Say It With A Straight Face

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summary: "Okay, Sasuke, here's how you can prove you don't like Sakura. Say 'I don't like Sakura' five times with a straight face!" "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-" "HA! YOU DO!" "SHUT UP! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!" Sure. Sequel to "Just Press 'Send' "

timeline: The characters are juniors in high school; I've also lumped Neji, Tenten, and Lee in with the juniors, to make it easier. I've made Temari and Kankuro seniors. A/U

notes: I can't help myself; I'm going to let myself get really excited for a minute. OH WOW, MY FIRST SEQUEL!! Okay, I'm done. Sorry.

Chapter One

Sasuke stood in front of the bathroom mirror, fastening the buttons on the dark blue collared shirt he was wearing, his messy, black hair flopping into his dark eyes. He impatiently brushed it away. He knew he was almost late, he had to meet his friends, and on top of that, there was a test in pre-calculus that he hadn't studied for. At all. It had been only a week, but eleventh grade already felt like it sucked. It was like once they left behind being sophomores, someone - someone very evil - hit the fast forward button. Three times. Until the DVD that was their education felt like it was very nearly cracking in half, it was spinning so fast. Well, you get the picture - junior year is one big head ache.

Don't get him wrong though - there were some good points. Great points in fact. Sasuke thought of one as he straightened the collar on his shirt - no more damn, scratchy uniforms that had to always be perfect and tucked in. It was a pretty subtle reason to love being a junior at his new school, but he would never have imagined how much he would appreciate being able to wear what you wanted, until he had been forced to experience the itchy, uniform-filled private school scene like he had for five years. Five years of those khaki pants that pinched you no matter what, and those stupid, plaid ties in school colors that matched the girl's uniform skirts.

As torturous as this sounded, there were even better things than escaping the private school and all it's damned fan girls. This great reason for enduring, maybe even loving, junior year was always in his head, not just when he pulled on comfy t-shirts. It was his friends.

Sasuke's best friend since elementary school, Naruto, was now at the same school as he was again, after being separated for three years of middle school and the first two years of high school. The goofy blonde was ecstatic to be back with his friend/brother. And even though he'd rather die than admit it, in a way, Sasuke was too. That was what best friends were for after all. In the single week Sasuke had been there, he'd met two other guys - Hyuga Neji and Nara Shikamaru, and the four of them stuck together. The concept of having a group of guys to hang out with felt totally new. Before, the Uchiha's only friends had been Naruto and a girl he had never even met in person before. The old school had been clogged with only two kinds of people: delusional stalker girls and their angry former boyfriends who had had a price on his head. Sasuke had been perfectly fine with that; he'd never needed friends before. But actually having them made him realise why most people thought they needed them. Friends made life better, and people think they need things that make life better.

And then there was his special friend, Haruno Sakura. No, she is not his girlfriend, and he knew that neither of them were fooling themselves into thinking that was the case. She was the other best friend that he'd never even known in person for awhile. They'd met in one of the strangest ways you could imagine. They were both writers on Fanfiction(.)net, one day he'd happened to review her story, and before long they were texting each other like best friends. They were best friends, other than Naruto, but it's possible to have two best friends (her and Naruto had become best friends too.) Then one day, coincidentally the first day of junior year, they had figured out that they actually were going to the same school. He smiled to himself, remembering the day - the look on her face was priceless.

Sakura liked him for who he was, and she was a cheerful, sweet, albeit slightly crazy person to talk to. Very opposite of him. One of the best parts was that she wasn't a fan girl. She openly punched him and yelled at him and fought with him and got on his nerves, and even told him a few of his Fanfiction stories sucked. He shuddered at the thought of her actually being part of the groups of crazy girls who stared at him and called him at home pretending to ask for homework, but it also almost made him laugh. She wasn't a fan girl, she was a friend - a precious one.

'And I'm just about late for meeting that friend,' he thought darkly to himself as he glanced for the billionth time at the round, cobalt blue kitchen clock on the wall. Sasuke grabbed his book bag and the large, black leather case that held his saxophone, pulled out his trigonometry book to study on the way, stepped into his shoes and left. Of course, forgetting the piece of toast he'd slammed into the toaster as his meager excuse for breakfast.

Cursing his watch, Sasuke ran to him and Sakura's spot - the big cherry tree halfway between each of their houses. As he approached the tree, Sasuke saw Sakura sitting under it already with her back against the trunk, waiting. She was reading a copy of her favorite book, Misery(honestly, he had no idea how such a cheerful, innocent girl could love a book about a crazy woman with an ax as much as she did.) She had a stick of chocolate pocky in her mouth like a cigar.

Sakura looked up when she heard him coming, and quickly stuffed Misery in her book bag and grabbed the pocky out of her mouth, probably hoping he hadn't seen her.

'Oh, how wrong you are, Sakura, how wrong you are,' he smirked to himself.

Sasuke swiped his bangs back in place and stood in front of her.

"Good morning, Sasuke!" she smiled up at him innocently, her green eyes wide and sparkling beneath her pink bangs.

He wordlessly held out a hand.

Her innocent smile turned into a dark scowl faster than you could say 'ax'. She glared up at Sasuke, who was now smirking, dug around in her bag, and pulled out a box of pocky.

"But, Sasuke, I just bought them," she complained, holding the box to her side as if protecting it, "And I don't care if I'm addicted to them! At least I'm not addicted to tomatoes like you, even though those are healthier I guess."

"You're hardly getting any closer to winning this argument, you know."

Her face went red, "Well, you suck!" she complained, her multipurpose catchphrase for when she couldn't come up with a comeback for him, "At least I'm not addicted to drugs like Paul Sheldon is addicted to Novril, you stupid healthy person," her face suddenly went white as she realized that she had just given away the fact that she had been reading Misery again. Honestly, she was way too easy to trip up.

Sasuke smirked, "No need to look like that - I already saw you. So," he asked casually, "Were you at the part where Annie chops off the guy's foot, or the part where he tries to kill her with the typewriter? Because those are the parts that freak you out the most, and your eyes were bigger than dinner plates." His stomach growled at the food comment.

She rolled her eyes, "The typewritter part, Mr. Smart Ass."

He smirked in satisfaction and easily stole the pocky away from her while she was preoccupied with insulting him.

Sasuke chuckled at the stupefied expression on her face as she stopped her rant and watched him play with the lid on the box. "I don't care if you freak yourself out with Stephen King books as long as you quiz me on my pre-calculus." Another nice thing about Sakura - he may be a genius, but she was like the genius's college professor who had the crazy hair and always managed to out-genius the pupil. Not like he was complaining about her hair though. He liked it enough - he really didn't like the color pink at all, but it was unique, like her, so it fit.

"Fine," she started to quiz him.

He opened the box of pocky and stuffed one in his mouth. God, he was hungry. Then another one.

"Okay, sine plus cosine equals the tangent squared by what?"

She looked up from the textbook when there was a lack of an answer.

"UCHIHA! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY POCKY! YOU HYPOCRITE!" she shrieked, dropping the textbook and running to get the precious pocky back, narrowly missing knocking his saxophone out of his hands.

They fought for the pocky the rest of the way to school.

Alright, this chapter was really just sort of an introduction, and to get you guys to understand the relationships between everyone here. Don't worry - the other chapters will be longer. (that was over 1400 words) Oh, Sasuke doesn't let Sakura eat pocky because it's not healthy for her and it's all she eats for breakfast, and she's not allowed to read Stephen King because then at night she gets freaked out and will call him from the corner of her bedroom at 2 am. Just to clarify those little inside jokes that you guys wouldn't know because these all happen in the weird little office cubical that is my brain.

I'm quite excited about the potential this story has, and I'm really pleased with how people were so on board with this and actually went out of their way to request it. I really had no idea so many people would consider humble, little 'Just Press Send' worthy of a sequel. Thanks so much for that. It's such a great feeling to have something you've created embraced by others.

Please let me know any thoughts or questions or anything you guys may have on this. Once again, thanks. Much love.