It was a clear, pleasantly overcast day, but shikamaru found that no matter how much he tried, he couldn't enjoy it.
There was a very prevalent silence that he normally would've quite liked, as it would've left his mind free to wander and relax, but for some reason he was starting to get a feeling that this silence was rather the type that was strained with the weight of tension and words unspoken.
He looked up, unconscious of the fact that he had zoned out and had been staring at her.
he was starting to think that his attempts to glance casually around at the scenery or at the ground might just be futile... Somehow every time he tried he always found his eyes trailing back to her purple figure, which swayed as she walked and mesmerized him... He shook his head, trying again. He didn't know why he suddenly thought of Ino like that. He never really had given it much thought, but she was actually pretty hot, when she wasn't annoyingly talkative, overly confident and bubbly- which was how she always was as long as he'd known her- up till now.
Then again, He had not actually seen her or been around her in a while. Was it actually possible she had grown less talkative? He was pretty sure, in the entire time he had known her, she had not been inanimate for so long.
He wondered with mild interest what words could possibly be unspoken between them, because she was being unusually quiet, wasn't she?
His teammate Ino Yamanaka was accompanying him on this simple Intel mission, but ever since they had started walking, which had to have been at least fifteen minutes, he was just now realizing, she had not said one word to him.
He knew it might be troublesome, but made up his mind to question her. Better ask her now and get it over with, whatever it was. Probably something silly and over dramatic, knowing Ino, he thought inwardly.
"Hey Ino...are you ok?" He asked lightly.
Her head popped up at the mention of her name as he spoke to her.
"Huh?" She responded, clearly caught off guard. She looked back at him briefly before she spun around again, and spouted out words quickly, "oh- yeah! of course, I'm fine. "
Shikamaru stared at her back again, and continued walking nimbly, a tad bit disconcerted now. It was strange how seeing her nervous seemed to make him nervous. He thought it probably did so because he couldn't understand why she would be nervous around him. She had never done so before...
what was more baffling was the lack of banter he would normally receive from her. It was normally so easy for her to fill an empty silence, and often times it seemed she would just talk for the sake of hearing herself talk.
"...are you sure?" He asked her tentatively as they approached their destination, which was a hotel room they would be staying in until the next day.
trying again to get to the reason behind her quietness, He wondered how long he could press her before he got what he was dreading, and she turned back into the crazy Ino he was so used to, but at the same time he wanted to make sure she was ok.
He had been half expecting her to start going off on a tangent, but she simply replied, "yeah, I'm just tired," without looking at him and hurried into the room as he held the door open for her.
He was caught off guard as she immediately dived onto her twin bed, and snuggled on the bed like he wasn't even there, with her leg bent in front of her and hands neatly clasping her pillow. His lips parted as he couldn't at all avoid his eyes from taking in her curves being silhouetted in the pillowy mattress.
He quickly realized how he might look if she looked up and saw him looking at her like that so he snapped his head away and moved towards the other twin bed, plopping himself onto it as he swallowed hard. That was not a tent forming in his pants... he kept telling himself, anxiety bubbling in the pit of his stomach. Maybe Ino would fall asleep and not get up to notice...
He tried to relax and sighed. He was happy his bed was next to the window. Maybe now that she didn't have to be in his sights, he could finally think of something else... He gazed out at the clouds outside, taking another breath.
He hardly noticed her get up and run to the bathroom with her back pack, but he breathed a sigh of relief.
It seemed like she was in there for a long time, and he was starting to fall asleep when the soft click of the door opening stirred him.
His vision was hazy as he opened his eyes, and it seemed like a dream even more so when he couldn't believe what he was seeing. His lips parted and his eyes widened as he saw Ino walking towards him- wearing only her bra and panties. What was going on? He wondered in shock as his dark eyes took in everything they could, from her blushing cheeks to the shimmery garment she was clasping in her hands. She stopped in front of him, her lips pursed nervously.
"I-Ino...?" he actually stuttered breathlessly, swallowing hard as his pace quickened, and removed his hands from behind his head as he gaped at her but otherwise froze.
She spoke, averting her eyes from his, "u-um Shikamaru, I... I need help putting this dress on for the mission... I wanted to try it on but it barely gets past my hips and I can't zip it... will you... help me?" She asked.
he never thought he'd live to see the day Ino was ever meek or sheepish. Her eyes had only dashed to his a few times before returning to the ground. He could tell she was way more embarrassed than he was, if it was possible.
Before he could answer, she turned around and stepped in to the dress, and pulled it up to her thighs where she struggled to pull it upwards.
His heart was beating faster as directly in front of him was Ino's butt- decorated with unicorns. His mouth had gone dry and he didn't know what to do.
"C-can you..." she started to ask him, her soft voice still so foreign to him as it brought him out of his thoughts, "pull it up from the back..." and he couldn't believe it as he realized she was asking him to grab a hold of the fabric that was currently encasing her butt and pull it upwards over her.
"Uh...um... Ino...?" he stammered, not sure if he was ready to cross this gray line that lingered just beyond friendship into a realm they had never entered. He froze as his mind raced. Ino was his teammate, his friend, yet at this moment she was making him yearn to touch her.
His mouth going dry at the thought, another wild thought occurred to him that bewildered him and made his heart race even more. she might be doing this on purpose, in the possibility that she liked him... He had never considered it before; the thought had never even crossed his mind.
If she liked him and he liked her, and something happened, that would mess up their team work, especially with Chouji... but she didn't like him in that way... did she?
"Please, Shikamaru, I know if you can just help with the back part I can get it on, I just can't reach..." her voice interrupted his thoughts.
It was possible she was simply asking him to help her with a simple task, because she trusted him, right? This was Ino he was dealing with. She was like a sister to him; A close teammate, and that was all.
He swallowed as he turned towards her, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He raised his hands. Just be cool, he thought, there's nothing more to this than getting the dress on- he thought but froze as he nestled his fingers under the dress folds and his knuckles pressed against her firm and plump butt cheeks. He pulled the fabric up, fighting to ignore the impulses shooting through him as she worked with the front end quite vigorously.
It finally with difficulty pulled tightly over her butt. she worked it around her, then held her ponytail aside and asked him to zip it up...
He grabbed both ends of the fabric and cinched it around her so the zipper could zip up, and he couldn't ignore the slight gasp that she gave as he did so. He hadn't meant to be rough, but to get it over with as quickly as possible. Now he couldn't stop himself from imagining what else he could possibly do to make her gasp.
He was irresistibly imagining himself placing his hands on her waist, and that itself was powerful, before the mental image of running his hands up her hourglass figure and caressing her breasts, also took over.
He didnt know what the hell was happening to him, for him to be thinking this way about Ino, he thought as he shook his head, and willed himself to focus as he finished zipping up her dress and sat down on the bed again.
He had never thought about her that way before... was she thinking about him in a similar way? He couldn't stop himself from wondering again, his heart pounding.
he inwardly scolded himself as he fought to look casual and calm as he knew she would turn around and look at him.
"What do you think?" She asked the question he had been dreading, but she sort of sighed as she said it, probably exhausted from putting it on. She asked it so casually that he knew he had to give a response and as his eyes absorbed her curves being adorned in the teal blue dress that somehow also made her blue eyes light up and pop he felt himself saying, plainly, "beautiful..." before he knew what was coming out of his mouth.
"Er... it looks beautiful," he babbled on, trying to make this moment less awkward, but finding it unavoidable as he knew he had to add, "You look beautiful."
He could see that she was speechless as the red in her cheeks deepened and her lips parted.
her eyes darted to the ground instantly and he felt embarrassed.
"... Thank you," she said earnestly, looking into his eyes, and Shikamaru was surprised by how queasy he suddenly felt. It was kind of a foreign feeling, at least it was one he hadn't felt in a long time. He found tell by the way she looked at him that it really meant a lot to her.
His heart raced; at the same time he felt soft and mushy and warm inside.
he saw her eyes darting around before she turned around. Had he said too much? His heart was still racing as he heard her voice again and he focused on the sound.
"I just wanted to make sure it fit for the mission tomorrow, and that I could walk around in it," she said airily, changing the subject.
She walked carefully over to the bathroom, presumably to have a look at how she looked herself, and Shikamaru again felt the strange pull of being unable to look anywhere but at her. The dress was actually a bit mesmerizing on her...