Disclaimer: Not mine, made no money. But if horses were wishes... Also, not beta'd, so sorry if I missed something.


"So, I've been thinking..."

Sakura looked up from her glass, noting how her companion's bright blue eyes were slightly hooded, taking on a bored, almost sleepy look.

"Yeah, and...?" She prompted, mixing her drink with the small plastic straw.

"I might just marry him." That said, Ino sipped on her own drink, paying little attention to the bout of choking that Sakura was currently in the middle of.

"Well, good for you!" She said a bit too cheerfully, wiping some of the drink from where it had splattered on the table.

"You don't believe me?" The blonde was regarding her with narrowed eyes now, almost challenging.

"Never said that." Sakura answered quickly, holding up one finger in defence and shaking her head for emphasis.

This wasn't the first time she had this kind of conversation with a less than sober Ino, and a less than sober Ino liked to say things just for effect sometimes. In this she was like many other less than sober people. Drunks, if you will. The problem was that sometimes, she was brash and proud enough to back up her statements with actions in the morning.

"Then why the look?" Ino asked, not convinced.

"No look. Just wasn't expecting you to say that." She answered. And then quietly to herself, smirking, "Ever."

This was Ino, after all. The girl who had dated half the eligible bachelors in Konoha, discarding each when she grew bored of them. True, she had somewhat high standards, and few of them ever made it past the initial, take-me-out, buy-me-things stage. But still. This wasn't a girl who would willingly give up her freedom, not to mention taste for variety, easily. One would think.

Sakura turned back to Ino, mentally counting before asking. "Its only been, what, a few months?"

"Uh, try 11?"

"Really? Already?" Sakura frowned. She was usually good with this kind of thing.

"Ever since that sake incident." Ino tilted her head to the side and smiled knowingly.

Sakura rolled her eyes. Her and Ino had a "sake incident" almost every Friday. It just so happened that that particular time Shikamaru had been around and in a similar state of insobriety. But really, almost a year already? How could she be that far off?

"What's today again?" She asked.

"The third."

"Of?"

Ino paused from her perusal of the bar's drinks menu, giving Sakura one of those funny looks she'd been giving her recently.

"Of March, Sakura. March. Remember? What's with you?" Ino's look was exasperated, but Sakura knew some of it was just concern. She had been a lot more absentminded than usual. Like now, when she noticed belatedly that Ino was still waiting on an answer.

"Hm? Nothing. Just lost track of the days. Again. You know, busy with work and all that." It was the truth.

Ino looked at her for another long second before shifting her attention back to the menu.

Sakura downed the rest of her own drink, barely registering the warm sensation it left behind. They were here for not even 20 minutes and this was her 3rd of the evening already. A wry smile crossed her face. At this rate of lubrication, it was no wonder she was losing track of time. She turned back to her friend.

"Eleven months or not, which, by the way, is still not that long when you recall that both of you are away on missions half the time, you're kinda young to even be thinking about this." Sakura said.

Part of her Sakura believed that. The other part was just suddenly very nervous. With Ino married, she'd lose her last (maybe only) real girl friend. Sure, she had the guys, and she got along just fine with Hinata, but no one she could go out and just be herself with, just be a girl. An inebriated girl,very often, but a girl nonetheless. The thought of losing Ino to Shikamaru left her feeling a little abandoned.

She sighed again. It wouldn't have been so bad if she had someone too, but that wasn't completely her fault. Medicine was a demanding mistress. Not to mention Tsunade. Sakura couldn't expect her friends to be as socially stunted as she was.

"Young? Are you serious? In our line of work?" Ino was looking at her with that weird look again, the one Sakura couldn't quite put her finger on, as the blonde sipped her new, multi colored drink. "You, uh, do remember how old we are, right?"

She rolled her green eyes heavenward.

"Yes," Sakura answered. "I'm 21 this month." Which, she had completely forgotten about till now.

"You don't think that's young?" She asked Ino, who scoffed visibly.

"I'm not saying that I plan to settle down and start banging out kids any time soon. I mean I don't plan on retiring the girls just yet." Ino glanced down at herself with pride as she said this, assessing first left and then right breast. Sakura couldn't fault her there. Her friend really was pretty damn lucky when it came to that.

"Its just nice to have a little security. No matter how filthy or bitchy I come back after a mission, there's nothing he can do about. Its in the vows and all that."

"True." Sakura agreed.

Ino continued speaking when her eyes came back to Sakura. "You know, if you put in a third of the time into finding a guy as you did into finding cures, you might just get some, too."

The pink haired girl turned her attention back to her one true friend, the alcohol. "Its not like I haven't tried." she mumbled wistfully into her cup before taking a long, comforting drink from it.

Her last statement, sadly enough, was also true.

She might have not really put herself out there on the market recently, but Sakura had tried dating. She hadn't even gotten disheartened when her first few attempts had ended in disaster. Damn funny disasters, if you asked Ino, but Sakura didn't. No, not Sakura. She was too stubborn to just give up. Too proud and optimistic and persistent. She was in the beginning, anyway.

It came in waves, her dating phases. First, she would get too fed up with being alone. She would do something new with her hair, get a new outfit or two and start flirting with a few guys. She would then go on a few dates, find them all unacceptable for one reason or another, lose hope and finally retreat back into her "Safe Cave" for another few months. That was what Ino referred to her office/study/haven in the Hokage's tower.

Really, she did try. And her reasons of rejection were always valid. Take, for example, Moshigawa Kaito.

She had met him in the hospital, where she seemed to meet a lot of her male acquaintances. After returning from a mission he had wisely decided to seek medical attention for a deep, ugly slash across his well defined chest and shoulder. Normally, a medic or nurse would have been attending to him immedietly, but at that very instant the hospital had been swamped. After all of 2 minutes of waiting patiently for a free medic, he had bellowed at the top of his voice for some attention.

Now, Sakura was nothing if not used to whiny shinobi wanting to get the hell out of the hospital as soon as possible, so she quickly put him in his place with a "Shut your face or I'll let you bleed all over the floor," as she pulled his handsome, if somewhat boy-like face down to her eye level by his ear. He was the perfect patient from then on, thanking her and complementing her medical skill profusely. She couldn't refuse his offer for dinner. He was attractive, around her own age, and available. Not to mention he knew his place, now. And she had decided to venture from her metaphoric Cave just earlier that day. She was optimistic.

So boy was she surprised when he showed up to the restaurant with no less then 2 chaperones. Still, Kaito had that puppy dog look on his face and Sakura tried to make the best out of the evening, even when his mother tucked his napkin into his collar for him.

Even when said mother ordered the cheapest plate on the menu for all of them and dabbed at the corners of her son's mouth with a napkin every 2 minutes.

It was when Kaito went to the bathroom and both mother and sister turned their shrewd, narrowed eyes on Sakura to question her about her intentions for their dear Kaito that Sakura finally bolted. But Kaito was just the first of many.

There was also Hideki. The dinner portion of their date went splendidly well. He joked, she laughed, they talked. More fun than most of the dates she went on, and Sakura had enjoyed herself immensely. So much so that she had been loath to end the night just then, and they went out for drinks. But as soon as that first, fateful drop of alcohol touched his lips, it was like someone had flipped a switch. Not only did he get sad and melancholy instantly, but had openly started weeping, weeping, right there in the middle a bar crowded with her friends and acquaintances, when she told him that no, she wouldn't take him home and tuck him in that night. Her face had stayed red for week.

And then there was Yukio. As pretty as he had been, all through out dinner he kept asking her to feel him flex various parts of stupid, albeit very attractive body. After the fourth time she heard him say, "No, seriously, get a load of these," Sakura politely excused herself to the bathroom and never came back.

And then there was Juro, who had propositioned their waitress right in front of her.

Naoko, who had been much more interested in their waiter then he had been in her.

Haru and his sock puppets.

Shiro with his damn pet rock.

The list went on and on. The only one who really benefitted from all her trials and tribulations was Ino, when she fell down laughing hearing the stories afterwards. Actually, it was how their ritual of Sake Friday got started in the first place and how Sakura had gotten to know her new ally, the Alcohol so well.

Sakura snapped back to reality when she noticed that the contents of her cup had mysteriously disappeared again, and that Ino was still talking.

"...yeah, so you've had a few bad dates, like all of us. Doesn't mean you should join a convent. Face it, you're not gonna stay young and hot forever." She finished.

"I know. I just wish I didn't have to weed through all these losers to date the good ones. That I could just date like, you know, some of the guys from our year."

"Why can't you do that again?" Ino asked, not for the first time.

"They're all too weary of the guys. Its that unspoken rule that you can't date your friend's sister. That's what I am to them. Lee was the only one brave enough to try." Sakura said hopelessly. Even her faithful green shadow had gotten himself a girlfriend. Somehow.

"Too stupid if you ask me." Ino interjected. "You could always date one of the 'guys'..."

She kept a straight face for all of 3 seconds before breaking out into an a not-so-apologetic smile. "Right, right, sorry."

It was ironic that Sasuke, Naruto and Sai, 3 of the most sought after men in the whole village saw her as nothing more than sister. Sometimes a less nice word was used, but the sentiment was the same.

Downing her 6th (or was it 7th) drink, Sakura decided to turn in for the night. She picked a few bills out of her pocket and placed her empty cup on them, slipped from her bar stool and took a deep breath as she fought to stand up steady. Unlike Ino, she had no one to haul her drunken self home.

Briefly she spied Kakashi out of the corner of her eye in the back of the bar and sighed in understanding. No wonder no one had hit on her that night.

It was nothing he ever said or did, no look he gave. Just his presence alone seemed to act as guy repellent. All of 'the guys' had that effect on other men. It was the very brave or the very oblivious men who tried to make a pass at her when one of them was near. She looked down at the hot new outfit she had on, a tight black tunic over tight red shorts and her tall black boots, and shook her head. What an utter waste.

"I'll see you next week." She mumbled to Ino as she stumbled out of the bar and into the cool spring air.

There was always tomorrow. Maybe she'd finally get lucky with one.

Sakura made a face in the dark. Her idea of lucky was a guy that she wouldn't be embarrassed being seen in public with. Oh, how her standards had dropped over the years.

There was always next year.


TBC, and with actual story development. This might sound needy, but... please review.