Sakura was beginning to realize that waking up with Uchiha Sasuke was never going to be quite what she expected.
Years ago, her childhood daydreams had been full of visions of waking up to gaze at him lovingly while he slept, perhaps brushing a hand through his fine, bed-mussed, but somehow still spiky hair. He would awaken gradually beneath her gentle touch, then give her a soft, heart-melting smile and pull her to him, holding her close and kissing her passionately, whispering sweet little endearments and running his fingers through her hair.
Now that she was older and decidedly more worldly, those revoltingly saccharine flights of fancy had undergone some drastic changes: she had been hoping for slipping away unnoticed while Sasuke slept, as she had that time back in the hospital.
Unfortunately that hope was dashed the instant she opened heavy-lidded, sleep-blurred eyes to find him staring straight at her. There was no emotion whatsoever in that gaze--not gratitude, not pleasure, and certainly not anything that she would call affection--but there was no anger or reproach or disgust either. Just a curious sort of calm, a tolerant, tranquil contentment.
Her eyes widened and she drew in a sharp, quiet half-breath on the realization that her body was flush with his, the side of his hip digging into her abdomen, her chest pressed flat against his ribs, her head resting on his shoulder.
For a long moment she simply returned his stare, dazed, then she scrambled almost comically to untangle herself from him. As she pulled away, Sakura found to her mild surprise that his arm was wrapped around her shoulders, and that he didn't move it until she had made it clear that she wanted to get up.
Dammit, I'm going to be late, she thought as she hurriedly attempted to straighten her clothing (a largely hopeless endeavor) and ran a hand through her hair. She was scheduled for a double shift at the hospital that began at seven, which left her about twenty minutes total to gather up her things, get home, and get ready; she certainly couldn't go in looking like this.
Knowing how it would look if she left Sasuke's apartment at this hour in her noticeably rumpled clothing, Sakura opted to teleport home; she was half-naked and halfway to the shower before the smoke had cleared. Despite the fact that Tsunade had been less than pleased the last time she had been late for a long shift, Sakura couldn't stop her mind from settling on thoughts of Sasuke as she stepped into the steaming-hot shower.
She hadn't missed the fact that, as she'd gotten up to go, his eyes had followed her every move silently, though he made no attempt to stop her from leaving and hadn't said a word as she slipped out of his room to grab her shoes and her bag. Closing her eyes, she rested her head against the cool shower tiles, willing herself to think of something, anything other than how wonderful, how perfectly right it had felt to wake up to find her body entwined with his; even now she still couldn't quite get the familiar, faintly musky scent of his apartment, his sheets, his skin, out of her nose…
"Don't read into this…it doesn't mean anything."
That memory brought her back to herself somewhat, like a splash of cold water in the face, and kept replaying itself insistently over and over in her head. He hadn't meant to hurt her, that much had been obvious by the hollow ring of bravado in his tone, but to be honest, those words had stung. You couldn't say 'thanks for throwing yourself at me yet again, but no thanks, still not interested' much more clearly than that.
Never mind the fact that she really hadn't been throwing herself at him; his health and emotional welfare had been her only concerns last night, and all other thoughts and desires had taken an immediate backseat to the fact that one of her best friends (and current patient and old teammate and first love) had been experiencing a small-scale mental breakdown.
Shaking her head, Sakura turned the faucet off with a sharp jerk and attacked the task of toweling her hair dry with a vengeance. According to the clock on the wall, it was 6:54 already, and she still had to get something to eat—she knew from experience that she might not get a chance for anything else until late that night.
It turned out that she needn't have worried; Tsunade herself was over half an hour late due to a particularly nasty hangover, and while the sheer length of the double shift made it tiring, it went about as smoothly as possible. Most of her time was spent doing routine checks on and administering a combination of medicines and medical ninjutsu to various inpatients, though she also ended up spending a few hours in the lab and in the clinic. Fortunately there was only one critically injured patient brought into the emergency room--a newly-promoted chuunin who'd seriously botched a jounin-level wind element jutsu--and Sakura already had things well under control by the time Tsunade had arrived. The Hokage had complimented her work, and had hinted at possibly sending her on an extended medical mission to Suna in the near future ("But only if you're interested, of course; the details are still a bit sketchy anyway, so don't worry about making a decision just yet").
Other than Ino, who'd dropped by to bring her some lunch, the only person from her age group that she saw all day was Neji, who was making the necessary follow-up visit for his injuries from the day before. Sakura, remembering his rather flattering comments during their previous encounter, had greeted him with her usual bright smile and a hint of a blush, both of which were met with a strange sort of indifference; in fact, his demeanor on the whole was cool and rather standoffish, which the pink-haired medic-nin found a bit bewildering, though she wrote it off to lack of sleep and her own imagination. She was too busy at the moment to concern herself with personal matters; even thoughts about the previous night hadn't crossed her mind more than once or twice since she'd arrived at the hospital that morning.
Still, after her shift ended and she'd finished filling out and filing all the necessary paper work (which, thanks to the sloppy work of one or more interns and her own perfectionist mindset, took nearly four hours all told), it was all she could do to stumble home, take another quick shower, and collapse into bed.
There were three ways that Sakura particularly disliked being awakened.
The first was by fighting of any kind. Yelling matches and half-playful scuffles between teammates that had gotten out of hand were both less-than-pleasant ways of being roused from sleep, though of course real life-and-death situations were the worst to wake up to, something she'd learned on one of her first missions as a jounin.
The second involved water, and had often been employed by Kakashi during their old Team Seven missions back in the day; Naruto, and sometimes even Sasuke, had suffered right along with her through what she had thought of as their team leader's rather aggressive version of Chinese water torture. (Not that it hadn't been effective, of course—as if anyone could sleep through his Water Dragon Missile Technique.)
The last was only ever done by two people, Ino and Naruto, and it involved early mornings, as well as a lot of yelling and pounding on her front door.
"SAAAAKUUUURAAAA! I OPEN YOU TO ORDER THIS DOOR IMMEDIATELY!"
The pink-haired kunoichi blinked slowly, staring up at her bedroom ceiling and wondering if she'd somehow gotten drunk without knowing it.
It's either that, or Ino just isn't making sense…hmm, not so unlikely.
With a groan she rolled sideways out of bed and stumbled her way to the front door, fumbling with the lock before slowly swinging the door open to reveal her former rival and best friend since childhood. "What is it, Ino?" she grumbled, squinting at the intensity of the bright sunlight. She wondered what time it was--it couldn't be later than eight or nine, and she'd gotten home from her shift at the hospital at five-thirty, meaning she'd only been asleep for about two or three hours…
This had better be good, pig! she growled inwardly as Ino pushed her way past Sakura, one hand latching onto the crook of the groggy medic-nin's arm and dragging her into the kitchen before abruptly turning on her.
"Oh my GOD, Sakura, how could you not TELL me?"
The pink-haired girl blinked slowly, her face blank with confusion.
It all made sense now: apparently Ino was the one who was drunk.
A sudden frown turned the shorter girl's mouth sharply downwards. "What the hell are you talking about?" Sakura growled, sounding far more like Sasuke than she cared to think about.
Ino snorted, rolling her eyes a bit before posting her hands on her hips and giving her pink-haired friend a skeptical look. "Cute, Forehead, but you can drop the act. We both know that you've been sleeping with Sasuke, so why pretend otherwise?"
Sakura felt her eyes go wide, and she managed to keep her jaw from dropping only by sheer force of will. "Wha—how did you—"
"Come on, Sakura, you can't be THAT surprised. Half the village must know by now."
Ah, only half the village. Well. Apparently Naruto had actually managed to keep his mouth shut about something for almost an entire day. That had to be a new record.
It had to have been Naruto, of that much she was fairly certain; no one else would have been likely to drop by Sasuke's apartment before seven in the morning, and of course the blonde would have seen them in bed together. Looking back, Sakura felt more than a little chagrined that she hadn't taken that possibility into consideration, though she conceded that keeping up appearances had not been very high on her list of priorities the night before last.
Sakura bit back a groan as she remembered with sudden clarity her previous day at work. The increased levels of whispering around her, the furtive glances that she'd been too busy to mind for the most part, the slightly mistrustful or jealous looks various patients and hospital staff alike had given her…it was so obvious now that she thought about it.
…And then she suddenly went cold on recalling Neji's icy disregard. She'd thought she was just imagining it at the time, but now…well, it was pretty clear which half of the village he was part of.
An even worse thought followed that one—what if Sasuke himself heard the rumors? It was true that he'd allowed her to comfort him, to stay with him, and that he hadn't seemed to mind it all in the end, but there had been nothing even vaguely romantic about any of it. Except for the way you were tangled up with him when you first woke up…and how his arm was around your shoulders, holding you even closer… Inner Sakura quipped with a snicker, though that thought was pushed away hard; this was NOT the time for this sort of thing. She had to do some damage control before Sasuke found out about all this. What if he was so disgusted by the very idea that he refused to have anything to do with her ever again?
She glanced up at Ino, who was looking at her expectantly.
"…I don't suppose you'll believe me if I deny it?"
Surprisingly enough, the blonde shrugged. "I might. So are you sleeping with him?"
"No!"
"…You're right, I don't think I believe you."
Sakura heaved a sigh. "Didn't think so…so what has everyone been saying?" she asked, her tone suggesting that she didn't really want to know, but knew it would probably be best if she did.
"That this has been most likely going on for a while—ever since he was put under house arrest, though some people think you might've taken advantage of the fact that he was chained up in that prison cell and—"
"Ino!"
"Aaaanyway," the blonde drawled with a teasing grin, "no one's really surprised—you have been going places with him a lot lately, and it's not like you've been seeing anyone recently, so of course people are going to assume that you're with him. It's just, you were the Hokage's apprentice, and you're usually so professional that no one had really thought about it that way—"
"—Until Naruto opened his big mouth," Sakura interjected, her voice strangely low and quiet.
Ino looked a bit surprised at that. "Yeah. How'd you know?"
Sakura didn't reply; she was already heading out the front door, snatching up her shuriken holster, her medic-nin's pouch, and of course her leather gloves on the way out, stepping into a pair of old flat-bottomed sandals and pulling her long hair back in a quick, careless ponytail as she went, not caring a whit about the smudges of yesterday's make-up around her eyes or the fact that she was dressed in nothing but a plain white t-shirt and some paint-stained shorts. She was too busy thinking to care about any of that.
Sakura liked to make lists. She made them all the time, even though she really didn't have to--her memory was good enough that she didn't need to write things down. Had she made one up at that moment, however, her list might have looked something like this:
1. Kill Naruto.
2. Interrogate Hinata to find out exactly what the (recently late) fox-faced blonde had said to Neji concerning the rumors about herself and Sasuke.
3. Find Neji and do some damage control.
4. Pick up dry-cleaning from the laundromat.
Sakura smiled grimly. She could feel her fingers itching to get started with the first task on her to-do list.
"NAAAAARUUUUUTOOOOO!"
The tall blonde winced visibly, then looked about desperately for a suitable hiding place. There was an all-too-recognizable note of fury in Sakura's voice that gave him a sudden chill, as if someone had just stepped on his grave…and judging from her tone of voice, if Sakura caught him, he would most likely be heading for that grave much sooner than he had planned.
It was time for a quick henge no jutsu…
And with a disguise like this one, he thought with an unexpectedly high-pitched giggle, there's no way she'll EVER find me!
After pummeling a decidedly blonde and foxy-looking shop sign back into its regular Naruto-shaped form, Sakura took two large fistfuls of his uniform and pulled him up from his slump against the fence he'd finally come to rest against, putting her face just inches from his, and growled in a sickly sweet voice, "Why, hello Naruto. Care to explain just who you're hiding from?"
Naruto gulped audibly but somehow still managed a shaky smile. "H-hi, Sakura-chan…ah, I, uh, I wasn't hiding from anyone, really…" He suddenly blinked and eyed her with concern (though he still looked more than slightly unsettled by her harsh grip on his shirtfront). "Is—is something wrong?"
She clenched her jaw, closing her eyes and forcing herself to count to ten.
"What did I do, Sakura-chan?"
At that her eyes snapped open; her jaw remained clenched, but she forced her mouth into a wide, obviously fake smile.
Naruto stared at her with unconcealed horror; he'd seen this expression before, and it had always signaled that someone was in serious trouble with the pink-haired kunoichi. It was just his luck that right now, that someone was himself.
"What did you do? You mean besides ruining my reputation and spreading FALSE rumors about what's going on between Sasuke-kun and me? Nothing! Absolutely NOTHING!" She shook him hard, hitting the back of his head against the fence as she did so. "How many people did you tell about me spending the night at Sasuke's apartment?"
"N-n-no one!" he insisted, his arms flailing uselessly at his sides. "I didn't tell anyone, I swear!"
Doubt flickered across the medic-nin's face as she reluctantly released her hold on him, allowing him to slump back down against the base of the fence. "You didn't? Then…" That would mean that it had to be Sasuke-kun…no one else knew about it. But Ino said…and Sasuke-kun wouldn't…
"Oh!" Naruto froze in gingerly rubbing the back of his head, blue eyes flying wide in sudden recollection. "Well, actually, I guess I did tell a couple people…but I didn't think it would cause any problems!"
Sakura's jaw dropped. "Are you crazy?" she demanded, then realized what a stupid question that was, considering who she was talking to. "How many people did you tell?"
"Oh, not all that many, really!" Naruto said quickly, giving a nervous little laugh as Sakura cracked her knuckles and gave him a 'tell-me-EXACTLY-who-or-I'll-kick-your-ass-to-Suna' glare. "Just Sai and Shikamaru. And Hinata-chan, of course."
The pink-haired girl raised an eyebrow, which somehow did nothing to lessen the intensity of her glare. "Oh, really? Just those three?"
Naruto nodded desperately.
"Then how did Ino know?"
The blonde blanched, then scratched the back of his head anxiously. "Ah…eh-heh-heh-heh…well, y'see, Ino found out on accident…when I told Shikamaru…"
"How…" Her hands, he found with some apprehension, had re-attached themselves to his shirtfront, and she was slowly twisting them, drawing the collar of his shirt uncomfortably tight "…do you find something out on accident?"
"W-well, she was coming to get Shikamaru because he'd promised to eat lunch with her and Chouji, and I didn't realize that she was standing behind me until—"
"I get it," she said, cutting him off and releasing him once more. She heaved a heavy sigh. Sasuke-kun isn't going to like this at all.
"Sakura-chan?"
Naruto was looking up at her with concern once again, so she shook her head. "It's nothing. It can't be helped, I guess," she said, giving the blonde a faint, rather lopsided smile.
Naruto looked up at her apologetically. "I'm sorry, Sakura-chan…"
She snorted and flicked the end of his nose. "You should be."
He rubbed his nose and grinned up at her sheepishly for a moment, then suddenly sobered and averted his eyes. "Oh yeah, I think Neji knows, too."
Again Sakura felt as if something had suddenly frozen inside her. Whatever it was, it also made swallowing a lot more difficult than usual. "Ah. Really." She'd figured as much, what with how he'd given her the cold shoulder in the hospital yesterday, but having it confirmed…
"Yeah…I think he overheard when I told Hinata-chan."
"Well, what's done is done," she said lightly as she reached down to help Naruto back to his feet…then promptly punched him in the gut--hard.
After retracting her fist from the second belly button she'd just given him, Sakura turned on her heel and stalked off to find one Hyuuga Neji.
It was time for him to make good on a promise.
He was angry. That much was obvious from the way he sitting, even more rigidly than usual, at the base of the same large tree in the same open field that she'd found him in several times before. It was made even more obvious when he pointedly continued to ignore her as she came to a stop in front of him, though his typically emotionless face wasn't quite as emotionless as usual: his lips were pressed together in a thin line, his jaw was clenched, his brow slightly furrowed--subtle, minute changes that few would notice unless they were familiar with the Hyuuga genius. Which, having been a regular member of his ANBU cell at one time, Sakura was.
For a long while she just stood there, looking down at him; Neji didn't so much as twitch beneath her stare. With a quiet sigh, she finally sat as well, not even pretending to attempt meditation this time, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest instead. She'd taken out most of her initial anger on Naruto (who, as the rumor's originator, was definitely deserving of it); now she just felt awkward and embarrassed and not at all sure of what to say.
"Look," she said at last, fighting not to stumble over the words, "I'm not sure exactly what you've heard, but there's nothing going on between Sasuke-kun and me—"
She stopped instantly on realizing that his eyes had snapped open, and gulped a bit at the harsh expression on his face. She'd forgotten how scary Neji was when he was angry.
Naruto, you idiot, this is ALL your fault!
"…It's not what it looked like," she went on, the words sounding weak even to her, wondering in the back of her mind why it felt so important that he be made to believe them. "Sasuke and I aren't…we aren't dating or anything like that. People just got the wrong impression about things, that's all."
His expression went from frigid to absolutely arctic. "Of course. Being found sleeping with someone is always a perfect indicator that nothing is going on between you. Such an easy thing to misinterpret." Sarcasm laced his voice thickly, and Sakura found herself bristling in response.
"That's not what was supposed to happen!" she said, scarcely keeping her reply from coming out as a growl.
"So you didn't intend to sleep with him, it was just an impulsive, spur-of-the-moment fling? Oh yes, that's a definite improvement."
Abruptly Sakura stood, throwing a kunai into the ground between Neji and herself with a quick flick of her wrist.
"Get up."
He glanced at the kunai embedded in the dirt scarcely an inch from his knee before giving her an arch look. "Why?"
"I'm challenging you," she said matter-of-factly, tugging on the cuff of one black glove with slow, exaggerated deliberation. "You promised me a match sometime, didn't you? Well, I want it now, so come on. Get up and fight me."
The Hyuuga prodigy stared up at her through narrowed eyes for a long moment; then he wordlessly wrenched the kunai from the ground (it took him a good bit more effort than one would normally expect, Sakura was pleased to note) and stood as well, giving her a slight nod, calmly accepting her challenge.
It was in all honesty a very even match. Sakura would put a crater between herself and Neji every time he tried to get in close to use the Jūken, but at the same time, being forced to keep her distance from him didn't allow her to use her incredible strength to its full potential; genjutsu were also largely useless against the Hyuuga prodigy, and she didn't waste her chakra attempting to use any, and neither shinobi had their ANBU-issue katana, so at first the fight was little more than a standoff.
Thus, it surprised both of them a little when Neji finally managed to close with her enough to use Hakke Rokujūyon Shō; Sakura winced and stumbled backwards beneath the assault at first, but before he was halfway done with his attack, she managed to draw back her fist and land a solid, chakra-laden blow on his jaw, throwing the surprised Hyuuga backwards to slam hard against a tree trunk. She was in too much pain from his attack to truly follow up on her own though, merely standing and panting, trying to regain her breath and keep her chakra circulating correctly, one arm wrapped around her midsection, the other still clenched firmly in a ready fist.
After a moment he came at her again, and this time she let him, matching him blow for blow as they fought purely with taijutsu, without the aid of kekkei genkai or chakra-enhanced strength. In this they were evenly matched as well, Sakura making up what she lacked in natural strength with agility and speed, and the clearing was silent but for the sounds of hand-to-hand combat and their steadily harsher breathing.
Both gave a slight start when at long last Sakura broke the silence: "I know that you think your reasoning is flawless, so this'll be news to you: you're wrong." She suddenly stepped back, dropping her fists limply to her sides, bowing her head just slightly. "There's nothing going on between Sasuke and me," she repeated, her voice soft and sad. "He doesn't think of me that way…and I don't think he ever will."
Neji, surprised by the abrupt change in her stance, fell back as well, studying her face carefully; judging by her eye movements, she was telling the truth…
The pink-haired medic-nin looked up, clearly embarrassed at her rather emotional admission. "I guess I just have trouble letting things go, that's all," she said, her tone bright, but Neji didn't miss that slightest of wavers in her voice.
Slowly he too eased out of his fighting stance, his own eyes softening a fraction as he studied the kunoichi standing before him.
Surprisingly enough, Neji was the first to break that second stretch of silence.
"At breakfast this morning, Hinata-sama mentioned that she wanted to see you." His glare relaxed as the Byakugan slowly melted away, and he gave her the trace of a smile. "It would honor us both greatly if you would accompany me back to the Hyuuga compound for tea."
A look of relief broke across Sakura's face, and she nodded eagerly. "I'd love to, Neji-san," she said, and fell into step beside him, thankful that things were all right between them once again.
Uchiha Sasuke could have not have cared less about the sudden buzz surrounding him when Naruto (who was moving a bit gingerly for some reason) showed up to take him out for dinner and a walk around Konoha. Girls had constantly giggled and whispered behind his back when he was a child, and the adults had done their share of gossiping as well, always all about how it was a such a shame, just terrible, what had happened to the Uchiha clan, and how he was the sole survivor.
The content of these new rumors didn't concern him either. Ever since his return, the gossip had oftentimes concerned his possible relationship with Sakura, so this was nothing really out of the ordinary. Still, there was significantly more whispering than usual today.
Not that this was unexpected, really.
He had awakened the instant Naruto had landed on his windowsill the previous morning (only an extremely tired shinobi, or one whose defenses were completely down, could have slept through all the noise the blonde had made during his little scuffle with the curtains), and Sasuke had presumed that talk of this sort would circulate--it was Naruto, after all, and older or not, when had that blonde idiot ever been able to keep his mouth closed when he should?
The Uchiha shot a flat glare at a matronly old shopkeeper and the customer she'd started whispering to as he passed; both froze at being so obviously caught out, then hastily (and silently) went about their business, the customer nearly dropping her change as she rushed off, the shopkeeper picking up her sweeping with a great deal more enthusiasm than before.
Sasuke just snorted and shrugged it off, shoving his hands into his pockets and pretending to ignore Naruto's regular babbling conversation as they headed back to his apartment, trying to keep his mind from straying back to thoughts of that night, and how pleasant it had been to hold someone.