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To Sakura, Ino is like water. She has always been envious of her, not because of her looks or her skill or any other small thing she might have been focused on as a child, but because of how easy it is for her to adapt, to shift, to make herself more palatable. She never goes against the current, but flows with it instead, makes it work in her favor.
Sakura is not palatable. She never has been.
She is, instead, like a rock, one that stands firm, that forces the water to part around her, unwilling to budge. Long ago, she accepted that she could never be like Ino — that she’ll never know how to shape herself to seem like anything other than what she really is.
It’s not been an easy thing to accept, and anyone who’s bothered to watch Sakura close enough knows what it took her to get here, knows that she’s had to fight tooth and nail to become the woman she is today. And it’s not that she’s not proud of it, of herself, because she is, but sometimes, when she sees how people look at Ino, how they go out of their way to help her and how much they respect her at the bat of an eyelash, she feels the unpleasant tug of jealousy pull at her gut, knock the wind out of her.
She tells Ino this, one night after they’ve put Sarada and Inojin to bed and are curled up against each other. After all, it’s not like Ino doesn’t know how different they are, it only takes one look at their lives to tell: Sakura, halfway through a divorce and at odds with the Council because she couldn’t make herself love Sasuke — not the way she thought she would when her hair was longer, when she was younger and softer and more naive — and who couldn’t make herself stay when she realized she didn’t; and Ino, still happily married to Sai, having made an arrangement with him that works out for the both of them, because even though they don’t love each other the way people who get married are supposed to, Ino knows what’s expected of her as a woman, as a kunoichi, and as head of her clan.
Sakura doesn’t budge, has learned long ago not to.
(She likes to think Tsunade would be proud.)
And it’s not that Ino budges, not really, but instead of taking the blows she rolls with them, molds herself to be what people expect.
So, Sakura voices her thoughts, thinks it is harmless to do so, but she’s wrong. Ino tenses under Sakura’s hands immediately, closes her eyes and holds her breath for a few seconds. She opens them again, eventually, and smiles humorlessly. “It’s not as easy as you think,” she whispers, so low Sakura can barely make out the words, while her fingers draw patterns buried under locks of pink hair. “At least you’re you… sometimes I think I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
Sakura feels guilt take over her immediately. It’s her turn to suck in a breath now, sharp, and to watch Ino’s mirthless smile drop just a little, and to see her eyes glisten under the moonlight.
Sakura’s smart and observant and calculating, just like Tsunade taught her to be. It’s not easy to miss the way Ino looks when she comes back from a particularly long mission, the way her spine is rigid and her hands tremble and her gaze looks through Sakura hollowly, almost as if it takes her a few seconds to remember who Sakura is. She has held Ino after particularly vivid nightmares enough times to know that this is what Konoha made her: a woman who infiltrates people’s minds, digs her nails deep in them, and takes as much as she can until there’s barely anything left of them, until there’s barely anything left of herself.
Sakura knows that sometimes, when Ino goes too deep, it’s hard for her to come back from it, to remember who she is. Sometimes there’ll be an extra flair in her step that wasn’t there before, or she’ll say words without knowing what they mean, or she’ll call other people’s names out in her dreams.
Ino has changed herself for this village more times than Sakura can count, has gone from flower-seller to medic, to spy; from the head of a clan to mother and wife. She has lived in people's brains for this village, has left behind everything that made her Ino and taken up everything that made her someone else, someone completely unfamiliar, so that she could fulfill her duty as a ninja.
Sakura’s blood boils at the thought that all Konoha does to them is take, take, take until there’s nothing left, at the thought that they always come second, no matter that they were trained by a sannin, that they are two of the most seasoned ninja of Konoha or that they both excel at what they do — because Sakura is a civilian’s daughter and Ino’s last name might be Yamanaka, but it’s not Hyuuga or Aburame or Uchiha and it never will be.
Sakura looks at them and sees exactly what they are: she’s broken and beat, she has cracks and missing pieces that have fallen apart long ago, but that at least can be put back together with enough effort. Ino, instead, looks whole when she isn’t. She’s bruised and bent in in places she doesn’t allow herself to show to anyone but Sakura. And those wounds are not so easy to heal.
So she mentally chastises herself, but doesn’t let herself wallow and, instead, presses her hand to Ino’s cheek until her unfocused gaze is on Sakura’s and not somewhere far off in the distance, and says “I’ll always make sure you come back to me. Home.”
Ino says nothing in return, just holds Sakura’s gaze for a moment longer before she buries her face in the crook of Sakura’s neck. Sakura pretends she doesn’t feel the wet tears stain through her shirt, because she knows Ino’s pride works in funny ways, and strokes through Ino’s hair until her breathing evens out.
Just when she thinks Ino’s fallen asleep, Sakura feels her chest vibrate with Ino’s words. “I love you, you know. I like that you’re you.”
And Sakura knows all too well, at this point, the life of a ninja. She knows that it is harsh, and exhausting, and unyielding. She knows little moments of respite don’t come often, that they have to take them where they can.
So she smiles, kisses the top of Ino’s head as she feels fingertips dancing along her biceps, and she goes to sleep happy, knowing the feeling won’t last.