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It's not something she really does on purpose, honestly.
She's sitting on top of a rock, watching a spar between Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-kun, trying to shake admiring thoughts from her head and focus on the fight itself. Her focus isn't working right, though, she can't force it into the right shapes, and her fingers start to tap in agitation against the stone, and then-
A flash of blonde in her lower periphery. An annoyed sigh. A impulse she thought lost to time, muscle memory acting before a single thought gets the chance to flit through her brain-
"S-Sakura-chan!" Naruto stuttered, head spasming weirdly under her hand is it ran gently through the tufts of hair. He froze in surprise, and she freezes in turn.
"Sorry." She says reflexively, face flushing with embarrassment. She tries to take back her hand again, not stopping this time when he makes a sad noise. She rested the offending limb against her collarbone, squeezing her other hand over it like she was afraid the first had developed a mind of it's own. Between Inner and she sheer absurdity of what just happened, she honestly wouldn't be all that surprised. She looks back to the spar, irrationally worried her stumble in manners would be noticed by her notoriously irreverent teammates. It, of course was not, and she took a deep breathe.
It's just Naruto, we can do damage control. Easy.
He turns to her with big curious-elated-confused-begging eyes, and she doesn't let Inner's surety waver.
"Sorry?" he echoed, eyebrows furrowing as confusion won the fight for facial expression. "For what? You didn't, like, hurt me or nothin." He pointed out, voice surprisingly flat.
She gave him a weird look, honestly probably not all that far off from the one he was giving her. "You flinched." She pointed out.
"I didn't mean to!" He pouted, guilt- or at least regret- spiking in his voice. "I'm sorry! I won't do it again!" He assured. She blinked at him slowly, confused by the change in tone.
I'm...Somehow not sure he's having the same conversation as us. Inner warned. Sakura mentally shrugged and shook her head, unsure what else to do.
"Don't apologize, stupid. I'm the one who just touched you out of nowhere. For once, you didn't do anything wrong." She rolled her eyes, trying to move on. Goad him into a defense.
"You didn't do anything wrong either!" He continued, ignoring the bait expertly. Or, more likely, too single-minded to even notice it. "You really didn't hurt me or nothin! It was- uh. It felt nice, dattebayo." He murmured, embarrassed. "I was just.....surprised, I guess."
Hm. I'd believe him, probably, if he he hadn't tensed up like he was waiting for a hit. Or if he wasn't still. Inner huffed. Sakura agreed.
"You were scared." She said, bluntly. Of course, the One time he's in the right is the time he insists on taking responsibility. The nerve of Naruto, sometimes.
"Because- because I was surprised!" he doubled down. She shook her head again, meeting his eyes.
"You're still scared." She refuted just as easily. If she wasn't making a point to keep eye contact, she would roll her eyes.
"I-" He clamped his mouth shut. He pauses for such a long moment that, if they weren't still staring intently at each other, she'd assume that the conversation was over. Instead she waited, Idly keeping an ear on the fight behind her. It was still going. A few more minutes- 3 minutes, 17 seconds- and Sasuke would break his record for 'longest Spar with sensei'. "I'm not scared, though? Just kinda confused." He huffed, leaning forward a little. "How do ya do something like that on accident? You've never touched me. Besides to hit me, but that- it didn't seem like you were trying to hit me, I don't think."
Sakura frowned, because that- when he put it like that, it sounded.....kinda terrible. He was right, of course- she avoided touching him as much as possible. She didn't want him to get any ideas in his head- she did not like him. She didn't regret it, but it still made something unpleasant tug in her gut, realizing that even as he said it he wasn't entirely convinced. He wasn't tense anymore, that she could see, but he was still angling his body strangely. He was still ready for a hit.
He didn't seem to be lying, when he said that it was nice, or he wasn't scared, or he didn't think she was trying to hit him. And she had just been assuming that he was scared because he was bracing for a hit, but he was a pretty crap liar, so she didn't have a reason not to take his word.
"When I was a kid and got nervous, Ino-chan would notice and sit in front of me. Gave me something to do with my hands." She explained, turning back to the fight and trying not to dwell on the past. "I saw you out of the corner of my eye and....reached out, I guess. Sorry." She finished, taking a deep breathe. She didn't miss Ino-buta, and she didn't need to bother people to keep he hands in check. She wasn't a baby anymore. She knew how to act.
Inner constructed a violent scene of her pants catching fire and melting her alive, chanting liar liar liar viciously, and she refused to tap her fingers as it made her heart hammer.
"Nervous?" He asked, concern flooding his demeanor to replace all else. She shook her head.
"Nervous, or...Anything else. Anything overwhelming. I wasn't nervous a little bit ago, just.....frustrated, I guess." She clarified.
"About what?" He pressed.
"None of your business." She scowled, crossing her arms (to keep them still). She owed him an explanation, and she gave him one. Why did he want anything else? What was his angle?
"okay! okay!" He waved his hands. "You don't gotta tell me. It's probably about stupid Sasuke-teme anyway." He huffed, shooting a quick glare at the fight- Sasuke had lost, hanging by his foot in Kakashi-sensei's hand, and Naruto snorted. She clenched her fist with the automatic impulse to hit him for his derision, but didn't follow through. She wasn't sure why not, but she didn't.
They watched the fight for a little bit, Sakura curling up a bit and staring hard. She still couldn't focus, though, and it was even worse now. At least before she was watching the fight, just- focusing on the wrong bits of it. Now she was stuck thinking about Naruto, and Ino-chan, and long past half forgotten things she thought she'd grown out of. Inner was no help, scolding her harshly and trying to force her roughly into the moment, which at this point was so tangled in thoughts and memories that everything was overwhelming, not just one thing like before. Her fingers started to drum on the rock beneath her again, and she couldn't even hear them this time, couldn't ground herself. Distantly, she hoped they weren't too loud.
"Sakura-chan?" She hears called, and she wonders if she can ignore him until he leaves her alone.
"Mhm?" She responds, pretty much immediately. This was Naruto. The thought of him leaving well enough alone was laughable.
"You can, uh, do whatever you were gonna do earlier. If you ever wanna." He offered. It was surprising enough to kill at least some of her spiraling thoughts, and made her hand spasm expectantly. She chose to believe it was Inner's doing, instead of her own lack of control. "If it helps."
"That's...." She hesitates, turning back to look at him. He wasn't blushing, or smiling in that awful impression of charisma he sometimes tried. He just seemed genuinely concerned, and eager to help. It was... "Sweet. That's really sweet of you, Naruto. Thanks." She smiled.
She doesn't end up taking him up on his offer- not that day, at least. Soon after, he's called over for his turn at sparring. Sasuke tells her to scram when she tries to start a conversation, and for once she doesn't mind all that much. She scampers off to the throwing targets and clears her head, strangling spiraled thought after thought until her brain was neatly in order again, focused entirely on the target practice.
No one comes to get her for her turn fighting Sensei. They don't come and get her for anything. She has a passing wonder of whether they thought she just went home, but it gets drowned out like every other thought that isn't aim-throw-retrieve-switch arms-aim-throw-retrieve-repeat. She stumbles home to a cold dinner left out with a note from her mother, just enough hot water for a quick shower, and a strange new lump of trust-comfort-appriciateon for her blonde dolt of a teammate.