Title: The Beginning
Rating: K
Summary: With an umbrella, Sakura broke his nose. And Sasuke was forever a believer that she would be his someday.

AN: This was how two of my friends hooked up. Except she had a racket and he ducked just in time. Chapter six is the follow up to this one.

Disclaimer: Do not own Naruto… but I would love to have Sasuke's love child.

Prompt 5- umbrella

The first day Sakura and Sasuke met, it was raining

{The Beginning}

The weatherman only called for a slight chance of rain, but Sakura, ever prepared, carried her umbrella in her hand as she walked the 15 minute trek through the park to get to her dorm room.

Usually she would spend the walk thinking of how her day had gone, of things that needed to be done. For instance, she was sure it was her turn to do the laundry because, heaven forbid Ino, Sakura's airhead of a roommate, broke one of her fake nails while separating the darks from the whites.

Today, however, she felt she couldn't concentrate on much aside from the fact that she felt like she was being watched. Hard eyes on her, roaming her back, watching her every step, or in her case, jump into the puddles from yesterday's downpour.

Something or someone was tailing her. Question was, where were...

There! A slight movement of shadow behind that tree. But rule number one of one upping your opponent: never let them know you're onto them.

So she didn't. Instead, Sakura continued her journey, stopping to admire the changes fall brought with it. All the while making her way towards a tree that seemed thick enough to hide behind.

Sasuke couldn't believe he had lost sight of her. One second, his eyes followed her graceful movements of skips and jumps, her full skirt swirling around her as if it had a soul if its own. The next, she had vanished into thin air.

Not for the first time, Sasuke wondered if he had fallen for a ghost. The girl he had come to observe everyday on her way back from campus was, well, a bit odd, to say the least. First of all, no one had hair that color and was natural. Nobody.

Her hair, which he spent most of his nights wondering if it were as soft and silky as it looked, was the color of freshly woven cotton candy. Soft baby pink perfect to compliment her crystal clear jade eyes -the girl was every guys picture of utter beauty! That is, if you were the kind of guy to fall in love with a phantom. At this point, he was starting to think he was, as he hadn't found her yet and was starting to get worried.

As if on cue, a flash of pink and white caused him to quickly turn on his heel -and come face to face with the angry swing of a white umbrella.

"Stalking a defenseless girl in the middle of the day, not cool dude," Sakura shook her head, the tips on her pink pigtails swinging back and forth in a double negative.

"I could hardly call you defenseless," Sasuke touched his nose, then quickly pulled it back. It was broken. "You seem to know how to work that death tool like a pro, Babe Ruth."

She shrugged her shoulders, her black leather jacket creaking from the movement. "My dad's into baseball. Can't blame an overprotective dad for teaching his daughter to defend with what you got."

"Who carries around an umbrella, anyway?" Sasuke asked as he got to his feet and brushed dead leaves from his back and hair. His nose was still bleeding, but managed to rub most of the blood off on his sleeve. He looked at her, or rather down at her. She was at least a foot smaller than him, and said, "The weatherman said to expect no more than 10 percent of rain today. Ten percent!" he exclaimed, as if she hadn't heard him the first time.

"They said there was a 10 percent chance of rain today and I brought my umbrella because 10 percent is enough for me to believe that it's possible."

To this, Sasuke had nothing to say. It was truly the best and logical argument he had ever heard. Or maybe the blow to the head had caused internal bleeding and he was slowly losing his mind. Or it could be he was agreeing with her because he didn't want to get hit again. Maybe It was all of the above.

Before he could further continue his thoughts on how much longer he had left to live if he really did have internal bleeding, she said, "It's getting late and laundry doesn't do itself. And obnoxious blondes apparently don't do it either. Later."

And like that, she sidestepped him in a way he thought baseball really wasn't the only thing her dad taught her how to do.

But before she could go far, Sasuke called out, "You're really here, right? I mean, you're not a ghost… right?"

Sakura spun around to raise a pink and feminine eyebrow at her new acquaintance. And they called her the weird one? But then she decided to yank his chain a bit more. She needed to get going, already smelling the rain on its way, but this guy, well, he was a lot more fun than most of the guys she dated. She confirmed his statement by saying, "Ghost, no," and almost laughed out loud at the way his shoulders visibly sighed in relief. Then stiffened just as quick as she said, "But poltergeists aren't ghosts, I hear. And that nose is broken, yes? Might want to get that checked out!"

This time she does manage to escape his barrage of questions, as she skips towards awaiting suds.

As if he had any at the moment. Sasuke is already trying to come up with another way to talk to her again when he looks up, and smiles, because it was raining!