title: breathe slow
pairing: eventual SasuSaku.
dedication: To A Girl Named Blessed and The 8th Stone for their amazing and smile-inducing reviews, to Demi for her amazing writing, and to the fact that I finally caught up with Bleach, again.

notes: Surprisingly, I have nothing to say. My sister txt'd me at four in the morning; I promised her death when she arrived back from her vacation. Also. I'm ordering pizza, again, tomorrow. NOM NOM NOM. OH WAIT I REMEMBERED: I'm rather surprised you guys liked Sasuke's wit, last chapter. I actually thought I was gonna get rants of him being an asshole; totally got ready to bitch people out. :D Also, as you saw last chapter, there's a lot of anger swirling between those two; now you know why your precious SasuSaku fluff is absent. This is Les, keeping it real since 1991.

x

breatheslow

Ino approached him cautiously.

From his peripheral vision, he saw her step towards him, quietly, a hand curled and resting on her chest, while the other one tried to move her bangs away from her blue eyes. Her eyebrows were scrunched with something like worry and curiousness, lips weighed down in a frown.

Sasuke brittled up as she neared him; his migraine and his anger freezing for approximately a second before it reached its peak.

"Hey," she asked, quietly and almost uncertainly.

Sasuke did not respond as he prepared to fix a tent.

His eyes were dead set on the monochromatic coloring of the tent's fabric; catching every grain of dirt, every tiny splatter of blood that it was coated with. His jaw twitched in exhaustion of his abusive clenching. Sasuke was more angry with himself than anything.

He hated being affected by something he was more than positive did not bother him.

(But if it bothers you, than it's important, right, silly?

So what happened was important. It's bothering you.

It's important.

And if it's important, and left the way it is—)

Sasuke inwardly shook his head and shut the voice up. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear anything.

"...Sasuke?"

"What do you want, Ino," his voice was like granite on her skin.

She grinned and let a small laugh out.

Sasuke, incredulous, paused what he was doing and settled his steely gaze on her. "What."

"You called me Ino."

"That's you name, isn't it," he grunted.

"Of course it is," she said, tucking her bangs behind her ears. They fell over her eye, again. "But you usually call me 'Yamanaka'." She shook her head and crouched down in front of him, blue eyes caught in the trance of his hands at work. "But anyway... What's wrong?"

He didn't respond.

No one's ever tried to talk to him the way Ino does. Not a girl anyway. Sure, Sakura had tried; but Sasuke had already been too lost in the dark, bloody corners of his mind to have ever really noticed. But... What he remembered were girls always seeking his attention; wishing for something Sasuke didn't really care about, then, or now. He remembered Sakura and Ino herself being like that. He remembered Karin being exactly like them, as well.

But... Now... As his mind was slowly, and inconsistently, was slowing down and trying to be rational and... normal... Only Ino'd really tried to... befriend him.

Because that's what she was trying to do, right?

"Why does it matter to you," he asked, voice blank.

He made sure to watch her from the corner of his eyes.

She shrugged, fingering the dirt and staring at how it soiled her hand. "Because I'm your friend." She looked up at him. "Or I'm trying to be. You make it rather hard; your fickle, Sasuke. Like the autumn skies; they change, a lot. Its either one thing or the other, but never consistent. That's how you are. I had to be an utter bitch to get you to listen, and even then I'm not sure if you heard. And if you did, who knows for how long my words will ring.

"You like it rough," her lips twitched at the accidental innuendo, "people have to be rough and hard to get your attention. I'm your friend, Sasuke. That's all I'm trying to do; be your friend. You're not as alone as you consider yourself to be. Its just that you make it hard on yourself to let everyone in." Ino stared at him, facial expression calm and placid. "So what's wrong."

Sasuke stared, unblinkingly down at the ground, her words swiveling in his head. Being hard and blocking everyone from coming in... He knew he did that; it was a personal favorite of his traits. It was so easy to be that; so easy to hate and resent and block and ignore.

It was hard to be the opposite.

His eyes hardened, out of habit.

"Just—"

"Sakura?" Ino was grinning at him mischievously. "Forehead's amazing at holding grudges... Well, actually she's not. She's just pretty hurt. And pissed. She'll come around and we can all be peachy, again!"