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Ino has hit her before, many times, in various ways and in countless places. But the slap that Sakura receives on a sunny afternoon while they are eating lunch is different – because they are in public.

"You hit like a girl." Sakura feels the stinging and knows that ninjas don't slap. Ninjas throw punches, and somehow this justifies her reaction, that this is all she can think to say.

Of course it's not true. There isn't a place on Sakura's body that hand hasn't injured.

The look in Ino's eyes is one of betrayal. It's not something that can be so easily brushed off as anger or bitterness, although she knows that Ino is likely both these things as well. Sakura masochistically commits the expression to memory.

In a rare moment of vulnerability, Naruto had tearfully told her all he remembered about his last battle with Sasuke. He described what their missing teammate had said to him, and how he had looked: the way he gritted his teeth like he was filing them with gravel. The look on his face, Naruto told her, made it seem like he had never felt anything but sorry for the day he was born. Absolutely desolate.

She thinks he must have looked like Ino.

Some of the patrons begin to stand up, feeling the threat of impending violence. Sakura's skin prickles under the stares, but she ignores the scraping of chairs as people prepare to either leave or intervene.

"You're still thinking about it now." It is not a question, but Sakura recognizes that there is a right and wrong answer. Ino is livid, and Sakura feels the anger is unfair.

"Don't be selfish, Ino, you have no idea what it feels like. How can you expect me to think about anything else?" Wrong answer.

"Selfish?" The fists relax and the murderous energy is gone, and for a moment Sakura thinks that maybe the danger has passed and, miraculously, she's managed to avoid this scene. It's not the embarrassment, it's the familiarity of the argument that Sakura hates. It covers both of them like dust on an old stage set. Even when they think they've managed to brush off the grime, it just gathers in a cloud around them, dark and dirty and suffocating.

But it's not her fault they're always fighting, Sakura tells herself. Ino can't understand what it's like to lose everything, everyone, to be left behind because I am useless and weak and not worth shit-

The memories, all of them, are smothering her.

Ino struggles for words, and Sakura realizes that memories are smothering Ino, too. "You don't know the meaning of the word," Ino finally says, letting out a shallow breath.

She puts down a bill and grabs her bag. She is walking away. They grew up together, Sakura remembers, and now they are both going to die together under the weight of their own regrets. It's fitting, she thinks morbidly. They are going to drown together.

Sakura stares at Ino's retreating back, standing quietly apathetic in the wreckage of something that should have been beautiful.

Asphyxiation is a slow death.