Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or else SasuSaku would be canon LOOOOONG ago.

Full Summary: Although Sasuke and Ino may seem like the hottest couple in school, what nobody knows is that there's no chemistry – and definitely no heat – between them because of Sasuke's lack of passion. In a desperate attempt to regain something that's never been there, Ino asks Sakura to test Sasuke and teach him all the little things that makes a perfect boyfriend. However, things become complicated when Sakura realizes she still has feelings for Sasuke… her boyfriend's best friend, and her best friend's boyfriend.

I remember very clearly what I wanted to be when I was younger.

Like all other girls, I wanted to be a princess. I wanted a Prince Charming

(preferably him)

in a shining suit of armor

(or just any clothes, for that matter)

riding on a white horse

(or driving a groovy sports car or a fancy limousine)

to come and rescue me. I wanted to play house, wedding, all the classic childish girly clichés – you name it.

But the moment he asked me, albeit sulkingly –

("what're we going to play?")

- I knew he'd never do that. Like, never ever. It just wasn't him.

He wasn't a Prince Charming. At all.

So, that's why I decided what we should play.

("I know, you can be a rockstar, and I can be a model!")

Because that was the closest I could get to that princess dream of mine.

We played it everytime. I desperately dreamed that it one day would come true.

I just never pictured that after all those years,

after all the time we've been apart,

that he'd be a rockstar, and that there'd be a model.

Only that that model wasn't me.

It was my best friend.

o0.

"Haruno Sakura, do you take Uchiha Sasuke as your lawfully wedded husband…"

She looked lovingly at him with emerald eyes, shyly pulling away a roseate bang that had gone astray from her face, placing it with the rest of her curled hair hiding beneath the thin fabric of the transparent veil. The priest's voice had already faded away in her mind, and she only just realized she was supposed to answer when the aforementioned gave her a slightly annoyed stare.

"I do," she merely whispered, her heart thumping faster as a rarely seen smile adorned her lips, that smile that was reserved for her – and her only.

"Uchiha Sasuke, do you take Haruno Sakura as your lawfully wedded wife, in sickness and health?"

His lips slowly detached themselves from each other, and the world seemed to move in slow motion; his hands clutched hers just a little bit tighter as his onyx eyes penetrated hers and seemed to gaze into her very soul, creating a moment of perfect bliss when –

"HARUNO SAKURA!!"

"Huh?"

Sakura jerked awake, her seat belt violently pulling her back as she threw herself forward from the sudden noise. She blinked a couple of times, her eyes trying to readjust, as she rubbed them with a yawn.

"Geez, can't you even stay awake for five minutes?" her best friend scolded her, rolling her azure orbs as she turned to look at her, irritation evident in her glare. "This is important for me, you know!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." She stifled another yawn as she straightened her back, then quickly grabbed hold of the steering wheel. "Keep your eyes on the road!"

"Aah!" the other girl exclaimed, alarmed; she made a rough turn, dodging a wildly honking truck driver, and then sighed out of relief as Sakura retreated to her own seat. "Don't scare me like that."

Sakura didn't answer. She leaned towards the car window, looking absent-mindedly at the rain pouring down as they swiftly moved past a large billboard sign welcoming them to Otokagure.

"Does my makeup look good?"

Sakura glanced sideways at her; the seemingly fake eyelashes (although she knew they were real) were curled perfectly, the rouge on her cheeks was natural, the foundation perfectly smooth, her lips plump with lip balm, lipstick and lipgloss. The bronze Dream Matte Mousse applied to her eyelids sparkled slightly in the glow from a streetlight they were just passing by, and the expensive Dior eyeliner Hinata had gotten her for Christmas seemed to make her baby-blue orbs bigger.

She turned away. "It's okay."

"Really?" Her voice was filled with anxiety. "Are you sure it's okay? I think I'm going to reapply some of the lipliner before we get there. I don't want to look messed up."

"You never look messed up," Sakura reassured her tiredly.

"Sakura!" she burst out reproachfully. "This is actually important for me!"

"Relax, it's not like it's the first time you get your face plastered on the cover on some magazine."

"It's not just some magazine, Sakura -- every magazine is going to be there! Not to mention TV reporters and everything. I even heard something about MTV…"

Sakura ignored her best friend's seemingly endless rant about paparazzi and bad camera angles as they pulled into the VIP parking lot of Arena 101, Otokagure's infamous concert hall. "And you know, no offense to Hinata, but she's no professional makeup-artist if you know what I mean –" Ino pulled out a lip-liner out of her petite Louis Vuitton handbag. "- but it's just that –"

toki wa shizuka ni teku no porisu wo tada hashirisatta

wasurekaketeta yume ni kizuita mada tokimeku

itsuka mita aoi sora wa yukisaki sae mo tsugezu ni

"Oh, Sakura, could you get that? I'm a bit busy over here," she sighed as she didn't avert her gaze away from her reflection.

Without responding, she reached into the blonde's handbag, pulling out a purple cell-phone, flinching only the slightest at the name displayed on the screen.

"Who is it? Is it Sasuke-kun? It is, isn't it?" the other excitedly asked.

"… yeah." She flipped open the cell-phone and answered. "Hello? Yeah, we're here now." She observed the current topic from the corner of her left eye, who was hurriedly putting on additional layers of makeup. "… She's just preparing herself. She'll be done by the time you're here. Yeah. Well, see you then. Bye."

"When are they going to be here?"

"In 30 seconds."

"WHAT? But you just said that I'd be – heeey, Sasuke-kun." Her lips quickly quirked upwards into a stunning smile as she gazed into the obsidian eyes of a certain someone standing right outside the window on which Sakura was leaning. The pink-head immediately withdrew, staring, somewhat startled, up at him.

"You look great…," he drawled as he opened up the door, helping Sakura out of the purple sports car, their eyes connecting for a mere second. The reaction was immediate; Sakura tensed, her earlier loose grip on his hand tightening somewhat, her eyes widening as she felt a shiver making its way down her spine.

"… Ino."

"Can I have your autograph, Neji-kun?"

"Kyaaaa – Sasuke-kun just looked at me –"

"No, you idiot, he was looking at me!"

"Who cares? Did you see Naruto-kun in there?! Was he shirtless?!"

"Kiba-chaaaaan – you're awesome –"

Shutting the door forcefully, the blonde exhaled in relief, then grinned at his fellow band members. "Man, that was one hell of a concert, wasn't it? Hey, did you see that girl in the front row? She looked like she was ready to kill herself when Sasuke-teme sang 'Kogane no Hikari' – and then there was this girl, she was ripping her shirt off, she had the –"

"Dobe, shut up," Sasuke interjected him abruptly, leaning back in the (much to his distaste) bright orange sofa. Said "dobe" glared at him menacingly and opened his mouth to protest, just to once again get interrupted, this time by Hyuuga Neji, the drummer of Konoha's Golden Leaf.

"I'm going to leave," he announced, deadpan; he glanced at a long-haired, milky-skinned girl sitting neatly in one of the fauteuils close to the door. "Are you coming?"

"N-Neji-onii-s-san," she stuttered, her face turning a deep shade of scarlet as she felt everybody's eyes on her as she spoke, "C-c-can't we st-stay a while l-longer? I-it's a F-Friday, after all…"

"Hinata," he began irritably, "I've strict orders from your father to bring you home before midnight, and –"

"Well, it's not midnight yet, is it, Neji?" Ino's voice sounded calmly from the sofa as she cuddled closer to the very still Sasuke. "C'mon, it's a Friday night and we're in Arena 101, backstage. Let the girl have some fun."

The scowl of disapproval that slowly spread its way across Neji's face showed clearly that he had different opinions about the matter, but Naruto, who could clearly feel an argument starting, cleared his throat and said: "Well, I want to have some ramen. How about we get some food, eh? I'm starved after the concert. Aren't you, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura, whose mind had been elsewhere, flushed slightly as she snapped out of her trance, and quickly diverted her jade orbs away from the boy sitting next to her best friend on the sofa when she noticed that he was returning her stare, and instead stared down at her feet, clad with black high-heeled stilettos, matching her black leather jacket that covered her billowy, pink cocktail dress.

"Aa," she responded uncharacteristically quietly, "I am."

"Great! Let's get some ramen, then," the blonde enthusiastically exclaimed, continuing his rant from before about Sasuke's desperate fangirls. But Sakura wasn't listening. She was busy looking at him, how close he was, yet so far away.

Then she shook her head. He is Ino's now.

Even though he never really was mine.

Blinding flashlights. Microphones shoved in their faces. Voices from every single direction, drowning them with questions they couldn't even answer even if they wanted to, as the reporters quickly disappeared out of sight, replaced with new ones.

Ino just graciously turned her head so that she somehow managed to face every camera lens, her usual gorgeous smile switched on as she elegantly walked – naturally catwalk-style – down the red carpet, more or less clinging to the lifeless arm of Uchiha Sasuke, who, in contrast to her, wore a face expression harder than stone.

Sakura just proceeded to keep up with her best friend, now and then flashing a shy smile at any camera coming too close.

"Man, you guys sure walk slow."

The pink-head jumped slightly as an arm almost naturally placed itself around her waist, the three's heads jerking towards the source of the sound simultaneously. She could only exclaim his name as she noticed who it was, even though her outburst was drowned in the buzz of the media surrounding them.

Her eyes immediately dashed to the Uchiha, and was astounded to see his left eye twitching the slightest and a frown starting to form.

She blinked in confusion. The frown was gone, and the twitching had stopped.

Was I dreaming?

"Naruto, if you walk with her like that, the paparazzi will think you're a couple."

The deadly calm in his voice made Sakura feel at unease, not to mention the way he had said her, as though it was something filthy and repulsive. In response, she felt Naruto's arm pulling her closer to him, as he grinned.

"What? Does that bother you?"

The world seemed to revolve in slow motion, just as in Sakura's dream, and she felt her cheeks heat up as she barely dared to look, inquiringly, at Sasuke. Her heart was pounding so fast and so hard she was sure that it'd jump right out of her chest –

"Hn. Give me a good reason why it should."

And he put his other hand in the pocket of his torn jeans, casually turning his back to them and leaving. Along with Sakura's heart, crumbled to pieces, leaving an imaginary trail of roughly scattered shards on the ground.

"Never mind Sasuke. The guy's got a stick up his ass just because he gets to walk with a hot girl and now I do, too."

She smiled softly. You don't have to explain him.

They proceeded further down the carpet as she leaned closer to his chest, hearing the fast heartbeat that matched her own from earlier, and she knew, only too well, what he was thinking. What she was feeling.

Just like he knew about her thoughts and feelings.

She knew that she should have felt bad for using him that way.

But it made it so much easier

(for both of them)

to pretend,

(that they had the hearts they knew they'd never get, one of them pretending she was beside another person, the other pretending that he was that other person for her)

when she had somebody to lean on

(and somebody who could be there anytime for her, who'd give up everything her, making her feel safe)

and somebody to support her all the way down that be-damned crimson path of fame.

Okay, that was the prologue... it'll get much better, I promise. I'm sorry if it turned out a bit cheesy, I just wrote that. o.o;; I've had this idea in my mind for some time now (even though it wasn't my intention to make them rock stars/models, I swear!), so I just wanted to try it out. Review, please?

P.S: In case you wonder, the song playing on Ino's cell phone is Stainless Night, and the song Naruto was talking about, Kogane no Hikari. Both of them are sung by Sasuke's seiyuu, Noriaki Sugiyama.