a/n: Want to end at least one of my ongoing stories so I'll be starting with this one. I don't wanna rush it and I have bigger plans, but I have to end it before I lose the feel to do so forever. :(

Unveiled

(Part I)

It was the intensity of the sun streaming through her windows that woke her up. Slightly dazzled, she checked her phone to find out she only had about 30 minutes to get to the agency, and she had a lot of designs to continue working on, both for the photoshoot and the fashion week. She would want to blame herself for sleeping through her multiple alarms. But remembering the dream she didn't want to wake up from, she would want to blame the one and only guy she would even have dreams of.

She sighed to herself and made haste to get ready, never mind breakfast. She needed coffee, but there was no time to brew anything.

This was one of those times she wished she had a car, but her savings weren't quite there yet. This was her first stable job after all, and there was no time to learn driving.

She rushed out only to find Sai getting out of his car. She would've immediately gotten back inside if only she wasn't supposed to head out for work. She flew down the stairs as fast as she could and walked briskly, effectively sending him the signal that she was in a hurry and had no time to deal with him.

But what she didn't know was that Said read her predicament rather accurately and saw this as an opportunity for him to have her deal with him.

"Look. I'm not sure why you're here this early or why you're actually even here, but I can't talk with you right now. So please," she said hastily, not even sparing him a glance.

She heard him snort. "Running late? You know I could help."

"I'd rather run," she rolled her eyes, not slowing down.

"In this heat? And you wouldn't make it in time anyway. You have 15 minutes."

Ino checked her watch and grumbled at her luck. "Great. Just what I need."

She finally turned to him.

"I wouldn't really want to take you up on your offer if I had a choice, but I can't afford to be late so if – "

Sai took hold of her wrist and started dragging her before she could even finish her sentence. In her shock, they made it to the car without her finding her voice to complain.

Sai quickly started the car and drove as legally fast as he could. "Where do you work?"

"Oh, right," she replied absentmindedly before giving him the details.

Then after a while, she added as sternly as she could: "Now that you know, please don't just come and bother me whenever you please, okay? I would've never told you anyway if it wasn't only necessary."

"I never wanted to bother you. I just wanted to talk," he said softly, glancing at her.

"But we've been talking! I have no choice but to talk to you."

"Exactly. I didn't want us to talk like this."

"But what else is there to talk about anyway? I told you I've forgiven you and that we're cool. No hard feelings whatsoever," she said, waving a hand as if to emphasize her last point.

"So, you mean we're friends now?" he asked, a teasing smile plastered on his face.

"God, you still have that same smile. Even in my dreams you smile like that. Sometimes, icy and stony, other times, less, warm, gentle . . ." she trailed off, embarrassed as she realized what she had just admitted.

"You dream about me?"

She didn't need to look at him to see he was still smiling like that. She trained her eyes on her lap, wanting nothing more other than to melt into her seat.

"And you still have that same adorable candidness, Ino."

A million questions run through her mind as she unpacked his statement. He thought her honesty was adorable and he just called her by her name for the first time, and when did that even start becoming possible?

"I wish I could be as candid and as honest as you are."

The car skidded to a stop. "We're here."

She blinked a couple of times, mentally shaking away everything strange that had just transpired.

"Thank you," she said curtly, looking hesitantly in his direction.

But Sai had his unwavering gaze at her. "Can I pick you up later? Maybe get some dinner together?"

She closed her eyes before letting out an exasperated sigh.

"Sai, you said you liked my candor, so let me just be frank with you now. I . . . I have a lot of important projects to work on right now, and I need to do everything perfectly if I want my career to take off . . . and I can't afford to be distracted. But this . . . what you're doing is throwing me off balance and I can't just have any of that right now. So please, please if you could just leave me be for now."

For a moment, they just sat there in silence, staring at each other. If Ino would let herself be, she could lose herself again in those onyx pools and she wouldn't care. But she was being dangerously naïve when she did that four years ago and she'd like to think she had matured now, enough to not get herself entangled in this dizzying mirage that was Sai.

"I understand."

She gave him a weak smile before getting out.

…

True to his word, Sai didn't show up again for weeks after she had desperately asked him to do just that, and looking back, she couldn't help but wonder if she was too harsh on him that time or if she could have gone about it differently. Maybe, she finally admitted to herself, she was just missing him despite herself. She didn't want to know where he'd been, if he'd gone back to Paris, or if she'd ever even see him again.

She took out her sketchpad and started sketching him in their most recent, and probably last, encounter – that stony yet playful smile he had when he asked her. She wished she had answered, she wished she could have told him they could be friends. But they were never really friends.

They were strangers, lovers for a night, and strangers again. There were no in-betweens. It was always all or nothing, black or white for them. Their relationship had always been a chiaroscuro portrait of two artists sharing the same bed, both naked, with their backs to each other.

Without him around, she threw herself devotedly into her projects. Her loneliness, her confusion, her desperation, her longing and affection, she spilled onto her sketches. Eventually, her efforts and channeled emotions paid off greatly. The photoshoot was a success earning her agency an increased exposure which then resulted in more model agencies signing a partnership with them.

She was exhausted by the end of it, but there was no time to recuperate as she also needed to work tirelessly for days and nights for the fashion week. She was under such immense pressure that it got to the point that she was no longer getting satisfied by her designs and all her drafts were trash to her. One minute she was sketching and the next, she would tear it off, furiously working on the next possible design . . . only to be stuck in the same laborious and vicious cycle of frustration and creation for days on end.

Her friends, Tenten and Neji, gravely concerned about her possibly failing health (what with those long working hours and sleepless evenings and coffee-driven brunches), had started dropping by her apartment or by her office every now and then to bring her food and to make sure she'd get at least a couple of hours of sleep or rest in any form.

Ino had gotten used to this routine that one night when someone rang her doorbell, she was expecting no one else but those two bringing her dinner like the good friends that they were. But it was as if she had seen a ghost when she pulled the door open.

"What are you doing here?"

It was as if Sai had read her thoughts the past few days and decided to materialize in front of her and put her out of misery.

…

Tbc.

(I promise the second part and final chapter is coming soon, sometime within this week ! I'm almost finished with it. Thoughts? :) )