Neji's anger started to reach boiling point when he saw Gaara continue to kiss Sakura. Sakura kissed him back and Neji felt hurt. He went back to camp unable to keep watching. Did she actually like him?

Sakura suddenly pushed Gaara away.

"What," Gaara asked surprised by her action.

"I can't do this." Once sakura had started kissing Gaara again a picture of Neji had sprouted in her mind and she realized something.

"Why, I don't understand" Gaara's voice sounded needy which was unusual for him.

"I wouldn't be being honest with you if I said I loved you." She whispered turning her face away from him.

Gaara grabbed her chin and crushed his lips to hers, desperate to get a reaction from her. There was nothing. He let her go and looked in her eyes, she was telling the truth. She didn't love him. He gave her a look of understanding, Sakura gave him an apologetic smile, she took one step forward and placed a gentle kiss on his lips that he returned. They knew know that they would only ever be friends.

Sakura ran out back to the fire and hastily dropped what little firewood she had collected. She then walked swiftly away from the fire in the opposite direction of where she had come from. Walking deeper into the woods she felt her eyes begin to brim with tears.

It was all clear now, why she had thought of Neji when she kissed Gaara. Why she blushed every time she was close to him, she thought of the time when they were training. She loved him. The only thing was that he didn't have any feelings for her. How could he, they were always getting into arguments. Her sobs came in silent tears as she dropped to the ground leaning against the base of a tree. The only thing to do was to keep her feelings hidden and hope they went away.

Neji saw Gaara come out of the woods, slowly walking to his tent. "Where's Sakura?" he asked harshly.

Gaara seemed surprised by his comment and seemed to tense up a bit. "I don't know I thought she was back here."

"She went to take a walk." Tenten stated.

Neji started walking in the direction of the woods, but was stopped by Tenten's next comment.

"Leave her alone, she probably just wants to be alone right now. She seemed pretty tired after that battle." Tenten continued to stare at the fire.

Neji reluctantly took a few steps back before fully turning around and walking back to his tent, once he was inside he activated his byakugan and found her walking around. Maybe tenten was right, she was just taking a walk. He saw her sit down at the base of a tree and decided that she was alright. He deactivated his byakugan and tried to get some sleep before his watch. Though this attempt was futile, for he had a restless dream.

Dream

"Where am I?" Neji thought running through endless amounts of trees. He had a horrible feeling in his gut that something had happened. "What's going on?"

Suddenly the trees ended and a clearing appeared. Sakura was lying in the middle of it unmoving, her neck and lips were bruised and her clothes were torn. "Sakura," he whispered her name. He took a step toward her, but a voice started talking.

"you killed her." Neji spun around looking for the voice. "you killed her," it repeated.

"NO, I didn't"

"yeah, you did." Sasuke's red eyes stared into Neji's white ones.

"UCHIHA" he yelled at him and charged at him while pulling out a kunai.

"ha, you actually think you can beat me."

Neji kept charging at him and swinging the kunai around. He kept dodging them, but he was so blinded by his rage he couldn't concentrate.

"you'll just end up hurting her." Neji threw the kuani at Sasuke this time. Sasuke moved and Sakura's body was right behind him. Just as the kunai was about to pierce her heart,

End dream

Neji woke up.It was just a dream, but there was no way that he would be able to get back to sleep.

"Hey, neji" Naruto said when he saw neji come out of the tent.

"yeah, sure I'll take over the shift." He answered knowing that was Naruto's question.

"hey, thanks. I'm so bagged." Naruto yawned and walked back to his tent.

Sakura woke up with an ache in her neck, she realized she had fallen asleep against the tree. "Oh, crap" she had noticed that it was dark out and was probably missing her watch. She ran back to the camp as fast as she could.

When she reached the camp she wasn't too surprised to see Neji sitting there. It was just her luck that she would have to deal with the one person she loved and hated. She tried to ignore him and walk quickly to her tent without drawing attention, but it was inevitable.

"Where have you been?"

"Why should you care."

"Hn,"

Sakura began to walk away, but felt a hard grasp on her wrist. She followed the arm up to the cold white eyes of Neji. "let go of me." She said with venom in her voice. She gave a hard tug when he didn't release her. "Let go!!" she raised her voice.

"Do you want to wake everyone up?"

Sakura gave a sigh of annoyance and in a whisper with as much venom and hatred she could muster she said, "your such and egoistical arrogant jerk. I don't even know why I put up with you. I could just walk away and never speak to you again, but no you ins—."

"Do you love Gaara?"

"What?"

"Do you?!"

"No, no, of course not. Why would you even think of something like that."

"I saw you kissing him."

Sakura didn't answer at first "I was confused and I felt comforted by the thought of knowing that someone cared."

"What were you confused about?" he looked her in the eye.

"I was……..confused about my feelings for Sasuke." Neji's heart dropped and he calmly went back to the fire.

Sakura felt so bad for lying to him, she knew that her feelings for Sasuke had faded when she realized she loved Neji, but Neji didn't love her. She felt even more depressed seeing that he almost looked relieved. But why did he ask in the first place, was he just curious. Yeah, that was probably it.

Sakura stood there for a bit longer, debating whether she should tell Neji about her feelings and get it off her shoulders. "Neji….I--."

"Go to bed." Sakura was surprised at the anger in his voice. Was he angry with her, for what reason. She couldn't think, all she knew was that Neji hated her. She could feel the tears now, but did her best to conceal them.

I hate her, how can she go from one guy to the next and still have feelings for Sasuke. None of them even like her. I'm the one in love with her. Maybe I should just "Go to bed." He realized he said that outloud and looked up to see Sakura with glistening eyes. She walked into the tent and for the third time in a week the thought of Sakura's tearstained face the night of the party came into his mind. But this time it wasn't because of Sasuke, it was because of him.

Morning came quickly and as neji sat eating his fish he stole quick glances at Sakura. Actually everyone was stealing quick glances at her.

"Sakura-chan, are you okay." Naruto finally asked.

"Yeah, I'm just a little tired, Naruto-kun"

"You look kind of pale, do you have a fever." Naruto put his hand to her forehead.

"No I'm fine."

"Sakura you can go lie down for a bit before we leave." Kakashi told her, looking at her with concern.

"No I'm fine, I said." Beginning to get a little irritated.

"Sakura, go lie down." Shikamaru said.

Sakura obeyed knowing that you followed any order from the captain. Sakura layed facing the ceiling of the tent trying to fall asleep, but all she could picture was Neji's relief and the sound of anger in his voice.

"She doesn't look well, should we send a note to the Hokage." Temari asked sitting beside Tenten.

"I don't think she's ill, I think it's more of depression." Tenten answered.

"Really, what would she be depressed about?'

"I don't know, might be Sasuke. All I know is that she was crying last night. You could barely hear her, but she was crying."

"I hope she'll be okay."

"Oh, she will. She's always great in battle. It's just when nothing is distracting her from her problems."
Neji listened to the girls conversation and couldn't help but think that he was the problem.