empathy (rewritten 2019)

やまなか

In Ino's life, Sakura was a mere blur of pink and unchanging green eyes, moving in and out of view. In one visit Sakura was a poor, defenseless classmate, needing a friend to stand next to, and in the second she was an angry, jealous rival, their bond broken after some mediocre boy. And in the following visits she became more of a friend, forgetting their petty fights before the big change, and as time progressed she became less of a known and more of a stranger. She was, in Ino's eyes, always a stop and go, where Sakura would move and pause before a stop light and Ino would do the same--in some stops they'd pass by, greet, talk, and smile, and in others they were a street apart, unknown to each other.

And because of these fleeting, foreign meetings they shared, Ino lost their memories of young, aspiring Academy students in the floods of war and defeat; memories that were replaced by later ones proving Sakura's worth to the team, to the village--a worth that was, in her eyes, low. Despite forgetting their friendship, Ino could never forget that same girl, standing alone in the classroom, weak and crying and pitiful.

Had I known you were so fragile, Ino thought as she remembered that poor girl, unchanged until her deathbed. That you could break so easily, I would've stayed by your side.

And in the morning she woke and saw what had become of her old friend and new stranger and Ino couldn't help but ask. Ask--what was I supposed to have done? Was I supposed to have held you tighter? Stayed with you? Laughed more often? Were we supposed to have left Sasuke behind? Was I supposed to have kept stopping for you? A million questions but no girl to answer them.

But, the one that troubled her the most, the one that brought her back to Sakura's sixteenth birthday (her gift to the pinkette was a yellow sundress and a matcha cake), to when Ino left for dinner with most of the Rookie Nine, and Naruto said something and she said something back--the question that horrified her, because if the answer was as terrifying as she thought it was, it would have already broken Sakura's heart; the question:

Did you hear me?

Because that night, as they ate in uninterrupted bliss and harmony, Ino saw her glimpse of pink and green, stopped at her stoplight, and Ino was too happy to stop again for her.

And Ino never did stop. After that night, she never could. She could never walk and stop and turn around to see the girl's smile so bright and unknowing, she could never do that again. The day she ran to the town hall, to see the Hokage on his knees and crying and TenTen crying just the same, her light was green but she wanted, so desperately, to stop and cry and ask why. And yet, she still could not.

After the funeral, she found the note. And there laid her answer.