Disclaimer: totally not mine, and I lack the wit to come up with a way to make my disclaimer more interesting.
For Missa, Ren, and Annie. Because I can't make it stop hurting, and I'm sorry.x
A note in advance: just to let you know, this was more of a spur-of-the-moment thing. It can't really be categorized into one genre, it's short (for which you should be grateful), and it's relatively plotless. It exists, which is probably the most positive thing I can say about it.
That being said.
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whirlwind
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i.
The first time Sakura and Sasuke kiss, it's neither romantic nor an experience that either would particularly care to repeat.
Actually, it's more messy than anything else. They're exhausted from training, and somehow, as they're walking, Sakura trips over a rock and literally crashes into Sasuke, who turns his head a little bit in surprise, and before she knows it, Sakura's mouth is smashed into the corner of Sasuke's.
It feels confused and dazed but mostly just wet, and his tongue swipes her upper lip and her teeth clack and their foreheads collide painfully – but they remain frozen and paralyzed with shock until Naruto cackles and starts asking innocent bystanders if they have a camera.
When they completely register what's happened, the two of them jump backward a full five feet from each other, faces flaming and foreheads bruised. Sasuke mumbles out an incoherent excuse and flees from the scene before Naruto can say anything embarrassing.
Uncertainly, Sakura presses two fingers against her lips and remembers how he tasted like tomatoes.
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ii.
Naruto's snoring is a lot harder to ignore than one might think.
It's even harder to ignore when aforementioned blond boy is in a sleeping bag less than a foot away from Sasuke. Oh God, he moans inwardly, and tries to burrow under his pillow to escape the sound. It's almost typical that the only thing more irritating than awake-Naruto would be asleep-Naruto.
He briefly considers Katon'ing Naruto into next Friday, but then concludes that burnt-up-Naruto would probably be too detrimental to their mission. Which means that he has to tolerate asleep-Naruto.
Sasuke sighs and flips over to his other side.
Asleep-Sakura, Sasuke thinks, is probably even more distracting than asleep-Naruto for entirely different reasons. Her lashes flutter a little as she breathes and her lips are slightly parted, and she still has the ability to look pretty even when she's snuggled in a sleeping bag with her hair splayed out all over her pillow.
Life is cruel, he decides, and wishes he could just finish this mission and go home, where there is no Team 7 and no snoring Naruto and best of all, no inappropriate thoughts about a certain pink-haired girl.
Sasuke becomes acutely aware of the fact that somehow, in her sleep, Sakura has rolled over and pressed her sleeping bag against Sasuke's right side.
Before he can quite comprehend what he's doing, he bends over and presses his mouth against Sakura's. She stirs a little under him, and she's warm and her lips are soft but it's also sort of weird, kissing an asleep person, and it feels uncomfortably as though Sasuke's taking advantage of her, so he rolls over after a few moments and tries to fall asleep.
In the dark, Sakura smiles and moves a little closer to Sasuke.
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iii.
Getting drunk with Ino is a very, very bad idea.
Sakura hadn't quite realized just how bad an idea it was until Sasuke comes in the restaurant, dragged by Naruto and Kiba and a few other boys, and it is then that Sakura wants to die.
"Hide me," she tells Ino, sliding down in her seat.
Ino regards Sakura perplexedly until she turns around and realizes what (or more specifically, who) Sakura's referring to. Then Ino grins in a way that Sakura really, really doesn't like, and screeches, "SASUKE, GET OVER HERE."
Sasuke blinks at the two girls, one of whom is waving around a cup of sake and the other of whom is trying to get the earth to open up and swallow her. Needless to say, neither of them appear particularly sane at the moment.
He decides to make a run for it.
Unfortunately, Naruto grins, in exactly the same way Ino had, and shoves Sasuke forward without warning so that he slams into their table and Ino squeaks and dumps her sake all over Sasuke's shirt.
Sakura, who is not quite as tipsy as her friend, surveys the scene and wordlessly hands Sasuke a napkin.
"Thanks," he remembers to tell her after a full five minutes have elapsed in total silence.
Sakura hiccups, and falls into Sasuke's lap.
"Sorry," she tells him, rubbing at her eyes and tugging on his sleeve so she can pull herself up.
"… you're completely, totally drunk," Sasuke observes.
Sakura gives a particularly hard yank, and he falls over in surprise, landing on top of her in a cluttered heap of tangled arms and legs, and then –
She tugs him down further and suddenly his lips are on hers and his mouth is half-open in surprise, so she kisses him harder, still lying under him, and she smells like alcohol and in all honesty he prefers her when she's sober, but it's Sakura, and he can't quite bring himself to pull away.
They break apart, finally, panting and still tangled, until Sakura tilts her head up at Sasuke and says serenely, "So I might not be as drunk as you think I am."
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iv.
Even so, it still isn't perfect, because things so rarely are.
"Does this mean you two are dating?" Ino asks, and Sakura wishes the answer was anything but "I don't know".
Actually, she hasn't seen Sasuke around Konoha that much lately, and she's pretty sure he's avoiding her, but she doesn't even know what she'd say to him to begin with. Things have been more or less awkward since that night at the bar and she doesn't trust herself to not blurt out something that would make things even more awkward.
Before she realizes, days pass and then weeks, until it's been so long that she's not even sure if Sasuke still lives in Konoha anymore.
(she doesn't even know what's going on anymore)
So when Naruto shows up on her doorstep, lugging an unconscious Sasuke with seven arrows sticking out of him in various places, her breath catches and her mouth opens a little in a silent scream.
Then the medic in her takes over, and she pulls him inside quickly and gets to work on healing him.
"What happened?" she asks Naruto. It comes out sounding more like why didn't you do anything to save him?
"Sasuke's an idiot," Naruto grumbles, and starts raiding Sakura's cabinets for ramen in an attempt to distract himself.
Sakura doesn't say anything, but presses her hands against Sasuke's throat and tries to find a pulse.
"You – " Naruto chokes a little, and turns to look Sakura in the eye. "You can fix him, right?"
Sakura swallows, and dips her head so she doesn't have to look at Naruto. "Of course," she tells him softly, her voice a low rasp.
Naruto whirls back to the cabinets, but his shoulders slump a little bit in relaxation and his fingers loosen until he's leaning against the wall, looking weary and – Sakura wishes that Naruto would just stop looking so tired, because things aren't supposed to be like this.
"I – can't believe you went and got hurt,"Sakura says furiously, hoping that Sasuke can still hear her, and it's probably only because she's half-hysterical and half-terrified that she bends down and crushes her mouth against his.
She's scared by how lifeless he feels. It's a little bit like kissing a corpse, but he's still warm. There's the faint taste of blood on his lips and she's probably a little selfish for wanting to be at least his last kiss if she wasn't his first, but more than that she just wants Sasuke back, and –
– and then he starts kissing back.
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v.
"Don't – ever do that again," Sakura whispers, but the relief in her face belies her words.
Naruto, upon figuring out that Sasuke is perfectly fine, has retreated to Sakura's kitchen, where he discovers that turkey-flavored ramen exists and is actually quite good, at that.
"Just – " Sasuke starts, trying to find the words to say, and then Sakura grabs a fistful of his shirt and pulls him towards her until they're finally, properly kissing, and suddenly words don't matter anymore.
And Sakura isn't drunk or asleep and Sasuke isn't unconscious, but more importantly, the kiss is entirely intentional and both of them finally know what they're doing, and it's, well. It's a lot better than any of the previous kisses.
Sasuke decides that talking is overrated, anyways.
Anyways, it's sort of difficult to even string together a coherent thought when Sakura's fisting her hands in Sasuke's hair and making a soft noise in the back of her throat and looking –
– entirely too kissable for her own good.
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It takes several months of confusion and it takes four equally confused kisses for everything to start making sense.
It only takes a split-second kiss for everything to click perfectly into place.
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A/N: ... yeah. Because I can.
Reviews are greatly appreciated. :D