I felt so enthusiastic in continuing this story. It's like the ideas are flowing so smoothly that it became really hard to ignore. I know this isn't a great hit like those other awesome SasuSaku fanfics, but I still have hope for this little baby.

I know I made a lot of errors like inconsistent verb tenses and spelling and I'd be happy if you can point out some of those I failed to notice.

Please enjoy! :D

Ice cream for the soul

a treatment for one's stupidity

Tsunade was busy—busy sleeping on her desk after she was tortured in signing a mountain of paperworks. Though she was occupied traveling in Dreamland, those snores of hers were never inviting to anyone who would like to end that nice slumber, rather they set as warnings to whoever dared to wake up the beast in her.

"I totally missed this place!" An excited female voice interrupted the blonde headmistress into taking another sip of sake in her dream.

"You should at least lower your voice," said a male voice.

"Oops, sorry," whispered the girl.

The office door was opened by a pinkette which was followed by a black-haired male.

"Tsunade-samaaa!"

Now that popped a vein in her head. The newcomers were astonished to see a dark aura coming out of their headmistress.

"WHY YOU—! "

Tsunade glared at them with her beady eyes, like a predator getting ready to pounce at its prey any second. But before she could get them, the newcomers were grabbed by their collars and were pulled outside the room.

***_oO0Oo_***

Sasuke caressed his throat. He was nearly choked to death when he was pulled by his collar. He glared at the one responsible—his freaking Math teacher. The silver-haired man smiled at them behind his mask, oblivious of the invisible daggers his student was throwing at him. "Well I guess I came at the right time."

The Uchiha sighed. Even though he disliked his sensei, he was thankful deep inside for stopping them from Sakura's suicidal act.

Sakura, by the way, was silent. She was staring at the gray-haired man. She noted his mask, his posture, and the little orange book half-tucked in his pants' pocket. And then it hit her. "Kakashi-sensei!" she nearly screamed.

"Why I'm glad that you still remember me." Kakashi grinned. Sasuke was not surprised that he knew what happened to the pinkette. He looked at his watch and waited. "Hm... I think that she would have calmed down by now." The pinkette flushed, knowing that 'she' was the headmistress. Right, she remembered: Tsunade did quite have the temper of a lion.

Kakashi knocked for his two students and walked away with his book opened in his right hand.

Sasuke came in first with Sakura close to his back. He could feel her heat and her hand clutching his sleeve. "Tsunade-sama?" he heard Sakura speak.

Tsunade was sitting behind her desk holding a glass of water. She massaged her temples and sighed. She looked up at the two of them with intent eyes. "Well, I guess you're in your right mind now?"

"Hey! What was that supposed to—mmph!"

Sakura was cut off as Sasuke placed his hand over her mouth. Not now, Sakura. But he released his hand immediately because maybe she'll bite it off.

"Yeah," Sakura replied, as if she heard Sasuke's thoughts.

Tsunade's eyes met Sasuke's, telling him to leave the room. He bowed and obeyed the blonde. But before he closed the door, he glanced at the pinkette at the corner of his eyes.

Tsunade cleared her throat. "Okay, Sakura. Tell me what you know."

***_oO0Oo_***

"Hey! No fair!"

Naruto threw his hands up and groaned in frustration. How could he lose for the 13th time in a row in these childish board games?

"You're such an idiot Naruto." Wow, that was new. Shikamaru sighed as he juggled the dice they used. "You can't just buy every panel you land on!"

Hey, don't mess with my game strategy, Naruto thought defensively.

Ino giggled, annoying Naruto even more. "Yeah. You'll get bankcrupt if you do."

The blonde boy just laid on the tatami mats with his arm suppporting his head. The cool breeze from Hinata's garden sure was relaxing. He sighed and immaturely pouted. "I was just testing if luck was on my side."

"Huh," scoffed the blonde diva. "What a lame excuse, Naruto!"

Ino's boyfriend sighed and muttered something about blondes being troblesome under his breath. He just watched the two big-mouths argue while Hinata was trying to stop them. Well, all she did was stutter and glance every five seconds at the two but it was evident that girl was trying. Sakura and Sasuke just arrived about half an hour ago. Tenten and Neji were still absorbed in their advanced lessons.

"Yo, something the matter?" Shikamaru asked when he noticed that Sasuke, who sat beside him, was a little too silent, deep in his own thoughts. The Uchiha tried to keep cool as he convinced the pineapple-head genius that nothing's wrong. He heard Sakura's giggle at one corner with Tenten and Neji. (Neji wanted to keep his distance away from annoying idiots, e.g. Naruto) It seemed that she and the brunette were discussing something while Neji was on a break. Sasuke just couldn't help himself to be in deep thought again.

/?/?/?/

He entered the headmistress' office after Sakura's turn. They passed each other but it gave him a cold sensation. He reminisced the time whenever they meet: Sakura would always give him a warm smile. Sasuke noticed that Tsunade looked disappointed. He wanted to ask why but he waited for her to say something.

"She made a large progress. She was able to remember her friends and some of the faculty. But..." The blonde had her brows knit together and then continued, "She doesn't seem to remember the slightest about her childhood memories nor the things that happened recently."

"I LOVE YOU, SASUKE!"

So she doesn't remember...

"She needs more time," Tsunade said.

Sasuke didn't know how to react. Sakura still knew nothing about him. He was told that he would be leaving Konoha in less than a month. "I...understand," he replied with clenched teeth and he left the room without looking back.

/?/?/?/

"Hey, teme. What's wrong?"

The Uchiha was brought back to reality when he felt the dobe poking him. "Nothing," he said. Naruto raised an eyebrow then shrugged. "Sasuke said he'll treat us some ice cream!" the blonde exclaimed to the others. Sasuke shot him a deadly glare. "What the fuck, Naru-"

But he was cut off when he felt Naruto's heavy arm on his shoulder. Seriously, what had this guy been eating since the start of vacation? "Any flavor you want!" the dobe added and just smiled mischievously at him.

You're gonna pay one of these days, Naruto...

"Well that sounds nice of you, Sasuke," Tenten cooed. She turned at Neji who was busy scribbling some notes. When he looked up, she pleaded for another break. The Hyuuga just sighed, defeated. A distracted Tenten would be hard to contain.

"I think I'm in for strawberry." Ino stood up dragging her boyfriend with her. "How 'bout you Hinata?"

"Well, I-"

"Good," Ino said as she took it as a 'yes'. Shikamaru's thought of troublesome blondes was right.

Sasuke took a glance at Sakura who in turn was looking at him with a glint in her emerald eyes. She turned at Naruto and said, "Well then, shall we go?"

And then Sasuke realized: He didn't even bother back then to know what her favorite ice cream flavor was.

***_oO0Oo_***

Ice cream wasn't a pocket driller so it was okay for Sasuke. The gang was enjoying their cones from Ichiraku. They just discovered that the ramen shop recently added ice cream in their menu to keep business booming and Naruto's face was indescribable when he knew that there was ramen-flavored ice cream. Wonder how that tasted...

All of them were at their favorite spot the park, the spot where the trees were so close together that the shade covered a vast amount of space. Sasuke's vanilla ice cream was melting fast, dripping dramatically to the tip of his cone. He noticed that Sakura was laughing with Hinata after licking her peppermint ice cream. Peppermint huh. So that's what she wanted.

"Arf! Arf!"

"Akamaru, no!"

Sasuke eyed a teen running after a dog which was going towards them. He noticed that he was in their class, a boy from the Inuzuka clan which owned a dog shop.

"Kiba!" For a second, the gang went silent when they heard Hinata shouted the teen's name. That was peculiar. The only time that they heard Hinata expressed herself so strongly was when she was obeying her father's orders. The said girl was wide eyed when the dog jumped to her lap and made itself comfortable. Kiba was ruffling his dark hair in frustration when he came close to them. "I'm sorry but it seemed that Akamaru missed you," Kiba grinned at Hinata who smiled back. Just like Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura, Hinata and Kiba were groupmates since middle school with some weird bug fanatic named Shino.

Hinata seemed to be enjoying herself in conversation with Kiba after she excused herself from the group. Akamaru was still in the Hyuuga's arms. Ino felt proud for her friend who was coming out of her comfort zone little by little. But she heard a growl behind her. Ugh, not more dogs. The blonde turned around to get rid of it when she realized that the growling was coming from Naruto. His cerulean eyes were shooting knives at Kiba who was (maybe it was just Ino's imagination) subtly killing the space between him and Hinata.

Ino may not have great senses like a canine but she could have sworn she smelled jealousy in the air. Oh this should be fun.

***_oO0Oo_***

Her head hurts. With a big huff of frustration, Sakura laid on the king-sized bed of the guest room—her room. She started rolling over the soft sheets smelled of lavender. Pictures in various sizes were scattered on the other side of the bed which were shuffled and reshuffled again by Sakura in hope of getting a little spark of familiarity.

"Darn it. Must have my head hit a little too hard."

She groaned as she rummaged through her bag, looking for something useful. Her fingers felt hard wooden box beneath all her luggage. With curiosity written all over her face, she slowly picked it up. Her eyes preyed on every feature of the carved box; she felt every smooth curve until she heard a click after her finger hit something metallic. And then it opened, releasing the sleeping melody within as two little stars circled around the center. (1)

"Oh, wow," Sakura breathed. "This...was a gift..."

/?/

The music box was the best gift she ever received when she had her 14th birthday. It was wrapped neatly with a ribbon as it sat on top of her desk when she entered the classroom as early as any other day. The card attached didn't say anything about whom it was from so Sakura scanned the room, looking for someone who'd give some sort of signal that it was from them. But no one did. She kept it in her bag as the sea of students came gushing in until she saw her friends running insanely towards her. (Well, count out Shikamaru and Neji, who were walking coolly behind them but were smiling all the same.) She watched the hilarious scene, fighting off her laugh. Although she felt euphoric, she couldn't seem to shake off the disappointing feeling that someone's missing.

"Happy birthday, forehead!" Baby blue eyes glinted as Ino handed over a large bouquet of carnations in different colors to the pinkette. "Make this a red letter day, sweetie." The blonde winked at her.

"Woah, when did you get so idiomatic, Ino?" Tenten teased. Knowing Ino, she's having a really hard time in comprehending English. The diva blamed her seatmate Choji, who ate during class hours having his chewing seemed louder than the teacher's voice.

"Well, Shikamaru helped me out with our assignment so the quiz should be a piece of cake!" Ino proudly said. Sakura saw the pineapple genius twitched his lips into a small smile.

"Hey, I'm not yet ready!" Naruto whined. "Help me, you guys!"

Oh, Naruto. You never change.

Sakura pulled out her notebook from her bag. "Here." She handed it to the surprised blonde. "English is not until the fifth period. Before then, you can browse on my notes and study."

Naruto was all teary-eyed when he thanked the pinkette. "Oh, by the way," He rummaged something in his backpack and held out simple apple green bracelet. "I know it's not much. Happy birthday!" He wore his goofy grin that made Sakura giggle. "Thank you!"

The bell rang, signaling the start of class. Everybody scurried to their respective seats before their sensei entered the room. Actually, they really didn't need to, since their first period teacher was the ever so late Kakashi. But they still did; they didn't want to push their luck. While Sakura searched for someone around the room, Ino quickly slipped a note to her hand before leaving. The silver-haired sensei made his way to their room and started their lesson. Sakura subtly opened the piece of paper under her desk.

Leggo mall after school. Hinata and Neji's treat. *wink*

P.S. Sorry if he's not here. That jerk. Went with his parent's business trip on YOUR birthday. On his fucking ass' behalf, I'll make sure you'll still have the best birthday of your entire life!

Sakura smiled. Ino could be a darling most of the time. That's why she loved the diva to bits. But she couldn't help her heart drop when the person she was searching for all morning was nowhere to be found.

(1) I wanted the melody to be one of the themes of Kingdom Hearts. (The game is awesome!) And I chose Kairi's theme. Here's the link: www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=lRdisTrKb6A [just remove the (dot)'s] Teehee.

Okay. So I threw in some NaruHinaKiba. I think this little rivalry would be cute... and maybe a little punch here and there *wink* So what do you think? I'd appreciate your opinions and comments about the story. Just PM me if you have any suggestions on how the gang would spend their summer. :D