At Gaara's words a strange look crossed Sakura's face – relief, mingled with distrust.
"You, end the war willingly? You think I'm a fool, don't you? To win me would be just another victory in war to you. I'll accept your surrender, but only because I'm tired of being at war. My pride and my head tell me not to trust you, Gaara, and maybe I wouldn't listen to either of them if not for my mother happening to agree with them. You said it yourself, 'veni, vidi, vici.' I won." Sakura pushed Gaara off of her and gave him a contemptuous glare, "Did you really think I'd trust so easily, after Sasuke?"
Gaara's eyes glittered angrily, "When will you accept that I am not your precious Uchiha?"
"I have no liking for any Uchiha, Gaara. Look at this from my perspective. I have only just recently come out of a relationship that was false, where I was being used. You, a guy who has hurt me in the past out of boredom, claim that you want to be with me. Why should I believe you? Better yet, why would I agree to a relationship with someone who doesn't even want to be with me?"
"How many times do I have to say it before you believe me?" Gaara said heatedly, indignant colour rising in his cheeks, "I want to be with you!"
"Why?" Sakura retorted, "Because, in your twisted little mind, me being your girlfriend would mean I would never kiss anyone else. How romantic. Did it ever cross your mind that if we were in a relationship, it wouldn't just be about you and your needs? I want more than you do. If I said yes now, I would be miserable in a one-sided relationship."
Gaara made a violent movement with his hands, he squashed the gesture quickly but it looked as though he had restrained himself from grabbing her out of anger.
"And that's another thing," Sakura pounced, "Your anger issues. Every time I see you your knuckles are bruised and scraped, you always get into fights, you –"
"I got this," Gaara interrupted, raising his fist, "Defending you."
"What?" Sakura said, momentarily distracted from the matter at hand.
"Some guy took offense to you putting him in detention, so I punched him." Gaara said casually.
Sakura rubbed at her forehead, frustrated, "Another thing," She said exasperatedly, "What makes you think I need defending?"
"You seem to always get into trouble." Gaara said stubbornly.
"Well yes, if a maniac with a knife ever comes at me, feel free to go psycho on him, but not random students! Especially when all they've done is badmouth me."
"He called you a slut," Gaara said, his voice low and menacing, "I didn't appreciate it, and told him so."
"With your fist?" Sakura raised her eyebrows, "You once called me a slut too, remember, albeit in note-form and through someone else – you must tell me how you did that, by the way."
Gaara simply shrugged, his eyes still glued to her own.
Sakura sighed, "Look, Gaara… I'm not going to embarrass myself here but… you remember what I said to you in the bathroom. Forget what I said. My feelings right now are irrelevant. Of course I want to be with you, but I would just get hurt later on, wouldn't I? For whatever reason you want this," Sakura made a vague, sweeping gesture to her body, "And I want this." She pointed to the centre of Gaara's chest, above his heart, "It wouldn't be fair on either of us. We want different things."
Having successfully talked herself out of a relationship with the guy she loved deeply, Sakura took a deep breath and turned away.
She walked through the roof's door, shut it carefully and collapsed in front of it, her head in her hands.
She pretended she couldn't hear Gaara angrily smashing up the roof's storage boxes on the other side of the door.
She had wanted to say yes so badly… But whenever she considered, a tiny, logical voice in her head piped up.
Didn't she deserve more than kisses? Didn't she deserve love?
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Sakura sat in the middle of stacks of paper, absently stamping some and merely glancing at others. Her mind was full of thoughts of how angry Gaara had looked after she rejected him.
Mostly, she cursed her idiocy and wished she could run back to him and beg him to take her back. How ridiculous she was! She had never liked someone as much as she liked Gaara… she liked him so much it scared her. She had not even liked Sasuke this much. But that was the problem. She had been so badly hurt by Sasuke, her trust so utterly broken that she was frightened about how she'd feel if Gaara ever hurt her like that too.
She was also afraid Gaara's sudden request that they get together was merely checkmate in his war, that, as he had previously implied, he viewed her as a 'conquest' to be won, not a person to be loved.
White flashed past her eyes as paper cascaded to the floor.
Sakura blinked. She had knocked down a pile of paper that she had been marking. Damn.
"Sakura?" Kurenai said, sounding concerned, "Are you alright?"
"Because you've been stamping the same piece of paper over and over again for half an hour." Kakashi said bluntly, coming over to stand next to her. He felt her forehead gingerly, "No fever. You aren't ill then. So what's up?"
Sakura batted away his hand impatiently, "Nothing, I'm fine. I'm fine."
She knew from the looks of horror and shock on the teachers' faces that she was crying.
She'd been crying more and more lately. She blamed Gaara completely.
"I'm fine." She insisted, wiping her eyes and giving them a watery smile, "I'm just being stupid."
The teachers all looked at each other over Sakura's head.
"Pub?" Genma suggested.
"She's not old enough to drink." Kurenai pointed out.
"…So?" Genma shrugged.
"I don't see the problem." Kakashi seemed baffled.
Anko nodded sagely.
"So, we aren't taking one of our underage students out to get drunk." Kurenai glared at them all.
"I wouldn't go even if you paid me." Sakura said bluntly, but with a smile.
"Sakura!" Ino said suddenly, her head poking around the staffroom's door, her expression desperate, "There's a food fight going on in the cafeteria!"
The teachers all looked at Sakura.
She leapt to her feet.
"Out of my way," She said impatiently when Genma tripped in her direction.
As she left, she turned back and aimed a dazzling smile at the teachers.
"Thanks for cheering me up." She said gratefully, disappearing through the door.
Kakashi smiled under his mask.
"OK, let's go then." Sakura said determinedly, putting on her no-nonsense face and girding her metaphorical loins. Food fights could get dangerous.
"Go where?" Ino looked confused.
"The food fi- you were totally lying, weren't you?" Sakura said flatly, disappointed. She had been preparing to wade knee-deep through cafeteria food to collar the students and put the fear of God into them.
"Duh," Ino rolled her eyes, "The only way to get your attention is to fake a disaster. I needed to ask you a few questions and I couldn't do that when you were busy being the teachers' bitch."
"I'm not the teachers' bitch." Sakura denied, "But ask away."
"What the fuck is going on between you and Gaara?" Ino demanded.
Sakura paused, "…We're friends." She said delicately.
"Bullshit." Ino raised one pale eyebrow, "You ran away from him!"
"A misunderstanding." Sakura shrugged.
Ino grabbed Sakura's forearms lightly and looked into her eyes, "Hey, Sakura. Stop lying to me. Tell me, what happened?"
Sakura huffed and shook off her friend's grip. She could see that Ino was in no mood to be lied to.
Sakura told her everything, about how she loved Gaara, how he'd asked her out, how she'd said no, how she regretted it…
"Oh, Sakura." Ino sighed when her friend began to cry, "You are very good at not allowing yourself what you want, aren't you?"
She pulled her into a gentle hug and stroked her hair.
"You need to get over this martyr complex," Ino said sternly, ignoring Sakura's muffled protests, "Stop thinking logically! Teenagers don't think before they do things, they just do them, they go out, they have fun, they get their hearts broken and they grow up. If you like Gaara and he asked you out, you should have just said yes. You don't have to plan everything. Life isn't an exam. You can't study and prepare for every possibility. You've just got to suck it up and go for it. Ask him out. Do it!"
"I already got my heart broken," Sakura complained, "I don't want to –"
"Stop whining Sakura! Do you know how many guys have broken up with me? Tons. Do you know how many times I went home to cry and eat shedloads of ice cream? Too many times. Do you know how long it took me to get over those guys? The time it takes to consume a tub of chocolate brownie ice cream. Not long. Don't stress out about getting heartbroken. It sucks getting hurt but you'll never be happy if you don't give anyone a chance to make you unhappy." Ino said wisely, then wrinkled her nose, "I think I kind of lost my point there somewhere."
"Gaara doesn't love me, Ino." Sakura said, looking at her friend steadily.
"Then why's he asking you out?"
"Because," Sakura blushed, "He… likes.. um… kissing me."
"So, he likes you?"
"No…"
"… I don't get it."
"Look, all he wants is to kiss me and all I want is to be with him. But I don't think I should go out with someone who doesn't care about me like I care about them."
"He wants to be with you, you want to be with him… just give it a go, Sakura. Maybe it'll suck, maybe he'll break your heart. Maybe he won't." Ino looked oddly serious for a moment, and Sakura wondered if she was speaking from experience.
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"She said no." Gaara snapped at Shikamaru who had been just about to ask that question. He grimaced.
Gaara was charging through the school hallway with Shikamaru hot on his heels .
"Did she say why?"
"She said I didn't love her and that we wanted different things." Gaara said impatiently.
"Did you tell her you love her?" Shikamaru asked.
Gaara gave him an odd look, "No, of course not."
"Right," Shikamaru said resolutely.
He shoved Gaara against the lockers. He hit the metal with a bang, his eyes wide with shock.
"Do you love Sakura?" Shikamaru asked, his face set in a determined scowl.
"Shikamaru, what're you doing –" Gaara snarled, bucking forwards to try to dislodge Shikamaru's grip on his shirt.
"Making you see sense! You love Sakura! From the first day you saw her you told me you wanted her to smile at you, you started a bloody war to get her attention, you hate Sasuke for meaning something to her, you nearly castrated Kankuro when he threatened to ask out Sakura, you've kissed her three times… need I go on? Tell her you love her!" Shikamaru pushed Gaara a little harder into the lockers to emphasise his words.
Gaara was giving him the mother of all death glares but he didn't move to push Shikamaru away, which spoke volumes about how fond he was of the lazy teen.
"I don't love anyone." Gaara said coldly.
"Listen to me, Gaara," Shikamaru said darkly, "I've known Sakura a very long time. She's a good friend of mine. She's done a lot for me. If you keep insisting you don't love Sakura but keep going after her, don't expect me to give you anymore advice 'cause it seems like you don't listen to it anyway."
Gaara seemed to lose patience and pushed Shikamaru away with enough ease to immediately emasculate Shikamaru.
"I know I don't want her to be with anyone else. I want to be with her at all times. I want to protect her. I hate the Uchiha for hurting her. I'm afraid of hurting her." Gaara couldn't seem to finish and just put a hand over his eyes like the lights of the hallway hurt them.
"And you don't think that's love?" Shikamaru asked gently.
"I don't know." Gaara looked up at him and for a moment Shikamaru could clearly see the helplessness there.
"Well, in my opinion, Gaara, you love her." Shikamaru said simply.
He could see the inner struggle going on in Gaara just by the look on his face, panicked and confused. Gaara didn't like not knowing what to do.
"My father told me love is weak." Gaara whispered.
Shikamaru breathed in deeply. Throttling the Kazekage wouldn't help anyone, no matter how satisfying it would be.
"I love your sister," Shikamaru said calmly, "And I'm pretty sure she loves me. Does that make us weak?"
Gaara looked confused.
"No, it doesn't." Shikamaru smiled, "And you don't care about what your father thinks, do you?"
Gaara thought about it. Back in his father's office, he'd already made his choice. He'd basically said to his father that he would pick Sakura over any other girl. Had he loved her even then? Did he love her now? He cared, he knew that. If anyone ever hurt Sakura…. Well, Sasuke was lucky Sakura didn't want Gaara to do anything because if she did… Sasuke would have lost the use of his legs the moment he made Sakura cry.
He didn't want Sakura to be with anyone else, he didn't even want to smile at anyone else, let alone kiss them…
Love.
If he ever loved anyone, it would be Sakura.
Being her boyfriend would mean being by her side at all times, being the only person allowed to kiss her, knowing she cared about him too…
She had been right, in a way. The first time he'd kissed her, it had been because of a vague idea he'd had that he could win the war by winning her affection, but the only reason he'd thought of the idea was because he had wanted nothing more than to kiss her every time she came up to him, eyes flashing with righteous indignation and a ferocious scowl on her pretty face.
"I've upset her, haven't I." Gaara said, not asking a question. He knew he had. The fierce ice queen, so controlled and self-assured, had cried when he rejected her. Little girl tears, shoulder shuddering, face screwed up…
"Well, yeah," Shikamaru said, a little annoyed, "You kissed her three times and then refused to admit it meant anything to you when it meant the world to her."
"And I took her first kiss." Gaara said gloomily, feeling a little guilty, but soon perked up at the memory. To think he'd been so worried the Uchiha had kissed her first! He felt very pleased with himself.
Shikamaru gave him an odd look, "No you didn't, I did."
Gaara froze. He slowly turned to look at his friend, who seemed to realise his mistake when he looked into Gaara's eyes and saw the pure fury on his face.
"You did what?" Gaara said dangerously.
"I was joking!" Shikamaru waved his hands wildly to signal his remorse, "Really!"
Gaara glared at him suspiciously for a while before turning away.
Shikamaru gave a sigh of relief the moment Gaara removed his death glare from his face. Shikamaru clutched at his heart, feeling rather faint. Admitting he'd once kissed Sakura to Gaara was now listed in the back of his mind as 'a good way to get yourself killed.'
Besides, they'd been so young when they'd kissed that Sakura had promptly forgotten it had ever happened. And Shikamaru had only been in love with her for about, oh, two years and five months, but, judging by the murderous glint in Gaara's eye, he so didn't need to know any of that.
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Sakura trudged home slowly, the snow seeping through her thin shoes as she walked.
Ino had banned her from wearing any form of plaid, glasses, clunky shoes or unflattering blouses to school, so she was forced to wear her favourite clothes at home and dress up as Ino for school. She still felt like she was going trick or treating dressed as a pretty girl every time she got ready for school.
She had gratefully whipped on her thick, black glasses and tied her hair back with the traditional yellow ribbon the moment she left school. She usually wore contacts but it was nice to give her eyes a rest every now and then and just wear glasses.
She had long since passed the street where Sasuke had picked her up in his ridiculous car that probably cost more than slavers would pay for her and her entire extended family. It still hurt to remember that day, because she could see now how Sasuke had been manipulating her, getting her to confess about what really happened between her and Ino, acting like he wanted to be her friend for Naruto's sake… God, he really was a liar, wasn't he?
How could she have been fooled so easily?
If she ever went out with Gaara, she knew there would always be a voice in the back of her mind, warning her that he was up to no good, that he was just using her, that one day she'd receive a call from Kankuro or someone that would tell her she'd been a gullible fool once again.
She didn't think she could take Gaara turning out just like Sasuke.
She turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door to her house.
"I'm home." She said unenthusiastically, her shoulders drooping in sadness and her eyes weary.
"Sakura?" Her mother called from the living room.
Sakura could smell coffee and could have kissed her mother, she so needed a caffeine boost right now.
Her smile was weak but it was there. She entered the living room, eager for some coffee to perk her up.
Gaara sat on her sofa, sipping coffee with her mother.
Sakura dropped her school bag and gaped at him, sitting casually with her mother, holding his mug elegantly as though he was sipping champagne, as out of place as a bear having a nice chat with her mother.
"Gaara?" Sakura said, stunned.
He looked up, his eyes connecting with hers. She ignored the jolt in her stomach she felt at the eye contact.
"Gaara-san was just telling me how you two are great friends." Her mother said conversationally, raising her eyebrows at her daughter as if to say, are you really friends with a boy who wears this much eyeliner?
"Oh, we're the best of friends, Mum." Sakura said, trying to hide her scowl. From the delighted gleam in Gaara's eyes, he was well aware she didn't want him to be there.
"That's nice." Sakura's mother beamed. You could almost feel the glee she felt at her daughter having a proper friend come round her house, like a normal teenager who socialised with people, not just homework.
"I've made you both some sandwiches, you can eat them in your room but I want the door open and no crumbs on the floor." Her mother said, giving Sakura a look that said that she wouldn't stand for any misbehaving.
Sakura begrudgingly headed upstairs to her bedroom, highly conscious of Gaara's presence behind her, a light tread on her stairs, his expensive shoes scuffing against the faded, old carpet.
They reached her bedroom. Sakura nearly groaned when she remembered the sign her father had put up proudly on her door after she received six As in a row, saying 'Genius At Work.' She'd never been able to take it down, even after he left.
Gaara felt the letters of the sign softly, smirking.
Sakura scowled and pushed open the door. Gaara followed her in and stopped dead at the sight of her room.
Posters adorned every inch of the walls of her bedroom, to the point where it was almost impossible to see what colour the walls were. Page after page of revision notes were pinned up, phrases here and there repeated. Most of the furniture was adorned with cheerful little hints – historical facts on her bed like 'World War One, 1914-1918 and World War Two, 1939-1945,' and a sign on her television saying 'terebi,' just in case she ever took up Japanese as a hobby.
She had an entire bookcase dedicated to study guides, books on how to revise properly, books on how to survive being a teenager, books on famous Student Body Presidents, books that she wouldn't need for another two or three years….
The revision she had done last night – to her shame – still lay on her desk in piles, about twenty pages of her scribbled notes on whether or not the Ghost in Hamlet really was his poor, murdered father. In her haste to get ready for school that morning she'd not had time to tidy up and now her manic revision notes lay there in all their glory.
Gaara slowly looked around the room, eyes wide.
He picked up some of her revision notes and peered at them. He put them down just as quickly, apparently not able to understand them.
He gawped at all of the shiny trophies, awards, plaques, certificates and other academic triumphs that adorned her room.
"This is me, I guess." Sakura said awkwardly.
Gaara turned to look at her.
"You really do work harder than anyone else, don't you?" He said, his expression inscrutable.
She gave a self-conscious little shrug.
Gaara stared at her for a full minute, just drinking in the little details that made her who she was, the unfashionably thick glasses, the girlish ribbon in her hair, the little-girl cardigan teamed with a tight black shirt obviously borrowed from Ino, she was a Student Body President from her neatly brushed hair to her perfectly shined shoes…
…and he loved her for it.
"I've met your mother now." Gaara said suddenly.
Sakura looked confused, not sure what he was getting at, "Yeah, so?"
"I already sit next to you in class. You've come to my house and made friends with my family," He walked closer towards her, eyes never leaving her face. She stumbled back a bit nervously, "I spend all my time with you."
"Those were the things you said you wanted me to do if I was your boyfriend. I've done them."
"You told me you wanted to go out with someone who loved you and would offer you more than kisses," Gaara was so close now she could smell the familiar tang of cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes, see every smear of eyeliner on his eyes and feel his every breath on her skin.
"I love you." Gaara said simply, his forehead touching hers lightly. Sakura felt his hands gently take her own.
They stood there for a moment in the middle of her bedroom, holding hands, staring into each other's eyes. Gaara's expression was content, Sakura's was shocked happiness.
And then Sakura let go of his hands and took hold of his face, feeling his body heat melt into hers.
"I love you too." She said, her voice cracking a little with emotion.
They kissed then, Gaara's hands on the small of her back like they belonged there, hers entangled in his hair. The kiss was a mixture of need and relief, with Sakura choking back her happy sobs and Gaara trying not to smirk too much.
When they finally pulled away from each other, Gaara's eyes a little darker than usual and Sakura's cheeks were wet with tears, Gaara leant back with a creak of his leather jacket and smirked down at Sakura.
"So…? Will you go out with me now?" Gaara asked, mentally inserted the word finally, because it felt like the whole bloody war had been leading up to this and now that he looked back on it, he could see that it had. He'd started the war just to get her attention, and because she pissed him off, then everything he did was more to show off to her, then he wanted her to like him and him alone (no damn Uchiha interfering).
"OK," Sakura whispered with a grin, "I surrender too."
Um, don't cry yet, cause believe it or not, it's totally not over, lol! I don't know how many chapters are after this… I have more ideas, but not that many!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Quick poll for fun: Who has the skills and potential to be a badass, yet is never allowed to be in canon?
A) Hinata
B) Sakura
C) Tenten
D) Other! Let me know!