Notes: Yay, long chapter :D Somehow, OpenOffice's spell-check doesn't want to work with me, but I tried to do my best! Still, if there's a grammar mistake, please point it out :3

Chapter twenty two

Graduation party

Temari smiled at her reflection in the mirror. She fixed her ponytails once again, just in case, and leaned closer to the mirror to make completely sure her make up looked perfect. And it did. After all, she had been in her room for two hours now, doing her best at looking, and feeling, as pretty as she'd ever looked and felt. She wasn't a vain girl, but she had to be it today, because today was going to be one of the most important days of her life.

Today she was going to graduate from high school.

She couldn't believe it, but the day had finally came. After being in high school for years, thinking about never coming back to that school, about never doing the things she did as a high-schooler, seemed unbelievable. And bizarre. And sad.

Temari had to admit it: she was going to miss high school. She had gotten used to it. She was also going to miss her rutine: waking up at six, getting ready, making and eating breakfast, going to school with her brothers, paying attention in class, seeing her friends and her boyfriend, coming back home, and doing the same all over again the next day.

However, what she was going to miss the most were her friends. The next year, in the university, she was going to be in Suna, and she had no friends there (only her childhood friends, maybe, but she bet they didn't even remember her), so she was going to have a hard time finding her place there.

It was hard, really hard, to abandon things you've gotten used to. Her house, her brothers, her room, her school, her friends, her boyfriend... She had to leave it all behind, to leave it all in Konoha, and build a new life in Suna. If she could be honest, she wished she didn't have to. But she had to. The most important thing for her, above anything and anybody else, was her dream of becoming a great architect. Ever since she was a kid and built coloful buildings with toy blocks, she promised herself she was going to be an awesome architect one day, one her father, and her mother in heaven, could feel proud of. She couldn't give up on making her dream come true. She had to be brave.

Temari sighed deeply. She nodded at her reflection, giving herself an encouraging look, and turned around to exit her room. However, she caught glimpse of a book hidden under her mattress. Frowning, she walked over to it and pulled it out. It was heavy and old-looking. The pages were stiff and yellow-ish. She opened it and read the title on the first page: Possessions' Spells.

She smiled at the memories that suddenly plagued her mind. Her smile windened when she rememebered a dark-haired, blue-eyed fairy eating a small, secretly bewitched, cherry candy.

"Temari, you ready?" her brother Kankuro yelled from downstairs, bringing her back to reality.

"Yeah, I'm coming!" she yelled back as she leaned down and put the book back under the mattress.

As she exited her room, she told herself she would make a visit to Sakura's aunt soon and give the book back to her.

Hinata expected herself to be very sad. She also expected herself to burst out crying in the moment she saw Temari walking out of the school's building after her one-hour-long graduation ceremony, carrying a bunch of colorful flowers in her arms and wearing her school uniform as tidy as she'd ever wear it before. She also expected her three other friends to do the same.

But they didn't. In the moment they saw Temari, they ran towards her and hugged her so tightly she lost balance and they all fell to the ground, laughing like little kids. Hinata was feeling euphoric, as were her friends, when they were supposed to be crying and begging Temari not to go. It was weird and surprising... but Hinata was glad of it. She really prefered them to be so happy they looked ridiculous than to be gloomy and crying. After all, it was their last day in high school together. They might as well enjoy it.

"Oh my God, my stomach hurts!" Ino exclaimed. Her laughter had died, but she still had a grin on her face.

"So do mine," Sakura said. Her face was as red as a tomato.

TenTen, who had been literally rolling on the floor laughing, stood up and dusted herself off. The others did the same, helping each other up. Hinata noticed some people staring at them oddly, probably weirded out, but most of the people around them were too focused on congratulating the other graduated students, so they didn't actually called too much attention.

"I want a picture!" Temari exclaimed. "Who brought a camara?"

"Me!" the other four girls said in unison. They looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

"Let's use all of them," Sakura proposed. She looked around, apparently searching for someone, and then raised a hand and yelled, "Hey, guys! Over here! Come, please."

Four guys from Hinata's, Ino's and Sakura's class walked towards them. They greeted them all and congratulated Temari for graduating. "What's up?" one of them finally asked Sakura.

"Mind to take us a picture?" Sakura asked sweetly, holding her pink digital camara up.

"Course not," the guy said, smiling, and took her camara.

"But the quest is for all of you," TenTen said, taking her own camara out of her purse. She handed it to another guy and Ino and Hinata handed their own camaras to the other two guys.

"Please," Ino said, fluttering her eyelashes at them.

"Sure," one of them said as the others nodded in agreement.

The girls thanked them and then walked a few feet away and posed. The guys took a few pictures of them and then gave them the camaras back. The girls thanked them again and they walked away.

"Let me see the picture!" Temari said, glancing over Hinata's shoulder to take a look at her digital camara's screen.

Hinata clicked a button to let Temari see the picture. The other girls gathered around her, prefering to see the picture from her camara than from theirs. They started giggling when they saw it.

Ino stood beside Sakura at the left, Temari stood in the middle, and TenTen and Hinata at the right. Their arms were linked and they were smiling brightly. They looked like five girls that were never going to forget the day that picture was taken.

The graduated students of Konohagakure High School planned a reunion at a local bar the school rented just for them. They could all take some of their friends. And, of course, Temari took her four best friends. They were all excited about going to party with the older kids, especially Sakura, because, lately, she had been convinced that she would find a new love soon, and maybe one of the graduated kids' friends would be of her liking. Things with Sasori hadn't worked out, but, after all, still in love with her ex or not, she had to at least try to move on, right?

But her mood instantly dropped when her friends abandoned her as soon as they got to the party to be with their boyfriends, who were also invited to the party, probably by some other graduated friends they had. Sakura, not feeling like meeting new people anymore, prefered to stay at the table they had taken, sipping from a glass of soda and watching sadly as other people had fun.

She was getting too bored, so she decided to look for her friends. However, she felt too lazy to stand up, so she decided to search for them with her eyes. She looked over at the dancefloor and saw Hinata there. She was blushing madly, dancing shyly as Naruto danced stupidly around her. Sakura smiled. She knew her friend hated to dance, that it embarrased her, but it was cute to see her doing the sacrifice just for her boyfriend.

Sakura looked away and saw TenTen and Neji sitting in one of the couches at the corners of the place. They were sitting extremly close, so close TenTen was almost on Neji's lap, and they were... Sakura looked away, embarrased, disgusted and jealous at the same time. She wished she had a boyfriend to be kissing with now, too. However, she distracted herself from those miserable thoughts by wondering if TenTen had finally worked things out with her boyfriend. Last time she talked about that with her, she was still uneasy about the sex thing. Maybe they had finally got over it... or did it. Sakura didn't want to think about it anymore, so she decided to ask TenTen later and search for her other friends.

She spotted Ino's blond ponytail at the bar. She had her back to her and she was talkig with someone, but Sakura couldn't see who it was, so she scooted over to the right and strechted her neck. She caught glimpe of dark hair and pale skin, and for a moment she thought, Holy shit, is she talking to Sasuke?, and started to panic. But then she strechted her neck a little bit more and realize the guy didn't have Sasuke's unique hairstyle or dark-blue hair color; he actually had short, plain hair of the color of the night's sky. He was definetly not Sasuke. He was Sai, Ino's boyfriend.

Seeing Sai and Ino together made her mood drop even more. It made her remember how lonely she was and feel jealous of her friend's happiness. Why can't I be happy again like her?, she thought sadly. Why can she be happy but I can't? What does she have that I don't? Is something wrong with me?

Again, she interrupted her thoughts and started searching for her other blonde best friend. She looked around the dancefloor, the bar, the tables, but saw no sign of Temari. Finally, she gave up, guessing she was probably at the balcony, hanging out with her other graduated classmates.

Sakura sighed again and started playing with a napkin. The boredom made her start to think and her thoughts got her even more and more sad. She even started to think non-sense things like, Maybe Sasuke doesn't want to come back with me, as Sai did with Ino, because I'm ugly, or, Maybe no guy has come over to make me company yet because my big forehead scares them. Later, she would tell herself she'd never thought such stupid things before.

Suddenly, someone plopped on a chair beside her with a heavy sigh. Sakura stopped playing with her napkin and blinked up at the person. It was Temari, looking tired but kind of relieved.

"What's going on?" Sakura asked. "I thought you were having fun with the other graduated kids."

"Well, I was trying to," Temari replied. "But I just couldn't stop thinking about something. Can I have some of your soda?" she asked, pointing at Sakura's glass. The pink haired girl nodded, and Temari swallowed all the liquid in one gulp. "God, I was thirsty..."

"And what was that something?" Sakura asked, secretly glad there was finally something to distract her from her thoughts.

"Shikamaru," her friend replied, her voice softening and a distant look on her face. "I hadn't told him about my leaving to Suna yet."

Sakura's green eyes widened. "What!"

The blonde nodded. "I know: I suck. It's just that... it was a hundred times harder to tell him than to tell you girls. I just... I was so... I don't know." She sighed again. "He had no idea, Sakura. I was planning on telling him later, like, tomorrow, but it was making me really anxious; I wasn't enjoying the party. So, I called him, and found out he is here, that some friend of my grade invited him, and he was looking for me. We decided to meet at a far corner of the balcony, far from the guys partying there. We talked. I told him. And you can guess the rest."

"He made a scene?" Sakura asked.

Temari chuckled. "Of course not. He is not the type of dramatic guys who over-react about things, fortunately. Actually, that's one of the reasons I love him."

Sakura was touched by Temari's admission. She knew she wasn't the kind of people who say they love someone very often. Temari only said it when she really felt it. Sakura also felt really sad for her. She was going to have to leave him, the only guy she'd ever admitted she loved. It was tragic. "What happaned, then?" Sakura asked softly.

"Well, he was quiet for a few seconds, looking really serious, as serious as I've ever seen him, and... concentrated. Really concentrated. As if he were trying to solve a very difficult math problem as he stared into my eyes. And then, he smiled. He asked me why I hadn't told him before. I asked him if he was mad at me. He said he wasn't, that he would never be mad at me for being afraid of hurting him. And then I started crying." Sakura watched worriedly as her friend's blue eyes started to water. "He's such a moron... Why does he have to be so good? I don't deserve him. He deserves a girl that would never think of abandoning him to go study somewhere else, a girl totally not like me. Still, the moron says he doesn't want anyone but me... Is he stupid or what?"

Temari was talking angrily, but she was crying. Sakura offered her the napkin she had been playing with, and Temari took it and wiped her eyes with it. When she calmed down, she continued. "I wanated to break up with him. I mean, I didn't really want to, but I thought it was the best for both of us. I don't believe in long-distance relationships. He said he doesn't, either, but that he would never dare to let me go. I realized that I wouldn't dare to let him go, either. So we decided to give it a chance. I promised to visit him every time I could, and he did the same. I mean, phone calls and internet-chat can't be so bad, right?"

Sakura smiled and nodded. "I'm sure you guys will be alright."

Temari nodded, too. "I hope so." She took a deep breath and looked around. Suddenly, she snickered. "Oh my God, Hinata looks so embarrased."

Sakura followed her gaze. Hinata and Naruto were still on the dancefloor, and she was covering her red face with her hands and dancing awkwardly as Naruto laughed and hugged her. Sakura laughed. "She hates to dance, but she's doing it for him."

"That's true love," Temari declared. "Oh, and talking about love... Hello, love-birds!"

Sakura looked up and smiled at Ino and Sai. "Glad to see you again, Sai."

"Nice to see you too, girls," he said, smiling politely. He and Ino took a seat beside Temari.

"What've you guys been doing?" Ino asked her friends.

Sakura shrugged. "Getting bored."

"I talked to Shikamaru," Temari said, catching Ino's whole attention. She started to tell her about it, and Sakura, who had already heard the story, started a conversation with Sai.

The blondes chatted as Sai told Sakura about France until Hinata and Naruto and TenTen and Neji came over. They sat with them and they all started to ask Sai about Europe and his art school. Sakura was glad to have company. At least their conversation kept her from thinking about her pathetic life.

However, it all got much worse when Shikamaru arrived. He sat beside Temari, and Sakura saw him taking his girlfriend's hand and hold it there as he started an argument with Naruto about how healthy the ramen was. That made Sakura realize that the other couples were holding hands, too. She was the only one who had no one to hold hands with. It made her feel lonely and pathetic. And she wanted to leave.

"Uh, I have to go to the bathroom," she uttered, standing up from her seat. "I'll be right back."

The others didn't even seem to care she was leaving; they were to focused on having fun, laughing, and reminding her about how miserable she was. It made Sakura feel like she was going to explode any time soon.

Of course she didn't go to the bathroom. It was too small and suffocating there. She was feeling claustrophobic; she needed air. So she headed to the balcony. A few groups of kids were there, being loud and drinking root beer. One of them, a really cute guy she'd never seen before, saw her and offered her a root beer. Sakura stopped walking and stared at him. She had been waiting to meet someone who'd distract her from her gloomness, and now that she'd finally found him, she didn't feel like meeting new people or having fun anymore. Now she just wanted to be alone and cry.

"No thanks," she said quickly, cursing herself for being so stupid, and then she continued walking, leaving the cute guy, the root beer and the fun behind.

The balcony had a beautiful view. She could see the whole city from there. The city lights relaxed her, distracted her, calmed her down. As she put her hands on the hand-rail and leaned forward, she closed her eyes, breathing the scent of the night in. She opened her eyes, and instantly, all of her negative thoughts vanished. She felt grateful.

She stood there for a few minutes, admiring the view, until she felt tears running down her cheeks. She didn't know when she had started to cry. Maybe she had been crying since she walked away from the cute guy with the root beer. She had no idea, but she didn't really care.

She wiped her tears in case someone would suddenly come up to her. She didn't want anyone to ask her what was wrong. She didn't want to explain it to anyone, not even to her best friends. Right now was one of the odd times when she just wanted to be alone with herself and to keep all of her thoughts in her head.

She sighed deeply, expecting the fresh, pure air of the night to soothe her, but instead of that, the air, mixed with a heavy, acrid scent, made her cringe. Sakura looked around, searching for the source of that disturbing smell, and glared at the person standing all alone a few feet away from her. She couldn't see his face because he was covered in shadows, far from the light that came from the lamps hanging over the tables the kids were partying at and from the inside of the bar, but she could see he was a guy.

"Excuse me," Sakura said, raising her voice. She was very annoyed, but she tried to sound polite. "Could you please stop smoking? I know it's a free country, but you're allowed to do it inside. You can do it here, outside, too, but you're disturbing me because I want to breathe air, not cigarette smoke. So, would you please smoke somewhere else...?"

The guy took another drag of his cigarette, turned to Sakura and froze in place. She raised an eyebrow, wondering who he was and why he would be so shocked to see her there.

Suddenly, the guy started coughing. Worried, Sakura hurried towards him, ready to ask if he was okay and offer him a glass of water or something. Depressed or not, she still worried for a choking person, even if the person was a smoker.

However, she didn't get a chance to speak because, when she got close enough to see his face, she froze in place, too.

"Sasuke?" she gasped, her eyes wide. She instantly regretted it. What if she was just hallucinating and the person in front of her was someone else? Surely, she had sounded stupid calling a random person Sasuke.

But she was sure it was him, no mater how hard she tried to deny it. His dark eyes, his dark blue hair, his ivory skin, his fine features... It was him. It couldn't be anyone else.

But why the hell was he smoking?

Sasuke's coughs died and he got his breath back. He looked up at Sakura, who was immobile as she stared at him with a frown on her face, and then glanced at the cigarette in his hand. By the sudden look of embarrasement he had, Sakura guessed he remembered how much she hated people who smoke.

But the most important question she wanted to make him right now was not about his smoking.

"What are you doing here?"

Sasuke sighed and straightened up. "Well, I was smoking. Now I'm talking to you," he replied casually, not looking at her. He threw his cigarette to the floor and then smashed it off with his shoe. The look of the cigarette told he had just started smoking it, which was good, because he didn't smell like cigarette smoke too much. It made Sakura feel flattered that he was wasting it only because of her.

"I didn't know you were a smoker," she said, her accusing tone very discreet.

"I didn't know it, either, until a few weeks ago."

He was being cocky, which pissed her off, but also worried her, a lot. She knew him. She knew he was cocky only with people he didn't really want to talk to, or when he was annoyed. Did that mean she was annoying him? Did he not want to talk to her?

"I'm guessing Temari invited you here," he said, looking up at the starry sky. His not meeting her gaze made her feel uneasy.

"Yeah, she invited me, and she invited Ino, Hinata and TenTen, too. Who invited you?"

"A friend," he replied. "The same friend who invited Naruto, Shikamaru and Neji. By the way, have you seen them? I lost them a few minutes ago."

"They're with my friends, their girlfriends," Sakura said, and that reminded her of her loneliness and dropped her mood. However, she tried to focus on Sasuke instead. It was not time to get depressed again, not when someone could see her.

"Figures," Sasuke sighed, leaning against the hand-rail. "They left me to be with their girlfriends. They don't care I have no one else to be with. I bet they just thought, 'Screw Sasuke, let's go with the chicks!'"

"So that's why you're here?" she asked. "You have no one else to be with?"

He shrugged. "I could find someone else. But... I didn't feel like having company. I just wanted to have some air, be alone and... smoke. It calms me down."

"It was the same with me," she said, putting her hands on the hand-rail and looking up at the sky. "Except for the smoking part. I don't smoke. I've heard it's good to deal with stress, but I just hate the smell. It's my least favorite smell ever."

"You get used to it," he commented. "The smoke kind of purifies you, you know?"

Sakura snorted. "I doubt that."

They procedeed to have a light argument about wether smoking was good or not. Sasuke said it was good to do it moderately, but she disagreed. They were having a casual conversation, as if they were just friends, or even strangers, and not an ex couple. Sakura was talking to, and even laughing with, him as if she wasn't still in love with him. She knew it was strange to be talking to her ex boyfriend so casually, but she didn't really care for as long as he kept her from having negative thoughts that made her want to cry. She was tired of crying.

Besides, she had almost forgotten how much she enjoyed his company.

TenTen hadn't liked the look on Sakura's face when she excused herself to go to the bathroom. No one besides her seemed to notice it at that time because they were all laughing at something Naruto had said. TenTen had been paying attention to the conversation and also laughed a bit, but she was very observant when it came to people, and even though Sakura had seemed totally normal, TenTen had seen through her facade.

She had been ready to stand up, follow her and find out what was wrong, but then Ino had said something about TenTen and Neji looking uncharacteristically happy lately. Her tone hadn't been innocent at all and had been implying something, clearly. TenTen was able to guess what that something was, and she instantly blushed. Naruto had gotten Ino's implication, too, and he started to say things that owned him two punches: one from TenTen and the other from Neji. Then, TenTen had gotten distracted by the embarrasement and completely forgotten about Sakura.

When she remembered about her again, it had been several minutes since the last time she had seen her. She quickly told Ino, Temari and Hinata about it and they all excused themselves to go to the bathroom and look for Sakura. But the pink haired girl was not in the bathroom. She wasn't at the dancefloor, or at the bar, or at the balcony, or anywhere else, either.

The girls started to panic. Where the hell was she? Had she left? Temari was supposed to take them all home. How did Sakura left? Did she pay for a taxi? Did she asked some random person to take her? What if that random person was a phsyco-rapist-stalker? Was Sakura okay? Was she even still alive?

"Oh my God, this is all our fault!" Hinata exclaimed, covering her ears. She was completely freaked out. "We were too distracted to notice... We completely ignored her! We're terrible friends!"

"Girls, girls, let's calm down!" Temari said, raising her hands in the air. They had come back to the bathroom to check once again, just in case, and to talk it over. "We cannot let panic cloud our logic. Let's think straigh, alright? Where did we not look?"

TenTen breathed in and out slowly. Temari was right; Temari was always right. They needed to think straight. "Uh... let's see... The balcony is pretty big; that would be the only place we hadn't completely searched in. We only, like, looked around and then left, right?"

"Yeah," Ino said, pacing. "But everyone who is at the balcony is at the tables. We looked among them and saw no sign of a pink head. There were a few people furthest away from the tables, but they were standing in groups, against the hand-rail, and we didn't saw Sakura among them, either. She was definitely not there."

"But what if she is even further away, in a corner, making out with a dude in the dark?" TenTen asked. "That's possible, isn't it?"

They all nodded thoughtfully and, suddenly, Hinata gasped. "What if the guy is a rapist and is doing something bad to her as we talk?"

Ino gasped in horror. TenTen only grimaced. Temari, however, stayed calm. "Hinata," she said, rolling her dark-blue eyes. "Don't think like that. Let's stay away from negative thoughts, shall we? And focus on finding a reasonable answer."

"Sorry," Hinata said, her eyes watering. "I'm just really scared."

"Well..." Ino said, "we should go to the balcony again, just to make sure, okay?"

They all nodded and walked out of the bathroom. TenTen didn't really have many hopes on finding her there; she thought Sakura had just felt abandoned and decided to take a taxi and go home to sleep... or so she hoped.

However, when they got to the balcony and inspected the far, dark corners, TenTen felt a rush of many different emotions: happiness, relief, confusion, and a lot of amusement.

"Um, this is awkward," Ino murmured, suppressing a grin.

They watched Sakura fix her hair and Sasuke dust himself off. Her dress' straps were out of place and he had lip gloss all over his mouth. They were blushing madly and their mad expressions made them look adorable, in TenTen's opinion.

Finally, TenTen couldn't hold it anymore: she bursted out laughing. Ino and Hinata did the same.

Temari didn't seem as amused as them, though. "You scared the hell out of us!" she yelled at Sakura. "We thought you had been kidnapped, or raped, or whatever! But you were... you were just..." Her angry expression slowly melted into a wide grin. "Oh God," she laughed, "I will never forget this."

Blushing a darker shade of pink, Sasuke and Sakura just glared at them. TenTen couldn't blame them. No one liked to be caught making out, after all.

Notes: Aww, a happy ending! :D And - ZOMG, EPILOGUE IS NEXT! D: Can't believe this story is ending after more than a year! D':