"If we get caught, I'm blaming you."

Sakura shot him a pointed look over her shoulder. "We're ninjas."

Her statement was met with his raised eyebrow, and followed by "You're too drunk to behave anything ninja-like."

"That is so untrue. You'll see."

"I've seen enough."

She huffed at him. Breaking into Hokage's office wasn't an easy thing to do, even sober. He could cut her some slack. "Besides, no one's he–"

The sound of footsteps made her stop mid-sentence, and she looked with worry at her partner in crime. He managed to give her the 'I told you so' look even in this situation, before nodding his head in the direction of the door across the hall; away from where the footsteps were coming from.

Sakura followed Neji, as he silently took off, trying her hardest to do the same in the same fashion, because duh, she may have been drunk but she was still a ninja – like she had told him – and drunkenness didn't downgrade her skills; the fact that the world might have been spinning – only a little, though – didn't matter either.

The door was unlocked, and when they made it inside, she noted it must have been a janitor closet, if the mop and the bucket standing in the corner or various cleaning products scrambled on the shelves were anything to go by. Neji had probably found it while she was trying to break into the office, so of course, he didn't believe in the success of their little adventure and looked for the escape route. Typical.

And of course, Sakura had to comment on the silent insult he had unintentionally given her.

She crossed her arm and looked at him with indignation. "You weren't giving me any credit from the start."

"Obviously."

Maybe not so unintentional.

"Hey, we've made it past the guards!" she told him. Annoyed at how he was downplaying her abilities, she bit her tongue from arguing with him, that if she was so bad of a ninja while drunk they would have never made it that far.

Instead, she asked, "Why did you agree to come with me, then?"

She looked up at him; his tall figure was looming over her, the bulb he had lit when they walked inside reflected its light on his face and she could see his clenched jaw.

Sakura knew the answer to that question, and she knew he was mad at her and Ino.

It didn't stop her from reminding him about it.

The reason why he was annoyed with her was because she had agreed to this "stupid, pointless bet when there was no need to", as he had summed it up. And Ino had told him he was just being scared of getting in trouble and didn't know how to have fun, so it was rather obvious that insulting his pride would anger him.

And make him get into this bet with her.

So now, here they were.

When he didn't speak, she thought he was going to ignore her and stay silent, but his whisper reverberated in the room. "Maybe I just wanted to see you fail?"

The smirk perfectly complemented the intent behind those words.

Oh, no, he didn't.

Insulting her pride was something Sakura also didn't take lightly.

"You–"

He cut her off with a hush. "We're trying to not be caught, remember? You were boasting about your excellent ninja skills while inebriated five minutes ago, so don't ruin it now by going berserk on me. Just because we can't hear them, doesn't mean they are gone."

Sakura inhaled deeply, trying to control the anger that was building inside of her. He was treating her like a child, and not a perfectly capable ninja that she was, dammit!

"I was not going to go "berserk" on you," she hissed through clenched teeth, trying the hardest not to scream. "I was just trying to tell you that you are an asshole, asshole."

She heard him make a noise in his throat, and she thought it might have been a laugh trying to escape his lips, but it was Neji Hyuga, and Neji Hyuga didn't laugh.

"Maybe you should focus on keeping your chakra hidden while we're here and not insulting me," he told her.

"Me insulting you? You keep being mean to me. "Just because you can't hear them, doesn't mean they're gone"? Oh, really? Really?" she jabbed at his chest with her finger.

"I'm being mean to you? What are you, ten? I'm just telling you my observations about your person," Neji pushed her hand away, and then added with a frown. "Also, you keep getting louder. You're going to get us caught."

Sakura snickered, standing on her toes and whispering closer to his face. "Keep making those observations, and I will scream and when they find us, you'll have to explain why you were trying to break into Hokage's office."

"You wouldn't dare."

She smiled at him sweetly. "Wanna bet?"

Neji's eyes darkened, and her back was suddenly pressed against the wall of the tiny room they occupied. "You've already lost once tonight. Want to lose again? You'll get in trouble, too."

"The night's not over, yet. I'm going to win that stupid bet," she told him confidently. "And I'll gladly get in trouble if that means to drag you with me. I don't know if you'd handle it, though."

He smiled at her, humorlessly. He moved his head to whisper in her ear, and she could feel his lips brushing over it with every word he spoke. "I'd handle it just fine, no need to worry about me."

Sakura's remark got stuck in her throat for a brief moment because she didn't know what happened, or how, but she was pretty sure that Neji was trying to flirt with her, and the tension in this tiny space definitely shifted and his lips were really soft. "I wouldn't worry about you."

"Of course," his white eyes found hers after he had moved to look back at her, this time way closer than before; if she would lean just a little, she could kiss him. "But if you were to get us in trouble, you would scream for an entirely different reason."

As the meaning of his words slowly sank in, the only noise in the quiet of the room was their breathing.

Before they had come into this closet Sakura didn't even think Neji had interests in any social interactions, let alone physical ones with other people, and now he had made this explicit innuendo, and…

Oh, god.

Was this what sexual tension was like? What Ino always talked about? Sakura had never experienced this before, and now it seemed like it was too much to handle. She felt so hot, and his gaze pierced right through her, watching every little reaction she was having, and when he smiled so smugly, she knew he did it on purpose.

He was annoying her from the beginning they had gone out on this little escapade – probably as a revenge for tagging him along; although, hey he agreed, and it was Ino's fault, not hers. She could do it alone; it wasn't like he was helping, anyway.

It was just another way to get to her; and it worked.

He probably thought she was going to blush like Hinata whenever she was around Naruto, and act offended or try to vanish into thin air from embarrassment.

No such luck.

She was going to show him how wrong he was.

And yes, she decided to use this as an excuse when she closed the remaining gap between them and met his lips (they really were soft).

The seconds ticked by, and as they were just standing like that, with their mouths pressed together and Neji completely frozen, Sakura realized how painfully awkward it was; thank god her eyes were tightly shut because she wouldn't be able to look at him right now. When she came to the conclusion what kind of stupid mistake she had done – not only the mistake of kissing Neji, really, but also of how long she had been standing like an idiot (a couple of seconds, but still) – his hands suddenly grasped her sides – really harsh – and he was kissing her back.

Kissing her hard, rough, and with a force it'd leave bruises later.

He made it feel like she had just gone to battle with him. Leaving her no room to make a decision of her own, he pushed, and demanded compliance when his tongue slipped past her lips; his hands tangled in the long tresses of her pink hair splayed over her back and pulled at it hard, angling her head in just the right angle and exploring her mouth even more thoroughly.

Sakura wasn't one to comply and stand back, though.

Trapped between the wall and his rigid body, she tried to fight for some dominance over the situation.

Breathless, her hands sneaked beneath his shirt, and the feel of his firm chest reminded her how much of a man he was. She had never paid too much attention to Neji in terms of looking at him as just a male, and not a friend she'd known since childhood, but now that she got the chance to explore that, she was going to make the most of it.

The way he smelled had been getting her drunk all over again since the moment they ended up so close to each other; apart from the smell of smoke and alcohol that lingered on him, it was his scent that had her so intoxicated.

Tracing the defined lines of his abs with her fingertips (how she loved the shinobi lifestyle), she made a beeline for the waistband of his pants – but when her nails barely scratched the lower muscles of his abdomen, Neji hissed and stopped her journey by snatching her hands off. A small moan escaped her lips and got lost in the tangle of their tongues, when he tugged her wrists behind her back and kept her hands still with one of his palms, whereas the other one pulled her flush against him, denying her any control.

And that was how they were found out.

A familiar voice – oh, the horror clearly displayed on Sakura's face when she realized who exactly that voice belonged to – reached their ears, and before she noticed any movement, Neji was already as far away from her as he could in the tiny space of the closet; his warmth no longer embracing her.

"Sakura?" Shizune repeated, looking dumbfounded between the two shinobi. "What are you doing in here?"

Shizune shook her head the second the question came out, and amended, "No, not what. Why? Yes, why?"

The way she was stumbling over her words made Sakura's already red face, redden even more.

"Well, we… eh…" the younger girl tried to get help at explaining themselves from her friend?, but he was blankly staring at the shelves; his expression devoid of any emotions that accompanied them before they were interrupted.

This guy, really.

Sakura's eyes came back to the person that caught them, and an idea popped in her head.

"Hey, Shizune. Do you think you could handle us one of Tsunade-sama's sake bottles?"

A/N:

I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

Also, English isn't my first language, so for any mistakes, I apologize.