Chapter 6 - Dream Catcher

A/N: SIMON! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Ah-hem. Apologies. Just read Lord of the Flies (amazing piece of literature that it is) and found out the unfortunate and brutal death that my favorite character has gone through. I know how to pick ‘em, eh?

Anyway, you wanna know why the updates are coming slower and slower? Because this story would most likely have triple the amount of reviews if all those who put it on one of their lists (favorites, alerts, you know the drill) just gave me one simple comment.

One. Simple. Comment.

But thanks to those who did review. Cyber-cookies for all.

‘FLASHBACKS’

Disclaimer: Um. No. (You’re jealous of my marvelous wit!)…

Background:

Every day after school, The Group gathers in the office of their current Guidance Counselor to help them deal with their messed up lives and messed up problems. Naruto, the self-proclaimed leader and worst behaved of the six outcasts, always takes the job of scaring away the counselor that was sent there to help them. But when Sasuke takes the position, the blond is given a run for his money.

-xxXXlXXxx-

M I S F I T

Dream Catcher

-xxXXlXXxx-

“How did you get in here?”

The man on the couch waves a dismissive hand in Sakura’s direction. “I let myself in.”

He stands, and Sakura remains where she is. “But, why are you here? For Sasuke-kun?”

He smiles, and shrugs. “Just stopping by for a visit. Is that so wrong?”

She scowls. “When you’re uninvited, yes. It certainly is.”

“Gomen, gomen. I’ll give some warning next time. And when did you get so cold, Sakura-chan? I thought that was your husbands job.”

“Hn.” She sighs, and puts a slender hand on her hip.

He lifts an eyebrow, and she sighs again.

“Are you just going to stand there all day? Or do you want to help me with my bags?” She gestures towards the groceries that still sit out in the vacant hallway.

The man chuckles and walks forward. “Pushy as ever.”

She swats him lightly on the shoulder as he passes her, smiling, and asks, “Ne, what’s been going on up at the college, Kakashi-sensei?”

Kakashi bends down to pick up the bags, and Sakura takes them from his hands as he straightens. He randomly scratches the back of his head, his one visible eye curving into a happy arc, as he says, “Nothing of interest. You guys were much more fun to tease. These college students must have something shoved up somewhere, with how stiff they are. Very boring.”

He nods his head with his statement, and Sakura rolls her eyes.

“You haven’t changed one bit.”

“No, can’t say that I have.”

“Still reading those ‘romance novels’?”

“I’m insulted! You say that like enjoying a good piece of literature is a sin!”

“That disgusting orange book is not literature.” She sniffs and crosses her arms, before beginning to unpack the groceries. “It’s trash.”

Kakashi slowly shakes his head. “You wound me, Sakura-chan.”

Sakura throws a tomato at his head.

-xxXXlXXxx-

Sasuke races up the steel stairs, his shoes making a horrible clanging sound.

An ominous echo for him to ignore.

The elevator would have given him much too much time to think, and the static coming from the radio that spat out classical jazz would only serve as more paranoia.

He reaches the next landing. He keeps running. His footsteps keep echoing.

-xxXXlXXxx-

“Uchiha Sasuke to Guidance. Uchiha Sasuke to Guidance.”

His classmates snicker as he stands. He ignores the fact that they all whisper and try to hide their pointing fingers behind their cupped hands.

Sasuke strides out of the room before the teacher can blink, fingering a piece of paper in his pocket.

A hall pass, to go meet the new guidance counselor. He had received it in homeroom five periods ago.

So he could have proved his peers wrong. (He wasn’t in trouble, for once.) But he didn’t.

It’s as he is walking down this deserted hallway, as his feet make a hard sound on the stupid tiled floors and bounce back to him from the stupid white walls, that he hears the scurrying.

And a voice.

“Why am I so late? My mom’s going to kill me if she finds out! I’m so, so[/i] late!” it groans.

Sasuke vaguely recalls Alice in Wonderland, and the white rabbit with the pocket watch.

But one flurry of papers and body crashing into his later, all Sasuke can think about is how much he always hated fairytales.

His head hits the floor painfully, and he can see stars. He hears a worried voice hovering above him.

“Oh, no! Are you okay? I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going, and then you were just there, and-“

He sits up, slowly, and rubs the back of his head.

“Shut. Up.”

The feminine voice doesn’t respond, so he spares its owner a glance. It’s a girl in his grade, with pink hair and eyes like-

(“Don’t you just love green eyes, Sasuke?” his mother had called, airily laughing and pulling her young son onto her lap. She wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace, and he squirmed towards her to see her smiling face. “They’re so bright and exotic! And quite rare. They remind me of the ocean. What about you, Sasuke? What do green eyes remind you of?”)

-no, like-

(He bites his bottom lip, something he inherited from his mother, and thinks as hard as a five year old boy can think. “Green eyes are like…like…” His mother continues to smile as he struggles for an answer. She places her hand on his head, and ruffles the raven hair that came from her. “You’ll figure it out eventually.” Sasuke blinks, but then smiles and nods eagerly. “Yeah, I will! Then I can tell kaachan, right?” She smiles back. “Of course, honey…”)

-no…

The truth is, he doesn’t know what her eyes look like.

But he recognizes the girl genius of the school. Haruno Sakura is her name.

He doesn’t know much about her. But, judging from the fact that she’s slowly standing, looking at him with increasing horror dawning on her pale face, he’s pretty sure she knows who he is.

He stands, and it seems that is all that is needed to prove his thought. Because Haruno Sakura, with eyes like nothing Sasuke’s ever seen, is running in the opposite direction and abandoning her scattered books and papers.

(“…Because I’ll always be there to hear it.” She gives him a kiss on the forehead, and Sasuke forgets about green eyes for just a moment.)

-xxXXlXXxx-

“Kakashi, I’m going to kill you.”

“You should be relieved, Sasuke. Not murderous.”

Sakura’s eyes flicker back and forth between the two males, confused. Her husband had swung open the door to their apartment just a moment ago. He had stopped to blink for a little bit before spotting Kakashi beside her and marching over to the two of them.

A quick smile to her, a few urgently whispered words with their former guidance counselor, and here they are now.

“What’s going on?” she finally asks.

Sasuke’s eye twitches (Don’t think I don’t notice that smug look on your face, you pervert) as he turns away from Kakashi.

“This idiot didn’t’ tell you?”

She shakes her head ever so slowly.

Sasuke sighs.

“It’s about Itachi. He-“

BANG. BANG. BANG.

“Uchiha! Open up! Sakura-chan! Anyone! Open the door! Open-”

Sakura fears for Naruto and Kiba’s health as Sasuke turns towards the door.

He yanks it open, catches Naruto’s still-knocking fist, and hisses, “What are you doing here?”

The blond student shoves the raven inside (after his azure eyes return back to normal size, of course), Kiba scurrying in behind them.

Sasuke whips back around and glares at Naruto, only to see his eyes on the floorboards.

He mutters something, and Sasuke leans in. “Repeat that.”

In a sudden surge of courage, the Uzumaki says, “Your brother came to see you after you were gone for a while. I told him your address. I didn’t read your file until afterwards.” It’s after taking a deep breath that he realizes he’s only making sense to himself. But he continues.

“He knows where you live. And I’m sorry.”

Sasuke’s arm shoots out to catch her before she even falls to the ground. Sakura had collapsed. But not fainted.

Fainting was too much of an easy way out at the moment.

She wraps her arms around her husband, her body shaking, as he kneels next to her on the rug.

The raven looks up.

“Naruto,” Sasuke says wearily, “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

The blond’s eyes remained trained on the ground.

Kiba wrings his hands uncomfortably.

“Wait,” comes Sakura’s weak voice.

Everyone turns to her as she looks towards the two teenagers.

“Ino.” She says simply. “She would’ve recognized him, I’m sure of it. She wouldn’t have let him into the office, she would’ve told someone he was there, or at least warn us. She would’ve done something about it, even if she never met Sasuke-kun’s brother in person. Where is she?”

Naruto’s eyes widen. “She wasn’t there when I saw him. The phone was off the hook and her nail polish was all over her desk.”

Sakura’s heart races faster than ever as she looks at Sasuke’s narrow, contemplating eyes.

“He wouldn’t…”

She looks hopelessly at the others for confirmation. She finds none.

Her voice is small (again).

“Would he?”

-xxXXlXXxx-

Next Chapter:

(Repairs are made, a mystery is solved)

“We’ll get through this, Sasuke-kun.”

She hugs the sleeping form of her husband, and wills the tears to go away.

“We’ve been through worse.”

-xxXXlXXxx-

A/N: So, yeah.

What do you think happened to Ino, hm?

And, I was thinking that I may or may not turn this into a series instead of a chapter story. Just a thought.

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