Author's Note: There's a bit of a twist this time 'round. I wrote this in hopes to inspire one of my friends: Twigs-N-Leaves. Although, I was inspired for Sasuke's bold personality by a new favorite manga of mine, "St. Dragon Girl". I definitely reccommend it to any one interested in love, dragons, pandas, or Chinese outfits! :D This is an AU fic, based on the theme of inspiration so it's a little different from the others. BUT I did say I wanted to update every story of mine (meaning all 10 of them!) before my break finishes and I'm back in school. And I thought this was as good a place as any to post this fic (which I'm a little fond of). Fair warning, I wrote this all in one night - within about 2 1/2 hours actually, so I can't claim it to be my best work. Still, I hope someone really enjoys this!

Inspirator: Natsumi Matsumoto, author of St. Dragon Girl

Inspiration: "If you treat this stuffed animal I picked up when we were kids with such great devotion, why not just admit that you're in love with me?" -Ryuga, character from St. Dragon Girl

Her cell phone was mocking her, she was absolutely sure of it.

It was just sitting on the living room's coffee table, looking normal and gleaning in the sunlight. But for some reason, Sakura kept a watchful gaze on the cell phone rather than the best friend sitting beside her.

Ino noticed.

"Um, hel-lo? Forehead?" As she expected, it wasn't her words that recaptured Sakura's attention, but the perfectly manicured hand waving in front of her face did the trick.

"Huh – what?" Inwardly, Ino laughed. The poor dear was just so lost. "Sorry, Ino, I was kind of distracted. What were you saying?"

"Just that you should totally jump Sasuke sometime soon."

Again, just as expected, Sakura's face burned as if she'd had a bad tanning experience. A reallybad tanning experience. Ino secretly cackled with evil glee and then took advantage of Sakura's gaping mouth to fluster her friend further.

"I mean, have you seen the man? What I wouldn't give to have seven minutes in heaven with him! Or maybe seventy minutes would be more… beneficial." Sakura looked like she was on the verge of a nosebleed now. Ino couldn't keep her grin contained to her inward persona and let it stretch over her blemish-free face. Sakura made such an easy tease.

'No wonder Sasuke does it all the time,' Ino thought.

Regaining her vocals, Sakura shouted, "I-Ino! That is completely out of line! I've been friends with the guy since we were seven – I shouldn't think of him like that!"

Ino rolled her eyes at Sakura's most worn excuse for staving off a relationship with Sasuke. It wouldn't have been so annoying, if Sakura was willing to go for other guys. But no one compared to Sasuke Uchiha – the guy she'd so obviously been in love with since about forever. And now that they were approaching the end of their high school years, Ino figured it was definitely time for Sakura to get a move on.

"Oh please, Sakura, don't give me that!" Ino gave her friend a 'no-no' finger wag. Then she winked and said, "Besides, you can't possibly deny that he'd be absolutely sexy."

Sakura looked off for a moment. Then she nodded, "Yeah, he'd probably make it worth while."

Ino laughed and wrapped an arm around her friend, exclaiming, "That's my girl! Goodness, Forehead, who knew you had such a dirty mind?"

Sakura scoffed, "As if. Compared to you, Pig, I'm squeaky clean."

A sound of agreement and a couple giggles later, and the girls were back to their coffee.

"By the way," Ino began, "why were you staring at your phone a while ago? Thinking of calling Mr. Gorgeous?"

Sakura gave a sigh; she could never hide anything from Ino. Well, she'd never been very good at hiding secrets, actually; almost any of her friends – relative or acquaintance – could tell when she was withholding something. She was terrible at concealing nervousness. Embarrassingly terrible.

"Kind of, yeah. I'm working on another fanfiction but I can't decide whether-"

"The heroine falls in love with the best friend or the bad boy?" Ino guessed. "Her pet is a dog or fish? The dragon blows red or blue fire?"

Sakura gave a bit of a nervous giggle. "Well, something along those lines. I'm just so bad at making decisions."

Ino gave a 'pfft'. "That's a lie; we both know you could easily pick and choose any one of those things."

Sakura gave a mutter like, "Well, yeah, but…"

Ino tilted her head in curiosity. She wasn't teasing anymore. "So, then… why do you always call Sasuke to make those decisions? These fanfictions that you write – they're all yours, right? Sasuke's not a co-writer or something?"

Sakura shook her head. "No, he's not."

Ino blinked. "So why do you always call him?"

Sakura gave a noncommittal shrug. "He inspires me."

Ino narrowed her eyes suspiciously, "But there's more to it, isn't there?"

Sakura sighed and began to play with her hair, a small sign of embarrassment. Ino knew this meant that Sakura was about to reveal a secret. She listened intently.

"Well, it's a little silly but… I do it because then it feels like there's a part of him in everything I write – that he's a part of everything I create. Even if it's just something small."

There was silence as the secret sank into the room. And then…

"Oh, Forehead," Ino dramatically sighed, "there is no hope for you. You are such a romantic!"

Sakura was blushing again. "Well, so what if I am?" she asked defensively.

"It's sickening, that's what," Ino answered, sticking out her tongue. Her gesture was met with a pillow to her face. This quickly escalated into a pillow war, complete with loud squeals, low-thrown taunts, full-body wrestling and spilt coffee. Cleaning up their mess had been just as fun as creating it.

"Well, I guess I should go," Ino said after the floor was clean and the mugs were safely put away. Looking at her designer watch, Ino explained, "Our shipment will be in soon and Mom will want me to help stock and arrange the flowers."

"Sounds fun," Sakura gave her a quick hug goodbye as they stood. "I'll see you Monday then?"

"Yes, unless I have a shopping emergency tomorrow," Ino winked. "And chances are pretty likely, just to let you know."

Sakura laughed and opened the door. "I'll keep my day free."

"Good," Ino laughed along. But before she stepped out far enough for Sakura to close the door, Ino turned back and said, "I wanna know if anything juicy happens when you call the local demi-god, okay?"

Sakura shoved her off the front porch and politely slammed the door to Ino's laughter. Taking a deep breath, Sakura looked back towards the living room.

Her phone was still there.

Quickly checking to make sure Ino didn't have her nose pressed up to the window or something, Sakura picked up the phone, sat down, flipped it open, and scrolled to the contact named 'Sasuke'. As she stared at the white device in her hand, she began to tap her foot to the rhythm of a hummingbird's wing – a habit indicating she was nervous. But, really, what did she have to be nervous about? She did need a name for the dragon in her story and it wasn't like she had never called Sasuke before. Also, he had never not answered his phone whenever she worked up the nerve to dial his number.

'But that's just it, isn't it?' Sakura mused, 'I'll have to talk to him if I call.'

And for some reason, she was cautious about talking to Sasuke. She had been cautious ever since they were children and grew up together. But because of their long-way-back relationship, they knew each other very well – they learned how to read each other's signals as if they were siblings rather than neighbors. And recently, Sakura feared that, just through talking, Sasuke would pick up on her heart rate that sped up every time she heard his voice.

She was scared he might discover her romantic feelings for him.

'Gah, this is dumb, Sakura!' The pinkette's inner self chided. Sakura distantly thought that she sounded a little like Ino. 'There's no point in convincing yourself that you won't do it! And besides, it's completely innocent – you've called him every time before! Won't it be a little suspicious if he finds out you didn't call? What then?'

Sakura took a deep breath and resolved, 'R-Right then! I'll call him!'

And then she pressed call.

And then the phone rang.

And rang.

And rang-

"Sakura?"

Geez! He hadn't even spoken two words and her heart was fluttering faster than her foot. Why, oh why, did he have to have this effect on her?

"Hey, Sasuke! Um, quick question for you…" Sakura was always surprised at how natural she seemed to sound over the phone – despite her horrible trend of keeping her secrets and emotions hidden.

"Something for another one of your fanfictions?"

Sakura lightly blushed. Had she really called that often? "Yeah… Uh, see, there's a dragon in this one and I can't decide on a name. It's a Chinese horned dragon so it governs rain and I'm thinking of having it be greenish-blue in colour. He's-"

"Ginga," Sasuke cut her off.

"Huh? You think? That means the 'Milky Way', doesn't it?"

"Well, yeah, but people can also take it as 'galaxy'."

Sakura tapped her chin thoughtfully, "Huh. I didn't even think of having a name like that. That's not a bad - hey, you haven't even heard what the dragon does yet!"

She heard him sigh on the other side. "Look, Sakura it's not that I'm not interested, okay? It's just… you kind of interrupted my personal karate training and Kakashi-sensei is starting to give me threatening looks."

Sakura gasped and double-checked the time. She had completely forgotten that Sasuke trained at this time every Saturday! "Oh my gosh, Sasuke, I'm so sorry! It totally slipped my mind!"

Her heart skipped when he laughed, "Don't worry, Sakura. I'm the one who picked up, remember?"

'That's right,' Sakura thought, 'even though he was in the middle of something, he answered my call - just like he always does. But does that mean I'm… important to him?' Sakura gave a blush and tried very hard not to get over excited. Of course she was important, Sasuke deeply treasured every friend he had. It was one of the things she liked most about him – his unwavering loyalty and trust to his friends, no matter how few they were or how crazy they got.

'Like Naruto with his ramen, or me with my fanfiction,' Sakura gave a sweatdrop of embarrassment at a memory of not so long ago when she had been absolutely obsessed with her writing. She had calmed down a bit since then but she had been a real nutcase for a while. Thoughtfully, she wondered, 'I post all my work online… I wonder if Sasuke's ever read any of it…'

"So... do you need something else or are you good?"

Sakura jumped in her seat when Sasuke snapped her out of her thoughts. Then she silently thanked that he hadn't seen that happen – he'd just tease her about it.

"Um… no, yeah! I'm all good, now! Thanks Sasuke!"

'Way to just stumble through that one,' inner Ino mocked.

"No problem. Oh, and, Sakura?" Sensing his smirk, Sakura gave a 'go-ahead' sound. "If you're already this in love with me, you should just confess."

Both Sakura and her inner were rendered speechless. He knew? She was pretty sure her heart had just stopped beating altogether and she was going to die of embarrassment then and there.

"I mean, really, do you ever not use my suggestions when you ask me something? Cuz you sure seem to use most of them."

'Huh?' Sakura questioned. 'He's read my work? And he remembers everything I ask him and what he said?'

When she remained flabbergasted, he laughed again, "Don't worry, Sakura. We can talk later, when you find your voice!"

Maybe it was the tone of his voice; maybe it was victory in his laughter; or maybe it was because she had never responded well to taunts. But for whatever reason, something spurred her to reply, "Yeah, maybe. And since you're head over heels for me, we could make a lunch date for tomorrow at Ichiraku's."

"One o'clock?" Well, his grin might still be there but she could hear that his ego was deflated a bit. Perhaps he hadn't expected her to snap back.

Or maybe he was just impressed.

"Noon," and then she hung up before he could take the last word. She didn't think he'd have had it anyway – he was laughing again when she shut her phone.

With both the biggest grin and reddest blush on her face, Sakura grabbed her nearby laptop, and began typing out a brand new story.

'Hmm, maybe it'll be a love story,' Sakura pondered, 'between two childhood friends. And it'll include mud pies, birthday parties gone wrong, constant teasing, and happily ever after.'

Thinking of childhood friends, Sakura quickly wrote out a text to Ino: "Maybe I won't have tomorrow free. At least not lunch. ;) I told you he inspires me!"

Author's Note: Heh heh heh... Yeah... It's kind of cute but not that great, right? Oh, well! At least I had fun writing it! ^^ And Twiggy, maybe it's way too much to ask, but did this re-spark your love of SasuSaku? Even a little bit?