Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
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Like Liquid Rouge
We do what we are trained to do.
We do what we are bred to do.
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We do what we are born to do.
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Awkward silence.
Sakura looked out the window at the starry night sky. It had to be at least 2 a.m. right now. She closed her eyes briefly, savoring the night air.
"Itachi was promoted to director of the company," Sasuke said suddenly, blowing another wisp of smoke up into the air. He stood alone in the balcony of his apartment, back to them as he watched the bleary neon lights of the city.
"He's going to be the head chair of the Uchiha business one day. My father promoted him without even telling mother. Without even telling me. I received the message just now."
Silence.
"Sasuke…" Naruto trailed off, unsure of how to reply.
Sasuke, second son of Uchiha Fugaku. A second son inheriting his father's business was unheard of, never mind when the first son was so much better.
"And who is this charming young man, Fugaku?" A plump businessman clapped his hand on Sasuke's shoulder firmly, his fleshy hand cold despite it's size. "Your niece?"
His father laughed. A cold, hollow laugh. "No, no, that is my second son."
"Second son?" The man turned around to look at Sasuke properly, not quite expecting this predicament. "I never knew you had a second son."
The message was clear. Uchiha Sasuke, the lesser Uchiha, would never inherit the business. Not when Uchiha Itachi existed.
The tiniest of frowns wrinkled Sai's otherwise smooth forehead. This was exactly why he hated staying over at somebody else's house—you had to bend over backwards for the owners.
What a selfish little Uchiha waking them all in the middle of the night because of his brother's promotion.
Sai snorted loudly. Typical of Uchihas, wasn't it? They always put themselves in front of others.
"What's your problem, Sai?" Sasuke looked over sharply, annoyed.
"Sasuke, don't ––" She didn't want to see another fight start.
"Don't interfere, Sakura." Sasuke sneered automatically, cutting through her words as if they were worthless.
Sai rolled his eyes. He wasn't in the mood for another one of Uchiha's famous dramafest. Picking up his coat, he made sure to slam the door on his way out.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the closed door.
"Fine," Sakura's voice cut through the air suddenly, startling him from somewhere to the right. His eyes snapped to her slumped figure. He forgot she was still there.
Sakura shook with repressed anger. He always treated her like shit, didn't he? He always treated her like she was worthless, a passing scenery that would always be there, oxygen that would always exist. Who did he think he was? She gave him everything and he gave her nothing. Nothing.
"It's always been this way, hasn't it?" she spat bitterly, fingernails digging into the flesh of her palm.
Sasuke frowned. Been what way?
"You," She struggled to grasp the correct words to describe his infuriating personality, but could find none. She, the girl who won the school's Creative Writing Award since 3rd grade, could not find a single word to define Uchiha Sasuke.
Something inside her cracked. "Fine," she repeated, picking up her handbag.
"Fine," she hissed again, slamming the door to his apartment in the same fashion as Sai.
The silence settled around the apartment like a blanket.
Naruto blinked at the door confusedly. "What just… happened?"
Sasuke growled, not in the mood for Sakura's Drama Queen attitude tonight. "Who cares?" he sneered, turning his back on Naruto to brood again.
Déjà vu.
"Fucking asshole," Sakura hissed, stomping down the stairs to the building, stepping through a group of drunken teens on the steps.
One of the boys whistled. The other looked at her sympathetically. One girl pulled her and wrapped her filthy arms around Sakura in what was supposed to be a comforting way. "Boys, they're all the same, aren't they?" She slurred, her eyes red from crying for God knows what reasons. "Always fuck and leave, don't they?"
Sakura looked at the girl incredously.
Like any man on Earth would dare pull a stunt like that on Haruno Sakura, of all people.
Was this girl lowering her down to her own level? The elitist in her blue blood boiled. "Get away from me," she sneered, pushing her away.
"Whoa there," one boy grinned at her. "No reason to get all rough, miss."
Sakura rolled her eyes and stomped away to the side of the road to hail a cab.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited…
She snapped her head to the drunk losers behind her. "Why isn't there a cab?" she demanded.
They ignored her.
She let out a frustrated groan and stood up to stomp her way back home.
In her peripheral vision, a bum on the side of the streets waved at her joyfully.
She ignored him and walked on.
Wait.
She backtracked her steps almost comically.
"Sai?"
"So let me get this straight," Sakura sighed dramatically. "You've been sitting there for half an hour straight and you have yet to find a cab."
"More or less, yeah."
She sighed dramatically again.
Sai smiled at her, one side of his lip twitching out of annoyance. "Stop doing that, you sound like you have a bad case of asthma, ugly."
Her bubble of joy at finding a fellow human being to suffer with burst. Stupid Sai and his stupid comments. "You are going to walk me home," she gritted out. "Whether you like it or not."
"No."
Sakura's brows drew together, not being used to rejection. She took a few quick breaths to reconstruct her usually unbreakable defense. "Are you deaf? That was not a question."
"Yeah?" Sai cocked an eyebrow. "What makes you think I'm going to oblige?"
"Look," Sakura said, picking a stick of lipstick out of her handbag. It was MAC and in an ugly shocking red, a cheap Christmas gift given by one of her least favorite relatives. Drastic time calls for drastic measures—it was either the lipstick or the eyeliner.
She drew a rough diagram on the pavement.
"This is Sasuke's apartment," she circled the triangle. "This is mine," she marked the triangle with a girly heart shape, "And this is yours," she drew a large ugly X on Sai's triangle. "The distance between my house and Sasuke's apartment is considerably closer compared to yours," she pointed out. "So if you walk me home, then I can use my car and drive you to your home."
"My apartment is about 5 minutes away from your apartment, just in the opposite direction," Sai pointed out. "A 40 minutes walk won't kill me."
Sakura bit her lip. It would take a rough 30 minutes walk to reach her house. She did not want to risk walking alone again, not after what happened this afternoon. "I have a bottle of 1775 Sherry," she blurted out before she could think twice.
Sai blinked, not really expecting a retort from her. He would have walked her home in the end eventually, but now that she had offered…
"Lead the way, ugly."
"My feet hurt like crap," she whined, the straps of her high heels digging into the front of her toes.
He rolled his eyes. "So take them off. It's not like high heels can help nullify the fact that you are ugly."
"Do you usually spew so much shit out of your mouth, or is it only around me?"
"I don't know what you're taking about."
Sakura glared at Sai murderously. "Fine. We're here." She unlocked the door and stepped inside, kicking her heels off carelessly. "Welcome to my humble abode," she drawled exaggeratedly. "I know it's hard for someone like you, but try not to drag any of your slime onto my spotless floor."
Next door, a blonde haired girl blinked at the tiny figure of Sakura and Sai. "Mitsu, wake up," she shook her friend. "The pink-haired bitch who scratched your car is finally home."
Mitsu whined. "I don't want to do this confrontation thing," she said. "It's not like we have proof that she's the one who did it, I mean, I only think it's her. Maybe it isn't her, Aya."
Aya narrowed her eyes. "You know God-damned-well it's her."
"But!" Mitsu's lower lip trembled. "Have you forgotten who her family is? And besides, every girl has a bitchy side."
"Yeah, and Haruno's just happens to be on 24/7. We aren't the ones wrong here. She started it. And look, is that Sasuke she's with?"
At the mention of Sasuke, Mitsu snapped her neck towards the window so fast her neck hurt. She squinted. "I don't think so--Sasuke's hair isn't that flat." This boy was kind of good-looking too, she remembered seeing him in the yearbook. "I think his name is Sai. "
"Oh my God. Is she sleeping with him? Like, she's wearing boxer-briefs."
Sai kicked his own shoes off, looking around to size up her house. It was big, about the size of a tiny shopping mall. How exaggerated a status symbol. "Your dad's out on a business trip again, right?"
"Yeah," She muttered distractedly, picking out the correct car key from a drawer. She walked into the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of wine from the towering rack of bottles. Taking a corkscrew out, she was about to open it when Sai pulled the bottle away.
"I was joking, ugly." Sai muttered. "Keep your wine."
Sakura blinked at him. Something inside her churned in warmth. Sai was actually treating her nice!
It felt…kind of good.
She smiled at him with new-found respect.
He shifted uncomfortably. "Let's just…go."
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, punching in key after key. Aya grinned. This was infinitely better than a confrontation.
It was only fair. She was protecting her best friend, after all. Mitsu was too nice for her own good—she never stood up for herself.
A click of a button and e-mails flew.
Payback.
"Hey, Sai," Sakura tucked a lock of her hair behind her ears shyly.
Sakura? Shy? Hell is freezing over!
"Thanks for waking me back. I really appreciate it."
Sai blinked at her. "Whatever, ugly, just don't get used to it."
But he was smiling. Not the fake smile, but a real one.
She smiled at him one last time before driving off.
"Sakura, are you sleeping with Sai?"
Sakura dropped her pencil.
"What the hell? What drugs have you been on, Ino?" Sakura snapped, making no move to pick up the pencil on the floor. The guy in front of her bent down and picked it up for her.
"Psh," Ino waved her hand, like she was trying to bat an imaginary fly away. "Its from this rumor. E-mail."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Anonymous account?"
Ino grinned. "123 hotmail . com, babe."
"And you believed it?"
Ino shrugged.
"You are so supportive. Honestly. Best friend on Earth," Sakura said.
"I know! The world needs more people like me," Ino grinned, slinging an arm around Sakura's shoulder in an almost brotherly manner.
"So we can have Word War Three? I totally agree man. Totally."
Karin, who had been sitting up front, turned around and snapped, gesturing at Ino's hand on Sakura's shoulder. "Can you two be any more…lesbian? And loud? Seriously."
Sakura and Ino both rolled their eyes simultaneously, and, just to piss her off, pecked each other's cheeks.
"Oh, Ino," Sakura batted her eyelashes girlishly, giggling, holding Ino's slender hand to her face.
"Sakura, ai, my love," Ino intoned, her voice purposefully deep and a poor imitation of that of a boy's.
"Thank you, God," Naruto said, wiping his hand against his imaginary tears, gesturing at the ceiling. "May we have more lesbian scenes in the future."
The class cackled, Karin fumed, and Sasuke slapped his hand up Naruto's head.
"Thanks, Sasuke-kun," Karin smiled at him sweetly, her voice now ten pitches more melodious than it was before. She had even removed her dorky glasses.
Sasuke pointedly ignored her.
There was a pause.
"What are you doing, Karin?" Sakura said, raising an elegant brow. "Is that, like, your supposed bedroom eyes or something?"
Karin flushed. "I-It's none of your business, bitch!"
Something was escalating in the classroom, and everybody knew it. Sakura was like the crazy ex-girlfriend you wish you never had, and so was Karin. The class leaned forward on their seats.
The silent promise of a catfight hung in the air.
"I don't know what MTV brainwashed you into thinking, but I hate it when people in my class use the B-word," Sakura leaned on her elbows and examined a lock of her pink hair coolly. "It makes them sound like they come from an uneducated background."
Hypocrite. She used the F-word all the time.
Karin flushed, and then glared. "Nobody asked for your opinion."
Sakura winked at her. "You look extra sexy when you're angry, Karin, seriously. Especially when your hair isn't even proportional. Very… bedroom."
Karin snorted and turned back to the whiteboard, her ears pink.
The whole class was quiet, watching the exchange hungrily like the busybodies they all secretly were.
"What are you looking at, monitor?" Her eyes floated somewhere to the middle of the class, zeroing in on the crew-cut sand-haired boy. "Shouldn't you go check on the teacher? It isn't like Iruka-sensei to run late on us."
"Sakura," Sasuke called warningly, frowning. It wasn't the smartest idea to make everybody in your class your own enemy. Heck, that was a Naruto thing to do, not Sakura. She knew better. She should've knew better.
Sakura turned to him and glared even harder. Oh, so he was finally taking to her and it was only to tell her to shut up? What happened to the fight yesterday? What happened to their argument? Wasn't he the least bit aware that he clearly was in no position to talk to her like that?
He met her glare head-on. Uchiha Sasuke was never one to be intimidated.
"Ah, sorry, class," Iruka strolled in, shattering the electricity between both Sasuke and Sakura. "The headmistress called an emergency meeting between teachers. I should've sent somebody down to inform you."
Sakura looked away, back to the textbook she was reading. 'Page two hundred and fifty,' her mind informed dully.
"Turn to page 104, please, class," Iruka announced, writing down the page on the whiteboard.
Her eyes remained glued on 250.
"Father," she greeted, landing on her bed with a soft 'frush'. The cordless phone she pressed to her ear was a pristine white. She sighed. School today had been…difficult. It had been a long time since school was "difficult".
She threw her backpack off her bed, and it landed ungracefully on the floor with a loud "thud". "Did you receive my e-mail, father?"
A pause. "Yes," the receiver answered. "Most unfortunate; I had thought your driver was up-to-par. Very disappointing indeed."
"Aa, I agree," Sakura pressed her tongue against her teeth, just to feel the pressure. Taking to her father was always difficult. They hardly saw each other. They were always formal.
It was uncomfortable.
"You read the part about my encounter with the stranger, the boy?" She paused, but not long enough for her father to answer. "I need a suitable driver. One who can actually cater to my needs. This one has been below-standard for a long time, but I did not speak of his lousy services, as I did not want to trouble father."
"Trouble father"? What a blatant suck-up.
"I understand." A pause. Some scratching noises in the background. "I have an old friend of mine. A university lecturer. His son is a tutor, just finished his studies, actually, but I am sure he can make an exception."
Like anybody dared say no to a hot-shot like him.
"A graduate?" Sakura frowned. "Freahies lack the maturity and responsibility adults have, Father. Qualities that only come with age."
Another suck-up.
"I have no alternatives at the moment, sweetheart."
Sakura faked a sigh. "What's his name, father?"
A pause. "Hatake Kakashi."
A/N: I'm being cheap with Kakashi's age, I know. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. What's Team 7 without the lovable late mop of scarecrow? Everybody needs a scarecrow!
Again, thanks for your reviews and support. I appreciate it.
To be honest, I was reluctant to post this. My fandom, its dying.
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Ah, well. Let's see where this takes us.