I awoke to the stench of what I thought to be alcohol and cat urine, finding the clock I had set beside me lying dead silent and lifeless, other than the red digits proclaiming it to be three AM that stared me in the face. The sky on my right was a deep purple hue, and the window was open, letting in fresh breezes of cool summer air; the slight odor of mildew quickly informed me of my location - my room, judging by the shades, which I had not left drawn in weeks, and the drapes, which were the culprits behind the awful smell; though, it wasn't as if my rumpled linens were any better, lying on the floor. Groaning, I shielded my eyes and looked to the side, where my shoulder lay pinned and slightly numb.

The immense weight there felt as if it hadn't moved in ages. I turned my head, only to be met with a face full of soft twines and a light sigh; both of which threatened to breach the space between my parted lips. That answered one question, and there were quite a few more to go, I noted, trying to remain as calm as I could manage, given the pulsating pain that throbbed behind my eyelids at the slightest inklings of light. At the back of my mind, there was an instinctual urge to get up and relieve myself, that, and to purge my stomach of its contents, which were apparently from escapades unbeknownst to me. I ignored both - for the moment.

"Mmm," the girl beside me shifted in her sleep, throwing a leg between my two and clinging to me tightly as her breath skated across the skin of my ear. The figure was long and slim, soft to the touch, and warm; without thinking, I had let my fingers fumble a scar on what I imagined to be her lower back, and I felt her chest press into my side. My face heated up as I realized this, and I immediately looked away, ashamed. I turned my attention back to the alarm clock, suddenly tense, especially so as I heard my name cross unfamiliar lips. A twist, and I felt a hand crawl up my shirt.

I've got to stop waking up like this, I thought, shuddering as I wondered what I'd been doing to deserve such treatment, and such smell. Vodka and rum were quite thick in the air - rum was mother's drink of choice - and so was the general odor with the tang of fruit as a side order - more than likely the product of botched margaritas. Hang over recognized, I sighed, wondering how many shots of somethings I must have downed to get my head feeling impacted as it was. What had I done? More importantly, who had I done, if anyone? With the figure attached to my side, my mind began to wander off of its own accord. Ino? It questioned. No, I only wish that were possible. The breeze picked up, dashing a few strands of hair across my semi-ticklish forehead. Then who?

A like groan greeted me from the side, followed by a stretch and a yawn. As my senses adjusted to the darkness and the mystery girl settled again, I began to feel eyes on me, my form illuminated with pale moonlight. I felt a shift go along with those eyes, and fluttery black hair met me with the help of the open window.

"Hey there." A greeting. I knew the voice, but I couldn't quite place it.

I sighed for the second time and let out a grumble, blinking away my eyes' inclinations of closing on me. I was feeling a chill, and sleep felt perfectly inviting - intoxicating even, as did the warmth next to me. "Hey," I returned tiredly, and not without apprehension.

"You're awake," the mysterious 'she' proclaimed blankly, shifting her weight so that a particularly pale stretch of stomach came into view under the light.

And you must be Sherlock Holmes. Yeah, I'm awake, no shit, I thought, going on in annoyance, and I'm quickly wishing you weren't. I didn't voice this, however, and remained silent until it became painfully obvious that she was waiting on my response; I turned my head away at this, boring holes into furniture with my eyes. "I am," I answered simply, fighting off an aggravated growl. My stomach begged to be sated.

"Hmph," I heard a laugh beside me, "So I suppose you don't remember anything about last night, then?"

This piqued my interest and I turned back to her, head pounding. "Nn?" My half naked ensemble seemed to make just a bit more sense at this. "No," I replied, "but I'm likely to strangle the person that drugged me up and put me to bed, if it's anything to you." I mumbled, clearing the sleep from my eyes with my free hand.

Come to find out, as I'd eventually clambered my way out of the conversation with the girl, who I grudgingly discovered to be Kin, one of my most loathed adversaries, I'd left the house the night before and wound up at a party - Naruto's, and I'd brought Hinata with me. Vaguely, I remembered that we'd danced. I let out a breath, standing in the shower's spray again as the image of her little frame timidly bouncing about in the crowd next to mine flooded back into pseudo-vision. It cleared away as Kin made apparent her intent to make use of my toiletries.

"What now?" I groaned from behind the shower's glass door, watching her blurred form burst into the room and move toward the sink. Judging by the peach tone that was steadily growing on her and the black and grey masses falling to the ground, she was shedding clothes, but I couldn't hear any rustling over the din of the water. According to her version of last night's story, I'd come in moping around the punch bowl for the better half of the party, gotten smashed on spiked punch, ended up dragging Shizune down with me - dry humped to acid techno after discovering our respective lacks in the 'alcohol tolerance' department, apparently - and eventually got around stumbling out in a stupor with Kin on, or more appropriately under my arm - after quite a few unmentioned make out sessions with random ladies - until we were both on a crazy train leading to my bedroom - my moldy fish-stick bedroom. I grumbled, looking to Kin again. She was beginning to resemble some sort of flan, a gooey, jiggling dessert, through the glass as she paraded about the room in all her flesh hued glory. I smirked at this.

"Sorry Forehead," she jibed; I winced at the crude nickname. "Didn't know if you wanted me waltzing around here naked or not." She looked over herself in the mirror, striking a cocky pose or two before asking semi-rudely, "Where're your clothes?" as if she thought I was so destitute that I hid them out of greed. Woman's intuition told me she'd been rifling through them already and simply didn't want me to notice.

Isn't she a troublesome one? I sighed, sudsing myself up as I stepped out from underneath the shower head and began to scrub my newest improvised concoction onto my skin, a blue gel solution, smelling faintly of lavender and lemons. I was beginning to detest having house guests, especially those that ruined my bath time. My flip phone was as unwelcome of a guest as any, and so was my out-of-body experience parody of a conscience, but heavens, I never knew how much I'd begun to absolutely detest actual visitors. Come to think of it, I was beginning to sound like that one young man I'd met the other day. Shikamaru, was it? I shook my head, drizzing white suds and water. No matter; he was a jerk. Pretty sure Ino could agree with me there - or that other guy with the chips. What was his name? Chouji? Yeah him. He was okay, but a bit weird for my tastes, not to mention huge. I bet he'd sit on me and crush me to death if he wasn't too carefu-

"Hey, Earth to Sakura," Kin jolted me out of my thoughts boisterously, "You mind coming back to the world of the living and telling me where in the hell I can get some clothes around here? This place is an ice box!" I watched as she hugged herself and shivered - oh, irony.

"Figures," I replied nonchalantly, still scrubbing. The thought of hitting the ball back into her court with a snide remark was tempting at this point, but I satisfied her nonetheless. "You should be able to find a few pairs of pants and hoodies in my closet," I procured, pausing as I thought. I'd never really considered where I put my clothes up until that moment. Changing into them every morning was to the point of being grounds for autopilot functionality by now. I added, "There might be a shirt or two in the hamper over on the right, by the bathroom door."

This seemed to please her for a moment, but she spoke up again. "What about .. er, underwear and stuff?"

It took sheer will to force myself out of facepalming under the shower's spray, and I managed to succeed in containing this urge mostly due to my not wanting to chance the possibility of having suds in my eyes. With a grunt, I supplied, "Dresser drawers - boxers left, panties right, socks in the bottom cabinet."

With that, I was relieved as she searched the hamper and left, not minding as she fussed about and left several mounds of clothing on the floor, including her own, which were discarded on the pink rug by the vanity. When I'd finished what was left of my relaxing bath, I opened the shower door, wringing my hair of water as I stepped out onto the cool tile floor. As I'd expected, what few clothes lying around I'd seen through the fogged glass had multiplied considerably. Kin had left an enormous mess of presumably clean clothes in a lump at the door, and had evidently tried to shut some of them in the path, since a few were scrunched up in the open doorway. I groaned; doubtlessly, I'd have to pick those up later, but for the moment, I simply retrieved a shirt from the pile and went to the vanity, applying my toiletries as per the daily routine and brushing my teeth, not at all feeling uncomfortable as I bent over in the mirror, naked and scrubbing at my pearlies insistently, hair framing my face in strands of what appeared to be more rouge than damp pink.

Once that was done, I plucked a bra from the large clothing pile on my way out and slid into it and the shirt, making for my room. As I entered, Kin nearly jumped out of her skin, mortified that she was caught in the process of stepping into a pair of my undersized - in her case - Hello Kitty panties. "God, Forehead," she nearly screeched, frantically hiking up the underwear the rest of the way at my intrusion. "You could knock, you know - or trim that lawn of yours down there. Yeesh, talk about a cave man," she said, eyes drifting down to my crotch, "You're almost as bad as Tenten - fucking Forest of Death. Don't you have any sense of decency?"

"I could ask the same of you," I said, rolling my eyes at the comment and pushing her out of the way as I pulled some underwear from the open drawer and bent over to replace the ones she'd strewn around the room back into their appropriate places. I paused when the realization hit me. "Wait, what?" I stammered. As far as I knew, Tenten was one of those uppity types of girls I'd seen around school; she was a friend of the Hyuga's, and specifically of Neji's, from what little I'd overheard Hinata saying about her. I'd seen her once - brunette, buns on either side of her head, kind of bitchy looking; she certainly didn't look one to flaunt the minge - not to me. I put the panties on, not too bothered that I was being watched.

Kin looked at me as if it were obvious, underwear incident forgotten for the moment, luckily enough for me. "Yeah. She plays tennis - s'the team captain, as a matter of fact," she said, a slight look of distaste showing on her face, "Slut tries to impress the coach by playing with her birthday panties on;" I watched in confusion - never heard of birthday panties before, maybe birthday suits, but not panties - as she finished, "damned sage pervert's into hairy chicks or something."

I cocked a brow, moving to the closet as she sat back on my bed, apparently not minding the mixed wet dog and mildew floating around. "Jiraiya? Should've known that," I remarked flatly. She flipped her hair, observing as I slipped on some pants.

"Yeah," Kin agreed.

I shrugged in response, heading out into the kitchen for some grub. "You're welcome to some food if you like; I don't have much, but we might as well use it up before it goes bad," I called back at her, being surprisingly hospitable. She let out a loud yawn as I went to the fridge and ripped the top off of a cup of instant ramen that had been on one of the shelves, beef flavored. The sky wasn't quite light yet, showing through the kitchen window into the sink below, where I filled the cup half with water and opened a soy packet into the mix. "You need to be gone before my mother's home, though," I warned, placing the container in the microwave. "She'll probably come staggering in here piss drunk in an hour or so, maybe sooner."

Kin looked at me, not comprehending. "Why?" she asked, directed at the latter rather than the former, long raven locks falling onto the table as she hunched over it. "Who's your mom anyway? Tsunade?" She laughed incredulously.

As if on cue, the front door burst open, and in came a shambling, cursing mess of filth and plaster-faced maleducate. My mother careened about the room blearily, neglecting to shut the door as a half-empty bottle of booze skittered its way across the floor and into a corner; I could feel the hostility radiating from her in waves. Before I could manage a word out of my mouth, she and I were nose to nose, the stench of stinking breath - from alcohol - and greasy hair being all that I could process between us.

Mother grabbed my collar in a tired, angry fist, her serrated gaze flicking to Kin, who looked on in what I guessed to be between fear and disbelief as my mother ran her other hand, the one that wasn't busy fashioning my T-shirt into an improvised noose, through her sullied locks, which no longer mirrored my own as they had when she was younger, purer. She was livid, and still glaring at the raven-haired girl who steadily retreated back into her seat at the table and attempted not to make any sudden movements toward her. Her voice came as a low, throaty growl, "Who'sh your friend, Sakura?" She paused, eyes sharpened to a menacingly dull point of threatening as she let that be, "Mind telling me wha'shall doin' in ma house, hun?"

I hesitated to answer, disgusted, but sense screamed for me to appease this drunken beast. "This is Kin, Mother," I replied calmly, "Please, be civil to her, as I try to be."

Her eyes rolled, leaving behind a haunting grin. "Oh, you'sha piece'a work, ain'sha, Sakura?" Still holding to my collar, she burst into a fit of cackles and dragged me from the wall. I groaned as a searing pain shot up my spine - shoved against the counter.

I woke up again hours later, head throbbing and wet in the middle of the kitchen floor. I blinked and sat up, breathing hard. The microwave was just as I'd left it, and the door still lay open, letting in cool air, as the sky had darkened considerably. I heard snores from nearby, indicating that Mother was again sleeping. I grumbled and pulled myself to standing, creasing my brows in annoyance as a creeping hum met my ears no sooner than I had made for the door and closed it silently. Craning my head to the noise, I listened for the sound, walking on unsteady legs until I found the source lying on my nightstand. Buzzing incessantly, my phone finally had clattered to the floor by the time I'd come into the room, and before I could get to it, had resumed its ceaseless ringing. Bending down, I retrieved the thing, flipped it open, and answered with a click. Whoever was calling wasn't in my contacts list, I noted.

"Hello?" I answered tiredly, wiping sweat from my cheek onto my sleeve. That was going to hurt in the morning.

I was nearly jolted out of my skin as the person on the other end greeted loudly - Kin; typical. "Hey, took ya long enough to answer, Pinky. I've been burnin' up your phone for the past couple of hours. What's with ya?"

I responded routinely, "So I saw. I'm fine, if that's what you're asking. How did you get my number?"

"Oh, I looked through your phone while you were in the shower, that's all," she joked.

"You what?"

I could practically feel her rolling her eyes at me, "No, dumbass, I'm kidding. You gave it to me at the party, remember?"

I squinted, finding that hard to believe, seeing as I hated her and all. This elicited a pitiful laugh that reverberated from my chest. "You sure about that?"

"I called, didn't I?" she asked.

"Suppose you're right," I admitted. "What do you want?" I asked, mildly impatient.

Kin was taken aback. "Rude, much, Sakura? Feh, I was going to ask you to come out of that hell hole over there and have dinner with me and Temari before your mom found that blood stain on the kitchen floor, but now, I dunno," she teased impishly.

"Temari, eh?" I hummed, remembering the blonde from the water park; she'd been that serious looking powderpuff wearing a light-blue and white polka-dotted bikini, showing off her assets to the boys, and Shikamaru particularly. We'd shared a brief greeting before Temari had taken to her own business with Ino.

"Yeah; she wanted us to eat at Ichiraku's, but I told her you already had instant ramen in the microwave - figured you wouldn't want more of it; plus, that creep, Naruto, hangs around there this time of night," she said.

I smirked, "Really now?" I asked, intrigued.

"Yeah, See you at seven, my place. Text me."

"But wait, where the hell is your place even a-"

Click.

I sighed. Thanks for all that information there, lovely; sure is nice not to know where the hell I'm going. I looked to my cellphone again for the time and gawked. It was already late - six forty-seven. Well, at the very least, I could save Kin's number.

And so I did. She was probably right, I noted; It'd be wise to get out of the house for a bit, even if she had scooted around the real issue a tad, and perhaps I could ask this Temari about the party last night - clear up some questions - get some verification; I made a note to call Sasuke in the event that dinner didn't go as planned. We hadn't talked in a while.

To be continued...

A/N: Okay, so I haven't updated since last month; I know you're probably mad, but I'm working on getting my laptop back into.. well, working order. This chapter is pretty short, and for that, I apologize (A/N's probably a tenth the length), but I did make some major progress here, both with outlining the plot more, and with getting a fairly loose, overlapping story line to lay onto all of it. I'm trying to improve consistencies in story, and I've already got a few chapters reworked. Expect massive character boost when I begin swapping chapters out for their improved counterparts. You may need to re-read for the additional scenes, timeskips, and rewrites when I implement them. Then again, I may simply save a backup of this, delete the entire story, and repost it anew. What I have here now doesn't do any of the stories I drew ideas from any justice whatsoever. Note, I'm doing all of this by hand currently, excluding transcription, so it's pretty hard and may take a while... and I do mean a LONG while - like maybe next year. Hectic, yep.

Also, things I'm touching on here as I'm closing up - not the story, just this monologue I need to share with you all that I can't contact on a regular basis; I've gone through many life changes, and that's probably going to be apparent in my writing. There's a big difference between my middle school writing in seventh and eighth grade, and my high school writing in freshman and sophomore year, going on junior year. As an after thought to clean up the story, I'm putting all author's notes at the bottom of the page from now on, so as not to spoil things for the readers, and if I can make myself do it, will probably eliminate them altogether. And to the fans, by the way, I love you guys a ton for the positive feedback - helps with battling depression, and I know that I in no way deserved it in the beginning; my writing was pretty atrocious.

As for the story, this chapter isn't exactly concerning Ino, as I'm sure you've noticed, but I figured I'd toss it in anyway, just as character development for Sakura's mom, who, praise the heavens, finally makes her first real appearance since chapter one here, and for Kin, who now isn't reduced to one brief, humiliating cameo. I needed to give her some personality, and reveal some more little quirks of Sakura's. I also thought it'd add some nice drama, and show that Sakura's life doesn't always involve Ino.. not always. Anyway, to explain more, it was originally intended as a scene I was going to write Hinata in, but I thought she needed a break and it became really hard, so I wrote in random girl, who became Kin; Hinata does make a teensy cameo here though, in Sakura's mind, however. That's not so bad, is it?

Cheers! Reviews appreciated and reciprocated! And of course, please notify me of errors you find, ehe. I can't always catch them all, you know. ;)