Author’s Notes: Yay, Ino and Shikamaru are both in this chapter! I’ll bet you were wondering where Shikamaru had scampered off to, weren’t you?

This Chapter’s Inspiration:

"Maybe I'm a little bit over my head,
I come undone at the things he said;
and he's so funny in his bright red shirt;
we were all in love, and we all got hurt . . .

Boy, we're going way too fast . . .
It's all too sweet to last . . ."

— "White Houses"
Vanessa Carlton

0

AND

THOUGH

YOU

MAY

HAVE

BUTCHERED

US

chapter five

Parking Lot Undertones of Friday

0

/ Sakura took a long drag on her cigarette, glancing behind her at the mixed crowd milling around the bar. She ground out the cigarette in the ashtray sitting on the bar and dropped it into her mother’s beer. That would be a good test to find out how drunk Anko was — to see if she would swallow a cigarette butt whole.

They were still on stage, Anko and Ibiki and the rest of Stepping Razor. It had been a bad set, and, watching them break down the equipment, she could see that they knew it. It didn’t really matter, though — the sound system was loud and scratchy and everyone had kept on smoking and drinking and shouting, so she doubted that the manager would mind. There had even been a little dancing.

The bartender offered her another drink, ‘on the house’.

“Milk,” Sakura smirked, brushing back several strands of her long pink hair. She pocketed a few matchbooks when the bartender’s back was turned.

A moment later, Anko was sitting on the stool beside her, running a hand through her sweat-dampened hair. She looked tired. Her mascara was running a little, and her lipstick was rubbed off of the edges of her mouth, but still clung to the insides of her lips, smudged a little. She picked up the beer and took a deep drink before spitting it out all over the counter.

Sakura couldn’t help the wicked laughter that escaped her lips. Anko looked at her incredulously before shaking her head in something close to amused exasperation. “Go help load up the car,” she said, waving a hand at Sakura.

She hopped off of the stool and leaped up onto the stage in one easy movement. Ibiki, Anko’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, was standing nearby. He glared at her as she began to pick up stuff randomly, so she stuck to what belonged to Anko. Though Anko and Sakura were still living in his apartment, his relationship with Anko was currently closer to off-again than anything else.

“Got any cash on you, kid?” Ibiki said. He was looking at her expectantly, and she rolled her eyes as she fished a ten-dollar bill from her pocket, handing it to him. She had more and he probably knew it, but she wasn’t about to give him any. Ibiki ambled off towards the bar, probably to get some beer to go.

Heavy equipment under her arm, Sakura climbed carefully down from the stage and started shouldering her way through the crowd. People mostly got out of her way. A moment later, she had passed through the exit and was standing in the cold parking lot. The air out there was refreshing compared to what she’d been breathing in the bar — hot and stale; smelling of alcohol, sweat and breath.

She crossed the parking lot quickly, fumbling for the keys that Anko had entrusted her with earlier that evening and unlocking the crappy brown station wagon. The car was parked diagonally across two spaces, indicating that Ibiki had been the one who had parked when they’d arrived at the bar that afternoon. Sakura rolled her eyes as she pulled open the rear hatch. Rude parking was a trademark of Ibiki’s. Why Anko let him drive her car when she was still refusing to give Sakura driving lessons was anyone’s guess.

It only took her a few minutes to load all of the stuff into the car, so she hurried back across the parking lot, determined to get Anko out of the bar before someone smashed a window. You couldn’t leave anything in a car in Philly — the last time someone had broken into Anko’s car had been for a second-hand coat and a bag of towels. The only thing that that told Sakura was that if someone was willing to go to the trouble of breaking into a car for next-to-nothing, it was a fair bet that someone would also be willing to try and steal some of their more expensive equipment.

This time, the girl checking IDs at the door gave her a long, hard look, but eventually shrugged and stepped aside. It was late, almost last-call, so it hardly mattered. Sakura was met with the same warm, stale air as before when she stepped inside the bar. Anko was still sitting at the bar, drinking something that looked stronger than beer.

“Car’s loaded up,” Sakura said, leaning against the bar.

Anko nodded and swigged the rest of whatever was in the bottle before setting it down on the bar and turning toward the door. She ran a hand through her hair again before quickly checking her pockets. “Can I have a cigarette, kiddo?” she asked.

Sakura nodded, reaching into her pocket and pulling out two cigarettes. She handed one to Anko and lit hers with a Bic, also taken from her pocket.

“Cigarette kiss,” Anko chirped as she leaned toward Sakura in a way that was goofy and embarrassing and sweet all at the same time. Sakura leaned in to meet her, clumsily brushing the red tip of her cigarette against the tip of Anko’s. Two puffs and it flared to life. Anko smelled of cigarettes and beer and sweat, but it was a decidedly different smell than that of the stale bar air. That smell was almost comforting to Sakura; as familiar as any perfume.

“You ready to go home?” Ibiki’s voice startled Sakura. It wasn’t that she didn’t know that he was there; it was the sound of his voice: velvety, a shade off of sleazy. Not normal asshole Ibiki voice at all. He sounded drunk, a bit more than he usually did.

Anko nodded and began walking toward the door. Sakura followed a few steps behind. A sudden movement caught her eye — it was Ibiki, arm raised as though he were about to punch Anko in the back. Sakura reacted without thinking, slamming her slight weight into Ibiki. She was only able to knock him over because he was drunk.

Stepping Razor’s drummer (whose name Sakura had somehow never learned) rushed forward to try and restrain Ibiki, who was now stumbling around and shouting. Ibiki had just enough time to punch the drummer in the face before he was beneath a pile of concerned patrons. Someone called the cops.

By the time the cops showed up, Ibiki couldn’t remember any of what had just happened. He was mad as hell, though, cursing Anko at the top of his lungs. Sakura and Anko hitched a ride back to Ibiki’s apartment, where they began gathering up their clothes and other belongings in black garbage bags and orange plastic crates. Anko paced the apartment, calling around, trying to find a place for them to crash.

“We’re going to your grandma’s,” Anko said eventually, folding her cell phone and putting it back into her purse.

“Did you call her?” Sakura asked.

“Yeah, I just woke her up.” She sounded tired, and Sakura wondered just how desperate she must have been to actually ask her mother for help. Ever since Anko and Sakura had moved to Philly, their relationship had been poor, at best. In fact, Anko rarely spoke to her mother for more than ten minutes on holidays before passing the phone to Sakura.

“How long will we be there?” Sakura asked.

“Just till I find somewhere else for us to stay,” Anko assured her. “Don’t worry about it, kid. You can visit that friend of yours.”

“Ino?”

Anko shrugged. “Not sure. The one you e-mail from the library.” /

0

Sakura bit into her toast, chewing slowly as she thought back to the events that had lead up to her finally coming back to Jersey. She was sure that her mother would’ve preferred it if the two of them had found somewhere else to stay after the incident with Ibiki, but they really had nowhere else to go. Sure, Anko had friends everywhere, but most of them could barely take care of themselves and were in no position to have two more people living under their roofs.

She knew that her grandmother really didn’t want them in her house. Anko was a grown woman, after all, and should be able to take care of herself. The only reason she had opened her door to them once again was because they were family, and you always take care of family.

“Sakura?” her grandmother’s voice floated in from the other room. “You’re going to be late.”

“Don’t worry about it, Gram,” Sakura called back. Her grandmother was still under the impression that Sakura was attending school, when, in reality, she was spending her days loitering at the Quick Check, talking with Gaara. She had discovered that he was far more interesting than she had ever given him credit for, if a little weird.

A moment later, her grandmother wandered into the kitchen. She had several pink Sticky-Notes in her hands and was going through them. “I forgot to tell you last night,” she said. “You came home late and I never gave you these messages.”

“Who from?” Sakura asked, around a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

“Well, someone named Kiba called from the Quick Check — something about picking up a uniform and orientation. I hope you’re not thinking about working at a gas station,” she added, raising an eyebrow. “And a boy named Sai called twice.”

“Twice?” Sakura asked, pleased in spite of herself.

“Mm-hm. He left his number and said to call any time.”

Sakura smiled a little, running a hand through her pink hair. “Thanks, Gram,” she said, standing up and taking her plate to the sink.

0

“Don’t you ever work inside the station?” Sakura asked, glancing at the red-haired boy out of the corner of her eye. She was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, pushing some of the wrappers and cans that littered the floor around with her feet.

Gaara paused for a moment, as though he were trying to think back and recall if he had ever done so. “Not really,” he said eventually. “I don’t think they trust me around the cash register. I guess I’m better suited to filling tanks.”

Sakura nodded slowly, biting her lip as she surveyed the messy car. Suddenly, as though she’d just remembered something, she began digging around in the pocket of her jacket. A moment later, she pulled out something wrapped in clear plastic and handed it to Gaara, who raised an eyebrow in response.

“What’s this?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at it.

“I bought you an air freshener,” Sakura announced, smiling. Her smile faded a little when she noticed the way Gaara was eyeing it. “Cute, huh?”

“Does my car smell bad?” Gaara asked, looking from the item in his hands to Sakura and back again. The air freshener was made of a cardboard-like substance, with a little yellow bee on it. ‘Bee-otch’ was emblazoned in big yellow and black letters beneath the picture.

“No. I just thought…” she didn’t finish, opting instead to shrug and look out the window. Gaara was still turning the air freshener over in his hands.

“And you bought it for me?” Gaara looked mildly puzzled.

Sakura nodded. She wanted to ask him if he hated it, if she had been stupid for buying it, but she didn’t feel like being disappointed by his answer. Instead, she began to fiddle with the zipper of her jacket, pulling it up and down, as if distracted. A thought occurred to her.

“Hey, Gaara,” she began, “can I borrow your phone?”

“Sure,” he replied, pulling the small phone from his pocket and handing it to Sakura. It felt odd in her hands, and didn’t look quite right, as though it couldn’t possibly be real. It seemed more like the toy phone of a child.

“Thanks. Be back in sec.” Sakura pushed open the car door, stepping out into the parking lot. It was colder outside than she had anticipated and she shivered violently for a second as she closed the door again.

She fished around in her pocket for a moment, eventually coming up with one of the pink Sticky Notes her grandmother had given her. She dialed the number written on the florescent paper and waited patiently for someone pick up on the other end or for it to go to voice-mail. She hoped it would go to voice-mail — that way, she could leave a message telling Sai when she would be working so he could meet her down at the Quick Check. The gas station was a public place; so hopefully, he would be unable to try anything while they were talking.

On the third ring, someone picked up.

“Hello?” Sai’s voice sounded very different on the phone, and, if she hadn’t known better, Sakura would’ve thought he was someone else. There was a vaguely metallic whirring in the background.

“Hey, Sai,” Sakura stammered, feeling almost nervous and not knowing why. “I figured you’d be at school.”

“You called my cell,” he said. “I’m in Shop right now.”

“This is Sakura,” she said, feeling stupid, as if the words were some sort of benediction of which she was unworthy.

“I know. Teacher’s about to have a hernia, so we’ve got to talk fast. I want to see you. Tonight.”

“I have to work. You could come by —”

“What time?” he asked, interrupting her. She felt awkward, hyperaware of every word, waiting for him to start teasing her and absurdly grateful when he did not.

“Six,” Sakura said, pushing several strands of pink hair away from her eyes.

“Meet me after school. Do you know which car mine is?”

“No. Why don’t you just come by my work?” Sakura asked, trying to wrest back control of the conversation.

“By the entrance then,” Sai said, ignoring her second statement. “The big one. I have to see you.”

She hesitated, but there was no real reason for her not to meet him there. After all, firmly explaining to him that she was not interested in him and politely requesting that he stop calling her grandmother’s house would only take a minute (emphasis on ‘firmly’ and ‘politely’). After that… well, it would probably be better if she were someplace she could leave.

“Okay.”

“Good.” With that, he hung up, leaving Sakura feeling like she’d just drunk two-day-old coffee on an empty stomach. As she turned around and walked back to Gaara’s car, she felt strangely nervous at the thought of speaking to Sai later that day.

Sakura pulled the door open once again and climbed into the car. Gaara had turned on the heater, and it was much warmer inside than it was out in the parking lot. As she settled back into the passenger’s seat, she spotted Gaara adjusting his rear-view mirror. He saw her looking and quickly stopped fiddling with it.

A moment later, Sakura realized that the little yellow air freshener was hanging from the mirror, and she made a great show of coughing into her sleeve to hide her smile.

0

“The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the tress of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of…¹”

Sasuke glanced up from the dog-eared paperback he was holding under the desk. At the front of the classroom, the teacher was trying hopelessly to explain something to the rest of the class that Sasuke had figured out a few weeks previously. He figured that he wasn’t missing much, if anything, while he was lost in his Wilde-induced reverie. It was the last class period of the day, anyway — few students could be bothered to pay attention. He suspected that the teacher knew this, too, as she looked fairly exasperated as she continued to speak to the class.

Looking to his left and right, Sasuke found that he wasn’t alone in this thinking. Two desks over, Naruto was chewing on the end of a pen, his blue eyes boring a hole in the far wall. Sasuke wondered how many pens would have to explode in Naruto’s mouth before he learned not to gnaw on them.

Closer to the back of the room, Sai had his trademark sketchbook open on the desk, and he slowly twirled an inking pen as he turned the pages. He made no effort to hide the fact that he wasn’t paying attention. Throughout the classroom, other students that Sasuke didn’t know were all going about their business according to their own agendas, as opposed to the agenda that the exasperated woman standing in front of the whiteboard would have them follow.

For a moment, Sasuke wondered why anyone would choose teaching as their profession. From what he’d seen, teachers were generally overworked, underpaid and subject to daily harassment and disrespect.

A bell announcing the end of the class period broke into his thoughts. The teacher’s quick words regarding homework or some other such nonsense were drowned out by the rustling of stapled paper and the scraping of chairs against the floor.

Sasuke gathered up his things and hurried into the throng already crowding the relatively narrow hallway. He tried to ignore the girls who used the close-quarters to surreptitiously brush against him as they passed. He was almost used to them by now, these seemingly unavoidable girls that would go out of their ways just to touch (annoying) or smell him (mildly horrifying).

He half-listened to the idle chatter that surrounded him as he busied himself with opening his locker. “Yeah, she’s been gone all week…” “I didn’t believe him, either…” “We were supposed to meet at the mall, but he blew me off!”

Sasuke rolled his eyes, wondering why it was that he never stumbled across an interesting snippet of conversation. Could the people that surrounded him really lead such dull lives? Did they really have nothing to talk about but each other?

A few spins of the lock and the door swung open with a squeak. Sasuke began to rummage around inside, pulling out binders and tucking them under his arm. Just as he began to shove the various binders and books into his backpack, he detected a movement out of the corner of his eye.

Neji Hyuuga had sidled up beside him. He was leaning against the next locker to Sasuke’s, his arms crossed and his pale eyes narrowed. Sasuke raised an eyebrow at him, but made no attempt to start a conversation. The other boy just stood there for a moment; as though he were thinking very carefully about what it was he wanted to say.

“I heard that you’ve been spending time with a certain . . . friend lately.” he said eventually.

“Upset you weren’t invited to the party?” Sasuke allowed himself a small smirk as he resumed fishing around inside his locker.

“No,” Neji frowned. “I was just wondering what you think you’re doing. You should know better by now.” A rather short girl with close-cropped hair was standing sheepishly near Neji’s side. Sasuke thought he recognized her, and wondered if she was the owner of the locker that Neji was blocking.

Sasuke scoffed. “Don’t act all innocent, Neji,” he said, rolling his eyes. “As I recall, we used to have some good times.” Most of which ended with one or both of us passing out on some stranger’s couch, he thought vaguely, but said nothing of it to the other boy.

“I’m not denying anything,” Neji shrugged. “I just figured out what I was doing to myself.”

Sasuke laughed. “Tenten’s got you really whipped, huh?”

“That’s not it, Sasuke,” Neji began, sounding much more irritated now that Tenten had been dragged into the conversation.

“S’cuse me . . .” a small voice floated over Neji’s shoulder, and he glanced behind him at the girl that was still standing there. She balanced her books on one arm and pointed, almost fearfully, at the locker he was obstructing. “I need to . . .”

Neji scowled ferociously at the girl, his pale eyes flashing. “What’s that?” he asked, snarling just enough that the girl shook her head mutely and, gripping her books against her chest, shuffled away. Mission accomplished, Neji turned back to Sasuke.

Sasuke opened his mouth to say something, but Neji silenced him with a wave of his hand. “Look — I don’t want to hear any more crap about how it’s none of my business.”

“Regardless of what you want, Neji,” Sasuke narrowed his eyes a little, filling the two syllables that made up Neji’s name with loathing, “I’m afraid it isn’t any of your business after all.”

“It’s not just hurting you!” Neji snapped, loud enough that a small cluster of Junior girls gathered around a nearby locker jumped at the sound. Gaze flickering in their direction, the Hyuuga lowered his voice. Despite the lower volume, the hushed vehemence was still there, and Sasuke was more than a little surprised by it. “It’s hurting Naruto, in case you haven’t noticed, and a lot of other people, myself included!”

“Naruto doesn’t know . . .” Sasuke tried to darken his voice, but the effect refused to come, and all that came out was a bad-sounding musing that Sasuke himself only half-believed.

“Everybody knows, Sasuke,” Neji replied stiffly. “Don’t kid yourself about that. If you want to be so fucking selfish, then fine, but don’t come to me when —”

He stopped abruptly when, as if on cue, Naruto appeared at Sasuke’s side, Tenten only a step behind. They were both laughing, and Sasuke glanced over his shoulder at the blonde, frowning in a decidedly irritated way. There was a strange quiet, during which the laughter died away, Neji and Sasuke continued to stare daggers at each other, and a horrible, awkward silence fell between the four of them.

“Did we interrupt something?” Naruto asked eventually, looking helplessly between the two. Tenten had an identical look of confusion on her face.

“I don’t think so,” Sasuke said, his voice clipped. He slammed his locker shut, and Tenten brushed past him to stand by Neji. The pale-eyed boy grabbed her hand immediately. She looked a little surprised, but didn’t pull away.

As Sasuke shouldered his backpack, he got the distinct feeling that Neji was trying to prove a point, but then Naruto started chattering quite happily about nothing in particular, and he was swept along in the river of words flowing from the blonde’s mouth.

0

It was weird to be standing outside a school that she should have been going to, but wasn’t. Some of the people looked familiar, like she had known them in grade school, but mostly they just looked like the strangers that they were. Sakura shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans, turning her head and trying to spot Sai among the scads of students milling about.

“Hey,” Sai said, trotting up to her. He was wearing sunglasses and a gray shirt under a heavy navy flannel. He took off the glasses when he got close to her. Dark circles ringed his eyes. “Why didn’t you call me back yesterday? I left a million messages. Your mother said you were at Ino’s, but I checked. You weren’t there.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was out.” He looked so serious that suddenly, there seemed to be something funny about the situation.

“Sakura, I . . .” he started, then seemed to think better of what he was going to say. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. All I can do is think about you.” It sounded like a line, and she wondered how many other girls — if any — he had used this routine on. When she took everything into account — the carousel building, the diner incident, the relentless phone calls and now this meeting — it seemed an awful lot like work.

“I know,” she said sweetly, her veins suddenly pulsing with a sense of possibility. Kids passing by them gave Sai sidelong glances. She suddenly understood why she let him kiss her in the diner, why she’d ever wanted him at all.

She wanted to control him.

He was every arrogant boyfriend that had ever treated her mother badly. He was every boy that had ever laughed at her, had told her she was too freaky, or had just wanted her to shut up and make out. He was a thousand times less real than Gaara.

Sakura’s face split into a wide, wicked grin. She had no desire to play pretend anymore; no need to prove her worth by Sai’s regard. She no longer wanted to know how different the lips of a popular boy were from any other boy. An idea entered her head, and she considered it. It was quite an idea — but, no, she couldn’t do it. It was too stupid. And it would never work. Even if it did work, it was still stupid; not to mention cruel.

Should I?

“Please, Sakura,” he said, reaching for her wrist, holding it tightly, pulling her to him.

This time she pulled away abruptly, not letting him crush her to him, his lips nowhere near close enough to hers to steal another kiss. Instead, she twisted out of his grip and sprung up onto the cement edge of the steps leading up to the school entrance.

“Something you want?” Sakura taunted. Kids were looking at them; had stopped along the path, watching.

“You,” Sai said, reaching out for her again, but she was too quick. Dancing out of his grasp, she laughed.

“You can’t have what you can’t catch,” she goaded, cocking her head to one side. Madness made the blood dance in her veins. How dare he make her feel awkward? How dare he make her measure her words?

He snatched at her hand, but she pulled away easily, spinning along the cement wall. “Sakura!”

She squatted down, legs wide, chin thrust toward him. “Do you adore me, Sai?”

“Yes,” he said frantically.

“Are you besotted with me? Would you die to have me?” Sakura cackled.

“Yes!” Sai’s eyes were dark with desire and fury. Behind him, students were laughing and whispering together.

Sakura laughed, too. She didn’t care in the least. “Tell me again what you would do to have me.”

“Anything,” he said, without hesitation. “Make me do something. Give me a chance.”

The laughter died in her throat, all the fun suddenly gone away. Sakura had toyed with him for long enough. She felt as though she’d sufficiently punished him for what he’d done to her. His unfaithfulness, to Ino, on the other hand, was a matter that still needed to be addressed. But she could take care of that at another time, if she even bothered at all. Perhaps this lesson would be enough to teach him.

“Never mind,” she said, suddenly angry without knowing why. Angry and suddenly ashamed.

Sai looked around him, seeming to notice the gathered crowd of students for the first time. Sakura could see the blush creep up his tattooed neck. He looked at her with something like horror in his eyes. Whether it was horror at his own behavior or at hers, she couldn’t tell.

“What are you playing at?” he asked, dark eyes smoldering.

“Tell Ino to call me,” she said, not caring that that made no sense, not caring about anything other than the fact that she needed to get away from there, away from him, before she careened totally out of control. She didn’t even spare him a glance as she crossed the student parking lot, heading for home.

0

“So I thought we could work on that project this weekend, since you were so bent on it the other day,” Naruto said.

Those were the first words that really registered with Sasuke, as he had still been trying to puzzle out how exactly he should deal with Neji. The dark-haired boy shook his head briefly, trying to clear it of the various plots that were floating through it.

“Yeah,” Sasuke replied. “We can meet at the library or —”

Naruto groaned, shaking his head. “No way, Sasuke,” he said. “That librarian with the British accent hates me.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, ‘so’?” Naruto asked incredulously. “She’s there every day! I can’t think when she’s sitting there at her little desk staring into my soul! I mean, if she wore sunglasses or something it would be different, but . . .”

“You’re not the only one affected by her death-stare,” Sasuke chuckled. “I was there with you when it happened, remember? She used be indifferent toward me, but now . . .” he trailed off, his tone becoming more serious as he continued. “Anyway, you know we can’t go to my house.”

“Then you can come over to my place,” Naruto suggested, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. “I still don’t understand why your dad hates me so much, though.”

Sasuke shrugged. “I can’t tell him that I’m gonna be at your place all day,” he said, feeling strangely like he was trying to be difficult and not quite understanding why.

“Then lie,” Naruto laughed. “You can do that, right?”

“Sure,” Sasuke offered Naruto a low-watt smile. The blonde seemed pleased at the small display, and promptly changed the subject.

0

“I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Shikamaru sighed heavily, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. Ino had been waiting by his van when he came out to unlock it after school and had promptly settled herself in the passenger seat. She had quickly recounted the Ichiraku’s incident and then ranted briefly about how angry she was at Sakura, Sai and herself.

“If you were smart, you’d dump him.” Shikamaru said. “He’s a prick.”

“He’s not . . .” Ino began, but she trailed off and her face fell.

“He is.” Shikamaru said firmly. “He’s screwed around with half the Sophomore class, you know that? Oh, who am I kidding, of course you do. You know everything about him and you never say a thing.”

“Fuck you.” Ino snapped. A moment passed, and she turned away from him, opting instead to look out the window. She continued, softly. “Where did that come from?”

Shikamaru paused for a moment, unsure of whether she was referring to his comment or her own. “Ino,” he said slowly. “We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah.” Ino nodded.

“And we’ve been friends for a really long time.”

Ino smiled a little. “For as long as I can remember.”

“So when I give you advice, I’m giving it to you because I’m trying to be a good friend.”

“Shikamaru —”

He shook his head and she fell silent, nodding sadly, as if she knew what he were going to say. “A good friend that actually cares about you and knows that you can do better, not because I’m a jerk and I have something against Sai.”

Which I do, he thought sadly. But she must know that already, right?

“But still . . .” Ino continued slowly, choosing her words. “I just —”

“— don’t know?” Shikamaru finished, smiling in a way that was either genuine enough or fake enough to get Ino to smile, too. “I’m very smart, Ino. You should listen to me more.”

“Fuck you,” Ino said again, but this time, she was laughing. She leaned back into the seat and looked out across the parking lot, gaze flickering from person to person. Shikamaru did the same.

“Well,” he said, a moment later. “Speak of the devil.”

Ino followed his gaze, and her blue eyes widened slightly. Across the parking lot, near the largest entrance, a growing crowd of students formed a half-circle around two people that appeared to be having a rather intense conversation. One of them was a dark-haired boy in a gray sweatshirt. The other was a pink-haired girl wearing jeans and a red jacket.

Sai and Sakura.

It was unmistakable.

Suddenly, Sakura turned and practically skipped away from Sai, leaving him alone in the center of that circle, students whispering all around him.

“I gotta go,” Ino said quickly, pushing open the passenger-side door. “Cigarette.”

“Yeah.” Shikamaru said dully. He knew what Ino was thinking — at the very least, he could imagine — and he instantly regretting redirecting her attention.

Shikamaru waited until Ino had scampered almost out of sight before he climbed out of the van and followed her to a secluded spot near the rear entrance of the school. Ino had a cigarette between her trembling fingers and she puffed on it quickly. He could hear her sniffing quietly, and had a difficult time repressing his urge to go and talk to her. It was a stupid urge. It would only annoy Ino.

0

“So I’m stuck on baby-sitting duty next weekend,” Naruto lamented. “I mean, ’s a nice guy and all, but his kid’s a handful, you know? Hey — think you could come with? I mean, I’d split the cash with you and —”

“Why would I want to do that?” Sasuke asked, genuinely confused.

“It won’t be so bad,” Naruto insisted. “Especially since you could scare the kid into behaving, easy-peasy.”

“Yeah, lemon-squeezy,” Sasuke laughed, a considering look on his face. After a moment’s thought, he decided to be agreeable. “I’ll think about it.”

“But, Sasuke,” Naruto frowned. “That always means no!”

“How old are you?” Sasuke shook his head and made to smack Naruto in the arm, but the blonde ducked quickly out of range.

Suddenly Naruto stopped walking. Sasuke paused beside him, watching almost curiously as the other boy dug furiously through his backpack. After a moment’s intense searching, he groaned loudly.

“Damn it,” Naruto sighed. “I forgot my math book. I gotta go get it. See you this weekend, ‘kay?”

“Yeah,” Sasuke nodded as Naruto turned around and dashed down the hall.

Sighing a little, Sasuke pushed open on the large double-doors at the rear entrance of the school and stepped out into the bright October afternoon. Lines of students could still be seen waiting at the bus loop and standing in small gaggles on the sidewalk. A particularly large group was gathered in the parking lot, but it was quickly dispersing, so he didn’t get to see what all the fuss had been about.

Sasuke began to mentally go over the homework he had left to finish, but a small sound caught his attention. He turned toward the noise.

Ino Yamanaka was sitting on the ground against the side of the brick building, face buried in her hands, nearly doubled-over. Her slim shoulders were hitching gently with sobs, and a cigarette slowly burned itself to ashes on the sidewalk beside her.

Sasuke wavered in indecision. He really wasn’t good in situations like this — you know, the type that involves interactions with people. He weighed his options, eventually deciding that he should say something to her. It just seemed like the decent thing to do, distraught as Ino was.

He cleared his through loudly. “Are . . . you okay?”

Ino looked up sharply, her tear-stained cheeks reddening instantly. Her embarrassment at being discovered by Sasuke, of all people, was evident. Ino began to dry her eyes with the heels of her hands, smudging her eyeliner and mascara as she did so. Sasuke looked pointedly away from her as she did this.

“Are you okay?” he repeated, unsure of what else to do.

“Yeah, I’m . . . it’s nothing, really,” Ino sighed, lighting another cigarette and still looking thoroughly embarrassed and upset. “Just . . . Sai. I’m sure you’ve heard.”

Sasuke instantly regretted speaking to Ino in the first place. He began to fear that he may be forced into talking about feelings or something else that he was bad at.

“Yeah, I have,” he admitted, still not looking at her directly.

Ino sniffed loudly, her eyes beginning to visibly well-up again. She muttered some lie about how cigarettes made her eyes water. At that, Sasuke lost his nerve. He wanted to say something more to her — he really did, but there was nothing he could think to say.

“So . . . I’ll see you, Ino.” Sasuke finished awkwardly.

She nodded, still sniffling and trying to smoke through tears. “See you, Sasuke.”

Sasuke shoved his hands into his pockets and made his way over to the parking lot, trying to look forward to the sharp bite of a razor that would make him forget all about Ino.

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Author’s Notes: Poor, poor Ino. Not to spoil anything, but things won’t get much better for her as this fic continues.

I’m glad I got to get Shikamaru in this time around. Originally, he wasn’t in this chapter at all, but I figured that he needed a larger role in this section if I’m going to go through with everything I’ve got planned for him later in And Though You May Have Butchered Us.

Oh, and as for the superscript explaination: the passage that Sasuke is reading is part of the first paragraph of The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. If you haven't read it, you definetly should.

Please forgive me for any and all OOC-ness present in this chapter, because I'm sure that there's quite a bit, at least from what I can see.

All reviews are much appreciated.

Until next time, dear reader!