head. "There isn't anyone I can root for."
"What about Naruto?" I ask, talking about the yellow haired goof that I think Hinata liked. I mean I thought they were on the steps to friendship or something more.
"Yeah," Sai appears out of nowhere, popping up unexpectedly. "Naruto? Did he ask for you to watch him?"
"No he didn't," Hinata looks over passed my shoulders and I turn around, watching Naruto talk to one of the cheerleaders, making her laugh. I just wanted to go there and punch both Naruto and the cheerleader.
"Who cares," I say. "You don't need someone to ask you to watch the silly basketball game."
"But Sasuke asked you," Hinata points out. Not where I was going with this.
"Sasuke asked you to watch him?" Sai asks. "Well, what are you doing? Ain't we going?"
"I have stuff to do, people to meet, places to go-"
"Don't give me that," Sai says, cutting me off. "Hinata, worry not, we are going. And we will see as Naruto and Sasuke looks hot sweating and playing basketball."
"R-really?" Hinata asks.
"Yes, really," Sai nods, giving me a sideways glance. "Right, Sakura?"
"Does it look like I have a choice?"
"No, not really," Sai looks at Hinata, swinging his arm around her. "Now…all we need to do is to go to the after party the basketball players have. Then we can attack Naruto."
"Attack?" Hinata asked in a squeaky voice. I roll my eyes.
"Yes, we are going to make you into a weapon. One that Naruto will forget all about that ugly cheerleader he's talking to right now," Sai answers. "Trust me."
I look over at Hinata. "Usually when he tells you that, you should run away in the other direction."
"She's jealous that I'm fabulous," Sai says, shrugging.
So it was decided, just like that we were all going to the basketball game.
Sai, Hinata and I make our way in the back stands, with the game already starting, where I spot the guy from the other day I met at the beach. Suigetsu. Sasuke's friend. He also spots me and waves at me. I also see Karin there who is shooting me the death glare.
I glare back.
I don't even know why I came to the basketball game. I'm a hundred percent sure that his whole if-you-come-I'll-pass-my-math-test is a bunch of horse crap.
But I came anyways. And I know he's not going to notice me.
Then, when he makes a dunk, which is really cool I have to admit, I see him search for the crowd.
No way, he can't be possibly looking for-
He points in my direction, and even from the high stands, we make eye contact. He's pointing his finger at me, nodding and smiling, and the whole crowd turns to his pointing figure, which is at me. They're kind of confused, and I feel my face going hot.
"No way, he's looking for you," Sai says, jostling me. "Tres hot."
After the basketball game ended, and we won, Sasuke made his way towards me at the parking lot. I also see Sai and Hinata talking to Naruto. Sai looks over at me and gives me a thumbs up. I guess Hinata and Naruto are doing well, and I'm happy for them. Hinata deserves to have the hot jock. I think they'd make a really good couple.
Sasuke comes in front of me. "Hey there's an after party, want to come with me?" Sasuke asks me. I needed to stop thinking he was cute when he was wearing his basketball jersey. Or when he looks really cool dunking and shooting a basketball.
"I came to your game," I say, "what else do you want me to do?"
"I think if you come to this party, it'll increase my chance of-"
"Stop," I laugh. "I'm not going. Curfew." It was nearly nine.
"So you're saying if you didn't have curfew, you'd come with me?" Sasuke asks, tilting his head.
"Never said that, but think what you want," I say.
"Dream of me," he smirks.
"Don't count on it."
OO
Suigetsy, Jugo, Karin and I were all at the party at Shikamaru's house, who was a decent enough basketball player. I didn't even want to go because Sakura wasn't going, but they all dragged me to come.
The whole time, all the cheerleaders tried to talk to me, Ino practically sat on my lap, but I, much to Suigetsu's surprise, shrugged her off of me. But that didn't seem to faze her because she went on to the next guy basketball player.
Near the end of the party when we were all about to leave in the door way someone spilled their beer all over me. The guy, who was Shino in my science class, a major bug expert, looks over at me in fear. "I am s-so sorry," he tells me. "I-I'll clean it up."
"No, that's okay," I tell him. "Honest." Shino looks at me skeptically. Like he thinks I'm going to sock him any time now. "It's just a shirt. I can clean it off." He nods and scurries off.
Karin looks at me, completely appalled. I look at my friends, who appear to be surprised.
"Stop," Karin grits her teeth, Suigetsu looks away. "Just stop Sasuke. Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?" I ask, irritated.
"You're so freakin' happy all the time! It's okay to get mad," Karin says.
I didn't expect to hear that. "It's complicated."
"Complicated?" she laughs. "What's so complicated, Sasuke? Seeing you be happy all the time when I know as well as Suigetsu and Jugo you're slowly dying in the inside?"
"Stop," I warn her. I didn't want to go there. Not when I think I just found myself out of there.
"No seriously," Karin says. "No one here knows you. The real you."
"People change," I say. I changed.
"You changing?" Suigetsu laughs. "Sasuke, if I remember correctly it was when you were a freshmen that you practically beat up the entire football team at a party. For the fun of it. If a guy spilled something on you, you would have beaten him up." There were things that I know I buried a long time ago. Things I didn't want to remember. At all. I have to say a year or two ago, I was stupid. I was just angry at the whole world. I felt like it was me against the whole world.
"I don't want to deal with this right now," I say, calmly, more calm than I felt. It was true, I did get angry and I did have a quick temper. But I couldn't be angry. I look over at Karin and Suigetsu and think to myself that I'm not angry about Suigetsu and Karin, and for the longest time I kept telling myself I didn't care. And I believed me.
"Whatever, Sasuke, but sooner or later, you know you can't hide your past forever," Suigetsu said, leaving with Karin. "Sooner or later, you're going to realize you're not this peaceful Sasuke, good Sasuke, you're none of that. It's going to blow up in your face." They leave to go to my car, and I'm feeling hollow inside. The only thing that hurt me was that they were right. I was hiding something in me that I don't know if I ever wanted to come out again. I was dying slowly inside.
Karin was right.
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