Several hours later, Sakura woke up feeling as if she'd been hit by a train.
She opened her eyes to take a look of her surroundings. She glanced around the familiar and yet foreign navy blue walls. This is Sasuke's room, she thought to herself. What am I doing here? And why am I on my back?
At that thought, Sakura used her arm to push herself into a sitting position. As soon as she put her weight on her arm she crumpled back into the bed and let out a pained groan while cradling her hand. Dammit, what happened to my arm? She cursed to herself. Then, the memories of the pass hours rushed back into her conscious; of Karin and Kira kicking at her like a dummy, of them taking their blades out intending to scar her, of dialling Sasuke's number before she hit the bathroom floor and his worried and angered voice at the bathroom door.
"Sakura!" She heard someone call out to her, her mind too clouded with pain and grogginess to register who. "Oh my God, you're awake. How are you doing, are you okay?" She heard similar questions being tossed at her but her mind too muddled to really care who was asking.
"I'm fine," she said to no one in particular but her answer was directed to everyone in the room, hoping that they'd just stop asking so many questions for her head was pounding with a headache. As she looked around, she found that she was currently sleeping on Sasuke's bed instead of the couch that was in his room.
"Like hell you are! You look like you got ran over by a truck!" At least she knew that that was Naruto.
"Well Naruto, if you have to know, it feels more like I've been ran over by a train; not a truck, but all the same honestly." She jokingly said, although that was honestly how she felt, and pushed herself up with her other hand as she noticed that the her wrist on the other hand was most likely inflamed as a result of protecting herself from all the blows that Karin and Kira had put on her.
A growl emitted from Sasuke who was standing in the corner of his large room. Eyes turned to look at the Uchiha who had his anger quite plainly written all over his face. "Haruno Sakura, I dare you to say that again." He knew the extent of her injuries, she wouldn't have let out the groan she did if it didn't hurt that much. Sakura was a tough girl; she could handle a lot more pain than her outwardly appearance let on.
"Looks like I'm not the only one on my period." Sakura teased, hoping that her joking would ease the tension that was slowly accumulating in the air. She was trying to make the atmosphere a little more bearable for everyone, especially her, in the room. "I'm fine Sasuke, just a few minor injuries." She said reassuringly, but no one at all was convinced with her act.
"S-Sakura-san, you shouldn't lie to us, you know that you can count on us." Although Hinata stuttered, an undertone of firmness could still be detected. This left Sakura slightly shocked, but after being friends with the lavender-haired girl, she knew that behind the timid girl was a girl as fierce as any lioness. She was touched and comforted of the fact that Hinata would willingly step out of her comfort zone just to reprimand and look after her. In fact, she was thankful for it, but she wasn't going to let her act down even if Hinata told her to. Haruno Sakura was, is, made out of platinum. Unbreakable and impenetrable. She would do anything to not let them know about how bad she felt.
"Stop being such worry-warts you guys! I'm fine, see!" Sakura said as she proceeded to flash them her brightest smile and get out of Sasuke's bed… Which she then fell to the ground when her knees gave out on her and her muscles sent surges of pain to her brain. She was caught by Kiba who was the closest to her when she fell.
"Fine my ass! You can barely stand!" Kiba said as he hefted her back on to Sasuke's bed by the armpits. "C'mon Sakura, stop playing games and tell us what hurts and what that bitch Karin did so we can do something!" He spat angrily.
Sakura looked at her legs with a look of betrayal in her eyes, cursing them for being useless when she needed them so much. But she let out a sigh, as a sign she had finally given up on trying to lie to them all. Sakura was eventually going to spill the beans anyway, might as well do it sooner rather than later anyway.
"Well… um… I was in the bathroom where they locked the door and then beat me up?" She ended the sentence with a slight raise in pitch, making it sound more like a question than an answer. She really wasn't in the mood to delve into the topic, nor did she have the strength.
"Sakura-san, it would be wise to tell us properly what they actually did before Uchiha goes over and makes you," Neji said to her far across the room with his hands crossed and folded neatly in front of his chest, making an effort to emphasize on 'properly' and 'they'. It was quite rare to see him care this much, usually only Tenten's requests or Naruto's shenanigans got him to ever question anything. It was only then that Sakura realized how much everyone was worrying about her well-being. She felt guilty for trying to divert their attention elsewhere but she really didn't think it necessary to drag her into her mess. But now seeing that they were going to get down to it no matter what she did, she let out a sigh and told them what really happened but a few hours ago.
Once she was done telling her tale, everyone seemed to be quietly seething in rage over the fact that all of it happened because of one jealous girlfriend and her idiot lackey. Soon after that, they were voicing their displeasure and saying things that under normal circumstances would never have been said. Truthfully though, this was not any normal circumstance. Karin had hurt one of their own, a very important member in fact, you mess with one from the pack, and you mess with the whole pack.
But one Uchiha had been very quiet throughout the whole fiasco, very carefully masking and hiding his rage that was just about boiling under his skin. Looking at Sakura's bruised and battered state made his already unstable emotions erupt, but listening to the incident in her point of view made him want to just march over to Karin's place and very slowly strangle the living daylights out of her while she struggled in his grasp. And the train of thought just got darker and darker until it had to be released in the form of an aura, successfully sending chills up everyone's spine abruptly. How he wished he could do just all that he had planned out for her right then and there, until a timid little voice called out to him that even as angry as he was, was able to snap him out of his stupor.
"Sasuke?" Sakura called out to the dark looking teen that was standing in the corner of his own room, seeing that at the moment she was the only one who would ever have enough backbone to actually stand head-to-head with the broody Uchiha. She was as smart, as unstoppable, as determined, and as stubborn (maybe more so) as him, and besides, they grew up with each other and he would rather mutilate himself than hit her. The same went for her but she could get a little more physical at times. The thought made her smile, but smiling seemed for from appropriate at that time.
Sasuke glanced up to look at Sakura, but only winced when he did. She looked far from okay and yet she could still be more concerned over him than her own self, but that was what made Sakura, so… Sakura. All she ever cared about were the people around her and never about herself, and that was what made it even harder to look at her. How could she think about being worried about him when she should have been more worried for herself? She never made sense, did she? But that was what Sasuke admired about her, forever compassionate.
"I'm alright," he lied, hoping that it would reassure her, although it did the exact opposite. It made her more worried than she already was, if not, even more. She knew that tone, that tone was the 'I don't want you to worry' tone that he'd use every time something insanely horrible was wrong. But sensing that he didn't wish to discuss this in front of their friends, she kept her mouth shut and proceeded to give him a 'we'll talk about this later' look.
After half an hour more of reassuring her friends that she was perfectly fine and telling them to head home in case their parents were starting to worry and that she'd see them tomorrow. "Are you going to go home too?" Ino asked her worriedly, wondering what would happen if she went home looking like this. Her parents were terribly overprotective of her and Ino could only imagine what would happen if they found out that someone had very painfully put all those black, blue, green and yellow bruises all over her body.
"Nahh, I'll crash here. I'll just tell mom and dad that I'm staying over a few nights to do a project, they trust me with Sasuke. Besides, I can't exactly tell you what my dad would do, but I can tell you, it's not going to be pretty." Sakura finished with a giggle, but was entirely serious when she said that it wouldn't be pretty.
"My thoughts exactly," Ino said with a nod of her head. "Want me to grab some clothes for you?" It's on my way back and I could pass them to you tomorrow at school."
"That would be great," reassured by the fact that she didn't need to go back looking like a bruised banana, "Thank Ino Pig," Sakura said with a thankful yet teasing tone, calling her friend with the nickname that she'd given her at an earlier stage in life.
"No problem, Forehead," Ino retorted back at her with the nickname that she'd come up for her. It was their own special way of telling each other that one of the two would be fine and this reassured Ino. So she made her way out of Sasuke's room with the rest of the gang trailing behind her while saying their goodbye's to Sasuke and Sakura and each other.
As soon as they were out of the room and not within earshot, Sakura flopped back down onto Sasuke's massive bed and heaved large sigh. She then pulled out her phone from her back pocket which was conveniently not in there. Then she remembered that she must have dropped it on the mall's bathroom floor when she passed and called for Sasuke with it.
Dammit, the word went through her mind like a plague. She then put one of her arms-her injured one- over her face and the other extended to the Uchiha who was still brooding in the far corner of his own room. Sensing that Sakura made a move, he looked up with a curious glance towards her extended hand and then put the pieces together that she must have wanted his phone since he forgot to pick hers up from the bathroom floor when they were leaving in a hurry. He quickly pulled it out from his pocket and dialled her mother's phone number, which he had memorized from a young age, for her before handing it to her.
Sakura, trusting Sasuke would be smart enough to do everything for her, took the phone and placed it next to her ear immediately. It rang twice before her mom picked up the phone.
"Sasuke? This is a pleasure! What makes you call?" Sakura heard her mother's cheerful tone flowing from the microphone to her side of the phone. Sakura could faintly hear the sound of boiling and chopping and concluded that her mother must have been making dinner right now.
"Hey mom, this is Sakura," Sakura said tiredly.
"Sakura? Why are you calling with Sasuke's phone? Is there something wrong Sweety?" Her ever worrisome mother asked with an urgent tone in her voice. Even if they were talking through the phone, Sakura could imagine the worried look that she must have plastered on her face. She could also detect that she had stopped doing everything and solely focused on her since she couldn't hear her knife going against the chopping board anymore.
"It's nothing mom," Sakura reassured her, "I was just calling to tell you that I'll be sleeping over at Sasuke's for a bit. We've got a project to do and I need to stay over and complete it," she concluded. She could faintly hear the chopping again but was slower than her mother's usual chopping pace. She knew that she'd reassured her but knew her mother was still yet to be totally convinced.
"Well, it still doesn't explain why you're calling with Sasuke's phone instead of your own," Her mother said, wanting to know why her independent little girl was suddenly using her good friend's phone rather than her own, albeit said friend was rich and had no problems with small things like phone bills, but she knew her daughter better than anyone in the world, and she was very sure that she'd rather use a payphone with her own money than her friends' unless under impossible circumstances.
"Yeah, well, I got pickpocketed," Sakura lied conveniently, not wanting to tell her mother what really happened and opted to tell her a small white lie instead. Her mother was a known troublemaker and she wouldn't hesitate to go up to her school principal or any authority to justify her daughter's bullying. And Sakura would very much like to avoid that.
"Oh, my poor baby…" Her mother said pitifully. "It's alright, I'll ask your dad to buy you a new one, and your old one was getting a little bad for wear anyway. Alright, is there anything else you want to tell me or can I go back to cooking?" Her mother asked teasingly.
"Yeah, Ino will be over in a while to get me some clothes for the next few days I spend in Sasuke's. So be ready for a very big mess after she's done," Sakura said, feeling a little bad that her mother had to clean up after Pig, but she had no choice.
"Alright, bye honey, see you soon. Love you," She then ended the call and went back to cooking.
"Love you too," Sakura mumbled to herself. She then held the phone out to Sasuke and allowed him to grab the phone but stopped short of giving it to him and pulled it back when he tried to take it away. She then lifted her hand from her face to place it to her chest and looked knowingly at him and asked "What's wrong?"
Sasuke silently cursed the pinkette in front of him for being so damned smart.