One Year

By: NaruBaby2496

A/N: New FanFic! I'm trying to decide if I'll finish my others….

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

-October 3rd-

"Sasuke…what do you want?"

Her sea green nails filed through the papers casually, her face calm, though her voice had a hint of annoyance. It was early in the morning, and, apparently, Sasuke thought she didn't notice him following her.

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Who doesn't notice when someone is following them to work at four in the morning?

He sat in one of her office chairs, and spun a little, attempting to create a squeak. After three more turns the eighteen year old smirked; the chair created the desired screech, and Sakura…well, let's just say she was irritated.

She slammed the papers on her desk, "What do you want?" She seethed, eyeing the ebony haired man in such a way that would scare anyone into running to a corner to cry if they weren't used to getting that stare everyday. Sasuke, though, was used to the glare. It was awkward when he didn't receive such a stare. It was routine to receive a Sakura Death Glare at least four times a day. It was like a prescription medicine—it he didn't get it, he'd go crazy for the rest of the day.

His eyes twinkled teasingly as he moved the chair again, casting another noise.

Sakura rolled her eyes, and sighed, releasing all of her anger. She wasn't going to waste her time on such a futile thing. It was pointless trying to get whatever you want out of Sasuke, even if that want was as simple as borrowing a kunai during practice. Last week, she had asked for just that, and he ignored her throwing his last weapon at the target hitting perfectly.

She forced her overly stuffed file cabinet closed with a powerful shove of the shoulder. It made absolutely no sense how he just liked to annoy her. Was he that revenge driven? It was as if he were repaying for all those years of her infuriating nature, even though now she is anything but. He'd stepped on the back of her heel while they were practicing endurance running—why was he even behind her in the first place?—making her trip, he'd purposely dropped some of her medical scrolls in puddles, making her rewrite those three pound monstrosities, and what still ticks Sakura to this day is his nonchalance in doing each of these things. It's like he doesn't care if she punches him each time he does things like that.

Sakura plopped back into her chair and rubbed her head thinking, Mustn't let the Uchiha piss you off Sakura. It's not good to kill the teammate…

She then ceased rubbing her temples, and clicked on a pen, scribbling down some notes from a recent medical book she'd read. Being the studious person she is, she barely looked up at the not-to-be-mentioned distraction, and tried to keep her thoughts from slipping back to him. She failed horribly, but tried to keep herself from glancing at him as he stared intently at every motion she made.

What was his issue? Don't people sleep at four in the morning? At least that's the normal thing to do. He'd been here for a year. He should be able to know when and when not to bother the student of the ex-Hokage (who still has a very strong opinion on his consequences). She's sure he's taking advantage of the fact that Kakashi is now the leader, and Kakashi would never punish his favorite student unnecessarily. Sakura started writing harder on the thin paper, making an indent.

Is he even aware that his presence is distracting her from finishing a simple paragraph? Defeated, she groaned, throwing the pen on the carpeted office floor. She leaned back into the chair and stared at the ceiling, still aware of Sasuke's burning stare on her. He laughed to himself, "Did you spell a word wrong, Sakura?" She grumbled loudly, covering her eyes on the verge of crying out of anger. His acting so out of character is making her want smash his face in. Was this out of character for him though?

At first, it would seem like it should be, but lately on Sasuke's Priority List, "Annoying Haruno Sakura until She Needs a Tylenol" is on the top. During the beginning of his return, Sasuke was his usual self, coming to practice silently, leaving silently, and going to meet with the Council silently. The last bit was something new, but the point is, he was so introverted that he almost was nonexistent. He was only admitted back into Konoha because he helped win the war—he turned against Madara toward the end, killing him—and even so, Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi had to do a lot of persuading to get the elders to reluctantly let him in.

Sakura shook her head again, clearing her thoughts. After retrieving her pen from her side, she placed it toward the opposite end of her desk, and searched through a compartment for some loose-leaf paper. It was more than messy in there, but eventually, after much noise of moving scissors, rulers and such, Sakura found one piece of crumpled paper, and rolled her eyes. If Sasuke weren't there, she wouldn't have wasted one of her last pieces of paper. She needs paper to write her notes, she needs her notes to make a essay, she needs her essay to make an analysis, and she needs her analysis to get paid. She grumbled, "Little bitch just had to make me waste my last peice of good paper. Stupid Uchiha."

Sasuke, however quite entertained by her simple struggles, was getting bored of how boring it really was in the office. The walls were stark white, the furniture a plain oak wood, the chairs did spin and had wheels, which was amusing to a point, but after a while you got used to it. Konoha can get so monotonous, but sometimes—he bumped the chair against the wall, making the bookcase shake, causing multiple books tumble down—it was interesting. Sakura's face reddened as each book feel to the ground, her eyes narrowing to her glare and she broke the tip of her pen, attempting to vent her anger somewhere.

The ink then spilled over the last piece of paper, ruining it, and that was it for the Cherry Blossom. She stood, slamming her hands on her desk, "Why are youhere? God, I swear it's like you have nothing better to do but annoy me all of the sudden! Do you not realize this is kind of my job—if I am fired, I'll be running to your house for money and the nobody wins? So, unless you have some epic otherworldly reason, I'd find it best on your account to get the heck out! God, that was my last peice of paper!" The room shook from her rant, and against what most would do, Sasuke smirked, and leaned back into his chair, arms behind his head, "I just wanted to see what you do when you're not healing people."

Sakura gasped and began spastically jerking her arms, "B-But—why-wh-….that makes absolutely no sense! You could've just asked me!"

"…I could've."

She fell into her chair, and gave up on trying getting any work done before meeting with Ino and Hinata for a shopping day. She kept her lips tight, clicking her broken pen and seethed, "Then why didn't you?" Sasuke got out of his place and shrugged, glancing at the clock hanging on the wall. It was her that made his day enjoyable, though he hated to admit it. He was practically incomplete without talking to her. It was as if he'd forgotten to do something very important, and that type of feeling was something Sasuke didn't enjoy. He liked to get everything done on his priority list, and if something were left unchecked, he wouldn't sleep soundly that night.

Sakura frowned after a few moments, noticing Sasuke wouldn't answer her question and she cleaned her inky desk, asking another question, trying to change the subject, "When do you think the Elders will let you go on missions? It's kind of pointless for you to go to training if you're not going to go on missions."

Sasuke walked to her desk, then behind it, and leaned over her shoulder, watching the black ink move around the oak desk, refusing to be absorbed by the paper towel, no matter how hard or how long Sakura wiped. After another moment, Sasuke answered her question, "I don't know when those old idiots are going to come to their senses. Besides Hyuuga and Dobe, I'm the best ninja they have. It's like their writing their own death wish."

Sakura continued her attempt at cleaning, until she decided enough was enough, and threw the soaked paper in the garbage. It annoyed her to no end that she, once again, would need to buy a new desk. Last time it was her fault that the desk was broken, but this time it was all Sasuke for blame. She felt her face heat up from anger, but then shook her head. It was pointless getting angry at him now. He'd already done it. "Well, it's not necessarily like that, Sasuke, once you think about it. If they let you go on missions, our reputation as the highest village will go down. It's a moralistic—"

He interrupted her rationalization harshly, "What they did to me and my family wasn't moralistic." Sakura turned in her chair and glanced at his expression. He was angry, yes, but under that obvious emotion, Sakura saw resent, anguish, loneliness and overall pain, a deep hatred of these people that he was almost forced to respect. He was honestly torn and stressed so much over the past and what the Elders hid from him for so long. Sasuke never even told anyone the whole story, but Sakura could see now that it was tearing him from the inside out.

Lost in her reverie, Sakura didn't notice that Sasuke had left the office leaving a note on her broken computer screen. She grabbed the small sticky note out of curiosity, read it, and then soon crumpled it up with a groan. She hurled it out the window, and stomped out of her office in fury. She was out of Tylenol, and she needed it now.

What the note said, you ask?

There was paper in your printer, Sakura.

You don't have to call me stupid.

Alright, so how do you like it? I know Sasuke is a little (lot) out of character, but, he's been acting weird lately…like demented weird. So, he's always out of character! Yeah, let's pretend that made sense.

Review and all that other junk!

~NaruBaby2496