Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me
Ahhhh, do you have any idea how stressful a law school final exam that is worth 90 or 100 percent is? Have been studying in the library and you feel like every time you make the slightest noise, someone is going to snap and throw a book at you. Sigh...
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Now, Ino is a kind-hearted girl. True, she is loud and bossy and bad-tempered, but she is also compassionate and giving. Who else would have stood up for classmates others considered not worth knowing? Let's take Akamirchi Chouji for example. Besides the fact that he's the son of one of her daddy's best friends, Ino took it upon herself to continually remind him to stop eating so much. She does not do it to be cruel like the other kids and Chouji knows this. She does it because she cares about his health and how others view him; if she didn't care, she would not even bother wasting the time and energy to keep yelling at him all the time. Uzumaki Naruto is another good example. Sure, Ino often engages in long and annoying shouting matches with him, but then again, Ino does that with all her friends. It might seem like an odd sort of relationship but Naruto is grateful that she does not treat him any different, unlike almost everyone else in the village.
So the fact of the matter is, despite her somewhat abrasive attitude, Ino is extremely fond of those she accepts as friends. You might even say that this makes her more vulnerable to being hurt since it is hard for her to understand why someone would reject what she is giving so freely. And that is exactly what happened between her and Sakura.
Ah yes, little pink-haired Haruno Sakura. You see, back in kindergarten, young Sakura had been mercilessly teased by the other girls for her unusually large forehead. So was her forehead actually abnormally large? It's hard to tell; maybe everyone else's was just unusually small. But little kids rarely consider the other side of things when they are being cruel.
Anyways, along comes Ino, who promptly launches into an angry tirade at the small lynching mob. Lucky for her, Ino was rather popular and had enough clout and lung-power to scare off the other girls while deciding to take Sakura under her wing. As a sign of her friendship, Ino gave Sakura a red ribbon to tie her hair back. Now why would someone with a supposedly large forehead want to expose it to the whole world? Ino had an answer to that too: because you are who you are and if others don't like it, then they're not worth your time. Besides, Ino didn't think Sakura was ugly and she told her so everyday until young Sakura started to believe that maybe it was true.
So imagine the confusion our heroine felt when one day, out of the blue, Sakura shoves the ribbon back at her and declares that they are no longer friends simply because she had heard that Ino liked the same boy Sakura did. Namely, young and moody Uchiha Sasuke. Well then, one might wonder, does that mean Sakura is going to refuse to be friends with every single girl in the village since almost all of them were crushing after the same guy? Was Sakura really foolish enough to turn her back on all her girl friends just for some guy who really couldn't care less about any of them? The answer is...yes. But this story isn't about how stupid Sakura is or how much she deserves to be lonely. It's about Ino and Shikamaru, who coincidentally runs into Ino after that particular incident.
Perhaps 'run' isn't the correct term since Shikamaru would rarely do something so troublesome unless he absolutely had to. Regardless, he comes across Ino while she is slumped in a park swing. Mildly surprised when she doesn't call out to him like she usually does, he saunters over to her and sits himself down in the other swing.
"Oi."
His grunt is barely acknowledged and now young Shikamaru is getting a bit worried. Was she sick or something? It wasn't like Ino to just sit around staring at the ground. That was his job. Then he saw it. The ribbon clutched in her small hand as she sat unmoving. Although Shikamaru is only 9, his genius brain is already fully functioning and it doesn't take him long to put two and two together. He knows Ino and Sakura are supposed to be best friends just like how he and Chouji are best friends. And he also knows the kind of person Ino is. So Shikamaru does not say anything, opting instead to swing lazily until she is ready to talk to him.
"Shikamaru?"
"Eh?"
Ino's head is bowed and he doesn't like it. The regular Ino would always stare straight into someone's eyes when she is talking to them.
"Sakura gave me the ribbon back. The one I gave her."
"Hn."
He doesn't say anything else. Nor does he need to. They sit there in companionable silence as the birds chirp and the wind rustles through their hair. Shikamaru is busy thinking about nothing and about many things when he suddenly catches a glimpse of sunlight gleaming off her wet cheeks.
Ino was crying. For real.
And so he does something completely out of character for someone as lazy as himself. He stands behind her swing and starts pushing it.
"Awk! Shikamaru!"
She barely has time to grab hold of the side chains. Craning her head back to glare at him, her brilliant blue eyes soften as they meet his darker ones. Ino understands that he is trying to cheer her up and she appreciates the fact that he knows that sometimes words are not necessary.
Laughing and wiping away the tears, she swings her legs in the air, encouraging him to push harder. And amidst his half-hearted grumbling that his arms are getting tired and her scolding that he should train more instead of watching clouds all day, Ino hears the softly-spoken plea that will stay with her through many years of painful training and dangerous missions.
"Don't cry, Ino."
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It wasn't until some time next week that Shikamaru sees Sakura.
Feeling someone staring at her, the pink-haired girl turns to face a wiry boy with a spiky black ponytail watching her with an uncomfortably intense gaze. She doesn't really know anything about him other than he is the boy who sleeps through every class but there is something in his eyes that make her cringe and turn quickly away.
She can't exactly say it was hostility or contempt; after all, Sakura cannot remember having done anything to offend him and words of that nature seem too strong to apply to a person like that. But whatever it was, it was that moment that made her hesitant and doubtful of his character in the future.
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A/N: Am still taking requests for Naruto pairings - I've definately chosen one so far but am still thinking. Next update should be coming in a week or so - have fun and please review!