Instant Message
By Keelah

I no longer knew what was real and what was not. Tonight, more than ever, I needfed to know the truth from the untruth.f
I needed something genuine, because hanging onto air has only left me to fall.

"You lied."

Chapter THIRTY SIX
If Looks Could Kill...

If looks could kill, I would be hanging by a thread right now, holding on desperately to my ebbing lifeline as I inched my way up the front doorstep. Gaara, on the other hand, would be in an entirely different situation. If looks could kill, the red-head would have been mangled and beaten up, frozen and crushed by an ice berg as he neared death.

...At least, that was what Sasuke seemed to want to do, if he hadn't already done so with that glacial glare of his.

I squirmed as he refocused that gaze from the departing Gaara to pierce through me instead. "What are you doing here?" came his brusque demand.

"Hey," I greeted, stopping a safe yard away from the pokerfaced Uchiha. "You got a minute?"

"What for?"f

I hesitated. "I wanted to talk to you."

"I think you already got what you wanted." His eyes flicked over my head. What is that supposed to mean?

Closing my eyes to the tart and snappish inquiry would be best, I told myself; after all, I was there to be grateful, not initiate another foolish squabble between the two of us. "I didn't get the chance to thank you," I continued nonetheless, "For...the other night. For staying."

"So you go and kiss some guy in front of me?" Hard obsidians drilled into my orbs. "You've got a funny way of showing gratitude, Haruno."

Whoa—attitude. What was his deal, anyway? Gaara had leaned in for the kiss, not I, and even though I hadn't pulled away Sasuke hadn't any right, or logical reason, to act so jeal...jealou—I couldn't even think about it.

Before I could pronounce any kind of rejoinder, he swivelled and walked into the house, leaving me to stand alone by the threshold. Uncertainly, I entered as well, supposing that the only reason he hadn't closed the door was for me to follow after him.

Unlike my last visit, the domicile was unusually quiet; it felt to me like a wholly different place. Maybe I'd gone to the wrong house, or had gotten sucked into an alternate universe. I knew, however, that none of those idiotic explications were true, and knew exactly the cause for the manor's ghostly condition: Suigetsu's death. I remembered it being this doleful on the night Karin had... passed away.

I spotted Shino propped by the back door with a plump cockroach sitting on the palm of his hand; Kiba sat in the dining, hunched over a cluttered binder. The two looked up, curtly bobbed their heads and went on with their business.

But Jugo, who was in the living room, gave no acknowledgement. He was huddled at the edge of the couch, his head in his hands, hair chaotically sticking out between his fingers, as stationary as a statue. My heart fell in sympathy, feeling blameworthy for his despair.

Unconsciously, I walked up to him and reached out, meaning to lay a hand on his shoulder, but before I knew it my wrist was caught in a solid, unyielding grasp.

I jumped, taken back as I stared into the murderous glower of the boy who was, only a second ago, so sombre. "What?" He snarled, intensifying his clutch around my arm to an aching extent.

"I—" I stuttered, "I—I didn't mean..."

"Jugo." It was Sasuke. "Let go." His voice calm with authority, he commanded, "Now."

In the same instant, I was released. Jugo looked up at him, his eyes now rid of any animosity, replaced by what I could only describe as shame. "Sorry, Sasuke," he muttered.

"Hn," Sasuke scuffed and without another word seized my upper arm as he walked away, towing me behind him. With a fleeting look over my shoulder, I met Jugo's suddenly apologetic gaze, now rid of any hostility. I gave him a smile and mouthed "It's okay." After a quick nod, he buried his head into hands once more, recouping his prior position of immobility, as if nothing had ever happened.

As Sasuke continued to drag me down the hall, I caught a glimpse of Neji in his room through the opening of the door, seated on a desk with a textbook before him. I was tugged along before I could see any more as Sasuke lead me into his room. Nara Shikamaru was lolled over the bed on the left side of the room; unlike the last time, he was fully clothed in a shirt and khakis. Upon seeing me, he cocked an eyebrow.

Letting out an irritated sigh, Sasuke demanded, "Give us a few minutes." Shikamaru rolled his eyes, but got up nevertheless. He passed us and walked out the room, muttering the word troublesome again and again. After closing the door behind the brunette, Sasuke ordered, "Go sit down." I slumped on his bed as he did the same on a chair across the moderate-size room. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "You're freaking frustrating, you know that?"

"What?" I asked. Was this still about Gaara? "If this is what happened earlier, Sasuke, it isn't really any of your—"

"I couldn't care less about what you do with that guy," he spat, eyes constantly shifting, from corner to corner of the room but never quite landing on me—the signs of a liar. "I'm talking about Jugo. You shouldn't have come up him like that."

"I just... I wanted to show my condolences..."

"Did he hurt you?"

"No, not at all." I exclaimed, somewhat lying as I ignored the light soreness on my wrist. "You shouldn't have been so hard on him."

"He could've harmed you." He shook his head irately, "You don't know what he's capable of."

"What he's capable of?" I repeated.

"Jugo's got a multiple personality disorder," he explained, "or whatever the hell it's called. He's the gentlest person I know, but he can be dangerous without knowing it. There's no saying what he could have done if I hadn't gotten to you in time."

It took a while for this to sink in. "Were they close? Suigetsu and Jugo?" Jugo's flare-up must have something to do with the deceased boy.

"Couldn't stand each other, but they were like brothers. I mean, we all are." Sasuke muttered, a nostalgic smile tugging at the edge of his lips as he stared distantly at nothing in particular.

"...I see."

He sent me a sidelong glance. "You don't know anything."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I snapped.

"It means, you don't know anything." Were we back to fighting? "You can't. You're stuck in your small, perfect world."

"Then why don't you clue me in, if I'm so clueless?" Sasuke looked away, saying nothing. He wanted me to understand them, their position, him, but how could I when he always closed me off like this? "Tell me. About anything. About you."

"I've got nothing to say to you."

Suddenly, I remembered the long-haired brunette I'd spotted at his desk only a minute ago. "Tell me about Neji."

Sasuke eyes glinted with satire, "Looking for gossip?"

"No," I bristled, "no, I'm just... if you think I know nothing, then change that. Show me what your world's like." Tell me more about them, I thought, more about you.

"Fucked-up, that's what it's like." I didn't say anything, only waited. For a moment he contemplated whether or not to say more, but after a few seconds of silence, much to my surprise, Sasuke went on, "When Neji's father died, he got into some things he shouldn't have, like we all did, I guess. When his uncle found out about what he was doing, he sent him away. They never took him back into the family."

I had wondered why Hinata had never mentioned this, but I supposed a banished family member wasn't quite an ideal topic of conversation. It didn't seem like she knew anymore about it than I did, anyway. "What... what about Shikamaru? He doesn't exactly seem like the kind who'd get into trouble."

"He isn't," Sasuke defended. "I mean—until his mentor got killed. We've all got some kind of turning point where it all started going downhill. That was his."

"What happened?"

"That's all you need to know." Privacy. I could respect that.

Stirring the conversation in another direction, I began, "What about..." My voice faded, unsure of whether I should mention the name. "...Gaara? He seemed a little upset earlier, like out of it."

"Really?" Sasuke rejoined, mocking a tone of surprise. "After that kiss, he looked pretty happy to me."

It was my turn to glare.

"His sister still hasn't turned up, I guess that's why." Cynically, he added, "And I don't know anything about him. We're not exactly what you'd call tight."

"Oh." Well, that figures I supposed. "And... Sai?"

"Killed his brother." I choked, my eyes widening in surprise. He smirked at my reaction. "Or so they said," he interjected, "But it was never proven. The only thing the cops found was some kind of picture book." I let my eyes scrutinize the Uchiha, trying to decipher whether or not he was screwing with me.

"...Karin?" At the name, Sasuke visibly stiffened. Immediately I regretted ever having to remind him of her, as there was obviously something I'd struck that was too close to home. In the silence that stretched between us, I shifted uncomfortably.

I was ready and willing to drop the matter when Sasuke suddenly spoke, "Her foster father. He beat her. She always hated going home."

A heavy sensation of revolt settled in my chest. I realized then that I really didn't know anything about this darker side of life, the side Sasuke and the rest of them were forced to face while I floated through childhood. I thought back to the time when I'd seen them together on the curb, then to the pictures I'd come across in his camera. Before I could stop myself, I whispered the question that had nothing to do with her past, or with my attempt to understand them.

"Did you love her?"

There was no hesitation in his tone, no concealment. "Once, yes," Sasuke replied straightforwardly. "But that was a long time ago." He said nothing more, and I knew it was a subject he didn't fancy discussing.

"What... what about you?"

His eyes snapped to mine. "What about me?

"What happened... to you, after that incident with Zaku Abumi?" Though it was definitely a factor, surely what occurred back then was not the direct reason he was here where he was right now. Other things happened, worse things that have caused Sasuke's life to plummet downhill, and I couldn't help but wonder what they were. Uchiha Sasuke, what have you been doing? "Why are you here?"

His eyes hardened. "We're not talking about me."

I refused to look away from him, and the staring between us prolonged for an extensive amount of time. Clearly, our little history talk was over. In the background, the phone warbled, resounding across the uncommonly hushed residence. Our adjoined gaze remained unbroken as Sasuke made no move of getting up to answer the phone. After a few seconds, the ringing stopped, and a loud knocking took its place. The door opened, effectively tearing Sasuke's attention away from me.

"What?" He snapped at the innocent Shikamaru.

The brunette went on unaffected, immune to the Uchiha's tetchiness. "When you said to give you a few minutes, I didn't know it meant hours." At the statement, I scanned the room impulsively for a timepiece. The alarm clock beside Sasuke's bed read: 6:02PM I've been here for nearly two hours? "And anyway, the call's for you. It's Kakashi." At this, Sasuke rose from his seat and wordlessly left the room.

Their departure rendered me alone in Sasuke's quarters for a second time, and much like the last my inquisitive nature took control. Soon enough, I was on my feet and moving towards the spot where Sasuke had been beforehand. My eyes swept over the somewhat systematic table; worksheets, notes and other school work were sorted in two different piles: Sasuke's on one side and Shikamaru's on the other. Writing implements were dispersed everywhere else. Glancing was all I'd been doing up until something in particular caught my eye.

On Sasuke's side of the desk (and this I knew from the binder labelled Uchiha), jutting from underneath the papers, almost entirely inconspicuous, was a pastel, yellow post-it. It was not the unadorned sticky note however that captured my now horrified attention, but rather the inscription across its smooth, papery surface. Scribbled on the small piece of paper was a familiar dry of characters that I had for all intents and purposes tried to forget.

It was an e-mail address.

Of the Rogue's.

How on earth had Sasuke gotten a hold of the Rogue's e-mail? My brain was unable to conjure any kind of answer judicious enough to make sense, and as a result further questions struck me. I was confused, but most of all, I was beginning to grow apprehensive, and the lack of explanation only made the feeling worse.

Why in the world did Sasuke have this e-mail?

"Sakura," I jolted, pivoting around in a sharp one-eighty to look into the eyes of Uchiha Sasuke. "I've gotta go to work. Kakashi needs me at the station..." He paused, inspecting me down and up. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine." I responded, despite the sensation of my limbs quavering beneath me. "Uh—water. Can you get me some water?" Uncertainty grazed over his expression, but as moments elapsed, he eventually revolved and mutely left once more. I forced my eyes back on the post-it. With insensate hands, I shoved the papers away to pick up the note and, in the process, a small photograph revealed itself from under the entities. I frowned, tilting my head to the side as I registered the picture in my mind.

Through a bedroom window, a girl sat, illuminated in the darkness by the light emitting off the computer before her, the setting oddly familiar. Then, realization came to me like a hit in the stomach—the girl was me.

The snapshot was closely akin to the ones I'd discovered in the closet the night before, the same ones I'd found inserted in my locker this morning. Another unanswerable question evolved in my head:

Why would Sasuke have this picture of me?

I didn't know what to think, what to feel. I'd gone through this before, over and done with these feelings of suspicion, and always I concluded that he wouldn't do that to me—that I could trust him. Yet there was no denying the photograph that stared up at me, the yellowy Post-It note on the desk with the Rogue's e-mail on it.

He was keeping something from me. He was hiding something. What was he hiding? How much did me know? How much was he involved?

What if... what if, all this time, I'd been turning to the one I should have been running from?

No, I thought. I didn't want to believe. No.

Yet dread urged me to jump to conclusions and think illogically, and I fought the vomit rising up my throat as. My skin prickled, air jamming in my lungs and heartbeat pounding in my eardrums as panic engulfed my whole being. I needed time to think, space to breath and get my thoughts together and figure out what this meant, yet most of all, right now, I needed to—Get out of there Sakura, said the inner voice of my head, Get out of there now! Yet I was frozen.

But what of the other night, when I'd seen Sasuke walk through the front door with my own eyes, I wondered? How would that have been possible? Had he returned through the back door? Or had he—?

Before I had the chance to answer the mental query, time ran out, and a grasp came down on my shoulder.

I screamed.

A hand instantly clamped over my mouth, muffling my cries of distress. Helplessly, I thrashed about, throwing my hands out in defence, but at a loss of balance I found myself falling, dragging my assailant down along with me.

"Sakura!" Sasuke's voice boomed, "What the hell's gotten into you?" I flailed, only to have my arms captured in a dead-lock grip. His body hovered over mine, superior, stronger and intimidating, as he pinned me to the floor. "Stop it," he hissed as I struggled, but it was no use. A sob escaped my lips.

"It's me," he assured, as if that was going to make me feel better. "It's only me."

As soon as I felt him slacken his cover over my mouth, I took the chance and shrieked. "Jesus!" he cursed, crashing his palm to shut my lips once more. "You possessed or something?" I kicked aimlessly, but he fastened my legs with his knees, immobilizing them to futility.

"Sakura," he snapped. "Look at me." I resisted harder (Why was he doing this? Why was that photograph on his desk?) writhing and lashing out, but he held on tighter. (What does Sasuke know?) "I'm not going hurt you." he said quietly, looking at me with the eyes of the boy who'd taken me out for a walk in the beach when all else was falling, who kept me balanced when I nearly tipped off the edge of insanity, and who I'd actually grown to trust in the past few weeks.

But I was so confused, too confused, too terrified. I didn't want to believe it yet my instincts, my fear, were far ahead of me, overwhelming logic. The image of the photograph and the e-mail became photographic echoes in the back of my skull, lingering and unforgettable.

I no longer knew what was real and what was merely a fib; I could no longer tell apart a hero from a villain. Tonight, more than ever, I needed to know the truth from the untruth. I needed to know who to trust. I needed something genuine to hold on to, because hanging onto air has only left me to fall.

"You lied." My voice was soft, almost bruised. "You lied about... about... I don't even know anymore. About all those alibis you fed me. Was it you? All this time?"

Sasuke shook his head furiously, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do!" I yelled, "The e-mail, the pictures, and...!"

He covered my mouth once more with a suffocating clasp. "Will you shut up?" His hold constricted as he whispered the harsh instruction, and unwillingly I stopped resisting. "Just...just calm down."

Neither one of us spoke for a long while, with only the sounds of our laboured breathing (mine from terror and Sasuke's from the effort of keeping me restrained) heard in the muted room. "I'm going to let you go, okay?" he spoke quietly, "But don't scream. Don't kick me or anything like that. Just let me explain." He gave me a long, hard gaze. "Alright?"

Vulnerably, I nodded—it was all I could do. His unyielding grasp slackened, and the instant he released me, I squirmed away and backed up against the wall on the opposite side of the room. At a snail's pace, Sasuke sat down on the edge of his bed, as if he knew that any sudden movement could and would set me off in panic afresh. "The e-mail address." I croaked, "Why do you have it?"

"What e-mail?"

"The one on your desk, Sasuke." I told him. "How did you get it?"

He sighed. "You saw that?"

"You're avoiding the question."

"Sakura." I looked up to find him already eyeing me from across the room. His gaze was intense, unwavering, but there was something else that floated in those pools of obsidian, a sentiment other than rigidity. It was something real, something sincere. In a whisper so quiet it sounded almost pained, he murmured, "I'm not the bad guy."

I buried my head into the dark comfort of my palms. "Then prove it," I whispered.

"I got an e-mail this morning from that sender." His voice, though low in volume, was certain and steadfast.

"What did it say?"

"To fuck-off, whatever that means."

I held my breath, wheels turning fast, fear of Sasuke suddenly, gradually transforming to fear for him. "And the picture of me?" I questioned, "It was in between your binder."

"I found it on the floor last night, back in the Academy. I thought it was yours at first, and I was going to give it back, but you'd already seen Suigetsu dead like that, and I didn't want to make it worse for you." His eyes locked firmly onto mine as his face weighed with gravity. "But then, I realized something. You didn't look like you knew the picture was being taken. So I wondered: who could've taken it? Who could possibly be watching you?"

Just like that, the sudden and impulsive mistrust against Sasuke that ignited within me was extinguished, and the harsh, burning spotlight shifted from him to refocus above my head. Suspicion glazed his eyes, now.

"It... could've been a wrong shot," I suggested, uneasy with the fact that our positions were now switched, and I was all of a sudden on the defensive while he was the one inquiring. "The camera was focused in the wrong direction."

"I thought of that," he said, "But why develop the shot? If it was a mistake, there's no need to have it developed." I tore my gaze away from his, unable to maintain such a concentrated eye-contact in the midst of lying.

To be able to present such a solid argument, Sasuke must have definitely, thoroughly thought this through. The Rogue's words came back to me, "He's been snooping around lately, looking into things. You should tell him to mind his own business." And then, his spending hours on the computer lately as Gaara had mentioned. The Rogue—he'd been telling the truth. Sasuke has been looking into things.

How had I ever, for a moment, deceived myself into believing he was my predator? Caught up in overwhelming emotions of fear and desperation, I'd been frantic to lay the blame on someone, anyone—to put a face on the Rogue, and not just the empty, hollow eyes of a mask.

"What's going on, Sakura?" He asked, slowly and lowly. "You know anything about that e-mail address?"

But now that I had just spilled some things I shouldn't have—I glanced at Sasuke, took in the unwavering gaze he'd fastened resolutely onto my eyes, the suspicion and determination that tinged his onyx pools—now, he was onto me. I cursed in my head. Crap, I thought, I shouldn't have gotten so carried away.

"No." All of a sudden, it occurred to me that if it was true, that if Sasuke truly had nothing to do with my suspicions, I couldn't drag him into this, not anymore than he had already entangled himself.

"Bullshit." I glared at him. His fingers ran through in a exasperated manner through his jet-black tresses, clawing at his scalp out of loss of what to do. "What are you doing, Sakura? Why are you—just tell me," he coaxed. "Tell me what's going on."

With the Rogue's threat ghostly lingering in the deepest caverns of my head, I clamped on my tongue, shutting my mouth subconsciously. He caught the miniscule deed and growled in frustration. "Why won't you let me help you? I can't make it better if you keep me in the dark."

Words nearly came spilling out of my mouth, but in time I bit my lip—I couldn't. I couldn't hurt him, or endanger him like that. Telling Sasuke would mean putting one more life at risk, whether it was his, mine, or someone else's that was close to me, as the Rogue had threatened. "There's nothing..." It was a gamble I couldn't possibly imperil—"...to talk about."

—a risk I wouldn't take, to put his life in danger in exchange for my relief. That would be too unfair. That would be too selfish.

Sasuke replied with his own rendition of wordlessness, which, other than the silence itself, consisted of scrutinizing stares for several demoralizing minutes.

Unexpectedly, he sighed resignedly, rose to his feet and made his way to the door. "Where are you going?" I asked, puzzled.

"To work," He abruptly responded, his eyes wandering in all other places as he avoided looking at me, as if he was too mad, or too thwarted.

"Get up," He said dismissively, "I'll take you home."

Abstractedly, I rested my head against the window and stared out through the lucent glass, watching the radiant blurs of streetlights as they evenly went by. As I sat in seclusion at the very back of the elongated vehicle, away from its passengers, I replayed the evening's occurrences in my mind.

Sasuke had wound up dropping me off at the bus stop. Though I had never been a fan of taking the public transit, especially at night, I had to make this time an exception. The stubborn Uchiha was late for work, given that Kakashi had called a second time just before we'd left the house, and I knew any more delay would get him in trouble. I didn't want to give him another reason to be so mad at me (as he was already doing that fine on his own). So I suggested, or more like adamantly insisted, that he just walk me to the bus stop—which he complied to, after a great verbal battle that I won, but with much reluctance on his side, as if he didn't believe I could find my way home in one piece and breathing.

However it wasn't our childish dispute that was, at present, imprinted on my brain. It was the short, yet momentous exchange of words that happened afterwards, moments before we departed ways. I still felt a light tingling on my skin where Sasuke had wrapped his fingers around my wrist, catching me just as I was about to step into the bus.

"Sakura..." He began to say, but I cut him off, already knowing his words before he had the chance to utter them.

"Don't." I stated, "It's better, Sasuke, safer, that you don't know."

God forbid I should be a lawyer, or a member of a debate team—judging from Sasuke's incredulous I'm-not-falling-for-that facade, I sucked at persuasion. "Ignorance is bliss?" I attempted with a fictitious smile. He didn't laugh, didn't say anything. Taking the silence as my cue to leave, I turned away.

Then, he spoke from behind:

"I'll find out, Sakura. One way or another," he muttered, "I won't let you go through this alone."

Something felt oddly amiss when I awoke the next morning. It began only as a gut feeling, but grew steadily as the day unfolded, though I couldn't quite put a finger on what it was that didn't seem right. Halfway through the second block, out the Biology lab's windows I spotted the guys languidly running about the north gravel field. At one point, Shikamaru lifted his head and met my eyes—or so it seemed. The glance he gave me was, although transitory, careful and deliberating, at least by the looks of it considering the distance between us. It didn't appear to be a matter that concerned me, so at the time I merely disregarded the strange occurrence and turned back to the diagram of a microorganism up front.

I caught sight of them again during lunch; they sat in the corner of the cafeteria as always, and I felt them throwing secretive (or so they thought) looks at me. Not a lot of them were talking, but whenever one did, the momentary glances at my direction increased. It was only when I'd conjured up enough guts to take a peek at their corner that I realized Sasuke was not with them.

After the break, I'd heard nothing else and saw nothing else from their group for the rest of that day. They appeared again on Thursday though, sending the same odd, wondering looks at my direction every time I happened across their line of vision. I dismissed the quirks merely as an outlandish habit of some sort.

At least, that was what I thought before their posse appeared waiting by my locker shortly after the bell rang at the end of the day. Actually, it wasn't their entire posse—just Shikamaru, Kiba and Neji. Everyone else not present, yet it was the absence of a certain dark-haired boy that rang in the silence and electrified the air.

My face fell into a frown. "What's going on?"

"We wanna talk to you about Sasuke." Shikamaru was the first to speak. "He was with you the other night, wasn't he? You left together, right?"

"...Yes," I replied unsurely, "He walked me to the bus. Why?"

"Did you get in a fight?"

At Neji's suspicious inquiry, I exclaimed, "No. Well, he didn't want to leave me taking the bus on my own—but it was a pretty stupid argument."

"Did he look angry?" the Hyuuga continued to ask, "Maybe you pissed him off."

"He looked calm when I left him. What is this about?"

"Sasuke doesn't think when he's upset," Shikamaru explained, "Maybe something happened between you two that set him off."

"Set him off?" I echoed, "What do you mean? What did he do?"

"He's gone," Kiba declared. My heart thudded.

"...Gone where?"

"Gone we-don't-know-the-hell-where."

Shikamaru nudged an elbow into Kiba's rib, lightly, just enough to silence the agitated canine-boy. "Sasuke's missing," he clarified as I digested in this new information with much difficulty. "You got any idea where he might be?"

"I thought he went to work," I told them, worry growing within me as well. "To help out at the station."

The brunette genius whipped his head from side to side, "He never got there," Nara said gravely, "he never came home that night either."

The sensation of my heartbeat hammering against my chest became overwhelming. "Does—does Kakashi-sensei know?"

"He's made calls." Nara replied, "But no one's seen Sasuke. You were the last one with him." But I knew his last statement wasn't true. I was not the last to see Sasuke.

He wouldn't have run off like that—he hadn't the reason to, plus the fact that Sasuke valued this last chance at the program more than anything else, that I knew for certain. He wouldn't simply throw away all the progress he's made over a silly dispute than cropped up between us the other night. Sasuke wouldn't just run away.

Therefore, if he hadn't run away, then that left only one rational conclusion. Maybe he never went to work that night because he never got the chance; maybe he never got home because he couldn't. Maybe something else came up.

Or someone.

Alarm and trepidation filled the entirety of my body, from the tips of my fingers, to my limbs and all the way to the soles of my feet. Ignoring the questioning yells of the boys behind me, I whirled around and darted for the nearest exit.

"Or would you like me to inflict that message myself?"

Inflict? "What are you going to do?"

"What do you think I'm going to do?"

No, I thought pleadingly as I sprinted down the hall.

Please, no.

I burst in through the front doors and ran straight up to my room. With unsteady hands, I fumbled for my laptop and turned it on. Waiting for the computer to start up had never felt so long. "Hurry," I whispered, tapping my fingers impatiently upon the keyboard. I didn't wait for the desktop to load. The second the screen materialized, I double clicked Messenger and logged on. Automatically, I pointed the mouse on a certain screen name and double clicked.

(Offline) Any messages you send to offline contacts will be received the next time they sign in.

Driven by panic and agitation, I stood up sharply and seized the phone that was, up to that time, situated peacefully on the cabinet counter. Touching the down arrow, I scrolled down the list of previous callers and selected the one labelled Unknown Caller.

It didn't even ring. Almost immediately, a mechanical voice pronounced: The number you have dialled is not in service. Please try your call again la— I slammed the phone back on its stand. Crap, where was he?

Frustrated and disconcerted, I pivoted hurriedly to search for yet another way to contact the seemingly nonexistent individual, but it seemed as I turned around that the person I was trying to get a hold of had come to me instead—and had been there, behind me, all along.

I gasped, jumping at the unexpected sight of the animal-like masquerade, its empty, prowling eyes boring into me. "Looking for me?" He asked, his tone drenched with a sadistic kind of humour.

"What did you do!" I screamed at him.

"Oh, Sakura," He chuckled, low and highly amused, "Don't make me say I told you so."

I froze.

Though his face was hidden under the mask, I could sense the cunning smile that he undoubtedly wore at that very moment. The Rogue did not hold back when it came to bloodshed. He didn't bluff when it came to killing. His head was tilted to the side in delight, the eyes of an animal ominously puncturing into me.

The blank holes were shadowed with enmity, highlighted with his thirst for more bloodshed, and ebbing with an undertow of ill-intent.

"What did you do to him?" I whispered.

But his hostile gaze said it all.

"You'll see," the Rogue uttered, "Soon."

If looks could kill,

...then that meant Sasuke was already dead.

Memo: ...THE END. ahahahah xD What would you do if I said I was ending IM right here? lol

Who here actually uses Communities (C2s) to look for fics? 'Cause I don't, or didn't, but omg, I just found this C2 that gathers all 1000+ reviewed fics, and I guess it's pretty popular seeing as it's the most subscribed, && it has the most epic stories. I think I just found my summer reading list. x) Go check it out you guys! There's one of 100+ One-Shots too.

Read, Review and a thousand Thank You's for all your encouragement and support!
(Oh, and you know what? I'd also like to thank the 300+ people who put this fic on their Faves & Alert lists. Since some of you don't review, I don't really have a way to reply and say thanks for reading this fic. So I'm doing it here! lol. And to the C2 staff members that added IM to their archive, thanks as well!)

Back to doing nothing,
Keelah