Disclaimer: Naruto is owned by Kishimoto, and I do not claim rights to it, nor am I making any money off of writing this fanfic.
A/N: There's some pretty explicit stuff going on in this chapter. Don't say I didn't warn you.
One of the most vivid scenes that I remember from watching the End of Evangelion is when Shinji visits Asuka in the hospital and jerks off while she's lying in a coma, and afterwards cries a bit… it was an amazingly powerful scene, one that really resounded with my own feelings as a teenager. I can't very definitively describe it… that sense of confusion, of self-hatred, of disquiet, of shame… but I think that this feeling is at the core of what I want to convey with this story—the painful process of growing up.
I've had a bit of trouble making what I've been writing fit into the tone of the story, which explains that despite thinking about the plot on and off for the past month, I wasn't able to progress very far with this chapter initially.
The chapter title, people may notice, is a pun on both the Beatles song Across the Universe and Little Red Riding Hood.
"Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."
-Shakespeare, The Tempest
Pools of Sorrow: The Better to See the Winds of Change
o
o
She walked the rest of the way back to Ino's house alone. The rustle of leaves and the shifting, darting shadows put her on edge but she found that she couldn't think about them too long. There was a thick ache in her chest that made it hard to breathe deeply, and she felt almost feverish, despite the chilly night.
Sakura knew that it shouldn't be so much of a surprise to realize that she loved Ino. She had always been aware of her, then and now: so ridiculously happy when the prettiest girl in her class first stood up for her, nervous during gym when they had to change in the locker room. The few times Ino had done Sakura's hair, she remembered feeling tingly, curls of nervous arousal with the occasional brush of hands against her forehead or neck.
There was gratefulness, longing, and shame. Sakura shouldn't feel or think such things about her best friend, but she did. She wanted Ino, not just because she was so nice and kind despite her prickly and slightly facetious exterior.
But she knew that Ino liked boys. There was no getting around that fact, and even if she did Sakura couldn't bear the thought of being openly—homosexual—around people who barely accepted her as she already was.
Once she reached Ino's house, she walked around to the back, lifting the key from under the old welcome mat where it was hidden. Quietly, she crept up to Ino's room, hoping that her parents were asleep. She changed into her pajamas and set her watch alarm for an early hour.
She woke before her alarm, when Ino tripped over Sakura's outstretched ankles as she fumbled her way to her bed, tripping over Sakura's outstretched legs. Landing heavily on her comforter, Ino struggled a bit with her clothing and the sheets and apparently passed out a few minutes later.
Sakura blearily rubbed her eyes and checked the clock, trying not to focus too much on the person less than three feet away from her. But somehow that sprawled form seemed to loom over the entire room, and dragged her attention to it. She was aware on every inch of her skin of Ino's presence—a clotted, seeping ache awakened by the soft breaths and the scent of sweet flowers, alcohol, and sweat. She wanted…
Sakura gave in to temptation and crawled closer to the slumbering Ino. The moonlight shone softly on her friend's blond hair and sweaty, pale skin. What she could see of her face seemed angelic, but the arrangement of her body was anything but. For one, the clothes she wore were barely on—her skirt was caught around her bent knees, and her bra was unhooked, the straps falling off of her shoulders.
Sakura's arms burned with phantom touches, her breathing unsteady. Even though she was so close now, only inches away, Sakura could feel the distance between them grow exponentially with each second. As intense her feelings might be, there was no chance for her, and she repeated this in her head like a mantra.
Sakura almost started reaching out her hand, her fingers quivering, but she scooted further away and turned on her side. But her pretty face and skin, the shining blond hair, the perfect limbs, they lingered in her mind's vision, and as much as she tried to force them out with other thoughts, they remained.
And then, to Sakura's horror, Ino moaned in her sleep.
It was soft, and in the middle Ino's voice cracked, but the notes shot straight from Ino's pink lips to Sakura's core. She stiffened her spine, and pressed her sweating hands flat against the sheets, but when she looked over her shoulder her mouth dried, for her gaze had fixated on Ino's suddenly visible breast, the nipple barely distinguishable in the dark, and her long, lean legs.
The battle was lost, right then, for Sakura's hand slid under the stretchy waistband of her pajama bottoms and down her stomach, to cup over the curve of her body. She wanted to—, and closing her eyes only made it easier to imagine that it was her fingers touching her, stroking her. Each gentle swipe seemed to increase the mixture of shame and arousal she felt.
She drew her hand out, stared at the wet shine on her fingertips, rubbed her fingers together. Choked on a sob.
In the morning Sakura picked up her things silently and fled without eating breakfast. She tried not to look at Ino while she was gathering her clothes, but as she stepped out of the room she glanced over her shoulder once more.
Her face crumpled, just a bit—a slight grimace, squinting eyes—but that was all the emotion she let show. In her relationship with Ino, there was no more room for her extraneous, choking, inconvenient emotions. She let herself have this moment to mourn her useless love and foolish heart, to recall her brief terrible fantasies; but after this, she told herself, she would lock her hopes away.
Her parents were both gone when she went home, which she expected, but she didn't expect how silent the house was with them gone. She couldn't stay there any more than she could stay by Ino's side, so she started walking.
There were things that she had tried to deny for so long, bubbling out of solution and leaving their vivid tracks of thoughts across her mind. She wanted to tell them to someone, but there was no one she trusted enough, no one who wouldn't start treating her differently as a result of her revelations.
To tell the truth, she was scared. She was… she was bisexual, but to her family and friends, anything other than tradition was viewed with suspicion and often hatred. Sakura had a hard enough time growing up with her own exotic looks, and she couldn't imagine what kind of treatment she'd get from her classmates if they knew the truth.
She walked down the block and down Main Street, until she was in another part of the neighborhood that she didn't recognize. The houses were shoddier—plastic paneling instead of bricks, asphalt roof tiles instead of heavy slate or clay. She passed by more and more ninety-nine cent stores and cramped delis selling cigarettes, soda, and candy bars.
And finally, she found it. It was a small slightly dingy diner, but Sakura saw people inside it, at least. The smell of grease, bread, and coffee out on the sidewalk made her mouth water.
As soon as she opened the door, she felt it—a small shiver down her spine, an old, distant feeling of acceptance—something she hadn't felt in years. She paused, holding the edge of the door in her hands…
There are some places that make one feel as if they've come home. Sometimes, it's an exposed boulder in the middle of a mountain stream. For some, it's sitting next to friends around a campfire roasting marshmallows, or lounging in a favorite nook in an old and familiar library.
There's a sense of belonging and contentment—a moment where your surroundings come together into a glorious whole—a feeling of being sheltered from the troubles and stresses of the world.
Sakura found her home on the threshold of the Sannin Diner.
At that moment, she had no idea how much her life would change just by the simple act of stepping inside.