Study of the Heart
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Chapter 11
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"Okay, I think you're ready, but I want to test you before we set you loose on Sakura." Ino tapped her lips as a very sullen looking Shikamaru trailed behind them. "So I'm going to find you someone to flirt with, and we'll see how you do, all right?"
"This is ridiculous." Shikamaru opined, and Ino ignored his opinion, as she had been doing for the last three hours.
"Let's see, who might…oh! Okay, go over there. See that girl window shopping? Go see if you can make her blush."
"Blush?" Sai narrowed his eyes with the determination of any ninja on a serious mission. "Got it." He walked away and Ino shoved Shikamaru back around a corner where they could watch Sai without being seen.
"Come on…keep it together, Sai," Ino was silently cheering for her student, and Shikamaru seemed to have at least a small amount of interest in what would happen. They could see him saying something, and the girl answered, smiling brightly. "Good! Did you see that! Good!" Ino squeezed Shikamaru's arm and he frowned disconsolately. Suddenly, the girl slapped Sai and ran away, and her excitement evaporated, just as Shikamaru started laughing.
"The mission was successful." Sai reported, much to Ino's shock. "I certainly made her blush."
"You also made her slap you!" Ino pointed out in annoyance. "Tell me exactly what happened!"
"I told her that her blouse was very lovely, like you told me." Sai reminded her. "You told me to choose something about her and tell her it was lovely."
"Yes, yes, very good. I could see she liked that."
"Yes, she said that was very nice of me to say." Sai continued. "But I could see right away that she would not blush with something so simple. I had not succeeded with my first line, so I had to try another line, and this time, I knew I had to give it my full determination."
"What did you say?!" Ino asked in desperation.
"Well, you told me that another good thing to say is a suggestion of something you would like to do with her that might imply intimacy, something that the two of you would do alone. I immediately thought of shopping, since she was looking at clothes, clearly shopping. But I did not think that would make her blush, so I told her that I would quite like to put the moves on her."
"No! No you didn't!" Ino threw her hands up and swayed dramatically. Shikamaru laughed out loud, thoroughly enjoying himself. After a few moments of horrified devastation, Ino straightened herself, and addressed Sai in a disheartened tone. "Okay, some suggestions. Stop using that phrase, right now! I never want to hear you talking about putting the moves on anyone!"
"What should I say, then?" Sai asked. "Would it be better if I had just asked her to have sex?"
"No!" Ino shrieked, and a few passersby turned to see what the commotion was, so she went on more quietly. "No, Sai, no. Don't ever just ask a girl something like that. Don't you see what's wrong with that?"
"But you said the point of flirting was to let the other person know that you are attracted to them without saying it. I would certainly only want to have sex with someone I was attracted to." Sai pointed out.
"He makes a valid point." Shikamaru was barely able to get the words out without bursting into laughter again, and Ino shot him a deadly glare.
"Okay, I think you need to think about being polite while still being flirtatious. You've read about etiquette, right?" Ino asked, and Sai shook his head in denial. She sighed heavily. "Well. That explains a lot. We'll need to get you a couple books on that before you can continue with this, because it's pretty clear to me that you really don't understand the difference between subjects that are unacceptable and ones that are appropriate. You can't just proposition someone you've only just met."
"I see. But since we are friends, I could proposition you?" he asked, his brow furrowing as he began taking notes. "I mean to say, if you weren't already in a relationship. I recall that it is not a good thing to ask someone already in a relationship to start up a relationship with yourself." He glanced at Shikamaru, who was still too busy laughing at his failures to be jealous or upset by what he had said without thinking.
"No, you can't proposition people really at all. Even if Shikamaru were to turn to me and ask me to have sex, I would slap him like that girl slapped you, and I'm his girlfriend." Ino explained.
"Then how does he get sex if he wants it?" Sai frowned. "Oh, wait, I think I understand. Ino, you are a virgin."
"That—that has nothing to do…" Ino blushed furiously. "Okay, if you must know, yes, yes I am. But even if Shikamaru already did those sorts of things, it's not appropriate for him to just say 'Let's have sex,' especially with you right here. That's a private subject, and it isn't something to be suggested in public, really. So now do you see why that girl was so offended?"
"I think that this system of rules makes it far too difficult. Let me ask Shikamaru a question. If Ino turned to you and asked you for sex right now, would you be offended?" Sai turned to the man, who laughed nervously and coughed slightly.
"That question is silly, I wouldn't do that." Ino spoke up before Shikamaru could say anything.
"But if you did. Hypothetically." Sai asked. "I've noticed there are many differences between perceptions of behavior between men and women, and I would be interested to know if it would upset Shikamaru the way it would upset you."
"This is stupid!" Ino threw up her hands, her face bright red. "Sai, don't come back to me until you know about etiquette. And don't ask questions like that! They're too…private."
"Oh, I apologize." Sai nodded slightly. "I thought that you wanted to share any information you could that might help me, but I see now that there are things that you are not comfortable discussing in your own relationship. I will have to address my questions elsewhere, with a couple that is more comfortable with the subject of sex. Could you suggest such a couple?"
"You can't just…" Ino buried her face in her hands. "You don't know anything about our relationship! You can't make judgments based on that! I have the right to keep some things private, and it's none of your business whether I want to talk about that or not!"
"That's enough, come on," Shikamaru put a comforting arm around her waist, calming her down. "Let's go get something to eat, we can talk to Sai later, okay?" and just that quickly, Sai was left alone on the street, watching them go. It struck him once more that he seemed to have a knack for saying the wrong thing, for making the situation worse, and for alienating people he wanted to be close to.
If I cannot even treat my friends properly, it seems impossible that I would be able to make a girlfriend happy. From what I have seen, people expect more sensitivity and consideration from their significant others than from anyone else. That is my weakest point. Even if I could make Sakura fall in love with me, I am sure to drive her away.
He suddenly felt envious of his friends, of their ability to simply know what to do and say in seemingly infinite possible social situations. He would never be like that. No matter how he studied, it seemed to him there was a certain upbringing required, an early socialization that he could never replace, no matter how many books he read or how many people he observed.
"You should never believe that there's something wrong with you because you can't be perfect all the time. That's what makes you human, and that's what makes you a good friend and a good person."
He could still remember Sakura's words that day in her room. She had filled him with the hope that his way of thinking was not necessarily a handicap, but just a measure of his own personality. He wondered, if there truly was just one person for every other person in the world, one that they were fated to love and to be loved by, just as Naruto theorized. If there was, could the person he was meant to be with be Sakura? She said that his way of thinking made him a good friend, and a good person, but would she think that he could be a good boyfriend, as well? Naruto had many friends, and he cared about them in different ways, because they were different people. But he had only ever truly loved one person, even though he seemed to care about everyone he ever became acquainted with. If someone as friendly and accepting of others as Naruto could be so selective, then it made Sai sure that his chances of being loved by anyone were very slim indeed. He was lucky just to have friends, despite his faults, who accepted him and overlooked his occasional social mistakes. Who in the world would want to be in love with someone like him? Certainly not someone like Sakura. She would want someone as smart as herself, not just when it came to book knowledge, but also someone who could perceive her moods and understand what to do for her in any situation, someone who could match her own social wisdom. She told him that everyone made mistakes, that no one knew what to say all the time, but it seemed everyone knew more about that sort of thing than Sai. Even young children displayed more understanding of sensitivity and perception of emotions.
Sai realized that he was afraid. He was afraid of having his heart broken. He had expressed an interest in it, of course, since the beginning of this study. However, now that he found himself faced with the very likely possibility that he was doomed not to have his feelings returned, he found that the idea of simply hiding his love for Sakura was much more appealing than the prospect of almost certain rejection. Just because she had always been kind to him, even in the beginning, when he had tried his best not to feel anything for her or Naruto or anyone else, just because she had always been patient with him, and forgiven him without fail for anything he did that upset her or anyone else, that did not mean that she wanted to be in a romantic relationship with him. She was patient with Naruto's inattention to explanations, his inability to retain facts and figures, or to understand many things she tried to teach him. She was patient with Sasuke's refusal to acknowledge her feelings, as well as his callous behavior that had barely warmed in all the years that they had known each other, and she had forgiven him for casting her aside in favor of Naruto. She was patient with Ino's short temper, her egotism, and they had remained friends even after a long rivalry. Sakura was just that type of person. It was foolish of him to expect to receive something more from her, when she had treated him no better or worse than any of her friends. She did not owe him anything, and if the truth was to be told, he owed her endlessly for all that she had done for him, to help him grow from someone who had no reason to live beyond the next mission, to someone who could laugh and smile and feel, and who had friends and many people who cared about him. Naruto, by himself, so preoccupied with Sasuke, would never have taken the time to help him foster his ability to interact with other people, but Sakura had answered endless questions, had offered him hours of insight, and had accepted him as a friend even after he had mistreated her and lied to her.
Now he saw how Sakura felt, and why she was afraid. She was concerned that there would never be anyone who she could love that would truly love her. He felt a very real suspicion that while she would certainly be loved by many people throughout her life because of the sort of person she was, he would never find someone who could truly love him, for exactly the same reason. He did not mean to be callous, he did not want to hurt his friends, and he did not mean to say things that would make them feel badly. However, he did these things without fail, and it seemed that was just the sort of person he was. Friendship was a challenge to him, and he felt like love was a challenge he would never be able to meet. Falling in love was easy, it seemed. Being in love was something more difficult than he had ever experienced before. Never on his many high level missions had he thought that the probability of failure was high enough to worry him at all. In battle he was confident. He wished that he could be confident in love as well, but he felt sure that failure was almost a foregone conclusion.
Then, in his mind's eye, he saw Naruto, and he realized that when presented with such an impossible situation, his friend would only be encouraged to try harder than ever before. Naruto was never worried when he was presented with a mission that seemed to be a no-win scenario. He shined brightest in adversity, and had always been able to encourage his teammates to shine brighter as well. If Naruto was in his place, Sai knew that he would not simply hide his feelings, knowing how impossible it was that Sakura could ever feel the same way as he did. Naruto would redouble his efforts. He would do anything he could think of, anything anyone could suggest to him, that might make victory a possibility, no matter how slim the chance, and in the end, he would inevitably prevail. Sai realized that if he wanted to have any chance with Sakura at all, he would have to try his hardest. He would have to call on all his resources, and he would have to believe in himself. He would have to adopt Naruto's attitude that no matter how bleak the situation seemed, he would certainly come out on top.
And if that failed, he would at least know that he had done everything possible to win her over, that no one could say he had simply given up. It was true that he might not be able to make her love him, no matter how hard he tried, no matter what he did, but if there was anything he could do to have the chance…he was willing to try his hardest for her.
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To be continued…
