Band-Aid Covers the Bullet hole

A/n: sorry for late update…REALLY SORRY.

Two years later…

"Not losing your nerve now, are you, Haruno?" I muttered to myself as I stood on the building roof. I looked down at my shaking, fumbling hands and let out a dry, harsh laugh. "You really are a gutless pussy, aren't you?"

Shaking my head, I pulled out a packet of cigarettes out of my jacket pocket and lit one shakily with the lighter I had also retrieved from my pocket. Raising it to my swollen lips, pulling my thin jacket closer to my body against the cold and inhaling the nicotine, I looked over the edge of the rooftop, unsurely.

It was the middle of the day and everyone was rushing by on the footpaths for a quick walk from their places of work to the surrounding bakeries and other shops, for something to eat for lunch.

My only food for two weeks had been coffee, cigarettes, and the odd piece of fruit here and there.

I didn't think I'd be here long enough for the need of food. What was the point?

Taking a long drag on the cigarette before crushing it on the ground beneath the heel of my left boot, I looked down at the people below on the footpath, again. All oblivious - bless them.

My eyes shifted back down to my boots. They really were nice - a shame I had to do this in them - I'd spent $250 I didn't own on them in an impulse buy. Maybe I should take them off and leave them here so someone nice could find and use them.

"Just get it over with, Haruno," I commanded myself. "Finally do something fucking worthwhile in your life."

I grunted at my own statement, and obliged, lifting myself onto the roof railing where I stood unsteadily. I stood there for a while, swaying dangerously for some time, and almost lost my balance when I heard the door leading up to the roof bang open.

"What do you think you're doing?"

I straightened myself and rolled my eyes. What kind of inquiry was that? 'What do you think you're doing?' I've heard game-show hosts ask better questions. And, aside from the moronic underlying, who the hell did this guy think he was, anyway? If I wanted to spill my guts all over the pavement it way my business, no one else's and I didn't plan on making it.

"Looking at the sky - the pollution's not so thick up here - I think it might actually be blue."

"Why don't you get off the railing and then look at the fucking sky?

I spun around, almost fell prematurely but steadied myself in time, looking at the boy with blazing eyes and long pink hair blowing against my cheeks. And then I realized it was him. It was Neji. His full, undivided attention on me. Finally. His eyes fastened on me. Finally.

It was almost enough to make me want to come down. Almost.

"Why don't you get off the roof and let me get on with killing myself?!"

"I can't do that," he said simply.

I felt the steam coming out of my ears as I surveyed the dark-haired boy. Who did he think he was? Just who the fuck did he think he was?! Yeah, sure I use to worship him but it was my life and I could do with it, as I liked, whether it be good or bad, moral or immoral. What the fuck was so hard about turning around and walking away from this as if it never happened? Or did he just not have the balls to do that?

"You can't or you won't?" I countered angrily, determinedly staying where I was on the railing.

"Both," he answered, stepping forward a couple of paces.

"Don't!" I screamed with a hint of desperation in my voice. He stopped walking closer. "Don't fucking move!" I continued. "Come any closer and I'll fucking jump!"

"Christ!" He sighed, running a hand through his thick hair. "Okay, okay!"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Good."

"Just don't jump"

"No."

"What? 'No'?"

"No. No talking. I want..." I turned away from him to look back at the scene below "...I want some time to think."

"Sounds good to me," he conceded, sitting on the ground with his back up against the wall and pulling out his own packet of cigarettes. "Mind if I enjoy the right of free will and stay up here too, though?"

I looked over at him to see him smiling innocently and sweetly at me, before quickly glancing away again, to sit myself on the railing instead of standing on it, and looking again at the ground. "Whatever."

"Okay."

"Okay," I repeated.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An hour later, the amount of people out on the street had dispersed but the two people atop the apartment building were still there. Now, I was sitting on the roof too, not the railing, against the white cement wall across from the man who I only knew oh so too well. He seemed to think his participation in getting me down from immediate danger to be a triumph.

"What's your name anyway?"

I blinked before saying my reply - it had been a while since either of us had spoken.

"What's yours?" I asked, knowing the answer only too well.

"Neji," he answered, without missing a beat, and looking directly into my eyes, from across the distance between us. "Yours is?"

"Sakura. Why do you want to know?"

"Well, when I tell people I saved a damsel in distress, at least now I'll have a name to add." He said dryly.

"Don't be so sure," I muttered under my breath, flicking some ash to the floor next to me from the cigarette and then returning it to between my lips.

"What was that?"

I raised my voice a little so that he could hear. "I said don't be so sure you saved this damsel in distress."

"Since you're not in the jumping position at the moment, I'll count that as a success."

"What if I do what I intended to do all along, only after you've gone?"

"I'll just have to stay with you for a while longer then, won't I?"

"Oh yay," I drawled unenthusiastically, peering at him with my green eyes, which I'm sure were dull.

"Don't twist my arm or anything."

I simply shrugged, indicating I could care less whether he left or stayed, and we both fell under another spell of silence. Until he, again, was the one to break it.

"Why were you going to do it?"

"Who says I'm not gonna do it still?" I asked, indignantly.

"Why though?" He asked gently. He had such a quiet, nice and gentle manner. I wanted to punch him for it - why couldn't he have been a horrible asshole to me? I'd be dead by now if he was. But noooo, here I am, still alive.

"And why did you come here to do it?" He paused. "You know, some say it's closer to Heaven up here."

"Screw Heaven," I said brusquely, "There's only Hell - and we're all in it."

"People make their own hells."

"Well, believe me, I had no intention of creating mine."

"How did it happen then?"

I looked away, almost angrily, but I kept my voice calm and even. "It's a long story."

"Feel like sharing?"

"No."

Neji paused after my quick and fierce response, before asking, "Then- you telling me why you were going to end your life- isn't going to happen?"

"Let's just say I'm sick of trying to make it work."

"Make what work?"

You've gotta give him points for persistence, I'll admit that. I gestured around as I answered, "This! All this is what I'm sick of!"

"Is that all?"

"Like I said, it's a long story."

"It's not gonna fix itself; why don't you tell me?"

I laughed dryly, making it sound more like a rasping, humorless sound. "I just met you, Neji," I lied, "how the fuck can I trust and tell you when I don't even trust myself?"

"Don't trust me then."

I licked my lips and changed the subject. "How did you find me up here, anyway?"

"You can't just do that," He said quietly.

"Do what?" I enquired innocently.

"Change the subject like that"

"Well you're changing mine. So how did you find me up here?"

He gave me an annoyed but mild look, predictably answering the question anyway. "I see you coming up here everyday after school for a long time, see you climbing the stairs up here everyday when I get home. I just needed to make sure you didn't do anything stupid - you are always alone here after all."

I looked down at my hands in my lap. "It wouldn't have been stupid." I muttered hoarsely, feeling a bit more contempt for him, and at the same time a little more worship.

"No?" He asked, once again staring at me honestly, straight in the eye. "What would it have been then?"

"A release."

He let out a surprised and long breath, his eyebrows raised. "You're fucking insane, Sakura. I don't know you and I don't think I should get to."

"Fine, don't," I said, nonchalant.

"But I think I can help."

"Help?" I demanded, for once looking him directly in the eye like he did to me once, a long time a go. "You think I need help? Even if I did, no one could help me."

"Maybe I could. If you let me." A slow, and damn attractive, smirk grew slowly on his lips. "I must have done something right - you're not a minute away from throwing yourself onto the ground off my apartment."

"I don't think I will," I said absently and then added my eyes fixed to his face. "At least not today - not with you here."

"Oh thank fucking God!" He said earnestly but with no emotion.

My lip curled. "I'd rather not."

He looked taken aback for the slightest of moments at my vehemence, before quickly recovering. "Look, I think I need to walk you out of here before you try anything else"

"Yeah, okay," I agreed, taking his outstretched hand and letting him pull me to my feet.

As we walked down the stairs, I said, "You want to know something funny? I'm morbidly afraid of heights."

Neji snorted. "And you chose this way to kill yourself with?"

Dear Diary,

Underneath all the pollution and grayness the sky really is blue.

Is it bad? Terrible? Horrible? I'm sorry. It doesn't make a lot of sense but I realized after re-reading the first chapter again Neji and Sakura could never really meet without Neji being all OCC. Well, more than he is now. And for the diary bit…there's no hidden meaning- I just couldn't figure out what to write for it without it sounding corny or gay or something. I hope you didn't hate this chapter too much cuz everyone's all occ- I just wanted to show how different they both became over time. I just came back from my brother's volleyball game in which I got hit in the face with the ball TWICE everyone was laughing at me but it hurt like a bitch. Extra large. TTTT The first time I got hit I moved to a different place so I wouldn't get hit again then not five minutes later I got hit in the same spot in my new location. Then I went home and wrote this. I hope you don't hate me for making Sakura all suicidal. But I didn't make her weak, I don't think I did…I hope I didn't. I hate when people make her all 'I cry alone in my room because I can't do anything and I'm too weak' or whatever --. I kind of based her on myself in this chapter. Not that I'm suicidal but like how I'm stubborn and sometimes strongly-opinionated to the point where I think there is no possible way for me to be wrong. Plus, I figured if I were ever to commit suicide I wouldn't like draw the process out by cutting myself or whatever I'd jump off a building. I'm also morbidly afraid of heights and I figure I'd scare myself to death half way down and it'd be kind of painless. I don't know it's late at night; I said I was sorry!