Ino's POV

I rarely strained to look through my bathroom's window down at the street. You had to lean over the bath to reach the windowsill and balance on your toes in order to see something, but by purest irony of my cruel fate I happened to look down that window precisely when I needed that the least. I reached for the sill to place a new flowerpot - the same red orchid you and Choji gave me as a birthday present - intending to take good care of it I wanted to place it in high humidity environment. I succeeded. But then I looked outside, and my feet slipped - I like to think it was because of the wet floor, but who knows - I realized my body is falling with my head aimed at the hard rim of the bath. My arms flew in front of me instinctively to save me from the impact, and I ended up sitting on the tiles. I sat there a while, a part of me actually wishing the fall would have ended differently.

I never thought I would feel this way. You very well knew I was irritated by your laziness and intimidated by someone in Team 7, but despite my lack of attempts both you and Choji welcomed me into this friendship. We grew up together, we played, slept, ate, trained, studied laughed, fought - we did everything together. I loved both of you with all my heart not only as comrades or teammates, but as friends.

Come to think of it, I remember every praise I ever received from you. I tend to think it was because you were well-known genius already, and anything you had to say was significant, but every word of yours made me feel differently in an emotional way. Made me feel worthy and more confident, and during our Chuunin exams - when you looked at me a little worried, and then relaxed seeing I realized what was happening - I felt so smart. You seemed glad, and I was simply thrilled. Because I had proven something both to myself and you. And also because you cared.

Maybe I only realized what is happening with me when Asuma died. It was a tragedy to all of us, but while trying to save him, I secretly glimpsed at you. Because I knew how much he meant to you, I knew how crushed you will be. And I was worried sick. Not about Asuma dying in our arms, but about what it will do to you. That was when I recognized. When you didn't appear at the funeral, did you know I looked everywhere for you? I spend half the day just looking, checking your favourite spots, even following every smell of burning cigarette I found. I looked for you because I wanted to hold you in my arms and never let you go, and save you from this ever happening to you again. Needless to say, I didn't find you.

I might have never shown, but I began loving your ways. Your so characteristic laziness, intertwined with the an ability of not-stressing about anything. Your never ending rant about women like your mother, which I felt hid your affection to women, which would one day overwhelm you when you fell in love. Your inner peace that was always there clearly visible, despite the tests life threw to you. I felt good being by your side, safe and calm. And when you used your brilliant mind to impress someone with your analysis of a situation, I felt proud. You couldn't care less, but I did. I felt like sticking my nose up announcing something I never said and never will. "He's mine."

But I wished and I hoped you would be one day. After all, why not? We spent so many years by each other's side we knew one another like no one else did. You also never seemed too proactive towards finding yourself a girl, and as it often happens with men like you - they just kind of end up with someone. And I really believed that someone will be me, that over time you will grow up and start thinking about family and gradually realize you already have that someone by your side. Even though you've said you'd marry a simple girl, and I never thought of myself as simple… For you, I'd have gladly became one.

But you never saw me. We were always side by side, but I was invisible. You never looked at me the way I wish you would, the way every girl wishes a man would. No matter the way I dressed or did my hair. No matter whether I acted bitchy and bossy, or sweet and tender. No matter if I was strong and confident, or slipped and needed to be saved by you. You never saw me.

It hurt, but I managed. It was a pain to see you every day, but I tried. And I went on and on, day by day, until the day when I placed an orchid on my bathroom windowsill, glanced outside, and saw you.

You, and her.

The pain I felt was too vast to be put in words, and so I won't even try. But that pain kicked me into understanding of what I failed to notice before.

I was not the only woman often standing by your side any more. There was she, and just like with me you never gave away what you thought, I never saw any secret glimpse or a little too-friendly smile, nothing gave you away. Trust me, I watched. You behaved with her just like with me, so how could I have known?

What I saw made me feel as if I was in a nightmare, desperately trying to reach for something within a grip of my hand, but unable to even touch it with my fingertips, getting all frustrated, angry, devastated, tortured. And I couldn't wake up. I kept myself asking over and over again: Why her? Why her? Why her?

What does she have that I didn't? Was I not pretty? Was I not smart enough? Didn't I try to take care of you? Why wasn't I enough to you?

Sure, she was really pretty. Beautiful. Strong and confident, funny, intimidating… she was nearly perfect. We girls all looked up to her with respect and in awe. She was my idol, my everything I wish I was. The only trait of her I disapproved of was her domination, leading to the constant bickering between you two. The thing I tried to never do because I knew how much you hated it. But you two fought, and fought, throwing constant sarcasm and mockeries to each other, deliberately trying to jibe one another, in the end somehow seeming amused. I did think that was peculiar. I never thought it would lead to this. Was this really the reason?

I never found out. But as I looked at you two through the window - that one second was more than enough to notice how your eyes literally shone the way they never have while you stared at her wide smile, the way that could've meant only one thing - I knew the biggest difference between us was that she was by your side, and I was watching from a distance. A sentence so accurately describing my life from then on.

And because you picked her, I forever became imperfect. Lacking. Unnecessary. Unwanted.

From that day my blindness was forever gone from my naive eyes. I couldn't help but keep watching you like some masochistic freak. I watched, it hurt, I watched still.

And I saw it all, Shikamaru. I saw how you developed. I saw how your behaviour gradually changes, I saw how more and more flirty smiles appear on her face. I watched how you showed her all your favourite spots, I saw how she went to your home for a dinner with you and your mother. I was you two by Asuma's grave. I saw how she gently pulled the cigarette between your fingers and put it in her mouth, inhaling deep with her eyes closed. I saw they way you watched her, as if through the cigarette you shared your deepest emotions and feelings, and she accepted it all. I saw how you fell in love.

I saw the first time you kissed her. You, who was always so passive, lazy and uninitiative, I saw how needingly you pressed your lips against hers, pulling her head into the kiss with your hand, I saw how your fingers clutched her body as if in a hurry, as if you had only a time limited. As if you could lose her tomorrow. Tomorrow, however, she pulled you against her body all by herself. I saw that too, though I'd rather have not seen.

When she was here, in Konoha, you weren't really here anymore. You were always by her side, eating, walking, working together. I didn't exist. I didn't matter any more. I was just like your shadow, Shikamaru, silently lurking behind you, observing how slowly you got closer and closer, how you began disappearing for a night in the room of her hotel, how people started suspecting things, how you denied, how she was always there for you, how her visits became more and more frequent - while I watched, ruthlessly deepening the wound in my chest that was called a heart.

It hurts even now, even after all these years, looking at both of you in front of us.

Those tiny little things I failed to see in the beginning and couldn't stop seeing a little later, they were still there. You never were physical in public and also now you just sat side by side, only these small details speaking by itselves. The way she unconsciously spun a ring around her finger; the way your eyes instantly darted to her face as she exhaled somehow differently; the way your thigh obviously touched hers under the table; the way these small wrinkles appeared at the sides of her eyes as she almost unnoticeably smiled at you; the way you were inclined towards her with your whole body.

Noticing my look my husband wraps his hand around my bulging belly, and kisses me on the cheek, something that took him forever to feel comfortable doing. His black eyes shine with warmth and love, and I can tell he truly feels it inside him. He smiles at me, while I notice Temari looking at Sai's hand on my stomach.

She smiles at me too, sincerely, and then turns to Shikamaru, her smile becoming more of a grin. Surprisingly, he grins back, his mouth somewhat sly, and slides his hand on her stomach too - subtly announcing the news.

The remnants of my heart dies again, invisible blood of my suffering seeping through my smiling teeth as I once again order my body to breathe in and breath out, in and out, in and out...