All of the ninja of Konoha have the day off. Sakura and Ino decide to make a day of it, no girls needed. (Previously "Random Select". Re-edited and Re-uploaded)
Girls Day Out
Sakura walked down the street by herself. It had been too long since she and Ino had both had time off together. One of them always seemed to be out on a mission, or ether Tsunade or Ino's father would occupy their time with intensive training on a new jutsu. Today, however, Tsunade had found her office swamped with mission requests, and had shut down mission central for the day to sort through and categorize all the missions.
And so for the first time since...she knew of, Konoha was full of ninja that had nothing to do.
With Naruto gone, and Sasuke... She decided that spending some quality time with Ino was long, long overdue.
The Yamanka Flower Shop came into view, and soon she could see Ino sitting behind the counter, talking to her mother. Ino looked up and waved. She kissed her mother goodbye then ran out to meet her friend.
On a normal day off, they would have spent at least part of the day training, but that would ruin this gift. Even the most dedicated ninja were lounging around today, and these two were no exception.
First stop: The shopping district.
The girls spent argued over where to go first, pushing and pulling each other towards the store each wanted to go to. Each time one managed to drag the other into the store she wanted to go to, it started over as soon as they left. As the shoving matches got progressively rougher, their grins bigger, and their insults more vicious, the trip became more about dragging the other all over town than getting any shopping done.
In one of the stores they did enter to do some serious shopping, they picked out bathing suits. They took turns, one picking out a suit while the other tried hers on, and after latter got the formers opinion, they switched roles. As they worked their way through most of the stores selection, they realized something. The years, and ninja training, had been kind to them. Very kind.
And then, they both wanted the same suit. And their mini argument about who would get to buy it ended when Ino dragged Sakura over to the nearest male store clerk, to ask which of them looked better in the suit. And then to another. And another after that, until they'd found a new game of inducing nosebleeds that had Jiraya kicking himself for days over missing when he heard about it months later.
Lunch came next.
The cafe they chose was mostly open air, and grew busier and busier as they ate. They would later theorize that this was because they'd worn their suits out of the store, their only other attire being shorts and sandals. For dessert they'd ordered a plate of dango to split, but, they realized once they got to the last skewer that there were an odd number of skewers, and an odd number of beans per skewer.
They glared at each other for a moment then
1-2-3-SHOOT!
Paper covers rock.
Ino took the skewer triumphantly, while Sakura pouted. Ino ate the first dumpling, and was going for the second, Sakura pouted harder. Ino paused, put the skewer back, and ... scissors cut paper. Sakura ate her dumpling.
The final round.
Rock-rock.
Paper-paper.
Rock-rock.
Scissors-scissors
Scissors-scissors.
They stood over the table, glaring death rays at each other.
One.
Two.
Three...
"Hah! Take that Ino-pig!" and reached for a skewer that wasn't there.
They both looked at the plate, puzzled as to where the last dumpling had gone, when a guilty sounding gulp brought their attention to Konohamaru, "Uhm... I thought...you...uhm...were.... I had a message from...Tsu...never mind it wasn't important!"
"Get back here you little brat!"
The two girls practically fell on each other, panting for breath after chasing Konohamaru for the last couple of hours, "Why...why did we never try to learn the shadow clone?"
"Uses...too much...chakra..."
"Yeah, well, we just spent the afternoon chasing Konohamarus all over konoha. It'd trade any of my jutsus to know the shadow clone right now."
"Oh give it up. I think he's embarrassed us enough for one day." she glanced over at her friend, "Or did you forget the henge into Sasuke?"
"Don't remind me." She stood up and looked at herself, "Great, I'm hot, sweaty, tired, dirty and... I'm getting in that pool."
"Pool? What pool?"
"That one," she said, pointing. And there, a couple of roofs over, was the Konoha public pool.
Moments later, they'd shed their shorts and were diving into the water. It wasn't much longer before the inevitable happened.
Sakura was floating peacfully on the water, enjoying the warmth of the sun as the water cooled her. She ignored the sense of someone approaching, since there were many other people. Unfortunately, it wasn't just some other person, it was Ino, and her intentions where far from innocent.
Only a foot from Sakura, she pulled herself up onto the surface of the water, casting a shadow across Sakura's face, causing her to open her eyes, just in time to say, "Ino.." before she leapt into the air, and came canon-balling straight down, swamping Sakura, and starting a water war to end all wars. It started out normally, splashing each other, progressed to dunking and a bit of wrestling, stopping only once when Sakura almost pulled off Ino's top. They were thrown out though, when the first water jutsu appeared.
The girls left laughing and arm in arm. They walked linked together to a park where they headed up to a tree standing alone on a hill to watch the start of the sunset. They collapsed against the tree, talking about anything and nothing. As time moved forward, they ended up leaning into each other more than into the tree.
Ino had enjoyed her day. Shikamaru was too lazy to do anything fun with, and was too much of a pain in the ass to enjoy what you were doing with him if you even got him moving. Chouji... ugh. He wanted to stop and eat every five minutes. It was ridiculous, and kind of sickening. They were great teammates, but they weren't the kind of people she could have fun with.
Sakura was enjoying the feeling of being close to Ino. She'd always enjoyed close contact, but Sasuke was… Sasuke. And Naruto... no. She just couldn't get close to him. Not like that. She'd felt better with Ino than she had with anyone else. She looked up from leaning on her shoulder and smiled at her friend.
Ino seemed to feel her looking at her, and turned her head to face her, their noses almost touching. She didn't know why, but Sakura closed the distance and gave her a small peck on the lips. Her smile broadened, just a little, and then Ino, almost hesitantly, leaned forward and kissed her.
Sakura let herself go and enjoyed every second of the kiss, falling sideways into Ino's Lap when the kiss ended. She smiled up at her friend as she ran her fingers through her hair. She closed her eyes and relaxed, not knowing that as Ino smiled down at her, she was thinking the same thing.
"Who needs boys?"