UNBEATED

SAKURA AND VERSACE

09

LUNCH TALKS

As lunch rolled around, Naruto found himself seated with his friends once again. Sakura had been settled into online classes for about two weeks so now that they could no longer sit together, the baseball player had begun to sit with his clique once again. Of course, they were not the least bit impressed but treaded lightly with his girlfriend's incident fresh in the school's gossip mill. Ever since Tsunade had made the situation public and let it be known it wouldn't be swept under the rug, everyone was walking on eggshells around him.

For the most part, it would seem silly because Naruto wasn't a mean person nor was he going around investigating other students over it. But he'd also made it known when he found out who'd pulled that "prank" they'd deal with him as well.

"Are you staying after school to watch the try-outs?" Kiba asked across from him and Naruto nodded, "Yep, I told Konohomaru I'd watch for him before I left."

Neji butted in, "These last three months are going to be grueling."

The group gave a grumble of agreement. All of them were seniors so they all had their plates full as their senior years were coming to a close. Championships and senior prom were fast approaching, then graduation. Study groups and halls were already filling up with students studying for finals and college acceptance letters were slowly being sent out.

"Our youthful flame is expanding," Lee motivated, "As we grow so does it!"

"You sound like a Hallmark card," Sasuke grumbled around a piece of grilled tomato, "Maybe you can pursue a career in writing some." Shikamaru, who'd been sitting with his girlfriend Temari, made his way over to put his two cents in, "He'd actually have to sit still for that." They burst into laughter at that, Lee calling them obscenities under his breath.

"You all are so mean, this is why none of you have any prom date!"

Naruto immediately made a sound of offense, "Hey! Just because you losers don't have dates doesn't mean I don't!"

"I do, in fact, have a date," Shikamaru added offhandedly.

"You both have girlfriends, of course, you have dates!"

"Sasuke has a girlfriend but not a date." Naruto threw his best friend under the bus who immediately glared at him, "Because she's in America dobe, I'm going alone regardless."

Naruto always knew Sasuke didn't find any of the girls at their school interesting, years of shunning them could attest to that. So Naruto hadn't really been surprised when he came home from a summer in America with a girlfriend.

"You all just got lucky enough to snag girls before the last semester," Kiba shrugged nonchalantly, "Neji hasn't asked Tenten yet, Lee and his girl are on the outs over some incident at the mall, and I'm being held to bro code."

"Oh, brother…"

"Here we go…"

It didn't take a genius for anyone to know Kiba was talking about Naruto. While the blonde wasn't privy to most school gossip, it had reached his ear that many were shocked that he'd jumped out of a relationship with his then-girlfriend, Hinata, to get with Sakura. It had been his fault, pining after Sakura who hadn't even noticed him, so he'd found companionship in the other girl. Hinata had been far too nice and it had hurt Naruto when they'd broken up but he also knew his feelings for another were far stronger so they'd broken up earlier that year. A matter of a month or two before Sakura approached him about that news article.

He and Sakura had gotten together pretty quickly after that. Naruto hadn't thought about Hinata's feelings on the matter, though it was impossible not to see her in the halls as the days went past. They didn't talk, it was a fact that Hinata had made it known that she didn't talk with any of them anymore. Kiba was holding onto the fact that he had a crush on her and Naruto had hurt her feelings, inadvertently squandering any chance he had of getting with her.

Naruto wasn't shaken by the fact his friend had brought it up, it had been a sore point for weeks. So he only shrugged, "Then break the code."

MOON RIVER

Sakura's room was a mess of shopping bags when Naruto entered, the girl's bed covered with jewelry and accessories.

"What jewelry store did you break into?"

Sakura rolled her eyes, "They're for my dress Baka." She stands from her desk chair to stretch and meet him in the middle of the room. Naruto dropped his backpack to wrap his arms around her waist without restraint.

"Was school ok?"

Naruto sighed, "Joined a study hall, stayed for try-outs, got into a scuffle with Kiba-

"You got into a fight with your friend?!" Sakura gasped, Naruto and fight didn't go into the same sentence, what the hell had happened? Maybe she needed to go back to in-person classes. "Fight? No, we got into an argument, and it wasn't even really that."Naruto explained further having seen the look on Sakura's face. "It was just a little disagreement."

Sakura sighed in relief, "Arguments and fights are two different things! What was it about anyway?" She pulled away to clean off the bed. Naruto scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, "Ah, an ex-girlfriend of mine."

"Why disagree over that? It seems stupid."

"He's got a crush on her," Naruto explained, "And I told him I didn't care what he and Hinata do!"

Sakura stilled her movements, "Hinata-San?"

"Yeah," He sighed and sat on the empty space of the bed, "I guess I really hurt her feelings, she doesn't talk to us anymore."

Sakura thought back to her conversation with Ami, about what everyone thought of her and Naruto's relationship. She had come to accept not everyone would like or accept their relationship, she'd never specifically thought about how Hinata had felt. It wasn't hard to understand that the girl's feelings might be hurt, whether they intended to or not.

"Maybe you should talk to her and apologize," Sakura suggested, "We know you didn't want to hurt her feelings but maybe she doesn't know. It wouldn't hurt to tell her that."

Naruto sighed, "It makes me feel bad when I think about it like that, it was extremely...callous of me."

Now that the bed was cleared off, Sakura sat next to him and offered her comfort, "Everything just moved so quickly, no one is wrong for that. Let's just apologize and go from there."

i don't know if i'm going to make a habit of replying to review but i really wanted to reply to this one

qalleesyawesome: hiiii, i hope i spelled your display name correctly i just wanted to answer your question, no hinata isn't some big bad of the story, i just used her for a plot point. as you can see, there wasn't some big drama (sorry?) or anything i planned for this story to be just a cute highschool story for my ship so angst and out of this world drama wasn't planned. thanks for the review 3

in other news, the outline for this story is complete, it won't be more than twenty chapters, other than that, thank you :)