VitaminWater Fact Number 9: The only VitaminWater I recommend to be served on ice (if ever) is b-relaxed. Keep that in mind, harharhar.

BONUS: Dedication for Sayonara Solitaire. Happy birthday, Kat! -heart-

LikeVitaminWater
x. by ANGELforSHOW

Chapter Eight: Energy.
Purpose: Immediate energy.

-

If there was one thing in the world Sakura could be proud of, it was her teeth.

No, not her hair. No, not her eyes. No, not her body. Not even her brain. Her teeth.

Sure, tickle-me pink hair was interesting. Sakura loved her hair. She loved everything about it, from its unique pastel shade to how when she woke up in the morning, all she really had to do was comb it, because it came in what Ino said was the form of "natural summer waves". She loved how it could curl or be straightened, and how it wasn't too thick or too thin. She adored how soft it was after a fresh conditioning.

Her eyes were nice too, Sakura thought. They were green. Pure, unadulterated, essence of green. Emerald, jade, grass, mint, sage – green. Blue was pretty, she had to admit, and black was appealing on the right people, but she loved how vivid and lively the color green seemed to be. Yes, her eye color was something to be proud of as well.

Sakura knew she was slender. She worked out four times a week at the gym, and she had been relatively active during high school. She knew she was intelligent too. She studied at least once every other day, and she got the good marks to prove it.

Strangely enough though, Sakura knew that her teeth were her best quality.

Her teeth: straight, white, rounded-off squares that gleamed happily with every movement of her lips. She suffered through two and a half years of braces for them, and had then paid (with her own money) for a box of whitening strips. It was this smile that had won her Homecoming Queen, and the smile that had gotten her into the Prom Court. Hell, she was sure her teeth had even played some part in her getting into university.

In short, Sakura loved her teeth.

And in return, she loved to smile.

Ibiki circled his room hawkishly while his class took a short quiz, passing each student with a short scoff. Sakura crinkled her nose as Ibiki walked-and-scoffed past her. His slight sneer was the sort that you never knew if it was good or not. On one hand, he could be laughing at her, but on the other hand, he could've been making some sort of noise of approval.

Either way, the fact that she had just written down the answer to number 19 (an answer in which she totally, utterly guessed on) when Ibiki had made his walk-and-scoff past her was totally irritating.

Rolling her eyes, Sakura quickly read the final question on the packet lying flat on her desk, skimming the answers before choosing the (obviously) correct letter.

Setting her pen down, Ibiki swooped down over her desk to snatch her paper off her desk. Two red slashes and a number later, he dropped the paper back down to Sakura.

Dully, Sakura flipped over her quiz and looked at the score. 90. A respectable score, but nothing to scream over. She sighed.

Life was so boring.

The cafeteria's dinner sucked today.

Sakura settled on a plate of french fries after sliding her tray past some limp, browning vegetables, burnt dinner rolls, and decidedly green macaroni and cheese.

"Life totally bites right now," she drawled out to Ino, who was just about to take her seast.

Ino pursed her lips. "I know, right?" she asked as she sat down next to Sakura, settling down in her seat with a large bowl of ice cream. Ino twisted the end of one of her French braided pigtails between her fingers. "Life is just so…" she trailed off, still playing with her flax colored braids.

"Boring?" Sasuke contributed dryly, overhearing their conversation as he approached the table, dropping his stuff on the floor and sitting down with an unenthusiastic plate of tomato slices and fries.

Naruto pulled out his chair with a noisy screech. "I don't know what you guys are talking about!" he answered his three friends brightly, stabbing a spork into his green macaroni. He stuck the plastic utensil into his mouth and took a thoughtful bite of molding pasta. The green elbow pasta was out of his mouth and back onto the plate within milliseconds – was that fur he had just attempted to eat?

"Ew, Naruto," Sakura said in response to Naruto's pasta-spew. She was looking slightly green herself, her stomach feeling as if it had dropped three feet under.

Ino shielded and averted her eyes as Sasuke took a napkin and dropped it on top of Naruto tray.

"Shitty dinner aside, how did everyone do on their psych quiz?" Ino asked cheerily as she scooped some rainbow sprinkles into her mouth.

"90."

"98."

"76!"

"Ouch," Sakura offered to Naruto when she heard his score. A 76 was kind of rough when it came to grades.

"What?" Naruto asked, crestfallen. "I thought I did pretty good!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"ANYWAY," Sakura announced loudly. "What we're trying to say is that life sucks, yeah?" she pointed out to her friends with a shrug. She wrapped her teal cardigan around herself a bit tighter while she straightened out the polka-dotted tank top underneath.

"Mhm," Ino agreed with a sigh. She pushed her bowl of ice cream away. "This is so depressing. I need a party."

"Amen to that!" Naruto exclaimed. "Is there anyone having a party tonight? It's Friday. There HAS to be a frat party or something going on…" he pulled out his phone and started scrolling through his text messages. "Need alcohollllll," he mumbled to himself.

Sakura rolled her eyes.

"What time is it?" Naruto asked while he sifted through his messages.

"7:30," Ino supplied quickly. "Why? Do you have something?" she asked eagerly.

"YES," Naruto answered excitedly. "Kiba's having a get together tonight at 7:00. LET'S GO!"

Ino nodded in approval. "Kiba has the best spiked punch, definitely. And the Sex On the Beach I had before that he made was godly," she cooed.

"Hmm, I like the Sex On the Beach With Sand In Your Crack, personally," Naruto agreed with an impish grin. "That was ungodly delicious."

(Isabel's Alcohol Lesson;
Sex On the Beach Vodka, Peach Schnapps, Orange Juice and Cranberry Juice.
SOtBwSiYC Same thing, except with six fresh raspberries added to the mix.)

"I do believe we have to attend this party," Ino said to Naruto cordially. "Shall we go get smashed?" she asked him, gathering up her bags. Her blue eyes twinkled with anticipation as she picked up her purse.

Naruto stood up as well, "We shall," he replied with a blinding smile. "LET'S GO!"

They practically ran off, pushing in front of each other to get to Kiba's dorm.

"They're dumb," Sakura said bluntly as she chewed on another french fry. Sasuke grunted in agreement, shoving another tomato slice in his mouth. "So, what are you doing now?" Sakura asked him as she twirled a fry in ketchup.

"I don't know," Sasuke responded with a shrug. "You?" he asked out of courtesy.

"I don't know either," Sakura groaned, pulling at her face and stretching her skin downwards. "Life is so boringggggg."

Sasuke stood up, picking up his bookbag and tray. "Going on a walk," he told Sakura's inquisitve look.

"Ah," she answered, picking up her VitaminWater (Energy, tropical citrus flavored). She took a slow sip of the yellow liquid.

Sasuke was still there. "Yeah?" she asked carefully.

"Aren't you coming?" Sasuke asked monotonously. He had, after all, grown fond of her whining, VitaminWater drinking self.

A hesitant smile bloomed on Sakura's face. "Yeah," she answered. "I'm coming."

Their breaths came out in small puffs of fog while they exhaled.

"I can't believe winter is gonna be here soon," Sakura commented as she pulled her coat even tighter around herself. Even though it was only the beginning of November, the wind chill was becoming unbearable, the icy air finding a way to soak through her skinny jeans and creep inside of her pea coat.

"Aa," Sasuke replied nodding. "The semester will be finished soon as well."

Sakura's eyes widened with this realization – she was almost complete with her first semester of college ever. "…I feel so old," she giggled slightly, while shoving her hands deeper inside of her pockets.

Another gust of freezing wind blew through the air, wrapping itself around the two while they struggled to move forward. It seemed as if Sakura and Sasuke were the only two pedestrians wandering campus – everyone else was smart enough to be staying indoors and drinking soup (or something of the like).

"This is ridiculous…" Sasuke muttered to himself when another bought of icy wind attacked them head on. He grabbed Sakura's arm and dragged her to the left, barging into a small ice cream shop quite unceremoniously.

"Welcome to Konoha Kreamery, would you like to order?" a voice from behind the ice cream counter chirped to them happily. Sasuke regarded the girl with contempt ("Tenten" her nametag read in bubbly letters).

He hated ice cream, but it would've been quite rude to just sit at one of the tiny café tables to wait out the windstorm. So…he opted for the next best thing: to push the bother onto Sakura. Duh.

"Sakura, what do you want?" he murmured to her as he tried to scan the menu for something that wasn't cold and sugary.

It was a good thing Sakura loved sweets. "Hmm, I'll have one scoop of cookie dough and one scoop of mint chocolate chip in a waffle cone," she told Tenten with a smile.
With sprinkles. And hot fudge. And whipped cream too!" she laughed out. "Um, please." She moved to begin digging inside of her handbag. Where was that wallet of hers…?

Sasuke grabbed her hand before it could even touch the zipper of her purse. "Don't worry about it," he told her without taking his eyes off the menu. Everything seemed to be sweet and frozen at this stupid (ice cream) shop, he realized miserably.

Tenten returned with a hulking cone of ice cream, handing it to Sakura carefully after she weighed it. "And for you?" she asked Sasuke.

"One scoop of vanilla in a small cup," he answered finally. Vanilla definitely wasn't as bad as some of the other flavors could have been, Sasuke reasoned.

After receiving his cup of ice cream (with distaste, mind you), Sasuke paid – ignoring Sakura's protest, seeing how her ice cream cone had made up three quarters of the bill – quickly and sat down at the closest café table with Sakura.

"This is delicious. I can't believe you don't like ice cream," Sakura commented with a laugh. "You're such a freak, Sasuke," she said while she licked a trail of hot fudge that was coming too close to her thumb.

"Hn," Sasuke answered skeptically. "Isn't it too cold for ice cream anyway?" he asked her as he took minuscule bites of his vanilla scoop.

Sakura shook her head. "Of course not. I might not be able to feel my nose, but it'snever too cold for ice cream," she answered him seriously while chewing on a cookie dough lump. "…and I'm serious about the not feeling my nose part. Really," she added on as an afterthought.

Sasuke gave a small noise of amusement. "Obviously you can't feel your nose," he told her, taking another delicate spoonful of ice cream.

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked airily, clearly not paying attention as she licked away at her ice cream, nibbling at bit at the waffle cone.

Sasuke reached over the table slowly and dragged his index finger across the tip of her nose. "You have whipped cream on your nose," he said to her, holding up his fingertip, covered with a small dab of white cream.

Sakura was about to wave it off when she caught sight of something else white. White, behind pink lips with slightly – just slightly – upturned corners.

Sasuke was smiling.

(And he totally had a dimple by the right corner of his mouth. Barely noticeable, but unbearably cute.)

She also noticed that she had been staring at his mouth for the past 30 seconds.

Sakura attempted to laugh her flush of embarrassment off – only to fail miserably, as expected.

But that was alright. Because life was giving her small bursts of excitement with every coming week. Because she had a full store of VitaminWater in her minifridge. Because she was spending time with Sasuke on a Friday night when they could have easily been partying. Because life was good.

And because Sasuke may have had nicer teeth than she did. Sakura was thoroughly impressed.

Because life was good.

The past few weeks have been so dumb. I guess fanfiction has kind of fallen onto the back burner. Pre-calc and AP Euro come first, I suppose. That, and I've been reading manga like a mad man, hahaha.

Review. (: