Title: Girls Day for Sasuke

Summary: Sasuke isn't sure how it happened, but somehow is has been wrangled into a shopping spree with Ino and Sakura. As the day progresses, he finds himself dying for the chance to do over the moment he agreed to this hellacious nightmare.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, there would be no goddamn revolution.

Prompt: Rewind the Time from day twenty-one of the SasuSakuMonth Prompts.

Rating: G

Words: 2,626

Warning(s): None

Author's Note: I haven't really ever written anything funny. It's always angsty or serious. Sometimes I think I take my fanfic and character development too seriously. So, here's a fun one. (Still working on these. Jeez. Any bets on how long it will take me? Forever? Okay *sighs*)

Fine lines are indented in the palms of his hands and sweat is beginning to gather on the back of his neck. The overhang of the shop provides a small bit of shade, but not enough to be entirely comfortable in the hot Konoha summer. It also fails to provide much anonymity, and several shoppers have paused to gawk at him and attempt to initiate conversation.

Attempt being the key word.

He's still not sure how he landed up here. One second he was peacefully rewrapping his wrists after training, and the next and overly excited Sakura was telling him she would pick him up at ten.

Sasuke exhales quietly as he rolls his shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension that has settled between them and simultaneously ignoring the blonde trying to catch his eye across the street. It's not that the bags are too heavy for him, not that he would admit if they were, but the weight is distributed so poorly on these things! Their substantial bulk is hanging on the tiny plastic and string handles, and they're cutting into his palms. It could also help if they weren't so full with, with… Sasuke looks down to see what exactly it is he is carrying.

Scraps of cloth hang over the edges of the bright pastel bag. Some items are distinguishable—the blue, wooly arm of a sweater (in this weather?), the high, traditional collar of a red shirt, the end of a cuffed khaki pant leg—while others are not. They are a conglomeration of strings and straps, and—dear Kami, is he carrying lingerie?

A quiet cough interrupts his musings, and Sasuke looks up to meet the see the blonde from earlier leering at him. Vanilla ice-cream decorates the waffle cone in her hand, and she raises her eyebrows suggestively before her tongue darts out to meet the cold substance. While the temperature of the product appeals to him, the sweetness does not, and the woman definitely doesn't. The frozen cream has gathered at the side of her mouth, and a small drop falls to her exposed chest. She winks.

Sasuke snorts and looks away. He's heard that such things are supposed to be suggestive, but the woman makes it anything but. His attention is more easily captured by the doorway that he stands in front of, and Sasuke returns to glaring at it, as if demanding it to produce the two figures that hold him hostage here.

As luck has it, the pink and platinum blonde hair he has been checking the store window for are the next out the door. He nearly sags in relief, but maintains his indifferent posture. Uchiha don't sag.

"Let's go," he demands in the low tone that generally produces results.

Sakura appears ready to acquiesce, and she nods with a small smile, but Ino is having none of it. Growing out of her crush on him has granted her with the ability to treat him in the same commanding way she does everyone else. Her tendency to hang on his words is a thing of the past. This is a common trend with all of his year mates, it seems.

"Woah, hold up," she counters, tossing her unnaturally long hair over her shoulder with the flip of her manicured hand, "We've barely hit half the shops, we can't call it quits yet."

Through obsidian eyes narrowed to slits, Sasuke views the smirking woman in from of him. He is going to murder her, he's sure of it. In that moment, Sasuke makes peace with the fact that all of the hard work and pride swallowing he suffered through during his two year probationary period was for naught.

Somehow sensing that Ino's life is in grave danger, Sakura tentatively places a hand on Sasuke's arm.

"I don't know Ino, I'm feeling pretty beat," she admits, rubbing the back of her neck with her other hand, "And I'm not sure my wallet could take much more, anyway!" She laughs and gestures to the items secured in Sasuke's right hand and the two additional that she carries, "All of this was a month's worth of mission wages!"

Ino considers this with pouting lips before sighing exaggeratedly. The woman's fondness for dramatics has not dulled over the years, "I gueeess."

They have barely gone two steps before the infuriating woman speaks again.

"You know," Ino drawls in a contemplative way that makes his skin crawl, "We could always look through some stores for him"—Ino is unfazed by the severity of his glare—"I'm sure he would love to model for us."

"Oooh! Sasuke-kun! Would you?" Sakura wonders. Her hands are clasped in excitement, but her face shows mild hints of trepidation. She knows he won't like this idea.

Usually Sasuke would feel badly about disappointing her, he has done far too much of that already, but today is not that day.

He ignores Ino and directs his answer specifically to Sakura, "No."

The response is immediate. Her shoulders deflate, and she lowers her head as if she has been reprimanded. Still, she finds it within herself to draw herself up and pretend that the rejection doesn't hurt as much as he sees it does.

"Come on, can you pass up the chance to make me carry your bags?" she jokes half-heartedly.

A very emphatic "yes" is on the tip of his tongue, but it never makes its way past his lips. Those infuriating, too-green eyes are staring up at him through those too-pink eyelashes. She's not batting them coquettishly as Ino would or acting manipulative in the way she sometimes does with Kakashi and Naruto. She's just…asking. Asking in a way that's innocent and timid and hopeful all wrapped up into one, and can he really smash all of that? Again?

No. Sasuke has filled his quota for the amount of times he can reject Sakura, and the fact is becoming more obvious with each passing day. She doesn't ask for much, but Sasuke finds it impossible to deny the small requests she does make of him. He understands what it means for her to open herself up each time, no matter how trivial a favor it might be.

But he really does not want to go try on clothes with the two girls. Knowing Ino, she'll use it as an excuse to drag them around town all over again. The fact that they would be shopping for him does not make the idea any more appealing.

"Can't we just," Sasuke flounders for an alternative activity that does not involve clothes. He grasps at the first thing that comes to mind, "Go for ice-cream, or something?"

Suddenly his arm is under attack again, and Sasuke is startled to see that Sakura has launched herself at him and engulfed his arm in a tight hug.

Instead of filling him with the desire to flee, his lips twitch in a half smile at the sight of petal hair buried against his bicep. Some would argue that her temper is as short as ever, but Sakura has definitely not been this free with her enthusiasm since they were genin.

"YES! Goodness, I haven't had ice-cream in ages—and this weather is perfect for it!" she exclaims, finally raising her head from her impromptu glomp. There's a lightness in her eyes that he hasn't witnessed in a long time, and the sight threatens to bring a full-blown smile to his face. The urge to poke her forehead seizes him, and so he does, shuffling the bags in his grasp down his arm and letting his fingers linger in the way his older brother's always did. Sakura's eyes widen at the contact, and Sasuke uses the opportunity to meet her incredulous gaze tenderly.

They both realize they aren't alone at the same time.

Sakura jerks back from his skin as if she has been burned, and Sasuke feels his entire body go tense as he drops his hand and the bags balanced on his arm to his side.. Could he really be so dense as to let his walls down like that in public? He can only hope his blush isn't as prominent as Sakura's.

"Ice-cream sound good to you, Pig?" Sakura is asking, her words slamming together far too quickly to be relaxed.

Ino has watched the exchange silently, and Sasuke catches her analyzing gaze before she covers it up with a bubbly smile and swift declaration of, "Sure, I could use some ice-cream!"

Sakura squeals excitedly—and perhaps a bit exaggeratedly—and latches onto her best friend's arm aggressively before dragging her in off in the direction of the shop. Sasuke follows behind at a much slower pace, berating himself for losing his control like that.

In front of Ino, of all people.

On top of her reputation as a gossip, Sasuke had forgotten that the Yamanaka were a prominent family in the interrogation headquarters. With her father's demise, Ino had stepped up to the plate and taken over as head of the interrogation unit. He would bet his year's salary that Ino could learn more about a person in one glimpse of their character than most could learn in months.

And he had just given her more than a glimpse, hadn't he?

So lost in his musings, Sasuke doesn't realize that he is passing the seat of the woman who had leered at him earlier. The sharp pinch on his ass reminds him of the fact quickly. Stuck between incredulousness and rage, Sasuke spins to face to woman who dared touch him.

Her teasing gaze falters under his wrathful gaze, and she flinches backwards involuntarily.

"Don't," he bit out simply, venom filling the one word with enough poison to kill. When her eyes remain lowered, Sasuke walks away.

"You'll come back to me when you're done with pinky," she calls after him, nearly too quietly for him to hear it. He's not sure if it's false bravado that inspires the comment or if she truly believes it, but Sasuke is disgusted nonetheless. He would do no such thing.

"Sasuke, what do you want?" Sakura's sweet voice calls from inside. Sasuke settles himself with one last lethal glare before heading to his teammate.

Both Sakura's hands are perched on the small ledge in front of the plastic divider, and she is looking over her shoulder at him as she awaits his response. Ino gaze is unreadable, but he has the feeling she knows something has transpired just out of her sight. Sakura looks to be oblivious, however, and is not-so-patiently awaiting his decision with tapping fingers.

Sasuke's lip is in danger of curling, but he forces his face to remain impassive as he scans the flavors in front of him. He despises the thought of consuming this sickeningly sweet treat, but ice-cream was his idea in the first place, and he can't exactly back out now. With increasing desperation, he scans the tubs for something that he won't hate too much.

As always, pink catches his eye.

"I'll take a small"—his eyes read the small inscription next to the bucket—"strawberry."

The shopkeeper nods and sets about getting their orders. Sakura turns her thousand watt smile on him, and suddenly realizes that he still has both his hands full with the two girls' purchases.

"Oh! Here, let me take those from you Sasuke!" she says as she grabs the items in his possession, "You've been carrying these all day, and you'll need a free hand to eat you ice-cream."

"Hn." The ice-cream is the least of his worries, but he appreciates having his hand back.

Sasuke catches the tail-end of a look Sakura is shooting Ino. The two share several looks, obviously using their long-term friendship to communicate silently, and Sasuke finds himself lost very quickly. He gives up on translating the glances and watches with trepidation as

"I guess I can take some of my bags back, too," Ino announces loudly, the reluctance clear in her voice.

Ah. So that's what that was about. Sasuke feels no guilt in dumping all of the blonde's purchases into her hands. The indignant huff he receives slightly appeases his desire for retribution of this forced daytrip, and he smirks fully. In fact, he feels so vindicated by the sight of Ino struggling with her numerous bags that he elects to pay for everyone's ice-cream.

The quicker they pay, the quicker they can leave, he rationalizes

The group is walking out of the door when he feels a familiar sting. His whole body tenses, and this time he's positive it's from disbelief. Surely, that woman wouldn't have the guts to repeat such an offence after he made his feelings clear.

"Did that woman just pinch your ass, Sasuke?" Ino shrieks, aghast. He doesn't believe she can do anything at a normal volume.

Sakura freezes mid-step beside him, and she slowly turns to take stock of the situation. She continues to eat her ice-cream with deceptively innocent flicks of her tongue—as Sasuke follows ever motion of the tiny muscle he vaguely realizes that this is what the woman was trying to achieve earlier—but her eyes have lost their happy sparkle have instead turned to hard jade. His teammate evaluates the simpering woman in front of him before flicking her questioning gaze to him: Is this true?

"Let's go," he answers instead, wanting to avoid a scene. He knows the statement itself is answer enough by the way her jaw tightens, but she complies with suggestion and moves to leave.

It probably could have ended without incident there, too. If the tactless woman hadn't said something, he might have made it home with nothing but a long day shopping with Ino and Sakura to torment him and a hot shower to comfort him.

But she did.

"It's even better the second time, huh, Hot Stuff?" she called before jeering at Sakura, "Bet you wish you were woman enough to handle all that, Pinky."

Sasuke groaned.

Sakura pops the rest of her waffle cone in her mouth with a menacing "crunch" and calmly places her bags on the ground. Although she faces away from the blonde vixen, he's able to see the pulsing vein in her forehead.

"Sakura, leave it," he insists lowly, desperately trying to reel her back before she goes overboard. He hasn't forgotten the danger her fury brings with it.

"This'll just take a second, Sasuke-kun," she brushes him off with a terrifyingly charming smile. In the back his mind, alarms ring at Sai's warning about such a smile.

He doesn't see her throw the first punch, and is shocked the woman dodges it. Apparently she is a shinobi as well, but she must be near Kakashi and Kurenai's age.

"You'll have to do better than that, little girl," she taunts.

"Oh shit," Ino mutters beside him.

For the first time that day, Sasuke shares her sentiments.

In the chaos that follows, the whole ice-cream shop is destroyed. The sticky substance seeps between the ruined floorboards, and dust floats in the air from the wreckage. All civilians—including the shop-owner—had been given ample warning to evacuate. If all that wasn't enough, somehow the wreckage had caught aflame, and sirens sung in the background of the disaster zone.

"Heh, guess I got a little carried away," Sakura grins, moving towards him with a slight limp.

Sasuke looks from her, to the unconscious woman behind her on the floor, to the pile of now-burning pile of wood that used to be a shop, and back to Sakura before exasperatedly pinching the bridge of his nose.

What Sasuke would give to go back and fix whatever landed him in this situation.

I have six more prompts to write. Just six more! (Exposed, Glory, Misguided, Tattoo, It All Comes Back to This, and Three Wishes!) I know I should be writing Poison, but I just keep getting inspired for these little prompts. Hopefully you enjoy them!