Part II

Four Days Ago

Sakura sighed satisfactorily. A small puff of smoke exited her mouth at the chill, but otherwise, she was completely warm and fuzzy. Hopefully, her gratitude could be felt between the simple words she left behind with her little note.

Pleased, she about-faced away from Sasuke's Dodge and headed toward the bus stop that would take her home. There was usually a bit of time before the bus came after her class on Fridays, so as a treat she routinely visited the nearby Starbucks during the wait. While in line, she fiddled on the Starbucks app and cursed lightly upon seeing her card balance. She swiped around to her banker's app to do a transfer and felt her stomach drop further.

"Dammit," she whispered.

She was broke broke.

"Next customer, please!" a cheery and familiar voice called.

Sakura walked up to Chiyo with a grin, "Hello again, Chiyo-san."

The elder's eyes creased and her finger wagged, "Now who is that – none other than my favorite pink-haired Gold Star member!"

Sakura chuckled sheepishly. She was certain she was this (and every) Starbucks' only pink-haired Gold Star member. "Guilty as charged," she played along good-heartedly. Sakura wrung her hands as she ordered, "I'll take my usual."

"It would be my pleasure, dear." Chiyo began plugging in her order but paused upon noticing Sakura's nervousness. Despite an impatient line, Chiyo slowed to lean closer to Sakura and whisper, "On the tab again?"

The rosette bit her lip and gave a small nod. "This is the last time, I swear," she explained. "I heard back from the library and I start tomorrow."

Chiyo nodded in understanding and comped Sakura's order for her. "Just do the same for me when this old back of mine gives out, ne?" she winked and she gave the rosette her coffee. Sakura laughed, assured Chiyo that it would be her pleasure to argue with insurance on her behalf one day, and left out of the doors just as her transit pulled up.

She flashed her student ID and murmured gentle apologies as she headed toward the back of the bus, careful not to drop her drink, and taking a seat in one of the few remaining free spots. She stared dreamily out of the window and imagined one particular student standing out from the crowd exiting Hashirama Hall. He should be strolling confidently toward his big fancy car right about now, none the wiser and smirking all cute-like in reaction to –

A strong vibration from her coat pocket made Sakura jump out of her daydream. "Sorry," she apologized self-consciously to the person beside her. They only scoffed and turned further away from her. "What up, Pig?" she sipped casually from her coffee.

"Why is Uchiha Sasuke," Ino seethed, "standing outside of our house, calling the parapro-phone, Forehead."

The rosette nearly choked on her frappe. She coughed and caught the attention of several nearby commuters. She spared them an apologetic glance before whispering her hesitant response: "I – I dunno...but...can you answer it?"

Ino's irises shrank.

"The door?!"

Sakura's temper flared, "No!" She took a breath, then answered. "The phone," she clarified in between a sip of coffee. "Answer the Counseling Center phone. It could be an emergency."

"But what about–"

Sakura listened as who she had to presume was Sasuke knocked at the apartment's door once more. Thinking quickly, she maneuvered around the bodies stuffing the bus to see that she was nearly home.

"Just answer the phone," Sakura interrupted as she sped down the bus aisle and off the vehicle. "Trust me. I'll be home in a second," she hung up.

This was fixable. She downed her coffee and tossed it into a nearby trash can.

Home was only about a three-mile run from here.

No problem.


Ino lightly jogged to Sakura's room, where the Counseling Center paraprofessional phone was trilling. She muttered several curses under her breath, crossed herself over her chest, and inhaled deeply.

"Sasuke-san?" she chirped, doing her best to mimic her stupid best friend's timbre. As soon as the pitch creaked out of her mouth, Ino rolled her eyes to the back of her head.

Sakura was going to owe her big time.


Sasuke paused.

The number had actually worked. But, for some reason, something still didn't sit right in him. He pursed his lips, looked over the girls' patio balcony paranoidly, and sucked his teeth after failing to find anything suspicious.

He confirmed his identity and answered, "Yes," slowly, still not trusting who he was talking to. But...who else would it be? He checked over his shoulder and then shook his head.

No one's watching him.

That would be crazy.

"It's not Tuesday," the person on the other end replied after some time.

"It's not."

Sasuke paced around and gnawed at his lip. She doesn't sound right. Is that a weird conclusion to draw after only a few sessions back and forth? People's voices change, don't they? He was almost certain that girls didn't, like, go through a second puberty or anything like that, though. His mind raced as possible explanations rose, but all ultimately fell short.

"Is something wrong?"

"No," Sasuke answered quickly, an idea blooming in his head.

Would it be weird to…

Sasuke hesitantly pressed the side of his body against the wood and tilted his head toward the surface. His eyebrow rose delicately as he focused on trying to capture any possible sounds from within the apartment. Perhaps the pressure of doing some really objectively creepy shit was getting to him, but Sasuke didn't mean to sound as desperate as he did when the person he was talking to attempted to end the conversation with, "Well–"

"Is now a bad time?" he blurted, loudly, just to keep the conversation going.

Gods, what am I

"Kind of, yeah."

Sasuke froze.

Parking Spot Girl blinked back at him, heaving slightly.

There had to be some logical way to explain this.

"What are you doing to my door?" Sakura asked part-incredulously, part-accusingly.

Carefully, Sasuke straightened and backed away from the door. Green eyes studied him like a book, and he found himself strangely self-conscious. He opened his mouth to answer – to say, truly, anything that made an iota of sense – but the sound of his name coming from the phone pulled him back to his call.

He kept his eyes locked with the pink-haired woman's as he brought his phone to his ear and sternly replied, "I can call back later."

He hung up, then cleared his throat.

Sakura crossed her arms expectantly.

Sasuke ran a hand through his hair, "I…," he trailed. At a loss, he broke her steadily intensifying glare to look over the balcony and stuffed his hands in his pockets in thought. Upon feeling the folded paper of a note left inside the fabric, he couldn't help but smirk. He pulled it out and stepped closer to her until he had to look down to meet her eye. "I found this on my windshield."

"So? Are you thanking me? By installing spyware onto my front door?" Sakura challenged, tilting her chin upward. She told herself it was the residual heat from running, and not being as close as she was to Sasuke's mouth, that was making her face warm and redden.

He took a step closer and smirked. He glanced quickly to her lips but returned to her eyes shortly after to ask, "Oh, is that what it looked like?"

Sweet Kami, Sakura felt disoriented. What was she thinking?

Right on time, Sasuke took a step back and the air was cool again. Sakura breathed deeply, and her heart decelerated with each breath of freshness she inhaled as Sasuke explained himself in seriousness. "I can't thank you properly without knowing your name." He admitted, "I was hoping I could catch it from one of your roommates."

Sakura was careful not to let her eyes narrow too much in disbelief. "That makes sense," she allowed. If that was what he was going to go with, so was she. Sakura extended her hand, "And who are you, sir?"

Sasuke looked at her hand curiously.

"Me?"

Sakura held firm and nodded, "Mmhm. I never asked."

Carefully, he took her hand in his.

"Sasuke," he answered.

She smiled, "Nice to meet you, Sasuke."

He expected her to follow up with a question about his surname, but it never came. Sasuke lapped in the curious way that this fact made him feel, somehow deciding that it didn't feel half bad, and suddenly registered the heat from their awkwardly held hands. Sensing this, Sakura gave a hearty shake strong enough to move both of their arms.

She grinned and giggled, "I'm Sakura. Haruno; formerly of the Parking sort."

"Sakura," Sasuke repeated, disentangling from his prior fascination and meeting her pace to shake hands.

Sakura nodded and released her hand to tuck hair behind her ear. Embarrassed, she shrugged, "Yeah, yeah, I know. Like the flowe–"

Sasuke stopped her short.

"Nice to meet you, Haruno Sakura," he said. "Thank you for the note."

Sakura blushed. "My pleasure, Sasuke-kun."


"BITCH, WHAT WAS THAT!" Ino shrieked only seconds after Sakura bid Sasuke adieu, closed, and locked the door behind her. The blonde leaped from the couch and was giddily demanding details to fill in the blanks of all that she couldn't see from the door window.

Sakura pressed her hand to her chest as she sank to the ground, floating down from a high that she was certain there were not nearly enough words to describe. She didn't know how to answer her best friend's question.

All she knew was that whatever it was, it certainly couldn't happen again.


Present Day

Sakura rode comfortably in Sasuke's car, curled slightly toward him as she scrolled through a playlist on his phone. There seemed to be hundreds of songs on the device. Not a single one, though, had a title. Instead, the songs were saved as what Sakura pieced together as dates, going all the way back to when she was (they were) in high school.

"Did you make all of these yourself?" Sakura asked, looking up briefly at him as they slowed at an intersection. So far, Sakura had clicked through four or five songs and was impressed with each one.

Sasuke glanced at her, and the glow of the red stoplight off his skin in the late night was hypnotizing. In the time that it took Sasuke to decide whether to trust her, the light turned green. "Aa," he answered, pride laced in his voice.

"They're great, seriously," Sakura praised.

"Aa. I know."

She scoffed, "I'm still holding out for a dud, though, trust."

Sasuke grunted.

"Was that a laugh?" Sakura asked, one single rose eyebrow dancing higher on her face.

"Enough," Sasuke humored. He laid her with a strong side-eye that, after a brief laughing fit from the rosette, effectively ended the teasing. For the rest of the ride and even the walk up the stairs to their apartments, the pair existed in a comfortable silence accentuated by Sasuke's creations. As they approached Sasuke's landing, Sakura handed him back his device.

"I feel like it's a big deal; you trust me with this," she acknowledged. "Thank you, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke nodded and took the phone before heading toward his door. "Anytime," he replied over his shoulder. He began unlocking it but looked back at Sakura, as though giving her a chance to say something before he went inside.

Sakura paused briefly, knowing that he had responded to her in a similar way, in a similar situation, only a few hours ago during their counseling session. She explored Sasuke's face for any signs of deeper knowingness or intentionality, then cleared her throat.

"We should do this again," she said, kicking softly at a pile of snow by her feet and trying to keep her hope - and all of the warning signals blaring in her head – at bay. She held her breath.

Halfway inside, Sasuke tilted his head. Then he nodded, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay," he repeated. He stepped into his apartment and Sakura stood in wait for a few moments. Sure enough, he returned with a small bottle of water and some fruit snacks. "Text me when you make it in," he said simply.

Sakura stood dumbfounded with these items in her hand long enough to feel the cold of winter around her and long after Sasuke had gone in for the night. "Everything is okay," she whispered to herself, turning slowly toward the stairs and heading up them. As she walked into her apartment, she checked out the glowing digital clock on the microwave, balked at the ripe 3:45am that blinked on the display, and confirmed the hour on her phone. Her nerves jumped when she remembered that Sasuke had told her to text him when she got in and she realized.

She she didn't have Sasuke's number, and only counselor her did.

Her throat closed.

Adjustments must be made.


A/N: But will these adjustments actually come to pass? Hehehe it already appears there's some trouble staying away from one another! Wild. Whatever will come next, I wonder.

Lol, thanks all for your patience! As always, I appreciate all of the love and support.

A guest asked a question about the timeline, and hopefully, this clears it up. If not, this is between Session 4, Intersession 1, and coming up on Session 5. So, it's almost March storywise. As far as whether Sasuke has "figured it out" yet or not, I'd say that he does know at this point, but it's looking for that cold, hard evidence. Ever the natural detective, isn't he?

I look forward to updating within the next coming weeks! These two weeks felt good to me workload wise so anticipate that for now.

Review, Fave, and Follow! :)

~hot