Canon Side-Story: Making Friends Pt 3, Houseparty!

I had fun, this was fun.

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Bullying Sakura was fun, for a couple of years. Then the Sasuke Fanclub kicked off and that gave them something to bond over. She started to feel bad, she treated Sakura better, she began to even like her a little bit. There’s something charming about the way she can space out in any situation, how her single minded focus is always aimed towards something else that never seems to be in the same room. Shy, determined, aloof, intelligent, Sakura possesses a lot of traits she’s a little jealous of.

Jealousy quickly became Envy, and soon enough simply liking the same boy wasn’t enough for her to get along with Sakura anymore. She started bullying Sakura again, she tormented her and made every meeting hurt her. She dug her claws in whenever she could, she put Sakura down and pointed out how Sasuke would never like her. Still, despite her greatest efforts, she never did manage to make Sakura cry. As a child it didn’t bother her, the reaction wasn’t important, just the action of bullying her was satisfying. However, as an up and coming possible Genin graduate, Sakura’s unwavering will and lack of fucks to give very quickly began to grate on her.

She got worse, she put her all into things, she attacked her several times and even pushed their pursuits of Sasuke to crazy extremes so that Sakura would have to react to reel them in less it become criminal. If it did, surely Sakura would face the consequence as their leader. Sure enough she did react, she did reel them in, but she never reprimanded them. It was like Sakura didn’t even notice what she was doing, she just continued blissfully unaware that her own club was conspiring against her.

Slowly, little beads of something else began to grow in Ami; respect.

Watching eyes as red as scorching flame and as bright as the eyes of a demon from a movie focus on her, that respect turns to a rapidly beating heart and a nervousness that fills her blood with ice. Panic is an easy word to say but a difficult one to describe. The way her fingers curl up into instinctive fists, then fall limp again as they realize there’s no chance they could ever do anything no matter how hard they tried. The way her legs shake, and she struggles not to collapse. Every breath is more difficult than the last, and her brain won’t stop screaming at her.

Every part of her body tells her to run as the girl she tormented for years approaches her with the eyes of a devil, and a grin that promises malice. The only reason she doesn’t move is because of a lecture she barely paid attention to years ago, beasts and predators love it when you run. Between the girl approaching her in shiny armor, the sword at her side, and the horrific monster walking alongside her like it’s perfectly normal for a dog to be five to six feet tall and titanic in stature; it’s Sakura that fills her with unending terror.

The beast’ll tear her throat out, the sword’ll rip her in half; Sakura has reason to make her suffer. She knew it was coming, she understood she was going to die when the girl she tormented became a genin and she herself failed, she grasped intrinsically that one day she would reap what she sowed. She stands tall, does her best not to crumble or tremble. “For-forehead.” She forces herself to speak, but finds she has to retry the first and only word she manages, her voice is too choked up to get it out the first time even with all the will she can muster in the world.

Sure Sakura can’t kill her, as a ninja attacking a civilian she’d be protected from death, but as she sees that grin widen oh so much further, and seemingly sharp teeth become visible, Ami can’t help but feel like the law doesn’t matter when someone with a personal grudge has the ability to hide the evidence. What if she eats her? Could Sakura eat her? She’s heard she’s become a monster in recent times, she could feed her to that dog or- “Ami.” Sakura says, her voice sweet and gentle, like a mother that’s had enough and needs you to shut the fuck up now.

She says nothing, she just looks into Sakura’s eyes, unable to look away from a predator’s malice. Sakura holds out a document towards her, “take it, please?”

Her hand shakes as it grips the page offered out to her, and as much as every part of her screams not to look away from her once victim, she looks down at the page because it might hold her salvation. “House party?” She finds her voice wavering, but as her eyes look at it over and over again, she can’t help but feel her brain pause.

“I’m inviting all the club girls, I miss you all.” Sakura admits, reaching up with a sharp fingernail attached to a gauntlet to scratch at her oddly durable cheek, her gaze looks away from Ami towards the grass at their side. “Sasuke’ll be there, but um, I’m going to suggest you stay the hell away from him.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Ami gulps, clammy hands already wetting the invite with her sweat. “Just show up and don’t bother him?”

“I mean, if he talks to you, feel free, but he won’t. I really want to know how you’re all doing. Can I expect you there?” Sakura asks, giving her a deadly glare from fire filled eyes that light up the park a little despite it still being mid-day.

“Yes! I’ll be there!” Ami stands stiff as a board.

The moment Sakura and her dog are no longer in sight, Ami’s knees hit the dirt, shivers tear through her body like it’s a chilly day despite the sun being high in the sky, and tears drip down her face to stain her legs below. “What the hell was that? A party? I need to warn the others.”

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Weirdly enough, Ami was the only one she could find to invite outside of her main friend group. Still, most of the people she did manage to invite came, which is super cool. She’s never been to a party before, and her house isn’t that big so it’s kind of crowded in her opinion.

Neji, Hinata, and Hanabi are all over there in the corner talking too quietly to be heard. She’d give him crap for being isolated but as far as she can tell, Neji talking to Hinata is an improvement? She always got the impression they didn’t get along, Hanabi literally telling her that didn’t help that impression.

Konohamaru brought his two little friends, and they’re bothering different Narutos all around and that’s great. Watching them run around so energetically makes her smile. She does wonder how his clones participate in physical games without worrying about popping, but she guesses they could just get resummoned so it’s not a big deal.

Shikamaru and Chouji are technically here but they’ve hidden away in her living room, which sucks for them because she’s about to make use of it for the sake of the party.

Her parents and Haku are making snacks, Kiba is hitting on Ami weirdly enough, Sasuke is standing as far away as he can from Ami, Tenten and Lee are both wandering around getting used to the place for some reason, Shino’s taste testing the snacks with her parents - who knew he had a sweet tooth - and she’s getting popcorn ready.

Ino is of course stapled to her side, that just makes sense. It’s a good place for Ino.

Ami is ignoring Kiba to stare in awe at Haku for some reason. Right, wasn’t she one of his subscribers?

Just describing them is a lot of effort, but making all the chairs for everyone to sit in for the next part was so much worse. Still, with a sigh of relief at everything coming together, she walks into the living room and turns on the light. “Everyone in, it’s movie time!”

It’s probably best that the club couldn’t be found, and that Kakashi, Gai, Anko, Ibiki, and Tsume turned her down. There’s already going to be so much crowding.

She sits down with a smile, and then remembers one very important thing. “I forgot to rent a movie.”