"H-hey Sakura," the pinkette turned to see Tenten. Sakura raised an eyebrow. It was strange to see the brunette act so nervous.

"Yeah?" Sakura asked.

"Look, I know that we haven't always been seeing eye to eye lately. Especially since you've, you know, left the group. And to be honest I've kind of been feeling bad for what's been happening to you after you left, with people talking about you and stuff. So, to try and make it up to you, I was wondering if you wanted to go to a party with me on Friday," Tenten said quickly, as if she was trying to get it out as fast as possible.

Sakura paused to take her words in. It was true that the two hadn't gotten along that well, especially after the event where Tenten had friends over and Sakura ended up locking her room. The two weren't actively trying to make the other's life horrible, but they usually went out of their way to avoid each other. It wasn't uncommon for one of them to stay out of the kitchen or living room until they knew that the other was not occupying it. Tenten's peace offering seemed nice, but rather odd and out of the blue, making the green eyed girl feel a little suspicious.

"What brought this on?" she asked.

Tenten shrugged. "Like I said, I've just been feeling bad about what's happened between us. We used to be really close, you know. But then this stupid gang stuff got in the way and now we barely talk to each other. It's messed up. I've been feeling like this for a while now."

That sounded fair. But…"Why a party?" Sakura inquired. Why not a coffee date or something where it was more personal?

Tenten looked a little annoyed now. "It was coming up and I thought it would be a good olive branch. Look, do you want to or not?"

Did she want to go? But who else would be there? She didn't really want to go if Tenten's friends were there. But she had a feeling that Tenten wouldn't like it if she kept prodding for details. After all, if it was a way to make peace (or at least a start to making peace) between the two of them, it shouldn't matter who else was going to be there right? Besides parties could be fun. Maybe it could actually turn out well. "Sure," she agreed.

Tenten immediately looked relieved. "Great," she relayed the address of the place it would be at. "It starts at about 9, and it's a BYOB."

Sakura nodded. "Sounds good, I'm working until 9 though, so I'll be a bit late."

"That's fine," Tenten assured her.

-Friday night-

Sakura looked around. She had arrived at the party less than five minutes ago and was trying to find Tenten. She had received a couple 'what is she doing here' stares, but so far no one had actively tried to get her to leave. She considered that a plus so far. The guy who was hosting the party had been told by Tenten that she was coming, so getting in wasn't an issue.

Since she had just come from work, she didn't really look that 'party ready' but before she had taken off, Ino had helped her do a couple of touch ups to her makeup and a had lent her a nice top to wear. The two often found themselves sharing clothes now.

So far she had seen several of Tenten's friends including Naruto, Temari and Sai. But Tenten was nowhere to be seen; come to think of it she didn't see Neji either. Strange.

"Sakura?" she looked over to see Daichi. He was here?

She walked over to him. "Hi."

"What are you doing here?" he asked with a curious expression on his face.

She stuck her tongue out good naturedly at him. "It's nice to see you to."

"Oh I didn't mean it like that," he quickly. "I just mean that you usually don't go to parties."

"Well I'm usually not on the guest list," Sakura pointed out.

She had said it in a teasing tone, but he still appeared to be bothered by what she said. "That's not right," he stated. "You shouldn't be excluded all the time."

"Don't worry about it, it's totally fine," she quickly told him, not wanting him to get concerned. After all, it wasn't like he could really do much to change it and besides, she didn't like being thought of as a pity case.

He frowned, "if you're sure."

She nodded. "Completely." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hinata dancing with a guy she didn't know, and seemed to be rather happy while doing so. Odd. But hey, she didn't know the girl that well. Maybe under all that shyness she had an energetic outgoing side to her that rarely came out.

With that thought, she turned her eyes back to Daichi. "So what were you up to before I interrupted?"

He shrugged. "Not much actually, just finished talking to another person, was looking around for someone else to visit."

"Well, do I fit the criteria for that?" Sakura asked teasingly.

"Why yes, but just barely," he replied, humor evident in his eyes.

"Hey, dance you two!" An obviously drunk person urged them before moving somewhere else.

He shrugged. "He does have a point; we are at a party after all."

"Really, you dance at parties? I thought they had a strict 'no move' policy," she teased once more before moving her body to the music playing in the background. He followed suit. They continued this in silence for a while.

"So," she said as they moved around. "How's time on the basketball team going?"

"It's going fine," he stated. "Although I have to admit, it would be going a lot better if we didn't have the whole 'gang' thing. I mean, it's obvious that most of the guys don't even like having it. But they all still go along with it, which just makes practice and other stuff harder."

"Why do people always go with it if they don't like it?" she inquired. The more she was at the school, the more the gang idea seemed stupid and pointless to her.

He shook his head. "I'm not entirely sure. Some say it's to be 'loyal to the leaders' or something like that. Personally, I think it's just because people are so used to having them in place that no one feels like trying to change it."

A frown appeared on her face. That sounded like a rather stupid reason. So people were going along with it just because 'that's just the way it is and has been before'? Hasn't anyone spoken out this?

Before she could inquire further, they were interrupted by more drunk people, this time a girl and guy. The guy turned to Sakura and the girl to Daichi. They both attempted to dance closely and provocatively to Sakura and her friend before disappearing into the crowd as soon as they came.

Daichi and the pink haired girl looked at each other and laughed. "You should go and try to find that girl," Sakura urged, humor glittering in her eyes. "She's cute and looked like she liked you."

A slight blush appeared on his face and he shook his head. "Why not?" Sakura prodded. "Hung up over someone else?"

The blush on his face grew. Oh, so he likes someone, Sakura thought, cute, now to find out who it is. "Is it someone I know?" The red on his face grew. She smirked. She just had to gage his answers by how much his blush grew. Her eyes travelled around the room. "Is she here?" he shook his head.

She opened her mouth to inquire further, but he shook his head. "That's all you're getting out of me."

"You're no fun," she protested. He smirked and shrugged.

"Sakura," Tenten said as she came over.

"Hey," she turned to the girl. Tenten looked worried about something. "What's wrong?"

"Naruto just texted me. We need to go to the hospital," Tenten urged her, not sparing a glance at Daichi.

"Uhh, why?" Sakura asked in confusion.

"Hinata's there," Tenten replied.

"Hinata?" Sakura asked. But the girl had seemed fine a little while ago, what had happened?

"I don't know," Tenten answered. "Come on, I came over with someone else, so you need to drive us over."

Sakura glanced at Daichi. A small, selfish part of her didn't want to leave. After all, Hinata wasn't technically her friend.

"Go on," he urged her.

She sighed, helping Tenten get there probably was the right thing to do. "Alright," she told Tenten. "Let's go."

The two road in silence to their destination as Tenten seemed too anxious to talk. Once in the hospital they found out where Hinata's room was and rushed to it.

The two walked into the room, Tenten slightly ahead of Sakura. "What happened?" the brunette asked. Hinata was lying on a bed with Naruto looking worriedly at her.

Naruto looked at them and anger began to seep into his expression. "Someone gave her a date rape drug."

Sakura's eyes went wide. "What?" Tenten exclaimed.

"Some guy gave her a spiked drink," he responded through clenched teeth. "Thankfully it was a low dose, but still…"

Oh, Sakura thought, that explains her behaviour from before. "I thought she was acting funny before."

"What?" Both Naruto's and Tenten's eyes snapped towards her. "And you didn't say anything?" Tenten asked incredulously.

"Well, uh, no," Sakura stated, now feeling embarrassed, and a little guilty. "At the time I didn't think anything was wrong."

"Was she acting abnormally excited and throwing herself at people?" Tenten demanded to know.

"Well…kind of. When I saw her, she was dancing with someone I didn't know and seemed to be really happy."

"And you didn't stop and think 'hey Hinata who is a nervous introvert is acting very strangely, maybe something is wrong'?" Tenten stated angrily as she neared Sakura.

Sakura, in an attempt to defend herself, stepped forward to meet Tenten. "Hindsight is 20/20, it's easy to say that now. Besides, I barely know her. And I only saw her for about two seconds."

"You don't have to know her well to know that that behaviour is odd for her," Tenten retorted. "Two seconds would be enough to know that something was off and at least ask Hinata about it."

"Like I said, after the fact things seem clearer," Sakura replied, even though she was feeling more and more guilty now. She wanted the blame that Tenten was placing on her to leave. "Besides, I didn't think that Hinata needed a babysitter."

Both Tenten and Naruto looked surprised and a little offended by her statement. Hinata looked down and stared at her sheets. "Sakura, she was drugged," Tenten told her slowly. "That could have happened to anyone."

"A random guy offered her a drink and she took it. I thought that she was smart enough not to do that," Sakura stated, trying to defend herself.

Hinata appeared even more ashamed. "Really?" Naruto exclaimed incredulously.

"W-well you're not supposed to accept drinks from strangers at parties. Everyone knows that," she insisted as her face turned red. "It's like the first thing they teach you when you enter into junior high, and it's always on those government funded commercials. So I'm sorry that in the brief time I looked at her I did not think 'oh gosh, she's drugged' because I thought she knew better than that." Without waiting for a response, Sakura stormed out of the room.