Disclaimer: psch, your a fool.

Love Bite

Chapter 1

You don't always have to be on top
Better to be hated, then lovedlovedloved for what you're not...

-Marina & The Diamonds

Sakura lay wide awake on her bed, looking up at the bland white ceilings. Today was the start of another school year with the crisp new color rimmed on her school uniform, which consisted of a mid-thigh white skirt and a simple polo. The new color for second years was a deep blue, almost navy.

She depressingly sighed as she flicked her duvet covers off her to calmly get ready; showering, brushing her teeth and the usual morning routines. She swept her light pink hair into a loose bun, with tendrils framing her dainty face and strands slipping out of the scrunchie. She sighed yet again, and picked up a pair of tortoise shell, larger-than-life vanity glasses – the ones without a prescription lens. Sakura inspected them thoughtfully, before murmuring, "Here's to another year geeking around. All work and no play makes Sakura a very successful business woman in the future."

Yes, Sakura was classed as a geek, a nerd, a freak – whatever you want to call her – at a school with too many cliques to count with your fingers, toes and your brain cells. But, the real facts lay beneath it all. Sakura was an only-child with parents who were entrusting her to create a good reputation to the Haruno name, as well as expecting her to achieve top grades to move on to a top college to be employed in a top workplace. They wanted her to be the top of the top, resulting in her parents pressuring her to do work 24/7. She was either in school, at home or at one of the many clubs she was forced to join. Her schedule must have been full to the brim with student council meetings, badminton practices and extracurricular French and Chinese classes. There was no limit to Sakura's brain power, and at the moment, she was learning to write in hieroglyphics.

But, in fact Sakura hated the whole thing. She despised all the work and the unadulterated effort she put into every single minute of her life. In her sleep she was dreaming of a triglyceride molecular structure and of Pythagoras theorem. The cogs in her brain would never stop working, and her parents would never allow for that to happen either. And if that time comes, she feared that her parents would have a mental breakdown. They had been saving money their entire life for her school funds and all the books she had read at least 4 times. She knew every line of Pride and Prejudice by heart. It would break her parents' hearts if she failed her education or didn't get the top-notch job they had wished she would get. The guilt that would consume her would be just too overbearing.

She thought reading chemistry text books in her spare time was fun. At least that's what her parents made her believe from before she had even left her mother's womb. She had seen the way the popular kids would go out on a Friday night and get drunk at each other's houses and stagger down the street to meet more friends. She had seen the secret communication of texting below desks in classes and how they would constantly get themselves into trouble. They wore their uniforms in a less-than-appropriate way. The boys had the scruffy shirts and their trousers literally hanging at their thighs. The girls had their cleavage sticking out and their skirts almost nonexistent. Their hair was always perfect and rain was as much as a phobia as the reality of e=mc squared.

She put the glasses on gently and ran her slender fingers through her sweeping fringe. If she was wearing glasses which she didn't actually need why do it at all? Her parents also believed that Sakura was too pretty for her own good, despite the pink hair. Her eyes were large and filled with constantly brimming emotions, her lips were perfectly pouty, her skin unblemished, her hair (when down and out of the messy bun she wore daily) was waist-length and worthy of envy from all the girls in school, and she was a naturally charming sweet-talker – only when her temper wasn't getting the best of her. That was why her parents were determined to make Sakura as unattractive as possible, to not attract the attention of the popular clique or 'time-wasting boys'.

The thing was Sakura had already been best friends with Ino Yamanaka since they were kid babies. Their parents were college friends, until Ino's parents split, leading to Ino rebelling against the same treatment Sakura was experiencing. She was naturally beautiful which lead to her popularity in school sky-rocketing. She had hoards of friends, but the strange thing in this case is the fact that Ino still talked to Sakura, despite the damage it could do to her reputation. In every other case, Ino would have abandoned Sakura and never talk to her again, but Ino wasn't like that. Her friends just thought of Sakura as no one particularly important, therefore they ignored her completely, leaving Ino able to talk to Sakura – just not as confrontational as talking in corridors. It was more of a weekend sleepover type of relationship.

Sakura trudged down the stairs and hurried out of her house. It was half six in the morning, and her parents were still asleep but she was extremely stressed from only getting 3 hours sleep last night, as she was getting ready for her new school year. The sun was just rising as Sakura pulled up her shoulder tote strap. She arrived at the coffeehouse just as they flipped the 'closed' sign to 'open', as she walked in stoically and waved to the greeting workers.

"I'll have a vanilla latte and a blueberry muffin, please," she ordered, quickly adding, "to eat in." She needed a sugar and a caffeine boost at the same time, NOW.

When her order was ready, she took a seat in the far corner of the café, and pulled out a book. She flipped it open to her bookmarked page and began calmly reading, whilst occasionally picking crumbs off her muffin or taking small sips from her latte.

"No, no, no, a strawberries and cream frappuccino is definitely better than the vanilla cream! Get it right, Teme. Vanilla's just bore-ring!"

Sakura whipped her head out of her book and stared agape at the new customers walking through the Starbuck's door.

'Ohgod,' she thought, 'it's Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha.'

She didn't have a personal grudge against them or anything, but her nerves were grated the wrong way when she heard them speak shamelessly about sex and drugs in public.

She hurriedly dug her nose further into her book and tried concentrating on the words furiously, attempting (in vain) to block out whoever's pants they got into last night.

They ordered and sat down a few tables away from Sakura, and unsurprisingly started to talk about girls.

"She's a feisty one, Naruto, don't even GO there," he winked suggestively, as Naruto plastered a huge grin on his face.

"That's old news, Sasuke-teme. Been there, done that," and this time it was Naruto's turn to indicatively wink.

Sakura inaudibly scoffed, but what she had assumed was a gesture she was sure the two boys wouldn't hear, was actually quite the opposite.

Sasuke nudged Naruto in the elbow, and pointed subtly at where Sakura was now blushing furiously and inwardly kicking herself, whilst covering her face with her book.

"Doesn't she go to our school? She has our uniform on," Sasuke asked curiously. He inspected her form, and noticed she had a worthy figure – just not AS great as some of the other girl's he had seen. However, her face was shrouded by her book cover; Pride & Prejudice, he noted. He wasn't a fan of Jane Austen and he hated reading, but if she was cool with classic literature, good for her.

"Haven't you seen, Sasuke? She's the pink-haired girl that talks to Ino all the time. Apparently there's some rumor going round that she's a begging tramp that keeps asking Ino for money because of how their parents were old friends."

Sakura scrunched up her nose when she heard the low whispers of Naruto. '"Begging tramp"? How dare he?'

Sasuke raised his eyebrows surreptitiously. Now he remembered. Ino had always brushed away every rumor that had formed around their relationship. The pink-haired girl, Sakura, he thought her name was, was also known as one of the school's most genius – therefore, a geek. She was a geek, and Ino was an all-star goddess. It didn't make sense, but Sasuke brushed his doubts away as he suddenly formed a plan.

He purposely raised his voice as he said, "Ino's a real piece of meat, eh, Naruto? She's got curves in ALL the right places," he used his hands to exaggerate his point and continued, "I'd love to see her bend o-"

'THAT'S IT!' Sakura screamed in her head, which surprisingly didn't come out her mouth. She forced her hard-back book into her tote, seething inwardly, and stormed out of the coffeehouse, leaving a half-eaten blueberry muffin and an almost-full cup of latte in her wake.

"Eh?" Naruto obliviously remarked, as he stared wide-eyed at the slamming door and the smug face of Sasuke. "What was her problem?"

Sasuke grinned sadistically, before replying, "The Sakura girl wouldn't have cared so much if it was any other girl I was talking about, but as I was talking about her best friend…" Sasuke trailed off to give time for Naruto to think.

"Eh? I don't get it, Sasuke."

Sasuke sighed and decided to just use the most basic ways of communication with his thick-headed best friend. "Sakura is Ino's best friend, and vice versa, idiot."

"…Whoa!" he proudly remarked. "That's a bit messed up. They're complete opposites, and, you know, Sakura's a bit… ew."

Sasuke cringed at his muscular blonde-haired companion exclaiming a word like 'ew' in such a context… or any context.

Naruto grinned sheepishly before further saying, "…But why annoy Sakura? Sasuke…" he lowered his voice accusingly, "you're not up to something, are you?

In reply, Sasuke simply smiled enigmatically and murmured, "Sakura's a book-worm – she should know more than enough information on her BFF to help me catch my newest prey."

"Your newest prey, Sasuke?"

"The BFF herself, Ino Yamanaka."

Heeks, lit. Hot geeks. Cambridge is full of them...

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