Take Me Back To When Dreams Were Nice

Reality; Day One

A/N For all of your patience for my seriously slow thought process, arigato gazaimazu!

Click. An eye blinking to grasp a moment. Click. Was something blurring its sight? Click. "The heck's wrong with this?" Sakura irritably muttered. Or maybe it was just the thing she was taking a picture of. She loved the quiet and relaxing scenery, nobody could get her wrong there. But, the foliage and landscapes had to get boring for the city people someday.

She just needed inspiration. Maybe, a person? A pet? A building? Surveying her surroundings, there weren't any exotic looking animals that seemed willing to stand still or a building that wasn't probably already taken up. So that left...

::

Yes. Perfect. Sasuke put his eyes to slumber onto the photo in his hand. It was like time had frozen just for him as he had focused the polaroid's glare onto the fountain and captured a perfect resembling image of a water, running man. And it made it even better that so many things could spark a mind from this—maybe the man is running from fear, emphasizing his watery like state. Maybe the person is running toward something, or maybe getting chased. It could also mean mentally, chasing dreams or running from thoughts. All of the ideas swarmed endlessly as he smiled into the depths of its meaning. Perfect? Yes.

He caressed his head into his hands as he hazily cast a long glance to the sky. Blue gets kinda boring sometimes...why not white? And the clouds...they could move once and a while... Then he crashed his palm and introduced it to his forehead. He had caught himself, and the dotted canvas, what he called the dream's setting, scurrying around for his thoughts attention, and it got it.

Again. His sight drifted from the sky and back to his hands gripping the camera fastened to his neck, laying dormant by his chest. He picked it up and launched his legs so they stood straight to go by the lake in hopes of new sights.

As he padded across the patterned stone ground, the corner of his eye got entangled in a smiling girl. Her eye was in the camera's hands, the other one hidden behind silky hair.

She was grinning while aiming a what looked like heavy, large, and probably pretty expensive camera right at him. Being the playful one when it came to encounters like this, he quickly positioned his own polaroid to flash her own features and pressed the knob.

Heartbeats later, the shadowed photo slipped from the mouth of the printer, and he smiled while waving it in the air between his index and middle fingers. He turned back and lent a glimpse of the girl, but her smile was long wiped off and replaced by a slightly opened mouth and unreadable expression under her camera.

'Hn?' Photo still slid between his fingers, he set it down to hang with his hand as she revealed one mint colored eye, then another. His breath hitched, and he stood there diving into her leaf tinted depths. They exchanged outstretched stares, then he quickly looked away. Was it her? He bit his bottom lip, hard. It was definitely a reality, which meant she was too. Yet she seemed so...fragile. Like there was the fear scarring him that is he went any closer, she would disappear.

How...should he feel about it? Excited? Because finally, he had the ability to hold her in his arms without waking up to start over again? ...frightened? Going insane about the possibility to have the same feeling he had had as she disappeared before his grasp? He considered moving back to the dreary persona he had grown into as the years progressed, but now? After the dream had tackled him with the barrage of emotions he now held in his hands?

He looked up, to scale her expression once more. Her face had a horrid feature, her eyes were blurred and her breaths seemed to come labored as if she was having a panic attack. One hand was placed in front of her as if she was trying to protect herself, and one leg was pounced behind. Her mouth hung slightly open, with teeth clenched.

She shut her eyes, creating many folds beneath them as she was, shaking. Was she...scared? But, why? She seemed to be counting until he would disappear, but his mind was racing too fast to think. She held a shriveled sigh before opening them. "I-I'm sorry... I...I thought you were someone else." And just like that, she turned, as if her little panic attack had never come on.

His hand felt an instant itch to launch itself at the girl and embrace her frail body into his arms, but he just couldn't.

He dragged his sight down to the camera hanging onto him. He had forgotten to add the red ribbon.

::

'I thought you were someone else?! Seriously?'  As Haruno trailed back with her bike in hand, all she could think about was how stupid she had acted. This was what she wanted, right? To meet him and to see him with her own word?

But when the time had come to rest her gaze his stone eyes, had she dug up the same feeling as when she had first encountered the man? She was sick and tired of all these questions swarming around and had an ongoing lust for just one answer. A billion questions, and none.

"U-um, excuse me!" She yanked her sight around to see a patiently waiting boy with raven hair. She fought her gasp back and tore her heart from exploding.

"W--what's your name?" A random question, that brought her back. And it took her a while to rummage through her thoughts until she realized she had lost her own name.

"O-oh!" She laughed clumsily at her hesitance, mentally punching herself for causing what must've been the most awkward moment in the history of the universe.

"My name,

Is Sakura."

The boy seemed to gradually recline his breath, the name processing through his brain. He nodded, with a grim line of a smile. "Hey, Sakura," The words sounded rough against her ears, yet smooth sounding as it slid from his tongue. But she was very confused at his next words.

"You know, you're kinda annoying.

But thanks."