balter: to dance gracelessly, but with enjoyment

rating: g
genre: romance/fluff
pairings: inosaku
POV: Sakura
word count: 700

Sakura has been going to a weekly cooking class with Lee for the last three months, and she'll never admit it to him, because she is going to do her best to avoid getting involved in anything resembling "being most Youthful and Joyous Rivals", but she's been enjoying herself.

She'd never enjoyed her mother's cooking lessons, mind spinning too fast and resenting being trapped by the domesticity of it all. (She misses Kāchan so much these days that she almost regrets the sullenness with which she suffered her mother's teachings. Almost.) And then, she doesn't remember her name anymore, but one of the chūnin who taught their Kunoichi Lessons at the Academy, warned them that they should never betray anything more than a passing cooking ability to their genin squad, lest they be stuck on mess duty for the rest of the team's existence.

Sasuke occasionally managed to produce something astonishing from the combination of mission rations, supplies Kakashi-sensei would possibly accidentally con out of a client or sympathetic villager, and whatever Sakura and Naruto could hunt or gather from their surroundings. But no one else on Team 7 could manage much more than "edible".

Sakura wanted to be necessary, but not in any way that kept her any more on the sidelines than she already was.

And then, while Tsunade-shishō was all about proper nutrition, her idea of gourmet was whatever sake she could get her hands on. So.

She's twenty-six now, though, not twelve, not fourteen. She's learned how to breathe under the confines of her own skin.

Sakura fills dumplings with sure hands now. Sometimes they fall apart on her, but not as often, and she always cooks them to perfection.

The task still takes up her focus, though. It's almost meditative. She doesn't notice that someone else has walked into the kitchen until Ino is hooking her chin over Sakura's shoulder, staring down at what she's making.

Sakura doesn't have the years to recount all the things Ino has done for her. How can she possibly make it clear exactly how Ino has helped her carve the space to become herself? She'll spend the rest of her life trying to repay the debt, and all Sakura can do is hope that her love is enough.

"Dumplings!" Ino cheers, and drops a kiss to Sakura's cheekbone. "Thanks, dumpling."

"You're terrible," Sakura informs her.

"Hmm," Ino agrees, and presses a more lingering kiss, this time to the edge of Sakura's mouth.

Sakura laughs—it's an awkward angle–but leans into the kiss, leans into Ino pressed against her back.

Ino starts to rock them side to side, her hands on Sakura's hips, and Sakura laughs again.

"What are we doing?" she asks.

"'What are we doing,' she says. You don't know what dancing is?"

"Of course I know what dancing is. You think this is dancing?"

Sakura should know better than to put a challenge at Ino's feet and not expect her to immediately try to surmount it.

Ino spins Sakura around, and Sakura goes, floured hands and all.

"I'll show you dancing!"

Ino grabs Sakura's floured hands, despite her attempts to protest, and tugs her close, their fronts pressed together.

"Hi," Sakura mumbles against Ino's lips.

"Hi."

Ino tastes like iron and smells like the delicate orchids her mother keeps on a display shelf in the flower shop.

There's no music playing in their white washed kitchen. Herbs grow in the window sill, looking out on the small kitchen garden Ino tends, honeyripe sunshine shining through to warm them as the day lengthens and they dance.

Ino is more concerned with kissing Sakura than she is with keeping them moving at any particular rhythm, and Sakura is happy to sink into her. They lurch around the kitchen at the whims of the push and pull of the tide between them, spinning dizzy orbits across the tile.

They would be a sight, to anyone watching.

But this is the home they have built, together.

No one watches here.

Here, there is just Ino and Sakura, dancing like there is nothing depending on it. Dancing just because they have each other, because they are in love.