Sai/Sakura Fanfic: That Porcelain Smile

Summary: Sakura and Sai are sent on a mission together. They have to know and trust eachother in a way that makes them perfect teammates. Sai knows that this is impossible with Sakura's emotions running rampant after that Uchiha. Will Sai piece together Sakura's porcelain heart before she breaks his porcelain face?

Note: They are about 20 in this fanfic…deal with it.

Chapter One: Ignoring You

"AAAIIIIIIEEEEE!!!!" Sai's poor ears popped just before a small but powerful fist connected with his face. Sakura stood red-faced while clinging to a towel with one hand while the other one was in a fist after punching the artist into a tree four meters away.

"Geeze Ugly, that was highly uncalled for!" The pale ninja pulled himself out of the now bent tree trunk while rubbing his swelling cheek. Sakura was insane, Sai swore that she was.

Sakura looked at him, her eyes burning like flames before throwing a kunai at him, which he caught effortlessly. "MAYBE IF YOU WOULDN'T JUST BARGE IN ON A GIRL WHEN SHE'S BATHING THAT WOULDN'T HAPPEN!" When on long missions with the forest as a main setting, and with three boys as teammates, life sucked for her. Sai just shrugged arrogantly.

"I don't see what the big deal is, Ugly. I mean it isn't like there's much to look at." It wasn't even a second before the male was, again, sent flying through the woods and into another innocent tree. Sai looked up from his new "tree chair" and noticed that this time, the river was not even in sight. "She sure can punch." He said while rubbing his other cheek, which was now swelling to match the opposite cheek.

"AND STAY OUT!" Sakura's voice carried for many kilometers and the birds and other wildlife fled from their resting place in fear of the kunoichi. She sighed and dressed quickly, drying her hair with the towel. Sai was truly annoying. Not Naruto annoying, but the arrogant jerk annoying. Sakura really couldn't understand him and he just made her so mad. As much as she loved and respected Tsunade, her mentor, her mother, she had to think that she went off of the deep end with assigning Sai and her to this mission.

FLASHBACK

"Sakura, Sai, I have an important mission for the two of you." The Hokage stared hard at her student and the impassive boy next to her. "It is a special mission and you may not like it, but I assure you, it is of high importance to me."

"Of course, Tsunade-sama!" Sakura didn't hesitate to take the mission, even though she had no idea of the details. Sai just shrugged and nodded.

Tsunade looked at them both before continuing. "I cannot give you very much information about this mission, and you will have to infer what you can while you do it. Your instructions are simple, but completing them might be difficult."

With a nod from the two, she continued. "You have to put all your trust in eachother. Learn as much as you can about eachother. This is an undercover mission, of sorts. You two will be posing as a couple in Horenkenkai, a very popular village in the Wind country. A couple. You know, like courting, dating, whatever you kids call it." Sakura's eyes widened slightly but she smiled wearily nonetheless. "And this will be a very long mission. Months. You are to 'live' there and pretend you are just normal people, not ninjas. Also, watch out for any strange or dangerous signs."

"What signs, exactly?" Sai asked, finally showing a smidge of slight interest. Tsunade looked at him, blinking, before shrugging. "Any signs."

End of Flashback

Their mission began that day. Sakura packed and met up with Sai at the gates after saying goodbye to Ino, Naruto, Kakashi, and Yamato. It's been 2 days since then and Sakura was already about to murder Sai in his sleep. She couldn't help sigh as she went back to their campsite. Sai was there, tending to his paintings as usual. When she arrived he looked up.

"Are you going to make dinner, Ugly?" He asked with a bored expression. Sakura's eye twitched as she grabbed her wrist before it could punch him again. She went to the fire that he had gotten going and picked up their pan, refraining from using it to bash the artist's face in, and settled it into the flames. Setting a few fish on it that she caught while bathing, she sighed as she cooked. After a few minutes of silence, she looked over at the dark-haired man who was busy with his painting still. She looked back at the skillet before breaking the silence.

"Hey, Sai?"

"Hm?"

"….What are you drawing?"

Sai paused in his drawing, lifted it up and turned it for her to see the beautiful tiger, and went back to his business. Sakura said 'oh' before turning back to the fish, flipping them, and sighing again.

"What's on your mind, Ugly?" Sai said without looking up.

"What do you mean?"

"You keep sighing, as if you have something you want to say."

"Oh….I was just thinking about what Tsunade-sama said."

"She says a lot of things, Ugly, can you be a little more specific?"

"About how we should get to know eachother…"

"Hi. I'm Sai. Nice to meet you, Sakura Haruno. There, we know eachother. Mission complete."

Aaaaaand before Sai could look up, a red-hot fish was chucked at him, clocking him in the face. "NOT WHAT I MEANT, ASSHOLE!"

Sai glared at the pink haired girl as he plucked the fish off of his head. "This is yours now." He said coldly before tossing the fish back at her.

Sakura looked at the fish now in the dirt in front of her. "Well, then it's a good thing I caught more than that because I'm not eating anything that's touched your face."

Sai was drawing again, completely ignoring her as he did so. The kunoichi decided to ignore him in turn and started munching on one of the fish after it was done. The dark haired male looked at the fish in her hand and blinked. "Ugly, hand me a fish."

Sakura didn't say anything, she was ignoring him and that was that. "Ugly, didn't you hear me? I said give me a fish." Sakura's eyebrow twitched but beside that she had no sign of even knowing he was there.

Sai looked at the fish and his stomach growled. He grabbed his stomach and snarled himself. "Sakura, please hand me a fish?" He tried being polite. Sakura looked at him out of the corner of her eye and handed him one with a small smile.

"See? It doesn't hurt to be nice once and a while." She said but he was too busy digging into the fish as if he were starving. Sakura sighed, "Men…"

After a couple minutes in silence, the pink-haired kunoichi finished her meal and stretched. The sky was dark and she looked at the stars a moment before standing up. "I'm going to bed now, good night Sai."

Sai didn't look up but he raised his hand in a sort of wave before going back to his drawing again. Sakura walked over to the small two-person tent and crawled into it and into her sleeping bag. It wasn't two minutes before Sakura was sound asleep.

Sai looked over at the tent where he could sense that she was sleeping peacefully. He couldn't help but feel his own body groan with exhaust from the day's travels. A few more seconds of thinking and he stood up, resigning himself to go to sleep.

He crawled into the tent and curled up in his own sleeping back but found that Sakura was a cuddler and he felt his eye twitch as she inched closer to him in her sleep.

"mmmhmm…" She mumbled before she stopped moving and Sai found that he had to face her or else his face would be pressed against the tent siding uncomfortably, so he sighed and faced the sleeping girl. Her face was peaceful and he couldn't help but note that she wasn't ugly at all. He hated himself for thinking that, but he'd be damned if he ever openly said it.

With a last thought of calling Sakura 'ugly' much more tomorrow, Sai fell into his own slumber, pictures of the sleeping kunoichi burned into the unfortunate man's eyelids.