Title: Folded Flowers
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Ino x Sai, light Hinata x Naruto
Prompt: Bitter-Smoke's 'Faint Sunshine Challenge' found forever ago on FFNET.
Prompt 1 out of 10.
Author's note: Please read and review. All feedback welcomed :)
Folded Flowers
Ino liked to imagine herself a matchmaker. The title remained a work in progress and not confirmed elsewhere except in her own head. Her first foray into setting up lovers had been her good friend, Sakura, who pursued Sasuke on Ino's advice. That Sasuke was clearly too stupid to pursue a blonde as beautiful as she was, was not Ino's problem. The Ino-Sasuke babies were not to be but that did not mean Ino was not generous. She knew how to lose, and she was humble to boot.
The dark-haired Sakura look alike that was to come many years later was further proof of Ino's intuition.
Lately the whole of Konoha had taken a dose of love juice what with every ninja coupled-up, or due to be, in one way or another.
The peace guaranteed at the end of the shinobi war had dulled her comrades higher reasoning and convinced them to commit to people they would one day betray.
Statistics said that military marriages were shoddy affairs, filled with neglect and third parties: the names of which vary from union to union - a person, work, addiction.
The months-long assignments away were conducive to hot, steamy affairs that were quickly forgotten the moment a ninja came crawling home to a stranger and a couple of kids who thought the photo on the wall was their mother, not the person standing before them.
Her own parents secured their relationship by one committing to a life outside of the ninja way. Her mother's flower shop opened and closed from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, every day except Sundays. While her father had doubled down on missions after Ino was born. He was home to get to know his baby girl. Her father got to change her, watch her feed and rock her to sleep or bounce her when she wouldn't settle.
Her mother liked to tell Ino about the very first time he bathed her. Ino was so tiny she fit in to the crook of his arm, but she could scream louder than any emergency siren she'd ever heard. Her mother laughed as she repeated how he begged her to relax in case he dropped her.
Lucky for Ino, he didn't, and to this day, remains dutifully at her mother's side. Ino's father ducks in and out of the flower shop, fetching different kinds of soil, potting mix or poisions when he can.
If she could guarantee a match with a civilian perhaps Ino, too, could enjoy a marriage as long and as happy as her parents.
Only problem was what civilian would put up with being second to the Fire Country in times of war?
On no day in particular Sai stepped in to the Yamanaka flower shop and studied the arrangements closely. He might have been admiring them but Ino knew better - he was not ANBU for nothing. Some people said ANBU could detect threats in the shape of the flowers they were given. Or, in the smell of them anyway. Ino had heard of a dowager and an enemy to her country because she hoarded her husband's stolen ninjutsu scrolls, was partial to the smell of fresh jasmine. When her groundskeeper handed her a handful one morning, she had no idea they could be laced with a toxin she inhaled merely by smelling them. Dead later that day of heart failure and all her husband's contraband, taken away. Of course, this might have never happened, but it reminded Ino even flowers can be weapons for ninja and ANBU know to look for colour changes and unusual growth patterns on plants not by accident.
ANBU rumours aside, Ino flipped and fussed with her hair after Sai entered. She didn't want to attract his attention without first looking the part. For Ino, being carefully groomed had never been part of being a shinobi but she liked to manage her hair and make-up as if she were a civilian shopgirl with not a care in the world.
She pulled down the front of her shirt, trying to ease some of the tension building in her chest and stomach and cursed herself for having had a coffee that morning.
When Sai got to the counter where Ino had perched with her magazines, he tried a small smile that looked rather robotic.
"What purpose do flowers serve?" he asked. No hello, good morning, how are you, Ino?
Ino was taken aback, of course, but how could she forget this was Sai. The discipline of being a nameless, faceless soldier was not easy to break.
Ino thought of something quickly, "flowers are used for sympathy, for love, for saying sorry, Sai. They're a way for people to say things they might find hard to say out loud."
"Hard to say out loud? I can say I'm sorry, Ino, can't you?"
"Sometimes," she nodded, "and other times, it's not so easy."
To Ino's confusion, Sai pulled out his ink and paper and drew a flower that burst into life with his final stroke. It jumped from the page and into his hand, as colourful and as real as if he had plucked it from one of the bouquets around them.
He handed it to her, his smile still plastered to his face.
"For saying sorry," he said.
Ino looked down at it. It was coloured an unnatural blue, like the electric colour on the tips of the wings of the brown birds that settled in the trees nearby.
How had insensitive Sai noticed as small a detail as this?
Before she could ask, he was gone, with only the bell on the shop door to indicate his exit.
That was not to be the last of her unusual visits for the day. Another ninja, one as quiet as Sai, stepped through the Yamanaka doorway. It was late afternoon by now and Ino's mind dithered over nothing in particular as she waited out til closing time. Was minding the shop for her parents so different from one of her missions with Chouji and Shikamaru? She did a lot of support work for the pair which meant a lot of waiting for them to do the cool stuff.
In the meantime, the white eyes of the Hyuga glanced around the shop, watching for an enemy that might never appear judging by her nervousness. The long, dark hair and lavender outfit was unmistakably Hinata.
"Hi, Hinata!" Ino beamed. "How are you?" She got out of her seat behind the counter and greeted her just out of the doorway. Ino gestured to look around. "Was there anything I could help with?"
"Hi, no, it's okay. Thank you, Ino."
After a few minutes of looking, Hinata finally selected something she brought to the counter.
Daffodils. Bright yellow like the sun.
"What's the occasion?" Ino asked her.
"Oh, my, uh, father's out of town and I thought I would, uh, freshen up the compound."
Ino didn't want to say anymore because Hinata's visible nervousness made Ino nervous too. She smiled, accepted Hinata's cash and sent her on her way without further judgement.
It was stranger still that two weeks later, Sai came back with another question.
"Have you thought about origami, Ino?"
Taken aback by his question while she spritzed a few roses with water, she forgot about her habit of bending in to smell them. Ino took a moment to assess him, to be sure she wasn't dealing with a high-functioning sociopath today. Unfortunately, what she noticed was a man of suitable height, half a head taller than she was; pale complexion and a head of dark brown hair, the shade of black almost, creating contrasts of night and day. It suited him, this genetically gifted colour scheme, not as awful as one might assume. She found herself challenged by the shade of his eyes, a brown like the colour of his hair, never seen elsewhere, except, that wasn't strictly true. Those had been the eyes of Sasuke once. His face was frozen in that blank, unmoving mask he wore. It was hard not to declare him stupid sometimes, such was the emptiness looking out at the world. Of course, there was more to Sai than how he looked. He carried a pad and ink with him because he could draw better at five years old than any trained artist of thirty years or more. It so happened that his ability to value the emotions people expected art to arouse did not develop when he was training to endure the pain of torture.
Ino vanquished the sudden thought of a small Sai strapped down and having his fingers bent backward. She reached for his wrist and checked for a pulse and smiled to see his eyes follow her hand, taken aback by the contact.
"You're alive, good," she said. "What do I need to know about origami?"
"I thought you would appreciate the folding techniques that can make paper look like this." He touched one of the roses she'd just sprayed to make his point. If Ino was none the wiser, she would have noted a softness in his face. Imagined, probably.
She raised an eyebrow and didn't say anything more continuing on with her spritzing.
When she turned back to say something, Sai was gone. Like earlier, only the shop bell noted he was there in the first place.
A few weeks later, while Ino worked the flower shop alone, Naruto appeared.
Ino was slumped behind the counter reading one of her mother's gossip magazines and looked up when the doorbell announced his entrance.
"Ino, help me! Jiraiya would be turning in his grave right now!"
"Jiraiya?" she said, not too pleased she was mid-sentence in finding out the specifics of who the daughter of a Lord in Water Country was dating.
"I need flowers, Ino, I've really messed up!"
"Let me guess, you messed up your order at the ramen shop and now you want to buy old Ichiraku some flowers?"
"No, Ino!" He shouted, confused by her attack on his love of a good noodle soup.
"Off topic, anyway, I need flowers for a girl," he admitted with a sheepish scratch of the back of his head.
"Ah, in that case, I've got the perfect kind for you." She pointed at the back wall where entire rows of arrangements were doubled in price. Naruto wasn't to know this but if anyone asked, it was because the flowers were out of season, or from land that couldn't be farmed commercially anymore. That was something her mother had told her to say to any prying customers. Not yet shared with anyone thankfully.
Ino sashayed on over to the wall to guide Naruto to his flowers of choice and began to espouse the meanings of certain blooms and their partners-in-display. For instance, if it's for a woman you love, one knows to go for the red roses but not too dark a red because that's something else entirely.
"Uh…" Naruto couldn't think straight. "Just one that says 'I like you and I'm sorry'?"
Sai walked in to see Naruto and Ino admiring several bouquets close together. He cleared his throat as he had seen some more socially adept ninja do when trying to interrupt a conversation. Ino looked up, bright-eyed when she noticed him by the entrance.
"Sai!" she said. "How are you? What can I do ya for?" She raced on over but noticed how he looked back pointedly at Naruto.
"Am I interrupting something?"
Ino looked back at Naruto and made a face to say, 'no, never'.
Sai decided on something else though and he followed up with "I should go," rather abruptly.
Perplexed and unusually confused by the brief nature of his visit, Ino tried to choke down the feeling of disappointment that was rising in her chest.
A few weeks went by and Ino was beginning to think Sai wasn't coming back. A few weeks turned into a month and she was sure the store was never going to be graced with Sai's gift of social "slow"-dom ever again. That feeling of disappointment came up again and she asked herself why to no avail. It seemed more a mystery the more she tried to solve it.
Ino never did learn who Naruto's flowers were for, he didn't pick any of the overpriced bouquets she'd suggested, and he walked away in the end with only a single flower because that was all the coins in his pocket could afford. Much as Naruto tried to convince Ino otherwise.
Curiously, a Hyuga face peered in the shop again that Ino was happy to see and not without a puzzle for Ino to mull over. It seemed her match-making skills were to be put to use once again for the betterment of ninja everywhere.
Hinata shared a story about a date where she and Naruto had dinner in the nicest district in Konoha. Ino gasped and made sure to let Hinata how happy she was for her. But instead of returning her look of joy, Hinata began to wring her hands and let her eyes fill up with tears. What Hinata said next, Ino nearly keeled over laughing but didn't because she understood how sensitive and hard this was. Dating was tough for a ninja.
"You told him how you feel, Hinata? That's so cute!" Ino gushed. "So go for it, the hardest part is over."
"You don't understand, Ino, Naruto has always loved Sakura. I've known for a while now."
"Oh, Hinata, old news. Trust me." Ino winked and elbowed her for encouragement. "You have no idea the kind of assets you have." She looked directly at Hinata's chest to which Hinata could only respond with a self-conscious blush.
"But, I mean, that's not all you offer, Hinata. You're also a good ninja to your team mates and you have the Byakugan eyes which are nothing to sneeze at. Hundreds of years of powerful ninja blood flowing in your veins and all."
"Naruto, doesn't want me for my Byakugan. If he did, he'd be better of dating Neji. Or my sister."
Ino let herself laugh a little then and gave Hinata a little squeeze of the shoulders to reassure her.
"You are definitely not running away now that you're scared. You need to get back out there and talk to Naruto. He likes you."
Hinata looked up at Ino to double check she'd heard right. Ino nodded her confirmation and let her shoulders go.
"Look, they don't call me the Matchmaker of Konoha for nothing. I know when love's love, right?"
Ino struck a pose that caused Hinata to cringe a little because of Ino's exuberance. It was very much like Ino thought she was in a comic, saving worlds or something.
Hinata mumbled thanks on her way out the shop and left Ino to ponder what ninja love-match hadn't she made yet. Oh, right. Asuma and Kurenai, that was not her doing. Definitely not.
Next time Ino opened up, there was a note on the shop counter with the characters of her name written in neat calligraphy. In expensive ink. It was a demand notice, maybe or a toll of some kind. Ino flipped it over to see who the sender was, the back was blank. She tore it open to find her heart beating more rapidly as she read:
'Ino, you know well enough I am a man of few words.
I have occasionally granted you access to the workings of my mind: my questions are honest enough depictions of what goes on in there.
Please know that I think I've made some mistake not stating how I feel sooner. Had I known what I was feeling, I might have also made the proclamation more quickly. Unfortunately, my emotional intelligence needs work.
In light of recent epiphanies, which I would outline at length should you choose to listen, would you kindly accept the gift enclosed and join me for an evening in Konoha? Naruto tells me the restaurants by the river are the nicest.
The gift included is also to share with you how sorry I am and how much I want to know you better.
Sincerely,
Sai'
Ino, her heart in her mouth, and elated by Sai's admission, looked into the envelope further. It seemed he'd filled it with tiny, paper-made, beautifully intricate flowers.
Folded flowers.
FINISH