A/N: So this one completely snuck up on me in the late hours of the evening. I've tried to read through it and edit it to the best of my abilities in the limited time span available to me- and I sincerely hope nothing too horrendous comes up. Hope you enjoy!
She hasn't always been like this.
There was a time she drew affection with the uneven tilt of childish lips. Her twinkling eyes provoking a fond chuckle or two. Her small hands holding a giant basket overflowing with celandines (1), she'd offer the yellow flowers to random strangers with a loud booming voice: "Hey mister, you look grumpy! Here! Why don't you smile!"
Now she wields attraction, enticing even the most unconquerable eyes to linger a little longer with the movement of sensual lips. The twinkle in her eyes has long faded away, replaced by the ease of her limbs, the flush of her skin that invites lustful gazes and lingering touches.
But she hasn't always been like this.
There was a time she saw beauty in everything and unwaveringly poured her entire heart and soul and smiles and love and care into it in order to nurture. From the flowers and plants she tirelessly spent thousands of hours on, to helping the little lonely boy scared of his exquisitely intricate mind, and to befriending the equally lonely little girl who has a beautiful soul but was unable to share it.
Now Ino counts on the cruelty and ugliness surrounding her, and she instinctively knows how to locate and uncover weaknesses to exploit. She slips through defenses to deliver the final blow, to ensure that nothing underneath the wreckage manages to survive and rebuild.
Some days Ino misses the little girl she used to be. Those days she likes to think that maybe, just maybe, she still is that little girl. In another life, in another world.
There are also days when Ino absolutely hates the little girl. Days when she is taunted by all that she was and all that she could have been, but there is no way back. Never a way back. And she wishes that she could whole-heartedly regret the choices and circumstances leading her here, but she cannot bring herself to. She can never regret giving herself up for the people she holds so dear to her heart. For the place that is home for so many other little boys and girls who can live their lives peacefully and untarnished because of her sacrifices.
Then there are days in which she completely forgets about that little girl. When her mind is eerily blank, her body merely a machine, and she mechanically moves through whole hours, days, and months without the slightest stirring of feelings. Those days are the worst. Days when she breathes without living. Not knowing. Not caring. Days that have been increasing more and more.
No, Ino hasn't always been like this, but now she is.
When Ino is eight, she loses her first friend. The ribbon she spent a month of her allowance on, the physical manifestation of what she thought was one of her strongest bonds, is pushed and pulled further away by the relentless wind. And as Sakura finally turns around to walk away, Ino's heart receives its first blow. After Ino goes back home that day, she throws out all of her ribbons and sparkly hair pins. A single black, dull hair tie is left on the bottom of her box of accessories. Her small fingers trace it absentmindedly, before she picks it up and pulls her hair from her face in a tight, uncomfortable ponytail. The hair tie glides off in less than a second, unable to hold on to the short wisps of platinum blond. The day Ino's hair is long enough, she pulls it up into a ponytail and never wears it down again.
At the age of twelve, Ino's village is destroyed, and her leader, the person she secretly called "gramps" in the confines of her mind, sacrifices his life to protect his village, his people…her. She hasn't slept for a consecutive three days, running around helping whenever and wherever she can. Her bandages and tights are torn in several places from all of the cleaning, building, dragging, disposing. When she does finally go to sleep, she wakes up the next morning eyeing another set of her outfit lying on the chair from her bed. Her hands unconsciously inch towards the kunai under the pillow beside her. Thirty minutes later, she arrives at the meeting point, her tights considerably shorter.
Not much later, Ino makes her first kill. She is quiet the way back home, and for once her teammates and Asuma-sensei give her space and don't attempt to stop her when she leaves them at the gates of Konoha with only a thin smile. She walks away slowly, but then, all of a sudden, her feet are running, running, and running and they only stop when she reaches the Yamanaka field of flowers. She pathetically falls to the ground, her hands gliding over the soil, rubbing against it until they are brown and worn with dirt. She stares at the dirt buried deep under her fingernails for a long time, but as the first tear leaks and slowly rolls down to meet her hands, they start to frantically move against her face, clothes, and bandages, desperately trying to clean the invisible, but forever engraved, traces of blood. The next day she steps out of the door, goose bumps rising as the chilly wind hits skin usually covered by a thin layer. The bandages are left in the drawer next to her bed.
Bit by bit, that little girl is left behind, erased, annihilated.
Her clothes get tighter, shorter…
Revealing.
And Ino reveals, reveals, and reveals.
Her perfectly toned muscles, the feminine curve of her neck, the swelling of her breast. She bends down just a tad longer, holds eye contact a little longer, and chuckles a bit more teasingly.
Ino reveals so, so much.
She reveals, because she cannot let anyone see what's inside. Because lately Ino can't even recognize who she is. Or if that little girl has ever existed in the first place. Maybe she made her up. Maybe she has always been this empty. There is too much darkness inside. She has been tainted too much.
So Ino reveals her face, her skin, her shell.
She reveals so she can hide.
終わり
(1) Celandine: a flower symbolizing "joys to come" (source:languageofflowers)