Chronic Love(On Hold)

8

Sakura's Pov

"Oh Shikamaru." My face fell when I saw he was trying to contain himself. "Please don't tell anyone or let this change the way you see me. Although I should say thank you for helping me, I wish you didn't." He scooted his chair closer to me and hesitantly reached for my hand. "I'm only allowing this kind of behavior from you once," I chuckled out. He nodded with a smile and gently grasped my hand. Despite the brave face I put on in front of Tsunade I wished I felt the comfort of someone to help me with this. Which is why when Shikamaru grabbed my hand so caringly tears came rolling down my face. He noticed and pulled me in a bear hug while climbing into the hospital bed with me. "I-I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm crying." I could feel him chuckle. "It's okay to cry," he said as he ran his hand down my hair. Before I knew it, I fell asleep in Shikamru's arms.

For the first time that I've been diagnosed I woke up actually feeling comfortable. Like my mind was at peace. "You're awake." I looked up to see Shikamaru staring down at me and then past him to look at the window. "It's late. Shouldn't you be with Naruto?" He smiled and didn't say anything. I didn't like the quiet so I started blabbering. "When you leave the hospital you have to pretend like you didn't find any of this out." He nodded. I found the lack of him talking very irritating. "I'm just reminding you." He shushed me. "I know, I know. However, since I know I want you to come to me if you need anything. I see you as a close friend now and want to help in any way I can. I won't hover."

After Shikamaru finally left Tsunade popped in. "He's a good friend," she said while taking my chart from the nurse. "Your white blood count is elevated and I'm not sure your red blood cells are getting enough oxygen." I already knew where this was going. "I would like to run a blood test and recount enzyme activity." She wasn't talking to me yet, she was babbling to herself. Something I've come to know her to do when she's stressed or really worried about a patient. "Oh, we need to do an EEG. Might as well do CT and MRI scans." Yep, she wasn't talking to me. "You mentioned loss of eyesight so we'll need to run some eye tests as well." I let her continue her diagnosis. While she made a run down of the list I wondered how I got so worse in such little time.

"So basically you wanna poke and prod me again?" I offered her a smirk although I was already tired just thinking about it. "Er, yes." She didn't give me any eye contact the whole time. Something she preached to her Interns to do while updating the patient. She's probably still upset about earlier. It's not like it wouldn't have happened. Even though I knew she cared deeply about me, I was tired of being treated like a toddler. It was annoying.

The next time I woke up my body ached. It was eight in the morning, which meant if I moved fast enough I could still make it to school in time. Before Tsunade and her interns came to my room to do rounds I would be gone. Crap! I had forgotten all about Sasuke and Ino. It didn't help that I couldn't find my damn phone. I could already hear Ino's worrisome questions. If I'm getting worse it'll be ten times harder to hide this from them, especially if I'm their ride. "Well you're being a busy body this morning." I swear the world has something against me. "And a good morning to you too. The weather looks amazing today," I said through a bright smile. I sighed when she didn't take the bait. "Look, I have class and you said only one night so yes I'm being a busy body." She pointed to the table beside me. My phone. She proved her point without having to say anything. "Thank you but I'm still going." I brushed past her and her herd of interns.

The traffic was beyond horrible and I couldn't be more irritated this morning. I'm going to be late. While at a stoplight I quickly scroll through my notifications. Literally 100 missed calls from Ino. Honestly not surprised. What did surprise me was the ten missed calls from Sasuke. He's not one to call more than three times unless he's really worried. I felt bad that I hadn't given them a heads up so they could find another way home. The light turned green as soon as I clicked Sasuke's contact. While keeping a steady eye on the road I connected my phone to the bluetooth in the car. "Sakura." He said my name with a breath of relief. "Where have you been?" If we're being honest I'm not the best liar on the spot. "I-I'm sorry. I had to take care of something with an old friend." He didn't say anything. I knew he could see through my facade . However, he didn't say anything else about it. "Well Ino's still in the shower so do you think you could swing by and pick us up?" I looked at the time. I made it out of the hospital quicker than I thought. "Yeah, I'm on my way." I was lucky our house was close to the school.

Ino didn't waste a second in tackling me when I pulled up. "Where were you? We were worried! We even had to walk home," she put emphasis on the word 'walk'. I laughed. "Oh no, god forbid that Miss Ino had to walk home. Could you ever forgive your chauffeur?" I made a dramatic scene of getting on one knee in front of her and bowing my head down. She was happy to play along. "Oh that's fine I suppose. Although you could work on your apologies," she said as I opened the door for her and offered my hand to help her inside. "I couldn't forget you Mr. Sasuke," I say offering him a smile with the car door open. He looked at me for a moment. "Don't do that again, next time give me a heads up," he paused," I was scared." he closed the door himself. I knew it took a lot of his pride to even think about uttering those words. Guilt ate me. I'll tell them when It's time. Now it was time to face that asshole and Shikamaru.

Word count: 1,118