Originally written two years ago, and finally brought out, dusted off and finished last week.

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Shadows
By icecreamlova

- : -

Sakura's story

One day Sakura woke up and decided she liked Uchiha Sasuke.

Or, at least, that was what she had told Ino when her once-best friend asked, eyebrows lowered in confusion and attempting to hide her pain.

Sakura hadn't been lying, not exactly. She's old enough - now, at least - to realize Ino was right in saying, silently, you're being stupid, because she had been stupid. An older Sakura knows, laying on her back in the softness of her bed, arms and legs aching from the muscles she's pulled studying under Tsunade-sama, that taking a look at the quiet boy in the corner and deciding he would be the most vital component of her life, had been foolish beyond belief.

But that wasn't the entirety.

Sakura doesn't learn psychology under Tsunade-sama. She's too busy with the physical and mental studies she is attempting to memorize, names and cures for poisons jumbling together in her head when she closes her eyes. She knows enough, however, from watching Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji tease each other at training.

They argue, or more specifically, Ino throws spats when she doesn't get her way, and Shikamaru tunes out the excess voices, and Chouji is caught in the crossfire. But for all the viciousness, there's an element of playfulness there, even when it becomes a serious issue they're working hard to correct. By the time a week has come and gone, they're on good terms again.

Their arguments become serious, but their relationships aren't strained.

Not like hers was with Ino.

Sakura knows that the fault is hers; she's the one that strained their relationship so badly.

But they were young girls, little girls, with flights of fancy, and how was it that a boy got between them so thoroughly that Sakura managed to keep the rest of the world out?

Sakura loves Sasuke.

She really does.

She might not be in love with him now, with Sasuke so distant, so fallen into darkness, but she loves him, just like her heart aches when she thinks of Naruto so far away, with only that frog hermit as a companion.

Yet when she broke her friendship with Ino, she'd little more than liked him. She hadn't liked him more than the other pretty boys in her class, except in the way he fascinated her, caught her attention. Sometimes, Sakura wonders how that was enough for her to forget her friendship with the person who wiped away her tears and uncovered her face for the rest of the world to see; or, more specifically, how it managed to keep her from renewing the friendship, from shaking away their argument like the spat it was. In her more self-deprecating moments, Sakura wonders if she really was that shallow.

(At least, until she meets up with Ino again to train for the Chunin Exams, and they end up exploding at each other.)

She mulls over this, in the weeks she trains hard with Team Asuma in order to retake the Chunin Exams. With her boys gone, Sakura has time to think.

Was it just me?

Was it both of us?

She chuckles, sometimes, thinking about how much she's obsessing over it makes it feel like a romantic relationship, but she can't help wondering, why?

Because Sakura is becoming a better person now, and she wasn't cruel before, though she was selfish and a little too apt to follow others, and somehow, the action of distancing herself from Ino still feels... right.

She's becoming guiltier and guiltier about how she did it. That much is certain. Sakura winces when she thinks about being completely starry-eyed over a boy she barely knew (then), cringes when she remembers her harsh words towards Ino, and can't bring herself to meet her friend's eyes when she remembers how she just turned her back and walked away. It was a mark of a traitor and a fool. Yet despite all the guilt about the how, the ends weren't completely undesirable.

She remembers standing toe-to-toe with Ino.

She managed to stand on her feet, Sakura realizes suddenly one day, in the middle of a spar, and has to shake herself to avoid Tsunade-sama's fists.

She didn't back down, that day she told Ino about her crush, and Ino responded by saying that Sasuke was her crush. It was the first time she stood her ground, slipped out from under the shadow of the other girl, and in that way it was a triumph.

Except for how you treaded on her toes, her conscience tells her.

It was her triumph, and it was her failure.

Her triumph, in finally speaking her mind, in moving out from Ino's shadow, was one part of why their strained relations lasted so long.

Her failure, in the knowledge she'd hurt the other girl, and in her reckless need to deny how terribly she'd tried to move on, had kept her from attempting to make amends.

The day she realizes that, she walks into Ino's flower shop with a bento box, and asks to talk to her once-best friend, because she's realized in the years that have passed that Ino's friendship is dearer to her than she'd once known.

- : -

Ino's story

One day Sakura woke up and decided she liked Uchiha Sasuke.

Or, at least, that was the excuse Sakura offered when Ino confronted her and asked her what was going on.

Ino didn't lie to herself much: she had little to lie about. She had known instantly that something was up, because the Sakura she knew wouldn't have made such a fast decision, and the Sakura she knew wouldn't throw away a relationship just because of some boy...

Except she had.

That day, with the ribbon she'd given Sakura years ago clutched in her hands, she'd lied to herself for the first time

This doesn't matter.

And then, I like him too.

Ino had, sort of, liked Uchiha Sasuke. He was cool, and confident, and darkly pretty, and Ino found him attractive with her ten-year-old mentality and definition of attractive.

Ino had always liked pretty things.

She hadn't liked him the way Sakura had, though, or at least the way she thought Sakura liked Sasuke, which was stupidly. Clinging to him? Yes. Fighting for his attention? There were worse things to fight over, and it felt... good to be able to be so frivolous. But to throw away a treasured friendship because of someone she barely knew? Ino hadn't liked him that way, or that much.

In hindsight, Ino wonders how much that 'like' would have meant to her, if Sakura hadn't declared her independence.

In hindsight, Ino wonders how much that 'like' was a way to hold on to the relationship that Sakura had changed.

Because when Ino dislikes someone, she doesn't go out of her way to pick fights with them. That's petty the way Ami and her friends were petty, and time-consuming. She didn't let herself think about it for a long time, but she's self-aware enough now to realize that she fights when she wants something. She thinks, now, that with Sakura, she had wanted a modicum of their old friendship back. She hadn't wanted their relationship the way it used to be, all-encompassing, the way little girls make their relationship; she was too proud and too hurt, too changed and aware that she deserved a relationship where she knew where she stood. But she had wanted something like it.

So for the next few years, she threw her 'I like him too' at Sakura, and they pushed and shouted and clawed their way forwards. They spent less time at each others' houses, and more time slinging insults at each other in the classroom, or in the streets of Konoha, and all together it pretty much meant their time together remained the same. Some part of Sakura still belonged to her; Ino told herself that she and Sakura were still equals, even when Sakura was sorted into Team Seven and Ino was stuck with the childhood friends she had never bothered to like.

But then, watching that determination on Sakura's face as she tried to save Sasuke, as she stood across Ino on the concrete floor hosting the preliminaries, as they witnessed the invasion of Konoha and the death of the only Hokage they'd ever known - Ino had wondered if she was looking at a stranger.

And now, catching glimpses of the Sakura who has impressed their new Hokage, of the Sakura who does love Sasuke and has been in life and death situations they never thought about, Ino feels like she's been relegated to the shadows. She hates being part of the shadows.

So she laughs and attempts to joke with Sakura, when the other girl comes to buy flowers for a boy she wouldn't have glanced at, just a few months ago.

And the day Sakura walks into her flower shop with a bento box, a long overdue apology, and the desire to renew a friendship, Ino takes the chance to agree.

- : -

Well?