Chapter 2: Pink and Sunshine

Something is wet and sticky.

Fuck.. it's all over my face.

...Oh.

I woke up to find drool all over my fucking notebook, that's just great. I pulled up my shirt to try and wipe off some of the shit from the pages so it won't smear the words, but that didn't work to well and I started to think that maybe I should've written in pen instead of pencil.

Was I writing for that long?

No, not really. Sasuke looked down to the doodles he drew of him killing Itachi and such other wonderful images of destruction. He cracked the pencil in half with his right hand and wondered why in the hell he took the advice to write in a stupid notebook anyway. Food.. he needed food in his stomach.

Unfortunately, there is no such as going to find food without finding Naruto. As much as he loved ramen, and the fact that nearly every place in the village sold ramen, well.. he's easy to bump into. Added to the fact that Sasuke's house happened to be very close to Ichiraku - Naruto's favorite place to go for said tasty noodles. There was a grunt, a scowl, and an attempt to walk straight past the sunshine haired boy sitting on the bench slurping characteristically. Sasuke really didn't care enough to pursue his thoughts about the journal entry he wrote yesterday; it was just the fact that he knew Naruto would bother him about something or another that was really uninteresting. Slender hands found comfort in beige pants pockets when an all to familiar high-pitched screech reached his ears.

"Sasuke-kun!"

Fuck you, Sakura.

All that was felt was a quick brush to the elbow where Sakura tried to take the boy's arm, and she was pushed away with a resoluteness that could only be Sasuke's. For the umpteenth time he ignored her whimpers and cries and invitations out to dinner - but this time with more uncompromising resentment then he had ever expressed towards her. She could feel his coldness radiating through his skin when she reached again for his arm and the bitterness electrified her fingertips.

"Sasuke.. what's wrong?"

Sakura's eyebrows sunk deep into the bridge of her nose as she drew her shaking hand to rest on her chest. Sasuke turned to her and clenched and unclenched his fists in an attempt to tell her he really didn't know what to say. She was one of the people that advised him to write in a journal to vent and perhaps even 'get to know himself better' - as she had put it.

It was cold, and the girl's nipples were hard. Yeah, he noticed. He was starting to tremble a little himself, it was November after all; but those nipples just kept grabbing his attention.

What the fuck. I really don't care about Sakura. I'm probably just fucking pent up. A light shake of the head. Sasuke blinked and shook slate hair out of his eyes, letting out a deep breath and licking his lips visciously.

"Listen. Sakura. I don't want to talk."

His hands returned to their respective pockets as he turned to walk away from the girl who seemed to have an imaginary question mark over her head. She sauntered over to the bench that Naruto was sitting on eagerly eating his ramen, but her timing was a little bit off. Adding his bowl to the pile of already emptied ones, Naruto stood with his eyes locked on a certain target.

"Naruto, where are you going?" The surprise evident in her voice that Naruto wasn't paying attention to her for the first time in her life was obvious.

"I'm going to catch up with that bastard! Ja! Oh, and would you mind picking up the tab?" He overturned his pockets in a cheeky albeit adorable way and ran off with a salute, leaving behind a pink-haired genin who had no clue what was going on.

"Sasuke... wait UP!"

I don't know how many times I yelled that in the past five minutes, but I was getting tired of yelling it. Why the fuck did he start running in the first place?

I finally caught up with him when he decided to slow down. Well, I think part of it was because he had hit a river outside of the village and Sasuke probably didn't feel like trying to cross it. He didn't even turn to look at me after running after him for that long, he just stood there staring at something in the water that I couldn't see for shit. After spending another few minutes trying to catch my breath, I finally started to say what I watned to say. One question I had to ask had been weighing on my mind for a while now.

"Why the hell did you start running when I called after you? You're such a bastard."

He chuckled, well one chuckle, really. It was more like a 'hn'. I saw him swipe a hand through his hair like he had something on his mind, but I was afraid if I started asking anymore questions he'd make a dive for the river. So, I asked the one thing I already knew the answer to.

"Sasuke, are you okay?"

There was a long pause and then, "I'm fine."

Yeah, I knew I knew the answer to that one. But it was just then I got such a dirty and horrible idea. I'm not sure, but I think I grinned the dumbest grin ever.

"So, since when are you so entranced by Sakura's tits?" I gave him a light punch to the shoulder.

He spun around to face me and grabbed my collar. Fuck, I think I just stirred some shit.

"There is nothing going on between me and Sakura. Don't you even fucking dare."

He let go after my flailing indicated I couldn't breathe that well, and he turned back to staring down at the water. I was about to open my mouth to say something else when he turned back towards me with the evilest of evil looks in his eye. I was almost positive I saw him looking at Sakura's breasts when she tried to talk to him, but Sasuke was never one to admit stuff like that. I mean, he's got Sakura and every other woman in the village thinking he's the hottest thing to ever grace this earth, so what's to be ashamed about? After about thirty seconds of his eyes burning holes into my head, I asked him again if he was okay.

"...I'm pent up, okay?" There he goes, looking at the fish again. I'll have to settle for talking to his back.

"Pent up about what?"

"Anger, I don't know."

I saw him put his hand through his hair again, so I figured he was in thought about something or other. I thought that if he really had pent up anger, he'd be more... well, angry I guess. He seemed to be pretty nonresponsive, but that was normal Sasuke every day. Well, unless he'd been bottled up his whole life, and that would suck. I could only think of two other feelings you could keep bottled up inside you, and I definitely wasn't going to ask him about love, so I settled on the first emotion that came to mind.

"Are you sad about something?"

"I have other things to worry about than being sad."

"Well, that's kind of my point... you're worrying about things."

For the third time his hand found itself wandering around in the strands of his hair, and I wondered for a second if he was in deep thought or had lice. He turned around again, I don't know why he kept turning around in the first place - but this time his eyes weren't glaring at me like death. They were closed, and he was rubbing the bridge of his nose with his calloused fingers.

"I have things to worry about because I'm not a carefree ball of stupid fucking sunshine like yourself."

Sasuke pushed past me and knocked me right on my ass, heading back towards the village I guessed - but he wouldn't have any luck there. Sakura was just going to bother him some more, and more and more until he just punched her out. I called after him a few times, but he ignored me again, so I just shrugged and figured I'll talk to him tomorrow.

"See you at breakfast again tomorrow, Sasuke!"

And he just flipped me the bird and went on his merry way.

Sasuke had a whole day to be brooding and mysterious. He decided that in order to do so he would wander around the market, picking up and putting back random things he didn't really intend to buy. It's not like he had anything to do really, but get his germy hands all over every fruit and vegetable in every cart he passed by. He didn't know what he was frustrated about today, possibly about how is 'revenge on Itachi' and how 'his entire clan died'. Not that it's anything to speak lightly about of course, but there were other things that were on his mind lately.

Stupid fucking Naruto, bothering me just to ask a question he already knew the answer to.

He found his way home, slamming the door with more force than usual and walking over to the telephone with the blinking red light he was extremely displeased to look at. Three new messages was what the machine read, and he figured they were all from Sakura. There was usually more messages than that, but it was only just noon so there was still time to fill her quota for the day. Sasuke hesitantly hit the green button and listened.

"Sasuke! Meet me a-"

Skip.

"Hey Sasuke... I-"

And skip again. He rolled his eyes and held his finger over the skip button this time.

"Oi, Sasuke. You know who this is..."

What? Naruto..?

"...nted to tell you that you were being a fucktard this morning and you should really learn to talk to someone. What happened to that journal you were writing? That didn't help you calm down some? Not like you aren't always pissed off... hmm. Whatever, I'll see you later, or tomorrow, so you'd better be ready to talk! Ja!" beeeeep.

Sasuke let out a deep sigh and plopped down in the armchair beside him, rubbing his eyes and wiping his bangs out of his face only to have them fall back where they were. There wasn't really an explanation to why he didn't feel like throwing his problems onto another person, it was just the fact that his duties were his and his alone. Why would he want somebody else's help in going after his own family?

He got up and went to the bathroom, taking a long hard look into the mirror. Sasuke saw Sasuke, with cold unfeeling eyes and a horrible look on his face. There was a knock at the door from what he heard from the bathroom, and he could also faintly hear the calling of a certain pink haired girl from the other side of it. He splashed some water onto his face and dried off, going to the front door and flinging it open. To Sasuke's dismay, he was right about the person who he thought was on the other side.

"What do you want?"

Sakura stuttered and clutched a hand to her chest. "W-Well, I thought-"

"No, you didn't 'thought'. You never think. And you know I will never even remotely talk to you, so why do you keep bothering me?"

She put her hands on her hips and furrowed her eyebrows at him, and Sasuke could feel that she was about to lecture him - for a long time if he would allow it. Sakura paused for a long time and stared at him, Sasuke staring back intently and waiting for his time to strike.

"Sasuke... why do you do this?"

He kept his straight face for about ten seconds before creasing his mouth into a frown. "Because I'm an asshole, that's why."

Sakura reached out to him and was about to say something else, but the door was slammed too quickly in her face for her to get any words out. Sasuke leaned his back against the door and slid down to the floor, laying down in front of it with his hands in front of his face. It wasn't that he felt any regret or sadness for what he just did, he was just frustrated in having been bothered... again. He layed there long enough to hear Sakura's footsteps retreat from his porch.

"I'm an asshole."