Disclaimer: Naruto not mine. Kishimoto's. (Sorry. Sleepy.)
Tatters We Let - 1st Fragment
When the pot of petunia fell, it lacked the acrobatic verve that so heightened the mood in those tension-jarred drama scenes. This one merely swerved off the side of the counter and smashed against the floor, quick and prosaic. The plain pot lay disemboweled, the rich loam of its insides spattered about like old blood and bits of flesh. The indigo flowers, not very robust from the start, was mashed against the dirt floor, and the thin roots and spindly stem were rather grotesquely splayed out.
Ino grimaced and instantly fetched a paired brush and dustpan of cheap plastic. She knelt before the mess but paused in contemplation, focused on a random smudge of dirt. The mass was stirring; a hint of magenta curled into view, retracted. Ino ignored it and began to pick up the fractured pieces of clay, casually waving away her companion's belated efforts of bending over.
"Don't bother," she said, sparing her old teammate a crotchety glance. "What with your travel time," she muttered. "I can get five of this cleaned up before you get down here."
The kunoichi did a double take, as she stood up. (The pan that held the dirt matched the pale blue of her eyes. Her mother was subject to attacks of sentimentality like that.)
"Are those carrots?" she demanded from the hulking form of her fellow jounin.
"So what?" Chouji growled back, munching on the root crop a little too viciously.
"Ah, nothing," she said hastily. Chouji's weight issues had never been open to discussion, even among the InoShikaChou. The unsaid consensus was that it wasn't necessarily a problem that needed solving. "I'll get you another pot of petunia from the greenhouse."
"Nah. Don't bother. I'd rather get those blue things, anyway." He pointed to the poised, spear-like arrangement of blossoms. "Prettier."
"Hyacinths? But I thought your wife wanted petunias."
"Yeah, but Majo's pretty laid-back like that. She won't mind."
Ino sniffed. "I would have gone ballistic."
"Ever noticed I don't have my name appended to yours?"
"Ever noticed I can easily knock you down like one of your potted petunias?"
"Speaking of Shikamaru—"
"We were speaking of that useless bum?"
"Yeah. It's his name appended to yours."
"Just my luck. You know what? I once came upon our good-for-nothing fathers piss-drunk, and overheard them talking about how your dad and that lazy bastard's dad actually drew lots to decide who gets me way back when we were babies." The kunoichi bared her teeth. "I had to leave the village to keep from gutting the lot of them where they sat, steeping in sake."
"Just my luck," repeated Chouji piously.
"The joke is getting old," snapped Ino.
The other held up his meaty hands placatingly, choosing to omit mentioning that it was Ino who started the topic, anyway. "I was saying, Shika's due home today, right?"
"If you say so," Ino shrugged. "I'll get you your petunias. Wait here."
"Ino—"
"I know Majo-san, too, idiot. Behind that angelic smile is a powerful left hook."
"But it's her way of showing affection!" Chouji called after her. "Hey, Ino!"
The petunias appeared a little later, followed by the flower seller herself.
"I was going to say," Chouji continued through a mouthful of carrots. "Is there any chance I get to see my best friend before you lock him up and have your way with him?"
The blonde gave him the finger.
"Clear enough." Chouji sighed. "How much for the petunias?"
"A favor: tell Azuma-sensei to mind his own damned business."
Chouji scratched his head. "That's too bad. He was going to treat me to a shabu-shabu dinner in exchange for info. You sure you won't tell me how long you'll detain the man?"
Ino rolled her eyes and thrust the tray of perennials to her old genin cellmate. "Here's your petunias. Goodbye."
Sex-life or what-not, no aspect of her relationship with her insufferable husband was open for discussion, not with Sakura, not with Chouji, not with anybody.
------
A few hours later, Ino went home with the de-potted petunia, already painting in her mind a pretty picture designating the plant's new container, a blue and white porcelain with the likeness of a laughing fish, and the plant's new home, the kitchen window sill. It was high time she replaced the cactus she had beaned Shikamaru with last week.
Nara Ino kept her household with a fierce pride that rivaled even that which she had as a kunoichi. Despite the barrage of missions she continued to take, her two children didn't suffer from any lack of mothering. They were fed with three balanced meals daily, with two healthy snacks in between. Indolence was not tolerated, and chores were divided equally. She made time to tutor and train them, sating their boundless six-year old enthusiasm for activity.
That was not to say that little Sanae and Ien were regimented to the point of being stifled. They were happy, good-natured children, as sunny as their looks, as sharp as the kunai they've only started to wield. It was she who struggled to keep up with them. Sometimes, she could only manage to stare at them in awe—who birthed those two? A hundred times more talented than her, a hundred times more motivated than their father. . . This early, they made her awfully lonely at times.
Today, for instance, would be their second day away from home. The Rokudaime Hokage had gone camping with the Academy's new students for this year, a program he had whipped up to help link generations, he said. Ino wasn't particularly interested with Naruto's reasoning, but she had her own reasons for sending off her children.
They're so very smart, see, so very self-sufficient. It'll be so easy for them to shirk from a world that couldn't function as highly as they were capable. Let them recuperate, retreat from it, as needed, but they must learn to live in it.
"Play nice," she told them. "But if a mean kid tries to hit you—"
"Hit 'em right back," came the gleeful chorus.
"Daddy says to duck first," said Sanae.
"But that's a given," pointed out her brother.
Mommy had sent them off with a smile, then suffered by herself in the unbearable silence of their empty home. Two days from now, it would be Daddy to welcome them home. Mommy had a mission tomorrow, and she wouldn't be back for a while.
When Ino arrived home, she immediately noted her husband's presence. Rice was already cooking—just enough for two, she noted approvingly when she peeped into the gurgling cooker. A glistening bowlful of greens sat on the kitchen counter. From the sink, the fish, gutted and cleaned, looked up at her with their dead eyes, probably waiting for her to cremate them. (Not that she would. Ino did not overcook food, let alone burn them.)
Shikamaru, of course, was in the bathroom. He wouldn't emerge till later, after hours of soaking in a tub to loosen dirt, grime, blood
(guilt)
and since it was his turn to clean the bathroom this week, he was probably already doing that, too.
Ino squirmed. The man had such bad timing. If he had delayed going into the bathroom for just five minutes, she would have been able to go first. Not that she really, really needed to pee right then and there. Eventually, that would be the case, though, and she'd probably end up running to the neighbors' to use their toilet.
His debriefing time in the bathroom, what she had taken to calling it, was one of his little quirks and habits she couldn't really understand. Well, what was to understand about them? Perhaps, the better way to say it was, she couldn't relate to them. Her life, her existence, was much simpler, more straightforward than his. . .
Not for the first time, Ino was thankful the twins were twins. She had known growing up that it had been lonely being a Haruno Sakura, what with her big forehead and the brain it housed within. Only lately had she realized that it must have been worse for a Nara Shikamaru, though of course, Chouji was there. (And her? she wouldn't even try patching herself into the picture). The insufferable man was lazy from growing up lacking intellectual stimulation, Ino was convinced. Nowadays, his life as a ninja provided that, but he needed to have a safe place to be himself, too, to be honest and think and speak at his level—wouldn't that do wonders for his personality? She could turn him into her pet project, sort of like with Sakura-chan, who didn't turn out badly herself, protégée of the Godaime. Ino did recognize her limits, however. Shikamaru was too immense a project to take on.
She had surprised herself when she agreed to marry the eternally-bored bum. (She wasn't really surprised that he did.) It was so very convenient, anyway: she didn't have to look for a husband. They knew each other well enough not to fall apart once the permanence of the situation set in. She wasn't overwhelmed by his bad habits. He wasn't intimidated by her bossiness. They pretty much coexisted, and she had become very comfortable, very complacent, in her life with him.
(A mistake: she let her guard down.)
Ino stood up suddenly, unable to take the increasing pressure in her bladder. Ah, Sawamatsu-san next door would be weaving at this time of the day. She could call on her to chat till dinner time, incidentally use their restroom first.
Instead of sprinting for the front door, Ino found herself marching up to the bathroom and hammering on the door.
"How long are you going to be in there?" she hollered. "Ugh! Don't answer that. Just let me in!"
The grumbling was barely audible above the steady trickling of water.
"Open the door, damn it. It's my bathroom, too, and I need to talk to you!"
The door opened to the disgruntled face of a sopping wet man clutching a haphazardly thrown on towel and a much-abused sponge.
Ino just stood there for a full minute, breathing a little hard from the exertion of running up the stairs and screaming her lungs out.
"Woman," he asked cantankerously. "What can possibly not wait till I finish cleaning your damned bathroom?"
"I need to pee," she muttered. She brushed past him, flopped down the toilet, and did her business.
"That's it?" he drawled moments after the flushing sound had died down. "If it's not too troublesome, talk to me later after I finish this."
"I lied; I'm not here to talk."
Ino came to him,
(patched herself, patched herself into the picture)
flung her arms around his wet body, and, with the tightly screwed eyes of a nightmare-roused child confronting the narrowed, darkened hallway that spanned the gulf to her parents' room in the middle of the night, she kissed him.
He kissed her back.
"Ino." His expression had considerably altered from the let's-get-this-over-with one he habitually wore. "I've only been gone a week and only to Sand."
"And I'll be gone for more and farther," she snapped. She delved back into his mouth, holding him in place by a clawing grip on his dark hair. "Shut up."
He was usually an obedient sort of spouse despite his procrastinating and complaining. He allowed her to take her fill of him, standing still as her feverish hands roamed, desperately gripped, as her kisses deepened, beg, despaired. . . Sponge and towel were soon abandoned to trampling, for his hands were busy on the voluptuousness of her body, for his hands were clever, oh-so clever, swindling her of her clothes and her only noticing when she was as starkly naked as he was.
He pushed her onto the floor, not into the lukewarm tub of water with which he had cleansed himself
(off his sins)
but on the cold, hard tiles he had just been scrubbing with the dilapidated sponge.
(What were you really scrubbing so squeaky clean? The floors? The walls? The corners of your conscience?)
She wasn't the sort of woman who'd hesitate taking what was rightfully hers. Breaking free from his hold, she moved to reposition herself, intent on straddling his supine form, intent on taking control.
(I know about her.)
And then, she couldn't move, was effortlessly overpowered.
Ino gnashed her teeth, furious. He used her own shadow to entrap her, that damned cheap trick he kept using unscrupulously! She was back to where she was, pinned under him.
"You cheat!" she accused.
(I know about her.)
"You liar," he murmured lazily. "You told me you'd be here tomorrow."
(I know about her!)
Ino didn't know what it was that melted her like so, but she was like glue in his hands, amorphous and tenaciously clinging. She wasn't the sort of woman to share something like this with another woman, but then she wasn't the sort of woman to fall for this sort of man, anyway. Despite his numerous shortcomings, Shikamaru was a very thorough lover. He had an annoyingly great number of little attributes that made him extremely indispensable, one of which was that, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, he did have a heart to match his massive brain.
(Which was probably why he was still there, in that tiny house, with its stifling walls, in one of its stifling rooms, giving his body to her in all its entirety, never mind that she had no clue at all whether his heart and soul were included in the package, because he had never told her so and she had never asked.)
---
The next day, Ino had to stop by the flower shop on her way out of Konohagakure no Sato. She had been distracted yesterday afternoon, apparently, for she had accidentally gone home with the bunch of keys to the Yamanaka storerooms.
Chouji was in the shop, as early as she was, talking congenially with her mother.
"Majo did want those hyacinths, too," he explained. "Will help with symmetry."
She nodded and stooped down curiously, noticing she had missed a clump of dirt from yesterday's spilled petunia. Again, a hint of magenta curled out—the earthworm was still there. She thought it would have crawled out yesterday, would have shriveled up because of the heat and dryness.
"Ino." Chouji broke into her reverie seriously. "Did you talk to him?"
Her lack of response was answer enough it seemed.
"I'm paying for a tray of petunias, too, Yamanaka-san," Chouji politely informed Ino's mother. "I didn't get to pay for the one I got yesterday from Ino."
Ino snorted as she stood up. "Not like I can't tell Azuma-sensei to buzz off myself, Chouji."
In spite of these words, it didn't slight her pride to receive compassion from other people. In silent thanks, she took for herself a comforting bear hug from her friend, and then went on her way.
-00:40 091606
Notes:
1. Written for 31days community theme for September 18, such is the bondage of folly.
2. Don't know why I used petunias, but apparently they can mean anger and resentment and "your presence soothes me." Oooh. . .
3. Characterizations: on all three, very rusty. Sorry, Kishimoto-sensei, I haven't read you for the last 20 chapters. TT
4. InoShikaTem's been an idea I've been obsessed with for a year or so now. Finally acted on the obsession. Eheh.