A Shadow Of You
chapter o1.
Today's weather was a great one. Not too sunny but not too dreary and that was why Yamanka Ino was outside strolling about town on her day off. After coming back from a B-rank mission, Tsunade-sama had rewarded her and her jouuin team a well-earned break. But even if Ino had fully intended to take up her break with a relaxed mind, she couldn't help but feel a little down.
Walking slowly along the streets of Konoha, she glanced at the shops as she passed by. One by one, she took in the sight of happy villagers flocking in and out of the shops. That day was too good a day after a week of rain. It was not a surprise to find many people out on the streets that day.
For a while she walked.
She walked until she reached a couple of kids pretending to be shinobis in front of her. One kid was chasing another kid with a leaf in his hand, pretending it was a kunai. They burst into laughter as they chased each other back and forth. Ino found it extremely amusing for some reason. That is, until one of them accidently bumped into her.
She got angry.
"Watch it, kid!" She threatened. She placed both hands on her hips and started to scold them.
The unafraid kid nodded to her words but stuck his tongue out at her when he thought she was finished with her scolding.
Ino was about to continue on scolding the kid for at least ten more minutes when she heard someone call her name.
"Ino-pig!" A pink haired kunoichi called out, waving her hand at her.
Hearing her name, Ino turned around. She saw her old friend, Haruno Sakura. The moment her back was turned, the kid she had been scolding immediately ran away with his friends. Of course, not before he rudely called her a 'stupid old lady'. Ino, because she was distracted, did not hear him, fortunately for the kid.
Upon seeing her friend, she was halfway through raising her arm out to give Sakura a half wave when she stopped the motion when she spotted the black haired shinobi besides her old best friend.
A little taken back, but not surprised, Ino snapped out of it and dropped her waving hand. She forced a smile at Sakura.
"Hi Forehead! Er... Hi Sasuke-kun!" Her eyes glanced at the dark-haired man beside Sakura.
Sasuke, who was standing beside his old pink haired teammate, gave Ino a slight nod before shoving his hands in his pockets.
"What're you doing here, Ino-pig?" Sakura asked.
"I have a day off today. I just got back from a mission yesterday. So I'm making use of the break and walking around town!"
"Yeah! The weather is surprisingly nice today! And I just couldn't stay at the hospital so Tsunade-sama allowed me to take a break and so I decided to go get some ramen and then I bumped into Sasuke-kun just now!" Tsunade-sama's apprentice gushed.
She didn't comment. She didn't know what would come out of her mouth if she opened it. Would she say something mean and hurt her old best friend's feelings? Ino had a feeling she would, so she kept her mouth shut.
Sasuke was getting impatient and he clearly didn't like the blonde kunoichi, as he never had. Ino knew this.
"Sakura, let's go. I'm hungry." He placed a hand on arm for a second to get her attention, before removing it to place it back in his pockets again. Sakura, upon feeling the gentle touch on her forearm, immediately blushed pink.
"O-of course, Sasuke-kun." She said to him, a small smile appeared on her pink, which Ino had only seen Sakura use on the silent avenger.
Ino couldn't help but feel the anger that started to bubble inside of her. It happened every time whenever she saw Sasuke and Sakura together. The feelings of anger were old. And it was clearly not the first time she had seen Sasuke and Sakura together.
"Anyways Forehead, I've got to go too!" Ino announced. She didn't want to see anymore of her… defeat and loss. She watched as Sakura waved at her again before she quickly hurried after the retreating back of Uchiha Sasuke.
But Ino didn't leave yet. She continued to watch with her fists clenched at the backs of Sakura and Sasuke as they walked further away from her until they eventually disappeared into a crowd of people.
"Ever since that day..." She furiously whispered as the feelings of anger continued to bubble inside of her. "Ever since he came back, he changed."
She felt a pang of sadness invade the feelings of anger within her.
"She made him change."
She thought about her old best friend. She was the one that cried when Sasuke left. She was the one in constant pain. She was the one that lost the love of her life. Sakura was the one waiting for him to come back.
But Ino was waiting too.
It's just that she convinced everyone she was over him because she thought Konoha couldn't take two kunoichis with broken hearts. But inside in her heart, she believed Sasuke would come back to Konoha as well. She never believed she truly loved him. Not the way Sakura did at least, but she still couldn't believe it when Sasuke smiled at Sakura and accepted Sakura instead of her.
She had lost and she knew she wasn't happy with it.
Her anger had subsided.
The moment she stopped thinking about them, her mood started to brighten and the angry feeling in the pit of her stomach slowly dissipated.
Now all she wanted to do was to forget and move on… if she could.
After all, it had been a long time since Sasuke returned back to Konoha. The old Rookie Nine were all grown up and were either jouuin or ANBU. They were no longer kids, and they led adult lives now.
In fact, Sakura and Sasuke had been together for almost 2 years. Naruto and Hinata were together, as well as Neji and Tenten. Not Ino though. Two years ago, a few months after Naruto brought back Sasuke, she had decided to put being a shinobi as first and foremost. She worked hard to go up a rank from a chuuin to a jouuin. She took on more missions. She felt the joy of being busy and away on missions. It made the days go by faster. And before she knew it, it had been two years.
Ino was at the old Team 10 training grounds now. She had purposely walked astray from the streets of Konoha and had headed towards the other direction.
She stood at the centre of the field and invited old memories to her. It had been a while since she last been here! In fact, the last time had been before Asuma-sensei died and before her team separated.
She continued to smile fondly as she remembered memories of when she was in the genin team with two other teammates and her old sensei. She remembered she had been so angry and frustrated when she was teamed up with a lazy teammate and a fat teammate instead of Sasuke-kun! She had shed tears of anger alone in her room with the door shut, cursing Sakura for being on the same team!
Now, she shook her head at her past childishness.
'But there wasn't just Sasuke that made me frustrated.' She mused as she continued down memory lane. She felt a little tickle in her stomach as she giggled when she remembered the memories of when she would get mad at Shikamaru for lazing around instead of training or scolding Chouji for constantly pigging out on his chips instead of watching his appearance!
It was one of the best days of her childhood even if she herself admitted she had been a loud brat.
Suddenly remembering something, Ino dug her hand into her kunai pouch and took out a photo. It was a photo of her and the rest of Team Ten. She smiled at the old photograph of her 12 year old self, her two teammates, and their late Asuma-sensei. She was in the centre between the two boys and smiling proudly at the camera. She was glad she ended up as part of Team Ten.
In fact... when did she stop going to their monthly dinners?
Ino sighed.
It had been two years since she last attended one. She bit her lips, a little regretful because she had been the one to first initiate the team monthly dinner when she was still a genin. And now with her new shinobi rank, she was swamped with irregular missions.
She hoped one of these days, she could organize another get together. After all, it had been a while before she last saw her old teammates. Sure, she saw them occasionally in a crowd of people or even at the spring festival last month, but she often went on to three to four month long missions with her new jouuin team, so the time they had met were very limited.
In fact, she kind of missed Shikamaru and Chouji.
She imagined the twelve-year-old Shikamaru sleeping under the clouds and a twelve year old Chouji sitting beside him, munching away on an ever-present bag of chips.
Deciding she would go find them right now, as time was aplenty, she left the old Team Ten training field, hoping that Shikamaru and Chouji were currently away on missions. After all, Ino only had today off before leaving for another mission the next day. Konoha's top interrogator was often needed for secret spy missions and with a possible Shinobi war happening, she was needed more than ever.
She went back to the streets of Konoha and sought out the ramen stand. Seeing Naruto there, she asked him if she had seen her teammates. Naruto, with a mouthful full of ramen and on his fifth bowl already, told her that he didn't know where Shikamaru was but said Chouji was on a mission with his father and wouldn't be back until next week.
By the time Ino had walked skirted the streets of Konoha some more, hoping to bump into the lazy shinobi, it was already starting to get late.
She threw her hands up in the air in frustration and cursed the lazy shinobi.
'That lazy Shikamaru! Where could he be?' She furiously thought. She was so annoyed with looking for him in the streets of Konoha for around two hours and a half, that each step grew heavier as she stomped her way through the streets.
'Oh, the sun is setting..' Ino thought as she tilted her head slightly upwards as she raised her eyes towards the sky.
'The sky... The clouds!' Her eyes widened. How could she forget the one thing she had always known about Shikamaru? That lazy shinobi's favourite past time was cloud watching!
'Have we really been apart for so long that I have forgotten this?' Ino thought furiously as she raced towards Shikamaru's favourite hill to lay down to watch clouds. Already, the sun was beginning to set.
When she reached the hill, she didn't stop and continued to run, searching for Shikamaru. From a distance away, she spotted him. He was lying down on the grass, with his hands behind his hands as a pillow. His eyes were closed.
Ino slowed down to catch her breath. She decided he was asleep and that she would not wake up.
Slowly, she approached him and looked down at him so that her face was right above his face. His eyes remained closed.
In front of the sleeping Shikamaru and standing Ino, the sunset casted a beautiful shade of orange, red, and yellow. The yolk of a sun slowly dipped downwards in the sky. But Ino's attention was not on the sunset. She only looked at the shadow user's face.
Before, she had only seen him occasionally from a distance.
'Two years makes a difference.' She thought, moving her face closer to his, as if to inspect the every change in his face. He looked older, more mature, and like he had been through a lot. Ino could see that even in his sleep, that his neck tensed a little. 'He must not get much sleep.' Ino concluded.
His sleeping face looked so calm and peaceful, that she could not help but smile. She knew that Shikamaru was just as busy, or even in fact, more busy than her. He was Konoha's main strategist, and the village constantly needed his knowledge and skill. Being so outstanding, Shikamaru must have had a lot of stress.
That was why Ino wisely chose not to disturb his sleep by waking him up.
'I'll just let him sleep. Maybe I'll catch up with him after my next mission.' Ino thought, listening to his slow breathing.
Then a cast of wind blew.
It blew a gentle breeze across the hill, making the grasses and the little daisies that grew on the hill quiver and sway with the wind. It caught Ino's long ponytail and gently swayed it in the wind.
The sleeping Shikamaru's mind started to stir awake. A familiar scent that he had not smelled for a long time reached his noise and he slowly awoke from his sleep.
Where was he?
Feeling the cold wind registering on his skin, his mind told him that he must still be on the hill and that he had fallen asleep.
He opened his eyes and looked straight into clear blue eyes.
The scent of her clouded his mind as he silently listened to his quickened heart.
"Ino..." He murmured.
It was the first time in a long time that he had seen her smile.
"Hi." Her clear voice rang out, free of the old Ino annoying voice he had always thought associated with her.
And Shikamaru knew then, even with his currently clouded mind, that something very troublesome was going to happen to him.