"I need to talk to you about last night," Sakura Haruno said.

"Yeah."

It was the morning after, and the two of them were standing near their buses in the Ishi Suites parking lot.

Last night had ended before it went too far...if 'too far' was the right description. The two of them had been interrupted by someone passing through the hallway, and then they'd gone (staggered) back into the club. Sakura had disappeared, and (Sasuke had assumed) gotten a cab back to wherever she was staying. Sasuke had texted Naruto and then gone straight back to the hotel.

He hadn't made the connection that they would be staying at the same place, and probably leaving at the same time the next morning (leaving extremely early was the only way to avoid people waiting to catch a glimpse of them). The realization that he'd have to see Sakura again didn't hit him until he woke up, throat dry and head pounding. That was when he remembered what he'd done last night, and the only thought that had gone through his head was, shit.

Sasuke made a mental note to never get drunk with a girl, ever again.

"I—um…Look, I was really drunk. If I did anything…" Sakura trailed off. She was wearing a t-shirt, and though her hair was down Sasuke could glimpse a few red marks that stood out on her neck. He felt extremely uncomfortable.

"Yeah. Me too." He frowned at the ground. "Went too far. It shouldn't have happened." Every minute, he was angrier with himself for it.

Sakura nodded and bit her lip (way too attractively). Sasuke had no idea what he should say now.

"So…I guess I might see you in Ame. In a week or two." Sakura broke the silence awkwardly. They were avoiding each other's eyes; Sakura was fingering the hem of her t-shirt. She was wearing very little makeup and looked much younger, somehow. He'd thought she was his age, but maybe she was a year or two younger.

Honestly, it was hard to believe this was the same Sakura as last night; a whole other side of her had come out in the club. The drunk side, Sasuke thought, darkly amused for a moment before realizing that the exact same thing had happened to him. Jesus Christ. He hadn't even been completely hammered, either, which meant he remembered flashes of it. They were replaying in his mind, even now: her breath hot on his cheek, her fingers sliding down his chest, his hands on her waist, and—What the fuck is wrong with you, he thought angrily.

"Hn."

"It was, uh. Nice meeting you, I guess." She was bright red and looked like she'd rather be anywhere else (that was about how he was feeling).

"Aa. You too." Sasuke said without thinking. He didn't want to think about what he'd done last night. With Sakura Haruno, of all people.

And he especially didn't want to think about how it had felt.

"Alright. Bye." She turned and started walking away, clearly eager to get away.

Sasuke turned and started walking back to his own bus without a word.

Once inside, he sat down on the bench by the window. The bus started up immediately, and Sasuke watched the parking lot grow smaller in the distance. Good riddance.

"So…You two gonna keep in touch?" Naruto appeared, grinning, in the doorway to the back. Kiba was right behind him.

"Shut up, dobe." Sasuke said, glaring out the window of their bus and refusing to take the bait. He'd known this would come eventually, because he'd been so fucking stupid last night.

Kiba laughed. "Dude, when you said you weren't interested, I thought you were serious."

"Yeah, you were at it for a solid five minutes. Where the hell did you two go?" Naruto asked. "You disappeared."

"Out." Sasuke shrugged. There was no way Naruto was ever going to know the details. "Fresh air."

Naruto raised his eyebrows and grinned. "Right."

"Why would I lie."

"Oh, I don't know…"

Sasuke gave him a mutinous look.

"Really, though. That was pretty unexpected," Kiba said, an infuriating grin still on his face.

"We were shitfaced," Sasuke said through gritted teeth, knowing how unconvincing it sounded.

Kiba snorted.

"Aw, give him his privacy, Kiba," Naruto said. "I bet Sakura broke his heart."

"I'll kill you," Sasuke said in a low voice.

Naruto chuckled and then left, followed by Kiba. Sasuke knew he hadn't heard the end of it from them.

He'd been such an idiot…But no matter how hard he tried, for some reason he couldn't bring himself to regret last night. Not at all. And he wasn't really sure why.

He was supposed to hate Sakura Haruno, and this was really fucking irritating.

It was a day of travel on the bus, which they were all more than used to, but it meant Sasuke had to spend hours around Kiba and Naruto's shit-eating grins (and sniggers), which appeared anytime they made eye contact with Sasuke. Shikamaru had disappeared to his bunk as soon as they'd gotten on the bus, and it looked like he wasn't going to be up anytime soon, so Sasuke had no backup to shut them up. In the end, he stayed on the window seat, laptop open and music blasting into his headphones so he didn't have to interact in any way with either of his bandmates (or act on the strong, strong urge to beat them up).

Unfortunately, punk rock did nothing to distract him from Sakura Haruno, who wouldn't fucking leave his head.

When the other guys finally went to their bunks later that night (they wouldn't reach their next stop for a few hours, which meant sleeping on the bus), Sasuke stayed in the back and looked up Sakura Haruno. He wasn't going to risk doing it when Naruto and Kiba were around; if the word 'pink' even came up in conversation, they started giggling like five year olds. His music hadn't been loud enough to drown that out.

He had the back of the bus to himself now. And Sasuke hated himself for it, but he listened to her entire first album (a fact that he would admit to no one, ever).

It was decent. Even he couldn't pretend it wasn't, just like at her show the day before. His music ear took over everything else. Sasuke thought she sounded better live, but her music was undeniably good, despite obvious efforts by producers to turn it into mainstream pop. Only two songs had succumbed; the rest of the album was a style that was unique and, well, startling. Sakura Haruno was definitely legitimate; he didn't know if she wrote her own songs, but seeing her with a guitar for ten minutes had showed him that she knew what she was doing. And judging from the time they'd spent together at the club (as much as he didn't want to revisit that), he couldn't imagine that she didn't write her own music.

Sasuke was coming to the realization that she was going to be a serious problem for him.

Even after leaving Ishi behind, Sakura was still mortified. She never, never, did things like that. Let alone acted like that—just thinking about how she'd come onto him made her cringe. Sure, she'd gotten drunk her fair share of times with friends back home, and had been involved in plenty of hook-ups. But never like what she'd been doing with Sasuke Uchiha. That had been…Well, something else entirely.

Sasuke Uchiha. Lead guitarist of Firestyle, who was impossibly talented and also had a (pretty accurate?) reputation as being sullen and brooding. Tall, dark, and handsome.

Unfortunately, the handsome part was undeniably true. Sasuke Uchiha was ridiculously attractive, and the fact that he was a good kisser made it a hundred times worse. Sakura had prided herself on not falling in love with celebrities, but she had to admit that even though they'd never met, there was always something about him that had attracted her before this. And last night hadn't done anything to get rid of it. It's that stupid smirk, she thought, irritated. It made her stomach flip over like a middle school girl. Which was ridiculous.

She'd been drunk enough to hook up with him, but not drunk enough to forget every detail. Which meant that now the parts that she remembered were playing over and over in her head. The way his lips had felt on her neck, the pulses of electricity that had run through her body.

She'd never felt that with anyone else, and something told Sakura that it hadn't just been the alcohol.

She watched the outskirts of Ishi flash by; it had been a whirlwind trip, multiplied by whatever had happened last night. Sakura was sitting at the table in the front of her bus, guitar on the floor next to her. She almost picked it up, and then made a split-second decision to call Ino, her best friend back home. Sakura knew she wasn't going to be able to concentrate (and that's how she knew this was serious). She needed someone to talk to, even if it meant she had to spill the whole story.

Ino picked up on the second ring.

"Forehead! Oh my God it's been forever," she said in a rush, using Sakura's old nickname. No matter what had changed in Sakura's life, Ino had always been there.

"Are you okay? You sound totally out of breath."

"I got out of rehearsal literally a second ago," Ino said.

"How's it going?"

"Um, awesome." Ino had been dancing since before she could walk (even before she'd known Sakura, which was a long time), and was currently working as a backup dancer for several different people. She was hoping to move up to more well-known acts, but she loved what she was doing. "So what's up? How was the show last night? I'm so mad I couldn't be there. You and Firestyle." Sakura could hear her grin.

"Actually, about that…" Sakura played with a stray pencil lying on the table, not sure how to start.

"What. Did you meet them? Well, obviously you did. Oh my God, they better not be jerks, I won't be able to get past it if they are."

"Yeah, I met them." Sakura said sheepishly. "I waited until they finished their set, which was amazing—"

"Obviously. Just tell me what they were like, in person."

"Okay, let me finish. They were all super nice, for the most part." She thought about Sasuke's aloofness and couldn't help smirking to herself. "Sasuke Uchiha's a bit standoffish." When he's sober.

Ino snorted. "Yeah, that's clearly not a stage persona. So did you guys talk?"

"A bit. And then they just asked me if I wanted to come out to a club with them. Well, all of them except Sasuke."

"He sounds like a winner," Ino said with a laugh.

"So I went with them."

There was a pause. "Wait. You what?"

"I went. To the club. With them."

"Holy crap. Sakura, you went to a club with Firestyle."

"Yeah, I realize that," Sakura said, rolling her eyes.

Ino was practically giddy. "So was it awesome?"

"It was…interesting."

"Why? What did you do?"

"Not much. I mean, I was dancing and it was fun. I was talking to Sasuke Uchiha, actually. And…We were both drinking a lot." She couldn't say it.

Ino paused for a moment. Then, "You guys totally hooked up, didn't you."

"Um—"

"Don't even deny it. Oh my God!" Ino said triumphantly, and Sakura sighed.

"Ino—"

"Jesus Christ that must've been hot."

"Ino. You're not helping."

"Yeah, okay, sorry. So how was it?"

"It got really, um..."

"PG-13?"

"I pulled off his shirt. We were in a back room." Sakura was bright red.

"Wow. Wow." Sakura could tell Ino was enjoying every second of this, and she was regretting even telling her.

"Anyway, we stopped before anything else really happened," Sakura said hurriedly. "But I saw him this morning and it was really, really awkward."

Ino laughed. "Well, it was just a one-time thing, right?"

"I think so." She'd assumed so, anyway. Sakura wasn't about to have her heart broken by Sasuke Uchiha. Who she barely even knew, anyway.

"Then who cares? You made out with Sasuke Uchiha. And he's filthy rich and famous and doesn't need the publicity, so he won't say anything about it. There are no disadvantages."

Except my feelings, Sakura thought. "Yeah, I guess. This whole thing is just so weird, though."

"Welcome to your life. Everything's gonna be weird. But come on, don't sound so bummed. You're going to Ame!"

Sakura smiled involuntarily at the thought. She was headlining in Ame, one of the biggest music festivals of the year. Just thinking about it was enough to stir up her stomach in excitement.

"Yeah, you're right. I wish you could come, though." Sakura hadn't been home in two months, and that was the last time she'd seen Ino in person.

"God, me too. You'd better keep me updated. I mean, if your schedule allows for it." Sakura heard the sarcasm in Ino's voice.

"Oh, come on," Sakura said, rolling her eyes. If her schedule ever stopped allowing time to talk to Ino, Sakura would quit the whole thing.

Ino laughed. "Alright. I have to get back, we're starting up again. Good luck this week!"

"Thanks. Talk to you soon."

"Bye!" Ino hung up, and Sakura put her phone away. She missed Ino the most at times like this; the days of confiding everything in each other were long gone, and ever since Sakura's career had taken off, she'd been traveling more and more often. Sometimes she was incredibly lonely, but she was also doing what she loved. She'd always known there would be a compromise with music, and she'd accepted it.

Sakura went to the back of the bus and curled up on the plush window seat. It was her favorite place, away from the alcove where her manager, Orochimaru, always worked and where her team tended to congregate. But for these few hours, she had the bus all to herself; just her and her driver, Tazuna, who also served as a security guard. It was an eight-hour drive to Ame, interrupted by a rest stop in three hours to pick up part of her team. But three hours was everything. She stared out the window, watching the highway and rocky hills go by.

She couldn't stop thinking about Sasuke Uchiha. Or last night. And despite everything, Sakura couldn't bring herself to regret it.

A/N: Would've had this up earlier, but ffnet decided to stop working.

Anyway, unlike cars and football, I actually know a good amount about music from playing/listening to it lol, so I'm not totally fudging everything here. Thanks for all the reviews so far.