Juxtaposition

A/N: If anyone feels like being a beta for me, send me an email. I finished this chapter late after a crappy day at work, and I doubt this is adequately proofread. But I don’t want to delay any more, so here it is >_<

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Sakura knelt down, running her hand through the coarse dirt of Team Seven's favorite training area. One of the cords that bound mats to the tree they used for practicing kicks had broken, and the mats hung from the tree at an odd angle. The straw target dummies were so riddled with shuriken and kunai that they resembled pincushions. It was pretty obvious Sasuke had been at it all day. She ambled around, looking for Sasuke, and eventually found him sitting under a tree at the edge of their training grounds. Her heart pounded as she considered what she was doing. Why was she even here? Every moment she spent with Sasuke furthered the chances she'd make a mistake and blow the mission. She shouldn't be exposing herself to unnecessary risk. But she knew exactly why she was here. The time she had in Naruto's body would be the only chance she had to spend time with Sasuke without the dour glances or crushing rejection that normally accompanied speaking to him.

He held his hands pressed together in silent meditation, but opened his eyes as she approached, his gaze impassive and measured. “I thought you were sick.”

She shrugged, concentrating on emulating Naruto’s casual, imprecise speech patterns. “I sorta got better.”

Sasuke leapt to his feet in response. “Mind making a few clones for me to use as targets? I'd like to get some practice in with moving marks.”

Her mind worked quickly, conceiving a plan on the fly. “Only if you promise not to use your Sharingan. It’s no fair if you can predict the future.”

He shrugged his agreement. “Fine... I'm not as dependent on my Bloodline Limit as you think.”

She breathed an internal sigh of relief. In addition to the way Sasuke could track movements before they happened with his Sharingan, that eye jutsu was the bane of any genjutsu user's existence. Even with her formidable illusionary talents, she stood no chance of deceiving him while it was active. But if he didn’t use it, she could probably pull this off.

She cleared her throat, causing him to glance at her. She caught his gaze, establishing eye contact, then let her chakra wrap around his mind subtly. She had to be terribly careful... a shinobi trained as well as Sasuke knew the symptoms of being afflicted by a genjutsu: an itching sensation over the victim's skin. If he was anticipating attack, she wouldn’t bet on her chances of success… but Sasuke could hardly be expecting her to use genjutsu on him. She held her breath as Sasuke fidgeted absently from the sensation, waving one hand near his head as if to swat at non-existent insects. But then the feeling passed, and she had him fully ensnared unaware. He looked at her with an impatient grunt. “Come on, dobe. What are you waiting for?”

She called out Naruto's signature technique’s name, and conjured a few images of Naruto around herself, forcing Sasuke to see them run off in different directions. Sasuke leapt into the air, whirling and spinning, shurikens leaping from his hands at a terrifying rate. Sakura could feel all the projectiles strike home, so she changed the conjured the image, every clone vanishing in pops of white smoke inside Sasuke's mind. The raven-haired boy landed in a kneeling crouch, a smug smile on his face. “Hmph. Do it again, this time with more clones.”

Sakura groaned internally as time wore on. Sasuke seemed to have an unlimited supply of patience and shuriken. Keeping someone as powerful as Sasuke ensnared inside a genjutsu was straining her chakra reserves, and the concentration required to keep all the illusions convincing was giving her a killer headache. After the eighth round, she finally refused to comply anymore. “Look, bastard, I'm sure you're very proud of your throwing abilities, but you're not proving anything to anyone.” She snorted for emphasis. Imitating Naruto's speech patterns was getting frighteningly easy for her, she realized.

A fire sparked in Sasuke's eyes, and she realized she had accidentally challenged him. “Fine. What would you like to do then?”

There was an edge to his voice, and she knew there was no backing out. This was their rivalry in action. When Sasuke and Naruto got into this mode, it would end only when they had exhausted each other to the breaking point. Occasionally, it would be a specific technique or task, but most of the time they would simply beat on each other until neither could move.

Her mind raced with possibilities, each option being discarded as soon as she thought of it. She and Naruto simply operated too differently for him not to notice in nearly every field. Her only option was something simple. She grinned easily as she came upon a solution. “Let's race.”

He nodded sharply, his body tensing, probably ready to bolt in case she tried to get an unfair head start. “Where to?”

She shrugged. “Wherever. Whoever can run the fastest wins, and whoever stops running first loses.” She hesitated, then shouted “Go!”

They ran, aiming in a random direction away from Konoha. Within the first few bounds, they had both taken to branches, launching themselves through the leaves at a breakneck pace. Sasuke kept pace with her, staying on a parallel course some distance to her left.

It felt good to run, to push herself and strain her body just for the sheer thrill of seeing what her limits were. Wind rustled at her clothes, and she accelerated her pace beyond what she could sustain for long. At the full sprint she was traveling, she quickly felt her breathing get heavy, and her leg muscles start to cramp. She concentrated on having her jumps clear the most distance, to land on the farthest branch she could reach, letting her momentum carry her forward before launching off to the open air again. Twigs and leaves scratched at her face as she flew, making things difficult. There was a thrill in rivalry that she hadn't comprehended before this moment, she realized. There was adrenaline coursing through her veins, and even as she struggled to keep her breathing regular and to ignore the throbbing pain in her legs, she felt more alive and happy than she could ever describe.

They ran for what felt like hours. Sasuke battled on, their paths sometimes diverging far away, then wandering back close enough for her to see him instead of simply tracking his presence by the sounds of their travel through the forest. Somehow, she realized, he looked even more beautiful as he flew, sweat glistening on his face and his chest heaving. He glanced at her as they both launched off a branch at the same time, his mouth pressed in a determined grin. The look on his face, brief as it was, became burned into her memory. That was the face that she longed for: the face of Sasuke acknowledging her, of seeing her as an equal. He accelerated, pressing forward grimly at their mutually suicidal pace, taking the lead, and she somehow managed to summon strength from reserves she wasn't aware of, catching and keeping pace with him.

The rushing wall of foliage around them thinned, then became abrupt sunlight as the pair's meandering path took them into a massive open plain. She landed awkwardly but kept her footing, tearing across the field of knee high grass with Sasuke landing behind by the slimiest of margins. She was determined not to lose, determined to see the face that haunted her dreams looking at her with another smile. Each breath was a ragged heave; every impact of her foot against the earth was a sweet agony. Her vision began to narrow to tunnel vision, a sign of too little blood going to the brain. Her hearing dimmed to only the whistle of the wind, and the raging of her own breath in her chest. Sasuke's pounding feet closed the gap, churning through the grass to come up even with hers. She let her eyes close, feeling the whipping wind on her face, arms pumping, throwing every last ounce of her strength into refusing to give up.

At some point, one of them stumbled, and the two collided and fell, tumbling across the field, leaving long paths of crushed grass. Sakura lay gasping on the ground, her abdomen muscles cramped so badly she couldn't move for some time. Sasuke dragged himself through the grass on his hands and knees, finally collapsing next to her, less than a foot between them. Between ragged breaths, he grinned with triumph, his arm reaching in the direction they had been running, as if to grasp at an invisible finish line. “I beat you, dobe.”

“Did... (gasp) not... (gasp) you bastard.” she managed. “I was farther ahead when we fell.”

Sasuke shrugged between shuddering breaths. “But I’m farther ahead now.”

Sakura suspected that most of their contests ended like this, with both parties convinced of victory. Instead of further arguing the point, she contented herself with watching Sasuke's chest rise and fall not a foot away, and gazing at his expression. It had a quality to it she had never seen directed at herself before: genuine admiration. It made her heart flutter in her chest in a way very distinctly different than the rapid beating to fend off exhaustion. She smiled back at him broadly, basking in the new sensation.

She knew now why Sasuke loved Naruto. There was no one in her own life that could drive her like this, that could force her to shatter her own limitations and push her to succeed. No one who would laugh at her when she fell down, and force her to not let it happen again. And Naruto had all this, but couldn't see what was right in front of him.

Without thought, she reached forward and hugged Sasuke. It was a gesture borne of empathy… she knew just as he did how it felt to love and not be loved in return. For her, a hug was a gesture of comfort.

Sasuke’s entire body tensed, as though he were extremely uncomfortable and about to either strike her or jump away and run. She closed her eyes and cringed, wondering if it was the exhausting run that could have deprived her of her wits for this critical moment. She wasn’t a girl for now, and guys just _didn’t_ hug each other. They had some sort of phobia about it.

Still, she held her hands around him, trying to think rationally. Her original mistake couldn’t be remedied by jumping back as if she had accidentally touched a heated stove. No, she had to pretend she did this on purpose. She tried to get her jumbled brain in order, to think of a reason why Naruto would ever hug Sasuke. She felt seconds tick by, and nothing at all came to her. The tension slowly drained from Sasuke, and then she felt arms slowly close around her own back, returning the hug.

The fact that she was in a deserted field, lying in the grass with her arms around Sasuke and his arms around hers slowly began to sink in. It was a surreal experience, and her brain struggled to comprehend it. She could feel Sasuke’s heart beating rapidly, could feel the way his chest moved as he breathed, could feel the warmth of his body through his clothes, could feel his silky hair brushing against her forehead as he cradled her head against his chest. She was operating on pure instinct now, nuzzling her cheek first against the collar of his shirt, then pushing that aside with her movements and nuzzling against the exposed skin where collarbone met his neck. She puckered her lips, letting them graze against the tender skin, leaving a small trail of wetness down his shoulder, tasting his skin where it was damp with sweat from the run. Sasuke finally stirred, moving with a ferocity that startled her. Sasuke rolled over on top of her, his mouth reaching hers and pressing their lips together in a fierce kiss. She sunk into the kiss, draping her arms over his head, feeling the pressure of the contours of Sasuke’s body pressing down on top of hers.

Wheels began to turn in Sakura’s head, cognizant thought finally engaging. Terror flooded through her, a stark fear that jerked her into motion. She pushed Sasuke off herself violently, standing up and holding her arms over her chest. Sasuke’s prone form rolled to his back and looked up at her with an expression that managed to look questioning, disappointed and furious all at the same time.

She felt her lip quiver, and she shook her head in apology. “This isn’t right. I can’t do this.”

Sasuke’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t deign to respond, instead simply rising and looking at her evenly.

She continued, feeling herself ramble. “I know I started it, and I’m not sure why, but I’m really sorry and I’m not sure what’s going on. I just know I can’t do this, not now, and I can’t really explain why to you, and I really wish I could do something but I’m just so sorry…”

Sasuke closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose in agitation, cutting her off. “Forget about it.” He turned and started walking back in the direction of Konoha.

She watched his receding form for a long time. His powerful gait had taken him nearly back into the thick woods by the time Sakura had finally decided that she should probably return as well. She swallowed with difficulty as she walked, her mind torn asunder by two warring halves. On one hand, she had just violently extracted herself from the embrace of a man she had dreamed about being able to kiss for years. On the other hand, the consequences of what might have happened if she hadn’t thrown him off were staggering. Even now, she had no idea how she was going to explain this to Naruto when she saw him next.

And the only thing worse than the dread that she felt about telling Naruto was the burning regret that she had made Sasuke stop.