Author's Note: Hey guys! Sorry I haven't updated in awhile, but I finally found Beta Readers so I have a good reason. :D Anyway, please let me know what you think about this chapter, I'm going to try and update more before the summer ends!
Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, and to MelancholyMadness and TheRamenNoodleGirl (my Betas!). You guys are the best!
"So," Ino said as she sat down beside me in Biology. We were doing a lab, but our group wasn't really working. "I see that you and Sasuke are friendly again. What happened?"
"I just asked him what was wrong," I hesitated. "You were right, he's just scared of committing to someone again." It was sort of a lie, but I felt like there was some truth to it. How else would I explain our conversation on Valentine's Day?
Ino nodded and looked across the room to where Sasuke was working on the same lab alone. His group seemed to disappear with Naruto at another table and Neji being out of class that day. He was completely oblivious to what we were talking about, thank god. "That makes sense. His relationship with Karin wasn't very stable. That's why he's so reluctant to commit again, right Shikamaru?"
Shikamaru, a member of our group, sighed. "Does it matter?" He had figured out my feelings for Sasuke a few weeks before when he was talking to Ino about it. Ino swore she never said anything outright, but Shikamaru was perceptive enough to figure it out. Also, Ino wasn't the best at hiding secrets from him. Really, I was surprised more of our friends hadn't figured it out.
"Don't you want our friends to be happy?" Ino looked at Shikamaru expectantly.
"I think," he responded, "that what Sasuke wants to do is his own business." I thought I heard him mutter something like "troublesome" under his breath.
Ino rolled her eyes. "Obviously he's no help, I don't know why I asked him."
I looked guiltily over at Tenten, who was doing most of the work by herself. "Don't mind me," she said sarcastically.
"Sorry," I said hastily and began to help her with the lab.
"What we need to do," Ino whispered, "is go out this weekend. It'll be a group thing, but it'll be like a date because you and Sasuke will be the only single ones." The look on her face was maniacal.
"Count me out," Tenten said dryly. Even though we had been hanging out a lot more with her, Tenten still didn't like Ino very much.
Ignoring Tenten, I reasoned, "Will it even work? It's not like we don't do that all the time." It was true, we hung out a lot in a big group.
She shrugged. "It doesn't hurt to try."
"We'll see," I told her. Really, it seemed hopeless. I was just happy that I had Sasuke back as a friend.
I thought back to the challenge I had, idiotically, given myself. Finding someone to set up with Sasuke? Was that really what I wanted right now? God, how dumb was I anyway? Part of me wondered if I was just being selfish. Maybe he would be better if I set him up with someone before I went away. Then again, there was a chance that he wouldn't like her or, if it ended up being successful, that they would break up when he went to college.
Who are you kidding, I thought to myself, there is no way I would set him up like that. Still, it had been fun teasing him about it while it lasted.
Prom planning continued to consume my life. Before all of this happened I had no idea how hard it would be to orchestrate such an event. Of course, I had help from the administration, but I still had to do a lot of the work. I needed to find a DJ, secure a venue (there was no way we were having it in the school gym like the seniors last year did), and I had no clue what kind of vendor I should book, not to mention that the Student Council seemed to disagree on everything.
We had finally settled on a Paris theme, thanks to the majority votes from the student body. One of the ninth-grade representatives, Konohamaru, fought for the video game theme even after we had narrowed it down to two themes (not video game). Part of me wondered why the underclassmen got to vote on prom themes since they weren't even invited without an upperclassman as a date, but then I realized I didn't care too much about it.
"I can't believe him," my eyes are full of tears as I address Sasuke. It is the week after Valentine's Day and I am already fed up with my boyfriend. Sure, Valentine's Day itself had actually been okay, but did he have to flirt with other girls in front of me? "I'm so done."
"Why are you still with him?" Sasuke says, slightly alarmed that I had shown up at his house in tears.
"I don't know," I say. "I guess I always thought that he would change." Hastily, I wipe the tears from my face. We were sitting in his living room now, and it was obvious that he had been trying to get some work done before I had barged in. Kiba was perfect for me, I had thought. He was popular, good-looking, and on the football team. It had seemed like fate when he asked me out at the end of our junior year.
"It's not your fault," says Sasuke. "You just have really bad luck finding boyfriends that aren't complete assholes." That was true.
"What can I say? I have a knack for it I guess." I reply, looking down at my perfectly manicured nails. I would, of course, keep dating Kiba. I wasn't strong enough to breakup with him yet - I didn't want the drama, mostly. Also, for some reason I thought he could change.
"Have you ever thought of dating anyone else?" I ask him. The last girl had been from another school - they had met at a football game, actually. She had been nice enough I guess, but the long distance ended up not working out.
Sasuke just shrugs. "I don't know," he replies. "I'm thinking about asking someone out, but it's not the right time yet."
"Well?" I say. "Who is it?" But he wouldn't tell me.
"I don't know if I should even try pursuing it," he says hastily. "Since we're going to college soon anyway. Who knows if it would work out?"
"You're right," I say, "maybe you should just wait until college to find a new girlfriend."
"Maybe," he says, but he looked unsure. "Have you ever had regrets... relationship-wise?"
I let out a snort of laughter. "My whole senior year has been a regret, Sasuke. Or have you not noticed?"
"You need a distraction," he says, and stands up from the couch. "Come on, we're going out."
"What?" I say. My eyes were still puffy from crying. I wasn't in the mood - or any condition - to go out.
Wordlessly, he pulls me up from where he sat, and led me to his car. I found myself staring out the window as he drove to the coffee place we liked to go. When I looked at him, he shakes his head. "Wait here."
We end up at our spot at the park under the tree. Sasuke had gotten me some hot chocolate (black coffee for him, the weirdo) and we sat in silence for a while, sipping our drinks. I had always liked this spot - when I had first met Sasuke we used to go there all the time. I think something that made it easy for us to be friends was the fact that we could sit together without saying anything for hours without it being awkward. It was always comfortable.
So, that night, I felt comforted by the hot chocolate and my favorite spot. We talked a little, not about Kiba, and I found myself leaning against his shoulder. This was normal for us, I thought. One day Sasuke would be a great boyfriend to some lucky girl. I had no doubt that my best friend would find someone perfect.
"Sorry if I ruined your night," I whisper, on the verge of falling asleep.
"It was perfect," he replies.
The dreams were coming back again. I mean, it's not like they really left, but they had at least become less distinct lately. For the past few weeks, I had gotten a good amount of sleep. In fact, it was probably the best sleep I had gotten since I woke up and it was the first day of school again. So I didn't understand why, after my weeks of glorious sleep, that they seemed to come back with a vengeance. It wasn't so much that the new dreams were terrifying (as they were sometimes), but that they seemed so real when they were happening. It was like my subconscious was teasing me with memories that I couldn't have anymore.
That week I stayed busy with my Vice President duties - the Dance Committee especially needed help figuring out the budget for decorations and more fundraisers for prom. Fortunately for me, a lot of my work involved staying after school with Sasuke to discuss what we were going to do about everything.
One day I was in a classroom after school with Sasuke and I discovered some sort of request form that I had lost a few days ago. It had been wadded up at the bottom of my purse. "Excellent," I muttered.
"I see you found it," Sasuke smirked and looked up from the papers he was writing on.
"Shut up," I groaned. Okay, so maybe I wasn't the best at organization sometimes, but I found it incredibly unfair for Sasuke to hold me to his standards. I mean, he was basically perfect.
Sasuke sighed and put down his pen. "I can't focus," he complained, catching me off guard. Sasuke was always the master of staying focused, but I had noticed that he had been acting different today - even more reserved than usual. He was practically mute at lunch.
"What's up?" I asked, still trying to smooth out the poor form that I had just fished out.
"I don't know," he muttered. "I think it's because I haven't been getting enough sleep lately." Now that he mentioned it, I could see faint shadows under his eyes. Since I had been waking up in the middle of the night lately, I could relate.
"What's wrong?" I said. "Are you having a hard time falling asleep?" I was trying to figure out what the form was about now. The pencil that I had written on it with had become smudged and illegible. I hoped it wasn't something important.
"Don't tell anyone this," he said and looked bothered, "but I think I'm having nightmares."
I glanced up from my efforts with the paper. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know if I would call them nightmares," he said, "but when I have them I can't fall asleep again. It's like... it's something important, but I can't remember."
"Do you remember what they're about?" I suddenly felt lightheaded.
He hesitated. "It's kind of like I'm reliving memories from a few years ago. At least, that's what it feels like. Sometimes they have my family, or Naruto, and... that friend I told you about." He seemed to add the last part on reluctantly, like he was embarrassed. I felt a little touched. Was it because he admitted that he loved me or because he was finally opening up to me as a friend?
"That's strange," I replied, "I've never heard of that happening." Except that I was having similar ones about him all the time.
"You were in them too," he said, his voice even quieter, "but it was like it wasn't you... I can't explain it."
"Dreams are weird," I agreed, but by voice was shaking. What if I told him now? Konan had said I could try, right? I didn't think about the fact that she had said that it would be unsuccessful, but what else did I have to use? "Sasuke..." I began, and everything froze. I groaned, did she have to appear now?
"I warned you," Konan was standing ominously over me. "You will not succeed in telling Sasuke Uchiha who you really are."
"How do you keep turning up like that?" I complained, but it was mostly because I was disappointed. I had a strange feeling that if I had just pushed him a little more, he would have remembered me - if only for a second.
"He would remember you," Konan said, answering my thoughts, "but the consequences would be great. The enchantments placed on him that have prevented him from remembering you could be disastrous if he knew the truth."
"A-are you saying that the memory of me could kill him?" My eyes widened. "But why is he kind of remembering me? I mean, why is he always talking about his 'friend'?"
"Like I said before," replied Konan, "those are shadows of memories that he has kept. It is apparent that some of his memories are strong enough to fight the enchantments, much to our surprise."
"But-" I began to say, but she continued speaking.
"The reason Sasuke Uchiha hasn't been hurt by those memories," she explained, "is because he does not remember you at all. He does not know that the girl in those memories is you." To my surprise, she sounded apologetic.
"I hate this," my voice wasn't shaking as bad, but I still felt like crying. "I know this is probably stupid, but... is there any way that I can speak to him - the Sasuke that knows me - i-if I die? Just so that he can know that I'm sorry."
She gazed at me with her glassy blue eyes. "Sometimes I wonder if we did the right thing," she admitted. Before I could say anything, as usual, she was gone.
"Sakura?" Sasuke said. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I lied. "I think I'm just tired too."
We called it a day then. For once I didn't jump at the opportunity to be with Sasuke for the rest of the day. Instead, I went back home in a trance, avoided my mom (who was in the kitchen), and hid in my room for the rest of the night.
I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened - was I stupid to think that I could get him to remember me for a second? There was something about the memory of me being toxic for Sasuke that made me feel uneasy. If only I had thought it through the night he had confessed to me, but I had been confused too. I hadn't meant to act the way I did, but there was no excuse for my actions. Giving up my life for him was the only thing I could do to make up for it, and it involved him forgetting everything about me.
I couldn't fall asleep that night until early in the morning, not with the thoughts running through my head. He wouldn't remember me, I thought, if I died. He wouldn't even know what I did... But did I want him to? Was it worth it to have him realize what had happened after I was already dead? No, that wasn't fair for him either. He hadn't asked me to do this for him. When I finally fell asleep, there were no dreams.