Happy Accidents

Chapter 45: Distance

Parking her car in front of Ino's house, Sakura chewed her lip and reached up to knock on the door, wishing she could hide the glum expression on her face. Ino quickly answered, her face only half done up with makeup as she looked curiously at her friend standing on her doorstep. It took no longer than five seconds for the situation to click in the blonde's head before she had Sakura by the wrist, practically dragging her into the house.

"Okay, girl. You start talking, now," Ino demanded, hands on her hips. She looked like she was ready for a fight; Sakura could see the fire in her eyes.

"I don't really want to talk about it," she mumbled as she set her bag down on the floor, pulling her knees up to her chest on the couch. "I just didn't want to go into the office alone." She could park her car at Ino's place, and worst-case scenario, she'd walk home from the office. Ino lived the closest of all of them, so it wasn't a long walk at all.

"Well, okay, if you want to park your car here, that's fine. Where are you going to stay?"

"I'm just going to stay in my office for a few days. I have stuff I need to get done, anyway, so it'll help with that. Don't tell anyone, okay? I need a couple of days until I can figure something else out." The last thing she wanted to do was burden her friend further than she already was.

"Okay... but please, let me know if something's up, okay? I worry about you sometimes." Ino's concern was expected; she tended to worry a little too much at times. Right now, Sakura didn't want to talk about what had happened between her and Sasuke. She wanted to bring her things to her office, get settled, and start looking at what she needed to work on. At least she didn't have to worry about seeing him at work, given he was on administrative leave; he was confined to working out of the office and away from fieldwork.

Sakura nodded in response to Ino's statement, quietly following behind her until they were in the car. She knew Ino was going to ask questions; in fact, she would have been surprised if Ino chose not to. Sakura took the time to steel herself, waiting for the bombardment of questions she was going to face.

"What happened?" Ino asked. That was a big question to answer; definitely not something she could give a simple answer to.

"Sasuke and I... had a fight, sort of," she began, hanging her head. "I don't really know if that's what you'd call it, but that's the only way I can think of to describe it." Admittedly, it'd been quite one-sided. She tried to continue what she was saying, but she was stuck on how to go past that. "I just... I'm starting to think that maybe we don't work together. I mean, look at us. In some respects, we've gone way too fast, and in other aspects, we've barely got anywhere." It was such a strange conundrum. They lived together, slept in the same bed, yet they'd only ever kissed and nothing more. Weren't relationships supposed to move quicker than that? From the stories she'd heard from Ino, it was definitely a slow pace.

"What, because you two haven't had sex yet?" Ino was blunt as always about things. "Honey, don't use me as a benchmark for that kind of thing. Sure, you guys aren't a normal relationship by any means. But I think saying you two don't work is wrong." Sakura was questioning Ino's perspective right now, though she still listened to her friend's advice. "What exactly did he say to you that has you so upset?"

Sakura did her best to hold back tears as she spoke. "I was trying to tell him that I was there for him and that I understood how he felt," she began, sniffling and wiping a few tears from her cheeks. "He just yelled at me, told me that I didn't understand, that I didn't know what it felt like to be as haunted by something like what he experienced. He told me I would never be able to understand what he'd been through."

"Sakura," Ino began with a sigh, "Do you remember back when we were in high school, and Shikamaru broke up with me?" Sakura remembered that incident fairly well; it was one of the few times they'd been in a fight as friends. "Remember how I told you that you had no grounds to give me advice or tell me how things were going to go because the only date you'd get would be with a textbook?" It'd been an incredibly savage comment that Ino had made, even if it had been right; up until the last few months, Sakura had still believed it to be the truth.