Be amazed! Here is a NOT SAD story! It's a little fluffy a little cute. Involves a bashful but badass Itachi and a cute but spunky Sakura. And Sasuke is still a dick, AU or no. u can leave a review if u wanna :-))

alanah

Spearmint. It occurred to him, the very first time he looked into Haruno Sakura's eyes, that her eyes bore a startling resemblance to the plant, when she was only six and howling at the top of her lungs. She was grasping her bloody knee in her tiny hands, sobbing as his younger brother smirked at her. At the age of 11, Itachi was already an Anbu, with a two year sentence ahead of him before he would become captain of his own team. Itachi had glared at his younger brother, and his loud mouthed, blonde haired menace of a best friend, before picking the tiny girl up and carrying her to his house. He'd repaired her knee with a kiss and a band-aid.

At the age of 15, Itachi had already saved his clan from demise, taken down a secret coup d'etat, turned over his unnaturally alive ancestor and made Anbu captain, although the last part was obvious. He was in the running for hokage, something that annoyed his little brothers best friend to no end. He chewed spearmint gum several times a day, everyday, and flirted shamelessly with a ten year old Sakura, who was too busy being flustered by his little brother to notice. However, he made it a point to offer her a piece of his beloved spearmint gum, all while he watched her similarly colored eyes stare up into his. She always accepted, blushing for one reason or another, much to his constant amusement.

When Itachi was 17, Orochimaru stole his brother away, both literally and figuratively, leaving most of the village in an uproar. After three years of utter nonsense, both from his brother and his old team, Itachi had gotten quite fed up, and killed Orochimaru, if only for the fact that man had killed the Sandaime, but mainly because he'd stolen his brother. Sasuke had pouted (yes, pouted) the entire way home, and when a 15 year old Sakura had smacked the shit out of Sasuke, Itachi had smiled at her, before offering her a stick of gum.

Sakura was 16 when Itachi realized that he had a crush on her, and it threatened to do what it's name implied, or at least that was what it felt like when he saw her. The weight on his chest only alleviated when he offered her a piece of his favorite gum, and she paused to chat with him. At this point, she was a brilliant medic and very attractive young girl. According to her current boyfriend, who happened to be his younger brother, she was ruthlessly pursued by several other boys in their village. Sasuke had scowled and told him, in a loud whisper, that he wasn't particularly attracted to her, but that for her modesty's sake, he'd taken on the burden of dating her.

When Itachi was 23 and Sakura was 18, she was promoted to his Anbu squad as his medic, and he made the mistake of telling her that her eyes reminded him of spearmint. Her green eyes had narrowed for a few seconds, and he felt that if he activated his sharingan, he would see the neurons in her brain firing to make a connection. When she did, her lips curled into a pretty little smirk, before she'd launched through the trees ahead of him.

On his 24th birthday, somehow all the people around him deemed it an appropriate time to play truth or dare, and he'd learned from his younger brother that he and Sakura had been each others first kiss, and that she tasted of chocolate mint, much to Sakura's embarrassment.

"Worst kiss of my life, to be honest." Itachi had found out himself what she tasted like when they shared their first kiss under the pretense of seven minutes in heaven. She hadn't let him shy away from her, which surprised the older man, and it surprised him even more to learn that she did taste like chocolate mint. Her tongue had been cool and wet against his, and he'd left the closet with a light head and a dazed expression.

Sakura turned 19 in March, and missed her own birthday party because her idiotic sensei had gotten himself hurt on his most recent mission. Itachi waited anxiously in the lobby of the hospital, and when she left he walked her home. Handing her a birthday gift had been more nerve wracking that anything he'd ever done, and when he gave her a pack of spearmint gum, he whispered that the specific flavor was his favorite. She smirked up at him, rolling her eyes as she gripped the back of his neck, and pulling him into a searing kiss. She tasted of spearmint, much to his delight and surprise, and as she pulled the tie from his low hanging ponytail, he decided that there was no other flavor better than the inside of this lovely girls mouth.