It was a typical morning in Konoha Village. People were going about their daily routines. The young children were all in school, as they should be. The ninjas of the village were either training or out on missions, as they should be. The Hokage was up in his office, doing his work, and no one was bothering him, as it should be.
And Sakura was waiting in the usual place for training to start, her only companion Sasuke, not that that was a bad thing. Naruto was nowhere to be found, and neither was Kakashi-sensei. In Kakashi-sensei's case, that wasn't very surprising. The entire time they had been together, he had been on time once, maybe twice. But Naruto...usually he at least made it to practice on time. Still, it was his own fault if he got in trouble for missing practice, or even for being late, and Sakura wasn't going to waste any time worrying about him, unless she had to.
Then, finally, after she and Sasuke had been waiting there for almost an hour, Kakashi-sensei came wandering into the area, book in hand as always. He was almost definitely aware of the fact that he was almost an hour late, but he didn't seem to care, as usual. He walked up to the two of them, not once looking up from the book, and came to a stop. Then, he lowered the book to look at them.
"You're late, again!" Sakura protested.
"Sorry, sorry," he said, though he didn't sound sorry, and for what seemed like the millionth time Sakura wished that she could see his fact to see if he was grinning like she thought he was. "I got distracted on my way here." And he didn't give any more of an explanation.
"It doesn't matter," Sasuke said. "Let's just get on with it."
Kakashi-sensei nodded, but then he finally seemed to look around again. "Where's Naruto?"
"Who cares?" Sasuke said. "If that idiot wants to skip practice let him."
"Yeah," Sakura said. "If he isn't smart enough to realize that he needs the practice, let him suffer."
"How many times do I need to remind you three that you are a team?" Kakashi-sensei asked, his voice almost a little stern sounding. "We aren't having practice until you're all here. Come find me when you have him with you." And then he turned around and walked away, his nose back in the book.
Sakura growled silently, wishing, not for the first time, that the last member of their team could have been anyone but Naruto. Except that it was Naruto, and if she wanted to practice, which she did, she would have to get Sasuke to help her find him. Not that she thought that that would be difficult, since she was pretty sure that Sasuke cared more about training than slacking off and leaving Naruto to whatever he was doing.
With that though in mind, she turned to Sasuke and took a deep breath. It still took all her courage most of the time just to speak to him as a teammate, even though they had been together as a team for almost a month already. "Sasuke-kun, did you want to help me look for Naruto?"
"Sure, I guess so," he said, shrugging.
Sakura tried to hide the smile that came across her face when she heard this. Maybe Naruto was good for something, idiot that he was, since this way she got to spend more time with Sasuke.