CH. 4: Parting clouds
- Are you ready, Ino?
I come down the stairs to find my mother waiting for me near the front door. I nod.
- Well…I'm gathering that you've completely changed your style, darling…
I nod again, silently, holding tight on the fabric of my empire-style dress, that hangs along my body, unemphasizing my belly. I feel strange in my old clothes. Yeah, okay, I'm only four months pregnant, but I feel as I weighed forty pounds more. I look in the mirror and I see a distorted image of myself, a reflection that doesn't look like me at all.
I feel so wrong. Destroyed.
My adolescence is over, much as kunoichis could reckon having the right to live as teenagers. We already have missions, training and death constantly in front of our eyes. We grow up so abruptly…I can't remember the last time I actually "had fun", and I don't remember having ever gone to a party, unless the summer festivals that take place in Konoha can be counted as "parties".
Why did I get myself in this mess? Why me?
Anyway, I'm not able to accuse myself.
I hate Shikamaru.
I hate him for not wearing a freakin' condom, for not stopping; for seducing me with that weird charm, a charm he had never shown before that afternoon.
Since when I'm so attracted to Shikamaru that I "forget" the basic precautions of sexual intercourse?
I hate him for the way he looked at me, as if it was all about us, in that moment.
For leaving, along with Chouji and Naruto, the exact morning after he learned about the pregnancy.
Because it's been two months since I last saw him and talked to him.
I feel like I'm carrying this burden all alone, and I can't bear it. I'm not myself anymore…it's like two Inos lived together in me. One of them still persists in trying to live as I've lived until now; the other one, instead, tries to drag the first one, the reasonable one, down the chasm, remembering her that inside me, I'm not only Ino Yamanaka anymore. My body is not just mine anymore. There's another life with which I'm sharing it.
A baby.
What have you done to me, Shikamaru?
While I walk down the street, side by side to my mum, I feel like every person we meet knew.
As if I had written on my face "I'm sixteen and I'm pregnant".
Yeah, I know, it's a useless and absurd paranoia. Except for Shikamaru's family, my parents and Sakura, no one knows. Not yet. We managed to keep it secret for almost two months, since my parents found out about it.
But it's a matter of weeks, before the pregnancy becomes evident; that's why we're going to inform the Hokage. My mum seems to have reached a compromise about the "pregnancy matter", but my father refuses even to merely look me in the eyes.
The mission saved Shikamaru from my father's fury, and in a certain sense I feel glad for him.
I don't know what kind of mission it is, nor for how long he would have stayed away from Konoha. I don't even know whether he's still alive or not.
As for me, I haven't had any especially complicated mission, in these two months; and I've never dared to ask if there were news about Shikamaru's Team. Not even to Sakura. I try to convince myself that I chose to stay in the dark because I don't want anyone to find out about my pregnancy; but I know that's not the real reason.
I'm afraid of knowing when I'll see him again. I'm afraid I'll have to look in his eyes, I'm afraid I'll hate him even more.
If it depended on me, I'd lock myself in my room and I'll never get out.
- Here we are.
My mum's voice deflects me from my thoughts. We're in front of the door of Tsunade's office.
Instinctively, I lay a hand on my stomach and lower my eyes, while my mother knocks and opens the door.
- Good morning, Mrs. Yamanaka-sama. Hi, Ino. – Tsunade smiles and nods in my direction, from her position behind the desk. Sakura is standing near the desk, looking at me with the corner of her eye, a tormented look on her face.
- So, Ino…- Tsunade leans forward, grabbing a pile of sheets and passing them to Shizune, behind her – Sakura told me you wanted to talk about something.
I swallow: - Erm…yeah…
God, now I feel nauseous again.
I haven't thrown up in almost two weeks, but I still feel that pulsing headache and the hot lump in my throat. I'd never thought I'd have gone through this so early in my life.
I want to be empty inside. Not only in my lower abdomen, but, also and above all, in my mind. A million of fears thicken in my head. Every time I try to dissipate those clouds, even more appear, and again and again; it makes no sense trying to think of anything else, since now my life revolves around that.
I hate Shikamaru with all myself.
I'd hit him until faintness if he was here.
I want him here so desperately that my breath breaks when I simply think of his name.
I can't make it alone.
A sudden sense of warmth on my arm brings me back to reality. I've never been an extremely thoughtful person, but lately I find myself always more often lost in my thoughts.
With my head in the clouds.
And I'd want it to be because of dreams, because of normal desires for a teenager, because of futile things; I'd want that the maximum of seriousness I was supposed to show was during the missions.
My mum loosens the grip on my arm.
I breathe in deeply, and finally look in Hokage's eyes.
- Yeah, uhm…I…- I breathe in again, searching for a decent way to drop the bomb. – I…need to be exonerated from ninja missions…for a while.
Tsunade's amber eyes dilate, between perplexity and curiosity. It's clear as hell she'll want to know more, a justification or the reason why a sixteen-year-old in excellent health would suddenly not being able to face her duties anymore.
And indeed…
- May I ask you…why do you want an exemption? And until when?
Okay, if I give a direct answer to the second question, it'll be like I implied an answer to the first one, too.
- Five months, Hokage-sama.
Tsunade glances at me head to toe, for some seconds, biting her lips.
My tummy, slightly roundy; the dress, loose and sloping; my shaking hands, my look that wonders everywhere except in her face.
Then, suddenly, she stretches backwards, leaning against the chair back and letting out a long sigh.
- Okay, Ino…who's the father?
The question takes me by surprise, and I find myself gasping, looking for a possible answer. Even Sakura turns brusquely towards the Hokage: - But…Tsunade-sensei…
I think I have, on my face, an indefinite shade between red and purple, and my blood is flowing to my brain with enough speed to prevent me from organize my thoughts.
I feel as I'm about to faint, while I ear my own voice spelling out, as if she was extraneous to my body:
- Shikamaru…Nara…
It's been two weeks since I asked for an exemption.
Now I'm officially a failure, both as a woman and as a ninja. I spend my days helping my mother in the flower shop, running errands, delivering bunches of flowers, all this while hoping the apron can hide my belly the most possible.
I know, it's unreasonable to worry about a belly that is everything but evident; but I feel like I'm growing bigger everyday.
And I'm in perennial backache. And I feel dizzy. And my feet hurt as hell. I try to take good care of my hair, since it's the only part of my body I can control.
Besides that, I act as I'm a robot. Wake up at a certain hour, breakfast at a certain hour, to the shop at a certain hour, the deliveries at a certain hour, to bed at a certain hour.
I try my best to keep an eye on the single days passing by, and I try my best to forget the overall time going by.
When she has nothing to do, Sakura drops by while I'm in the shop; but I know that, no matter how many soothing words she's able to find for me, neither she does know what to do to cheer me up.
"He'll come back, you'll see" is almost her customary sentence.
And I nod, speechless, feigning a deep interest for the hydrangeas I'm stuffing in a vase.
- Ino, listen to me. You can't go on like this.
- Then what am I supposed to do?
I stand up and turn to her. She's fumbling with a pair of shears, looking at me with a worried expression. – I don't know, Ino. Anything but suffering like this…
- Sakura…it's not up to me…
- What do you mean? – Sakura's green eyes become more serious. She drops the shears on the counter and starts to move towards me.
- You know, Sakura… - I point at the counter with a gesture of my index finger - …it's on that counter that this baby was conceived. It was my first time, you know?
Sakura shrugs: - I imagined it…but I'd never imagined you'd hang over for Shikamaru.
- That's the point, Sakura. That day, Shikamaru…wasn't the usual Shikamaru.
Now Sakura's expression turns quizzical. I walk next to her and caress the counter's surface with my hand.
- It all happened the afternoon before we left to avenge Asuma-sensei. I don't have a clue what I was thinking about, or whether I was actually thinking about something. But I…wanted Shikamaru. I really wanted him.
I glance up and I feel like I'm almost seeing him, in front of me, like that afternoon. Firm, avenging, and, at the same time, gentle. As he always was to me.
That's why I hate him, that's why I don't want this baby, that's why I want Shikamaru to come back here, and I want it so much it hurts.
I want him to come back to me.
I don't want to be alone. I don't want my baby to grow up fatherless.
I don't want to be a mother without Shikamaru.
Why does it hurt so much??
One half of the baby inside me is Shikamaru's. I always had a part of Shikamaru with me, but it was always something indefinite, in my heart. Now that "something" has a solidity, it's shaping inside myself; and when I'll ear its heart beating, I'll know that, deep inside me, I always wanted it.
As much as I hate Shikamaru for what he's putting me through, as much as I'd strangle him if he was here, as much as I blame him…I'm afraid to be a burden to him. And, if he was here, I'd ask him: "Choose me".
Not your childhood friend, not your teammate, not the "nagging troublesome woman", not "the one you had sex with, in case we didn't survive against Hidan and Kakuzu".
But the one that will never be brave enough to tell you all this, the one that will never ask you to choose her, to choose to live with her and her baby.
I'm that one. That haughty, proud, firm, bossy, nitpicking Ino.
Because I always looked for someone like you, Shikamaru.
- Sakura…I think I'm in…
- SAKURA! INO!
The shop's door bursts open. It's Naruto.
Wait a minute.
NARUTO???
He's got a plastered arm, hanging from his neck, and a noticeable patch on his cheek. Panting, he leans against the doorframe, then he looks up to Sakura and me, both petrified. None of us dares to speak.
- Tsunade told me to come here, Ino. Chouji and me came back as soon as possible.
Sakura takes one step ahead and asks: - Where's Shikamaru? Did he come back with you?
Naruto shakes his head and glances down.
The tension is literally killing me. For Christ's sake, NARUTO, SPEAK!!
Finally he looks up at me, and it's like he's slapping me across the face: - Ino…we were on a mission in the Land of Wind. Shikamaru separated from us, according to the strategy…but then, things got bad. Chouji and me woke up in a Village in the outskirts of the Land of Wind, but…Shikamaru is officially declared missing.
