SakuIta Chapter 8 The Jealous Boyfriend, Part 3

Woot! See? Reviews make me write more. I'm not a liar, and here's your proof.

Thanks to nightwish635 and demon twin for the comments! Anyway, here's part 3!

Maybe I'll make a part 4 if this is too long…Hm. Maybe. It is a little long…

Anyways, enjoy!

*RECAP*

A guy! Sakura was struggling to find a gift for a guy! But who? Itachi was about to reach out and tap her shoulder to get her attention when Sakura suddenly stopped in her tracks and her head snapped up, her eyes blazing with new found inspiration and relief. "Why didn't I think of that before? Gosh, I'm so dumb sometimes!"

Never, thought Itachi. He opened his mouth to speak to her, when she suddenly turned and bolted right past him back into the village with an "oh, hey Itachi!" And she was gone.

Never, not in a million years had an Uchiha been left with a loss for words and open-mouthed, but that was how Itachi had been left. Sakura had acknowledged him, but just barely. And she just bolted past him without even smiling or looking him in the eye like she usually did! Something was definitely up.

And Itachi was determined to find out what.

*END RECAP*

MONDAY

Itachi, after getting over his minor shock, followed Sakura back into the village, keeping his distance. He was very tempted to stop her and ask her what was going on, but his curiosity and another annoying feeling he couldn't quite put his finger on kept him from doing so. He watched his girlfriend from the roofs of buildings, where he could spot her easily among the crowd and only have to turn his head to keep an eye on her if she turned a corner; not to mention that there was no way she could see him unless she looked up, which was not happening because a) he has been an ANBU captain since he was fourteen, and b) Sakura was to preoccupied to bother thinking about looking up.

This bothered Itachi a little. Shouldn't she be thinking at least a little about him? Or wait… had he done something wrong and she was purposely avoiding him? His eyes widened at the thought before he shook his head and told himself he was being overly stupid and negative. Hadn't Sakura said that the time she spent with him was wonderful every single time and every single second?

Now, Itachi Uchiha had never been a vain person, but he was sure he had never offended anyone he hadn't intended to, most specially his little Cherry Blossom. As a matter of fact, he was very careful to be as smooth, warm and loving as possible towards the medic-nin, although the smoothness and good nature was part of his persona.

He heard a squeal and he looked down to the streets of the market. He knew that voice.

Sure enough, there was Sakura, flinging herself at the Inuzuka kid with the huge white dog with light brown ears and red identical upside down isosceles triangles on his cheeks, right beneath his eyes… what was his name again? Kyo? Kaito? Kiba? Yes, Kiba. Kiba Inuzuka. Itachi's eyebrows came together in a slight frown, completely out of place with his usual impassive and seemingly smooth face. Why was she so happy to see him? Granted, he had been taking much of her free time, but that wasn't reason enough to hug him like she hadn't seen him in decades. At least not in Itachi's eyes.

Sakura began chatting away excitedly with the brown-haired boy before taking his arm and walking down the street. The Inuzuka kid grinned widely at her as she spoke, then dipped his head down and whispered something into her ear that made her laugh. Itachi's eyebrow twitched as he watched the two from above. He acknowledged he was irritated, but because he denied jealousy and therefore could not fathom another motive for his irritation, he got even more annoyed.

Sakura and Kiba, meanwhile, obliviously walked into Ichiraku Ramen, where they comfortably took their seats beside one another and ordered their food. Itachi jumped from where he was to a building right in front of the popular food stand, which was low enough for him to easily see what was going on but high enough that if either Sakura or Kiba, or anybody that looked his way for that matter, wouldn't be able to see him. He crouched and stayed close to the small wall on the building's roof, his eyes adamant on his girlfriend and her friend.

As he watched, Sakura shrugged off her jacket and Kiba took it, a little too affectionately in his opinion, and hung it up on a hoof on a wall before doing the same with his own jacket. Akamaru sat besides Sakura's stool, where he layed his huge head on her thigh contentedly as she petted him. Itachi wasn't jealous at a dog, but he did wish he could do that. Bringing his mind back to the task at hand, he watched as Kiba ruffled his dog's hair and sat down on his stool. Sakura pulled out a magazine; he wasn't sure what it was called, a notepad and a pen from her bag and displayed it before them on the counter.

Their food was served then, and they discussed as they ate, Kiba thinking and suggesting ideas from the magazine in low voices with grand hand gestures while Sakura either nodded her head in consent or shook her head. If she didn't appear too sure about what Kiba said, they debated about it before Sakura wrote it down in her notepad. Itachi desperately wanted to hear what they were talking about, but he couldn't risk being seen. So he waited.

Although he couldn't hear what they were talking about, he knew that the conversation was important despite some jokes Kiba said that Sakura laughed at. Itachi was, at that moment, thankful he was an Uchiha and therefore patient, else he would've jumped down there and joined in just to try to find out what they were saying.

"Oh, my kami!" Exclaimed Sakura, loud enough for Itachi to hear. "Thank you for lunch, Kiba, it was wonderful," She said to her companion. "But I have a shift at the hospital, so I need to go now. Thanks for all of your help!"

"Any time, Sakura," smiled the dog-nin. "Just remember, you need anything you come to me." He winked at her and she smiled as she grabbed her jacket and stuffed her things back into her bag. She swooped down and gave him a swift peck on the cheek with another "thanks," before hurrying out the restaurant.

Needless to say, Itachi wasn't amused, particularly as he saw the Inuzuka boy grin victoriously and mutter some things around the lines of "damn, she's a fine jewel," and "she's a good girl." Itachi didn't have a reason to hurt the boy, although right then and there he felt the strong urge to, even just intimidating him would suffice.

But he had other things in mind. Such as what his Cherry Blossom was up to.

Tuesday

Itachi waited for Sakura outside of the hospital. He had tried calling her, but had been unable to talk to her. He thought, amusedly, that perhaps she was too tired from her shift at the hospital that when the phone rang she chucked it out the window to stop any calls from getting in for the rest of the night. He smirked at the thought. It was possible.

He was pulled from his thoughts as he looked up when he heard the main doors open. Right before him came out his little pink-haired goddess, sighing grateful for the fresh air and untying her unique pink mane from a loose ponytail at the top of her head. Itachi pushed himself into an upright position and uncrossed his arms, which he had crossed comfortably over his chest as leaned against his black Porsche. He was about to walk towards Sakura when somebody - or some people - beat him to the punch.

Three boys, one with a spiky brown ponytail on the top of his head and a lazy expression, another one with red spirals on his cheeks and pleasantly plump, and the last one with long loosely tied dark brown hair and almost white eyes walked up to Sakura with a quick greeting.

"Hi, Shikamaru. Hi Choji. Hey, Neji," greeted the medic-nin. "Thanks for meeting with me today."

"Sure, sure," replied the lazy genius named Shikamaru Nara. "I kind of still owed you one after the Ino incident."

"I'm just happy I could be of some help," said Choji Akimichi as he opened a bag of chips and started munching them.

"It's no trouble at all, Sakura-san," replied Neji Hyuga with a nod of his head. As a bewildered Itachi watched, the four walked away from him without so much as a glance at him as they talked.

Fuming for the first time in more than a decade, although no one would be able to tell, Itachi did the same as he did the other day: he followed them.

They did the same thing as Sakura had done with the Inuzuka boy. They picked a restaurant, ordered dome food, Sakura took out a magazine of some sort out of her bag along with a notepad and pen, and they discussed about some things quietly while the boys looked at the magazine, at each other, and at her. Like last time, they talked too quietly for Itachi to hear. Eventually, Itachi left before they did. He had too many things to do, including the ones he hadn't done the day before.

But he vowed he would eventually find out what Sakura was doing with all those guys.

Wednesday

Again, Itachi tried to talk to Sakura, but again, she had met up with someone else before he could so much as call out to her. This time she met with Gaara no Sabaku, Shino Naburame and Rock Lee.

Was it his imagination, or were the number of guys growing?

Again, this new group did the same as the last. Restaurant, food, magazine, talk, eat and be merry. Again, Itachi couldn't overhear a word.

Thursday

Same thing again. This time it was Gaara's brother, Kankuro, her old sensei, Iruka Umino, and the old "pervy-sage" as Naruto called him, Jiraiya. After a while, her other sensei, Kakashi walked in and joined the group.

What was going on?

Itachi, tired of being ignored and not talking to his girlfriend in almost a week for no reason, decided that tomorrow would be the day he found out what was going on.

What an Uchia wants, and Uchiha gets, he thought as he left to do his duties. And what I want is to know why Sakura is seeing so many guys lately.