The louder sound of pitter-patter opened my eyes instead of my alarm clock. Just like every morning, I dressed, but into a white sleeveless shirt with my black shorts and cloak since my red shirt was soaked with tears from last night. Then I headed out of my apartment and surely locked the door this time, and put my cloak's hood above my head. "This is going to be a great mission day," I grumbled before heading for Lady Tsunade's office.

"Whoa, Sasori-kun. Are you okay?" Sakura tried to touch my puffy red eyes, but I moved away from her.

"I'm fine," I said sternly. She took a hint and moved away from me near Sasuke.

"Okay," Lady Tsunade said quickly. "Today, Sasuke being here isn't enough for today's mission. So I took the liberty of having you being paired up with Team 10."

Right on cue, Asuma sensei, Shikamaru, Choji, and Ino walked right in.

"Ugh, I told you guys we would be late!" Ino yelled at her team. "If fatty here didn't go get some chips from the store,-"

"My mother says I'm just heavy-set!"

"Excuse me!" The hokage got up from her seat and yelled, "This is a place of business! If you cannot keep it down in my office, you will be asked to leave my office and suspended from this mission. Do I make myself clear?"

Team 10 nodded and got into the line with us. As Ino was about to stand next to me, I glared at her and moved over so Shikamaru could stand next to me.

"Now," Lady Tsunade contained herself and sat in her seat. "This is a recon mission for all of you. There will be three groups of 2. The group of three will be Asuma, Kakashi, and Sasuke. I want them to watch Sasuke to make sure he doesn't leave again. Anyways, the mission is to watch every move of the village. There's a thief going around, and he or she's picked the places to pick scrolls from. Here are your groups. Once I'm done telling you, pick a place away from the others and watch a designated part of Konoha."

I was pissed to find out Ino was my partner. But who else could've it been? When I asked Lady Tsunade why, all she said was, "You two seem to work great with each other."

Of course. We used to! I wanted to say that, but what the Hokage says, goes. So I was suppose to work nicely with the girl who cares more about being a fan girl to another guy than being friends with me. Pfft, over my dead body.

Ino and I walked in silence towards Ichiro's Ramen Shop. Everytime Ino would try to start conversation; I would just end it by asking a question irrelevant to what she was saying. Then she started talking about Sasuke, which made me furious. I just couldn't hit her or anything, so I walked up faster than her.

"Okay, that's it." Ino stood in front of me with her arms crossed.

"What?" I asked blankly.

"Why are being so, un Sasorish?"

"Nice vocabulary you've got there." I hopped onto the ramen shop's roof and speeded off near my house.

It wasn't look before Ino caught up. She then grabbed my arm and said, "I'm serious, Sasori-kun!"

I shrugged her off and said, "Don't add 'kun' to the end of my name." I turned to her and pulled off my hood. "Do you see my eyes, Ino? Do you see them? I actually cried over you. I CRIED OVER YOU! You literally left me all alone on the training grounds yesterday!"

"It was an acci-"

"Accident? Every other time you went off somewhere and I was right there, you would either say 'See you later' or something like that! But no! You wanna go see Sasuke instead of the guy whose been with you and not off to go kill his own brother!"

"Don't talk about Sasuke that way! He's been a better friend than you have! Besides, he has a right to kill Itachi. Itachi killed off the whole Uchiha clan!"

"And how does that concern you? He didn't know you or any of us until about 3 years after!"

Ino pushed me and said, "Why're you acting like such a jerk? I told you it was an accident."

I was just about to take my anger out on her. Pull her hair, punch her, stab her with a kunai, but I didn't. I just heaved a sigh and said, "I love you, Ino Yamanaka."

My best friend was stunned. She just looked at me with wide eyes and raindrops streaming down her face. "S-S-Sasori-kun, I didn't-"

"Don't even bother! Look, why don't you just run off with Sasuke and become Mrs. Uchiha or something? Leave me out of it." I began walking until I felt Ino's hand on my shoulder.

I turned and said, "What is it now?"

Tears along with raindrops were on her face now, making me feel worse than a jerk. I made my best friend who I've crushed on for years cry. I'm bigger than a jerk. There's not even a word for what I am.

"I feel the same way, Sasori-kun. I didn't mean to make you think… I didn't…" She sniffled before bursting into tears on my chest. I silently wept as she sobbed on me. I'm a jerk right now, but she's still here. Not even knowing she loves me back makes me feel better about making Ino cry…

A/N: Intense, I know! This is exactly how I imagined it in my head, Y'know? An epic love scene where Ino and Sasori confess their true feelings. I'll be holding a poll to see if Sasori and Ino should go out right away or if they should matain a friendly relationship until the end. Thanks for reading! (P.S This story has gone from being named Konoha Gaiden to Raindrop Tears. KG was epic and all, but that would be a great name for my next Naruto story.