dreaming of hayley kiyoko music videos under the oppressive heat of summer, the endless span of your youth before you

rating: t
genre: romance
pairings: inosaku
POV: Sakura
other notes: modern AU, teens, useless sapphics
word count: 2,621

Sakura puts her mouth around her bottle of cider again, more as an excuse for why she's not talking than anything else. She's not particularly enjoying the taste, but it gives her something to do with her hands, given that she tore the label to shreds about an hour ago.

She blows across the top, angling the bottle to produce a clear ringing sound and plays with it a bit, the note slipping higher and lower, only to peter out when she tips the bottle too far and the air doesn't pass over the lip right.

It's not like anyone is paying any attention.

She tries to remember why she's here in the first place and, oh right, Naruto.

Because, like most instances in Sakura's life where she's ended up somewhere she hadn't planned and doesn't particularly want to be, it's Naruto's fault.

She could always push through the house looking for him, or for Sai who she's pretty sure she saw playing what looked like an incredibly awkward game of Truth or Dare for everyone else involved earlier, or Hinata even, who was posted up on the corner of a couch with Shino guarding her side and Kiba sprawled at her feet. But that means probably getting drawn into yet another conversation with a peer she didn't know knew her about what her post-graduation plans are, so.

Sakura is going to stay here in the small corner hidden between the smushed together love seat and couch, hiding with her cider, thank you very much.

Maybe, at some point, she'll get through the bottle and the 4.5% alcohol content will finally kick in and overcome her currently crippling social anxiety. (It's been a long week, a long month, a long year, with too many social situations and too much stress and Sakura really doesn't know why she's here when she could finally be sleeping in her own bed for a period longer than the maybe six hours she's been surviving off of for too long.)

Sakura is so occupied with her shoulders up around her ears and the music throbbing through the floorboards is obnoxious enough that it takes someone nearly stepping on her for Sakura to notice that there's someone trying to crawl into her space.

If it's someone looking for a warm body to cuddle up with or a pair of soft lips to kiss, Sakura is going to break off the bottom of her bottle on the ground and shank them with it.

"Fuck," says Someone. "I didn't think anyone else would be coordinated enough to climb back here? You didn't, like, crawl in before your alcohol consumption caught up with you only to find yourself drunk and stuck, did you? Because I'm pretty sure I can't move the couch given that it's currently holding what I'm pretty sure is four distinct sleeping bodies, and I really don't want to get thrown up on tonight. Also, I need to hide."

Sakura is blinking and trying to digest all of that, and so squawks in surprise when Someone catches her in the chin with their knee before squeezing in beside her.

"Please take your hair out of my mouth," is what Sakura is going to say, but then she realizes exactly just who Someone is, and snaps her mouth shut.

Which, ew, she really doesn't need anyone's hair in her mouth, let alone a person who is not herself.

"Oh," says Ino Yamanaka, "hey Sakura, I didn't know you were coming tonight!"

Sakura spits Ino's hair out of her mouth, and then spits out, "I don't think I knew you know who I was."

Ino raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow. "We've gone to school together for, like, five years. And we've been in at least two, no, three classes together. Also, you, like, were routinely in the school newsletter and shit for winning rugby tournaments and, like, eleventy billion academic awards. Of course I know who you are. Also, like, you've dyed your hair pink the entire time I've known you. Which is totally badass."

Ino Yamanaka knows who Sakura is.

Ino Yamanaka thinks she's badass.

Sakura takes a drink of her cider and flinches at the taste.

"Why do you need to hide?" she asks, smoothly changing the conversation.

Because, like, oh. Duh. Of course Ino knows who she is. Apparently everyone in her graduating class knows who she is. Sakura is wondering why this is a revelation considering she knows who Ino is.

Ino purses her lips, but doesn't call Sakura out on her frankly terrible transition.

How exactly, Sakura wonders, has Ino managed to get her lipstick to stick around all evening? It's as flawless and bright as it was at 8:00 this morning when they all sleepily shambled into the school gym, tripping in heels and getting strangled to death by ties, for the last rehearsal before the convocation ceremony started.

"Hidan and his group of assholes showed up, despite the fact that they graduated two years ago and from a different school, and after last time, Shikamaru said he'd tell my mom if I fought them again and broke a wall," Ino says, like it's no big deal.

Sakura doesn't know who Hidan or his group of assholes are.

She is suddenly very thankful for this.

Also, what the hell?

Ino sniffs. "I decided it was better to remove myself from the situation. Although, if he tries to kiss a girl without permission again, I'm breaking his face and his hands and Shikamaru can deal with the ensuing property damage."

What Sakura means to say is: "If it didn't work last time, what makes you think it'll work this time?"

Instead, she says, "I'm an eighth degree black belt. And, like, I'm not supposed to actually use any of that outside of, like, matches and practices and stuff, but I've also played rugby for forever and I'm really good at tackling assholes who think the fact that I have pink hair and like to paint my nails means I'm afraid of a few bruises. So I'm totally ready to back you up if you need it. I've never gotten into a fight before, but I'm pretty good under pressure. Consent matters, y'know?"

"That," says Ino, "was a lot of words. But I'm pretty sure I caught that. Congrats on the black belt, by the way, that's awesome. How long have you been doing judo?"

Sakura shrugs. "Since I could walk? I dunno. Like, my sensei knows my mom because they grew up in the same teeny tiny village and my grandmother gave him our number when he moved here. Family legend says that he met me and promptly burst into tears at his first dinner at our house because I kicked my plate across the table because I didn't want to eat and it was 'Youthful!' rather than completely embarrassing. He insisted that my parents enrol me in something when his dojo opened."

Sakura puts her mouth around her bottle again. There's nothing in it, but she really needs to stop spilling out enormous amounts of completely uninteresting personal information.

"Please warn me when you're about to kick Hidan in the face so that I can get it on video," Ino says instead of standing up and walking away because she can't stand how much of an embarrassing person Sakura is. "I think you'll be a viral sensation, and I've always wanted to go viral."

Sakura chokes on her empty bottle and comes up coughing.

"Are you ok?" Ino asks.

And, oh god no, her hand comes up to rub soothing circles on Sakura's back.

Sakura is going to have to pick a fight and let herself get beat up so that the ensuing concussion can wipe this entire encounter from her mind.

Or, like, she could get super drunk. That would probably work better.

But the fight might leave Ino more inclined to forgive her and so do her the mercy of never mentioning this conversation ever again.

"Do you not like having your face all over the Internet?" Ino asks.

Sakura doesn't understand why Ino's voice is all weird.

"Oh, god," Ino continues. "Is this why your Facebook profile is totally locked to people who you aren't friends with?"

Sakura is pretty sure the speakers just gave out for a moment, because her heart stutter stops and her ears roar and record scratches don't actually happen to digital music unless it's, like, part of the song.

Ino Yamanaka tried to creep her on Facebook?

"Oh, god," Sakura says, "please tell me you weren't one of those girls who hated me because you thought I was dating Sasuke for those three weeks when we were all, like, fourteen, before he got so loud at Naruto about the fact that he'd rather kiss Naruto than he would me that Ms. Yūhi gave him pamphlets about the GSA and a detention."

"I mean, Sasuke is super pretty, but I also figured out he was an asshole, like, four months before that when I finally managed to have a whole conversation with him. Nah, girl."

Sakura has no other idea why Ino might have been trying to check out her Facebook profile. At least, no reasonable ideas.

"Also," Ino continues, "you don't post any stories to Snapchat. I only ever see you in Naruto's, and you're almost only ever coming at him and his phone with the intention to seriously maim and/or kill."

Why does Ino know all of these things about her?

Sakura is going to break the bottom off her bottle and shank herself with it.

"It's really hard to figure out how to flirt with you when I can't creep you on social media and research the best method of approach first, you know."

Nope, Sakura decides, the whole record scratch phenomenon is just her, not the music.

"Excuse me?" she says.

Ino licks her lips and then shrugs.

Sakura can practically hear the "fuck it" on Ino's face, as she bulldozes on.

"Like, sorry if this is hella unwelcome and uncomfortable. But I really didn't think we'd ever run into each other before school let out, let alone after, so I decided to, like, seize the day or whatever. Shikamaru has been grumbling at me to 'woman up' for, like, the past seven months, so. Whatever."

Sakura has no idea what to do with her hands.

At some point, she doesn't remember, she dropped her bottle and it rolled under the love seat.

"You're cute," Ino says. "You wanna make out and, like, marry me and retire to a seashore to live in a lighthouse and raise dogs? Or cats. I like both."

Sakura puts her head between her knees.

"Like, both cats and dogs, and guys and girls, y'know? And, like, snakes and other non-gender conforming people. I'm hella discerning where it counts though: absolutely no birds and no transphobic or other-wise inclined-to-be-intolerant dicks."

Sakura thinks she might be screaming, but it's lost to the noise in the room.

How, she despairs, has this little corner between couch and love seat gotten so quiet, so isolated, so just her and Ino?

Apparently Ino Yamanaka wants to mash their mouths together?

Obviously, Sakura fell asleep before Naruto could drag her out of her bed and into a pair of jeans and her sluttiest shirt.

Girls like Ino, with eyeliner as sharp as her smile and personality enough to bend the world, don't flirt with girls like Sakura.

"Shit," Ino says. "I've made you uncomfortable. Like, you were hiding and everything and I come in here like some asshole and try to put my feelings all over you."

Ino, for reasons Sakura doesn't understand, is standing up and trying to climb back over the arm of the couch without stepping on the head of whoever is curled up against it, asleep.

Sakura thinks they might be Kankuro, but it's hard to tell given that if there are ears on the hood of that hoodie, they're currently squished and indistinguishable under the pillow the person has pulled over their face.

Ino, Sakura remembers, just confessed to the fact that, for some unknowable reason, she thinks Sakura is pretty and that she would like to date her and maybe marry her.

Sakura grabs Ino's hand and pulls.

It's not her best move: Ino slips and tumbles right down into Sakura lap, knocking the breath from her.

Sakura's attempts to start breathing again are hindered by Ino's hair in her mouth.

Ino is warm and solid, pressed up against her, an elbow in Sakura's solar plexus and her face much too close.

This is, perhaps, Sakura's smoothest move ever.

If she had any game whatsoever, and also any breath in her lungs, Sakura would say something witty that simultaneously mocked and elevated the pickup line "did it hurt when you fell from heaven?"

As it is, Sakura has no game and also no breath, and so instead she wheezes and tries to help Ino scramble up, getting an eyeful of Ino's skin in the process.

Ino, Sakura is abruptly reminded, is wearing a very short crop top.

Valiantly, or, like, like a fish gasping for breath on land, Sakura keeps her hands and her tongue to herself.

When they finally get themselves sorted back out, Sakura and Ino refuse to look directly at each other like all good and noble and true sapphics.

They do their foremothers proud.

"Do you want to come watch me beat people up and get really sweaty next weekend?" Sakura finally asks. "I've a judo tournament, and it's open to anyone who wants to come watch."

Ino cuts her gaze through her hair to cut Sakura to pieces.

Sakura swallows heavily.

"How likely is it that you could lift me and pin me to a wall?" Ino asks.

"One hundred percent," Sakura answers without thinking.

There aren't many people Sakura couldn't lift if she cared to.

"That's hot," Ino says.

.

.

.

"Hey, Sakura," Naruto slurs, his arm swung over her shoulder as Sakura lifts him into her car to drive him home.

He is so going to deserve his mom obnoxiously vacuuming his bedroom floor in a few hours.

Kushina is the best and Sakura wants to be her when she grows up.

"I dunno if you should be driving if you're too drunk to put your lipstick on right."

Naruto smacks his head on the door frame and Sakura regrets nothing.

"Check your Snapchat," she tells him. "And don't throw up in my car. Also, put your seat belt on."

Sakura takes a moment to breathe as Naruto fumbles for his phone and the house two doors down rumbles faintly with music. She tips her head back and pretends that she can see the stars.

Huh.

She tries to whistle a bit, and the notes spike and fade on her lips, all disjointed nonsense.

Sakura looks down at her palm and flexes, her hand curling into a fist, to keep the ink there safe.

Ino's phone number is already in her cell, a purple heart next to Ino's name and a selfie of Ino smacking a kiss on Sakura's cheek set as the icon, but it's the ritual of it.

But it's the marking of it.

Sakura rubs at the lipstick on her cheek and her mouth, and her fingers come away slightly waxy and ever slightly pink.

Huh.

She opens her door and prepares for the barrage from Naruto, dreaming of lighthouses and of girls with smiles like electric storms dancing along to the music of their dying childhoods and of the endless sprawl of the future she's suddenly eager to greet.