Word Count: 600.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
The smell of her long white gold hair still lingered in his nostrils, tantalizing and sweet like the flowers she worked with, the musk of a rose in full bloom. Her wide cornflower blue eyes glittered in the dark, strangely because they were not there.
Lying alone at night, the moonlight flowing in slants into his bedroom, Choji was exhausted.
Ino always exhausted him. She was capable of wearing anyone out, but she had more effect on him than anyone else.
All he had to was think about her. Ino had a lively shadow, a thrumming presence. She was a rushing river, and Choji was happy to be swept along for the ride. She made him swim against the current, pushed him, challenged him. It had always been that way, ever since they were old enough to walk.
Choji wondered if his mother had ever made Dad feel this way. Probably not, because Choji's mother was a serene, cheerful woman who never pressed anyone too hard. Choji's mother and Ino were two women from two entirely separate worlds.
Ino was…everything. She was the leader of their team, brave, sincere and without a doubt the most daring woman Choji had ever met. She was beautiful and strong, despite all her feelings that she was neither; Choji could never quite understand how she had convinced herself that she was neither of the two things that were her most prominent traits.
Yamanaka Ino was the strongest woman Choji had ever known. She was not a physical heavyweight, but she had a spine of steel and a staunch heart that would have been the envy of monarchs. She endured physical and emotional hardship with a resolute gleam in her eyes that an empress of nations could not hope to match. Senju Tsunade, Haruno Sakura and Sabaku no Temari could never hope to compete with Yamanaka Ino.
She had beauty not of the outside. Choji had never been particularly concerned with outside appearances, and though he knew that Ino was considered a beauty by some and a vamp by others, it wasn't her face she was looking at. She was a soaring bird, high in the sky, aloof and remote, what he had always reached for but had never been able to catch. Ino was an ideal that Choji had always sought but never been able to reach.
He chased after her with energetic enthusiasm. Ino recognized it and was flattered. Choji always chased after her, never seeing what it did to himself.
She was beautiful and strong, but she exhausted him.
Choji laid flat on his back at night and struggled to breathe. Yamanaka Ino was a woman to wear men out, and Choji was no exception. Just a moment around her both sent him flying high and riding low; Choji would never understand how one person could do both things.
Months spent high and low passed in mere seconds, indiscriminately. Choji ran after the flying bird, hoping to catch her but never quite getting there. Long gold silk hair and eyes of pale sapphire tantalized him out of the corner of his eye, her hair brushing across his skin and making it prickle and shiver.
Ino's bright smile curled around his mouth, shining on full cherry-red lips and fashioning the shape of a pale oval of a face. She continued to exist just out of reach, a woman almost too perfect to be real. It was an impossible dream.
She exhausted him. Ino no longer had to be anywhere near him to do that. All he had to do was think about her.
