note.

SDL is currently on hold until the end of this month. The chapters are now much longer than before.

track 6.

The next day, when the pair try to approach Sasuke and apologize for their trickery, he doesn't answer because he doesn't trust himself to be able to say something calmly without snapping at both of them.

He doesn't quite feel the anger, just something akin to betrayal.

Used.

By the two of them.

Like they just needed him as a plaster until they found something better.

Ignoring Sakura pleas for him to please 'look at her' and 'let her explain', he turns to Naruto and asks him to meet up in the roof. Wordlessly, he allows Naruto to trail behind him with a mixture of guilt and worry as he walks up.

"Look. Sasuke, we know what we did was wrong and we are so, so sorry. Sakura-chan's going to come to practice with me after school today and we're going to explain it to the others. Sakura-chan and I are going to fix everything. We won't drag you into it."

Sakura-chan this. Sakura-chan that. They were the new 'we' apparently.

Sasuke couldn't hear anything else.

Why should Sakura be the one who takes care of everything when Naruto was the origin of the problem?

"If you were so desperate, you could have just asked me. You didn't need to drag Sakura in this."

"I did not 'drag Sakura in this'! She offered to help!"

"Because she's nice, Naruto. Sakura is nice. She's not one to leave people alone if they need help."

Sasuke closed his eyes in resignation, sighing deeply as he re-arranged his own feelings of anger towards Naruto. Naruto and him always fought, but he was never as needlessly malicious as he was now. It was ill placed, the idiot might have done wrong, but he was projecting his own troubled feelings regarding Sakura onto Naruto.

Next to him, in the silence that reigned amongst them, as he realised that Sasuke was right, Naruto visibly slumped. Working the gears around in his head for a way to fix things in a way the two of them were both used to by now.

"I couldn't have asked you." He mumbled. "Your shit's way too angsty, the others would have been able to tell straight away. And Sakura's work is good. Real good, none of what we were writing would have come close to this. Our lyrics are too rough for this type of tune. The sound isn't right. We need her."

"Ah." Sasuke nodded. Naruto was right for once. Sakura did the job that none of them could - she wrote the song. And she did it better than any of them could.

"And I'm going to ask the others to let her work with us as well."

"No. Don't." The others were not going to be as accepting of Naruto's white lie. Not when they weren't as close to Sakura. "Keep it to the three of us. Do not tell anyone else."

Looking back up at the darker haired of the two, Naruto nodded stiffly. He just hoped Sasuke wouldn't be as rough about it with Sakura.