MUFFIN MAN
Dedicated to a certain special someone for his birthday (who has certain tendencies towards liking yuri) ;D
I haven't seen the series in awhile; much less Sakura an Ino's interaction, so I don't care if someone points out how OOC I made them in some point of the story.
I just wrote this for my boyfriend and his yuri-infested mind. SASUNARU FTW. –dodges tomato-
This isn't my style, isn't my pairing, isn't my fetish. This fic was extremely problematic for my abilities and preferences but I forced myself to write out of my comfort zone [and knowledge] for him. Consider the quality, people!
I agreed to write SakuIno because I view it as a little bit canon, it's very possible Sakura and Ino only liked the idea of being with Sasuke and were mostly drawn to the attention the other girl gave her. [though I didn't fully believe it, I kindof do now out of writing this fic. Rofl]
After re-watching the chuunin fight between Sakura and Ino, I must say: Wen, I now understand why you pair these two together and what goes through your head when you watch these episodes. And I must say, you never fail to stay true to your perverted nature. I believe you're my equal~
Thanks to the people in my summertime history class that pressured and threatened me to write. I almost changed my deadline to Wen's seventeenth birthday instead. [Though I'm still late and I didn't want to be –SOBS-] They got me through the first chapter. And my load of homework from my school got me to write the next five(:
DISCLAIMER: If I owned Naruto, I would have noticed the downhill progression of the quality long ago and have done something to FIX IT.
CHAPTER ONE.
Sakura had agreed to go to the market for her busy mother. The sale on radishes could not wait, after all. But that didn't mean she couldn't visit the other shops in the marketplace as well. Her life after the ninja academy was much more chaotic what with training, her new team, and recently, the chuunin exams. It wasn't everyday she got to casually browse shops and marvel over the trinkets she would find there.
Jeweled hair clips caught her eye in one shop, just as the shelves of kunai did in another. (1) And after she had bought as much radishes as her mother asked for (as well as some celery to go with it) (2) she began wandering aimlessly around the streets of Konoha. She thought of nothing really important, but pondered on the intense battle against Ino that just went under.
She knew the day would come where they'd face off, but she didn't think she was ready to seriously fight at that time. The real ninja world was still new to her. It wasn't that she doubted her physical abilities to beat Ino to a bloody pulp, it was just that she didn't think she was mentally prepared to deny her rival a deserved promotion to chunnin or take down the girl who taught her so much, so soon. Ino was her friend, and needed to have the same opportunities she did, that way it's more satisfying when Sakura defeats the pig. Those were most definitely the only reasons why she didn't want to fight Ino today. That's it.
Come to think of it, it was Ino who indirectly pushed her forward. She trained so hard to be the best that she could be. She knew she was capable of anything, because Ino gave her the confidence to believe that. Anything she said affected her. She loved when they fought. She loved that special attention they only gave each other. And she hated it when she, of all people, underestimated her.
Tenten was right. They had buried their past civility under their constant bickering and eventually created an unstable foundation. They were ready to collapse at any little stone thrown at them. They forcibly tried to forget…but something so strong could not be forgotten or extinguished, no matter how long ago it was. Naturally, this past was not successfully swallowed and it exploded all over the concrete floor as soon as it was prodded. That ground served as a battlefield to settle a never-ending rivalry and an extractor of old, painful, lost memories.
She lazily wandered her way through Konoha without direction, composed on the outside but struggling to dispel the agitation brewing within her on the inside. Because if she lost control over it, it would force itself up and out of her throat and drown her. She stopped in her tracks and glanced around, carefully breathing in the calm everyday life of fire country civilians. (3) How nonchalantly and freely they spent their days. Just sometimes, Sakura wished she could live without the complications her life presented her. Or rather, the complications Ino created in her life.
She remembered admiring Ino to no end when she was little, and she realized that that had not changed much as the years passed.
But as she was wrestling with these foreign feelings, the patter of her footsteps ceased at the foot of three stone steps. Usually small and insignificant, Ino's doorstep suddenly seemed tall and overwhelming to Sakura. Whether from stubborn persistence or the growing desire to simply see Ino (to laugh with her or to pull her hair, she did not know) she planted herself on the stone, in between the bonsai plant and the steps. It didn't matter what brought her there, but she did know that it was Ino's fault she was feeling so puzzled. Sakura resolved to get answers. And she could remain there until nightfall if she damn wanted to.
Ino's heart caught in her throat and her head spun. Her vision kept swirling and swirling into purple and yellow colors. (4) The protruding presence of it drove her absolutely mad. She swallowed nonexistent saliva and popped her eardrums. The ringing in her ears became rhythmus, and then it morphed into her own erratic heartbeat. The noise became screams, laughs, accusations, statements laced with a female voice. Oh was it deafening. She felt each pound of her head—itching her to get out, just leave and get rid of it! Her migraine continued to scream inside her head.
She couldn't calm her senses and she couldn't control what was going on in her head. If only Sakura would stop eliciting delicate whispers inside her mind. If only Sakura would stop her damn laughing. Stop her incessant, friendly, cute laugh.
And all she could see when she closed her eyes was Sakura's smiling face and twinkling eyes—suggesting peace and friendship but at the same time promising to never surrender. Like hell either of them was going to step down from their competition.
It frightened her. She didn't understand why Sakura decided to entangle herself in Ino's conscious, or why it made her heart skip beats whenever she dwelled on the blossom girl. But she couldn't shy away from those rosy cheeks or the way indignation would rise on the girl's face whenever Ino would tease or provoke her. Or the image of the steady rise and fall of her chest as she slept peacefully after the fight between the two. Or the perfect way her pink hair rested majestically on her shoulders.
Ino was breathing heavily now. Ino was always a confident person. Always very sure of herself and always in control. But the mere fleeting thought that perhaps her feelings for Sakura were deeper than she originally intended gave her a splitting headache. And if things continued to spin and mix inside her, she would pass out.
So she let the memories play their pictures and began to reminisce about each one.
Sakura was tough enough to realize she didn't need Ino anymore. Hell, she was smart; she must've also come to the conclusion that it wouldn't benefit her to stay friends. It nearly broke Ino's heart when she was notified of this. Sakura was the first friend she had that had been gentle and kind. Bashful, but real and definitely a nice companion. She had developed such fond feelings for the girl.
And of course they were still friends; she wasn't ignorant to the laughs they frequently shared together. But Ino couldn't be satisfied with only that anymore. They once had more, and damnit, they were going to get it back. Though this time, Ino would cease the opportunity to make Sakura forever hers.
…Oh.
That must've been it. Ino liked her. She liked her a lot. She liked her more than Sasuke. When Ino was young, she had always admired the cute, shy little girl that was Sakura. She adored the naiveté. And she destroyed it so that that girl could make it in their lethal world. Because of Ino, Sakura became the strong, fiery young woman she was today. She really does believe she bloomed into a more beautiful flower than a cosmos.
She chuckled to herself. Well if she were a cosmos and a cosmos was known as a cherry blossom in the fall, she and Sakura were more alike than she thought.
She would never find another boy OR girl quite like Sakura, and she knew it. Ino couldn't allow the opportunity for her to get away—couldn't make the same mistake again. She could not let alone such a brilliant connection. Nor could she pass up her probable only chance to live. (5)
She needed to get out. She needed to tell Sakura how she felt and make things better like before. Ino did not want to lose her again. Their outpour of old feelings during their fight just encouraged the fact that it wasn't over—they still had a chance. So she ran. Ran out of her bedroom and down the stairs, eager to make Sakura smile again. Her heart raced and urged her ahead, yet she stopped dead in her tracks just as she swung open the front door and found Sakura sitting on her doorstep.
(1) OH! Shows how she is torn; she is a becoming ninja and fascinated with that world but still a girl fascinated by cute knick-knacks!
(2) this part made me laugh while writing it.
(3) wrote this in history class. Rofl.
(4) this is what happened before I fainted! :D I saw purple and yellow swirling and swirling around my callous and then I don't remember anything after that :O
(5) she's a teenage girl, is she not? She'd be a little dramatic in her crush-realizations