VitaminWater Fact Number 4: Those tiny, 12 ounce VitaminWater bottles are cute as anything. Don't deny it.

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x. by ANGELforSHOW

Chapter Three: Focus.
Purpose: More clarity.

-

About a month into the new school year, Naruto stared the day Ino and Sakura wandered slowly into the cafeteria for breakfast. Sakura was the same – clean looking, with neat, conservative clothing, and a touch of mascara. But Ino – Ino was a mess, a literal walking disaster, if you would.

Her hair was down and unstyled. Instead of its usual, sleek, blonde, pin-straight ponytail, it was in its natural form, wavy, with natural dirty blonde lowlights. She wore Leaf sweatpants (from her high school years), with old, worn-in Birkenstock clogs and an old sweatshirt that proclaimed CHEER in loud white letters across its faded navy fabric. Apparently, Ino hadn't even found the will to put on eyeliner, blue eyes surrounded by pink rims instead of kohl black.

As they sat down, Naruto's eyebrows furrowed as he loudly whispered, "Hey Sakura, what's wrong with Ino?" incorrectly thinking that Ino would not hear him. "Is she PMSing or something?"

Ino shot him a half-hearted dirty look with bloodshot baby blue eyes before burying her head in her arms on the table.

Sakura ignored Naruto, and patted Ino's back consolingly. "C'mon Pig, cheer up," she said. "You'll find someone else, I know you will." A frown tugged at her mouth, despite her cheery voice.

Ino sat up, slumped over in her chair. Her lower lip trembled. "I just don't get it," she whispered exasperatedly. "How could Shikamaru dump me after three years?" she asked Sakura. "I've been nothing but good to him," she argued with a dry voice.

Naruto listened to the hushed conversation intently, intending on figuring out what was wrong with Ino. Sasuke's ears perked up a bit too, although just for kicks and giggles.

Sakura rolled here eyes. "Oh honestly Ino, if he had the nerve to cheat on you as soon as you were in college and out of earshot, there's no reason for you to cry over him!" Sakura whispered furiously. "HE'S the jerk, HE should be crying that he lost YOU!"

A faint touch of a cracked smile appeared on Ino's face, slightly red from the heavy crying she had been doing earlier. "Riiiiight," she drawled out sarcastically.

"Go get some food now," Sakura said, gently pushing Ino off her chair. "You need food. AND COFFEE," she mothered Ino loudly. "Motherfuckin' caffeine!"

Ino snorted as she got up slowly from her chair. "Sakura, shut up," she said with a half-smile. But even Sasuke and Naruto could read the meaning behind her smirk.

She was saying thank you.

--

Naruto waited until Ino was safely out of earshot before crouching down closer to the small table and asking, "Sakura, what happened?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, and seemingly proceeded checking his e-mail on his phone, but his head was tilted slightly, one ear facing in. One also noticed that although he was "responding to an e-mail", his thumbs were barely moving across the keyboard.

Sakura's eyes darted around the cafeteria before she leaned in to talk. "Well, last night Ino's boyfriend, Shikamaru, called," she explained. "He goes to college in Sand, so we naturally haven't seen him for a while." Naruto nodded, urging her to continue. "But he called Ino, and told her that they were breaking up."

Sasuke decided this was all the information he really cared to know, and withdrew himself from the discussion.

"Ino and Shikamaru have been dating since the 10th grade," Sakura explained. "So naturally, Ino was freaking crushed. But then – " Sakura lowered her voice dramatically. "We found out he had been cheating on her ever since he got to college."

Naruto's ocean blue eyes narrowed. Bastard, he thought. Scratching at his canary colored hair, he smiled sheepishly. "I guess we should try and keep Ino happy then," he said. "Hear that Sasuke-bastard? We're going to be niiiice to day." Naruto said the word 'nice' slowly and clearly. After all, Uchiha Sasuke didn't seem to know the meaning of the word 'nice'.

Ino came back, setting her tray down on the table. Her plate was piled high with hash brown potatoes with ketchup on the side, and she had two cups of coffee ready for her. As for as Sakura could see, Ino had also stolen half of the sugar packets and half the pitcher of Half-and-Half.

So much for the healthy diet.

As Ino began to fairly gorge herself with her comfort starches, Sakura sighed inwardly before getting up to get her own food. It was a toast day, she decided. And maybe she'd get an apple too.

Sitting back down, Sakura took a small chunk of her apple out, chewing thoughtfully as she watched Naruto struggle to figure out what to say to start up a conversation.

"So, are you guys playing any sports this year?" Naruto asked before taking a swig of milk. He glanced from Ino to Sakura expectantly.

Sakura snorted. "Do I look like I can play actual sports?" she asked Naruto. "I'd ice skate, but I don't know if there's a figure skating team here. And I used to run track, so I might do that in the spring. That's about it though."

Ino swallowed a particularly large bit of potato. "I think I'm going to do winter cheerleading," she answered. "But I don't know how good the squad is here. I'd like to be on a team that did more stunts than yelling."

Naruto had no idea what that meant, but decided to nod in appreciation anyway.

"What about you two?" Sakura asked, taking another crunchy bite out of her apple. "Thanks for reminding me, by the way."

"Bastard plays soccer, and I do cross country," Naruto answered, swiping a bagel half off of Sasuke's tray. He wasn't going to eat it, so why let it go to waste? "But in the winter we play basketball."

As if on cue, Ino's face crumpled.

"Shikamaru played basketbaaaaall," she wailed, and promptly began to cry again.

Sakura kicked Naruto from underneath the table, while Sasuke glanced at Ino, muttering, "Way to go you idiot."

Sakura couldn't concentrate.

Given, it was chemistry class, which radiated boredom (they were learning about naming compounds. Which she definitely already did in 11th grade), but she still couldn't concentrate.

After all, how could Sakura focus on naming covalent compounds – "Remember, -ate is -ic and -ite is -ous!" Anko-sensei's voice chirped in her ear – when she knew her best friend in the world was obviously distressed and most likely skipping her biology class to have a good cry.

Anko stood at the front of the lab, flipping through their textbook. "Hm, remember that there's only one type of bond that share electrons to form ions – COVALENT bonds…"

Sakura scribbled down the note on her paper, not really focusing (later, she realized that she had spelled 'type' incorrectly as 'tipe' and accidentally wrote 'inos' instead of 'ions').

There was only one type of bond that shared electrons…just like how there was only one type of guy in the world – the stupid shallow asshole.

Angrily, Sakura recalled all the boys she and Ino had encountered over the years: Shikamaru, of course, the cheating bastard, and Sai, the dickface who turned out to be cheating on her with another guy. Rock Lee had been sweet for a while, but then turned out to be just plain creepy, while Hyuuga Neji was an aloof ass.

In short, they were all selfish bastards who had no consideration for the girl's feelings.

She remembered in 12th grade when she and Ino had written down a ridiculous list of qualities a "perfect" boy would have after the Sai ordeal. She still had it somewhere, but there was no doubt that no one would ever be able to say yes to half of the characteristics they had listed.

Sakura tapped her pencil furiously against the edge of the table. There were few exceptions to her "all guys suck" rule, but quite honestly, she would probably never meet a "perfect" guy. She didn't in high school, and probably wouldn't in college, life, or ever. It would just never happen.

Never.

Sakura dropped her tote on her chair quite unceremoniously when she got to their small group's usual table in the cafeteria. She was first there today. Pulling the chair out, she sat down quickly and pulled out her VitaminWater – Focus, kiwi-strawberry flavored – and downed the rest of the bottle in one gulp.

"What's biting you?" Sasuke asked monotonously, arriving in time to see the last part of her angry tirade. He sat down and leaned back, nestling his hands in his pockets. "Well?" he asked when she just rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath.

Sakura threw her empty bottle into a recycling bin, the plastic bottle sailing through the air in a graceful arc before bouncing off the rim into the bin. "Men are assholes," she told Sasuke shortly.

Sasuke blinked a few times. "Why?"

"Aren't you nosy today?" Sakura replied bitingly, digging through her tote again. "Well, if you must know, I spent my last class thinking about Ino's predicament, and how all the guys we've ever met are utter, complete assholes."

Sasuke's eyebrows lifted just the tiniest fraction of a centimeter. "Maybe you should skip class sometime and work out these issues," he said to her flatly. "Not all guys dicks, y'know." He shook some hair out of his face (several girls squealed at the next table over) and took out his own VitaminWater, a half-finished bottle of Essential (orange-orange flavor) from early that morning.

Sakura stopped rummaging through her tote. "Really?" she asked with false excitement. "Like who?" She pulled out a regular bottle of water and opened it, taking in the plastic-tasting Evian.

Sasuke looked straight into her mint colored eyes. "Like me," he answered quietly before getting up to get lunch, leaving Sakura in a momentary state of puzzlement.

Sakura sat in her dorm later that night, recopying her notes from chemistry. She had changed inos back to ions and worked on writing them in pen so they wouldn't smudge.

"Ah, fuck." Her pen died, the blue ink stopping right in the middle of 'electrons'. Scribbling on a spare Post-It note, she confirmed that her pen indeed had kicked the bucket.

Reach towards her pencil cup, she cursed again when she saw a picture of her, Sai, Ino, and Shikamaru together at homecoming – only six hours before Sai confessed to her and basically ruined her life. Sai's face had been scribbled out with a permanent marker, but Shikamaru's was still intact…

Taking a mini Post-It Note, she slapped it on Shikamaru's quarter of the photo and wrote JERK in big letters on it with a Sharpie. Satisfied, she went back to searching for a new pen when her eyes landed on another picture. It was her, Ino, Naruto, and Sasuke at lunch, from around a week ago. Ino loved pictures, so naturally, she started taking pictures straight away.

"Not all guys are dicks, y'know."
"Really? Like who?"
"Like me."

Sakura gave a dry laugh when she recalled his words from earlier.

Flipping through her desk, she got out her old journal out. The "Perfect Boy" list she and Ino had written last year was still somewhere inside of it, a reminder to never submit to pain like Sai again.

Smiling slightly, she unfolded the crinkly notebook paper.

The Perfect Guy

-Sweet.
-Sensitive.
-HOT (that was Ino).
-Romantic.
-Intelligent.
-Slightly spontaneous.
-Not boring.
-In shape.
-HOT (Ino again)
-Considerate.
-Gentle.
-Talented.
-Strong.
-Interesting.
-Kind.
-Concerned.
-Hygienic.
-Smells deliciousss.

Sakura laughed as the list continued on. Sasuke claimed he wasn't a dick, but was he a so-called perfect guy according to Ino and Sakura?

Sakura checked each quality over, thinking if Sasuke had them. He was sweet, she had to admit – he did ask her if she was okay, which also implied sensitivity…

Hot – he did have a banging body, but she would never admit that out loud.

Letting out a sarcastic laugh she continued comparing, checking the ones that Sasuke seemingly possessed.

When she was done, she examined the entire sheet of paper. Her smile sunk immediately.

Over 80 percent of the paper was checked off.

She gritted her teeth. No. Way.

Happy New Year! 2008 bby. Ahaha.

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