Hello, long time no update! If you still read any stories on this page, I haven't given them up. I'm just fighting a brutal case of no inspiration to write and balancing fanfic writing with being a college student with a part-time job.

As for this oneshot, I wrote this about half a year ago. I only found it recently cleaning my computer, but I liked it enough to post it here on my Sasusaku account. As for why I wrote this, I think I had read an article on bullying and while it's been a great many years since I was bullied (elementary school wasn't fun for me; luckily, my high school was very kind to everyone), school politics have always been a fascination to me, so here's an exploration of the "Sakura is bullied" trope in my style. And if this looks familiar, you've probably seen it on my AO3 under my main pen, moodiful819. Leave a review if you have time. I'd love to know what you thought!

Disclaimer: Do not own Naruto.

Haruno Sakura was not a very popular girl.

It wasn't because she was a geek (though she was really smart), but more because of who she was. The socially-ostracized sense of unpopular.

"Why?" you may ask.

After all, if you asked around, you would find that for the most part, everyone liked her. She was smart, but she wasn't over-bearing about it (she'd grown out of that in middle school) and her goody-two-shoes had been traded for a more stylish, practical pair of Mary-Janes. If you asked her for help, she would usually be happy to oblige. She played no sports and didn't play an instrument, but she was part of the student council and the school spirit committee. Her group of friends wasn't huge, but they were close and for everyone else, they didn't know her personally, but they did know of her. She was the kind of girl who if you didn't pay attention to her faded into the background.

But you see, that was the problem. She was supposed to be a background person, a wallflower—an innocuous fly on the wall—a non-threat…

But she wasn't. People knew her, and in the power-play scheme of high schools, that kind of pervasive presence is dangerous. Treacherous even. And it was the talk of the in-crowd of how she managed to keep her existence so firmly rooted in everyone's minds.

Because she wasn't one of them. She wasn't anyone important, so how was she the one everyone remembered?

It was her damn hair, someone pointed out one day, which dawned on everyone else at the popular crowd's lunch table as the gospel because it was true. After all, how could you ever forget someone with pink hair?

"Couldn't she have been born with something less garish?" That sent the table snickering. After all, the school may have had its share of strange hair colors, but only freaks and punks had pink hair.

The jokes only grew from there. It couldn't be real; it was impossible to be born with pink hair, right? "She must have dyed it" was the consensus, and that was how the rumor began.

Sakura dyes her hair.

The popular crowd repeated it like a prayer. It was a mantra, a spell, a summoner's chant. It made them feel powerful and they fanned the flames. It would spread like wildfire and it did in whispers in classrooms and bathrooms. It could be heard in every corner, every hall. It was even heard in the teachers' office, but it never held the same power it did outside the popular crowd. In the crowd, it seemed to hold a special power and they chatted about it endlessly. They would talk about it in class. They would talk about it at lunch. They would talk about it at home. They would talk about it until their teeth rotted and their tongues fell out and then they would talk about it more.

"I can't believe she even dyes her eyebrows."

"I bet her real hair color is black."

"She's such an attention-whore."

"I bet the curtains don't even match the drapes," one snickered.

And then, like a bullet from a gun, a voice shattered their world. "They match."

The words were soft-spoken, the tone cold and assured, but spoken so lightly it was almost conversational. It sounded like the person was speaking from a long, intimate experience. This did not fit their plans. How dare this intruder try to tell them what they knew? Teeth gnashing, they banded together like a pack of feral hyenas, ready to turn this pathetic fool to shreds.

Turning, the girls were met with Uchiha Sasuke, the undisputed prince of the school. He may not have been one of them, but he didn't need to be to be popular. He just was. His looks, status, and family lineage made sure of that. Even if he didn't talk much, everyone paid attention to Uchiha Sasuke. He was the master of three instruments. He was the star of the basketball team and track. His scores were top-notch, and when he wasn't studying, he was racking high scores on video games or working on taking over his family's company. He was like Sakura in every way, but better. He could at least play something.

Paying no concern to their shocked stares, he continued.

"She's naturally pink. I've seen her hair when it starts growing back in. It matches," he said as he retrieved his book from the locker in the hallway they were standing in. Closing the locker with his foot, he walked down the hall as they stared at him aghast.

Needless to say, the rumors died that day.