summary: they say that finding your soulmate brings colour and light to your life. ino sees black & white until she's seventeen. –– soulmate!au, ino/sai, other canon pairings implied.
wc: 864
an: short ficlet. idk what i was doing but i wanted to write a small soulmate au. ofc inosai centric because what else would i write at this point
as far as ino knew, the first person who ever met their soulmate out of their group of friends was naruto. he had been seeing the world in colour since he was at least five, he always commented about how bright certain things were and how the world looked. no one would believe him, of course, because one it was naruto, and two who the hell sees their soulmate when they're five. it didn't help his claims that when you asked him who it was that he couldn't remember who it was.
by the time they were eleven, he was claiming that it was sakura––and she was his since she could see colours too.
( later on, when everything had settled down, hinata would reveal that she had been seeing colours from the same age––and naruto would squeeze her hand tightly and ino would be just a bit jealous of their love. )
sakura saw colours before ino, and she had been able to point out the exact moment that she had first been able to see them––the first time she made eye contact with sasuke. and ino, ino was jealous. no, not because of the sasuke thing (ino didn't care, the uchicha was too moody for her taste a lot of the time). ino was upset because she wanted to see colours too. she wanted to see the flowers that she had spent so much time tending to––she would always be able to tell by the hue but she wanted to see the vibrant colors her father described––she wanted to see sakura's bright pink hair and green eyes––as sakura had told her.
she responded the only way that she knew how and spread the rumour that she had the same experience.
by the end of the week word got back to sakura and sakura ended their friendship like that.
whatever. ino didn't need her, and she didn't need colours either.
shikamaru admitted to her and chouji, one night while they're sitting in ino's family garden watching the stars, that he's been seeing colours for a while.
"i think, it depends on the person." he says it softly, because he doesn't want his mom hearing that he's found the one. "for some people, they don't see them until they realize it. for others they start seeing them as soon as they see them."
"when'd you start seeing them?" ino glanced over at shikamaru, but his eyes were staring up at the sky, and she was sure that he wasn't going to tell her and instead just say that it was troublesome or something.
there was a pause.
"when she saved my life."
"sai told me he sees colours now." sakura is such a gossip, but ino is thankful for it. it helps make time pass by in the shop.
ino is seventeen and still can't see colours.
she's one of the last one in their group of friends who can't see them. it's just her and kiba left. and they tried to see if it was just they needed to spend more time with each other before they could see it because––who else could it be?
that last about a week and both of them had been severely warned by tsunade to never actually date again.
it's fine though, because ino has already resigned to live her life without colours. she could live life without asuma sensei. she could live life without her dad. she could live life without colours.
( she figured it was better like this, than to be like tenten and have the ability to see colours but your soulmate is dead.)
"did he tell you who made him see them?" and sakura shook her head and for a minute, just a quick one, ino could've sworn she saw the bright green in sakura's eyes.
it happens again, maybe a week or two later when sai asks her on a date. when he asks her, ino is sure that she can see the colour of the flowers in her hands. they're a deep deep purple, and ino isn't sure if she's ever seen anything as beautiful.
so she says yes.
they go people watching and for a walk. it's not ino's ideal date, but something about it with sai, makes it the best date ever. their hands bump against each other as they walk, and his pinky loops with hers.
and suddenly ino can see the colour of the sidewalk. and she can see the grass and how green it is. she can see bright pink hair as sakura scolds naruto––his hair yellow and shining––keeping hm away from the couple on their date.
and when she looks at sai, she sees the most familiar thing. she sees black–– his hair, his eyes, his outfit––and she sees white––his pale skin. she didn't expect him to be vibrant and colourful, not like her (or so she had been told). it was comforting, and familiar.
so she takes his entire hand in hers and laces her fingers with his. even ina world of color, the most comforting thing was black and white.
08/04/17 –– edited some small typos