It would have been laughable for both of them to try squeezing into the twin bed in Sakura's bedroom, so later that night Sasuke settled down in a sleeping bag on the floor. After dinner they had gone out to the little backyard for dessert and sat there talking. Despite the fact that it was only eleven, there was a three-hour time difference between Konoha and Kumo, and he and Sakura had gone upstairs together, yawning.

Sakura switched off the light and they lay there in the darkness. There was an unspoken agreement between them that it would feel extremely dirty to do anything with her parents just down the hall.

"So how was tonight? It wasn't too weird, was it?" Sakura asked.

"No. Your parents are really...chill."

Sakura snorted. "Well, you're not the first guy I've brought home to dinner. They've always been relaxed about that stuff. Once I was past like sixteen, that is."

"I just felt normal. For once. Usually with people..."

"Yeah, I know. They're not the kind of people that fawn over celebrities. Plus they only know you as my boyfriend, not as a rock star or whatever. And I've told them enough about you that I guess they sort of know you. They're not too suspicious about your intentions."

"Not too suspicious?"

"I mean, face it, Sasuke. On first glance you're not a parent's first choice for their young, naïve only daughter." He could hear her grin.

"Funny."

There was a pause. "Tomorrow I'll show you all my old haunts," Sakura said.

"You're not worried about..."

"The press? It's Konoha. Plus Tsunade's tip-off was successful."

"Tch. Clever," Sasuke said.

"You're good with walking around, right?"

"Yeah. Sounds good."

They woke up early the next morning. Sakura had packed next to nothing, and just pulled on a t-shirt and shorts. They slipped out after a quick breakfast; her parents were already at work.

Konoha was a nice town, less of a high-rise city than Oto. Sure enough, there was no sign of paparazzi, so they could walk around freely (albeit with the flimsy disguise of sunglasses and hats). It was refreshing to be outside without rapid flashing and yelling all around them, and Sasuke actually felt himself relaxing as Sakura led the way around. It was bright and sunny, despite Sakura's warning that Konoha's weather was much more variable than Kumo's.

"I'm gonna take you to Ichiraku's, too," Sakura said as they wound their way through a little park near the center of the town.

"Whatever you want," Sasuke said, smirking. Their hands were entwined. They could've been anyone, really. It was a weekday, but there were a fair number of people out and about. It was a miracle scenario: exactly zero people had come up for an autograph.

"Sakura?" Oh no. Sasuke clenched his teeth as Sakura turned around to face whoever had called her name. Of course someone would recognize her the moment his guard was fully down.

A blond guy jogged up to meet them. "Shi?" Sakura asked, eyebrows raised in surprise. Then she grinned. "Wow, hi! It's been a long time."

"Shit, I didn't expect to see you back here anytime soon, Sak," the guy said. "I saw you on TV like last night, it was crazy. You're everywhere these days. Surprised you even remember my name by now."

"Oh, come on. How are you?"

"I'm good, I'm good. School starts again in a week."

Sakura laughed. "Oh God, school. I kind of miss it."

"You wouldn't miss classes at KU. It's hell. So what're you doing back here, anyway?"

"We're just visiting my parents. It's Sasuke's first time—Oh, I should introduce you two. Shi, this is Sasuke. Sasuke, Shi."

"No need for introductions," Shi said, obviously star-struck. The thought gave Sasuke a sick sense of satisfaction. "It's really awesome to meet you." They shook hands. Sasuke had a few inches on him.

"We were friends in high school," Sakura explained to Sasuke.

"More than that, I'd hope," Shi grumbled jokingly, and Sasuke disliked him even more.

"Alright, we dated for a few months during sophomore year. Before I started dating my guitar," Sakura said.

"Rough being dumped for that thing," Shi said with a laugh. Sasuke didn't smile.

Sakura rolled her eyes but smiled. "Well, we should get going. I promised Sasuke I'd show him the high school."

"Sure, yeah. We should catch up sometime if you've got time," Shi said with a grin.

"Definitely," Sakura said with a smile.

"You dated that guy?" Sasuke asked once Shi was out of earshot.

"Yes, I did," Sakura said. "Don't look so disgusted."

"Seemed like a jerk," Sasuke said.

Sakura snorted. "Are you seriously jealous? Oh my God."

"Not jealous," Sasuke muttered.

"Right." She shook her head, amused. "Look, Shi's not my favorite person, but he deserves the benefit of the doubt."

"Hn."

Despite multiple hours of walking around that day, Shi was the only person they ran into that Sakura knew, not counting a waitress at Ichiraku's, which ended up being as good as Sakura and her parents had said it was.

"It's amazing what people miss when they're not looking for it," Sakura remarked as they walked back to her house late that afternoon. "It's kind of a miracle that no one recognized us. It's not like this is a backwater."

"Maybe they just pretended not to notice us," Sasuke said. Just by making eye contact with people on the street, he privately suspected that was the case.

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense." Sakura looked around. "That's almost worse, honestly."

Sasuke glanced at her, amused. "You'd rather have a screaming mob?"

She nudged his arm. "It's never that bad."

"You've never been anywhere unsupervised. Should've seen our first tour." Or any tour since then.

"People condemn enthusiasm too much," Sakura said. "Granted, there's a limit at a certain point. Like when everyone tramples each other to get closer to the stage." She was referring to an infamous incident near the end of Firestyle's second tour, when a crush of people had practically been pushing each other down to get closer to the stage. Security had stepped in and the show had been stopped for almost half an hour.

"Exactly," Sasuke muttered.

"Oh, well." Sakura grinned and grabbed his hand. "Ooh, my high school's up this way. Want to see it?"

"Sure."

Their first week in Konoha passed in a haze of contentment. Being with Sakura obviously had something to do with it, but Sasuke couldn't help feeling an affection for the place.

After the one trip to Ichiraku's, they didn't go out anywhere else to eat; instead, Sakura bought an overflowing cart full of food for her parents, who cooked a series of dinners that Sasuke stuffed himself with. You didn't miss home cooking when you had never had it, but he was fairly sure after this trip he wouldn't think the same way about food.

On Saturday night after dinner, Sakura pulled Sasuke out the door without a word to where they were going.

"What are we doing?" Sasuke asked as she hopped in the driver's seat of the car.

"I'm playing this little pub place," Sakura said. "I know the owner, I used to go there all the time in high school." She grinned. "I asked if I could come play a set. I didn't want to tell you until now because I thought you'd try to convince me I shouldn't do it."

Sasuke shook his head. "How big is the place?" Anywhere that Sakura was playing was sure to be swamped by her fans.

"It's pretty small. You know, typical dark basement kind of thing." She shook her head. "I know what you're thinking, but they didn't advertise it, so no one should know except for a few of my friends. It'll just be the normal crowd there. Hopefully."

Sasuke raised his eyebrows but didn't argue. "If you start a mob, don't bring me into court."

"Your devotion is overwhelming," Sakura said, pulling out of the driveway.

The place was packed with people at tables and couches; it seemed like a typical hipster hangout, with graffiti on the walls and minimal lighting. But it was comfortable and the acoustics seemed to be good. Sakura had disappeared into the back the minute they arrived, shielded by a few people.

Sasuke had glanced at the messy noticeboard with that month's music schedule when he'd come downstairs. The biggest names were a few indie singers who seemed vaguely familiar, but the majority were bands that were definitely local. He smirked when he saw 'Sakura Haruno' in tiny black letters on that week's listing, almost totally obscured by the name of the band that had the slot before her. Whoever owned the place was really taking the 'no advertising' thing seriously, Sasuke thought with a smirk. But he couldn't blame them; one word that Sakura was playing here, and they'd have to shut the place down because of the sheer number of people trying to get through the doors.

Sasuke pulled his baseball cap lower over his eyes—maybe it was unnecessary in a place like this, but he didn't want to risk anyone seeing him—and found a tiny table at the back of the room. There was a soft punk band playing when he came in, and he listened skeptically. Stupid name (Bean Jam Kings), but they actually weren't bad. Sasuke realized that this was probably a decent hole-in-the-wall type of place; he'd played in similar venues with Naruto, when they were in high school and just starting out. Most of them had been much dirtier than this one.

It was rare that he went out to hear any live music anymore, a side effect of being universally recognizable no matter where he was. Sasuke realized he missed this kind of environment, where musicians just messed around and the people in the audience were game for anything.

The band finished their set to a huge round of applause and whistles.

"We're gonna clear off now," the greasy-haired lead singer said. He was smirking and definitely in on the surprise. "Next act should be pretty good. Thanks, guys." They cleared off the stage to and people looked around, confused. They probably thought the band would be on for at least another fifteen minutes. Everyone started whispering, especially when one of the band members brought out a single wooden stool and set it down by the mic stand.

And then Sakura came out.

Sasuke could hear actually gasps from people, and he wanted to laugh. There were three girls sitting at a table close to him, and they both clapped their hands over their mouths, eyes wide. People started cheering

Sakura laughed at the reaction, and Sasuke smirked. "Hi," she said, and people whistled. She was wearing Chuck Taylors, jeans, and a black t-shirt. She had cut her hair before leaving Kumo, and the shorter, choppier length suited her. With her battered acoustic guitar slung over one shoulder; she could've been any aspiring musician. "Thanks for the nice welcome." She grinned. "The one condition for coming here was that it had to be a total surprise, but it's good to be back. Genma thinks it would be a fire hazard if we announced it, and my ego agrees, so try not to broadcast this all over." People laughed.

Sakura started to tune her guitar and played a few chords.

"So since this is sort of an unofficial thing, I thought I'd just jam." She said. "You all know your stuff, so that'll probably be more fun." A few people whistled. "And I have some new stuff which I might try out on you, so tell me what you think." She flashed a smile.

She started strumming a beat that Sasuke recognized as a song from her first album. People were already nodding along. Sasuke wondered how often she'd performed here before she'd been discovered. She'd only mentioned watching people here, but he found it hard to believe that she'd never played the place herself.

Already she was so comfortable, getting into the groove of her song, and Sasuke realized that this was the kind of the performance she loved the most. Just her and her guitar on the stage, nothing too complicated. She rarely had the chance to do things like this. For the first time, Sasuke saw her as the musician she had been before the evolution of this past year—the musician she wanted to be again. He was bowled over by it.

He had fallen in love with her despite the trappings of the pop world surrounding her: sparkly outfits, backup dancers, flashy choreography, bubblegum song arrangements. Stripped of that production, she was even more mesmerizing. Sasuke could count on one hand the number of people who had that much power on a stage through their presence as well as their music.

Not for the first time, he had the nagging feeling that she deserved much better than him. When he thought about meeting her for the first time, disgusted by her presence and everything she stood for, he wanted to bash his head against a wall.

"Alright. I want to try a new song out," Sakura said.

Her fingers picked out a more complicated rhythm. People were already whistling when she started singing, and Sakura smiled. Sasuke hadn't heard this before, though she hadn't shared anything new with him recently. They'd only been back together for a few weeks, and he hadn't suspected she'd been writing new stuff. He itched to pull out his own guitar and harmonize.

Fifteen minutes later, Sakura closed out the show with an old hit from her first album, stripped down to a version with barely-there acoustic guitar. The cheers at the end went on for over a minute.

"Thanks. You guys are awesome," Sakura said. "I've got a bunch of CDs with me, so I'm gonna do an impromptu signing out front if you want to stick around." She grinned, and people got even more excited. The girls near Sasuke looked like they were about to faint. He smirked. Sakura shouldered her guitar, and then she grinned mischievously. Sasuke swore she was looking right at him. "Oh, and Sasuke Uchiha's here. So he might stick around too."

Shit. He should've known she would do that.

The girls near him started hyperventilating, and the room became super loud again. Sasuke ducked out the back before he was ambushed. He slipped past a few people in the tiny front room setting up a few tables, and pulled open the door to the cramped hallway that he assumed led around to the stage.

He nearly walked right into Sakura, who was coming out alone, guitar over her shoulder.

"Oh, hey, Sasuke," she said with a grin.

"I hate you," Sasuke growled.

"No you don't," Sakura said, rolling her eyes. "So how was my set?"

"Fine," Sasuke muttered, even though it had been considerably more than fine.

"Do you know how infuriating you are? Honestly." Sakura sighed dramatically. "Come on, you can meet some of my friends. And take off that hat, dork. It's a terrible disguise."

Sasuke rolled his eyes but followed her back out into the front room. The few people that worked at the place were holding off a line of people, who freaked out (again) when Sakura and Sasuke came out.

Sakura waved and went to sit down behind the folding table that had been set up near the door.

"Alright, people, let's try to keep this organized!" A bored-sounding guy standing near the door said.

Sasuke sat down next to Sakura and crossed his arms. "I can't believe you're making me do this," he muttered to her.

"Oh, shut up. Everyone who comes here is super nice. And you never interact with your fans."

"Because they're insane," Sasuke said.

"You need to learn how to stop generalizing," Sakura said, shaking her head. "You guys can start coming!" she called to the first people in line.

It was the girls from the table next to Sasuke. They just stared at him and Sakura for a moment, and then one of them spoke. "Sorry, we're like, totally star-struck right now."

Sakura laughed. "That's okay."

"Could we...Could we take a picture with you?" another one asked Sakura, looking pained. She bit her lip.

"Yeah, sure." Sakura grinned. "Here, just come around..."

Sasuke moved his chair as far away from the picture as possible, and Sakura stood with the three girls around her while someone took their picture.

"Oh my God, thank you," one of them said. She was nearly in tears.

"Just don't ask Sasuke for a picture," Sakura said. "I pushed him into this at gunpoint."

"No she didn't," Sasuke said, glaring at Sakura. The three girls laughed.

"Alright, move along," the same bored guy said. "Lots of people here..."

"I can't believe you guys are dating. You're my OTP," one girl said.

Sakura glanced at Sasuke. "That's nice."

"Sorry, that came out, like, so weird." She giggled. "Would it be weird if I asked you to sign my arm?"

"Yeah," Sasuke said, and was surprised to feel mildly guilty at her resulting embarrassment.

"God, I'm so awful. Could you maybe sign my notebook?"

"Of course!" Sakura smiled. Sasuke honestly didn't know where her patience came from.

"You both are freaking amazing musicians," one guy said.

"Thanks," they both said at the same time. Sasuke had to admit, his ego didn't mind this.

The line started dwindle after forty minutes; people were being forced out by the staff as soon as they came up to the table. With only a few people left, Sasuke felt himself relaxing.

The last person in line was a teenage girl, maybe fifteen years old. She approached hesitantly.

"Sorry, this is really surreal," she said, staring at them.

"We've been hearing that a lot," Sakura said with a laugh, "but it never really gets old."

The girl smiled tentatively. "I play here on Thursdays, you've always been one of my inspirations."

"Thanks. That means a lot," Sakura said. It was so easy for her to talk to people; Sasuke almost envied it.

"And I love your music, too," she said to Sasuke.

"Hn. Thanks."

"I was wondering...if I could get a picture with both of you." She looked incredibly embarrassed.

"Why not," Sasuke said with a shrug. Sakura beamed at him, and then waved the girl over. They stood on either side of her as the bored guy took their picture.

"Thank you so much," the girl said.

"No problem. Just keeping playing, okay?" Sakura said.

The girl nodded eagerly. "Of course!"

As soon as she was gone, Sakura turned to him. "See, that wasn't too hard."

"Tch. You have any other surprises planned?"

"I'm not going to parade you around the town with a spotlight, so rest easy on that front."

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"I'm sorry if this was terrible," Sakura said. "People come on strong when they're passionate. I should've asked you."

"Would've left before you came out if I didn't want to do it."

"Well, that's reassuring, I guess." She rolled her eyes.

"You were really good earlier."

She laughed. "Thanks."

Later that night, they lay on the floor of Sakura's room together while she scrolled through her phone, reading the few articles that had popped up about her performance.

"It was probably a stupid idea," she said after several minutes of silence. "People will hate that they missed it. It feels like it was too exclusive."

"Don't be ridiculous," Sasuke said.

She didn't say anything for a minute. "Sometimes it just feels like too much, you know?" She turned her head to look at him. "Like, I thought I knew exactly what I was getting into. I knew it was going to be a ton of pressure. But it never lets up."

Sasuke nodded. "Nothing you can do." He met her eyes, frowning slightly.

Sakura leaned her head on his shoulder and looked up at the ceiling. "I just want to make music," she said quietly.

"Hn. Me too."

"And I know thinking that's coming from a place of privilege, but now I wonder whether I'm doing the whole fame thing right."

"I'd say you are," Sasuke muttered. "People can't get enough of you."

"Right now, maybe," Sakura said. "But one misstep and who knows."

"Constantly thinking about that is not what you should be doing," Sasuke said.

"Yeah." Sakura nodded and sighed. "I'm trying not to." Then she grinned. "I guess I've made enough money now to buy my own equipment and do my own thing if Hidden Sound ends up not working."

Sasuke snorted. "Yeah, right. 'Cause that's likely."

"I just want to be prepared for that scenario."

He shook his head and smirked. "Right."

"I tried to give my parents the money for a house," Sakura said suddenly. "They turned it down."

Sasuke turned to face her again. "Really?"

"Yeah. They don't want to move. The paparazzi haven't found them yet, which is good. But they really love this house."

"They just flat-out refused it?"

"Well, I told them I'd buy them a place in Kumo for them to stay when they come visit. My dad was shocked. They've never had that kind of money, obviously. The concept of a part-time apartment was a little weird."

Sasuke thought back to just a few months ago, when Sakura herself was shocked at the proposition of the two of them buying a place together while she kept her own apartment. "Hn."

"I hope they come to visit more often. I just feel more...Grounded, when I'm home. Which I guess means with the people that I care about."

"So here?"

She shot him a weird look. "I'm not just going to leave you out of the equation."

Suddenly, Sasuke's phone went off. He glanced at the screen: it was Kakashi. Sasuke sat up immediately and answered. It was nearly three am in Kumo, which didn't bode well. "What's up?"

"Sasuke, I'm sorry about this, but we need you back in Kumo earlier than planned."

"Why."

"Pitch Magazine wants to do a feature, and the only date they can bring you four in for the interview is Monday."

"Can't you negotiate another day?" Their band name should have more swaying power.

"Unfortunately, they won't budge. They're hiring their best photographer, and the magazine has a quick turnaround."

"Why do you want us to do it?"

"It's a good magazine, Sasuke. Appeals to a broad base. I know you don't need the publicity, but it would be good. And there's a possibility of a video series with them later on that I want to consider."

"Hn. So I should come back tomorrow."

"Yes, that would be perfect. It'll be tight with plane arrangements, but I can get you on a commercial flight."

"Okay."

"Great. How's Sakura?"

"Good," Sasuke said. "See you tomorrow, it's fucking late."

"Kakashi?" Sakura asked.

Sasuke nodded. "Have to leave early. Some stupid magazine thing." He lay back next to her.

"Oh." Sakura smiled slightly. "Celebrity calls."

Sasuke sighed. "I can blow it off."

"No, you can't. We would've only had a few days more here together, anyway. It's not a big deal."

"Thanks."

"Thanks for coming with me. I've had fun." Sakura closed her eyes.

"So have I," Sasuke said softly.

A/N: Leave a review if you're invested in this? I know the fandom has kind of scattered, but I also know some of you are still reading. Hearing from you guys increases my motivation exponentially.