VitaminWater Fact Number 2: Cold VitaminWater has a duller flavor. Wait for room temperature.

LikeVitaminWater
x. by ANGELforSHOW

Chapter One: Power-C
Purpose: More strength.

-

Ino stuffed a new coffee filter in her coffee machine, pressing the big, red button to commence the coffee-making process.

"Sakura, you're sooo lucky," Ino berated Sakura happily, she reached into a cupboard to pull out a mug. "You want some coffee?" she asked Sakura as an after thought, her hand hovering over another empty mug.

"No thanks, I'm good," Sakura told Ino, perched on Ino's bed. "And why am I lucky?" she asked the blonde, watching her best friend as she shuffled around her single dorm.

Despite the fact that Ino's dorm was probably the size of a bathroom stall at McDonald's, she had managed to cram all of her belongings inside of it – clothes, lots and lots of clothes, endless cosmetics, a mini-fridge, a microwave, a coffee machine, and an espresso machine inside of it. In addition to the bed, desk, and dresser that was already there.

Okay, so she would give Ino's dorm the size of the handicap bathroom stall.

"You're lucky," Ino told her while smacking her coffee machine in hopes of making it work faster, "Because your psychology partner is the most attractive man on the face of the planet," she told Sakura with a pout. "My partner is Uzumaki Naruto, a nice loudmouth with hair brighter than mine."

Sakura shrugged. "You'll live with it, Pig."

Ino pulled the coffee pot out from underneath the machine and started to pour the delicious smelling liquid into her mug. "Either way, I bet he's perfect…" she sighed to Sakura dreamily, nearly overflowing her cup. "I mean…I'd tap that," she ended crudely, sky blue eyes narrowing wickedly when she thought of Sasuke.

Sakura rolled her eyes with an exasperated sight. "Just drink your coffee, Ino."

"Sakura, I think you're like, addicted to that stuff," Ino remarked when they stopped at Sakura's dorm the next floor down. Sakura had opened her minifridge to grab herself another drink.

A rainbow practically exploded out of her tiny refrigerator. Inside, Sakura had stored at least three bottles of all fifteen flavors of VitaminWater. Ino could safely assume that there was no actual food behind the wall of spectrum.

"Oh, I'm definitely not. It's just healthy and delicious Ino," Sakura waved off Ino's "concern" with a shrug. She plucked a bottle of Power-C from her fridge before shutting the door.

Twisting off the cap, she took a sip of the magenta liquid happily. "Mm, DRAGONFRUIT!" she chirped. "Honestly Pig, this stuff is so much better than coffee, you should try it."

Ino cradled the to-go cup she held in her hand protectively. "Don't speak such profanities!" she gasped, stroking the cup's thick cardboard-like exterior.

Sakura sighed, rolling her eyes once again. "Shut up and let's just go to math, okay?"

The calculus lecture passed relatively quickly (if you called the pace of a drunk sloth quick), and soon, Ino and Sakura were lunching at the cafeteria.

Sliding her red tray down the metal aisle, Sakura picked up a grilled cheese sandwich and headed towards the salad bar. She had vowed with Ino to avoid the Freshman Fifteen like the plague and opted for a salad instead of fries.

Sitting down with Ino at a small round table, Sakura just started to eat her sandwich when they were interrupted.

"Oiii, INO!"

Ino whipped her head around to see who was calling her name, blonde locks flying. "AY, NARUTO!" she hollered back in an equally loud voice. She wasn't a cheerleader for nothing – her lungs had enough force to deafen an elephant.

Uzumaki Naruto bounded up to the pair, grinning from ear-to-ear. "Mind if we sit?" he asked, gesturing to the two empty seats at their little table.

"We?" Ino asked, craning her neck to look past Naruto. "Ah!" she spotted Sasuke calmly approaching them, tray in hand and a bored expression on his face. "Sure, no problem," she said nonchalantly, trying to look cool in front of Sasuke.

Naruto smiled foxily again. "Great!" Pulling out a chair, he sat down cheerfully and began to eat his french fries with vigor.

Sasuke arrived silently, sitting next to Naruto. "Slow down, dobe," he told Naruto as he watched him wolf down his food.

"Ne, I can't do that Sasuke – I'm on an espresso kick…I'M WIRED!" Naruto fairly screamed, cerulean eyes widening with mirth. "Oh, hey, who's this?" he asked, suddenly noticing Sakura next to Ino. She was calmly eating her salad, while text messaging on her phone.

Sakura looked up, startled. "Me?" she asked. Naruto nodded. "Oh, I'm Haruno Sakura," she smiled slightly, the corners of her lips upturning just the slightest bit.

Naruto grinned (he seemed to do that a lot), and said, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, good to meet you!" he nudged Sasuke in the ribs with an elbow. "Hey, teme, you know Sakura?"

Sasuke nodded, before popping a cherry tomato into his mouth from his own salad. "Yeah, she's my psych partner," he answered before returning his attention to the cell phone in his hands.

"How do you two know each other?" Naruto asked Sakura and Ino, noticing how comfortable they were around each other. Obviously, they had not met just yesterday.

"Sakura and I have been best friends since fifth grade," Ino explained, beaming. "We've been through everything, basically."

Sakura laughed, "Yeah. EVERYTHING." She reached into her bag, pulling out her VitaminWater and thinking of the entire Sai fiasco. Unscrewing the cap, she sipped the magenta liquid delicately.

"HEY! You're drinking that same shit teme is always drinking," Naruto observed, jerking his blond head towards Sasuke. "What's so great about it anyway? I definitely prefer coffee any day."

"It's delicious," Sasuke and Sakura both replied flatly. Sasuke rolled his eyes and took a sip from his bottle for emphasis. Revive, the fruit punch flavor, flooded his tastebuds in happiness.

After another half hour of Ino and Naruto's idle chatter, Sakura glanced up at her tablemates. Ino and Naruto were bickering about which flavor of coffee was better: Starbuck's House blend or Panera Bread's Hazlenut blend, while Sasuke was text messaging and whatnot on his Blackberry.

"Hey guys, we have a psychology class to be at in two minutes," Sakura interrupted calmly, standing up and gathering her things. Sasuke followed suit, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

Naruto and Ino on the other hand, were still arguing about coffee and not paying attention to what the other half of their table was doing.

Shrugging, Sasuke started to walk away, Sakura close behind them.

"Shouldn't we stop them?" Sakura asked Sasuke, struggling to keep up with his long strides. They had exactly 1.683 minutes to get to class now.

"They'll catch on eventually," Sasuke told her, rounding the corner into the psychology lecture hall.

"Ah," Sakura replied with slight unease as she followed Sasuke to their seats.

Sure enough, three seconds before the class started, Naruto and Ino arrived, panting furiously.

"Today you'll be conducting an investigation on how the past affects the present mind," Ibiki told his class. "You and your partner will take turns questioning each other about their own personal past. Record these events, and when you're finished, determine how these events have affected and molded your partner into who they are today in an analysis essay," the solemn teacher explained. "Begin."

Sakura flipped open her notebook and drew a line down the middle, titling the T-chart 'Event' on the left and 'Affect' on the right. Sasuke mimicked her movement as well, when realizing that it was the most practical way of arranging their chat.

"Do you wanna go first, or should I?" Sakura asked, setting her pen down, after she finished making her chart.

"It doesn't matter," Sasuke responded dully. Leaning back in his chair and waiting for Sakura to decide. His eyes lingered on her, expecting her answer.

"Well, I'll start then," Sakura said after a minute, trying not to fidget underneath Sasuke's strong look. "Were there any special things you had as a little kid?"

Sasuke looked away. "I had a stuffed elephant," he said calmly. "I carried him around with me everywhere until I was about seven."

Sakura looked at Sasuke with a small, amused smile. His eyes were still averted, though she couldn't tell whether it was embarrassment or not.

"So, what's your family like?" she asked, asking about the most obvious impacting force in a child's life.

Sasuke's eyes darkened considerably. "…complicated," he decided after a moment.

Sakura cringed but pursued the topic – she could be on the verge of a psychological break-through! "How so?" she asked, frowning as she wrote 'complicated' down on her paper.

"…" Sasuke gritted his teeth for a moment. "My father was a world renown business man, and my mother was the sweetest woman alive."

Sakura's pen hovered above her notebook, telling him to continue.

"When I was ten, my brother was caught selling heroin," Sasuke told her quietly. "When my parents found him injecting a needle into himself, they sent him to a rehabilitation center. News of this broke out and my father's reputation was ruined."

The ballpoint pen quivered, but didn't touch the paper yet.

"My father lost his business and went bankrupt before committing suicide. My mother took me to an orphanage and ran away." Sasuke's eyebrows furrowed. "I was sent to a foster home when I was eleven, and when I reached high school, I was allowed to rent my own apartment."

Sakura dropped her notebook and pen onto the floor halfheartedly. "I-I'm sorry Sasuke," she told him quietly. "I shouldn't have asked."

Sasuke stood up, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Whatever."

"Hey, Sasuke…?"

"Hn?"

Sakura bit her lower lip. "What happened to your older brother?" she asked softly.

Sasuke turned his back to her. "He's gone," he answered shortly before walking away.

Wringing her sweatshirt in her hands, Sakura filled in the rest of her chart in short notes before starting to write.

Haruno Sakura
September 4th
Freshman Psychology

Past Analysis: Uchiha Sasuke

The subject Uchiha Sasuke has demonstrated many prominent qualities in the short time I've know him, one of which is immense strength. Not necessarily physical strength, but mental strength. The subject has disclosed a difficult past family life, including suicide, depression, and drugs.

Sakura stopped her typing for a moment. Her vision blurring, she bit her lower lip. She looked at her messy notes, and at Sasuke's messenger bag, the simple black bag lying abandoned in the seat next to hers. The words from her paper echoed in her head: suicide, depression, drugs, suicide, depression, drugs.

She didn't know how he had found the strength to move on.

Read the VitaminWater facts. They're fun, haha.

Writing this is actually kind of difficult – experimentation with Sasuke's different sides, while trying to keep him kind-of-barely-a-tiny-bit in character.

Review, s'il vous plait.