𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚎 • 𝚜𝚊𝚜𝚞𝚔𝚎 𝚞𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚑𝚊 𝚡 𝙾𝙲

43 - The Stench of a Secret

March, 1993 - Japan

One Friday afternoon in the beginning of March, Haruka paced repeatedly around the length of her bedroom. In her hand she gripped a phone tightly, anxiously stretching its spiraled cord out. With a huff of determination, Haruka marched over to her bed and sat down. She dialed a number, and then waited in determined silence as the line rang.

"Hello?"

"Sakura," Haruka spoke quickly, hoping her shallow breathing wasn't transmitting through the phone. "Are you up to anything today?"

"Haruka?" The surprise in Sakura's voice was hard to miss. "No. I'm pretty free, why?"

"Well, I was wondering if you and Ino would want to hit the mall with me? And then we could come back to my place for a bit?" Haruka asked, a definite hint of anxiousness in her voice. She hoped that she was making the right decision. Technically, they were all on good terms. Haruka missed her two friends dearly, and her plan was to finally push past the damage caused by Sasuke today.

"Really? Yeah! I know for a fact Ino's just hanging around eating chips, I'll call her. Can we meet there in a half hour?" Sakura's excitement was contagious, and Haruka grinned widely on the other end.

"Perfect. I'll see you soon!"

-

Haruka was amazed at how well things were going. It didn't take long at all for the initial awkwardness to wear off, and soon they were all trying on clothes, trying each other's milkshakes, and catching up on gossip. All three girls had dearly missed each other, after all. They were all overjoyed to be with each other again.

When each girl had at least two bags full of purchases, they decided they were too hungry to go on. So, they soon found themselves back at Haruka's house to finally set their heavy bags down and order pizzas.

Haruka, who had just called the closest pizza place for a delivery, found Ino and Sakura collapsed on the living room couches when she returned from the kitchen.

"Oh, come on," Haruka teased, jumping over the back of the couch Ino sat on and landing perfectly on a cushion. "The night is still young. You can't be down for the count already."

"Mmph," Sakura huffed, fully reclined on the adjacent loveseat. She had had the best milkshake in history at the mall, but now it was catching up with her. The sugar crash combined with the hours of lugging heavy bags around rendered her almost useless.

Ino laughed and threw a pillow at her pink-haired friend. "Wake up, Sakura. We've had more intense mall runs than this."

Sakura glared. Ino shrugged and said innocently, "What? They're called throw pillows."

"After a whole week of being class president and being in Iruka-sensei's biology class, even a walk in the park would have taken me out. I'm so exhausted." Sakura yawned loudly as she stretched horizontally on the couch, rubbing her eyes to stay awake.

"You work too hard," Haruka accused. "Maybe pizza and garlic knots will fix it."

"I work too hard?" Sakura asked incredulously, beginning to smirk. "Please. You have sleepovers in the art closet at school because you're that much of a nerd."

"I am not the nerd here. You want to be a doctor. Major nerd alert." Haruka countered.

"I don't know Sakura," Ino was contemplating heavily. "She's got a point."

The three girls happily ate away almost two entire pizza pies as they watched an awful romcom. They laughed at the movie's terrible acting, terrible effects, and terrible...everything. It wasn't a very good movie, but it had been stuck in the VCR, so it was their only option.