Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Surprise, Blossom ❯ It starts with a misfortune ( Chapter 1 )

Surprise Blossom 1

(Sakura's P.O.V)

The bell is loud, the halls are crowded if you're late, and finding a decent guy here is close to impossible.

“I LOVE THIS PLACE!”

“Oi, Sakura.” Naruto leaned back and stared at me in surprise, his chop sticks only halfway to his mouth and hanging in midair.

I stared at my two friends with excited eyes. “We have the best high school ever! We start in grade 10 and we know everyone from last year! I don't have to struggle to make new friends, and I have you guys with me! A fortune teller said I'll do well with school, since I AM very smart, and my yearly horoscope promised love!”

Sasuke raised his eyebrows. “You believe in horoscopes?” Sasuke was the hottie of the whole town. Many girls hated me for being his best friend. I had to admit he was really good looking. With his black hair and entrancing dark eyes…it was hard for those other girls not to fall for him!

Naruto started cackling. “Ahahahaha! You read horoscopes?” Naruto was a loud, fart-smelling hygiene-impaired annoyance. And that was giving him credit.

I rolled my eyes at the both of them. “Anyways, we should plan our year.” I required no reply (nor would I get one if I waited) “So here's the plan: We stay best friends. Naruto finally gets with Hinata. Sasuke shares more feelings with me. I AM your best friend.”

“Me too!” Naruto chirped. He was ignored.

Sasuke just smirked at me. “Swell. But Naruto refuses to believe that Hinata likes him.”

I gaped at him. “Are you stupid?!” All three of us glanced up as Hinata herself passed by our lunch table. She stared at her converse shoes, and at the last second peeked back at Naruto, turned red, and walked into the lunchroom supervisor, apologized, and then proceeded to walk into the glass-exit door.

“She does not!” Naruto shouted. Sasuke and I glanced at each other and both rolled our eyes. If Naruto was going to be slow then so be it.

“Well anyways,” I resumed my point. “Sasuke, since you and I don't have classes with Naruto in the afternoon, we should start building our bond!” I raised my hands into the air and brought them in a huge circle in front of my chin. I closed my eyes and concentrated.

“Oh my….”

I opened my eyes and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Sasuke started laughing. “Freshmen are staring. Don't do yoga in the middle of the cafeteria.”

I guffawed. “Whatever. They should do some deep breathing and chill out.”

Sasuke smirked at me. “Is that what your anger-management guide told you?”

I reached out to punch him but missed. “Shut up! I don't go to those classes anymore!”

Sasuke looked entertained. “Really? That's a mistake.” He always got a joy out of harassing me. I was about to throw a kick when I remembered that I was lucky enough to be seeing this side of him at all. All of his plentiful fan girls would kill to hear a single word.

So I grinned instead at my two best friends. “High school is gonna rock!”

“Believe it!” Naruto threw in.

I smiled and pulled the two of them up and away from their lunches, finished or not. “Now let's get going!”

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In the afternoons, Sasuke and I have Athletics-Gym (a special program for gifted athletes), English, and then a spare in which we basically play some soccer in the big field while we wait for Naruto to finish with his regular classes. Naruto used to be in the Athletics program, but he got kicked out for tardiness and back-talk.

“Eight laps and Haruno leads stretching!” the coach announced. I grinned inwardly.

“Yesss!”

Others passed us as Sasuke and I got in sync, side by side. At first we talked a bit, but after the first half-lap both of us fell into deep, focused silence. Our concentrated breathing pounded in our ears.

“Hnnn hnnn haa, hnnn hnnn haa,” we breathed. In, in, out…in, in out…

The laps were done and then the class got into an intense circle around me. The Athletics class was VERY focused all the time, and I began my intense yoga stretches that this class actually appreciated. I threw Sasuke a look as he smirked at me and flipped over into the `Weeping Willow'.

That day we did some soccer, which was awesome because it was mine and Sasuke's (and Naruto's) ruling sport. Athletics soccer is not just kicking the ball around. It's more like, `hit this and if you don't, someone else will aim for your face'. Very intense. Very sweat-provoking.

At the end of class I hurried to the change room. I was the only girl in this program because they only recently started allowing girls to enter, and there was only one change room. Everyone knew to always stay away from my corner stall, and the stall next to it too. In fact, the rest of the class (the guys) changed in the main room basically.

In my little stall, I was incredibly nervous. This was always the WORST part of gym as I had learned so far in high school. The stall felt like it was shrinking, and when I yanked my shorts off I always felt like someone was watching me. In a hurry, I pulled my frilly pink skirt on and then my white tank top on. Then, I applied a LOT of deodorant, perfume, put on my jewelry, and hesitantly opened the door.

The guys all talked amongst themselves calmly as I hurried past them, eyes staring at my black open-toed flats. I stopped walking when I reached Sasuke's familiar feet. I forced myself to look up. “Oh man! Why?!”

I turned away, bright red as Sasuke stood there laughing with no shirt on. “Come on, Sakura. It's me. Are you so scared of guys that you can't handle your childhood best friend?”

I waved his insults away and rolled into a little ball on the bench, clutching my nose. Sasuke laughed and pulled his shirt on. It was another jersey because as soon as English was done with, we'd be out playing soccer again.

Speaking of English, we were gonna be LATE! I gasped and grabbed Sasuke's bag, making him run after me for it. With this tactic we made it to class right as the bell rang, and therefore got no `looks' from the teacher.

We both took a seat at a table off to the side, and I hurried to pull out my Konoha poetry book, the one we were all currently reading. English was one of my strong subjects, and Sasuke seemed to be gifted at everything (except yoga). Ms. Ingram asked people to read Poem Five and then we did a few worksheets on it. The poem was an easy one, so there was definitely no homework. I high-fived Sasuke because we had both pulled off a no-homework day today, and I got evil glares from his fan girls.

As the bell rang everyone else hurried to get to their next class. I grinned at Sasuke because we would be `relaxing' during our spare. He just chuckled.




Out on the field I stood in the green grass and spread my hands up high, catching the slight wind. “Awesome day!” I exclaimed. Sasuke simply nodded as he set the field up.

The grass was just a bit too long today but it was fine, it would probably be mowed by tomorrow. I pulled on my socks and shin-protectors and then got up with a victorious look in my eye. “Okay, I'm going to kick your Uchiha but today.” It was always so fun to address him by his last name.

Sasuke just shook his head at me and my pink soccer ball. “We'll see.” Then, he did something truly cruel. I watched in horror as Sasuke peeled off his jersey and threw it to the side. “You don't mind, right?” He smirked at me. “Doesn't distract you, right?” I glared at him, and that's when we really got started.

“HYAAA!” People in the school could probably hear my roars as I fought to get the ball past Sasuke. Running was my strong point, but he was very good at blocking and stealing the ball. With just the two of us here I could really go full-out. I screamed again as I tried to kick it into the net. Sasuke saved it and started running with the ball towards MY net. I turned beet red and sprinted.

“NO! MINE!!!” I managed to dash up to him and then I attempted to get the ball while we were both in mid-sprint. That's when the misfortune happened.

“Uh-oh.” I felt the ground slip out from under me. I saw, from the corner of my eye, as the pink ball was kicked about twenty meters ahead, straight into my unprotected net. I managed to swear despite the fact that we were both going down.

For a second I didn't realize that the warmth against my face wasn't blood, as I expected it to be. Though I wish it had been instead. No, it was the heat emitting off of Sasuke's hard stomach. I gasped and threw my head up, not being able to bear being so close. Then, something in my back decided to crack and I winced in pain. Sasuke noticed.

“Sakura?” He sat up a bit, so now I felt like a preschooler on a hot teacher's lap. “You okay?” he asked.

“I'm fine!” I retorted, my pink hair concealing my face. It was no use.

“Are you crying?” Sasuke grasped my shoulders and made me show my face. Sure enough, tears betrayed me and rolled down my cheeks. My green eyes were a mess. I sobbed.

“I'm not crying!” I was mad, too. How could I cry like this? I had to take my anger out on someone, and suddenly all those anger-management techniques completely slipped from my mind. My head snapped up. “IT'S YOUR FAULT, FOR-” and I never got to finish, because I think for the first time in my life I took in Sasuke Uchiha's face. And I mean REALLY took it in.

His deep, dark eyes pierced my own and I felt my head grow dizzy. His mouth was fixed in both concern and also a little bit of confusion. His nose was so close to my nose, and then I took in his abs and then his legs and his arms and his beautiful dark, spiked hair and then I think I fell in love.

“Sakura, you okay? Can you hear me?” Oh yes, I definitely heard his voice. And it wasn't just `his voice' anymore. It was like a sweet melody, drifting through the wind to me. I sighed.

“I'm fine.”

Sasuke let me down and got up to go retrieve the soccer ball. He left the nets as they were and came back to me with both ball and jersey in hand. “Let's go?” He grabbed my hand like so many times before to help me up, but this time I noticed how nicely his muscles flexed. I noticed what a nice hand he had, too. I felt like his touch pricked my skin in an amazing way.

We began the walk back in silence. I examined my free hand now, to see if it was really burning. It wasn't. Sasuke brushed the sweat off his forehead and pulled his jersey on. “Sorry about the no-shirt thing. I shouldn't cheat, eh?”

“Gah…” I choked, and I felt something like disappointment. “Baga-haga,” I said. He didn't hear me.

At the school we met up with Naruto, who whined about not having a spare like we did. On the way home, the three of us walked home with me in the middle as we had probably walked a hundred-thousand times before in my lifetime. This time, it was different. This time, when my best friends walked me to my front door and I waved bye, I stuck around to stare as they left. When they were gone from view, I ran up to my second-story bedroom and watched from the window until they were gone from view.