Sasuke meanwhile was back at his house, wondering whether to first take a shower or eat first. He chose the eating but before he could begin, there was a knock on his door. Not surprisingly exactly, it was Ino carrying a container.

"Hey Sasuke, I just thought you might be hungry after your mission so I made you something."

Sasuke received only about a million of these presents each day from various fangirls (or 10, depending on which sounds more reasonable), but Ino had had the intelligence to time her entrance at just the right time, he had just finished his mission and was about to eat, plus he had become much more friends with Ino in the past few days. So he received it with pleasure. He was feeling so generous that he said

"Thanks Ino-chan, I really needed that, why don't you sit down a while?"

Ino was surprised at this sudden hospitality, but she allowed herself to be led onto a stool where she sat watching Sasuke open his present - , all the while thinking He called me Ino-chan...He called me Ino-chan over and over again. Then Sasuke got out two plates and sets of cutlery and put a set next to Ino.

"Let's have it together shall we?"

In the past few days Ino's ecstasy over Sasuke had calmed down a bit, but now she felt it stir inside her again. But she realized that Sasuke had in the past been driven off by her craziness over him and she was careful not to show it.

"Thanks Sasuke-kun, that's great!" she managed not to shout, though she still couldn't really keep the excitement from her voice.

As they ate, Sasuke found himself studying Ino for the first time. Sure, she had been just another troublesome fan girl before, but she seemed to have gotten the initial craziness, and she looked much more pretty when she wasn't either fawning over him or fighting over him, and her short hair really suited her a lot more than the long had. She didn't have her usual sickly sweet smile and voice around him anymore, she now just treated him like a normal friend, and that was something he had to give her credit for. She was almost the only one who did so except for Temari, and he had kind of given up on her mainly due to the fact that she had almost totally ignored him and got herself obsessed with Shikamaru instead.

Suddenly their eyes met, and they turned away hurriedly, both blushing, embarrassed at being caught looking. For the first time Sasuke felt a leap in his heart that had nothing to do with any medical condition whatsoever. As Ino was about to leave, Sasuke felt the leap in his heart again. Without thinking he called out

"Ino-chan..."

"Yes, Sasuke-kun?"

Crap what do I say now? he thought, his mind turning furiously.

"Uh...I..uh...just wanted to thank you again for the food!" he made up on the spot.

"You're welcome. That's what friends are for, isn't it?"

Is that all you think of me? He was thinking Maybe I ignored her for too long, maybe she doesn't really like me anymore. He realized that he actually liked Ino more than anyone else.

"Uh...Ino-chan, there's a dance coming up in two days dedicated to the late third Hokage, do you...uh...do you want to go as my partner?" He said it unemotionally but there was no doubt what he meant.

Ino felt the fire of her love for Sasuke burn up higher than ever before, and it spread a warm feeling (thank you Cassian my younger brother for getting me addicted to warm feelings) through her body.

"Of course, Sasuke-kun, since you asked it."

Ino smiled and left, and Sasuke was left with his heart beating harder than when he had trained with Kakashi for five hours straight, and then had accidentally taken a look at his hentai book. Maybe not too much harder though.