"I spin out into an anxiety hole so deep that it feels less like anxiety - or that I am dying, as I usually fear - but like I am in a battle with demons." ~ Melissa Broder
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The leaves are turning blood orange in Konoha, but Kiri retains its 'healthy foliage'. Shikamaru wrinkles his nose—it's disgustingly humorous that a place known for mists of blood and butchery has agreeable weather three hundred and sixty five days. He'd probably be more inclined to happiness if he woke up to the smell of sea salt every morning.
Not too hot. Not too cold. Somewhere in the middle. Like his personality.
He follows Tenten down a thin alley bustling with foot-traffic. Glints of sunlight slither through the taut strands of her hair. The part down the middle of her scalp is perfect. Not a lock out of place. The buns in her hair are so tight, it would be impossible for her to catch a cowlick in the breeze. Shikamaru wants to ask her if her head hurts for it.
"Where are we going again?" He knows exactly where they are going, he just wants to break the monotony of the silence. Kiri might be different on the surface, but they still tread on top of hundreds of years' worth of awful history. It feels like everyone is overcompensating for it with the bright colors.
Also, he gets to actually talk in full sentences without being interrupted.
"A business partner who I paid to help me." Tenten halts their journey down the crammed alley, full of side-shops for tourists, just to breathe in the disturbingly fresh air.
"You paid someone to help you?" Shikamaru ogles at her forehead, searching for the stress in her temples from her very tight buns.
"I paid off his debt so he could. You think all of the missing-nin here are willing?" She squints into the crowd as though she is searching for someone.
"Some are unwilling? You failed to mention that in your report." His tone flattens.
Tenten presses her lips in a thin line, glaring back at him. He can see her thoughts razing the emptiness in her eyes.
"I'm still your superior." Shikamaru's voice is cold.
"I didn't do it...well not do it with malintent. I just wanted to figure it all out on my own first. So I looked good. Maybe I'm shooting for your job." Tenten starts walking again.
"You don't want my job." Hell, sometimes he didn't. He wouldn't mind a sabbatical and a year of sleep. Only sometimes.
"Why do you say that?" She isn't hiding that she's trying to change the subject.
"Cos now I gotta deal with the responsibility of a half-truther on the Hokage's payroll." He stiffens.
Tenten tucks an invisible strand of hair behind her ear. They don't speak the rest of their walk through the fresh streets and the crisp breeze of a thousand souls floating from the sea.
She stops in front of a weapons store with the curtains drawn over the window. The 'Open' sign hangs on the door. Tenten doesn't seem to think it's weird. Shikamaru's intuition makes his skin crawl. She turns the knob and the door creaks open.
The irrefutable smell of something in the process of dying overwhelms them. Shikamaru's first response is to mentally retrace each step he took before and after leaving the shitty inn Naruto had assigned them to. Shikamaru uses one finger to barely pull back the curtain. There's no visible sign of anyone watching the building. He didn't feel anyone following them either.
Tenten's skin turns white.
"It's my job you want, huh?" Shikamaru steps away from the thick curtain. "You're not even cunning enough to not get your cover blown."
"Don't jump to conclusions." She walks towards a door behind a counter filled with torture toys Shikamaru couldn't begin to name. "My cover hasn't been blown."
"Then why does it smell like a dead body in here?" He continues to follow her to a slowly unraveling bad idea.
Tenten finds the body of her old friend first. For someone who has seen death many times, it destroys all the confidence she woke up with this morning. Holding her hands at her sides, she sprawls her fingers in what Shikamaru supposes is how she expresses frustration (or hopelessness).
The man's stomach had been gutted like a hunter would wild game. An arrangement of yellow and pink flowers were stuffed in the gaping hole of his abdomen. His head cut clean from his neck, stuffed inside of his stomach. A mouth full of those yellow flowers. Too big purple flowers stuffed in his eye sockets. White flowers up his nose. A cloud of flies hover over his body.
"Who was he in debt to?" Shikamaru rolls his tongue in his mouth, to prevent himself from gagging.
"The Imamura family." She replies robotically.
"So we're out of safe options for obtaining information?" Shikamaru retorts condescendingly. There is no such thing as safe.
"A man is dead and your first inclination is to be facetious about it?" She grits her teeth together.
The floor is slippery with blood. When Shikamaru bends down through the thick of flies, inhaling the scent of wet flowers and decay, the soles of his sandals slide.
"We can't leave out the front door." He grumbles, observing the specific details of the murder. Clean lacerations. He has a hunch that Tenten's friend was dead before having his body mangled.
"Yes we can. People don't snitch in Kiri." Tenten sighs away her tension.
"It's ok. We fucked up." Shikamaru wonders where the culprit might have taken the man's eyeballs. "This is a very specific way to go about humiliating someone."
Flower petals dust the wooden floor around them.
"Ten?" Shikamaru's skull feels cracked from his Anbu training (it hardly feels like he's preparing for anything other than his own funeral), but he is receptive to Tenten's obliterated ego. The staggering olfactory of morning dew and guts discombobulates his train of thought. He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying his hardest to think.
"Yea?" She swats the flies from her face as she combs through the shelf of the marked down death toys.
"I wanna ask you what's next but that's my job." He stands away from the body.
When he left Konoha, Sai had told him that the whole point of this mission was to see if he could actually lead. The whole concept of leadership makes him sweaty, but this is what growth is supposed to look like—he figures at least.
His stomach twists with thirst.
"Let's get out of here." As he turns, his shoes squeak awkwardly against the floor.
Tenten doesn't argue with him. Her forehead relaxes and he notices one fly away hair around her left ear.
Shikamaru hopes to God that she is right about the Kiri civilians not snitching. They coolly leave out the front door. The blaring sunlight startles his spine rigid.
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As though they hadn't left behind a decomposing body, Tenten suggested seafood from a local spot in Kiri. Shikamaru didn't ask how often she frequented the village for her side work. It's evident that she'd come here a lot on her paid time off before she took up the mission.
Somehow Shikamaru ends up carrying the bags of food like it had been his idea.
"I'm sorry." Once again, he grows tired of the silence between them.
"Sorry for what?" Tenten tilts her head to the side.
"For being hard on you earlier. I won't put it in the report that you withheld intelligence." Aside from Shino's invasive bugs, they'll be the only people to know. After all, this is his mission. He has no qualms taking any punishment at this point. "You've always tried your hardest and I know what it feels like to make a bad call."
She is quiet for two minutes. Shikamaru counts the one hundred and twenty seconds it takes for her to speak. The shabby inn is five more minutes away.
"Thanks. You weren't too hard on me. I deserved it. I don't like being coddled when I fail." She lies like a good subordinate. No one likes to have their nose rubbed in their own shit. Not even the Hokage.
"I'm an asshole. You didn't deserve it." He admires Tenten's commitment to her stoicism.
She chews her bottom lip, focused on a point in space only visible to her.
"It's ok, Shikamaru. If the worst thing someone can call me is a failure then I should look into an early retirement as a kunoichi."
He can't beat that logic. She laughs when he twists his face into an 'all telling' expression.
"Then I will stop making the effort to cheer you up." Shikamaru shrugs and the bags of food rattle.
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Their day ended and four days become three. Between not sleeping well and committing himself to the poison Sai tasked him to drink every night, he is greatly overcome by a sense of dread. Like all the things to come aren't in his control and he is being measured by what he won't be able to accomplish.
"The shrimp is good, Shikamaru." Tenten kept explaining how good it all tasted like he couldn't smell what he was depriving himself of.
"I can't eat when I'm thinking too hard." He had grumbled curmudgeonly.
The old inn creaks like it is haunted, louder than Tenten's snoring on the floor. She didn't make it past her second beer. All the food they had paid for and he couldn't eat it. Even if he wanted to, his stomach won't allow it.
He stops watching the sunlight fading behind the buildings and steps out onto the balcony for air that doesn't smell like food. The door slaps shut, Tenten doesn't flinch from her spot.
The lower the sun falls, the milkier the mist appears between the buildings. Scratching the side of his face, he just knows Kirigakure is perpetually haunted. Nowhere is simultaneously eerie and beautiful without a swath of ghosts. He squints through the evening fog, hoping to catch the manifestation of a body. He does. He sees Asuma, blinks and sees nothing again.
Vomit curdles in the back of his throat but he chokes it back down.
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On her last day before departing for Kirigakure, Ino spent the evening with Choji and Karui. Like Sakura, Choji likes to talk about the past in great length. It's less annoying when he does because she loves Choji a bit differently than she loves Sakura.
"Do you remember that time..." He started as they sat around the living room window, overlooking the dirt road and the row of colorful buildings.
Ino pretended that she had forgotten.
"Of course you don't remember..." He had said. It always seems to hurt him when she chooses amnesia. She isn't entirely sure he's aware that she's lying.
Ino allows every painful and humiliating thing that has occurred throughout twenty-three years to bother her. She woke up, in Kirigakure with the taste of a bad playground memory that still grinds her down to the bone to this very day.
Vacant.
She knows what Shikamaru meant but over her room service breakfast, she really began to pick it apart. Vacancy, meaning performance—performing a state of well-being that is contrary to the truth. A safer way at lying.
"You have to start from the root." Tsunade stuffs a wooden pipe with tobacco.
This is common sense. Ino knows it to be, but Tsunade's tone of voice makes it sound mind blowing. The answer, obviously, is at the root of every problem. The dangling bundles of eucalyptus give the room a sense of freshness. Masking the prior smell of old ladies.
"You get to the root of it and snatch it out with your bare hands." Tsunade talks expressively to a group of her very old, not so dear, acquaintances in Kiri. For someone who had amassed so much debt and gossip, she got along just fine with stuffy important people. Her charm is her selling point. People just do whatever she asks of them without questioning her motives.
Anxiety balloons in Ino's chest among the shelves of jars filled with soupy contents. Eyeballs. Toes. A foggy jar of what looks like tongues. But the overabundance of flowers brightens the backroom of the apothecary shop. Ino pokes the inside of a foxglove, a swarm of them hanging over her head. If you ingest enough foxglove, it can kill you. It's always the beautiful things in life that cause destruction. Colorful reptiles, too much love, not enough love, beautiful bodies, and euphoria. She noticed on their trip here that Kiri has no shortage of flowers, like the entire village had decided to supplement their trauma with excessive beauty.
"I'm pretty confident in Ino's abilities. She is a novice but her mother is an expert botanist." Tsunade exhales a huge cloud of smoke. The two old ladies crane their necks to get a good look at Ino. "She comes from good genes."
"What's the name of your clan, dear?" The skinnier, much more wrinkled woman speaks.
Having no clue to the context of their conversation, Ino stops poking her nose around the assortment of potted and bottled things, "Yamanaka."
"Never heard of them." The shorter woman with gray roots and bright ends whips her fan at her sweating bosom. Tsunade gestures for Ino to sit down with them.
Ino tiptoes around the clutter.
"The late Inoichi's daughter." The skinny woman looks surprised. The revelation having caused such a shock, she sits her cup of tea down.
"Yes." Ino doesn't like being reminded that her father is dead. The 'late' felt deliberately specific.
"You know of them, Fujiko?" Tsunade looks comfortable in their surroundings with one foot propped on her knee.
"Lady Tsunade, it is good for my business to know any and all things." Fujiko carries herself as though many years ago she was a beautiful woman who was used to having things simply given to her. She turns to her stumpy companion and says, "Natsu, they're the family who've mastered the technique of mind control."
Natsu is a terrible liar. She pretends to remember said conversation with a limp smile and nod. She slurps her tea.
"What is it like being in someone else's head? I've always wondered." Fujiko attentively watches Ino as she folds her dress before sitting down.
"Like lucid dreaming." Ino is overwhelmed with sudden grief. She misses her father.
"It renders your body completely useless though, right?" The creases around Fujiko's eyes deepen with concern. Tsunade drops her foot down on the floor with a hard thud. A stunned Ino glares back at Fujiko, unsure what to say.
"You're a very cultured woman, Fujiko—could you not conceive of a more appropriate word than useless." Tsunade holds her pipe to her lips.
"No, Lady Tsunade. She is right. I'm disposable while mind-transferring." Ino is hyper aware of her teeth pressing together.
"Oh Tsunade. I didn't mean it that way. You know my profession requires me to be very direct with what can be perceived as factual. A technique so powerful has to have a shortcoming." Fujiko looks to a disinterested Natsu.
"Ino is far from useless." Tsunade snips.
"Of course, Tsunade. You only have good taste..." Fujiko doesn't even seem a little bit apologetic.
"She graduated from the academy as one of the top students in her class." Tsunade cuts Fujiko's sentence in half. "It has nothing to do with my taste."
Ino doesn't know where all her determination went. The taller she grew, more weight accumulated on her shoulders. With Inoichi gone, she has no one to prove herself to—she got over being an affirmation junky. Being at the top of her class meant a lot but now, she isn't sure how much of it was her overcompensating for not being naturally as smart as Shikamaru or if she were really all that passionate in the first place.
"I'll take your word for it, Tsunade." Fujiko keeps a neutral expression and winks at Ino.
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"Why didn't you stand up for yourself? You know how capable you are." Tsunade had held it in for some time.
"I didn't want to embarrass you in front of your friends." Ino picks a strand of hair from her lashes.
"Those chickens weren't my friends. Old acquaintances." She emphasizes, erecting her index finger. "Fujiko is known for being a natural aesthetician. Notice how flushed her face was?"
Ino hadn't noticed. She made a point to not stare at either of the eccentric women.
"She rubs a nightshade extract on her skin. Enough of it can give your skin a rosier complexion. Would you believe if you eat a single leaf of it, it can kill you?" Tsunade tosses a pig tail over her shoulder. "She sells that hokey stuff to all the local women."
"She had an awful lot of toxic plants, I noticed." Ino scratches her elbow.
"Good. You're paying attention." Tsunade whispers and nudges her. "Useless my ass. The nerve of that decrepit bird."
"Lady Tsunade, what do you mean?" Ino stops dead in her tracks.
Tsunade grips her arm and moves her out of the way of a group of people. They stand under a shade of tapestries.
"The truth is always right in your face, staring back at you, Ino. You'll never be at a loss of direction if you keep that in mind." Tsunade gives Ino's arm a gentle shake.
"Shikamaru told me that once." He has told Ino this many times, in so many different ways. Tsunade watches the wash of sudden grief and sadness spreading across her face. The distance between grief and sadness is heartache.
"Shikamaru is someone worth listening to all the time. He's rarely wrong." Tsunade softens.
"I know, right? I wish I were that perfect." Ino has no idea who she is and what she is doing. The big-girl act she can only keep up for so long.
"Nobody is perfect. If that were the case, we wouldn't need to be kunoichi." Tsunade urges her to walk forward. "The world would have no sadness."
Sadness is just a fact of life.
"Are we even human if were aren't grieving in some capacity?" Tsunade doesn't let go of her arm the rest of the way.
"I would rather not think about it at all, Lady Tsunade."
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Kiri gave Shikamaru a sense of dread. Like all the ghosts that quietly floated down the alleys were latching themselves onto him. He can't see them, but he just knows they are there and the pressure makes him nauseous. The little sleep he gets makes him hyper sensitive to smell and sound. It feels like there are bugs crawling through the thick of his scalp but when he rakes his fingers through his hair, his hands come down empty.
"Are you doing ok?" Naruto is the first person to ask him this in a long time. Choji isn't readily available to ask him with the distance being the root of the problem. Ino simply couldn't. Everyone else wouldn't. He doesn't deserve it, no one deserves anything but it feels so good to be asked.
Naruto had vanished and returned with two cups of coffee. Tenten had stepped out at the crack of dawn to make up for her shortsightedness. Shikamaru is thankful she isn't the type to wait and around and be told what to do.
"I'm sorta ok." Shikamaru massages his forehead, watching the steam rise from the styrofoam cup.
"Sorta? You either are or ya ain't, pal." Naruto sits beside him, nudging the cup into Shikamaru's hand. "C'mon, I didn't put anything it it. I didn't want to be rude and not bring you any."
Shikamaru accepts it even though he hates black coffee. He has been craving anything that isn't water. The crawling sensation suffuses down the nape of his neck.
"So what's the report?" Naruto makes a hissing noise as he tears open a pack of sugar over his cup sitting between his legs.
"Some of the missing-nin are having their hands forced. Some have unpaid debts. Some of these debts are inherited." Shikamaru frowns.
"Blackmail essentially? What are we gonna do with this new information?" Naruto scratches his chin.
"I don't know how to spin the wheels just yet but it's good to know the motive behind the large number of defectors. Gotta learn the system before you take it down. I think this is going to take well over a year to actually solve." Shikamaru is too tired to be excited about the prospects of being involved. The future can only look so bright while your soul is still in the gutter.
"Sai says you're not doing so hot." Naruto is one of the few people that Shikamaru knows who is capable of keeping eye contact when communicating. His lips spread into a smug smile, bringing the cup to his mouth. The steam feels like a kiss. Shikamaru can only laugh. He isn't doing so hot.
"Turns out I'm not hot shit after all. Whoopty doo." Shikamaru hasn't been doing so hot since Asuma died. An avalanche of tragedy later, Shikaku dies, Temari stops wanting him. Almost an orphan. One moment you're the love of someone's life then next they can't stand looking at you.
"He's just mad cos I slept with his girlfriend." Shikamaru sips his coffee. It tastes horribly satisfying. "Breaking news—Shikamaru Nara is not only not hot shit, his kink is sloppy seconds."
Naruto's coffee goes down wrong and he chokes. His eyes watering, the laugh struggles to free itself from his throat.
"Can you die of laughter?" Shikamaru never asks the questions.
"At least you're not a Uchiha right? There's worse afflictions to have..." Naruto wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. "You're not that bad. You're pretty alright."
"I'm living with the truth." Shikamaru wheezes. Naruto notices how tired he looks. It pales his own face.
"Your personal life might be a mess but your professional life isn't suffering. You've practically been promoted." He stops laughing.
A long, long, very long silence hits them. Kiri and its ghost the backdrop. Tenten's perfume strong enough to be phantom itself.
"What time is the summit?" Shikamaru sits his coffee down on the floor and pops his shoulder.
"Four." Naruto sighs like he's shedding an excess layer of stress.
"That's pretty damn late."
"Well, there's press already there. If you want journalists in your face...we can go now."
"I don't want to answer hard questions."
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Ino thought that Tsunade's presence would eat her whole, being out of her element and whatnot, but Tsunade is unintentionally comforting. They were thirty minutes early and there is never any shortage of attention when Tsunade's attendance is made known.
"Is being a public figure really all what it's made out to be?" Ino leans in to whisper as they discover new corners of the Mizukage's office.
"I don't know a life without it. The grass might be greener but I'll never know." Tsunade is flippant about being the source of gossip and a muse to admirers like it's old dead news.
Tsunade introduces Ino to people she's only read about in the papers, having removed herself from the shinobi world. It's a sudden crash course on what she knows outside of Konoha. She tries her hardest to cram all the names into her head. Learning a new language, acquiring a new taste.
When they finally sit down, Ino dramatically sucks air through her nostrils, massaging her temples. She catches Tsunade glaring at her out the corner of her eye and immediately straightens herself.
"You're going to develop a palate for these sorts of things sooner than you think." Tsunade says to her. Ino hopes womanhood comes sooner rather than later along with her sense of diplomacy.
The air in the conference room is cold and stale. So unlike the atmosphere outside of the building. She wonders if it has anything to do with all the bad things that had been agreed upon in this room. When she thought of a summit, she figured there would be more Kages present but there's only the Mizukage and the heads of thriving clans throughout the country.
"Is it me or does this shit feel like we are about to be put on trial?" Naruto squeezes himself between Tsunade and Ino.
"You have to be guilty first to be put on trial." Tsunade says unfazed by the frigid energy floating around them. Ino wonders if she's immune to it entirely.
Shikamaru sits beside Ino with a hard thud. He looks more like a specter of himself from when she last saw him. Something is missing. He told her that had been the case in so many words a while ago but now she actually sees it.
Shikamaru violently chews on sugar free nicotine gum. Silence can be so loud when you need it to be comforting. All of their interactions seem to be subject to past brevity. With the many books written on the different love languages. The leading examples in their lives. Their history. None of it matters if they can never add the right amount of salt and sugar to their relationship.
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Naruto wasn't wrong in his observation. They were technically standing trial for a death completely out of their control. The main question being—what does this mean for the future? Is Konoha even safe for foreigners? The accusations spiraled into ridiculous paranoia. Theatrical paranoia really. Who'd be next? A Kage?
"You can't make crazy make sense." Naruto hummed loudly to himself when the meeting paused for a break. Suddenly, they aren't safe. Tsunade, still, beautifully unfazed says nothing. She stares across the room sunken in thought.
Ino scoots her seat back to excuse herself to the bathroom. Shikamaru waits until she is half way across the room before he follows her. He does it so coolly that Naruto doesn't realize it's a strategic move.
"Shikamaru, if you find some drinks around this place, grab me one too." Naruto says to him when he rises.
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Shikamaru catches up to Ino. He startles her when he grabs her elbow. The muscles in her arm tense up and she gapes at him. He lowers his mouth to her ear, tugging her in a different direction.
"We need to talk." His words trickle down the curve of her jaw.
"Now?" She rasps. Her coldness resurfacing—that fake affectlessness that he used to hate so much about her, but learned to accept. Ino wouldn't be Ino if she didn't pout. She'd be a completely different person and he's not sure he'd loved her more or at all without it.
They make two sharp turns until they are the only two occupying the hallway. He jiggles the handles on two doors, until the third one actually budges. Shikamaru becomes aware of her breathing, up to the point when she starts to speak. He follows the rhythm of her inhalation. She holds it in until they crush themselves inside of what appears to be a janitor's closet. His fingers scale the wall until he finds the light switch and he is still holding on to her elbow.
The light turns on with a static sound. This is definitely a janitor's closet. The mop smells like it hasn't been bleached in a while.
"What?" She finally gets it out, placing her hands on her hips. Shikamaru gets a feeling of deja vu, but he's never dreamed of this moment. Dreaming requires sleep. He hasn't slept. It could be his body reminding him how attracted he is to her. He has seen her many times but will never be able to get over how pretty she is. Despite her blistering attitude.
Shikamaru knows the What and has been anticipating the Whats arrival. How What was coming, he hadn't predicted.
"Ino." There's never going to be a perfect time because their timing is never balanced. "It doesn't matter. Now, tomorrow, a month from now. It just needs to happen. We've been so bad at communicating. We haven't been honest with each other from the start."
Her eagerness to forgive him turns her resolve to putty. She was going to be mad at him. That was the plan. It would've given their distance clear definition. Why she expected her frustration to stick, she doesn't know. It always goes away. Regardless if she is right or wrong.
"You're right. It's been very hard." Ino knows why, she just wishes she understood it enough to get over it.
"Why? It's just me." This seems to be the strain on everything. Sometimes, she acts like he hasn't been around for more than half of her life. Not everyone has that kind of familiarity. Even in Konoha.
"You're right. It's just you, Shikamaru." She looks away from him and studies the shelves of cleaning products.
"Then what gives?" He scowls but doesn't mean to.
"I'm scared."
"Of what, Ino?" He says her name with the same tenderness that he gives when they're having sex.
"Everything. The whole damn universe." The musty smell of the old mop makes her head spin.
The closet feels tighter than it actually is.
"I'm not asking you to be a philosopher. I can't help you if you keep withholding your feelings." He thinks about the day she cried at Choji's table.
"Can we talk about it later? After all of this is over with?" She gestures a hand around the damp closet.
"Yea." His hand slides down her arm. Their fingers hook together but he lets go.
The light bulb sizzles like it's going to pop at any moment.
"I can say this though. I really do believe you are my soulmate. Whatever that is supposed to mean. I don't think it promises forever but it is scary to surrender to a feeling that intense." She wishes there were a single word that could encapsulate all of her difficult feelings.
"Really?" The desperation in his voice saps all the trepidation out of her.
"I figured it out the day I threw my shoes at your head and walked out barefoot." She says without looking at him.
"When we defiled the couch?" He starts to chew on his gum again.
"Yes. That day." Ino smiles down at their feet.
When it feels like nothing more can be said, nothing that could take only a minute to articulate, Ino reaches for the doorknob. She peaks outside before putting one foot ahead.
"Hey, Ino." Shikamaru doesn't want the inevitable distance to start all over again. Ino looks back at him, standing in the bright light of the hallway. The curled ends of her hair slip over her shoulder.
"I love you a lot. Ok?" He is incapable of measuring it. Miles of love. Eons full of it.
Ino licks her lips, speechless for no good reason. She knows. She hadn't forgotten.
"I love you too, but you already know that."
Shikamaru knew it before she did.
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The summit didn't reach a verdict. Shikamaru figured they wouldn't come to a resolution. They'd endured two hours of noisy wrongness.
"This whole thing was for show." Tsunade finally speaks at the end of it.
"Well, we showed up." Naruto watches the Mizukage make her way in their direction. Shikamaru, not of a sound mind, decides this is the perfect time to make his exit. Two men dead on his time. His focus divides itself into tiny pieces. Death. Ino. More death. Trying not to die. Diplomacy. The nicotine gum isn't working.
"Sometimes, that's all you can do for the time being. Show up." Tsunade grimaces, not acknowledging Shikamaru's swift dismissal. Ino spindles a lock of hair around her index finger, sharing the same quiet sentiment Shikamaru leaves on.
His head pounds louder than his footsteps down the hall. He manages to miss the crowds of journalists and has an easy escape into the evening lull of Kiri. Tenten waits for him by the gate. Her hair falls around her face like a dark hood. No tight buns today. As soon as she spots him, she doesn't bother meeting him halfway. She approaches him with her mouth open.
"Start with the good news first." He holds up a heavy hand, feeling the residual effects of the abuse he's put his body through.
"I have a lead." She reports.
"Is that where the good news ends?" Shikamaru bites down on the tasteless wad of gum.
Tenten takes a deep breath and says, "Really, Shikamaru. News is news."
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Tsunade's terrible luck brings balance to all the great things about her life. If she didn't have awful luck, she'd be perfect and perfection would cause the world to collapse, turning in on itself until it turns into a black hole. Choji painted that picture for Ino. Choji and Shikamaru always have insightful things to say. Ino wonders if her insights ever stick with them.
The world collapsing. Eating itself. Correcting itself. Yea—she'd nodded back at Choji chewing on three sticks of gum. That's a rad way to put it.
Naruto could no longer stomach watching all that ryo move across the tables. First it was craps. Then poker, where she lost the hardest. Tsunade's vice is so intractable, that it's almost unbelievable. Ino can't not watch the absurdity of her master's failure. It's one thing to hear the stories. It's a whole different monster having to witness the truth.
"Ino." Tsunade leans back in her chair, smelling wonderful. Ino lowers into her scent. Tsunade holds out the dice in her palm. "Blow for good luck."
You've got to be kidding me. Ino grinds her teeth. Tsunade looks at her sweetly, like this is the most harmless thing Ino could do for her. Like a child asking for permission to eat a cookie. Ino puckers her glossy lips and blows. Tsunade wins. Her victory steamrolls and her addiction turns her into a cackling witch. The victories are worse than the losses. Ino removes herself from the growing frustration of angry old rich men and Tsunade's vainglory.
It already looks bad that someone important from Kiri winds up dead in Konoha. Even if there is a small chance that the old men in their pinstriped clothes had nothing to do with the death, Tsunade scooting their money across the table still doesn't help the changing attitudes bubbling beneath the surface. Tsunade in her bright colors and glowing exterior is the alcohol being poured over a gaping wound.
The only good thing about this trip is the over abundance of flowers. Even the casino is decorated with them. The smell of them stronger than the liquor she gorges herself on, to get over the fact that she is homesick and lovesick and everyone is glaring at her suspiciously.
"This stuff is so strong." Naruto appears beside her, sloshing around the brown contents of his glass. "It takes like battery acid mixed with sugar and honey."
"It's doing the job. That's what counts." Ino watches a group of old ladies in their kimonos gawking at the young women in obnoxious sequins.
"We're here on business, Ino. Don't get carried away." Either he's been handsome for a long time or she's very drunk.
"I'm not the one campaigning to be the next Hokage." Ino takes his drink and finishes it. Now she is holding two empty glasses. "I'm not worried about my public image."
Not anymore, she isn't. Worrying about it has done her more harm than good.
Tsunade howls for another win.
"Well you still need to slow down." Naruto scans her reddening face.
Rolling her eyes, Ino mimics him in a raspy patronizing tone of voice. Naruto doesn't think it's funny.
"Geeze. Don't be so stuffy." Ino sits the glasses down on an unoccupied stool at a slot machine.
"I just have a bad feeling and I need you to be lucid." He lightly takes her by the arm and drags her into a corner. They stand under a leaning tower of blue flowers.
"I am lucid! I'm a kunoichi, Naruto. Give me more damn credit." Ino hasn't proclaimed it so boisterously in so long. The funny taste in her mouth after saying it makes her a little dizzy. A rush of liquid confidence.
A man and woman stop their conversation to glance over at them
"Ok." She shrugs and he releases her arm.
Naruto doesn't let up his hard look. Ino doesn't think she's ever seen him quite this serious. Her memory is fogged by the honeyed drink though.
"Ok." Naruto gives her a perfunctory nod.
"Why didn't Shikamaru come?" She can't tell if it's just the desire to change the conversation that makes her ask or if she really cares all that much. Shikamaru is an introvert. His absence shouldn't bother her.
"You know he hates talking to people. He can't fake his funk like the rest of us." Naruto squints through the thickness of bodies and shiny machines. Ino tries to follow his eyes but can't find what he's looking at. Perhaps it's nothing at all.
"No. He can't. He's bursting at the seams with honesty." Ino hiccups.
"I think I'm cut out for this kinda stuff." Naruto softens.
"The politics? Definitely not the excessive drinking." Ino is surprisingly indifferent to all of it.
"Kowtowing with dirty old men. I got this in the bag."
"Just don't turn into one yourself." She wants another drink.
"I don't plan on it. I'm never getting old." He smiles brightly, sliding his hands from the pockets of his pants and folding his arms over his chest. Just as clearly as she sees his journey from then to now, his evolution from boy to man, she wonders if her story can be seen just as plainly on her face.
"Where even is Shikamaru?" She notices the flicker in his eyes, the slight downturn of his lips. Suddenly Naruto doesn't know where to look. Like Shikamaru, Naruto isn't a very good liar.
"Classified information." He winks at her.
Ino grumbles. Instead of standing in front of him, she stands beside him pressing her back against the cold wall.
"I know what you're thinking. Don't worry about it anymore." Naruto says a moment later.
"I'm not worried about anything." She is worried about everything.
"I know it's not cool to talk about people when they aren't around but there was this period after Temari broke off their engagement. Maybe before. I think when he started sleeping on the couch. He still did his job better than anyone else could, but he kept distracting..."
"You don't have to tell me. I already know." She doesn't need it to be reaffirmed that Shikamaru possesses the universal qualities that make him attractive to women. He is smart, funny (especially when he isn't trying to be), a good listener, and says all the right things. Even the right things you don't want to hear.
"He started looking a lot softer. It all just stopped. I could tell. Can't explain it really but I just know that look. I see it in myself every morning when I wash my face. I didn't know you were the reason at the time." Naruto is a good talker too.
"You're a gossiper." Ino gives him the same kind of wink he'd given her.
"Nah. We are supposed to be ninja and our life expectancy is too short to mince words. I pay attention." He gestures with two fingers at his eyes.
"Ok." Ino laughs for the first time all evening.
"I could tell you wanted to talk about him so there. I hope you feel ten pounds lighter and lay off the damn drinks. That shit is poison."
She really does feel ten pounds lighter.
"Thank you, Naruto."
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Two months later...
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Infinitesimal details are day ruiners. Ino walks into her apartment after two hard days in the hospital with Tsunade and is greeted by an awful rotten smell. She takes off her sweater and shoes first, then goes to investigate the fridge. The smell doesn't come from the fridge. Her garbage is filled with paper towels and candy wrappers. She lets down her hair, leans over the sink and sniffs the dampness of the drain.
It fills up her apartment, a bloated ghost of a haunt. She gags. Then she turns into her bedroom. Her eyes settle on the fish bowl on her vanity. Her two nameless goldfish floating at the top. She slowly steps toward the vanity. Her dread tugging her along, the realization choking her throat. The smell is worse. Her eyes watering before she accepts failure.
Ino peers down into the bowl. She hadn't bothered to name them for this very reason. Somehow, this makes their death much more painful. Their little bodies patched in white spots. She holds her hand to her scalp. Right there, she hyperventilates. Sobbing silently. The constriction of her muscles worsening the pain. She cries directly into the bowl. Her tears pelting their bodies.
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"It's called Ichthyophthirius." Kiba showed up without hearing an explanation as to why she was crying so hard. He accepted it with the same perceptiveness needed for all kinds of death.
"Ichy-What?" Ino watches him scoop the fish corpses into a plastic bag.
"It's a parasite fresh water fish get." Kiba looks at her solemnly.
Ino is past sobbing but tears still trickle down her face. She pecks at them with her fingertips, sniffling.
"I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm crying. I don't know why I called. I could've done that myself." She gulps.
"You called because I gave them to you and nobody wants to deal with dead bodies alone." He sounds so reasonable.
"They're just fish." She says it but doesn't believe it.
"They're more than just fish. Why are you so ashamed of being sad?" He closes the bags, sits the plastic on the vanity. Their tiny bodies limp and ugly. Ino wretches a gasp.
"I'm not ashamed." She sighs.
"You are. It's ok. Your feelings are valid." He takes the bowl in his hands with ease and heads into her bathroom.
Ino listens to the sound of him emptying the smelly water into the toilet bowl. On the edge of her bed, she stares at the plastic bag. Kiba flushes the toilet, making a disgruntled sound, like clearing his throat but not really. He stands in the doorway of the bathroom, cradling the empty bowl.
"Then what?" She rubs her forehead anxiously.
"We bury them." He states matter-of-factly. The stink of death isn't as repugnant. It's possible she's just gotten used to it. The inside of her nose burns from crying.
"Where?" Ino shrugs her shoulders.
Kiba stands straight and chews the inside of his jaw. His eyes roaming around the room. When he gets an idea, he sits the bowl back on the vanity and heads out the front door. There's the scraping of his feet on the steps and a light clang of her flower pots. He storms back inside holding one of her plants.
"What about this?"
"What about it?"
"Bury them in this."
The plant's green limbs sag outside of the pot, dangling like a depressed octopus. The leaves and stems cascading over and around Kiba's arms. Ino sucks up the snot and gets over herself.
"That's a great idea."
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Kiba watches her somberly shovel noodles in her mouth. Her cheeks full. She tucks a whisker of hair behind her ear.
"I killed your fish." She licks the corners of her mouth then takes a sip of her beer.
"Ino, you didn't kill the damn fish." He smiles but his tone his mirthless.
"How the hell am I supposed to be responsible for the lives of other people if I can't prevent illness from killing my fish? I'm supposed to be—" The my fish catches her off guard. She stops slouching over her food. My fish.
"Don't say it. Don't you dare say you're a kunoichi." Kiba drums his fingers on the table.
"But I am. I'm supposed to be this resilient, perceptive...person. I'm strong. I'm supposed to see the signs."
"Whenever we tell each other we are just shinobi, it's like we are slouching away from a real conversation." Kiba falls unusually quiet. His eyes on the vast nothingness of the table, observing the swirls in the wood. He finishes his drink and then says, "We are people first, Ino. Yea, we didn't get tested on our emotional intelligence, but that's because you can't exactly measure it with an exam. I don't even think it can be taught. It's inherent in all of us. We are taught to suppress it."
Ino actually sees Kiba for the first time. Minus the excessive flirting and big talk. His favorite thing to say is—somebody has gotta believe in you, and that person should be you first.
"Babies cry up until we tell them to stop and that it's not cute anymore." His fingers tear at the damp napkin.
"Kiba..." Ino washes down the noodles with her beer.
"You know what's wrong with Konoha? We don't have a healthy relationship with our mortality around here. At least in Kiri, death is something to look forward to. Even if it's a warped perspective. It's a good start." Kiba stuffs the shredded pieces of the napkin inside of his empty beer bottle.
"That makes a lot of sense. You're making too much sense." Ino holds his stare. It's the most serious he's ever looked without the context of a battle.
"I'm trying. My point is, Ino—feel everything. Even if you think it's dumb, allow yourself to feel it so it won't bleed out in other facets of your life. You've got a lot of leakage." He rubs his chest.
"Ok. Whatever." Ino's ears turn red with embarrassment.
"I care. That's why I'm telling you."
"Kiba, you wouldn't be the first." If only he really knew.
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Kiba went back to whatever she had interrupted him in the middle of doing. Ino didn't bother asking. He just told her to stop apologizing for it. Shit happens. She hopes calling him up doesn't make her a selfish-pig. Ino goes over the brief instances she might've been obtuse with him.
"Why am I so hellbent on feeling bad?" She asks no one as she walks home alone with her hands deep in the pockets of her sweater.
The sky is a milky purple as the sun sets. A cough tightens her chest. The wind is so cold.
It feels like she is atoning for every bad thing she has done or said. Karma is strangling the shit out of her by not giving her those immediate feelings of contentment. The cough doesn't relieve the tension in her chest. The cool causes her eyes to water.
Right then, Ino is lost. She knows how to get back home but her brain fogs. It's no mystery that she is dealing with a lot but the weight of it all is suddenly real. This isn't where she had envisioned herself—not dealing with the things that makes her soul sick.
Ino stops under a lamp post to catch her breath. With her memory, she lost her breath. Her stretched shadow stares back at her. She frees her hands from her pockets and the lint balls are swept from her palm by the air.
She allows herself to process whatever it is that is possessing her.
Time passes. The specific minutes irrelevant. It's completely dark. People walk by like she isn't there, which is how she feels. Not present. Ino stops glaring at her feet and looks up the pathway.
Without the gift of jutsu, Ino would still know Shikamaru. If she lost the ability to hear and see altogether too. Sometimes, the soul just calls for you—she doesn't remember who exactly said this to her (most likely Sakura).
She sees him first, which is different. Shikamaru has always seen her first. He is looking down. It's unlike him to not pay attention to what's in front of him. What could've happened in a span of two months? Ino walks in his direction at a self assured pace.
Eventually, his delayed acuity kicks in. At the precise moment his attention anchors on to her, she drops all semblance of sadness and flimsy coolness. Ino sprints towards him. He stops walking and drops all of his bags and the things he's accumulated in sixty-something days.
Ino holds her arms out and slams herself into his body. He absorbs the impact. She wraps her arms around him. Breathes in the sweaty smell of his shirt. He reciprocates the strong hold, squeezing a little harder, crushing the grief out of her.
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Like so many nights before, those times she took for granted, they walk together down the crisscrossing pathways that make up Konoha. The webs of wires that connect the power poles slopping and swaying in the air over their heads.
"Do you think you have a good relationship with your mortality?" Ino asks him out nowhere. She squeezes his hand.
"In what context?" He frowns through a headache.
It had sounded much better in her head and when Kiba had said it. She doesn't know how to make it sound insightful.
"Never mind. I'm glad you're back. How long are you going to be home?" Ino watches the cool exterior of his face. His eyes are wet.
"I really don't know." Shikamaru doesn't like the mystery of his schedule but he's acclimated to it.
"I'm glad you're back. That's really all that matters. You can never know..." She doesn't finish her sentence.
"Nope. You never can. I guess thats what you mean by being on good terms with your mortality? Right?" He has to tell her at some point. Not now.
"Yea." She wipes at her eyes with her free hand.
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They arrive at her apartment. Ino kicks her sandals across the room. It's always the first thing she does when she gets home. She shakes her pockets clean of her keys and chapstick. Only Ino can pull off a bare face with chapstick and make it look like effortless.
It is weird standing under her ceiling fan. He hesitates. Scans the room before dropping his bags on the floor. One candle sits on the table and the whole place smells like herself and sugar. He watches her light three more candles with a lighter he left behind.
"You look tired." She doesn't know how to start the conversation. Her nose is still red and irritated from crying earlier. The beer and spicy noodles make her stomach burn a little.
"I am. If only you knew." His entire body hurts. He cracks his knuckles, but it doesn't make him feel any better.
The apartment is silent. Outside noise floats in through the window. The sink drips and the fridge hums. Shikamaru breathes loudly, like his sinuses are draining.
"I made a mistake." Ino starts.
"We both made mistakes. I thought about what you said about being scared. Maybe I contributed to that." He stares at her and it makes her skin tingle. She scratches the back of her neck, bending her head forward. Her hair separates around her face and shoulders.
"No. It had nothing to do with you. None of it does. It's always been me. I think I reduced myself to safety and predictability." These words feel like adult-big-girl words. "I was supposed to marry Sai and have all of his babies and be with him for the rest of my life. Help plan weddings. That isn't how it happened."
"Is that what you wanted?" Shikamaru understands now, why she gets so mad about hearing Temari's name. He doesn't want to think about Sai.
"At one point, yes. Eventually, no. I didn't have time to process it. There was no transitionary period." Ino's voice breaks like water combing through rocks.
"Ino, why couldn't you express any of that to me?" He rasps.
"I physically couldn't. I just wanted you to read my mind and figure it out. Sometimes I get so anxious, it's like all the cells in my body freeze—that's not how that works but I can't. I just couldn't. I'm not able to communicate my feelings like you do." She has never been able to compete with him in any capacity. He's always just been the better, golden child. Even though he hates it.
"Do you know how embarrassing it was to sit at that table and have to explain myself to the person you picked over me? You were done with me and somehow...I still had to answer for it?" Shikamaru's voice swings a notch higher.
"You walked out on me, Shikamaru."
"Because I wanted you to feel the same way I felt." Sometimes he thinks that he is still stuck at that stupid table with no more truth left to tell.
"Who won?" Her eyes are puffy.
"Nobody." He wishes he knew what she had been crying about.
Ino grabs a filmy glass that's been sitting on her table for two days and lightly sits it in her sink. She runs the faucet water inside of it. Shikamaru watches her fidget. When he can no longer stand the water overflowing from the glass, he moves to turns off the faucet. The commanding gesture eliminating the open space of tension that's kept them apart.
"I don't want to just be friends." He bends towards her.
"I don't wanna just be friends either." She doesn't know the next step though. She hopes he does. Actually, she is certain he does.
"Then what do you want?" He holds her arm tightly so that the bottom of whatever they've just built doesn't fall out.
"You." It's her resolution. She is ready to give him everything at once, down to the tiniest atom. Her soul right along with her eyelashes. He pulls her into an embrace that brings their noses close. The sloppy braid she'd thrown together finally unravels itself. Her bangs curl around her eyes haphazardly.
"Then I belong to you." He encloses his fingers around her neck as he leans in to kiss her.
"I'm in love with you." She admits it, for the first time, as their lips brush together.
"I'm glad. The feeling is mutual." He inhales her top lip.
"I care so much." She moans with his tongue in her mouth. The world flipped right side up for, Ino. The anticipation of wanting it bad mixing with her fear of ruining it hitches her breathing.
"How much?" The adrenaline triumphs over all of his sleepless nights. He takes two handfuls of her behind.
"Infinitely. With an eternalness. I'm really sorry." She untucks his shirt and slides her hands against his hard stomach.
"Forever and a day?" Where she touches him his skin burns. Unceasing intimacy feels good having gone so long without it. He tries not to think about the dead strangers and dead Asuma. Ghosts. Anbu. He tenses. Ino doesn't notice. Eight weeks isn't a long time but he feels different. The past (before Anbu) a nebulous disproven fact, usurped by a crueler present.
"I've never heard that one before. Forever and a day." Ino stops caressing him, gazing at him thoughtfully.
"I take no credit. I read it in a book." He swallows back the negative thoughts attempting to ruin the comfort he's managed to live without for days.
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"I wondered where you went—grief had taken you away from me." Shikamaru confesses. Ino's lips pucker with her face pressed into a pillow.
"I was here." She massages his earlobe.
"I wanted my friend back." He squeezes the softness around her hip.
"I never went anywhere." She hadn't.
"When I did see you around, it was like watching a ghost who had no clue that they were dead." He caresses the space under her eye with his knuckles, marked by deep nicks in his skin, bright pink lines of lightning through his natural golden tan.
"Vacant. I know." Fundamentally, Ino believes she hasn't changed, but he does fill every physical and literal hole she has. Shikamaru rolls on top of her. Her breathing unsteadies under his weight, but she craves the crushing pressure.
He closes his mouth over hers, sucking down the sweet taste of her saliva—wishing it to neutralize his restlessness.
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It feels like he's cheated when difficult things turn out to be so simple. If not cheated, a bit stupid. Ino had fallen asleep and just like that, they are over it. The alternatives weren't desirable by any stretch of the imagination—he is tired of the roundaboutness that has been their intimacy.
Incapable of sleep despite an orgasm, he watches the streaks of flickering light shining through the window across the ceiling. He is plagued with questions regarding the future. It's always the future. Shikamaru thinks so hard he sweats bullets. He works back up the nausea he's been fighting since he's undertaken Anbu.
He throws back the covers and storms into Ino's crammed bathroom. Her place isn't exempt from the new habit of locking doors behind himself. Shikamaru throws up the cocktail he's been instructed to take. A pink liquid that mixes with his stomach acid. Shino's bugs too. They are slowly being flushed from his body. Sai didn't say what the stuff is for. The only detail is to drink it every day until he is told to stop.
Shikamaru hangs his head in the toilet. The cold tile tickles his tailbone. Frigidness has trapped itself inside of her bathroom. The porcelain toilet, sink, and tile absorb the warmth radiating off his body.
He stays there for hours uninterrupted. Observes the bras dangling from her towel rack. Makeup and body sprays piled in a basket on her sink. A red smear of what he thinks is nail polish along the back of the toilet, next to the handle. Ino's snoring loud on the other side of the door like something is trying to exit her body.
Shikamaru submits to another night of sleeplessness.
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A/N: Thank you guys for waiting patiently. 2019 has been hard. I'm ready for 2020 to be different. I'm planning on going to Mortuary School sometime next year so my life is about to get pretty hectic. I hope this chapter is satisfying. I feel like I made you guys wait four months almost for nothing. Any errors or inconsistencies having going months without an update, I will eventually noticed. I'm always rereading and fixing things. Let me know what you think~