Plot bunnies have been eating at my mind. This is my third-favorite Naruto pairing, anyway…not that it's blatantly obvious in this thing, if visible at all.
xxx
Gardenia
sinful serenity
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Yamanaka Ino's bed room is like any other teenage girl's her age: scattered with outfits she decided didn't work, liberally sprinkled with quiz-yourself magazines and scrolls; a fine layer of random shinobi tools overlaying it all. And of course, when you walk in, it's logical that she'd have sprigs of flowers hanging all around her: after all, her family does run Konoha's best floral services, after all.
Ino brushes aside a tied-together bunch of roses in search of her favorite hair band, not noticing the pile of delicate flowers skid off her desk as she gathers platinum-blonde tresses in her signature ponytail. Ino doesn't notice the heavily perfumed air, smelling sweetly of the fragrance of thousands of blossoms, and Ino doesn't notice as she runs around in search to pull herself together.
But she is careful when she comes to her dresser to check herself one last time, because that's where her most important thing of all is: a poorly preserved branch of cherry blossoms, faded brownish-white and slowly peeling off the brittle stem. But Ino's rough and dangerous touch slows down to caress the flowers lovingly, and Ino smiles, and Ino carefully lifts her hands away.
They've touched her hand once when they were dying; when they cried desperately for water and sunshine and love and care.
They've rewarded her with sweet smiles and beautiful flowers after all her hard work was done, and she could sit back and return the expression.
She has grieved their quick passing, when they've left her welcoming arms and searched for another's.
But it's spring, and Ino knows they'll come back. Ino knows the small stem broken off some tree and pressed into her warm hands so long ago is growing back: tall, slender, smooth, strong.
Ino knows, not because she can read minds: because she feels a green-eyed gaze on her back when she passes Sakura in the street, and the memory of the ribbon they shared, and playing tag and flower crowns and best friends forever.
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once was enough, and that's all i need
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