Title: Bloom to Butterfly
Rating: G
Words: 1,785
Summary: But Sakura swears that, this time, Ino won't be the only one who notices.
Notes: Fills the 'good luck charm' square on my Cotton Candy Bingo Card, the 'moving' square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo Card and the prompt 'butterfly' for Haruno Sakura from the Forever Friday chat on the KakaSaku DW comm. Thanks go to puffinmuffin for looking this over for me!
It's almost blasphemous to think, even to herself, after Ino had said that she'd made her flower bloom that she's not a flower.
Sakura thinks it anyway.
Ino's a flower, for sure. Not the one she named back in the Academy, not a cosmos, but something more beautiful and deadly than that. Something with thorns to catch the unwary and incautious.
(She's amazed that Shikamaru and Chouji don't see that and fear. Ino is so angry at them for going off and leaving her behind.)
But when the same thing happens to her, and she's left behind, Sakura knows she might have bloomed according to Ino (and Ino wouldn't lie, not about that) but also that flowers, no matter how deadly and gorgeous, aren't ever going to catch Sasuke's attention.
They don't catch Naruto's or Kakashi-sensei's attention either.
When it comes to them not noticing Ino, she can think philosophically, that it is their loss. Ino has blossomed, is still blossoming, and she's going to be amazing, and Ino doesn't care if other people are too stupid to notice that because Ino will just take advantage of their not noticing.
When it comes to her, Sakura doesn't know what to do. All she'd had to push her on was the hope that, when she blossomed, she'd get their attention. Instead, Sasuke has left the village, and Naruto has run away on a training mission and Kakashi-sensei doesn't even seem to remember she existed, given that he's around and yet never has time or a kind word for her.
Sakura never, ever tells anyone—not even Ino, who'd be devastated—that she gives serious thought to quitting as a shinobi after all that effort and nothing gained from it.
It's Ino that keeps her from quitting, without even realizing.
Ino tracks her down every day and drags her to practice. Asuma-sensei says nothing as she joins, taking Chouji's place while Chouji is in the hospital, as they run missions, he just accepts it as the natural order of things. Shikamaru grumbles, once, but adjusts his strategies for Sakura's abilities and treats her like she's a teammate.
When she offers an opinion, hesitantly at first, then with more confidence, Team Ten listens. And they get shit done with all of them involved. Shikamaru doesn't leave her behind because she's useless, Ino champions her successes and commiserates on her mistakes, and Asuma-sensei gives her tips and tricks, just the way he gives Ino and Shikamaru them.
Sakura soaks it in.
All said, she's not on Team Ten for very long, and never on it officially, but Sakura comes away from the experience with the realization that Team Seven was a broken team even before it broke.
And even more importantly, Sakura comes away from Team Ten with the realization that she does matter and that she's not terrible, even though she has few skills for a Genin of more than a year.
Because Sakura is methodical, she checks books out of the library about the different kinds of shinobi and what there is to specialize in. She knows some of the types, from the Academy, but a year of active duty has shown her that the Academy only gave them the basics—in everything.
She reads and makes lists, marking down pros and cons and in a fit of total honesty, marks down her pros and cons too. It takes her a lot of time but that's okay. She's got the time, since only Team Ten pays any attention to her.
Sakura looks over her work and then, one evening, takes it all in a carefully held bundle, to Ino's home. Ino is in a difficult mood and waspish about additional work being dropped on her lap, but takes it, when Sakura asks again, and could she please look it over and see what she says.
It takes Ino two days to get through it all.
Knowing when Ino is done is easy: Ino breaks into her room with terrifying ease given that Sakura was good at traps, in the Academy, and drops the whole pile on Sakura's bed, which wakes her up.
Rubbing at her eyes, and registering Ino's presence, which means there's no threat, and she's safe, Sakura reaches for her work even as Ino shuts the blinds and turns on Sakura's bedside lamp.
Ino has written notes on a lot of the specialties. Things that Sakura didn't know and hadn't found in books—more information, it's a gift that Ino will deny giving her. When she finds her page of brutal self-honesty and discovers that Ino has written all over that too, Sakura bursts into tears when she reads what Ino's written.
Ino has added a few more cons, ones that Sakura didn't know about, being a first generation shinobi.
But the pros, which before had been only a handful of things, now goes all down the front of the page and across the back of it too. At the very end of it, like Ino hadn't wanted to leave any space blank, are doodles of flowers and butterflies. The flowers are extremely detailed while the butterflies are sketchy and childishly drawn.
She cries and Ino scoffs and gets her water and tissue and pats her back until she's calmed down. Sakura, gulping the water and clutching the tissues, knows she can't say anything to Ino, not a single word of thanks, because Ino would just get embarrassed and defensive and angry.
So when she's calmed down and has blown her nose, and Ino is still right next to her, all Sakura says is, "You never said what you thought I should be."
Ino shrugs, her hair a pale blonde halo in the slowly rising sun that streams through Sakura's blinds, and replies, "That's not up to me. You're the one that's going to have to live with what you decide. You choose."
Sakura nods, because that's very Ino, and leans more against her best friend like the years of rivalry never really existed, and closes her eyes. They both fall asleep and snooze right through practice that day.
Ino brazens it out through Asuma-sensei's lecture and Sakura just nods and promises it won't happen again, because she knows Ino will drag her to practice again, and when Ino does that, Asuma-sensei never says a word about how Sakura probably shouldn't be there.
(Sakura doesn't like to think about how he probably pities her for not having a team of her own. She's grateful he says nothing and just accepts her presence.)
Rereading Ino's list still brings a lump to her throat because while the words are practical and helpful, Sakura knows it's Ino's way of saying I love you over and over again, so Sakura gently folds the list up and sticks it in the bottom of her underwear drawer.
Which is a terrible place to hide things, but that's okay, she's not trying to hide it so much as keep it safe.
Then Sakura rereads her work on all the specialties, thinks hard about Team Seven, and slowly makes a decision.
The first time she asks Tsunade-sama, the Hokage, to take her on as an apprentice, Tsunade laughs and, when Sakura doesn't admit it's a joke, Tsunade tosses her out the window with one finger.
Sakura asks for a week straight, getting tossed out the window every time. She picks up bruises and cuts and scrapes, but her training with Team Ten has taught her how to land without breaking bones (and it hurts to know that Team Seven never even taught her that) and so Sakura keeps coming back.
"Why are you doing this?" Tsunade-sama asks, holding Sakura up by one finger, on the eighth day in preparation for tossing her out the window again.
Sakura takes this as a good sign. "I'm not going to be left behind again," she says. "I want to be a medical nin, like you, so that no one can ever say I'm useless again."
She wants to learn how to fly, like Ino's stupid sketchy butterflies.
Since Tsunade-sama has been throwing her out windows, Sakura doesn't say that. She doesn't mean literally fly, though she's been getting lots of practice in that anyway.
Tsunade-sama still lobs her out the window.
Sakura picks herself up, and the next day is back again.
This time, Tsunade-sama sits her down and gives her a test. The paper part is easy, the jutsu part is harder. Sakura leaves that day, through the door, feeling drained and vaguely hopeful. Around the third hour, she'd realized that the seemingly unconnected questions all pointed to it being an aptitude test.
When Sakura shows up the next day, she knows she's passed.
"You're not going to get strong right away," Tsunade-sama says bluntly. "Medical jutsu aren't good for combat until you've got more experience under your belt."
Sakura nods, thinks of Naruto on his training trip, of Sasuke who'd abandoned the village, of Kakashi-sensei who still doesn't care about her. "I'm willing to work hard," she says, "until I'm the very best I can be."
Tsunade-sama smiles thinly, and Sakura knows that even though she's passed, Tsunade-sama hasn't been won over. She's going to have to keep trying. "We'll see about that," her new teacher says. "Come on, we're going to the hospital."
That evening, Sakura buys a butterfly clip in shades of blues and purples and attaches it to her hitae-ite. She studies the effect in the mirror and nods. It's a childish reminder, but that's okay.
She's still learning.
Sakura promises herself that the clip will be put away once she's learned to fly.
Ino's eyes rest on the clip, the next time Sakura sees her, and her smile twists slightly. Sakura says nothing and neither does Inobut she knows that they both know what it means and why it's in Ino's colours.
(Ino is her inspiration to keep going, even as their paths diverge, and they take different routes to being awesome. Ino is the reason that Sakura keeps on trying.)
Maybe Kakashi-sensei will notice her if she becomes a butterfly. Maybe Naruto will pay attention, the right attention, if she flutters her wings and makes him see that she's not just a flower.
Maybe Sasuke… Sakura doesn't know how to finish that thought, so she doesn't.
Ino already sees the flower she's become. Sakura knows Ino will be the first to see the butterfly she turns into.
But Sakura swears that, this time, Ino won't be the only one who notices.
And that, maybe, this time even she'll believe she's changed.
Sakura hopes so.
The butterfly on her ribbon, next to her hitae-ite, is a reminder to not forget.