Sakura could barely sit still as she watched Naruto do her hair in the mirror that she usually did her make up. She was already wearing the beautiful kimono that Naruto had let her borrow and she was so excited that she just wanted to run around the room, but every time she moved to much Naruto would threaten her by saying, "If you keep moving like this your hair will look horrible and I won't have the time to fix it before Ino comes," so she remained as still as she could. He had put a french braid on both sides that connected in the back and then he had curled her hair and now he was putting hairspray in it to keep it in place.
"Thank you so much Naruto!" she exclaimed when he was done. "Now I just have to put on make up and I'll be already to go."
"You might want to hurry," said Naruto. "You only have fifteen minutes before she comes to pick you up."
Just then someone knocked on the door. "I wonder who that is?" said Sakura. "Will you get it for me Naruto? My parents have already left for the festival."
Naruto walked down the stairs quickly with a smirk on his face. He knew exactly who it was before he even opened the door. "You're early Ino," he said loudly so that Sakura could hear him. Ino had a habit of being early and Sakura still hadn't realized that and was never ready when Ino came. "You look lovely." She was wearing a purpple kimono and her hair was curled and pinned to the side of her head with two black sticks sticking out of it with purple beads hanging from the ends.
"Thanks," she said awkwardly. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm not staying," he said. "Sakura asked me to help her get ready is all."
"Oh," Ino seemed to perk back up.
"Yea," said Naruto, "I wouldn't want to ruin your date."
Ino blushed, but before she could say anything Sakura came down from her room. She looked beautiful, and the little make up that she added made her eyes sparkle without losing them amongst to much.
"Wow!" said Ino. "You look amazing!"
"Thank you," said Sakura with a blush. "So do you."
After a moment of silent staring Ino offered her hand to Sakura to help her down the last few stairs as she said. "Shall we go?
"Oh yes," said Sakura as she took Ino's hand. She didn't need the help of course, but she was just happy that she was able to take the woman's hand once more. Ino didn't let go when she was on the ground, nor when they were walking out the door.
"Have fun on your date," Naruto said in her head, which made her blush even more.
"I will," she answered, "Thank you Naruto. I'll make sure not to get your grandmothers dress dirty."
"I appreciate that," said Naruto as he waved goodby to the two. When they were no longer in sight he closed the door and went back up to Sakura's room. One of the downsides of Ino coming early all the time was that Sakura never got to clean up the mess that she made while getting ready. He shrugged. He knew where everything went, having cleaned up after Sakura each time he helped her get ready, which was almost every time, so he would just put everything away once more. This time there wasn't as much of a mess because usually Sakura would go through several outfits before she found the one she wanted and then throw the other ones wherever was convenient, but this time she had already set aside her outfit beforehand.
Naruto was putting away the last of the hair products when he heard a knock on the door. "Strange," he said to himself as he walked down to get it. "I wonder who it is." When he opened the door he was surprised to see Sasuke was standing in front of him wearing a plain grey yukata. "What are you doing here?"
"I went to your house to see if you wanted to go with me to the festival," said Sasuke, "but Haku said you were at Sakura's so I came here. Why are you here?"
"I was helping Sakura get ready for her date," said Naruto
"Ino asked her out?" asked Sasuke.
"Well yes and no," answered Naruto. "She really just asked if Sakura would go with her to the festival, but, since they both love eachother, I'm counting it as a date."
"I see," Sasuke nodded. "So do you want to go the festival with me?"
"Yea," said Naruto, "I was planning on hanging out with you anyway, but I just figured that I would see you there. If you just wait in the living room I'll go change into my yukata."
Ino and Sakura sat on one of the benches a little farther away from the festivities eating a little snack. They had been bumping into everyone that they had passed by while they were walking around, and, while they did have fun exploring all the differnet stands, they just wanted to be alone for a little while.
"Are you having fun?" asked Ino.
"Of course," said Sakura. "This was one of the best days of my life."
"Well I'm glad," said Ino.
"Hey ladies," called two men who staggered close to them from the direction of the festival holding cups filled with beer. They were obviously drunk. Ino sneered at them when they arrived in front of them. "What are you doing here all alone?"
"Does it look like we're alone?" asked Ino.
"Oh of course you aren't," said the man. "Now that we're here you aren't alone anymore."
"So why don't you two come with us and enjoy the festival?" said the other man.
"Why would we want to go with you drunk idiots?" said Sakura.
"What did you say to me?" growled the man.
"I said that you are a drunk idiot," replied Sakura.
"How dare you!" he yelled as he threw his drink at Sakura.
Sakura gasped as she tried to shield herself. She almost wanted to cry when she realized that the drink would ruin Naruto's grandmother's dress, but she never felt the drink touch her. When she looked up she saw Ino in front of her with the alchoholic drink all down the front of her kimono. "I think it's time for you to leave," she hissed at the men.
"Oh and you're going to make us," laughed the men.
"Fine," hissed Ino, "You can stay right here." As she said those words she lifted her foot and landed a well aimed kick at his crotch. "Sakura and I will just go." She grabbed Sakura and pulled her towards her own house.
Sasuke walked with Naruto by his side dressed in a sky blue dress with a golden design stretching all around it's body. They were walking so closely that Sasuke's arm would often rub against Naruto's, but he wouldn't move away from him because he knew that people were cruel and Naruto couldn't get away because of the large crowd. The only time he left Naruto's side was when he asked for him to go get some food since they both knew that if Naruto tried the food wouldn't be edible.
"Look at this stuffie Sasuke," said Naruto as he dragged him over to a stand that everyone was avoiding. There was a large cute fox placed in front of the stand that was obviously meant to attract several people.
"You'll be the first to take interest in it," said the owner of the stand.
"You aren't from around here are you?" asked Sasuke.
"No," said the owner, "I am a travelling salesman that sets up at whatever festival is nearby. I was lucky enough to come here just in time for this one."
"Well just to let you know," said Sasuke, "people around here don't really like foxes."
"Really?" asked the owner. "No wonder nobody's been coming to my stand. Usually this fox is the one that gets the most customers. I guess if its sending all my customers away I should probably get rid of it. Would you like to try for it?"
"Sure," said Sasuke pulling out some money to pay. Naruto stood anxiously awaiting Sasuke winning that stuffie. He couldn't try himself because every time he tried to participate in these things in the past people would either send him away or rig it so that there was no possible way for him to win. It wasn't until later in the future that they began to let him join in, but still he feared them tricking him so he allowed Sasuke to play the games for him.
"What about you?" the man asked as he looked directly at Naruto.
"Me?" asked Naruto.
"Yea. Don't you want to try? It's really easy. You ony have to get three rings around the marked bottles on the table covered with bottles. I'll give you five. If you get three or more you can have the fox."
"Go ahead Naruto," said Sasuke. "I don't really feel like playing."
"Okay," said Naruto as he took the rings with an unsure hand. He carefully threw the first and second one, which both hit their target, and then missed the third and fourth one. He threw the last one hoping that it would hit the mark like the other ones had. The edge of the ring hit an unmarked bottle and slowly slipped over it.
"That's to bad," said the shopkeeper as he looked at Naruto disappointed eyes. He almost wanted to laugh. This teenager reminded him of the children that he had seen in other towns that had not won their prize. He had grown a resilliance to the disappointed look that he saw in children, he had to if he was going to continue in the line of business where not everyone wins without losing all his money, but something about this boy made him feel bad. He felt that the boy was different from so many of the other people he had faced. He was not like the children who would start balling, and he wasn't like the men his age who would curse and say that his game was rigged. And the man beside him looked angry, not at him or the game, but at the fact that the boy wasn't able to win. "But since I have to get rid of this little guy anyway," he said as he took the stuffed fox from its hook and handed it to Naruto, "I might as well give him to somebody who will love him."
"Thank you!" said Naruto with a huge smile as he hugged the fox close to his chest.
The stand owner smiled from the satisfaction of making this young boy happy even if it meant loosing some of his money. "You are welcome," he said happily.
"The fireworks are starting!" someone yelled from behind the two boys.
"Sasuke can we go see the fireworks?" asked Naruto.
"Of course," Sasuke answered.
"Bye mister," Naruto waved at the stand owner as they moved towards the hokage mountains. "Thanks for the fox." The man waved at their retreating back with a smile.
When they arrived at Ino's house they immidiately went to her room where Ino dug through her drawers and produced two pairs of pajamas. She handed one pair to Sakura and then began to take off her own kimono. Sakura would have loved to be happy seeing Ino undressed, but her distress that she had caused Ino to ruin her kimono was overtaking that feeling. "I'm sorry," she said.
"What for?" asked Ino as she pulled the kimono off.
"For getting your kimono ruined," answered Sakura.
Ino gave her a questioning look before saying, "Would you have rathered it have been the kimono that you are wearing?"
That caught Sakura. She couldn't answer no because she didn't want Ino to think that she didn't care about her but she also couldn't answer yes because she really didn't want to ruin this kimono. She knew that, even though Naruto didn't say anything about it and wouldn't have said anything if the kimono had been ruined, he would be distraught to have it come back to him even with the slightest stain on it.
"See," said Ino as she slipped on the tanktop that went with the pajama pants she was wearing. "That kimono is important to you. Much more important than mine is."
"It's not really important to me," answered Sakura. "It belonged to Naruto's grandmother's and he's letting me borrow it for the night so I promised him I wouldn't ruin it."
"Than it is way more important than my kimono."
"But it was my fault that they threw the drink at us."
"They were drunk and bound to do something like that wether we insulted them or not. Don't worry about it Sakura. My kimono has only been worn 2 or 3 times since I got it. I could probably find an exact replica of it somewhere in the stores, but things like that kimono mean much more and can't be replaced. My parents will understand."
"I'm still sorry," mumbled Sakura.
"Don't worry about it," laughed Ino. "Why don't you just change into the pajamas." Then she hesitated for a moment. "That is if you want to stay the night. If not I'll just find an outfit that you can change into so that you can head home."
"I'll stay here," said Sakura, "If you don't mind."
"Of course I don't mind," said Ino. "If I minded I wouldn't have asked you to stay."
"True," laughed Sakura as she to changed into the pajamas and Ino went down to go make something for them to eat since they hadn't gotten a chance to at the festival.
When she was done she went to meet Ino downstairs. Ino handed her a bowl of ramen. "I hope you don't mind," she said. "It was the quickest thing I could make. I'll make some hot chocolate for us later."
"It's fine," said Sakura. "I ate something before we left anyway." They sat in silence for a few minutes while they ate. As Ino cleaned the dishes to put them Sakura took a deep breath. Now was the perfect time to tell Ino. The only thing she had to do was pluck up the courage and just say it. When Ino had confessed to her she had made it look so easy but now she knew how hard it really was to confess. Now she couldn't say that Sasuke was being a chicken for not confessing to Naruto. Even she was having a hard time confessing to Ino and she knew that Ino loved her. Naruto and Sasuke were totally oblivious to eachothers feelings and she couldn't just tell them that "Ino," she said in a quiet voice, "can I tell you something?"
"Of course," said Ino as she put the first bowl away.
Sakura took a deep breath, determined to keep her courage until the words were spoken. "I love you," she said a little louder.
Ino spun around in shock so fast that the second bowl slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground. There was a loud crashing sound as Sakura's heart stopped. Questions began to run through her head as she began to doubt herself. What if she had told her to soon? What is she had freaked out the girl? What if now the woman would avoid seeing her for a long time? What if, because they had gone back in time and started a new time line, Ino didn't love her anymore? Sakura's heart sank farther and farther as these questions and more ran through her head. She felt like she wanted to cry. "I'm sorry," she said as she stood ready to run up the stairs so that she could change and leave. "I'll just go now."
"Wait!" gasped Ino as she grabbed Sakura's hand and pulled her close to her. "You can't leave."
"Why not?" asked Sakura.
"Because you haven't given me the chance to say I love you too," said Ino. She was happy to see Sakura's whole face light up. "Besides you said you would stay the night." With that she leaned over just so slightly so that her lips could meet with Sakura's in a tender kiss. Sakura was ectsatic to be able to kiss her love once again.
Sasuke watched as Naruto rushed ahead of him to reach the top of the mountain. This was the best place that they had found to watch fireworks. No one else came up here because it was far away from the explosions and they all went to times square, but that meant that no one knew how beautiful the sparkling lights were from so high up. He tensed when he realized that Naruto was right on the edge of the cliff jumping up and down.
"Be careful," Sasuke said. "You'll fall if you keep jumping like that."
"I won't fall," said Naruto.
"Well come sit down anyway. You can't enjoy the fireworks while your jumping around all over the place," said Sasuke as he sat on the grassy floor.
"Alright," said Naruto as he joined him, but instead of sitting he laid down right next to him.
The two of them sat in silence as they watched the fireworks explode. It was only after they were over Sasuke looked down to see that Naruto was actually sleeping. He reached down and swiped the hair out of his face so he could see the angelic face before him. "Naruto," said Sasuke. "I want to tell you something." He knew Naruto couldn't hear him and he also knew that Naruto was a completely deep sleeper unless he sensed danger. He had once believed that Naruto was lying about that, but then Naruto had told him that the animals could sense danger as it came near to them and that he had the senses of the Kyuubi. "I want to tell you that I love you and I always will. Even after we're dead I will still love you." He leaned forward and placed his lips upon Naruto's. The kiss was weird because Naruto wasn't reacting at all and because Sasuke was tense the whole time half expecting Naruto to wake up and be disgusted with him.
He smiled when the kiss was over and, with one last look at the peaceful face, he picked up Naruto and went to his house.
yay for the new chappie