Dear school,
SUCK. ME.
xox
clockwork
p.s. I don't get paid enough to deal with this. Please either make your cafeteria cheaper or give me more moneys.
Had no interest in going with that whole black/white eyes thing. Is more than a little trite. The usual disclaimers apply.
37 eyes
The top is supposed to bring out the emerald in jaded eyes, the skirt to lend a curvier figure to her lean body, because don't you know scars, as well as stripes, are slimming. The shoes are heeled, her nails are painted almost painfully pink, and it's not because she's probably saved their lives that guys are looking at her appreciatively tonight.
Tsunade-sama insisted she take the day off. Because anyone with the balls to get injured on the Hokage's birthday could afford to lose the limb. She's glad for the respite, god knows she hasn't had a good break in weeks, but with celebration rampant in the streets, there's no real way she can rest, so she may as well see if she can't get someone to buy her drinks, meet a few friends along the way, pretend to be a teenage girl for once.
Even Ino, who doesn't date so much as selectively flirt, hasn't seen much of a social life, not when she's volunteering at the hospital as much as she does.
They might be too cold, too old, to be best friends any more, because they all have their secrets, their weakness, a numbing distance that makes it impossible to trust everything to another person anymore; people die, they get captured, broken, they lose faith or they lose their mind, and there's a totally other level of belief in the boys that have saved your life more times than you can remember, because you've saved each other more times than you can count, that being friends when you were five just can't touch.
Still, they're pretty girls in a man's world, and some things need a woman's heart, and a woman's matching weakness, to understand. Hinata has an unusual penchant for orange, even though she only looks, never buys. Sakura keeps her hair short, uses the same shampoo she did when she was twelve. Ino takes all her breaks, and some unscheduled ones, because the lounge smells like stale cigarette smoke and too much takeout food, not despite it.
-
Two steps after she rounds the corner she has an armful of Ino, and an earful about how she finally doesn't smell like disinfectant and Tsunade needs to get soap that doesn't totally suck the moisture out of everything. She good-naturedly threatens to rip out every lock of hair on her friend's pretty blonde head if she doesn't get off right now, and Ino would love to see you try, although since your forehead takes up most of the view, it'd be pretty boring, billboard brow.
They laugh and link arms, and it feels like it's been forever since she's been this relaxed. Ino thinks they should take Hanabi and Chiyoko to get candy. Sakura's first thought is that Chiyoko doesn't need candy; the second is that if they're thinking of the same Hanabi, she most certainly does not need candy either. Her gaze falls on the Hanabi helping Chiyoko gain the altitude necessary to make Shikamaru's hair pretty, and as she laughs her eyes take in Sasuke, Hinata, joined hands and less bad mood than usual, and suddenly the laughter sticks in her throat. Sasuke seems to catch the second she stops, because all he does is tug Hinata forward.
"Sakura. A word."
She'd give him that and more, a lot more than just one, but she settles for a stiff nod, and a promise to teach Chiyo-koneko to catch fish later.
-
She walks beside them, almost an intrusion, as Sasuke leads them into the shadows of an alleyway, and brusquely pushes the other girl at her. Hinata stumbles, hopping a little on one foot. Sakura doesn't know to be glad or pissed off that Sasuke, like practically everyone else in this town, thinks fixing people is all she does.
Hinata apologizes like her sprained ankle is going to ruin the rest of her evening. Sakura notes the heiress is probably more relieved than she is that Sasuke let her go.
He leaves while she heals the Hyuuga's foot, because there have to be better things he can be doing. She wants to throw something at him, callous jerk, but the closest thing she has is a shoe that doesn't belong to her, and probably cost more than she makes in a month. She's getting really tired of looking at that stupid little fan. She hates that he can turn his back on her so easily. She hates that she isn't yet a woman he can't ignore.