Still laughing, breathless with the thrill of their narrow escape, Sakura turned down the music to talk with the only conscious friend she had in the car.

"That was a close one. WAY too close."

"Tell me about it!" Ino laughed. "Did you SEE the look on Sasuke's face? I thought he was gonna jump three stories and smack you!"

"He looked super pissed...his hair was all messy, did you see? I bet they got drunk last night and Naruto made out with him or something."

Hinata, who had briefly awoken from her faint, heard that and passed out again.

"As hot as that sounds, how DO you think they found us? Did Kiba bring that mangy mutt Akamaru and have him track us or something?"

"That's ridiculous. Sasuke-kun obviously heard you screaming once I pointed out his car to you," Sakura replied dryly, veering off the highway towards the beach exit. "So much for subtlety. But I think it was just a coincidence. They got tired same as we did, and found the first convenient hotel they could afford. We'll have to be craftier from now on, if we're gonna avoid them."

"But do we really WANT to avoid them? Think how much more fun this trip would be with boys."

Sakura giggled. "I know. But we can't give up now, not yet anyway. They have to really work for it. Sasuke-kun doesn't sound like he's giving up anytime soon...let's see how far they're willing to go. Now enough about them...it's an hour till we hit the best beach in Suna and I can't WAIT to get some sun!"

Sasuke hung up with Sakura and couldn't shake the grin off his face.

"Naruto, head for the Suna Beach," he said flatly.

"Huh? Really? How d'you know they went there? Did Sakura tell you?"

"Hn. They were wearing bathing suits when I saw them."

"Say WHAT?" Kiba exclaimed excitedly from the backseat. He looked up, attention arrested, for details. "Bathing suits? What kind? I hope bikinis..."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes as he lit a cigarette. "Sakura will. She's got the figure and confidence for one. Hinata will have a one-piece, you know that. It's all her father will let her out in. Not to mention that insane cousin of hers. And Ino will wear whatever strip of spandex covers the least amount of skin, and in the brightest colour."

"He ain't a genius for nothing!" Naruto laughed, while Sasuke scowled at his crude assessment of Sakura from the front seat and remained silent.

"How do we know which beach?" Kiba asked.

"They've got Ino with them," replied Shikamaru. "So which beach is supposed to be the best? That's the one we'll find them at."

Sasuke consulted a travel brochure he'd swiped from the concierge's desk, listing all of Suna's hot spots and attractions. Black eyes scanned the list of places before settling on the Suna Beach, a pristine white-sand beach with photos of glamorous sunbathers wearing skimpy bathing suits and blinding smiles under its name in ornate lettering.

"Suna Beach," he reiterated. "All right."

"Suna Beach it is!" Naruto exclaimed excitedly. He turned off the highway onto the Suna Beach exit in direct pursuit of the girls.

There were few things in life Ino loved more than a day on the beach with her girlfriends.

Laying back on her towel, shades protecting her ocean-blue eyes from the sun's rays, and Sakura and Hinata lying on either side of her, she could safely say that this was exactly how she planned to spend her summer. If she had her way, they would lay like this forever. Basking in the warm summer sun, seagulls cawing overhead, the salty breeze from the water pushing her blonde bangs back and forth across her forehead. Oh yeah. She could easily do this for the rest of her life.

It felt like graduation was an entirety ago, when really, it was only yesterday morning. Ino wondered if it was normal to feel like she was already well into the next phase of her life, when her first had ended only 24 hours ago. It was both a thrilling and terrifying thought. Despite being only 18, Ino had absolutely no desire to grow older and was impatient to do so, all at the same time.

For now, though, she would prefer to freeze this perfect summer moment with her perfect best friends. She, Sakura, and Hinata had been through hell and heaven together, loose teeth and playground bullies, first kisses and dates and heartbreaks, cheerleading practices and football games, everything that defined a young girl. For now, she would hold onto the beauty of the past while looking towards an even more beautiful future, because she had everything in the world she could ever want, at that moment in time.

"Hey, what's going on?"

A confident male voice interrupted the quiet, and, irritated, Ino lifted her sunglasses to glare at who had spoken.

A group of three guys, shirtless and wearing sandals (one of whom had socks on beneath them, one of Ino's most despised male fashions) had approached them, and were grinning down at them in what was clearly meant to be an alluring manner.

"Hello," Sakura replied politely, with a strained smile. Ino glanced at her friends; Hinata looked thoroughly uncomfortable as she always did whenever they were approached by men, and Sakura appeared as always: polite, but not indulgent. And apparently she was no more impressed by the three boys than Ino was.

Ino smirked.

"Hey, boys," she cooed. Part of her was annoyed that her perfect moment had been ruined by the presence of three beachcombers who were reaching out of their league, while part of her took a cocky pride in the way she could bat her eyes and manipulate her voice to bring the simpering fools to their knees. "Nice day, huh?"

"Nice day, even nicer view," the tallest boy remarked slyly, winking at Sakura. Ino sighed and rolled her eyes. "What's your names?"

"I'm Busy," Ino introduced, gesturing to herself. "This is Bored," she indicated Sakura, who was giggling, "and this is Uninterested." She pointed to a mortified-looking Hinata. "Pleased to meet you...now kindly get the hell out of our sun."

All three of the boys, at first so cocky and self-assured, each flushed in embarrassment and sulked away. Ino gave a tinkling laugh and sang, "Good-bye, boys!"

NOW it was the perfect day.

Hinata giggled along with her friends, when the original mortification of that confrontation had faded.

It was still unbelievable to her, that she had friends like these.

Ino and Sakura. Both were confident, beautiful, popular. Everyone liked them. Every girl wanted to be them, and nearly all of the boys that they encountered wanted to be with them. Hinata often found herself amazed to be included among their ranks.

She knew what she was. She was Hinata: nice and reliable in her own way, a background girl at best and a terrified, self-conscious girl at worst. A stuttering, stammering mess who couldn't even tell the boy she'd loved her whole life that she loved him.

Then, Ino and Sakura had come along, sprung her from her comfort zone of solitude, and showed her how scary and fun life could be with two of the scariest, funnest girls she had ever known. Hinata had had many a near-death experience in her day, between Ino's crackpot daredevil ideas and Sakura's refusal to turn down a dare. They'd gotten her to try new things: kissing boys, partying, midnight adventures for no other reason than they were bored and it was Saturday. They'd even talked her into smoking a joint once, an experience she secretly loved but vowed never to repeat.

Hinata was still painfully shy and cripplingly awkward in social situations, but she was becoming more and more comfortable with herself and her surroundings the more time she spent in Sakura and Ino's company. They were the best friends she had ever had, the sisters she had always wanted, besides Hanabi, of course. And they understood her burning love for Uzumaki Naruto and encouraged her to pursue it at her own pace.

She sipped delicately from the bottle of wine Sakura had brought in their picnic basket, and smiled to herself.

Admittedly, this spontaneous road trip was one of their crazier ideas.

And though she'd fainted many times already and was sure to succumb to even more over the next few weeks, she would never have turned down this adventure.

Not in a million years.

The boys got out of Sasuke's cramped Jetta and Kiba took a deep breath, soaking in the excitement of the beach and this new leg of their adventure.

He missed Akamaru, his best friend and most loyal companion, but a weekslong roadtrip was no place for a dog. He'd left Akamaru at his sister Hana's doggie daycare. The mutt had been awfully sad when he realized that he would be separated from his master for awhile, but had understood when Kiba explained that he was on a quest to obtain the girl of his dreams.

As well as any dog understood anything, anyway.

Kiba scanned the beach for a shade of obvious pink. He wasn't sure when he had fallen head over ass for Haruno Sakura, but it had happened. He suspected she had crept up on him slowly, worming her way into his heart little by little until he couldn't rip her out again.

This was his last-ditch effort, though. He knew that Sakura was in love with Sasuke, as much as Sasuke was in love with her. But he also knew that Sasuke was a moron and an asshole, and if he couldn't man up and tell Sakura how he felt about her, then he didn't deserve her.

Which blazed a trail wide open for Kiba to make his move.

He smirked to himself. He figured he had a 50/50 shot at getting Sakura to realize she deserved more than the stoic last Uchiha. And if he was unsuccessful? Well, he gave it his best effort. No regrets. He and Sakura were similar in that respect.

He ran a hand through his messy brown hair and wished he had remembered to pack some damn freaking sunscreen, then realized how pathetic that sounded and resolved to brave the sun bare skin and all. He whipped off his shirt and reveled in the way the girls who were checking him and his friends out swooned.

"You see 'em anywhere?" Shikamaru asked tiredly. "Let's find them and get the hell out of here."

"This seems like it'd be your favorite thing, man," Naruto said. "Laying on the beach all day and staring at the clouds."

Kiba glanced at Shikamaru and found the lazy genius to be considering Naruto's words.

"Fair enough," he muttered, tossing a towel on the sand, laying down on it, folding his arms behind his head, and exhaling in relief. "Let me know if you find them."

Kiba rolled his eyes and returned to the hunt. A familiar scent caught in his nose, and he froze like a dog who had sniffed out a squirrel.

"Whatcha got, man?" Naruto wanted to know.

"Lavender."

"That's way creepy, dude. The whole beach and you can sniff out the girls?"

"Hinata wears lavender perfume," Kiba went on, ignoring Naruto completely. "They gotta be close."

"Like she's the only one who wears lavender perfume! Come on man there's gotta be a thousand girls on this beach, any ONE of them could be wearing the same perfume, how do you know it's her?"

Again Kiba ignored Naruto's logic and made a beeline directly for the water. Sasuke and Naruto followed him skeptically, but as neither one had a better plan, they had little option to refute him. The more people they passed, the larger the crowd of swooning girls around them grew, which quickly went from flattering to disturbing. Girls were a lot bolder these days, most of them making their intentions known.

"Hey there, handsome."

"Ooh, blondie, you're cute!"

"What's up, baby, no girlfriend?"

"Gorgeous."

"I'm DTF, you know."

"DTF?" echoed Naruto, confused, as they continued down the path Kiba's nose had provided for them. "Teme, what's that mean?"

"Down to fuck you up if you ask me one more stupid question," Sasuke snapped rudely in retort without missing a beat.

"Is that a threat, you bastard?" Naruto yelled. "TEME!"

As their unnecessary argument turned violent, the girls giggled and swooned even more, apparently turned on by the display of machismo.

"You better have found them," Sasuke muttered darkly.

"Yeah, these girls are creepy!" Naruto agreed, as their fight disintegrated into nothing, as always.

"Getting closer," Kiba muttered. "I think...yo, Uchiha, your eyes are better than mine... down there, by the water. You see 'em?"

Sasuke peered in the specified direction. "I see blonde. And black."

"Pink?" Kiba asked innocently, and was unsurprised when Sasuke, the most possessive asshole he had ever met in his entire life, shot him a threatening glare.

"Hn. No."

"Still...that looks a whole lot like Hinata-chan from here," Naruto said, squinting to make out the two girls they were looking at.

"Then where's Sakura?" Sasuke demanded. "If she's not with them?"

"Let's go see if that really IS them," Kiba suggested. "Then you can beat Sakura-chan's location out of them."

"You guys wanna go swimming?" Sakura proposed.

Ino was lazily turning a page in her magazine, while Hinata dozed beside her. She raised an eyebrow.

"And get my hair wet? Sakura my love, saltwater is horrendous for hair."

"Geez, Bitch Barbie, it's a beach," Sakura snapped.

"That's Beach Barbie to you, Forehead."

Sakura giggled, unable to stay mad at her friend for long. "Okay, then. I'll be right back. I'm dying to get my hair wet. Horrendous as it may be."

With that Sakura rose, and tossed her sunglasses onto her abandoned beach towel. She kicked off her sandals and jogged excitedly towards the water.

And she missed the commotion when, five minutes after she waded out to waist-deep seawater, their location was found, their cover thoroughly blown.

The boys had found them.