Dreams are Dreams
Chapter two
By cocoa-latte

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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After Sakura sat down her assigned seat next to Ino-pig, she pulled out her day bag from the baggage rack. She unzipped the front of her bag and pulled out her magazine. She flipped through the few pages of advertisements and quickly scanned through the table of contents. Nothing in particular caught her eye.

Sakura could hear the muffled voice of Kakashi, "Put on your seatbelts children! Remember, safety first!"

Sakura clenched her fists together and had a strong urge to go up to Kakashi and punch his eyes out. She sunk deeper in her seat knowing that she wasn't even half as strong as Kakashi, she wasn't anywhere close.

Her head turned when she heard the deep annoyed voice of Shikamaru. "Mendou Kuse," muttered Shikamaru. It was so typical of him to say that. Sakura caught Ino rolling her pretty blue eyes.

"Ne, Sakura-chan!" said the bubbly blond haired boy, quickly getting Sakura's attention. Sakura gave a small smile and nodded. "I wonder where we're going! I hope it's somewhere nice and warm with palm trees, and pretty tropical flowers, with nice blue water..." It was then that Sakura started to tuned out.

Ten minutes later, Naruto was still talking, on and on and on… Sakura was starting to feel a headache coming. Maybe it was Naruto's chatter, or maybe it was just the unstableness of the plane. "Naruto," began Sakura, cutting Naruto off. "I'm not feeling so well. Maybe we can talk later."

Naruto agreed, feeling slightly disappointed and sat back down on his seat, beside Sasuke-baka.

Sakura's eyes started to get blurry. She closed her eyes and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

A few hours later

Sakura woke with a start as the plane gave another lurch. Sakura groaned and rolled over on her seat and faced the window. She hated planes; there was never anything to do. Well, nothing that she wanted to do. The chatter and laughter of the Konoha chuunins and other strangers surrounded her. She took out some Tylenol and swallowed it with great difficulty along with some water, hoping to clear her killer headache.

Ino turned around to face Sakura. "You wanna play big two?" asked Ino, holding a small pack of cards. "No thanks," said Sakura meekly. Ino sighed and tried to recruit others to join, for a game of big two.

The twelve chuunins hopped off of the small plane, along with their sensei's and looked around their surrounding incredulously. Snow, snow and more snow, with dark green fir trees everywhere. Their thin jackets certainly did not help with the cold. Ten Ten wrapped her blue jacket around herself, attempting to keep warm, but failing. 'So much for somewhere warm with palm trees and clear blue water.'

"Skiing!" said Kakashi enthusiastically while looking down upon the doubtful chuunins.

"Ano sa, Ano sa! I wanted go somewhere nice and sunny though!" shouted the blond haired chuunins, making everyone wince. "Instead, we're stuck here!"

"Mendou kuse…" muttered a very annoyed Shikamaru again. He threw his head back and watched the low clouds pass slowly by. A few short moments passed, Shikamaru, still watching the clouds, and the air thick with tension. 'I rather watch the clouds all day long then to be here stuck with Ino…' thought the chestnut haired chuunins. The sky seemed slightly hazy, yet he could still see the sun clearly.

Shikamaru thoughts abruptly ended when a certain long blond hair kunoichi prodded him hard on his back. "Get moving, you're not really going to stand here all day watching the clouds are you?" said Ino, her voice made him wince. Shikamaru didn't say anything. He tried hard not to look into those pretty eyes of hers. Wait… where did that come from?

Ino sighed, sometimes; she wished she didn't even know Shikamaru. Ino's eyes started to wander, and landed on Sasuke. She had to admit. Well, she had always admitted this, but he was irresistibly hot, his character wasn't that hot, but his appearance sure was. She looked at his cold onyx eyes, she followed his gaze, and it lead her straight to Sakura. An evil smirk crept up on Ino's face…

Later

Sakura was carefully refolding her clothes from her suitcase to the drawers. She was apparently sharing a room with who else? Ino. Ino was nowhere to be seen. In fact, she hadn't seen anyone for a while. A shriek filled the air. The noise was coming from outside. Sakura treaded over Ino's suitcase and looked outside the window. The air was thick with flying snowballs.

A large smiled plastered over her face as she grabbed her warm jacket from the coat rack and headed out the large door. Splat a perfectly round fluffy snowball nearly missed her head and hit the nearby window, making the glass shake.

"Ne! Sakura-chaaan, come join us!" cried Naruto.

"Sure!" replied Sakura, gladly accepting the invitation. Soon enough, the small snowball fight that consisted of Ino, Ten Ten, Naruto, and Shikamaru, became a snowball war when Chouji, Hinata, Kiba, Rock Lee, and even Sasuke and Neji joined in.

They quickly decided that it'd be Girls versus Guys. Although the guys had the advantage with seven boys whereas the girls only had four, the girls were still wining, due to Ten Ten's amazing aim.

Shikamaru ducked as another snowball came flying, he didn't duck fast enough, for the large snowball hit him squarely in the back. "Nani? What was that for?" asked the annoyed Shikamaru. Ino sighed, "It is a snowball figh-war. Is it not?"

Hinata formed a snowball and threw it attentively at Kiba. Lucky for Kiba as he quickly ducked with his quick reflexes, it hit Naruto on the back of his head. Hinata watched horrified as the snowball exploded on and stuck onto Naruto's spiky blond hair. "I-I'm s-so sorry N-Naruto-kun!" stuttered Hinata, the fear evident in her voice. Naruto shot her a wide foxy grin, "S'okay, Hinata-chan!"

Hinata felt her heart expand as she heard Naruto call her Hinata-chan. Not that it was the first time he added the –chan suffix. It was just that every time he call her name, she'd feel a blush crawl up her cheek, and her heart expand. She loved him so much, but he was too thick to see it.

Kiba threw a large snowball at Naruto with quite a lot of force, all the anger emitting out of him. So what if Hinata-chan like him? I saw her first! She should be with me, ONLY me. The snowball flew with such force, but missed Naruto, and instead hit the large window behind Naruto. The shattering of the glass echoed around the air.

"Shit," growled Kiba loudly.

One hour later

The snowball fight was long over. It abruptly ended when Kiba shattered that glass of the large window. The window still had a large hole in it, welcoming a large gust of wind and snow inside. The air inside was nearly as cold as outside. Sakura walked into the large living room with a white fluffy blanket wrapped around her body to keep warmth. Her hair lay limp trailing across her shoulders. There was no use staying indoors. Being outdoor would have been just as warm, but at least she had a roof over her head. Sakura sighed and felt a breeze sweep by, chilling her feet. It was now that she regretted not bringing her fuzzy pink slippers.

She sat curled up on one of the squishy sofa and looked outside, mesmerized by the falling slow, gently covering the trees with another layout of fluffy white snow. The once smooth snow on the ground was now craggy and hard after the intense snowball war.

She heard the front door and open and close. A few footsteps were heard, then stopped abruptly. Sakura didn't mean to listen in on them. But they were just there. She could hear the faint voice of Shikamaru and Chouji talking quietly. She thought it was Shikamaru and Chouji. She couldn't be too sure.

"It's not that! It's just that sometimes I hate her and sometimes I really…" Shikamaru's voice dropped, "Sometimes I really love her. You know what I mean?"

Chouji gave a sigh and popped another chip into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed with some difficulty, "I don't really want to spend my day talking about Ino, Shikamaru…"

Sakura gave a small smirk but remained quiet. She heard a sigh and the footsteps continued. They were just around the corner now. Shikamaru and Chouji nearly walked passed the large room, where Sakura was, curled up on the couch. Shikamaru looked at her flabbergasted. He recovered his composure "So, you were here the whole time eh?" It was a statement, not a question.

"I won't tell her, or anyone," promised Sakura.

Shikamaru looked at her doubtfully. She had been Ino's best friend… Shikamaru didn't say anything, but gave her a curt nod, and walked away. The footsteps faded out, and Sakura felt more alone than ever. A large hit of a hammer shocked her, and made her jump. She craned her neck to look out the door and saw Kiba hammering a large wooden board to cover the open window and the room immediately darkened.

Sakura sat there for a few moments, staring out at the falling snow. The door opened again, slightly irritating Sakura. There was a loud chatter, containing the voices of Ten Ten and Ino. They walked into the room and took off their coats, which were wet from the snow.

"Sakura-chan! It's freezing in here! Why won't you just light the fireplace!" exclaimed Ten Ten, while rubbing her hands together, creating friction to warm her hands.

Sakura smiled. "Well, I'm pretty warmed up by now-" began Sakura hesitantly.

Ino ignored herand performed a few hand seals and suddenly, a roaring fire appeared in the fireplace. They sat around chatting for a while. Talking about a whole variety things…

"Dinner!" said Kakashi in a go-happy voice, the mask was covering his mouth as always, making his words sound slightly muffled. The air was filled with an aroma of ramen. Sakura gave a small prayer hoping that it wouldn't be only ramen. Instant ramen was one of the things that she opposed to eating. It was unhealthy and gross. It was something that only Naruto would eat everyday – three square meals (any maybe more).

Ino, Ten Ten, and Sakura slowly got up and headed towards the kitchen. Her warm blanket was left on the couch.

The fluorescent lights of the kitchen made her eyes feel slightly sore, after coming from the dark room. On the long table, were many, many bowls of various types of ramen, including, miso, shrimp, pork, and chicken. The steam that emitted from the ramen, left the room steamy, and warm. Sakura edged closer to Kakashi, who was waiting for another pack of ramen to cook by the stove.

"Kakashi-sensei," began Sakura attentively, "Is there anything else other than ramen, that I can eat?"

Kakashi surveyed his pink-haired student. She had certainly grown over the years. He neglected her that time, when he was training Sasuke, and Naruto with Jiraiya. She then went to Tsunade for help, and trained with her instead. She still was nowhere as close as Naruto, Sasuke, or himself. But she was stronger than he thought she'd ever be.

Kakashi smiled under his black face mask. "'Fraid not!" he said cheerfully. He lifted the lid off the noodles and gave it a peek and shut it closed again.

Sakura furrowed her brow, "Can I just go out and have dinner at a restaurant or something?"

Kakashi shrugged and turned back to the stove and gave the noodles a good stir. "If you want. Naruto will finish the ramen anyways."

Sakura smiled a thanks. She got Ino, Sakura, Ten Ten, and Hinata to go with her. She was upstairs in her shared room with Ino, packing some money, keys, and some other items into her small black purse. She pulled out her white puffy from the closet and quickly put it on along with a blue scarf. Good thing her mom suggested her to bring it.

She waited in the hallway waiting for the others to get their stuff. There was an odd burning smell that lingered around in the air. It could be just smoke from the fireplace. It also could be something really burning.

"Wait for me please," she called over her back to Ino as she hurried down the stairs. She quickly located the area of burning. The kitchen. She rushed in and found the ramen that Kakashi was cooking, burning. The flames surrounded the element and the pot. Sakura quickly turned off the stove and killed the lid with a large lid nearby.

"Kakashi-sensei!" screamed Sakura with frustration.

Kakashi appeared at the doorway with his Icha Icha paradise book in his hand. He noticed Sakura's buring gaze towards it and quickly shoved it in his pocket.He gave a sheepish smile that was hidden underneath his mask. "Oops, I guess I left the stove unattended."

Everyone sweat dropped. Typical Kakashi…