Cosmos
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: Another Ino-centric fic. Don't roll your eyes like that! I :heart: Ino-chan! She's very misunderstood and unappreciated! :sobs: I know there are so many ShikaIno fics out there, but I wanted to write ShinoIno! Don't ask. Lol. I like any Ino pairing but I'd rather muse on her relationships with people rather than pairing her randomly.
Enjoy!
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I can't get any better. I'm the worst, the weakest. I should've never tried to be a ninja, they're right, I should've…just…I should…right now, give up.
I should've stayed at Konoha, had my hair fixed, in a few years time, get married to some rich guy and have a dozen of kids and wake up, look in the mirror, and realize that I've just turned forty.
Sounds appealing…at least I don't have to put up with everyone calling me a "bimbo".
I stroke my hair, I feel like brushing it, tying it up, it always gets in the way.
Sometimes I wish it just gets chopped off, making my hair long never did make Sasuke look at me anyway.
I've been wasting so much of my time, trying to take him away from Sakura, it's so stupid.
But I've been doing it for like, how many years? Doesn't that make me stupid?
I sigh, Chouji eats, Shikamaru thinks.
Nara says that we were, the weakest team in the chuunin exams, but that never really bothered me, because if we really were the weakest, we wouldn't be where we are now.
I sigh again.
And twirl long locks around my fingers.
And then, I open my eyes.
It was all a dream. My hair wasn't long anymore.
My long tresses were in the arena, I took care of them so much. The fight ended and it was a draw, and I began to realize that I was…really weak.
I had sacrificed that hair for an unattainable victory. Sakura was after all, smart. I felt more inferior than ever, maybe, back then, she never needed me to get here.
I took off the string that holds my hair.
It came back to being short again, Azuma-sensei sees that it affects me, and it's true. I always thought of it as an obstacle, my hair made me look like a weakling to everyone else.
I looked like a girl who only cared about the way she looked.
Perhaps, Sakura felt the same way when she had cut her own hair.
It pains my chest, that hair I had just cut off, was a part of so many years in my life, I did not let it grow so long without a reason.
I thought that—
Sasuke-kun liked girls with long hair.
That rumor was enough for me to make it grow so long.
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"Ah…it's gotten so short. What a waste."
I nodded, Shikamaru gave a saddened expression, he knew I had taken care of it so much, at times I did curse it, but like any other girl, I did learn to love and cherish my hair so much, like any teeny bopper happy little girl.
Sometimes I did wish I was one, in fact, after flunking the chuunin exam…it's almost the perfect time to quit being a ninja.
Shikamaru sits beside me in the damp grass, looking over at the sky that hovers above us. And I felt, I knew what he thought.
"Whatever it is beyond this sky…is something that I can never imagine, Ino." He looks at me with a goofy, loser smile. But he understood me completely.
"You're a nice girl, just because you failed now doesn't mean you have to give up."
"Easy for you to say, you passed the preliminaries. Moron."
"Tch, you're such a shallow blondie!"
I twitch and kick him in the face, the nerve! Shallow?! Blondie?!
"ONLY ASSHOLES CALL ME THAT!!!"
He laughs, right after rolling in the dirt; scratching his butt shamelessly in front of me.
God, why am I with someone so disgusting?!
"You're a troublesome little girl, but you're not like the others…" he pauses and places his hands on his hips, his head turns to view the vast sky, coaxing me to do the same.
"…there's so much out there for you. It's just that you won't happen to see it now. Your fate will be the same whether you're a boy or a girl."
"I don't know if the same thing applies to me though."
He frowns.
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