Party girls don't get hurt
Can't feel anything.
Ino was the true Konohan rose, Sakura may have been the one with the head of pink hair but Ino was the one with the beauty, a sort of alluring charm which was docile and yet wild. It was a sort of charm which gradually crept up on men like a thief in the night until they realized that they were nothing but putty in her hands.
Walking through the soft glow of the streetlamps, she felt strangely uneasy. The soft yet bright light which illuminated her face like that of a cherub, was something she was unused to. As a shinobi and the partner of a boy who used shadows and night, she was more used to darkness. As a woman, a siren, she was more used to the flashing lights of the clubs which she frequented as part of her missions or after them. Flashing iridescent lights obscured her face, it made her more than Ino. There she was a woman, wanted, adored, lusted after. She was the epitome of a woman. A couple brushed past her, the woman's long dark hair swept in a trail after her, the man laughed and tangled his long fingers amongst them. It was a small private gesture which made her heart ache with bitterness.
But it was okay. Ino was fine with not being loved. Love was just another emotion that someone like her, an interrogator, could never appreciate. Love was a weakness.
She never felt so hollow. A familiar laugh rumbled across to her like a growl of thunder. In the distant corners of her mind, Ino remembered him. His sharp fangs which he loved to flash as a sign of approval, joy or lust. How he would bite her on the corner of her face, right where her jaw met her neck, his tongue sweeping gentle and rough across her skin. She remembered how he used to laugh, telling her that she smelled like springtime and when she asked, he would tell her that springtime was flowers, freshly cut grass and love. She always took his word for it. And now here he was, two months after they had parted from whatever they were, not lovers but not merely friends. she turned towards him with anticipation in her eyes. It was a sad type of nostalgia. She had always been somewhat powerless with respect to him.
There was a woman hanging on the crook of his arm. She looked unfamiliar, too docile and sweet to be a shinobi. There were no callouses on her fingers, there was no rigid grace in her walk. She was most certainly a civilian, in many respects much less interesting or valuable than Ino was. But still, Kiba shot lingering looks at her which looked past her homely plainness, he hung on to her hands almost as if should he release them, she would float away like a helium balloon. The way they were together, walking in sync, touching each other with shy little bats, almost pushed them on to a different plain, one completely out of her grasp. Ino recoiled at the sight with disgust or bitterness, she could not tell, Kiba never had been so coy with her. It had always been direct, obvious, rip her shirt off with his teeth sort of aggressive, never so gentle or shy.
She almost wanted to walk over and break their little love-fest up. Her shapely hips swaying, her long golden hair shimmering behind her like a river of silk, an aphrodite amongst mortals. Ino wanted to make that plain little woman squirm at her beauty, make her frown and feel so self conscious at every little bump, every little wrinkle, stretch mark, bit of cellulite on her untrained body. She wanted to charm Kiba with her looks, the glittering sapphire eyes, the little coy smile but she could not find it in herself to walk towards them, break up their little lovey-dovey parade.
"What in the hells does love even smell like?" she laughed at his words which were oblique and vague as ever. It was strange to think that the generally crude Kiba would whisper line that sounded straight out of Jiraiya's Icha Icha Paradise to her.
"Love?" the man lying next to her smiled, his fingers twirling a thread of her blonde hair between dark calloused fingers, "it smells like happiness, an immense smell of life and... something... I don't know how to describe it." Kiba turned to kiss her softly on her temple. Ino rolled her eyes and settled her weight against the mattress, feeling the box springs whine.
"You're just being mushy." She told him with a scowl of annoyance mixed with reluctant happiness, which was met by a look of confusion and almost hurt that came from him.
This was a particular memory which stuck in her mind. Ino almost regretted telling him those words, being so unnecessarily harsh. Strangely fragile, she reminded herself, men were strange, they wanted to seem strong and so unyielding and yet they were so brittle, so easily broken. Ino knew how to break a man but she could never never understand what it took to build them up. It wasn't flirting she had a problem with, it was the sustenance of another figure in her life that she would never understand.
I'm sorry, she wanted to scream towards him. I'm so sorry for being so cold and unyielding to you. But yet it seemed that he was having a better end of the deal, he had traded himself an ice queen for a girl of flesh and blood. The dull ache in her heart grew heavier. She wasn't supposed to feel this way. Ino hadn't even loved him. This was something more. Maybe it was guilt, maybe it was jealousy, she would not know. All she knew now was that the rest of the Konoha twelve saw her differently.
Hinata and Shino had seen first hand, what she had done to him. She heard that he had been unable to eat for several days, sitting around in a dark room, alone, not even Akamaru was allowed to intrude on his mourning. When they passed in the street, Hinata had averted her eyes and merely ignored her presence.
Tenten still smiled at her with the same cheeriness but behind her eyes was a wariness which mirrored her fear of Temari. Ino knew that Tenten had purposefully instructed both Neji and Lee to limit their dealings with her.
Sakura still talked to her but yet there was still judgments in her emerald eyes. This was a similar sentiment shared with Shikamaru and Choji. Both had gradually withdrawn from her, possibly sympathetic to Kiba, understanding the heartache that came from manipulated unrequited love.
No one had even asked her how she was after she had broken up with Kiba. Everyone assumed that she was fine, she was not guilty, she was absolutely dandy with glee in fact. No one understood that party girls, girls like her who seemed like they had it all, could feel.
It may not have been heartbreak but it was worse. It was guilt that she could never love him.
The wind was cold. Frost had bitten the tips of the trees around her, turning them silver. Pathetic fallacy, she almost mouthed, thinking about Shikamaru's poetry, a cold winter for a cold bitch. She wounded the scarf around her neck even tighter, such that it resembled a noose. Turning to watch Kiba and his girlfriend's receeding outline,she smiled a brittle smile.
It was fine, she told herself, exhaling a breath of mist. She was completely fine and dandy that no one would look at her the way Kiba looked at the girl and she was completely fine that she would never look at anyone with that depth of emotion ever. She was still beautiful, the true Konoha Rose and there always would be others to fill the void. It was fine, completely fine and goddamn wonderful.
After all, girls like her were never supposed to be so emotional.