Sakura could see that Sasuke's cheeks were a bit pink as he walked into the room.
"Sorry," he muttered as he walked in. He felt that he was imposing on her. She shut the door behind him.
"What for?" she replied. "We are teammates again and I'm the only woman on Team Kakashi. It was bound to happen sooner or later anyway. Besides, this is for them."
"I had no idea," said Sasuke.
"Neji, especially, is all business. You would never read something like this from him at any time," Sakura explained. "But I am glad that they are having a night alone together. They have been interested in each other for so long and hardly ever have the opportunity to be alone together."
"I'm sure it's not something Neji would want to flaunt either," added Sasuke. "He has always been so...private."
"Still is," added Sakura. "That part about him has never changed. "So consider yourself one of the few who even has an inkling about the way they feel towards one another. There...now you know something many others don't know. Feel better?"
"I wonder how far...," Sasuke started but stopped mid-sentence. "Nevermind."
"No...what?" Sakura prodded.
"I said nevermind. It was just the hormones talking," he explained.
"How far they've gotten?" asked Sakura. "Don't worry, there are plenty of hormones to go around within all the teams. Every time the girls get together, all we ever talk about is crushes and dating and men and..."
She didn't get an opportunity to finish her sentence though. Sasuke turned and aggressively planted a short but passionate kiss on her lips. Unfortunately for her, she sort of just froze, her eyes open very wide. Sasuke pulled away to look at her reaction. Sakura just stared at him, dumbfounded for a few seconds.
"Well, that wasn't the reaction I was expecting," he said with a nervous giggle.
Sakura leaned over and picked a pillow up off of the bed. She swung it hard and hit his midsection with it.
"Ow!" he playfully shouted.
"And exactly what response were you expecting?!" she said. She was half-serious, but half-playful at the same time.
Sasuke picked up a second pillow and started hitting Sakura with it. She, of course, continued to hit him back. The room filled with screams and laughter as the pillow fight continued for a minute or two.
"Time-out!" Sakura shouted breathlessly and flopped onto the bed. Sasuke threw his pillow into a corner of the room before flopping down right next to her.
At first they simply stayed silent, trying to catch their breath.
"Sasuke?" she finally said. "Remember when we played like this all the time - the three of us?"
"Hm...yeah. It was long time ago though when we were still genin doing the easier missions. We've definitely grown up since then," he replied.
"So many responsibilities...," Sakura added. She looked at him and smiled. "Sometimes it is nice to be silly like that with someone you like though."
Sasuke looked into her emerald-green eyes. She was staring at him...now he was staring back. He leaned in to kiss her once again, but then he heard a loud thump from the room next to theirs...it startled him.
Sakura looked quickly at the wall - the source of the sound. "I guess they're happy," she said. She was truly happy for her two shinobi friends.
"It sure sounds like it," said Sasuke. They heard another thump.
They briefly looked at one another again. This time it was Sakura who put her hand under the side of Sasuke's jaw and leaned into him for the kiss. This kiss was all what their first kiss should have been...slow, passionate, wet, and long.
Ultimately, Sakura was the one who broke it. She pulled away and looked into his eyes for a few seconds. She leaned in again to put her head gently on his shoulder. They laid down and got comfortable for the remainder of the night just like that...with Sakura laying on Sasuke's shoulder and with Sasuke placing his arm around her and holding her. Neither one talked of anything else that whole night. They just basked in the comfort of being with each other. They could tell that, as informal as being a couple started for them, that their relationship was definitely headed in the right direction.
OlOlOlOlOlO
A few days later, Team Gai and the remnants of Team Kakashi headed back to the Leaf. Arizuma village was mostly built from wood and stone, so rebuilding most of it was a simple task. Sakura had found that the medical inventory was completely intact. It seemed that the missing nin had foolishly spent most of their time terrorizing the town rather than going directly for the goods themselves. If they had ignored the villagers and had just ransacked the hidden storage units, chances are they would have been much more successful.
Sakura was the one chosen to report to the Hokage about the success of mission. Gai had convinced her to do so even though he technically was the leader of the mission after Kakashi left. He wasn't particularly fond of giving formal reports to the likes of the Hokage, and he figured that since Sakura was her student and would be back in Hokage tower anyway, it would just be easier if she gave the report for him.
Sakura reported to Tsunade the day they had arrived back in Konoha. Tsunade had already heard from Kakashi about the three prisoners he and Naruto had brought back with him a few days ago, but now Sakura could fill in any blanks about what had happened after Kakashi and Naruto had left the Arizuma.
Once Sakura finished speaking, Tsunade just sat there at her desk for about a minute looking at her. Her hands were folded in front of her and she stared as if she was processing everything her student had just told her.
"M'Lady?" Sakura uttered when she had finally reached the breaking point of standing there in front of the leader of the village in complete silence.
"Team Gai and Kakashi did an excellent job with the mission. Just as I would have expected, you all exercised the proper tactic of assuming there was an enemy instead of assuming there wasn't one. It may have saved your lives," Tsunade said back to her pupil.
"Thank you, M'Lady," said Sakura. "I will pass that along to the two team leads."
Sakura turned to walk out of Tsunade's office. "Hold on a minute. I'm not done yet," said Tsunade before Sakura was out of her sight.
"Hm?" Sakura questioned.
"I'm not sure how to say this, so I'm just going to come out and say it. Did something else happen while you were on the mission?" the Hokage asked.
"Like what?" asked Sakura.
"Your chakra...it's a bit different today. At first, when you first walked in here, the change was bothering me. But I don't think it's anything bad. I was just wondering...you don't have to..."
Sakura smiled at her sensei. "I can't hide anything from you, can I?" She paused to turn and face the blonde strongwoman once again. "Sasuke and I are getting...close."
"Sakura, you mean...?" asked Tsunade.
"No, not like that," Sakura quickly corrected. She knew her mentor was a drinker and a gambler, but didn't think she was pervert enough to delve into her sex life. "It's just...just like when two people are naturally drawn to one another... We just keep finding ourselves becoming better friends and, every so often, something is said or done that is just sweet or telling or..." Sakura sighed. "It's actually kind of hard to explain."
Now it was Tsunade's turn to smile at Sakura. "I know what you mean. Sakura, my child, I think you are in love. I mean, really in love. Consider yourself lucky because it doesn't happen to everyone - and when it does, it doesn't always last."
Sakura was happy with the way things were going. But then, she felt just a slight pang of guilt - her mind drifted to the memory that Tsunade was also in love once. She had lost Dan so, so many years ago.
"Cultivate it and treasure it," said Tsunade. "Dismissed."
Sakura turned to leave once again.
"Don't forget to remind your boyfriend he needs to come see me," Tsunade said as an afterthought as Sakura exited the room.
OlOlOlOlOlO
Sakura and all of the shinobi who had just returned from the mission to Arizuma had the next two days off to rest and recover. Now that she was done with her report, she started to walk back to her place just out of habit. However, when she got half way there, she decided that she could use a little company and made her way towards Naruto's place instead.
Sakura knocked on Naruto and Sasuke's door. No one answered. Where could they be?
She had been looking forward to seeing Sasuke, though knew Naruto was an excellent and not too obvious reason to do so. Damn.
As she descended the stairs coming out of Naruto's building, she weighed her choices from there. Ino's place, shopping, training, eating, the hospital... What did she feel like doing?
Sakura was the type who didn't like sitting still for too long. She always had to have a plan and always liked to be doing something. Perhaps I will do some light training after all. No jutsu...just some yoga and stretching.
To Sakura's surprise, as she neared the usual training area that Team Kakashi usually used, she heard some loud battle-like sounds.
As she neared the grounds, she could clearly see what was going on. It was Sasuke and Kakashi sparring with one another. From the look of it, they were not holding much back. She stood there and watched intently and with interest, trying not to distract or interrupt by being there.
Sasuke and Kakashi were matched well - both had variants of chidori and both had a sharingan. As a result, Sakura could see they were both trying to use methods not normally employed by each of them to try to take the other person by surprise.
The spar was very loud. Sakura looked around and saw that several other shinobi had come to watch. It wasn't long, however, before the stalemate was broken when Sasuke had somehow thrown Kakashi to the ground. He lay there on his back, kunai held to his throat.
"Yield," said Kakashi.
Sasuke stood up and gave Kakashi a hand in getting up off the ground.
"I was hoping that was just a spar," said Sakura.
"So quick to think I had turned against the village again, Sakura," Sasuke quipped.
The look she gave him as a response could have killed most men.
"Uh, Sakura, would you mind...?" Kakashi asked of their team medic, nodding towards a deep gash on his left arm.
"Sure, Kakashi-sensei," she replied and got right to work on him. "So what brought this on?" Sakura asked. "We just got home from a mission. I thought for sure you would both be resting."
"Not my style," answered Sasuke. "Besides, Naruto was going out for the rest of the day and if Kakashi was going to babysit me anyway, I thought it would be time best spent training."
"Where did Naruto go?" asked Sakura.
"Does the name 'Hinata' ring a bell?" asked Sasuke.
"Oh, I see," she answered knowingly.
"Hey, I'm going to go take a shower and cleaned up. Sakura, would you mind taking over?" asked Kakashi now examining his newly healed arm.
"Sure," said Sakura catching the hint that she was now the babysitter.
"Sorry," said Sasuke, feeling he was putting her out yet again.
"Don't be," she replied. "I sort of wanted to see what you were up to anyway. What was this all about? Just training, my ass."
"Kakashi suggested we go one-on-one, no holds barred," answered Sasuke. "I think he wanted to know what I was really capable of."
"No holds barred? Are you two crazy?" asked Sakura.
Sasuke laughed. "Well, no holds barred except...no destruction of the village allowed," he clarified.
"I see," she giggled at him.
"Let's go back to Naruto's place. I also need a shower...badly," he said.
"Oh, I forgot...," started Sakura.
"What's?" he asked.
"Lady Tsunade said something about you two meeting when I gave her the mission report," said Sakura.
"Ah, that's right," he replied. "I do need to see her."
"Does any time work better for you?" she asked. "I can make an appointment the next time I am there."
"Nope, the only conflicts I might have are missions and training. She is the one assigning me missions, so there should be no conflict there and I don't think Kakashi would care if I missed a training day for the Hokage," said Sasuke.
"Ok, I'll let you know the arrangements when I make them," she replied.
"So what do you want to do the rest of the day?" Sasuke asked.
"My heart isn't set on anything," replied Sakura. Other than spending it with you.
"Let's go on a real date then," he replied.
"A d-date?" she replied.
"Yeah, let's go have some fun," he said.