Naturally, a naruto fanfic

Naturally

By Yuugiri

Humans were mysterious creatures. They were born into this world, live out their lives the best way they think they could, and then they die. This was how Sai had always known the world. And he had always thought that that was how things would go until he, too, passed away.

And then Uzumaki Naruto happened.

And things were never the same.

The war ended, leaving everyone unsure of what to do with their lives after. Sai didn't know how it all happened. The only thing he could remember of the aftermath was waking up from a long, beautiful dream he could vaguely remember. The only thing he knew was that he would have given a lot to see it one more time.

Of course, reality came in soon after, and every single one who had fought in the war – though tired and weary – celebrated for a day.

And then they mourned for a month.

The funerals were held three days after returning home, and the memorial was engulfed in a sea of people in black. There were countless pictures mounted on the walls of the memorial. Majority of those faces were unknown to Sai. They had fought valiantly for the ninja world, but now they were gone, their names mere statistics on the long history of the Leaf.

There were, however, some who Sai actually knew. Hyuuga Neji was one of those who he was quite acquainted with. He had died, saving Naruto during the battle, and he was going to be remembered as a hero. His death had been open, where everyone saw that he had thrown his own life away so that the greatest Hokage that would ever grace Konoha could live.

But there were some deaths that had gone quite unnoticed by many.

Unnoticed by many, but it affected the handful that really mattered.

She was wearing a simple black dress for the funeral, her long, golden hair pulled back into a haphazardly arranged bun on her head, a black scarf keeping it in place. Yamanaka Ino had always been loud and majority of the time loved being the center of attention. Right now, she was just standing there stiffly in between Akimichi Chouji and Nara Shikamaru, her hands loosely at her sides, sometimes fiddling with her skirt, sometimes wringing them against each other.

Her eyes were devoid of life, and she was staring at a spot on the ground, silently ignoring anyone who tried to talk to her. Sai had not known Ino for that long, and there had been but a few times he was able to talk to her. He had always thought her to be quite scary, and at the same time quite pretty. A very bad combination.

But although in the past she had been hungry for attention, it was in these times did Sai finally notice her. Sadness appealed to her disturbingly well. But he was yet to know that she looked her prettiest when she smiled.

Picking up the pieces after war was something new to Sai, and it took him but a good three days to notice that it was probably one of the most boring things he's ever done in his life. He had thrived in missions assigned to him, and he accepted almost anything the village threw at him because he knew he could do it, and because he enjoyed the challenge.

Now, all the remaining shinobi were in a nine-to-five shift in the village restoration, split into different groups. Some of them were assigned to Food Distributions, some to Civilian Aid, some to Psychological Support.

Sai was thrown into the Main Village Restoration crew headed by Nara Shikamaru, which Sai thought to be quite improper for the Hokage to do to someone who was still in mourning. When Sai asked Shikamaru about it, the Jounin simply said that it was better than sitting around twiddling his thumbs and thinking about his father.

And because Sai wanted to convince himself that he was prudent enough to get a clue, he let the conversation die and immersed himself into working.

Within the Main Village Restoration group, Shikamaru had assigned Yamanaka Ino to head the Village Beautification, and Sai had the gut feeling that the Jounin did so because he wanted to have Ino where he could keep an eye on her.

Sai stood corrected when Shikamaru approached him and asked him to help Ino out with the aesthetic part of the village, at the same time, 'watch over her.' The request was taken indifferently by Sai, because that was the only way he knew how to take it.

When he asked Shikamaru why it had to be him, the guy had merely shrugged, then said, "You're the artist. Why shouldn't it be you?"

And that had probably been the start of everything.

Yamanaka Ino, Sai later found out, was hard to work with. Like all the women Sai had gotten to know through the course of the war – Hyuuga Hinata aside – she was pushy, irritable and most of the time very hard to read. Sai blamed it on the lack of opportunities to work with the girl on missions before war broke out. He had zero chemistry with her. She ordered people around with a loud voice, gesturing at them with her chin whenever she wanted something done, which Sai thought to be quite rude, because he was most certain that gesturing with chins was something considered rude.

But Sai could only guess that Yamanaka Ino only gestured with her chin because she always seemed to have her hands full. It was either she was pushing about a wheelbarrow full of ferns, or dragging along a sack of compost, or scribbling furiously at a notebook, which later Sai would discover to be hurried sketches of her plans with making the village look beautiful.

All the while, Ino had left him alone with his business. While she was busy barking out orders at Genin and other Chuunin under her, it was on the fifth day of the restoration did it finally occur to Sai that he was not receiving as much verbal abuse from the girl as compared to others.

It had only been on the first day did she actually meet his eye, saying, "You'll be helping out with transportation, Sai. I'm sure you're more than capable."

And that had been that.

And because Sai was a good shinobi who knew how to follow orders, he was on the job like flies on honey. There wasn't a second one could not see an ink falcon flying about carrying either a person or materials from one point of the village to another. Or an ink tiger prowling the streets, lugging about carts like a pack horse. Or ink mice scuttling around people's feet to deliver messages to their respective recipients.

When Shikamaru noticed how efficient Sai had been at his work, he asked him to draw out a few more ink familiars to help the other groups within the village, and before Sai knew it, he was depleting more chakra than he had anticipated, leaving him tired and sleepy after a day's work.

All was good. He liked his work, and enjoyed the feeling of being needed and being a part of something, but the monotony of it still bored him sometimes. He didn't mind, as that boredom was easily cured when it was time to keep his promise to Shikamaru that he would keep an eye on Ino.

He did it discreetly, afraid that Ino would think him a busybody. It was easy to watch her; she was always so busy that she didn't even know when she was being observed.

She was quite easy on the eye, Sai realized that almost instantly, especially when she was not angry. She looked absolutely at home when dealing with flowers. While she did almost everything else with a crease on the space between her brows and a small pout on her lips, her face would always seem to soften when handling plants. Plants and children. And it seemed like both gravitated towards her almost naturally, and Sai thought it quite endearing, though he would have justified it better had he honestly understood the concept behind the feeling. All he knew was that it brought a warm sensation in him, and that sensation was almost able to chase away the fatigue that always threatened to overcome him at the end of the day.

And he would retire, alone, in his quarters after a long day at work, and he would wonder many times why Shikamaru had asked him to watch her, when she looked quite capable enough to handle everything by herself.

Two weeks through the renovation, and Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke still had not woken up from their deep slumber. Sai had not been there to see what had happened between their fight, and he hadn't been able to lay eyes on his teammate after the war, as everything had been a whirlwind of everything and nothing for everyone, but he had heard from Sakura the gruesome details of the aftermath. Both were missing an arm – Naruto his right, the Uchiha his left – but both were alive.

Sai hadn't known how to take this turn of event. He had always supported Naruto's mission to bring his teammate back, as the bond that he insisted he shared with the Uchiha was something that intrigued

Sai to no end, but now that Sasuke was finally back, he was not so sure what to feel.

He had seen Sakura cry over him, seen Naruto get beaten up for him, seen many people suffer just to get him back. Because he had always been like some mirage to Sai, it felt strangely surreal to finally have him back in the village, lying in a bed in a room under the same hospital roof as Naruto.

Sai never got to find the time to visit the hero of the village. He tried to convince himself that he was busy, that there were many things needed to be done. But in truth, he was just not sure how to act when he finally did decide to drop by and see how he was doing. Given the boy was unconscious, so there was no need to worry about small talk. Sakura had tried to convince him once or twice to see Naruto, but he had refused all offers, claiming he was tired. Which was not purely a lie. He was tired. That, and a bit unsure.

It was like he started to question what he was, now that Sasuke was back, and how he would fit in between the little cracks that Team Seven had always had. In between working for the restoration and watching Ino secretly, he would catch himself thinking that he didn't care, because he had always cared little for these kinds of things. And there would be moments when he would actually believe himself, that he would be just fine even if he didn't 'belong'.

And then there would be moments when he would feel an emotion, that if Sai hadn't been Sai, he would easily have defined it as sadness. But he was Sai, and so he could only define it as a not-so-very-good-feeling, which got a bit better whenever he would see Ino sitting under the lone surviving plum tree in front of the hospital, where she would always be whenever she was taking her lunch breaks.

She ate like a bird, Sai always thought whenever she would munch on an onigiri. It was always just that, one rice ball and a cup of tea. No wonder she was so thin. He would have liked it better if she gained a bit of weight, but he would never tell her that because he had read, once, in a book that women were sensitive when it came to their bodies. That, and he just did not know how to approach her. If she weren't busy with work, she would always seem to have that faraway look in her eyes that made people stay away.

A pity. If Sai weren't busy himself, he would have loved to sit back and do a painting of her. She's always had such a delicate face. It would have been divine to have it on canvas.

It was on the third week of the restoration when Ino approached him with a favor.

"The western part of the residential area is still left untouched and I wanted to see how things are. If you're not too busy, can you accompany me for a few hours?"

The fact of the matter was, Sai was never not busy. With Shikamaru breathing down his neck about ink familiars and such while Sakura nagged at him to visit the hospital, he had little to no time away from work.

But he could not say no out of fear of hearing an earful, and so he had said yes, almost irresponsibly. Ino looked like she was a girl who got what she wanted, when she wanted it, which Sai thought to be quite a bother, but in order to maintain the balance of good and evil, he had nodded his head and told her that he was free.

Contrary to what he thought would happen once left alone with the Yamanaka, the ride on the ink falcon was… silent. He had expected her to make conversation, because when he had first met her, she had been eager to know what he thought. However, the silence between them was uncomfortable, and Sai was not sure how to deal with it. He was just riding on that falcon with Ino right behind him, and he felt kind of obligated to break the ice.

He dug into his brain about something – anything – that would be appropriate to say to her at times like these. And then he remembered something that he still had not told her since the war ended.

"I'm sorry about your father."

It was the first time he had to apologize for someone's death. He had read it in a book somewhere, though he always wondered why people had to apologize when it wasn't even their fault that it happened. He said it anyway, unsure of how she was going to reply.

He was surprised when he got a not-so-positive reaction from her. "He died with honor. There's nothing to be sorry about."

Sai was stumped. Well, of course he knew how Yamanaka Inoichi had contributed to the war.; their victory wouldn't even have been possible if it weren't for him. "I know. I just thought it was the proper thing to say."

"Well, you're wrong," she said curtly.

Sai shrugged a bit, not the least bit offended – because he was Sai, and he was glad that he was, because he sort of felt like what she said would have cut anyone's feelings down like a knife. "What should I have said, then?"

"You should have just said nothing."

"I – "

"Please. Don't say anything."

And Sai knew that perhaps he had made the wrong decision after all, especially when he felt her lean her head against his back, and for a brief moment she was shaking, her hand gripping at his shirt tightly as if her life depended on it.

And it was when she started weeping quietly did Sai truly feel the value of uncomfortable silences.

They worked without talking the moment they reached the western part of the residential area, with Ino quickly jotting down notes on her planner while Sai stood back watching her tear-stained face crumple in concentration.

When Ino disappeared behind a dilapidated house, Sai looked for a place to sit and found a nice-enough-looking rock that could have been a part of some great pillar of a house or another. He leaned back on his arms, his face to the sky, and when he closed his eyes he could sense where his familiars were and what they were doing. They were everywhere in the village, carrying around supplies. Flying about with people on their backs. Sai could feel the steady trickle of chakra leaving his body, and the tiredness washed through him like a gentle wave.

Lying back onto the rock, one arm behind his head, he sighed in contentment. The sound of constructions, of men and women bustling about was barely heard from that part of the village, and nothing but the sound of the wind blowing through broken windows could be heard. Once in a while there would be the sound of a door hinge creaking, or an insect flying a few inches away from his ear.

It felt good just lying there and listening while he felt his chakra drain away slowly, and he was already dreaming about sleep before he even noticed that he had dozed off..

He didn't know how long he lay there, but when he slowly opened his eyes, he found Ino sitting at the foot of the rock, her shoulder slightly touching his knee. She was still busy with her planner, scribbling away with her pencil, once in a while grumbling incoherently as she used the eraser end.

Groggily, Sai pushed himself up to a sitting position and peered over Ino's shoulder to see what she was writing.

It was a crude sketch of the area they were in, along with side notes about what kind of plant would be placed in which spot, or what kind of brick to be used to decorate the sidewalks.

Sai took in the drawing, his eyes grazing over the paper in interest. At the back of his mind he could still sense his familiars moving about within the village, but the short time he had been able to sleep made all the difference.

He used a finger to point at a part of Ino's sketch where there was a question mark as to what kind of materials she was going to use for a fountain that was going to be in the center of the residential area.

"Cast stone," Sai said. "They're heavier than fiberglass, but durable as fountains carved from real stone." He yawned, covering his mouth with a hand. "But that's only my opinion."

Ino's hand was left poised on top of his sketch, her gaze pinned on the spot Sai had pointed. After a while, she nodded. "That… sounds like a good idea." And Ino slowly wrote 'cast stone' in tiny block letters before turning a page and writing some stuff about the budget and other things.

Sai did not take her neutral reply to be anything other than just a reply, but had he known that that would be the start of something beautifully crazy, then perhaps he would have been able to prepare himself emotionally.

After a month of working like a madman, Sai finally got his first day-off, and he was already more than determined to spend it sleeping in. His chakra reserves were suffering, and the time he took to resting in the night was not sufficient enough to regenerate what he had been using for the restoration. He didn't even care that there was loud drilling right outside his little apartment room. He was tired enough to ignore all that and just stay in his bed until tomorrow when he would have to wake up and slave away for maybe another month or so.

He was still in dreamland when someone started knocking on his door. It was louder than the drilling, and it echoed through his empty room. He did not know how he knew it would be Sakura, but he just did. And when he was finally able to drag himself out of bed, he was not surprised to see the pink-haired kunoichi standing in his doorway. What did surprise him was that she did not look at all angry. Sai was expecting for the girl to be in a hissy fit for having to be kept waiting. But instead, Sakura was smiling. Her smile was so bright that Sai had to narrow his eyes as he looked at her.

And that was when she lunged forward, took his hands into hers and said, "Sai, he's awake! Naruto is awake! We have to go!"

And whatever sleep that remained hooding his eyes was instantly gone at hearing the news. One moment, he was standing there dumbly, holding Sakura's hand, the next he was throwing whatever clothes he could get his hands on and bounding out the door after Sakura towards the hospital.

By the time they made it to Naruto's room, about three dozen people had already beaten them to it. Among them was Konohamaru bawling his eyes out into his long muffler. Gai sensei and Lee were also two of the many who were crying. Chouji and Shikamaru were standing a safe distance away, but they were obviously anxious at seeing their friend. Aburame Shino, Inuzuka Kiba and Hyuuga Hinata were also there, standing uncertainly by the door right behind a wall of jounin who wanted first dibs on seeing the war hero himself.

This did not amuse Sakura. And after saying a brief apology to Sai, Sakura hurried over to where Hinata was, grabbed the Hyuuga by the wrist and dived into the crowd of people blocking the door. There were curses here and there, but when they finally saw who it was, they made way, letting the two girls pass before once again blocking the path that led to where Naruto was.

And Sai was left there standing alone in the midst of those many, many people, unsure of what to do. He supposed he could just wait for everyone to finish saying their hellos before he did. He doubted Naruto was going anywhere anytime soon, and waiting at the hospital lobby wouldn't really kill him.

And he would have gone straight to the waiting area, really, had it not been for that one, single detail that was missing in this setting.

Yamanaka Ino was nowhere to be found.

Sai did not know what it was that made him look for her. And what was such a surprise is that he sort of felt like she would not be too far off.

He was right, because he found her a floor below Naruto's, standing in front of a door that led to a dark room Sai doubted had anyone in it. Of course he was wrong, because the name card 'Uchiha' was a dead giveaway.

While everyone was celebrating Naruto's awakening, here was Ino, peering inside the lonely room of a wanted man who was yet to wake up.

Sai did not know Ino well enough to judge her, but he had heard rumors that she and Sakura had both been in love with the same boy, once, back in their youth. Sai wondered if Ino was still in love with Uchiha Sasuke, but at the same time wondered why the idea of it made his stomach clench uncomfortably. But then again, anything that involved Uchiha Sasuke made Sai generally uncomfortable. This, he thought, could be no different.

Sai walked over to her warily, slowly, in case she wanted to be alone and she'd tell him to leave. She didn't, and Sai had already reached her side before she decided to say anything.

"Naruto's up and about, but Sasuke hasn't stirred an inch since he was admitted," Ino said to him, crossing her arms over her stomach.

Sai looked into the darkness of the room, at the small beeping lights of the machine that he knew were connected to the patient inside. The way Ino talked, he could tell that this was not the first time she had visited. "Naruto's different. He's… special."

"I know. But so is he," she gestured at the room with her head, sounding a bit bitter. "After years of chasing after this guy's shadow, he's finally here, and no one has a single clue how to deal with it. I can't blame them. I'm as lost as everyone else."

Sai gave her a side-long glance. "Naruto would know what to do. Everyone just has to follow after that. Everything's going to be fine."

Ino laughed quietly, but sincerely nonetheless. "Everything is always alright when it comes to Naruto. I've no doubt about that."

"Yeah," Sai said, feeling a bit unconvinced, but was smart enough not to say anything. "So why don't we just go back to the others and see how Naruto is doing?"

It took a while before Ino was able to answer, and when she did, Sai was left puzzled. "I'm staying here for a bit, if you don't mind."

Sai hesitated for a second, before asking what he could consider a logical enough question. "Why?"

"Because there are some things that not even Naruto's existence could provide."

And that remark made muscles in Sai's face move in a way he hadn't known were capable of moving. He was frowning. "What do you want, Ino?"

And Ino looked over to him, those blue eyes flat and glassy and devoid of the pompous glint that had always been there when she was working. And then she opened her mouth to say but one word that made a lot of sense to Sai, even given the fact that he was close to being an idiot when it came to these kinds of things.

"Closure."

And he left her standing there in front of that lonely hospital room, alone and searching for something that only she herself could provide herself.

Work picked up the moment Yamato was good enough to help with the renovations. By the second week of the second month, almost everything was settling down quite well, and Sai did not have to strain his abilities too much in order to get things done. But having almost the base of everything laid down, it was the time Yamanaka Ino finally started to get busy with her magic.

And like a good friend, Sai kept his promise to Shikamaru to watch over her, and this time she had his undivided attention. He soon found himself in the position of errand boy for her, gathering materials from her flower shop and bringing it to places she wanted them taken to. There were times when Chouji would be joining them, helping around with the planting of seeds, or watering of flower beds. Sometimes it would be just Sai and Ino together the whole day, planning out how to make the village a lot more livable.

And it was when they were in the middle of planting azalea in the park right across the new Hokage tower when Ino asked Sai another favor.

They were sitting on the grass right under the shade of an apple tree for a lunch break when Ino asked him to paint a mural on one of the walls of the new academy building. It did not take Sai three seconds before he said yes, because he liked the idea of painting a wall that big, and he did not see any other reason to say no.

Ino seemed happy enough that he did not put up a fight, and it sort of offended Sai that she even thought that he was going to refuse. When he said this to Ino, she shrugged and said that she had been surrounded by men who always complained before doing anything that she had somehow conditioned herself to always get ready to put up a fight every time she asked for a favor.

"You don't have to do that with me," Sai had said to her. "So you can keep your guard down when you want something done."

Ino had watched him with utmost curiosity then, and when she asked him why, Sai told her the truth.

"Because I want to do it."

And that had been the end of that conversation.

She had started opening up to him more after that, though their conversations mostly revolved around work and flowers and art. When the topic swerved dangerously towards anything private – like her father, or Sasuke – she would instantly clam up, and Sai would feel like he had done something terrible. The feeling, he knew, was something that could be associated to guilt. Or helplessness. And maybe a bit of confusion? Girls had always been a hard subject for him. Sakura hadn't necessarily been a good example of a female specimen.

But unlike Sakura, Ino was not the type to deliver death punches at random. Her personality was as difficult as Sakura's, but unlike his teammate, Ino was a bit more… reserved. She was pushy when it came to how she wanted things done, but Sai was beginning to understand how her mind worked. Ino was a perfectionist, and it was something Sai could only expect from someone who was so nit-picky when it came to beauty. And in a way, Sai thought her to be quite an artist.

And that was the day when he finally, finally found a common ground with her.

By the third week of the second month, Hatake Kakashi had been appointed by Tsunade herself as next in line on the Hokage Seat. And this had been big news for the village. Unfortunately for him, the news was instantly upstaged when Uchiha Sasuke finally woke up. And while this event had not been as climatic as Naruto's awakening, it shook the village greatly.

As Hatake Kakashi's first job as Hokage, he called a meeting concerning all jounin of the village. Said meeting lasted for a good five days and eighteen hours, as it seemed like everyone had been torn as to what to do with the last remaining Uchiha.

And when everyone was finally getting too frustrated to come up with a decision, they had been silenced with the appearance of one Uzumaki Naruto, and while Sai did not know the grave details of what happened in that meeting, it seemed that Naruto had been able to convince the Sixth, along with everyone else in that room, that Uchiha Sasuke deserved to be pardoned of his sins. It was nothing short of what Sai had expected of Naruto. The boy was just born to sway people with his words and actions.

Now, Sai had never really openly questioned Naruto's judgment before regarding matters that were not of Uchiha Sasuke, but more than once he had found himself wondering why Naruto had always gone out of his way to defend the rogue. These circumstances had been frequent that Sai had stopped asking Naruto about it, but this did not mean that he liked the idea.

And so when Uchiha Sasuke's pardon had been granted, there had been a small war inside Sai that he just couldn't come to terms with.

But it mattered little to him. As the days passed and Sasuke had been released from the hospital, he had started to spend a great amount of time with Sakura.

And because of that, Sai had started to worry about Ino and the closure she had always wanted for herself. Because when Sasuke and Sakura had started going about in the village like long lost lovers, Ino's smile had mysteriously returned.

And it frightened Sai something fierce, though he was never able to put a name behind the emotion.

It was hard for Sai to get used to Naruto missing his dominant hand, especially when Naruto would invite him out for ramen, because it was almost physically painful for Sai to watch the boy clumsily use his chopsticks with his left hand. Though, of course Sai was not worried. Sakura had told Sai about Tsunade's little project with Hashirama's cells for a prosthetic arm to replace the one he's lost. When Sai brought the subject up, the blonde just scoffed and said that ramen simply couldn't wait for prosthetic arms.

It was all the same to Sai, really. But what really bothered him was the fact that every time he was out with Naruto, there would always be a swarm of women following their wake, asking – begging – for Naruto's autograph. It was quite unnerving, really. He suited popularity, and he handled everything with the clumsy grace that only Naruto could pull off.

But Naruto had already mastered the art of evasion. He knew how to put a girl down gently, but he had once admitted to Sai that the attention did overwhelm him sometimes.

And the only thing that Sai really thought to be weird was that while most of the women couldn't get enough of the village hero, there was one girl who had kept her distance, as she had always done back before the war even started.

Hyuuga Hinata had been as awkward around Naruto as ever. Which seemed quite ironic, because Sai was almost pretty sure that they had established some form of mutual understanding during the fight against the Juubi. Or had he once again misread how the human relationship should work? Well, Hinata had always been quite passive. And the fans were really very pushy…

But still…

Out of prudence – because Sai was starting to learn what that meant – he never mentioned it to Naruto about what he thought about the Hyuuga girl. Sai had once meddled into Naruto's romantic affairs with Haruno Sakura, and that had not turned out quite well, and so Sai had come to conclude that guys meddling into other guys' love lives ended up in disaster.

And being Naruto, who wouldn't know genuine affection if it poked him in the eye, went on with his everyday life, unaware that in a matter of three or so years, his popularity would increase tenfold, especially after stripping away the child-like roughness as he would grow into a dashing young man every girl in the village would desire.

Sai personally did not understand it, but he supposed it was a good thing, because he knew Naruto deserved it.

And if he were a bit more sensitive, then perhaps he would have wondered about what Hinata was feeling.

When things finally settled down with the renovations, and spring rolled in, Sai realized that now that there was nothing left to do for shinobi of the village, everyone settled to falling in love instead.

Since Sai had a good eye for detail, he could not help but notice them. Couples walking around the newly built village streets. Couples sitting on tables across each other, sharing a sundae in the recently opened ice cream parlor. Couples stealing kisses behind trees when they thought no one was looking.

And Sai would watch them indifferently while he sat on top of a hill that overlooked the village, a sketchpad comfortably placed on his knees and a piece of charcoal in one hand. Watching people happy around him brought him a feeling he wasn't quite sure what, but the feeling was even stronger when people he knew started courting.

The most evident of which was Temari of the Sand and Nara Shikamaru, who Sai had always thought to be quite compatible. Watching them had been interesting, simply because they took to denying their relationship whenever asked, but no one could miss the blushing and eye-averting whenever they were together.

Of course, there were some couples Sai thought hard to watch.

Sai knew how smitten Sakura was with Sasuke, albeit the happenings of the past three or so years. And while he could somewhat figure out that Sakura had her reservations – to prevent herself from getting hurt, or for another reason altogether, Sai wasn't really sure – Sai could not understand the logic behind Uchiha Sasuke's glances towards the pink-haired kunoichi. With the way things were going, with Sakura and Sasuke both trying hard to keep their feelings at arm's length, Sai was beginning to wonder how far they were going to get with their relationship.

Not that it mattered, really. He knew it did not concern him, though given it did bother him, but he was a bit unsure about the reason behind it.

He would later find out that it was because of a certain girl who was looking for closure, but was not able to obtain it out of unfortunate circumstances.

The thought of Yamanaka Ino seldom brushed his afterthought once the village beautification team had been disbanded, and because Shikamaru was too busy with Temari to remind Sai that he was to check up on Ino once in a while, Sai had been swept away by different priorities regarding what remained of Root, as well as invitations from people he didn't even remember knew him. Some were jounin from the Intelligence Division. Some were from the ANBU main branch.

And it was then did Sai realize that now that Root was gone, he was left without a division to belong to, and it needed a good, long explanation from Kakashi that many divisions were eyeing his skills as he had proved to have been quite useful in the war.

Sai supposed that being in a division would pave a way to his future in the village. Among the many division recruits, Sai ended up choosing to join the ANBU. Working behind a mask had not been half bad, and lurking around had always been his specialty, though he wondered what purpose the ANBU had now that there was peace. 'Lurking around' did not look like it promoted trust between villages, but Sai was too… Sai… to worry about such trivial matters.

Of course, he ended up worrying about other trivial matters, when at the end of the summer, he found out that Uchiha Sasuke was leaving the village. Again.

And for some weird reason, Sai did not hurry to see Naruto. He did not hurry off to see Sakura.

Instead, he found his legs carrying him to a certain flower shop, to a certain girl who was looking for closure, but was not able to obtain it out of unfortunate circumstances.

When he arrived at her shop's door, he could see she was inside, standing lifelessly and alone, hands folded on top of the counter and a faraway look in her eyes.

And Sai wanted to talk to her but something – some thing – kept him from knocking. It might have had something to do with the quiet tears running down her cheeks. Or maybe the fact that she was not a beautiful crier and Sai did not want to embarrass her because he knew how much she valued her vanity.

In the end, he couldn't see her, and settled to crouching down at the foot of her door as he listened to her quiet weeping, and left only when he couldn't hear her anymore.

It was when Sai went to the river to gather enough inspiration to paint was he finally able to see her again. It was out of pure coincidence. He was out enjoying the final days of summer, looking for a perfect spot under a willow tree when she came in a lavender dress with an ugly, floppy hat over her head and a basket in one hand. It was obvious she was there to pick those yellow flowers by the water's edge.

He thought it polite to greet her, and so he left his easel and his perfect spot under the willow tree, gathered chakra under his feet and crossed the river towards her.

She saw him immediately and waved, then let out a cry when a sudden gust of wind tore the ugly hat off her head, sending her long golden hair in a flurry around her face.

Sai watched as the floppy hat got tossed around by the wind, making it do a couple of somersaults before getting caught in a branch of a tree a few meters away from where they were. Good riddance for the ugly hat.

"You know, it would have been quite romantic if you caught it for me," Ino grumbled.

Sai looked over at her as he managed to cross the river, then shook his head when he reached her side. "You look better without it. I think it's best to let it go."

Ino hurriedly pushed all the hair she had on her face, tucking them behind her ears. She frowned at him, but nonetheless said, "Shikamaru told me the exact same thing. Honestly, what do you guys know about fashion?"

Sai could not help but tilt his head to one side as he watched her, a bit intrigued. "You look fine."

Ino raised an eyebrow at him. "Fine? Glass and china are fine. Do you mean I look pretty?"

Sai's eyebrows involuntarily rose as well. "No, I meant you look like you're feeling okay now." Words were such a bother.

"So you're saying I'm not pretty?"

Sai blinked, then after a long, long pause said, "You're very pretty."

Ino narrowed her eyes at him. "Now you're patronizing me."

Sai did not understand her. Did she want him to call her pretty? He was not sure how one patronized another. Now he was just confused. He decided to change the subject.

"You're here to pick flowers?"

Smooth conversational transition. Nailed it.

She nodded, her attention finally back on the flowers in front of her. "Don't you think they're lovely?" She knelt slowly by the water's edge, gathering her skirts under her knees and putting down the basket beside her.

Sai looked down at her as she caressed the small petals of those flowers with a finger. "They match your hair. What are they called?"

"Marsh Marigolds. I wanted wildflowers today," she explained as she reached out and started plucking them from the base of the stem, gently laying them inside her basket.

Sai could not follow the conversation after that, and he knew that this was the beginning of an uncomfortable silence. That was why he was surprised when Ino looked up at him suddenly and said, "I'm feeling okay. Thank you."

Sai opened his mouth to say something, then discovered he did not have anything smart to say. He blamed it on the way the sun was reflecting off her blue eyes, how the light made them look like they were twinkling. He felt his right hand twitch, suddenly eager to get a paint brush between his fingers. He clenched the hand into a fist, fighting the urge. "Did you get it? Closure, I mean?"

Ino looked a bit surprised at the question. She smiled, lowered her face as she started to busy herself with the flowers again. "Oh, that? Well… yeah, who needs closure anyway? I mean, so he looked like he was doing okay with Sakura. So he left the village. So what, right?"

Sai could only listen to her, and he could detect the hint of sadness in her voice. "You liked him a lot."

Ino's hand paused for a second too long before she was back at picking her flowers. "I didn't like him enough. Sakura deserves him. And he deserves her. The end. It would have been better if they'd just ride off into the sunset like a normal happy ending. He had to freaking leave. What a Casanova."

Sai knew what this was. This was sarcasm. "Well, at least it wasn't you he left behind."

Ino shot him a look of death, and he instantly realized he said the wrong thing. He crouched down quickly, peering at her face.

That earned him a blush from her. She turned away. "Rub it in my face that he chose another girl."

"So what, right?" Sai said.

She started chewing on her bottom lip. Sai's hand twitched again. "Yeah. So what. I don't care. It's not like he's the only boy in the word." And she started plucking her flowers, if a bit savagely.

Sai watched her do her job, finding a comfortable enough position by leaning back and sitting on his haunches. He thought that this was another chance to change the subject. "The village is lovely, and it's thanks to you."

Ino sniffed, unimpressed. "What are you talking about? You were basically the reason the renovations went as smoothly as they did. You were practically falling off your falcon each and every day they made you work."

Sai hadn't been aware that Ino knew how far he had been stretching his resources then. This conversation, he knew, required a bit of humility, and so he said, "It was nothing."

"It was definitely something. And that's because I said so."

"Okay." Books said you should not argue with women because there was a ninety-nine percent chance you would lose. He was starting to seriously believe what the books were saying.

"What about you?" she suddenly asked.

"What about me?" he asked back, sincerely curious because it was the first time she had actually thrown a question at him regarding what he felt.

"You're pretty good-looking. You have a share of your fangirls in the village. Is there anyone you've particularly taken a liking to?"

This had Sai in a state of confusion. Fangirls? The only fangirls he's ever had the misfortune to meet were those of Naruto's. He wasn't aware he had his own fangirls. "Ah. No. I don't think I'm socially gifted enough to find myself a girl that I could like, or someone who could like me back if ever I did."

Ino rolled her eyes as she arranged the flowers a bit more neatly in her basket. "That's a stupid thing to say. It doesn't have anything to do with being socially gifted or whatever. If you like someone, you like someone. Period. But if you don't like to answer the question, it's fine. I suppose it's weird for me to ask, anyway."

"No. I like this. I learn a lot when I talk to you," Sai said hastily. "Let's talk more."

Ino hesitated a bit, glanced up at Sai for a moment before saying, "I'm off to my father's grave to give him some flowers and incense. Would you like to join me?"

He was already standing even before she had finished asking her question. "I'll be right back."

"Wha – ? Wait, where are you going?"

"Just a second, I'll just retrieve your ugly hat." And he was scampering up the tree with chakra-induced feet, not because he wanted to get the ugly hat in a hurry but mainly because Ino was chasing after him with a kunai.

That was how Sai learned how friendships started out naturally. He soon found out that he enjoyed Ino's company, and it looked like she was having a fun time when they were out together on small excursions in the hills lining the outskirts of the village, either to hunt for Sai's subjects or Ino's favorite flower of the season.

Talks revolved around nonsensical things, like the weather, or clouds, or how Sai liked the color of the sky when the sun was setting, or how Ino hated getting dirt in between her toes.

Sometimes, conversations went a bit on the serious side, when Ino would talk about how her dad had once taken her fishing back in the days when he was still in denial of having a daughter instead of a son, and Ino had bawled her eyes out when a freshwater leech had attached itself to her ankle. She still had the battle scars to show, and Sai had taken a fancy to it, tracing it with the tip of his finger when she had bragged about it to him one lazy day on a hill.

In return, Sai talked about his brother and showed Ino the book of sketches he's always had since he was small. And he had watched Ino browse through the pages with those serious eyes of hers, sometimes she would look at one page for a good minute or two, while some she would flip through in a few seconds. When she commented that his brother, too, was good-looking, Sai made a very smart remark about his brother's penis, which earned him a very painful sock on the arm, and he had refrained from joking about penises in front of Ino ever since.

There were times when they went out with friends, one occasion was when Naruto's prosthetic arm was finally finished, where they all went out for yakiniku and that was when the teasing began.

Remarks like, "I've seen you two around in the hills behind the Hokage Mountain. You two sneaky love-birds, you!" or, "Who would have thought you'd be able to get along with such a high-maintenance girl, Sai!" were said when Ino went to the girls room with Tenten, Sakura and Hinata, and the jeers turned a wee bit discreet when they returned to the table.

Sai had never been teased to a girl before, and so he had quite a hard time with how he should react. At first he took everything in stride, smiling the fake smile he had perfected. There were times when he knew his friends were going too far when it was Ino's turn to react, face red and slightly flustered, and she would defend him by saying, "Leave him alone," or, "Do you really get your kicks out embarrassing him?"

Though of course, Sai was never really embarrassed, though it did get him quite curious. Did it mean that he and Ino looked like they were a couple? That had him thinking, but since he was Sai, that was the only thing he could do. He was not sure how people started to define a relationship.

Did falling in love happen as naturally as becoming friends? Or was there a necessary effort to make something as special as that happen? Did Sasuke have to make an effort to like Sakura? Was Hinata's effort not enough to generate a relationship between her and Naruto? How did Shikamaru and Temari get along so well and look so effortless when doing so?

When he asked Ino these things, the Yamanaka merely blushed, turning her eyes away from him. "You don't have to worry yourself too much about that," was what he said.

And for some reason, that response did not sit well with Sai.

Ino started avoiding him by the time the first snow fell on the Hidden Leaf, and it left Sai feeling extremely cold, empty and a whole lot disoriented. He wondered if there was something he did wrong to make her mad at him. He had tried seeing her at her house a few times. Each visit, it was her mother who would come greet him, an apologetic look on her face, saying that Ino was either in the bath, or sleeping, or was busy. It was probably on his third or fourth visit that he realized that he was making Mrs. Yamakana uncomfortable, and decided that maybe visiting Ino at home was not such a good idea.

After finally figuring this out, he thought of seeing at her flower shop, but thought that it might be a bother to customers, and Sai knew his manners, so held out the idea of ambushing her at her work place.

After a while he started to seek help from Sakura, who had laughed at him like his suffering and confusion was the funniest thing in the world. Sai did not like this. He was seriously starting to believe that he had done Ino a terrible wrong, because she had not spoken to him in over a week, and it was driving him crazy.

When he asked Sakura what was funny, his teammate merely reached out, gave him a hug and said, "Go get her, Sai." Which made as much sense to him as the reason as to why Ino was avoiding him.

For some weird reason nights seemed longer now, and he ended up tossing and turning in his sleep, wondering what Ino was doing, and if she was as restless as he was. He had also noticed that he did not have a speck of inspiration enough to make a sketch. He had tried, though, sitting in front of his easel, a brush in hand, but nothing would come to mind. Instead, his canvases for those past days were filled with nothing but splashes of random purples and yellows, all of which he was able to place a title that had something to do with her name.

At one point, he thought he could be feeling the emotion some people might call anger. He was most certainly sure that he did not do anything wrong to her, and even if he did, he could not understand why she would not give him a chance to apologize. He had been running around, messing up his sleeping habits just because she had decided, spur-of-the-moment, to become difficult. And here he thought he had finally figured her out.

On the second week, he couldn't take it any longer. He was going to find out once and for all what it was that he had done to make her avoid him, because Sai could not just sit back and let the thought of her ruin his life, because right now he was most definitely convinced that she would be the death of him. He had never felt anything like this before. What was this annoying feeling? He knew he would be better off without it.

And so early on that fated day, when the snow had just dusted the rooftops of the houses in the residential area, Sai took action.

In no battle – not even during the war – has he had such adrenaline rushing through his body as he flew an ink falcon over to the Yamanaka residence, slipped the blade of his tanto through the very narrow space between her window and flipped the lock open. The window sprang open noisily and Sai slipped inside just in time to see Ino pushing herself up on her bed, her head of hair in disarray and those blue eyes of hers lidded with sleep.

"What…? What's going on?"

Sai closed the window behind him as he dismissed his ink familiar, sheathing his tanto on his back. He watched as Ino rubbed her eyes groggily. She did not look mad at seeing him here. He was expecting her to scream at him in outrage, maybe throw a few things at his general direction. But she was just sitting there under her blankets, looking lovely in faded blue pajamas.

He made his way towards her, kneeling by her bed, his dark eyes finally meeting her blue ones. He already had it memorized at the back of his head. He had thought about this speech all night last night, that he was sure he had perfected it, word for word. "I'm sorry. I don't know what it was that I did to make you avoid me, but I swear I won't do it again. I'll be better, just please don't avoid me. I can't sleep. I can't draw, I can't think of anything else but you. Forgive me."

He hoped he sounded sincere. He had not mastered the art of groveling yet, and so he did not know if he was doing a good job at all, but it seemed like it was working because Ino was staring down at him with wide, glassy eyes, her jaw hanging open.

Then he thought differently when she frowned. "What, that's it?"

Sai blinked, a bit confused. "What's it?"

Ino crossed her arms over her chest, somewhat indignantly. "Your love confession! You make me wait for over a week for a weak-ass love confession which isn't even a confession but an apology?"

In all honesty, Sai had no idea what was going on. The adrenaline was wearing off, and he suddenly felt very, very tired. "What?" he asked, frowning.

Ino gestured at him impatiently. "You visited my house four or five times, asking for me. You ask my best friend for advice about me. You can't sleep, you can't eat, you can't draw and you can't stop thinking about me. Sai, do you really have to make me say it?" she demanded.

Sai was equally in disbelief. "Say what? What do you want me to say?"he asked, suddenly in a panic. She was talking to him. And it looked like she was giving him hints! Why couldn't she just say it out directly what she wanted him to say. He knew that at the state he was in, he was willing to do anything if it meant having her back.

Ino groaned, dropping her face into her hands. She stayed like that for a few seconds before peeking between her fingers. "Sai? Do you like me?"

Sai's eyes widened slightly, taking in her small frame, the way she looked at him shyly, cheeks hiding behind her hands but obviously blushing profusely. He remembered the first time he met her. He had thought she looked beautiful in all her confident glory. But for some weird reason, she looked even prettier now, in her pajamas, face scrubbed of make-up, hair in perfect disarray.

He rolled the question through his head several times. Like? Of course he liked her, though he was not so confident yet with the degree of understanding he had with the word. But he did not want to make misunderstandings. Not now. Not here. Not when she sincerely looked like she wanted to know.

He did not know what force it was that made him reach of her wrists, but before he knew what was happening, he was sitting on the bed, the cushions sagging under his weight, and he was bringing her hands away from her face. Even her ears were red. "If I can't live a single day without you, then that must mean I do," he breathed, the words sounding clumsy as they rolled off his tongue.

And he just realized that he had made his first ever love confession. And judging by the way Ino's face broke into a smile, he knew that his first ever love confession was a success, especially when she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into an embrace.

"Damn it. Why does it have to take me avoiding you for a week before you finally say what I've wanted to hear?"

Was she blaming him now? He didn't really care. His arms were around her, and he was breathing in the scent of her hair. "I can be slow. But I can learn. Please don't leave me again."

"Stop it. You're making me cry!" she bawled, and Sai knew that she was already tearing up as it was.

Sai nuzzled his face against the crook of her neck and sighed. He wondered if she would always be like this from now on, but he decided that it didn't matter because it was better than not having her at all. "Do you like me?" He thought it was proper to ask, in case there was any confusion on his part because tears could mean so many things, and he wanted to know if her tears were happy ones.

"Do you even have to ask that? Of course I like you!" she said, her embrace tightening. "Are you happy?"

Sai thought the question over. Happiness. This was probably the only word he could associate with the feeling inside his chest. He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"Good… Because so am I," she said and she wept on his shoulder for a good half an hour.

Until Yamanaka Ino happened.

And life as how he viewed it was never the same again.

Fin

A/N: I have to tell you honestly, I am usually a fan of canon, but write a lot of crack. When Naruto ended and saw that Ino and Sai were canon, I went back and reread the manga a few times. I even tried looking for fillers in the anime that might have been good enough fodder to fangirl about this pairing. And you know what I found?

Absolutely nothing.

Sai and Ino's relationship seemed like it was generated out of thin air. I've always liked SaiSaku. I even ship GaaIno. But the writer and the canon-lover in me just couldn't forgive the injustice they did to SaiIno. Thus this story was born. I couldn't imagine courtship between them, as Ino is so bossy, and Sai is so… Sai, but if I were to write their love story, I suppose it would be something like this.

Please leave a review if you like it.

Cheers!

Yuugiri