A/N Enjoy :) Please take the time to tell me how much you liked it/or didn't like it by reviewing! Thanks again for reading.

Standard disclaimer applies.

Chapter Three: Contacts

Sakura swore. She stood in front of the mirror, trying desperately not to freak out when she put a flimsy plastic circle close to her eye.

"You alright there, Sakura?" Ino called.

"Yeah!" Sakura tried to say cheerfully, but she really just wanted to stomp her feet and scream and pull her hair out in frustration because this thing was definitely the worst decision she'd ever made.

Sakura had never felt the need to wear contact lenses; she'd always been comfortable with her glasses. Then Ino (of course) made the suggestion that she should try contact lenses, after her glasses broke when a poorly aimed basketball hit her smack in the face during P.E. lesson. Ino said it would bring out her 'sexy green eyes'; Sakura agreed only because she really could use another alternative during physical activity.

And now, despite having took a two hour lesson with the optometrist on how to put those things on and then squeeze them out again, she couldn't help feel frustrated that it was taking her this long to master something that Ino simply seemed to do with ease.

She wasn't the top of her class for nothing after all. She could handle this. Schloop. One eye done. Ripping open the next packet, she dried her fingers in a hurry because she could hear Ino moving her shoes around, which meant Ino was already ready to go out.

"Sweetheart, you need to learn to put those things on faster!" Ino was at the doorway of the bathroom, both hands on her hips. She was wearing her sweatshirt and black leggings. Ino insisted that they go for a run on every day that there was no P.E. class, before going to school. This meant waking up at like 6 am, to go for a 30-40 minute run, take a 10-minute shower and change, and get to school before 8 am. Since Ino always took at least 30 minutes to get ready for school, this meant there really wasn't much time at all.

Schloop. Finally, it was on. Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. Ino immediately grabbed her hand and pulled her to the door.

"C'mon, we're going to be late!"

As they jogged, Sakura breathed in the morning fresh air. Smelt like leaves and coffee. They jogged past the coffee shop that opened at 6:30, the bicycles parked next to trees; morning trains speeded away from them.

As they turned the corner, Sakura, whose eyes were drying faster than she could blink, was desperately trying to blink as much as possible as she ran, and in her absence of attention on the road she hurled straight into someone else.

The collision was not so much painful as it was awkward. Sakura had squeezed her eyes shut just before seeing a grey coloured hoodie. Ouch. She opened her eyes meekly, and found herself face to face with a man with such pale, smooth skin that she thought he might be a wax figure. On closer inspection, she realised he had the most curiously red pupils. She blinked. They were not red after all, but obsidian black.

Sakura pulled back, stumbling onto her own feet again, her face flushing. He was beautiful. "I'm so sorry, I was just- my eyes are so dry and I was blinking and I didn't see-"

He was already picking himself back up, shaking his hoodie a little.

"Teme, you should have stayed in that position longer!" His yellow-haired companion snickered, holding up his iPhone 6 in anticipation. Sakura realised her vision was blurry, because she couldn't really make out that yellow-haired man's face properly. It seemed like he had lines on his face, which couldn't possibly be wrinkles judging by the youthfulness of his general appearance and voice…

"I'm Yamanaka Ino." Already Ino was introducing herself. Sakura may not be able to see Ino's face completely clearly, but she was certainly not oblivious to Ino's flirtatious voice. She was probably batting her eyelashes, smiling in a way that she thought appeared to be shy-looking.

"Cool! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, nice to meet ya." The said Naruto shook hands with Ino, but Ino's attention was already on his dark-haired friend. The one Sakura collided and collapsed on.

"And you? What's your name?"

"...Hn."

"Don't be shy, Sasuke!" Naruto punched Sasuke's arm. "This guy is Uchiha Sasuke. He's not much of a talker, and not much of a looker either." Naruto snickered.

"Pft. Better than you, dunce."

Naruto made an angry pout. Then he turned to Sakura. "Let me guess, your name is Sakura!" He said, seemingly very proud of himself.

"…Hi, I'm Haruno Sakura, yes. How did you know?"

"Your hair colour."

Of course.

"So anyways," Naruto continued. "Are you guys into morning jogging too? Haven't seen you around before."

Suddenly Sakura realised why Ino had said they were "going to be late". She internally groaned. Of course, Ino normally had no motivation to do any kind of sports, or anything generally that was beneficial to her health. She was in it to meet guys, and she had probably known they would end up bumping into these two from the very start.

Then she remembered she and Ino were on a tight schedule and that they had better hurry… and that her vision was strangely blurry on one side and this could only mean one thing. She'd somehow dropped one of her contact lenses. It was definitely the leftie. How could it pop out of her eye so easily?

Ignoring the ensuing conversation between Naruto and Ino, and a silent, stony-faced Sasuke, she crouched down towards the floor, desperately searching for the plastic thing that had caused her so much trouble putting on this morning. Great, what if they had already stepped on it? She hadn't managed to get replacement glasses yet, so without this she was definitely screwed.

"Sakura. Sakura!" Ino's voice came into focus. "Hun, what are you doing?"

Sakura looked up. "One of my contact lenses fell out I think…" Her face must have looked quite frantic indeed, because Ino had probably realised that she had no replacement glasses.

"Shit! Wait, everybody don't move!"

Trying not to move while simultaneously look for something tiny, round and transparent was difficult, to say the least. Sasuke was also looking, Sakura noted vaguely.

Hm.

They never found it. Sakura endured much of her classes in a lopsided blurry fashion, and it not only gave her a headache, but it also made it difficult for her to see Sasuke's expression on his face, who was sitting two seats away from her in almost every class they had today. Ino and Naruto had forced, well no, convinced Sasuke to uh, 'take care' of her while she was at school today since they all turned out to be from the same school (as if Ino hadn't known that from the beginning) and because her vision was unreliable and shaky. He didn't look very pleased at all, but Sasuke did not seem like the type to ever look pleased.

Sakura sighed. The bell rang and school was over. She hitched her backpack onto her shoulders and made for the door. In the hallway, students were rushing past to go home. She abruptly turned around to face Sasuke who was following her a few steps behind.

"Look, I can take care of myself. It's not so bad, and I can definitely get home just fine on my own," Sakura said carefully. She didn't want to sound bitchy and irritable, which was what her headache was making her feel like, to be honest.

She paused. "Thanks again for tagging around me, though."

Sasuke just looked at her. "Hn. Fine." Then he turned away, not in a huff or anything, but gracefully. His movements were languid; he moved like a well-trained dancer, like water navigating the rocks in a stream. He was so mysterious. She wondered if he wore contacts too, but that wouldn't explain the red pupils that changed to black. Or maybe she was seeing things. There was no way people's eye colour could change just like that, surely.

So she walked home, slightly regretting the fact that she had refused his help, because she was definitely getting pretty dizzy. Probably the exhaustion from classes and schoolwork and whatnot. Sakura had skipped lunch because she was the captain of the debating team and there was a meeting for the competition next week. Sasuke had been there too, she remembered. He was definitely not made to be a debater, she chuckled to herself. As Sakura walked along the road to home, she could hear the train rushing past again. Then quite suddenly, the whole world seemed fuzzy, like bad reception on a TV screen. The buildings were shaky, and the ground underneath her was shaky. She stopped and leaned against the wall that separated a shop and a parking lot.

She took in a deep breath and shut her eyes. Oh no. Sakura could feel the wave of nausea crashing into her, and she shut her eyes more tightly, praying that somehow it'll all okay for her to last the journey home. Ino was not with her because she had cheerleading practice after school. Her body swayed and Sakura felt herself helplessly falling to the ground in a whir of dizziness…

A hand gripped her waist and her head landed on something soft. Semi-conscious, Sakura opened her eyes bleakly. That spiky dark hair and pale face. It was Sasuke. What was he doing here?

Sakura tried to steady herself. "Sasuke-kun…? I'm fi-Sasuke-kun!"

Sasuke had promptly lifted her into his arms in one smooth movement. He shifted her weight slightly to make sure her head was comfortable, and started walking towards her home. She could hear his heart beating, her head was that close to his chest. He smelled nice, like clean fabric and fresh mint.

At the gate, Sasuke finally put her down. He gently set her legs down before releasing his other arm, which had been supporting her shoulders. Sakura felt slightly better now, and was less wobbly on her feet.

There was a moment of silence. Sakura fidgeted.

"Thank you, Sasuke-kun." She looked up into his dark eyes. "Really."

To her surprise, Sasuke looked straight back, in the same way he had done when they had collided earlier this morning.

"…It's fine." Already he was leaving, and then he stopped abruptly in his steps. His head turned slightly so that she could see his face but not his eyes (damn that gorgeous hair), he said quietly, "Take some paracetamol. Get glasses."

Then he was gone, just like that. Sakura smiled a little. She hadn't questioned why he knew the way to her house, or why he knew to follow her anyways despite her telling him that she could handle herself. He had known, some way or another, that she might have ended up feeling nauseous on the way home. He had done all this to make sure she was home safe.

Naruto was right, she mused. He wasn't much of a talker… but sometimes you don't always need words to get to know someone.

fin.