3. Hide and Seek
No way in Hell am I turning back now.
Ino was going to go out into the world and find her place in the Cloud village. Her stomach somersaulted and twisted nervously. She hasn't been this nervous since her first day of the academy or during the Chuunin exams. Being all worked up about something she used to do every day seemed stupid. She's seen and done many things on missions that got her riled up, so how come simply going outside gave her a panic attack every time she thought about it?
Before preparing for the day ahead of her, Ino stared in the mirror, glaring at her reflection. You can do it, Ino, she thought, giving herself a pep talk. For the most part, it worked. A tiny voice deep in her brain said she wasn't ready for the outside world, just stay inside for a while longer. Ino marched out the door with her shoulders pulled back and her head held high as she repressed the negative thoughts, shoving them away.
Just before the rotating doors, Ino stopped to pull out a pink scarf from her small, white satchel and wrapped the scarf around her neck, pulling the scarf a smidge to cover her mouth and nose. She buttoned her purple coat closed and covered her scarred hands with the ends of her sleeves. Before she took her first steps, she looked down at her healing legs and regretted wearing a dress, but it's too late to turn back now, she decided.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed against the rotating entrance. Her heart raced as she took her first step onto the sidewalk on the main street… then tough winds swung the doors, shoving Ino back into the lobby. She couldn't believe it. This had to be a sign. Her brain tells her she's not ready to go out, and then the wind tells her to stay inside.
"I'd advise you to stay inside, miss."
"I'll do whatever the hell I want!" Ino unnecessarily shouted, taking a running start for the door. Her brain, the wind, and the receptionist could kiss her ass.
She flew outside, hitting a group of elderly women as she jumped through the rotating doors. The doors spun rapidly round and round, making it impossible for others to enter the inn.
Finally.
The skyscrapers seemed to lean forward, threatening to topple over her in second. She forgot how big this city was. People gorged the sidewalks and streets, giving no one any bubble space. The idea of being so close to people sent uneasy shivers down her spine and made her stomach flip.
Whatever, Ino thought; no one is going to hurt you. She hoped, at least.
Ino walked passed smitten couples, who swung their intertwined hands and talked animatedly and smiled at each other with a glint in their eyes like their significant other was the most beautiful thing they've ever seen. The sight sickened Ino. She glowered at the couples and walked faster to get away from them.
Old women sat on park benches and gossiped, whispering about the people who passed them.
Tall buildings surrounded the park. Every time she saw the skyscrapers, the height and size of the buildings amazed her. How could anyone make such huge building? Beyond the skyscrapers, she barely noticed the patches of blue dotting the sky and wondered if anyone here actually saw the stars in the night sky, or if they've seen the bright moon. Back home, the stars lit the streets up with their glittering glow. When she was younger, she would connect the stars to make some sort of an animal, object, or find the constellations. Her mother taught her about the constellations
There was nothing pretty about Cloud, whatsoever. People lived up in the beautiful mountains, where the view could be breath taking and extravagant, and they decided to building enormous buildings that take the view away. Konoha was a place of amazing beauty. The people who founded Konoha had to be architecturally smart. Everything about that village was eye appealing to her, from the Hokage Mountain to the house and apartments, and she thought the training grounds were attractive despite the fact there are booby traps set throughout the majority of them.
Ino skid to a stop when she noticed a blue, neon sign flickering between two enormous skyscrapers. If it weren't for the blue, broken sign that read 'LUE UB', it'd be impossible to find the Blue Pub.
Even though no one was working, Jin left the entrance open with the open sign hanging in the large window. Tiny, dimly lit streetlights led the way to the tavern located in the eerie darkness. A breeze of wind gusted by the alleyways, creating an eerie whistle making Ino rush inside.
Before swinging the door open, she peered through the window to check if any of the employees were running about. Ino couldn't see anyone sitting at the tables playing their usual games of war, poker, or black jack. Ino cracked the door open, slipping through the crack she made for herself, and then pushed the door closed quietly.
As usual, while scrubbing the counter and glasses clean, Jin stared at the tiny television placed on the corner of the counter, by the cash register. Jin was a germ nut, and he spent the off hours cleaning every nook and cranny of his pub, so Ino wasn't surprised to find him scrubbing the already scrubbed glasses.
"Sorry, we're closed. Come back later," Jin grunted with his eyes still fixated on the screen.
Ino pulled the scarf down to her neck, revealing frowning, chapped lips. "I lived here, last time I checked."
Ino watched Jin's face flood with confusion until he ripped his eyes away from the television. His dim eyes widened at the sight of his lost bartender. "You're alive."
"Damn straight I'm alive!" Ino bellowed, slamming the side of her fist into the wall, shaking suspended pictures. "I found your kidnapper!" The memories flooded back into her mind. The flashes of his face and dirty grin were kindling to her sudden anger. "Did you know the girls are dead? He killed them?"
The newscaster filled the awkward tension between Jin and Ino. Why was he gawking at her like that? Abruptly, startling Ino, Jin began to laugh, a hardy laugh, a hardy, gut jiggling laugh. Ino kicked a stool across the room. "You sick, old man! Why are you laughing?"
Jin's laughing fit died after a few moments of Ino biting his ear off with unnecessary insults. He waved the insults off and with a sigh, continued to towel off the wet glasses. "You need to calm down, Ino," Jin said, keeping a calm tone with her.
"What the hell are you taking about? I am calm."
A quick chuckle hummed in his throat. Ino gave the man a disapproving glare. "I just find it funny how you burst in here and fail to explain where you've been for the past few weeks."
"He killed your employees! You are lucky I…fought him off, or I wouldn't be here to warn you! More and more girls would start to disappear, and no one would want to work for you because they would hear rumors! This isn't funny, Jin! If I were you, I would relocate quickly."
Jin shook his head. "No can do, honey. I spent my life savings to get this place, and there's no chance I'll be relocating all because some killer."
"That's sick."
"I'll take extra precautions. How does that sound?"
"Not good enough. He killed your employees. Does that not worry you at all?"
Ino slightly jumped when Jin slammed a glass down on the counter and sternly stared at her. "I'll walk the girls who don't live here myself, or I'll send one of the boys to walk them home. How does that sound?"
Ino leaned against the counter, suddenly exhausted. "Better, but please don't let Takao do it."
"What's wrong with Takao?"
"Takao can't fight anyone off. Would he hit the guy with his purse? Chuck lipstick at the guy's face?"
"Takao doesn't own make up."
"You're taking it too literal."
"So, you're saying Takao's too feminine to fight someone?"
"Minako has a better chance."
"Oh."
"Now, we're off topic!" Ino sighed. "I want extra precautions taken, Jin! If one more girl disappears, you will relocate," she threatened under her breath, "and if you don't, I know people who are very good at persuading."
Jin grunted in response.
Ino tapped the toe of her shoe against the floorboards, twiddling her thumbs behind her back. "Just as a precaution, I'd like to stay here and keep an eye out. He's still on the loose."
"You could just ask me you want to stay here, Ino."
"I don't want to stay here because I want to. I'm here to protect the other girls in case he comes around again…. I could point him out to you if he ever comes back."
Jin leaned against the counter, setting his glass to the side. Ino stepped back subconsciously, earning a curious lift of the eyebrow from Jin. "You just want your job back to make enough money to get your own place, am I right?"
Ino remained silent.
"All you young people are the same. Besides, you have your own place back in Konoha, right? I don't wanna get in trouble just because you decided to go AWOL."
"Sorry?"
The older man mumbled something incoherent under his breath, hung his head then lifted his head to look at Ino with sincere eyes. There was no way Jin could say no to her. He had a big heart and really did care about his employees even though it didn't seem like it from what he previously said about not relocating his pub. Mumbling some sort of gibberish, Jin nodded his head and beckoned her to follow him.
Two floors divided the pub. The bar was the first floor, and the second floor housed the employees. Why Jin housed the employees, she didn't know, but it was nice of him because none of the employees had family here. Plus, the cheapest apartments and homes were across the village, which happened to be an hour walk.
From what Ino remembered, there were four employees (excluding her) living in the dorms, two in a room. There were five rooms upstairs - well, technically three because Jin used the last room as storage, and the bathroom doesn't really count as a room parse. The rooms were placed on one side of the hallway considering there wasn't enough room to put two rooms on one side and three on the other. If there were two rooms of each side, the boys would reside on one side while the girls had the other side. She remembered one of the guys having a lonely night, and the constant thumping and grunting kept her up most of the night, leaving her severely disturbed afterwards.
Before her accident, she bunked with Minako, a young woman about three or four year older than her who could pass as Ino's twin when it came to looks. As for her personality, Minako bounced off the walls every second of the day and ran her mouth constantly. Minako reminded Ino of Naruto sometimes.
"Sorry, you won't have your old room. Minako took it, and there's a new girl who's bunking with her. So, you'll be sharing with Sachiko." Five employees now, Ino corrected.
Ino shrugged. "It's fine with me. Can you give me the key?"
"Here. Oh, Ino, you do know my policy right? You live here -"
"You serve beer," Ino distastefully finished his saying. "Gotcha. What are my hours?"
"I was hoping you'd be all right with the hours you had before."
"It's fine with me. I'm gonna go find a day job. I'll be back before six-thirty then. Chao."
Ino wasn't expecting Jin to make her come back to bartending. It's on the list of 'Things I'm Never Doing Again'. Nevertheless, it was work, and Ino needed the job to make some extra money for her apartment.
"A day job?"
"I need money for my own place, right?"
Shikamaru searched for hours, trying to find the Blue Pub, but the damn place wasn't anywhere to be found. The place couldn't be freaking invisible, could it? Shikamaru considered it to be a possibility, but it was only possible if a ninja, who knew how to do an invisibility jutsu on a building, were running the place, and from his knowledge, no normal human being had enough chakra to make a building invisible. Also, a civilian runs the Blue Pub.
"Excuse me, ma'am, could you tell me where the Blue Pub is?"
The woman had her back turned to him. She wore a purple sundress despite the frigid weather. The woman jumped when he placed his hand on her shoulder, and she clutched her pink scarf that wrapped around her face. She turned around with a pleasant smile on her face. Shikamaru's breath staggered when he noticed the woman's face strangely reminded him of Temari.
"It's in between the two buildings over there, honey." When she let go of her scarf to point him into the right direction, her scarf fell down to her shoulders revealing the sandy blonde hair Temari has. The stranger's hair was curlier than his lover's but still painfully alike. "Pretty Ladies is definitely better, though," she said, biting her lip when Shikamaru glanced at her. "All you'll find at the Blue are smelly men and mean ninja…unless you're in to that stuff."
"Please, excuse me," Shikamaru huffed. "I'm busy right now. Thank you."
"Come visit me sometime! Pretty Ladies - remember!"
Shikamaru hustled his way to the alley, poking his head around the corner before stepping into the eerie darkness of the alleyway. It was rather big to be an alley really, Shikamaru thought as he looked around. Neon, cerulean lights blinked in the corner of his eyes, catching his attention.
"Lue Ub?" Someone needed to fix their lights….
Shikamaru pushed the doors open and stepped into the building, expecting the place to be deserted and silent. In fact, a group of young adults gathered around a table in the middle of the room. A blonde girl punched the air and cheered someone on.
"Can I help you, young man?" An older man shut the door to what Shikamaru presumed as the office. He was short, shorter than Shikamaru anyway, and had a graying bread. "We're currently closed right now, but you can come back later if you want a beer." The man pushed his thin glasses up with his index finger than raked his hand through his short, graying, chestnut hair.
"I'm actually looking for someone. Are you Jin Utada?"
"That is me."
"Then you must know who I'm looking for." Shikamaru noticed the blonde girl listening on the conversation. When she noticed Shikamaru looking at her, she slowly turned her attention back to the men arm wrestling.
"Don't worry about Minako," Jin assured, patting the young man on the shoulder. He pulled a stool under himself and sat down with a sigh of relief. "My old legs are starting to give on me," he joked and pulled a stool closer to Shikamaru. "Sit now. What's this about looking for someone?"
Shikamaru reached into his back pocket and pulled out the picture of Ino. "Have you seen Ino?"
Jin relaxed his shoulder and sighed once again. "So, you're a Konoha ninja I reckon," he whispered, shooting a sharp, cautious glance at the group of people. He leaned in closer to Shikamaru and whispered, "I couldn't remember what your emblem belonged to. Anyway, about Ino, she was actually in here about an hour ago?"
Shikamaru jumped from his seat. "Can you tell me where she went?"
Jin pointed his thumb to the right. "She hooked a right when she left. Where she's at is -" Shikamaru rushed out of the building before Jin could finish his sentence.
With all his stinking luck, he missed Ino by an hour, and now, she could be anywhere in the hustling, bustling city of Cloud. For someone his rank, tracing chakra was difficult. He doesn't trace chakra - he controls the opponents shadow and lets his comrades beat the living snot out of the vulnerable enemy. He decodes secret messages and makes battle strategies. Shikamaru does not go stomping around a strange town to look for little, blonde girls who decided to go missing then miraculously reappear. He does not do well with wild goose chases. Lucky for him, he doesn't have to go prodding around any bushes or rivers to find her dead body. That's a plus.
It was nearly lunchtime, and the lunch time rush hour began to take place as people in business suits walked out of the huge skyscrapers, and Cloud shinobi dropped in unexpectedly, scaring the crap out of the civilians. Their muscles bulged from their tight fitted shirt, making the women stop for a moment and enjoy the beauty that the group of men possessed. Shikamaru spared a glanced at his own biceps. He decided his biceps were modest, not big enough for bystanders to stop and ogle at him, but they weren't small either. Modest, that's a fine word indeed.
He walked past the Cloud shinobi while they flexed and wooed the women with their baby oil coated, tan muscles - which made Shikamaru wonder how they managed to get so tan when the buildings blocked the sun. They either use a tanning both, which is a questionable thing for a man to do Shikamaru thought, or they have recently returned from a place where the sun is constantly shining. The women practically pawed at the three buff men as they continued to show off their glistening muscles.
Once rush hour was in full effect, there was no place from Shikamaru to run and hide. With every step he took, they were at least three people bumping into him. He swore some old lady walked by him and pinched his butt, but Shikamaru couldn't know for sure who pinched his butt because a gazillion and two people surrounded him. If he didn't suffer from claustrophobia, he certainly would from this point on. How could someone live in such a crowded environment like this one? Back in Konoha, there was plenty of room despite the village being twice the size of Cloud. However, Cloud makes up the size in height with its frighteningly large skyscrapers. If it weren't for the skyscrapers, this village would be nothing.
Shikamaru abruptly stopped to analyze the buildings and small shops on the other side of the road, making the person walking behind him run into him, but the person didn't ask if Shikamaru was all right or apologize, he just walked around him and continued his business. This place was full of rude, inconsiderate people. Shikamaru ignored it just this once, but the next person that ran into him without apologizing, he was going to beat them into bloody pudding.
Anyway, Shikamaru didn't recognize the small market, placed on the edge of the mountain, which supplied the best view in the village with the mountain terrain spread through the land and playing along the distant horizon where the sun glowed vividly in the cloudless, baby blue sky. He could stand in the middle of that crowded sidewalk and just stare at the beautiful view, remembering Konoha and realizing how homesick he was.
"You're holding up the traffic, boy! Get moving!" An old lady knocked him behind the knees with her ridiculous cane, and according to the grumpy, wrinkled face of hers, she wasn't going to stop until Shikamaru moved.
"Sorry." He stepped into the closest shop to ask for directions back to the inn.
"You look like you're having troubles, young lad," the cashier said as he wrote down the directions to the inn. "Don't tell me," he said, "you're having women problems."
Shikamaru desperately wanted to roll his eyes at the man, but resisted for the sake of politeness. He simply smiled and waited for the cashier to jot down all the directions. Shikamaru impatiently tapped his foot as the man finished off his directions. How could "small" - quoting the cashier – directions take ten minutes to write? Shikamaru peered at the directions written on a napkin - at least the man had the decency to write clearly and neatly unlike most people who write illegible squiggles and scribbles.
"Oof!" Shikamaru fell back as someone rammed into him from the side, making him fall back against the store doors, causing it to open then slam shut, bonking the back of his head. Shikamaru shook his head, curing the annoying ring in his ears and glared at the person, who happened to be a girl with a pink scarf dangling from her neck and long blonde hair that spilled from the hood of her lavender coat.
"I'm so sorry," she apologized softly, gathering her spilled items and shoving them into her a plastic shopping bag. "I wasn't looking." The stranger kept her head down as she spoke. Even when she stood up, she daren't look Shikamaru in the eye nor did she show her face.
Wooo! This is the longest one so far, but I have about a few more typed up that are pretty damn long! I thought before the weekend ended, I could squeeze another chapter in. This is probably the only time I'll actually get three chapters up! Hahahaha. I'll probably update like every weekend, every other weekend. Wellllll, just expect an update on a weekend!
Ummm, oh, this ** means there's a little time skip in the same point of view... if that makes sense.
And review, por favor! Let me know what you think!
Chao!
Buenas noches (or buenos noches….I forget!)
Hasta luego.
Hasta la vista.
And so on, and so forth.
K BYE! :)