Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of the manga nor the anime nor any movies, trading cards, etc. that go under the name Naruto. I do not own any of the characters in the Naruto series. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

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The next day, after thoroughly washing out her gloves, she decided to ignore him and have another medic nin deal with him. Instead, she would visit Ino after her rounds in the hospital. She hadn't seen much of her friends since this whole debacle began. Kakashi and Naruto were both still on the mission to find Sasuke. Team ten would soon accompany them. The messengers had finally located the remainder of team seven and sent the message for them to wait. Ino and her teammates would soon leave to meet up with Kakashi and hopefully Naruto at the coordinates that were sent back. This might be the last time she would see her friend for a while. Might as well say goodbye and good luck while she was at it.

She found Ino at the flower shop. Sakura assumed that she had already finished training for the day. Ino was currently working at sorting flowers into various arrangements. They greeted each other like usual.

"Hey billboardbrow!"

"Hey ino-pig!"

"What are you doing here working when you could be spending the day saying goodbye to all your other friends?"

"I already said my goodbyes. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find you before." Ino shot Sakura a disapproving look.

"Heh heh" Sakura laughed nervously. "I guess I was too busy working myself. What else have you been up to?"

"Not much. The shop was been busy as usual. This morning I had 12 orders to fill."

"This morning? What are you doing working at the shop all day? Of course, it is probably the only time you get to meet guys other than your teammates."

"For your information, I am trying to earn money for the mission. It is obviously going to take quite a while and I don't want to rely on what we can find in the wilderness for all that time. Speaking of guys, how's that Akatsuki guy you helped bring in?" Ino replied.

"…" Sakura mumbled, disgruntled. "I didn't come here to talk about him."

The rest of the afternoon was spent discussing Sakura's lack of a love life ever since her faded crush on Sasuke.

What was supposed to be a relaxing afternoon off turned out to be not so relaxing after all.

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Sorry for the short chapter but I didn't want you to wait too long. Unfortunately, the rest of the story is taking a while.