- Clichéd, Stereotypical Reality -

Things didn't go nearly as well as I had planned them. Of course, even though he knew that I liked him, he wouldn't go out with me. Even though he knew that everyone knew that I liked him, he wouldn't even give me a chance. He had the nerve to make out with the downstairs coffee counter girl. In front of my freakin' office.

He was an asshole.

What was his name? I don't even wanna know. I probably would have hated it anyway.

"Don't worry! You're Prince Charming will come along eventually!" Ino had said, failing horribly at trying to comfort me after my breakdown at her house for an hour and a half. Yeah...

But that's just the thing. That won't work on me anymore. All that fairytale shit— I know the truth: it's not real. At least not for me. It's like Santa Claus visiting everyone's house and giving them everything they wanted, and skipping over my house. Yeah, he doesn't even stop by and give me coal; he just skips over it. That's how my entire life is— not even giving me a chance.

Drinking kind of helped me relieve… well everything. I didn't have to think or anything; not even how much all that alcohol would add up to. I just lay down a twenty dollar bill and the waitress kept serving me drinks. She and I… we're cool. Yup.

I heard they even came up with a new sticker on the bottles that said "If you can't read this, stop drinking!" Stupid? I know. When I can't read it anymore, I'm usually on the floor, and I wake up the next morning smashing the bottle with the sticker against the wall anyway.

But not today. I planned on controlling my drinking so I would have the energy to drag myself home to sleep on an actual bed. Then go to work the next morning bright enough to slap the daylights out of that asshole. All he really does is staple papers and photocopy shit for me. How can he have a better love life than me? Or even a better life period? That's sounds so sad; I'm probably not gonna slap him after all.

This time I only put down a ten dollar bill on the wood counter of the bar and I didn't have to say anything as the waitress already knew what I meant. I was a regular here; she must know me by now. As I said, we're cool. I'm the only depressed pink-haired twenty-year-old that drinks at a bar without fear of perverts. I honestly think that if a forty-year-old pervert were to hit on me, it would be a step up from where I was now on the Staircase of Life.

I got my order of a beer and gulped almost half of it down in one go before choking and spluttering it back out onto the table anyway. Ah well, the waitress will clean it up soon anyway.

It was eight o'clock, yet there was only one other person in the bar besides me. He had caught my attention since he was clothed in a black suit that was unbuttoned casually and sitting at the table in the far corner in the back where really miserable people sat. Their lives sucked even more than mine; hard to believe. His black hair made him look even darker, but he didn't look much older than me and he was sipping his drink slouched with one elbow on the table and the other resting on his leg under the table while staring at the wall, it looked like it. Looking all cool… but maybe he was just emo after all. I can almost guarantee that he's on a higher step on the Staircase of Life than me. Even if he's sitting where the lives of the damned are for everyone to see.

He finished off the last drop of his drink and got up. I looked away just as I heard bones cracking. Probably trying to show off what little he had. I heard his hard footsteps as he walked towards the counter, where I was sitting. I half-expected him to stop beside me and strike up an extra-friendly conversation that might lead to… other things (he is quite good-looking); but the other half of me was obviously more convincing. My life is not a fairytale. So, as I thought, he walked right past me and pushed open the door to the Guy's bathroom.

I just sat around, thinking randomly on why most guys' hair defies gravity. After around five minutes, that emo guy (that I was not wondering about why his hair stuck up at the back) came back out with his jacket folded over his shoulder lazily and the cuffs of his white dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. I almost jumped off my seat when he placed himself on a stool next to mine.

"One vodka," he said in a deep, sexy voice as he placed his jacket on the other stool that was not occupied by some frilly pink girl. I heard somewhere that vodka can be up to fifty percent pure alcohol. Man, what's troubling him lately?

Oh yeah. And forget about what I said earlier about him flexing what little he had. I was sitting very far away from him. I couldn't see anything, okay!

The waitress had dropped down his order of vodka, and some of it had spilled over the top in the process and landed with my little puddle of saliva-infested beer. The clearness of the vodka scared me. What if I were to mistake it for water and gotten drunk? Especially with this guy here. There was probably a reason why he took off his jacket.

"So," he said suddenly, throwing me out of my own little world. I almost wanted to just sit there with a dumb look on my face and ignore him like the girl-in-the-corner I always wanted to be when I was little. (Sarcasm...)

"Yeah," I replied stupidly. That was the best I could come up with. Making a dumb face started to sound more and more like a good idea.

"I was wondering where you rushed off to after work," he drawled tonelessly, after taking a sip from his colourless drink.

My dumb face made a sudden entrance. But it was more curious-looking than I imagined it would be in my head. After work? What the hell was he talking about? But he spoke again before I could think of anything to say.

"You ran out of the office before it was even six. Was it because of that guy and the coffee counter girl?" He sure talked a lot. Well not really, but I do find it a little suspicious that he knows all that when he wasn't even there.

"How do you know that?" I questioned in a tone that sounded like I didn't give a damn at all what his answer would be. Which I didn't. Not really. OKAY, so a little...

"Well truth is," he said, letting out a large breath of air I didn't know he was holding in, like he was about to spill some deep dark secret. "I kind of had a thing for the coffee counter girl."

I raised an eyebrow. What a coincidence. I don't know if he planned it, but… wait. Does that mean he was there? Hmm… I'm usually aware of most of my surroundings. I guess I was just too preoccupied with the bastard and that coffee counter bitch.

"Really? Well I guess we're on the same shit-ass page on the Book of Life-Isn't-Fair." I sounded so miserable.

We both didn't say anything for a while, and just sipped at our drinks. Once we were both finished and just sitting there, there was a long and uneasy pause.

"Twenty questions," Mr. Talks-A-Lot-but-Still-Kinda-Hot said suddenly.

I looked at him and said, "Wha'?"

"Twenty questions." He had an expression on his face that said he didn't like to be repeated.

Finally I settled and replied, "Sure."

He turned on his stool and faced me with a creepy-serious face. No wait, I think that was his normal expression.

I turned as well just as he asked number one, "What is your name?"

I was about to answer when another thought occurred in my head. "Hey, aren't you supposed to say your own name before asking for someone else's?"

"This is twenty questions," he said plainly, as if that was an actual answer to my question. I should have complained about that too, but I couldn't do that on the first question. He might think I was one of those people, my friend Ino for example.

"Haruno Sakura," I declared with pride in my voice. I don't know why, exactly. I guess having the name 'Cherry Blossoms of the Spring' sounded like it was a name to be bragged about for a second to me.

"Uchiha Sasuke," he said with a small smirk. Hey, he's named after a freakin' ninja. How cool is that? But 'Uchiha'—paper fan? Sorry, that brings it right down to minus one.

My turn. "Did you really like that coffee girl?"

"Yes," he replied curtly. "Did you think I was lying? Did you really like that staples guy?"

My expression turned poignant. "Sadly, yes. But he's old shit now. I don't care about him or anyone else anymore."

He nodded slightly. "Is that so?

"Yes. This whole 'love' thing, I don't… 'believe' it, let's say." I didn't even know why I was telling him this. It was kind of like I needed to vent it all out to someone just so they could deny me.

He looked like he understood me completely at first, but then he said, "That's not right."

Shut up! would have worked nicely for me at that moment, but instead I said, "What's not right about that?"

"You can't just give up on love after your dream guy didn't return your feelings." Wow. When he said it like this was a mushy romance movie…

"No!" I retorted without thinking. "It's not just that! I've had other experiences too. And it's not just in love, it's in… well everything! God just can't seem to give me a chance in anything."

He stared at me. "Well, aren't you glad you have someone to tell that to? I could have just left without talking to you at all."

He probably just had nothing else to say, but even so I grimaced. He was right. And I was glad. I guess I just had a weird way of showing it.

"It's not that I don't believe in love..." I started again.

"You just said that."

"Well, I'm changing it!" I retorted, smirking like I could change the world if I wanted to. He's probably creeped out by how much of a freak I am. "It's more like... I don't believe in happy endings. No one can actually have a happy ending and walk into the sunset with their true love."

And he said nothing more.

We went back and forth with the deep questions and long, thought-out answers that it seemed like we were sitting there forever. We dug into each other's dusty, forgotten past. I found out we weren't so different after all. Uchiha Sasuke seemed like your average rich stuck-up bastard, but under the fake image, dignity-keeping, cool-is-a-must layer of rock, there was actually someone of the human species with normal jeans and a t-shirt like me. Just, he wasn't wearing that exact outfit at this moment, so it would totally throw anyone off.

It had gotten to the point where we had both finished our moneys-worth of drinks, the waitress stopped serving them and was just sitting there cleaning the same glass with a cloth over and over again. I think she was eavesdropping on us.

We were on question… seventeen? Eighteen?

"Nineteen," he reminded. Right. My turn.

"Why did you start talking to me…" I paused to look at the clock briefly. "…six hours ago?"

He put his hand to his face like The Thinker. He obviously is going to try and make up an excuse as to why he started to talk to someone like me.

"I really liked your pink hair." He smiled mischievously. I made a face, but we both knew he was kidding.

"No, actually," he said after, with a look of complete seriousness, "I knew you had a crush on that photocopy guy. And after he made-out with that coffee girl, I was crushed; but what about you? I knew you wouldn't take it lightly, and I was right considering you ended up here." He gestured to the dark-inside of the bar with alcohol stains on the walls and chairs knocked over that nobody bothered to pick up.

I raised an eyebrow. "You know, I would have been just fine with the pink hair thing." He grimaced. "But, I'm flattered that you care about me so much."

"I wouldn't call it caring exactly. More like... deep curiousness." He nodded knowingly.

"Well if that's the case, haven't you ever heard of 'Curiosity killed the cat'?" I chuckled at his disgusted look. "I'm not really someone to be messed with. I'm not the stereotypical damsel-in-distress, just as how you're not the stereotypical rich, spoiled and insensitive asshole."

He snorted. "You thought I was a rich, spoiled and insensitive asshole?"

"I guess that is a bit too many adjectives." I could tell he was pouting on the inside.

"You're telling me." He huffed, and his breath blew a strand of his black bangs up but it floated slowly back to his face by the force of gravity.

"Well," I got up and grabbed my jacket that was lying on the counter. "I've gotta be going."

Sasuke stood up as well. "Why? I haven't even asked question twenty yet."

I proceeded to slide my arms into the holes of my jacket. "Well for starters, it's two in the morning. And you can save question twenty for another day." I smiled and he frowned.

"How do you know we'll ever see each other again?" We both stood there, but then I put a hand on my hip.

"Geez, wasn't it you who somehow warped my mind into thinking love isn't AS clichéd as I thought after all?" I was winning the battle.

"Yeah…" he said slowly. He's not gonna take losing.

"And besides, we go to the same work." And I just won the war. "See you tomorrow." I grinned and walked out of the bar, leaving him to stand there like an idiot.

In your face, Uchiha Sasuke.

Alright so after March Break and Easter, I got a lot of inspiration from... a lot of places. o.O No, I was not depressed when I wrote this. Didn't you see; it was funny! Somewhat. -.-"

This was originally gonna be just a oneshot, but I thought just leaving it here would be a little open-ended, ne? So it'll only be a couple of chapters, and I won't be updating that often. Sorrryyy.

P.S Happy Bday, Sakura!