Title: Enchanted
Author: Killaurey
Rating: G
Word Count: 3,420
Summary: Wishes, hopes, and dreams are all things Sakura is wary of, but Ino makes her want to believe in them and take a step she hasn't dared to before. SakuIno.
Notes: Part 9 of 22 of my Speak Now (Taylor's Version) Project, a series of unconnected one-shots each based around one of the songs off of Taylor Swift's album Speak Now (Taylor's Version). The lyrics at the beginning and end of the fic come from her song Enchanted.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it.

There I was again tonight
Forcing laughter, faking smiles
Same old tired, lonely place

It snows on the twentieth day of December and, in Konoha, that's a rare happening indeed. Sakura watches the way the children go absolutely mad for the fluffy white stuff with a bite when it touches bare skin and, at almost sixteen, feels positively ancient as she considers the way it's all just going to turn to slush and get her new boots filthy.

I'll complain to Ino after my shift at the hospital, she decides as she finds a sweater and throws it on over her outfit. Ino will understand.

And if it's an excuse to see Ino, well, Sakura has come to peace with the part of her that will take any excuse to see Ino. She's given up battling that particular longing a while ago.

Snow falls the rest of the day—at least, from what she can tell when she gets a chance to look out a window—and by the time she leaves the hospital, Sakura is startled to see how much of it has accumulated. Her ankles sink into it and finds herself grateful for her sweater, even while she curses herself for not bringing gloves.

Tucking her hands up into her armpits to keep them warm, she takes stock of the state of the streets (gross, muddy, and full of slush like she'd predicted) and then decides to takes to the rooftop, figuring there will be less gunk to step through up there.

Her feet make a sound like a suction cup as she leaps up to the nearest roof. It's horrible. She finds herself giggling a little anyway and looks around with a smidgen of warmer feelings for the whole situation. Especially as the rooftops are much cleaner, prettier, and the only mud up here is what other people have brought with them.

Shaking her boots off the best she can, Sakura stretches her arms out above her, reaching high for a moment, and then lowers them and makes a beeline over for Ino's apartment.

Sakura isn't quite sure why Ino has an apartment of her own, not when she's got a room at her Dad's and Sakura knows good and well that Ino gets along with her dad and there's no, well, no obvious reason Ino had felt the need to move out a year and change ago at the ripe old age of fourteen but, well, Sakura has given up trying to figure that one out.

Ino's never bothered to answer the question anyway with anything more than a blithe 'because I wanted to!' which might, in fact, be the entire reason.

These days, Sakura would consider getting her own apartment, but she can't quite make the numbers work. Budgets are hard and while the medical supplies she needs for her training are covered by the hospital, anything for her own personal kit is at her own expense.

And that gets expensive.

Easier to keep living with her parents who, while they're not always the most comfortable of people to be around, have been much happier since she's started spending most of her time at the hospital.

I suppose 'my daughter's a healer' is easier for them to gush about to their friends, Sakura muses, and not for the first time. It's an old thought that she's lost in.

"Forehead!" The gleeful shriek of laughter and that nickname are the only warnings Sakura gets before she's smacked in the face with a snowball so soft-packed that it explodes into chilly powdery fluff upon contact.

"Ino!" she protests, trying to brush her face off. Her face stings a little, from the cold and wet. "What was that for?!"

Ino comes to a stop in front of her. Her long, blonde hair is positively caked with snow and her cheeks are red. Her clothes are probably purple but, in the evening, covered in snow, Sakura wouldn't be willing to bet on it.

Ino grins at her. "You're supposed to throw a snowball back at me, Forehead."

"We're not children, Pig!" Sakura protests.

"I'll have you know that Chouji's dad started the snowball war down by the Nara compound this morning," Ino says brightly. "Playing is like wishing on a star—you never grow out of it!"

"I grew out of believing in wishes a long time ago," Sakura says.

Ino laughs, the sound of it like bells ringing, bright and merry. "Don't be ridiculous, Forehead! Who was it that was wishful of Kitahara-kun asking them to that festival last week?"

She flushes, because oh, that's a complicated thing. She'd hoped that Kitahara-kun would ask her but... not... quite for why Ino thought.

"And he went with Haruko-san, not with me!" Sakura says before that thought can linger. "And now they're dating!"

"Doesn't stop it from being a wish," Ino says. "Come on, Forehead. What's it hurt to dream?"

Sakura, frustrated and touchy and not wanting to try to explain her feelings on the whole... thing... like, ever, but especially not when Ino is like this, all laughter and cheer and all but radiant in the snow that's still falling all about them, bends down, scoops up a handful of snow, and flings it at Ino.

Ino shrieks in delighted outrage and the war is on.

It's later, much later, when the sun is long gone and the stars are peeking out from the clouds and the snow has mostly stopped falling that they finally trundle into Ino's place, peeling snow-caked clothes off and scrambling for the shower.

Ino wins.

Sakura ransacks her kitchen to make tea and eats the last three of Ino's favourite cookies in retaliation.

Ino's protests, when it's Sakura's turn to shower and Ino discovers the crime, make Sakura laugh all over again, so hard she can barely breathe even as she rubs feeling back into her poor, abused fingers that never had gotten a pair of gloves.

Once they're both dry, wearing Ino's old clothes, and under a pile of blankets on Ino's couch they argue over Ino's collection of takeout menus and Sakura feels... she feels better.

"Wishes and dreams hurt," she says, once their order has been placed. "That's why I don't like them."

If it bothers Ino to pick up the threads of a conversation from hours ago, she gives no sign of it.

"Are you staying the night?" Ino asks, combing her fingers through her hair idly.

"Yes," Sakura says, after a moment of just watching.

"That's alright then," Ino says, getting up from the couch. "Want me to have someone let your parents know?"

Sakura hesitates, then shakes her head. "No," she says, "let them think I'm just working overtime at the hospital. It's easier that way."

Ino nods. "I'm going to make us some hot chocolate. It'll be a while until the food gets here."

"That'd be great, thanks," Sakura says, smiling. "Did you want some help?"

"Keep the blankets warm," Ino says easily. "A very important job! Consider it an order!"

Sakura laughs.

As Ino leaves the room, she adds: "I like wishes because they don't always come true."

And, really, that's the most Ino thing Sakura can even imagine even if it makes her frown as she wraps her arms around a pillow and snuggles into the couch.

"Marshmallows?" Ino calls a few minutes later, from the kitchen.

Sakura knows she ought to get up and help but-she's cozy and warm and she's been given orders to not help at all.

"Yes, please," she says, and asks another question, though she's not sure if Ino can hear her. "How can you like wishes that never come true?"

Ino sings along with snatches of the radio, her voice edged with a happy contentment that Sakura envies because she doesn't think she's ever been that happy without anything lurking underneath it.

Anxiety is a cruel, cruel beast. Even when things are great, it lurks there just waiting for something to go wrong and as for hopes and dreams and wishes... well...

In short order, Ino comes out with hot chocolates, oven-warmed rolls, and soft cheeses.

Sakura thinks about pointing out that they just ordered food but, well, she's hungry and they can probably eat it all anyway. She says thanks, instead, and helps Ino get settled and everything get organized. The couch is not really the best place to eat like this, especially not piled on with blankets, but it's nice.

"I like the anticipation," Ino explains as she promptly steals half of the blankets Sakura's using and laughs at Sakura's gasp of faux chagrin. "I like hoping. Hope is a nice emotion and most people skip right past it. Just like anticipation, really, when it's for good things. When you're making a handmade card, it's something you anticipate seeing someone's reaction to, right? That's a nice feeling, isn't it? That's what hope is like, for me. That's why I like wishes. Even if they never come true, there's always that feeling to them that they could come true."

Sakura nibbles on bread and cheese and for a while they both just eat, thinking their own thoughts, and that's nice too.

"It is a nice feeling, that sort of fizzy but soft bundle of nerves," Sakura allows. "But most of the times, doesn't hope just... not go the way we, well, hope for? It makes it hard to enjoy the good feelings about it if it never comes true. It's like waiting for a... a... person to ask you out but then they never, ever, ever take notice of you. Hope becomes something weird and painful then."

Ino dips her bread and cheese into her hot chocolate, coming up with a marshmallow piled on top of the mess.

Sakura admires how Ino doesn't get any of it on her even though that combination, all at once, is absolutely revolting.

Then, realizing she's staring, she looks away and swallows. There's something about tonight. She should probably go.

She's too—antsy.

That's a good word for it.

"I guess that's why they call it the blues," Ino says, after a moment, and Sakura dares to look back at her. "I've always liked blue, though."

"I like it on other people," Sakura says. "But I'm not—I don't..."

"Don't worry about it," Ino says with the same easy confidence that Sakura knows she will never have. "We can't all be blue people. You suit being red much better. Bright, bold, and vibrant."

Sakura flushes and buries her face in the steam of her hot chocolate and hopes that Ino isn't going to notice.

"Blue's a warm colour too," she protests.

"It's the very definition of a cool one," Ino laughs. "Colour theory and all. It can be a soothing colour or a calming one, sure, but it's not exactly warm."

Sakura shrugs and says what she's thinking, refusing to let herself dwell on this particular second. "You're warm. Even though you pretend you're not."

"A blue person is still a person," Ino says lightly. "Just like a red person is still a person. We can't be broken down to colour theory nonsense. Why were you so tangled up inside when you came to see me?"

Sakura blinks at the conversational whiplash. "What?"

"You," Ino says casually. "You were all tangled due to—what? The snow? Everyone playing? We can talk about wishes and dreams and the philosophy of hope if you want but, like, what was the real problem?"

"I don't know," Sakura mutters, sinking into the depths of Ino's couch and trying to make herself invisible.

It's basically impossible when Ino is sitting right next to her. Sakura is acutely aware of this.

And she does know, really, and it's not about the boots. It was never about the boots to begin with, they were just an easy complaint to have, and easy was... well... easier.

"I mean, that's fair," Ino concedes. "Sometimes we get upset about stupid shit because we aren't ready to be upset about the real thing that's upsetting us. Daddy's got a fancy term for it. I'd have to look it up, though. Did you want me to get up and check into it?"

"No," Sakura says, and greatly daring, rests her head against Ino's shoulder.

Ino can be weird about touch, sometimes, but today she tolerates it with little more than a sigh that, to Sakura's ears, sounds fond.

She'll take fond, Sakura decides. It could be worse.

There's no reason at all that thought should make her eyes sting.

Thankfully, it's at that point that their someone knocks on Ino's door and it turns out to be their food delivery.

"I'd almost forgotten we'd ordered this," Sakura admits as she grabs plates from the kitchen, and extra napkins and cutlery, just in case, and then heads back into the living room. She is so glad they'd ordered it. It had shown up just as she'd nearly gotten maudlin about things she can't think about here.

Ino laughs. "Call it a brain freeze," Ino says, "otherwise I think we need to look to see if you've been drinking or have any head injuries."

"Kotatsu?" Sakura suggests, seeing as how Ino has already dug hers out of summer storage. "It's not really cold enough to need one, but they're nice."

She ignores Ino's comment about drinking or injuries. She doesn't have a concussion.

"They are, at that," Ino says. She nods her head decisively. "Kotatsu."

Between the two of them, rearranging Ino's living room so that they can settle down properly doesn't take very long and the food is still quite warm when they dig into it. It's perfect, actually, though that could just be her hunger talking.

"Food makes everything better," Ino decrees. "Unless it's poisoned but, like, I'm willing to take that risk."

Sakura swallows a mouthful of noodles. "That's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater and then shrieking about how you've got to find your baby."

Ino laughs. "I don't think it's quite that pessimistic, given you and I. We could take any poison that someone dared to slip us."

"True," Sakura says and then, not quite knowing the reason why but also knowing exactly why, she asks, "Are you throwing a party for New Years? Or Christmas?"

Ino wiggles her chopsticks back and forth. "Still debating. Christmas is too romantic and, I don't know about you, but I don't have a date for it. New Years is fun but does it really need an extra party when we're all going to be out and about at festivals and celebrations already?"

"No, that makes sense," Sakura says. "Tenten and I are visiting some shrines together on New Year's Day. Did you want to come with?"

"I'm going with my team," Ino says. "Did you want to meet up for lunch, though? We could totally do that."

"Yeah," Sakura says, beaming. "Tenten will be down for that. I'll make sure to let her know about the change in plans."

"Is it really a change in plans if you're just... adding to them?" Ino wonders, smiling mischievously. "Why, we could even keep adding to them, just keep going..."

And maybe because there's something about her smile, Sakura loses her mind for a moment.

"Would you go on a date with me for Christmas?" Sakura blurts.

Did I really just say that?

Sakura freezes, curses her mouth for saying something that she hadn't... hadn't... dared to ask, really, because-

"I mean," Sakura says, wondering how she's going to go about fixing this hole. Flustered, she looks down at the table, her legs hidden by the blanket. Her noodles. "I mean..."

She can't take it back. Or, really, she could but she doesn't want to. She's been at least half in love with Ino since they'd been back in the Academy (had she been enchanted to meet her, from the very start, and just too self-absorbed to notice for absolute?) and it has taken her years to admit to herself that that had been part of why she'd declared them rivals when she'd heard rumours that Ino liked Sasuke.

And since then, it's only gotten more complicated. She quietly goes up in flames when Ino dates but, at the same time, she loves it when Ino is happy and then there's the weird and awkward longing of...

Could she be happy with me?

But Sakura has never dared to even think that question in Ino's vicinity before.

Sakura knows all about the way people leave and Ino leaving her had been—no. It has been better to just wallow in quiet misery rather than risk not having Ino in her life at all.

And it's only then that she realizes that she's not only dared to ask but she's been thinking all of that, right here, right now, and Ino is like most Yamanaka and...

"Honestly, Forehead," Ino says, with that same warm fondness to her voice. The fondness that, belatedly, Sakura realizes she only ever hears about her, from Ino. "I'd love to go on a date with you."

...Wait, what?

Sakura steels herself, replays those words, and makes herself look up, half-expecting Ino to be laughing at her. But, while there's something sparkling in her eyes, Ino isn't laughing.

"You mean it?" Sakura asks, not sure if she's trying to give Ino an out or not. They could go as just friends. It would be a 'date' then, right?

"Did you mean it?" Ino returns.

"Of course I mean it!" Sakura says. "Ino, I just—I..."

She stops there, not sure what she's trying to say, her thoughts as muddled as her words. The only thing that isn't muddled are her feelings.

"I meant it," Sakura says, flushing but raising her chin defiantly. If this is going to blow up in her face then, well, she's going to go all in. Rip the bandage right off. "Ino, would you go out with me?"

Ino tilts her head to the side, her long blonde hair sliding off her shoulder. "For more than the Christmas date?"

"For more than that," Sakura says, and she feels clammy and anxious and hot all over too. She is terrified but she's gone this far so she might as well keep going, to a place with no name, a place she's never dared to really dream of except in her most secret of secret hearts. "For—for as long as we want to."

Ino considers her thoughtfully. Sakura wonders what she's thinking about, wondering what there is to weigh against her. Wonders who, if anyone, she might come up short against. Is there someone that Ino likes right now?

"Yes, alright," she says, then smiles. "Though, as my girlfriend, I definitely see why you wouldn't want to tell your parents you're staying the night."

Sakura's laugh is startled and incredulous all at once. She can feel the flush crawl up her cheeks. "Ino!"

"I'm just saying!" Ino says and, like it's the most natural thing in the world, reaches out and tangles their free hands together.

Sakura's nail polish is clear—it has to be, when Sakura works at the hospital—but Ino's nails are teal with little birds drawn in white and black across them. They're lovely, but the hand in hers and the easy way Ino had said the word 'girlfriend' are even better.

"Does this count as a date then?" Sakura asks, feeling a bit breathless.

"Well," Ino says, "we did get dinner together and we're all alone in my apartment."

"We did those things as friends too," Sakura says.

"Then it doesn't have to be a date," Ino says.

Sakura understands, now, what Ino is saying. Ino is giving her an out, should she need one, should this be too much or something she's not ready for.

Ino's always done that. She's always been so very careful of Sakura's feelings.

I wonder how long she's been putting her own feelings to the side, Sakura thinks, studying the way Ino meets her gaze with those blue, blue eyes of hers. Of how, even now, Ino is waiting on her. How long has she been waiting on me?

"I want it to be a date," Sakura says. "But, like, I'm not going to be easy."

Ino's smile is sweeter than the hot chocolate she'd made. "I've always liked a challenge, Forehead."

"You're still going to call me that, are you?"

"Yes, I think so."

Sakura leans over and kisses her. It's short, sweet, and it feels right. "Please don't ever stop."

This is me praying that
This was the very first page
Not where the story line ends