What up, you guys? This is the result of a little brain-blast I had during the Yuletide season. Unfortunately, I was not rapidly writing enough to get it done by Christmas (which is when it's set). I'll try to push myself to get it done before, or just a little after, Valentine's Day. Then I'll still have the mushy-gushy feel of a romantic season, and there'll still be snow on the ground. If that doesn't happen, I'll try to finish it before Winter's end (which, in the North, is like mid-April). It's just a short, multi-chapter fic. Nothing overly complicated, pretty simple.
For many, the arrival of winter meant warmer clothes, the quiet of a snowfall, and the promise of cuddling up to a loved one on Christmas, dreams of staying together until Valentine's Day wrapped up snugly in the back of the mind. For Ino, winter should have meant all of these. Sure, business was slow at the shop (around this time, bouquets of flowers were usually replaced with boxes of jewelry), but thrills were usually replaced. Winter came with a whole new wardrobe where elegance, not flirtatiousness, was key in picking out an outfit. Everyone was cheery around December; snow was still a beautiful gift from nature, instead of the hellish curse it became mid-January. High spirits meant boys brave enough to walk up and ask her to dinner. From age thirteen on, Ino had never spent Christmas dateless.
The overall atmosphere of winter was very pleasing to Ino, though she appreciated the warmth of spring quite a lot more. No, what dampened Ino's mood every single season change was in the details. Specifically, the detail of a certain pair of gloves.
They lay harmlessly in a coat pocket throughout most of the year, until that time when the owner was forced to pull them out to protect his hands against the troublesome cold. Artificial mold seemed to have sprouted from the smashed pocket lint to cover the pair in a knobby, putrid green fabric. Twenty years ago, when the gloves were in their prime, they might have looked decent, even…stylish. Time, however, wore away patches in the fingers and created holes in the palms. Well…Time and Ino. In a teeny little wine-fueled hate-fest, she grabbed a pair of scissors and chopped each and every finger off of the gloves. She had reassured herself of her actions, knowing that Shikamaru would either get rid of the gloves or risk looking homeless.
He opted for the homeless look, probably knowing that it would piss Ino off even more. (It did.) She cursed herself for not burning the fingers when, a few days later, the gloves were back to their past (very, very distant past) glory. Damn Temari and her seasonal hobbies. She just had to pick that winter to take up sewing. Ino made sure to stick pins in a mental Temari voodoo doll every time the stitch marks were visible.
She then tried to replace the gloves with something a bit more modern and presentable. One Christmas, she went out of her way to buy these beautiful, expensive leather gloves. A thin layer of wool lined the insides so that they became thermal within seconds of putting them on. The leather was guaranteed to be water proof and of the highest quality. Shikamaru could have beaten the gloves with a spiked club, and then frozen them in a block of ice. After defrosting them, the gloves would have still been eons ahead of his old pair in terms of respectability. She had even bought them in a rich chocolate brown color to complement the dark green clothes he always insisted on wearing.
Six months later, she found them stuffed in the corner of a kitchen cabinet in his parents' house. The tags were still intact. After confronting him, she stormed off to her apartment and put the gloves into storage. She figured that she wouldn't waste her money on him anymore and resolved to give the pair to her future Christmas date. When the time came, she found herself not able to part with them. They ended up being angrily thrown into a box of decorations.
Eventually, Ino decided to give in. Not give up, mind you. She would never let Shikamaru best her in a battle of the wills. She decided to keep her dignity by not outwardly resenting the pair, but by keeping a mental hatred strong, hoping that the sheer force of her feelings would manifest itself in the spontaneous destruction of the gloves.
Maybe fate had decided to favor her one time, or some deity up in the heavens wanted to give her a good day. Perhaps she had finally moved up the ranks on St. Nick's "Nice" list. Whatever the reason, she sure was pleased when she found herself facing the gloves once again. Only this time they sat alone, forgotten on the bar's counter. Shikamaru had already left, filled up with a few servings of scotch. He and Chouji were mutually supporting each other on their way to their respective apartments. The scene was set. All Ino needed to do was pull off the perfect crime.
Should she just leave them there? They would be thrown away by the bartender, or tossed into some ancient "Lost and Found" box, where the possibility that they would be picked up by another blind loser was still significant enough to warrant concern. Besides, she had history with these gloves. No one ever became a hero by letting someone else finish their battle for them. She snatched the gloves up from the wooden surface, making sure to jam her nails into the wad to force maximum humiliation on her cloth adversary. They would remain shoved into her purse until she got home. Then, the fun would begin.
Dismemberment, water torture, burning, and shredding. The shiver of delight that ran down her spine made her wonder if she would have been a good inquisitor. The best part was that Shikamaru would never suspect it was her. He had been the one to leave his gloves at the bar. His irresponsibility was the downfall of his clothing. She cackled like a cartoon villainess at the thought and got a few perplexed stares from the other patrons around her.
The ride home was pure agony. There were too many people getting on and off the bus; it made her want to scream. A conflict between the driver and a rider made her want to pulverize both of them, hijack the vehicle, and drive it straight to her apartment. Finally, an eternity after she got on, the bus pulled up to her stop. At least she had made use of the time by making sure her door key was in her hands, poised in the perfect position to strike at her lock. She couldn't have slammed open the door any harder with how focused she was on killing the gloves.
The first thing she noticed was the music. Had she left the radio on? It was a tune that had been popular a few months back, but was still one of Ino's favorites. Then she realized it was her cell phone. She had left it on her bed in her haste to get ready and leave earlier in the day. The gloves would have to wait.
The music ended just before she reached the device, but a quick scan of the display showed her that the call was from Sakura. The previous nine missed calls and twenty unread texts were also from Sakura. A quick review of her voicemail showed Ino exactly why Sakura had been so desperate to reach her. The first message consisted of a breathless Sakura loudly screaming into the phone, "Ino! SASUKE PROPOSED!" followed by a hasty disconnection. The next nine messages followed Sakura from unbridled enthusiasm, to wistful planning, to the actual planning, and culminated in three successive messages where she realized the horror that a wedding to one of Japan's biggest CEOs would entail. The endings of the final messages were all different versions of "Ino, get your ass over here NOW!" with the use of profanity and derogatory slang becoming more common as the messages progressed.
Ino called her back right after reviewing the messages. While she was overjoyed for her friend, she knew that Sakura was a planner and would begin to work out the details straight away. (Indeed, she already had started.) After calming Sakura down, via the use of copious amounts of rude nicknames and reality checks, the two agreed that Ino would stay the night at her place and help her figure out some of the preliminary details. Ino knew that this would become a night of gushing consisting of Sasuke and the proposal, cursing out Sasuke and the proposal, eating chocolate ice cream, and drinking lots and lots of delicious, calming wine. She noted the gloves in her purse with vague annoyance, but she was too busy thinking about other things to give them more thought than about how they made a nice pillow for her phone.
Thanks for reading! Reviews are loved. Chapter 2: coming ULTRA SUPER FABULOUSLY soon