Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any associated copyrighted property. All I own is my imagination and therefore, this plot.
Rating: Mature for language, drug usage, sexual references, and lesbianism (because apparantly, that's only for mature audiences).


"Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action." -Benjamin Disraeli

Chapter 6

Ino sat by herself in her car during lunch. She wanted time alone—away from the people she had once again found herself associated with. She wanted to breathe a breath of fresh air. She wanted to take a nap, to sleep the day away. She wanted food; she was hungry.

It was normal to feel this way. She often had the munchies due to her bad habit of smoking weed, but last week she had told herself she was done with weed. Done with Sasuke. He was still as useless and selfish as ever. Sick of him, she dumped him, promising herself she'd never go back to him. He would never seduce her again. She'd never take anything from him again; not sex, not weed, not money.

Done.

Through.

Finished.

No more Sasuke.

The thought of it excited her. She had finally given up one addiction and with that she had also shed her addiction to weed. She could be happy without them, right? She could live her life properly, without having to get high to feel good, right?

No… she'd rid herself of Sasuke and drugs, but she hadn't rid herself of depression or discontentment and she only knew of one thing that made her forget her problems, completely.

That one thing was a person and that person never wanted to see her again. The mere thought of that hurt her deeply. It made her want to run back to Saskue, to lose herself in the haze of nonsense her mind transformed into after smoking for a long time. Fuck, there was hardly anything she wouldn't give right then to be rid of her depressing thoughts. It was just as before except…

Except, she knew she had a reason to live now. She didn't want to kill herself—she had a purpose now. She needed to get better for Sakura. She needed to regain her confidence and her strength. Then, and only then, would she approach Sakura and attempt to ask for forgiveness. That was her only escape left.

The weeks blew by and Ino managed school rather easily with her new health plan. She'd eat 3 meals a day and exercise for 30 minutes. It seemed simple enough, but with her new addiction to sleep it was a struggle to find the inspiration to actually get up and go for a jog or even do crunches and push ups.

The end of soccer season was approaching and Ino hoped to go to at least one last game. She would attend the last home game of the season, and it happened to be senior night. Would Sakura be excited to see her? She hoped so, because she knew that Sakura had been going out of her way to avoid her and she managed not to see Sakura at all at school. It was a bit depressing, but it drove her to continue what she was doing to please Sakura.

Sakura was all she thought about anymore. The thought of Sakura made her push herself when she was jogging to jog a bit more, it made her study a little longer and show up at school on time.

This obsession scared her, but that was ok. She could finally embrace it and she knew that she only had one shot at this and that she needed to do it right. Ino refused to be the fuck up any longer.


The week seemed to be going by very slowly for Sakura. It seemed as if everywhere she turned she almost ran into Ino. She was concerned so much about the possibility of having to talk to her that she almost missed the glaring truth: Ino was actually going to class at school. She was no longer skipping as much as she used to.

The news of her official break up with Sasuke was all over the school. The boy had his ego hurt and subsequently told the whole school that he had slept with Ino. When that seemed to fail at fazing the girl, he spread a nasty rumor about her having STDs. That only backfired on him because he had previously confessed to sleeping with her.

No girl wanted to touch him.

Ino seemed oblivious to this all, Sakura noted. Whenever she'd see Ino, the blonde girl seemed completely out of it and half asleep. Perhaps she had found a new drug to play around with, Sakura worried. Maybe she was spending time outside of school with all the boys who obviously had crushes on her and adored her; lusted for her. She was single again—there was only one girl the boys wanted. Sakura worried about Ino and whether or not she'd be able to resist and fend them off.

Whatever the case, she decided that she'd stick to her decision of giving Ino her space and she hadn't seen her for a couple of weeks. She worried about not being able to keep an eye on Ino, but the gossip about the blonde had yet to die down so she assumed she was still at school doing whatever it was she was doing.

Sakura focused on what she felt should be her biggest focus. She had been accepted into a pretty decent college and she was still doing well in school. All she had to do was finish soccer season and then it would be a smooth ride to graduation. Their soccer team was pretty bad so they had their last game of the season on Wednesday. Sakura felt that if she could properly get over the loss of her sporadic friendship with Ino she could breeze into her new, upcoming life.

The game on Wednesday was rather pointless. They were playing the worst team in the conference, so it was a guaranteed win. Sakura was very focused on just getting it over with. As she played she realized that her heart was nowhere in the game and she felt that it wasn't because they were playing a crappy team. She had begun to notice an apathy growing within her—one that made her care very little about the things that she did. Was this because of Ino? She didn't know really.

Stealing the ball easily from one of the players she made her way downfield and passed it towards one of her teammates. A girl on the other team tried way too hard to intercept the pass and kicked it out of bounds. The referee tossed Sakura the ball as she headed towards the sideline for the throw in. It was then that Sakura spotted Ino, sitting amongst the crowd looking a bit uncomfortable and cold. The blonde smiled at her hesitantly and Sakura momentarily forgot how to breathe; her heart seemed to clog up her chest. (1) She was unprepared for the appearance of the girl and managed to trip slightly on absolutely nothing. Blushing, she turned away and focused unreasonably hard on throwing the ball into the field.

With that task completed, she distractedly played the game.


Ino was nervous… no she was beyond nervous when she approached Sakura after the game. Green eyes cornered her and she was frozen to the spot—she knew she had to say what she needed to, for there was no escape.

"Sakura… I'm sorry," Ino breathed lightly, shoving her hands into her pockets. Sakura merely looked at her, surveying her physical appearance. Ino looked so much stronger on her feet and she seemed to have a healthy glow about her face.

"It's ok," was all Sakura replied, still standing there as if there was more to say. "I see… um, you're looking good."

It was only after she said it that she realized that her compliment could've been taken more than one way. Strangely enough, she wanted Ino to take it those ways. The blonde blushed, bringing her left hand out of her pocket to brush some hair away from her face. She had worn her hair down to impress Sakura. Suddenly, she felt like she was back in middle school suffering from an insanely cute crush. However, this time she wasn't infatuated with someone who'd assist her in destroying herself…

"Do you want to come over?" she blurted, averting her eyes quickly and sharply.

"What?"

"To my house… tonight. To chat, maybe watch a movie," Ino murmured before looking back up at Sakura.

"Well, it's a school night. I'll have to ask my dad if it's ok."

"Ok," Ino said watching Sakura head off to talk to her dad who had been watching them from a couple of yards away. Ino decided to look around, anywhere but Sakura and her father, for fear of seeming like a creeper. She felt a slight twinge of pain in her chest at the idea of a father who cared so much about his daughter's studies that he usually forbids her from socializing during the week. It was a bit obsessive, but it was… cute.

"He said it was alright," the pinkette's voice sounded behind her, startling her. Turning she looked at Sakura and smiled.

"Ok, cool. I'll go ahead and head home then; I'll see you in a little bit,"

Ino waited rather impatiently at her house, anxious for the girl to arrive. She had bought a bag of chips and a bottle of soda for the movie, granted that Sakura wanted to even stay for that. She'd be getting home rather late if she did. The sound of the doorbell startled her out of her racing thoughts. Jumping up she made her way downstairs and hesitated briefly, wondering if perhaps they should watch the movie downstairs because she remembered Sakura mentioning one time how she didn't like her room. Brushing away the contemplation after a while she opened up the door and ushered Sakura in.

"Hey," Ino said nervously rubbing at the side of her neck.

"Hey. Gees, I was worried I'd have to break in again," Sakura joked and Ino could only smile at the green eyed girl's wit.

"Nah, I'm over that," Ino said without any thought before turning away from Sakura and heading towards the staircase. "I set up the movie in my room."

"Cool," Sakura said before pausing. "Oh, actually, I meant to ask… Is if ok if I took a shower first? I'm kind of gross and sweaty right now."

"Oh, yeah, sure," Ino's cheeks bloomed red when she turned back to Sakura to reply.

Ino led Sakura upstairs and the green eyed girl showed herself into the bathroom with her bag filled with clothes. Flopping down onto her bed Ino tried to quell her anxiety and nervousness. She knew it was a pointless endeavor because she knew what she was going to tell Sakura—once she made up her mind, there was no changing it. Yet, she didn't want to risk the friendship she could see blooming again, budding after a cold hard winter.

Lying this way, face down on the bed, the blonde could feel her pulse thrumming in her neck; its tempo had slowed, but its magnitude was thunderous. She allowed her eyes to droop just a bit and she suddenly felt the fatigue of the week hit her. Her ears picked up the absence of the sound of the shower, but she did not physically respond to the change. She merely observed it.

Sakura soon exited the shower and with her came a wave a heat and the fresh scent of Ino's shampoo and body wash.

Sakura stood next to the bed and Ino glanced up at her. The pink haired girl gave a lopsided smirk and began to speak.

"Your bathroom is really n—" her sentence was cut short when the other girl reached out and grabbed her wrist only to pull her down onto the bed. The way Sakura fell was certainly strange. She was turned onto her side and her arm, with Ino's hand still clutching her wrist, was tucked beneath her body in an awkwardly painful way. Sakura turned, rolling slightly and contorting herself even further, to give the blonde a questioning look. This only lasted a brief moment, however, because Sakura then rolled the other way to put herself in a more comfortable position.

Ino's hand was still clutching her wrist. Ino was hypersensitive when it came to the contact—her own hand felt so strange to her. She let go of Sakura's wrist and mumbled an apology. Her eyes were glued to the patterns on her bed sheets.

"It's cool," the green eyed girl smiled almost reflexively.

A moment passed before Sakura spoke gently, "You look a bit tired."

Ino sighed before saying, "Just a little… I haven't been sleeping very well. I bet you're tired too; you just ran up and down a soccer field for nearly an hour."

"I'm alright," Sakura managed to shrug before taking a deep breath. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Us."

Ino's response was so frank and straightforward that it took Sakura by surprise. Suddenly, she was a bit unnerved, but she couldn't exactly put her finger on why. The blonde's blue eyes seemed to be filled with some sort of determination and she wondered what Ino could've been thinking about so passionately.

"Well… I was waiting for you to, I don't know, decide you wanted to be friends again… I mean, I figured that was the right thing to do," Sakura spoke rather awkwardly.

"It was… thank you for giving me time to figure myself out; things aren't perfect yet, but I'm trying to fix myself and I hope that you'll be wiling to help me out again."

Her voice was soft and hesitant. Sakura smiled at her and nodded and Ino slid her hand over the pinkette's which was facing palm up. Ino's hand was a bit chilly, especially so at the fingertips, and Sakura's was warm from her shower. With eyes sky blue eyes glued to Sakura's green eyes she slipped her fingers between Sakura's waiting for any sort of response from the girl other than a surprised expression.

Ino listened to her deep shaky breathing and her pounding heart—she could hear Sakura's soft rapid breaths and could see the gentle pink tint filling her cheeks. Time seemed to stop all together.

It was beautiful.

And it seemed even more so when Sakura relaxed her tense muscles and closed her fingers around Ino's hand. They laid in silence listening to one another breathe. Sakura's mind was racing and she brewed over what was going on. Had that been an acceptance of some sort? An acceptance of what? Did that matter? Ino looked so relaxed right now—so content—and she could see the smile in her eyes even if it wasn't on her lips. Such lovely blue eyes, so deep and intense.

Sakura felt really self-conscious because of how closely Ino seemed to be watching her, but she was comfortable as well.

"I don't know," Sakura mumbled. "I'm pretty comfortable right now… I could do without the movie and just fall asleep. If you want to watch it, you should just hit play already."

"I could just fall asleep too," Ino smiled slightly, just as she always does.

"Is that what you want?"

Nodding, Ino glanced at their intertwined fingers. "What do you want, Sakura?"

Sakura knew that this question was not about the movie. It was about what was going on or what could go on between them. Shaking her head she pursed her lips gently, "I can't answer that question right now." (2)

Ino, accepting that, reached forward and gently touched Sakura's dampened hair. It looked strange wet; almost magenta in some spots.

"I can't think right now… too tired," she continued with a deep laziness in her voice.

Ino noticed it was only about nine-thirty, but she too was exhausted from the week. Sakura was the first to slip into slumber and Ino followed soon after, admiring the girl's resting face and wondering how things would work out once they really got to talking about it.


1- I love and hate that feeling; you know, when you see the person you like and it's like everything stops abruptly and when it all comes rushing back it causes that feeling when reality hits you.
2- This is smart of Sakura, don't you agree? I never let myself answer questions like that when I'm really tired or emotional. That's because I'm a really logical person and I know that my brain doesn't function too sharply at night. But thinking things through leaves room for answers that aren't the whole truth... Perhaps that's my one flaw. Now Sakura has it too. lol

A/N: Progress? I think so. Anyways, sorry for disappearing for a while. I also apologize for the short chapter. It's been a hectic couple of weeks (and I will spare you the details). I've just finished up with exams and have a short break, so I will hopefully be able to finish this story in about 2 chapters by the end of Jan.(which is a goal I'm sure I'll not obtain, but I will try).