Day 11: Tremours
Their first date had been two and a half minutes long.
Ino often wondered why Sakura knew the duration so precisely. Not two minutes long, not three minutes long, but two and a half minutes long.
Sakura had never worked up the nerve to tell her that it was because two and half minutes was how long she could hold her breath before she fainted.
Neither of them had known what to do on a first date, you see, and Sasuke-kun was still uneasy around other residents of Konoha after his exploits as a missing-nin. So she'd brought a picnic to the bench, and the plan had been to just enjoy a good bento and each other's company.
Except when they'd sat down and she'd started to unpack her hamper, he'd said abruptly, "This feels like we're training again. Just waiting for Kakashi-sensei and that idiot to turn up."
Sakura paused. That was obviously not the vibe she wanted for their first date, but she did have to admit that he was right. So she put down the thermos and asked, "Well, what would make this more like a date?"
All she got was a glance from him, as if he was asking "if you ask me, who am I supposed to ask?"
She didn't know either. They'd been forged in war, scarred by betrayal, toyed with destruction. They weren't equipped for anything so innocuous as a first date. It wasn't like Sakura had any experience either, given her long obsession with Sasuke-kun. And Sasuke-kun…
… well. Better not to think about that glasses girl. She could only take Sasuke being as clueless as she was in this moment as a hopeful sign.
"Well… what if we… what if we…," Sakura's genius brain scrolled relentlessly through the reams of comics aimed at girls Ino had shoved at her over the years. One word kept coming up, so without thinking too deeply about it - Sasuke-kun was staring at her - Sakura just blurted out, "Should we kiss then?"
The minute the words left her mouth, Sakura turned bright red and covered her face. Before she could take it back, though, Sasuke-kun said simply, "Okay."
Okay? OKAY!? OKAYYYYY!? "Okay?" Sakura squeaked, "So I guess we just, I don't know-"
But before she could say anything else, Sasuke-kun had made his move.
And oh boy, did he have moves.
He caught her chin and used his thumb to part her lips just a smidge. The rough caress of his lips on hers caused her whole world to tilt on her axis, and her universe shook with the little tingles that she could feel in her core. When she gulped on reflex, all the breath rushed out of her lungs to fill with the taste of him. Sasuke moved achingly slow, exploring her mouth in tentative strokes that drove her crazy. Sakura was dizzy, drowning, and absolutely not willing to surface, not even for the sweet, sweet oxygen that her lungs were screaming for.
The life-saving routines that Tsunade-shishou had beaten into her unconscious body flared as she felt herself losing consciousness. Her last thought before her world went dark was Shannaro! I hope Sasuke-kun can contain the explosion…
He'd obviously managed to, somehow. She'd woken up at noon the next day in her own bed, and Sasuke had left for his next mission already. When she'd made it out to look at the spot, everything looked fairly normal, except for a few missing trees. She'd considered it a success and vowed to conquer her embarrassment and ask Ino for some magazines that properly explained the mechanics of kissing. Including the breathing bit.
Sakura had often wondered how Ino had known that the spot by the cliff had been the location of their first date. Obviously, it'd been very much deserted before either Sasuke or Sakura would do something so risque in public.
It wasn't until much, much later, that she'd been told that the residents of Konohagakure had been woken that day by giant snakes shaking the earth as they pieced that cliff back together. Rock by rock. All before she'd woken up.
And that Sasuke did remember their first kiss and their first date, thank you very much.