Chapter 2 y'all :) It's only three days since I wrote the first chapter so let's hope that I keep up this work ethic for the story!
Present Day - 2nd Year of University
As was expected, Sakura and Ino got an apartment together by the university they chose to attend. The prestigious school was under a half an hour drive from their home town, which was another reason they had wanted to go there. They liked keeping their roots close to home. Others from their high school also went to the same university like Neji, and Naruto.
Shikamaru and Hinata went to the same private university which was hours away from their home town, but they were doing well during their first two years there.
The areas of study and the programs each individual was involved in are as follows, Sakura chose nursing, Ino chose biology, Naruto was involved with a pre-law program, Neji chose engineering, Hinata chose elementary education, and Shikamaru was still undecided, but had many credits towards chemistry, biology, and also a criminology major.
Everyone had been doing pretty well, and no one could complain too much about the workload they had. They had all learned, for the most part (perhaps except for Naruto) how to manage their time at least somewhat decently and get their work done.
Sakura sat in her room of her apartment with Ino. The spring semester was set to begin in 3 days. Not that she wasn't ready for it, but she just felt off. The first three semesters of her college career were amazing. Her grades were wonderful, and she felt that she had actually learned a lot of useful information that she could apply to her every day life.
She reflected on the last almost two years. She remembered the painful, and embarrassing graduation night. It had been so long, she almost forgot the sound of Sasuke's voice. She thought that, in a weird way, this was good. At least now, she wouldn't be missing him as much. The first 6 months since he had left them without a trace, she had been the most broken. But she learned how to mend herself, while still accomplishing goals and succeeding in life, and she felt like she was on top of the world.
She didn't know if it was just the type of day it was, but she was feeling sentimental and a bit melancholy. She didn't love Sasuke anymore, that she knew. Getting drunk at college parties and spilling her secrets and love sorrows to girls from all around the country made her realize that Sasuke was toxic, an asshole, and that he just straight up didn't care about her or Naruto.
They made her realize that she would have kept getting hurt if he somehow let her stay in his life. They made her realize a harsh truth that she had been ignoring for a while - that he would never want her. It had been hard to process that information, but after she came to that realization, she had seen how silly she looked from the outside.
A girl, who barely knows the boy, and claims she is desperately in love with him. It was truly just silly. But, enough being sad.
Sakura had work to do.
Ino had dropped off a whole crap-load of clothes from her house, among other random items, and she left for the weekend to go and hang out with her family again. Sakura had needed some alone time to de-stress before the beginning of the semester, so she decided she would stay at their apartment by herself until Ino came back Sunday morning.
The mess was giving Sakura anxiety, and also, she was just bored, so she began folding Ino's clothes (and taking some of them for herself that she figured Ino wouldn't even notice were missing) and organizing the tornado of items Ino had left in their living room and kitchen.
Halfway through her cleaning, Sakura's phone kept ringing. She ignored it at first, figuring it was just Naruto or something and she didn't want to be disturbed during this time. But when her phone kept buzzing, she thought something might be wrong.
She made her way through the sea of unfolded clothes and grabbed her phone. It stopped ringing, but it was Ino. She figured she was bound to call again, and the pinkette was proved right as her phone began buzzing again and a picture of Ino popped up on the screen.
"Yes, hello, Pig? I definitely have a right to call you that now, you left such a mess here!" Sakura teased.
"Well, ya know, I meant to come back to organize everything, but I got kinda lazy. But I am coming back tonight! Well, today, actually in like an hour. There's going to be an awesome party tonight! Naruto told me about it, and he said he texted you about it but you didn't answer. It's pretty much a back to school party, to kick off the beginning of the semester the right way!"
Sakura had to hold the phone away from her ear because it just so happened that she had two blond best friends, who were both extremely loud and obnoxious ALL THE TIME.
"Uh, well, I don't know about that. I was kind of hoping for a nice, quiet, relaxing weekend."
"BS! Come on! I bet you'd have so much fun! Plus, you'll have all day tomorrow and all day Sunday to recover and meditate or whatever the hell it is you do that keeps you de-stressed."
"Alright, alright. We'll see. I haven't decided yet. You better be here in exactly one hour though. I'm ordering food and if you aren't here by the time it gets here, I'm going to call Naruto to come over and you know he will eat it all!" Sakura giggled again into the phone.
"Okay, okay! I'm leaving now, or, um, you know, soon?"
"Tik-tok-tik-tok, Ino." Sakura laughed again before hanging up the phone, again looking at the mess that was still left in the living room. Sakura had cleaned the kitchen up, hanging up the miscellaneous decor that Ino had bought and brought to the apartment.
The sea of unfolded clothes was smaller now, kind of like a lake of unfolded clothes. Sakura laughed at herself at that one. Anything to keep herself optimistic.
In a surprising unfolding of events, Ino had arrived exactly an hour after their phone call, just minutes before their pizza showed up at their door at 6 pm. Sakura had also managed to fold and put away most of the clothes, there was just an undergarment pile that was mostly full of unmatched socks.
"Wow," Ino stated, taking a bite of the hot pizza they just received, "I can't believe you cleaned up all of my mess. I really didn't realize you'd be staying here for the weekend, which is why I figured I would come back Sunday morning to clean it all up." Ino swallowed her food and offered up an apology then.
"It's really no problem." Sakura smiled, taking a sip of water, "It really helped keep my mind off of the beginning of the semester. For some reason, I am really nervous now. I was kind of denying it before, but now, I really feel the anxiety creeping in. It's almost like I'm dreading going back, like how it used to be in middle school."
Ino giggled a little. "Yeah, middle school was just a horrible time for everyone, I think. But you're starting your clinical practices, right? Like, you will be gaining experience in the hospitals now?" Ino questioned.
Sakura nodded, "Yeah, most of the groups in our class are going to nursing homes to begin, but the only time that worked with my schedule is the night time clinical, which is at the local hospital. Maybe that's why I'm so nervous. I know all of my stuff by the books, but I just have never put any of this stuff into practice, you know?"
"I understand. That's kind of how I feel in my biology labs all the time. Like, I understand the material in class, and then I get to lab and try to perform the required experiments, and I feel like I just blank out, especially when I am being watched by the professor for a practical exam." Ino sighed. "Well, let's stop talking about school because now I'm getting anxious too!" Ino laughed and grabbed another slice of pizza.
The two friends ate the rest of their dinner in almost silence, except for talking about a few trivial things.
After doing the dishes and putting the leftovers away, Sakura asked Ino if she would help her put the rest of the clothes away and help her finish cleaning the house. Of course Ino wanted to reject that, but considering the mess was all hers, the least she could do is help Sakura clean the rest of it.
As they sat together sorting through socks on the floor together, Ino asked about the party.
"So, do you think you're going to go tonight? I heard there's going to be some hot guys coming over from the school Shikamaru is at! I mean, yeah, they're frat guys, but one of them is bound to be hot and nice, right?!" Ino joked and threw a black sock at Sakura.
"Yeah, I guess I'll go," Sakura said, giving Ino an appreciative look. She truly did appreciate that Ino tried her best to make her more social. Sakura was one who honestly wasn't really interested in guys, or girls, for that matter. She was very focused on her school work and her research. Partially that was because of the disastrous time she had in high school with love, but also, she was just truly in love with the art of helping people. She couldn't wait to some day become a nurse.
"Great!" Ino squealed happily. "Let's start getting ready then. Can I please do your makeup?" Ino made the perfect puppy dog face, begging for a "yes."
Sakura sighed. Maybe this would get her back into the swing of things with school. Maybe it would give her confidence to be more social with people. Sure she had gone to parties and she had made some friends, but she didn't have any real connections with anyone at the school other than her friends from high school.
After a very, very long two hours of letting Ino do her makeup and pick her outfit, as well as helping Ino pick out the perfect outfit, they were ready to go. At some point, Hinata had shown up and she brought TenTen along. TenTen and Neji had always had a weird thing going on in high school, but they never acted on their feelings until now, apparently. And since TenTen was close with Neji, she was also close with Hinata.
"So, where is this party tonight?" Sakura asked, realizing she didn't even have the most basic information of the party - the location.
"Oh, ummm, I don't know the actual address, it's somewhere by Naruto's house though. So we'll drive there, and then if we need to crash there, he said we can." Ino responded doing various poses in the mirror and checking herself out.
"Alright, that doesn't sound too bad. It'll only take us like five minutes to drive there. Are you ready?"
Ino nodded in response, and the four girls all got in Ino's car and they began their drive over.
Parking at Naruto's house, there was only one "spot" left, which was parking in front of Naruto's driveway blocking his car in for the night.
Just as they all got out of the car, Naruto walked out of his door, with a few other guys like Kiba, and Naruto's friend Gaara that he met at the university.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing blocking in my car like that!?" Naruto screamed looking at Ino and waving his arms frantically, pointing to her car, then to his driveway, then to his car. He immediately stopped his freak-out once he saw Hinata.
Naruto and Hinata had a little thing going on in high school, but it appeared that neither one of them were brave enough to ask the other one on a real date. Sakura decided that that was her goal tonight, to find the perfect opportunity to push them together. They were the one true perfect match. She couldn't just let them waste any more time pretending that they didn't have feelings for each other.
"Anyways, uh, let's get going to the party! It's just three houses down, but I'm sure you can tell that from the crowd of people." Naruto pointed and began walking in that direction, leading the group."
Sasuke sat in his car with his head rested on his arms which were resting on his steering wheel. He never thought he would be back in his home town - Konoha. He wasn't sure why he was even back, really.
He had just decided that the college he was at was not sufficient for him. And the fact that he was a brooding asshole didn't help much with making any acquaintances or new friends. Somehow though, he managed to join a fraternity. He did it because he knew it would look good on resumes, and he figured he could take some volunteer opportunities sometimes because even though he was kind of menacing on the outside, deep down on the inside he was kind of a caring person.
But, on a whim, he decided to enroll in the best university his home town had to offer. Even if he didn't like the college as much as he was hoping to, he would still be comfortable in his own element. Something he would never admit though, is that he hoped to reconnect with some of his old acquaintances, or friends. Like Naruto. He wondered if the dobe would even consider letting him back into his life. He wondered about Sakura, too. Did they all move on without him? Did they hate him? Even worse, did they just forget about him?
After a few more minutes brooding in his car, he began unloading his luggage into his new apartment. He was trying to organize his books and supplies for the semester when he began hearing loud music and people shouting and laughing outside. "Great" he thought to himself. His first night in his new apartment and there was a loud-ass party going on right next door.
He continued organizing his items until he heard a loud, obnoxious, and extremely familiar voice scream, "HELL YEAH, THE KEGGER IS HERE!"
Sasuke thought he was going insane for a second, but then he looked out his window and saw the very object of the noise - Naruto. And around him were all of his old comrades, one of them being Sakura. She was the last person that he thought would be at a party. He didn't know why he was so shocked by this change in character of her, but he supposed it was not that unrealistic considering they were all almost in their 20's now, and they were all in college.
He stood by his window staring out at them laughing and talking for what seemed like an eternity, until that very same pink-haired girl he knew from high school glanced up at his window and they locked eyes. She stared back for a couple seconds and he ripped his eyes away, turning around and shutting off the light in his bedroom, walking out into the small living room/kitchenette area. He didn't want to see the rest of her reaction.
"Sakura, Sakura, hello," Ino was shouting, waving her hands in front of Sakura's face. "Earth to forehead-girl." Then Sakura looked at Ino with a blank expression on her face. "Jeez, thought we lost you for a second. Come on, lets's go start drinking. Looks like you need it already."
Sakura followed along silently with Ino into the house, taking a few shots and then plopping down on the couch.
"Sak, what's wrong? You haven't said a word since we got here. You look like you've just seen a ghost." Ino sat next to her friend on the couch, grabbing Sakura's hand.
"I... I feel like I did see a ghost. I would be crazy if I thought I saw Sasuke, right?"
"What do you mean you think you saw him? Where? Here, at the party? Girl, you're trippin. How many shots have you had? Three? Come on, takes a little more than that to make you this way." Ino giggled, getting ready to stand up and mingle with other people, waiting for Shikamaru to show up.
"No, seriously, when we were outside, I had this weird feeling. You know how you can feel when someone is like looking at you? Or like staring at you?"
"Yeah, I guess I know what you mean."
"I felt that, and then I looked up at the window of the house next to this one, and I could've sworn I saw him. Well, whoever the person was, we locked eyes for like, five seconds. Then they walked away and shut off the light." Sakura laughed then at herself, because she really sounded like a psycho who was still heartsick. (Which she wasn't!) Sakura continued, "I guess, yeah, it probably wasn't him. I just stared at a stranger and probably scared him," she trailed off.
Wow 3,000 word chapter, yay! I have spring break this week and I'm also getting my wisdom teeth out, which means no work for me! So, hopefully I will have more time to write. I'm starting to really like the way this story is going, the other one I had on my account was like this one, but seriously it was so bad. lol. Anyways, give me any suggestions you have and let me know if you liked this chapter!