January

Her last first day. Sakura could hardly believe that she's made it this far in one piece. Through all of the ups and downs, hangovers, late-night cram sessions, and more...here she stood, at the magnificent front gates of thee pride and joy of Fire County. None other than the illustrious, magnificent, world-renowned–

"COME ON! MOVE IT!"

Konoha University.

Sakura sighed and turned up the radio, trying and failing to drown out the sounds of Kiba's road rage. While they weren't quite at the gates, Sakura, Kiba, and three of their friends (namely: Shikamaru, Ino, and Choji) were nearly done being stuffed in their U-Haul. If only the massive line of one-lane traffic would evaporate.

Their car lurched forward with a jolt. A light Sakura knew well but couldn't quite see over the height of the vehicles ahead of them had turned green. While she normally would have berated Kiba for driving over the speed limit, his choice to gun it past a yellow and make it to open road was well worth it. The view opened up to reveal neatly manicured rows of green – trees, grass, landscaping all very well taken care of. Students who had moved in earlier were blurs of smiles and laughter as Kiba sped down the road. Of course, everyone was still happy before the semester had really begun. Sakura marveled at new additions that had been added to campus over the break that, just the past year, were vacant construction zones.

"Oi, oi," Kiba pointed, glancing back at Sakura with a smirk. "That's new, ne?"

Sakura followed his finger and smiled, "Yeah. Looks like they finished."

KU was seemingly always adding something new to campus. Whether it was an updated Engineering quad, brand new football facilities, or modernly architectured dorm rooms, the alumni association always made sure that donations were aplenty so as to fund all of these improvements. Just the thought that at the end of this one, very short, school year, she would be one of those alumni?

No one else in her family had done it. No one else from her small town had done it. And here she was.

Nearly there.

Sakura's heart swelled.

She couldn't believe it.

"Dattebayo, teme," Naruto cheered, whipping one of many of the pairs' collective footballs toward his friend. Sasuke caught it with one hand, just barely looking up from his unpacking. He didn't have to look to know that there was a 99.9% chance that Naruto was throwing fist pumps into the air as he promised, "We're gonna win this year, or my name's not Naruto...Fuckin...Uzu...Maki!"

Sasuke threw the football back and scoffed.

"You're going to jinx the season talking like that, baka."

Another toss.

"Since when are you superstitious?"

Sasuke caught the bullet sent to him with a slight hiss. The pigskin definitely burned on that one, no doubt purposefully. He threw the ball in between his own hands at the speed of light as he thought. He would never call himself superstitious. If anything, he was a realist. And, realistically, The Konoha Hurricanes lost...every year. Every year since Itachi, anyways. If his track record of continually coming second to Itachi meant anything at all?

The Uchiha put the football down in a pile of clothes and exchanged it for socks that needed folding. "We've never won," he answered, finally. He lobbed the ball of socks to Naruto, who caught it low, like the baseball catcher he was back in high school. Then, the blond opened a drawer and put the socks away.

He started to close the drawer, but paused, an idea popping into his head.

"One-on-one?" he proposed, already standing defensively and smiling cockily at his best friend.

Sasuke smirked. Basketball with laundry? Living with Naruto would surely be annoying at times, but at least nothing would be boring.

"You're on, dead last."

Hinata's hands were jittery messes trying to untangle the wires for their TV as Ino leaned over her, barking about such and such TV show coming on in six minutes; hurry it the fudge up! Sakura and TenTen cuddled against each other on their loveseat under a blanket, watching with amusement.

"Why didn't you guys set up the TV yet?" Sakura asked, pausing slightly from scrolling down her timeline.

TenTen double-tapped before shrugging, "Meh. I'm tired after practice and Hina-chan always has a thing. Besides, I'm hooked on Hulu and I can stream that anywhere, anyways."

"Hulu?!" Ino yelped (causing Hinata to flash red and faint briefly) and jumped over unpacked boxes to skid over to where her other two roommates were. Despite her antics, neither of them looked up from their phones. "Did you say Hulu?" she asked again.

TenTen locked her phone and looked up.

"Hai."

"Do you have Premium?"

"Yeah, of course."

"No commercials?"

"That's...part of Premium, pretty sure."

"Unless it's Live, right?"

"Obviously."

"Are you…" Ino rocked on her heels, twirling a piece of hair. "Are you planning on sharing that with us?"

Sakura gasped, "Piggie-chan!"

"Whaaaat?" Ino whined. She danced like a kid in need of a bathroom break, "Shark Tank starts in three minutes!"

TenTen chuckled, "It's fine," and calmed Sakura's no-doubt looming critique with a few calming taps on her thighs. She got up from the couch and disappeared into her room, only to return with her iPad. She tapped a few buttons before handing it over to Ino, already loaded up to the appropriate page. The Yamanaka squealed and planted a kiss on TenTen's cheek in thanks before skittering away into her own room, pleased as punch.

Sakura opened the blanket back up to let TenTen in, but the bunned brunette declined, stretching her shoulders and yawning. "I gotta get up early, hit the pool," she explained. TenTen swam for KU's swim team; in fact, she was actually one of the best. Sakura thought she was a bit more on the muscular side until she met TenTen in Freshman Bio. That girl had arms, legs, and abs for days, and she was still one of the most beautiful women she knew. Whoever said girls shouldn't look strong was a damn liar.

"Makes sense," Sakura replied, wrapping herself in a tighter blanket burrito. "Have a good night, Tentacles!"

"Oyasumi, Socky-chan. You gonna sleep there, Hina-Bina?"

"H-Hai," Hinata moaned from the ground, throwing up a weak thumbs up.

Sakura laughed, draping Hinata with her blanket before retiring into her room for the night. She could still hear the sounds of Ino arguing with Mark Cuban as she slipped into her dreams.

Tomorrow, the rest of her life would begin.