Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me in any way, shape, or form. All characters and settings used belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

Glass Flowers

by insert cliche

Ino loved playing the game of fake love, finding boys and breaking them one by one.

It was an easy game, with only a few steps: find a target, wind him up, go out, break up, and repeat. There were no rules, and she could do whatever she wanted to try and win.

She didn't win every time-on the contrary, she lost quite often. She just wanted that adrenaline rush, the heady feeling after every date and every fake-up. Her sadistic side liked watching the boys try desperately to win her back. So she played, and played, and played some more.

Because it was simple. Because it was mindless. Because she had nothing better to do.

Tsunade-sama had allowed it because it was good training for seduction missions and general kunoichi techniques. As long as the boys didn't do drastic things, then she didn't care.

There had been many, many boys. Shinobi, civilian, older, younger, superior, equal, or inferior. At one point in her love life, she had gone after almost every boy in the Konoha Twelve, her teammates included. Kiba and Lee, the most easygoing of the group, had been easy conquests. A bit of flirting, a date, and an end. None of them had been bothered by the quick flirtations. Later, Sai had fallen in the same way - no matter how much he said it was for research, a date was a conquest and a victory in Ino's book.

That was all they were. Flirtations. Something to distract from reality.

Some of the boys had been a little harder to defeat, but she had done it in the end. Her own teammates had been among this group. Chouji fell into her trap after only a week of tears and girlish drama. Shikamaru gave up after the two weeks of begging, because he wanted to quiet the troublesome girl. Shino had ignored her for a month straight until finally accepting.

There had been two undefeatables - the geniuses. Sasuke had ignored her during the Academy, and his feeling of irritation at her presence hadn't changed. Then he had left Konoha, and broken her best friend's heart in the process. Neji had been a crazy, revenge-obsessed genius without a romantic bone in his body. The two of them had been much too time-consuming to be good targets, and Ino had moved on.

Naruto had been off-limits from the start. If Ino had broken his heart - which she knew wasn't possible anyways, not by her - Hinata would have broken too. And Ino had no wish to hurt one of her best friends like that.

Day after day, month after month, year after year. Game after game after game.

Ino had played the same game for as long as she could remember. And she wasn't planning on stopping anytime soon.

Shikamaru watches Ino play her games, and wonders if she'll ever stop.

There are so many boys - and men - in Konoha, and his teammate isn't even halfway through. Genin fresh out of the Academy are dazzled by her, and follow her like puppies. Chuunin are more wary of her, but fall in the end. Jounin try and ignore her, but she hadn't gone to all of those extra kunoichi classes for nothing. Sometimes, even the most jaded warriors were shot down with a pout and a flutter of her extra-long eyelashes.

She had practiced in other places, even during missions. A quick round of break-a-heart after a long night, an extra day dedicated to rest and the pursuit of fake happiness. Any place with fresh targets and unsuspecting minds was fair game. Village heroes were run through with words and abandoned in the dust of her footsteps. Arrogant rich boys were reduced to begging messes after she was through with them. Countless had been tricked and shattered and broken again.

He monitors her every game from his beloved shadows - here one moment, gone the next. He sees her skills refine themselves, with every round becoming quicker, smoother, better. He counts the number of boys she can break in a night when she feels like having a contest with herself. He watches her fake the love in her eyes.

And after every night, when she's sleeping peacefully in whatever bed they've been given for the mission, he smoothes her hair back and tucks her in. Because he know that she's still a girl on the inside (still his best friend), no matter how dark and elegant her lipstick is.

He doesn't know when he fell in love with her. He just know that he did.

Maybe it was after that axe-wielding monster from Suna. Or the "most beautiful boy in Fire." Or maybe even that Chuunin they had helped on the way back to Konoha.

Falling in love had been too fast and too slow at the same time. Too slow, because he didn't even know what was happening over the years, and too fast because he didn't know that he loved her until he was much too deeply in love to drag himself back out.

He had started getting mildly irritated when she leaned too close to her targets. Maybe there had been "love confessions," maybe there had been secrets. Maybe there had been nothing. All he knew was that he didn't like it.

Not one bit, his mind said. Not one bit.

Then had come the irrational annoyance at anyone who tried to grab her and never let go. She was much too good for everyone (himself included), and nobody should have had the right to keep her like that.

After that had been the jealousy. Slow, burning, jealousy that ate at him from the inside of his soul. Whenever she started one of her week-long games, he wanted nothing but to rip her target apart. Painfully. Bone by bone. Tear the other man into shreds, so she would forget about the target entirely.

And even if he knew all the symptoms of love (Who had convinced Hyuuga to ask his teammate out? Who had finally pushed the idiotic Hokage-in-training and his longtime admirer together?), he hadn't recognized love when applied to himself.

Love was - is - so painful. Waiting every single day, wanting nothing but to kiss her and make her finally see sense.

But he can't rip her from the world she's created, the one where she is always the victor and everyone is left on their knees.

So he stands by and lets her play, and waits for the day when she will look at him again.

Please review. Any and all reviews are highly appreciated!