FINALLY...
She had successfully arrived at her destination, hospital nowhere in sight.
Now, Sakura liked her job at the hospital.
Really, she did.
But there were a set number of bedpans she--or anyone else--could empty before enough became too many and at that point--because, keeping her sanity was something she rather valued--she felt no one would blame her if she took an extra-long, and maybe just a little early, and, okay, a completely unscheduled break.
She was only lurking in an abandoned training field because it was a nice day out, not because she was hiding or anything.
Yeah.
And it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she just wanted a little frickin' peace and quiet, or that she had already had to change uniforms twice today because one bodily fluid or another had been spurted on her, or her righteous fury at the hazy cloud of gossip floating around the nurses' station about some mythical naughty incident involving her and Kiba of all people--(she made a note to go find him and beat him up later, as he was the most likely origin of said stories)--and, and, just...
Meh.
No, she'd worry about that stuff later, about the dirty uniforms she'd have to wash before the stains set in, about impending migraines, hunting down Kiba, avoiding Tsunade's wrath when she found out she was playing hooky...
Later, Later!
She sighed and relaxed further back into the surprisingly comfortable tree she was resting against--though, sitting down anywhere was pretty comfortable compared to standing all day. And it was pleasantly warm out, with a slight breeze... the smell and sounds of one of Konoha's (tamer) forests surrounding her... and to complete her relaxation bliss, she was currently nursing a double-scoop serving of her favorite dessert.
Konoha had many specialty shops, as large and metropolitan as it was, and that included a half a dozen or so ice cream parlors as well. But in her opinion, nothing could compare to the quality of Sukayuki's Super Succulent Sweet Shoppe. Despite having a name worthy of even Lee's poetic enthusiasm, they did indeed live up to their name. They sold many confections, but Sakura was fond of their ice cream in particular because they carried her favorite flavor, one no one else made, called Prettily Pink Peppermint™. Again, despite the gag-worthy alliteration theme that seemed to run rampant throughout the store, she couldn't deny that it was the tastiest damn ice cream she had ever eaten. And if fewer people wanted to eat it because of its silly name, well, then, more for her. Actually, she hadn't wanted to eat something so blatantly pink either, at first--(everyone gave her pink things--didn't they notice her favorite color was red?!)--but Ino--who was actually the one who had brought her there, finally over her diet phase--had somehow nagged her into at least tasting a sample of it...
And then she was hooked.
So, yeah, she was hiding out in an abandoned corner of Konoha to avoid being dragged back to the hospital, and to relax and such...
...but she also didn't particularly like eating her Peppermint-y treat out in public...
...because then even more people would think that pink=Sakura and oh, isn't just so cute that she eats things the same color as her hair...
...and she'd never hear the end of it.
She kind of wished the fine ice cream creators at SSSSS would stop making it pink--peppermint oil was clear, so the color had absolutely nothing to do with the flavor--but she wasn't about to tell the people how to make their ice cream. After all, no one told her how to be a medic. And if they did, she punched them. Unless the person telling her were Tsunade, of course, in which case any punching would be a monumentally bad idea.
But for now, while she was alone in the peaceful un-silent-silence of the trees, she could enjoy her precious confection to the fullest.
She was, sadly, almost to the bottom of the cup, but she still had a good two spoonfuls left. After scooping some of the semi-melted pinkness onto her plastic utensil, she slid it slowly into her mouth, trying to savor it to the fullest extent through as much tastebud-to-cream contact as possible. She sighed as the flavors fully hit her tongue, musing vaguely on the biochemical processes that allowed such a sensation--(yes, she was a bit of a nerd that way, but science made her happy nearly as much as ice cream.)
As it melted and slid down her throat, most of the cold sting gone from resting in her mouth, the ice cream produced a warming sensation in her tummy that had her drifting into sleep...
"Ah, hello, Ugly."
Sakura jolted and stood up abruptly, nearly losing her cup of ice cream in the process.
Only one person dared call her that to her face. Now, if only she could find him...
There was a slight snap above her in the trees and she whipped her head around to see the owner of the voice crouched on a branch 15 feet off the ground.
"S-Sai! What are you doing here?" She cursed herself for sounding nervous, but she had been hiding, so getting found naturally made her act guilty.
He tilted his head slightly, eyes crinkled up in that slightly plastic smile of his, and pondered her for a second before answering.
"I was running through the trees," he said, his tone clearly puzzled that she had to even ask.
"No, no, I meant, what are you doing here, at this training ground?"
"Ah. Well, I was going to train." If she hadn't known for a fact that he had absolutely no grasp on the concept of sarcasm she might have smacked him.
Quashing her violent tendencies, she resolved to drag a more informative answer out of her extremely direct and secrecy trained teammate. She was still a little wary that he was going to report her to Tsunade or something.
"But this training ground is abandoned--it's not really any good for training." And it was true. This particular field was no longer maintained, and had nearly turned back into forest. Though, why people spent the majority of their time training in environmental conditions they would likely never come across in a real battle had always mystified her. Honestly? What were the chances of a fight breaking out in the middle of a mowed, flat patch of-
"It is because it is abandoned that I sought it out," he interrupted, though she supposed he had no way of knowing he did so. "You see, I was planning on practicing my Choujuu Gigaa, but the ink seems to kill the grass when it splatters, and I was asked not to ruin any more functioning fields with it. I was also given the option of "cleaning up my own damn mess", I believe the phrase used was, but as the ink is rather hard to clean up, I would prefer not to do so."
Well, that made sense, she supposed. She sighed. That sounded like Sai all right. She also smiled a little at the mental image of an angry groundskeeper yelling at her teammate for undoing all of his hard work while the clueless boy just smiled and stared it him. (You'd think by now that anyone who kept up the shinobi training grounds would be used to having them utterly ruined--heaven knew how many she herself had smashed apart...)
"Oh, well that's probably a good idea then." She answered lamely.
"Yes, but I did not know that you had already claimed this field. I will just find another, then. There are plenty more..."
He turned and crouched, preparing to jump back into the forest, but Sakura stopped him.
"Sai, wait!" She supposed it might be lingering guilt from abandoning her post, but she also felt bad for taking his spot.
He stayed tensed for the jump, but turned his head around to regard her.
"Um, i'm not really using this field to train or anything, so... I mean, you can use it if you want to. I don't mind." Why was she so nervous all of the sudden? Still must be lingering guilt, she decided.
He blinked once, then replied.
"Oh," and he dropped down from the trees, landing a few feet in front of her, looking her straight in the eye.
A moment of silence, then:
"Then what areyou doing here?" He probably didn't mean to sound accusing, but...
"Oh, um, well..." Sai was one of the people who would probably stupidly assume she was eating her ice cream because it was pink, but she had just asked him to stay, so she couldn't really make him leave now...
"Just... eating ice cream."
He blinked.
"Ice cream?"
"...yes." She held the cup out a little in front of her and he peered closely at it.
"Sakura." She was a little surprised. He hardly ever used her real name, though she had noticed it was a more and more frequent occurrence of late.
"Yes?"
"Is all ice cream pink?"
"No..." she said, more than a little grumpily.
"Ah. I see." He straightened back up, nodding to himself.
Here comes the hair comment...
"I've never had it before, so I wasn't sure."
Sakura felt stunned.
"You've... never had it?" Something as simple as this...
She was once again reminded that she was the only member of her team with a childhood worth mentioning.
"No, but i've read about it. It's supposed to taste sweet, but it's also quite unhealthy, yes?" He asked, apparently unaware just how thoroughly his words revealed his abnormality.
Or maybe he was aware, but was just so used to not understanding normal life that he didn't care anymore.
"Y-yeah, it's sweet... and it's bad for you, but as long as you don't eat too much of it at once, the taste usually makes you... a little happier, I suppose." How many things in her life did she take for granted?
Silence reigned in the clearing for a moment as Sakura looked down at the now melted remnants of her dessert. It wasn't much, but...
"Um, Sai?"
"Yes?"
"Would you..." His face, though his expression didn't technically change, suddenly seemed more emotive.
"Hm?"
"Would you like to try it? It's kind of melted, but..." She once again held the cup further out from her body and he looked down at it, an almost confused look in his eye.
"Ah, I suppose I..." He reached his hand up to take it, but apparently Sakura let go of it a second too soon because the next thing she heard was-
Crish.
It was rather hard to describe the sound her nearly empty styrofoam cup made hitting the grass--an event that mysteriously happened despite four lighting-quick shinobi hands being within catching distance--but it was the closest approximation she could think of.
For a long moment, the three of them just stood there--Sakura, looking chagrined, Sai, looking... well, there was some sort of emotion there on his face, anyway, and the cup, looking sad and forlorn perched on the grass, a line of ants now streaming towards the tiny patch of sticky pink on the ground.
"Ah... sorry, Sai, that was all I had left..."
He didn't look disappointed like she thought he would, but instead he just tilted his head to the side a little and smiled a little wider.
"There's still a little more," he said, pointing to her face.
"What are you-mmph!" Before his words and actions could even register in her mind, he had closed the gap between them and gently gripped her chin in his right hand, tilting it up slightly so he could pull her lower lip in between his own, sucking lightly.
She tried to jerk away, but her muscles seemed frozen in place, as well as all coherent thought.
His warm tongue slid out of his mouth and laved over the skin just under her lip, and her chin was licked clean of the sticky pink dribble she hadn't been aware of until just then.
Her eyes shot open when he pulled away--(when had she even closed them?)--just in time to see him wipe his own mouth off a little with the back of his glove, eyes still focused on her.
For a full three seconds, he just stood there and stared at her, his finger resting on his chin as if contemplating something. Then he smiled and those inky black eyes of his disappeared from view as they crinkled closed.
"It was quite sweet. And I do believe I feel a bit happier now. Thank you, Sakura." And then he turned and walked out into the field, presumably to start training.
As if he hadn't just stolen her first kiss.
Unfortunately for Sai, he only got about five steps away before Sakuras' brain completely rebooted and his actions and their implications fully registered in her mind.
And she was not pleased.
"SAAAIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!"
Needless to say, Sakura ended up returning to the hospital a little earlier than she had previously intended. She even had the good grace to drag her teammate along with her.
Though she didn't go so far as to actually stay and mend his 3 broken bones and dozen bruises--some other nurse would just have to take care of it.
Besides, she was more in a 'beating-someone-to-a-pulp' frame of mind than a healing one, and she still had a certain rumor-spreading dog-nin to enlighten...
~o0o~
Across town at the Inuzuka compound, Kiba felt a shiver race down his spine.
"Hide, now," Akamaru whined.
Kiba was inclined to agree.
~o0o~
A/N - Aaaaaaaaaand, CUT! Okay, so this is just a random little one-shot that I basically wrote in one sitting, though I did go back and edit it later. Honestly, when the idea first came to me it was just because I was thinking about eating some peppermint ice cream (which does exist, is indeed pink, but doesn't have that godawful name) and I envisioned Sakura getting a kiss this way, for some reason. Sai just seemed like the one most likely to randomly kiss her like that, so that's who I used. I actually do like SakuraxSai quite a bit, and am rather happy the way this turned out, especially since it was so easy to write. Heck, I might even make this a twoshot or longer if I get enough of a positive response (read: review this plz!).