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Serenade

Sai strode through the marketplace on his way back home, groceries hanging from one of his arms. A child's shrieks caught his ear and he turned his head in the direction whence it came. Instead of any potential threat, though, all he saw was a girl crying for her mother while a boy sped off with an impish grin.

"Mom, Ichiro always calls me names!"

"Don't let it get to you, Midori; don't you know it just means he likes you?"

What? Sai slowed his walking pace, trying to comprehend this. That overheard snippet of conversation made no sense to him.

"What do you mean?" That was the girl, her cries ebbing away in her distraction.

"When a boy calls a girl mean names, like 'ugly' and 'stupid,' that means he likes her. Boys are just idiots when it comes to admitting their feelings," the mother explained.

On the rest of his way home, Sai was engrossed in thought.

Sakura was a girl. Sai called her ugly. Did that mean he liked her?

That one woman said that's what that behavior meant.

Needing answers, Sai quickly changed course towards the library. Once there, he skimmed through a few books, finding similar statements in their pages.

So, he liked Sakura? That was unexpected . . . but it matched up.

A new goal in mind, Sai turned back to the shelves and started browsing.

It was a quiet night, late enough that most people were already asleep. Sakura had gotten off of a late shift at the hospital not too long ago and, upon returning to her apartment, almost immediately collapsed into bed. She reveled in its comfort and it was not long before she was already falling into blessed sleep—

—until a discordant clang of musical strings came from somewhere below her open window.

Groaning, Sakura rolled over and pressed her pillow over her ears, figuring that it was some obnoxious, drunken busker strolling past her building.

But the jumble of notes continued, just as cacophonously unskilled as they were when she first heard them. Only they were getting louder.

And then the singing started. A monotone, musically-challenged voice that could somehow be heard over the senseless strumming of the strings.

Sai, Sakura grimaced. There was only one person she knew who spoke (or sung, if his attempts could be called that) as monotonously as he did.

"O Sakura,

You have weird pink hair,

And hit as hard as a bear,

And you are ugly,

So go out with me,

Because I'm the only chance you have."

The ink-user ended his song with another random strum of the strings, waiting beneath Sakura's window to see if she would respond.

An alarm clock came flying out like a missile, hitting Sai squarely in the face. Sakura appeared at the window a moment later, glaring down at her teammate with an expression promising death.

"Sai, what the heck do you think you're doing? Do you want me to beat you black and blue?" she shouted at him.

Rubbing his face, Sai took several seconds to figure out what he was going to say, "I was serenading you."

"Sere—Sai, why are you doing this?" Sakura's eye twitched.

"I like you."

"How exactly did you come to that impression?"

Sai quickly told Sakura what he had learned at the marketplace earlier that day, and Sakura's response was dropping her face into her hands in disbelief.

"Sai, that doesn't necessarily mean you like me."

"Then what does my calling you 'ugly' mean, if not that?"

"It just means you're an asshole."

Omake

"I tried to serenade Sakura last night," Sai announced at Ichiraku's the next day, effectively shutting Naruto up. The orange-clad shinobi's loud tirade about the awesome mission he was just on had been hurting his ears.

"Oh, and how did that work out?" Kakashi inquired, internally thankful that Sakura wasn't there to make a ruckus about Sai's revelation.

"I have determined that I should stick to drawing. Apparently I suck at music."

Instead of freaking out like Kakashi and Sai had thought Naruto would, the blond ninja instead nodded.

"Yeah, she's really critical about that. Judging by the bruise on your face, she threw something small at you, right? Man, you're lucky! First and only time I tried the same thing, she threw her bed at me!"

Kakashi sweatdropped and decided to focus on eating his ramen, daydreaming about what it must be like to have a socially functional team.