-We Will Never Part-
Disclaimer: I own no recognizable content
-Chapter Nineteen-
-What are Friends For?-
Her pen flew across the page, making harsh strokes and movements. Her lines were short, dark and angry. Her emotions poured from her body through her pen and onto the page. She was completely focused on the task at hand, purging all the pain, anger, and sorrow she felt onto the page. She was desperate to not feel any more.
The pain had started slow. She'd been a little too shocked when everything went down to really process it. However, as the minutes, hours, and days passed, the shock ebbed and the pain flared. She hadn't thought she could feel like this, not after such a short time. Yet, here she was, wallowing in emotional pain, not leaving her bed or even getting dressed.
With a final angry stroke, she put down her pen and looked at the image she had just created. It was definitely a reflection of how she was feeling, with a dark, stormy sky and a barren, lifeless field. There was nothing in it that could, even in the slightest, be described as happy or pleasant. It was completely opposite of her normal work, but right in line with what she had created over the past week.
Ever since that disastrous night, the party and the argument, her joy filled, lively sketches and drawings had turned to images of sorrow and anger, and devoid of life. A similar process had occurred within her being as well.
"Dinner, Sakura. Come and join me or do not eat. It is your decision," the irritated and annoyed voice of her grandmother drifted in from the other side of her door. Her grandmother then retreated back down the stairs without waiting for a reply.
In the week since the party, Sakura had locked herself in her room and spent the time sketching and ignoring the world around her. She hadn't responded to a single email or text message; she hadn't said a word to her grandmother. She had simply stayed in her room avoiding the world and the reality it brought.
At first, her grandmother had called, and gotten quite incessant, when she wanted to talk to the pink haired girl. However, Sakura hadn't picked up. This then forced her grandmother to first send a maid and evetually come herself. This had greatly annoyed the elder Haruno, which was clearly evident in her tone. Despite her grandmother's irritation, Sakura didn't respond at all to the requests of her presence.
The world had wronged her and she wanted to stay away from it for a while. All that mattered was the pain that consumed her and the art, painting and sketching and drawing, that made that pain a little bit more managable, bearable.
From: Bear-chan (10.10i-score-every-time10.10)
To: Cherry Blossom (xxvery_cherryxx)
Cc: Hyuuga Hinata (lil_miss_sunshine); Fashionable piggy (littlemisspiggy)
Sent: Tuesday, July 3; 5:12 pm
Subject: Ground Control to Major Tom
Cherry!
Where are you? I'm about to declare you M.I.A. and send the troops after you! Please, please, please, please make contact with someone. We're all worried about you!
You haven't had a wise, sage comment about our problems! You haven't used your calm, cool, calculating head to help talk us off our emotional ledges. Where has our conscious gone? Please send note of your conginued existence!
Your good friend and worried bear-chan,
Tenten
Sakura carefully tore out the sketch she had just completed. Because her more recent work was such a departure from her previous style, she wanted to keep the two separate. Because these current works were such a reflection of her current mood, she hung them around the room. This created quite a depressing art gallery out of her large room. Almost every wall had at least one dark, lifeless image hanging on it, creating a cave of melancholy in which Sakura could wallow.
With her most recent work, the dark storm over the lifeless field, removed from her pad she grabbed a piece of tape and added this work to the gloomy showcase. She then fell back onto her bed to take in her room. In the week that she'd shut herself away, she'd created close to a dozen unique works. It had been her most prolific period since she'd begun drawing and sketching nearly five years previous. Had she been in a more upbeat, self-reflective mood she might have questioned this fact, but at the moment she simply lay on her bed gazing up at her walls.
Suddenly, a cheery chirp sounded throughout her room. She'd just received a text. Sakura stood from her bed and headed toward the dresser that held her phone. However, instead of checking and reading the message, Sakura simply switched her phone to silent. She was still busy ignoring the world around her.
However, as she switched her phone to silent, she caught sight of the text and email notifications she had received. Over 100.
Apparently, the world wasn't ignoring her.
From: Hyuuga Hinata (lil_miss_sunshine)
To: Cherry Blossom (xxvery_cherryxx)
Cc: Bear-chan (10.10i-score-every-time10.10); Fashionable piggy (littlemisspiggy)
Sent: Wednesday, July 4; 5:19 pm
Subject: Haven't heard from you
Hey Sakura,
I'm just writing because I, or any of us really, haven't heard from you in a few days. Are you all right? Is everything fine at your grandmothers? Have you been kidnapped? Are you laying, murdered in a gutter somewhere? Do I need to supply a ransom (that last one may take a while as my father is getting pretty tight with his purse strings, but just let me know and I'll get on it right away!)?
Please reach out to one of us soon because we're all worried about you!
Hope you are well,
Hinata
A glow lit up the wall and cut through the darkness. Sakura groaned and rolled over. Nearly once every minute for the past three hours her phone had lit up with the notification of a text message or email. Someone, she guessed Ino, was trying to annoy Sakura out of her funk and draw her back into the world.
It was working.
Even with her face buried in her pillow, she could still she her phone light up. There was almost no escaping it. She had thought silencing her notifications would allow her to ignore her phone, and the insistent efforts of someone to get in contact with her, but then the sun had gone down, her room had gotten dark and the light from her phone became her new annoying chirp. She'd tried turning her phone over, but the light still somehow escaped from the small bit of space between the side of the phone and her bedside table. There was nothing she could do to get away from whomever was trying to reach her.
With a final groan, after her phone lit up twice in a minute, Sakura pulled herself out of bed and slumped over towards her phone. She quickly unlocked it and made to send a message to Ino, whom had been the individual sending her constant messages. However, as she made to type her message, her eyes flitted over what Ino had been sending.
It was the same message over and over again.
Come to the airport, Saturday at 1:20 pm.
Be at the airport on Saturday at 1:20 pm.
You need to go to the airport at 1:20 pm on Saturday.
There were nearly 200 text messages with similar messages about going to the airport on Saturday at 1:20 pm. Ino was obviously up to something. Sakura became concerned. Ino was not a person to fully think through a plan; that was what Sakura was for. Further, once Ino got an idea in her head, it was nearly impossible to dislodge it. There was no chance Sakura could try to talk her friend out of whatever it was she wanted to do.
Taking a deep breath, Sakura composed a response to Ino.
From: Fashionable piggy (littlemisspiggy)
To: Hyuuga Hinata (lil_miss_sunshine); Bear-chan (10.10i-score-every-time10.10)
Sent: Friday, July 6; 8:14 pm
Subject: I got this
Girlies!
I know we've all been worried about Sakura's recent incommunicado episode. It is very strange for her to just drop off the face of the Earth. From your emails, I can tell you are just as worried as me about all this.
I have talked to her parents and they assure me that she is alive and well. She's locked herself in her room and won't talk to anyone, according to her grandmother. She's clearly going through something and her grandmother is NOT the person she needs as a shoulder to cry on!
Obviously, something needs to be done! But have no fear! I've come up with a plan to get our Sakura back! I'll let you know how it goes!
You know you love me,
Ino
About thirty minutes before 1:20 on Saturday, Sakura grabbed her bag and carefully opened the door. She looked all around the hallway outside to room, checking to see if the coast was clear. While she was dipping her toe into the world again, she wasn't about to dive all the way in and let her grandmother see her out of her room.
Finding herself in the clear, Sakura began to tiptoe through the large house. She was a little worried that, having not left her room for several days, Sakura would get lost in the hallways and maze of rooms. However, her muscles seemed to remember the correct turns to take and she was quickly at the front door, having encounter no one, not her grandmother or her army of maids and servants.
Sakura quickly slipped out the front door and began heading down the long, winding driveway. She'd called a cab to drive her the twenty minutes to the airport, instructing the driver to wait at the bottom of the driveway and not honk or call to let her know he was there. She said she'd just meet him without needing to know if he had arrived.
Sakura let out a sigh of relief when she saw the bright yellow cab waiting at the bottom of the driveway. Her plan was all going smoothly. She quickly hopped into the backseat and instructed him to head to the airport. The driver momentarily looked at Sakura and her lack of suitcases, but started driving anyway. Not wanting to be dragged into a conversation, Sakura popped in her headphones. However, not wanting to listen to any of her songs, she didn't hit play and simply listened to the sound of the road passing by beneath the tires of the car.
Twenty-five minutes later, the cab pulled up in front of the arrival's gate. Sakura paid the cabbie then slid out of the car. Once on the sidewalk outside the airport, Sakura paused and took a breath. She had no idea about what Ino was planning or how it would affect her. Whatever it was, Sakura knew she'd have to prepare for it.
Finally, she entered the airport. Checking her watch, she found she had about four minutes until 1:20. She looked around and located a coffee shop a few feet from the arrivals gate. It would be the prefect spot to watch the people and items arriving in Kirigakure. Sakura headed over to the shop, ordered herself a flavoured coffee, and found a comfortable chair to sit in and wait for Ino's plan to unfold.
To pass the time, as brief as it was, Sakura pulled out her sketchpad, some artist's charcoals, and got to work. While she had allowed herself out into the world for this one occasion, really only becase she was insanely curious about what Ino was up to, Sakura's overall mood hadn't really improved and the image that began to take shape was as dark and brooding as all the others. She quickly lost herself in her work, to the point where she didn't even realise when 1:20 had come and passed.
"Ahem!" the sound of someone pretending to clear his or her throat drew Sakura from her work. Standing above her, surrounded by several large suitcases and with a large smile plastered across her face was one of Sakura's closest friends.
"Ino?" Sakura exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to help you!"
-To be continued-