Attraction and harmony
The trouble with being friends with Ino, Sakura thought, was that it meant spending far too much time in the company of Shikamaru. Not that there was anything wrong with Shikamaru, it was just that, the more time she spent with Shikamaru the more plausible his insane cult theory became.
Too much time with Shikamaru and his paranoia made it awkward spending time with her cousins after, because if there was a cult, and she wasn’t saying there was, then her cousins were almost certainly part of what Shikamaru called the inner circle. It was hard to hold a normal conversation when you couldn’t help but notice the odd codes her cousins talked in when they thought she wasn’t listening, or the fact that they appeared to be saving up to help Sawada Tsunayoshi buy a house, or possibly a castle, they didn’t seem to have decided. There were perfectly reasonable explanations for all of it she was sure, she was just seeing things that weren’t there. It was totally Shikamaru’s fault, and so by extension, Ino’s fault.
Her cousins were not cultists. That would be ridiculous. Ok so maybe Ryouhei was a little… extreme, but that was just him being overprotective. It was a perfectly reasonable trait for an older brother to have. And maybe it was a little worrying, how easily Kyouko was able to make people do what she wanted, but that just meant she’d been paying attention in kunoichi lessons, nothing suspicious about that.
And it was a good thing that they had so many good friends. If Ryouhei hadn’t been friends with Uchiha Nagi, then he might have done something… unfortunate, to Sasuke kun, when she first started liking him, even Ino admitted that could have been very bad. Not that Sasuke kun would hve lost. He was amazing, and top of their class, and cousin Ryouhei was a year younger and thus less experienced. But Sakura and Ino had both seen what Ryouhei could do with the proper motivation, and well… it was probably for the best that it had never come down to an actual fight, and Ryouhei had restrained himself to graphic threats, and intimidating glares. It had made Sasuke a bit twitchy for a while, but really, it could have been a lot worse. She’d seen what happened to that boy Masamaru who pestered Kyouko one too many times.
She didn’t want to be suspicious of her cousins. They made her feel safe, steady in a way that she could never quite manage away from them. Ryouhei was all the solid protection an older brother could be, the person who would threaten potential boyfriends, and bandage up cuts, and always have something loud, and honest, and kind to say when she was feeling down. Kyouko was peace, was a presence that demanded nothing, and soothed the ragged edges of Sakura’s soul where her temper wore away at her inhibitions. She didn’t want them to be up to something bad.
…
And then she was assigned to team seven, and everything got so much harder. She should have been happy, she was on the same team as Sasuke-kun after all. But there was something about Sasuke that scraped her heart raw, even as he drew her in, shards of broken glass all sparkly and hypnotic and sharp enough to cut, and there was something about Naruto that tugged at her soul, tried to pull her in even as he infuriated her, and sometimes she felt so utterly exhausted, caught between the two of them, pulled one way and then the other, and all the while the two of them bickering, and fighting and talking through her like she wasn’t there.
It was a relief, to go home, to spend time with her cousins. To bask in Kyouko’s presence, which was as compelling as Sasuke’s and Naruto’s, but didn’t pull at her the way theirs did, didn’t demand. Didn’t want something from her that she had no words or understanding for. It was easy being with Kyouko, who didn’t want her the way Naruto did, the way Sasuke did but wouldn’t admit to, the way a part of her wanted them back, and sometimes she just needed time to get away, from her teammates, and their bullshit, and their teacher who didn’t notice how being caught between them was wearing at her.
The trouble was spending time with her cousins meant spending time with her friends, and the more time she spent with them the louder the little Shikamaru voice at the back of her head grew. It was the very presence she found so soothing, Sakura suspected, that had people following her cousin, and her cousin’s friend Tsuna like puppies. Because Tsuna had it too, even stronger than Kyouko, and a part of Sakura understood the urge to follow it.
Was it something they were doing on purpose. Shikamaru’s voice whispered at the back of her mind. Were they deliberately subverting people with some kind of insidious genjutsu induced sense of belonging. What kind of power were they trying to gather, what would they do with that power when they had it. She didn’t like that voice. She didn’t like the questions it asked. But she couldn’t quite ignore it either, not when her cousin’s classmates acted so oddly.
But then again, it wasn’t just Tsuna and Kyouko who were doing it. She recognised that feeling, she’d felt that same pull coming off both Sasuke and Naruto, so it probably wasn’t entirely intentional. Neither of those two had the subtlety to be involved in something so low key.
Shikamaru hadn’t noticed Naruto, and Sasuke actually. Sakura was pretty sure. Maybe it was because he was thinking too much in his head, tracking behaviour patterns so closely that he missed the feeling that had to be influencing those behaviour patterns. Well if he didn’t know Sakura wasn’t going to tell him. Paranoid conspiracy theorist didn’t need the encouragement, and she was sure Ino would agree with her on the subject.