Ino's limbs already felt tired. Such is the consequence of staying in bed all day. Just walking down to Sakura's workplace required her to stop and stretch a bit every five minutes. For a ninja of her caliber, she should easily make this walk without this much trouble. Looks like she would be hitting the gym sometime this week. And taking a series of many long walks every day.
After her legs stopped feeling like crap, Ino continued onwards. Following the end of the war, Sakura decided to get busy setting up a new hospital for the veterans and the civilians alike. It started out with a tent that hadn't gotten used during the war. Tsunade got some funding from the village to turn the place into a one-floor wooden building. And more funding had been gained and plans had been to make the place into a three-story building made out of bricks. Regardless of the building, Sakura worked long all day every day. By this point, Sakura must have healed half the entire village.
From what Ino gathered from Sakura's parents when she looked for her best friend at her own house, Sakura holed up her hospital during the rain onslaught. So Ino expected to see a run-down, water-logged, blood-stained, baggy-eyed Sakura when she went through the plastic door-flaps. The place itself had the look; it didn't hold well against the torrent from the skies. Several buckets and other items masquerading as buckets lined the halls to catch drops and thin streams of water leaking through the ceiling, which had became a darker color. Ino carefully treaded around the buckets and followed the signs on the wall to the office area. The place was a bit empty; Ino only ran into a few doctors, nurses and only one patient. The rain slowing down must allowed a great deal of people to go home.
The office area looked intact and dry at least. But as expected of Sakura, stacks of papers towered over the decks and chairs. Ino wondered how things would be once Sakura got the bigger hospital. The paperwork would decorate the hallways! Putting aside the funny comment, Ino made her way to the president's office and rapped on the door. She waited for a second and took an annoyed grunt as a affirmative to go ahead. Only half of Ino's predictions came true: Sakura looked really run-down and both of her eyes had purple bags hanging under them. Sakura looked up from doing some paperwork to reorder some gloves to see someone she hadn't seen in months. "Ino!" Sakura's voice lifted from sullen to pure happiness to greet and hug Ino.
"Been a while." Ino simply replied. "Everything's in order?" She then joked.
"Patients?" Sakura threw her arms out. "Yeah, they're healthy and we can boast that not a single patient hasn't died on us. But…" Sakura let out a sigh before falling down into her chair. "…our doctors and nurses aren't. Hardly fill out paperwork and keep moving around the supplies. Takes me a few minutes to locate anything."
"And the place is getting bigger…" Ino teased with a rather cruel smile.
"Thanks for reminding me!" Sakura exasperated. "I got a meeting with the council three days from now to discuss the building plan. Where we're going to set it up, how much money we need to spend on a proper building, why we need two hospitals…" She leaned back in her chair to stare at the ceiling before continuing. "…basically a three-hour-long session of old people complaining about things they did little to no research on." The small joke at least got Ino to giggle a bit. "But enough of me ranting, how have you been?"
"Well, for starters?" Ino picked up a stack of papers and moved aside so she could sit down in the other chair. "Trapped in my home sucked. But I did have a interesting houseguest to keep me and my mom company. Lady Tsunade herself…"
"Oh, so that's where she's been!" Sakura interrupted. "She was supposed to come here to help me out, but she had a errand to make before coming. I guess you were that errand."
"Had to drop some stuff off." Ino told. "Then the rain came flooding down. So she staid and mooched off us."
"Oh?" Sakura huffed. "You might want to check your alcohol reserves then."
"She actually didn't consume any alcohol during her stay."
"Kinda hard to imagine. You might want to check, just in case."
"Trust me, she didn't."
"Okay." Sakura breathed out. "So I guess you came here to get me away from here, huh?"
"You need a break." Ino told. "Time for you to change into something comfortable, leave this place, and have some fun. Life isn't all work, you know!"
"It'll be real funny if I go out and have some fun, only for the fun times to be used against me during my meeting with the village council." Sakura mumbled as she messily organized a few papers on her desk. Ino sighed, got up, and picked Sakura up. She carried her to the changing room and patted her on the back to get Sakura working. Ino left her friend alone so she could get changed into something less formal.
It did give time for Ino to think. Things were going great. She held a conservation with a friend and it didn't get awkward nor did she annoy Sakura. A little red sticker appeared on her cheeks. She had forgotten how much she enjoyed interacting with other people! Can't believe she spent all that time indoors.
Sakura came out dressed in a faded-yellow shirt, grey jacket and blue jeans. With a slight smile, the two went out of the wet hospital to catch up and have some fun before the rain came back and wash that away. Ino felt relaxed and calm. She really had only one problem during her little time with Sakura.
She forgot her wallet at home.