The band rose up to the stage to deafening screams.

It was contagious, really. There was an adrenaline rush like no other that came with performing in front of an audience like this. The lights were blinding and there was no way to tell the sheer size of the crowd other than their noise. The first chord of their opening song only made the screams louder, and Sasuke could feel the energy pulsing.

"YO, AME!" Naruto yelled after their first song, and the crowd responded with screams. "THIS SHOW'S GONNA BE INTENSE!"

They were doing six of their loudest, most vigorous songs. Ame was always a spectacle, and the main stage was too big to not go all out (at least, that was the thinking of the production team).

The jets of fire burst up again as they launched into their next song, and the screams intensified. Shikamaru had left his keyboard and was riling up the audience at the front of the stage. Sasuke felt the energy coursing through his body and then a glaringly bright light was shining on him, flashing red and white as he took up the song solely with his guitar. He couldn't see anything, but this was straight music, and he tore up the solo like it was the only thing on his mind. Then Naruto slammed the bass drum, taking up the beat again, and Shikamaru and Kiba joined back in. Sasuke could barely hear his guitar over the crowd.

"We've got one last song for you," Shikamaru said what could've been an hour or five seconds later, leaning into the microphone at the front of the stage. "And then we're out."

People were chanting the band's name. "Thanks for an awesome night!" Naruto yelled. He ripped off his shirt and hurled it out towards the crowd. "One, two, ONE TWO THREE FOUR!" The sound was being pumped even louder through the speakers as they launched into their final song.

The lights shut off all at once at the end, drenching the stage in darkness and causing the audience to go wild They were still chanting, but the band had already been told not to do an encore, so they left the stage quickly.

Sasuke's t-shirt was soaked in sweat, and all of a sudden he could see and hear again. They ducked behind the back of the stage, where a whole group of people was waiting. The sound of the crowd was slightly muffled behind the wall.

"Can we get you anything? A fresh shirt, or maybe some mineral water?" Someone asked Sasuke.

Two years ago, Sasuke would've scoffed at this. Now, he didn't give it a second thought, just shook his head and followed the other guys. Kakashi was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, by several trailers.

"Good show," he said to them, smiling slightly.

"Thanks, man!" Naruto, still at the top of his performance high, slapped Kakashi on the back and then drained a water bottle. "That crowd was awesome."

"They're always good," Shikamaru said, wiping his forehead. "Also, put on a shirt, Naruto."

"Dude, if we were taking off shirts you should've told me," Kiba said, pulling off his old one and accepting another from a waiting staff member.

"Sometimes that sort of thing can be overkill," Kakashi said, and Sasuke smirked. If there was a place for ridiculous choreography, it was Ame, but some things were completely stupid.

"Whatever," Kiba said, grinning. He tossed back a water bottle as well. "Damn, they're loud." The crowd was still screaming.

"Who's on after us?" Shikamaru asked.

"There's a break, and then Anbu's playing," Kakashi said. "So we should get out of the way. Our team's clogging the path."

They all got on a golf cart, which would take them back to the bus. Sasuke could feel himself coming down from the adrenaline rush. It had been a good crowd, he thought reluctantly. Not that the band should get anything else.

The golf cart brought them almost to the parking lot, but there was short stretch before the parking lot that they had to walk, since the lot was now packed with trailers. Unfortunately, the fans had found the area, and no matter how many people were around them, there was no way to be completely separate.

Security rushed the band down the path; there were people screaming on either side, held back by safety barriers. Sasuke didn't acknowledge either side, just walked fast. He'd learned to tune it out.

"Marry me, Sasuke!" Someone screamed, and he didn't even look up.

A minute later, they were back in the sanctuary of the barricaded parking lot, where they went back to the bus.

"Jesus Christ," Shikamaru said once the door was shut behind them. "They get more insane every year."

"We should've stayed behind to do some autographs," Naruto said, looking slightly disappointed.

"Relax, dude," Kiba said. "Those are the psychopath fans."

"Hn," Sasuke said. That was for sure.

"No, they're just energetic!" Naruto protested.

"Whatever." Shikamaru yawned. Twenty five minutes onstage had clearly drained him of all energy. "I'm going to bed."

Sasuke went to his bunk too, but not to sleep. He watched the live feed from the Anbu (a metal band) set on his phone. He couldn't help wishing sometimes that he could go out and see the performances himself. Not that being in a sweaty, screaming crowd was worth it. Still, he usually snuck out at least once.

He resolved to do that tomorrow, which was also the day that he knew Sakura Haruno was performing. Not that she had anything to do with it.

Sasuke had looked up the schedule to see when she was playing one of the smaller stages (he wasn't going anywhere near the main stage). It was early Monday afternoon; the band was free all day, which meant he had time to go out.

It was easy to get over to the venue; he knew the back paths. There was no way he was going to watch the whole thing. Just one or two songs, and then he'd go see whatever else he could catch before security flipped out that he was gone.

Sasuke reached the back of the open amphitheater a few songs into her set. Just from the sound of the crowd, before really hearing anything himself, he could tell she had them eating out of her hand. Typical.

It was a decent-sized venue and his view of the stage was blocked by some equipment, but there was a monitor nearby. When Sasuke had arrived she'd been in the middle of a faster acoustic song (he recognized it from her album) standing center stage with her guitar. He watched her on the screen, not her face so much as her hands.

She was riffing so subtly it was probably barely noticeable to the crowd, but Sasuke was extremely impressed. He couldn't explain it, but somehow he just knew that she wrote her own music.

It was just her, alone on the stage, and she started playing a slower song. This must be a strictly acoustic performance—whatever she'd done on the main stage had probably been a blowout concert with sets and everything.

Her voice was aching with emotion, and Sasuke thought vaguely that the song didn't seem like the right song to be playing at a festival like this. His eyes had moved to her face, slightly blurred on the monitor but clear enough to see every expression that crossed it.

By the third song he really noticed it. She did this thing sometimes when she played, closed her eyes and got lost in the music. It was one of those quirks that people tried to rehearse out of you when you went into the industry, particularly the pop world. Once you got big, after you made the huge hits, you could backtrack and go emotional again. But at that point the real music had been trained out of a lot of people.

Since the rock world wasn't so much about image (though maybe that was hypocritical), Sasuke hadn't had that experience. He resisted anything marketed.

He couldn't help being struck by it in Sakura. She was a musician, not just a performer, that was obvious. It was clear that she loved music, loved it as much as he'd loved it when he first started. Not that he didn't now, but something had just gotten a bit tired about the whole thing. He used to love every minute he was playing guitar, and while that feeling wasn't gone, he only really stirred when he found an interesting new combination, or figured out a riff that he really liked.

The applause and cheers at the end of the song pulled him out of his thoughts and suddenly he was moving away, past the crowd on one of the winding paths he knew from experience.

Sasuke snuck around to the area behind the stage, making up his mind as he bypassed security barriers. There were a lot of people milling around, but no one noticed him until he was much closer to the stage.

"This is a restricted area," a guy in a security uniform said, barring the way with his body.

Sasuke took off his baseball cap. "I should I have clearance."

"Ah. Sasuke Uchiha. Of course." He stood back immediately. The perks of being famous. Sasuke supposed he should still feel lucky that playing the celebrity card had worked, but confidence tended to get you anywhere.

Sasuke walked straight past him before he could rethink this. You're an idiot, he thought as he reached the trailers behind the stage, but he kept walking until he reached the stairs leading down from the stage. The applause for the song she'd been playing was deafening.

"Thanks!" He heard her say. "Thank you so much, this was awesome!"

A minute later she was coming backstage, completely alone, and Sasuke was seriously regretting this decision. But then she was at the top of the stairs, and she saw him.

Her eyes widened, and then she frowned. It looked like she was speechless. Still, she came down the stairs, and then they were face to face.

"I—What are you doing here?" She asked him, ignoring any kind of greeting.

"Wanted to talk to you," Sasuke said, cursing how stupid he sounded.

"Um…Look, I don't know what you'd want to talk to me about. I thought we agreed to forget the Ishi thing." She was blushing and clearly confused.

"It's not about that," Sasuke said.

She frowned. "Then what?"

"You want to go out for dinner sometime?" It just came out.

Sakura was clearly shocked, but she collected herself remarkably quickly. She raised her eyebrows. "Wait, seriously?"

He shrugged. "Aa."

She rolled her eyes and looked slightly amused. "Yeah. Sure. I mean, assuming this isn't some sick joke."

"Hn. No." He frowned. "Just figured I'd ask. That night at the club…"

He was pretty sure she could see right through him, because she smiled slightly. "Yeah, me too." She shrugged, but he could see that she was still blushing. He smirked with satisfaction. Clearly this hadn't been one-sided.

"How did you even get back here, anyway?" Sakura asked, frowning suddenly and looking behind him at the large security barriers.

He shrugged. "Wasn't hard."

"Oh, right, I forgot who you are," she said, shaking her head with a grin. "Here, do you...want my number?"

"Sure." They took out their phones and exchanged numbers. It was such a weirdly normal thing that Sasuke almost stopped. When was the last time he'd given his number to someone? Years ago, probably. If ever.

Sakura handed back his phone and glanced behind her. There were people starting to come out from the stage. "I have to go, I've got press stuff."

"Aa. Me too."

"So I guess I'll text you? I'm here for four days, I think."

"Us too. Just tell me when you're free."

"Um, sure." She still looked slightly puzzled by the whole thing, and Sasuke didn't blame her.

He went back the way he'd come, ducking behind a trailer outside the security barrier to avoid a group of girls who'd clearly just come from Sakura's show. Sometimes even the back paths weren't safe.

But he made it back to the bus without any other close calls. Naruto and Kiba were on the couch inside, watching the live feed of some performance.

"Where've you been, teme?" Naruto demanded when Sasuke entered the bus. "Don't tell me you snuck out to watch people! You should've brought us!"

"You don't know how to get around. You'd cause a mob," Sasuke said. It wasn't even a lie; Naruto knew how to summon people out of nowhere (probably due to his permanently loud voice), and always ended up surrounded by hordes of fans.

"That's my job," Naruto said, waving a hand. Sasuke rolled his eyes and Kiba chuckled.

"Where's Kakashi," Sasuke said. "I thought we had to go out."

"He's meeting with someone. We've gotta go do press in like half an hour." Kiba said.

"Great." Sasuke muttered. He ducked under the doorway and made his way to the back. As he pulled out his guitar to try and get something done before they had to go out for the evening, the past hour sunk in completely.

He'd asked Sakura Haruno out. Like an idiot (or a naïve teenager). God, he was stupid.

He didn't regret it nearly as much as he wanted to.

Sakura knew exactly what Ino would say if she heard about Sasuke Uchiha asking her out: "Don't get hurt."

And she knew the risks. In this business, people used you like dirt and threw you away the second they were done with you. Relationships could go the exact same way, and Sakura knew she was the naïve one in this case.

The more she was letting herself think about it, the more something like that was making sense: Sasuke Uchiha was famous for never doing anything remotely romantic with anyone. He was the epitome of a lone wolf. Clearly he had a system for this: hook ups here and there. He probably paid off the girls so they wouldn't talk. She'd heard rumors of similar arrangements with various people trying to keep up a reputation (it was all so disgusting).

But something told her that it wasn't going to be like that. It seemed stupid (Sakura knew Ino would roll her eyes if she attempted to describe it), but the way Sasuke had looked at her, not to mention how uncomfortable it had been, said that he didn't do this often. That awkwardness, which she could see flashes of underneath his carefully blasé attitude, was one of the reasons she'd been so preoccupied with him. Sasuke Uchiha had layers under the surface. Not to mention he'd broken a bunch of rules, going out of his way to even talk to her (even though he'd acted like it wasn't a big deal at all). And unless it had only appeared so because of some kind of ridiculous acting ability, he clearly hadn't thought out what he was going to say. If anything, it had slipped out reluctantly.

He would've had a system for this whole thing: get in touch with one of her assistants, or even have gotten her number that night at her club. If he'd really wanted to use her, wouldn't he have been a little cooler about the whole thing? She was pretty sure he hadn't liked her when they first met, at all. In fact, it had been such a negative feeling that she'd been surprised, considering it was coming from someone who radiated indifference all the time. And then that night had confused everything.

Jesus Christ, Sakura, she thought to herself. Well, what harm would one night do? She knew exactly what she could be walking into, and that was a bigger advantage than anything.

When she texted Sasuke a few days later, telling him she was free that night, Sakura resolved to go in lightly. No deep feelings.

Hopefully it wasn't too late for that.

A/N: Tell me what you think :)