disclaimer: i own nothing. just words upon words of what-could-have-beens.
note: i love writing drabbles. i love writing ino. this is a recipe for unmitigated disaster, of course.
one. dreamcatcher ; nara shikamaru/yamanaka ino.
She comes back at impossible hours in the morning. Sometimes a redhead, sometimes a brunette, but never a blonde (because blonde is too close to home; blonde is her father's shadowed eyes, Naruto's endless, naive enthusiasm, the sunlight to her shroud of shadows). Her body speaks in foreign languages for each skin she wears and he finds himself sharing a bed with a runaway heiress, an erstwhile shrine maiden, a mute who spins lovesongs in intricate handsigns. Each as different, as unique as something real. She has always been the best at play-pretends, even as a child (and he remembers the day she enacts a stage of I-Am-In-Love-With-You and he falls for real, for the way she laughs over his faux-distaste and how she carves out his heart with smiles as sharp as her fingernails). She slips into multitude of roles like she has done this for several lifetimes (more skinwalker than mindwalker at this point, to her father's dismay) and he is bright enough to know she's deconstructing whatever left of her, one minuscule detail at a time, to make each shred of lies more true than truths. She is a perfectionist and Konoha always wants the best. He learns to live with her (for her). He learns to let her linger in his apartment after missions, touching and rearranging his properties as she finds her own skin. Sometimes, it takes her days to be Yamanaka Ino again.
He wonders how long it takes for her to remember who he is.
"I know you."
He makes her tea. He tucks away the scrolls he borrows from her father under the kitchen sink because he likes to pretend that they're okay, that this is okay. He itches for a cigarette but he knows she doesn't like the smell. Once, he smokes and she cries, whispers a name in between tears from memories she has forgotten to remember. He stops smoking then. "Yeah?"
She nods, quiet and wistful. "From a long time ago. Centuries, maybe."
"We're not that old."
She looks puzzled for a second and he watches her unfolds herself from the couch, ivory skin stretched taut over brittle bones. She pauses to move a picture frame a few inches to the left (Chuunin graduation and everyone is smiling and happy and alive). "But I know you?"
"Maybe."
She sits on a chair beside him and tangles her legs with his. Her toes brush the underside of his calf. "Who are you?"
He thinks, "Someone who has loved you for centuries."
He says, "I'm nobody."
end