Well, since everyone wanted something with Sasuke, here you go. Sigh. I wish life were this cliché…

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Sakura reached into her pocket and took out another piece of strawberry flavoured gum. She popped the small pink cube of sugar into her mouth, adding it to the already chewed and tasteless piece that was there and mixing the two together.

With a bored sigh, Sakura looked down at the crumpled piece of paper that was her school schedule for her final year of high school. First period, she had Writer's Craft, second, she had Advanced Functions, third she had a spare, and then forth, she had English. She was hoping her guidance counsellor could give her a class to fill up her spare. Something told her that if she took a spare, she wouldn't use it correctly, and in the end, only go down.

She shifted in her seat in the guidance office and began to blow a bubble.

"Ah, conflicts with your schedule, young man?" the secretary asked in her usual monotone voice. "Why don't you have a seat for now while you wait?"

"Hn."

Her eyes widened and she gasped, causing the extra large bubble to pop and go all over her face. As her cheeks flushed red, Sakura quickly struggled to scrape the thinned gum off of her nose and cheeks. She pressed it against the bottom of the chair with a cringe as she felt the weight of another fall against the small couch in the guidance office.

With a weary smile, she looked at the boy beside her.

"Hey there, Sasuke," she greeted, struggling to sound casual and at least somewhat nonchalant.

He nodded to her. "Sakura."

"Um, how was your summer?" she asked, making conversation.

In her head, all she could think about was the message she had written in his yearbook. She had written the letter on one of the blank white pages that people used for signatures. Thankfully, she had done it on the final day of exams that way no one would see it during the last few days.

"It was okay," he said, folding up his schedule with a rather bored looking expression. "My parents shipped me and my brother off to stay with our grandfather so they could go on some couples cruise for the summer…"

Sakura nodded. "Yeah, you told me about going there, back in June! How was it?"

Sasuke shrugged and made a slight scowl. "Two months with my pain-in-the-ass brother and crazy grandfather?" He raised an eyebrow as he looked at her and Sakura struggled to push down the corners of her lips. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

She giggled and he grinned slightly at her reaction.

"How was yours?" Sasuke inquired. He unfolded the white paper in his hand and smoothed it out.

"Uh…" Sakura cringed slightly and then shrugged, laughing a bit awkwardly. "Nothing special, really," she answered, looking at her lap as she played with the hem of her uniform kilt. "I was just working the whole time, although I went out with Ino a lot when I wasn't totally tired."

He nodded. "I see."

"Yep."

Sakura began fidgeting at it grew silent and awkward. The couch suddenly seemed too small as she could feel Sasuke's arm brushing against her own, and his pants rubbing against her bare legs, causing her to wish she wore pants as well, instead.

"Uh…" She cleared her throat awkwardly. "What are you in here for?"

He glanced down at his schedule and pointed to one of the squares. "They didn't give me Calculus for next semester." Sasuke scowled and cross his arms. "I mean, the only reason I took Advanced Functions this year was to take that afterwards."

She raised an incredulous eyebrow and then grabbed his schedule out of his hands, only to see that he was indeed taking math once more. "Hey, we're in the same class!" she said happily, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. She felt nostalgic, thinking of how it would be like last year when…

"Wait."

Sakura couldn't help but snort.

"…You're taking math again?"

She smiled uneasily.

"Didn't you like, barely pass?"

Sasuke had the grace to look offended by her question as his cheeks reddened slightly and he turned away with a small huff. "I got a sixty-nine, thank you." His eyes softened and he looked back at her with a serious expression. "But really, thank you," he said, repeating his words of gratitude with a light smirk. "I think our all-nighter the day before the exam really helped."

"Oh, it was no problem!"

Behind the wide grin though, was a lie. The day before the exam, Sasuke had asked her to come over for a bit of studying. They had ended up working until midnight and still not being through half of the unit reviews, so they decided to pull an all-nighter. She had taken a small nap on the beanbag he had in front of his television and x-box while he worked until the morning, intent on staying the heck away from summer school.

The silence between them appeared again and Sakura felt her heart thumping wildly in her chest.

He was so close and she was dying to know if he read her note or not. She just needed some kind of a reaction from him.

Sakura twisted slightly to face him fully.

"Sasuke, um, did you by any chance read the message I left in your yearbook?"

There. She said it.

He regarded her coolly for a brief moment but to Sakura, it felt like hours. His smouldering dark gaze was staring right through her and hell if she wasn't squirming.

"Yes," he finally replied. "I did."

Sakura then turned once more to sit straight. She pressed her legs together and pulled on her kilt, smoothing it out against her thighs as she nodded her head curtly and stared down at her chipped green nail polish.

He read it.

"I see," she mumbled. Her heart was racing by his mere presence and the fact that he was staring at her wasn't making her feel any better. "Well then—"

"Sakura!"

She jumped at her name and looked up, seeing her guidance counsellor, Shizune, smiling down at her with a bright grin and beautiful summer tan. The woman waved slightly and gestured for the twelfth grade girl to come to her office so they could sort out her issues.

"Come along, Sakura," Shizune called. "I don't want you to be late to your classes."

Sakura nodded and stood up. She picked up her messenger bag that leaned against the couch and was about to run away from the pain of rejection and hide in Shizune's office for the next hour, but was stopped by Sasuke calling her name. She turned around and looked at him nervously, eyes wide, terrified but still a bit hopeful.

He was sitting there casually, his iPod now out and the earphones being dangled between his long fingers.

"I…"

Sasuke closed his mouth for a moment to think about what he was going to say before giving her a light shrug.

"I'll save you a seat in math."

Her eyes widened for a moment before a smile tugged at her lips and she nodded at him. Sasuke then looked away with a small blush and put his earphones in place, turning on his music. The grin she donned widened as she bowed her head slightly and she gave out a giddy but quiet giggle.

She turned around and walked over to Shizune's office, anticipating math with Sasuke once again.

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FIN