Don't even ask me what made me decide to revive this old fic. But hey, I did.

Chapter Two: Things Are Still Unfolding

Just what he wanted. More like the least place he would like to be in the world. He rather drive a kunai through his Sharigan than enter Ino's Flower shop. Out of all the community services that were slapped on his shoulders, this was the very worst. The majority of his community service was all D-ranked missions, hardly fit for a ninja of his skill. He once asked Kakashi to argue his case, but the former-sensei was mistrustful. After a few months, Kakashi trusted Sasuke enough to ask the Village's Council for a change. He asked that instead of lowly D-ranked missions, Sasuke could be given higher ranked missions in which he would complete for free.

The Council denied his request for two reasons. One, they partly wanted to see him suffer. Two, higher ranked missions often required traveling outside of the village, which he was not allowed to do, let alone even approach it's borders. They at first considered letting him help out in the Villages police force, because cutting off the Uchiha's ninja career was a bad waste of talent. In the back of their minds, the Council knew they would recruit him back to the battlefield when his talent was needed.

And now, Sasuke Uchiha found himself hired out as the assisant to the manager of the Yamanaka Flower Shop. As he opened the door a jingling bell announced his arrival. A blond woman caught sight of him, and narrowed her eyes.

"Oh, so you're the assisant they sent?" She asked softly, looking him over.

"Yes," he replied indifferently. A smile unfolded on the woman's face.

"Great!" she said heartily, "I'm happy they brought a nice strong man! There are tons of heavy boxes in the back that need lifting!" Sasuke nodded. "Hold on, I'll be right back. And no need for introductions, right? I'm Mrs. Yamanaka, and I know you're Sasuke of course. Ino used to talk about you back when you were at the Academy. Anyway, I'll be right back."

Sasuke flinched inwardly after the woman left. The second to last person he felt like seeing. Ino's mother. How she must adore him. He finally realized the very last person he felt like seeing was sitting at the front counter, watching him with her head propped up on her hands. Ino, herself.

"Sasuke? You're working here?" In the back of his mind he wondered whether the place was really hiring or did Ino begged her mom to put in a request in hopes the council would send him? Something told him it was unlikely, though. Sakura would have done it first.

"Yeah," he replied, but didn't come any closer to her.

"This is great! We can work together!" She squealed, causing him to shiver internally. This was the worst punishment by far. Ino's mother came back holding a long list.

"Ah, here we go. There a lot of deliveries to be made. Sasuke, I need you to deliver all the boxes in the back. Ino, you can help him."

"I don't need help," Sasuke said quickly, but the woman shook her head.

"Honey, there are a lot of boxes. Go ahead." Grudingly, Sasuke followed Ino into a room. True enough, it was packed with boxes, all stacked on top of eachother.

"Ma! That's a lot of deliveries!" Ino whined.

"Dear, what did you expect? It's getting closer to Valentine's Day, you know." Without waiting Sasuke picked up two boxes, easy, and Ino hauled one. Her mother handed her the list.

"These are the addresses in accordance to the box number. Just before you deliver them I want you to unpack them and re-arrange them." Ino groaned. "Off, you two. I won't be here when you get back, so Ino you're in charge."

A few deliveries and heavy boxes later...

"Ugh! Does my mother think I'm a slave!" Ino shouted, shifting the heavy box in her arms. "This is too much!" Sasuke wordlessly took the box from her and stacked it on top of his two. "Sasuke...you don't have to do that."

"You're going too slow. I want to get this over with so I can go home."

"Oh." The last flowers in the boxes were delivered, but there was still a few more in the backroom. They stared out towards the shop but never quite got there.

Ino yawned and strecthed her arms. "I think that's enough. Let's take a break, okay?" Before he could protest she reversed step and rested at a park bench. Sasuke looked around suspiously. It wouldn't look good sitting down on the job.

"Shouldn't we finish?" He said. The blond smiled.

"Don't you think we already did a lot? Besides, Mom put me in charge and I think we've earned a break! Jeez!" She didn't budge, and he could tell she wasn't going to. His arms were a little tired, and she beckoned him to sit. He sat down, as far from her as possible. For a while they sat in silence, until it was un-thankfully broken by Ino.

"Sasuke? Can I say something... " she asked in a small voice, which also bothered him. If he said no, chances were she'd tell him anyway. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.

"Hn," he grunted indifferently, staring at the blank space in front of him. The girl brought her leg up and turned towards him.

"I don't know anything about you." No, really? "I don't know the first thing about you, or what you went through, or anything. And that's why I'm not like Sakura. You think I'm annoying, but I act the way I do because I don't know you." Sasuke closed his eyes.

"You couldn't possibly begin to understand anything about me," he said coldly.

"Please, try me. I can't stop annoying you if you don't tell me."

You're annoying me now.

"How could you possibly know what it's like to have everything that ever mattered ripped away from you in one day and have the two most important people in your life slaughtered before your very eyes?" He said for what seemed like the tenth time in his life. If Naruto and Sakura couldn't figure it out, what made her think she ever could? He paused for the answer.

"I can't," Ino replied after a while. "There's no way I could ever imagine what that felt like, and I'm not going to even try. It would be an insult." The Uchiha opened his eyes and fought the urge to look at her. Her words were unexpected and he was a little surprised. What he did expect was a shower of weak condolences: You poor thing, Oh my god that's terrible, it must have been horrible. And that was the difference between Sakura and Ino, he saw. Ino didn't try to pretend to understand things that were beyond her compacity. In his eyes, it made her just a smite less annoying. A smite.

"The farthest I could ever relate to that, is..." She said, drawing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them. "Well, when I was little, it was my dad. He's a great father and ninja now, but believe it or not he used to be a drunk. He'd come it late at night, his breath reeked of sake. He would come in and... beat my mother. And in the morning, he'd be fine. He couldn't shake off these late night habits no matter what, so my mom took me and left.

That night, I felt like nothing mattered anymore. Something important was torn from my life, and it made everything else feel numb. Sure I was the pretty, popular girl in school, but none of it mattered. I felt like I couldn't rely on anybody, a feeling that never quite left. And, I felt like nobody needed me. I was purposeless. Then, Sakura came," she smiled. "She was more helpless than I was. And my dad came back, sobered up. He still goes out with Shikamaru's dad but he never gets over the limit. Everything was patched up, and it's all fine now. I guess that's the other huge difference."

Sasuke sat mute. What was he supposed to say? She just spilled out her life story and he had nothing to contribute. Still, he would have never guessed the blond went through that kind of ordeal. Her story was nothing compared to his, but he actually found one part he related to. She mentioned the numbness, the feeling that canceled out all others. He remembered it, too. Nothing else mattered anymore, except the one goal he engraved into his soul. Kill Itachi. Not that Itachi was dead the numbness mixed with new emerging emotions that made everything confusing and overwhelming.

"Hey," he said. Ino perked up.

"Yeah?"

"It's getting late. Won't your mom be mad?" She jumped up in shock.

"You're right!" She cursed, then said, "She's gonna kill me! I didn't notice how late it was getting, come on, let's get out of here!"

"-And so he worked with me for the day," Ino said smugly, and put down her cup. The fragrant scent of flowers did nothing to cover up her spiteful aura. Behind the elegant glass table they sat at Ino's mother could be heard greeting customers inside. In the back garden, it was peaceful and serene. The two girls sipped drinks under the shade of the umbrella that stuck out of the table's center.

"Nice," said Sakura, pretending she could care less. "Is that why you invited me? To tell me this."

"Actually, my mom invited you since you stopped in," Ino smiled.

"I had to pick up some flowers for my mom," Sakura explained. "But really, what do you want with Sasuke? I thought you were 'so over him'."

"I'm not," Ino said.

"What about Shikamaru?" Sakura demanded. Ino chuckled.

"No, no, no. Shika? Besides, somehow I think he likes that girl from the Sand Village." Sakura crinkled her noise, remembering that harsh girl with the fan.

"Ah. Well, I've been Sasuke's teammate forever now. I understand him more than you do. If it's just me and you, do you think you have a chance? Where were you while I was taking care of him all these years before he left?" Ino set her cup down a little forcefully.

"That's nothing," she snapped. "Everyone takes care of their teammates. That's the only reason you got close to him! Excuse me, but I was busy taking care of my own teammates and being the leader of my squad, I could only wish for extra time to take care of him, too. Did you ever get to know him outside of missions and training? No, if I were on your team I'd be in your position right now!" Her spiteful outburst silenced the other girl.

Was that really true? Sakura thought. Would I even be close to Sasuke if we weren't on the same team? Ino smirked in triumph.

"Everything happens for a reason," Sakura said definetly, making up her mind. "If I was on his team, it's because it was meant to be. Just like Team Ino-Shika-Cho was meant to be. Ino pursed her lips and averted her gaze.

It's not too late to find out what else was meant to be... Things are still unfolding, I'm sure of it.