Stupid With Love

by Tsukiko hoshino

Once, after a Shukaku induced manic episode had caused him to destroy every toy he owned Sasori had told Gaara he ought to treat his possessions better unless he wanted someone to steal them away. Looking at his cousin's bizarre form of flirting he'd come to the conclusion that no one had ever told Sasuke such a thing. Alt-Canon, Nonmass.

7. I heard A Rumor

Stupid With Love

---

Three days, that was how long Sakura waited until she gathered every spoon she could find. The delay had been to catch Sasori unawares, or as much as possible considering she'd told him exactly what she intended to do excluding the date...Well, that and the post office wasn't open on the weekend. 'We had soup on Saturday so I couldn't exactly snatch them all up.' For someone who claimed to hate having company, Sasori had a surprising amount of tablespoons; they numbered twelve with just as many teaspoons. Slotted spoons and ladles went into the box after a short debate amongst herself if the first of which was considered a spoon or something different altogether. By her reasoning they didn't hold liquid but they did scoop and so did the melon baller that joined them shortly after.

'I don't even know what the hell this one is called.' Sakura thought, squinting at a heavily embossed spoon with scalloped edges. The sun hadn't risen but she didn't dare risk flipping a light switch for fear of stirring a certain creature. Getting up early in the morning was a necessity if she expected to pull one over on Sasori. 'Figuratively and literally.' And even then the chance of success was by her calculation, dicey. Every now and then she would pause, ears straining to catch a wayward noise or creak, eyes flicking to the arch that seperated the kitchen from the rest of the house in anxious anticipation. [1]

On a typical day Sasori would be up before her and midway through preparing breakfast when she finally made her way downstairs, he was an abominably early riser and at least once since arriving she had twitched awake at a door being shut somewhere in the house at 3 am. Apparently, like some sort of wild animal seeking refuge from the cold, Deidara had smuggled his way inside and had just as promptly been swept out the door. There might even have been a broom involved, while Deidara was prone to exaggeration it sounded like the type of thing the two would get up to. All Sakura knew for sure was that she had to be at her absolute stealthiest if she wanted to abscond with the silverware unhindered and so, while the house was pitch black and the hands of the clock were caught between 2 and 3 she worked to fulfill her petty act of vengeance.

Freezing cold and up at a completely indecent hour, Sakura clamped her jaw shut and refused to so much as let her teeth chatter until she was out the door. 'And a good distance away too just for good measure.' It might have been that she was being somewhat unfair considering she had made it to class on time. 'With about a minute to spare.' Which she had spent smoothing her clothes and working up a demeanor that declared to herself and thus the world at large that absolutely nothing weird had happened in that closet. 'And nothing did!' But for something that was supposed to be nothing it was occupying quite a bit of headspace.

It kept replaying through Sakura's mind at the oddest times; While she was walking from one place to another, in the middle of paperwork, or mid paragraph of the book she'd borrowed from Sasori until she was so distracted and fed up with rereading the same two lines over and over that she'd given up for the rest of the weekend. It was one thing to lose an hour or so of sleep trying to crack the cipher hidden in the quirk of his lips and the golden-copper glint of his eyes but the worst of it had come to a head just a few hours ago. She'd been laying in bed-the very picture of innocence, half steeped in dreams with nothing but her own thoughts and drowsy imaginings stirring beneath her eyelids as the scene in the closet took a sharp detour from reality.

Phantom caresses and bare skin, the intimation of illusory kisses and whispers had begun to gather fuzz, losing distinction from the moment she woken with her thighs pressed together. She'd never considered herself that sort of person, even in the years where she had given up on Sasuke and put aside romantic pursuits she couldn't recall a single instance of what had occurred. She didn't fantasize about men-at least not ones she knew. They were nameless, faceless, half baked concepts that were easily forgotten each time she rose for the day. 'Sasori is none of those things.' A fresh wave of embarrassment rolled over Sakura as she stood in the kitchen, remembering the slick arousal between her legs upon sighing awake.

It'd only been about an hour ago when the afteraches of unfulfilled desire were extinguished with each quick, successive beat of her heart, drowned out by guilt and shame. Even if things weren't great between them it felt like she'd betrayed Sasuke in some fashion and no matter what she tried, she couldn't go back to sleep. 'I've always been loyal...' It was one of her best qualities, along with dogged determination and a sharp mind...according to some sources two of the three were often to her detriment. 'Ino did say my best features were also my worst ones.' And that apparently included her forehead, a claim Sakura thoroughly disagreed with. 'There is nothing good about it, it's clearly in the worst category.'

Rolling from one side to the next had not shaken off Sakura's unwanted thoughts but it did put one poor plant directly in her line of sight. 'I didn't ask to be stuck in a closet with him!' She thought in it's direction as though the aloe had conveniently developed both sentience and telepathy the moment she informally christened it as Veronica. 'And I certainly did not consent to having a...that kind of dream about him.'

You're up in the middle of the night complaining to a plant...Was probably what Veronica would have said if succulents were capable of complex thought along with; You're the only one bothered by this, even I have more important problems. Like the fact that at least two of her leaves had been pinched down to little nubs just so her precious sap could be rubbed all over someone's face, an action that certainly would have caused quite a ruckus if she'd been a human. But alas.

'That's right, I am the only one bothered.' Sakura, found that realization to be simply unfair and had abruptly thrown back the covers to sit up straight, lips twisting into a scowl. Embarrassment was not a feeling that she was adept at navigating, usually she self-soothed by converting it to anger but storming into Sasori's bedroom and taking it out on him was out of the question. 'Why am I the only one losing sleep? Why do I have to feel bad?' She hadn't done anything. Sasuke was the one who lied and ran off like a coward. ' And Sasori is the one who got us stuck in the closet! He's the one sneaking into my dreams and...and almost making me late.' And he would probably sleep like a cherub faced demon for a perfect seven was in that moment, petty as it was, that she truly committed herself to stealing every spoon he owned because Sasori deserved the inconvenience.

And so it was that even the salad spoon-the last member of her forced exodus was parted from its fork, not to be exempted from Sakura's righteous wrath as it was tossed into the box and sealed inside. Slinking through the living room and to the little alcove where Sasori methodically ordered all the shoes she paused, tilted her head with a mischievous smile and then flicked off her fluffy white slippers into a pile of pointed anarchy. 'My work here is done.' Having sown the seeds of chaos, Sakura pulled on her modestly heeled boots and stepped out.

The three cloistered houses on the outskirts were all dark but for one window belonging to Gaara-who could sleep, but could never manage to do it very well and Sakura made haste in leaving them behind. It'd been cold inside but the blustering winds she was now contended with blew the short lived grin right off her face. 'It's way too early to have regrets.' She was going to miss having a hot breakfast and a full night of sleep. 'And there's not going to be a bento for lunch either.' Sasori always made them in the morning or stopped by in the afternoon with something. 'And I really doubt he's going to be in the mood to feed me anything for a while.' Except maybe some sort of nuisance poison. 'Well, it's not as if I'll starve.' Even a less advanced ninja village like Suna had mastered the art of 24 hour convenience stores.

The clerk behind the counter did a brief double take as Sakura stepped through the doors-it couldn't be helped considering she was strutting around in her sleepwear and a pair of boots with her hair blown all over the place. "Pretty cold out there." And by cold he meant 35 degrees. 'Foreigners,' He thought, yawning. 'They've got no sense.'

"Y-yes." Sakura stuttered the words through her chattering teeth. "I've noticed." It was cold enough that she'd taken to artificially boosting her core temperature. Luckily there were no senior citizens milling about because in the last few weeks she'd been approached by at least two little old ladies concerned she'd either catch a cold or alternatively, heatstroke due to exposure and a third one had even given her a talking to about public decency of all things. 'If they catch me wandering around in a tank top and shorts they might stage an intervention.' But she had spare clothes at work that were less likely to get weird looks and would provide a good deal more warmth.

Grabbing a basket Sakura wandered down the aisles dropping whatever caught her eye into it which mostly just ended up being different kinds of bread. The more exotic fare like lizard meat and candied scorpions were regarded with a critical eye and the wrinkling of her nose as she passed by balancing a cup of coffee on top of the box. It was not the fact that they were bugs that bothered her-she'd eaten scorpion before. 'A really big one too.' It was the candy portion that she found odd despite being cursed with a prolific sweet tooth. 'Ah, I wonder which one they wanted him to take after with a name like that…' The ones preserved in sugar didn't resemble him at all. 'But there are the hulking iron-carapace'd lurkers out in the Demon Desert or the little but lethal Red-Tails…' The deserts surrounding Suna alone had entirely too many varieties but the arthropods were practically everywhere on the continent, excluding the colder climates.

Haruno Mebuki taught Sakura plenty of important things and while quite a bit of it went in one ear and out the other the things that stuck really stayed. Like how to sew, solve for x, to always stash money somewhere like in a boot, or sewn into clothing just in case of emergencies. 'And to never, ever ever sleep naked.' It was all very practical advice that Sakura followed religiously. 'You never know when your village is going to be violently invaded or if your house will erupt in flames…'

The cashier, used to Shinobi pulling money from strange places, did not balk when she handed him a few bills out of the roll of ryo she'd fished from her left boot. Rather he was silently thankful to find it was neither covered in blood nor any other mystery substance.

Change and goods exchanged Sakura went on her way, years of training and hard won grace keeping the hot liquid in her cup from shifting and spilling. It helped that the closer one got to the center of the village the more insulated the streets became. The buildings served as manmade buffers against the nation's characteristic gales. A few people on staff gave her odd looks when they caught sight of her wandering the halls but Sakura simply chalked it up to two factors; Her attire and her extremely early appearance, she was very rarely seen by the night shift. It was when she stopped by one of the clerical desks that she began to get the feeling she was missing something other than hours of vital sleep.

"Oh, Haruno-san, you're so early.' A woman whose name Sakura couldn't remember from face alone commented as she handed over a few folders. "Would you like me to send that up to the mailroom?" She asked, glancing at the plain brown parcel tucked under a bare arm. The man next to her was far less helpful, staring straight ahead as he worked his way through a meal.

In what was immediately seen as a protective gesture, Sakura hugged the box to her chest, the convenience store bag hanging from her elbow. "No! It's personal mail." If she handed it off to just anyone it might be intercepted and then everything would have been for nothing. "...For my parents." She clarified.

The woman stabbed at her deskmate's side with an elbow, cooing and awing much to Sakura's confusion. As hard as they had a reputation for being, even women in Suna had a tendency to get excited about engagements and weddings but mostly confirmation about the latest gossip.

Muttering his complaints, the man stared forlornly at the clump of rice he'd been trying to eat as it crumbled, scattering little grains across the desk.

Sakura sympathized with that, for she too was hungry.

"You're so filial, I hope everything goes well."

Placing the papers between her cup and the box Sakura puzzled over the odd comment for about ten seconds and then shrugged. "Me too?" After all she'd gone through quite a bit of trouble snatching all of Sasori's spoons. 'And It would really suck if it didn't...pan out. Ha.' Her dad would enjoy that one. Business concluded she turned to go to her office, the excited whispering behind her lost in the buzz of her own thoughts.

Setting the box at her desk, Sakura took the time to drink her coffee, have a quick breakfast during which she wrote a letter to her parents and placed a memo to herself reading; ship ASAP on top the things to be mailed out just so they wouldn't get lost among the many other boxes floating around. 'Ah, I probably shouldn't leave it out in the open…' The sun was at last beginning to creep through her window and she was more than ready for a hot shower and proper clothes so she settled for burying the box under a bunch of papers. 'If he shows up that might buy me about 20 minutes.' Sasori seemed compelled to clean up messes in the same way ghosts in folklore had to count grains of rice or sand strewn into their path. [2]

Locker rooms were a hotbed for bacteria and fungi but there was a third, infectious force that could not be avoided by wearing shower shoes; gossip. As the arrival of the morning shift collided with the departure of their nocturnal counterparts words were exchanged, like a ritual akin to passing the torch. The dramatic rehashing of the previous night's events occured the same in Konoha's hospital as it did in Suna's with no discernable variation and as she listened in, Sakura took comfort in that similarity. 'That and the hot water.' Though she would have appreciated it more if she didn't have to smash the knob down every minute just to keep a stream of water flowing. 'Stupid timer.' She didn't know anyone who could soap up that quick much less rinse off.

Around the time Sakura was rinsing shampoo from her hair the conversation beyond the drab sheet of plastic separating her from the rest of the room deviated from its previous topic concerning routine complaints about an unnamed but infamous villager who was constantly coming up with excuses to get more pain medication than necessary to something that sounded juicy enough to garner her full attention.

"You could tell me he drank blood and I'd believe it faster than him being interested in another human being, much less getting engaged…To think Saba caught them together in a closet..."

Turning the water off and squeezing the excess liquid from her hair Sakura frowned to herself. 'Who?' The name of the person they were referring to had not reached her ears over the shower and the ill timed slam of metal locker doors. Curiosity unsatisfied, she wrapped a towel around her body and dug through her toiletry bag, searching for a recently purchased tube of moisturizer and sunscreen.

"If I never saw how he was around her with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it either, that being said I'm not willing to rule out the blood drinking just yet...Or the underground spy network. Hell, I would not be surprised if he was part of a secret cabal of individuals interested in creating a new world order." There was a round of quiet, almost nervous laughter that followed. "And If I mysteriously disappear or show up dead this conversation is the reason why."

'Oh, wait a second...' Sakura thought, finding that the person they were describing sounded rather familiar. 'Well that can't be, he's not with anyone.' Not that she knew of but she was quite sure she would have noticed if he were. 'Or would I…?' If Sasori didn't want someone to know something odds were they wouldn't, he was tricky like that. Rubbing the lotion into her face brought with it a slight sting. It was the fact that she couldn't be sure that bothered her and nothing more.

"Still, spoons?" Someone scoffed. "Even if they were made of solid gold they'd make a pretty insulting bride price on their own given the current state of things. There is no way he couldn't afford a few horses or any of the other traditional, uppercrust gifts. Akasuna may be cold blooded but even he has his pride, always has even when he was just an ugly brat."

Sakura's fingers fumbled, almost dropping the little bag that kept her travel sized items contained and safely separated from any corrupting, outside elements unlike the jumbled thoughts spilling through her head. "Horses?" She muttered, stunned as the pieces of the bizarre puzzle they were erroneously jamming together fell into place.

"Maybe its just one of those weird cultural differences or some dumb, next gen statement about ignoring tradition. "

"There must be something about people from Konoha, the whole family is sick for them. Not that I'm complaining, how they are now is a major improvement…"

"Mm, I'd say it's a pity he's off the market but well, that's a poisonous flower you couldn't pay me to touch."

Someone snorted. "You wouldn't even get a second glance from him-not while you're still breathing at least. If it makes him even a fraction more pleasant I say Godspeed on Haruno-san's engagement."

The flurry of chatter regarding Sasori's looks and lack of social skills was only numbly registered by their unseen eavesdropper. As far as Sakura was concerned anyone who said they didn't like hearing the latest gossip was a liar, what most people didn't enjoy was being the subject of it and to that, she was no exception. " What ?" She whispered at first and then followed the low utterance by jerking open her shower curtain. "What?!" They were like impala's at last spotting the lioness lurking in the tall grasses, inert at the sight of her and half hoping that in their stillness they might be forgotten. "I'm not...he isn't…" Tongue tied by the numerous eyes gawking at her she could feel her face going red, dimly aware that the color was quickly running down her neck and shoulders the longer they stared. "I mean, Sasori isn't," She couldn't quite get a grasp on what she wanted to say, words flowing out in a garbled, confused mess. "My parents! The spoons…I didn't know-"

Most people caught in the act of running their mouths would have been embarrassed, maybe even offered an excuse for the behavior. One might even assume there would be an apology involved but that was simply not the ethos in Suna. "Oh." The one Sakura recognized as having seen just a few hours ago said, her tone full of pity. "Of course you didn't. I guess It's not surprising given who he is...but if Sasori-sama failed to discuss things with you, well, you'd think Lady Chiyo would step in..." She turned to one of the women leaning against the row of lockers. "Yachou, your grandmother is a matchmaker, what do you think the going rate would be?"

Tan skinned and quite tall, Yachou gave the still dripping, betowled woman a quick once over as she wondered to herself what sort of weird attracted someone like Sasori. 'Looks perfectly normal.' But that, like pretty faces could be deceiving. "Given his status and reputation …" The last part was said in such a way that Sakura was left with the feeling that she actually meant baggage. "Factored against her own and adjusting for the current rate ...a t minimum I'd say her parents were owed 4 horses, several bolts of silk...maybe a dozen goats and about the amount of ryo it all cost."

"Goats?" Sakura squeaked as she was dealt another blow, still not having wrapped her head around the importance of horses in Sunan culture.

Having witnessed Sakura's dumbfounded blinking, Yachou sighed. "You should renegotiate. Or dump him, but you didn't hear that from me ." She was of the opinion that if the girl were really smart, she wouldn't be involved with Akasuna no Sasori to begin with which led her to the next, very important step; walking away. "This discussion? Never happened." And then she strolled right out the door finding no goodbyes necessary in her eagerness to extricate herself from a potential hazard. As far back as when they were academy students, those who foolishly stuck their nose in Sasori's business had a proclivity for showing up dead. 'Like that Komushi.' She tsked, finding the memory fuzzy. 'Not my problem.' Her kid was at home waiting for poorly made bird shaped pancakes.

The two women left behind shared a look and then at unison spouted off their own rushed excuses, one of whom cited the need to clean bedpans in a more enthusiastic manner than was believable as they quickly gathered their belongings and darted out.

"No wait, you don't understand!" Sakura nearly stumbled out into the hallway wearing nothing but her towel as she tried to explain. "Or rather you're misunderstanding! We don't-" The door swung shut in her face and it was only the reflexive jerk of her head that saved her from what would have been a bloody nose. "Shit." She paced, hands wringing. If it had reached the locker room then it was probably well on its way to infecting the rest of the hospital 'And if it isn't it will be. Even the common damn cold doesn't spread as fast as rumour!' She couldn't think of a single disease known to man or woman that was as virulent as the word.

No matter how much Sakura fretted, the world would just keep turning and her mind jumped for a solution to the mess she, through no fault of her own, had found herself in. "I'll just give the spoons back." In a very public display during which she would loudly declare they were nothing but friends. "Yes, and then I can put all of this behind me." Refusing to get sucked into the thought trap of whether they were friends, Sakura sprung into action, one foot already out the door when the realization that yes, she was still wearing nothing but a towel hit her. Meekly, she slunk back inside to finish preparing for the day, hands pressed against her face as she silently contemplated the odds of her fortunes taking a sharp upward turn. 'I should have looked at my horoscope for the day.' It probably said something along the lines of; Save yourself some trouble, crawl in a hole and die. ' What do they even mean by how he is around me?' What they thought they saw was nothing but hard earned respect and civility.

Unbeknownst to Sakura, A few that still lingered within the locker room were watching the mostly silent mental battle she'd been engaged in and were keen to draw their own conclusions-erroneous as they might have been. Public opinion leaned heavily on Sasori's side if only for the sake of their own wellbeing. On a good day the former Kazekage could make milk curdle with a look and no one was sure they wanted to see how he would adapt to getting dumped. 'Can we really handle him at his worst?' One poor soul thought with a shudder.

Dried, dressed and brushed in all the appropriate places Sakura set out to accomplish her next goal and power walked her way through the halls, every sharp, quick clack of her boots against the tiled floor a warning to whoever thought to stop her. It was no surprise that she made it to her destination unhindered-if they couldn't hear the danger in her approach, the grim set of her lips gave face to it. Slamming the door to her office open, Sakura surveyed the domain before her, most people would look within and call it bedlam. 'But those people would be wrong .' The thought was targeted at a particular redheaded man.

There was a secret order to the madness meant to be understood only by her but the harsh light of day made one thing evident, the papers and binders that she had carefully arranged as camouflage were askew, leaving behind a chasm where there should have been a box. "Oh no!" The bag she'd been carrying dropped, contents spilling and rolling over the floor as Sakura searched in vain, flipping binders and tossing papers out of the way. "My box!" Her knees gave out in a fit of melodrama, forehead pressing into the desk's edge. "He's so damn petty even the letter is gone." Her fists grasped at papers, impressing the unfairness of it all upon them.

"Oh no, I took all that down to the post office just a bit ago." Hakka's cheerful voice interjected, rudely putting an end to Sakura's thoughts about a sock-raid.

"You what?" Sakura lifted her head, face blank and still.

Clueless to the turmoil her superior was going through, Hakka's mouth skipped ahead, eager to make up for what she perceived as a failure from the week before regarding keys. 'Why, she looked as though I'd handed her a snake!' And she was almost positive several curses had been muttered under Sakura's breath upon receiving them. "I was looking for next week's material list when I came across the memo that they needed to be shipped so of course I took them right down. Perfect timing too, they put a rush on it and everything." Pointing out the sender's high ranking associations had helped grease the wheels of bureaucracy.

It was far from perfect. "Damn you!" Sakura hissed, green eyes blazing over the desk edge. "Damn you for being so effective at your job!" The papers crinkled noisily as she resisted the urge to pound her fists into the dark wood.

Confused by the angry compliment Hakka could only blink. "T-thank you? I shall endeavor to do worse in the future…" She did not sound very committed to the notion.

Heaving a sigh Sakura thumped her head against the desk just once and then gathered herself off the floor. She was not going to throw a toddler tantrum while she had an audience. "Did you at least find the list?" She would have to consider other solutions to her Sasori-problem. 'I mean, what are the chances it'll even leave the hospital?' Suna was small but it wasn't that little . Surely there were better things to talk about and as long as Sasori didn't have any work on the premises for the next few days then he would probably never hear it.

"Yes but there is a bit of a problem regarding the live fish." Hakka's question of whether a toaster or teakettle would be preferred as an engagement gift was tabled for the time being.

'So what if people think I'm getting married, or that I had a se- serious dream about Sasori when my actual boyfriend is avoiding me? Small potatoes.' And yet it felt like she was choking on the spuds as she paused in the busy work of shuffling the papers piled on her desk in the same way she was trying to file away her personal issues-chaotically and not at all. "What kind of problem?" What Sakura needed was something to solve, to put her mind to that didn't involve Sasuke, Sasori or her own damn psyche. 'I should poach some clinic hours.' Stomach aches and infected ears would keep her blissfully busy. 'Would it be wrong to wish for a minor catastrophe to befall some stranger?' Nothing she couldn't fix of course. 'Maybe a detached kidney or an appendectomy…'

"There aren't a lot of places out here where you can get fish of the size you specified and you were very adamant about staying within budget." Which normally would not have been a problem but the man who owned the commercial fishing ponds had made an abrupt about-face upon learning what they were for and who wanted them, going as far as to launch into a long tirade about how his nephews first wife had been killed by a Konoha-Kunoichi some 30 years ago. 'And he hadn't even liked her that much!' It left Hakka wishing she had kept her mouth shut on the specifics.

"How much did they want for them?" Sakura was perfectly willing to haggle to get what she needed.

"No less than 1,000 ryo per fish." [3]

Sakura choked on the imaginary money she saw floating by. "Yea, no." They were pond fish, not precious tuna from the sea. "Still, we need them to work on the respiratory and circulatory system..." The entry level class was not prepared to move on to mammals of any sort.

"Well, as I was on my way back a more fiscally responsible alternative did occur to me. We could even come in under budget!"

Given how her day had been going so far Sakura should have known better than to be gullibly cheered at the thought of an easy solution. "Sounds good."

Hakka smiled brightly, clapping her hands together. "Wonderful! We should go meet with Honorable Lady Chiyo then."

"What, why?" Once again Sakura looked as if Hakka had handed her a big writhing, hissing snake.

"Because Lady Chiyo and Lord Ebizō have a private fishing hole." Hakka explained. "Well, technically it belongs to the family but they are the only ones with an interest in it."

As much as Sakura adored Chiyo, going there put her a little too close to the scene of the crime and she had yet to regroup from her most recent loss. "Just go ask her on your own."

Having gone googly eyed, Hakka shook her head, caramel tresses whisking about with the movement. "I can't!"

"You act like she'll bite you." Sakura grumbled. "She's a perfectly nice old woman and younger generations would do well to learn from her." Although to be honest, whenever Chiyo started talking about lures and lines she completely checked out, fishing was just not something they shared an interest in.

Nice was probably not the adjective most people would use to describe the elderly matriarch. "She's a genius, talented and distinguished!" Hakka spouted off the earnest compliments. "I once asked her to teach me."

That was of interest to Sakura because Chiyo had never mentioned mentoring anyone other than Sasori in his youth, not even when she was being begged by Kankurō. "Oh?" She asked, brows arching. "What did you learn from her?"

"After three days?" Hakka's expression slipped into something down right gloomy. "Not to be so gullible...and the dangers of trespassing." She'd never been more terrified in her life.

The pallor of her assistant's face was what really convinced Sakura that sending her off alone might have been ill advised. "I guess Granny Chiyo is one of those Get-Off-My-Lawn types…" still, she hesitated. "I can't really go right now I'm...busy, cleaning." As if to prove that point she left her desk and began to very slowly pick things up.

"Of course you are!" Hakka's grey eyes drifted to the items strewn across the floor, finding that the office looked worse than it usually did. "We can just go together at lunch break." Hakka smiled brightly enough to make most of Suna's populace wince worse than an eyeful of sun as she too bent to collect the scattered objects. "You're in awfully early this morning." She hadn't even made the first pot of coffee yet. "And how do you feel about toasters?" Rapid fire questions and commentary were indicative of her personality.

"Couldn't sleep." It was a completely random question but that wasn't uncommon of her assistant. "...They toast things. Why would I have feelings about that?" Sakura paused in fiddling with the bristles of her second favorite hairbrush as a thought came to mind. "What do you think about horses?" She too could ask completely random questions. "I mean, are they culturally significant in some way?" Maybe she was just interested in a different sort of fishing compared to Chiyo's preferred hobby.

To Hakka however, they were not completely unrelated topics of conversation and ever eager to help she launched into an explanation. "Mostly to very traditional, uppercrust families. There isn't a lot of grazing room within or around Suna and frankly...other than looking stately they don't have a lot of utility-at least not here. Wealthy civilians or nobles may use them to transport goods or travel long distances but most Shinobi wouldn't bother. They're more...symbolic of luxury; the more horses, the greater your prosperity. Goats on the other hand...those are a bit more useful. Wool, milk and meat. Three very important materials." They were staples for that reason throughout Kaze but in the leanest of times and at their most desperate even horses had been consumed.

"Uhuh...Thats all well and good but what the hell are you supposed to do with them when you don't have any land?" Sakura huffed. "Or rather your parents…"

"If they can afford to be throwing horses around then they are probably wealthy enough to provide a tiny spit of land to stick them on." Suna itself did have farmland, but whether it was what had been provided for them at their founding or the piece ceded to them by the Fire Daimyo and first Hokage they were miles and miles away from the village proper. 'I know building a city into a gorge with only one main road seemed like a good idea at the time but I really feel like our ancestors could have done better.' Sure it was stable and well situated for defense but Hakka often wondered what they'd been thinking when there were better places to live all through Kaze. "As for goats...well, they will eat just about anything." They were also quite useful for practicing surgical skills on and those who didn't survive simply made it to a different table. 'Waste not, want not as the saying goes.'

It was not as though the concept of dowries was completely foreign to Sakura but in her country of origin it was typically symbolic-a strip of rope, a bit of seaweed and a fan. 'And of course money.' But it was usually a moderate amount meant to get a couple started. Older, more illustrious families had more intricate expectations and of course there were outliers, her mother's side of the family for example had belonged to a rather small religious sect that placed an abundance of importance upon rings-a custom that was gaining popularity with the general public. "I suppose there's a certain...efficiency in gifting livestock." Once money was spent it was gone but as long as the animals kept producing wealth would inevitably follow. "But it's not as if that concerns me. Horses just aren't in my future." Unless she was being dragged by them.

Hakka mistook the dismissive statement for one of great disappointment. "I'm sure that things will work out in your relationship." The sympathetic patting she treated Sakura's hands to were gazed at with wary, confused green eyes.

"Does everyone know about that?" Sakura could not recall discussing her relationship with Sasuke directly but then she hadn't been explicit with the vast majority of people who apparently knew about them despite her best efforts. 'The worst kept secret was how Temari put it.' Shrugging, she delicately extracted her hands from the Chūnin's grasp and chalked the surety of the claim up to a difference in their cultures. After all, the Uchiha had never dealt in horses, at least not to her knowledge. "Right...I'm just going to pop down to the clinic for a while." Now that the room was marginally less upended then it had been before, it was in a suitable state of order according to her own sensibilities. 'And if she happens to forget about meeting with Chiyo or some unforeseen emergency crops up...well, that's just life.'

Leaving Hakka behind to eagerly count the seconds until their scheduled lunch break, Sakura turned her focus to the walk-ins she'd not quite begged old, grouchy Aguri for. She'd spent a lot of time smiling through her teeth and eventually walked away from the conversation silently wishing him a broken hip. A few cases of stomach bugs and sore throats later she'd mostly forgotten that she was the current subject of idle, hospital chit chat. Although being called a saint by one of the medical assistants had briefly shattered her bliss. "I wouldn't go that far with it." Sakura said, watching as a disturbingly serene parent vigorously flopped their crying child's arm back and forth.'Then again I suppose I've never seen him at his worst but how awful could that be?' A part of her hoped it would forever remain a mystery. 'And I have certainly been long suffering and understanding of Sasuke's shortcomings…' Maybe she was closer to sainthood then she thought.

"It just doesn't seem broken. Sprained, maybe." Dr. Dad said, ruffling the little girl's cream colored tresses with a rugged hand.

"Mm." Sakura hummed, unimpressed with her unofficial colleague's diagnosis. "Lets just double check that." She rolled her chair closer, arching a brow when the child-Reika, recoiled away.

"It can't be broken." Reika sniffed and raised her chin in a show of stubborn strength. "I'm supposed to go cliff climbing with Masao tomorrow. He said we can't be friends unless I beat him to the top."

Given how swollen it looked Sakura doubted very much that would be possible. 'Well, not without some intervention.' Holding her hand out expectantly, she wiggled her fingers. "I promise you will make it to that cliff." It was typically frowned on to accelerate healing when the situation didn't necessitate it but in Sakura's heart there was a little girl from not so long ago who remembered the desperate feeling of wanting to be worthy crying out in sympathy. There was a moment of hesitation before Reika raised her slim arm, lips set into firm grimace as fingers laced with chakra probed at her flesh. "Definitely a scaphoid fracture." Dr. Dad had the good grace to look at least a little ashamed for the rough treatment.

Reika would have devolved into a hyperventilating mess, fully prepared to wail about how unfair the world was and that if it hadn't been for one stupid buzzard she and Masao would best friends tomorrow and married the day after but her wrist felt funny-hot at first, and then the throbbing pain she'd been feeling since the fall began to ease. "Huh?" All of the hand wrapped around her wrist had taken on a green, chakra glow. "Oh, neat." She gasped, having never seen such a feat before. Craning her neck upwards to her father it was clear that even he seemed impressed and through her childish view of the world that meant whatever the candy-haired lady was doing must have been special. 'I might have fallen down but Masao doesn't get to see this!' She thought haughtily. It would be something to gloat about tomorrow, win or lose.

"Don't tell anyone and don't make a habit of it." Sakura advised, giving her repairs a brief shake test not unlike had done himself. There was no pain if Reika's giggle's were anything to go by and under her skilled hands nothing amiss was detected. "The next time you walk in with a broken bone you will be getting a cast." She warned, jotting down a few notes on the discharge papers and then signing her name. "There shouldn't be any problems but if there are, you know where to find me." Handing over the form, she moved to the door, somewhat disappointed to find that Hakka was standing just beyond it like she'd been laying in wait. 'Damn my sympathetic heart! I should have put that kid in a plaster.' At least then she could have claimed she was busy. "Aah…"

Out of the corner of Sakura's eye a familiar color leapt to her attention, like catching sight of a red cardinal darting through the greenery back home, Sasori's vermillion hair was hard to miss among the drab colors that surrounded him. Looming over Aguchi, they were standing in plain view of the check in area, creating some weird vertex of negative energy that demanded the attention of an audience. They watched with captive eyes, looking as though something in the atmosphere was exceptionally sour, faces puckered like sucking lemons.

Nothing about it screamed good. Remaining unnoticed would not last long and no matter how interested Sakura might have been to hear what they were discussing, she didn't want to be around for his attention to turn in her direction. 'He looks unhappy.' Although that was a subjective measure considering Sasori seldom gave the impression that he was pleased. For all she knew Aguchi was being interrogated for her whereabouts which left her with no other choice. "Yes, we're going. Now." Hakka was grabbed by the back of her scarf as if it were the scruff of a wayward puppy and led into a quick retreat . 'If he were a nicer person I might feel really bad about leaving like this.' But the old man wasn't, so she only felt a tiny bit icky about abandoning him. ''It's not cowardly to prioritize strategy. A public display would just add more fuel to the rumors.' Sakura told her bruised ego. 'If only I still had those spoons…' At least part of her troubles could have been solved.

If it hadn't been for that dream, if it hadn't been for the rumors setting her off balance there was no way Sakura would have turned tail and all but ran at the sight of him. She would have squared up and let the cards fall. Frankly, someone as distinguished as Sasori deserved a good chastisement for sleeping through the ransacking of his own kitchen and she would be sure to gloat about that later, when they met on her terms.

Hakka was forced to keep pace with Sakura's brisk steps, unaware that she would later be marked as a kidnapper by Sasori rather than the unwitting victim being dragged in the wake of a very conflicted woman. By the time she'd gathered her wits they were already walking the bright, sweltering streets. "Do you think that we should bring a gift?" It might have been considered rude to show up to an elder's house, unannounced with nothing-especially at the lunch hour.

"Not a bad idea at all...We'll stop and pick up anpan on the way." Chiyo liked just about anything containing beans or potatoes, having claimed that if people were what they ate by consuming foods with a long shelf life she too would endure. As a bonus the main street going through the marketplace was likely to be congested making them harder to spot by any would be pursuer. 'That's what I hope at least.' The afternoon heat was oppressive to Sakura and the night wasn't much better but as she glanced at Hakka with her covered arms and scarf she could only cringe. 'I'm not about to change my whole wardrobe but I have really got to find something to keep me warm at night.' Possessing a total of 3 pants just wasn't working out like it did back home. Capri's were not built for comfort.

"It's such lovely weather today." Hakka said and earned herself a brief look of contempt for it.

"What exactly does bad weather look like around here?" Sakura grumbled and promptly regretted the rhetorical question when she received a long but certainly informative report regarding the Land of Wind's weather. For Suna a good day had little to no wind and a bad day meant walking the streets uncovered came with the added risk of losing some epidermis to a sandstorm that even the protective walls and carefully designed architecture couldn't keep at bay.

Looking towards the clear expanse of blue that stretched over head, Sakura supposed that it was beautiful, in a way. 'Earth below, heaven above, with nary a cloud in the sky...They could really use more of those around here.' Viewed from above the village bore an uncanny resemblance to a spiderweb. 'Or maybe a big wheel…' The roads and bridges linking one building to the next were like spokes piercing concentric circles but it was all too easy to lose sight of that similarity when walking the streets. All around her the world was awash in shades of beige and baked clay, rounded curves and domed roofs. The most expressive houses and buildings got were with their painted doors and shutters, sometimes there would be plants in decorative pots or hung from baskets in spaces protected from whatever wind might buffet them. Businesses on the other hand took advantage of the gales, marking themselves by the often bright, fluttering cloths over their entrances.

When they hit the first rung of the marketplace Hakka broke away, volunteering herself to purchase the confections from what was presumably Suna's most popular bakery if the line was anything to judge by. Wincing, the polite effort that Sakura made to go herself was spoken in waste as the Chūnin flounced away before the words 'I can'' finished their short journey out of her mouth. Sasori did most of the shopping and she'd yet to run out of any personal necessities-so her ventures around town were typically centered on work, the library and a particular cafe where she liked to snack and sip coffee as she soaked up the AC. 'I've been slacking, I'll have to slip in some training soon.'

Sakura's half hearted search for an apparel store within eyesight of the bakery was abandoned mid way through-it was hard to have the same passion for them while she was baking like an egg on the street. 'Besides, this is way more interesting.' It couldn't really compare to the Yamanaka's business, they didn't even come close to the selection of cut flowers they sported back home but their entire entrance way was lined with a variety of potted plants turned out to sun for the day. Crouching down she studied a cluster of purple blossoms in the same shade that Ino favored brought with them a pang of homesickness. 'Her advice would probably be useful about now...' Turning the unadorned clay pot between her hands, she heaved a sigh.

Letters came and went with frequency all through the week and that meant Sakura spent a lot of money on postage but she found herself uniquely hesitant to write about the thing that was currently prickling at her sense of decency. 'I can hardly imagine the words coming out of my mouth much less writing them down.' They weren't violets but they bore a striking resemblance and after a moment of staring at the bright yellow centers, she decided that there was really no reason not to make a purchase. 'But maybe I can squeeze the fact that I'm apparently worth horses in there somewhere.' It would be a weird brag but she could work it into the next letter if she tried.

"Sakura-chan!"

It was a familiar voice, a dear one even but the sudden shout of her own name had Sakura squealing and the plant went from her hands, tossed as high as her heart leapt. Turning as her eyes tracked the unnatural trajectory, it became perfectly clear that yes, the person who had called out to her had been Naruto and he was making a quick beeline in her direction with Sai in tow. "What have I told you about yelling in public?!" She scolded, outstretched hands halting an incident that would have launched the approaching shopkeeper into an angry tirade.

"That it's only okay when you and Ino do it." Sai's dark eyes roved, cataloguing any features that might have changed while they were apart. "You look tired."

"I'm pretty sure those exact words never left my mouth." The hug Naruto caught her in was awkward. They were both hindered with stuff and reduced to a one armed embrace. "What are you two doing here? Not that I'm unhappy to see you guys or anything." The proof of that could be felt in the way that she leaned into him for a moment or two, pointedly ignoring the secondary claim Sai made.

Naruto squeezed her a little tighter, rumpling her hair as he rubbed his whiskers against the crown of her head. "Special delivery." He explained after finally letting her go and held up a brown wrapped package bearing her own name. "I think Tsunade-baachan said it was from your parents-I wasn't really paying attention when I was begging for a reason to come visit, dattebayo."

"She did and it is." Sai clarified, his own arms held open expectantly. If there were hugs to be had then he was not to be left out. "You still look tired." He said, tapping a finger against the edge of her eye.

Sakura settled for an easy, oblique answer. "Rough night, that's all-hold for a second." She said and wandered a few steps away to speak with the florist.

"I can't believe she came all the way out here. It's hot and it's dusty." Naruto complained, pouting as he squinted up at the sky. Their entire trip and the weeks preceding it had been him whining to whoever would listen. 'Sure I wanna help Gaara out and all but I didn't want them to steal our Sakura for a whole year, it's just not right.' Of course, as he had been reminded quite liberally there was a singular catalyst that went by the name of Sasuke that he could have laid the blame on if he weren't so reluctant to take sides. 'This is the problem with your friends dating, you always get stuck in the middle.' And he hated it. 'To think I was so excited about it at the start. It really seemed like a good idea at the time.'

Sai's inscrutable face didn't offer any clues nor context to the words that left his mouth as soon as Sakura was out of earshot. "Don't say anything." What exactly he meant by that warning was completely lost on Naruto, who would come to regret not asking a follow up question.

Now the proud owner of an exotic plant she had been expressly forbidden from watering at midnight-or maybe it had been overwatering, 'I'll figure it out at some point' Sakura thought, returning with a little more bounce in her step than she'd felt since making a clean getaway that morning.

"Since you don't seem to be busy we should go to lunch. We only have until tomorrow and Ino was adamant that I hear how things are going directly from the source." In his girlfriend's own words, he was meant to be her long distance lie detector. If something were really wrong even he would pick up on it. 'I have gotten very good at noticing when things are wrong.' Knowing why and what to do about it was another story but he was certainly working on it.

"Oh yea! You know there is a ramen place Gaara took me to last time I was here. It was so-so." But nothing could ever compare to Ichiraku's as far as Naruto was concerned.

Sakura's nose scrunched up, making her opinion on that suggestion clear. "It's over 100 degrees right now and you want to slurp boiling hot noodles, what is wrong with you?" Not for the first time she wished he'd pick something she liked for once. "And I couldn't even if I wanted to." And despite disagreeing with the suggested venue she did want to go. "I'm in the middle of something right now." But then, considering how early she'd gone into work and the fact that there was nothing that needed her immediate attention, there was no reason why she couldn't get off early.

"What could be more important than us, your friends who are around for a limited time only?" Naruto grumbled, throwing his arm over her shoulder once more.

"Sakura-sama?" Hakka called, having escaped her self inflicted purgatory with delicious stuffed bread all neatly lined in a box.

Naruto's eyebrows rose high for one simple reason; Nobody called her by that suffix back home. It just never happened and though Sakura had offered several alternatives to the title, Hakka was perfectly content to keep calling her as such. 'And she's not the only one.' It was a battle Sakura had lost interest in waging, but it was completely novel and outright foreign to those hearing it for the first time.

"I see you're moving up in the world hag." Sai clapped his hands in genuine praise, though to anyone who didn't know him and several who did it really sounded the same as when he was being sardonic. "Well done."

"Thanks?" In the subtle narrowing of her eyes Sakura decided to go with a generous reading of his intentions. "Anyways, this is Hakka-my very capable assistant, something I'd like to note that neither of you have and these two clowns are friends from home who will be staying where tonight?"

Hakka was well aware of who they were. 'Well, one of them anyways.' The assistant thought, recognizing the blonde as their current village head's best-friend and two time rescuer. 'One was more of a spiritual saving or something but we sure are grateful.'

Internally, Naruto protested being relegated to a mere clown, if anything he were the chief-clown of his own troupe. "Someday when I'm Hokage I'm going to have twice as many assistants as you so there, dattebayo. Dunno, we just got in and were on our way to Gaara's office when Sai spotted you. The three of us could probably just bunk together at your place."

"Oh. I really don't think that would be a good idea." Sakura said, shaking her head. She was pretty sure Sasori wouldn't be happy with that plan even if she hadn't stolen all his spoons plus she'd very conveniently neglected to mention who she was staying with. 'I just didn't want anyone to make a big fuss about it.' Like, specifically Naruto. 'I mean Ino knows…' Which meant there was a 50-50 chance Sai knew and had miraculously managed to keep his mouth shut about it. 'Maybe I should tell Naruto.' If she did, he would whisper it in the right ear. 'Would it really even matter? Him being jealous over me living with another man is pretty far fetched…' Sasuke only ever got riled when someone was better at something then he was. 'I'll just let it slip before he leaves.' That way she could plant the seed and skip any of the nasty fall out.

Sai, who had turned to Hakka and was bowing like the embarrassed, apologetic parent of a wayward child. "Your job must be very hard, thank you for taking care of our hot mess." That time Sakura did not apply a generous reading to his intent as evidenced by the wilting glare she sent his way.

Hakka gave a nervous laugh. "I think you meant taking care of her messes." Finding herself the new target of disappointed, death-eyes she hurriedly added, "I mean, not that she makes a lot of them or anything..."

Sai shook his head. "No, I said it right the first time." He flinched when Sakura dug her knuckles into his side but did not recant his previous statement.

"Anyways...we should probably get these anpan to Granny Chiyo." As unsettling as Hakka's fawning could be at times Sakura wasn't sure she wanted to lose the glossy glow of worship she had amassed through unknown methods just yet.

Naruto scoffed, clearly displeased as he crossed his arms. "That's your big errand? Delivering bread to a mean, senile old lady? We're only here for like half a day and we should be maximizing our togetherness, dattebayo!"

"She's really only one of those three things." Sakura didn't think Chiyo was mean at all but then she also didn't consider herself as someone who was easily exploitable via guilt.

"It is very important that friends spend quality time together, I read it in a book and it is backed up by numerous anecdotal reports." Sai lacked Naruto's persuasive charisma, he had zero hope of pulling off puppy eyes without looking like a complete creep but he did have 2 things going for him: A tragic backstory and complete lack of filter which allowed him to routinely spout incredibly bizarre and often rude commentary. "I've missed you." And just sometimes surprisingly sweet things too.

Plant clutched close to her chest Sakura sniffled just a little. "I missed you too!" Even if he would probably say something mean in the next breath and she'd have to take it back. Misty eyed she turned to Hakka with the intention of hurrying off to carry on with their surprise bread for fish negotiation. What Sakura didn't know was that she, unlike her fellows, was very adept at pulling sad-pouty faces, intentional or otherwise. It was an unknown skill that had been weaponized against many people in her life with only a handful having developed an effective immunity and unfortunately for Hakka, she was not one of them.

If anything the young Chūnin was immunocompromised and quickly succumbing. " I umm…" Hakka was not at all eager to step foot on that property by herself, like ever again. 'But she looks like she'll cry!' And the dark haired one was staring at her with his unsettlingly dark, bleak eyes. He smiled, but it didn't feel like he meant it at all. "I can just…" She meant to say that she could just go back to work and wait but she never quite made it that far.

"See? She can deliver them herself and we can go to lunch! I'm dying of thirst every second we spend standing here." Naruto was of the opinion that what Suna needed was more trees and less prickly plants. 'Well, even some of the trees around here have thorns, so maybe that's not the best idea.' He'd learned about those the last time he'd had to trek through the wilds of Wind, it was also when he'd come to the conclusion that the vast majority of the country had been created with the meaning of hurt in mind. If there was water, it was probably infested with big sharp toothed lizards. 'Don't even get me started on that vanishing jungle nonsense...' The whole place was just one extreme to another.

Sakura's face lit up as she placed her hands over Hakka's shoulders, exploding into excited chatter. "Really? Oh I would so appreciate that! You can drop off the bread and ask about those fish, and I'll follow up after I finish lunch. It shouldn't be too long."

"O-ok." In the face of that exuberance Hakka couldn't muster a protest. Disappointment, as she had been warned during a vigorous interview, was not an option. "It's not a big deal or anything." At least as long as she approached wisely and led with who had sent her. Going along didn't leave her feeling as enthusiastic as she had been mere moments ago but with her mind firmly fixed on detailing exactly what she would say and all the probable outcomes she trudged on alone looking for all the world like someone facing insurmountable odds.

"Now, about that ramen place…" Naruto scratched at his cheek, wondering how much wheedling it would take to get his way. "Pretty sure it's that way." He was already walking, package still tucked under his arm like bait.

"I didn't agree to go there." But Sakura's feet were already in motion.

"But you also didn't say no, dattebayo." At least not decisively and that was almost as good as a yes when it came to the two of them.

Their bickering over the venue didn't last nearly as long as it would have in Konoha, cut short by the simple question Sai posed as he too fell in line, following their leads. "If not there then where?" He didn't care where they ate, only that they did and that it was together.

Given that most of her meals had been provided by her housemate or his extended family, Sakura was short on suggestions, a fact which led to her sitting between the two of them at a long counter. 'Regardless, It almost always ends up this way anyways.' She thought, chin pressed into the palm of her hand watching as steam wafted out of a boiling pot. The plant that she'd yet to name was sat by her elbow, Naruto to her right and Sai at her left.

"Are you making friends?" Sai wondered, he was turned in his stool in such a way that she was the focus of his attention. "I was told you can never have too many." But he did the idea that a new friend might supplant him to be unsettling. 'But I am told that is a normal reaction.'

"I keep myself pretty busy, besides I already have friends here; Temari, Kankurō, Gaara…" She hesitated for a beat before deciding to add one more name. "And Sasori. Besides, I've been exchanging letters with Granny Chiyo for years now." Missing home and the people that lived there didn't mean that she was alone-not really.

Naruto inhaled the piece of ice he'd been sucking on, silently choking at the casual mention of an infamous figure but as soon as it cleared his throat, he burst. "That guy?! Since when were you friends with him?" Whatever he'd thought about Sasuke in their youth, Sasori was so much worse. 'Creepy too.' On the rare occasion that they met, he was left with the impression that all his faults and shortcomings were on clear display, catalogued and put away until such a time that they could be used against him for some reason or another. "That prick told me I had grubby hands, dattebayo!" Which had been true at the time but that didn't change the fact that Gaara's cousin was rude and yet somehow he still managed to get to the top. 'And everyone tells me I won't get far if I don't learn to shut my mouth…but then, that guy is two faced as hell.'

"We see each other a lot." Sakura shrugged. "But even before I was living here it's not as if we weren't civil. He's brilliant when he decides to share and you have an interest in listening." She'd yet to meet anyone who was as knowledgeable as him about the chakra system and its ability to be augmented-theoretical or otherwise. 'And our village has a blood limit that can actually see it.' And while some people would argue over the ethics of how he came by that knowledge or even what he'd done with it there was no getting around his ingenuity. "Besides," She said, flashing a grin over the rim of her cup. "Your hands probably were grubby."

Naruto's eyes pinched shut, arms crossed as he slipped into a sulk. "Wouldn't matter if they were or they weren't to that guy, dattebayo." He had the distinct feeling that to Sasori grubiness was not limited to the physical state of being.

"Should it be alarming that all your friends here seem to be related?" Unlike Naruto, Sai did not feel particularly surprised to hear that name. 'I'm stunted, not unobservant.' Or so he had been told. The relationship between the more outgoing members of Team 7 and Suna's premier family predated his own entrance into their lives, he hadn't been assigned to their squadron until after Sakura had made her big impression but he'd taken notice of a few interesting phenomena in the years that followed. 'He has a habit of finding his way into her company.' If the two of them were near enough it was seemingly inevitable that Sasori would run into Sakura. 'And if they aren't talking he's watching her like an animal about to pounce.' Sai had said as much during a double date, throwing Ino into a round of laughter.

That's probably not too far off, Temari had snorted.

Unsure of what to do with that revelation at the time,he'd simply taken Shikamaru's mumbled advice to heart; There are just some things you should leave alone. 'And in my defense neither Ino or Temari were in a rush to clue Sakura in.' So Sai simply watched and waited, a part of him felt guilty about the knowledge but he was simply following the lead of those wiser than him when it came to social groups and friendships. It'll be what It'll be, I don't think she could do any worse than what she's already got. Ino had said, unenthusiastic upon learning of Sakura's yearlong postment to Suna but that was mostly due to the distance and the fact that she wouldn't be able to meddle even if she wanted to. So, while you're there you'll have to investigate thoroughly! His girlfriend had bid. At Least until I can go myself.

"No, why would it be?" Sakura asked, head cocked to the side as she glanced at him with narrow, suspicious eyes-waiting for what was likely to be a callous comment.

Sai would have snooped regardless. 'It's simply what friends do.' He thought, blinking his dark eyes. "Only that they all have you as a commonality...even the notoriously unsocial one."

"I never even heard of him having friends until now...except that weirdo who follows him around." Naruto grumbled. "The one that looks like Ino's rejected cousin, dattebayo."

It was heartening to know that she wasn't the only one who'd noticed that similarity, though she was almost positive her best friend would have taken offense to the comparison. Deidara was a bootleg Ino and that was that. "They aren't exactly the most trusting group of people." Given their history and vast family trauma Sakura didn't really blame them. 'But they are dutiful.' Despite everything the younger siblings were still committed to their village and even Sasori, regardless of his antipathy, had done his best. "And Sasori? He's...complicated." that was the most succinct way that she could put it. "But not necessarily in a bad way."

While Sasori put up quite a front, she was convinced he held some measure of fondness for those he insisted would not leave him alone. Out of the blue, the locker room debacle reared its head and her cheeks began to tinge a rosy hue. 'It's not as though he is completely unlikable.' Somewhere between the respect and fear that he so easily garnered from the general populace there would naturally be attraction. 'I'm not the only one who's noticed him in that way.' But the thought did not fill her with the comfort she'd expected and Sakura decided that she wanted to move on from their current topic. "How are things back home?"

"Other than missing you, practically the same." Sai was of the opinion that things would have been very pleasant in Konoha if Sasuke stayed gone. 'For good.' and Sakura had remained. 'How did Ino put it? Ah, yes. He's a gaping sinkhole when it comes to their attention.' That description fit the youngest Uchiha scion perfectly. Jealousy, as the Ink artist had been told, was a perfectly natural feeling that he had become well acquainted with over the years.

Naruto however was of a different opinion. "It's the worst!" He barely registered the bowl of ramen set before him. "Tsunade-baachan makes me do all this paperwork and sit in on meetings and they go on and on…she told me if I didn't learn to talk respectfully on my own she was going to make me take etiquette lessons and every time I do something wrong she pinches my ear!" He pointed to an earlobe. "I mean it was tolerable when we were all together but you're here and Sasuke's escort mission has taken him to some luxury resort in Yu no Kuni-you know on the way there the guy he's escorting took the whole retinue to see some play? Some Shinobi have all the luck, dattebayo…"

The chopsticks in Sakura's hand split in half with a sharp, audible snap. " How, exactly do you know all that?" She asked, placid faced as she slowly swiveled her body in his direction.

Foolishly, Naruto blinked at her-a stream of noodles spilling from his mouth as he spoke. "He's sent me a couple hawks since he's been gone."

" Funny ." Though the word sounded thoroughly unenjoyable as Sakura spat it through clenched teeth. "He's always told me letters were a distraction." It wasn't a sudden revelation that her boyfriend made an exception for his best friend. They aren't necessarily Sakura, I don't have time to write you back. There isn't anything for me to talk about Sakura. 'Excuses and avoidance.' That was all Sasuke ever seemed eager to offer. "Does he know where I am? Or how long I'll be away?" Surely the fact that she wouldn't be back for an entire year would warrant some commentary from him.

Recognizing the quagmire he'd waltzed himself into, the noodles slithered down Naruto's throat in an uncomfortable gulp. "I well...uh, I did tell him." He said, hand scrubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. All he could see of Sai was his hunched form lurking beyond Sakura, shoulders heaving. 'Some help you are.' He thought in the sparse, tense moments of silence that followed.

"And?" Sakura's nails tapped against the counter top, broken chopsticks laced between her fingers. The little seeds of hope she had harbored didn't feel as if they would live to see germination, instead she was caught in the grip of sick anticipation, not unlike the moment she'd realized there was no dodging what would have been a deathblow for anyone who lacked her unique skill set. 'It's like waiting to be cut in half all over again.' She thought, teeth digging into her bottom lip.

"...And you know how he is." There was no way he was going to repeat what Sasuke had said which had been a one sentence line reading; Typical, she's being melodramatic as usual.

The axe that had been hanging over her head long before she stepped foot out of Konohagakure finally fell and with it something in Sakura's chest gave way, dropping down to her stomach only to come bubbling back up in the swift current of fury surging over her. "Yea, I do know how he is." The chopsticks clattered to the counter as she snatched a few napkins from the dispenser and slapped them down. "He's selfish." The first press of the pen she'd pulled from her side pocket put a minor tear in her improvised stationary and Sakura adjusted her use of force on the next stroke. "...No that's not true, not really." She said, after the first word had been written. "He cares about himself, his family and you." There wasn't any room for her between the three and it was time for her to face the music.

Naruto hated the look in her eyes that he knew promised tears at some points. "Sakura-chan, you know you're important to him!" He protested, finding himself in one of those rare moments where he was at a loss for the words-the magic ones that would make everything right for her again. Usually they came so easily to him, yet even as he leaned from his chair in a steep angle, seeking Sai's assistance all he got was a good head shaking and firmly sealed lips from the man, leaving him with nowhere to turn. 'Some friend you are.'

The next word came thicker, bolder than the one before. "You're the one he goes to with his problems. You're the one he goes out of his way to hang out with..." And she had never begrudged them that, she'd loved that two of her most important people were close. 'All I ever wanted was a crumb of what the rest of them got so freely.' Apparently that had been asking for far too much. "Maybe you should be his girlfriend instead." Sakura slid the napkin in front of him and collected her plant. "Be sure to deliver that with your next love letter." The words slipped from her lips, petty and spiteful, filling her with shame the moment she heard them ringing through her own ears. He hadn't deserved that and she knew it "Sorry, I've got to go but I'll see you later." She didn't hesitate to dart out into the streets, leaving them, her package and the gawking chef behind.

"I don't want to be his girlfriend, dattebayo!" Naruto shouted after her, springing out of his seat. "H-hey, don't-and she's gone. Great." He groaned, head dropping into the palm of his hand. The only thing preventing him from following was the hand on his shoulder. "What the hell was that?!" He asked, blue eyes setting Sai in his sights. "You just watched me flounder and drown, haven't you ever heard of throwing someone a life raft?" He was used to Sakura lashing out in the heat of the moment-he'd never taken offense to it knowing that she was a lot harder on herself then she needed to be afterwards. 'What bothers me is that she's hurting at all.'

Frowning, Sai pointed out that he had thrown Naruto a life raft long before he found himself underwater. "I did tell you not to say anything."

"I-" Naruto stopped and glanced at the napkin sitting next to his mostly full bowl, reading the two simple words that she had written out for the first time; I'm done. "...I don't think I'm hungry anymore." Folding the flimsy paper and placing it into his pocket, he found himself unsure of what to do with it. 'I know what she said...I just don't know if she really meant it.' Or how he felt about it for that matter but one of those answers should have been easy enough to find with a little time. ''I just need to know where she's staying and ask.' And he would figure things out from there.

Sakura did not go back to work. 'I've already put in seven hours.' But she wasn't ready to go home yet either. 'I can make myself feel bad just fine, right here, right now. Sasori will have to wait his turn for another day.' Instead she took a long, meandering walk that eventually led her to some sort of abandoned quarry and after a good amount of time just eyeing the stones and boulders laying around she placed her plant off to the side and set about using them as if they were nothing but mundane stress relief balls. They cracked and splintered between her hands, jagged pieces crumbling between her fingers. "And to think I've spent days feeling like the worst girlfriend for nothing." She told the plant in full confidence, bottom lip wobbling. "And now I get to feel like the worst friend." It was completely unfair-a fact that she repeatedly emphasized to the plant she'd taken to calling Wanda.

The actions were methodical and she easily lost herself in thought, repeating the same motions over and over as she staved off tears. Sakura went over everything in her head, from start to finish in an attempt to pinpoint where exactly she'd gone wrong with Sasuke. 'Maybe it was from the very start?' But that thought turned her stomach and she obliterated it in the same breath she smashed a rock to smithereens. 'I wasted two whole years of my life with nothing to show for it.'

"Whoa." Kankurō remarked as he passed by sometime later "Did we hire you to make gravel or did I miss a meeting somewhere?" The moment she turned his face in his direction his lips sealed shut. His family did not do well with tears. 'All the better when it comes to conserving liquid.' But Sakura looked like she would cry at any moment. 'Also kind of like a lobster. A really sad one.' Her face was mildly pink in some places but her arms looked livid. "How long have you been out here?"

Turning her attention to the sky, Sakura realized it looked much different than the blue she'd seen earlier in the day. "A while." If the stinging pain in her hands and the violent shades of orange and red stretched out above them were anything to go by. "I think I lost track of time." She said, licking her dry lips only to wince.

"You don't say." Kankurō wasn't going to ask what was wrong but not because he didn't care. 'If she wants to tell me she will.' In the meantime there were other things he could do. "You look thirsty and it's definitely around dinner time, my treat this and I'm not taking no for an answer."

Fatigue from a long day and emotional turmoil were catching up to her, so Sakura simply nodded her head and allowed herself to be shepherd into a pub, Wanda tucked safely beneath her arm.

'Sure, Sasori will probably be miffed but when isn't he? Plus Sakura saved my life, I owe her!' Kankurō thought, congratulating himself over what a good friend he was. 'And If he spent a little more time down by the Puppet Brigade's warehouse he could be the one having dinner with his crush about now, but no he's too good for us.' He was a regular in the establishment and without much thought he ordered a series of appetizers to share while Sakura perused the menu. "What's up with the flower getting its own seat?" He asked, noticing she put it into a chair like it was a person.

Having spilled her emotional guts to the Ino-esque plant, Sakura felt attached to Wanda-defensive even. "What's it to you?" She asked, setting down her already empty glass of water. "Do you have a problem with the color purple?"

Kankurō held his hands up as if to soothe an irritated beast. "Nevermind." And he made a mental note that questioning plants was off limits for the time being.

"Sorry, it's been...oh, has it been a no good, very bad day." Sakura sighed and an unwanted, violent chill wracked her whole body.

'Either the cold's setting in or its sunburn, could be both.' The Sunan native thought, taking a long drawl off the top of his beer. He really wanted to ask what the hell was going on but bit his tongue. 'Given how jumpy she was about the plant...I'm not about to risk it.' He didn't need a table flipped on him.

The waitress came by and dropped a few things off before departing with the promise of bringing more water shortly.

Sakura plucked up a Gyoza with her chopsticks, innocent to the torture that awaited her as soon as her teeth broke through the skin. She got in two chews before the sheer heat of it occurred to her, skin breaking out into a sweat as she looked at Kankurō with wide, betrayed eyes. "Why?" her hands fanned at her face rigorously, finding no respite.

Kankurō blinked, all too slowly registering the mistake he'd made. "Oh shit." She was spice intolerant. "I forgot!" He didn't handle meals-not unless he was buying.

The beer he'd been nursing was comandeered-it didn't matter that Sakura typically hated the stuff, because fuck, it felt like the fires of hell itself were burning in her mouth and all she could do was search for some sort of divine liquid that would extinguish it. 'But it's not enough.' She thought after chugging the entire ale, her lips and tongue were still burning and so without apology she took a whole tray from a passing barmaid, downing another four drinks of who-knew-what. By the time she'd finished she was feeling pleasantly warm and loose limbed, minor aches and pains made numb for the time being.

It occurred to Kankurō midway through apologizing that there was another thing Sakura didn't handle well; booze. She was 5'4 and maybe just over 120 pounds-it was just one of those things she didn't have in common with her mentor. "Oh, I am so fucking dead." He said, hands clasped in prayer. 'Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.' The middle Sand-sibling thought.

"I won't hurt you." Sakura slurred, patting his cheek. "Even though you hurt me..." The pout she gave him morphed into a wobble she slumped against him, heated cheek rubbing against his painted one. "Everyone I like h-h-hurts me." she whimpered, on the verge of tears. "Except Wanda. She's been good-no. Great to m-me." She went on to give the plant a wobbly pair of sideways thumbs up.

Kankurō suddenly found himself wanting to cry. "I'm really going to die." And no amount of groveling was going to save him. He tried to sober her up by getting her to eat but the trust was gone and like a finicky toddler Sakura quite literally was not having it and proceeded to flip the plate he nudged in front of her upside down, crying no loud enough to draw a few looks. 'There are going to be rumors about this.' He realized, the pallor of his face hidden beneath the layers of his makeup. "I need to take you home." Before things got any worse, he threw down some money and tried to coax her into leaving.

"M'not going!" Sakura crossed her arms and slunk further down into her chair. "I can't go to Sa-so-ri's." She put a finger to her lips and shushed. "I'm on the la-No! Not hiding." She corrected herself, brow pinched. "Uhm...strategically avoiding, yea!" Her fingers snapped.

'Okay I can respect that.' Kankurō didn't need to know why she was avoiding his cousin, they'd all been on his shit list at one time or another. 'But she's got to go somewhere…' A stroke of genius struck him then. "I won't take you to Sasori's, we'll go to granny's! You love her, remember?"

Gasping, Sakura nodded her head eagerly. "That's right!" Chiyo was nice to her. 'How could I forget that?' She wondered, stumbling to her feet. 'She told me to treat her like she really was my grandma…' Everything seemed muddled and her limbs were twice as heavy then she remembered them being but she had enough wherewithal to cradle Wanda like the precious cargo she was while being hastened through the quickly cooling streets.

'Maybe it's the full moon.' Kankurō theorized as he glanced suspiciously to the dark sky and the heavy ivory sphere hanging over the village. 'It used to put Gaara in a mood too.'

Sakura made it all the way to Chiyo's doorstep before she burst into tears and not the graceful, composed sort that most women strived for. No, they were chest heaving, throat clenching, full on gasping sobs that shook the whole body.

"Oh my god." Kankurō whispered and wondered in the eternal seconds that followed if defecting from the village would be enough to spare him the torture his imagination so freely conjured. 'If Sasori is some kind of prey animal, this might as well be the injured bleating of a lamb.' The noise was bound to draw his attention. 'That or prick his freaky sixth-Sakura- senses.' He wanted to be gone, he wanted to be under a rock. 'I want to be anywhere but where I am right now.' He had half a mind to ding-dong-ditch Sakura where she stood but then, he took a good look at her and his better nature won out-that and the door swung open to reveal his completely bewildered grandmother. "We should put her in the closet-It'll muffle the noise."

The glare he received for suggesting they put Sakura in the Crying Closet was uncannily similar to Sasori's signature look. 'Just more wrinkly.' Kankurō thought with a shudder.

"We're not putting her in the closet, what did you even do to her, boy?" Chiyo hissed, patting at Sakura's frigid little hand. "Oh poor dear." She tutted and yelled for her brother to put the kettle on. Despite her age she had a very good nose and was sure that she smelled an ample amount of alcohol.

Kankurō threw his arms into the air all willy-nilly. "The closet was good enough for the rest of us!" As kids there had been a very strict rule regarding crying-if it was to be done at all, it had to be in a dark, cramped closet because tears were shameful. 'And contagious.' According to unreliable sources with red hair and a plethora of lies.

Ebizō poked his head around the kitchen corridor and took one, curious look at the chaos and then, like a turtle retreating into its shell, he disappeared in utter silence.

"Look, when I found her, she was just sad for unknown reasons and sunburnt it was through a series of accidents that I had very little to do with that things just got progressively worse, ok?" That was the truth, he would not deviate from it. "This blatant favoritism though? That's just not right. What was good enough for us should be good enough for her!" And Kankurō liked Sakura. 'Certainly more than some people in this family.' But she was still under the mistaken impression that their grandmother was a sweet little old lady who only sometimes got around to killing people and harmlessly teasing her grandkids. 'And that is all wrong! Besides if she's going to be a part of this family in the future she should share just a little bit of our trauma.'

Chiyo looked him dead in the eye and said; "Go cry about it in the closet." Further proving that Sasori had not simply developed into the man he was by sheer accident or simple, biologic design.

The force behind Sakura's crying simply wasn't sustainable for long periods of time and frankly, her stamina was already worn thin. Around the time Chiyo had led her to the cozy little Kotatsu placed in front of the shrine she kept in honor of the dead, the not-quite-wails had turned to sniffles and whimpers. "I'm single and I have regrets." She whispered, cheek squished against the table-top.

"Oh, that's terrible." Chiyo cooed, tucking a strand of candy colored hair behind the girl's ear. "I want to hear all about it." She pinched at the patch of face paint Kankurō had unwillingly left smeared across Sakura's cheek.

Kankurō wondered whether it was humanly possible to sound less authentic and empathetic than his grandmother did in that moment. "I have got to get out of this house of lies," He opened the door and shut it just as quickly. "But not this way."

In the time that it took for Kankurō to disappear around a corner the front door slammed open, hitting the wall behind it loud enough to startle Sakura into a squeak. She lifted her head, took one look at what- who, lurked in the doorway and then did the first thing that popped into her poor, frazzled brain; collected Wanda into her arms and quite literally slithered under the Kotatsu's quilted hem with the intention of never surfacing again. 'Yes,' Sakura thought, staring up into the red filaments of the heater. 'This is where I have always belonged.'

Unfortunately, whether Sakura liked it or not her horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day was not yet at its end.

---

[1] it's a berry spoon and it's basically the exact same thing as a serving spoon but like, fancier. It's basically obsolete unless you collect antique silverware.

[2] Rice, beans, dirt, sand or salt-even the bristles of a broom, there is a widespread belief in a variety of cultures that spirits, especially evil ones are obsessive-compulsive when it comes to counting. So if you're worried about being followed by a ghost, just carry a pocketful of rice and throw it at them-It might buy you some time to escape...or if you end up lost in the wilderness you'll have something to eat or bait a bird with. Win-Win.

[3] To roughly break it down 1,000 ryo would be around the equivalent of 100 usd.

FireThatFox is solely responsible for the name of that plant being Wanda. If anyone can guess what it is I would be mighty surprised.

My god, this took forever...and it's about 2 chapters worth of material but it both resolves and sets up several things for the future so I hope it's worth it.

Me, torturing Sakura: This is all entirely necessary I swear.

My brain was not willing to compromise on this chapter at all and I do apologize for the delay (and likely the quality. I.e lack of Sasori.) It was very, very adamant that I get to that last scene, no matter what it took or how long the chapter ended up being so here we are.

The one funny thing that did not make into this chapter but may or may not be written in some form or another at a later date:

Sasori: Come out of there right now or I'll huff and I'll puff and blow that kotatsu right off of you.

Sakura: (꒪⌓꒪)

Me, repeatedly wiffle-waffling with word choice: If it becomes past tense versus current it changes the entire feeling of the paragraph…-deletes/restructures wording.- No wait, the other way was better. -looks at it- no wait the other way was better. (x50) If there was a timelapse detailing how many times I have rewritten certain passages people would be rightfully appalled. There are times where I spend uh, hours rewriting the same thing with minor changes and then come back a day later and change it back to how it originally was. I take myself too seriously but simultaneously not seriously enough.

Also me, starting a paragraph with AND: I'm so bothered by this -mental sweats- I know it can be done but it feels so wrong pls forgive me grade 1 to uni english professors whose names I memory holed. I have sinned against my whole academic career.

And then I laid awake for forty nights and forty days weeping.

FireThatFox: Where are you? Were you kidnapped? DID I MAKE YOU MAD?
Me: Huh? Wah? No, I've just been strangling myself with words. I should be done with this chapter by March 6…haha nevermind.

I get distracted by nonsense like thinking about Wind's geography and the climate beyond Suna, It deeply bothers me that I think about these things but that type of silliness is why it takes me so long to write :^) Interesting real life fact; There is a vanishing rainforest in the typically desert regions of Oman. 3 months of the year it crops up during monsoon season and then just disappears. -spooky noises-

Honestly this chapter was a mess to write for a variety of reasons-RL stuff came up and you know how it goes.

PS: There is nothing special about this day whatsoever unless you're an American-ITS GIVE YOUR MONEY TO THE GUBERMENT DAY, YAY! (They extended it but still.) Nothing else is going on this day at all and nothing other than that will ever happen on this date in the future.

Happy totally irrelevant day ya'll.

At the time of posting this I will have been 24 hours without sleep pls be gentle and forgive me my faults, they will be edited whenever I rise from my coma. I recognize I am extremely inconsistent with suffixes and will overhaul it.

Oh, The title is both a play on major events and the song by Bananarama. _(┐「ε:)_

Alexai, MD: I LOVE YOU BOTH AND YOUR REVIEWS NOT GET ACCOUNTS SO I CAN PROPERLY REPLY LMAO.

In general I am behind in replying to reviews-but I read everything one over and over, and I will try to be better about answering feedback.