(ii) Wilting Point
"You see, after all that, she ended up just like me!" The Yamanaka dinner was a tense, bitter affair, "A florist! All that money... paying the training fees, buying that ridiculous gear..."
"Yuki, please..."
"Inoichi! Don't you dare interrupt...I blame you!"
Ino stared miserably at her food; a shapeless lump of rice and two coloured piles of mock meat. She gave her father a dour glance, which he returned. She has my eyes, he thought, absent-mindedly, But her mother's lips.
Those lips were trembling now, "If not for the Nara's son..."
"Don't bring Shikamaru into this!" Inoichi snapped, throwing down his fork as if the comment had been a personal wound, "I cannot imagine how it must feel to lose a child." And, in a calmer voice, he said, "You should be glad she's still sitting there."
Somewhere in the room a clocked chimed and Ino grew an eternity older. Why must they always talk about me like I'm not here, she thought. She stood up to leave, her dinner untouched. She looked at both her parents; they were avoiding each other's eyes as well as hers.
"I'll be in my room," she said, "Dyeing the carnations."
They let her go.