Chapter Five: Matcha Tea and Polka Dots
There was always this haziness when he woke up. He would be bleary eyed and the world would stay out of focus.
Upon waking up his vision was flooded with blurs of pink and dark gray.
He scrunched his eyes shut as they hurt when he tried to see without his glasses for too long. He ran his right hand down his face and sighed at the numb sensation of his left arm.
The dorm bed was barely big enough for him so the inclusion of another body had him and Sakura practically on top of each other.
Sakura sighed in her sleep, her breath puffing out onto his neck, causing a tingle to run down his spine.
Great. That was just what he needed.
Sasuke rolled so that he could twist his body away from Sakura, keep her away from parts of himself that were aching. With a sigh he tucked himself into the waistband of his boxer briefs and flannel pajama bottoms. Luckily Sakura hadn’t woken up because he was poking her.
Sasuke peered through his lashes, squinting his eyes to see the sleeping girl.
Such a silly, annoying girl.
Sakura was so defenseless and it irritated him to no end. It was like he didn’t register in her mind as someone that could potentially have any sexual interest in her.
It was a Saturday but it was still strange for Sakura to still be sleeping. She hadn’t been joking when she said she had only taken a nap within the past few days. Sasuke wouldn’t have minded letting her sleep but his arm was numb and her warmth and the subtle fruity scent wafting from her hair was getting to be too much for him.
Nap time when they were five was nothing like this.
Just like when he was five and Sakura squirmed too close to him, he took her nose between the knuckles of his index and middle fingers and squeezed. A second later Sakura was awake and gasping for air, arms flailing.
“Really Sasuke? Really?”
Sakura had scooted closer to the wall and he was able to pull his arm out from under her. Finally free, Sasuke climbed out of bed and grabbed his glasses from his desk.
“My shower caddy.” Sasuke pulled out his blue plastic bin from the bottom of his tiny wardrobe and dumped it on his bed. “If you want to wash up.”
Without waiting for a response to the offer, Sasuke shuffled out of his room and to the dorm kitchenette. He started the electric kettle and placed a saucepan on the stovetop. Grabbing his almond milk from the fridge he shared with his roommates he set it to boil while he rummaged the cabinets for his matcha powder.
As soon as he heard the water begin to simmer he turned off the kettle. Matcha being his favorite type of tea he had worked out how long water needed to heat up in his electric kettle in order for it to be the appropriate temperature.
Taking out his only two mugs he dropped a teaspoon of matcha each and measured out about two ounces of hot water onto the powder. Turning off the stovetop he carefully poured the milk into the mugs of matcha.
Rummaging through the cabinets he grabbed the bear shaped bottle of honey he knew belonged to one of his roommates and squirted out a dollop into one of the mugs.
“You know,” Sakura shuffled into the kitchen area, “if you’re going to offer a chance for a shower, you should also give someone a towel.”
“Here.” Sasuke finished whisking both of the teas and handed her the sweeter one of the two.
“What? No coffee?” Sakura mused as she gingerly grabbed the hot mug, covering her hands with the long sleeves. “What kind of college student are you?”
“You don’t like coffee.”
“True.” Sakura sighed after taking a sip of warm tea. “But just like the towel, you should have coffee too. It’s like you never have girls over.”
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her. Sakura was looking up at him expectantly over the brim of her mug.
How was he supposed to take that comment? Was she actually curious about his sex life?
I’m not acknowledging that.
Sasuke shuffled past her and went straight back to work on the broken laptops he had to get done before winter break.
He had completed most of the work during the night when he tried to avoid his bedroom.
Sasuke didn’t plan on joining Sakura in bed. His original plan was to use his roommate’s bunk but the man was unpredictable yet again and had decided to use his own bed that night.
And although the dorm beds were uncomfortable even with the mattress topper, the living room couch was worse.
Sasuke wasn’t going to hurt his back sleeping on that couch.
He had climbed into bed, too tired to consider any consequence of sharing the same bed. What did it matter? They were childhood friends that had shared their beds multiple times.
The fact that they had stopped sharing sleeping space when puberty hit them was besides the point.
Why am I thinking so much about that?
Sasuke peered at Sakura, who hopped on to the counter, from his peripheral.
It’s not like she cares.
Sakura should have gotten dressed and left when she woke up. It was already going to be embarrassing to make her way out of the dorm and sign out at the front desk. Walking over to her own dorm wasn’t going to be too bad.
But there was no way Ino was going to believe that she was in the library all night and then wandered around campus in the early hours of the morning. It didn’t help that it was now the afternoon. Ino was sure to be freaking out.
But…she kind of didn’t want to leave so soon.
Sakura was so tired that when she had woken up earlier that morning that despite her shock she hadn’t noticed that Sasuke had crawled into bed without a shirt.
It was probably a good thing that she didn’t or she would have probably had difficulty going back to sleep and would have just stared at him and freaked out that he was pressing her against his bare chest.
Sakura peered over the brim of her mug, watching as Sasuke’s muscles rippled as he moved.
He’s got such nice shoulders.
When Sasuke leaned across the table to reach something his tricep tightened. Sakura watched in fascination as he moved. Every part flexing and dimpling.
I will leave after I finish my tea.
Sasuke twisted his body, his back now facing her and the contours of his body more pronounced with the stretching of his already well defined body.
I’ll just…drink my tea really slowly…
Sakura was slowly drifting off into a fantasy that involved the dorm sectional couch when the door to Sasuke’s room creaked. Heat crawled up her neck and her cheeks. She forgot that they weren’t alone!
A boy taller than Sasuke with sleek hair falling into his eyes and wearing a shirt that read “KU Science Dept.” shuffled toward her, holding her phone in his hand.
“A pig has been calling,” he muttered.
“Ino!” Sakura leaped off of the counter and dashed into their room.
Barely remembering to shut the door behind her, she shimmied out of the baggy shorts and pulled on her jeans. Tripping where she stood, she pulled on her shearling wool boots and pulled her pea coat on.
“Thanks!” she snatched her phone from Sasuke’s roommate as she wrapped her scarf around her neck and ran out of the dorm, not without fumbling with the lock at first.
“I would have stayed at the lab if I knew you had your girlfriend over.” Sasuke’s roommate gathered his hair and pulled it into a topknot. “She was your girlfriend, right?”
“Don’t worry about it Shino.”
Shino shrugged and shuffled back to their room.
“Uh, Uchiha?”
“What?” Sasuke called back, slightly confused that Shino was still up for more conversation. His roommate was always missing and almost never talked.
“Your girlfriend left her clothes here.”
Sasuke sighed and leaned back into the couch. Sakura was such a mess.
“She ran out without something sort of important.”
Shino shuffled back into the living room and using his index finger as a hook he held out Sakura’s polka dot print brassiere. Sasuke ran his hand down his face and took it off Shino’s hands.
Annoying, annoying girl.
“I’m home!”
Sakura shut the door behind her with her foot and placed the drink tray and box of doughnuts on the communal area table.
She had used the last of her battery life to call Ino who had started yelling at her as soon as she answered the phone.
Ino demanded that Sakura bring coffee and doughnuts to make up for the heart attack she gave her when she woke up and Sakura was nowhere to be found. Ino had complained about Karin having stumbled into the room and screaming when she tried to snuggle with Sakura only for the bed to be empty.
“I was about to call campus security!”
Sakura cringed, remembering how loud Ino had been. She unbuttoned her pea coat to hang it on the hook.
She almost made it all the way to the doughnut shop before she realized that she had forgotten her bra. She was just glad she wasn’t as busty as Ino was and could hide the lack of support with her coat and how baggy the sweatshirt she had borrowed from Sasuke was.
Her bedroom door opened with a bang and she prepared for Ino to start shouting at her in reprimand again.
“You stupid, stupid━whose shirt is that?”
Ino almost gave Sakura whiplash with how fast her mood had switched.
“You were out getting laid while I was having a heart attack!?”
And she was back to being loud and angry.
“I wasn’t getting la-laid,” Sakura stumbled around the word, face heating up from embarrassment. “I was with Sasuke. See?”
Sakura turned around and showed her where “Uchiha” was brazenly displayed across the shoulders. A lot of Sasuke’s sleepwear was made up of old practice shirts from sports teams he had been on.
“Even more reason to think you were out getting laid,” a voice called out from their bedroom.
A clearly hungover Karin shuffled out of the room Ino and Sakura shared with Sakura’s quilt wrapped around her shoulders. She grabbed a cup of coffee and collapsed backwards on the couch.
“You’re back,” Sakura attempted to change the topic.
“Yeah. I ditched Sui for this super cute bartender but she was the responsible type that brought me back to the dorm and will you stay on topic? What happened to you?”
“Nothing happened to me. Did you get her number anyway?”
“I think I did but it might be fake. The receipt it’s on says Tenten’s her name. What kind of name is Tenten?”
“It’s Japanese just like yours.”
“Okay, but who names their kid━”
“Hello?” Ino snapped her fingers in front of their faces. “Can we stay focus on the fact that Sakura apparently spent the night with fucking Sasuke?”
“She has a point.” Karin sat up more alert than before. “So how big is it? I’ve been wanting to know since we were fifteen so out with it.”
“Really? Fifteen?” Ino wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“I didn’t sleep with Sasuke!” Sakura covered her face with her hands and asked herself why was she friends with them. “Nothing happened. He just let me sleep there because Ino kicked me out so she could fuck Sai.”
“Well,” Ino crossed her arms and nodded to herself, “it’s some progress. You actually hung out with him instead of doing that weird eye fucking thing you do.”
“Oh, right. That eye fucking thing.” Karin nodded with her.
“What? What eye━you know what? I’m not having this conversation.”
Sakura grabbed a doughnut from the box and stormed out of the communal area.
She was fed up with having that conversation with those two. She spent a night with Sasuke. A whole night. And nothing happened.
Nothing was ever going to happen.
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