It was a free period that their teacher allowed them to be outside to study or use their time as productively as they wished. Ino and Choji were sitting under a shaded tree, where the latter was doing her hair in a fishtail braid.
Out of all of her friends Choji was the best at styling her hair just as she wanted. He learned when they were growing up as he said to stop her incessant tantrums, because no one could give her princess hair not even her mom or Sakura. Some boys used to try to make fun of him, until Naruto started giving black eyes to anyone who started to. Now since they had time and no homework to do at the moment, Ino thought she'd make use of it.
They were separated from the rest of their classmates, who they could see from a distance. It was quiet other than Ino humming random pop songs, because Choji was concentrating just having finished brushing through the long platinum locks. He now began sectioning off what he needed to do and started weaving his fingers through. This continued, until Ino felt Choji stop.
"Choji?" Nothing. "Hey Choji! Wake up!" She said as she snapped her fingers close to where she assumed his face was.
"Oh! Sorry I just...Hinata's wearing a dress."
Sure enough when Ino looked over the dark haired girl was dressed in black flats, a simple gray dress, and a light blue cardigan. She was raptly or politely listening to Kiba and Naruto, as they took turns telling some story. "Yeah she has a speech today and is kinda required to dress up."
It was a beat before Choji mumbled. "Just never seen her in a dress before."
"Well yeah she usually doesn't-" Ino cut herself off with a grin forming her on her face. "Why Choji is this a crush I detect? You have the hots for little miss quiet sunshine?"
"What? No I don't!"
"Ha! You totally do."
"You.. you're delusional."
"And you're in denial bet you wish she was in my place, so you could run your fingers through her ha- Ouch!"
"Oh I'm sorry did I pull too tight?" Choji answered innocently almost convincingly.
Ino huffed while subsiding with a quiet "bastard." They remained in silence, while Choji finished wrapping up the braid, and Ino played on her phone. She was just about to speak up, before he beat her to it.
"Sorry Ino it's just not something, that I'd like to talk about right now."
"But why?"
Ino could tell Choji was shrugging without looking at him.
"Because she'd never feel the same."
"You don't know that. Have you ever even mentioned or dropped a hint that you like her?"
"No because I don't want to confirm what I believe."
Choji held out his hand in front of her wordlessly asking for a hair tie, which Ino gave without pause. Their attention was drawn to Naruto letting out a whoop of glee and giving Hinata a friendly peck on the cheek. She heard Choji let out a rather choked noise, before he got out. "I gotta go. It looks great Ino." He then stumbled away from her in a hurry.
"Choji wait!" But he was in no mood to listen and hurried off as if she had said nothing. Ino let out a sigh and picked up her flower compact. 'He was right her hair did look good.' It reminded her a lot of Elsa's braid. She closed the compact releasing another sigh, as she stood up and dusted herself off. "How tragic is unrequited love."
"It's not unrequited." A voice sounded directly behind her, and she released a small scream causing several people to look over at her. Ino turned furiously to face the source of her fright growling at him. "Shino! We have talked about you doing this. We even made it rule #9!" He got kicks out of doing it. It was the only explanation.
Shino continued, as if she hadn't spoken. "Hinata." Peering at her from behind his sunglasses. "She returns his feelings. She no longer holds them for Naruto."
"Wait what? Are you serious?!"
"Always Ino."
"Do you know what this means?"
"That our friends are mutually pining for each other."
"Well yes...but do you know what this also means?"
That got her an eyebrow lifted in silent question.
"Exactly we should totally intervene to get them together."
"We should not." He spoke in a matter of fact manner. "Why you ask? Because it will only end in disaster at best and utter catastrophe at worst."
Shooting him a frustrated glance, Ino continued. "Shino can you think of anything more tragic than unspoken true love?"
"Aside from the fact that it's doubtful what they share is love, I can name several human trafficking, SIDS, abuse, rape, slav-"
"Okay I get the point! Multiple things are worse, but still I can't just sit back and do nothing. They're our friends, and I feel like we owe it to them to help or at least push them in the right direction." She tried to channel Naruto's ability to pull out the best puppy dog eyes hoping it'd have the desired effect. Whether it worked or not Shino slumped imperceptibly, as he released a quiet sigh of his own and gave her a single sharp nod.
"So you're on board? You're help me?" Ino questioned back to grinning at her success.
"Against my better judgment yes. What do you need?"
"Perfect! Now here's what I was thinking..."