A/N: It's always great to have a sister who offers to drive you to school on Friday mornings to get the time to write fanfiction before leaving. I feel like my personal free time is being swallowed by my tenth-grade student schedule. It's horrible! Oh well, I'm still doing my best.

Here is the third chapter of this (self-proclaimed) wonderful story!

Enjoy!

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"You know how, on New Year's Day, you always try to make up some personal rules to follow for the year, but you end up forgetting about them and be just as messy as the year before? It has been proven that it takes eight weeks of constant rule-following to actually stick to it. As if the brain needed some amount of time to register the information."

"That's probably why, as of this first morning in France, I've been put on an eight-week tryout session. That or they don't trust me for doing a good job at whatever a second assistant is supposed to do. But I still think it's to make me used to all the rules. This morning, I woke up at six (mainly from excitement), got dressed and waited for Benoît to come and get me. He should be arriving any min-…"

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Sakura jumped when she heard a soft knock on the door. That must be Benoît, finally coming to tell her where she ought to go to get breakfast. She walked to the door and opened it. The small smile she had been preparing for the friendly butler faded as soon as she saw who was standing in front of her bedroom door.

It was that unpleasant bloke. Uchiha Sasuke. The only strange thing was that he was smiling. That was something very unfamiliar, yet very heart-warming. She wasn't the type to deny a handsome lad, but still, this was Uchiha Sasuke she was looking (ahem, ogling) at. She forced her face into an unpleased face.

"What do you want?" She asked rather coldly.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I upset you in any way? If I did, I'm sorry, and I don't remember" he answered politely, his smile still plastering his face.

"Well, you were kind of a jerk to me yesterday. You frowned the whole way from the airport, you didn't say a word to me during dinner and you didn't even wish me good night like that charming Shizune-san."

"Oh, I'm sorry, you must be mistaking me for my brother Sasuke. He's always like that with girls. I'm Itachi, the "weasel", his older and much more mature brother," he replied, grinning. "I was in Spain yesterday and I only arrived last night. I found myself unable to sleep, so I decided to wait until someone was awake to go and talk."

She slightly ignored his babbling, trying to process the information to her brains. This man, this friendly, smiling man, was Uchiha Sasuke's brother? How come the younger one couldn't be as nice as the older? They looked too much alike for one to be adopted, but it was as if they didn't come from the same family.

She looked at him again, trying to find some physical differences between the two of them. She noticed that guy had brown hair, instead of Sasuke's black hair. His was also longer and tied into a low ponytail. She also noticed he had two big lines under his eyes.

"Oh my God, you look dead tired! Are you sure you don't want to sleep?" She asked him, worried.

"Are you asking because you just noticed the lines on my face? They're not circles of tiredness, they're scars," he said quite indifferently.

"Scars!?" She exclaimed.

"Yeah. Happened a few years ago. Bad memory. I don't really want to talk about it." He brushed it off with a wave of his hand.

"Oh. Okay, yeah, I understand." Truthfully, she didn't, and she desperately wanted to know about those scars, but being the ever-so-nice (not) she was, she didn't insist.

"Hey, how about you help me waking that sleepy-head of a brother that I have?" Itachi asked, joyful again.

She instantly thought it was a bad idea. Honestly, the younger Uchiha already hated her, she didn't want it to get any worse. He would probably make anything in his power to make her get fired. It would be a better idea to show him she was mature an sophisticated, just like she had failed to do the day before, and be polite to him so that they could at least work together.

That is why she agreed.

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"One…" Itachi whispered.

"Two…" Sakura whispered.

They got closer to the door, his hand on the knob, both ready to give this bedroom's owner the awakening of his life. They had settled on entering his room, slowly sliding the covers off of his body, opening briskly the curtains and throwing a huge basin of water on him.

They exchanged a mischievous grin, him holding the doorknob, her carrying the basin full of icy water. They were about to open the door and get in when they heard a quiet cough from behind. They slowly turn around, hoping it wasn't who they feared it was.

Fortunately, it wasn't.

"I see you two have already met," said Shizune, a small smile on her face. "May I know what you two are doing this early in the morning in front of Sasuke-san's door?"

"Erm…" Sakura started.

"We just wanted to wake him up," Itachi said, cutting through. "We decided he needed some human contact before he actually became an automaton, hence the bad joke and the early time."

"Oh. Well, what are you going to do exactly?" Shizune asked, looking more curious than outraged.

"We are going to throw this wonderful basin of water on him. If he's too cold hearted, it won't bother him." Itachi was definitely a good brother.

Shizune looked at them suspiciously for a moment. She seemed to be debating whether to turn them in to Benoît or to just let them do their stupid prank. She raised a hand to her chin and slid her eyes to the basin. Now, she seemed to be measuring the value of the stupid prank.

Sakura was getting a little nervous. What if Shizune decided to tell Benoît? Or worse, what if she went and woke Sasuke up? Sakura turned her head towards Itachi. To her great surprise, he was grinning, a confident look on his face, as if he knew what Shizune would do.

Sakura turned her eyes back to the young woman. She had now her eyes closed. She had probably made her decision. Sakura waited for it, trying to convince herself Itachi's confidence was right. Shizune opened her mouth. It seemed to Sakura that everything was in slow motion.

"I'll won't tell Benoît if you let me help," Shizune declared, a wide grin painted on her features.

"Alright," Itachi answered without hesitating. "You will be in charge of opening the curtains. Now, lets count again, shall we? When I say three, I'll open the door and we'll all enter quietly. When you get to the curtains, wait for my signal. When I nod, you will open them as fast and as much as you can. Always be ready to run, though. We don't if my brother is already awake or if he'll wake up while were settling in his room."

Shizune agreed with a nod and took position behind Sakura.

"One…" Sakura said.

"Two…" Shizune said.

Itachi tightened his grip on the doorknob.

"Three!" He said, and opened the door swiftly but quietly.

Sakura brought the basin next to Sasuke's bed and settled it on the floor. Itachi went to the other side of the bed while Shizune ran to the window. Sakura and Itachi started pulling the covers off of Sasuke's body. It wasn't hard, since he always slept on his back. One bad thing, though, he also always slept in only his boxers.

Oh damn.

As soon as they pulled the covers off his chest, Sakura felt a rush of blood climbing to her cheeks. She hadn't realized that Sasuke could have muscles. Anyhow, there they were, all lean but strong-looking, inviting any girl to feel them up. Sakura had a hard time holding herself from doing it. It would look weird in front of his brother.

It wouldn't hurt her to look, though, would it?

Starting from his broad shoulders, Sakura's eyes slid over his whole body, viewing the biceps, the triceps, the chest, the abs (Caramilk-like, hmm) the lower stomach and the V that started at his hipbone and went way down under his boxers. Her cheeks felt like fire and she hoped Itachi nor Shizune could see her monumental blush.

There was the smell too. As soon as she had stepped into Sasuke's room, a strong scent of … manliness. She couldn't quite put her finger on what exactly it was (and she was rather surprise there was something in this world she couldn't recognise by the smell) but it was one of the best scent she had ever been given to sense.

Her head rose to Itachi, waiting for his signal. He signalled her to take the basin and then turned towards Shizune to tell her to open the curtains. As soon as the bright sunlight poured in the room, Sakura turned the basin upside down over Sasuke's body and let the water fall down on him.

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Everything that followed didn't take more than thirty seconds. Sasuke woke with a start, shouted a "What the Hell!?", turned his head towards his brother, sent him a death glare while Itachi ran to the door, grasping Sakura on the way. As she was pulled towards the bedroom door, Sakura had her eyes locked to Sasuke's. His eyes didn't show any anger or hatred. They were just surprised. As if he couldn't believe Sakura would ever pull a prank on him.

The door closed behind her. Itachi let go of her and burst out laughing. He slapped his knee, tears of laughter in his eyes. He was soon joined by Shizune, who folded in two, holding her stomach. Sakura stared plainly at them, too shocked to react. As if she were having a blank, she couldn't remember what they were laughing about and caught herself thinking they were idiots laughing for nothing.

She just waited until they were finished giggling like hyenas. When they finally stopped, Itachi sent her a rather confused look and Shizune just seemed to wonder why they had stopped laughing. They all stood there, looking at each other, not moving until Benoît joined them.

"Well, I see olmost oll of you are awake. Why eez young master Sasuke-san still een bed?" He asked with his undeniable French accent.

"Erm, well, we were just waiting for him to get out, he just woke up," Itachi explained calmly, although obviously trying not to let out the slightest chuckle.

"Right. Well, you'll just 'ave to ait for 'im in ze keetchen. Shall we?" He replied, clearly not buying to poor excuse.

Sakura still couldn't move. It was only when Shizune took her hand and pulled her along that she seemed to notice she had to walk (unless she wanted Shizune to drag her on the floor and down the stairs). She simply obliged quietly, trying to think about something else than the pain that had shot in her left side while she was looking at Sasuke.

Weird.

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"Sasuke…"

Grunt.

"Sasuke…"

Grunt.

"Sasuke!"

Grunt.

"Sasuke, stop grunting and listen to me!" Itachi exclaimed, irritated at his brother's behaviour.

Sasuke would have obliged, of course, but the mere fact that he was unable to glare at Whatshername (probably something like Hortensia, or another flower name) without having her completely ignoring him was so frustrating that he found himself powerless as to take his eyes off of her. He just had to glare as hard as he could until she felt his gaze make a hole through her back and turned around. He just had to.

For his own sanity and very inflated ego.

"Sasuke, I just wanted to tell you, that prank was my idea. Of course, Sakura agreed, but she would have never done if I hadn't told her about it and if you hadn't been such a jerk to her last night," Itachi continued, oblivious to his brother's internal murder of the poor pink-haired second assistant. "She told me all about it. How could you frown at her when it was her first time out of Japan?"

Grunt.

"Argh, Sasuke, you're such a kid!"

Just when Sasuke thought his brother had let go of the subject, Itachi started to talk again.

"Just do me a favour, please," he said. "Don't hold a grudge against her. Know that she's trying very hard to forget everything right now."

Whoa.

What!?

Sasuke's eyes finally left the girl's back and shifted to his brother's face. Had he heard well? She was trying to forget? Why would she do that? And how come Itachi was aware of it?

"Why do you say that?" Sasuke asked.

"I've already seen that expression on a little girl we used to know. Weird enough, though, I can't remember who she was. I can see her face very clearly, but when I focus all my concentration on it, it disappears!"

Sasuke brought his eyes to his cereals. Strangely, he did remember a girl he used to know. He (unfortunately) had no clue of who she could have been. All he could remember were her sobs. It was the most recent memory of her he had. What a great way to remember a girl by.

How she cries.

Sasuke raised his eyes to her back again. He knew perfectly well why he was mad at her. She was a girl. Girls around him tended to become his fangirls. He didn't need any more than he already had. That one just seemed too bubbly not to get corrupted, with her pink hair and all. Was it a new fashion sense in Japan? He hadn't been there in years, maybe pink hair had become popular again.

He imagined every singly Japanese girl with pink hair.

Shiver.

Sasuke brushed the thought away and looked more intensely at her. Of course, she didn't look like a fangirl-to-be. She actually looked rather sympathetic, but he couldn't let himself become friendly with a girl. Uh uh. Never. Nevertheless, he took in consideration what his brother told him and decided to oblige to Itachi's demand (for once). He would not hold a grudge on her. But she would have to get used to his silence and indifference.

As if she had noticed he wasn't glaring at her (poor, injured and pierced-through) back, Sakura turned her head towards his. The pain in her left side came back, but this time it didn't hurt as much. It was actually more bearable than it had ever been. She smiled at him, hoping to make him understand she was apologizing for the prank.

He jumped a little at the sight of her smile, but regained a composed expression and addressed her a little nod. Yes, he forgave her, but he didn't intend on letting it go any farther. He actually wouldn't allow it.

For, somehow, he knew what it felt to have his heart broken.

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" –minute now. Well, no, I was wrong. It was Uchiha Sasuke's older brother, Itachi. Much, much nicer, if you ask me. But I have learned something about Sasuke. He can be forgiving. I never would have thought that possible. There is also something else bothering me. He is… troubled by something. There is something he doesn't want me or anyone else to find out."

"You know what? I think I'm going to giver myself a resolution for at least the next eight weeks. I am not going to bother, annoy, irritate, torture or do anything unpleasant to Uchiha Sasuke for as long as I want to live and have dignity. After that, if I get to stay, I'll try to become friends with him, if I haven't already done that. If I'm lucky, I might be able to discover this secret he has before next year. Oh well, duty calls. Ja! Haruno Sakura signing out."

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A/N: DONE! I hate school. I don't get to do anything! It is the fifth time this WEEK I try to finish this chapter! Oh well, now I don't complain. Another of my duties has been annihilated! I'm going on a four-day weekend, I'm going to get my hair dyed red, and it's Halloween next week! Life can be great. Sometimes.

So, what do you think? Good? Bad? Tremendously brilliant? Horribly lame? Tell me, I'd be glad to know! Although I don't really appreciate it when people tell me that what I do sucks. Still, review! Review, review, review!

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Thanks!

Ja!

Queen of Pascalities