Sasuke stalked back inside the apartment, having completed his inspection.

"It's okay," he concluded as he walked back into the lounge where everyone was. He dropped down on the couch next to Sakura and draped his arm along the back to let her lean into him.

He could smell her shampoo.

Yes, this was infinitely better than Skype-calling.

"Okay? Okay? Are you, like, high?" Ino demanded.

"Yeah, dude," Naruto agreed, barely moving his eyes away from the basketball game playing on the plasma screen. "This place is the bomb."

"It's alright." Sakura said before reaching out for her glass of soda on the table and taking a sip. "Nothing's better than home, though."

Sasuke felt one side of his lips kick up. The fact that Konoha was still home to her was fucking fantastic.

Just then, a cell phone started ringing. Everyone looked towards Shikamaru, who pulled out his cell at a leisurely pace, looked at it and groaned.

"Hinata? You forgot your phone at home or something?" He asked.

The girl in question blinked. "Yes. How did you know?"

"Well, because the older Hyuga cousin is calling and I don't really have a good feeling about this."

Ah, Neji.

Great.

Since Naruto wouldn't lower the volume of the TV, Shikamaru trudged his ass to the outer balcony to take the call.

Immediately, Sakura, Ino and Hinata shared a look and hustled their asses out of the lounge and into the first room down the hall.

What the fuck was even happening?

But then again, Sasuke knew better than to find out, considering girl-shit was sure as hell off-limits.

Kiba walked in from the kitchen with a large bowl of popcorn in his hands. He looked around before settling down beside Naruto on the rug.

"What's happening? Where is everybody?" Kiba asked them and Naruto answered him, his eyes still glued to the TV.

"Neji's unleashing all holy hell on Shikamaru via phone and the girls are convening to talk out and dissect his shit with Temari."

Jesus Christ.

Of all people, Naruto understood clearly what was going on, that is, girl shit, and the guy didn't even have a girlfriend.

There was something clearly very, very wrong here.

There was something off about this entire trip.

Because Naruto was way too aware.

No, Sasuke was not going crazy.

Maybe.

"Oh, yeah," Kiba laughed. "What do you think is gonna happen with that?"

"No idea."

Sasuke grunted an agreement. Because really, who the fuck knew?

Not him, that was for sure.

After the entire situation at the hospital (in the aftermath of all which he realized that the blonde they'd seen was Temari, as in Shikamaru's ex, Temari), they drove to Sakura's place and settled in.

They'd settled in by Ino shoving all her bags inside and claiming Sakura's room for the girls to share, Hinata had quietly moved to the sofa and Shikamaru had examined the apartment slowly while Naruto attacked the television and Kiba raided the fridge, all this happening while Sasuke and Sakura made out like fucking kids on front step.

He still had a lot of time to make up for with his girlfriend.

And he had all the intentions to do so.

Not long later, the door bell sounded and Naruto perked up.

"Visitors?" He suggested and Kiba shrugged.

"Let's check it out," Naruto said and Sasuke stood up too.

They made their way to the front door to see the girls already there and Sakura was on her phone.

"Thanks again for bringing it by… Yeah, I know. I always forget. I'm an idiot… Hey, why don't you come up?"

At this, Ino narrowed her eyes in a glare at Sakura.

"Oh come on, it's no big deal… Seriously, come up. Or I will never talk to you again, how's that sound? And that's not playing dirty or anything either… Okay, whatever, would you just get up here for a cup of coffee?"

Ino was practically flailing now and Hinata had to hold on to her.

"Good," Sakura nodded decidedly and slipped her phone in the pocket of her jeans. She reached for the door just before Ino latched on to her arm.

"What are you doing?" She hissed.

Sakura then sighed and looked at Naruto. "Could you get the door please, Naruto?"

"Uh, sure," Naruto frowned in confusion before hurrying to let whoever it was in.

Sasuke was just as much at a loss.

Then Sakura turned back to Ino. "You refuse to talk to Shikamaru about it. You refuse to let us talk to Shikamaru about it. This way, we'll know. And also, this isn't the first time I've forgotten my bag at the hospital, and so this isn't the first time she's swung by on her way home to drop it off. So I've invited her up before for coffee a lot of times. Which is, like always."

Now Sasuke had a pretty good idea who their late visitor was.

"But… But…" Ino sputtered.

"You guys are talking about Temari, right?" Kiba questioned. Sasuke had pretty much guessed the same too.

"Yeah," Hinata said absently.

Then walked in Naruto with a huge-ass grin and the female in question behind him.

She was tall, blonde and pretty. She also lab coat on which reminded Sasuke of the awkward as all hell incident at the hospital. Even though he hadn't exactly recognized who she might have been at the hospital right off the bat, he'd felt the discomfort of everyone and also the silent ride to Sakura's place.

He'd actually preferred the ride to Suna instead of that.

Not that he'd ever admit that.

Temari cleared her throat, "You really don't have to do this, Sakura. You know your place is on my way so it's no big deal and—"

"Hey, you get me my bag and I get you coffee. It's our ritual, right?" Sakura smiled kindly before looking back up at everyone. "Let's go and get something warm to drink, guys."

They all sat in the lounge, alternating between sipping their coffees quietly and staring at each other.

Sasuke's pretty sure that this was the entire reason they'd escaped at the hospital, to avoid further awkwardness.

Sakura snuggled in, wrapping an arm around him. Naruto sat at a surprising distance from the remote control but his face unsurprisingly said that all this was better than TV. Kiba just kept stuffing his face with popcorn and coffee which was disgusting, but then again, he didn't seem to mind. Hinata sat next to Sakura and Ino sat on the sofa right across from Temari.

Shikamaru wasn't here yet from wherever he'd gone off to, which Sasuke was glad for, because really, how much weird drama could one take?

Ino cleared her throat to cut the silence. "I like your shoes," she said begrudgingly to Temari.

"I really like your top," Temari said back and suddenly it was like the ice was broken because Ino grinned huge at her.

Then Sakura said something about Lucky jeans and Hinata said something about shoes and immediately, the girls were talking all at once.

Jesus.

Naruto made a face at him. "I'm out," he mouthed, got to his feet and headed down to bedroom appointed to him for the night.

Sasuke got up too, but it wasn't to go to sleep.

It was to find Shikamaru, who'd been suspiciously gone for over forty-five minutes.

Sasuke sighed tiredly.

He was always playing babysitter when it came to all of them.

um, hey.

how's everyone doing?

this story's pretty much lost its charm to me, but i'll see it through to the end. instead of going back and editing (because that'll take to much time, something i don't have a ton of), it'll carry on like it's been carrying on (just without too many errors).

thanks to everyone who put in their votes and to the loyal reviewers :) AOV is going to end soon and updates are probably going to continue being irregular, but till then, you could check out my other sasusaku fics.

happy holidays.

-lexy.