A/N: This is kinda like a spin-off of my story "Damaged Goods" in which InoSai was the side pairing. I never got to explain how Ino managed to bag Sai in the end so I wanted to fill in the blanks. You don't have to read the main fic to understand this oneshot but if you wanna do it afterwards then be my guess ^^
A/N2: Sai has weird taste, period.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters. I do however, LOVE IT TO DEATH!! (I'm just mildly over exaggerating on the death part) XD
"speech"
'thoughts'
The Lost Chapter: Weird Taste
(flashback)
"…heheheh vanilla, that was funny. Oh you know what else rhymes with that? Vagina! Hahaha!"
A huge sweat-drop could be seen coming down the head of everyone who heard yet another one of Ino's not-so-subtle attempts to get Sai interested in the female genitalia.
Yet the blonde kunoichi conveniently chose to ignore their expressions of disbelief in favor of keeping the oil painter's attention to herself.
What they didn't seem to understand was that Ino was a woman on a mission. Her objective? Make Sai the father of her children. Why Sai you ask? Well the reason surprisingly was quite simple. He alone provided her opportunities that no other male in Konoha could.
Sai lacked a last name. In fact he never had one! Marrying him would mean that she would keep her maiden name. Heck, she might actually give Sai her surname! Now wouldn't that be something?
Not to mention that it would make her daddy an incredibly happy grandfather. Even though she was his pride and joy Ino knew that her father always wanted a boy to pass on the clan line. With Sai being clanless, all her children would be trained in the Yamanaka style.
Of course there was more to it than only clan benefits. Her other reason for wanting Sai was that she found him blazing hot. Ino always went for the silent dark mysterious types and the artist fitted that bill.
So what if people laughed at her attempts to get Sai to swing her way. That just meant that they were underestimating her. She was Ino Yamanaka and that meant she would always get what she wanted.
She certainly wasn't going to let something as trivial as gender preferences stop her from getting her man. Like it or not, Sai will father her child.
--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--
Ino sighed as she looked at herself in her bathroom mirror. It had been weeks since she set out to conquer Sai's heart but so far her seduction skills had led her nowhere with the man.
'What am I doing wrong?' She asked herself for the umpteenth time that day. The blonde had done everything she could think of short of actually throwing herself at the guy but she still wasn't making any progress at all.
Even though she was very good at matching other people up it seemed futile when she tried to do it for herself. Yet she wasn't going to give up. 'I promised that wasn't going to lose in love. Asuma-sensei, watch me make you proud!'
She finished her inner statement by pumping her fists at her reflection. Now that she had the determined glint back in her eyes she proceeded to brush her hair before holding it back in a tight ponytail.
Once she put her hairpin on she stood up from her stool, posed seductively with one hand on her hip and smirked at her mirror. She remembered one time when Kiba told her that her smile looked kinda wicked. Ino naturally took it as a compliment even though he didn't mean it that way.
Seemingly satisfied with the way she looked the blonde kunoichi blew a kiss at her reflection before stepping out of her bathroom and later her house altogether.
As previously mentioned, Ino was a woman on a mission. The seventeen year old was convinced that today was going to be the day that she would manage to get Sai to fall for her. She was willing to pull all the stops to achieve it.
Why was today special you ask? Well Sakura convinced Sai to display his paintings in an art exhibition here in Konoha. The blonde female planed on arriving early to show her support and shower his drawings with praises.
Showing interest in what he does should definitely win his attention. And if she was lucky enough she might even get him to give her a private tour of the whole exposition and then some. She giggled with just the thought of it.
Her smile quickly turned into a frown once she got there though when she saw that Sakura was already there chatting up Sai. 'If that little skank thinks she is stealing my man then she got another thing coming!'
Once she got close enough to them she noticed that Naruto and Shikamaru were also present. She could understand the whiskered teen presence since he was Sai's teammate. And by the way he kept grumbling to himself how much he rather not be here it was obvious that Sakura forced him to come. But Ino was curious as to why her lazy ass genius of a teammate was also here.
When they noticed her coming she immediately rushed to hook herself on Sai's left arm before addressing the others.
"Hi Forehead. Hey Whiskers!" Ino said referring to Sai's squad before turning to face the Nara. "What are you doing here Shika? I can hardly imagine that you are into these kinds of things."
Shikamaru rolled his eyes at the way Ino gave her greetings but decided to answer her question anyways in his usual bored tone. "Supervising. It's a drag and everything but I'm required to do it as a new jounin."
"Whatever, can we get this thing started already?" whined Naruto impatiently. "I have places to be."
Just about when they were going to enter the art show, a distant voice asked them to wait. They turned around to see a flash of green. "Lee" Sakura sighed.
"Yosh!" exclaimed the shinobi in green spandex as he arrived. "I see that I was able to make it after all! Thanks for waiting! Now let us all track together and rejoice in these wonderful images created for us with youthful passion!"
Lee's enthusiastic proclamation dulled everyone out except for Sai who started to clap because he thought is was appropriate but feeling awkward he stopped when he saw that no one else was doing it.
Ino on the other hand was throwing an inner tantrum. 'If these clowns come along I can kiss my impromptu date with Sai goodbye. I won't let them ruin it for me. Come on Ino, time to devise a plan!'
Of course in Ino-talk that meant pull Shikamaru to the side and make him do it for her. Which she did. The Nara genius asked her to give him one good reason for him to help her out and Ino retorted by bringing up the time she helped him pick up a gift for Temari and that now he owed her one.
Shikamaru rolled his eyes at this. If Ino was going to resort to that then he could think of a dozen things more that he had done for her. If anything she was the one who owed him. Yet the lazy shinobi just shrugged because he knew that complying with Ino was less troublesome than arguing with her. 'What a drag' he complained inwardly.
"Sakura" he said turning his head to face the pinkette. "I need some help moving some stuff and your inhuman strength would be appreciated. Lee and Naruto should come too if they don't mind. It'll be easier that way."
Both Sakura, who mutter something about how she hated when people referred to her super strength, and Lee, who claimed he would go anywhere the apple in his eye (Sakura) went, agreed to help. Yet Naruto wasn't so easily swayed.
"What gives??? I thought that we were here to see the stupid art show! I just wanna go already!" whined Naruto yet again; a pouting lip being the only new twist.
Fortunately for Ino she knew how to handle him. She placed an arm over his shoulders and started poking him in the chest with the other. "You can stay Naruto. After all I have been dying to know all the juicy dirty details about your love life. Wanna share?" She asked while wiggling her perfectly trimmed eyebrows suggestively.
A red tint appeared on Naruto's whispered cheeks as he looked away. "On second thought, I love helping out so I guess I'll go with Sakura-chan instead." He said as he backed away from Ino and followed after Shikamaru.
Satisfied with the turn of events she once again hooked herself on Sai's left arm and started to lead him to the entrance. "Shall we?" she asked devilishly. Once inside, they moved toward Sai's section of the exhibition and Ino was amazed by what she saw.
"Wow incredible, it looks almost real!" She said referring to a painting of a cliff overlooking a wide landscape. It was titled ~Sticking Up~. "But um…" She was now looking at the odd shape of the cliff wondering if she was really seeing what she though she was seeing. "Doesn't that kinda looks like a-"
"A penis" happily supplied Sai for her when he saw that Ino was struggling with the word. He faced her with his eyes closed and gave her a small smile.
"Y-Yeah… that." said the blonde struggling to return the smile. 'Okay Ino, you already knew about his weird fetish so it's nothing to be startle about. I'm seriously gonna have to work on tackling that out of him later though.'
Slightly reassured, she motioned for them to move on to the next painting. This one was titled ~Wrapped~.
"Ooh this one looks different from the rest" Ino commented because it was mostly colored with some sort of creamy brown paint. It seemed as if someone was looking up at some shadowing figures.
"I don't get it though. What is it about?" She asked cheerfully to Sai loving the fact that only she was getting a one on one with the artist.
Sai was only too happy to have someone express so much interest in his work that he consented to explain it to Ino without a second thought. He nodded once to her before turning to face his work.
"This was actually a tricky one to do" he commenced. "I had to wrap myself up in order to get a legit perspective of what it would look like for the male appendage to be enclosed by rubber."
"And by rubber you mean?" inquired Ino already dreading what the answer might be.
"A condom" replied Sai in the same fashion he did earlier when he talked about the penis. Creepy little smile and everything.
"…Of course" said Ino after willing her face to show no disgust. 'Okay, so the boy may seriously needs some sort of therapy for that. But with enough training with my clan jutsu I probably could block away that quirk in his personality so no biggie.'
After reassuring herself that everything could be dealt with once again, she gestured Sai to proceed with the tour.
They moved to the next aisle and they saw a large crowd gathering at the very end of the section. It picked Ino's curiosity so she asked Sai about it.
"Hmm" started the pale artist as he watched the large party of people, most of them being girls. Then he smiled and turned to Ino. "It seems one of my paintings is attracting lots of attention. I'm rather fond of that one myself. Shall we go see?"
Even though she knew she might regret asking it, she just had to know. It was in her nature as a gossipiest after all. "What exactly is the painting about this time?"
"Friendship." Although the blonde was pleasantly surprise to hear his answer she didn't get ahead of herself just yet so she edged him to say more. Sai was all too willing to comply so he continued.
"A few days ago while I was reading on the subject of bonds I uncovered a friendship story about a fox and a dog. So after I finished it I decided to do a piece on it. Apparently people really like it."
"Thank Kami" Ino muttered to herself letting her shoulders drop in relief. The Fox and the Hound was a story she knew by heart since her mother used to read it to her at night when she was younger. It was actually one of the reasons she decided to befriend Sakura in the first place. The tale was very PG so she guessed Sai's representation of it was as well. But boy was she wrong.
Once they managed to make their way through the crowd her face felled when she saw the piece of art. The painting itself was really well done as Sai used colors, texture and shadows in ways Ino had never seen before. She had to at least give him some credit for that. But unfortunately that was where the good ended.
In the painting you could clearly see two figures rolling in the grass; but instead of the two cuddly animals she expected to see, they were two humans. Correction, two obviously male teenage humans to be precise. Oh and it didn't stop there. No, Sai just had to go the extra mile with this one.
The two guys had their jackets opened completely showing off their chest and abs, their hands were touching each other in very inappropriate places that made Ino blush, and their faces were a little too close for comfort.
It was when she paid close attention to their faces that she noticed something familiar about them. The one in the bottom had rich blonde hair with whisker marks on his face while the boy on top had brunet hair with the Inuzuka clan marks on his face. 'Wait a minute, aren't they-'
"Hey that's me and Kiba!" bellowed Naruto with a wide grin on his face interrupting Ino's train oh thought. He, Shikamaru, Sakura and Lee were all suddenly standing next to Ino as they studied the painting.
Ino watched with delighted interest as the smile on Naruto's face slowly dropped into a tensed line before he progressively started to grit his teeth.
"You bastard!!!" yelled Naruto as he tried to jump Sai and punch his lights out. Luckily Lee's sharp reflexes enabled him to restrain Naruto by the shoulders and hold him back.
"Let me go bushy-brow!" shouted Naruto who was now red in the face from both anger and embarrassment as he tried fruitlessly to get loose of Lee's grip. "Don't make me go toad sage you!"
"I'm afraid that I cannot Naruto. Such violence between comrades is most unyouthful. When you exchange blows with a friend it should be an expression of our souls merging together into the will of fire with the passion of our youth!"
Lee finished his statement by momentarily releasing Naruto to do his nice guy pose. Thumbs up, twinkly sparks and everything. Of course the whiskered teen took that opportunity to launch himself at Sai again but was met halfway by Sakura's knuckles. "Can it Naruto!"
Shikamaru muttered something about being noisy and troublesome as he began to lead Lee and Sakura, who was dragging Naruto with her by the collar, to the exit.
"This ain't over yet! Wait until I tell Kiba about it, you'll see! He'll mess you up! Believe it!" warned Naruto loudly. He continued spouting other threats of the same effect until Sakura punched him again to shut him up.
Sai, who was awkwardly scratching the side of his face, turned to Ino and asked if he did something wrong. The kunoichi in question just sighed and told him to keep walking. 'Sakura was right , Sai simply just doesn't get it sometimes does he?'
The rest of their time at the exposition flew by without any other casualties. All of the other paintings of Sai had some sort suggestive theme. Ino surprised herself when she started having fun with simply guessing the implicit message that Sai was trying to get across with each of his works.
One thing worth mentioning though was that Hinata showed up later and timidly asked Sai if she could take one of his paintings home with her. Which one? You guessed it right. It was none other than the one titled ~The Fox & the Hound~.
Ino shook her head in disbelief as Sai was finishing writing a dedication and his signature on the back of the painting before allowing the Hyuuga heiress to take off with it.
The blond female knew she was gonna have to talk to Hinata about it later. And maybe help her move on from her hopeless crush. She might just have to enlist Shino for this though. Ino had a talent for matchmaking and she could already see the possibilities.
Just as the pair was leaving the art show after successfully strolling through it, an older woman tripped on her own feet but thankfully Sai reacted quick enough to stop her fall. He helped her get stable on her feet again and Ino complemented herself for choosing a gentleman.
The woman thanked Sai and tried to apologize for her clumsiness but he told her there was no need for it. "Anything for a nice young slender looking lady" he said. The woman blushed and went her way.
Ino however was left confused by what Sai said to the other. But it's not because she felt jealous though. She just wondered if Sai was a little on the blind side or something. That woman from earlier was clearly well in her 40's and looked like she gave birth to triplets and never got her figure back. In other words Sai's description didn't match up at all.
Never one to keep questions to herself Ino voiced her confusion to Sai as they started walking. The painter, who gotten used to explaining things to the blonde throughout the day, made the mistake of not thinking twice before answering.
"You see, from the experience I had when I first tried to befriend Naruto and Sakura, I observed that girls don't like to be told the truth about themselves. They get angry easily if you do. So ever since then I try to be friendly by telling them the contrary of what I think of them."
He finished the statement with the same small smile he'd been wearing all afternoon. Ino stopped dead on her tracks when she heard this making Sai stop as well puzzled by the sudden silence.
"Is that so?" questioned Ino in a very subdued tone with her head down as a very eerie aura radiated around her. "Tell me Sai-kun, that day that we met, did you nicknamed me Beautiful because you meant it or was it because you were just trying to be friendly?"
"Uhhh…" At this Sai finally realized his screw up. He had read countless of books about how a small white lie can make someone feel better about themselves but he never stumbled on one that said what to do when you've been caught in a lie.
"Well?" Ino raised her head to give Sai a sharp pointed glare. "Are you going to answer or not?"
By now Sai was literally sweating bullets. He hadn't read enough to know what to do in these situations. They say that honesty is the best policy but when dealing with girls you never know if the truth might actually kill you in the end. Yet he resigned that there was no other way out of this mess.
"I was trying to be friendly" he finally answered.
Ino dropped her shoulders visibly disappointed with the response. "So… what do you really think of me?"
Like Sai saw no dangerous reaction he continued to be honest. "You're like Sakura." When Ino simply raised an eyebrow at him he knew he had to elaborate serving it ever so bluntly. "Ugly"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"WHAAAAAAAAAT???" shrieked the blonde female as loud as she possibly could when the words of her infatuation settled in. All birds within a mile radius flew away in fright.
It was one thing to put her in the same category as Sakura, but ugly??? Oh she so was going to castrate him for that.
Sai apparently caught wind of her intention and quickly tried to talk his way out of it while he slowly backed away from the advancing female. Luckily he had already read the chapter about what to do when a friend misunderstands you.
"I mean ugly in a good way!" he tried desperately. "Like a masterpiece!"
"Huh?" Ino stopped moving in on her prey clueless with what the oil artist had just said.
Relieved, Sai took the opportunity to clarify his words. "If you stop to think about it people consider ugly pieces of art as masterpieces. Like Scream or the Monalisa for example."
At that Ino stepped back, shook her head and brought her hands up in surrender. "I don't know if I should be charmed or still hit you for that." Lamented Ino even though her sporadic twitching clearly suggested that she without a doubt wanted to beat him up.
'Geez I can't believe I wasted all this time and effort on someone who was obviously not interested in me. This is no better than my Sasuke days' she thought. 'But I'm no longer that girl. I won't keep making a fool of myself. I guess what they say is true. Those who can't, teach. At least I'll try to keep my dignity this time.'
"Okay Sai I get it. I won't be a nuisance to you anymore so I'll just call it a night." She turned around to leave with her chin up high and waved him off dismissively. "Thanks for the date though, it was fun while it lasted."
"D-Date? …Wait Beau- I mean Ino!" shouted Sai after her. He had no clue he was on a date. If he did he would have taken notes! The fact that he might have lost a chance to store up first hand data scared him. Fortunately he knew how to redeem it. "Want to go on a second date?"
This time the retreating Ino couldn't hold herself back and lost her composure. She stomped her way back to Sai and slapped him in the face before proceeding to yelled at him. "What the hell is wrong with you? First you call me ugly and then you ask to date me?"
"Is that a no then?" asked the pale shinobi as he brought a hand up to rub his abused cheek.
"Of course it's a yes!" spat the heaving blonde reverting to her bossy self. "Saturday, 6 o'clock at my house, pick me up and take me somewhere nice or I'll make you regret it! Got it?!"
After Sai gave in into her demands by nodding, Ino took a big breath to calm herself down before continuing in a more cheerful way. "Great, then I'll see you then." She got up on her toes and planted a quick kiss on his other cheek before leaving. "Don't forget to bring flowers!"
Sai now moved his hand to rub his other cheek as he watched her departing figure. 'Hmm, loud and moody just like Naruto-kun. Maybe she can also help me learn more about bonds. It's worth the try at least' he consented in his mind before heading to the library to rent more books about what to do on a date.
And that folks is how Ino and Sai started seeing each other on regular basis. As time passed Sai stopped seeing Ino as a science project and not short after that they finally became a couple.
The End ^.^
A/N: Well there you have it. InoSai oneshot complete!