Happy New Year! This is my gift to you all. :D

Back by popular demand! I can't believe how many people favorite "Here's A Thought: Why Don't You Tell Them?" and how many hits it has had since its creation! You dedicated fanfic readers are very good for my self esteem.

Here it is!

Here's A Thought: Next Time, Don't Wait Around

The one and only Sasuke Uchiha sat on his bed, his feet planted firmly on the floor, his elbows digging into his knees and his chin resting on his intertwined fingers.

Only a week ago had he discovered his older brother and his teammate's relationship. It was somewhat of a shock.

Actually, that was an understatement.

When Sasuke had learned about the attraction, his cogs in his brain squeaked to a stop and for a moment, he felt his entire body exploding into a million pieces. But alas, it was only a feeling.

His mind flashed back to the day Team 7 discovered the elder Uchiha at Sakura's apartment.

Throughout the mission that had taken place later, Sasuke's mind was only focused on one thing: that relationship. He couldn't wrap his head around it, couldn't process it one bit. The mere notion of it was too foreign.

The idea of his aniki being romantically involved with someone disturbed him enough to have him waking in cold sweats.

The idea of his aniki being romantically involved with his teammate Sakura, who had previously had a crush on the younger Uchiha if his memory served correctly, was even stranger.

So strange, in fact, that while jumping across treetops, Sasuke had missed a branch entirely and slammed into a limb, his torso receiving the full force of the impact. Coincidentally, Sakura had to patch him up afterwards.

Even the blonde dobe had noticed the subtle change in his rosette teammate. She was much happier and her joy radiated from her like heat from the sun, infecting anyone within a 20 foot radius of her.

In fact, Sakura practically glowed. But from what, Naruto did not want to find out.

He mentally cursed himself for not noticing the changes in his best friend sooner. He should've noticed, since Sakura was a sister to him, but he didn't. He had merely figured that something awesome had occurred at work and dismissed the matter as trivial.

But had he known about Uchiha, he could've set things straight, lay down some rules.

Not that he would've been able to enforce it, of course.

Kakashi, on the other hand, knew everything. What a stalker the Copy Nin was.

Using his honed Jounin skills, he noticed the slight differences in the older Uchiha's expression whenever the pink-haired kunoichi was near.

Itachi-san's stern appearance softened slightly and his taut lips curved upwards subtly into what could almost be considered a smile. His body became more relaxed and his usually rigid stance loosened.

And the look of absolute adoration he sent in Sakura's direction was enough to put fan girls into a jealous rage.

Oh the wonders a woman could have on a man.

He noticed the changes in Sakura as well. Kakashi hadn't known that Itachi had lunches with Sakura, even with his extended … sources at the hospital, but he had certainly deduced that whenever the rosette met with the team after the general time that was lunchtime, she was positively giddy.

Sakura was more cheerful – that was one thing that all of Konoha noticed. But that was not the only alteration in the kunoichi. Somehow, she seemed more mature. Or as mature Sakura could get. She had the tendency to daydream more, staring off into the direction of the town, her mind wandering to Itachi.

The sinfully sweet smile she would send him, even if for only a second, was one unable to be captured by a multitude of fan artists.

Oh, what a man could do to a woman.

When the mission was complete, Team 7 staggered back into the village, hungry and tired and injured. Kakashi led them to Hokage Tower to deliver the report to Tsunade-sama then teleported away at the last nano-second (being Kakashi and all).

Tired and irritated, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura gave a rundown of the mission to the Hokage. Naruto bickered with her, as per the norm and Tsunade promised to teach Sakura a different technique sometime or another. Then the team departed.

"Sakura-chan, why didn't you tell us that you were dating teme's aniki?" Naruto groaned, dragging his feet across the road. Sasuke mumbled in agreement. Sakura racked her brain for an excuse.

Perhaps it could have turned out differently if she had revealed to her teammates the secret about Itachi earlier.

"Yeah. Perhaps it could've sucked!" Inner-Sakura cried out. "Think about it. If you had told them earlier, they'd be all over you and Itachi-chan, peeking in your windows and trying to prevent you two from getting it on – "

Sakura quickly shut up her inner self before she sank to Jiraiya's level. She shuddered at the thought.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a handsome shadow leaning against the wall of a very familiar restaurant. The same restaurant that Itachi had taken Sakura on their first date.

What a coincidence.

Without hesitation, the pink haired kunoichi bounded from her teammates' sides and jumped into the handsome shadow's arms, who planted soft kisses on her cheeks and forehead.

Sasuke and Naruto watched from afar, their expressions one of disgust and absolute adoration, respectively.

Itachi Uchiha, hand-in-hand with Sakura, stepped out from under the shadows and strolled casually over to his otuoto and Uzumaki. He gave the two a little smirk that made their blood boil - Naruto's out of annoyance and Sasuke's unknown - before Sakura suggested that the four of them eat lunch together.

Awkwardly, the four rounded the corner of the restaurant to the entrance. A shy purple haired girl stood by a bench outside the restaurant, gazing into the distance. Without trying to send mixed signals or incite some sort of emotion, Naruto loudly greeted her and lazily draped his arm around her shoulder.

Red painted Hinata's face, turning her red as a tomato. She mentally wished the blood out of her face, but unfortunately, that wish went ignored.

Sakura caught the heiress' furious blushing and grinned widely.

Itachi smiled inwardly, the image of Uzumaki and Hyuuga bringing back memories of his first weeks with Sakura. Good times… And it was still a good time.

Itachi nodded to the doorman, who knew the Uchiha clan - especially Itachi - very well, and strolled over to a booth in the corner. He slid into the seat meant for five, pulling Sakura with him.

She was practically in his lap. He didn't mind so much.

Naruto, Hinata and Sasuke took a seat across from the two. Naruto was getting awfully friendly with Hinata, chatting incessantly on topics that did nothing to interest Hinata-chan. But from her gaze of affection and admiration, Sakura could tell that she didn't care in the least.

Sasuke, on a totally different note, refused to set his gaze upon anything but the mahogany tabletop. Mahogany... His eyes traced patterns in the wood, subconsciously blocking out the noise Naruto was making.

That technique had taken years to master.

The younger Uchiha's mind was a cornucopia of negative ideas, thoughts and opinions. He was so confused about the current situation that he felt as if he were going to explode at any given moment.

Sakura had liked him. That was a given fact. But the key element in that phrase was the usage of past tense.

Had liked.

Had.

That single word echoed through his mind, almost like a curse on his thoughts. It plagued his mind every time he looked at the girl. Was it so wrong that Sakura no longer expressed romantic feelings towards him?

In simpler terms, why the hell didn't she like him?

It had just become the norm to have Sakura glom all over him all of the time. He was so used to the rosette kunoichi following him like a little kitten and talking to him with that sugar sweet tone of hers. He had counted on Sakura's affections for him to remain the same always. One thing he could rely on that would never change throughout the years.

It was a pity Sasuke wasn't a firm believer in change.

It was merely strange and foreign to the younger Uchiha that Sakura could have possibly moved on without his knowing.

He didn't recognize the strange pang in his chest that arose whenever Itachi would move his lips to the kunoichi's ear and whisper something that would raise a blush and a giggle from Sakura. He didn't recognize it, but he could certainly feel it.

Sasuke knew, somewhere in the back of that conceited mind of his, he could have had a chance with Sakura. He knew that he wouldn't be feeling this way had he just accepted Sakura's feelings for him and returned them.

But at this time, he couldn't do anything. Other than to be happy for his brother and teammate.

And he was never happy.

Sakura and Itachi departed from the group after the meal, his arm draped across her shoulders, her arm slung around his waist. The older Uchiha glanced up at the gloomy clouds that were beginning to blanket the town and pulled a sweater from his pack and handed it to Sakura to don. In response, the pinkette threw her arms around him.

"Aw, they look super cute," Naruto commented to Sasuke, who grunted in reply. The fox boy watched on, very confused as the teme stomped away from the front of the restaurant, pausing to kick a pebble to the curb with so much force that it flew like a bullet through a wooden fence.

"What's up with teme?" Naruto asked aloud, almost forgetting Hinata's presence. The Hyuuga could almost see the cloud of negative energy rolling tempestuously around Sasuke's form.

"He's jealous."

Sasuke returned to the present, blinking away the memories. With a sigh, he collapsed onto his mattress and looked up at the ceiling, as if it had some sort of divine prophecy written on it.

Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Suddenly, with insane ninja hearing, he noticed that the front door had opened. He leaped to his feet and padded stealthily into the main room where he found his aniki packing a bag full of supplies and weapons.

"Nii-san? What are you doing here?" His voice and presence made Itachi perk up.

"Packing," he said simply. After a minute or two of awkward silence, he continued. "I have a mission."

"I see," Sasuke nodded. After another minute or so of awkward silence clouding the air, he walked back to his room. The front door closed and he let out a breath.

A voice in the back of his mind told him that with Itachi gone, he didn't have to think about the strange relationship at all for the next three days or so.

Good.

Sakura had noticed something strange since the week she had revealed her relationship with Itachi to the team. At times, she had caught Sasuke staring at her intently, possibly without realizing it.

It was extremely weird and creeped Sakura out on more than one occasion.

When Team 7 (plus Hinata - she seemed to be an official member of the team now) went out to eat, Sasuke mysteriously ended up sitting next to Sakura at the table. At one or some points during the meal, Sasuke's leg would somehow drift to touch Sakura's thigh.

And it would linger there momentarily. Making the atmosphere in the air extremely awkward.

Until Sakura would elbow Sasuke's ribs to the pain. Then he would scoot away a foot or so.

Sasuke would actually find the time to chat to the kunoichi more, whether it was just small talk about the weather or opinions about the latest mission or grumbling about something that Naruto did. Sakura felt self-conscious talking to him.

Perhaps it was the norm that during the start of a relationship, the family members of each side would get to know one another better.

But in this instance, it was strange. Very strange.

It was lunch time for Team 7. Well, the boys of Team 7, actually.

"Hey, Sasuke, you okay?" Naruto's words were muffled – presumably from the ramen in his mouth. It was no use. The teme was still zoning out. If the world ended at that exact moment, Sasuke wouldn't have noticed it.

Sasuke was in his stereotypical emo boy sitting stance. His elbows digging into the wooden counter, his chin resting on his interlocked fingers and his murderous glare slightly glazed over.

"Yo, Sasuke." Kakashi allowed his fist to come down hard on the back of Sasuke's skull.

"What…!" Uchiha grumbled, trying to ignore the throbbing pain rippling through his head. He whipped around to face his former sensei to find Kakashi's eye-crinkled, smile-through-the-mask face. Sasuke seethed silently.

"The sakura are beautiful this year," Kakashi noted, raising his sake glass to drink even though his mask was still on. Funny how he managed that.

"At the start of spring, you don't really notice them. You're too busy worrying about other things to admire the pink petals that usher in a new year. They're nature – scenery. The sakura are there year after year for the entire spring.

"Then comes the time that you want to desperately want to see those beautiful flowers, and you realize that … spring is over."

Sasuke stared down into his sake glass. Yeah, he really did notice the sakura trees this year. Those soft pink petals were showing themselves in full bloom. And just a week into spring.

Why was it this year that he was noticing how tender those flowers were? They had always bloomed year after year without fail, yet their presence was a mere annoyance to him – he didn't like it when the petals landed on his head, his face, his equipment, his house.

But this year… this year…

Sakura was exceptionally beautiful.

"Sensei… is this some sort of meta-?"

"What?" Kakashi turned his head, his eyes still crinkled. "No, I was serious."

Eh…?

"Each year, I'm too busy with missions and dates that I can never see the sakura at the start of spring and by the time spring's over and I'm all lazy, I finally go and it turns out … it's summer! How weird, ne?" And with that, Kakashi sensei took another sip of sake through his mask.

Sasuke almost fell backwards.

Three days later, Sasuke was sitting on his bed, thinking. That was all he did nowadays. Think.

Mostly about Kakashi's teachings. Those words were all true in the metaphorical sense, although the story was literal. Or so he said.

The slam of the front door jerked Sasuke back into reality. His parents were home so… the only person who would enter the home would be…

Itachi was home.

Sasuke jumped up from his bed to greet his brother but then came to a full stop. It had been three days since Itachi first left for the three-day mission, so Sasuke had expected him back after five days, perhaps even six. Those were the days Aniki would spend at Sakura's house, presumably having a "welcome-back-you're-alive" sort of day.

The younger Uchiha poked his head out his doorway to find Itachi walking past so briskly, it created a breeze. The expression on his and the fire burning in his eyes was intense enough to scorch a person by merely looking at them.

"Aniki?" His response was the hard slam of a door.

Sasuke's immediate, thoughtless reaction was to visit Sakura.

Before he had even knocked on her door, Sasuke could already hear loud thumps and crashes coming from inside the apartment. He considered turning back for a minute, but then swallowed his fear and knocked.

Complete silence. For the next five minutes.

In fact, it was eerily silent. The type of silent that would take place in a horror movie just before the reveal of a dead, bloody body in the bathtub.

Finally, the kunoichi answered the door. Although she was smiling, her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks enflamed. Peering behind her form through the doorway, Sasuke could see a broken countertop, a splintered table, an overturned couch and a cracked window.

People had legit reason to fear the Cherry Blossom of Konoha.

Sasuke took a seat on the couch that was not overturned. "I take it that you and Itachi had a fight." Sakura noted that it was a statement, not a question. She sighed and surveyed the damage she had dealt to her tiny apartment.

After the couch was up righted, Sakura began to tell Sasuke what had happened.

"When Itachi comes home from missions, I usually patch him up myself so he doesn't have to worry about a hospital bill or amateur nurses. But today when he came home, it turned out he had already gone to the hospital. I didn't know why, but I was irritated.

"It was as if he didn't trust me! Or worse… But the main reason I was so infuriated with that man was because he refused to tell me. Then…" Sakura began to tear up and rubbed at her already swollen eyes furiously.

"We started shouting … and we both said some pretty mean things. I don't even remember what we had said to each other, but I just remember that I was so … so angry with him." The tears began to stream down her cheeks, too fast for her hands to catch.

"This was our first major fight! We've never yelled at each other like this before and … and I don't want things to change… The way things are right now with Itachi and me are perfect and … and I want it to stay like that…"

Sasuke could do nothing as the rosette revealed her tender side and began to sob miserably on the couch. He could only watch and realize that ...

Yes, Sakura was truly and deeply in love with his older brother.

Later that night, the younger Uchiha found himself upside down and drunk in Naruto's apartment. They'd been drinking since the sun began to set and there was no chance of them stopping any time soon.

"And she was just … cryin'… 'n cryin'. An' I couldn't do anythin'. It's terrible. Real terrible," Sasuke hiccupped. He stood on his head briefly then fell over onto the rug.

Somehow, Sasuke was a silly sort of drunk.

"She's cryin' cuz she looooves him soooo much. That'sa girls do, y'know?" Naruto laughed, taking another sip of alcohol. "When tha' love summ'n, tha' cry 'bout 'im. Where as we… We drink it up." Sasuke raised his glass to that.

"Funny... Sakura waz sssayin' that Itachi waz yellin' and stuff... But when he's mad ... mad like ... that, 'Tachi don't yell. He glares 'n'... 'n' gets violent," Sasuke commented.

"Well, OBVIOUSLY. He don't wanna hit her 'n stuff. Duh. Teme. Get it straight. Relationships are like that, man. Y'just don't go 'round hittin' your sifigant otha when you get all pissy," Naruto shot back. He took a long drink.

"Hey… Hey, dobe. Dobe." Sasuke threw a pillow at Naruto, who, due to overconsumption of alcohol, had lost his reflexes and promptly fell over.

"Wha-! Teme!" Naruto crawled onto the rug next to Sasuke.

"Y'think I got a chance with her?"

"..."

All of a sudden, the mood turned sour.

"Well, why the hell didn' you go afta her before, eh? Y'had a chance then, but … but now! Now, y'just a… a… waz the word 'gain? Don't 'member…" Naruto admonished, swinging his bottle wildly.

"But…"

"No! No no no no no! No "but's" in 'ere!" Naruto rolled over onto his back. "Teme. Lemme ask y'this. What. What do yooo wan' for Sakura-chan?"

Sasuke, following Naruto's lead, rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, thinking. After a few minutes, he answered.

"I wan' her to be … to be happy. Duh."

It didn't take long for Naruto to reply.

"Weeell… I really, really hope tha' … tha' you're not one of 'em idiots that goes and says, 'If she can't be happy wit' me, she can' be happy wit' nobody' 'cuz if you were! Then… then I would be mad. Reeel mad at yooo."

Sasuke thought about that for a moment. But Naruto continued.

"Teme! You'd be … you'd be a selfish prick! That's wha' you'd be, a'right. A prick. Not that you're not a prick normally… 'cuz y'know... you are.

"But really! Y'gotta think 'bout what Sakura wants. 'Cuz, if y'hadn't realisssed… the world doesn' revolve 'round you…"

Sasuke waited for Naruto to continue, but it was taking a strangely long time. He looked to his side and found that Naruto was sprawled on the rug on his back, sleeping and snoring. Loudly.

He had been in the middle of a life changing speech, too.

Oh, well.

Sasuke considered the course of the entire day and knew what he had to do.

Sometime around midnight, a note was slipped under Itachi's doorway, reading (albeit in very sloppy handwriting): "She misses you."

Sometimes around 1 AM, Sasuke heard the soft padding of footsepts and the gentle opening of a sliding door.

The next day, Itachi was no where to be found in the Uchiha manor. However, Sakura was positively beaming.