Sasuke sat on a bench in a small park without his uniform on for once. The time was…well he didn't know what time it was, his watch ran out of juice and apparently his cell phone had decided to take a sleep over at the café. He grunted with obvious dissatisfaction of his absent minded behavior causing some children around him to run off.

"Sasuke" a voice called behind him. He turned his head the slightest bit, and to no surprise his brother was leaning against a black car. Sasuke sent him a small glare which Itachi merely smiled to.

"Shouldn't you be at work, Itachi?" Sasuke folded his arms over his chest, not expecting a straight answer from him.

"Shouldn't YOU be at work, Sasuke?" He mimicked Sasuke's voice and his actions by folding his arms too. Itachi rolled his head on the pivot of his neck and put a hand behind his neck sighing. In the silence Itachi planned his next move.

"Sasuke…" He pressed himself to continue with his train of thought. Before he could continue Sasuke spoke.

"I was forced to have the day off." Sasuke unraveled his arms and put it around the bench, staring at the blue cloud sky.

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Itachi said, unaware of how Sasuke liked to consume his time by working off his sad thoughts…you could call him a workaholic.

"Isn't it? All this free time is making me sick." Sasuke remembered again that he didn't know how much free time he had already spent, but thought the statement was true enough.

"Sasuke, it probably wouldn't make you sick if you just go spend some time for yourself instead of--"

"Urusai! You know I can't do that, not after what happened to them." Sasuke's position changed, he had his elbows on his knees and his hands on the back of his head. He was exasperated at himself for being such an emotional masochist.

"What happened to them isn't your fault Sasuke. Now let's get out of this place before you go through an emotional breakdown." Itachi crept behind Sasuke and gently tapped his back; Sasuke flinched at his touch, but calmed down.

"Give me a little more time here. You know this was their favorite place to go together. Just give me more time…" He said more to himself than to Itachi. Itachi removed his hand from Sasuke's back and decided to take a seat next to him.

Itachi looked around the park. Everything was repaired from the damage given to it months ago; even the lamppost his parents had crashed into was replaced with a new one. The car was replaced. The people in it however…could never be replaced.

"Is irony the word for it?" Itachi said out loud, he resumed his mimicry by putting his arms behind the bench as Sasuke had done before. Sasuke turned his head from his hands.

"You're going to make me ask aren't you?" Itachi smiled at Sasuke.

"My dear brother, you've already known the answer to what you have already asked." Sasuke contemplated for a moment, his mind asking the round of questions he liked to have with himself.

"Fine, I'll bite. What is, or is not, irony the word for, dear brother?" Itachi frowned a little, but tried to lighten the mood with a forced smile.

"Would you call our parents dying in the place they sought solace--irony?" Itachi put his hands on his lap and slouched on the bench a little.

"Maybe." That was that. Sasuke had to stop his mind from drawing the other way. He had to stop thinking that the crash was his fault…That it was his fault they had to go to the park for a place to think, even if I was icy. That it was his fault for making them frustrated enough to go for a drive…That it was his fault they died.

He had to stop thinking.

With a rush he started up on his feet and ran. The wind hit his ears almost blocking out his brother's yells. His pace was quick, but he could feel the pull of his dress pants making it harder for him to run.

The cool misty air felt good against his pale skin, the sun hid behind the clouds often playing peek-a-boo when someone was looking. He ran faster, longer, and louder through the trees, the streets, and through crowds.

He ran until he forgot why he was running and slowed down to an eerily familiar place, although he could swear that he has never been here. He waited for his stomach to stop its flips and churning, he felt like vomiting although there was no food to vomit. Bile lined his throat attempting to jump out, he swallowed it back down forcefully leaving his throat dry.

He put hand against a nearby pillar that was aligned with other pillars that held up a gate in between.

He refocused his eyes as his body swayed with twitching legs, he leaned toward the wall, his hand making sure he was still in balance.

There were people, lots of them, all of them about his age, and chatty among themselves. He took in his surroundings trying to ascertain where he was.

None of the people seemed to take notice of his appearance; they couldn't see him hiding behind the pillar that was the farthest away from the gate they were exiting from. He vaguely remembered what he was wearing he glanced down hopeful that he would fit in.

He wore a dark blue dress shirt of the finest quality the first two buttons unbuttoned for his comfort; fortunately he was wearing a t-shirt under that so he looked more laidback. His black slacks stood out among the blue jeans of the young crowd, his black dress shoes did too. He winced at the painful sores he had on his feet, he would have to get that checked later.

As he was looking at his feet, something rolled right along by and hit his foot. His eyes widened a little as he picked up the item.

A…Makeup? He couldn't comprehend what exactly it was, but he was pretty sure it was something along those lines. He looked around for the girl (Or boy) that might have dropped it.

Then he saw it, a backpack open just slightly at its smaller pouch. He considered being the nice guy and just giving it to her, he also considered not being so nice and throwing it at her…either way at least the girl got it back right?

Being the, reluctant, yet nice guy he was trying to be he decided on the first consideration.

"Hey. Hey you, you dropped your makeup." He said lowly at first, but the girl kept walking away. He made an irritated grunt and walked faster to be right behind her.

"Hey miss, you dropped something." She didn't hear him, her constant chattering into her cell phone might have been that cause to that. His patience ran thin, here he was trying to be nice, and here this GIRL was ignoring him!

"Hey! I'm trying to give you something you've dropped here!" He whirled her around, and a loud gasp was in the air.

Now this girl was probably very popular since another or two other cell phones rang in her purse, but she ignored them and stared at Sasuke with eyes so wide he didn't know if they could close again. Her gasp had caused many around to stare at them, if they weren't already staring at the popular girl already.

"You're…" she started, her eyes sparkling and cherry lips trembling. Sasuke was startled at her gasp and pause he expected her to slap him for taking charge so forcefully, instead all he got were stares. She was awed at something Sasuke didn't know what.

"Uchiha-san? What are you doing here?" A third voice interrupted the staring, Sasuke angled his body to the voice and took this chance to put the makeup into the awed woman's hands and retreat to the interrupting voice.

"Just returning a lost item." He didn't look back at the chatty girl as she fumbled with the makeup in her hands. "Let's get out of here." He grabbed Hinata's hand and started power walking away from the forming crowd. He was in a rush to get out of there, Hinata was unexpectedly obedient in his demand for a faster pace.

Once they were out of the area, stopped for a break. He was fine, but apparently Hinata wasn't. Her breathing was a tad heavy and she had sweat forming at her brow. They sat down at a bench and, took a moment to calm down. He looked at her again.

"Sorry, that was…weird…" He hesitated looking for the right word. She nodded agreeing with him. Sasuke didn't realize there was a third person with them until he took this silence to speak.

"Hinata…who is this person? Why did he drag us out here?" A deep voice sprang from besides Hinata. Sasuke hadn't noticed the sound of three pairs of feet when they were running. He was dressed in a casual manner and had two backpacks around him.

Hinata was still tired at the over-extensive run. "Hinata you know not to run right after you've already had a workout, you're stressing yourself out too much." He pulled a water bottle out of the boyish looking bag and gave it to her. She chugged it down as gracefully as she could and wiped her mouth with a handkerchief.

"Uchiha Sasuke" Sasuke told the red-headed man. Sasuke stuck out his hand for a shake, but got a measly little nod of the head.

"Gaara" he didn't have many words for Sasuke. Hinata was frantic as the interaction occurred she looked like she was hoping for maybe something more from Gaara. Her expression was a little depressed, but she went on and put a smile on anyway.

"So…Sasuke-san, you know that girl back there?" She pointed her head in the direction they came from.

"Absolutely not!" He said a little bit too defiantly. "I mean, she just dropped something and I returned it to her. Then for some reason she made a yelp or gasp or something." He scratched the back of his head.

"Oh…Gaara do you know her?" He took a while to answer. Judging from his silence they took that as a 'no', but maybe they thought too soon.

"She does seem familiar, but we don't keep up with that kind of business do we, Hinata?" Sasuke took a note on how they spoke to each other on a first name only basis, maybe he was even a bit jealous at that.

"I guess not." She smiled faintly, almost regrettably at how oblivious she has been to the world around her. She was calmer now, and she didn't look as faint as she did earlier.

"Sasuke what are you doing here anyway?" She questioned with a puzzled look. "If I remember correctly you went to college with Nii-san back in the day." She laughed at using words that old people would use when reminiscing about old times.

"That was a college?" Sasuke asked sounding a tad stupid in Hinata's and Gaara's opinions.

"Of course. Didn't you see all of those people carrying bags? They're a bit too old for high school." Gaara spoke quite all knowingly. Sasuke glared at him, he could see that they weren't going to get along that well. Hinata fretted what to do as their glares made sparks fly.

"Well I apologize for grabbing you so roughly, Hinata-san." Gaara's head flew up as Sasuke spoke semi-formally to her.

"It's okay…" A blush adorned her face at his words. Both Sasuke and Gaara took a long look at her face while she looked away.

"It's not okay with me though. I didn't expect that we were going to go at such a speed after Hinata and I already worked out enough." Sasuke kept his chin up, facing Gaara.

"I never said I was apologizing to you. Also, I don't remember holding your hand and bringing you here." He folded his arms and stared at Gaara for his next come back. They didn't notice how Hinata's face kept on turning gradually into different shades of red.

"I go wherever she goes." Gaara put an allowed hand on her shoulder, she didn't seem to mind except that her face grew expectantly lighter.

Sasuke sighed. "Shall we find some place to enjoy ourselves then? Lunch maybe?" He spoke to Hinata, but Gaara cut in.

"No thanks, we already have a lunch date planned for today." Hinata didn't seem to object, except for his choice of wording.

"Oh, then I can join you right, Hinata-san? Great! Now where should we start heading to." Sasuke responded early to Hinata's nod, he feared that Gaara might interrupt her answer. Gaara still was trying to put up a fight against him.

"Ah where were we going to go, Gaara?" She looked up to see his face.

"We were undecided remember?" Her eyes showed that she remembered. He smiled softly at her, the way he stared at her made Sasuke think of someone looking at puppies or kittens. Hinata did remind him of a baby animal, as vulgar as it sounded to him. He involuntarily shivered at the thought of a human baby, the vomit, the diapers, the very disgusting … His train of thought was disrupted thankfully.

"Sasuke-san any ideas?" She looked brightly up to where he was standing, his arms still crossed. She looked pale; in fact they all looked pale in the now scorching sun. The clouds were hiding behind buildings somewhere letting all of the sun to shine. Eating outside would not be one of his choices, he preferred the indoors.

"Maybe we should go out for some ramen then?" Hinata suggested while Sasuke thought on. They both looked at her incredulously. "I heard eating something hot on a hot day is good for you, I think…" She trailed off thoughtfully.

"Ramen it is then." Gaara agreed. They began to lead the way to their favorite ramen restaurant. Sasuke followed on from behind them scrutinizing them.

This is confusing…Sasuke looked on at the two in front of him. That Naruto guy said Hinata has a boyfriend…is Naruto that boyfriend? Or is it Gaara?

Author's notes--yeahh really slow, check my profile for the info you need on any other of my fics. Sorry for being such a loser at this