Harmony (Konoha School of Arts)

5.

Wow! Can you believe I lost inspiration for this book for a sec? Hehe.

***

Gaara went to the school's cafeteria and bought a can of Narutonic. Afterwards he journeys to the rooftop where he is sure his recently heartbroken friend is. Sure enough Naruto is there, sitting on the edge of the roof which really should be barricaded because it's a long way down.

The blond startles upon the cold can touching his face and he looks at Gaara. The redhead gestures for him to take the Narutonic from him. He does with a mumble of thanks and Gaara settles next to him. He should have bought himself a drink too, he laments internally as Naruto doesn't say anything for a long while.

"Aren't you going to say anything? You tried to warn me about her after all." The blond finally speaks.

"I'm too mature for that." Is Gaara's response. Telling somebody 'I told you so' is immensely childish to him because it changes nothing about the situation. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm just worried you know?"

"Worried?" Gaara echoes in confusion.

"About Sakura." Naruto opens the can and chugs down the liquid inside. "Ahh!" He sighs, refreshed. Gaara says nothing, sensing that the blond still has more to say about his confusing statement. Why is he worried about Sakura?

"I can't find it in myself to be mad at her because she's just like me, yanno? Everything she did was to gain Sasuke-teme's recognition but it was the wrong way to go about it. Had I not met Iruka-sensei, I would've done some nasty things for recognition too."

Seriously, only Naruto would sympathize with the person that broke his heart. But what he said is true though, Gaara realizes when he does a self check. He did nastier things just to find a semblance of what living meant until Naruto found him and brought him out of his headspace.

Sakura is no different from him. She just needs somebody to give her a good knock on the head to bring her back to reality. And who best do that if not the one person she wants recognition from the most?

"Hn."

Speak of the devil and he appears.

Sasuke arrives with two cans of Narutonic which Gaara gladly collects from him and chugs down. All three of them look upon the whole school in comfortable silence until Sasuke breaks it with an ominous sentence.

"You both know that the three of us can easily fall to our deaths sitting here, right?"

Xxx harmony xxX

Everyone had left Sakura alone in the dance studio. Everyone other than Sai, Neji and Sasuke that is. Sakura had long shrunk into herself, trembling with anger and fear as she waited for what the others had to say to her.

Sasuke was the first to talk. "I don't know what you planned to achieve with me by doing all these things but between the former Sakura and the present you, I very much prefer the former you." His parting words to Sakura left a huge imprint in her mind.

Sasuke preferred her former self over her recent self? Sasuke preferred that weak thing over the person he was seeing now?! Impossible! There was no way he could stand her weak self. He'd said it himself on countless occasions that she was annoying, it made no sense how he suddenly turns around and says he prefers that version over her recent version.

Sakura didn't even notice when Neji left with Sai or when Kakashi-sensei came into the room. He was asking her some questions– probably where the others were– but she couldn't hear it. All that was echoing in her head was what Sasuke said.

He preferred her former self over the present one? What made him say that? Angry that she had no answer to her internal question Sakura growled and stormed out of the class.

Meanwhile Neji dragged Sai off to the boys' bathroom for a talk. It's a bad choice of a meeting place, he knows, but where other than the bathroom for a private one on one talk, yeah? "What was that back there?" He asked once he made sure it was empty.

Sai sneered which came as a surprise to Neji because he didn't think the usually placid boy was capable of doing that. "You don't need to act like a good class rep, Neji-san. I know you don't really like Sakura either so you're satisfied with what happened today."

Neji sighed. "Don't just go assuming nobody likes her because every other person was on your side today, Sai. That doesn't mean that they don't like you less than they like her. I understand that there must've been beef between the both of you because that there seemed like a personal attack to me, but what you did was something only twelve year olds would do.

I get that you don't like her so much but you didn't have to rope everybody else into not liking her. Let others decide for themselves whether they do or not. I'm not justifying Sakura or anything, she has her fault and whatever she did to you stays between the two of you. Nobody else needed to be involved."

Neji left Sai in the bathroom but not without a final note. "Oh and I don't necessarily like or dislike anybody in the class. We're all just coexisting in the same place for a certain period of time. Once we graduate we might never see each other again, we might even forget one another other so it's a waste of braincells to hate another person."

The rest of the week was uneventful for their grade. Sakura was absent throughout and Sai was facing his own problems alone as he talked to nobody and nobody talked to him. Ino was also absent. What bothered Sai about her absence was how she avoided him at all costs.

She didn't reply his messages or calls and she refused to see him when he went to visit under the pretext of delivering her homework. Sai hated the silence. He sensed that why Ino was avoiding him had to do with why she and Sakura fought days ago but had no idea what in the world it could be.

Even if he wanted to ask Sakura what it was he couldn't because they were now mortal enemies. That and Sakura has also been inexistent for the last few days. Shikamaru didn't know what was wrong with Ino either and even Kakashi-sensei didn't know why she suddenly moved out of her dorm room.

It wasn't until some weeks later he heard from Ino– well her father– and boy was he shocked by the news he got.

***

Please forgive any mistakes. Thanks for reading!