Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters.

Here's chapter three, everyone. I once again apologize for rich bashing… I honestly don't like bashing at all, but sometimes it's necessary… gomen'nasai. Also I just wanted to thank all you reviewers, followers, favoritizers or whatever… you're all awesome. Enjoy. :]

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"All right, class, guess what we're studying today?" Professor Hatake started out his class with a good natured grin. Everyone looked at him plainly. The day was dragging and slow and somewhat… strange to Sakura. All her peers seemed to be watching, just awaiting the chance they would get to talk to her alone. She shivered, hoping it was just her nerves sending her those hints rather than reality. "No guesses, huh? All right then. Open your text books to pages five and six; today we'll be learning about the forces of nature!" He clasped his hands together upon hearing his students drone and groan in response to his cheeriness.

Even Sakura didn't know why he was in such a good mood today. It had even started back during breakfast:

Sakura awoke early that morning, like she did the previous morning, to once again join her professors at breakfast. She smiled when she met Professor Uchiha in the hallway. "Good morning, Ms. Haruno," he greeted her. When they arrived in the large cafeteria area, just like yesterday, Sasuke quieted down and spoke nothing. He simply ate his food in silence.

"Good morning, Ms. Haruno!" Professor Hatake greeted her. "Isn't it a lovely day? Are you ready to have your classes today?"

"Why're you so chipper…" Sasuke mumbled under his breath in response to Kakashi's conversation. Sakura giggled.

"I guess I am; I'm kind of nervous though… for music I mean," she glanced over to Sasuke to see if he would respond. To her excitement, he did:

"You'll be fine, Ms. Haruno."

Sakura sighed and stared blankly at her book. Even when she was simply recalling when Kakashi had been happy in the morning, Sasuke had found his way into her thoughts. She didn't want to think of him as often as she had been, because it had been weird to ever since she read the note stating their difference in age—that and the fact that Ino and her gang would bother her to no end about it. She didn't want to have to deal with rich people bashing her, insulting her, and everything of the sort.

Professor Hatake's voice merely merged with the air to Sakura's ears. She wasn't even concerned about paying attention in physics—she aced classes of the sort whenever they were presented to her. She planned on going through the pages and taking her own notes in her dorm room, but right now she just needed to think. How would she escape Ino at lunch? Outside wouldn't be safe—Nara Shikamaru was out there the last time she was. Maybe she could just slip to her dorm room for the hour…

The bell went off and summoned them to their next class. Kakashi had wrapped things up early, so students had spare time to use the restroom or talk before the next class started. Sakura frowned with worry. The last thing she needs is more free time. She rushed to the classroom, seeing as everyone else was going to the restroom. She hung her head after slumping into her seat. It was music class. She was hoping Professor Uchiha would show up before the rest of the students so they wouldn't attack her with their insults. Those rich people didn't know when to quit.

"Hey, billboard brow!" Ino sneered as she gracefully slipped into the seat beside Sakura. Just her luck: they were seatmates.

"Hi, Ino…" Sakura said simply, later realizing that she should've used her last name. She would regret forgetting that.

"That's Yamanaka to you, commoner. So how'd your little 'meeting' with Professor Uchiha go? Did you confess your 'love'? He's way too good for you, you know. You're just some filthy, gross, poor commoner. You're barely even human."

"Ino's right Sakura—you should just leave. This is a school for the rich, not for the poor," Tenten backed her up. Sakura looked away from them, hiding her face from her tormentors.

"Aw, is she gonna cry?" Temari teased wickedly. Sakura clenched her fists on her lap, trying to control both her temper and her tears. She couldn't take them hovering over her, insulting every last fiber of her very being. She didn't want to be in this school in the first place, but she didn't have a choice if she wanted to finish her education. At this point, Sakura just wanted to scream out her cries.

"Everyone, sit," Sasuke ordered as he entered the room. "Class is starting. Now then, as you all know, classes will be moving to the music room tomorrow so you all can start playing rather than listening to me talk, but if you don't listen to me today, you'll be completely lost tomorrow; so please stay with me." And the class began.

It seemed to Sakura that Sasuke took special care to explain every detail he could in meticulous detail. She strained to understand and grasp what he was saying. She took notes of everything he wrote on the board, even if she didn't quite understand what she was writing even. Everyone seemed to think this was the easiest class but her. Sakura's heart sunk at that fact: maybe she was just some useless moron commoner.

The last class before the lunch hour was Sakura's favorite: PE. Professor Guy was so vivacious that he made it twice as interesting as she already thought it was. She dressed in the locker room in shorts, a T-shirt, and white sneakers. She tied her hair back in a messy pony tail, not concerned about what she looked like.

"Are you all ready to start?!" Guy screamed with vigor.

"YES!" The class responded. Everyone seemed to enjoy PE with such a goofy teacher. He made them run laps, he made them go to their very limit, but he encouraged them the entire way. He was probably the most physically fit of all the professors in the college, not only because he was the PE teacher, but because he took his physical education seriously.

As Sakura was doing her timed jog around the field, she allowed her mind to wander. I wonder what it would be like to go on a jog with a guy… or with Professor Uchiha… she looked around at her beautiful surroundings. Nature was like the perfect getaway for Sakura.

"Hey, um… commoner?" Hinata jogged beside her before Sakura realized she was no longer alone. Sakura barely glanced over at her, almost wishing she didn't feel an obligation to answer every rich person that addressed her.

"You're Hyuga, right?" She answered her loosely, trying to talk in an even tone although she was running out of breath.

"P-please, call me 'Hinata'… It sounds like you're talking to my cousin if you call me 'Hyuga'… um, really, I know you're poor and I shouldn't be associating with you, but um… I wanted to apologize for Ino's actions…" Sakura closed her eyes, trying to control her temper. Not only was this rich girl completely timid, but while apologizing for Ino, she insulted Sakura all over again! Did she even mean well?

"I'm fine, don't worry about me; I'm made of tougher stuff than that!" Sakura lied, giving her a quick grin. The last thing she needed was for them to send their most innocent-looking rich girl at her and let them know that they were doing a good job of making her life miserable.

When PE ended, Guy called everyone up to have a short chat. "All right, you all did great today! Tomorrow, we won't be separating the girls from the boys because we're going to be practicing some ballroom dancing!" Sakura's eyes popped open: ballroom dancing? That means a partner; a partner means a rich boy; dancing with a rich boy all hour meant… the risk of someone seeing her cry again. The risk of public humiliation when he started his insults. Sakura groaned inwardly. Tomorrow would not be easy, and neither would the following hour.

The entire class went inside the elaborate cafeteria, laughing and talking about all sorts of random topics. Sakura was almost realized; it didn't seem like they were looking for her… yet. To her surprise, the lazy Shikamaru wasn't outside: rather, he was talking with Temari. Sakura smiled, now glad that she would have the outdoors all to herself.

She lay down on her belly on the soft grass and ate from the plate of food before her. The food, once again, was far beyond any expectations she had ever had before—if she had even heard of the meal before. The tranquility of her surroundings took away her earlier worry of being chased and bombarded by her classmates. She was all alone: it was just her and nature.

"There she is!" Naruto's voice called out, and her peace ended. Her heart raced. Now what would they do to her? That loud mouth rich boy! Sakura stood to her feet and faced the rich people before her: Ino, Tenten, Naruto, Hinata, and Temari. "Why're you hiding out here?" Naruto smirked, knowing full well of her reason. Sakura pushed her hair behind her ear and swallowed, her eyes switching glances from one student to the other continuously.

"She's more comfortable where she belongs: on the dirt," Ino sneered, shoving Sakura back down onto the floor. A slight gasp escaped Sakura's lips as she hit the floor; she looked up with worried eyes. Ino crouched in front of her with a wicked smirk on her face. "What's the matter, commoner? Don't want to be home after all? Then get up," she pulled Sakura up by her hair.

"Ah!" Sakura screeched, trying to release herself from the blonde's grasp. "S—stop!"

"Did a commoner just boss me around?" Ino sniffed smugly, tossing the pinkette back to the floor; Sakura's disheveled hair hung in front of her face as she wiped her eyes from the tears of pain. "Don't tell me what to do, stay away from Professor Uchiha—or better yet, leave the school; the only thing here for you is a life of realization: you cannot be our equals."

Sakura flinched: Ino was right. She was nowhere close to be equal with these… with these rich people. These filthy pigs were nothing like her and she didn't want to be anything like them! She kept her mouth shut as Ino and her gang walked off—all but Hinata, who crouched beside the crying pinkette. "Are you all right, commoner?" She asked with a concerned frown. Sakura looked up at the only remaining rich student. "I'm sorry Ino did this to you…" she lowered her eyes in sadness and extended her hand to help Sakura up.

Hesitantly, Sakura accepted the help and stumbled to her feet, running her fingers through her hair to fix its ruined state in some sort of way. "Why are you helping me? I'm just some 'filthy' poor girl," Sakura half grunted.

"I—I don't know… I just saw the need… if you would like, I'll leave," she offered innocently. Sakura's eyes widened. A rich girl would succumb to her want? Before she could answer, it was time to get back to class.

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"…Or better yet, leave the school; the only thing here for you is a life of realization: you cannot be our equals." That's what she said to me... Sakura reminisced as she sank into her bed. Everyone knows I've been talking to Professor Uchiha, but no one understands that it's not even like that! She slammed her fists on her physics book. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She didn't even want to go and see him for her first tutoring lesson. Seeing him would be torture. Seeing him would raise more suspicions. She should just stay in her room for the rest of the afternoon.

Of course, avoiding him at dinner would not be all that easy. After all, that was the only meal that both the students and the professors ate together. She sighed; maybe skipping dinner for the rest of the year wouldn't be so bad. She would just only see him at music class and the rest of her day would be focused on her other classes and that was that. Somehow, she would manage without a personal tutor.

"Who am I kidding?" She mumbled aloud, knowing her plan wasn't the best. She couldn't just suddenly start avoiding him—she didn't have that kind of willpower. Her emerald orbs ventured down to her homework as she tried to focus on her education. That was what she came here for, and now she found herself confused over boys—no, not boys, not even boy: her professor. Her twenty-five year old professor. I'm only eighteen; none of this even matters—I'm too young to even be thinking about a guy like this! She argued with her wandering mind.

Sakura had filled in the answers in her book—however, when she double checked her answers, her face turned red as she blushed profusely. What?! Her answers weren't exactly homework problems. It was more like a massive drawing of the words "Professor Sasuke Uchiha" with swirling lines that occasionally formed hearts around his name. Her eyes widened and she quickly grabbed an eraser and undid her "answer".

What am I doing…? She asked herself with a frown. College wasn't a party—college wasn't a social club—college was for education. So what was she doing thinking like this? What was she doing writing a man's name down instead of her homework answers? She had to go see him now. Things were getting out of hand.

Quickly, she dressed herself in a short jean skirt, a red T-shirt, and sneakers. She didn't even attempt to dress up semi-nice this time. She went as herself—she wasn't going to be around for an extended amount of time: she was only going to tell him he couldn't tutor him and that's where their conversation would end. Then she could get on with life and school.

The earlier day, he had told her to meet him outside rather than the receptionist's office. So, there she was headed: outside to meet with her music professor. It had been about thirty minutes past the time when she should've been there, but she hadn't decided to go until a few minutes ago: she was bound to be late.

When she arrived to the designated area, she saw him: the regal Uchiha Sasuke, dark raven hair shifting in the breeze as he looked up into the clouds. She couldn't help but smile: he was beautiful—gorgeous actually. "You're late," the words flowed out of the man's mouth. He didn't even glance over at her to acknowledge her; rather, he kept his serenity.

"I… I need to talk to you," she stammered, suddenly losing the nerve she had mustered up in her room.

"I know; I need to talk to you as well. Isn't that why we decided to meet together?" He said simply, taking her statement as if she still wanted tutoring. Sakura tried to explain, but the words wouldn't come out of her mouth. "Come on, let's get started," he looked over to her, a smile curving his lips slightly. She was frozen, she snapped, he won. She couldn't refuse getting tutored anymore, even if Ino killed her for it. Sasuke was the only person who didn't care about her state of wealth, who was going out of her way when she seemed like a hopeless idiot, and he was the only one that understood her feelings about the world even when she didn't explain it. "Do you have your notes from today?" Sasuke questioned her as she sat across from him.

"Oh um… no, I didn't bring them…" she admitted with an embarrassed blush.

"That's fine, don't worry about it. We'll just start from the top, all right?" He offered. Sakura nodded and gave him her undivided attention. "All right then; notes are the keys on your piano—"

"Um—what are the keys…?" She asked.

"The things you push in that make noise."

"What are the little black ones on the top called…?"

"Those are keys too," he responded patiently. "By combining these notes, we come up with chords, like the C chord that you had on your music sheet in lesson one?" Sakura nodded as she began to understand. "Here," he handed her a sheet of paper with a sketch of piano keys on it labeled with letters. "These are the different notes of a piano."

"Uh-huh…" she stared at the makeshift piano.

"I want you to keep that and memorize their placement." Sakura's eyes widened upon hearing that.

"Memorize? I—I can't do that…"

"Yes, you can," Sasuke frowned. "Most failures come from a predetermined misconception." Sakura raised an eyebrow, not quite sure what he meant. He continued: "When you don't believe you can do something, in your mind, you already lost. Therefore, your full effort won't be put into it." She thought about it for a moment: that was true, in her case. Once she failed at music in her first classes, she decided it wasn't her thing. It was her worst class and she couldn't do it. By then, she had decided that music was her downfall and she couldn't possibly be good at it. Was that a lie?

"You believe I can be a musician…?" She asked nervously, not sure if she should have even asked the question.

"I believe you have promise to become a musician, and I believe you can do it, but nothing I say can make you believe it too. You've got to prove it to yourself, starting tomorrow. We'll be using the music rooms, remember?"

"Oh yeah…" she frowned. "We won't have partners, right?" She looked up at him. He shook his head.

"No, not any time soon. Eventually, you will though—with pieces that require more than one pianist, but only then. Other than that, you're on your own," he explained, relieved to see that that was what she wanted.

They sat outside for a bit longer, watching the clouds change to their shade of lavender as the sunset faded away the originally blue sky. Sakura was surprised at how much the rich man enjoyed the nature and being outside; it seemed as if he liked it almost as much as she did. Why with so much money would he look at the free things in life with such… honor?

Before she was given the opportunity to ask him, she heard footsteps behind them and saw Professor Hatake. "Hello, Professor," she greeted with a smile. Sasuke looked over to see who she was talking to, and his peaceful expression changed to that of a stoic. He nodded in greeting, but said nothing.

"Why hello there, Ms. Haruno! Getting some extra classes with Professor Uchiha, yeah?" Kakashi asked, and he was answered with a nod and a smile by the young girl. "Well, Sasuke—er, Professor Uchiha and Ms. Haruno, dinner is being served so you might want to get yourselves over into the cafeteria."

"Hn…" Sasuke responded, standing to his feet. Sakura, too, followed after him with similar actions.

As they made their way into the cafeteria, it was already filled with the students and several other professors. Sakura wished she hadn't caught it, but she saw Ino staring at her with wide, distasteful eyes as she saw her walk in with Sasuke Uchiha. That was not a good sign. She suddenly remembered all the circumstances during the lunch hour that she had forgotten while Sasuke was tutoring her. She bit her bottom lip, realizing that the rest of this week could get even more miserable. She crossed her fingers and hoped Ino wasn't living on the same floor that she was.

To Sasuke's surprise, Sakura remained with him rather than going off to sit with her other classmates. He just shrugged it off and decided that maybe she hadn't made any friends yet. With the group of students he was seeing for his first time as a college professor, he concluded that he wouldn't have made many friends either.

"So, Ms. Haruno," Guy addressed her, "who are you planning to have as your partner tomorrow?!" Sakura groaned, now remembering that she had ballroom dancing the next day. Who would she dance with? Everyone would be dancing with their boyfriend or their girlfriend. In the corner of her eye, she saw Sasuke's eye twitch when Guy asked her. Was he jealous? Or was she looking too deep into it?

"I don't know, Professor… I would prefer not to dance at all," she admitted politely, taking a bite of her food.

"Come on now, Ms. Haruno; you've got to live a little, yeah?" Kakashi frowned. "There must be someone you've had in your mind to dance with." She shook her head.

"No honestly, I don't… dancing with any classmate wouldn't be pleasant at all," she frowned, hanging her head. Her bangs hid her eyes as she peered over to see if the Uchiha's expression changed behind his folded hands. It did: a small smile was curving the corners of his lips. She too, smiled; she didn't know why, but something about him smiling over her not wanting to dance with her classmates made her happy.

Once everyone's dinner was completed, the school workers began to clean the cafeteria as all the residents began to clear their way out. Sakura stood up and re-lengthened her skirt down, for it had run up while she was sitting. She turned to walk back to her dorm room, but a voice stopped her: "Ms. Haruno." It was Sasuke's voice.

"Hm?" She turned and looked at him.

"Sleep well, all right? You have a busy day tomorrow," he reminded her. Sakura turned her face to hide her blush. Had he really just told her to sleep well? How could she now that thinking about him saying that would keep her up all night?

"T—thank you, Professor… you sleep well too; I'm looking forward to music class tomorrow," she looked back at him and smiled sweetly. He flinched a bit, seeming surprised, but his expression was replaced with that of placidity and what Sakura saw to be a slight smile.

"I'm glad to hear it," he nodded, and after waving good bye, he strode off to head for his own room.

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"Huh!" She sighed as she slumped into her bed after finishing her homework. Her room still had the sweet smell of her pomegranate shampoo diffused throughout the room. She breathed it in and smiled as she stroked her fingers through her hair. She adored the fragrance and wished it would last forever.

Sakura tossed herself to her side and sprawled out on her bed in thought. "Sleep well, all right?" Just the fact that he stopped me to say that is so… nice. Why does he treat me so nice? I mean, I'm just a poor commoner and there's no way I'm getting rich! He can't see that in me…

And what was that that Professor Uchiha meant when he said that it wasn't his money? How could someone not really be rich if they are rich—especially in Konoha! Sakura sighed as the frustration portrayed in her face. She had to get some sleep.

Maybe even tomorrow people won't be so terrible to her and she could actually find some enjoyment in ballroom dancing. Maybe her partner wouldn't be so bad… maybe he'd just be one of those rich people that ignore the poor. That would be good. Then he wouldn't talk to her. She could deal with cold stares… But the next day had something entirely different in mind for little Miss Sakura Haruno.

oOoOo

And so ends Sakura Haruno's chapter three… I apologize to all you Ino-lovers—I like her too, really, you gotta believe me. Anyways, I hope you liked it. :] please R&R and leave maybe a favorite part of this chapter? If there was one for you. Either way, arigatogozaimasu for reading and supporting. :]

InaGaTa