A Friend

Author: AnimaAmore

Characters: Ino Yamanaka & Sakura Haruno (main)

Genres: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Drama

Summary: After Sakura finds out a horrible truth about her relationship with Sasuke, her boyfriend, Ino realizes what it means to be a friend and both girls realize the true value of friendship.

Type of FanFic: One-shot, High school AU

Rating: T for swearing and drama, some references

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto. The plot of this story, however, is mine.

Author Comments: I don't dislike Sasuke or other characters that are portrayed as "evil" here. I just need bad guys and they were the best choice. Just making it clear. And this is my first one-shot so please be brutally honest if you need to. Just don't be a jerk about it.

Sakura Haruno was excited. Tomorrow was Sasuke-kun's birthday, and it was the first time they would celebrate such an event as a couple.

The bright-eyed, pink-haired girl was giddy with happiness. Love would do that to a girl, especially if she was head-over-heels for a guy like she was over Sasuke. She still sometimes had difficulty believing that Sasuke, the Sasuke Uchiha, had reciprocated her feelings for him, out of the hundreds of girls that so proudly called themselves his fan club, much to his annoyance. What made his birthday all the more special was that it also was their two-month anniversary, but she'd never tell him that. It was too cliché, and she was happy just knowing that little bit of coincidence. She was sure it was a sign of good luck.

"Hey, Sakura… Hell-looo, is anyone there? Earth to Sakura!" the girl sitting beside Sakura said, knocking the pinkette softly on the forehead to get her attention. "You know, it's really weird when you space out. You drool. Not cool, girl. What would Sasuke think?"

"Ino!" Sakura said, turning her head to glance at her best friend since childhood, Ino Yamanaka. Ino and Sakura were very different in looks, with the former having baby-blue eyes and long, luscious blond hair while the latter had short layered pink hair and eyes often compared to a pair of emeralds; but aside from their outside appearances they were two peas in a pod. "I do not drool. Do I?" she asked quickly, lifting her fist to the corners of her mouth and wiping uncertainly.

Ino chuckled, shaking her head as she leaned back on her wooden chair in the outdoor market's food court. "I was just teasing you, Sakura. You were simply spaced out and I had to get you out of it. However, I really wasn't kidding when I said you look weird when you do that."

"Weird good or weird bad?"

"It depends on what you're thinking. If it's something good, you just look goofy. If it's something bad, you look constipated."

"Hey!" Sakura protested, but Ino was already laughing. Sakura stared at her friend for awhile before she herself cracked a smile which escalated to some giggles before becoming a merry laugh that went along harmoniously with the blonde's.

After both girls had recuperated from their humor, they stood up and threw their food into the garbage, placing their trays on top. "So what are you looking for again?" Ino asked her friend as they walked into the dry produce section, Sakura grabbing a red plastic basket without pausing.

"I'm looking for the ingredients to make a cake for Sasuke-kun!" Sakura chirped. "It's his birthday tomorrow and I want to surprise him."

"So you're just going to show up at school with a mega cake and place it in front of Sasuke and then sing 'Happy Birthday to You' at the top of your lungs so the whole school population can hear you?"

Sakura's cheeks reddened momentarily. The thought had crossed her mind. She shook her head instead, saying, "I was going for something a little more private and a little less embarrassing. Last time I sang that loudly I went waay off key; plus Sasuke doesn't really like attention."

Ino shrugged, turning her head to inspect a bag of vanilla-blueberry-cranberry muffin mix. "Could've fooled me." Before Sasuke had asked Sakura out, Ino had had a crush on the pale, raven-haired boy with the dark, smoldering eyes that seemed indefinitely deep. However, after she met a lazy but undeniably smart boy named Shikamaru, her affection had switched. Not only that, but she also saw him with a red-haired, foul-mouthed girl named Karin who was a year above them. She didn't like Karin; never had never would. At first she had figured that it was because Sasuke was nice to not separate people, but once she had had an actual conversation with Sasuke, she didn't like the cold feeling his stoic responses and cold body language gave her. And her senses were never wrong.

Sakura pinched Ino. "Be nice," she scolded while Ino rubbed her arm and checked it for bruising. Sakura may look like a fairy, but she was impossibly strong. Just ask Kisame Hoshigaki, the school's top wrestler who'd won several gold medals at wrestling and was being scouted by several world-famous universities and colleges for his talent on the mat. The 6' 7", 227 lbs boy had spilled Sakura's iced tea on her while horsing around with his friends, and the pink-haired girl was not amused when he laughed instead of apologizing. She challenged Kisame to an arm wrestling match and won…

Five times. The blue-haired boy (his hair was natural like Sakura's) had demanded four more rematches saying that he was going easy on her because she was a girl. After his shameful loss, Kisame held a grudge which eventually dissolved into an easy, albeit somewhat distant, friendship. He admired her for her courage and strength, which are two of the few things he respected in life.

"So what kind of cake are you making?" Ino asked her friend while the girl paid for her purchases at the cash register.

"Red velvet-vanilla marble cake with dark chocolate frosting and bits of peppermint."

"Damn. I hope you're making more than one cake, because that sounds heavenly."

"Don't worry, Pig, I'll make sure you get your ration."

"You better," grinned Ino, taking one of the two bags filled with groceries from the cashier's counter. "And that Sasuke better appreciate what you're doing. I know he isn't overly fond of sweet things, but the cake you have in mind is out-of-this world. Plus it's made with looove." The blonde winked at her friend while the latter blushed at the way her companion had said the 'l' word so cheekily.

"I'm sure he'll eat it. He's eaten everything I've made, sweet or not, just to show that he supports me," Sakura said, loading her bag into the back of Ino's car.

"Yeah, I know," Ino answered her, copying her. "I was just pulling your leg, Sakura. Of course he'll eat it; down to the last crumb. He loves you too much to waste anything you made, especially if it's made just for him." And she closed the car's trunk before taking her place behind the wheel; her ecstatic friend holding a perfect cheesy grin on her face as she sat beside her.

"Ugh, that was murder." Ino sighed dramatically as she leaned against her locker, her forehead touching the cool green metal.

"If you stay like that, your forehead will get as big as mine," Sakura teased as she took her work books out of her bag and placed them into her beige locker.

"Then at least I'd be as smart as you and wouldn't have to suffer like this." Sakura chuckled quietly, and Ino couldn't help but let the corner of her mouth twitch the slightest bit upwards.

"You do realize it's your fault you failed that quiz, right?" Sakura continued, stuffing her way too big bag into the little space left in her locker. "I mean, you could have at least taken a look at what Mr. Gai was talking about."

"I would have, but that horrid green shirt with matching pants kept me away from anything green, like our text book, which coincidentally is the same green as his socks." She shuddered for effect.

"You've seen Mr. Gai's socks?" Sakura raised an eyebrow at her blonde friend.

"Well, technically no; and truthfully I'd rather not. But I bet you anything his socks are the same color as the picture on our text book cover. Plus even if I could get past the color, you got to admit, Mr. Gai is waay too enthusiastic in what he teaches."

"Isn't that what makes him a good teacher?"

"Not when you can't read a book without hearing his voice in your head reading the words out to you; including the sound effects and cries of 'youth!' he's so fond of."

"You read?" The green-eyed girl ducked, laughing as her life-long friend took a playful swing at her.

"Don't you start with me, Haruno," Ino growled teasingly at the still giggling girl. "Let's change topics, shall we? It's lunch time, so methinks it is time to carry out Operation Birthday Cake/Boy!"

"'Operation Birthday Cake/Boy'? Since when is giving someone a little gift on their birthday something grand enough to dub it an operation?"

"You know what, Sakura? You ask too many questions. Just grab the cake and lets go find Sasuke; else I'll eat that cake and he can eat mine another day."

Sakura laughed again at her friend. She was thankful, not for the first time, that Ino was her friend, and one that had been with her her whole life. Obediently she gingerly took out the 4x8x4 inch cake, which was in a cute little white box, and her own lunch before closing her locker with a tap from her hip, and securing it with her lock. She hooked her right arm with Ino's left, and smiling went in search of her boyfriend.

He wasn't in the lunch room, but that truly wasn't a surprise. He was a bit of a loner; he preferred quiet places and the school cafeteria on a Friday was not a quiet place. He wasn't in the library. Being as introverted as he was, he quite enjoyed reading like his older brother, Itachi, and Sakura; which is something the pink-haired girl was happy that that was something they had in common. He wasn't in the gym, playing basketball with his friends as he sometimes liked to do, nor was he outside where he liked to be alone with his thoughts.

The girls decided they wouldn't find him in his usual places, so they decided to scan the whole school for him. They stopped in the art room, the music room, the lab rooms, the field, the stands, several classrooms and even asked Sasuke's best friend, Naruto, a sapphire-eyed boy with dark spiky blonde hair and a foxy grin, to go into the boy's bathrooms to see if he was there after he told them he didn't know where the raven-haired boy was.

As if playing that tedious game of cat-and-mouse wasn't enough, they came upon the odious Karin, who was smoking on top of a new, shinny car. Probably her daddy got it for her so she could hook guys like she likes to. Whore, though Ino dryly. "What's this? Lost your precious Sasuke-kun, Sakura?" Karin sneered when she saw the girls.

"Fuck off, Karin," Ino snapped back. Karin just grinned sickeningly at them before she took another puff of her cigarette, ignoring and snickering in a disturbing way as the two friends went back into the school and headed for the lunch room.

"This is ridiculous," huffed a very annoyed Ino Yamanaka, sitting down among her and Sakura's friends at their table. "Where the hell is he?"

"He should still be in school. He rarely goes out of the school grounds for lunch, and when he does he lets me know," Sakura said, a little disappointed that she hadn't been able to find him.

"W-well, eat something before you g-go looking for him again," suggested Hinata Hyuga, one of Ino and Sakura's friends who was a dark-haired beauty with striking pale lavender eyes that made most people think she was blind when in fact she had the eyes of a hawk. She was a bit shy, thus the stuttering, but you couldn't find a gentler soul anywhere else on the planet.

"I agree," said Ino. "I'm hungry, and I'm tired, and my patience is wearing thin. I need to get my blood sugar up. And you too," she added quickly as Sakura began to open her mouth, already knowing what she was going to say. "I want to be there when you give it to him; plus you know better than to go for more than four hours without eating."

"But I did eat something. I had an oatmeal-raisin cookie, with some water."

"That's a snack to get you by until your next meal, which is now," sighed Tenten, a tomboyish girl with her unique brown hair held in two twin Chinese buns on her head. "You don't have to eat all of your lunch right now, but eat at least half of it," she said as Ino opened her brown paper bag and took out a plastic container filled with Caesar salad and a plastic fork. "Don't argue with us, Sakura. We still have thirty minutes until lunch is over; that's plenty of time to have our lunch and find Sasuke."

Sakura pouted, but silently nodded and placed the cake box carefully on the table and opening her lunch bag, taking out a bag of cut apples and a small individual-sized chicken pie. "I guess you're right," she said to her friends.

"Honey," Ino smiled after she swallowed a crouton, "we're always right."

The four girls ate their lunch cheerfully, chatting away about their days and random, comical things such as what Ino had said earlier about Mr. Gai and his socks. That caused quite a loud amount of hoots and laughs. After a few more minutes, Hinata excused herself, saying she had promised to help her little sister Hanabi with her homework, and Tenten was off to meet with Coach Anko for new strategies for the girl's basketball team, leaving Ino and Sakura to resume their quest.

"Lets check the exits," Sakura suggested as she threw her can of pop in the recycling bin. "If Sasuke-kun wasn't in any of the places we checked before, he won't be now. Maybe he went out and just got back." Ino agreed, and they headed for the nearest exit after grabbing the little cake.

They checked two of the five school entrances before Sakura had to go to the ladies' room, which was on the second floor because the one on the first floor was full. Ino waited patiently for her friend, looking out the window, somewhat bored as she sat on the stairs beside the bathrooms. However, she heard voices at the bottom of the stairs, a boy and a girl talking in hushed tones. The girl's whispers sounded more like hissing, while the boy just sounded annoyed; even strained.

Ino looked back at the bathroom door, before returning her attention to the stairs. Curious, she slowly got up and quietly walked down the steps, peeking over the handlebar at the second flight of stairs that connected to the one she was on. She saw a shock of spiky jet-black hair, and the outline of the boy she and Sakura had been hunting for: Sasuke Uchiha. But who was he talking to, and why did he sound so annoyed? She inched closer, squatting by the steps so she could remain concealed and still be able to listen better.

"You listen here, Uchiha," the female voice all but spat. "We had a deal, and I'm not about to be upstaged by you or that little bitch."

"She's not a bitch," Sasuke growled quietly, his voice low and losing its patience. "You are."

"Very cute, Uchiha," the girl snarled. "Yet you forget that currently I hold power over you. It's very stupid to provoke me."

"Hn. And it's also very stupid to provoke an Uchiha."

To say that Ino was surprised was an understatement. The Sasuke she knew was very calm and always collected to the point were he sometimes seemed either aloof or indifferent, even though Sakura claimed otherwise. This was the first time she had heard him sound so angry and frustrated, even though she could tell only because she was paying such close attention to them and her excellent ear caught on to the undertones in his voice. She figured that if anyone else heard them, they wouldn't be able to tell Sasuke's feelings since he hid them so well.

"Listen Karin," Sasuke continued through a tightly clenched jaw, and Ino snapped her mouth shut to prevent a gasp from escaping her. So that's who it was! "I don't like you, you know I don't like you, and I know you're only using me for your sick, twisted games. I made a very unfortunate mistake, which much to my misery you witnessed and decided to use to your advantage, but I warn you, you messed with the wrong person. I am an Uchiha, and our honor is almost sacred to us. As soon as I finish my end of this miserable deal I made with you," he stepped closer to the red-head, his voice so low, cold and so utterly menacing that Ino's perfect blonde hair stood on end as goose bumps danced across her skin all the way from her neck to her back and arms. "I will personally have my most gruesome, most painful revenge upon you."

Karin said nothing for what seemed a long time, and Ino figured she was scared stiff. She couldn't blame her, really. Sasuke's threat was positively deadly, and it was no secret that he had the means to carry out his promise – which it was. He hadn't threatened Karin, he had promised her vengeance.

Finally, Karin spoke. "I was aware of that since this little plan of mine came to mind, Sasuke." Ino nearly choked. Since when did Karin call Sasuke by his first name? Hell, since when did he allow her to? "But until you carry out your pitiful revenge, I will see that everything is done as I want it to, and I will enjoy every second of it."

Sasuke snorted, and backed away, his body language screaming his disgust of her. "Just remember that I only do this because you're blackmailing me; not because I want to. Frankly, I abhor you and would shed no tears should you die."

"I know that, Sasuke-kun," Karin chirped, and Ino almost threw up. It was sickening to hear Karin address Sasuke the same way Sakura did. "However, you are mine. You've always been mine; it just took an underhanded method for you to be aware of that."

Sasuke said nothing, but his hateful gaze seemed to skewer Karin all the way right down to her rotten soul though she merely smiled at him. "Be a good boy now, Sasuke-kun," she purred as she stepped closer to him, her arms snaking around his neck. Sasuke's fists clenched until his knuckles turned white, but otherwise did nothing. "Go break up with that pink-haired bitch, in the most public, most humiliating way possible. Oh, and don't forget to 'accidentally' slip some little white lies about her." She dug her nails into her shoulders, her voice rough and forced. "I want her reputation completely destroyed!"

Ino couldn't take it. She had heard enough. She turned her head away and scooted as far as she could from the railing. So that's what was going on! Karin had despised Sakura from the very beginning. Sakura was pure, innocent and well beloved by everyone in the school, while Karin was the most despised and scorned. Karin probably even saw Sakura as a rival (because she believed herself queen of the school) before she saw her as the ultimate threat; the picture of perfection and joy which would make her the picture of imperfection and misery. And now she gotten hold of Sakura's weakness, and not only was she going to exploit that weakness dry, she was going to hurt Sakura immensely by making her living weakness betray her.

Sakura, poor Sakura! Ino's head snapped back, her mind reeling from the heinous discovery but still clear enough to know what to do. She had to warn Sakura. She couldn't let her find out about Karin and Sasuke, not like this. She gulped, her throat suddenly dry. Sakura might hate her for this, even try to break their friendship over something so hurtful, but as her friend she had to do it. She had to protect Sakura. She quickly stood up and turned to climb back up the rest of the stairs to get to where Sakura was, but she had taken no more than two steps when her eyes widened in shock at the two people she saw standing at the top of the stairwell, one looking decisively furious and the other looking sadly down at her.

"S-Sakura…Naruto…" Ino whispered.

"Ino," Sakura acknowledged her, but her voice was so faint and her eyes so sad that Ino knew she had heard everything. Naruto, who was beside her, said nothing as his eyes glared coldly at the window behind Ino; and the blonde girl swore his gaze was more chilling and far more deadly than Sasuke's threats.

"Sakura, oh my poor Sakura…" Ino cried softly as she hurried up the remaining steps and embraced her friend tightly, petting her hair and rubbing her upper back. Sakura did nothing, leaving her arms limp by her side; her left hand loosely holding on to her cake box.

"That bastard," Naruto snarled, seeing the girl he had come to love as a sister so…broken. And all because of that bastard Sasuke, who was supposed to be his friend! "That bloody bastard! I'll kill him!"

"Naruto? What the hell are you ranting about now, you idiot?" Sasuke's voice called out from the stairwell, revealing nothing that had happened between him and Karin only moments ago. His footsteps could be heard echoing in the narrow stairwell, and soon enough he appeared, looking like he always did – a god, but Ino now knew the truth and saw not a god but a devil. "Who are you going to kill? Honestly, ramen isn't a good reason to – " he stopped in shock halfway up the second flight of stairs when he saw Ino and the strands of pink locks that fell over her shoulder standing above him. "Ino? Sakura? What are you guys doing here?"

Ino wanted to whip around and tell Sasuke off; to tell him exactly what was wrong and what she though about him without holding anything back, but she feared that if she let Sakura go she would fall apart. Luckily Naruto didn't have such a worry holding him back.

"You bastard, I'll tell you what they're doing here!" the furious blonde roared at the confused (isn't he a good actor?) raven-haired boy. "They were looking for you! Sakura-chan had made you a cake on your birthday and she was looking everywhere for you to give it to you! And instead of a little love and thanks what does she find? That her boyfriend, my best friend, is a son of a fucking bitch!"

Sasuke was taken aback. "Naruto, what are you going on –" but Naruto didn't let him finish as he stalked towards him and grabbed his collar roughly.

"Don't play dumb with me, Sasuke!" he yelled in the Uchiha's face. "We all know you're too smart to get away with that. How long have you been screwing around with that bitch Karin, huh? A week? Two? A few months? Because it sure as hell didn't sound like that little plan of yours happened overnight!"

"Naruto, I don't know what you're talking about," Sasuke growled as he narrowed his eyes at his best friend. "Now let me go unless you want your ass kicked."

"Why you - !"

"Naruto," a quiet, petite voice called and the blonde turned to see the little pink-haired girl looking at him, Ino holding on to her free right hand and standing close to her. "Naruto, don't."

"But Sakura-chan," he tried to reason with her. "He…"

"I know what he did. I was right beside you when we heard them." She said, and Naruto's and Ino's hearts went out to the girl. She tried to smile through the pain that was ripping her apart, was fighting down the tears she knew Karin had been long waiting to see.

She glanced at Sasuke, who was looking at her with wide eyes, and then looked at Naruto again. "What he did was wrong. But don't fight him. Don't be like him by hurting one of the most precious people to you…" Her voice cracked at the end and she bit her lip to keep from crying like she so badly wanted to. That's a lie. I was never precious to him, she thought bitterly. He only used me to give Karin what she wanted. I never meant anything to him. I meant…nothing to him.

Naruto said nothing, and instead roughly flung Sasuke away from him, half hoping that he would fall down the stairs and break his neck. He deserved it, as far as he knew. Unfortunately, Sasuke, being the supreme athlete he is, regained his balance easily and stopped himself from hurting himself. He straightened up and, blast him, he seemed unfazed by everything that had happened, still conserving the unearthly grace that seemed to he had been born with. Naruto snorted and, disgusted, turned away from the young Uchiha and walked over to where the girls still stood, one fighting to not fall apart and the other to support her.

"Sakura, what happened? Why are you all mad at me?" Sasuke asked her, his voice sounding the slightest bit hurt. But Sakura knew better now. He wasn't hurt, he would never be hurt because of her. However, he could hurt her, and he did, so much hurt that seemed to eat her alive.

She looked up and met his eyes for the first time since he appeared, and the sight of him almost broke her; but she refused to yield to the one who caused her misery. "We heard you, Sasuke," she said, her voice sounding surprisingly strong and even despite the turmoil inside her. "We heard your little conversation with Karin. About how you made a deal with her because of a mistake you made. About how she owns you and your part of the deal was to humiliate me publicly; saying anything that might damage my reputation."

Sasuke said nothing but merely gazed at her, his expression unreadable now that his fake hurt had melted away.

"I just want to know," Sakura said, taking a step towards him but Ino's hand held her back. After giving Ino's hand a brief squeeze, she took slow steps, one after another until she was facing him, only a couple feet apart. "I just want to know. Why did you do it, Sasuke? What did she blackmail you with that would make you do something so cruel?"

A pregnant silence followed, and Sasuke said, so quietly that Sakura almost didn't catch it, "I accidentally drank some alcohol, and my alcohol tolerance is extremely low. With just a few sips I became overly intoxicated, and I made a mistake in that state."

"What did you do?" Sakura asked again, fearing what she would hear but knowing she needed to know.

Sasuke looked up at her then, and his eyes seemed almost tortured. "I slept with Karin."

Sakura bit her lip and hung her head while Ino gasped silently at her side and Naruto growled in disgust behind her. Of all the things he could have done, he had to have slept with her, of all people. She took a deep breath, ignoring all her senses that screamed to get away from him, to find closure anywhere but here, to stop interrogating him when all she wanted and needed to do was break down and cry for the betrayal. She didn't meet his eyes as she asked him the next most dreaded question: "How long ago was this?"

"A little over two months ago."

Ino and Sakura involuntarily sucked in their breath. If that was true, then that meant that Karin had about a week, enough time to come up with a plan to use Sasuke against Sakura, who everyone knew was in love with the Uchiha boy. Suddenly, it explained so many things.

"Sasuke…" Sakura's voice failed her, so she tried again, raising her head to meet his eyes. "I don't hate you. You've hurt me, way more deeply and more painfully than if you had shot me or stabbed me. But despite it all, I still love you. Somewhere, past the anguish that's tearing at my heart and consuming it while it's still beating, somewhere I still love you. I cannot hate you, Sasuke Uchiha." The small smile she had willed onto her face wavered as a lone tear escaped the corner of her eye. "But that is the exact reason I must stay away from you. I cannot bear to see you or even hear your voice, or even have anything to do with anything that might remind me of you because every time I do it will only break what's left of my heart; every single time."

"I hope you know what a hypocrite you are," Naruto scoffed. Sasuke didn't need to ask why that was so; he knew.

Sasuke said nothing, but bowed his head. He knew what he was doing was wrong, on so many levels. He was truly a hypocrite; there he stood telling the world just what a proud and honorable family the Uchihas were, and then he uses a defenseless girl as his scapegoat. He truly was a tyrant, if a young one.

"Just one last thing before I leave, Sasuke-kun." Sasuke lifted his head and was surprised to see Sakura reach for him and hug him, her thin arms strong with contained emotion around his chest while her face was buried in his neck. Not knowing what else he could do, Sasuke wrapped his arms around the petite rose-haired girl and held her; his own hurt holding her to him like some cheesy romance movie but he didn't care. He didn't care.

After a few seconds, finally, Sakura let him go and he allowed it. She pecked his cheek, a bitter-sweet feeling for both, and she pressed the neat little cardboard box with the cake in it to his chest. "Good-bye, Sasuke Uchiha."

Ino reached for her friend and put her arm around her shoulders, the broken-hearted girl hugging herself as if by doing that she was keeping herself together as they walked away. Naruto glanced once more at Sasuke before he joined the girls, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a tissue.

The raven-haired boy who was left behind looked at after them, knowing he deserved all the pain that rushed into his body at that instant, and still more. He glanced at the cake box and opened it, his hands feeling numb. When he saw the perfect little round cake with a "Happy Birthday Sasuke-kun! Love Sakura," message, he choked out a sob and he cried, alone.

Ino and Naruto had taken Sakura behind the school, away from prying eyes who had looked after them worriedly, alarmed at seeing the cheerful pinkette full of spunk look so broken and defeated. Naruto had taken off his orange hoodie and placed it on Sakura, whose shoulders were shaking as she fought not to cry, and then left to tell their teachers that they were leaving early. Ino, meanwhile, stayed with her friend, and cursed herself.

It was true she was once attracted to Sasuke, but she felt a coldness in him that made her give up in him. She always thought it was his mysterious, cool aura that surrounded him, that air of control and power, but now she realized it was his egoism, self-centeredness and cruel pride that had warned her off.

Why couldn't she see it before? Why couldn't she protect her most precious friend from the horrible events that had unfolded?

Sakura, unable to not cry any longer, finally let out a drowned cry that only those in despair can make, a sound that made Ino feel the pain that ate at Sakura's heart, and she too cried. There they stood, a rose-haired emerald-eyed girl crying from heartbreak and betrayal and a blonde, blue-eyed girl holding her, crying for the injustice and pain of another.

I hadn't been able to be a good friend, thought Ino. I couldn't protect Sakura. But I'll protect her now. I'll be her guardian; her best friend and knight. It's what she needs and it's what I'll be. It's what I'll always be, for her. I'll be there to cheer her up, there when she wants to complain or cry; there when she needs advice or feel important; when she needs an honest opinion and when she needs someone to defend and comfort her.

Sakura cried once more, and Ino held her tighter. She needs all of those things, but right now she just needs a friend.

And I am Ino Yamanaka, Sakura Haruno's best friend. Always.