Let's get this straight—I know some famous people in Suna. To be more specific, I am related to some famous people in Suna. It's not something I blurt out on dates at fancy restaurants or anything, even if my date thinks I may feel out of place at said restaurants because I wasn't brought up on high ends.

But it's still there. I mean, I know famous people everywhere, but mostly the amount is concentrated in Suna.

My four cousins are those very same famous people. Kankuro, Temari, Gaara, and Sasori. The first three make up the capable Sand Siblings and the last is a cousin of the other three as well and a well-known painter.

It's midday when we arrive in Suna and the sun burned the hell through my eyes—like, hey, sorry, forgot to bring my sunglasses, dude—and that's where I told Sasuke to head first.

He shot me this angry, irritated glare, which surprised me, but was probably because I kind of ordered him and, despite what he obviously thought of himself, he was not Superman and needed sleep and was not above getting cranky without it. But I didn't take it back and I didn't ease up on my orders. I told him exactly where to go, and exactly how to get there and I did it quickly, muttering rapidly under my breath. Like someone's following us and we need to get to a safe house as soon as possible.

But that's how I treat everything nowadays. With suspicion and paranoia and no trust. It's alleviated a little when I'm drunk—it's still there, but less so—but when I'm stone-cold sober, the paranoia comes back, full-throttle, and it kind of crushes down on my insides, makes me want to get drunk again, and soon, because I hate that feeling soso much.

Especially when I start to look at Sasuke like that too.

Based on the revelation that I'm not the only one who's running here, I felt like forcing Sasuke to elaborate on his reasons, just to know he's safe to be around, not some guy hired to follow me and get me to trust him, only to expose himself in the end, when the farce is over, and hope for a Happy Ending.

Yeah, I watch the movies.

Except, unlike those movies, the Happy Ending won't be coming, because the other party is Sakura Haruno and Happy Endings are a concept that have never truly been meant for me.

But I'd still like to trust Sasuke and not make him into a Bad Guy when, maybe, he's not; maybe he's just a guy who got into some trouble and needed some way out and I provided the perfect escape. And it makes no sense if I force his story out of him and refuse to tell him mine.

Which, of course, I will do.

So, I chose not to voice out any of this. I just continued directing Sasuke, my voice soft. I was worried Kiba's snores were drowning it out, except I couldn't bring myself to speak louder because my head hurt and even the snores were making me feel like pressing myself to the seat and my head into my hands, where it would be cradled forever and I wouldn't have to look at anything ever again. Including the sun.

But Sasuke heard everything. He swerved at the right places and he picked up on my urgent tone too, picking up on speed, even though we were already going so fast that I was breathless before. It made me kinda worried, because now we're in village limits and there are way less constraints when you're on some deserted highway for so many hours.

Said constraints are only put back when you're in villages. Meaning, of course, the police.

But somehow, Sasuke managed to keep the cops, and us, out of the news. I couldn't help but be thankful for this and, when the both of us got out of the car, I looked up at him and felt the need to kiss him very very badly.

Call it my hormones, yeah?

We left Kiba snoring in the car. I pulled his hood over him, so no one saw him sleeping and decided to rob the van. With the hood up, he looked relatively intimidating. Definitely intimidating enough to keep potential robbers out of the way.

Sasuke didn't ask me anything; he didn't ask me who we're meeting, where we are, how I knew how to get there, if I'm bringing him to his supposed execution. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. He just followed after me, practically blind, as I head into the large apartment building we had stopped at and into the elevator.

"You're not a very curious person, are you," I commented, pushing the seventh floor button and watching the elevator doors close.

"Didn't we have this conversation an hour ago," he said, not looking at me. He stared up at the ceiling, like it was ever so much more interesting than moi. "You're not going to answer my questions. I know that. You know that. Why would I ask you any."

"Huh," I said, chewing on my bottom lip thoughtfully. "Curiosity doesn't just disappear though. I'm asking about your personality. Are you burning with the desire to know everything, but just don't want to ask?"

He looked down at me, his eyelashes longer than a boy's should be. "Curiosity killed the cat, Sakura."

I loved the way my name sounded when he said it. He rolled the r sound, a little, pulled up the u sound, a little, and stopped short on the a at the end. It was the sexiest way I had ever heard someone pronounce my name. "The cat had nine lives, Sasuke." I doubted that his name came off of my lips as sexily as they came off his, but I hoped for the best.

"There are some things," Sasuke said, moving his gaze away from my face and walking out of the elevator as the doors opened, "that I have learnt, I am better off never knowing."

I had to hurry out the elevator before it closed on my hair.

Temari opened the door. She wasn't who I had expected to open it, because I thought she would have been at work by then, but then I realized that I'm a fucking moron and that it was a fucking Saturday, of course she was home.

"Sakura," she exclaimed happily and pulled me into her arms and wrapped them around me and I'm glad that she was happy to see me. I hoped she's stay glad but I thought that that'd be wishful thinking. "What are you doing here?"

I threw a glance over my shoulder at Sasuke, who was right behind me; close enough to touch, but not touching. Somehow, Sasuke understood those aspects of my personality, even after having only talked to me when I was drunk and those aspects didn't apply anymore. "I—," I started hesitantly, scratching the back of my neck, "I got into a little trouble back home."

Temari's eyes immediately narrowed in suspicion and she glanced over at Sasuke, having finally noticed him and evidently thinking of him as the Bad Guy. "What kind of trouble?"

"Don't worry," I assured her. "He's safe. He got me out of where I was and over to where I needed to be, don't worry." I didn't believe any of this, because, after all, I knew nothing about Sasuke, which meant that he was about as safe to me as I am to everyone when I tried to cook.

Temari sighed, putting her hand on her hip, and I noticed the apron she wore, which she only ever wore when she's cooking. It made me realize how hungry I was and the thought brought a growl out of my stomach, the likes of which you've never heard. Her sigh stopped halfway through and she exploded out laughter, which, I deemed to tell her, was way louder than my growl at been.

She shook her head at me, still laughing, and gestured us both into the apartment, practically shoving us at the sofas in her living room. "I-I'll get you two s-some lunch," she tried to get out, still laughing. I would have punched her if she wasn't family. And if I didn't know my own strength and how dangerous it would be if I actually did such a thing.

I gobbled up the food she brought us. Sasuke took his own sweet time, obviously wanting to savor it, the way those prissy rich kids at my old high school did. It got me inexplicably angry and made me reach over to his plate and nab a couple of rice balls from it.

He snatched them back, unperturbed, and ate his food faster, after that.

"What's with all the laughing, sis? You know what we've told you, it's not attractive on you and no guy's gonna ever want to fuck you if they hear it once—" Kankuro stopped his trek to the kitchen, when he sees me, stilling. His hood was on and so was his face paint, and I honestly couldn't blame Sasuke if he thought Kankuro was a thug or something. But then, this huge smile grasped his face, as if he couldn't stop smiling and he walked over to me and picked me up and swung me around. Another person who was happy to see me.

I'm more popular than I thought.

"What're you doin' here, Saku-sweets?" Kankuro asked in this doting voice he always uses on me, because he absolutely adored me. I suppose with good reason too.

When I was sixteen, I took a trip to Suna for the summer with Naruto, and we stayed at my cousins' place. Then Gaara ended up getting kidnapped by these weird-ass fucking gang members and Kankuro got injured trying to stop them from taking his brother away.

Naruto went after Gaara and I was going to too, until I saw the horrible state they had left Kankuro in and all the blood he was losing. So, using a first-aid kit I kept in my bag for emergencies—because I was a conscientious freak, still am—and the trim medical training that I had been through with my aunt, I stopped the major wounds, wrapped them up nice and good and waited for the ambulance I had called to come to take care of the rest.

They said that Kankuro would have dead if I hadn't done what I did for him. And he's never let me forget that I saved his life.

That's one life I've improved at least. Amongst the many others the government believed I was gonna ruin.

"I got into some trouble," I replied and at his worried look—much more worried than Temari's had been actually—and the glance he gave Sasuke, I added, "He helped. He's fine. But I'm not."

It was at this point that Temari got back from the kitchen, apron taken off, ready to listen, and Gaara and Sasori both decided to come through the door.

Now, both my red-headed cousins are a bit dangerous. Gaara, more than Sasori, but that's because Gaara is of the same….variety that Naruto and I are and wasn't treated nearly as well here because everyone knew about it. Opposed to Naruto and my case, because no one knows about ours' unless they dig around a lot. Which, evidently, someone had finally done.

But when Gaara came into the apartment, he focused first on Sasuke and the fact that he didn't know him, and the fact that he was a stranger, and the fact that Sasuke didn't look like some harmless guy—I mean, I noticed his muscles, I didn't think no one else would—had him not noticing me, dropping all the grocery bags in his hands and lunging at Sasuke.

I was the only one nearly strong enough to stop him, so I grabbed his arms and twisted them around his back. He wrestled against my hold, reaching, reaching for Sasuke, who sat there staring up Gaara with his eyes dark and blazing and impassive; as if he could take on the entire world, by just sitting there, staring it down.

Gaara didn't recognize the familiarity of my hold at first, or the fact that someone was holding him back, and not many people could do that, anyway, and he hissed out, in the low, raspy voice he has, "Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my fucking apartment?"

Sasuke smirked sexily and put his plate down on the coffee table. "I'm Sasuke Uchiha. And as Sakura here keeps repeating: I'm fine, I helped, I got her where she was supposed to be; unmistakably here. To you all."

notes: HEY I UPDATED THIS IN LESS THAN A YEAR. And Saku-sweets isn't drunkkkkk. Sorry if I messed up on the tensing, but I'd like to think I am dropping all these hints around, and now I just gotta piece it together for you guys. Unless you decide you can do it yourself ;) Not that it's necessary; after all, I am out of control and maybe this story is too and I'd like to pat myself on the back if I have at least some unpredictability.

Read&Review babbehs!