Notes: I felt I short-changed Sai with how short his appearance was, not to mention the fact that he had no dialogue, so I thought he could make another appearance.

I think it's worth mentioning that the tone of the chapters shifts according to Sasuke's mood. I hope that makes sense.

To Guest: I shall take that under advisement.

Sai II

When the storm hit, it came like a battering ram; hard, loud and fast. It should have been impossible for so much rain to pour down so quickly in such a short amount of time, but it had.

Staring out of the slightly dusty window, he could see people huddled together under umbrellas, jackets and newspapers (and for one peculiar man, a trash can lid), all rushing to get out of the downpour before they got too wet.

This time the previous year, he recalled that it had been a warm and pleasant day. He remembered because he had spent the day watching shitty day-time television in his underwear. He was glad he had decided to do his training earlier in the morning, because Kakashi would have insisted they continue despite the rain out of sheer spite.

"So, I recently got back from Mist." a face, very pale, paler even than his own, shifted back into his line of vision, small droplets of water still clinging to the white cheeks. "You ever been to Mist?"

"Sure." He responded shortly, rubbing his thumb over the brim of his cup.

"Really?" the other asked him sceptically, raising an inky brow.

Outside, the storm raged on relentlessly, uncaring for the poor bastards caught in it.

"Oh yeah," he replied, taking a sip from his cup "it's all I ever do." He sighed, wondering how his tea was already lukewarm.

"No need to be like that, I'm trying to make conversation," Sai said passively "you're the one who invited me here."

Dotted around the walls of the small establishment were paintings of different beverages, and every one of them looked as if they had been painted by a small child.

Usually, the place was deathly quiet, due largely to the fact that the tea was horrendous. The drab décor and seemingly endless supply of dust scattered on every surface didn't help matters. It was a wonder the place was still open.

Today though, the place was awash with noise from the people desperately seeking shelter from the storm; desperate enough in fact, they were willing to risk entering the establishment. Clusters of people were hustling onto tables, loudly bemoaning that it was colder inside than it was outside.

Sasuke wholeheartedly agreed, which was why he found his companion's choice of attire and exposed stomach oddly disturbing.

"True," he finally responded, breaking from his own meandering thoughts "but I didn't invite you here for idle chitchat or so we could be pals."

"You're pretty rude, anyone ever tell you that?" the pale teen asked politely, smiling in that odd way he always did when he was speaking to Sasuke.

"It's all I ever hear these days." The Uchiha said acerbically.

"I can't even tell when you're being sarcastic anymore."

"Honestly, neither can I."

"You know I have other things to do, right?" Sai asked, Sasuke was almost certain he was starting to get irritated by the whole conversation.

"One would hope, but I wouldn't know." The Uchiha sarcastically responded.

"Just- what do you want?"

"I need advice."

"So you came to me?" he snickered at the absurdity "God, you must be really desperate."

"I am. Kakashi isn't really speaking to me at the moment."

"Honestly, I wouldn't either if I were him." The other teen said easily, taking a long sip from his own no doubt lukewarm tea.

"Wait, what? What did he tell you?" Sasuke asked suspiciously, realising without any irony that he didn't like the idea of Kakashi and Sai discussing when he wasn't there.

"That you went out and got drunk with Kiba and threw up in his all over his sofa." The dark-haired teen informed him, trying and failing to hide his amusement "Of course he told me, he told everyone."

"Damn it." mumbled, not only annoyed that he had, in fact actually thrown up, but that apparently Kakashi had felt the need to tell Sai of all people. He had been wondering why the older man had been so short with him earlier during their training, but he had concluded that it had been because he had arrived late.

"You need to learn how to hold your liquor." Sai said smugly, shifting slightly in the extremely uncomfortable seats.

"Look, that isn't what I asked you here for."

"Well yes, I figured." He countered without skipping a beat, grinning slightly.

"Shut up. Let me finish."

"Oh please, do go on. I'm on tenterhooks." He said in a tone that suggested he didn't care what Sasuke had to say, and that he had only showed up to irritate the other teen.

"Boy, you are an asshole." Sasuke said, amused "I can see why Naruto likes you."

"Thank you."

"I.." he paused and cleared his throat, trying to remember how important it was to remain calm and polite when seeking advice from others. "Actually, I need to ask you a personal question."

"Oh, really?" Sai quirked a brow in question, no doubt trying to imagine what kind of question he could possibly need to ask that would warrant a meeting in such a drab place.

"Yes, really," Sasuke responded, picking up a sugar packet from the glass container on their shared table and ripping the top left corner to open it. He wondered, briefly, what their meeting would look like to an outside observer. Would people assume it was date?

With their figures huddled in the corner on a small intimate table away from everyone else, his fiddling with his sugar packet nervously, struggling to make conservation; he wouldn't blame anyone for coming to that conclusion. However, he certainly hoped they wouldn't. He unceremoniously dumped all the sugar from the packet into his tea and placed the empty packet on the table.

"So," he continued, folding his hands and placing them on the cold wooden table, finally asking "how did you get Sakura to stop bugging you that time when she thought you had a crush on someone?"

"That's your personal question?" Sai asked, looking at him in a manner that suggested he thought he was being ridiculous.

"Well," Sasuke countered, regarding the other with a blank look "It's personal in that it involves you as a person."

"That might be stretching the definition of the word 'personal'."

"Perhaps, but you should answer anyway." Sasuke said, distinctly unconcerned about whether Sai would classify his question as personal or not.

"What's in it for me?" he asked slyly, smiling at Sasuke smugly "Why should I tell you?"

"You're a prick, you know that?" the Uchiha said without any heat.

"Shall I remind you about our encounter at the flower shop not too long ago?" the paler teen asked smugly, looking for all the world like the cat that caught the canary.

"Come on," Sasuke defended "A joke isn't a joke unless it's at somebody's expense."

"We can talk about that later, right now, we're negotiating terms."

Sasuke wondered, looking at the lilac painted wall just to left of Sai's head, why exactly he was surrounded by sadists.

"What do you want?" he finally asked, shifting his gaze back to the other teen. He silently bemoaned the fact that Sai had carefully schooled his features to a deliberate blank expression so he had no idea what the other was thinking.

"Nothing much," the impossibly pale teen said in a neutral tone "simply tell me who she thinks you have a crush on."

"You play dirty." Sasuke accused, imagining the other teen simply wanted to know so he would have something to blackmail him with at some later date.

"It's all I ever hear these days." He supplied easily, directing Sasuke's earlier words back at him "Do we have a deal?"

Sasuke crossed his arms over his chest, silently weighing his options as Sai went back to nursing his rapidly cooling drink. He thought back to how exactly their last encounter (or most of their encounters really) went down, and found that he highly doubted the teen would keep any information he learned to himself.

Not only that, a part of him, purely on principle, was strongly opposed to discussions of 'crushes' or 'who likes who' as they were by and large extremely juvenile. However, he was really starting to get tired of Sakura nagging him on the topic, and he found he was quite willing to negotiate terms with Sai if it meant getting her to leave him alone about the subject.

"I'll tell you what," he began, uncrossing his arms in a bid to appear less hostile than he felt "I'll let you have three guesses as who you think it might be and if after the third one you haven't got it, you have to answer my question."

The other watched him under hooded eyes, no doubt carefully trying to decipher if there was any trickery to his proposal. The Uchiha merely smirked at him, taking a deliberate sip of his tea and immediately regretting the action. It was cold and sickly sweet to boot. Damn.

"Well, I suppose that could be interesting," Sai responded belatedly, and Sasuke noted an odd that the teen couldn't quite keep from reaching his eyes "Alright, then."

"Alright." The Uchiha intoned.

Sai was right, this would be interesting.

TBC

Starting to feel slightly odd about writing end notes; sort of like the person on the train who holds entire conversations by themselves...