VitaminWater Fact Number 5: Some flavors just taste like water with a little bit of glucose. There's no use denying it. Like Essential – chic orange-orange flavored water, or diluted Sunny D?

LikeVitaminWater
x. by ANGELforSHOW

Chapter Four: Balance.
Purpose: More flexibility.

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Sakura dragged herself out of bed the following morning looking quite dreadful. Even though she had used endless amounts of concealer, she still couldn't quite cover up the bags underneath her eyes.

"Sakura…you look awful," Ino said bluntly to her at breakfast. "What were you doing all last night?" Ino seemed as if she had straightened herself out overnight – her hair was perfect again, all of her makeup was on, and she was back to wearing stylish clothing as opposed to baggy sweats. Sure she looked perfect again, but anyone could tell that she was still hurting inside.

"I had work to do…" Sakura yawned out. "I would've slept in today, but meals with you guys are pretty much necessary – " – "Aw thank you," Ino cooed – " – and we have that stupid psychology lecture this morning," Sakura finished. Ino's smile dropped.

"Here, take some coffee, you need it," Ino said, offering Sakura her paper cup. Naruto held up his take away cup as well, smiling brightly.

"No," Sakura waved off the bitter brown beverage. "I have my own provisions," she said with a tired smile as she opened a bottle of Energy VitaminWater.

"Hn," Sasuke muttered approvingly, holding up a bottle of Energy as well. Apparently Sasuke was up late last night too. There were the tiniest hint of bags underneath his eyes, and his hair wasn't quite as perky and artfully messy as it usually was.

Ino shrugged and turned to Naruto and Sasuke. "So, did you know that apparently Anko-sensei and Kakashi-sensei are dating?" she asked them with an incredulous look. "I would've suspected…what about you Sakura?" she questioned, turning to the pink-haired girl expectantly. "Oh dear…"

Sakura seemed to had fallen asleep on the table, and her hair was trickling into Naruto's cereal.

Ino raised and eyebrow and picked up a lock of Sakura's milk-dipped hair. "…Ew."

Quite honestly, Sakura had to say that psychology was her favorite class. Not only was it with her best friends in college so far, but also Ibiki was a good teacher, and there was little work to do outside of class –

"Starting today, you and your partner are going to do a research paper on a certain part of the brain," Ibiki told them. "When I call you up, one partner is going to draw a brain part from the bag. That'll be your report topic. Ino's handing out a rubric," – he thrust a pile of papers at Ino – "It's due tomorrow. When you get all of your materials, you can leave," he told them. "Go."

Sakura's eye twitched. So much for psych being her favorite class.

"Uchiha, Haruno, pick a part," Ibiki barked from the front of the room.

"I'll get it," Sasuke offered. Casually, he made his way to the front of the room to join their teacher. Sakura watched in mild interest as she saw several girls check out his ass while he walked by.

By the time he had returned, Ino had just handed her a rubric.

"Good news, we have the cerebellum," Sasuke informed her dryly. "The mini-brain." He sat down next to Sakura, and looked at the rubric.

Sakura scowled. "Oh GOODIE," she told him sarcastically in a downright bitter voice.

"In 10 point font too," Sasuke muttered. He reached over and took the paper from Sakura. "1.5 spacing…"

"The man's a sadist," Sakura deadpanned flatly. "How many pages?"

"Oh, only 10." Sasuke returned monotonously. "Well fuck, this will be easy." He unscrewed the cap to his VitaminWater and took in a long sip. Tropical Citrus flavored Energy might've tasted a bit too much like a liquefied pineapple for his taste, but at least it had caffeine.

"It's due tomorrow," Sakura muttered, digging out her textbook. "I vote we go to the library now and check everything out, then crash in one of our dorms overnight to finish this," she said, shoving her textbook back into her bag and standing up.

Sasuke got to his feet as well, swinging his bag over his shoulder. "Sounds good," he replied quietly. "Let's go."

The University's library was much bigger than Sakura had ever imagined a library could be. The first time she came inside, she nearly peed her pants from surprise. There were rooms for every specialized "topic", and among the three floors, she knew there was a café tucked in somewhere between the shelves and papers.

"The Psych. Room is on the third floor…" Sakura said to no one in particular as she and Sasuke made their way to the stairs.

They already found people from their class there, although thankfully they were doing a project on the spinal chord as opposed to something related to the cerebellum.

Sasuke grabbed 'The Cerebellum' and sat down on the floor between their shelves, flipping through the textbook, notebook in hand.

Thumbing through books, Sakura selected a particularly dusty red one. "'History of the Brain'," she told Sasuke's irritated look when she dropped the book next to where he was sitting with an un-ceremonial thunk.

Making her way back along the aisle, she quickly narrowed down which books would be helpful and which wouldn't. Sitting down next to Sasuke, she placed her pile of books between them.

"Okay, I've got 'Little Brain, Big Wonder', 'Depth and Perception, Cerebellum Style', 'Motor Skills, Cerebellum Style', and a whole bunch more," Sakura told him, jabbing at her pile. "So now what?"

Sasuke shrugged. "I'll look one more time in case you forgot anything," he told her, getting up and shuffling away. Sakura nodded and nestled in between two large encyclopedias before cracking open 'Little Brain, Big Wonder'.

After learning that the cerebellum controlled motor skills and sensory perception, Sasuke rejoined her with two more books in hand. "Let's go," he said, adding his books to the pile and bending down to pick it up.

Good naturedly, Sakura swiped half the pile away from him, "Right," she answered, "Best to get out of here before the cerebral motor cortex people get here," she said nodding seriously before rolling her eyes.

Sasuke rolled his eyes as he held the door open for Sakura as she struggled through with her large pile of brain books.

His partner was rather strange.

-

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Sure enough, when Ino and Naruto wandered into the library about an hour and a half later, they were rather pissed off when they found all of their books had been taken.

"I knew it," Ino hissed, smacking Naruto on the shoulder. "I knew it was a bad idea to let you pick our brain part."

Naruto rubbed his shoulder through his orange track jacket. "Hey, hey! I thought the cerebral motor cortex was a fine part – AH!"

He dropped to the floor just in time to ignore the literal encyclopedia that had been aimed at his face, thrown courtesy of Ino.

"Just look for something," she said, annoyed, before letting out another frustrated, "AUGH!"

Sasuke paused to scribble down a few notes, glancing up momentarily at Sakura. She had fallen asleep again, the troublesome girl. They were both in Sasuke's dorm, seeing how they had been at Sakura's last time, sitting up against the side of the bed on the floor. However, Sakura seemed to keep finding that nice soft spot against the mattress, and sleep seemed to keep finding her.

"Oi, wake up," Sasuke said softly, poking Sakura with his pen. She didn't move. He jabbed at her again, leaving a blue dot on her arm.

Slowly, the pink-haired girl stirred. "Mmm?" she mumbled sleepily, "Oh sorry Sasuke, I fell asleep again, didn't I?"

"Hn," Sasuke nodded slightly, he flipped open another book to its cover page, scanning for the copyright date. "I hate bibliographies," he muttered, barely audible.

"I can do –" Sakura paused to yawn, " – it if you want me to," she offered. Rubbing at her eyes, she adjusted her position against Sasuke's bed frame once more, stretching out her legs. Perhaps she wouldn't have been as tired if she hadn't changed her clothes – she had switched out dark skinny jeans and a pink blouse for sweatpants, Underarmour, and a classily-retro tee.

"It's fine," Sasuke shook his head, pushing away an encyclopedia to grab one of the 'Cerebellum Style' books.

Sakura shrugged, while continuing to type on Sasuke's MacBook Pro. She had gotten a long introduction finished, and split up their brain part into five different sections, enough to cover at least eight or nine pages, and a conclusion…

"Sakura, wake up," Sasuke hissed to her, the faintest edge of irritation along his normally calm voice.

Sakura's eyes snapped open. "Sorry, sorry," she apologized, "I won't fall asleep again!" she opened a brand new bottle of Energy and chugged half of it. She gagged slightly. "I'm sorry Sasuke."

Sasuke gritted his teeth as he almost tore out the copyright page to 'Little Brain, Big Wonder'. "Why are you so tired?" he asked, annoyed while he searched the book for a copyright date.

"Well, I was up all night doing this project for Anko-sensei…we had to make this gigantic Periodic Table, right? And I of course had to procrasti –" she paused. "You don't care, do you?" she asked Sasuke dryly.

"Not right now I don't," Sasuke told her frankly. "All I care about right now is finishing this report." He pushed 'History of the Brain' off his lap, cringing at the dusty trail it left on his dark plaid shorts.

"Ugh, let's take a break," Sasuke decided, standing up and brushing himself off. "Come on," he told Sakura; reaching down to pull her up from her seated position.

Sakura followed Sasuke out his dorm room, smoothing down rose-colored locks that had been frazzled during her multiple naps.

"Why are you so tired again?" Sasuke asked her quietly, hands in his pockets. He was wearing a white long-sleeved tee with 'Abercrombie' emblazoned across his (well muscled, Sakura drooled inwardly) chest.

"I spent the entire night doing a project for chem. class," Sakura repeated herself dully. "A straight ten hours."

Sasuke cringed inwardly. "Did you even take a break?" he asked, imagining himself working for ten hours on a physics project. Not possible, not even for the stoic Uchiha Sasuke.

"Nope."

"When was the last time you did something fun?" Sasuke muttered darkly as they past a particularly giggly group of fangirls.

"Like…summer?" Sakura offered pathetically.

Sasuke sighed. "Y'know, usually I'm not one to advocate this, but…" he spun on his heel and started marching straight back towards his room.

"What? Wait – where are you going?" Sakura asked, jogging to catch up to him.

"You need to do something that's not related to school," Sasuke answered, walking on. "Balance out school with fun."

"Fucking God, this is delicious!" Sakura cooed to the chocolate as she let it sit on her tongue and melt. She took a sip out of her coffee mug. "And VitaminWater and vodka…how did you ever think of this?" she asked Sasuke, who likewise was holding his own mug.

"This is how I stay awake at night," Sasuke said, typing his portion of the report quickly. He hit 'Apple-S', making the document save. "The chocolates are Naruto's."

Sakura drained her mug before pouring some more Defense (raspberry-apple) into her mug, and spiking it with vodka. She licked her lips after she took a long swig of the concoction.

"Alright, we're done this stupid report," Sasuke told her, closing his laptop. He pushed the books into a stack in the corner, and set his computer on his desk.

Mixing some more Balance VitaminWater (cran-grapefruit) and vodka into his cup, he eyed Sakura, who was happily drinking her drink on his bed. "Y'know, we still have half a bottle of vodka left…" he told her, "and lots of VitaminWater…"

Sakura grinned impishly. "Fuck yeah let's finish it!" she told him, holding out her mug for more.

"S-saa-Sasuke," Sakura slurred out to the Uchiha.

Sasuke blinked. He was pleasantly buzzed, but although Sakura had consumed the same amount of alcohol as him, she obviously couldn't hold it as well. "Yeah?" he asked her, his tongue feeling a bit fuzzy.

"Thanks," she said to him, sitting down next to him on the bed. She hiccupped. "For teaching me to have fun…" she leaned her head against him, still clutching her mug.

Sasuke leaned his head onto hers. "Nahh, thank you," he told her, eyelids drooping.

"Hmm?" Sakura mumbled, her eyes closed, as she inhaled Sasuke's scent.

Sasuke paused, and Sakura swore she felt a pair of lips pressing against her hair. "Thanks for –" he paused, "thanks for not falling over me…and being my friend," he whispered, his eyelids slipping shut on their own.

Sakura smiled faintly before giving into the urge to sleep. After all, Uchiha Sasuke never lied – especially when he was a tad tipsy.

Too bad she wouldn't remember any of it later.

This was so hard to write for some reason. "balance: more flexibility" if you can think of a scene to go along with that theme, I'll hug you, hahaha. Now, I'm going to go study for midterms.

Review. (: