Words of Wisdom

Disclaimer: Me no own. Hence "disclaimer." And hence "FANfiction."

Author's Note: Ahaha...yup, the long-awaited second chapter of my first DeiSaku! Yay! Sorry, no excuses other than I'm lazy and hate working. Oh, and I hate love lifes right now because...yeah, boys are jerks to me. So sad. But whatever, review and maybe the next chapter will come out within the next...year...heh. Holy cow - it's been 8 months since I posted the first chapter! Well, now I feel awful. Hah, sorry! Please forgive me.

I hope you like it!

Chapter Two: Third Chances

Impatience swelled within the pink-haired girl as she sat in her wooden chair, her neck craned to view the silent door across her apartment. She tapped a carefully painted fingernail on her kitchen table, almost as though she were daring the door to open when her attention wavered towards a ticking clock.

Glancing at the device, yet somehow keeping the door in sight, Sakura groaned upon seeing that her date was a whole five minutes late. "Lazy bastard. I bet he's already forgotten that we have a date and is busy screwing some girl like Ino who can't see past his good looks and fame." She then chastised herself for thinking so little of her friend—true, Ino could be shallow at times, but the blonde knew there was a lot more to guys than a handsome face and well-known name.

However, Sakura was not at all ashamed of what she called Deidara for she was really just searching for reasons to dislike him more than she already did. Again, she muttered, "Lazy bastard," and began tapping her finger once more.

Perhaps another reason for her increasing irritation with the man was her hours of preparation for this date of which Deidara was five entire minutes late for. Sakura narrowed her eyes dangerously.

"Relax, Sakura. It's just a date—nothing more, nothing less. It's not as if I'm signing my life away to him," the young woman muttered to herself as she rifled through drawers and drawers of clothes, making a rather nice mess in her room. Shirts, pants, skirts, dresses, and even undergarments had been strewn across the floor and bed by the girl. (Although, she honestly had no idea how her lacy black bra had gotten caught on her ceiling fan.) "Why is it so difficult to find an outfit? It's not like I'm trying to impress him or anything!"

It still had taken her at least two hours to finally decide upon an outfit. Of course, her important decision-making had not gone entirely without interruptions…

Sakura jerked her head up when she heard the doorbell to her apartment ring obnoxiously while she was still just applying makeup. Suddenly, it occurred to the pink-haired girl that she had never told Deidara where she lived.

Angrily throwing open the door with a strength she was unaware of, Sakura shouted, "You stalker, how the hell did you know where I live?!"

"Okay, Sakura-chan… One, I've known where you live since, like, the beginning of time, and two, I was only a stalker when I liked you nine years ago."

"Oh, Naruto! I'm so sorry; I thought you were someone else," she apologized sheepishly, blushing at her hasty assumption.

Her blonde friend simply grinned broadly in response, clearly amused with the very same thing the mortified her. "Yeah, I kinda guessed," Naruto admitted. "It's just too funny to catch you all flustered. By the way," he continued, peering into her unusually cluttered apartment, "what brought on your flustered-ness?"

"That's not a word, Naruto," Sakura chided with false sternness that was betrayed by the playful smile widening upon her face, having obviously recovered from her embarrassment. "And it's because of my date."

"Oh…" the young man spoke in a knowing voice, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at his friend. "Who's the next poor fool to fall victim to your immeasurable beauty?"

At that, Sakura smacked him, pleasuring herself in the loud yelp he emitted, and promptly told him to shut up, get out, and go home to pay unnecessary loving attention to his girlfriend.

"But Sakura-chan…" Naruto whined as his friend pushed him into the hallway of the complex, though he gave no opposition as he was more than happy to oblige and dote upon his sweet, loving Hinata-chan. Even so, the blonde went on whining until Sakura abruptly shut the door in his face.

Despite the closed door, Naruto continued shouting at the young woman, completely dissatisfied with the answers she had given him. "You never told me who your date is. Tell me!" he demanded, pounding on the door again. "What if he breaks your heart and you need someone to beat him up? I can't beat up someone unless I know who it is!"

Sakura threw open the door. "You're not beating anyone up!" she commanded, exasperated with the blonde and rather worried for the intactness of her door. "Now, go buy Hinata a box of chocolates! She's getting too skinny—where do you take her for dates?" And she slammed the door closed once more, but not before throwing a plate at him.

Naruto, irrational though he may be, was not stupid enough to incur even more wrath from his pink-haired friend (not to mention having another object hurtling towards his head), so he began backing up towards the stairwell of the apartment building, still muttering incessantly at the woman behind the twice-slammed door.

Finally, her bell rang, and again it occurred to Sakura that she had not told Deidara where she lived.

She flung the door open, completely ready to yell the living daylights out of her date, but the young woman could only stand stunned as the blonde author greeted her with a dazzling smile and a colorful bouquet.

He definitely moved up one notch on her totem pole.

"Hi, Sakura, yeah! Hope I haven't kept you waiting too long…" To Sakura's greater awe, Deidara sounded truly apologetic. "There was a bit of traffic on the way here. I tried to call you, but then I realized I don't know your phone number…"

Snapping back to reality, Sakura added, "You shouldn't know my address either, since I never told you."

He laughed. "You're smart. I like that, yeah." The pink-haired girl twitched before he continued, "But you did tell me what block you lived on when I gave you a ride, remember? And there's only one residential building on it, so I just asked the landlord."

"Oh."

Deidara laughed once more, holding out the flowers as soon as his chuckles subsided. "These are for you, by the way."

With a rosy blush, Sakura accepted the blossoms, much more gracefully than when she had accused him, and quickly placed them in a glass vase filled with water. Once pleased with the effect the flowers had on her kitchen, she walked out of her apartment and locked the door. She turned to Deidara expectantly.

"Ready?" he asked.

Scoffing, Sakura gave a dry response, "No, I just locked myself out of the apartment with you for fun."

"Who says it wouldn't be?"

The young woman sighed but indulged her date with an unsettlingly mischievous smile—the kind that she normally reserved for when Naruto was beginning to get on her nerves. "Be a gentleman, now, won't you?"

"Ah, of course, of course, yeah."

Suddenly self-conscious, Deidara rubbed the nape of his neck apologetically and offered his free arm. As soon as she accepted it, the blonde led Sakura towards the stairs, where the pair endured stifling and awkward silence as they trudged down the stairwell without speaking.

Finally unable to withstand the lack of conversation, Sakura uttered the first thing that came to her mind, "So what have you been working on lately?" She immediately gave herself a mental slap after asking that question, knowing full well the ramifications of asking about work on a date. "I mean—er—what I meant to say was—uh—" she began stuttering in an attempt to amend her mistake.

Amused by her anxiety (which coincidentally surfaced as soon as his disappeared), Deidara let out a short laugh, patting her arm in a comforting manner. "It's okay to talk about work with me, yeah. I mean, it's not like we really know much else about each other. You know that I write and have a damn sexy car, and I know that you read and don't have a damn sexy car. And hey, it's definitely more personal than asking me about the weather, yeah."

Sakura rolled her eyes at that. Since when were there so many goddamned stairs? This is getting so awkward!

"Well, anyways," the man continued cheerfully, ignoring the discomfort of his date, "I haven't been doing much lately, work-wise. That's why you probably haven't seen me in the papers recently, yeah."

"Leave it to you to sound so conceited," Sakura muttered lowly, irritated.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" She let an innocent smile spread across her face. "Actually, I was just lamenting about how tragic it is that the media completely ignores you simply because it's been only a year since you've released another book."

"Actually, it's been only nine months, yeah."

Sakura gasped dramatically. "That's still a long time! That's how long pregnancy takes before the mother gives birth!"

Deidara abruptly stopped walking and, turning Sakura around to face him, gazed into her eyes with an unnaturally grave glint in his azure irises. The intensity of the atmosphere made Sakura suddenly breathless, as she stared back into the man's piercing eyes. That is, until he asked, quite seriously, "Be honest with me—are you pregnant?"

Barely a moment later found the blonde aching with a particularly agonizing pain in his shoulder. "Holy shit, woman! That hurt, yeah!"

Moving to strike him again, Sakura was pleased to find that his immediate reaction was to withdraw to a safer distance. "Well, you deserved it—you suggested I was pregnant!"

"Why else would you know how long it takes a pregnant woman to give birth?!"

She glared. "I go to medical school."

"Oh."

Several moments of increasingly uncomfortable silence passed in which Sakura continued glaring angrily and Deidara shifted around nervously. (Why they seemed to be constantly changing positions of the meek and the confident, neither would ever know.)

"Sorry, looks like I ruined the date already, yeah."

Guilty at having overreacted a little, Sakura let out a sigh and said, "You couldn't have known, so I'll let you have one more chance—but this'll be the last one!"

Grinning triumphantly, the man whistled in admiration, "My, you certainly are the generous one. Anotherchance? I ama very lucky man."

"Don't blow it."

At last, they exited the apartment building, and Deidara, eccentric grin still plastered across his face, led Sakura to his 'damn sexy car'. "I won't, yeah," he promised, holding a hand up to show his solemnity. "If all goes well, we'll be married before tomorrow and on the way to our honeymoon."

"What?!"

"Just a joke, yeah," Deidara assured, helping her into the passenger seat before letting himself into the driver's side. "Jeez, don't take everything so seriously. You're too young for that kind of shit."

Frowning, Sakura responded, "For your information, I'm a good twenty years old, buster. Don't talk to me like I'm just some little kid, got it?"

He grinned, revving the engine. "Of course, princess." As soon as Deidara stomped on the gas pedal, Sakura felt her body being thrown backwards into the seat as she gasped and grabbed at the seat for dear life.

"Are we even within the speed limit?!" the alarmed young woman exclaimed, quite prepared to fling herself through the window should she be required to. "Haven't you been ticketed before?!"

Yet another eccentric grin was aimed in her direction, accompanied by a barking laugh, and all Deidara said was, "It pays to be famous." And rich enough to bribe any bastard who stops me. He kept the smile plastered on his face, ignoring the cynical voice taking shelter within his mind.

The engine roared as the car continued its exceedingly fast journey through the numerous streets and roads and boulevards of Konoha, seemingly accelerating to unbelievable speeds with each passing second. Sakura tightened her grip on her seat, closed her eyes, and prayed earnestly that she wouldn't die.

And then the car slowed down. Hoping that her imagination was not deluding her, Sakura cautiously cracked open one eye, only to later open the other upon seeing the shiniest, fanciest, most elaborate apartment complex she had ever observed in her entire life sitting there in front of her date's parked car. (It was actually her date's parked car sitting in front of the building, but that fact had no significance to Sakura at that moment.)

"Wow."

Oblivious to his companion's disbelief, Deidara leaned back in his seat and commented, "Well, that was fun, yeah."

The awe-inspiring structure suddenly lessened in importance as Sakura stared irately at the blonde. "There were seventeen instances when someone almost died."

He stared right back, though his blue eyes communicated confusion rather than anger. "And?"

Disbelief shook the young woman's features as she carefully enunciated each word, all of which seemed tremulous in her fury. "Someone—could—have—died."

"But no one—"

"That makes no difference!" Sakura interrupted heatedly, unable to contain her rage much longer. "Do you have any idea how many people I've seen injured or die from people like you? You're lucky you haven't killed anyone yet!"

"Hey! Sure, I may be a bit of a crazy driver, but I'm not a bad one, yeah. It's not luck—it's pure skill, yeah."

Sakura said nothing to that. Her green eyes merely stared back at his azure ones in unpleasant silence. Finally, she opened the car door, stepped out, and began walking on the sidewalk, away from the apartment complex.

Deidara, very much befuddled, followed her in his car and, with his window rolled down, called out, "Where are you going?"

"Home." She refused to look at him.

"It's miles away."

"I'll get a taxi."

"You don't have money, yeah."

She stopped walking, turning on her heel to glare at him once more. "Then I'll walk. As long as I get away from lunatics like you, I'll be fine."

"I'm not a lunatic," muttered Deidara, for once not in a jovial tone. Louder, he wondered, "I thought I had another chance."

"I told you not to blow it. You did."

"How was I supposed to know you'd react badly to a little joyride? I, for one, enjoy a little exhilaration."

"Deidara, you do realize you're talking to a medical school student, right?" she asked ironically. "Near-death experiences do not amuse me at all."

"Alright, I'm sorry, yeah!" he apologized in exasperation. "It was an honest mistake! Won't happen again, promise."

Sakura resumed walking away from the man. "It wasn't an 'honest' mistake—it was your goddamned, exceptionally inflated ego! Your whole lifestyle is totally influenced by this self-idolatry you seem to have. All you celebrities are the same: rude, haughty jerks who expect anything they want to be served on a silver platter with a cherry on top. Seriously, what sort of sane man takes a girl to his apartment for their first date? You've got to have one hell of an ego to pull that off."

As soon as the young woman finished her rant, Deidara swiftly parked his car and jumped out to stand in her way. "What the hell do you want from me, yeah?" he asked. "I've tried every trick in the library to impress you, but all you've done so far is judge me by it." The flared nostrils of the author caused Sakura to wonder if she had been in the proper mind when incriminating him. "The ride was just for fun because, hell, you sure looked like you needed some. And the apartment thing? Well, I figured you'd appreciate something original. But I guess there just isn't any pleasing you, Sakura, is there?"

The tension was so thick that all the passersby crossed the street to avoid the heaviness in the air crushing down on the twosome. The sensation was almost suffocating. Despite her doubts as to whether she was in the right, Sakura continued glaring at the man.

And then he laughed, breaking the smothering silence between them with the rich sounds of his voice. "We're not even in a relationship, and we just had our first fight!" he replied to her unspoken inquiry before laughing some more.

Meanwhile, only one thought ran through Sakura's mind at that moment: He's insane.

As though he was suddenly frustrated, he ran a hand through his long, blonde hair, sighing exasperatedly. "I can't let you just walk home dressed like that, huh? What say we eat something before I take you back?"

At first insulted, Sakura realized that her outfit—with its stilettos and low-cut neckline—was not perhaps the ideal outfit in which to walk the several miles to her apartment complex. She sighed, too.

"Let's get this over with."

Smirking triumphantly, Deidara took the reluctant young woman by the hand and led her into the building. The pair entered an elevator, and as the metallic doors slid shut, he asked, looking at her reflection in the shiny doors rather than at Sakura directly, "So what kinds of books do you read?"