Step by Step

By hye-kyo

Disclaimer: Nope, Naruto isn’t mine…

Author’s Notes: So here’s a one-shot for you guys. I have been slacking off on my SasuSaku fic I know. If I say it’s writer’s block you’d probably be stoning me to death while calling me liar. Yeah, to have a writer’s block for a couple of years isn’t really that thinkable. But hey, I promise to start on it again…yeah…after the writer’s block.

But anyway, this is a shift from my KakaSaku drabbles. This piece has been hanging around in my pc for so long, waiting to be finished. And this morning, while at work, I finished it. But I haven’t edited it.

So there.

Read and Review!

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Step one: write her a letter. Step two: sneak into the ward and place it among the other papers she piles on her desk. Step three: make sure the letter stands out so that no stupid assistant would mistake it for solicitation. Step four: wait. Step five: pray. Step six: no, no step six yet.

Sasuke took in a deep breath, a pained ragged deep breath. So far he has gone until step five…and was now thinking what to do next. He wasn’t a religious person, but here he was praying silently that somehow things would fall into place.

--

Sakura frowned, found the pile of documents on her desk frustrating. She called for her assistant who cleared all the stupid stuff away and left her sighing, looking out into the window and wishing that somehow, something nice would happen.

Everything had been fine, she had moved on quite good and had been ready to accept the new life, well the better life that she had now until that stupid, utterly arrogant, full-of-himself Uchiha came back. And it ruined everything.

She sat on her desk, debating with herself whether she’d simply ignore him and continue on with what she had been doing since he disappeared or whether she’d talk to him to finally know what was the real reason why he was now acting weird with her.

She shook her head, realizing that either was futile. There was no point. Not talking to him would render him vague and talking to him would still render him vague.

Sakura was about to pull out some medical records that she had been studying when she noticed a piece of parchment on the floor. Maybe her assistant had accidentally forgotten to take it with her. She picked it up, unfolded it and began to read.

--

Sasuke could not wait any longer. And so step six came. And it was: barge in. And, as continuation of step six, talk to her. Even if it would mean he has to swallow his pride and stoop to the level of Naruto. Well, nothing could be worse than that except…except not being able to be with her.

Sheesh. He cursed himself. When had he gotten this mushy? It was the stupid dobe. And if not for his meddling he wouldn’t have been feeling all this depressed lately.

Sasuke came back to Konoha after serving at some mining camp in the Sand Village as a sentence for his leaving the Leaf. While at the mining camp he had decided to straighten his life, serve the village with all he’s got and be a great shinobi. He had never planned on falling…well liking the stupid pink-haired kunoichi who had been running after him since time immemorial. But when he came back she was no longer stupid, nor whiny, nor weak, nor annoying. And that bothered him. Because he started wanting to see her and to talk to her and to just look at her and to spend time with her.

And soon he simply doesn’t want to just see her nor talk to her but to be with her and hold her and touch her and kiss her and make her his. And that consumed his mornings and his evenings until he couldn’t function well.

It all started when the dobe threw a welcome party where everyone in their batch attended, including the asocial Hyuuga boy but there wasn’t even any slight indication that she had come.

No she didn’t come.

And at first he didn’t care. But as days turned into weeks he realized he just couldn’t bear not to hear any explanation from her. Because after all he was her god, her obsession and why the hell didn’t she show up?

No, he was not possessive. Just curious. And that made him barge into the hospital looking for her. And when he found her he just couldn’t believe what he saw. Sure she was taller and prettier than before but who cares? It wasn’t as if he had not seen women taller and prettier than her. Well, he hadn’t seen anyone better to be honest.

But that wasn’t the point. The point was…was…what was the point anyway? How could she simply continue tending someone else when here he was waiting for her to talk to him? And look beautiful? Beautiful? Where did that come from?

And when she was done she simply turned to him and cocked her head that seemed to ask, “So you’re here. What do you need?” and with that she turned away again and left him agitated. Because he was feeling…weird.

He was shaking from the inside, feeling hot, feeling something he had never felt before in his twenty three years of life.

“Sakura,” he had called her and it took her a couple of minutes before she turned to him.

And she asked, “Uchiha-san?”

And it shook him. Uchiha-san. Not Sasuke-kun.

It made him want to shout but he didn’t because they were in the hospital and hospitals were supposed to be quiet places. So he kept quiet while she shrugged and turned away again and while he shook inside and felt his anger rising uncontrollably within him.

He left.

And he punched a lot of things. Kicked a lot of things. Broke a lot of things. And hit a lot of things. Including the dobe’s stupid head.

And he hit his own head. And it hurt. But what hurt was not his head but somewhere down in his chest. And it made it hard for him to breath.

--

Sakura ran the lines along her head, felt her fists curling into a ball. She stood up. If it was a fight that he wants then she would give him a fight. He just showed her an opportunity to finally hit his face. And she had been wishing for that to happen for so many years.

For so many years of trying to get him. It just wore off. Like a scab that slowly disappeared. And before she knew it she was as smooth as she was before she met him. And she started functioning well. Better indeed.

She doesn’t know how it happened. When he returned she simply didn’t have the desire to see him. So she ignored the party Naruto threw for him. Besides even if she did want to go it would be impossible because she was tied to the hospital. And so she didn’t go. And it felt good.

Soon he started coming around, trying to talk to her but she just couldn’t take it to see his face so she ignored him and told him to leave because she was busy and because, unlike him, her life was going smoothly. And she tried to hate him just to show him that he was nothing in her life now but she realized hating him would only make him feel special so she treated him the way she treated others and before she knew it he was simply a face among the hundreds of faces in Konoha.

And that made her feel better.

But his visits at the hospital continued and increased and he always tried to get on her nerves, one time even telling her that he wasn’t all that surprised when he found out she became a medic nin because she was lame in fighting. Then he laughed and that almost made her punch him.

And when he told her that, something in her suddenly felt light. And that was when she confirmed it, she was through with him, over him and that there was no reason for them to talk anymore.

She just has to confirm whether she really was over him or not. So Sakura stood up, walked over to the door readying herself for a fight when the door suddenly opened.

--

Step six was to barge in. And barge in he did. But there was no step seven and all he could do when he barged in was to stare at her and to take in her nice scent.

“What Uchiha-san?” she asked, prompting him back to reality.

“Have you…have you read it?” he asked the first thing that came to his mind. No step seven. He should’ve planned until the twentieth step. He needed some tutoring from Shikamaru.

“Yes. So?” she raised her brows, poised her hand for a punch and said, “I’m just about to leave.”

His eyes widened. Just what Naruto wrote on the letter? Okay, so he wasn’t the one who wrote it but he had told Naruto what to write. “G-good,” he said, wondering what else to say.

She nodded, a glare fixed in her eyes. She stepped out, followed him and locked the door behind her. He felt the pricking of his hairs at the back of his neck and felt that instead of salvation, it was death approaching him, in the form of a certain pink-haired kunoichi.

--

They reached training ground three. She positioned himself in front of him and said, “I’m ready when you are.”

Now he wanted to ask her about the letter and whether she had brought it with her and whether he could read it. But he realized he didn’t need to read it anymore when Sakura came charging in with her fists covered in her gloves curled into a tight ball.

Sasuke had seen her Herculean strength before. He had cringed at the sight of Naruto’s broken bones and jaw when Sakura’s fist connected with his face after a peeking incident involving the dobe.

And he was afraid.

“Here I come!” she shouted and he was too stunned to react especially when her fist joined his face and the impact came, leaving him blank from the moment it landed to the moment he himself landed a good number of kilometers from where she was.

She stopped, taking in a deep breath, realizing how nice it was. She could get used to it. She watched as he stood up, walked over to her limply and with his face a bit turned from the punch he said, “Why did you hit me?”

“This was supposed to be a match,” she said with her arms akimbo. “Let’s continue.”

“I asked you to come to talk,” he blushed furiously, seeing her face closer than he used to.

She frowned. “We could talk while we fight.” And she charged in again.

He dodged, trying to catch her hands in his. But remembering that her strength was deadly, he resumed his dodging. “Sakura.”

“What?” she smirked, threw a couple more punches before stopping, “Aren’t you even going to attack?”

He stopped too, thanking Kami. He felt his nose bleeding and his neck felt a bit strained too. His jaw was a bit stiff while his tongue started numbing, “I like you.”

And she froze.

So that was step eight. Sasuke too froze.

--

Sakura took a step back, breaking from the shock from his words. There’s no point in continuing the game when he wasn’t serious at all.

Her heart pounded in her ears. She turned on her heel, her face flushing red and her fists curling once more because of anger. Now he was playing with her.

She turned to leave but his next words took the life out of her.

“I am sorry. For everything.”

--

That was step eight. Say sorry. Ask for forgiveness. Confess and then be penitent. Now she was becoming his goddess. He took a step towards her, her back to him.

No matter what, it was Sakura whom he wanted to be with.

Now what?

Step nine: kiss her.

--

She turned, her fists glowing with chakra and the next thing she knew she took a leap towards him, her fist poised to crush his jaw.

--

Sasuke was ready for step nine when she turned. But when she did, he felt the sudden weight of the world on his jaws and he thought he heard bones breaking and there was nothing but darkness…

--

Sasuke opened his eyes to the feel of something warm against his aching jaw. He blinked, saw Sakura with her fists glowing green against his jaw. He blinked again.

“Don’t move,” she ordered.

His head was pillowed on her lap. He almost wanted to close his eyes and savor the moment. Right, he was being mushy. Cheesy. Shoot him.

Sasuke peered at her face, and in his sincerest voice he whispered, “I mean everything I said.”

She shrugged. Her eyes trained on his jaw.

“I would have kissed you if it weren’t for my jaw.” And he felt the really strong urge to do just that.

There was a pause, a really long pause. And Sasuke looked up to meet her eyes.

--

Sakura knew it wasn’t pretty. The damage she did to his face wasn’t really nice to look at. But as soon as he said that he meant everything, everything came back like it was the first time. Like it was the first time she fell in love with him. Just like with every other time she felt herself falling more and more in love with him.

Like jamais vu. Everything about him is a first.

And yes, even though it wasn’t really how she planned and how she dreamed being confessed to, what with the blood and all, it was really okay.

After all, it was Sasuke. The man she loved for so long.

--

Sasuke waited. His eyes trained on hers. He waited, and he felt like he had been waiting forever. But he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter.

And finally she spoke. “Hn…let’s wait till it’s all healed…” and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

“Right…” he closed his eyes. He had to thank Naruto for this, after he breaks the dobe’s jaws, that is.

--

A/n: So there. It was rather long for a one-shot I guess…but well, Sasuke’s a bit OC…I’m not really sure. But please do tell me what you think about it…