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Sakura doesn’t know what to expect when she enters the Yamanaka flower shop. She has never quite managed to forget her childhood best friend, and the wound still hurts. All because of a stupid boy she has almost followed to university. He's still as pretty as ever yet just as aloof and full of hatred (he does have a pretty tragic backstory, it’s just that she wishes he weren’t such an asshole to her).
The friendship (even something perhaps bordering on first love) she had with Ino was something infinitely precious. When their newfound rivalry too watered out, they grew apart, being placed in separate classes in high school. Sakura kept volunteering in the local hospital and didn’t really hang out much with her old friends in an effort to keep up her grades.
Now she’s decided to take up medicine for real and she’s heard from Naruto, her in the end favourite classmate, that Ino has opted for medicine as well – he never stopped hanging out with Shikamaru and Chouji who might as well have been Ino’s high school best friends. Not what she has expected of her. She hopes, tentatively, that maybe, maybe this is the chance to mend the cracks. Has that ship long since sailed?
Sakura doesn’t know what to expect when Ino’s pale blue eyes meet hers either. She’s seen her since but is yet again surprised by how much she has changed. Still the same but more mature, her light blond hair (she has always found the colour so much prettier than her own bubblegum pink) up in the signature Yamanaka ponytail, though longer, face deprived of all the baby fat Sakura remembers cupping with her grubby hands.
Ino seems equally at loss, considering the way her lips shape a silent ‘o’ upon seeing her. The pinkette doesn’t really know what she’s doing here herself – she needs flowers for her mother’s birthday, but there are loads of other shops around. Maybe she just misses old friends.
“Billboard Brow?” Ino greets. It’s more a question than a hello, as if she isn’t sure whether she can trust her senses.
“Ino Pig,” Sakura shoots back because it’s easy to fall back into old patterns. She ignores the tears gathering in her eyes. That would be pathetic, and she is still trying to prove herself strong to her rival, like them parting ways was just a thing of a yesterday gone by in a summer storm.
Both of them are silent for a while – uncharacteristic, the way they haven’t been since they first met.
Finally, Ino seems to wake up from the trance. Her mouth purses and what she’ll say won’t be pretty – the worst thing is Sakura can’t even blame her. She did say some nasty things to the blonde when they parted ways all those years ago.
So she stops her before she can say it.
“Ino,” she starts. “Uh, I, came to buy flowers.” Stupid, Sakura. You can do better. “For my mother’s birthday. A bouquet of roses, please.”
“How about sunflowers? Not just because she loves van Gogh, though that’s part of the reason,” Ino says and goes on and on about the history and symbolism of sunflowers. She’s always been passionate about flowers, being able to pick the perfect one for just about anyone. Sakura thinks it’s genetic (and can’t help but smile when she realizes that this part of her childhood friend hasn’t changed, that not all has gone away).
“Uh. Yeah. Whatever.” She just nods meekly, having lost herself in Ino’s ramblings anyway, and quickly berates herself for it. This is her chance. C’mon Sakura, you can do it.
Say it.
“For what it’s worth,” Ino beats her to it. “I’m sorry. For all those things I’ve said since…”
“No, it’s me who’s sorry,” Sakura cuts her off. Ino glares at her, the force behind it dwindled, though.
“Can’t we both be sorry?” The blonde is like a melancholic tempest. With her hands on her hips she looks so much like her mother it’s almost hilarious, even if she has always looked more like her father (the pinkette knows she misses him a lot, the nice man from the flower shop did not deserve to die this way).
“It was me who broke off the friendship.” Sakura sighs. “It was stupid. And you didn’t deserve it, you were always such a good friend. I… loved you. I still do.” The last admission is more than she wants to say, but somehow she doesn’t regret it. Ino could always coax the truth out of her whether she liked it or not.
“We were both stupid, I think,” the other girl says, pale blue eyes considering Sakura in a way they weren’t before. “We were young and stupid.”
“We’re still young and stupid.”
“Oh, come on over,” the blonde breathes out, pulling the pinkette in a tight hug when she does stumble closer.
They talk for a good hour. Too many things have happened for them to catch up in that time, some sad, some happy, some heart-breaking, some simply trivial. Sakura tells Ino about Tsunade, her mentor at the hospital and the queen of badass, how the three of them, Naruto, Sasuke and her, were almost like a team through the entirety of high school (until Sasuke decided to skip school in favour of seeking out his brother), about her homeroom teacher Kakashi’s annoying habits (though Naruto has complained about that to everyone willing to listen already). In return she hears about Asuma, Ino’s homeroom teacher, and his sweet romance with Kurenai, who taught Kiba, Hinata and Shino, another trio of their childhood friends – it’s much more vexing to hear about Asuma’s murder from someone who is still shaken about it. She hears about Chouji’s eating habits, Shikamaru’s laziness, and finally that Shikamaru and Temari from their rival high school are getting married soon, not that she’s surprised – she’s half sure she’s heard that from Naruto already, but Naruto is a bit unreliable in the gossip department.
When it’s time to leave, Sakura finds herself unwilling to move, but Ino’s giggle jingles through the air as she ushers the pinkette to her feet.
“C’mon, Sakura, it’s not like this is the end now,” she says. She places her hand on Sakura’s forearm. “This is an entirely new beginning.”
Sakura turns back to Ino one more time before leaving the shop, voicing just one thought, “Promise?”
Instead of putting it into words, Ino pulls out a blossom, soft pink and of such sweet smell that Sakura instinctively shuts her eyes. It’s a cherry blossom. Sakura.
“It doesn’t mean promise, but…”
“It means even more,” Sakura says, smiling through previous annoyance. She hopes she isn’t blushing. Ino seems to grow prettier every year and yet has not stopped being the same amazing Ino that Sakura never wants to leave (will never leave) again.
Ino lets go of Sakura’s hand, the soft pink on her cheeks so much like her childhood friend’s hair.
“Um, see you around,” the blonde offers before she waves a goodbye as Sakura picks up the flowers she has come for and leaves. The pinkette tucks the cherry blossom in her hair, a stupid, moronic grin on her face the entire time. If Naruto asks why, it’s because he and Sasuke are being oblivious idiots again, not because of anything related to pretty blond girls, nuh uh. Only Ino has ever been able to read her well enough to call bullshit on her anyway.