4. Secrets
Ino hurried back to the pub, clutching her satchel and groceries to her chest as she dodged bodies of people walking in the opposite direction. They gave her a queer gaze when she squeezed in-between people, jumped over trashcans, and climbed over people who held up the traffic.
Ultimately, she ran away from her biggest problem.
She kept her head down with eyes on the feet that ran out from beneath her. With her eyes on her feet, she practically slammed a person to the ground. That poor stranger, she thought.
That poor stranger wasn't a poor stranger when Ino lifted her eyes to see a familiar spiky haired teammate, who didn't have any business in Cloud whatsoever. Before he lifted his head to see her face, Ino pulled her hood up, stuffed her long hair in her hood, and pulled the pink scarf over her nose while masking her chakra even though she really didn't have to since Shikamaru had a horrible talent of sensing it.
She mumbled quickly, "I'm sorry. I wasn't looking." She gathered her discarded belongings and shoved them into her bag. She quickly grabbed a discarded folder with her information and mission records when she noticed Shikamaru slowly reached for it, then before he could utter a word, she stood up and hurried back to her new home.
This couldn't be happening.
Why was Shikamaru in Cloud of all places? He could be on a mission that just happened to be in Cloud, she guessed. It must be a coincidence, Ino figured as she hustled down the street, dodging people who didn't have the politeness to get the hell out of the way. Shikamaru must've been meeting the client, and his team is probably chilling at the hotel right now. He doesn't even know Ino is here. He wasn't listening when she told him about how excited she was about her first solo mission.
Ino tripped over her feet, but quickly gained her footing before eating asphalt.
Shikamaru hates this village because he gets horrible migraines and a nasty bloody nose whenever he's in town, so why would he take a mission that sent him to his own personal Hell?
Maybe, Ino wondered, secretly, Shikamaru was a masochist and enjoyed the pain of the headaches and the dozens of other pains. Or, maybe he had no choice in the matter like most missions.
Ino crept up to the door of the pub, pressing her ear against the door. She heard muffled laughing and a sudden scream. She peeked into the window. Minako ran around the bar, flaying her arms in the air as she let out another ear-aching scream. Ino pressed her ear against the door, listening to Minako tell a story about how a cousin tried shoving broccoli up his nose, and she had to take him to the hospital because he lodged the thing so far up his nose, he couldn't pull them out with tweezers.
The back door creaked open loudly, making Ino wince at the high-pitched creaking. Deciding the creaking made too much noise, Ino sucked in her stomach and managed to slip through the small opening she made.
She quietly thanked for the wall blocking the sight of the stairs-Jin made it so none of the patrons could see the stairs if they somehow wondered past his office, which he established no one should do that unless they wanted their asses handed to them. To hide the entrance of the stairs, Jin hung a white curtain, but Ino always thought the curtain was a stupid idea, but he said, "As long as my employees feel safe, I'll do whatever it takes." Thinking about what he said, Ino snorted. Whatever makes his employees feel safe, my butt.
Tiptoeing down the narrow hallway, Ino searched deep into her coat pockets for her key, grabbing lost bracelets she didn't know she owned and a few dozen candy wrapper from the days she used to be a ravaging candy maniac. The small key lay at the bottom of her pocket, buried underneath layers of candy wrappers and other lost wonders from the olden days.
The key easily slid into the keyhole and fluidly twisted to the left, popping the door open with a gentle squeak. Ino immediately felt the warmth on her frigid skin, sending a pleasurable shiver running down her spine. If she didn't know better, she believed she was in Heaven.
In the midst of enjoying the gratifying heat, she never noticed vibrant, azure eyes staring at her from under the covers on the bed across from Ino. Ino didn't notice the curly auburn hair splayed across the white pillow, nor did she hear the soft, "What do you want?"
She scrutinized Ino as Ino threw her bags onto the clean, tidy bed then flopped back on the bed, exhaling a long sigh. The blonde stared at the ceiling with upset, torn eyes, similar to hers except Ino's eyes held confusion within the mix of sadness and despair. She watched the girl's lips purse tightly and her thin eyebrows furrow in apparent aggravation. Physically, she appeared tired and distraught; Sachiko could only imagine what Ino was feeling on the inside.
"Sorry, I didn't notice you there. I hope I didn't wake you up," Ino apologized sincerely when she spotted the half-closed, sleepy eyes of Sachiko. "I'm Ino. You must be Sachiko." Ino flashed a quick smile, hoping it was good enough.
"I know who you are. Minako and Jin told me about you. Don't worry; I've heard nothing but good things, really." Sachiko sat up with a low groan and smiled the exact same Ino gave her, a slight pull of the lips into a half-assed smile while the eyes attempted to display a sort of happiness neither girl obviously had.
"Same here." When Ino first set eyes on Sachiko, she admittedly hated her mostly because Sachiko was naturally beautiful with natural curly hair that curled perfectly into round ringlets that encompassed her nearly flawless, pale skin. A faint scar plagued her skin, running from her right cheekbone down to the pull of the right corner of her bottom lip. Minako always rambled about how she obtained the scar, but her theories sounded too extreme.
Sachiko had a record of being a harsh girl, intimidating everyone. Jin said she brought in more customers because - no offense, he says- she is the best-looking girl in the whole place, and most men dig the mysterious type.
"Are you working the same time as before?" she asked.
"Yes."
"It's a shame. Takao and I could use the extra set of hands, but I supposed Minako needs you more than we do."
Ino agreed, "That's a definite fact."
Sachiko hummed in response. When the room grew silent with awkward tensions, Sachiko turned towards the wall, pulling the covers over her head and plopped her head on the fluffy pillow.
Shikamaru watched the hawk flit in the diming sky, disappearing into the clouds. When he couldn't see the bird anymore, Shikamaru closed his window and pulled the blinds down while sighing deeply.
The message would reach Konoha within a week's time, excluding the factor of the poor bird being eaten by anything floating around in the sky. Hopefully none of the bordering nations noticed the Konoha messenger bird and decided to kill it. What if the hawk decided to perch somewhere and a snake decided to eat it? What would Shikamaru do if that happened? Well, for one, he wouldn't know the damn bird was eaten! The endless possibilities crammed Shikamaru's brain, giving him a massive headache. It wasn't time for Shikamaru to worry. He had to be the epitome of sanguinity and absolute positivity.
Ino was alive. For the first time in ages, since Tsunade decided to wake him from his jolly Sunday morning sleeping and ordered him to come out to this horrible place, he finally sighed a breath of relief. No longer did he have to rush himself to find his teammate, she was in the same vicinity as him, and it was only a matter of time until they crossed paths.
"Someone was looking for you earlier today," Jin said when Ino came down to clock in five minutes before her shift started. She stiffened for a second, knowing exactly who that someone was… unless there were people with me. "I didn't get his name, but you might know him. He's from the same village as you, and he was a ninja." Ino cringed at the term. She preferred shinobi or kunoichi to ninja.
"What did he look like?"
"Well, he's about this high -" Jin lifted his hand over his head. She measured the estimate height to her height, thinking about where her head barely reaches over his shoulder. It seemed about right. "Eh, oh, he wore his hair back in a ponytail and wore his, eh, headband thing on his bicep."
Ino nodded. Definitely Shikamaru."Yeah, I know him," she paused, "Can you do me another favor?"
"You and your favors. What is it?"
"Don't tell him where I am if he comes back."
"Ino, why are you still here?" Jin asked, sidestepping her request. "I sent in a missing report to the Hokage a few weeks back. She discharged you from the mission. You're allowed to leave Cloud. No, you're expected to leave Cloud fairly soon."
"I'm not leaving Cloud for a while. I don't want to go home. If you want to report that to Tsunade, then you may." Ino turned on her heel before the conversation could escalate, but Jin grabbed her wrist before she took two steps. Panic-stricken, she ripped her wrist from his grasps and backed up into the wall, creating a greater distance between her and Jin.
Jin raised his hands in his defensive. "Okay, Ino, I won't tell anyone where you are, okay?" he uttered softly. Ino still cowered from him when Jin took a step towards her. He stopped walking towards her when she clenched her eyes, turning her head away from his soft eyes.
He stood his ground, keeping a fair distance between himself and the cowering girl. When several seconds ticked by, Ino's scared eyes opened, looking up at him with a confused face. She straightened up.
"Excuse me," she mumbled and left the room.
It was hump night, a Wednesday night. Waves of men and the occasional woman didn't flood the pub on hump nights. Who would want a beer in the middle of the week? Ino corrected herself. Who would want a beer, period. Asuma gave her her first beer during a mission. Shikamaru and Choiji downed the bottle as if it was water. Ino took a sip and booked it to the bathroom, puking her guts out.
"You're such a puss, Ino," Shikamaru said as he sipped his second one. "You can't even hold a sip of beer down."
Between gagging from the taste and barfing hunks, Ino turned to glare at his teammate and said, "Shut up and hold my hair," and he would.
"I'm amazed you came back," Minako said, interrupting Ino from her reverie, as she returned from delivering a beer to Jin, who seemed to enjoy gambling at the pool table with a couple of the customers.
There were a handful of patrons in the pub, enjoying a quiet beer as they watched the news on the tiny television placed on the counter or chatting with Jin, who only showed his face on Wednesday nights because they were his favorite. Some of the customers played darts or pool in the farthest corner of the pub.
"So, was that the guy who took… the others?" Minako choked on her words. Ino turned her head away.
Minako's friend - Ino couldn't recall her name - and two other girls were the victims of rape and murder. The first girl, a thirty-year-old ex-stripper, disappeared three months after employment. She disappeared after her shift, probably when she was walking home. Almost a month later, a group of shinobi found her decomposed body deep in the mountains. That happened almost two years ago.
Then, about eight months after the first incident, an employee's sister disappeared when she went out back to toss the garbage during a shift. A few days later, a merchant found her bloodied body in the forest surrounding the mountains. The brother left without warning after her death.
Finally, the most recent death belonged to Minako's best friend, who disappeared almost three months before Ino's arrival. Emiko-ha, Ino's remembered-differed from everyone else. At a young eighteen years, Emiko studied to become a teacher to the civilian children. She had a loving family living in Cloud and a boyfriend about two years her senior. After becoming a teacher, they planned for marriage. According to her family, she crawled home, beaten down with large gashes on her body and ugly bruises already forming. In the morning, when they went to check on her, she wasn't there. Emiko has yet to be found.
Ino rolled her head, side to side, trying to pop a kink in her neck and ignoring Minako's question, but knowing Minako, she'll repeat it until she gets a straight answer.
"He mentioned something about it."
On the verge of happiness with her delusions and hardcore repressing, Minako's questioned sucks her back into reality, and it's not a dream anymore. Yes, Ino was in denial about it, but she was happier in it than out.
"How did you survive? You'd have to be a ninja to do something like that."
Ino merely shrugged at the question.
"Do you think he'll come back?"
Nonchalantly, Ino shrugged again. "Who knows?" Why would that sick man return to this place when he let someone survive? Surely, he knew Ino would tattle tale, and have the Cloud ANBU on his ass the next time he showed his disgusting face around the pub.
"Well, I'm glad you came out of it alive, Ino."
Ino is still alive. Last, she spoke with Jin about four hours ago. I have yet to find her. I need time.
- Shikamaru
Well, as promised, I updated. Over the past week, I'm pretty surprised how many people have read my wittle story. I'm even more surprised how many people have favorite and put my story on their alert list. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! So, thank you to everyone who has favorite, alerted, and reviewed!
This chapter wasn't as long as the previous. Well, actually, before I proofread and edited it, this chapter was about ten pages long, but I took out a HUGE scene and decided to place it somewhere in a later chapter. So because of that, it is what it is. And, that is also why that's why it's so dull... This chapter is kinda like a filler really. Hm, I don't know, but it'll pick up sooner or later.
Hmm, hmm, is there anything else?
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Nope, can't think of anything at the moment!
Now, go on and review-tell me what you think, or leave some constructive criticism! That would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, and have a good day.
