Tall, Dark, and Handsome
After a loony fortuneteller gives Sakura a vague description of her supposed true love, Ino takes it upon herself to discover the man's identity…dragging an unwilling Sakura along in the process.
The Fire Country Fair.
The annual spring event that had been orchestrated nigh on twenty-five years ago for the sole purpose of bringing together the several towns and villages that lay scattered throughout the Land of Fire, promoting a loose sense of national unity among the varying sects and classes of citizens, and just providing a good time for everyone, from the poorest farmer to the toughest shinobi.
Rumor has it that the Third Hokage had taken it upon himself to institute the yearly fair in an effort to curb the inevitable boredom that washed in with the spring rains every March, as every shinobi knows that for whatever reason, spring was the deadest time of the year mission-wise.
In other words, it was not so much as a philanthropic gesture as it was a necessary action to keep the Konoha ninja population from funneling their dormant, unused energy into other ways (the overall population count did seem to get increasingly higher around this season, putting a rather impressive strain on Konoha's economic resources)—because really, leaving a group of highly skilled, albeit highly bored, people who could set fire to things with a few twitches of the fingers just wasn't the best idea around.
Hence Sarutobi's grandiose plan of a yearly fair, thrown together by shinobi with nothing better to do with their time. Participation, of course, was hardly mandatory, but nearly everyone found the will to chip in—after all, no one really wanted that thirty-percent docking of the next paycheck that was an unfortunate drawback of anyone unpatriotic enough to not want to contribute their labor to making their country a happier place.
It is a little known fact that shortly before Orochimaru went insane and deserted Konoha, he was annually forced to be in charge of the cotton candy booth.
A booth that consisted of wearing a clown outfit and dishing out spun sugar to rude children.
Jiraiya still takes great pleasure in passing pictures of this around every year.
Still, over time the fair had evolved from being a shinobi-run, Konoha-produced event (unfortunately for the oblivious Konoha nin, the general civilian populace did not find much entertainment in the well-liked Konoha Shinobi Academy games of 'Catch the Kunai' or 'Pin the Tail on the Real, S-Class Missing-nin') and had transpired into something funded and run by the regional daimyos instead.
In retrospect, it probably was for the better. After the transition, injury rate due to the 'fun and games' reached record lows.
And now, years later, the Third Hokage's brainchild had transformed into something that was the highlight of every Fire Country child's year—a menagerie of thrilling game booths, market tents with the most exotic of wares from all over the world, attractions and rides that could make one's stomach turn over in excitement and shiver in anticipation.
No one could possibly resist the infectious air of contentment that seemed to permeate each and every thing at this long-awaited event.
Well…maybe one person could….
"I refuse! I told you before, my answer is no!"
"Save it, Forehead!"
The alarmingly loud shouts drew several fairgoers' looks—mothers immediately ushered their children away and couples veered off to the side so as to avoid bumping into the crazed duo stomping their way noisily through the labyrinth of tents and rides.
"Ino," Sakura hissed warningly as she was mercilessly dragged along. The brightly colored tents were whirling past her nauseatingly, her feet hurting from the four hours she had already been traipsing around the bustling fairground with her friends. She was sure that by the end of this nightmare-inducing event she was going to be spending the rest of the day soaking her poor soles in a blessedly warm bath for a few hours, cursing her bullheaded best friend and her ridiculous schemes.
"Not listening!"
Sakura bit her lip, willing herself not to snap. She was almost 70% sure that tomorrow she'd regret murdering her best friend.
Her teeth sank in further as the blonde gave a particularly rough yank on her arm.
Okay, make that 40%.
"Ino," she tried again to catch her torturer's attention.
"I can't hear a thing," was the sing-song response she received. It was enough to make Sakura see the world in an alarming shade of red as her blood pressure almost certainly skyrocketed from irritation. If she was forced to undergo much more of this, she was not going to be responsible for her actions...actions that may very well include stuffing her oldest friend into a portable fair bathroom and sticking the door shut with one of Tsunade-shishou's special sealing jutsu.
"Ino! STOP!"
The blonde-haired kunoichi merely cast a quick, disparaging glance at her protesting friend, right before rolling her eyes and turning her face away again. A smile touched Ino's lips as she spotted something in the distance, a celebratory yelp rushing out with her next breath.
"C'mon, that's it over there!"
Sakura felt an increasing amount of despair sweep through her as her sometimes-best friend and part-time rival tightened her grasp upon Sakura's small wrist, her fingernails biting almost painfully into the flesh.
It was the cutting sensation of Ino's perfectly manicured and carefully sharpened nails piercing her skin that caused Sakura to abruptly dig her feet into the ground like a stubborn mule, staunchly refusing to be pulled along any further.
The sudden resistance she was encountering in the form of a very reluctant Sakura caused Ino to sigh and come to a halt, leveling a withering glare at the pink-haired girl as she spun around.
"What is it now, Forehead?" Two hands came up to rest indignantly on tilted hips. "Jeez, could you be any more annoying? It's not like it'll kill you, anyhow!"
Relishing in her newfound freedom from Ino's determined clutches (Sakura suddenly had a rush of sympathy for the various, undoubtedly abused, boyfriends that the blonde seemed to run through like water off a duck's back), Sakura lifted a weary hand to rub the bridge of her nose.
"Ino," she began as calmly as she could manage. "I told you. I. Don't. Want. To. Do. It."
She punctuated each word with a deadly glare that she hoped spoke of her iron resolve on the matter. Having bright pink hair that was the epitome of girlishness and a sweetly heart-shaped face didn't often work in her favor when attempting intimidation (more than one enemy shinobi had guffawed at the notion of fighting her…right before Sakura sent them flying through several trees and a few boulders for good measure), but she was absolutely determined to clearly communicate the message of disinterest to her stubborn counterpart.
The other girl pouted in response. And while such an expression may have worked on her hundreds of hapless, besotted fan boys, such a thing did not work on Sakura. "Don't be such a wet blanket! It'll be fun, if you can even remember the meaning of the word."
Ignoring the jibe, Sakura replied, "Those things are ridiculous. And after you dragged me into the one at last year's fair, I swore to myself never to waste my hard-earned money doing something silly as fortune-telling."
Her green eyes traveled along the lineup of various booths and tents until they found the horrendously garish purple and gold one that had been Ino's intended destination, which bore a sign ominously reading Madame Shi's Love Fortunes.
Sakura blanched at the mere sight of it, as though its existence was a personal offence. "And not only that, but it's a romance fortuneteller."
Ino blinked owlishly at her, baby blue eyes widening. "What's wrong with that?"
"W-what's wrong with that? What's wrong with that is that I don't put any stock in stupid things like that!"
Especially not after the last fortuneteller Ino had managed to coerce her into visiting had sympathetically explained to Sakura in meticulous and excruciating detail that she was going to perish as a wrinkled old lady with nothing but cats for company. She'd stormed out of that tent only seconds later, and had proceeded straight to the training grounds to vent her annoyance on some poor, unsuspecting trees, as well as an unsuspecting teammate or two.
Naruto and Sasuke had fled at the very sight of her for the better part of a week after that.
She cringed in remembrance.
"But Sakura, don't you want to find out who your true love is?" Ino said with a coaxingly crafty grin, not unlike a cat who had finally cornered its furry prey. "I mean, ever since you gave up on Sasuke-kun when we were eleven your love life has been pretty dry…and by dry I mean a damn desert that hasn't had rain in a million years."
Her unsubtle, metaphorical commentary on the recent activity (or lack thereof) in Sakura's social life was hardly well received—Ino was actually forced to take a step back to lessen the magnitude of Sakura's nasty glower.
Sakura balled her hands into fists, her irritation creeping up another notch on her mental meter. Not for the first time, she questioned the wisdom of being friends with someone who was so adept at pushing her to the teetering brink of sanity. "Look Ino, just because I don't go through guys like disposable napkins—"
"Hey! Guys are supposed to be like napkins—usable, clean, and easy to toss when they're all worn out!"
The pink-haired girl rolled her eyes, unable to stop the small snort of unbidden laughter that escaped her lips. "And you wonder why I don't take romantic advice from you, pig?"
"You'd have to have a romantic life to get any advice about it, Little Miss Proper," Ino pointed out rapidly, folding her arms smugly as she noted the red flush of severe exasperation coloring Sakura's face. "You know, I'd be surprised if you've ever even so much as been kissed in all your seventeen years of life. You prude." Ah, it was so simple to rile up her friend.
Eyes narrowing into slits of green fire, Sakura opened her mouth furiously—
"S-sakura-san! Ino-san!"
The warring girls simultaneously spun around at the familiar voice calling out to them, its sweet lilt easily deflating the tensions surrounding them.
It was quite simple to distinguish their mutual friend from the bustling crowd swarming around them, as Hinata had an uncommon grace to her movements born partly from the dance-like qualities of her fighting style, and partly of having elegance ingrained into her actions from birth, courtesy of the uptight Hyuuga clan.
Her dark hair swinging behind her softly, Hinata ran the rest of the way to where Ino and Sakura were standing, unaware that she had just prevented a catfight to end all catfights.
Ino grinned at their fellow kunoichi, who offered them a shy smile. "Yo, Hinata! You finally made it!"
Hinata nodded, looking pleased. "I f-found Tenten-san, she will be coming along soon. She is just as eager to get her fortune told as I am! I-it will be really fun, I think."
Her pale violet eyes traveled from Ino to the shorter girl beside her, who was staring fumingly at the ground with the apparent intent to cause an earthquake, so violent was her gaze. Hinata's dark brows knitted together in concern, her sweet disposition hardly allowing her to ignore the obviously foul mood of the pink-haired kunoichi.
Tentatively, she tried, "S-sakura-san? Is everything all right?" Hinata plucked nervously at the sleeves of her jacket, but didn't try to make any sort of move towards the girl in question, as Sakura was looking as though she'd quite enjoy taking a bite out of anyone stupid enough to ask her such a thing.
Before Sakura could reply, Ino jumped in with an air of mischievousness. "She's fine—just sulking 'cause she doesn't want her fortune told."
"I am not!" Whether Sakura meant she wasn't sulking, or didn't want her fortune told was rather unclear. Most likely, it was both.
Hinata glanced uncertainly from one to the other, both girls engaged in leveling each other with deadly stares.
Having never had a close girl friend for a majority of her young life ensconced within a family compound that stifled personal relationships, she could never quite tell whether Sakura and Ino loathed each other with all of the fury of bitter rivals or were best friends who had the unfortunate habit of quarreling half the time they were together. A soft cough escaped her as she tried to catch their attention. "U-um, if Sakura-san d-doesn't want to do it—"
Ino shook her head vigorously. "She has to do it…it's not any fun if she doesn't!"
"And I won't have any fun if I do it!" Sakura snapped, effectively bringing the argument full circle once again.
"Stop playing with semantics, Big Head!"
"Ooh, big word for you there, Ino."
"Spoilsport!"
"Pushy!"
"Killjoy!"
"Loudmouth!"
"Frigid!"
"Flirty!"
"Tenten!" Hinata squeaked.
Ino cast a confused glance at her, a little disconcerted. "Huh? That's not an insult…" She caught sight of the brown-haired weapons mistress striding up to greet them. "Oh."
"Well that's a cold greeting," Tenten teased breezily as she reached the band of kunoichi, missing the relieved look Hinata was currently sending her and honing in on the crackling atmosphere surrounding Ino and Sakura. She peered between the two of them speculatively, light brown eyes sparkling with laughter. "Though I see you two couldn't hold off from murdering each other till I got here, huh?"
"That's 'cause Sakura's being a spoilsport," Ino told her without preamble, cutting off the pink-haired girl's intended greeting.
Sakura whirled on Ino. "Stop telling everyone that, Pig!"
"It's the truth!"
As it was quickly becoming evident that the fairgrounds would soon be splattered in a not-so-festive crimson color from the bloodshed that was about to ensue, thus irreversibly scarring every innocent fairgoer there for life, a wide-eyed Hinata and exasperated Tenten hastened to intervene.
Accepting the risk one normally only encountered on an S-class mission, both immediately flung themselves into the middle of the approaching fray, dragging the two girls apart while spouting helpful advice such as "Breathe, Sakura, breathe!" and "Find your happy place Ino, find it!".
Acutely aware that people around them were giving the raucous group a noticeably wide berth, Sakura managed to mimic Tenten's unhelpfully exaggerated inhales and exhales, the urge to excommunicate her best friend from her 'List of People I Like' gradually dying away with her temper.
Beside her, Ino was dutifully scrunching up her face in an effort to 'find her happy place'—a place which usually involved half-naked men (who all superficially resembled Sasuke while simultaneously were adjusted to have actual personalities) hand-feeding her strawberries while waxing eloquent on her lovely attributes.
After a minute or so had passed, Tenten and Hinata felt reassured enough to cautiously release their steely grips on their two friends. Both inwardly sighed with relief when neither girl leapt for the other for a repeat round of violence.
Tenten released another slow breath, rubbing her forehead. "You know, I really don't get what's the problem here. It's tradition, remember? We all went to the fortune teller at last year's fair without any problems." She said this last part with a meaningful look at a slightly abashed Sakura.
"S-sakura-san, this isn't about what the fortuneteller said to you l-last year, is it?" Hinata squeaked nervously, wincing at having to tread on such dangerous grounds. "A-about you ending up an old maid with cats? And if it is," her sweet voice suddenly took on a much stronger, assured quality, "I'm sure it wasn't at all true. You don't have to worry."
All of them stared intently at a suspiciously silent Sakura, who blushed red at Hinata's words. It as good as confirmed it.
"Oh Sakura," Tenten said impatiently, after shooting a firm 'be quiet' look at Ino who had opened her mouth to speak. "Is that what's bothering you?"
Sakura muttered something unintelligible.
Tenten said reasonably, "We'll just have to reach a compromise then. Sakura, you come with us and get a second opinion. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being an old maid, and cats are cuddly things, but it couldn't hurt to find out otherwise right? And Ino," her head swiveled to glance at the smugly grinning girl, brown eyes adopting a similar expression to whenever she was just about to riddle an enemy full of kunai holes. "Keep your opinions about Sakura's love life to yourself, got it?"
The blonde shrugged cheerfully. "Works for me."
"Sakura?"
The girl in question ran a distracted hand through her hair, her shoulders slumping and her green eyes despondent. Sakura had the distant feeling that whether she granted her consent her not, her strong-willed friends were going to muscle her into that tent of complete and utter doom anyways. Nothing short of another full-scale invasion by Sound, it seemed, would be enough to thwart her oncoming misery.
…did it make her a terrible person to wish for Orochimaru to come and try to decimate the village again?
Finally, Sakura asked flatly, "Do I really have a choice?"
Her answer came in the form of three identical smiles and three sets of hands latching onto her like blood-sucking leeches. Resigning herself to the fact that her life was about to take a very grim turn, she allowed herself to be ushered into the gaudy tent by three ridiculously eager kunoichi.
She was so going to regret this.
Oh god, she was so regretting this.
The first thing that greeted her eyes was pink.
Everything, everything in this godforsaken tent was pink.
Pink jingling bells hanging from the ceiling, pink glitter splashed upon the pink carpet, pink jewels lining the pink lamps scattered throughout the room, pink streamers and pink tapestries lining the walls of the tent and pink curtains partitioning an area in the back off.
And not just any pink, either.
It was a pink so lurid and bright that Sakura had the sudden fear that her retinas would burn in a sea of hot pink fire, leaving her to explain to her teammates just why she had so abruptly gone blind and would no longer be fit for mission participation.
The mere idea of certain people becoming enlightened to the fact that she had entered a fortuneteller's (and a romance one at that) lair of her own free will, combined with the suffocating color surrounding her that had her resolving to dye her hair black as soon as she got home, was enough cause for her to spin on her heel and make a desperate break for the sparkling pink tent flap that led to sweet, sweet freedom.
Regrettably for Sakura, her moves seemed to have been predicted early on. Without looking, Tenten and Ino's hands shot out and hooked onto the fleeing girl's arms, effectively putting an end to her haphazard escape attempt.
"Oh no you don't," Ino hissed lowly in her ear, Sakura's blood freezing at the sheer threat in her voice and momentarily dissuaded from making another bid for freedom.
But, as stated, the desire to catapult herself from the tent with a wild scream was only curbed temporarily. It returned as soon as her eyes adjusted marginally to the incense-induced haze that lingered in the air, and she caught a glimpse of a figure that was unhurriedly but steadily approaching the four girls.
It was a giant bug.
Sakura squeaked and made to take a step backwards, acutely frightened of being eaten by the giant, sparkly insect that was approaching the group of girls with a slow hobble.
Wait.
Since when did bugs hobble?
She blinked, squinting her eyes to better see through the cloud of incense and perfume that clogged the tent.
And at last, after managing to gain a clearer view of her surroundings, she had to modify her last observation.
Because it wasn't a hideously mutated, overgrown insect at all—just an old lady swathed in an incredible amount of glistening material, sparkling robes, and glinting beads that caught the light and reflected a resulting shimmer of colors.
Sakura's first instinct to step back wasn't all that alleviated.
The old lady/sparkling bug came to a halt a few feet away from the group of girls. Under the drapes of shiny cloth and frippery that snugly wrapped around her body like a cloak, a sun-browned face smeared with elaborate makeup peeked out. Bright spots of rouge painted her cheeks, giving them an unnatural flush of color, and matching red lipstick coated the withered mouth, unable to quite draw attention from the wrinkles stretching at the corners. Electric blue eyes that seemed to jump about erratically in their sockets were only made to further pop out by the heavy lines of dark kol that were penciled around them.
The woman peered at the girls in silence for a moment, gaze falling intently on the faces that ranged from eager (Ino) to playfully curious (Tenten) to pleasant (Hinata) and, finally, to sullen (Sakura). A crooked smile stretched along her painted mouth, revealing rows of perfectly straight, pearly teeth that seemed strangely at odds with the woman's age.
"Welcoooome, ladies," the fortuneteller crooned after the silent inspection had passed. The woman's voice had a raspy quality to it, one that Sakura often observed in the smokers among the shinobi ranks she interacted with. "I am Madame Shi, servant of the seers, diviner of destiny, and friend of the fates."
Madame Shi trailed off dramatically. Sakura had to admit that for all of her immense discontentment at the moment, she was minutely impressed.
She hadn't heard alliteration like that since she, Naruto, and Sasuke had encountered that one S-class missing-nin who had refused to speak in anything but rhyme…or answer to anything that wasn't exquisitely rhymed, which made it all the more difficult when trying to pry needed information out of him. Some would scoff, but attempting to create impressive rhymes was difficult when you had Uzumaki Naruto as a teammate—not the most prolific of people, and his idea of poetry was something along the lines of 'We're gonna beat you up now, you big fat cow! Dattebayo!"
Sakura's morbid reminiscing was cut short as Madame Shi's mystic pitch rang out once again. "I assume you've all come to have the innermost details of your romantic futures ripped from your very souls?"
Honestly, that sounded beyond painful to Sakura, who very much liked her soul un-ripped and intact. Suddenly, finding a life partner rather paled in the face of a prospective future in which she lacked a soul. The old-maid-in-scratchy-britches future seemed quite appealing in comparison.
However, the others didn't exactly agree.
"Yeah!" Ino affirmed with a blinding smile.
Tenten shrugged, ever relaxed and unruffled. "Why not?"
"Y-yes, if you would," Hinata whispered, shyly tucking a loose strand of midnight blue hair behind an ear.
Sakura's eyes widened in horror as her friends' nonchalance seared across her brain in a sensation that was unpleasantly reminiscent of coming a tad too close to her sensei's lightning attacks. Because really, did they want to wake up in the morning as love-struck, soulless fiends?
(Sakura, it had to be noted, for all of her outward snootiness towards mysticism, was a bit superstitious a times).
"I'd rather be poked in the eye with a fork," she grumbled lowly under her breath. Apparently it wasn't low enough, because she winced a second later as Ino ruthlessly drove a pointy elbow into her best friend's unprotected side.
"You'll have to excuse her," Ino said with an apologetic note to her voice, shooting a venomous glance at Sakura. "She didn't want to come."
"Ah, yes," the wizened crone said sympathetically, a wry smile crossing her wizened lips. "No matter dearie, there's always one in every group. A canker sore who ruins it for the rest, shall we say."
Sakura gaped. "Did—did you just call me a—"
"And now," the mystic continued on loudly, clapping her hands together and effectively muffling Sakura's indignant outcry. "If you will all be seated, shall we begin?"
She pointed at a small collection of chairs (which, to Sakura's horror, had not escaped the same fate of being doused in lurid pink that the rest of the tent had) before sweeping over to a slightly less garish chair placed before a small folding table that held—what else—a glowing crystal ball.
Before Sakura could make any further protests, she was herded over to the intended seats like some sort of misbehaving livestock animal, flanked on either side by Ino and Tenten and followed by Hinata. A small "Oomph" escaped her as she was unceremoniously pushed into a chair and subsequently ignored by the three other girls, who now had their attention riveted by Madame Shi.
Their redirected attention gave Sakura the smallest hope that she could possibly run away unnoticed, but the idea was almost immediately dismissed at the thought that should Ino catch her, she might very well just follow through on her threats and forcibly take control of Sakura's body with her family's prized jutsu.
And putting up with the tedium of Ino's mind inside of her, as well as the whole fortune-telling deal, would surely be nigh-on unbearable.
One final, longing glance at the tent flap and then Sakura folded her arms and slumped backwards in her chair, preparing herself for a very, very long afternoon.
Dammit, why had she even agreed to this 'girl's day out' in the first place?
She knew she simply should have accepted Naruto and Sasuke's invitation of exploring the fair with them…except that would mean a long afternoon watching Naruto sniff out every ramen stand on the fairgrounds like a blood hound and listening to Sasuke-kun's endless grouching about the indignity of an Uchiha being demeaned by participating in the ridiculous fair games that Naruto and Sakura would inevitably drag him into (of course, Sakura thought he secretly loved it, but her stoic friend just had to keep his stick-up-the-ass appearance intact).
"Please drop your tokens of gratitude into the box, if you would dearies." Madame Shi's raspy tones cut rudely through Sakura's inner stewing of self pity, unfortunately jerking her back to the pink-tinted reality of the present.
Tokens? She thought to herself, utterly befuddled.
A furtive peek at her friends revealed them rummaging through their pockets and obligingly dropping their requisite yen coins into the indicated box. Sakura sighed and did the same (after receiving expectant/threatening looks from Ino and Tenten), begrudging every ting of her hard-earned money hitting the bottom of the box.
"And now that the fates have been duly appeased," Madame Shi sang out in a quavering manner. "I shall throw myself into their grasping clutches with abandon, surrendering my mind to divine the future!" She tossed her head back, throwing her arms into the air.
Sakura couldn't help but think that this job sounded sort of dangerous. And really, did the woman necessarily have to sound so lusty when talking about the fates? It was downright disturbing.
After a frankly uncomfortable moment in which Sakura was subjected to the scarring visual of the fortuneteller theatrically writhing and mumbling as she communed with her spirits, the old woman finally sat erectly up in her chair. Her gaze skipped over three anticipative faces, and one oh-god-why expression, before coming to rest upon her initial victim.
"You first." An uneven fingernail pointed in a surprised Hinata's direction.
Hinata jumped slightly in response, but rallied her composure in an admirably expedient manner.
"Aaaah, yeeees," the old woman's creaky voice drew out the word like nails on a chalkboard. "For you my dear, I see…blonde."
Hinata's pale silver orbs grew large, her cheeks flushing with pleasure. "B-blonde?" She squeaked, a quivering note of hope hanging in the air.
"Yeeeees, blonde," Madame Shi repeated agreeably. Sakura wondered if it was really necessary that she keep drawing that word out—it was kind of beginning to get on her nerves, and she didn't have many to spare at the moment.
She could practically hear the last one audibly shredding into flimsy little pieces, as it was.
Madame Shi peered into the crystal ball deeper, forehead scrunching into a thousand wrinkles as she concentrated. "And loud. Quite loud. Your eardrums shall suffer, but your heart shall triumph."
From her doubtful expression, she didn't seem to think this was very much of a bargain. For once, Sakura was in complete agreement.
"I-is that all?" Hinata asked shyly, clearly elated with the fact that her potential true love may well be the boy she'd had an incessant crush on since she was ten (because blonde and loud-mouthed—who else could that have been describing but one Uzumaki Naruto?).
It just goes to show you, Sakura thought dryly, good things do come to those who wait…especially for those who wait nearly eight years for dense, lovable idiots with unwavering loyalty.
The fortuneteller hummed her approbation.
Leaning forwards conspiratorially, Ino whispered to Sakura with a playful grin, "One mission's pay says little Hinata-chan jumps your teammate's bones after this tidbit of gold. They'll be together by the end of this week."
Sakura snorted, arguing back in an undertone, "Please. You're giving Naruto too much credit—even if she showed up stark naked on his doorstep draped in ramen he wouldn't get the fact that the girl's been in love with him since childhood. Two mission's wages says they're not, pig."
"Now for you, my dear," Madame Shi said, mystical tones interrupting the two girls' betting schemes. They both straightened up, Ino rapt with attention and Sakura barely restraining herself from rolling her eyes at the ridiculousness of the entire situation she had allowed herself to be pulled into.
"Me?" Ino asked excitedly, blue eyes shining in anticipation.
Sakura scoffed under her breath. Ino had half the men of Konoha panting at a chance to win a date with her, and the other half lamenting that they were entrapped in pre-established relationships. It was hardly as though the blonde needed an extra push from fate in the area of her love life. Sakura, however, seemed to be in dire need of a giant, two-handed push (rather than the normal helping hand) in regards to her romantic interludes as of late (or lack thereof).
Actually, it was far more likely that Sakura needed a swift kick in the arse from fate in regards to romance, but that sounded rather agonizing.
The fortune teller confirmed Ino's bubbly question with a low, purring murmur, her eyes glazing over as she stared down into her crystal ball once again. Her head drooped forwards, almost onto her chest, and Sakura was momentarily worried that the old lady had finally succumbed to the overpowering incense component of the tent's atmosphere and asphyxiated.
This thought was quickly dispelled when a wobbly, shaky voice emitted from the Madame. "I see…"
"Yes? Yes?"
"I seeeeeeeeeeee…" The old lady hemmed and hawed, passing her wrinkled hand over the rounded glass in front of her for added effect, claw-like nails tapping against it.
Ino was clearly dying from anticipation. Sakura dearly hoped it was an excruciatingly slow, painful death. "What do you see, Madame Shi?"
"Ah. There it is." Madame Shi nodded decisively, pleased at pushing aside the curtains of fate and peering into the window of the future. Or something like that, anyways. "I see…pineapple."
A confused expression sidled onto Ino's face, her eyebrows scrunching together.
"Yes." Madame Shi announced with a pleased look on her withered visage. "Pineapple."
It was too much, far too much—mentally apologizing to her friend, Sakura gave into the unbearable urge and burst out into raucous hoots of laughter. Tenten joined in after a moment and even proper Hinata succumbed to tiny giggles after a difficult attempt at keeping a straight face.
"I-Ino!" She gasped, holding her sides in a futile try of stemming her laughter. "I'd pay good money to see that!"
"Me t-too!" Hinata squeezed out, hands clamped over her mouth to stymie the flow of squeaky mirth.
"S-so would most of the guys in Konoha," Tenten interjected, setting them all off into a helpless bout of wild chortling all over again.
With a sulky scowl, Ino grumbled, "Oh shut up, all of you. Perverts."
"Cheer up, Pig," Sakura snickered in an uncommonly gleeful way, green eyes shining at a fuming Ino. "Maybe it's just some guy who sells fruit."
"Or a farmer?" was the helpful addition from Hinata.
"Or just someone with a kinky appreciation for pineapple," Tenten whooped. "Sure wouldn't envy you that one, Ino."
Judging from her current expression, they would all be lucky if Ino didn't slaughter them all for suggesting such people as her future life mate. Clearly Ino had been expecting a golden description of a rich, handsome, and good-natured man that would elevate her into a position to be envied by other women…and not a simple description of an everyday household fruit. The blonde slumped, sulking and petulant, back into her seat amidst the unrelenting howls of her supposed friends.
"But let not your mirth be in haste," the Madame advised in a distrait voice. Sakura thought it was probably just a polite way of telling them all to shut their pie holes and quit their cackling. "For the fates still have more to reveal…"
Her buggy eyes roved over a still-dreamy Hinata and thunderous Ino to where Tenten was trying valiantly to suppress the remnants of her giggles. "But not for you, my dear," Madame Shi said to Tenten. "For it seems that you have already enraptured the heart of your destined prince, and together been swept into the irrepressible throes of passion."
That served in catching each girl's undivided attention…as well as the fact that Tenten immediately choked on a shocked inhalation of air and had her complexion adopt the intriguing shade of Very-Berry-Red.
"Ehhh?" Ino clapped her hands together, gawking at the brunette with an expression that was one part betrayed and one part proud. "You sly thing—you never said!"
"Tenten-chan," Hinata squeaked. "You mean you're already seeing someone?"
Sakura was silent…not out of consideration for Tenten's mortification, but because she was currently preoccupied with racking her brains for every person of the male persuasion she had witnessed in Tenten's proximity in the past few weeks.
A chagrined mutter came from Tenten's general direction. Sakura blinked, staring hard to ensure that it had actually been Tenten and not Tenten's chair to make the noise.
"What was that, dearie?" Madame Shi queried, cocking her head to the side.
There was an odd groaning noise from Tenten-who-seemed-to-be-trying-very-hard-to-melt-i nto-her-chair. "I said, did you have to put it that way?" Tenten ruefully rubbed the back of her neck, sending an awkward side glance at her salivating friends. "And yeah…I'm kinda with someone."
She fell silent. When it became clear that no further explanation was forthcoming from the weapons' master, Ino prompted impatiently, "And?"
"And…and…and-I'll-tell-you-about-it-later-since-is n't-it-Sakura's-turn-now!"
Sakura stirred at her name, eyes becoming squinty to communicate her clear displeasure at being tossed under the proverbial bus so mercilessly. But Tenten's devious and underhanded plan (very befitting of a shinobi) was efficient at diverting the unwanted attention.
"Oh, yes," Madame Shi said absentmindedly, hands automatically moving to her crystal ball.
"You might want to give this one some extra magic help, Madame," Ino advised the fortuneteller slyly, evidently getting her revenge for Sakura's earlier jibes against her. She flicked her perfectly groomed hair over her shoulder, sending a smug grin at Sakura. "Sakura has the uncanny ability of inadvertently thwarting even the best laid romantic plots."
Unfortunately there were witnesses in the room, and Sakura therefore could not reach over and strangle her best friend.
She couldn't but wince slightly, however, at the semi-truth in Ino's words: each and every date that Ino had tried to set her up on lately in an attempt to rectify her single status had somehow managed to go horribly wrong from nearly the very start.
Sakura was still adamant that it was by no means her fault—all the boys in Konoha were just defective idiots who didn't know a good thing when they saw it.
"Madame Shi's love fortunes never fail," was the dramatic announcement by the bespectacled woman seated before her.
Sakura blinked as the Madame's eyes narrowed, scrutinizing her from pink head to sandal-clad foot.
After a moment, Madame Shi clucked her tongue in pity, shaking her head as if contemplating a massive tragedy. "Well, never fear my dear. Even the most pre-destined of old maids can find love with Madame Shi's aid!"
A wave of incredulity gave Sakura a thorough dousing. Old maid…? The wave of incredulity was quickly followed by a typhoon of pissed off. It was a special brand of pissed off, one that she normally only reserved for Naruto-level acts of stupidity and the days on which her straightening iron unhelpfully decided to be broken.
"I'm not an old maid, lady," she ground out through clenched teeth, struggling to prevent Inner Sakura's ceaseless stream of curses and ranting from escaping.
A sympathetic smile appeared on the old crone's face. "Of course not."
Slightly appeased, Sakura's anger lessened somewhat.
"I merely said that you were pre-destined to become one in the future, not that you were one right now," Madame Shi continued in her faux-mystical voice. "You can't possibly be an old maid at seventeen. Don't you have any simple logic in that pink head of yours, girl?"
The anger came crashing back in full force, bringing with it its best friends 'indignation' and 'irritation'. "Oi, you old bat—!"
Sakura's tirade was prematurely killed off by the impatient shush of Madame Shi, who was now ignoring the bristling teenager in favor of scrutinizing the foggy depths of her crystal ball. "Quiet girl," she ordered with a dismissive flap of the hand in Sakura's direction. "You're disrupting the fragile threads of tempestuous fate that linger fleetingly in the confines of this sacred realm."
Sakura blinked in confusion. "Eh?"
The disparaging look leveled at her by the fortuneteller was not one Sakura, with her perfect Academy grades and quick-thinking mind, was used to being on the receiving end of.
"It means," Madame Shi clarified in what Sakura considered to be a needlessly condescending tone, "That your ungainly loud voice is hindering my concentration."
Her mouth dropped open. "Hey—!"
"Quiet!" The seer thundered, strictly enough that it nearly sent Sakura, student of the Fifth Hokage and most gifted kunoichi of her generation, cowering back into her seat.
"Fine," she said grudgingly. Sakura's face was now a fetching pink to match her hair, an unfortunate side effect of when she grew angry. A small (very, very, very small, mind you) amount of guilt was bubbling up unpleasantly within her as the fortuneteller focused upon the ball and she took in the girlishly anticipative, smiling faces of her friends.
She wasn't self-absorbed enough to deny the fact that she'd been acting rather grumpy and petulant for the entirety of the visit, and even if Sakura couldn't wholly enjoy her time here, she could, at the very least, pretend to not loathe this place with all of the fiery passion she could muster.
After all, she'd been through far, far worse experiences during Team Seven's more memorable missions (she couldn't quite think of any at the moment, but that one time when Naruto and Sasuke had accidentally handed her over to a foreign prince as a harem bride was quite high on the list).
An inaudible little sigh left her lips, and she nodded determinedly to herself. Haruno Sakura, ass-kicker of evil and kunoichi extraordinaire, would absolutely not be defeated by the horrors of Madame Shi's Love Fortunes! Shannaro!
In the back of her mind, she felt her usually dormant inner self give a small cheer of approbation.
Well, it was good to know that at least one person in the tent liked her.
Sakura blinked as the mystic began chanting, her voice spiraling upwards in octaves. "Love fortune, love fortune, come to me / Love fortune, love fortune, let me see /— "
"Wait!"
Madame Shi closed her eyes tightly for a moment as she was interrupted, before cracking one open to glare at Sakura. "Yes?" The word came out hard and scathing, as thought Sakura had committed an unforgivable taboo against the rules of fortunetelling.
Frowning slightly and unaccountably nervous, Sakura said, "You didn't do that for the others."
"Do what?"
Feeling foolish, she clarified, "Chant."
Sniffing haughtily and surveying the pinkette with yet another 'what an idiot' look that seemed to be specially reserved for her today, Madame Shi smiled without any real warmth. "Of course, dearie. The others here aren't nearly as hopeless in their romances as you seem to be." Ignoring Sakura's cringe, she turned back to the ball. "I figured the fates could use some extra help with finding your destined love. Now, if you please, I'll continue."
Sakura sighed, running a hand absentmindedly through her pink hair. "Right."
Despite the struggle, Sakura managed to bite her tongue and withhold all of the snide comments that might have emerged otherwise. Instead, she opted to remain silent as Madame Shi muttered to herself and poked at the crystal ball.
Sakura couldn't quite help the small seed of worry that sprouted when the old lady swore and resorted to delivering a hearty smack to the glass sphere in front of her, grumbling something under her breath about hopeless cases.
However, Sakura only felt that seed of worry bloom into a full on flower of discomfiture when a gleeful exclamation of success slipped from Madame Shi. Finding out that she was incompatible with any living male was one thing, but what if her supposed love was an absolutely hideous, perverted troll with a beer belly?
Urgh. Sakura gave a delicate shiver.
Of course, not that she believed any of this drivel, she hastily amended inside her head. But no girl wanted to be told that her future may or may not hold a pot-bellied louse with Jiraiya-sama's personality.
"Oh my!" A gasp slipped from Madame Shi's lips, which were rapidly curving upwards in a self-satisfied gesture of victory. "At last, I have pried your future from Fate's tight-fisted grip!"
And really, who knew Fate was apparently such a miserly bastard?
Sakura, in keeping with her former resolution to go along with this whole silly little scenario, stayed quiet and suffered dutifully through Madame Shi's routine of excited dramatics.
"Your true love is tall in stature…"
Sakura nodded blandly.
"Dark hair…"
She nodded again, interested despite herself. She had always had a thing for dark-haired guys. It had been her primary interest in Sasuke as children (along with his undeniably pretty face), before she had matured and discovered that silky hair and a handsome nose did not always guarantee a stellar personality.
Still though, dark hair…
An unwilling spark of eagerness kindled inside as the fortuneteller studied the glass ball silently. Another second later and Madame Shi smiled triumphantly, raising her head to grin toothily at a reluctantly intrigued Sakura.
"And good looks." Madame Shi abruptly fell silent, leaning back leisurely in her chair and regarding Sakura with the satisfied look of one expecting thanks and adulation.
Unfortunately for her, Sakura felt no such inclination to give anything of the sort.
The pink-haired girl blankly stared at her for a few quiet moments with a rare, dumbstruck expression on her face, before sounding out slowly, "Let me get this right: you're saying that my one true love is tall…dark…and handsome?"
The fortuneteller appeared to think for a minute, and then ducked her head in the affirmative. "Yes."
"That's it?" Sakura asked disbelievingly.
"Mmhmm."
"No first name? No last name? Not even a middle initial?"
Madame Shi hacked and coughed out a good laugh at that. "My crystal ball's not a phonebook, pinky."
Now that there was a satisfying weight to her pay box and her little sideshow was over, Madame Shi seemed content to abandon the faux air of omniscient mysticism she'd paraded about earlier.
"You do realize that description's incredibly vague, and could apply to about five hundred guys in Konoha alone," Sakura scowled, her tone darkening ominously.
The other girls nervously noted that Sakura was beginning to adopt that certain look she usually got just before clobbering Naruto or Sasuke for something particularly stupid (in other words, it was a look that was a daily fixture on Sakura's face, and was therefore quite well known).
The mystic frowned pensively, crooked fingers lifting to tap thoughtfully against her wrinkled chin. "Yes, I do see the potential problem there…"
Sakura's eye twitched in annoyance.
Ino, Hinata, and Tenten wisely edged their chairs slightly away from the kunoichi, all of them thinking that for someone who had so resisted coming into this place, Sakura was sure getting into it.
With a low, deadly voice, Sakura repeated, "Potential problem? Potential problem? What if I accidentally grab the other tall, dark, and handsome guy standing next to my tall, dark, and handsome true freakin' love! And what if I marry the tall, dark, and handsome imposter, and have kids with him and wind up miserably unhappy, and then forty years down the road go 'Oops! Dammit, I knew I should have taken the other tall, dark, and handsome one!' See the freakin' problem?" Her rant ended on a shrieking note, reaching a decibel that made them all wince.
Taking control of the situation, Ino reached up and yanked her seething friend down, patting her comfortingly on the hand. "Breathe, Sakura," she reminded her unhelpfully, ignoring the baleful glare the pinkette shot her.
Irritably shaking her hand loose from her fussing friend, Sakura leveled the fortuneteller with a intense look. "I want a refund."
Looking distinctly nervous, Madame Shi laughed hesitantly. "Ahaha, sorry, no refunds girly. Says so on the sign outside."
"Then," Sakura said through clenched teeth, absolutely forgetting that she didn't believe in any of this hokey crystal ball business. "Look into your stupid crystal ball again and be more specific this time."
Because Sakura would be damned if she screwed up this chance at cat-lady-future avoidance that had been served up to her.
A distinct droplet of sweat rolled down the fortuneteller's creased forehead. "Ehehehe, the fates don't work like that dearie," she stalled nervously, now copying the other girls and scooting, inch-by-inch, away from the dark aura that was emanating from the pink-haired teen. She looked as though she were seconds away from throwing a handful of mystical powder into Sakura's face and shouting 'Demon, begone!'
Given the supernaturally frightening aura emanating from Sakura at the moment, the chances were fair that it might have actually worked. Although whether the fortuneteller would have succeeded in banishing Sakura to another dimension before the slight girl managed to bring down the tent with one well-placed, earth-shattering punch was up for contention.
Perhaps sensing that Sakura was about to embark on another shouting tirade (because really, one didn't need mystical powers of perception to see the angry quirk to her mouth and the rapid reddening of her cheeks), Madame Shi quickly raised her hands in the universal motion of placation. "I can, however, impart one other little detail that was revealed to me."
Sakura's hard gaze was unrelenting. "And that would be?"
A strange, knowing little smile that somehow seemed hundreds of times more eerily sincere than all of the dazed humming and flashy tones crept along the old crone's face. "Why, that the man I foresaw to be your soul mate is already hopelessly in love with you, dearie."
Sakura's mouth dropped open in surprise, as did Ino's only a second after.
Summing up Sakura's surprised thoughts in one fell swoop, Ino disbelievingly blurted, "Hah! You're telling me that there's a guy out there pining after Sakura?"
It was the skepticism that efficiently snapped her temper back in place.
"Oi!" Sakura barked. "Don't go making that sound as though it's so impossible, Pig!"
"Yeah, but look at your chest, Forehead…hard to believe anyone's yearning after that tiny thing…"
"That's because most normal people look at qualities beyond the physical, you—"
"Aaaannnnnd that's enough," Tenten announced with a determined air of cheer about her. In a moment of déjà vu, she firmly clamped her hands around Sakura's shoulders and steered her towards the tent door. Behind her, Hinata was doing the same with a protesting Ino. "Thanks very much for your time today, Madame Shi."
"Y-yes, thank you!"
Sakura was about to supplement Hinata's farewell with her own special brand of goodbye to the wily smirking old lady (which would have involved a few choice words about her bloody tight-lipped fates and atrocious taste in decoration) but was hauled outside before she could do it justice.
As usual, Ino followed her personal philosophy of grabbing the bull by the horns, of seizing the day, of taking what life had to offer, making lemons from lemonade…
…or in other words, scrambling for the irresistibly juicy chance of interfering with Sakura's romantic life when it was offered to her on a silver platter.
"I call dibs, Forehead," Ino announced almost immediately after their emergence back into the crowded fairgrounds.
Tenten and Hinata, the former hastening to leave before she could be interrogated about a not-so-secret-anymore relationship and the latter eager to seek out a certain blonde, had melted into the throng of cotton-candy nibbling bodies only a second before.
Sakura, who was already feeling disoriented after inhaling what she was sure was a few hundred gallons in incense fumes, only had her senses further distorted by the vast increase in noisy chatter and the metallic grind of fair rides that the fortuneteller's abode had done a fair job in stemming. Therefore, she didn't quite understand what the blonde was going on about now.
"Guh…?" was the most intelligent thing she had to offer on the subject at the moment.
Ino's nose scrunched up disapprovingly. As the sole daughter of two very doting parents, being ignored was not something she accepted with grace. "Dibs," she repeated, enunciating the word as much as one could with something that contained only a single syllable. "On saving you from this travesty of a social life you're mired in. No offense, Sakura, but a little help from the Fates isn't going to cut it with you."
It was probably the subsequent consolatory click of the tongue that snapped Sakura out of her daze.
"I don't need any magical help from fate in finding a boyfriend, Pig," Sakura sighed, placing a hand against her throbbing forehead. "And for that matter, I don't need any help from you. We all know how that unfailingly goes."
An indignant gasp (which, as emitted from Ino, was really more like a screech) skipped through the air and gleefully joined Sakura's already mounting headache. "I resent that! Name a single instance where anyone I've set you up with hasn't been a complete success—"
"Kenshiro the Creeper," Sakura interrupted brusquely, not even bothering to remove her hand to look at Ino.
There was a gratifyingly sheepish silence. Then Ino relented. "Fine. I'll give you that one. But I didn't know he was into stuff like that, I swear! And that was one time!"
"Grabby Gin."
"Oh yeah…kinda forgot about that guy. But remember, you did give him that lovely smack handprint on his face to match the one he tried to give your butt..."
"Hajime the Hooker."
"…it's really weird how you find all those perfectly alliterative names for these guys, you know that? And again, I apologized for that already! He seemed perfectly nice!"
Sakura snorted. "Nice. Sure. And let's not forget to add Randy Riku. Remember him, Ino?"
There was a moment of quiet as both girls reflected on that particular blind date, as well as the sad fate of Randy Riku.
That boy had learned the hard way that Haruno Sakura did not suffer males who tried to make it to second base with her on the first date.
"And I've got plenty more to choose from, Ino," Sakura told her wearily, almost flinching at all of the men Ino had introduced to Sakura with the intent of them becoming her destined love.
How Ino could unwittingly select, out of all the possible male inhabitants of Konoha, the worst of the bunch as boyfriend candidates was honestly beyond Sakura's comprehension.
"Alright, alright." Ino's expression was stingily conceding, before it smoothed out into a bright optimism that was uncannily reminiscent of Naruto's I'm-gonna-become-Hokage-dattebayo face. "But I tell you what. I'm going to head home right this instant, and draw up the most kick-ass list of fitting acquaintances who just might be your future husband. No male hookers this time, I promise."
And just like that, Ino's plan was the knife that severed the fraying thread of Sakura's patience.
"No!" Sakura ground out finally, green eyes radiating fire as her gaze shot to Ino. "No, no, no! No, I don't want a boyfriend. No, I don't want you to find me a boyfriend. I'm happy being single and free, without the drudgery of having someone around to hog the bedsheets or put his stinky feet on my clean coffee table in my blessedly male-free livingfroom!"
With a dramatic turn of the heel, Sakura prepared to theatrically storm off. "So screw the list, and damn all men! I'll stick with the cats, for all I care!"
Unfortunately, due to the way her life had been proceeding as of late, what happened next should have been completely expected.
Sakura took one step in her self-righteous exit…
…and ran smack dab into what felt to be a hard wall.
A really, really hard wall.
Why the hell would there be a wall in the middle of a field?
One agonized groan later and a cautious probing to ensure that her nose wasn't broken, and Sakura tilted her head up to discover exactly what she had just collided with.
She also opened her mouth to deliver a lecture on idiots who couldn't watch where they were going, regardless of the fact that she herself had been preoccupied with matters besides keeping careful watch of where she was headed.
But the words were abruptly stilled on her coiled tongue, because it seemed that Sakura was once again the butt of a giant cosmic joke.
She gave one bleary blink as she stared blankly at the 'wall' she had unceremoniously slammed into.
Tall.
Dark.
Unfairly handsome.
Definitely not a wall.
100% not in love with her.
Definitely uncertain as to how long he had been there and how much of her little tirade he had been privy to.
"I apologize for my collective gender, Sakura." Uchiha Itachi's eyes were glittering with amusement, undermining the otherwise immaculate composure of his expression. "But I assure you, I have never once stolen my partner's sheets nor put my feet onto any inappropriate surfaces."
Of-freakin'-course. Well, that answered the question of how much the man had heard.
"Hello, Captain," Sakura said resignedly, already detecting a telltale, warm sensation stealing along her cheeks. Ah, how she dearly loved the feel of complete and utter humiliation. "What a coincidence."
So preoccupied with wanting to just dig herself a nice little hole in the ground and burrow into it so as to escape the day's woes, Sakura almost missed Ino's parting shout.
And when she said 'almost', what Sakura actually meant was that there was absolutely no way in hell that anyone in a ten mile radius, including Uchiha Itachi, could have been ignorant to Ino's deafening yell.
A yell that went something like this:
"Bye, Sakura! I'm heading right now to work on your list of tall, dark, and handsome potential boyfriends! Don't you worry—I'll never let you become a crazy old cat lady!"
And it was then, surrounded by chortling fairgoers and her quietly observing Captain, that Sakura heartily cursed Orochimaru and his Sound lackeys for not choosing that exact moment to invade.
DecidedlyPositive ACTUALLY POSTED SOMETHING? WHAT? I know, I'm just as surprised :P This story is really just a writing exercise to try and get my Naruto/ItaSaku juices flowing again.
Although, really, Road to Ninja did a pretty good job of reigniting my love for ItaSaku. Did anyone else watch Road to Ninja yet? I swear to god, nothing can convince me that the people who made that movie aren't rabid ItaSaku shippers with all the disgustingly adorable touchy-feely scenes we got between them (ITASAKU WAS CANON FOR A SHININGLY BRIEF MOMENT...sort of). I sat down and wrote this because that movie just made me keel over from feelings.
Anyways, I'm really just trying to ease myself back into writing with something short and fun. I'm probably going to just make this a two-shot. I also realize that I've made Sakura's personality in this the take-no-crap kind: this sort of stems from her recently awesome kickass-ness in the manga that makes me weep tears of feminist joy.
I love all my readers, and sincerely apologize for my ridiculously long, university-inflicted absence from the ItaSaku writing scene. All of the reviews, the private messages, the encouragement...it all really means a lot to me. Thanks, guys.