The next day at the flower shop wasn't any busier and once again Ino found herself sulking around and wishing she could get sick so she could skip both her mission and the wedding. She'd just found out that Shino had been assigned to a more urgent mission than the one they were to be leaving for on Thursday and the only other tracker left in the village was Inuzuka Kiba. Ino couldn't stand him. He was such a loud mouth, pig headed idiot that it completely overshadowed the fact that he was extremely good looking. For a while Ino had acquired a major crush on him, but his big mouth and smart ass behavior had completely turned her off when she got to know him better. Chiseled abs meant nothing when they were attached to an ignorant cocky asshole. Before they'd gone on that mission Ino had planned to seduce him and have her way with him, but they had spent the whole time arguing and fighting. Their teamwork had been terrible, almost non-existant, and they had failed the mission. Tsunade had never put them together on a team again. That had been three years ago, and the Hokage had still been hesitant to pair them up again, but there had been no one else.
Ino silently cursed her luck. Maybe she could just ignore him the whole mission. Besides, she had worse things to deal with when they returned. It was already Tuesday and she had no date for the wedding. She had to find one by tomorrow or she wouldn't have one at all, because when she got back she had to leave immediately for Suna after giving her report to the Hokage. There was absolutely no way she could go to this wedding alone, and yet she didn't see any way out of it. Choji had already asked Ayame, the girl from the Ichiraku Ramen stand, Naruto was bringing Shizune because she wanted to see her lazy chunin intern get married, Neji and Tenten had been together for three years, they'd probably be getting married themselves soon, Sai had said he would go but then he'd been called back to Root and wasn't coming back for months, she refused to ask Rock Lee, and Shino had been her last hope, now he'd be on this mission for three weeks past the wedding.
"My life couldn't suck anymore then it does right now," she thought aloud. "And its all my own fault."
It was her own fault she and Shikamaru had broken up. They had been fifteen when they started dating. On his sixteenth birthday she'd given him her virginity for his present. They had made love in his family's forest underneath the stars, and afterward he'd brought her to see the Nara deer. They'd eaten right out of her hand and she'd seen him smiling up at her looking so peaceful. Later he told her he thought they would be together forever. And maybe they would have, but five months later Ino started taking him for granted. Once they had sex it changed their relationship. He no longer argued with her ever, and he went out of his way to make sure she was always happy, he treated her like a princess, once he'd even made the four day trip to Wave country because he'd heard there was a cream made from pearls that kept the skin from wrinkling and he knew Ino worried about that stuff. She had loved the cream, but she'd started to lose interest in the man that brought it to her. Then Sasuke had come back. One wink from the sexy Uchiha was all it had taken.
She had told Shikamaru that they needed a break. He'd been devastated. He even cried. He didn't understand, as a matter of fact, nobody understood, not Choji, not Sakura, not her dad, not even her mother who'd always said he was lazy and good for nothing. But Ino had been sixteen, young and foolish, and Shikamaru had put her so high on a pedestal that she'd come to believe she deserved better. She'd been so stupid.
Shikamaru left on assignment to help the Suna strategists find a way to grow crops all year since they had sun all year. He'd succeeded in just five months, but he hadn't come back. It seemed the same sand kunoichi who he'd beaten at the chunin exam, that had rescued him on his mission to save Sasuke, and had come to Konoha to escort him to Suna, had also helped to mend his broken heart. Shikamaru hadn't been back in Konoha since, now he was getting married, and soon he'd be a resident of Suna.
A week after he'd left, Sasuke had taken Ino out. They'd had sex that night. It hadn't been special like she thought it would be, and afterward he'd left without saying a word. They dated for about six months. He was never very sweet, sex with him was always rough, and sometimes left her feeling used. Sasuke was always aloof and she'd come to realize somewhere around the five month mark that he was really in love with Sakura. He was dating Ino because he was afraid to hurt the pink haired konoichi. At six months she'd confronted him about it, and to his credit he'd been honest. They broke up and he finally came clean to Sakura about his feelings. Ino had tried to be happy for her friend but it had been hard, especially when Sakura told her all about their first time together. It had been Sakura's first time and Sasuke had been sweet and kind and gentle with her, nothing like he'd been with Ino. Since then she'd gone on a few dates with Naruto, but he still loved Sakura too. Then she'd dated Genma until she was 18, he'd been older and sweet, but eventually the age difference as too much and she hadn't had a boyfriend since.