It's Complicated, a naruto fanfic

Title: It's Complicated
Rating: T
Words: 1,771
Summary: AU. Dark!fic. Ino is seven and she knows a great and big and terrible secret about her newest friend, Sakura.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishi does.
Notes: This was written for KakaSaku Last Fan Standing 2015, Day 17, and Last Fan Standing, Day 351. This is the revised and (slightly) expanded version of the fic. And thanks go to eos_joy for pointing out a few errors so that I could fix them!
Warnings: Murder/suicide, mind manipulation, terrible parenting

Ino is seven and she knows a great and big and terrible secret about her newest friend, Sakura.

At seven, Ino's bloodline talent is flourishing and it is harder to keep from hearing peoples' thoughts than it is to listen in. Sakura is her newest friend because she's pretty and smart and her mind is strangely fractured and because Ino had thought it was stupid to cry about a forehead and Sakura could be better than that.

Ino watches Sakura with pupil-less blue eyes as Sakura chatters about class (she got full marks in history; so did Ino, but Ino doesn't tell since telling would belittle Sakura's accomplishment and Ino is trying to help, not hurt, Sakura's self-esteem) and agrees with Sakura that yes, it's great that she got full marks.

"Ino," Sakura says, after Ino is done making sure Sakura knows she's pleased with Sakura's marks, "do you want to come over this weekend? For a sleepover?"

"A sleepover?"

Sakura looks anxious. "Don't… don't ninja have them?"

Ino understands the concept of them—for one, she's getting the full idea from Sakura's mind without Sakura's knowledge—but, honestly, she has never heard of any ninja clan doing them.

Ninja clans are close-knit and standoffish and better that way, it is generally agreed. She's never even spent the night over at Shikamaru or Chouji's houses and everyone knows how close their fathers are.

But, Ino supposes, it is possible that ninja without clans have them.

"Sure they can," Ino lies. It's worth it for the way that Sakura's anxiety melts away like snow. "I'll have to ask my dad, though. That okay?"

"Yes!"

"I'll let you know tomorrow," Ino says, as they stand at the street where Sakura turns left and Ino keeps going straight. "Meet you here at four-thirty?"

Ino endures Sakura's hug, watches Sakura head down her street with a bounce to her step, and then chews on the inside of her cheek thoughtfully.

It takes a lot of fast talking to get her dad to agree to a sleepover but, in the end, he does agree.

It helps that Sakura's family is totally civilian.

Ino walks home with Sakura on Friday night, after school. Ino has a backpack filled with her jammies and a change of clothes and a few things that, had she not poked through Sakura's mind, Ino would have had no idea to bring.

Sakura considers nail polish a necessity for a sleepover, so Ino has brought a few of her favourite colours. Ino has also brought a stuffed animal (a boar, because), candy, and a flashlight.

Sleepovers are like missions, only sillier, Ino decides.

Sakura's hand is small as it clutches at Ino's sleeve, though, like she's scared Ino will change her mind—Sakura has found out that most ninja don't have sleepovers—and walk away.

The only reason Ino doesn't shake Sakura off is because she's indignant at Sakura's father having told Sakura that Ino is the type of person who is bound to like someone for a while and then ditch them when she gets bored… and that it is just a matter of time before Ino does get bored.

Ino seethes her way to Sakura's place, keeping a mask of good humour on so that Sakura isn't (more) upset and wonders why Sakura's dad would say such a terrible thing under the guise of helping Sakura.

Sakura's mother's advice to take their friendship slower, which Sakura is not doing, is more understandable and reasonable.

Ino doesn't like it much better, but she can admit that it makes sense. After all, they don't know Ino can read every single thing Sakura thinks.

She knows that Sakura is perilously close to being unhealthily in love with her. Ino knows that, if she went rogue, Sakura would come with her, unquestioning, even if it wasn't her idea of a good life. Sakura's parents are right to caution Sakura, but Ino vows to treat Sakura better than her parents have done.

(After all, she will not crush Sakura's spirit until it is nearly dead. That is more than can be said for them. Before she ever meets them, Ino hates Sakura's parents.)

Sakura's house is a pretty little thing, with painted shutters over the windows and a well-maintained over-hang on the roof.

Ino's smile is professionally bright as she endures meeting Sakura's-neatly dressed, pretty, and calm looking-mother, who greets them cheerfully, offers them snacks and, when they agree, goes to fetch them. Ino's smile fades the moment Sakura's mother turns her back.

Sakura's mother's mind is a howling, incoherent wail of rage against the tightly scheduled, carefully planned life she leads. Ino blinks hard, twice, as she follows Sakura up to her bedroom. Sakura's mother calls behind them that she'll bring the snacks up.

(Sakura says thank you. Ino wrestles with her feelings. They go up the stairs quietly.)

The whole house is very clean, Ino notices, but even while Sakura starts babbling happily to her the moment they hit the upstairs landing, Ino's mind is mostly focused on the (rather unnerving) rigidity of Sakura's mother's mind. It falls in patterns that have been spit and polished until they shine, and it takes Ino mere heartbeats to know that Sakura's mother a) doesn't love Sakura's father anymore and b) hates everything about her life.

Including Sakura.

Because Sakura is a burden that Sakura's mother never wanted. A burden that means extra meetings, extra work, running around to get Sakura places on time, and never getting the recognition for it that Sakura's mother (thinks) she deserves.

And her hatred for Sakura is nothing compared to what she feels for Sakura's father.

Ino shudders away from that.

Pity, deep and terrible wells up in Ino's mind. She doesn't say anything since Sakura doesn't even know.

(No wonder Sakura's self-esteem is so awful; she might not know anything's wrong, but it's hard to not realize things subconsciously and being loved is one of the things Ino's dad says is the hardest to fake. Children usually know the truth, even if they don't acknowledge it.)

She doesn't even know how she'd bring it up, to start with.

"Sakura," Ino says, as they toss their bags to the floor and sprawl out on Sakura's bed, "what do your parents know about me?"

If they knew she could read minds, Ino rather thinks that Sakura's mother wouldn't have let her in the door.

"That you're the best!" Sakura says. "That you're pretty and you're smart and you're good at all your classes—"

"You're babbling," Sakura's mother says, suddenly standing in the doorway, her plastic smile frozen hard.

Since Sakura doesn't notice anything wrong, Ino knows that the smile she sees now is the smile she is used to. That it is ordinary.

It makes Ino's skin crawl. She wants to go home.

Sleepovers are not a lot of fun, Ino decides, once Sakura has fallen asleep snuggled up against her. Ino stares up at the ceiling and listens to the frothing rage and despair of Sakura's mother's mind (Sakura's mother is washing the kitchen floor) and decides that, if she ever has a sleepover again, it'll be one that she invites Sakura to—not the other way around.

Sakura's deepest, darkest and unknown secret makes Ino feel very sad.

And helpless.

She doesn't know what to do about it and, at seven, Ino is already unused to not knowing what to do about things.

Eventually, Ino falls into a fitful slumber with the (not-so) comforting thought that, given the way Sakura's mother feels, in contrast to the way Sakura's father feels (Sakura's father at least loves Sakura; he does it badly, but he does it) that it is just a matter of time before things fall apart.

She will do her best to protect Sakura from the fall-out.

Ino doesn't understand how Sakura's father thinks he'll keep his wife. He loves her, that much resonates through Ino's mind, but it's a pale, flickering shadow next to the hatred of Sakura's mother.

Ino is seven when she goes for her first sleepover. She feels much older than that when she leaves Sakura behind the next morning.

Sakura laughs her goodbye and is holding her mother's hand as they both wave. Ino turns away as soon as she can without hurting Sakura's feelings as she waves back.

Sakura's mother finds out about Ino's mind-reading sometime between the third and the fourth sleepovers. (Ino's dad refuses to let her have them at her place; Sakura begs for more and Ino keeps caving. It's awful and Sakura never notices.) Ino knows this when Sakura bursts into tears one morning when they meet up to walk to school.

Ino lets Sakura cry and wail about the unfairness of not being allowed any more sleepovers ever at her own house and is privately grateful for it.

When Sakura has dried her eyes, and Ino's shirt is soaked through with tears and snot, since they are late for class anyway, Ino brings Sakura home with her.

After all, Ino needs to change her clothes.

More importantly, Ino's dad is home and she's told him all about Sakura and her problems. Ino feels no remorse whatsoever for dumping Sakura on him while she runs up to change. She does make sure to listen in though. Her dad permits it.

Sakura chatters nervously, at first, and then comforted by Ino's father's resemblance to Ino, talks more freely.

(Sakura does not know Yamanaka Inoichi's reputation, nor does she know that it is more accurate to compare Ino to her father rather than the other way around, and what that means for Ino's personality and abilities.)

Ino learns a different lesson after they've spent the whole day helping at the shop rather than at school, and Sakura has been sent home with an armful of flowers, when her father says there is nothing they can do about the situation.

Ino shouts at her dad (he's wrong!) until he's actually angry and she's in furious tears and he's sent her to her room to calm down.

Ino does not calm down. Instead, Ino does something very rash, and very dangerous. (She is only seven, after all.)

She shoves at Sakura's mother's mind, unbalancing it further.

Sakura misses school the next day and the next.

Ino never tells Sakura why her mother killed her father, and then herself, and why it was very, very lucky that Sakura hadn't been home when her mother 'snapped'.

Ino is seven and only feels guilty when Sakura cries.