Disclaimer: Baby, I don't need to own Naruto to write fanfiction.
Penname: LiveLoveLaugh
FanFiction Story: Such Sweet Sorrow
Summary: Sequel of Backstabbing Love In the Wheel of Fortune, Sakura tries her luck on men.
AN: (Sweat-drop) If I didn't know any better, I'd say that some of you want me to write Neji and Tenten exclusively instead of Sakura and everybody else…anyway, I'm still stuck on the whole pairing pick thing. Thank you to everyone who reviewed and helped me along with the pairing choosing. Although I'm also thinking how cool a few of you are for leaving the choice up to me.
Enjoy this update! Feed the Author! Please review!
Alarm Clock: 5:07 am
Naruto woke up a start, grasping the front of his sleeping shirt. He breathed stiffly and had almost snorted his nose which was aching from enrolling all that inhaling and exhaling. He frustratingly snatched his puppy-faced sleeping cap and ruffled up his sunshine yellow locks with his riveting fingers.
He had the most unusual dream last night. Nothing about him eating ramen, Hinata, him being Hokage, ramen tap-dancing, cute Hinata-chan, his face on the Hokage Monument, miso ramen wrestling pork ramen, cute Hinata-chan in a sexy sequin dress, him wearing the Hokage hat, or even him eating a second helping of ramen. Very weird dream.
He swore he remembered only a sliver of it. He closed his electric blue eyes, trying to pick up the pieces in his memory bank.
Something was smiling. Something was laughing. Something with warm brown eyes and cropped dark hair—
Bring! Bring!
"Kuso…" he muttered angrily, almost smashing the alarm clock on his nightstand.
Bring! Bring!
He threw the clock away from his sight. The contraption took the hit on the hard floor. The force had cracked through the metal and plastic cover, splitting in half that the glass had smashed with the black arrow hands rolling around like crazy. Before Naruto could take a breather—
Bring! Bring!
If the entire square block could him scream from his small apartment, they could.
"GOD DAMMIT! SHUT UP YOU STUPID NOISY DAMN CLOCK OF FIERY HELL!"
Bring! Bring!
Intermission
Ino looked up from her toast. "Hey Hinata? Did you hear something?"
Intermission
Bring! Bring!
"ARGH!" She launched herself out the mattress, with sore muscles on her shoulders, chest, and a folded streak of pain sharpened around her middle abdomen, waking the drunken lassie at this miserable hour. Blindly, her fingers numbly surfaced around her nightstand and pushed the off button on her pink alarm clock. When the blankets and sheets fell from her upper abdomen, she felt a rush of cool air surfaced on her bare arms. She peeked out of one eye seeing that she was clad in a lime green camisole and purple pajama bottoms. Sakura panicked.
Who the hell dressed her last night?
Before the question could be answered by her counterpart, flashes of last night embarrassed and shamed her to no end. First, waking up with a broken heart (Damn you Sasuke), meeting with her parents for lunch (a tragedy), stuffing herself with sandwiches (she couldn't have been that hungry!), punching Shikamaru in the eye (that was fun), congratulating the lucky couple at the Baka-Haka (she was happy for them), listening and agreeing with Kiba (that doesn't often happen), getting herself drunk (never happens), dancing with Shino (Whoa!), and collapsing unconscious and waking up having no idea who the hell dressed her! (God dammit)
The pink-haired kunoichi rose from the blankets, the sheets slipping off her body and her long tresses of pastel pink fell around her pale sweaty face. Sakura shook her head fiercely to shake off the dullness in her tired emerald eyes.
Five more minutes…
She shook herself out of this reverie, it was too naïve of her. This kind of thought remembered her of the early mornings when she was eleven or twelve (she didn't remember) that she had to go to the Academy—Sakura laughed bitterly, also remembering of the depressing mornings when her mother who would always had on a tight smile on her sallow face when she brushed her short hair aside, feeling bald spots and shorter strands that the other girls had snipped off…
Sakura had eaten faster than usual, having a larger appetite that consisted of two bagels with a giant slop of cream cheese, three waffles and pancakes smothered in syrup, and scrabble eggs with bacon bits and chives. Ino and Hinata were hushed and didn't say much, just watching her run around. She raced around her apartment, stumbling on her nimble feet trying to change into her training clothes. She had accidentally wore her short black skirt backwards with the maroon belt straps buckled lopsidedly, her dark green shorts she desperately searched for were in the laundry, her burgundy red shirt with the Haruno white symbols was wrinkled and she tried with all her might to tuck it in properly, and she had worn her teal sandals with left shoe on right foot, cursing under her breath as she zipped up her green Jounin vest.
The long blush hair was tied into a tight ponytail starting at her neckline. Sakura was fixing up her herself with her shuriken holster until she looked at her dresser top with a neatly folded green hitae-ate. The metal was gleaming in the dawning sunlight that gleamed through the blinded windows, the shiny Konoha symbol sparkled. She picked it up timidly, forgetting she had ever worn this.
She tried to tie the forehead protector around her hair behind her shorter pink bangs. Sakura bit her lip tying the hitae-ate sloppily with the plate falling to one side. She never had had trouble with this. The knot was too loose and the metal plate fell on the wooden floor with a thud.
Sakura stared at the floor with narrowed eyes.
What is she doing…?
Inner Sakura rolled her dilated empty eyes with a scoff, watching her outer part picking up the forehead protector like a glass antique. Sakura glared ahead into the six feet tall oval mirror with impatience, deciding to tie the damn thing over her giant forehead. Looking into her reflection almost made her take a step back when looking at herself was like looking at another person. Can't possibly be her…doesn't matter if this other girl had glossy pink hair and doe green eyes, or the fact she was as tall as her, with same complexion, or that her skin had always had this unique light rosy hue like pink pearls.
But the way her eyes looked into the mirror, the way her shoulders were pulled and the way she held herself up. The way she was standing in the twin matching clothes she had worn since last year, the way her hair was falling over the gleaming metal plate had hid the dreaded forehead, and it had also straightened out her slender eyebrows and had made her eyelashes longer which fanned around her emerald eyes narrower and analytical like that of her father's and making her cheekbones higher and pallid like her mother's.
…Haruno Junko…Haruno Saburo…the Haruno-sans…
Why didn't her mother understand?
Why didn't her father say anything?
Why didn't they just consol her with parental affections and love for their only child…like every other parent…?
And instead her mother threw a revolted and irritated look at her way, yelling at her like she putting in orders for her customers in the busy restaurant. And her father…did nothing about it and seemed to be in his own little world, dreaming of walking legs and fighting at the sides with young shinobis who look up to him with knowing respects.
It had always been this way twelve years ago, ever since Saburo had lost the use of his strong young legs in a mission and had to reside in a wheelchair doing tremendously boring paperwork in the Tower, watching younger men walk by his way, passing in the halls without a single look on the old retired shinobi. He had missed the respects and pride he held himself with, remembering the old times and sometimes even locking himself in the bedroom until he needed the bathroom or went down the built ramp for meals.
Her mother working as the primary provider, had continuously taken more hours than her usual working time to get more pay and the smells she would always bring into the house reminded everyone of the steamy hot kitchens and prepared dishes she carried around to people's table. Up until she was sixteen, Sakura was the sole housekeeper cleaning up the place and putting some of her savings into her parent's banks when her father was brooding about his oh so great past or when her mother was suffering from the pressure of gossips flying about in her way.
Sakura left the apartment without a goodbye to her two best friends who looked at her with remorse.
She looked the clock hanging in the kitchen before she left the door.
Dammit! She's late!
Bring! Bring!
Intermission
"Naruto…?" Kakashi asked, walking around his subordinate's block. Uzumaki Naruto fidget, his body was cold and shivering from the cool late morning.
"H-Hey K-Ka-ka-s-shi!" He stuttered, "W-Wha-What's u-up-p!" Kakashi grinned behind his mask.
Anyone could have sworn the demon vessel was growing goosebumps on top of his goosebumps. He was shaking nervously, putting up a clumsy grin and a wave of his free hand. He shoved his other hand deep into his back. Naruto cringed unpleasantly when a devastating crinkle of paper was heard.
"N-Nice-d-day h-huh!" Naruto laughed a little too loudly, picking up the trash can lid behind him.
The older man cocked his head to the side, wanting to know what's wrong. In the blonde's hand was a crumpled brown paper bag that was bound tight and sloppily with an overuse of scotch tape. Even a sticky pinkish white substance folded in between the wrinkled opening struck the one-eyed shinobi to be cherry bubblegum and school glue…
Kakashi sweat-dropped, his visible eye blinked a couple of times before he replied again, "What's in the bag, Naruto?"
"N-No-t-thING!" Naruto squeaked, immediately stuffed the bag into the trash can and slamming the lid down.
The teenager was always a terrible liar.
"Right, anyway, I was wondering if you'd like to have ramen with me and Sak—"
He was interrupted by a loud 'YOSH!' and a dash of smoke, with the orange and yellow wonder running back into his apartment, a shuffle of clothes was changed and in a split second later, the top shutters opened abruptly, the eighteen year old boy jumped right out of the window with a excited hyperactive cry and landed hastily in front of his teacher huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf, hobbling on one foot slipping one sandal over his foot.
Naruto grinned foxily, "Hopefully you're paying right?"
Kakashi sighed.
Bring! Bring!
Intermission
He was awake an hour. With several bites of buttered toast and dressed into black robes, Hyuuga Neji had been training nonstop just pounding down on a heavy punching bag in the forest outside the Hyuuga Estate. He practiced several Hakkes and administered random flying shuriken and kunais on himself, and activating Jakkuns to avoid them totally. Neji wiped his face with a small towel hanging on a tree branch that was strapped with a straw bound dummy with several drawn target circles where he could perfect his hand flicks of his jutsus and Gentle Fist movements.
He usually would train with Tenten or Rock Lee, his uncle, even Gai-sensei would teach him youthful techniques, but he preferred to be alone at the moments before dawn.
Neji had on his Byakugan, as he watched his unique bluish-white chakra flowed through his veins and pumped into the openings of chakra points which were released into short bursts. Since he had trained for so long, his white veined eyes could see further into his body than anyone could have thought.
He grunted, letting the first set of sweat seeped through his pale skin.
He tried to control his chakra properly again, looking at the set of instructions on a unrolled scroll. He never seemed to get it right on the first try. He didn't have perfect chakra control as he had desired.
He deactivated his Byakugan at last when he had only little improvement for that hour. Neji never liked days like this.
Failures were what he hated most of all things, on the exception of the Caged Bird seal on his forehead.
Days like today, Neji absentmindedly rubbed the bandaged forehead with his fingers with a small frown on his composed face. He had always hated the green seal, hated that he was forever feeling this conscious pain that was cast over him ever since he was four. This numbing ongoing sick pain in his mind that made his fluttering wings rapidly beat against the iron bars of this ornamental cage—
"I heard she's in your team."
Neji snapped his silver-gray eyes to the person standing three yards away from him. The dark tall figure was shaded by the thick branches and green leaves that were hanging to brown and yellow, with autumn nearing. His voice was deep and straightforward. Tall and composed like the Branch Member himself. He scoffed, instantly extinguishing the thought away.
No where in Hell would a proud Hyuuga would ever compare himself to such a shinobi.
A bastard, that is…
"Can I help you?" He asked coldly, not really meaning what he had said.
The dark figure was unfazed, instead pushing more of his buttons, "Sakura…she's in your new team, isn't she…?"
"Something like that, I suppose…" Neji rolled his white eyes, scowling.
He didn't have time for this unwelcome guest.
"Take…care of her…" Neji could have fallen over if he had been standing, "…for me…"
"Pardon?" the Byakugan user snapped irritated.
"Just…keep her out of trouble…I don't…want her hurt…"
"Keh, ask the dobe to take care of her!" Neji folded his arms together, glaring deeply into the other's eyes.
Silence overtook them, the white-eyed man could sense strong nervous vibes increasing from the other man.
Neji cocked a eyebrow.
"…he won't be able to…" the figure spoke with a hint of sadness in his voice, "…I need to prove myself…I can't…come back to her…with…out proving I'm capable…of…of …" He didn't seem to want to continue. The figure's head moved to the side, the glint of his eyes moved to the side of the lids. His arms were shaking, his shoulders slouching.
"I'm…going to be…gone for…a certain amount…of months…" the man spoke quietly, "…I want her…to wait…for me…"
"Please…" the man's form was strangling like he was carrying the weight of the world on his back, "…take care of her…for me…when I get…back…please…promise me…that…"
Never had Neji become so astounded, so surprised. Even more when the news of his father's death, when Naruto had beaten him, the sharp penetrating pain of a thousand fires had went through his shoulder, more so than anything in the world could be more intensifying and traumatizing as this spectacle that this dark figure had put on for the one-man audience. He felt like the luckiest man to have ever experience this, of course in the world of sarcasm, yes…
Having no idea how he could have said what he had said, and only regretting to not have swallow both those two dreaded words.
I promise.
Bring! Bring!
To Be Continued
Update! Woo! This idea for the chapter came to my head, it was kind of interesting to put the annoying sounds of an alarm clock in! It's supposed to wake people up from their deep reading. Hopefully everyone liked it!