The funeral is quick, efficient, and grey. It isn't the grand affair Ino had always boasted of, and that bit of information allows her to savor a smirk. There are plenty of flowers, to be sure, but they are mostly cheap. Daisies and carnations, baby's breath, and a few dozen roses—not the luxurious blooms Ino had always favored in life. When choosing her flower, Sakura carefully ignores the cosmos and convinces herself that it's the messy pollen that repels her, and nothing else. There is nothing to remember.
She doesn't look at the large gray coffin when she comes to deposit the flower on the table littered with photos and other flowers. Instead, she bows her head to let the bangs cover her eyes and prays that she looks gracefully sorry. Never mind the feeling of fear that is seeping steadily up her ribs, or the sneaking suspicion that Ino might not be dead. Sakura is afraid that Ino might come back to life, just like she is afraid that Mr. Speckers will spring on her one of these days.
Sakura swallows the sudden pounding in her head and stumbles quickly away from the coffin, filing back into line among the rest. No one notices the drowning girl.
She frowns when she finds that Chouji and Shikamaru are standing beside her. (sincerity scars—) Chouji looks genuinely sorry, but Shikamaru has on a dark, angry expression that frightens her, marginally. She's never known Shikamaru to care for anything, and this curdled expression is unsettling. It flatters him too much.
At this point, Tsunade comes to the front of the large assembly and stands with her pigtails tossing in the wind. Sakura controls the twitch of her still-burnt fingers and recalls the blue gypsy, fondly. She masks her glare with heavy lids and feels delightfully clever.
Tsunade says a few words, as is obligatory of the Hokage at the death of any shinobi. Sakura doesn't listen, only notes that the words sound over-prepared and starched with forced emotion. (she really is a mask, Sakura muses.)
A point of cold kisses the bridge of her nose.
She looks up and the sky is a roll of grey felt, the color of bruised grapes and misty walks alone.
It's raining.
She's never liked the rain much before, but today—today is different. Today, the rain is necessary, though she doesn't understand why.
The air is charged with particles of enigma and some other gleeful suspicion. She exhales loudly, more loudly than she had intended. It fills the air. She cringes at this production and glances discreetly around at the crowd of bowed heads. Chouji does not seem to notice, but Shikamaru has his morose gaze fixed on her. She feigns ignorance, but his dark look makes the hairs on her neck raise imperceptibly. Her hands clench by her sides, white knuckles hidden by black folds.
She shivers and sets her jaw as Tsunade intones meaningless words of grief.
Only a few minutes pass, but those minutes are drawn out by the dark stare trained on her, and she wants to get away, desperately, from this gray and suffocating affair. No escape, whispers the little voice in the backdrop that rings so loudly. She swallows and grits her teeth, tries to think of something pleasant but finds there are no pleasant things to think of. Not when the coffin is wide open and about to swallow her whole, not when Tsunade is speaking that way, so phonily (she can't stand it! break the mask!), not when Shikamaru is staring through dark corners to find her and not when—
Her best friend is dead.
And then too quickly it's over, and they all go home.
-
She sloshes through the rain and the water grips at her feet, pulls at the lengths of her black clothes and turns them into tarry dead weights. She struggles and gasps through the wetness and is glad that the road she takes home is abandoned and no one goes this way, anymore. No one is there to witness her mistakes or her brokenness; no one to step in and ruin this perfection she can claim as her own. She gasps and kicks the deep puddles and splashes the anger everywhere, all over. The water drips and dribbles in between her sandaled toes, freezes the blood in her veins. She can barely breathe. Her hair sticks to her face and wriggles-flings everywhere; pink, wet serpents that hit her face each time with a delightful smack. The heat in her eyes is boiling rain, she tells herself.
The water is deep. She imagines it up to her knees, rising steadily. The folds of her clothes drip and run with rivers of water and drag her down to their depths. The weight is too much and she collapses to her knees, the water still rising, higher. It is up to her neck now, will be over her head in a moment…!
She takes in a deep gulp of air, and the illusion is abruptly shattered. She stands in the pelting silence for a while and the magnitude of her lie hits her. She swallows, her throat inconveniently dry.
No escape, whispers the tiny voice.
Finally got off my butt and finished this (lame) chapter. Still kind of stuck in a rut.