Chapter 31

Chapter 12

Sakura's POV

I don't even know what to think anymore.

The last couple of days have been pure confusion.

I mean, I really like Sasuke – well, at least I think I do – but with the way things have been going, I'm starting to doubt myself.

What happened on Tuesday – when Sasuke kissed me in the projector room – confounded the hell out of me. And the conversation I overheard? I think it just made Sasuke mad at me (if he isn't already…).

On Wednesday, when I had my Math exam – which I think I did very well on – Sasuke acted the same as he did the day before. Not that he was in my class, but when I saw him in the halls and stuff; it was like I didn't even exist.

Wednesday night, my father made me even more stressed with the Sasuke situation. He said that the Carters were having a business/Christmas party on Friday, and that children were encouraged to come. I pointed out that I wasn't exactly I child. He said that Sasuke would be there too, so it would be just fine. I guess he assumed that we were friends or something – but he was so wrong. I tried to get out of going to the party, with excuses like 'Why isn't Puriti forced to go?' but when he mentioned Sarah and her broken leg, I realized it would probably be the only chance I had to see her and to know if she was alright before Christmas break started. But then again, Sasuke was a big obstacle in this decision – he was being his stupid, ignorant, mean self and he would be at the party too.

So for the time being, I told my dad I would go to the party, but I still left my true decision hanging in the air.

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Sasuke POV

Sasuke was currently painting unicorns.

Unicorns.

Never had Sasuke ever thought that he would paint a unicorn, let alone a whole herd in 12 magical different colours.

But it was one of the things Sarah had asked him to do. Actually, it was one of the many things Sarah had asked him to do – and Sasuke felt as if he had to do them all, because after all, it was his fault for her leg being broken, so decorating the her cast with unicorns was the least he could do.

If he was actually watching, life-guarding, as he was supposed to be doing, Sarah would be fine. If he had been paying any attention at all, he could have stopped her from even going to the deep end of the pool. If his eyes hadn't been fucking glued to Sakura…

Lately this is where all of his thoughts seemed to be going to – Sakura. There probably wasn't one hour where a part of her would be lingering in his mind, taunting him with another kiss like the one he had the previous day.

And what a kiss it was.

Sasuke was right about a part of his theory – he really wanted to touch her and it had to somehow be satisfied – but what he wasn't prepared for was the fact that he wanted more. Way more.

But he had to control himself. He had to make sure he didn't make another mistake like that again.

But then, was it really a mistake in the first place?

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Sakura POV

You know what's weird? I haven't had a car in over 41 days, and I've been managing pretty well. I would get the occasional drives from my parents, Hinata always offered to drive me home from school, Puriti intermittently drove me places, and I sometimes got a ride with Naruto.

And even though I desperately want my own car again, I wasn't dying without it.

Except on Thursday, when it was my English exam, I desperately needed a car.

I was sitting in the hall in front of my locker with Ino and Hinata doing some last minute studying. Earlier that day I was being ignored by Sasuke, who didn't even acknowledge by presence when I asked about Sarah again. It was 20 minutes to our exam, and we all started to go into our respective classrooms, when I realized I couldn't find my copy of Macbeth. This is when it would have been good to have a car, because it was an open-book exam, and without my book, I would most likely fail. Big time.

So I started freaking out, frantically tearing through all my bags and books, trying to find that one piece of fricken literature that would determine my failing or passing. Ino and Hinata helped me look for it, but that was all they could do – time was running out and if they gave me their book, they would fail. And by the time I searched through everything of mine and didn't find it, I was one of the last people in the hall.

So I was in big trouble.

Until someone walked by and dropped something on my lap. I looked down to see a copy of Macbeth.

What?

I quickly glanced around to see my savior – but I only saw one other person in the hall.

Walking away, with his back towards me, I noticed the familiar black, spiky, disheveled hair and a dark blue top with a high collar. He turned and entered an examination classroom.

Sasuke?

There was one way I could find out it if was really him who saved me – I flipped to the back of the front cover and saw the neat and trim scroll reading, Sasuke Uchiha.

So he did give me his book. But why? I mean, wasn't he mad at me? Wasn't he ignoring my existence?

Then how could he have known that I needed a book? Why would he give me his? Wouldn't he fail without it?

I took a quick look around the hall, but he was gone by the time my head was up.

So he did lend me his book – for reasons unknown to me – but should I use it?

The answer was yes, because it was only a couple of minutes until the exam started, I needed a book, and I wasn't even in my classroom yet.

So I used the book. And man, was it helpful – I definitely would have failed without it. But then, didn't Sasuke? He gave me his book at the risk of failure, but why?

I would have to return it to him with a HUGE thank you.

But when I tried to find him after the exam, he was already gone.

And the only other time I would see him before the Christmas break was at his parents' party the next day.

So that solved another decision – I was going to the Carter Christmas Party.

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Sasuke POV

Sasuke wasn't exactly sure why he lent his book to Sakura. He had tried to come up with some sort of reasoning for it, but he only came up with 3 possibilities.

One, he felt sorry (almost) for confusing the shit out of her in the projector room.

Two, he didn't need the book anyway, he could pass the exam even with his eyes closed, so why not?

And Three, it was something in the way she frantically searched around, her eyes wide and movements frenetic, that possibly appealed to his… better nature (if that's what you could call it).

But the real reason, the fourth reason, was one only his subconscious could figure out- it was almost a personal invitation to the Carter Party.

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Sakura POV

Wearing a simple black dress and holding a purse that held Sasuke's book and Sarah's card, I entered the Carter mansion with my father.

After greetings and introductions, I was told to go down to the basement where all the other 'youths' were, and I was kind of excited, because I had never been to any where on the lower floors of the mansion.

So I eagerly made my way down the stairs to see the most awesome basement ever.

There were pool tables, foosball tables, air hockey tables, TV's, crazy big speakers, a bar, and even a small stage with a karaoke machine; and it was all nicely organized to look like some sort of pub.

Except this pub housed kids. Tons of kids. Everywhere.

They were all over every piece of equipment that I previously described, and still there were more.

Some smaller kids were over playing dress-up with Sarah and admiring her cast as she told the story on how she broke her leg, and some girls who looked to be a couple years younger than I was were sitting on one of the couches, fluttering their eyelashes and pointing to Sasuke- who was a little ways away from Sarah, keeping an eye on her and completely ignoring everyone else.

I decided to make my way over to Sarah and see how she was doing – the incident that happened on Thursday gave me enough resolution to inference that Sasuke didn't hate me or was completely ignoring me as well.

"Look! There she is!" I heard Sarah's voice shout once I got closer to her group. The girls around her turned to see what she was pointing at.

"Hey Sarah, I'm glad to see you're okay," I greeted, wary of Sasuke's presence, "Is your leg feeling alright?"

"Yeah! Look! I got unicorns on my cast! Sasuke did them for me!"

My eyes flickered to Sasuke quickly, and then back to Sarah. "Wow, those are pretty. Here, I have something for you," and I held out the card I made for her.

Sarah snatched it out of my hands in anticipation, and when she opened it to see the drawing inside she let out a "Wow! See? I told you Sakura was the best!"

The other girls whispered to each other and I heard a couple of 'Oohs' and 'Aahs' – I'm glad to know I'm popular in the younger crowd- more baby sitting opportunities.

Then one of the girls whispered into Sarah's ear, and Sarah answered out loud.

"Yeah! Let's dress her up like Rock star Barbie!"

The other girls agreed with cheers. I suddenly knew it was the wrong thing, greeting Sarah and her friends.

The girls were pulling me towards the dress up box when suddenly they stopped to a deep, smooth but warning voice.

"Sarah." It was Sasuke. He was calmly watching from where he was leaning against the wall.

"All right, I remember, I'll behave." She answered with bitter conviction, looking at her brother. She then turned to her friends and apologized, "Sorry, we can't dress up Sakura. Stupid-head," she pointed her thumb at her brother, "said I have to behave real good during the party."

I let out a sigh of relief and once the girls let go of me, I hesitantly walked over to where Sasuke was.

After a long stretch of awkward silence, I handed Macbeth over to Sasuke.

"Um, thanks a lot for the book, uh, I really would have failed if you hadn't, um, lent it to me."

Sasuke didn't reply, nor did he make eye contact – he just took the book and continued to observe the party.

A million things were running through my head right then – what should I say? What should I do? Think of something! Quick! Maybe I should apologize? For what though? Maybe I should say something funny – no, it would come out dorky! What the hell should I do?

Then, I swear a light bulb appeared over my head because I had an excellent idea of what to say.

"So… I bought Star Wars Battlefront 2."

This time Sasuke did look at me, even if it was out of the corner of his eye.

And there was a mischievous glint to them too.

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"How do you do that!?" I yelled in frustration as Sasuke, once again, beat me.

After my conversation starter, Sasuke and I snuck up to his room and I found myself playing X-box with him. We had played for hours, and I was losing. Badly. At least I was becoming more comfortable around him- enough to yell and whine about my poor skills and lack of coordination with videogames.

"I give up, this is ridiculous," I announced and tossed my controller in Sasuke's direction, crossing my arms and staring stubbornly at the TV afterwards.

What I didn't expect was to have the controller thrown back onto my lap again. I looked to Sasuke, surprised, and saw him starting another round of Star Wars- and smirking.

I gave him a quick cut-eye, picked up my controller, and continued to play. I lost again – all because of Sasuke doing some crazy ending move where he killed a bunch of people really quickly.

"How do you do that!?" I half-yelled in frustration. This must be feeding his ego an all you can eat buffet.

Sasuke looked at me, raised an eyebrow, and slanted his controller towards me, where I could see his fingers pressing down on the buttons for the combination of his crazy ending move.

"Hold on, let me see that," I asked and slid a little closer towards him on the couch to get a better look at his controller.

What I didn't realize was how close that brought me to Sasuke.

"That's it?" I started surprised that it was that easy to win the game. I tilted my head up to look at him trying to sense if he was lying or not.

But he was staring right back at me.

"It's that easy?" I asked for confirmation.

He smirked. My heart raced.

"That's all I have to do to win?"

"If you can even beat me," came his low, smooth, cocky murmur.

"Yeah, well…" It took a couple of seconds to gather myself. I could barely breathe after he spoke. "Start another game and we'll see about that." I said with false confidence as I looked up at him again.

But we never did start another game. Instead, with our faces so close to each other already, he quickly leaned in, and kissed me.

I let go of the controller out of surprise, and let it fall to the ground. Sasuke did the same with his, accept instead of surprise, it was to free his hands – which were suddenly on the back of my head and waist.

I then felt myself just as eagerly returning the kiss, after all, I never wanted to stop in the storage room. I never wanted to stop ever.

Before I even knew it, I found my back against the leather seat of the couch, with Sasuke on top of me. I didn't know what to do with my hands, so at first they stayed pressed up against his chest, and then, as he urged me to, found their way around his neck. At one moment, I had enough confidence to slide a hand down to his shirt, to feel the stomach and abs that I spend half of my time staring at when I'm with him.

Sasuke's hands were a completely different story though. They were everywhere. In my hair, around my neck, on my waist, on my legs, too close to the hem of my dress. But they moved so often I eventually let go of focusing on them and moved to focusing on more important things, like his mouth. Even when those hands wandered a little closer to my chest than I would have liked, at that moment it was hard to even notice let alone form any type of protest.

This had to be the longest kiss I've ever had with him. But I didn't really notice that at the time (how could I?).

What I did notice was a voice calling Sasuke's name. And then my name.

And it was coming from outside his room.

Sasuke slowly broke away, though he didn't get completely off of me. Breathing hard, he let his head drop so his forehead was resting on the cushion beside mine, as if reluctant to stop.

And though that idea made me happy, I was overwhelmed with nervousness when the voices came closer, and I heard footsteps nearing the door.

It was just at the last second before the door opened to reveal Mrs. Carter, when we both sat up properly in a rush.

"Sorry to interrupt your fun, but Sakura, your Dad is ready to leave now," Mrs. Carter said, giving a soft smile.

"Uh…" I was still a little dumbstruck, "Oh, yeah, okay, um, sure," Wow, I must have sounded cool. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and then rushed out, 'uh, bye Sasuke."

And I grabbed my purse and hurried out of the room, with two pairs of eyes following me.

I didn't see the suspecting look Mrs. Carter gave to her adopted son when I left.

I also didn't see how ruffled my dress and my hair was until I saw my reflection in the mirror of my room.