Chapter Text
“wifi,” sasuke simply says, looking at her expectantly. because he’s sasuke, too cool to ask appropriately.
anyone else might have been offended by his arrogance but she’s sakura who instead, rolls her eyes and shakes her head in endearment. “sure it’s—“
sakura abruptly stops herself. suddenly remembering that inside joke she and ino did when they set up their wifi in their shared apartment:
UchihaSakura
it has been their wifi password for the last three years. she cannot even remember if it was a result of a lost or won bet.
sakura suddenly cannot think clearly, hyper-aware that sasuke is waiting for her answer.
years of building this friendship and respect, from rival pre-med students to competing against each other as surgical interns, it would all crumble once sasuke finds out her wifi password.
why did they have to do this case study at her apartment and not in his fancy high-rise condo?
sakura’s fingers shake as they struggle to toggle with her laptop, desperately trying to remember how to change the password.
“sakura,” sasuke called out, impatience in his tone.
“wait!” sakura answers.
finally—finally she was able to find the settings. dexterous fingers who saved patients’ lives in surgery saves hers now as she types in a more appropriate password.
then, she hears it. a light snort coming from behind her as she retyped her old password.
feeling like her heart might burst out of her chest, sakura braves to turn around and see sasuke hovering above where she’s sitting. there is an amusement in his eyes, the same glint it does when he gets to scrub in on surgeries instead of her. it’s a teasing look he shoots her when he beats her to answering their assigned resident’s questions during rounds.
clear as day, his eyes tell her: i saw that.
“so the password is—“
“no, it’s okay i got it.” he says, calmly walking back to where he was seated.
a few minutes of silence passed with only sasuke’s typing against his keyboard to fill it. he goes on with his share of work, completely ignoring sakura’s current turmoil.
“it was a prank—by ino,” she tries.
“hm,” he replies nonchalantly, never bothering to look up.
“it doesn’t mean anything,” sakura tries, again.
sasuke peers at her over the screen of his laptop. though half of his face is unconvered, there’s no mistaking that look of complete disbelief that he gives her. “sure.”
sakura groans and buries her face in her hands in embarrassment. it’s going to be a long night and he will never let her live this down.
she expected it, but still it did not lessen any embarrassment she felt.
on their next 12hr shift, one that started on a depressing 4am tuesday, sakura was just walking to the elevators when she heard it.
“oi,” called an all too familiar voice. she willed herself to ignore it.
“uchiha sakura,” he called again.
sakura curses herself for stopping, mentally slaps herself for turning around. when she did, she was greeted by the sight of an all too smug sasuke approaching her.
a nearby elevator pops open and she scurries inside, religiously pressing close button.
a foot stops it before it does—of course. sasuke walks inside and stands next to her. ignoring his presence, sakura focuses on the red numbers indicating the floors they’ve passed, as if the mere act can speed up their ascent.
finally, they reached their floor and sakura walks briskly away.
behind her, she still feels his menacing and teasing presence as he follows her towards the locker rooms to clock-in and change into their scrubs.
she chanced a look at him, he raises an eyebrow at her, still amused judging by small, barely there tilt on the corner of his mouth.
after that, he has been absolutely unbearable.
catching her at inopportune moments to tease her, “uchiha sakura,” he whispers loud enough for only her to hear. he does it when he hands her patient charts, when he passes by her in the hallway, and even during pre-surgery prep!
it yields the same result every time: sakura would lose her composure and be a spluttering, blushing mess in front of the nurses and other doctors and worst, in front of the attendings
one time she finally snaps, sleep deprived and exhausted from doing a solo appendectomy.
“yeah! i’ll be uchiha sakura,” she declares, “i’ll find a way to seduce your dad and be your step-mom and—and ground you or something.”
if sasuke was the type to burst into loud laughter, he might have done it at that moment. instead, he exhales of what could pass of as a laugh and shakes his head at her. “interesting. didn’t you write a paper on freud?”
it’s no use, sakura thinks. it’s a losing battle with him.
on december of last year, the surgeons and nurses on shift at konoha med had miraculously gotten a rare night off to celebrate the holidays.
they’d somehow convinced dr. senju (as much as you can convince someone already drunk), chief of surgery, to crack open of her prized bottles of sake.
sakura, who’d lost count of the beers she’s had and who would lose count of how many cups of sake she would drink, had drunkenly confessed to sasuke.
“i used to have a crush on you, you know” she says, words slurring together, “but now, i’m over it!”
it wasn’t the entirely true.
sure, when they were classmates, sakura had the classic school-girl crush at the incredibly good looking and brooding boy in her classes.
when she found out the only way to get his attention was to score higher than him in exams, she shamelessly did it again. and again.
somewhere along the years of their one-sided rivalry (because really, it was only him who considered it as such. sakura just wanted his attention. plain and simple.) and landing on the same hospital for their internship, sakura had gotten over her silly little crush.
somewhere when he’d shown her his version of kindness: buying her coffee during late night shifts, giving her his last dumpling when they share a meal together, sitting next to her silently on the abandoned stairwell when she’d failed to save a patient, when he’d hauled her drunk self home, removed her shoes, tucked her to bed and left a glass of water nearby.
somewhere in between his penchant for teasing her and fighting her over who gets to scrub in on dr. hatake’s next surgery:
sakura had fallen in love.
years later—much later, sasuke would have Uchiha Sakura elegantly carved on a golden plaque.
under it reads: Chief of Surgery