Sasuke eyed his car, which was currently up on a lift at the back of a large garage. It had been here for over a week already, but he'd heard that this was the best repair shop in town. They'd better live up to their reputation. He couldn't see the person working on it, but considering the value of the model, he assumed it was one of their best mechanics.

"Are you almost finished with it?" He asked.

"Yeah, it's just about done. It'll be another day or two at the most." A girl's voice came from beneath the car, and then she pushed herself out.

He stared at her. The first thing he noticed immediately was her hair, which was shockingly pink and looked strangely natural. She looked at him for a second and then got off the roller seat. She looked about his age, and was wearing a gray tank top and jeans spotted with grease stains. "Hi. You're Sasuke Uchiha, I'm guessing?" Her eyes were a mesmerizing shade of green.

"You're a girl." He said, and then cursed himself for how stupid he sounded. Then again, since when were girls like her good at fixing cars, except in ridiculous action movies?

Her eyes narrowed. "And?"

"You know what you're doing?" He asked skeptically.

"Seriously?" She crossed her arms. "No, I just spent an hour under your car to mess it all up. Just so you could look at my boobs when I came back out. Because girls who work on cars are supposed to be super sexy, aren't they?"

He hadn't been expecting that. At all.

"I didn't mean it like that." He said irritatedly. "I was just surprised."

"Right." She said.

"Sakura, is something going on?" A man came around the corner. Sasuke recognized him as Kakashi Hatake, the owner of the shop. He had a bandana over the lower half of his face.

"Nope, it's all fine, Kakashi. Just the usual sexist bullshit."

He sighed. "Why don't you go check on Iruka with that battery problem? He was having some trouble."

"Yeah, sure." She snatched a rag off the floor and disappeared around the corner.

The man stuck out his hand. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Kakashi Hatake, I own this place."

"Sasuke Uchiha." Sasuke said.

"Sakura has to put up with a lot from new customers, but she's one of the best we've got." Kakashi said. "I'd only trust her or myself with your car. There's a lot of temperamental stuff down there."

"Hn." Sasuke frowned and looked at his car. "So a day or two?"

"Should be a day. But we're pretty busy right now. Come back Saturday morning, it'll be done. We can give you the final statement then."

"Good. Thanks a lot."

"No problem."

Sasuke made his way back to the front of the shop and then out to the car, where Naruto was waiting.

"How's it coming?" His best friend asked. The blond boy was lounging lazily in the driver's seat of his car.

Sasuke shrugged and got into the passenger seat. "Two days."

"Hey, that's not bad, teme!" Naruto started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

"There's a girl working on it." Sasuke said.

"Yeah, Sakura-chan. Pink hair, right?"

Sasuke turned to him, frowning. "You know her?"

"Yeah, we went to elementary school together, we were friends. But she went to KCHS, not the Academy. Jeez, I haven't seen her in forever! I guess I forgot she worked here. Is she still super beautiful?"

"Hn."

"Aw come on, teme! Just admit it." Naruto grinned.

"Shut up, dobe." Even Sasuke knew that super beautiful didn't even begin to cover it.

Naruto dropped Sasuke off at the repair shop early on Saturday morning. He waited in the front room for a few minutes before Kakashi Hatake came out, several minutes late.

"You're early!" He said. "Follow me."

Sasuke followed him to the back of the shop. Music echoed through the large garage and there were several people around. Kakashi opened a door that led to the back parking lot. And there was his Jaguar, freshly washed and gleaming.

"I'll go over everything with you and then I can give you the statement." Kakashi said.

"Yo, Kakashi! Mr. Akimichi's here and he needs to talk to you!" A guy with brown hair who looked about Sasuke's age stuck his head out from the door of the shop.

"Alright, Kiba, thanks." Kakashi looked back at Sasuke and then said to the guy, Kiba, "Get Sakura for me, will you? I have a feeling the discussion with Mr. Akimichi will take a while."

"Yeah, sure." Kiba turned around and Sasuke heard him yell, "Hey, Sak! Kakashi wants you in the back lot!"

A moment later, Sakura appeared. Her hair was in a ponytail again, but today she wore a black Hatake Auto Repair t-shirt.

She saw Sasuke and immediately narrowed her eyes. "What is it, Kakashi?"

"I need you to go over the repair details for Mr. Uchiha's car. I have to talk to Mr. Akimichi."

"I'm in the middle of a rewiring." Sakura said.

"And I have a customer waiting." Even with the bandana covering his mouth, Sasuke could see that Kakashi was smiling.

To his surprise, Sakura gave him a slight smile. "Alright, you win." She brushed her hands off on her jeans and came out to them.

"I'll leave you to it, then." Kakashi went back inside with one final glance back to them.

"Listen," Sasuke said abruptly before really realizing what he was doing, "What I said last week, I didn't mean it the way you took it."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Alright. It's fine. I get it all the time, but occasionally it's just one time too many."

"Hn."

"Anyway, can we get started? I've got a ton of stuff to do today." She pulled up the hood of his car. "And before you ask if Kakashi should be doing this, I did all of the work, so you can trust what I'm saying."

"Didn't I just apologize?" He said irritatedly.

"Apologies have nothing to do with real opinions." She said simply.

Then the pink-haired girl, who seemed the least likely person to know anything about cars, proved all his expectations wrong by launching into a technical explanation of everything she'd done on his car. Sasuke prided himself on his knowledge of cars, but some of the stuff she was explaining he had no idea existed.

She also looked completely confident in everything she was saying, and was completely absorbed. When she finished, his male pride was slightly hurt: a pink-haired girl knew way more about cars than he did.

"Understand everything?" Sakura said with a slight grin that told him she knew exactly what he was thinking.

"Yeah. You know a lot." He admitted grudgingly.

She smiled. "Well, I'm glad you think I'm worthy of your Jaguar now."

"Hn."

"Alright, I'll take you back to Kakashi's office so you can get your bill. It's not going to be that cheap, but you've probably figured that out already."

"Yeah. Thanks." He said irritatedly.

She led the way back into the shop, ponytail swinging slightly. Behind the front room was a spacious office with pictures of cars and some people pinned up all over the back wall.

"You in a hurry? Kakashi's taking a long time."

Sasuke shrugged.

"Okay…Well, I can find the cost summary if you want."

She sat down at the desk and started to rifle through the contents of a large file cabinet. "Uchiha, right? Here it is." She handed him a few sheets of paper.

He took it and read it over. Expensive, but not as expensive as he'd expected, which was always a good thing. He started to fill out the required sections and then looked up at her suddenly. She raised her eyebrows.

"You don't know a guy named Naruto Uzumaki, do you?" He asked, without knowing what made him say it.

To his surprise, she laughed, a real laugh that he immediately wanted to hear again. "Naruto? Wow, I haven't thought about him in a while. Is he a friend of yours? That would surprise me."

"Aa. So you do know him?"

"Yeah, he used to ask me out all the time in middle school." She smiled. "We were friends. We sort of drifted apart in high school, though. I went to KCHS." She shrugged.

"Where are you, KU?" She asked suddenly.

Sasuke nodded. He was going to be a sophomore at Konoha University. He wondered briefly if she went there too, but figured he'd know, since he'd never heard Naruto talk about her before. Why hadn't he ever said anything about her? Sasuke wondered. Despite all of his reservations, this Sakura girl was making a space in his mind that he couldn't seem to get rid of, and he didn't really know why. It was something about her, and not just the fact that she was ridiculously beautiful…He couldn't say hot, because that description didn't seem good enough. And he'd only ever seen her in dirty work clothes.

He wondered if he had a boyfriend. Maybe that brown-haired guy in the shop.

She was looking at him with an expression that was hard to read.

"You want to sign it, or wait for Kakashi?" She asked him, and he realized his pen was frozen over the line for his signature.

He scribbled his signature.

"Kakashi'll send you the bill, if you don't have any other questions." Sakura said.

"Alright. Thanks."

"No problem." She opened the door and led the way out. "Let the Jaguar warm up slowly, about ten minutes before you go anything above forty."

"Hn. Right."

She walked with him back into the body shop and waited in the doorway for him to go back to his car.

"Thanks." He said, cursing how awkward he probably sounded.

"No problem." She turned and went back into the shop.

Sasuke went out and got into his car, which felt peacefully familiar. It started smoothly, no squeaking or anything, and as he started to drive he realized there really was a discernible difference. She was good, he realized. Really good.

Her face and her smile stayed in his mind that night, and in the following days. And Sasuke realized it wasn't going anywhere.

A/N: So this story started because of a random idea but also because I wanted to write something that completely contradicts the typical 'good girl Sakura meets bad boy Sakura' idea (which is ridiculously overused). And I just wanted to write a really badass Sakura (not that she's ever not badass, but still. Her character gets dumbed down so often). For any of you coming from B(P)B, it's much more immediate sasusaku (lol). This is definitely a gritty story; M for language and eventual sexiness if I'm brave enough haha. Anyway, hope you enjoy and tell me what you think.

Thanks for reading :)