Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me

New Year's has been pretty calm. It's amazing how boring doing nothing can be - I've gotten into a routine of waking at 3 pm and sleeping at5 in the morning. I guess I just function better at night considering I do most of my writing then. Been absolutely obsessed with Bleach lately. Fans of this anime should definately check out 'Come What May' by Virgo1 (it's on my favourite's list) - amazing!

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Jealousy is an ugly thing.

It can erupt at the most inconvenient of times and then stubbornly refuse to go away despite your best intentions. If you try to ignore it, it will gnaw away at you, tearing you apart from the inside out until there is nothing left but a hollow shell that is no good to anyone. But if you let it explode, the consequences are sometimes even worst. You could find yourself in a horrible screaming match that ends with one person stalking away and the two of you not talking for ages.

How different people handle it varies. Let's look at Shikamaru, for instance. He's a pretty laid-back guy. You would think he'd consider time-consuming emotions like jealousy too troublesome to even bother with. Yes, you would think that, but that does not mean it's necessarily true. Because you see, if you watch carefully enough, you will discover little hints that maybe our hero isn't as stoic as he seems.

Take all those times when Ino threw herself on one Uchiha Sasuke. If you ignore the squealing girl and irritated target for a split second, then you would catch the way Shikamaru's eyes automatically slide away from the scene. He might yawn or stare off into the distance like he usually does whenever he's daydreaming standing up. But the moment Ino gets off the popular, skilled and handsome village heartthrob, our boy magically wakes up again, albeit with an muted, harder gleam in his eyes.

So what, you might wonder? Maybe he's just disgusted by the way his teammate is making a fool of herself. Maybe it's happened so often that he's just tired of it. And both are probably true too. But then you would have to take into account his almost-sullen mood afterwards and the fact that those are usually the days that he chooses to spend the rest of his free time away from the team. Those are the days when he can most likely be found underneath the same lonely willow tree, staring up at the clouds with an oddly blank look on his face.

Now let's take a look at Ino. She's straight-forward and energetic, prone to saying whatever it is that's on her mind and not holding anything back. You would expect her to be the type who wouldn't stand for feeling jealous. Heck, you wouldn't even expect someone as beautiful as her to ever even feel jealous. But if she did, she seems more like the type who would blow up and give the guy a piece of her mind, right?

Actually, when you think about it, it might not be surprising to find that maybe Ino doesn't handle real emotions well. Like that time when Sakura announced that they were no longer friends. The pink-haired girl had fully expected the loud kunoichi to start yelling at her and maybe even mocking her. But that had not happened. Ino had simply stood there, staring confusedly at the ribbon in her hand and after a while, Sakura decided to walk away. And as we saw, Ino only allowed herself to let it out for a moment, a moment when the tears had leaked down her cheeks before being banished by a certain spiky-haired boy.

With that in mind, it might be easier to understand why Ino reacts the way she does upon a new addition to the Konoha scene:

Ino had not gone to the hospital right away. She knew that the team had arrived back from their Sasuke mission and that many of them were injured. From her position behind the front desk of the Yamanaka flower shop, she had watched as Shikamaru's mother rushed down the street, followed soon after by Chouji's mother, still wearing her yellow apron. Her own mother had popped her head in a moment later to frantically tell Ino that the boys were in the hospital and if she wanted to see them, it would be alright to close up the shop early.

The air around her had seemed to solidify, making it hard for Ino to think or move. At her lack of response, her mother had forcefully shepherded her out of the store and in the direction of the hospital.

Ino had walked blindly and slowly for a while. There were too many thoughts running through her head, all of them jostling for an answer. Why had they gone after Sasuke-kun in the first place? How come she had not been told or asked to go with her teammates? What were they doing in the hospital; shouldn't they have gone to the Hokage's Tower to report back first? Was somebody hurt…dying even? Was it Chouji? Or Shikama…

She had started running then. And when that was too slow, she started leaping from rooftop to rooftop, forcing her whirling mind to focus on one thing: that she needed to get to the hospital right away.

And so she did. Her relief was great upon hearing that all of the boys had made it back alive, but quickly turned to shock at the news that, along with Hyuuga prodigy Neji, Chouji was one of the two in critical condition. She knew she would not be allowed in to see him but still wanted to be there while they treated him. He needed her support.

It was outside the operating room that Ino first felt it. She had taken the stairs up and had been ready to turn the corner when she heard a female voice say "You received emotional training, didn't you?"

The voice was familiar in its self-assured huskiness. It was that sand kunoichi, the one who had battled Shikamaru in the Chuunin Exam. Ino had been ready to confront her on her motive for being in Konoha again when she heard an equally familiar low voice answer.

Shikamaru.

She had listened to their conversation, said nothing as Shikamaru was taught a lesson by his father when he tried to walk away and watched as the boy stood there with his head bowed and shoulders shaking after Tsunade-sama's announcement. He was crying.

For the first time that Ino could remember, Shikamaru was crying.

She had wanted to scream and break something, preferably Uchiha Sasuke's head. She had wanted to rush out and hug him, to assure him that next time, he would do better. She had wanted to wipe away his tears and cry in his place, because it hurt. It hurt to see Shikamaru, who had never tried to be something he was not, be broken for the sake of someone who had betrayed everyone to be something despicable.

But it had all seemed too personal, too much of an invasion into his private space. Something told her that he would not want her to see him like this and so, Ino did none of those things. Instead, she had slid down and sat there on the cold tiled floor, staring silently at the slightly smudged dull green wall directly opposite her. She continued to listen as he slowly made his way back to the chairs outside the room. That sand kunoichi had started talking to him again. Alternatively insulting and reassuring him in a way Ino immediately recognized as an awkward attempt to comfort. After all, Ino had used it often enough herself.

And the boy had responded. No, not so much verbally since he rarely uttered more than a grunt or monosyllable. But Ino knew him well enough to identify the gradual steadying of his 'Hn's and faint amusement in his short retorts. And as she sat there alone and out of the loop in an empty corridor, separated from the two shinobi exchanging jabs outside the recovery room of her other critically injured friend, Ino felt the first disturbing stirrings inside her chest.

She felt as though she had lost her place.

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A/N: Yeah, like I've been chatting with a couple of reviewers, writing fan fics is like therapy for me. Jealousy is thrilling when it's directed at you by your sig other but when you experience it, who knew that that particular combo of chemicals in your brain could be so agonizing.

NEWAYS, next update in a week as usual. Have a great holidays!