-Revenge is Sweeter than You Ever Were-

Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable content.

-Chapter Thirteen-

-A Girl's Night In-

After my date with Sasuke, I got into it with my mom. She was giving me hypocritical advice and I wasn't going to stand for it. That didn't mean I was changing my personality, changing who I was. Did it?

The week after my date with Sasuke flew by in a heady romance-filled cloud. Sasuke and I didn't share more than a few glances in the hallway and a brief, almost clandestine, hand-touching incident. However, those small instances were enough to keep my high going. I don't remember a lot of what else happened that week.

Hopefully I don't have a test coming up!

I was also having trouble reminding myself of why I was doing this, why I was dating Sasuke in the first place. He had quite a magnetic spell and power about him. No wonder Ino, Tenten, and Hinata were so hell bent on revenge. Coming out of that spell would be a rude awakening for sure.

My only saving grace in the whole thing was that our interactions, Sasuke's and mine, were so limited. We were not officially dating; we'd only been on one date and Sasuke claimed that he wasn't allowed to openly date during basketball season. Really, Sasuke didn't want to be too public with one girl so he could keep his options open. But, what would have been a point of contention were we actually dating kept me from falling head-over-heels for a jerk.

Maybe I should give my mom the benefit of the doubt…

No! My mom is an adult, not a hormonal teenager! My mom has dated countless men. She's not being swept up by the romance and emotions of her first ever relationship. My mom is a mom and she should start acting like it!

The girls seemed to recognize the effects Sasuke was having on me. I was trying to hide it, trying to suppress and act as normal as possible, but these girls all had a fair amount of experience with the ways and effects of Uchiha Sasuke. Despite my best efforts, the three of them picked up on this, and confronted me about it on Friday.

I knew I was in trouble when I saw all three of them headed my way. We were very careful about not being seen all four of us together. So this was serious.

"Sakura!" Hinata called. I was turning down the front walk of the school, heading to my house. When I heard her, I turned, happy to hear her. Now that we were a significant percentage of the way through our plan, and I was more comfortable with the situation and the players, hearing my name shouted by one of the three girls no longer sent dread and terror coursing through my veins.

"Hey, girls." Taking in the sight of all three coming at me did worry me a little, but I tried to hide it with a fake, plastered on smile.

"Good. We caught you!" Tenten spoke, skipping down the front steps of the school towards me. "We were hoping to find you at your locker, but someone took their sweet time packing up." At the end of the statement, the brunette shot the blonde an angry glare that the blonde ignored.

Instead, she addressed me, "we thought it would be a good time for a girls' weekend. We hung out last weekend, but that was date prep. This would just be a weekend for us! You in?" Ino had an innate ability to ask questions in such a way that gave the person answering only one way to do it. In this instance, I could either say yes or turn down time with the trio and, by extension, their friendship.

"I'm in," I said, choosing my only real option, but also agreeing with Ino. It had been last Sunday, as Hinata, Tenten, and I essentially wasted away an afternoon just being in each other's presence that I was truly able to appreciate what having friends felt like. I hadn't ever really had friends, not ones where I could just spend hours doing nothing with. When I was young, all of my 'friends' had resulted from pre-arranged play dates. Having real friends for the first time felt absolutely fantastic and I wanted to spend as much time with them as possible.

"Excellent. I'll drive!" Ino responded. At her voluntary statement, Hinata's, Tenten's and my face drained of blood and became pale and ghostly white.

Ino + driving = major problem and potential bodily harm

Ino driving didn't last very long. We nearly collided with my chemistry teacher leaving the parking lot and Tenten took over, despite the fact that it was Ino's car. The blonde pouted the rest of the ride, but Hinata and I felt so much better about the situation.

First, the girls had to pack overnight bags. Last weekend, they had discovered the necessity of this as I had neither the style nor size of clothes required by the girls and, according to Ino, my beauty and personal care items were woefully lacking. We were slowly developing a friendship, but we were still four very different people. Sharing would take some time.

Once the girls had their clothes and personal care items, we headed to the local corner store for provisions. We needed sweets, chocolates, chips, and drinks (non-alcoholic despite Ino's protests); the girls had basically cleared my house out last weekend. Restocking was an absolute necessity.

For skinny girls they could sure pack away the junk food!

We finally arrived back at my house an hour after school let out. I hadn't told my mom that I would be sidetracked on my way home, but normally it wasn't a big deal. My mom worked mid-afternoon shifts so she wasn't usually home when I got back from school. However, on that particular afternoon, apparently it was a big deal.

My house had become our unofficial hang out location, probably because my mom was so cool and accommodating. I'm pretty sure she was the only parent we'd told about our plot and, not only had she not gotten upset, angry or judgemental (at the time), she'd given us some advice. After the way my mom reacted as we entered the house that afternoon though, I wasn't so sure that assessment would stand.

"Where have you been?" my mom shrieked as we walked through the door, doing her best impression of Molly Weasley from Harry Potter. Ino, Tenten, Hinata, and I had been joyfully chatting only moments before but were quickly enveloped by silence when my mom had spoken.

"Hi mom," I said, trying to act as normal as possible, like my mom's reaction wasn't a great big deal. "My friends are going to stay over tonight and we needed supplies." To help make my point, the four of us raised out hands clutching bags of food and other sleepover supplies. That seemed to satiate my mom for the time being, but I could tell I would be hearing about this later, when we didn't have company.

Later, when we aren't being observed all her anger is going to come out. Maybe I can leave with the girls.

"Okay, well, don't make a mess," my mom spoke lamely before grabbing her purse and keys. I had no idea where was going and, frankly, given my current attitude towards her, I didn't really care.

"Okay girls, let's do this thing."

"Your turn Tenten. Truth or dare?" Ino asked, flinging around a cherry twizzler as she spoke. We'd been going through all of the stereotypical sleepover moves: makeovers; chick flicks; facemasks; eating a crap ton of junk food; etc. now, we were playing the quintessential sleepover game, truth or dare. Ino, as the three of us were quickly discovering was a vicious and somewhat vindictive darer. She'd already dared sweet Hinata to call up one of her other friends and bad mouth her to her face.

"Truth," Tenten spoke, worried about what Ino would come up with if she chose dare. The blonde was quiet for a second, trying to think which piece of potentially embarrassing, or deeply secretive, information she wanted to pull from the brunette. Finally, a devious smile crossed Ino's face.

"Okay, girlie. My question is, currently, who are you hard core crushing on?" Something in Ino's smile made me think that she already knew the answer to her question and that the brunette's confirmation of what she suspected would be an ace that the blonde could potentially use.

Tenten flushed dark red and looked away from where Hinata and I were sitting. Finally, she spoke softly, "well, it took a couple of weeks to get over the hurt and anger I felt towards Sasuke and what he'd done to all of us. Having this whole thing to work on, and potentially illicit revenge had helped." I had a suspicion that all of this was Tenten's attempt to burry the lead, to loose us to disinterest so we missed when she actually answered Ino's question.

"So, because I've been moving on, I have been open to, as you so eloquently put it, 'hard core crushing' on someone. That person, though I'm not sure how you knew about it, has been extremely helpful in this endeavour, and it is Neji." Tenten mumbled the last part, making it hard to decipher what she said. However, after a second or two, Hinata let out a loud, excited squeal and hurried over to the brunette on her knees. She nearly bowled over the other girl, excited about the news Tenten had just shared.

Ino look satisfied at Tenten's words, like the brunette had confirmed her earlier suspicions, but not as smugly as she normally would have. Perhaps she'd been hoping Hinata, who was related to Neji, would be upset or even angry at Tenten's reaction.

Sometimes Ino is totally that stereotypical mean girl cheerleader trying to stir up drama for her own amusement. Better keep a close eye on her.

"Okay," Tenten spoke once she'd extricated herself from the overjoyed raven-haired girl. "Next up is," Tenten reached into a hat to pull out a name, our system for picking turns. "Ino!" At the possibility of getting back at the blonde, a sickly sweet smile crossed her face.

"I'll go with truth. I don't have anything to hide," Ino responded confidently. She stared Tenten down in a battle of wits, but neither girl was backing down.

"My question for you, Miss Confident, is the same. Whom are you hard core crushing on?" Tenten continued to stare down the blonde, who returned the stare with no perceptible falter.

"That's such a waste of a truth question. I would have volunteered that information without this silly game. I went with Shikamaru to the bonfire. I wouldn't have done that if there wasn't some spark of interest with him. Plus, he's a really good kisser." Ino said it so nonchalantly that I couldn't help but feel like she was trying so hard to downplay it.

Me thinks that there might be more than a spark of interest. Is Ino maybe falling for him?

Okay, I'm going to level with you here. Shikamaru is friends with Sasuke. They have been for years, since like kindergarten according to Naruto. Their longevity is one of the reasons they still spend time with each other now. Neither one is really like the other. They have different interests, would normally be in different social circles, and not associate. So, even though Shikamaru is technically popular he is not Ino's typical choice in romantic partner.

Perhaps she's embarrassed and worried about admitting her true feelings because of how it could reflect back on her.

Tenten and Hinata ribbed Ino about her admission for a few seconds, before the blonde got annoyed and a little irate, and snapped at them. She then insisted on continuing the game and reached into our hat. A worrisome smile crossed the blonde's face.

"Your turn Sakura," she sing-songed, "truth or dare?" I know I should have picked truth. Ino was vindictive with her dares when she wasn't upset, and she was currently in a foul mood thanks to the ribbing. Picking dare would not be the smart choice. But, I'd played it safe and smart my whole life until I'd met these girls. They'd brought out my daredevil side, made me want to take risks. So I did.

"I'm going to go with dare," I spoke confidently. Ino nearly squealed with excitement before pondering what she should make me do. As she was thinking, Sasuke's car drove down my street, slowing slightly as he passed my house.

Some things I've left out. Earlier that afternoon, as we sat outside Hinata's house waiting for her to grab her things, Sasuke texted me. He asked me out, to go see a movie that night. I'd been momentarily tempted, feeling that pull. Luckily, Ino jumped in, grabbed my phone, and texted Sasuke that I needed a girl's night.

However, it seemed like Sasuke couldn't stand not seeing me for a weekend. Since shortly after dinner, he'd driven past my house about half a dozen times. It was somewhere between adorable and creepy.

Ino smiled wider. "I dare you to call Sasuke and make it seem like you don't know it's him and you think there's a stalker." It was a relatively tame dare and one I readily accepted, pulling out my phone and calling Sasuke's number.

As it rang, I watched Sasuke's car slow even further before pulling off to the side of the road two houses down. He shut off the car before answering my call.

"Change your mind about the movie?" He asked, forgoing the social conventions of a typical phone call. I took a breath and then tried to make myself sound as concerned as possible.

"No. I was calling because there's this creepy car that keeps circling my block." As I spoke, I heard a rustling and banging coming from the other end of the phone and watched the figure of Sasuke in his car attempt to slouch down out of sight.

"Oh?" he responded, trying to sound concerned. Ino, Hinata, and Tenten stifled laughter. I'd turned on my speakerphone so they could hear but in exchange the other girls needed to be quiet.

"Yeah, he's driven by like six times. The girls and I are worried he's gonna like break in or something. I was wondering if you could be our knight in shinning armour and come scare him away." There was more banging on his end and the sound of his car starting up and more stifled laughter on ours.

"I'll see what I can do," he said over the sound of his engine.

"Oh! You know what," I said, thinking fast. I wasn't sure if he'd actually 'show up' at my house, but I didn't want to tempt it. If he did, he would find the four of us together and potentially ruin our plan. "My neighbour two doors down has a shot gun. I'll just call him! You don't have to change your evening plans!" I hung up before he could say anything else and he took off in his car. The girls and I broke out into belly splitting laughter, collapsing on top of each other in our absolute joy.

After we'd gotten control of ourselves that night, we decided if I'd gotten Sasuke to the point of stalking me, we should let him take me out on a real, non-school sponsored, date.

To be continued…