A/:N: So I was sick and then I was traveling and then I was sick again. Hence super mega delay in updating. Yikes.
ANYWAY. I'm still alive. Still behind in Naruto, but had enough of the end spoiled that I can confidently say fuck canon. Go figure.
OH: I went back and named the chapters. They're all song titles or lyrics because der why not. Gives me something to do. And I'm trying to choose songs that would more or less make good background music for the scenes (or that feature in the scene).
CULTURAL NUANCES. The only cultural references made in this chapter involve how Japanese-style karaoke works. This is probably common knowledge but for some reason I wasn't aware of it until I first came to Japan in college, so here's a dumb explanation: in Japan you get your own tiny little room with a TV screen and mikes and shit in which to do karaoke. It's not like Western bars where you perform in front of whatever clientele are present and things get vaguely embarrassing and uncomfortable.
ALSO: How do I keep forgetting to mention that there's actually a bar called Rock Bar in my prefecture? No I didn't do that on purpose and yes it kind of freaked me out when I found out about it. That said it's a cool place that I hope I'm not banned from after that one thing I did.
ALAS. Is chapter. Do read.
~ Morbid Original ~
By the time Sakura flopped facedown on the couch to rest, her apartment had never looked cleaner. She glanced toward the smug wall clock for the trillionth time that day and found to her surprise that after an eternity of sweeping, scrubbing, dusting, and reorganizing, she had actually managed to burn quite a bit of time. Somewhere between alphabetizing her medical textbooks and reordering her kitchen cabinets the sun had set; outside, the sounds of workday hustle had shifted to those of pedestrian revelry, troupes of people gallivanting and guffawing in welcome of another Friday night. The festive energy of an impending weekend transcended even the walls of Sakura's isolating apartment, yet still she found herself hesitant to leave.
The same spirit of adventure and audacity that had seized her the day before had disappeared – or perhaps she had crushed it, realizing it couldn't be trusted. The only reason she even considered going out was to avoid another night in self-imposed solitary confinement, fending off flashbacks and every admonition of her exhausted conscience. No, she couldn't go through that again, and as Ino had said she would have to face him eventually. She couldn't spend the rest of her life in hiding. If he turned up to karaoke she would find some way to avoid him – choose a spot in the booth that didn't face or neighbor him, make sure they kept the lights off and the volume loud as hell to hinder visibility and conversation. After all, she always did like karaoke. She would find some way to enjoy herself – just not too much. There would be no 'letting go' tonight; rather she would steadfastly heed every command of her voice of reason as if her life depended on it (her social life certainly did).
Perhaps it was just exhaustion – too much rigorous cleaning and still not a wink of sleep – but by the time she reached the decision to go out she hardly felt anxious at all. The staggering stabs of panic that had assailed her heart had reduced to mere pinpricks, still irritating but by no means as incapacitating as before. Something like excitement even managed to override her apprehension as she sat before her bureau, touching up her makeup to make it more 'Friday night' appropriate. But a glimpse of the speckled red marks peeking out of her collar reminded her to stanch the grin tugging at her lips. Any degree of levity she sensed she should follow warily, lest history repeat itself, and to further protect her composed and collected image she would need to dress more efficiently.
She pulled an old turtleneck from the back of her closet, held it up before her reflection and grimaced. This certainly spelled 'professional' and 'put together'…like a secretary or the curator of a history museum, or the great-great-grandmother of a renowned politician. She groaned aloud at the thought. Certainly conservative was the right way to go, but must she shoot for the extreme? So she had gotten tipsy and boned her friend once, it wasn't like she was some kind of maniac who required an actual chastity belt to stay pure – although even some medieval torture device would look cuter than the formless piece of gray fabric she held now. Surely she should be able to avoid temptation without outfitting herself like the Feudal Lord's wife at a funeral.
She scoffed, tossing the garment onto the freshly made bed when an idea came to her. She withdrew a pair of scissors from her recently catalogued desk drawer and haphazardly snipped off the shirt's sleeves. After all she only needed the collar to conceal the damages of her recent transgression, and if she layered it over a body-con dress it should actually look pretty cool. It was the perfect compromise between sophisticated and sophomoric – reflecting both of the sides that now comprised her persona. For despite her current predicament the fact remained that she, Haruno Sakura, the Hokage's apprentice, had gone to a bar for a show – on a weeknight – and lost her virginity – before any of her friends – to the frontman of the band. Sure, the frontman may have been one of her closest friends, and in the details it might have all been a horrible mistake, but there was still an element of badassery to the tale that couldn't be ignored. She would find a way to deal with Naruto, her friendship faux pas, and his potentially befuddled feelings. But for now, she could at least embrace the part of her that had taken some pleasure in the experience, even if the finer points left something to be desired.
Unfortunately, by the time she put her outfit together in full she found the clothes left little to be desired, and even less to the imagination. She feared she might have overcompensated for the conservative neckline with the tight black dress, which appeared especially short paired with slouchy, heeled boots and monochrome tights that elongated her legs. Her scandalous half seemed to have more of a hold on her than she'd thought, but there was no time to amend her attire. If she intended to follow Ino's instruction and arrive 'fashionably early' she would have to leave soon.
"…Eh, fuck it," she mumbled, with a last look at her unruly reflection. There were other ways to keep her alter ego in check. It may have manifested in her clothes, but that didn't mean it had taken over. She just wouldn't drink that night; getting drunk two nights in a row was a bad habit to get into anyway. With her inhibitions safely guarded and set on high alert there was no chance she'd diverge from the straight and narrow, regardless of what she looked like. Besides, it would be dark in the karaoke booth, enough to obscure her risqué wardrobe and any angst that might arise if he showed up.
She paused by the door as her heart, which had been so calm and consistent for the previous few hours, gave an ominous thud. She glanced back at the sterile sanctuary of her living room, the propriety it promised in its privacy, its banality. After hours of tidying it looked even more immaculate, uninviting, and despite the sheen on all the floors and surfaces, it looked incontrovertibly…dull.
"Fuck it," she said again, with more conviction, and without another moment's delay she left.
"Fuck me," she swore under her breath as her destination came into sight. The establishment to which Ino had directed her appeared to be less of a karaoke bar and more of a bar that sometimes did karaoke. As in Western style: no booths, no privacy, no chance to comfortably laugh off your musical failures in the company of only your friends. Uh uh. Here you had a stage, a tiny TV screen, a flamboyant spectrum of spotlights, and the entirety of the bar and its employees as an audience.
Already Sakura's heart had kicked back into overdrive. This was not the night she'd accounted for, not the low-key locale for which she'd devised every possible escape plan. There would be no quiet corner in which she could privately panic if the need presented itself, nowhere to run if some unwanted conversation arose – unless she hid in the bathroom of course, but really she'd conquered enough clichés lately to want to avoid that one at all costs.
Shakily she lit a cigarette, backed away from the window through which she'd surveyed the unfortunate scene. It wasn't too late to turn back, lock herself away in her pristine apartment for the night. No one had seen her yet, after all. She could pretend she forgot or went to the wrong place or fallen asleep and finally gotten some goddamn rest –
But with the startling sensation of a fleece-clad arm snaking around her neck her hopes for a subtle getaway were crushed, along with her windpipe.
"There you are, skank!" came an exuberant cry directly in her ear. "You made it!"
Sakura wrenched out of the familiar death-grip to see Ino with Kiba and Tenten in her wake, but no sign of bright blond or orange anywhere. She could postpone her heart attack for another moment it seemed as she fabricated an out.
"Yeah, hey guys," she managed coolly, but before she could so much as feign a whooping cough, Ino had taken hold of her arm.
"C'mon, let's get a table," the blonde commanded. As if cognizant of her intention to bail, she held tight to Sakura's arm and tried to pull her through the door.
"Wait, I'm smoking!" Sakura said, yanking herself free perhaps a bit too desperately, judging by the suspicious glare it earned her.
"You can smoke inside, you know. It's a bar," Ino said. When all she managed was a shake of the head in response, the blonde girl glowered. "Fine. You two go get a table," she barked at the others, who obediently slinked inside. Turning back to Sakura, arms folded in preconceived frustration, "I'll deal with the working girl."
"Ino, I can't do this," Sakura said, ignoring yet another snide pet name her friend had coined. "I thought we would be in a booth in the dark with a bunch of people. I can't risk seeing him out in the open like this, so soon –"
"Listen, Super Slut, I told you before and I'll tell you again: Sasuke's. Not. Coming. There's no way in hell he'd be caught here, you're totally safe."
Sakura blinked for a moment until she remembered Ino still only knew half the truth, which made finding an excuse to leave even trickier.
"Uh…Yeah, but it's not just…him," she faltered, cracking under the blonde's withering stare. "It's…the whole thing! I mean, this is like a real bar. We can't just hide in the basement during a show. There are like lights and old people and –"
"And no bouncers," Ino interjected, gesturing toward the unguarded door. "Besides, if it's really getting busted you're worried about, I think some friend of Tenten's like cousin or something works here. But: what's the real problem?"
She waited, blonde brows raised, as Sakura struggled to circumnavigate the truth. She took a drag of her cigarette to buy time, wracking her brain wildly for something credible, but came up empty.
Sighing out a cloud of smoke, she asked, "Who else is coming?"
"Why does that matter?"
"Ino, please, I just need to know."
"I don't know. Shikamaru, Choji, the usual crowd."
Her friend's insistent ambiguity annoyed her at the best of times (the desired outcome of such behavior, she assumed), but in her harried state her patience drained with extraordinary rapidity. Before she could censor herself the question came out.
"Is Naruto coming?" she spat, freezing in the wake of her own words. Something about saying his name aloud made her heart thump, her insides knot as the threat of their imminent encounter suddenly seemed terribly real. Quickly she brought the cigarette to her mouth to obscure her sudden pallor, bit the filter to occupy loose lips before they let anything else slip.
Ino blinked at the rose-haired kunoichi as if she'd just sprouted a beard. "Why?" she said.
"Ino!" Sakura cried, the abrupt toxicity of her tone causing her to choke and cough out a billow of smoke. Her friend's adamant unhelpfulness had quickly stoked her stress to its full magnitude and brought everything boiling to the surface. "Can you just give me a straight answer, please, is he coming or not?"
The assailment of smoke had made her eyes water, but the tears fell for an entirely different reason. The whole ordeal had rendered her far more fragile than anticipated, so much so that even Ino seemed to notice.
"I don't know," she answered earnestly, softening her characteristically curt demeanor.
"Well did you invite him? Did anyone else invite him?"
"Sakura, I have no idea," Ino insisted, taking a step toward her rattled compatriot. "But who cares? What does it matter if he comes or not –"
"It just does, okay," Sakura cut her off, dropping her watery gaze to the cigarette she turned between her fingers. Suddenly she recalled the scene outside Rock Bar, the startling way the cherry lit his face as he smoked and how queer it was that she'd taken note of that – that she thought of it again then. She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve, shaking her head of the strange memory. "It just really matters."
She sensed Ino's uncomprehending eyes run over her for a moment before her hand came to her arm. "Oh my God," the blonde said, voice laden with both pity and intrigue. "Sakura."
She nodded, gaze still downcast. There it was. She had finally revealed enough at the mercy of her frenzied nerves that Ino had put it together. Next would come the incredulity, the berating, the rebuke that she had ruined her future with Sasuke and for what, a night with Naruto? Ugh, gag me! and finally the mockery that would follow her for the rest of her life. Still, part of her felt relieved to have gotten it off her chest. Sharing the secret would make the burden a little lighter – even if it was Ino with whom she'd shared it.
"Honey, I totally get it," the blonde said, giving her arm a comforting squeeze. "But that's not your problem."
Emerald eyes darting up, Sakura suddenly doubted that her friend 'got it.' "…What."
"It's not your fault if he gets jealous, okay? This is between you and Sasuke, and Naruto can just deal with it."
For a moment Sakura could only stare. Either the superior acuity of the Yamanaka clan had skipped a generation or the thought of her sleeping with Naruto was so farfetched it was literally unbelievable, even when she'd practically spelled it all out.
"Ino that's not –"
"And so what if he's been in love with you for like forever? Some things just aren't meant to be, and everyone knows you and Sasuke are –"
"Ino! You have no idea what you're talking about!"
"Then tell me! Jesus, Sakura, what is wrong?"
Now it was Ino's turn to be frustrated at her stubborn elusiveness. Why couldn't she just say it? she thought. I slept with Naruto. The words were practically etched into her brain from hours of obsession, yet when she opened her mouth they wouldn't take form. Instead she shook her head. She couldn't say it when she still didn't know what to do about it. She couldn't risk making it any more real.
"It's nothing," she finally said, stamping out the cigarette. "Forget about it."
Though she clearly didn't buy it, Ino wasn't one to waste time on difficult conversations, especially on a Friday night. "Okay," she sighed. "Then let's go inside."
"Ino I'm not coming."
"Oh come on, slutstitute," Ino snapped, her patience clearly exhausted. "You're already here, your friends are inside –" Already Sakura had begun to walk away when Ino grabbed her arm again and said, "I'll make sure Naruto wasn't invited!"
Pausing in her retreat, she shot the blonde a wary glare. "And if he was?"
Ino rolled her eyes dramatically, scoffing. "Oh my God then you can leave. Okay? Anyway he's not here now. Come chill at least for a while."
Weighing the options, Sakura chewed her lip. Bailing at the first sign of Naruto was sure to let people know something was up, but since Tenten and Kiba had already seen her, she couldn't exactly disappear then either. On the other hand, if he didn't show she could just enjoy a night of karaoke with her friends. She could return to her regularly scheduled panicking the next day until she figured out what to do for good.
"Fine," she conceded, shaking free of Ino's grip once again. "If he's not coming…then fine. But you have to make sure, Ino –"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, I'll ask. Now come on, let's get some drinks in you."
"I'm not drinking tonight," Sakura said as she followed her friend inside.
Sensing the lack of resolution in her words, Ino cackled without looking back. "Oh please. You look like you need fifty. Besides, you need to order two drinks to do karaoke, so…"