Okay, this is my first attempt at a fanfic, I'll save the nonsense for the bottom of the page. Enjoy!

Qualities

Chapter 1: Funny Man

Sakura stared blankly at the scene before her. With no particular focal point, the white gauze, tan bandages, and blue gloves swam together in a mess of color. It was a relatively mundane day at the hospital, and consequently, not one that nurtured focus. Shaking her head to regain some semblance of purpose, she ran through the list of supplies she was gathering in her head.

Gauze, bandages, rubber gloves, antiseptic…

With nothing much else to do today, she was restocking her portable medic kit before heading out early for a bit of training. She really could do with more of that. She was getting… rusty, to put it lightly. Sure, she could still demolish heaven and earth with a chakra laced punch, but she had been neglecting her more basic training. So it was off for a little taijustu training with Naruto and then a nice long soak in the bath. Perhaps a little ramen thrown in if Naruto was especially persuasive today.

"Knock knock."

Sakura jumped slightly as she was pulled from her thoughts of spars and noodles. She closed the door to the supply closet, only to see a familiar pale face. "Sai, what are you doing here?"

"Knock knock."

She bit back a sigh as she carefully placed the last few supplies in her bag. Sai had been acting strange lately, but what else was new? He often times started doing weird things, but he was Sai. And hadn't she really regretted asking him what he was up to last time? Yes, she would simply play along until she caved and inquired about his latest string of odd behavior. "Who's there?"

"Boo."

"Boooo whoooo?" she drew the words out, in order to make his joke more effective.

"Do not cry, it is only a joke."

"Cute," she deadpanned.

The ink user frowned, cocking his head slightly, "Do you not understand the joke?"

She straightened up to look her naive friend in the eye, "I get it, Sai," she paused for the shortest of moments, "I'm going to train with Naruto, would you like to come?" The kunoichi was hoping to distract Sai to avoid further discussion of his attempted humor. Plus, she figured Naruto wouldn't mind. The blond kyuubi container could easily spar with the both of them and still have the energy to run around the village backwards three times. She often times envied his endless stamina.

At others, it simply annoyed her.

The pale boy merely shrugged and strode out of the hospital with her.

Sakura panted as sweat rolled down her face… and arms… and other unmentionable places. She jumped to the right, narrowly avoiding a well placed kick to the jaw. She quickly followed thru with a chakra infused punch to her blonde friend's stomach sending him hurtling backwards several meters.

"Sakura-chan! That's cheating, we said no chakra!" Naruto argued, but he was grinning all the same as he brushed himself off to no avail. He was covered in a layer of dirt and sweat, making his hair stick together in a brownish blonde mess.

"Hmm, did we?" she said, feigning innocence.

He dramatically rolled his eyes before turning his attention to Sai, who was propped up against the base of a tree, drawing. "Let's see what you got, inky!"

Sai leveled a good humored glare at Naruto before packing up the scroll he was working on and joining his blonde-haired friend.

Sakura decided to fall, er plop… lay down on the ground right where she was. She closed her eyes and listened to the taunting and sounds of exertion coming from her teammates as she relaxed and let her heart rate return to normal.

"I think she's sleeping."

"No she isn't, dickless, she's just waiting on you to get close enough to punch."

Naruto, being ever-stupid... I mean brave, simply edged closer to the motionless Sakura and kicked her side lightly. She sprang to life and grabbed his ankle, bringing him down to the ground in one swift motion. "There, I beat you without chakra," she proclaimed, poking him in the chest.

He grinned for a moment as he looked up at her before he exploded out, "Hey Sakura-chan you wafgna mfo ggrbddfdm-"

"Don't ruin my moment with ramen."

He looked decidedly put out as she removed her hand from his mouth. "But okay, we'll get ramen-"

"YAY!"

"If you help me up," she groaned and reached her hands out in front of her like a small child.

"Lazy Sakura-chan," he muttered playfully as he helped her up. She replied by slapping him in the back of the head.

After a quick bowl of ramen, Sakura had declared that she needed a soak and several hours of sleep. With that, she departed Ichiraku.

Naruto was on his sixth bowl and still counting.

Sai, too, had apparently decided to leave, but without much of an explanation.

And so, the worn down, pink headed ninja was dreaming of hot baths and quick dinners when a certain ink using ninja ascended from a rooftop and fell in stride with her. She bit back a sigh, knowing what was coming. A joke. It had been like this for the past several days. Sai had quit his day job to become a comedian, or so it seemed. He had been showing up randomly, only to tell her jokes. She was a good sport about it at first, forcing a smile if she could manage. But as his charade wore on, she could only manage to not strangle him. It didn't help that his jokes sounded like they came from a taffy wrapper.

Without introduction Sai launched off his joke, "What falls down but does not ever get hurt?"

"Sai," Sakura begin, with a tone reserved for a small child.

"Snow," his punch line came and went without inflection or emotion.

"Sai," she began again, "Where did you get these?"

"A book."

A book… of course a book. It's Sai. "I don't mean to hurt your…" she paused to analyze her phrase of speech. Deciding it wasn't particularly suited to this individual, she simply got to the point, "These jokes you're telling… they're cheesy."

The young man tilted his head slightly, "Cheesy?"

"Yes, they're cheesy. They're not any good."

"I do not understand."

"You'll have to get someone else to explain it, Sai. I'm tired," She moaned and drug her feet for emphasis.

"Very well," and with that, he was gone.

The next morning, Sai appeared on Sakura's walk to work. The urge to smack her head on the nearest blunt object was strong.

"I'm ready," she said grudgingly, before her dark haired friend had a chance to speak.

Sai smiled woodenly, "What did the penis say to the condom?"

Sakura's eyes widened, "Sai!"

"Cover me efmgorgngin." He blinked, glancing down at her hand covering his mouth.

"Stop talking," she demanded.

He merely nodded as she slowly removed her appendage. "Did you not wish to hear the punch line?"

"Where did you get that joke?"

"I was in search of someone to explain cheesy to me last night when I came across Genma. He explained to me the best kind of joke, and told me one, which I was telling you."

Sakura slapped a palm to her forehead, "In the future, don't listen to anything Genma tells you."

"I do not understand."

"That's a dirty joke. It's not nice to tell them. Why are you so intent on telling jokes nowadays anyways?" There it was, she caved.

Sai paused, actually stopping mid-stride, "I read a book."

"That clears it up."

Sai smiled his fake smile, evidently pleased that she understood so quickly.

"What was the book about?" she prodded.

"Women."

She sighed deeply, "Give me a full explanation, Sai."

"I read a book about women," he paused, "and the things that they like," another pause, "In a man."

"And?" Sakura was short on patience this morning and she simply didn't see the connection.

"It said that women like a man who can make them laugh."

She could've kicked herself as she looked at Sai's naive expression. She knew better than to get angry at him, but sometimes he was damn annoying. He was only trying to be human, to fit in, something she knew he desperately wanted. It was just that in his infinite naivety he went about stuff all wrong. She couldn't count the number of times she'd answered his questions about this or that, and that was no easy feat. He was completely unabashed about asking potentially embarrassing questions and then wondered why Sakura turned red. She shook her head slightly, a small smile playing on her lips. "Sai, you can't just go around telling jokes to be funny. You just have to let those kinds of things happen naturally, you can't force them."

"But I am not humorous naturally," he placed particular emphasis on the last word.

"Sure you are. You've made me laugh countess times." In frustration, she added, only in her head.

"Really?" he seemed to brighten up considerably at that.

"Sure," she glanced at her watch and noted that she was going to be late if she didn't get going. "And next time you wanna practice your wooing skills, branch out."

Sai was about to tell her he wasn't practicing, but she was gone.

Sooo... I still wasn't really happy with that but I'm a bit anal about editing (Most likely due to the fact that the Neji hiding in my closet is rubbing off on me). I'm most likely going to continue on and make a few more of these, which will also be very short (but that's my intention, after all). It's very likely I'll be able to get one out before the start of the next semester, but then again, I'm probably talking to no one! Yay!

Big thanks to anyone who is actually reading this! You. Are. Awesome.