A/N- Hello this is a simple chapter, another chapter will likely be posted later today. Enjoy!

When Ino was younger Noriko would constantly overshare little details about her dates and how the nights went with her suitors. Ino didn't much care for these stories, and it took her years to digest the true nature of sex.

The details that Noriko hadn't cared to mention.

None the less Noriko would wake her up in the middle of the night, drag her booze, sweat, and sex infested body across her daughter's bed, and rest her head on Ino's lap.

It became a sort of ritual that she looked forward to, especially after having been left alone in the house half the night.

She'd run her fingertips through Noriko's long blonde hair as her mother regaled her with a colorful account of her midnight excursions. Noriko would beam up at her so brightly that it made her forget how painfully knotted her stomach felt, her mother's smile was so infectious that Ino would find herself smiling.

It wasn't very often that either of them smiled.

Noriko always made every story seem like a fairytale, she'd start off every tale with ONCE UPON A TIME and Ino remembered being such a sucker for that shit. Noriko was always a beautiful queen, abandoned by a king and left to raise a lovely princess alone. In this fairytale the queen was always meeting kings from different kingdoms, searching for a fit. The kings would always promise her happiness and pursue her doggedly with lavish gifts, gestures, and money.

Her mom would demonstrate this by pulling her bra loose and shimmying crumpled-damp bills over Ino's head. They'd both chuckle, though Ino remembered ducking away from her mother's breast, embarrassed.

Once Noriko delved back into the story, things would always go well—until they weren't. It seemed the foolish queen couldn't quite stay in favor with the kings. They would either bed her the first night and leave or decide she wasn't worth much and abandon her, and though the queen suffered heartbreak after heartbreak she persisted, for the princess. (Which was utter bullshit.)

After every tale, barely intelligible, Noriko would tell Ino that,

'Men think with their dingdongs.'

'Best way to get what you want is to put out and shut up.'

'Never trust them, never love them.'

'Don't be a fool, don't be weak, that's how they get ya, ya listenin' babe?'

'Money can never disappoint you...money will never make you sad, unless you lose it.'

For most of her life Ino had embarrassingly embraced this twisted ideology, of course back then she worshiped the ground Noriko walked on, like most little girls toward her mother.

She wanted to be like Noriko, she wanted to date all types of Kings but she wouldn't love them.

The first time when her dad skipped town, she was too young to remember his face let alone how she felt about it. The second time—it felt like someone had severed a major artery.

Of course, she didn't miss him the first time, she had never known a life with him so she couldn't miss him. But now that she knew him, now that someone had been around to give her piggyback rides to the bus top, tell her real stories, kiss her scars and make her happy, she felt the loss significantly.

The loss physically shattered her, and Noriko simply used her pain to guilt Inoichi to come back. Noriko would call him and the moment he answered, she'd press the phone into Ino's ear and mouth the script she had been coaching Ino on that week.

Ino obeyed. Her father always encouraged her to listen to Noriko, no matter what.

"Papa, where are you?" She remembered asking as her mom stood in fronting her, imitating a sad child. Ino mimicked the pose, though the moment she heard her father's voice, all she wanted to do was perk up.

"Oh, princess!" Her father always greeted her cheerily. She remembered the sound of it, gentle and concerned and for a split second she couldn't hide the trembling smile that broke across her face, like daylight expanding. "the best thing in the world, hearing you speak."

Noriko frowned, disappointment evident on her face, jabbing a hand in her face in a gesture that demanded the phone.

"Hello? Darling, still with me?"

"Mommy wants to talk to yo-"

Noriko would snatch the phone so quickly from her hand, it nearly knocked the wind from Ino's chest.

And they her mom would go into another room on the phone crying and angry. She'd lock Ino out of the bedroom even after the call ends and the child would curl up in front of the door and fall asleep.

This was her life for a while, taking care of Noriko. Her father never answered another crazy rehearsed call again.

The bullshit became clearer when she had gone to school, made lifelong friends, and those friends met guys, guys that became her friends.

She was conflicted about everything her mother had ever said to her and suddenly everything just seemed like a lie.

Many of her friends had come from stable homes with two loving parents. It often made her envious and bitter.

Some days she didn't even want to be around any of them.

And then, they left Konoha and suddenly her view on men shifted a bit more, though not entirely away from Noriko's teachings.