Disclaimer: I own nothing

Notes: Written at the LiveJournal fic on demand community, for a request by sonkikyo.

The Beginning of the World

There came a morning when Sakura woke up and knew she wasn't in love with Sasuke anymore.

This was quite the monumental realization; after all, Sasuke had been one of the constants of her life for the longest time. The sun rose in the east and set in the west, the sky was blue, the grass was green, and Sakura was in love with Sasuke. It was something she'd been taking for granted, one of those things that were so obvious that she never really gave it a thought.

Now, Sakura was a sensible girl, so monumental realizations aside, she got up and out of bed without any dramatics and went about starting her day like she would have started out any day when loving Sasuke had been as natural as breathing. She did her normal morning rituals and ate a normal breakfast and left to meet Shizune for a scheduled training session which turned out to be just as normal, and felt horribly normal the whole time herself.

It made Sakura feel vaguely guilty, actually. She had the feeling she should probably be feeling something more than vaguely bewildered about the whole thing. As tied up as her life had been to Sasuke's for such a long time, shouldn't one of the major knots suddenly unwrapping like that affect her more?

So she decided that what she needed to do was go see Sasuke – maybe that would clear things up a bit. Maybe, if she could only see him, she'd realize she was just being silly and that everything was as it always had been.

Or maybe she'd at least understand why she wasn't in love with him anymore.

So as soon as the training session was finished, she headed for his place, only stopping by Naruto's first to inform him she couldn't make the lunch date they had planned right then.

(Naruto, on hearing where she was going instead, informed her that she was a cruel, cruel woman, and with a horrible taste in guys too, choosing that idiot over him – again, might he add – and especially right now, what was the use of "having lunch tomorrow instead" when he was lonely today, dammit! She couldn't possibly do that and live with herself, didn't she have a heart at all?

At which point Sakura told him, what part of really important didn't he understand, who the hell did he think he was anyway, thinking it was okay for him to tell her off for canceling on him when she absolutely had to see someone else and then say he wouldn't meet her the next day instead because his girlfriend would be back from her mission by then, and how the hell did Hinata put up with him anyway?

Which led to Naruto smugly telling her that he had never said he wouldn't meet her the next day, he'd just pointed out the truth, which was that she was so very heartless for leaving him to his tragic loneliness and making him have lunch all alone today of all days when he needed her the most, he wouldn't be lonely tomorrow, after all, and Hinata put up with him because he was damn sexy, thank you very much.)

Detached as she had been feeling up to then, the first thing Sakura did when she saw Sasuke was burst into tears.

There weren't any real answers to be found.

"Sasuke and I broke up."

Ino dropped the plant she had been carrying. "What?"

"Sasuke and I. We broke up." Sakura repeated, shrugged.

"You. Broke up. That's... sudden. Why? "

Sakura bent down to pick up some of the shards of the shattered flower pot. Ino, however, only waved them away impatiently when Sakura raised a questioning eyebrow at her, so she put them back down. "I'm... not sure," she finally said, frowning to herself and still squatting on the floor.

Ino frowned down at her. "What, did he dump you and not say why? You don't just wake up one morning and decide to break up with someone just because you feel like it."

Sakura straightened up. "Actually," she said. "That's a pretty good description of what happened."

Ino studied her for a while, then turned to look at the mess on the floor. "All right, let me just clean this up, then we'll go somewhere and talk, okay?"

("All right, what did you do?" Naruto asked suspiciously.

Sasuke just looked at him. "Nothing," he finally said.

"Riiight." Naruto's eyes were still narrowed. "Sakura will tell me later. And then I'll kick your ass so far from Konoha that you'll never find your way back. Just so you know."

"Right," Sasuke said, getting up. "There can be other reasons for breaking up, you idiot. I'm not you. We're not twelve anymore, Naruto." With that, he made to leave.

"'Course not," Naruto called after him. "If we were, I'd have kicked your ass first, and asked Sakura questions later. So consider yourself lucky!")

"That," Ino told Sakura, "was the weirdest break-up story I've ever heard.

"Well," Sakura said, shrugging distractedly. "I guess you can have him now."

It wasn't seriously meant, just something she said without really thinking about it.

Which was why it came as a surprise that Ino's reaction to this was slapping Sakura across the face.

Sakura and Ino fought. It was a constant of Sakura's world just like loving Sasuke had been – she and Ino fought and yelled and sniped and snarked (and laughed and cried and then fought and snarked some more). But they didn't slap. Sure, they'd had physical fights – more or less serious ones – over the years; they were kunoichi after all. But those fights were more likely to include punches than slaps.

Which made Ino's slap all the more surprising. Sakura blinked at her in something like shock.

"What, you think I want your leftovers?" Ino asked angrily. "You think Sasuke is still all I think about? What are you, twelve?"

"I didn't mean anything by it," Sakura said defensively, and attempting to shake herself out of her shock, added, "and you fight like a sissy, Ino-pig."

Ino just glared, and Sakura, suddenly, felt very tired, and threw herself down on her back on Ino's bed. Breaking up with Sasuke had almost been easier than dealing with Ino afterward was, she suddenly realized.

And that, perhaps, was it.

Once upon a time, Sasuke had meant the world to her. She had been happy and sad and angry with Sasuke and happy and sad and angry because of Sasuke. But lately, it hadn't been like that at all. She loved Sasuke and couldn't imagine a world where she didn't, but the intensity of being in love with him was gone, faded to an everyday sort of caring she would have for any of her friends.

Of course, Sakura wasn't naive enough to think that a couple in love would be all passion all the time for their entire lives. She was quite aware that at some point, everything was likely to take a turn into a more comfortable, everyday sort of caring. But she also realized that when fights or laughs or just simple conversations with your best friend and worst rival (or worst friend and best rival, whichever) had more of and effect on you and gave you more of a thrill than anything you shared with your boyfriend, there was definitely more to it than that.

All of this ran through Sakura's head in a very short moment before she sat up like bolt again, staring at Ino. "Eureka," she mumbled to herself.

"What?" Ino snapped.

"I really didn't mean it," Sakura said, getting up from the bed and walking up to Ino. "You can't have him after all."

"What, now you think I can't have him? I'll have you know that I if I wanted to-" Ino broke off as Sakura reached out and pulled her toward her, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around Ino. "Hey!" she said in surprise. "Sakura! What are you-"

"Ino," Sakura mumbled against her neck. "Ino-pig..."

"Sakura..." Ino said warningly. "What..."

Sakura just mumbled something vague, let her lips brush against Ino's neck as she opened her mouth.

"Was..." Ino began. "Was that why..."

"Maybe," Sakura said, drawing away from her, shrugging a little. "I think it could be."

Then she leaned in and kissed Ino, their lips brushing together only for a moment before she pulled back again.

Ino looked at her for a moment, not seeming sure what to think. And then, raised her fist and punched Sakura. (A punch this time, though, Sakura noted, relieved, as she took a few steps backwards at the impact. And not as hard as it could have been.) "I'm not your rebound!" Ino declared.

"No," Sakura said. "No you're not." And then she sat down on Ino's bed and burst out laughing.

Ino shrugged. "Just to make it perfectly clear, Forehead-girl," she said. Smirked a little, and walked up to the bed as well. Leaned over, and this time she kissed Sakura.