Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

NOTE: Just so everyone knows, this is now Naruto/Ino. Yep! Thank the blanket for that one. And well, if you’ve ever read anything by me before, I think you get the vibe of Sasuke/Sakura on the side (HA! Yeah right, it’s me! They’re gonna be all over the place) Also this fic is going to be a short one, I hope. Anyway, enjoy!

And since I’m shameless, I’m gonna go ahead and pimp my collab with the blanket and annieberry called Spice Jam. Come check it out!

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Queen of Babble
by: ohwhatsherface

Chapter 2: mission impossible

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I was the Maid of Honour – and well, the reason why Sakura was drinking herself to a good state of unconsciousness – ergo I felt obligated to take Sakura home.

That and I hi, I was her Best Friend.

Let me tell you, though, the getting her to look at me part of it – much less talk to me – took another glass of wine, a few shots of vodka, two mojitos and the promise of a bottle of peach schnapps in the morning. Yeah, it was obvious that Sakura was mad at me.

Very mad.

I couldn’t really blame her though. I mean, if I were in her position, you know, the one where your best friend totally just let out your biggest secret ergo pissing the hell out of your fiancé and making him walk out on you? Well, I’d be angry, too.

“Come on, Sakura,” I said tiredly. “We really need to get you home.”

“Fuck off,” she muttered, swatting my hands away and nursing her bottle of tequila. “Just let me get trashed in peace, damnit!”

I sighed and sat down in the chair Sasuke was using earlier.

I felt like such an idiot. I don’t know how the words came out, they just did. And of all secrets Sakura has ever told me, I just had to blurt out that one. I just had to tell everyone that Sakura slept with – the lucky bitch – Sasuke’s freakishly gorgeous older brother.

Her whole family was listening—

His whole family was listening!

“Sakura, I’m so sorry,” I apologized quietly, hugging her hunched form from behind. Sure, I was terribly uncomfortable, but hey, I deserved it. “Sakura, I—”

“What if he doesn’t come back?” she asked, slurring, as she sat up straight, unintentionally – er, I think – shoving me away. “What if he hates me now and doesn’t come back, Ino?” She carelessly swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “What if he’s really gone, Pig?”

I smiled fondly at the nickname. I highly doubted I was forgiven, but I knew I wasn’t hated.

“He doesn’t hate you,” I told her, grabbing her flailing hands. “And he will come back. And then you two will get married.”

I wiped away a tear.

“I promise.”

Sakura smiled sadly. “Okay then, you” – oh, there was the slur… – “Fat Ass.”

As Sakura laughed at her own joke, I buried myself in my own personal woe. That was a big promise I just made, and frankly, I’m not too confident in it. The only person I know who can make such strong promises and go through with them is…

Well, Naruto.

I was probably gonna need his help with this.

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“This can’t be healthy,” Naruto said. I had dragged him with me this morning on the quest to save our Best Friends. The two of us stood in the doorway of the kitchen in Sasuke and Sakura’s condo. Or well, now, I guess, Sakura’s condo, you know, considering how he um, left her and all… Right. That’s a very bad train of thought, Ino. “And is she even allowed to be baking? I don’t think you’re supposed to bake when you’re drunk—”

“I’m not drunk!” Sakura screeched as she pulled two trays out of the oven. She put them on the island in the kitchen and then put some more trays in the oven. “I am sober.”

“Sure you are,” Naruto chided.

Unlike me – the cause of all this drama – who was just standing by the wall, Naruto was taking action. Naruto began to rummage through all the cabinets and the pockets of Sakura’s pink apron to find some little bottle or whatever of alcohol. I mean, we all know Sakura. When she’s depressed, she drinks.

He frowned when he found nothing. “Where’s the alcohol, Sakura?”

She rolled her eyes and hit him with a spatula. “There’s none, asshole.”

“…Because you finished it—”

“Ugh!” Sakura threw a damp rag at Naruto, hitting him in the face. “Just go away! I’m sober. I’m baking. I’m sober and I’m baking.” She smiled tightly. “I’m fine.”

I think that that was my cue.

When someone gives you that ‘I’m fine’ crap – especially when that someone is a girl – it should be immediately apparent that they are shoving a cry for help under your nose. That’s their way of saying they are most definitely not fine.

“You’re not fine, Sakura,” I said slowly. I pushed myself away from the wall and approached her.

I cringed at the sight of the tear streaks of yesterday’s mascara running down from her eyes and the redness of her raw nose. Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun and she wore one of Sasuke’s old shirts and a pair of shorts.

God, she looked like shit – not that I’d tell her that, of course. She’d get even madder.

“Sakura…”

I looked over at Naruto who was staring at the girl, torn. He probably didn’t know who to side with in this little situation. Sasuke and Sakura were Naruto’s best friends. They were like, the freaking Three Musketeers. If Naruto was a girl, he probably would have been the Maid of Honour and this whole fiasco could’ve been avoided! Hell, if he was a girl, he never would have had that party and Sakura never would have slept with Itachi.

But nay, Naruto had to be a boy.

Ugh.

“Have you um…” I swallowed nervously. It didn’t feel too right for me to be talking to Sakura. Frankly, I didn’t feel like I was allowed to… “Have you spoken to Sasuke yet?”

She looked up immediately and shot me a glare before her eyes began to water and she looked away.

Instead of throwing the beginnings of an angry tirade at me, Sakura took out another large mixing bowl and began measuring scoops of flour. Sakura shamelessly ignored me – which was really expected, frankly – and did the same to Naruto who—

“Stop eating!” I hissed to him, poking him with the wooden skewer that was sitting on the counter.

He looked like a kid who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, which really, at the moment, he pretty much was, except the cookies were still cooling off on the tray. Naruto grinned sheepishly at me and for a moment, I was distracted from trying to clean up my mess.

God, he was pretty—

Um. Right.

“You need to call him, Sakura,” I said firmly.

“What?!” Sakura looked up from the bottle of coconut extract she was opening and scowled at me in a very Sasuke-like manner. “You don’t think I have?!” She shook her head furiously while measuring half a teaspoon of it and mixing it with the batter. “You don’t think I’ve been up all night trying to find him?!”

Naruto went up to her with a paper towel and gently raised her chin. He grinned at her optimistically and tenderly wiped the black marks of cried away mascara off her face.

And really, if I didn’t know how platonic their relationship was, I would have been jealous.

“Sakura-chan, you need to calm down,” Naruto stated slowly. He put down the paper towel and placed his hands on her shoulders. “You need to stop worrying because Sasuke loves you. He’s a jerk and I know he rarely says it, but Sakura-chan, the bastard really does.” His smile was almost – almost – reassuring. “He’ll come back.”

I even believed that.

Naruto had that way with people. All he had to do was smile his smile and speak the way he spoke and your hopes would go up and your faith would be restored and when you woke up the next morning, you’d find yourself to be a better person.

But today, Sakura was having none of it.

“Oh shut up, Naruto,” she muttered, pulling away from him and taking out two eggs from the pack sitting on the counter. “He’s gone.”

I tried to tell her different. “You don’t know that—”

“No, I do!” Sakura yelled, cracking one eggs and dropping the white and yolk into the mixing bowl. “I do know he’s gone. All of his CDs are gone. His precious acoustic is gone. The picture of his family that he kept on the mantle is gone. His favourite stupid flannel sheets are gone… and…” She broke the other egg. “And he left the ring I gave him on the dresser.”

Sakura’s lower lip trembled.

“He’s gone.”

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Since I was the Maid of Honour – and well, the cause of this huge mess – I told Sakura that I’d call all the guests and tell them the wedding was off.

Naruto, immediately, put a hand on my mouth, muttering to me a good, “Ino, what the hell are you doing?! Shut the hell up,” and then turning to smile brightly at Sakura and say, “You just keep baking, Sakura-chan, because the wedding reception could use more desserts even if the bastard doesn’t like sweets! Everything will be fine. I promise.”

When we left Sakura an hour ago, the condo already smelt disgustingly sweet. She had baked tons of cakes, cookies, pies, brownies, etcetera! She said she was just going to give them to the guests as apology presents for the wedding not taking place.

“Man, we should make Sakura-chan depressed more often,” Naruto said as we walked out of the condo. “These cookies are good!”

I glared at Naruto while we waited for the elevator to come. Sakura had packed a lot of everything into a large container for Naruto to snack on.

“Seriously, imagine what she’ll cook when I dunno, Sasuke dies or something—”

“Naruto!” I hissed, punching his arm. “Don’t talk about things like that!” The elevator doors opened and I rolled my eyes at Naruto while going side. “You really should watch what you say.”

He snorted. “Oh that’s rich coming from you.”

I took major offence.

“Excuse me?!”

Naruto scoffed at my attitude and put the lid over his container of sweets. “Come on, Ino, we both know this is your fault.”

That kind of really hurt, I’m going to lie. It was one thing to tell myself that it was my fault and that I’m pretty much a total asshole, but for someone like Naruto Uzumaki – who is capable of seeing the good in any human being – to tell me that I am at fault…

Well, it’s a blow to my pride.

“I…” I grunted and looked away from him, but it was hard not to see him since the top halves of the stupid walls in the elevator were mirrors. “I know this is my fault.”

He suddenly looked guilty for telling me that I was at fault – which okaythankyouverymuch I was.

Perhaps I was finally mastering Sakura’s number twenty three – her guilt-ridden-oh-God-I-am-such-an-ass expression that usually made one feel guilty for simply making her feel guilty – since Naruto was smiling at me apologetically.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was kind of harsh.”

I sighed. “No, it’s true. I have no control over my mouth at all. I am the Queen of Babble.”

“Oh, and you can’t forget about your Kingdom of Gossip,” Naruto added. He winked at me. “You can add that one to your Empire, my lady.”

And as we both laughed at his lame – but still very sweet – joke, I found myself enjoying him calling me ‘his lady’. And the sight of Naruto’s smile on his face, too.

It’s a beautiful smile. It’s a real smile. It’s wide and with mouth opened slightly because there’s a brief chuckle coming out. It’s a big thing that reaches his eyes and makes them narrow slightly, but in a good way – a happy way. It’s a genuine thing and it’s just so beautiful.

Naruto’s smile faltered after a moment when he caught me staring at him. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”

“…Huh?”

The ding of the elevator when we finally reached the lobby finally took me out of my thoughts. I blushed and stared at my shoes – oh, pretty! – while we walked out of the lobby, because oh, my god, I think I’m crushing on Naruto Uzumaki.

No. Freaking. Way.

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TBC

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