Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I am not profiting in any way from this.

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Part 4: Dear Deer

Shikamaru and Chouji have been to the Yamanaka compound many times. It was like a second or third home to them.

In all those times he visited, Shikamaru felt something was off. Something was different. It took awhile to pinpoint the reason.

"Inoichi-san?" he called out for attention to the man in the kitchen. Off in the yard, Ino and Chouji were engaged in an exciting staring contest with a praying mantis.

"Hm? What is it, Shikamaru? Do you need something?" the man inquired.

"How come there's only one mirror here?" It wasn't just the lack of mirrors. In his own home, his mother made sure the counters and tables sparkled and shined. He could see his reflection on the floor. The bowls and plates and utensils were silver and shiny.

Ino's place was dull in comparison. Everything was relatively opaque, hard to make out any reflections other than the vague blobs of colors and shadows.

"Ah, that. Ino's afraid of mirrors," Inoichi answered after a short moment of thinking.

"Oh. Okay, thank you," Shikamaru said and went to join his friends who had moved on to crawling under bushes, probably looking for the practice senbon they lost the other day.


"Hey, Ino. Are you scared of mirrors?"

"Huh? Uh, kind of. Did one of the clansmen tell you?"

"Yeah, I asked your dad about it."

"Oh, huh. Okay. Yeah. Kind of."

"How come?"

"Uh, well, just. It's kinda scary at night. The mirrors. Er, the reflections, I mean. Like, what if it's all dark, and you see something in the reflections. Or like, you think you see something in the mirror, but when you turn around, it's not there. Like, ghosts, or something… It's silly, isn't it?"

"No. I guess, now that I think of it like that, that's pretty spooky."

Had he been a little bit older, a little more perceptive, a little more experienced, he would've caught her lie.


Shikamaru and Ino often played rounds of shogi. Mostly, it was because the boy wanted to, and the girl obliged to his simple request. In all the games they played, Ino had never won.

"Guess I'm just not all that smart," the girl would say.

"It's not that you're not smart. Just that strategy's not your thing," the boy would reply.

Shikamaru believed that. Ino believed that.

Later, in their days of being teammates, he found out Ino planned ahead very far, though oftentimes, her plans were muddy and vague. She made up for them by improvising whenever something unpredictable happened. She was good at that. Being flexible.

He found out Ino was no good at shogi, not because strategy wasn't her thing, but because games pieces were too impartial. The pieces did not hold the same unpredictability of humans. They did not allow room for Ino's flexibility.


For some reason, Shikamaru always thought Ino would be the most sensitive to death.

For some reason… There was no reason. He just thought that, because a student long time ago carelessly bragged about being a boy. That girls were weak and couldn't handle the ninja life as well as boys. Of course, that student got a beating from the girls who heard.

While he thought that, he always knew Ino was the most rational and detached. He knew her life was highly compartmentalized, and death would simply be swept aside somewhere quiet and secluded.

So, it came as a sort of muted surprise when Ino was the first to kill, destroying that Sound guy's mind. At the end of the day, when the team was allowed a moment of rest, Ino was their pillar of support.

Since then, whenever he saw a jounin, Shikamaru thought, "Ah. Ino will fit right in."


Ino was Ino. There wasn't enough words known to humanity to completely describe the being that was Ino.

She was weird. Odd. Strange. Off. Didn't quite belong.

Lost?

Perhaps.


She said some random things sometimes. Like that one time with the flower field.

"How much farther do we have to go?" Shikamaru had complained nonstop the whole twenty minutes it had taken the two children to trek to wherever it was Ino was taking them.

"Just a little bit! Look, we're here!" she exclaimed.

The two stood at the edge of a flat field of wildflowers. The sun was just about to set. It was a scene right out of a fairytale.

"It's nice. How'd you find this place?" the boy asked.

"I was walking the other day, and then I thought I smelled something nice," she explained.

"You smelled something nice. Hm. Flowers?"

"Yeah, probably."

The girl walked toward the center of the field and suddenly collapsed, shocking the boy into running.

"Ino!"

Turns out she decided to lay on the ground by falling. Shikamaru was very much not amused. She smiled at him.

"Isn't it nice here? It's really quiet here."

"Yeah, it is."

"Hey, do you ever fantasize about how you'll die?" This startled the boy a bit.

"What? What's with this all of a sudden?"

"Dunno. So, do you?"

"No, I don't. Why, do you?"

"All the time.

"Oh…"

"Ever since I was a child, I wanted to die peacefully in a field of flowers."

"You're still a child," the boy started. Was she? She had to be. What else would she be?

Ino did not respond. She was too at peace. Perhaps fantasizing about that end.


A great tragedy, she could not have her wish even the second time around.