"Smile!"

Sakura looked up to see a flashbulb go off in her face. "Ah!" she exclaimed, closing her eyes quickly and raising her arms to shield herself from the light. A girl looked at her over the top of her camera sheepishly.

"Sorry. I should have given you more warning," she said with a weak smile.

Sakura just looked at her, her mouth open slightly. "Um… why are you taking my picture?"

"I work for the school paper and we're supposed to do a photo thing on the newly refurbished home ec room today," she said with a grin. "Don't mind me. Just keep on with your work."

Sakura nodded. "Yeah… ok…" she turned back to part of the cake ingredients she was mixing. She sighed. "This is just too boring," she said to Sasuke, who was standing next to her. She didn't hear an answer and so looked over at him.

He was staring at the bowl of ingredients he was in charge with in horror. In it was a strange puffy mixture that looked like it hadn't been properly stirred. She blinked down at it. "What is it?" she asked.

He shook his head, no words coming out. She snorted. "Oh my god. Could you be any more of a guy?" she asked. She picked up the ingredients he had been mixing. "Why did you put baking soda in here… and congealed stock?"

"It said baking soda and oil! I didn't see the oil but I figured animal fat would substitute," he said, still looking horrified. She choked.

"It says baking powder, not soda!" she exclaimed. "And animal fat as a substitute? Stock isn't even animal fat!"

"It isn't?" he asked, blinking.

"No Sasuke… it isn't," she said, shaking her head. "Ok, I'll just remix it. Can you… throw that away?" she asked.

He nodded and picked up the bowl, walking over towards the garbage. Sakura was working hard not to start laughing. The corners of her mouth twitched as she quickly re-measured the ingredients into a fresh bowl and mixed it. She mixed both bowls of ingredients together and started to stir vigorously. Sasuke returned, looking solemn. "Sorry 'bout that," he said, sounding embarrassed.

Sakura shook her head. "It's fine," she said with a smile. "I'm kind of amazed you're not failing this class though," she giggled.

"Who says I'm not?" he asked, eyebrows raised. She stared at him, pausing her stirring momentarily.

"You are?" she asked, eyes wide, as she resumed her stirring.

"Almost," he admitted. "I already knew how to make cupcakes so I got an A on that…"

She stared at him. "You know how to make cupcakes?"

He shrugged. "Just one recipe. I'm not used to having to use different ingredients for different things," he said, making a face at the batter.

Sakura snickered. "Yeah. I'm sure you're not."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked mildly, one eyebrow raised.

Sakura giggled. "No offense, but you aren't exactly in touch with your feminine side Sasuke," she said with a teasing aspect to her voice.

"No shit," he said dryly.

"Well haven't you heard?" Sakura said, finishing off whipping the batter with a rather manly grunt, before grabbing the greased pan and beginning to pour the mixture into it. "Girls are into guys with a little bit more femininity now. It's like a whole big thing."

He shrugged. "You don't seem to be," he remarked.

"Maybe I am. Maybe you're just a fluke," she said chipperly as she started scraping out the bowl.

"That's me. The fluke boyfriend," he said with a long-suffering sigh.

Sakura snorted as she slid the pan into the oven. Then she paused, taking a moment to close it, before turning back to face him. "Hey Sasuke… do you know what's up with Neji?"

He frowned slightly. "He seems to be pretty stressed lately. I dunno… just wound pretty tight."

Sakura nodded. "Yeah… I guess the whole Tenten thing is stressing him out a bit."

Sasuke shrugged. "Yeah. I don't know if it's just Tenten though. I'm not sure, but maybe there's something else going on too."

"Something else?" Sakura asked, her eyebrows flying up.

"Yeah… I'm just not sure what…"

Later That Day

Neji was stressed. Actually, stressed might be the understatement of the century. He felt like his life was imploding. He wasn't sure what exactly he was doing. He wasn't exactly that much in control of his life actually. Ironically, this had seemed to start around the time Tenten had broken up with him. That was when he had started going through the anger/rage stage of getting over his helplessness. A helplessness caused by his uncles statement that, in fact, he was planning on passing on the company president to Neji instead of one of his actual daughters. Now Neji had moved onto the depression stage.

In fact, he had spent the last three evenings lying on his bed staring at his ceiling with absolutely no thought going through his head other than a sort of dull buzz and a slightly sick feeling. He wasn't completely sure he had actually talked with another human other than a couple teachers and someone demanding to see if he had a hall pass. He hadn't been to his dojo, any place outside of school, or his own living room in days.

He felt trapped. He had never wanted to run his family's business. He just wanted to continue teaching weekly karate classes and not having to speak to Tenten, who was a bit of a sore spot for him, though right now she was the last thing on his mind.

Actually, there wasn't much on his mind right now. Other then despair. Utter despair.

Now the only thing running through his head was how horrendously emo he sounded. Also, more despair.

That Night

Ino was in the locker room, waiting for her cheerleaders to group up. She looked pristine in a very neat, well cleaned and ironed cheerleading uniform. It was sleeveless and in the Konoha school colors of red with gold and black trim. She had put up her hair by putting it into a high ponytail, braiding it, and then winding it into a bun. She had sprayed it liberally with hairspray so it would stay up and used equally as liberal amounts of deodorant to mask any sweating, and she now smelled like a mix of hairspray and tropical fruit. She checked her spanx and knelt to retie and double knot her shoes, mostly out of nerves, and partially because she remembered one practice during 8th grade when her shoelace had come loose and she almost tripped and sprained something on a dismount.

When she stood up her cheerleaders were lining up in front of her, sitting on the benches and leaning against the lockers. They all wore identical uniforms and stark white shoes, with their hair pinned or tied up. The experienced girls looked bright eyed with mild smiles, while the new Freshmen and Sophomores looked slightly nauseous. Ino smiled encouragingly at them. "Alright guys. It's just another game. Just remember, stay aware of the team at all times. You don't want to be doing the defense cheer if they're the offense. Even worse, the score cheer if they just lost the ball. We had a good practice today. Try to remember to not lock your legs in the stunts… overextending would be pretty bad." She checked the clock and saw it was about time to go out onto the field.

"So... get your game faces on girls! We can do it!" She put her hand out in front of her and the cheerleaders grouped around to add their hands in as well. "Go… Konoha!" They shouted. They walked out of the locker room and onto the track that surrounded the football field.

"Go Konoha!" she yelled to the crowd, the cheerleaders behind her yelling out similar encouragements to the football team. Ino had a huge smile plastered onto her face as they jumped up and down. After a few moments they got in formation for the Hello cheer. They executed it without any major mistakes and it went the same for the first half of the game. She did high kicks and pikes excellently and the stunts they did involved practically no wobbling legs.

It was around the halftime show when things started to fall apart though. The girls were trying one stunt they had been working on for a while when Essa stumbled. This might not have been a huge deal if she hadn't done it while she was the base for a cupie. The girl she was hoisting up let out a strangled shriek as she tumbled down, landing on one of the spotters, who promptly collapsed and tripped a horrified looking Essa who stumbled into Cerie who landed flat on her face. Ino stared down at them from her cupie in horror. She and the other flyers quickly dismounted, and she knelt down to check on the girls. "Are you ok?" she asked hurriedly.

Cerie nodded, picking herself up of the ground. Essa had already gotten up and was checking on Maybe, the girl she had dropped. The spotter was winded but she had managed to throw herself from under Maybe right before they landed and seemed fine. Maybe was clutching her ankle though, her fact scrunched up in pain. Ino bit her lip hard and she and Essa hoisted up Maybe between them as they rushed her off of the field as the other cheerleaders gave a rushed finish and ran off the field. The crowd was wide-eyed and watched Essa, Maybe, and Ino as they reached the cheerleading coach. They set her down carefully as the coach and the school nurse knelt besides Maybe.

"Is it broken?" Ino and the coach asked the nurse in unison. The nurse was checking Maybe's ankle gently.

"Can you move it?" the nurse asked.

Maybe gritted her teeth and nodded. "It hurts though."

The nurse shook her head. "It's not broken but I think it's sprained."

Ino stared up at the dark sky and bit back a stream of curses that threatened to come spilling from her lips.

'Goddammit…!'