Disclaimer: I make no claim on Naruto or anything affiliated (like the merch., characters and movies and such).
Author's whatever-you-want-to-call-it-it-doesn't-really-matter-I'm-still-going to talk: I was inspired by Hoshi wa Utau and the feelings of what's-her-face about seeing Chihiro smile in the story. I love Hoshi wa Utau. It's so...I don't know, I just feel I can really relate.
Stars do not twinkle. People always say that they twinkle or something ridiculous like that. But stars do not twinkle. They look delicate and they look like they shiver out there, cold despite their flames and fires. I am not cold out here. Sitting out here in the dark under the cover of trees. It gives me the advantage over my teammates, as they cannot easily find me. They cannot easily know me. Like the night. The night feels like me. Empty. But I wonder what "I" feels like. I don't know. I find it hard to sleep sometimes. It is emptiness inside, and I often wonder about the emptiness. I am so white. So black. Like an old photo before my time. Like an ink drawing. My clothes are all black and my skin is like ivory. They called me freak. I am not a freak. I am. Just am. And what I am is, and what I is was what I have been. And that keeps the hollow feeling inside of me. I have no proof of me. All I have is thought, all I am are notions. This is the only real proof. Evidence of my life.
I hear a rustle and draw a kunai, and the woman behind me halts my attack with her own kunai. A momentary spark from the clash of our weapons fails to properly illuminate her visage. "Who is there? If you wish to live, name yourself." I sometimes find that, if I had the capacity—the ability—to like or to not like something, I would not like my voice. It is bland, always pleasant. It holds no particular inflection of tone, only emphasis on certain words, which means that the meaning behind what I say is half-lost. There is a lot that goes into interaction with others. I am not particularly good at it but as Naruto is quite the social gnat and very good at getting in people's faces, I privately designated him my mentor for sociability.
"Aren't you happy to see a familiar, beautiful face?" A girl, not a woman, as I had first thought. Her face and age is that of a girl, but her body is that of a woman. I know this girl. But she does not really know me. I do not really know her. No one really does, though. How can they tell so easily?
I smile and tilt my head, to let her know I meant no harm. The books I have read instruct me on how to look innocent and friendly, approachable so that no one will be alarmed. "Hello, Ino. You know, Gorgeous, you should be careful around me." I call Ino that because she seems taken with the nickname. I am sure it is quite flattering. So I keep that nickname only for her. "I can be quite dangerous." I catch sight of Ino's smile, her light pink lips curving upward on one side. Her smile is crooked. How intriguing.
"Why, Sai. Are you flirting with me?" Her smile grows more crooked.
Flirting? What is that? How confusing, to talk with women. Men are simple and live in the realm of what is. Women are complicated and live in a world that they created within their minds. Although men can get offended more easily, it is easier to appease them; but females...you have to swim oceans to have them forgive you for the tiniest things. At least, that is what Captain Yamato told me one day, with Naruto on sitting by my side, nodding sagely. Naruto then told me that females are unpredictable creatures. A man can never know what one of them is thinking. I will take Naruto's word for it, as he is a genuine person and does not lie, and because has had experience dealing with that awkward and violent female, Sakura.
"Awkward and violent? And what do you mean my smile is crooked? How is that intriguing?" Ino's laugh rang out like the song of morning birds. It is a nice sound. I tell her this.
Ino gazes at me with a strange look I cannot understand. All of a sudden, she moves towards me and presses her lips to my left cheek, near my mouth. I am caught by mild puzzlement.
"What did you just...? What was that...? Why did you do that?" I must have said all of those things out loud...unless she can read my mind, which surely isn't possible...unless it was a jutsu....
A slow smile graces her lips once more. "Because of what you said to me.... About my laugh.... That's one of the most beautiful things anyone has ever said to me, Sai." She is staring at me with that look again, as her eyes slowly open again. Her eyes seem...heavy? Filled with something I do not understand. "Thank you. You have the soul of a poet." She giggles. I can't tell why, though. Maybe she thinks she has made a clever assumption? If so, I think that I must correct her.
I shake my head, "An artist, actually. I am an artist." I look at her and give her my "innocent and harmless nice-guy smile". "But please explain to me, what did that smile, that crooked smile where your lips moved up on one side, mean? What were you thinking when you did it?"
"Why? Did you not like it? I won't ever do it again, if it bothers you." She looks very...what is the word? Earnest. Yes. She looks very earnest here. Sort of hurt. Had I caused her pain of some kind?
I put my hands up palms out towards her, yet not pushing her away and smile. In what I've read, this is a placating gesture that says "I meant no harm by it" or "Forgive me?". I said, "It did not bother me. I don't not like it." A smile is back on her face, wide. "I just wanted to know. I can't figure you out, it seems."
She moves closer. "Well, do you want to get to know me better? Do you want me to teach you what flirting is? What that kiss on the cheek meant? What my smile was for?" I am scooting back but, somehow she is now sort of half-crawling on me, half-leaning over me. I don't know what the trick was, but I now know the reason for kunoichi. They are mysterious, wily, alarming beings. Like women, but because they are shinobi, they are much, much more dangerous. If I did not know any better, or if I was Naruto, I would have thought that Ino is magical, and that would have explained everything perfectly, because all unexplainable things used to be explained by magic. However, I am not an ignorant fool, I know better, and I am not Naruto, so I do not think that.
"Would you like to learn, Sai? This is is called 'coming on to someone'." Her finger moves down the outline of my face, like she is memorizing my features. Why? "Would you like to know why?"
"What do you mean?" I make no move. If I move, she could try to attack me. The wisest thing would be to wait and see what she does, and then make my move. I must keep a clear head. Kunoichi were skilled and infamous in the past for having intercourse with their targets because it is easier to get close to and kill a man when he lets his guard down...or puts his sword up, so to speak. But, this thought confuses me. Why would she want to kill me? There is no reason to...unless Sakura put her up to it. "Did Sakura convince you to do this?"
Ino delicate eyebrows rise and she tilts her head to the side, moving closer, moving down. "Why would I tell Sakura anything? Have you spoken to her about me?" Her blueberry breath slips into my slightly open mouth. Her lips are getting too close to mine...perhaps poisoning? Not good. No time for a thorough assessment of the situation – I should get away before—
Too late.
Ino breaks the kiss and my eyes are wide. My fingers go to her face. She is smiling, reminding me of the contemporary artist Amy Brown's watercolors of elfin girls and fey folk. They are often "mischievous". They actually often look like Ino. "Well, I did it," she says as she sits back, "because I like you and I wanted to." She shrugged one shoulder. "Besides, you seemed like you were flirting with me."
"I was?" This is alarming but interesting news. How should I take it? Flirting was not my objective.
She grinned again. "Nope. I was lying. But not about the liking you part."
It is silent for a while before I feel that I should speak again. "That still doesn't tell me anything, you know. I still do not understand well."
She laughed again. Was I being funny? "No," she remarked, "I don't laugh because you're funny, although sometimes the things you come up with are a little out there and that's kind of amusing. It's 'cause I find it endearing. Cute. Like a child trying to understand an adult."
How unnervingly perceptive. I am very out of my depth here, with Ino. We sit back and I murmur to myself, "Stars don't twinkle."
Ino raises an eyebrow. "Come again?"
What? I plaster a smile back onto my face, "Sorry?" Oh. I remember now from a reading I studied a while back. Colloquially speaking, "come again?" means "I don't get it" or "could you repeat that?" with teens. "Well, I mean, stars do not twinkle. People always say that they twinkle or something ridiculous like that. But stars do not twinkle. They look delicate and they look like they shiver out there, cold despite their flames and fires. They look lonely." I wonder briefly what "lonely" feels like. "It must be a bad feeling, this "loneliness" to make even celestial giants shiver so."
Ino shakes her head. "I still say you have the soul of a poet."
I close my eyes and lean back against the bark of the tree, awash in moonlight. "And I told you, I am an artist."
Ino doesn't say anything for a while. I am surprised. But then, unlike Sakura, I have observed that Ino doesn't always have something obnoxious she has to say. She just says what she says and that is basically it. "Poets are artists too."
We sit in silence again, for while, before a thought comes to mind. "I meant to ask you before but, what are you doing out here, so early, before day breaks?" I am still smiling. Once, Naruto queried about whether or not my face began hurting from constantly smiling like this. I told him I received special smile training. The idiot believed me.
Her voice is quiet now. "Well, it's cold out here, this late. I couldn't sleep, actually so I decided to go out for a bit. When I noticed you sitting here, you looked lonely, despite the trees and the stars and the moon being here." She paused and I opened one eye to see her face. It was kind and gentle. Soft. I did not know why she looked at me that way. I do not understand emotions. "It must be a bad feeling, this "loneliness" to make even you, Sai, one who is always smiling, appear so."