DISCLAIMER: All Naruto-affiliated things/characters do not belong to me. But I really lust for Neji. Please?
RECAP:
…"Shikamaru, hurry and feed me with info on you manly girls before Shino gets back so then we can all go sleep earlier. I'm tired," she yawned.
There was a whole new chapter opening in her life…
And I won't be facing it alone…not anymore, she sighed contentedly.
ONE MORE MAN ::CHAPTER SIX::
"Hey, you said we were finally getting a transfer student this year!"
The accused girl shrugged with a smug expression, shiny purple nails flashing as she examined them in the sunlight. Her long golden blonde hair streamed smoothly down her curved back, accenting and flaunting her obvious model body even more.
"Stop looking at your ugly nails and just say something," Temari scoffed. Ino frowned, then sneered and pointed an 'ugly' nail right at her.
"I wouldn't be saying anything…your hair style is worse than Shika-kun's, of all people!"
"Shika-kun?!"
"Yes, Shika-kun. We've recently become very good friends, haven't we, Hinata?" Ino mock-laughed.
"U-um…" The gentle, bluish-black haired Hyuuga blushed and stared down at the marble pavement. "Sh-she's just k-k-kidding, T-temari-chan…"
"And you're stuttering again! C'mon, Hinata, we all know Ino and Temari are going to fight over Shikamaru 'til the world stops spinning," exclaimed Tenten, who'd only wanted to know about the transfer student from the very beginning.
"Why would I fight over him?" both horrified blondes screeched at the same time. Tenten just sighed, shaking her usual two chocolate buns side to side.
"Yeah, yeah…so Ino, want to tell me the deal over this supposed "new girl" yet?"
Ino flipped her hair over her shoulder, waving flirtatiously at a group of drooling freshmen. She turned back around with a rare serious face.
"Actually, I only know this because I accidentally completely overheard a whole conversation the other day about that…girl."
They all leaned in close as she started to whisper.
"The Principal said something like 'she isn't who she thinks she is' and, like, other mysterious crap I don't understand. He talked the entire time using the words "she" and "her" without mentioning a name at all…"
Ino paused dramatically.
"But this morning, he was briefing the teachers over about the new student…and not only did he say the student skipped school yesterday…he said it was a guy."
Hinata gasped softly.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" said Temari. Tenten, with a confused look on her face, started looking even more excited with each passing second.
"Yes, this is exactly the kind of drama we need!" she shouted, pumping her fist in the air. Hinata hurriedly shushed her and looked around meekly at the stares they received.
"Nice going there, Tenten. But you're right," Ino grinned, eyes twinkling with mischief, "and since this multi-gender person will finally be at school today, we have to make sure to be in the middle of it all."
They laughed together, Hinata's shyness replaced with a stunning vivacity only her best friends could bring out.
Not remembering her previous words at all, Ino now stood near the edge of the courtyard, frustrated at a standstill in making her decision.
The boy was hardly approachable material.
He was scaring half the population off with his chilling emerald eyes and iced aura while attracting the rest with it. The luscious white locks of his flowed in the wind beneath a thick black headband on top his head and made Ino think of Kakashi-sensei when she saw his black face mask as well.
To approach or not to approach, that is the question, she thought seriously.
It didn't help that he was standing right in between the most fangirl-ed ever guys in the school; surrounding him like bodyguards, it went from Naruto, to Shikamaru, to Neji, to a pissed Sasuke that was killing even seniors with his glare, and finally to a puffed up Chouji looking oddly proud in the back.
That was most…unusual. Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji actually went pretty far back – she never told Temari this because the girl really was in love with him, whether she knew it or not. Ino knew love when she saw it…and she also knew Chouji.
In Ino logic, if you were Chouji, being proud and showing off…was like a girl stating Uchiha Sasuke was ugly. It never happened. …Ever.
Ino logic never failed.
A chattering bunch of the most horrid type of extreme fangirls (She would never subject herself to acting like those pieces of trash) giggled a few feet away from her, pointing and whispering at the new boy.
Her eyes narrowed. Boy, or girl?
The face mask covered any telltale signs of masculinity, and long eyelashes with pretty eyes could hardly count it to be a girl. Ino obviously at least knew that much, after having gone to school with a certain Hyuuga everyday.
The long hair wasn't any help either. Except, wait…
Ino walked forwards, not realizing she had stepped out of the crowds quite a bit.
If she looked closer, at the end of his/her wide headband were tiny fringes of white hair, as if the boy was trying to hide some…bangs, of sorts.
Some very non-masculine side-sweeping bangs she'd actually seen on that new issue of Sixteen magazine last night…
"Ino? Why are you all the way out here?" drawled Shikamaru, raising an eyebrow at her place fifteen feet away from the gossiping crowds and only three from their little group.
She suddenly snapped back to life and realized just what a stupid, typical dumb blonde act she'd just pulled off.
"Ehe-he…" Ino straightened and awkwardly ran her fingers through her hair, noticing especially how the mysterious boy/girl was looking at her with a completely uninterested expression. "I…tripped?"
"Ehe-he… I…tripped?"
The girl was drop-dead gorgeous. Sakura was almost even jealous for a second, but then felt glad it wasn't her that was gifted with such a nice rack and extra curvy body.
That would have been hard to hide if she was going to pose as a guy.
Sakura tugged nervously at the edge of her sleeve, uncomfortable with the thought that the clothes strangely felt really fitting on her.
"So…how do I look?"
Shikamaru and Shino looked up sleepily from their early morning game of shogi, both still temporarily blind and stoned from lack of coffee. They mumbled some responses, a "nice" and "good" caught somewhere in between, before returning blearily back to their game and wondering who's turn was next.
"Thanks, really," Sakura muttered, eyebrows raised. "You guys need your coffee, don't you?"
"It'll work," Sasuke grunted from behind her. He absentmindedly reached out and ruffled her now bright white strands of hair, his own bed-head style matching hers as her made it disheveled.
Naruto chose at that moment to leap in through the open window, grin blinding the entire room.
"Yeah, because there's not much to hide anyway, believe it!"
Needless to say, Naruto had been subject to three different death glares, four stoned/semi-amused expressions, and an extra bonus tackle from Sasuke as well.
The girl in front of her now was definitely not someone Naruto would ever say that to.
"Just admit it, you screeching banshee," Naruto crowed in good nature, looking like he was about to eagerly show something off. "You just came over to look at our precious Sak—"
"—who might you be?" Sakura interrupted while stepping on Naruto's foot, stifling her amusement when Shikamaru also stepped on his foot. She tried to set her eyes into what she had practiced to be a more…masculine look, as Ino gave her a subtle "up-down".
Neji smirked on the sidelines, stopping abruptly when a fangirl sigh swooped over the crowds on their sides. Sasuke sniggered at that, but he'd made the same mistake and immediately stopped once he had his own fangirls swooning.
"Akimichi Yuki," Sakura said smoothly in her new tenor voice, holding out a hand for the blonde-haired beauty. Ino was busy scrutinizing Sakura, even though she tried to make it non-obvious. Sakura had experience with these things.
And then Ino finally realized what she'd been trying to figure out.
There was definitely some secret surrounding the new student.
Contrary to popular belief, Ino wasn't just a dumb blonde. For one thing, she hadn't been longtime childhood friends with Shikamaru and Chouji only to know nothing of their lives. And she knew that Chouji most definitely had never said anything about a relative named Yuki.
Grinning seductively, because whenever she tried it sweetly it turned out seductive anyway, she slid her hand smoothly into his.
But before she could react – which was saying a lot, because Ino was famous for her always-in-control boy charms – Akimichi Yuki and taken her hand and raised it to his lips for a gentle kiss on the knuckles.
Boy-crazy was the right word to describe Yamanaka Ino with. She only settled for the top ring of high-class, beautiful men. Beguiling those men into following her like pathetic, drooling, puppy dogs was almost nothing to her.
Yet, this mysterious, handsome Akimichi Yuki had just succeeded in making her blush.
Shikamaru knew something was wrong the minute Ino tripped right into their protective circle.
For the second time in his life, Shikamaru had overlooked something.
All in one week, too…
He groaned internally, blaming the escalating trouble in his life on Sakura. He'd forgotten one most important fact…
Yamanaka Ino was not stupid.
In the middle of fifth grade, Ino had been dumped by her first boyfriend – a prick, of course, but he'd been a handsome prick, she'd argued. At that time, Ino didn't have any girl friends. All the girls either hated her or just didn't like her, something which she swore didn't get to her even if Shikamaru knew she'd cried about it every now and then.
And because Shikamaru had always been the top genius ever since entering the Institute chain of schools, he'd made a startling observation after hanging out with her, and proved it that day she was dumped by her first prick of a boyfriend.
Yamanaka Ino was not stupid. Rather…she was incredibly intelligent.
When he put his mind to it, Shikamaru could figure out things no one else could, not even the top scientists of the world. And when he put his mind to it, Shikamaru could also be a really good friend.
On a subconscious level, Ino could solve almost any problem you dealt her with – but that would only occur if you could somehow knock out her outer consciousness and bring out the one under it. She had two layers in her mind, which Shikamaru figured was created for protection from emotions she didn't want to deal with; the bottom one that rarely surfaced was almost a genius.
Whenever Ino was depressed, her inner consciousness would appear. And on that day in fifth grade, while taking their mathematics finals, she was very, very depressed.
Shikamaru was a good friend. He realized that she'd taken the test like that, so she'd get something close to a full score, and that would completely throw everyone off once they saw it on the result charts.
Ino had always received slightly lower than average grades, and she'd adamantly said one day to their trio of three that she would never want it any other way. Her image, she'd said, didn't have room for people to realize her 'secret intelligence'. He never knew if she was aware of her inner genius, or if she was just being her same pretentious self.
What he did know, though, was that Ino would never want people to look at her that way. She wanted everyone to love her for who she loved to be and not to end up like Shikamaru, who was often only revered for his test scores and brilliant equations.
So in fifth grade, Shikamaru rounded up the help of an excited Naruto, and did his first illegal act.
Hacking into the security system was nothing. But he himself had no skills in being swift and silent enough to steal the actual test Ino had taken itself from the teacher's vault. And though Naruto was clumsy, loud, and never appeared to be smart, he'd also seen underneath that.
Somehow, Naruto was a master at stealing things.
Shikamaru didn't delve into it – it wasn't his business, and he was glad enough that Naruto had bothered to help him. They stole Ino's test, burned it, and solved the problem.
To this day, Ino still didn't know it was him that had caused her to retake the test and receive the lowest score in their class. And she still didn't know that every other case of this happening was always because of Shikamaru and his surprisingly still secret alliance with Naruto, who was definitely not known for keeping a secret so long.
But whatever the case was, he'd allowed a mistake that could prove to be fatal, just because he'd been wrapped up in the excitement Sakura had brought with her arrival.
Sasuke stepped into Shikamaru's view, startling him.
"Don't worry about it," he murmured, eyes lazily following Sakura's polite introduction.
Shikamaru watched.
"Akimichi Yuki," he heard Sakura say. Her voice-changing was perfect, though she wouldn't tell them how she'd gained that skill when she demonstrated it like it was nothing the previous night.
Then Sakura kissed her hand, and Ino blushed, and a wave of relief rushed through him.
A blushing Ino meant her intelligence level dropped deep. Natural woman instincts were higher in power than intelligence in Ino's mind. Whenever she encountered some "hot" material, as she would put it, Ino's mind almost completely shut down – the only part left running was her womanly instincts.
"It's so nice to meet you! I'm Yamanaka Ino!" she gushed, her signature seductress grin slowly forming. Her hand even dared to linger a bit in Sakura's after the light kiss was over with.
"Yamanaka-san, was it?" Sakura repeated quietly, pronouncing each syllable as if they were nostalgic. Shikamaru caught a glimpse of a slight frown beneath her mask.
Ino pouted. "Well, yeah, but you can just call me—"
"Can we just ignore her and get to class?" Naruto scowled. "Ino's one annoying bitch…"
Sakura stood there, thinking heavily. She sighed and unhappily decided that that was the best approach.
Ino glared at Naruto, prepared with a witty remark to throw back at him, but someone beat her to it. In an opposite way.
"Now that I know you're a bitch, Yamanaka-san, kindly let us go on our way," the new boy, Yuki, smiled, his eyes crinkling.
And Ino could do nothing but stand there in shock and embarrassment as the entire group walked off – Shikamaru and Chouji included, without even a look back.
The boy was no cute thing. He had an even sharper attitude than the Uchiha.
Mind whirring back into action, Ino pulled out her cell and texted one message to the entire B Class.
AKIMICHI YUKI WILL NOT BE TOUCHED BY ANYONE YET.
She grinned.
Revenge was sweet…and hers and hers alone.
...TO BE CONTINUED...
A/N: 12.03.08 – (treeshie)
Hiya. … Well, it's sure been a while.
Recently, everything I write has been getting more and more "fangirlish" and really AU and OC-ish and I DON'T KNOW but I wasn't aiming for this light-hearted comedic high school life I'm getting. HATE. CATFIGHTS.
I seem to have this penchant for writing things that I rather dislike yet appeal to other masses. (cough, little sis, cough) And I'm currently hating school life… I ended up in the school I didn't want to go to and fought tooth and nail to avoid. But now I'm here and it's not helping my grades a single bit. Yes, I must whine on fanfiction because I really have no life.
Yay, to those of you who review. I love you all. :]
And for those who actually read Love Paradox before and are currently reading this newest chapter – No mere words can express my gratification, admiration, and adoration for your continuation with my story.
Hope you all have a wonderful day.