Uzumaki

Soil

The combined heat of enjoyment, the sunset, and the orange-red ambience of the night was beginning to falter as Sakura and Ino headed home.

They were curled in on themselves in the steadily chilling air of autumn, and their tottering footsteps in their tightly bound yukata were only slightly out of sync. Sakura sniffed.

"You cold, Sakura-chan?"

"No," Sakura said quickly. The cold pink that tipped her ears and nose made her eyes seem greener in the soft night light. "I'm fine. It- I just got a breeze, is all. We'll be back in no time anyway."

Ino made a tuneful noise of sympathy, a smirk creeping onto her lips. "I'd offer you my coat, but..."

"I know you don't have anything on under that yukata. Don't."

Sakura scoffed. "But a whole lot I never asked to."

"They say the best presents are ones that you want, but you don't ask for, right?" Ino said, linking arms with her.

"Ino..."

As they stumbled in step along the way home, the path was mostly empty. They'd been some of the last to go home, only admitting defeat when the people on the stands stopped serving them and began to blow out the lanterns.

"Let me fix my obi a sec," Ino said, shrugging Sakura off her. She missed the warmth more than she'd like to admit. "Actually, could ya do it for me? It's not tight enough, and I can't reach, obviously."

Sakura rolled her eyes, but moved forward. Ino leaned onto the brick wall at her side, humming to herself.

"Hold your yukata together, Ino."

"Yeah, yeah."

"I'm serious!"

A strange flicker of anxiety kindled in Sakura's gut, and then she caught a glimpse of her worry; even in the night, that same blistering orange never failed to make her look.

Still, Naruto almost shrank back under her gaze, wilting and then blooming so fast she'd thought she'd imagined it.

"Sakura-chan!" he said, pre-empting her greeting with dimples in his cheeks. "Uh, what are you two doing...?"

"Sakura's taking advantage of me. Help."

"I'm only fixing your yukata because someone literally can't keep their clothes on," Sakura snapped, and then turned to Naruto, blushing. "Um, I was just fixing her obi. It was, uh, coming loose."

"Oh- Oh. Getcha. That makes sense." He scuffled his feet a little, hands moving in his pockets. "Did you have a good time?"

"Yeah, we were just heading home... what about you? It's pretty late, huh?"

Naruto rolled his shoulders back, smiling. "Yeah, I was heading back too."

Her eyes drifted to the bottom of Naruto's yukata; it was mucky. She huffed. "Did you mess that up already? Where did you and Satsuki-san even go, a swamp? I swear. I can't leave you two alone for one minute."

"Sakura-chaaan, I'm sorry, but I'll wash it, okay? Really good. You won't even be able to tell I got it wet."

Sakura shook her head. "Did Satsuki-san already go?"

Naruto hesitated. Sakura wouldn't have noticed, if the night hadn't been so dead quiet around them- it made it seem as though life itself was stuttering.

"Yeah," he said. "She went back."

From where Sakura stood, the night seemed to frame Naruto's figure through a gap in the trees. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought she was staring at him from straight above as he floated on still water.