a/n: Thanks for the reminder! I completely forgot it's the weekend again. That's what happens when you're on break and the days blur by.

Also, someone asked me why I don't upload all of the chapters at the same time. Part of the reason is that I don't want to clog up people's inboxes with 30 emails at the same time. The other part is that I simply don't have the time or motivation to edit all 30 chapters and post all of them at once. Doing it little by little makes the workload seem much lighter, and thus much more manageable. Please do understand, and thank you for asking. (:

fourteen.

.

.

.

"Sasuke, this is Sai. Sai, this is Sasuke."

Okay, Sasuke thought. So this was Sakura's ex-boyfriend. He'd heard about him several times before. This man was the one she claimed to be 'not completely over yet'. The one who was her best friend all throughout high school and then college and, at that time, understood her better than herself. The one who made her suffer the most excruciatingly painful breakup of all times.

What on hell's stupid face was he doing here?

"Um," Sakura began, but then immediately fell silent, chewing on her lower lip, her gaze switching between looking at Sasuke and looking at Sai.

"Hello," Sai said smoothly, extending a hand to Sasuke as he smiled, "Uchiha Sasuke, right? Arakaki Sai. Please, just call me Sai."

Sasuke took the hand, his lips pressed into a thin line. From the corner of his eye, he could see that Sakura was covering her face with her hands.

"Well, I'm going to go now, Sakura," Sai said, turning to Sakura. "I'll see you sometime soon, I hope. You know where to find me."

"Of course." Sakura lowered her hands and tried to smile at him. "Thank you, Sai."

"No problem," the man returned easily, nodding at Sasuke when he brushed past him.

As soon as he was gone and the door was closed, Sasuke looked at Sakura, raising his eyebrows. There was a dull ache in his chest that he recognized as that petty emotion known as jealousy, but he wasn't sure where that came from. Being jealous of Sai and Sakura was probably the stupidest thing to do, especially after he had come just to… look at her.

Oh God, Sasuke thought, realization hitting him like a ton of bricks. He had come by just to look at her. What the hell was he turning into?

"So," Sakura chewed on her lower lip, avoiding his scrutinizing eyes, "Um, that was Sai."

Sasuke's eyebrows rose higher, his voice sarcastic. "Really? I didn't know."

At his tone, she snapped her head up, suddenly confused, "Wait. Are you mad at me?"

"Did you do anything wrong?"

"No…" she paused hesitantly, and then dared herself to look into his eyes, "At least, I don't think so."

He sighed, as if the whole notion wore him out. "I'm not mad at you, Sakura."

"Really?" the pink-haired woman looked at him tentatively, "Because you're doing that thing when you press your lips so hard, you know. And when you always do that when you're pissed!"

"Stop it," Sasuke frowned. "What was he doing here?"

"Sai?" Sakura asked, leading him into the living room. "He, uh, came by to ask me how I'm doing after you dropped me off. We talked. Caught up to each other. The stuff."

"At midnight?"

She glanced at the clock, sheepishness colouring her lovely features as soon as she caught the time, and Sasuke knew, just knew, that she hadn't noticed it was midnight until he pointed it out. Didn't that mean that they had fun talking that time seemed unimportant? He really didn't know what to feel about this.

"Well…" she hesitated, and then decided to change the subject, "Is anything wrong, Sasuke?"

"No," he frowned. "At least I don't think so. Why?"

"It's, well, midnight," she said, pointing out the obvious, refusing to look at his face. "I honestly didn't think that you would come find me if it were for nothing. But if nothing is wrong, great! What's up, then?"

Sasuke looked at her, studying her face incredulously, suddenly offended for reasons he couldn't understand himself. "Oh, so Sai can come here to just talk to you and I can't?"

"It's not like that!" Sakura scowled. "You're getting ahead of yourself. Of course you can. You just, well, don't."

"Do I really need a reason to see you?" he asked her, obsidian eyes piercing sharply. Couldn't he just see her because he wanted to? God. Sometimes he really wondered why he cared at all. Sakura was obviously too oblivious for her own good, which was very slowly but surely becoming the death of him.

To his surprise, she blushed at his question. "Don't be such a flirt."

"I am not flirting," he retorted, even more offended.

"Well." She rolled her eyes, but then smiled in mischief. "I really don't know, to be honest. I mean, Sai was nothing like you. He doesn't do the flirting part. He's pretty straight to the point, unnecessarily so at times, but you know. He doesn't confuse me like you do."

Sasuke, however, completely took it the wrong way. "Why are you comparing him to me?"

"Am I?" she blinked, amusement flashing in her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"You should be," he agreed. "If he's my competition—there wouldn't be any competition at all."

"Tsk, tsk, Sasuke, stop being so arrogant," she said, punching his arm playfully. "You still have Sai to top, remember?" Before Sasuke could retort anymore, she cut him off. "Well. Since you're here and you don't particularly have a goal to accomplish, why don't you accompany me watch some chick flicks and eat ice cream? Tenten's out again. I don't think she'll be back until, well, much later."

"That's so…" he paused, looking for a suitable word but found none, "feminine."

Sakura raised her eyebrows, "What do you have in mind, then?"

He said nothing.

"Okay," she looked at him thoughtfully, "We can eat ice cream and talk, if that's better? I have coffee flavour for you, if you don't like strawberry cheesecake." When he still didn't speak, she glared at him. "Well, you're going to have to deal, Uchiha Sasuke. It's Ice Cream Night and there is no way on earth I'm going to give it up, even for the likes of you."

Sasuke sighed, knowing that he was already defeated before the fight even began, and then proceeded to sit on the couch, staring up to the ceiling, inwardly cursing himself. This was not what Uchiha Sasuke did—not usually, anyway. Sakura seemed to be able to bring out different sides of him he didn't know existed, and sometimes—just sometimes—he found that he didn't mind. Much.

Sakura broke into a bright smile as she went into the kitchen, coming back with two cups of ice cream and two spoons. Sitting down beside him, she turned on the TV and breezed through the channels, stopping only when she found MTV and tossing the remote away.

Sasuke watched, rather bemusedly, as scantily clad dancers filled the screen and started moving their hips in ways he didn't know was humanly possible before. Entertainment these days rather surprised him in ways that were unpleasant, but he wasn't about to complain. Being alone with Sakura meant opportunity to question—interrogate—her, and judging from their recent conversations, it was a little unfair that she seemed to know more about him that he knew about her. It rather distracted him, too.

So the Uchiha decided to start with the most recent ones—except he wasn't exactly one for subtlety. "Why did you break up with him?"

"What?" Sakura blinked and then reached for the remote, putting the TV on mute. "Oh, you mean Sai?"

He raised his eyebrows, "You've had other boyfriends before Sai?"

"Well," she laughed lightly, "He's the only person I've ever been serious with."

"Right," he said, and then waited.

She didn't speak for a few minutes, and then she flushed a deep shade of red, making him even more curious. He didn't ask anymore, though, because asking the same thing twice was definitely not him. Not at all, and he had to stop before things got out of hand.

"Well," she started hesitantly, "It's not that big of a reason, actually. Nothing earth-shattering. It's kind of how we never could actually see ourselves… married. I mean," she hurried to add, "We've been best friends for so long, although I think we were in love with each other, we couldn't see past now. We couldn't see our future, and the ones we could see didn't involve the other one of us. If we were really that good of a couple, I think we should be able to see our future together."

Sasuke raised his eyebrows. "That's a pretty… friendly breakup."

"I suppose," she laughed awkwardly, "but it wasn't, really. It was really awkward and it just… hurt, to look at him and think that we couldn't be what we were before we were, well," she raised her fingers up in the air to make air quotes for the last two words, "'in love'."

"And you're friends now."

"Not really," admitted Sakura, voice wavering just a tiny bit, "The first few months after we broke up, we could hardly look at each other. I'd want to throw stuff around or burst into tears whenever he was around, and he'd just freeze, like a statue. It… took some getting used to," she continued slowly, "He was my best friend, Sasuke. I should be able to understand him as much as he should be able to understand me, but in the end, our relationship became the end of our friendship. That was… pretty devastating. Don't date your best friend if you're not sure you'll get married later," she added, "It doesn't always end well."

He looked at her for a long, long while, allowing the comfortable silence to draw out between them. He didn't really know why he asked, actually. He just wanted to. Seeing her, seeing him, seeing them together had made him realize that, while he wasn't sure what or how he felt for her, he clearly didn't want her to be with someone else that way, and if he wanted to keep her away from people and actually do it right, he would have to take some necessary steps.

Steps he wasn't sure he was willing to take.

Sakura, for her part, also seemed to be lost in her thoughts. When she recovered, her green eyes were filled with determination, "Sasuke, there's something I have to tell you."

"Yes?"

"Sai…" she hesitated, "Sai was here because…"

Because he wished to declare his undying love for her? Because he asked her to get back together and she agreed? Because he wanted to propose and she accepted? Sasuke's face involuntarily darkened as unpleasant thoughts ran around his head. Was he going to get shot down before he even asked?

"Sai was here because my cousin convinced him to help her convince me to… go work for her company," Sakura said, finally, breaking the silence between them. When confusion coloured Sasuke's normally impassive eyes, she continued, "My cousin Karin has a boyfriend who happened to be one of Sai's good friends. His name is Suigetsu. I think Karin thinks that we're still together—or that even if we're not, we're still friends—so she asked him to convince me to go work for them. That's why he was actually here. We… we did talk and caught up, I suppose, but he wasn't here for that purpose. Obviously, our relationship has ended and whatever romantic feelings we harboured for each other are clearly gone. But Karin doesn't know that."

"Okay," Sasuke said carefully, somehow feeling relieved. But then something caught his attention, "If your cousin went that far just to get you into the company, then it must mean a lot to her."

"Not to her," Sakura admitted, a little hint of exhaustion in her voice, "She couldn't care less what I'm up to. We don't really have that kind of relationship nor are we friendly with each other. She runs errands for Grandfather, and… I think, I think, to Grandfather, my joining the company would mean a lot. Which… isn't a good thing, because he's… he's ruthless. And cold. And strictly business." Her eyes darkened with agony and her voice shook. "And pretty much someone I-I don't ever want to meet."

"Sakura—"

"S-Sai said that if I don't… if I don't come meet him," she interrupted, her voice weak, "If I don't come meet him, he'll force me to go to him. And that means… that probably means that he'll find my mom," she swallowed, "I don't want him to meet her. Not after… not after… not after. He doesn't have the right to."

"Not after what?" he asked, unable to stop himself.

"Not after chasing her out so many years ago," she responded, clasping her hands together on her lap tightly, "Not after abandoning her on the streets, not after writing off her name from the family and declaring her as good as dead to the public. Not after—"

Sasuke caught her hand and his thumb moved softly across the palm of her hand, effectively silencing her.

Taking a deep breath, Sakura shook her head, trying to clear her head. "He doesn't have the right to," she repeated, stronger this time, "Not after the way he treated her."

He looked at her, hating the way frustration was mirrored in every inch of her face, hating the way her eyes glistened with tears that refused to fall, hating how vulnerable she looked. Clueless on how to comfort her, he squeezed her hand.

She blinked, surprised at the sudden warmth covering her fingers, but then a weak smile curved her lips. "I think I'm going to tell my mom."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, "I really don't see any easy way out of this. He'll just… find a way to get hold of her. And she's the one who… wants to repair our family ties. I don't agree," she quickly said, "but I can't imagine letting an opportunity she's been waiting for just pass up like that."

Sasuke just nodded. On one hand, he really wanted to do something and just help her, but on the other hand, this was family business he was butting into, and years of experience had taught Sasuke and if there was a sensitive issue with people sometimes, it was with their family. Now that was one thing he would try to avoid as much as possible. With Sakura, though, avoidance was impossible. Damn his wanting to know—where did that come from?

"I'm sorry," she said suddenly, breaking his train of thoughts.

He immediately returned to earth. "Sorry about what?"

"We're supposed to eat ice cream and just, you know, talk," she laughed, gesturing to the uneaten cups of ice cream on the coffee table.

"This is talking."

"Yeah, but not the kind of talking I want to do with you," she smiled.

He ignored the mischief in her eyes. "You can talk to me about anything."

"I know." Her emerald eyes softened. "And I appreciate it. But I'd rather not cloud your mind with tons of things that are… that should be solved by me and only me. Even if, well," she paused and blushed, "Even if you care."

He fought the urge to smile, half-failed, and ended up with a grimace instead. "Well—"

She leaned forward and swept a quick kiss on his cheek, rendering him speechless. "Thank you for listening to my complaints, Sasuke."

Sasuke was too surprised to even begin to think of something to say.

"Do you know what the fastest remedy is when you're being stupid, like me?" she asked.

"What?" he frowned, "And you're not being stupid."

She ignored his statement and grinned, handing him the melting coffee ice cream. "Here."

A bit begrudgingly, he accepted it and took the spoon, staring at it like it had grown two heads. She laughed and nodded at him, forcing him to open the cup to eat. As she put the TV back on sound, he pondered on whether or not he should tell her about his meeting with Itachi just merely an hour ago. But looking at her relaxing, finally, after seeing a vulnerable side of her, made Sasuke chose against it. He would have time, he decided, and it could wait. He would see Ichinose tomorrow and he'd just… take it from there. She didn't need to know about it—not until she solved her own problem first. He didn't want to trouble her more than she already was.

It was a little past two when Sasuke decided to go home.

"Just go to sleep," he told her, watching as Sakura struggled to get up from the couch, looking positively sleepy and deadly exhausted. "I'll close the door behind me."

"It's okay," she yawned, stretching her arms as they walked together to the door. "You're so nice today, you deserve an award. What do you want?"

He paused at this, considering for a little while. "Anything will do?"

She staggered towards the hallway, leaning on the wall for support, almost half-asleep already, as she agreed, "Anything will do."

"Oh," he said, "Then close your eyes."

"Will you carry me to bed?" she asked.

Sasuke almost smirked. Almost. Even in her state of sleepiness, she still had that side to her. "No. You're heavy."

Her green eyes widened just a tiny bit, as much as her body allowed them to. "I've lost some weight since… since then," she protested, remembering the night she fell asleep at his place, and by association, the morning after.

"Well…" he paused again, pretending to give it some thought, and then smirked at her. "Maybe."

It was her turn to pause to consider his words. She angled her head and frowned. "No," she said then, "I don't want you to carry me."

"That's a relief," he agreed, more amused than anything. He stepped forward and caught her chin between his fingers, "Close your eyes, Sakura."

"Mm-hmm," she mumbled, her eyelids dropping shut obediently.

Sasuke leaned forward, and to her surprise, brushed his lips against her forehead in one quick, soft motion. Her eyes opened, and then widened, all the sleepiness chased out of her system. She was about to protest when she felt his lips on hers all of a sudden, his arms circling around her waist. Involuntarily, she closed her eyes again and sighed into his kiss, melting in his embrace.

And then he released her, feeling a surge of male pride when she panted softly, breathless.

"So," he began, "Strawberry cheesecake isn't that bad."

She blushed a lovely shade of red when she understood the implication behind his words, and then glared at him, although the power of the glare was effectively reduced to less ten percent by the fact that she was as red as a tomato.

"So that was the first half of my prize," he said softly, "I'll claim the second half soon."

Her cheeks reddened more if it were possible. "Sasuke!"

Sasuke opened the door and chuckled, liking how she looked like an angry goddess. "Goodnight, Sakura."

.

.

.

tbc.

a/n: Thank you for reading. (: