The Arrangement
Chapter Ten
Ino traveled from Suna to Konoha in a daze. She didn't even realize it took her four days to get home, when it usually took just three. She didn't care. Her mind had been reeling from the roller coaster of emotions she had been experiencing for the past days she had been away.
Never in her life would she have thought that she'd have any kind of connection with the Kage of Suna. Aside from the man being a really close friend of Naruto's, and the fact that he was once a jinchuuriki, she had known absolutely nothing about him.
And now… she knew too much… so much, in fact, that she had fallen completely, madly in love with him.
This was probably the first time she'd ever compromised a mission because of her personal feelings. She knew that she should be scolding herself for such a lack of display of professionalism. But instead, her mind was filled with thoughts of Gaara, what he was doing right now, and if he was thinking about her, too.
Of course not. Why on earth would he be thinking of you?
No, Ino did not believe she was suffering from mild depression when she got back from her almost-month-long mission. Naruto had commented that she looked 'different', though, and tried to ask her what had happened that resulted to the mission's failure. And because it was Ino's obligation to report to her higher-up, she told him the truth: how she had managed to chase away majority of the daughters and the delegates away from Suna, and the way she had successfully convinced the council of her and Gaara's relationship. She relayed to Naruto how everything backfired and how the council had pulled the rug under them and set a date for a wedding that was not supposed to take place.
"We were forced to withdraw, and the Kazekage-sama had agreed that it was the wisest thing to do. My report ends here," Ino said monotonously as she snapped the mission file she had in her hand. She didn't even know why she bothered to pretend opening it to begin with. After all, it had been empty from the very moment her mission started.
Naruto was sitting behind the clutter on his desk, knuckles under his chin. He was looking at Ino thoughtfully with those sharp blue eyes of his. The man was uncharacteristically serious. Ino met his gaze flatly with her own blue eyes. She didn't know if Gaara had mentioned anything to Naruto about what had really happened, but Ino thought that her feelings for Gaara had nothing to do with Naruto or the village, and so did not feel at all entitled to spill her heart out to the man.
Naruto finally freed his knuckles from under his chin and he plucked a scroll from his left side. "Thanks for your hard work, Ino," Naruto started. "By the way, a messenger hawk came ahead of you with a letter from Gaara." He eyed Ino curiously. "Here." He held it out for Ino.
Ino unconsciously took a step back. "Ah… "
Naruto lowered the scroll on his desk. "It came with a bag of ry o. His payment for your services."
Ino did not know what to say to that. She had failed the mission. Gaara was not required to pay for a mission not met by the village. She did not know why, but the thought of receiving his money insulted her.
"Don't you want to see what's inside the scroll? It's addressed to you, you know." Naruto dangled the scroll in front of her again. "Take it. I don't care if you read it or not. Just take it."
Ino hesitated a bit before finally taking the scroll from Naruto, who was watching her every move. "You know, I was expecting you to be fuming in anger at me for sending you to this kind of mission. You were already seething before you left a month ago. And instead, you're… calm. So calm it's almost scary. Care to talk about it?"
Ino stared down at the scroll for a whole minute, contemplating as to whether she should read it or not.
"Come back to us, Ino. What planet are you visiting?" Naruto said in a sing-song voice as he waved at her from behind his cluttered desk.
Ino looked up at him, her eyes grazing the mess in his office. She remembered Gaara's office was much, much neater. There were no half-eaten instant ramen bowls sitting on the floor by his chair. And he kept his books neat in a shelf, unlike Naruto whose books were all in a pile right next to the shelf where they were supposed to be arranged.
Ino narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't you ever clean your lair?" she asked.
Naruto grinned at Ino, as if the angry tone she had was what Naruto wanted to hear. "Ah, there you go. You sound almost back to normal. And no, I don't clean my lair. I like it messy. It's an organized mess. I know where what is if it's this messy."
"I don't believe you. Where are your extra quill pens?"
Naruto waved randomly over his shoulder. "Somewhere between the pile of garbage and stacks of very unkempt papers." He leaned forward on his desk again. "You have the week off, Ino. I promised you a week's leave with pay. If you don't want to talk about it with me, you're dismissed."
Ino sighed in relief. She had gone straight to Naruto when she got back from her mission. Now all she needed was a very, very warm shower and a soak in her tub. And maybe a few glasses of saké. Ino nodded. "I'm leaving then. If you need anything, don't bother to call for me. I mean it."
Naruto's grin widened. "You really okay? Gaara's treated you well enough, right?"
Ino's mood suddenly plummeted to the ground. She nodded anyway. "He was a perfect gentleman."
"Aha!" Naruto suddenly exclaimed. "So that's it! You were playing the role of Gaara's lover. Perhaps you were expecting something more than – OW!"
Ino had thrown the scroll she had in her hand. It hit Naruto smack on his forehead. "Next time, before you assign a mission, get all the freaking details!"
Naruto was rubbing his forehead painfully. "It was a joke! God! No one can take a joke anymore." He picked up the scroll that had fallen on his lap. "Oh, and don't forget – "
It was too late. Ino had stormed out of Naruto's office.
" – your scroll…" Naruto stared at the empty space in front of him where Ino had been standing just a second ago.
Yamanaka Inoichi had always been a calm, perceptive man. He was twenty-two when he got married to the beautiful daughter of the village florist, and he was twenty-three when his only daughter, Ino, was born. Chouza and Shikaku had been rubbing it in his face for having a daughter instead of a son, but Inoichi didn't care. He'd thought that Ino was the most beautiful baby in the world, and that he didn't care at all that she was a girl.
But as he came home from work at around seven in the evening and found said daughter back from her month-long mission, sitting in their living room couch with her purple comforter twisted around her feet and a pint of her favorite chocolate and mint ice cream perched on a knee, he was starting to wonder if he would have had problems like these if he'd had a son instead.
Ino was staring straight at the TV, totally absorbed in a commercial of seaweed-flavored noodles. She had a spoon in her mouth, and her hair was hanging damp and loose over her shoulders, signs that she had just gotten out of the shower. Inoichi noted that she was already in her pajamas. And it wasn't even past nine.
Inoichi cleared his throat, and that was the only time Ino tore her gaze away from the TV. "Oh, hi dad. Didn't hear you come in."
Inoichi walked into the living room and sat on the chair to Ino's right. "Yeah. I get that a lot lately." He leaned his head on the back of the seat. "Seaweed ramen?"
"Yeah," Ino said, sticking more ice cream into her mouth. "Probably going to taste something like seaweed."
"Yeah. Probably," Inoichi agreed.
"Mom's at the Inuzuka's. She said she'd be back in a few."
"Okay."
"There's spaghetti in the kitchen."
"Okay."
And they were silent.
Inoichi cleared his throat. "So. Anything I can do to help you out?"
Ino let her gaze wander to him. "What?" she asked, bored.
"Something bad happened, right?"
Ino snorted and stabbed the remaining of her ice cream with her spoon. "What makes you say that?"
"Because you're wearing your pajamas before nine, you're stuffing your face with ice cream, and you're watching TV. You hate TV."
"That's not true. I like TV."
Inoichi signed. Ino only said she liked TV when she was bothered because she can pretend she was watching it, even when there really wasn't anything interesting on. "I've known you since you were in diapers. You'd think I'd know if something was off with my own daughter."
Ino sighed, peered into her ice cream and, as if in a test of courage, grabbed her spoon again and started shoveling everything into her mouth. Ino only did that when she wanted an excuse to stop talking.
"Was it the mission?"
Ino shrugged and kept on eating.
"Was it because you failed a mission?"
Another shrug.
Inoichi threw caution to the wind. "Was it because of a guy?"
Ino started coughing violently, nearly splattering ice cream everywhere.
Inoichi stared at his daughter dryly. She was such an honest girl that reading her didn't even require his skill. He leaned forward on his seat. "Care to tell me about it?" It had been four years since he'd last smelled a guy lingering around his little girl. He wondered if it had anything to do with her mission, though he doubted it. She hardly knew anyone from the Sand, and aside from the girl Shikamaru's been eyeing, Ino didn't have any certain association with Suna.
Ino frowned at him and brandished her spoon at him like a weapon. "Even if it is about a guy, what makes you think I'm telling you, dad?"
Inoichi raised an eyebrow at her. She was blushing. This must be some guy. Being his only daughter, Inoichi had always been protective of her, especially since she'd started wearing that tiny little skirt around town. She was a pretty girl and she knew it, and she had mastered the art of seduction to the tee from Tsunade herself, before the woman had retired. And hadn't the Fifth Hokage been the epitome of 'woman'?
Ino seemed like she was able to use those tricks unconsciously; it was like she was capable of turning on her charms without even knowing it. When she was eighteen, she'd had a handful of boys eating out of her hand. Daddy didn't even know if he should have been worried or proud.
And so seeing his little girl – his little girl who could twist a man around her pinky finger – blushing at the mere thought of a boy… well…
Inoichi frowned. A boy from Suna? Impossible…
"Stop that," Ino demanded.
Inoichi jumped. "What?"
"That look."
"What look?"
"That look. You used to give me that look when I was fifteen when a boy dropped by the flower shop to buy flowers for his mother."
Inoichi grinned mirthlessly. Flowers for his mother, indeed. He had been fifteen once. And he had bought flowers 'for his mother' every day just to have an excuse to see his present wife everyday. "I'm not giving you any kind of look, tulip. You're too old for that." Old being the operative word. Could it be she had finally found a good enough man to bring home and introduce to his old man?
Ino deposited her empty ice cream cup on their center table and swung her legs down the sofa and into her fluffy slippers. "Exactly. Even if it were about some boy – which it isn't – I don't think you have any right to meddle with my affairs because I'm not a child anymore."
Inoichi leaned back in his seat and eyed Ino's face. He detected the vertical crease between her eyebrows, the way the corners of her mouth were turned down. Oh, something was bothering her, all right. And it was definitely about a guy. "That's not true. I don't care if you're fifteen, or fifty. You'll always be my little Ino. And I know when you're not happy. And you're not happy right now."
Ino made a small, annoyed noise, though she did not get up and leave him alone in the living room. Back when she was younger, she would retreat into her room when Inoichi tried to talk to her. But right now, it looked like his daughter really needed to blow off some steam.
"Have you met someone?" Inoichi asked slowly.
Ino's face reddened several shades. "Pff – ! Nu – ! You don't ask your daughter if she's met a guy that bluntly!" she started saying things about discretion, and something of the like. Inoichi listened with half an ear.
Back when Ino was younger, he had always worried about her taste in men. Not that she had bad taste. (She was a Yamanaka, of course she had good taste.) And that was why he had worried about her. Inoichi had heard of her daughter being seen with this boy or that, all of them he knew by name because they were jounin he had gotten to work with him on some occasions. Much to Inoichi's surprise, however, Ino hadn't brought a single one home. He did not know if it was Ino herself who didn't want to introduce her boys to her parents, or it was the boy who had the problem of facing her father. He had a hunch it was the latter. Ino didn't date anyone if she wasn't one hundred percent comfortable with him.
"I… I could have. Met someone, I mean. Maybe."
"You mean there really is a guy?" Inoichi's eyes nearly bugged out.
Ino scowled at him. "I said maybe. Okay?" She looked away. "There could be a boy involved."
"What's his name? Where does he live? What does he do for a living?"
Ino stared at him in disbelief. She shook her head. "What on earth am I thinking, trying to tell you all this? Forget it."
Inoichi watched as she started picking at invisible lint on her comforter. "So… you like this guy, eh?"
It was Ino's turn to jump. "What? No, I never said that. He's just another guy. And you know how guys are."
No, actually Inoichi didn't know how guys were. Given he was a guy and all. He nodded anyway. "Yes, well… Guys are guys." It was not like Ino to stereotype people, and her conveniently categorizing the male species like that was not her style. He tried a different approach. "Did he do something wrong? You look very bothered about this." Of course, Inoichi doubted it. If the guy had done something wrong, Ino would have dealt with him accordingly instead of drowning herself in ice cream.
Ino wilted in the couch and she pulled her knees back up to her chest. "Done anything wrong? Well… maybe he did…"
"What did he do?"
Ino started to struggle with the question. "He…"
"Yeah?"
Ino's hand was on her nose bridge in a second. She did that when she was thinking really hard, or trying hard to ward away a migraine. "He… he didn't do anything wrong, dad. He was perfect. He was everything I could ever want in a guy."
This got Inoichi really interested. Anything she could ever want in a guy, huh? "If he's that perfect, then it's obvious he was lying to you. He sounds fishy to me."
Ino let out a strangled sound before rounding on him. "He wasn't lying. He was perfectly honest to me!"
"Then he must be a very good liar. So good, in fact, that you didn't know he was lying to you."
"Oh, stop it," Ino grumbled. "He's a very respectable man. He wouldn't lie. And he didn't."
"Respectable man? What does he do?"
Ino blushed, thought for a second. "He's a very important person involved in Suna's village affairs."
Inoichi was surprised. So it really was a boy from Suna. Did she meet him in her mission? One month was considerably long. "I don't know many people in Suna, but Shikamaru seems to be getting quite cozy with a woman from there, and our Hokage thinks pretty highly of the young Kazekage of theirs."
Ino started coughing violently. "I think I need water…" She hurriedly made an escape to their kitchen.
Inoichi followed her slowly. "Well, you know I won't embarrass you with talks about what men are really after in a girl. If you were sixteen, I'd have told you, 'Ino, stay away from them boys. All they want is to get into your pants.' But since you're not sixteen, here's what I'll tell you: 'If you love him, and if it's bothering you this much to be away from him, then by all means marry him.' And while you're at it, hurry up and give me a grandchild. A boy, preferably. Girls are too high-maintenance, and I'm too old to worry about your third generation."
Ino, who was in the act of retrieving a glass from the cupboard, nearly dropped said glass on the counter. She caught it just in time with a shaky hand before turning around to face him incredulously. "You're my father! Shouldn't you be, like, sad and all at the mere thought of me getting married?"
"Not when you're nearly thirty and you're still living with your parents," Inoichi pointed out. "That, and I haven't seen you this affected by a single guy since… well… I've never seen you this affected by a single guy."
Ino sighed in resignation and abandoned the glass on the counter. "It's no use, dad. It won't work between us. He's just not… He wants something that I know he deserves to have. And the moment I accepted that mission, I was already out of the race."
Inoichi leaned on the back of one of the chairs around their dining table. "So you're giving up on him?"
"I already gave up on him."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Inoichi paused before saying, "So he just wasn't that worth it."
Ino sputtered a few random words. It was one of those rare moments when Yamanaka Ino looked like she had run out of words to say. And that meant one thing: the man that had stolen his daughter's heart was one heck of a guy.
"I'm doing him a favor," Ino said softly and she lowered her chin to her chest, her face hiding behind her long bangs, defeated. "Can we… can we stop talking about this? Please?"
She was begging. And she didn't even try to cover up her weakness with anger, like she always tried to do. Inoichi squeezed the back of the chair thoughtfully. "All right, tulip." He strode over to the covered plate of pasta his wife had left for him on the pantry, then turned to Ino. "It's a shame, though. I would have loved to meet him."
On the third day of Ino's week off, Sakura, Tenten and Hinata dragged Ino out of her house and into the Yakiniku place for a girl's night out. It was horrible. She knew they wanted to do this to squeeze out juicy details about her mission, because they all knew that the only things that could affect Ino's cheerful disposition were: one, weight gain, and two, a man. And since they all knew Ino was still looking definitely fit and sexy… well… they could put two and two together. It must definitely be because of a man.
Ino stared around the table forlornly as she raised her cup of sake to her mouth to hide the scowl forming on her lips. Tenten and Hinata had their heads together over the menu, deciding which meat to order.
"Beef? Pork?" The weapon's mistress suggested as she pointed at the menu with a finger.
"Beef. And maybe a bit of liver." Hinata said.
Ino's head shot up at the mention of liver. She cursed herself for being so jumpy, because Sakura, who was sitting beside her and looking at her own menu, turned towards her curiously.
"Everything all right?" her best friend asked, leaning forward and peering up her face.
Ino shrugged. "Of course. Why shouldn't I be?"
Sakura, thank god, believed her and went back to her menu and hailed a waitress over. The three girls started spouting out orders to the waitress.
"And we'll have that for now," Sakura said in the end. The pink-haired kunoichi was the mastermind of today's gathering. And although Ino knew she meant well, she was just not in the mood to celebrate. Her waking hours had been plagued with red hair and green eyes so much that functioning as a normal human being had been difficult. Even her father had noticed. And that was just not a good sign.
She cursed Gaara for making her fall for him like this.
The thought froze in her head before she realized how unfair that was to the man. He had done everything in his power to make it right in the end, even when it meant admitting to his whole village that he had lied to them. He had ended the lie, and Ino knew that she should have been happy about it. But then why was she so bothered? Why was it that when she had packed her bags and left Suna, Gaara was not there to stop her?
Did I want him to actually stop me from leaving?
Stupid question.
She took a big gulp of her drink and leaned back in her seat. She was surprised when she saw all three of her friends looking at her worriedly.
"You drink like a sailor. You drink like me. I'm so proud," Tenten said smiling, pushing her own drink away and resting her elbows on the table.
"Are you sure you're okay, Ino?" Hinata asked quietly, her white eyes scanning Ino's face.
Sakura sighed. "Ino, we know something's up. The moment you got back from your mission, you were like this zombie, and you tried to avoid talking to me about it for days now."
"That's not true. I wasn't avoiding you. Any of you," Ino said defensively. She was starting to get uncomfortable, because she did not like it when she lied to her friends. They had always been together since their first chuunin exams, and they had been her support group while growing up. But can she talk about this to them? Some of the missions a ninja took required a certain code of secrecy, and although Ino knew that the mission she had with Gaara was more of a favor from Naruto than anything else, she was wondering if it were all right to talk about what had transpired between her and the Kazekage.
Not to mention the fact that one of the reasons why I failed it was because I had fallen madly in love with the man.
Damn her. Damn. Damn. Damn.
"You have that faraway look in your eyes again," Sakura pointed as she tried to act busy with working the grill in front of them. "Something happened in Suna. And you can't hide it from us."
"Is this… is this because of a guy?" Hinata asked, face suddenly turning red with hope. "Have you finally met someone?"
Tenten giggled excitedly. "After four years of celibacy, have you finally realized you need a man in your life?"
Ino scowled at Tenten and Hinata. "Oh, I see where this is going. You two are happy with your own men that you want me to hook up with someone, too." She turned to Sakura. "Tell them to stop, Sakura. Tell them that being single isn't as bad as it looks."
Sakura backed away from her a bit in her seat. "Hey, just because I'm single and your single doesn't put us on the same side. We're here because you're keeping a secret from your friends."
Tenten's chocolate eyes sparkled as she gave Ino a knowing look. "You met someone in Suna, didn't you? And I bet it had been amazing, and then you find out he didn't feel the same about you!"
Ino's heart clenched so tightly in her chest that she couldn't breathe. What Tenten said came so close to the truth that hearing it come from someone else's mouth hurt physically. She shook a fist at Tenten. "When you and Neji have a fight, don't you come running to me when you need a place to sleep, you spineless fish!"
Tenten laughed happily at her reaction. "I'm right, aren't I?"
Hinata turned to Tenten disapprovingly. "Tenten! Don't be so callous about this! What if it's true?"
Tenten brushed the Hyuuga's comment aside. "That's impossible. We're talking about Ino here. No man can resist that face, right Ino?"
Ino's eyes were trained to the grill, and she barely heard them talking around her. Come to think of it, what did Gaara think about her? What did Gaara feel? She had been so caught up in her own emotions that she wasn't even able to see Gaara one more time to say thank you and goodbye.
He must think you're a real ass.
Ino forced a smile on her face. "Fine. I did meet someone. And he was amazing. But you win some, you lose some, I guess," she said, trying to be vague.
Sakura's face suddenly darkened. "He turned you down?"
Well, not really…
Hinata gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "No!"
Tenten was already in a bout of disbelief. "But why? What an idiot! He's probably some insecure ass who has a small – "
"Tenten!" Sakura hissed. "We'll use our creative vocabulary when we're not in public."
Ino laughed a bit, suddenly feeling faint. Well, she surely did not think Gaara was an insecure ass. Although she couldn't really defend him with Tenten's latter accusation. The mere thought of it made her blush. She started to fan herself. "It's all right, guys. It's not like it's the end of the world. I'll meet others."
It was so easy to say. But she didn't know why it bothered her. Maybe it was because she did not want to meet others.
I just want him.
The waitress came, and Ino was glad for the distraction as all kinds of raw, sliced meat were laid out in front of her to grill. Unfortunately, her friends were far from done.
"Who is this guy, anyway? He seems so full of himself that he had the nerve to reject our Ino," Tenten fumed as she flung three pieces of liver onto the grill all at once.
Ino eyed the liver slices in horror. She watched them shirk and shrivel in the fire. "You wouldn't know him," she lied.
He just happens to be the Kazekage. No big deal.
"What's his name? I've been to Suna a few times to conduct lessons in poison making and antidote development," Sakura said as she turned over a piece of veal in the grill. "I might know who he is."
Ino shook her head quickly. "I doubt it."
"Really? I might – "
"You don't know him," Ino insisted.
Tenten narrowed her eyes at her. "You're hiding something from us." She then turned to Sakura. "I bet she fell in love with a very unattractive guy, and she's ashamed because he's short, and has a unibrow."
Ino knew Tenten was being serious, but she ended up laughing at her comment. "A unibrow?"
Tenten rolled her eyes. "Yeah."
Ino fanned the hand holding her chopsticks in front of her face. "Trust me, he is attractive. And tall. And the best abs you've ever seen. And he doesn't even have eyebrows." She had let the words slip out without realizing it.
All three eyes zoned in on her as she laughed quietly.
"Oh, god. Unibrow…" Ino snickered as she busied herself with the three pieces of liver on the grill. When she finally realized her friends had gone silent, she looked up, smiling. "What?"
"Ino, you… " Tenten started, mouth hanging open.
Hinata was blushing like crazy, her chopsticks poised in mid-poke.
Sakura's face suddenly brightened in realization. "Oh, god."
Ino's smile slipped from her face. "What? What did I say?"
Sakura cleared her throat. "Ino, the man who rejected you… he doesn't happen to have…. Uh… flaming red hair, does he?"
Ino's smile completely vanished from her face.
"Uhm… h-he doesn't have a red kanji mark on his forehead that reads uhm… 'love', does he?" Hinata squeaked in her small voice. She was nervous. Hinata only stuttered when she was nervous.
Tenten's mouth had opened widely into a silent 'O'.
Ino dropped her chopsticks onto the table. Damn it all! She did not just give herself away!
Sakura grabbed her around the neck with a firm arm and pulled her down on the table. "Tell me you did not fall in love with Gaara of the Sand."
Ino wanted to die then and there. She let her best friend wrestle her to the table, nearly knocking down a plate of sausages. There was no use in hiding it from them. The cat was out of the bag. "What if I tell you that he is the guy that I fell in love with?" she asked in a small voice.
Sakura paused, almost in disbelief, and she let go of Ino's neck. Tenten and Hinata looked almost as shocked as she was. Ino stared at the liver on the grill. They had already started to burn black. She retrieved her chopsticks and saved them from total annihilation.
Tenten slammed her palm on the table, making their orders jump a few inches into the air. "Ino."
Ino looked up in surrender. "Uhm, yeah?"
"We have all night. Start talking."
And so she did. And it did take all night. She had wanted to tell them briefly of what really happened, about the mission, about Gaara's predicament, about how she had ended up having feelings for the man. But her friends didn't want brief explanations. No. They wanted the whole thing. So they asked about it, trying to squeeze out every stinking detail.
And so she told them everything. Every stinking detail.
And in the end this was what they had to tell her:
"You. Are. An. Idiot!" Tenten seethed, and it had nothing to do with the massive amounts of alcohol she had consumed while Ino had been busy with relaying them the story.
"What? Why am I an idiot?" Ino demanded. "I did what I had to do, for the sake of the man, and you call me an idiot?"
Sakura was leaning back on her seat, staring at the ceiling. "You are impossible," she droned. "The man was obviously into you!"
"You don't know that! He never said anything!" Ino said loudly.
"You were practically sleeping with him!" Tenten pointed out.
"And he likes your cooking," Hinata added softly.
"That's trivial," Ino said.
Sakura groaned loudly. "If what you told us was as accurate as I know it is, I'd say the man was madly in love with you."
"You should have just married him! Poor guy!" Tenten cried.
"Hey, whose side are you on? You're my friends, remember?" Ino said, feeling a bit hurt. If it had been up to her, she would have preferred not to tell them about it. And now that she finally did, they were acting as if she was the bad guy!
Tenten wagged a finger at her. "You're a Yamanaka. Why didn't you know what he was feeling for you?"
"What?" Ino demanded in frustration. "I can't believe this! Weren't you listening to what I just told you? The man wants something more than what I can offer! I was just hired help! I couldn't give him the romance that he wanted." God. Now she was starting to feel really bad. She turned to Hinata. "You understand, Hinata, right? You know what I'm trying to say?"
The Hyuuga looked up from the cooked chicken sitting on her plate and gave Ino a pained smile. "Can I ask you a question, Ino?"
Ino swallowed. "Sure."
"Between all the caresses, and the embraces, and the make-up kisses, when did he supposedly 'reject' your feelings?"
Ino swallowed. "I don't get the question."
Hinata was patient with her. "You said earlier, before we found out that it was Gaara-san, you didn't deny that he rejected your feelings. When did he reject you?"
Ino was silent for a moment, before finally admitting, "He didn't. I never bothered to ask."
Sakura and Tenten looked like they were about to explode into another frenzy of complains. Hinata shushed them with a hand, then turned to Ino and said, "What Gaara-san wants in a relationship is something he has to decide, not you. And given that you never bothered to tell the man your feelings and assumed that he didn't feel the same way was very unfair, and very childish, especially when you left without saying goodbye."
And that was when the reality started kicking in.
Because Hinata, Tenten and Sakura were right.
She was an idiot. And it was just too late.
A month after she got back to the Leaf, Ino was already willing to move on with her life and bury the wonderful memories she had spent with the Kazekage, because she knew that she couldn't blame herself forever for it. There had been times in the day when she would still catch herself thinking about Gaara, especially when she drank tea. She would wonder if he had finally found a bride, or if the council had found one for him. That thought would bring sharp, stabbing pains in her chest, and at some occasions she had found herself running to the toilet before the tears spilled down her face because of the memory.
She had decided to bury herself in work, and Sakura gave her long hours in the hospital, though her best friend disapproved of it. Ino had assured Sakura that she would be fine, and she took the long night shifts the whole month of May, loving the fact that she was always preoccupied and busy, and very dead tired after work to even think about the man with the flaming red hair.
Hinata, Sakura and Tenten had been supportive, and much to her surprise, even her father understood her. They never bothered to ask her about anything concerning that mission she had done in Suna, and she was grateful. Naruto was probably the only one dense enough to ask about what had happened, and she had to ask Hinata to tell Naruto off, and he finally backed down.
So by the end of that month, she had finally found peace in work, and rest in fatigue. And everything was good.
Until one fine Sunday, at the end of May, when her past started to catch up with her.
It was seven in the morning when it all began, an hour before her shift ended. Sakura had come in to tell her there was something serious going on in the Yamanaka compound.
"What happened? Is everything okay?" Ino asked worriedly as she stood from the office table where she had been arranging patients' portfolios alphabetically.
Sakura took down one of the lab gowns she had hanging on the peg behind the door. "I passed by the flower shop and your father was there and he asked me to tell you to come home as fast as you can. I noticed a large group of people crowding your garden, though, but I didn't stop to snoop around and came here as fast as I could. I'll cover the remaining hour of your shift. You should go."
Ino was already taking off her own lab gown. She hoped it wasn't her mother, or her grand parents. "Thanks. What could it be?"
Sakura's face was unreadable as she herded her out the door. "Just go. The sooner you get there, the sooner you'd know."
Ino nodded. "I'm off then," she said and whirled around, running down the hallway, missing the small smile that had curved Sakura's lips.
Her heart was thundering in her ribcage as she flew down the street leading to her house. Sakura was right. There was a huge crowd of onlookers in front of her garden, and her throat closed up at the possibility of who could have been injured during a mission.
"Pardon me. Coming through," Ino muttered as she elbowed her way through the crowd, annoyed that there had to be so many of them rubber-necking into someone else's business. You'd think no one had anything better to do at seven in the morning but ogle someone's household.
Shikamaru was the one who welcomed her by the door, and she practically tackled the man to the ground.
"Is someone hurt? What happened?" she demanded.
Shikamaru grabbed her shoulders and pried her away from him. He had a bored look on his face, as always, and he said, "Sheesh! Calm down. Everything's all right."
Ino gestured behind her. "Are you sure? Sakura said I needed to get here as fast as I could. And… and these people – " The words were cut off when an amused-looking Temari stepped out of the door. The woman looked from Shikamaru to Ino.
"Ah, you're finally here. Everyone's shocked to see us," Temari said, looking hassled.
Ino stared at her as if she were hallucinating. "Temari?" she asked, shocked. Before she could even ask any more questions, she threw her arms around her. "Oh, my god! You're here? You're here! Why are you here?"
Temari pulled away from her, smiling. "You look well. How are things?"
Ino laughed. "Everything's been all right. I've missed you!" She gave Temari one final hug before finally giving her a bit of space. "Is there anything wrong?" And as if finally remembering, she turned to Shikamaru. "What's going on?"
Shikamaru darted a quick look at Temari, who shrugged. Shikamaru sighed. "I think it would be easier if you just stepped inside. Your old man's waiting for you."
"My dad? But… why? What's going on? And these people? It's like they've seen a celebrity or something."
Temari had an arm around her shoulder. "Let's just go, all right. I'm not even sure why you're more surprised than we are. I was so certain you'd be happy to see us."
Ino felt her knees turn to lead as she was stirred into her own house. She could hear her father talking as she approached the living room.
"… was sure she would have told me if she knew. Though I never would have thought it would be you. Of all people."
Ino froze in her tracks. She looked up at Temari. "W-what's going on?" she asked nervously.
Temari didn't bother to answer her. She shoved her through the door to her receiving room.
Ino staggered forward, nearly falling on her face as her toe got caught at the edge of the carpet. She balanced herself on a chair and looked up to see what was going on.
And there, sitting on their couch right across Yamanaka Inoichi, was the man that had been invading her dreams for many nights now.
And in his hands was Ino's baby photo album, which was conveniently opened on the page where Ino was two, and her mother was changing her diaper.
"There she is," Inoichi said proudly, not the least bit guilty that he had betrayed his own daughter by divulging to a foreigner her naked baby pictures.
Ino straightened when Gaara looked up from her photo album and those deep green eyes met hers. It had been a mere month she hadn't seen him, but it was as if his beauty had magnified tenfold. His hair was strangely neat, the spikes a bit tamed over his forehead. She wanted to run her fingers through them to mess them up, just to make sure that it was really him.
And he nodded. "Hello," he said.
Words betrayed her then, and she blinked several times to make sure that he wasn't some sort of mirage. When she'd finally gotten hold of herself, she turned to her father. "What's going on here?"
Inoichi raised his eyebrows. "You tell me. I didn't know he was coming over to see you."
Ino paled. "Because I didn't know!"
That was when Gaara finally closed her photo album – thank god! – and stood from his place on the couch. "Why didn't you know? I sent word the moment you left Suna a month ago that I'll be coming by the end of May."
Ino's mouth opened and closed like a fish, floundering around for any possible hint that he had given her about such a visit. None came to mind. "That's not true! I never received – oh…" And then it hit her.
"On your way back, a messenger hawk came ahead of you with a letter from Gaara," Naruto's voice rang through her mind.
Now that she thought about it, there had been a scroll waiting for her when she got back from Suna.
And she had chucked it into Naruto's forehead without even bothering to read it…
Ino used the chair to keep herself from falling over. "Oh… oh, god."
"You didn't get it?" Gaara asked, a bit disappointed.
Ino ducked her head sheepishly. "I attacked Naruto with it. I never got to read what was inside," she admitted weakly.
Gaara was silent, and he looked from Ino to Inoichi, who was now waiting for what was going to happen next.
Ino shook her head. "But never mind. What are you doing here?" Her heart was beating a mile a minute. In the wilder, most optimistic parts of her subconscious, she was thinking that he was here because of her.
"I'm here to ask your hand in marriage, Yamanaka Ino. Do you accept?"
"Oh, bring it on, baby!"
She snapped back into reality as Gaara walked towards her. Here it was. He was going to tell her that he loved her and that he shouldn't have let it go in the first place, and then he was going to sweep her off her feet and they were going to ride out into the sunset on a white horse!
Gaara stopped right in front of her, those serious eyes that she had missed so much were keen on her face as he looked down on her. "I'm getting married," he said.
The smile Ino didn't even know was there on her mouth froze instantly. "What?"
Gaara didn't even blink. "I'm getting married, Ino. The same day you left Suna, the council had decided for me, and so I sent a letter to you to inform you of the outcome of your mission with us."
He's getting… married…?
But what about her white horse and her sunset?
Now, in any normal circumstance, she would have pretended that it didn't bother her, that she was happy for him, and that she wished the best for him and his soon-to-be wife. (May she die a slow and painful death…) But right now, all she could think of was the fist that had plunged into her chest and started squeezing the life out of her heart.
She wavered and Gaara's hand was supporting her arm to keep her from falling. "Y-you're getting married? Really?"
"Yes," Gaara said. "Are you all right?"
Ino felt her skin sizzle where his hand was holding her up. The reality started to crash around her like dominos, and she fought to keep her stinging eyes from excreting tears that would be too embarrassing to shed in front of her father, who was shaking his head for some reason.
She tried to smile. "T-that's great! I mean, you're all right with it, right?"
Gaara nodded. "I have to get married sooner or later. I knew I couldn't run away from it any more."
Ino nodded shakily. "I'm… wow… Congratulations." She didn't even know when she had started shivering, because she was looking down at her legs and they were barely keeping her up because they were shaking so badly.
So it really was over. It was all over. The man she had fallen hopelessly in love with was getting married, and there wasn't anything she could do. She looked up at him. His face was still as expressionless as before, and his eyes unreadable. "When and where are you getting married?" she asked, somehow feeling stupid for asking because she didn't think she was going to drop by and wish them well on their wedding day.
Gaara nodded to Inoichi. "We were just talking about that, and your father has requested it to be held here in Konoha, in the summer when cosmos dot your fields. He said you'd love that."
Ino nodded shakily. "Yeah. That sounds nice."
Silence.
Ino stared at Gaara and blinked.
Gaara stared back at her stoically.
Ino blinked again. "I'm sorry, what?"
That was when Gaara started to get nervous. "Would you want it to be somewhere else? In the spring?"
Ino shook herself. "Wait. What are you saying?"
Gaara shrugged. "That I'm getting married."
"To whom?" Ino asked wildly.
Gaara's face went grim. "I had thought I'd made that clear in my scroll, if you had just bothered to read it."
Ino;s mouth fell open. "You're getting married to me?"
"Don't you want to?" Gaara asked uncertainly. "Because Kankurou and Temari had been so angry at me the day you left for not asking you to marry me. So I had to send you a message that said I'd visit you at the end of May when I've arranged for my assistants and Baki to fill in for my spot while I visit your family and ask your hand in marriage."
Inoichi was now looking down at his fingernails nonchalantly. "And while you were away, I asked him to take you off my hands. Goodbye, daughter. May you have many, many children."
Ino's world was spinning. There were so many questions she wanted to ask! She settled for the one she thought to be the most important. "Your siblings had to force you to ask me to marry you? Are you doing this because you were forced to?" she asked, scared of his answer.
"They didn't force me to ask you to marry me. They forced me to tell you my feelings."
Ino cocked her head to the side. "And what are your feelings?"
"That I love you," he said simply.
Ino's face nearly burst into flames, having him say he loved her in front of her father. She tried to cover it up with more questions. "How long have you loved me?"
Gaara thought for a second, then, "From that night you held me in your arms – "
"Wait!" Ino screamed. She turned to her father. "Can you leave us, please?"
Inoichi looked disappointed. "Do I have to?" he asked.
Ino glared at him evilly.
Inoichi raised his hands in front of him. "Fine, fine. I'm going. If you need me, I'll be in my room." He made to leave, then turned around and said, "No hanky-panky or else."
"Da~ad!" Ino whined.
Inoichi burst out laughing as he disappeared up the stairs to the bedrooms.
"Your father is an interesting man," Gaara mused as his eyes followed Inoichi up the stairs. "He talked lovingly of you for thirty minutes straight, then spent the next half hour threatening me that if I don't treat you well, he will hunt me down and kill me, even though I'm the Kazekage."
Ino's face felt hot all over again. "I'm sorry."
"It was the first time anyone's ever threatened me that creatively. It was an eye-opening experience."
Ino smiled as she shyly looked up at him. "Gaara."
He looked down at her, meeting her gaze.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner that you felt that way about me?" Ino asked.
Gaara's eyes clouded over. "Confessing my love wasn't my strongest skill. And at one point I was certain you felt the same for me, so I thought that I didn't need to confirm it with words. I was wrong. I should have told you. I should have asked you what you felt for me. I'm sorry."
Ino could only shake her hear vigorously. "Gaara, I love you, too. And I'm as guilty as you are. I should have told you, instead of just assumed that was what you felt... I shouldn't have left... I was a coward. I'm sorry, too," she said, smiling as she felt a wave of tears threatened to fall again. Damn it all. She had been stressing over nothing for the past month. She would have saved herself the heart ache if she had just read that scroll!
Gaara took a step towards her, and tentatively placed his hands on her waist. "I've already talked to your father before asking you, because I thought you already knew I was coming over. It turns out you don't know, so… " He pulled her closer to him.
Ino's arms slipped around his neck slowly. "Yeah?"
"I may not be perfect, and there are times when I could be slow when it comes to things that you would probably think normal, and there could be times when I would have to stay up late at work on occasion. And – "
"Gaara?"
"What?"
Ino smiled. "Marry me?"
Gaara's confused face melted into a smile, the brightest one she had seen on his face yet. "I would love to."
Ino pulled his head down near hers, and her lips met his.
And she decided then and there that make-up kisses were the best kisses in the world.
"You're mine," Gaara whispered into her lips.
"I'm yours," Ino agreed.
~Fin~
A/N: And here ends "The Arrangement". Thank you for the people who had bothered to read, review, favorite and put into story alert this little project of mine. And to those who had been so nice as to point out my mistakes in the chapters! It wouldn't have been possible if you all hadn't been there to give me the inspiration to write this. This was my first ever GaaIno story, and I had a lot of fun writing about them. I may write about them again after I give my other story a bit of lovin'. It's time I gave SaiSaku the attention that they need. XD
Keep your eyes peeled for an Epilogue, which would be about their wedding day. I'm not sure when I'll be able to post it. I was concentrating on pushing myself to finish a multi-chaptered story in a month's time and I'm glad to say that I made it just in time!
Again, to my readers, thank you! I'll miss writing for this pairing.
Here's to more inspiration to come! Cheers!
~Yuugiri~