Sakura Haruno sat up in her bed, her chin rested on her knees.
Damn Sasuke. She cursed her former flame as she looked at the clock. It read two in the morning.
Just a few hours ago he had broken her heart for the hundredth time. Remembering his cold exterior brought tears to the sensitive kunoichi's eyes.
Stop crying Sakura. Look at all those strong kunoichi out there; Tenten, Temari, Tsunade, and even Hinata. They probably never cry. She scolded herself and forced the tears to stop.
She took a deep breath and walked over to sit on the ledge of the window, staring out at the full moon. The outside world was lit by the moon, everything looking fragile and as if they were mere illusions. As Sakura looked out at the ethereal painting, she thought about her life after Sasuke's deflection from the village. Sure, she had moped around for a while, not responding to people's invitations to parties and such, but she had gotten over it. Though the one thing that never happened was falling in love. She never dated another boy, even when Ino tried to make her give up on Sasuke. It wasn't that she was being stubborn, she just felt too strongly attached to him to give up. Her feelings ran deeper than anyone else's. They didn't understand what it was like to lose a teammate, all they saw was the gorgeous boy of their dreams leaving. Many fan-girls had been upset and paraded around the town nonstop for days chanting 'Bring Sasuke Home' and it drove Sakura insane. Sure, Sasuke had always been the bad-boy type, with his cool exterior and devilishly handsome looks, it was easy to see. But no one knew who he was. Sakura knew though. She knew about his passion to avenge his clan, she knew about his hatred towards his brother, above all she knew about his pain. The heart-broken girl smiled at the memory.
-o0o-
It had been the anniversary of the Uchiha Clan Massacre and from the moment she walked onto the bridge, she knew that this was going to be a hard day. Sasuke was already there, as usual, leaning against the railing of the bridge, throwing something into the water. He looked impassive doing so and Sakura didn't understand why. Naruto had yet to arrive.
"Hello Sasuke." Sakura greeted gently.
"Hn." Sasuke continued to throw something into the water.
"I'm sorry about today." She began.
He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and began ripping it to shreds, throwing the shreds into the river beneath them, not answering her.
"What is that?" she asked, finally unable to stand the curiosity anymore.
"Letters from some girls wishing me sympathy." He replied, not looking her in the eye.
Sakura watched as the papers floated gently downstream until they were past her field of vision. As she watched, Sasuke pulled out more and more papers, ceremoniously ripping each one into a hundred pieces before tossing them into the water.
"How many are there?" she asked, incredulous as he began tearing up yet another letter.
"My mailbox was full of them this morning, there are tons." He said scowling.
"Oh." She whispered, glad that she hadn't taken the time to write to him. "Did you read any of them?"
"No." he said and began staring at the clouds, seemingly finished with his task at hand.
"Sasuke, those girls worked hard on those letters and you just shred them without a second thought? How can you be so cruel?" she chastised him.
Sasuke looked at her with a dull fire in his eyes.
"I never asked for those letters. They don't mean anything to me if someone decides to take the time and write me." He told her firmly.
Sakura gasped at his icy attitude and walked over to gently touch his arm.
"You don't have to be so cold all the time." She said, daring herself to look into his obsidian depths.
Sasuke shook her off, his head looking at his feet.
"You don't know anything." He hissed.
Sakura closed her eyes to trap the tears forming. From that split second her eyes had made contact with his, she could see the emotion that was masked beneath the coldness. She saw how badly and how much this day was going to hurt him. Later on, during their training, Sasuke had pushed himself farther than usual. It was as if the only way he was going to be content was if he was passed out from exhaustion. Afterward, when Naruto and Kakashi had gone home, Sakura noticed that Sasuke wasn't going his usual and silently followed him. If he noticed her, he didn't show it because soon they were in front of the lake by the Uchiha compound. There, Sasuke sat for the whole night, unmoving and in silence. She longed to comfort him, but knew that such a move would be foolish. Instead, once the sun had gone down, she had crept away.
-o0o-
Sakura managed a small smile. That was the day that she had fallen in love with him, the day that he had let her see the human side of him.
-o0o-
Sasuke Uchiha sat up on his bed, finally giving up on his efforts to sleep. He had been tossing and turning in his bed for the past few hours and was now fully awake. Throwing off the covers, he decided to take a walk; the sky was lit brightly by the full moon anyway.
Walking along the empty streets of Konoha, he thought about Sakura. It wasn't that he felt bad for her, she knew that he would always be cold and stoic yet she still chased after him. No, the thing that bugged him the most was the fact that she had called him an 'Uchiha bastard". He had never done anything to her. Sure, he was morose and consumed with negative energy, but she had known that. Why would she go out with him and expect anything less? Sasuke stopped to throw a kunai at a nearby tree, barely missing the ninja stationed behind it.
"You can come out now Kiba. I can smell you from here, take a bath or something." He hissed.
From behind the tree came Kiba Inuzuka and the ever-present Akamaru. Kiba scoffed, fingering the kunai Sasuke had just thrown.
"What are you doing out here anyway?" Kiba scoffed, taking in Sasuke's tensed form.
"Walking and I guess that it would be common courtesy to ask you the same?" Sasuke replied, irritated.
Kiba laughed, turning to face the Uchiha. "Akamaru and I were working on tracking at night. If we can get it perfect, mission times will be cut in half!" he explained eagerly.
"Hn. Well don't let me stop you." He replied and turned around.
"Hey Sasuke." Kiba's words stopped the Uchiha dead in his tracks.
"Yeah?" he asked passively.
"Did something happen between you and Sakura?" the dog boy asked.
Sasuke froze completely, getting even more tense.
"We saw you guys at the ice cream parlor. 'Course, it was only the part where she was yelling at you." Kiba explained.
Sasuke took a breath. "It's none of your concern." He replied in a tone that would ward off any gossip lovers.
Kiba raised his eye brows at him. "It sure didn't look like it. What's up with you anyway?" he wanted to know.
Sasuke finally turned around to face him. "I don't want to talk about it." He said firmly.
Kiba scoffed as Akamaru barked once. "Geez, for someone who has every girl in Konoha falling for him, you sure have some trouble in that department!" he laughed.
Sasuke felt his temple throb. He hated attention being called to his charms. "Whatever, Inuzuka. Go home already and quite bothering me." He retorted.
Kiba looked at him seriously for a moment. "Well whatever it is, you had better fix it before Ino gets a hold of it. You know how fast she'll spread that stuff." He warned.
Sasuke didn't reply for a while. "How would you approach things?" he finally asked with great effort.
Kiba chuckled as if he had known this was coming all along. "It depends. Whose fault was it?" he asked.
Sasuke contemplated this for a moment. "Both of ours." He replied at last.
Kiba shook his head. "Easy. Just go apologize for being an asshole. It works every time. Just make sure that you sound like you actually mean it." He told him honestly.
Sasuke felt the urge to hurl another kunai at a tree in frustration. His new habit was getting out of hand, but it didn't matter to him because it felt good to do it. He reached into his pocket and carefully aimed for a tree a couple yards away. Throwing it as hard as he could, Sasuke could feel some of the edge leaving his tense muscles.
"Whoa, calm down man." Kiba said sounding as if he were about to put Sasuke in his place.
"I need to go. Thank you Kiba." He replied and in a moment, he was gone.
"Heh. Looks like something finally got to Uchiha. Let's go Akamaru." Kiba said to his faithful companion, who barked in reply.
-o0o-
Sasuke ran as fast as he could to Sakura's apartment, silently creeping up a nearby tree to get access to her third floor apartment. Once he was there, he was surprised to see Sakura on the other side, her eyes red and puffy, as if she had been crying. Knowing her, she probably had. He gently rapped on the window and she let him in.
"I'm sorry for what happened back there." He said once he was inside her bedroom.
Sakura hopped off the ledge of the window sill and walked over to where Sasuke sat on her bed.
"Are you really?" she asked skeptically.
Sasuke looked at her and realized that her eyes frowned and that a mask of coldness had taken refuge on her face.
"Yeah." He mumbled. Sakura be damned, he was already apologizing to her, probably for the first time in his life, she should be ecstatic.
Sakura narrowed her eyes at him, the edges of her gaze softening, but not completely warming up to him.
"Regardless of what you say, I don't forgive you." She said after a tense moment.
Sasuke didn't respond. If she wasn't going to accept his apology, well then she could go cry for the rest of her life. He wasn't going to hurt his pride by begging. Still, it would be nice if he made an effort.
"Sakura." He said, meeting her gaze head on.
Sakura gasped inaudibly when Sasuke caught her eyes. He leaned closer to her, his eyes never waving from hers.
"I really am sorry." He whispered just over her lips.
Sakura felt herself frozen in place by his boldness. Sasuke was never this direct with anyone and she couldn't figure out how to respond. She sensed Sasuke moving away from her and she did the only thing she could think of. She let her inner fan girl take over. Smiling enchantingly, she tilted her head and coaxed her face closer to Sasuke's.
"Sasuke." she whispered enticingly and Sasuke stopped moving.
Sakura carefully leaned forward until her lips were touching Sasuke's. He quickly caught on, but decided to play her game and gave her a chaste kiss in return. Sakura licked his lips and he tenderly refused her advances. She pulled away and Sasuke closed the gap between them again, gingerly touching her lips with his. She complied and Sasuke quickly pulled away.
"Sakura, go back to bed." And he turned his Sharingan on her, casting her into a gen-jutsu.
He watched as she fell asleep and he quietly exited her room, taking all her memory of that moment with him.
A/N: Please don't kill me if the layout sucks, I've been playing around with the format on Word Doc, but every time I upload, the format changes and I'm not too sure why. If anyone knows how to make a line in the story, please let me know! Also, I hope that this story has been getting better and not worse (sadly, I think that it is the latter).Thank you to everyone's who has been reading and reviewing for me, the comments mean so much! I'll definitely be posting more stories after this one is finished and once again, thank you!