A/N: Dedicated to Kingkakashi, who inspired it, though it's probably not what you were expecting. Sorry! I hope you like it anyway!
Warnings for lime and questionable decisions.
- o -
Slow Burn
- o -
It started with a cigarette, and he watched her childhood evaporate like smoke.
He hadn't quite realized how much his student had changed until that gray summer's day in Mist Village. They sat on the porch of the dilapidated inn together (their mission allowance could've afforded them a nicer place, but Asuma was not much of a big spender), watching the rain splatter the streets. It was always raining in Kiri at this time of year. It plinked quietly against the tin roof, filled up the gutters and the cracks in the asphalt, slowly flooding the below-sea-level area. A wooden bucket next to his chair caught the drops that a hole in the overhang let through. Ino stared out at the backs of Shikamaru and Chouji, disappearing into the morning mist in the distance. Her sky blue nails picked at the peeling paint on the arm of her chair absently, too bright for the atmosphere. Inappropriate in some way, but very typically her.
Her pensiveness hung in the air about her like a kind of humidity, plastering her hair to her head and settling into her clothes. Asuma was unsurprised when she spoke up with something serious, though she played it simple.
"They're always together."
It wasn't the whine he had expected. There was no trace of a pout to her pale lips, merely a reflective expression. Asuma blinked at the resignation he saw there, which belonged on the face of a much older person. But her eyes told a different story; they were always too expressive for her own good. He shifted uncomfortably.
"Yeah. They are," he agreed, because anything else would have been a lie.
Her unspoken thought was clear enough to both parties. Asuma stretched out his legs, crossing his feet at the ankles. He reached into his vest pocket for a damp cigarette and lit it, wondering when his immature pupil had grown into a young woman who could bear the pains of life on her own. Sixteen was young in so many ways, but it was old enough to have learned a few things. Unmoving head still face-forward, she sneaked a glance at him out of the corner of her eye.
"Can I bum one of those, Asuma?"
Asuma thought about it for a moment. He was supposed to be responsible for her, for teaching her life's important lessons and molding her into a well-rounded adult. But it was becoming increasingly clear to him that the shinobi lifestyle was doing a much better job of teaching her than he could ever hope to. Once, he had wanted to protect his students from the world, but there was no way to protect them from each other, or themselves. He tried to remember exactly when she had stopped calling him 'sensei' in private, but he couldn't pinpoint a specific instance. With a soft sigh, he tossed her a cigarette.
"Just this once," he said. Asuma himself was no saint, but then he had never pretended to be.
Chipped azure flashed before his nose as she snatched the dangling cigarette from between his lips. She still bit her nails, he noted.
Ino lit her cigarette with his in a way no amateur should know how to do. She took a long, slow drag, but didn't cough.
"Just this once," she agreed, handing him back his own cigarette. She exhaled, and the smoke swirled briefly about her in a glorious halo before dissipating into the air as though it had never been.
- o -
Asuma jerked his fingers through his short hair. This morning he'd noticed a patch of gray in the mirror while shaving. He was only thirty-one, but he could always feel his age in his bones the week after a difficult mission. He took a sip of whatever hard liquor Kakashi had asked the bartender to fill his glass with. The bitter tang was welcome on his dry lips, burning in a satisfying way as it went down. He had lost his taste for sweet drinks long ago.
His aloof friend peered up at him over the edge of his orange book. Rough mission? asked a knowing eye.
Asuma nodded, either to himself or to Kakashi, he wasn't sure which. "Assassination," he stated, bringing the rim of his glass to his lips once more.
"Ah," Kakashi replied, understanding. "How did your team handle it?"
"They always manage to handle it now, whatever it is. I don't know when they figured out how to. I feel like I'm still learning that trick myself."
"They're not as young as you think. And they have each other to lean on," Kakashi pointed out.
Asuma almost nodded, but stopped himself with a frown. His masked companion caught the interrupted gesture.
"They have you, too," he amended. Asuma's frown deepened.
A commotion at the end of the bar made both men look up. A woman in a backless red dress was leaning against the counter, arguing with the bartender in a low voice. Asuma caught himself admiring the curve of her neck in the dim lighting, the sharp jut of her shoulder blade as she bent closer to keep the exchange of words from the curious ears of the other patrons. He didn't feel guilty about his wandering gaze; he and Kurenai weren't official. While his feelings for her were more tender than he'd readily admit, Asuma really couldn't think of himself as the type to settle down and raise a family. Besides, there was no harm in looking. The skin of the woman's back was white and unblemished, delicate like porcelain. Like everything that would break under the strain of a ninja's life, beautiful and entirely out of reach.
The bartender shook his head. The woman said something sharp under her breath and spun around, taking a wobbling step towards the door. It was then that Asuma noticed the tightly knotted bun atop her head was a familiar pale gold - the color of sunlight filtered through clouds. He swore softly.
Kakashi took one look at the girl stumbling through the crowd and trained his semi-serious black eye on his companion. "You should probably call her parents."
Asuma drained his drink in one swig and nodded. "I need to go take care of this," he coughed, setting his empty glass down with a dull thud. He idly supposed one good thing could come of this awkward situation; at least he'd get to stick Kakashi with the bill for a change.
"Don't be too hard on her," his friend called after him, uncharacteristically offering advice without prompting.
Asuma weaved his way through the undulating mass of people, trailing Ino towards the exit. He watched as she elbowed her way through a pair of large men engaged in tight conversation. She moved with such purpose for a small girl, and he was suddenly taken aback by how unrecognizable she was. The back of her dress was far too low for someone her age. He removed his eyes from the ridges of her spine when he caught her wrist.
"Ge'roff!" she slurred, spinning to face him. Her pink face was twisted in annoyance for the beat of a single second, until her eyes darkened a shade with surprise. "Asuma?"
He pressed a hand to the small of her back, and she allowed him to guide her out of the bar without a word. Her hair smelled like lilies and booze, but it wasn't until they reached the open expanse of the cool night air that he finally breathed in relief. He stepped away from her the moment he felt she was steady enough to stand on her own. They started off down the empty street together in silence, save for the too-loud echo of Ino's heels against the pavement. Red and strappy heels, backless like her dress.
"You're too young for all that," he grumbled, the alcohol in his blood preventing his usual self-censorship.
Ino eyed him out of her peripheral vision in that way of hers. "If I'm old enough to go on the solo mission the dress was made for, I'm old enough to wear it."
The implications of that statement sank into Asuma the way an unsuspecting foot sinks into mud, but he wasn't really surprised. He tugged a cigarette out from beneath his jacket and lit it, taking a moment to collect himself. His desire to call her parents evaporated like smoke. Surely there were some things parents didn't need to know about their children's lives — and Ino wasn't a child anymore. His legs began carrying him in the direction of the Yamanaka's house on autopilot.
Ino peeked at him through a wisp of boozey-lily blond that had fallen loose to hang in her eyes. "Are you gonna — ?"
"No."
She went quiet again, glazed eyes lingering on the softly glowing cherry of his cigarette. Wordlessly, he pulled another from his pocket and stuck it between his lips alongside the first. One flick of the lighter later, he held it out to her. She studied it for a moment, cheek sucked into her mouth, before reaching over and plucking it from his hand. Her nails gleamed a brilliant crimson today, but were still ragged at the edges. She inhaled, blinking up at the faint stars overhead. The light pollution from Konoha's streetlamps drowned most of them out, leaving only the brightest ones visible against the blackness. Finally, she turned her head towards him.
"I can do it myself, y'know."
"What?"
"Light it."
Understanding crossed his features. "Sorry, Ino. I know."
They walked in silence for a few minutes, traveling past the darkened doors and closed curtains of the sleeping market district. The crickets hummed in their ears, and Ino finished her cigarette first. It fell from her parted lips to land under the toe of her shoe, ground to ashes within seconds.
They reached her doorstep together, the windows of her house as dark as the rest of the street due to the late hour. The lamp overhead cast a wan light on her features, highlighting creases beneath her eyes that he hadn't even known were there. She turned to look at him.
"Thank you."
Asuma half-shrugged, taking another puff of his cigarette. "Just this once," he said to a spot somewhere over her shoulder.
She caught his gaze. He froze, watching and waiting as her slim hand reached out to him slowly. Without touching his face, fingers that were more deft than a drunk girl's had any right to be delicately tugged the cigarette from his lips. She raised it to her own and took a long drag, eyes shut.
"Just this once," she hummed, replacing the stub at his mouth. She turned and slipped inside.
Asuma stared at the closed door for several long minutes before shuffling off to his empty apartment.
Ino watched him go from her bedroom window in silence.
- o -
Ino's shadow stretched out before her, longer and blacker than it should have been thanks to the rising sun. The uneven dips and ridges in the ground of Training Field B only distorted it further. She barreled after it through the amber light, scattering dew to water the dusty earth wherever her bare feet found a patch of grass. Ino chased her shadow as though it would leave her behind, like it could just get up and walk away without her.
Asuma was on his way home from spending the night at Kurenai's when he chanced to pass by that old haunt of Team Ten during their genin days. His mouth was fuzzy with the need to brush his teeth, but no matter how often Kurenai suggested it, he didn't want to leave his toothbrush at her house. He may seem somewhat careless and gruff to others, but in truth all of Asuma's things had their proper places in his life, and his toothbrush belonged on his bathroom counter right next to the soap dish. Where it always was. It would just be weird to find it somewhere else.
He never accepted the invitations to stay for breakfast either, but that was just because Asuma wasn't a breakfast kind of guy.
She was barefoot, so it wasn't the inaudible crunch of grass as she ran lap after lap that caught his attention. Nor was it the glint of her ponytail, muted as it was by the brightness of the sunrise behind her. It wasn't her clothes, for she had exchanged her usual arresting purple get-up for a simple cotton t-shirt and loose shorts. Maybe it was the dark expanse of her shadow that drew his eye, or maybe it was nothing at all. But as he ambled past Training Field B, thinking only of a cigarette, his head turned as though pulled by invisible threads.
He watched her move for a moment, the rhythmic stretch and coil of lean muscle almost hypnotic. He wanted to take credit for the grace and balance of her even strides, for that youthful body painstakingly honed into a well-oiled organic machine. But that wouldn't be right, because the effort was all hers. She was the one who put in the grueling hours of practice; he was nothing more than a talking head, half the time full of advice only fractionally as helpful as one would hope.
The strings attached themselves to his ankles, and Asuma found his feet dragging the rest of him through the gate and across the well-beaten path around the perimeter.
Ino slowed to a halt when she caught sight of her unexpected guest. She knew she looked a mess, sweat-sticky shirt clinging to her skin, cheeks flushed, damp hair mussed like dirty straw. Her feet were black with soil, but she didn't care. As long as it was Asuma. She bent over, hands on her knees to catch her breath and looked up at him.
He watched the soft rise and fall of her chest as she panted, the sound like the swelling and shrinking of wood during a flood at a certain run-down inn in Mist Village. Sweat streaked a clean path through the dirt on her face, and Asuma should have said 'hi.' He should have asked how she was doing, or if he was feeling really adventurous, why she was up before the rest of the world, training all by herself. But some questions were better left unasked — particularly those he knew elicited painful answers. So instead he asked her the first thing that popped into his mind, as his habit was fast becoming with her.
"Why aren't you wearing shoes?"
Ino considered him, apparently unsurprised by the sudden question and not at all put out by his lack of a proper greeting. She hadn't offered him a socially acceptable 'hello' either. Being polite was for other people, perhaps.
"...too small," she huffed. "They hurt my feet."
Asuma thought about that for a moment. It had been a long time since he had practiced with her one on one. Hell, he couldn't even remember the last time they'd trained as a team. She opened her mouth to ask her question but he cut her off.
"Sure," he said, because she was so alone, even with him there. The least he could do was indulge her. On impulse, he took off his shoes as well, and realized that when he crouched in his fighting stance their height difference disappeared. They began.
They ducked and leaped and twirled in an intricate dance together as the world fell away. The field disappeared beneath their feet, the trees blinking out of existence, the climbing sun forgotten. The slow trickle of people to the training ground went unnoticed by the pair, caught up as they were in the pulse of adrenaline-tainted blood through their veins, in their sweaty palms and set jaws. They forgot their troubles in the purely physical thrill of movement, in the familiar back-and-forth, give-and-take game of trying to outdo the other.
Ino's heel whizzed past Asuma's ear, and he caught it in his waiting hand. He yanked her forward, using her surprise to grab her flailing wrist and spun her around. His arms moved to capture her but she reacted too fast; she sank to the ground in his grip, body slipping through his hands like water. He tightened his grasp but his fingers caught her shirt, making it ride up her abdomen at an alarming speed. He automatically released her just as white chest bindings flashed into view. She took advantage of his hesitation and whirled on him, blond ponytail whipping past his face. A pair of arms that were deceptively small for their strength encircled him from behind, one tightening around his waist, the other his throat.
Asuma gripped the arm across his neck and bent in two, hurling her forward over his head. She landed on her back with a thud, breath knocked from her lungs, as he dropped to his hands and knees above her. He pinned her wrists to the dirt with both hands, using his body weight to immobilize her. To his surprise, her struggles ceased immediately. She gazed up at him, her eyes wide, glassy blue marbles. For an endless beat, neither moved a muscle. Asuma felt a single drop of sweat roll down his forehead to hang precariously off the tip of his nose. Ino stared at it, waiting.
Suddenly, awareness of their surroundings crashed into him. Genin voices grated in his ears, and he felt the open expanse of the public space like a bubble bursting around them. Ino's body was unbearably soft beneath him, but the eyes on his back were hard as accusations. He rolled off quickly, extending a hand to help her to her feet. She idly brushed dirt from her clothes as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He took one puff, two, before finally speaking.
"I guess we'll call it a draw for today."
Blond brows disappeared into her hairline, but she shrugged. "Sure."
They stood together for a moment, catching their breaths. Ino eyed his cigarette, but Asuma didn't offer and she didn't ask. She stretched lightly before making her way to where she left her shoes beneath a tree. She tugged them on unhurriedly and rejoined him.
"Hey, Asuma. Wanna get breakfast with me?"
He shook his head. He really just wasn't a breakfast kind of guy. The acceptance in her eyes reminded him too much of her expression from that time in Kiri, so he added, "I don't really do breakfast, but maybe we can grab lunch with Shikamaru and Chouji later. Haven't done that in a while."
The way her face lit up made everything worth it.
- o -
The day Ino knocked on Shikamaru's door and that Sand kunoichi answered was the day she finally had to admit what she'd known for too long.
She held out next week's mission scroll to the girl (blond, like herself) without meeting her gaze. "Make sure he gets this," she said to the bushes next to the door of his new apartment. Yellow tulips — when had he planted those? He should have come to her for help; they needed care or they were going to die in this heat.
The girl accepted the scroll with a simple thank-you before shutting the door with a resonant click. Ino sat down on the front step.
She lost track of time as she sat there, feeling the pressure in the atmosphere shift as the clouds gathered overhead. The low rumble of thunder made her chest vibrate in sympathy. A single drop of moisture fell from the heavens to land on the sidewalk next to her foot with an insignificant plop. The next one landed in her hair. The gash in the skies opened up to release its burden on Ino as she sat there, alone and uninvited at her teammate's door. The rain plastered her hair to her head, dripped off the tips of her eyelashes to roll down the crevices of her clothes. Ino watched the puddles gathering along the edges of the walkway and absently noted that the soil in this area had poor drainage. Really, Shikamaru should have come to her about the tulips. If the heat didn't kill them, the flooding would.
The water soaked into Ino's too-small shoes, and gradually she realized she'd have to move. She couldn't linger on other people's doorsteps forever. She stood, observing distantly as her feet began to walk, water sluicing out of her shinobi sandals with every step. Apparently her shoes knew where she was going even if her brain didn't.
Asuma answered the door, addressing her with the keen perception expected of a jounin sensei:
"You're soaked."
Ino just stood there and dripped at him. He frowned back at her, bottom lip tugging the tip of his cigarette down. He was more surprised she even remembered where he lived than he was that she was paying him a visit. Nonetheless, he opened his mouth to ask the perfunctory question. It was going to sound rude, but he knew Ino would understand it was a sincere inquiry and not a brush-off.
"What do you want?"
Blue marbles blinked at him slowly. "I want...to come in."
Asuma may have never won a shogi match against Shikamaru, but that didn't mean he was stupid. She wanted more than just entry to his apartment. He thought briefly about the implications of letting her cross the literal and metaphorical boundary of his doorway, but there really wasn't as much to consider as one might have imagined — Asuma had never claimed to be a saint. He hadn't been of any real help to her in so long, and maybe he just needed to be needed. Her heart was strong, though her skin was porcelain and her eyes glass. But the orbs trusted him. The rain had seeped past her clothes to soak into her bones, and how could he deny this waterlogged soul anything? How could he deny himself?
What was the difference between love, lust, and selfishness anyway?
With a heavy sigh, he ran his fingers through the ever-growing patch of gray above his temple and stepped aside.
Ino entered mechanically, divesting herself of her drenched shoes. Asuma disappeared down the hall for a moment, only to reemerge with a fluffy yellow towel in hand. Without a word he flung it over her head and began scrubbing as if he could take all the hardship out along with the wet. She fidgeted in protest at first but eventually went still, letting him work until he was satisfied her hair was reasonably dry. He pulled the towel off and stood back to admire his handiwork. Her mussed hair was such a wreck he couldn't help but smile. Ino, however, frowned at the towel in his hand.
"Tulip yellow."
Asuma rolled his eyes and took a long drag of his cigarette. He pinched it between his fingers and tugged it from his lips, offering it to her.
"Daffodil yellow."
Ino accepted the cigarette, cracking a smile. The sight warmed him to his toes. She sucked on it idly, gazing at him out of the corner of her eye in that habit of hers, and it finally occurred to him to move them out of the foyer. He led the way to the living room but stopped her before she could help herself to a seat on the sofa.
"I like my furniture dry, thanks," he said, tossing her a robe he'd fetched with the towel. It would no doubt dwarf her tiny frame, but options were limited. "Why don't you go change, and I'll get us something in the meantime. Tea? Soup? What would you like?"
Ino focused on his face for a long moment, cheek sucked in as she puffed on his cigarette, a look of deep consideration on her face. Finally, her jaw set. She reached down to snuff the stub out in the ashtray on the table before tossing the robe unceremoniously onto the couch.
"No tea," she said, peeling off the fishnet cuffs around her elbows. She took her time to work the netting along her forearms and over her wrists, discarding the cuffs on the carpet. She bent over to repeat the procedure with the netting around each knee. "No soup," she continued, agile fingers undoing the first button of her purple shirt.
Asuma stared at her hands as she worked her way down her top. "Then what would you like?" he asked, knowing the answer full well, but needing to hear it.
Her shirt dropped to the carpet, leaving her in nothing but white chest bindings and her skirt. She hesitated only a moment before reaching up to unwrap those too. Blue met brown, and her pale lips parted once more to finish what she had started:
"You."
Asuma moved. He helped her unravel her bindings one layer at a time, revealing inch after inch of smooth flesh. Together they worked their way down the soft swells of her breasts until two pink nipples popped into existence. Asuma swallowed.
"Are you sure?" he asked as the long strip of fabric fluttered to the floor, just because it seemed warranted. Her naked chest was so out-of-place in his living room, but he couldn't tear his eyes away.
"Yes," Ino said, grabbing his hand. He moved to guide her to the couch but she shook her head. "Not here."
Wordlessly, he held her hand and towed her down the hall to his bedroom. A pile of half-folded laundry sat on the edge of his too-big bed, but Ino didn't seem to care. He grabbed it up in one armful and relocated it to the desk in the corner, for once not worrying about the proper placement of things. Ino was sitting on his bed and looking at him with those too-old, expectant eyes, and that was proper placement enough for him. He approached her with deliberation, appreciating the way her spine stiffened as he neared. He placed his hands on the mattress on either side of her hips, caging her. He leaned down.
"I believe I mentioned I like my furniture dry," he murmured with a pointed glance at her skirt. Her cheeks tinged pink, but she wriggled out of it boldly.
"There," she said, draping the wet garment over his head. "Satisfied?"
He peeled it from his face and looked at her with amusement. "Not yet."
It was Ino's turn to swallow. She helped him out of his clothes, and fell into him.
They took their time to memorize the other, both knowing better than to expect anything to last forever. They burned holes in each other with their fingers, leaving invisible marks like the kisses of dying cigarettes. They bit and stroked and sucked and moved together, dancing the same way they used to spar. Asuma learned her new body like an instrument, and Ino delighted in his playing.
She was young and he was not-so-much, though for the moment they were separate but equal, breaths co-mingling in the private, still air of the bedroom. They shared the same impossible goal, and together tried to merge into one body, just for a moment. Sheets tangled around bare feet, soft hair splayed across pillows, and they forgot the world in each other. Sometimes they thrashed in a whirlwind of mutual pleasure, riding the crests of the waves high. Other times, they went slow and languorously, soft sighs echoing off the walls, the creak of the headboard in their ears adding to the duet. Toes curled and groans floated down the empty hall, mixed with the wet slap of flesh on flesh. They worked each other into a crescendo, the symphony of coiling muscle and tingling nerves and pulsing blood spilling over into briefest ecstasy, before petering off into contentment. Then, like the ebb and flow of the sea, they began anew.
She didn't linger afterwards, which Asuma was grateful for. Ino collected her clothes and dressed herself, sated limbs moving sluggishly. In an unusually gentlemanly move, he escorted her to his door. She hugged him tightly, the unspoken thank-you loud enough to both their ears.
The rain had stopped, and Ino stepped out into the type of sunlight you only see after a storm — the muted kind that brightens the gray, but doesn't shine through it. She started down the walkway, but paused to turn around at the sound of her name on his lips.
"Just this once," he reminded her without any real conviction.
The corner of her mouth curved into a knowing smile. "Just this once," she agreed, lighting up a cigarette she must have pilfered from his stash. The smoke trailed behind her to leave fleeting proof of the path she had walked before it disappeared into the summer humidity.
- o -
Asuma's gravestone shone dully in the mid-morning light. The funeral had been exhausting, and as usual Ino didn't cry. She wanted nothing more than to return to her house and burrow into her covers, as if the softness and warmth could possibly cushion her from the more jarring impacts of living. If Asuma had taught her one thing, it was that there were no buffers from the really tough moments.
Chouji and Shikamaru had left already, a cigarette dangling from the latter's lips. His new habit was the talk of the town, but Ino waited until she was nearly alone before lighting hers. She preferred to hold some cards close to her chest.
There was only one other person in the graveyard, standing a few feet away, staring at the same headstone with equally dry cheeks. Ino's eyes wandered to the gentle swell of Kurenai's belly, just barely visible. She took a long drag, idly wondering about the difference between love, lust, and selfishness.
As the member of Team Asuma outwardly closest to their captain, Shikamaru would undoubtedly make himself responsible for the child's education. He would smoke his mentor's cigarettes, wear his shoes, and help raise his kid to the best of his considerable ability. But there was only so much one can teach another, in the end.
Ino would be the one watching from the cloud-casted shadows, ready to pick up the pieces when life's hardest lessons — the ones Shikamaru couldn't prepare his unborn pupil for — rained down. Not just once, but always.
She sprinkled the ashes from her last cigarette across Asuma's grave, shared a knowing glance with Kurenai, and walked on.
- o -
- fin -
- o -
Disclaimer: Uh, don't smoke, guys. Speaking from personal experience, even years after you quit, you'll want one for the rest of your life. And then if you're ever masochistic enough to write fanfic featuring cigarettes as a prominent symbol, you'll want to smash your head into the keyboard. So just don't do it?
If you're curious about the flower symbolism, wikipedia has a pretty good page on Japanese flower language (google 'hanakotoba'). As always, thanks for reading! Concrit is made of love and rainbows etc! :D