5. Faceless
"Thank goodness our shift is over!" Minako sang as she sprang up the stairs in a sudden burst of energy. Ino wondered how the hell someone can be so energetic after six hours of work, and the fact that it is midnight. "I call the shower first!" she yelled from the top of the stairs while Ino sluggishly ascended the stairs, dragging her tried, sore feet across the steps. She leaned against the wall as she dragged her exhausted body up the flight of stairs. Once she set foot on the landing, she collapsed to the floor, leaning against the wall, unable to fight the heavy fatigue weighing down her body. Ino closed her eyes. She could sleep here...
The fatigue hit her like a wrecking ball for the past few days. Even before she disappeared, after her shift, she felt wide-awake and would always fall asleep about two to three hours after her shift. Now, she passed out immediately after her day job until her shift at the Pub started, and when that ended, she took a shower and often passed out with just her towel wrapped around her.
Maybe her day job was the culprit behind the drowsiness. Being a waitress, Ino constantly ran around the restaurant, taking orders and carrying heavy plates of food to customers. Yeah, maybe that is it.
What the hell was she talking about? She was a kunoichi of Konoha, one of the greatest villages in the world with some of the greatest and strongest shinobi residing there. Bartending and serving cannot compare to what she did as a shinobi. She has traveled all over the place, walking for several days straight. She fought many battles, putting her life on the line every second. Bartending and serving should be a cakewalk.
Ino, somehow gathering sudden energy, pulled her drowsy body off the ground and marched up the second flight of stairs and flung her bedroom door open. She ignored the confused look Sachiko gave her; she just stomped over to her bed and buckled to the floor before she could take off her work clothes, or even get into bed.
Shikamaru slumped in his chair, slapping down Ino's mission file and a map of Cloud. He wasted almost two weeks trying to find Ino, spending sleepless nights wandering the streets hoping Ino miraculously appeared from thin air. He's been to the Pub two other times after his first time visiting Jin to ask him about Ino. Those two times, Jin gave him the same answer, and that was, "Sorry, Boy, she hasn't come back." What lead did he have now? What can Shikamaru do now besides wander the streets and hope Ino materializes? Even with all the luck in the world, that wouldn't happen.
Was he supposed to give up and go back home? Tsunade wouldn't let him live it down, and there'd be a slim chance of having a family in the future if Tsunade got a hold of him when she's notified he couldn't find Ino. Shikamaru shuttered.
He reached for the note the Hokage sent back to him, reading it for the fifteenth time.
You have three months.
Three months? That's a short amount of time considering how big Cloud is, and he's looking for one person. Why couldn't the rest of his team accompany him on this mission? It's straight up troublesome when it's just him searching. With two more sets of eyes looking, the chances of finding Ino increased.
Shikamaru kicked off his sandals and stripped down to his undershirt and boxers then crawled into bed, wrapping the soft blankets around his body.
Letting out a relaxed sigh, he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander. At first, he thought of Ino, wondering what she was doing and where she was.
Temari pushed his worried thoughts about Ino out of his mind. Images of her smile flooded his mind, bringing an ease to his mental and physical being. His tense shoulders relaxed, making him more comfortable under the covers. He longed for her warm body pressed against his own, and her light kisses playing along his neck and shoulders. Thinking about her fingertips sliding across his skin sent shivers and raised goosebumps.
With a frustrated groan, Shikamaru opened his eyes and glared out the window, at the bright lights flickering across the streets, and at the huge buildings blocking his view of the moon and stars.
"Hello, my name is Ino, and I will be your server today. Is there anything I can get you?" Ino pulled her fake smile and slightly raised her eyebrows, making her looking somewhat happy and interested in her customers.
"Can you come back in a few minutes?" the father said, analyzing the menu while scratching his growing stubble. "I haven't really decided."
"OKAYU!" his child screamed, slamming the end of a fork into the table. The man reached over to take the utensil out of his son's hand.
"Give me a minute," the father soothed as Ino turned around to ask another group if they needed anything, anything at all.
Back in Konoha, she couldn't think of any restaurant like this one – a family restaurant the owner calls it. The restaurant her team always dragged her to had raw ingredients set on the table with a large grill in the middle of the table, which allowed everyone to make their own dish. Choji grilled just about anything and soaked it in soy sauce. Shikamaru's dish always depended on his mood, so it differed most of the time. She always picked at the fresh lettuce, plopping a leaf in her mouth as she watched Choji be a glutton. Then, there was Asuma, who didn't eat anything. Instead, while watching Choji eat, he occasionally banged his forehead against the wall, regretting his decision about bringing Choji to such an expensive restaurant.
"Ino, can you man the register real quick?" one of her coworkers shouted at her.
"Sure," Ino mumbled.
As she rounded the corner to handle the cash register, she spotted a man enter the restaurant. He wore a black, long sleeved shirt with the Konoha insignia on the right shoulder. She recognized the spiky hair pulled back into a ponytail. Before he turned around, Ino stepped behind the corner.
"Sorry, I'm on break!" Ino called to her coworker, who sat in a booth to repaint chipped nail polish. Her coworker glared at Ino as she placed the brush back into the bottle and stomped to the cash register.
"Can you at least seat this young gentleman before going on break?"
"Nope," Ino answered and rushed to the employees' lounge.
Ino locked the door behind her and ducked under the window placed in the door. She watched the irritated woman saunter over to him, offering him a menu, which he takes, and then she showed him to his booth. Ino couldn't see him from her angle anymore.
Of all places to eat at, why did he choose this one?
Ino paced around the room until fifteen minutes clicked by. She gathered her bearings, taking in a deep breath and grabbed a newspaper before unlocking the door.
"Woah, Chi, have you heard about these…puppies for sale!" Ino walked out of the lounge with her face shoved in the newspaper. "And…." Ino's eyes danced along the thousands of words until they landed on something remotely interesting. "…Did you know they lowered the age for hysterectomies…?"
She heard a few of the customers gag on their food.
"What are you doing, Ino?" Chi hissed, snatching the newspaper out of Ino's hand. Ino spun around quickly when she noticed she faced Shikamaru. The sharp turn sent a stabbing pang across the skin of her stomach, ripping open her almost healed wound across her stomach. Ino wrapped an arm around her stomach, wincing. Chi stepped into her view. "Were you smoking something funny in there?"
"No." Ino stepped around Chi, taking out her notepad from her apron and walking over to the father and child. She didn't need to hide her face from anyone on this side of the wall. "Have you decided what you wanted?"
"OKAYU!"
"We'll both take okayu."
"Is that all?"
"We're in some hurry, so there's not much time to eat anything else," the man explained with a sheepish grin.
"It's coming right up. Let me take your menu." Ino grabbed the menu from the man and took it back to the counter. As Ino rounded the corner, she held the menu up to her face as if she were reading the items on the menu.
"Can you take that young man over there? I really need to do this." Chi pointed over to Shikamaru, who sat in his booth, reading the menu intently. Chi shook her bottle of white nail polish in Ino's face.
"I think I hear one of the cooks calling me," Ino lied, stepping around Chi once again and rushing to the kitchen as Chi said, "I don't hear anyone."
"Quick," Ino said as she swung the double kitchen doors open. "Someone give me peanut butter, ketchup, and honey. And if we have peanuts, give me those, too."
Ino poked at her stomach wound, wincing every time immense pain erupted. Blood spotted the scaring gash every time she poked it with her finger or when she twisted her hips from side-to-side.
"So, you pretended to blow chunks to get out of work?" Minako asked from the other side of the bathroom door. Ino shook her head at Minako's question, almost chuckling.
"That's the gist of it, I guess," Ino answered while dabbing damp toilet paper along her stomach, shivering at the coldness compressed against her hot skin. She tossed the toilet paper away after the blood stopped oozing out of random places, then let her loose fitted shirt cover her torn stomach.
"Why?" Minako stared at Ino with big, curious eyes when Ino opened the door, making her take a few steps back.
"Chi was being annoying."
"I could've told you that." Minako rolled her eyes. "That's why I don't work there anymore, because she's so annoying."
"You said she stole your boyfriend."
"That, too."
"Well, I'm going to take a nap before my shift."
Minako followed Ino to her room and sat at the foot of her bed, still bombarding Ino with question as Ino laid in bed. Minako reminded Ino of a child, someone who always needed to be with a responsible adult and a large amount of attention.
"You seem more tired than usual, Ino."
Ino groaned.
"Can you tell me where you're from?"
"Konoha," Ino answered quietly as tired blanketed her. Her eyes slowly began to close as she felt Minako shift at her feet.
"Do you miss it?"
Ino hummed, "Mmhmm."
"Why don't you go back?"
Why didn't she go back? Ino opened her eyes and stared at the blank wall in front of her. Her wounds have healed, except for her stubborn stomach, and she had the strength to finally head home. After three months, she could see her family and friends again. However, she wasn't the same Ino that left Konoha. The present Ino was bitter, unhappy, and impure. How would her parents and friends react if she told them she was -?
"This is home now."
Shikamaru rapped his knuckles against the Jin's office door. Jin cracked it open and popped his head out. "Yes?"
"She must be here," Shikamaru said. "Where else could she go?"
"Look, I'm sorry, but she hasn't come back, okay?"
Jin glowered at the younger man when Shikamaru wedged a foot in the doorway to stop Jin from closing the door on Shikamaru's face. Heaving a heavy sigh, Jin swung the door open, beckoning Shikamaru to enter his office. As Shikamaru casually walked into the room and sat in a hard, wooden chair, Jin shut the door and took a seat behind his desk, across from Shikamaru.
Shikamaru shoved his hands into his pockets, slightly slouching in the chair, which squeaked quietly every time he moved. "I gave you the benefit of the doubt the first few times, but you are lying. You're eyes shift a lot."
Inoichi, Ino's father, taught him the signs to look for when people lied. The most common sign is the shift of eyes.
"I'll be sure to work on that."
"So, you must know where Ino is?"
"Would you like some coffee?"
"That's a horrible subject change. Work on that also."
"I can grab a muffin if you like. Minako baked them this morning."
Shikamaru lurched forward, slamming his hands into the oak desk. "Tell me where Ino is!"
Unfazed by Shikamaru's outburst, Jin sipped his coffee. Shikamaru released a heavy, irritated sigh and dropped his hands to his lap. Jin spared a knowingly look for a long second before leaning across his desk to say, "Understand where I'm coming from, boy, so listen here. Ino has me on a tight leash. She doesn't want anyone knowing her whereabouts, especially you." Jin pointed a finger at Shikamaru, looking at him with a can't-help-you-out-here-bud kind of look.
"If it makes any difference, I'd like to mention—"
Jin held up a hand to stop Shikamaru from continuing. "Hold up. Come back tomorrow night for…some beer."
"Sounds good to me."
Jin scorned at Shikamaru's gratitude. "You're lucky I'm telling you, Boy. From what I hear from the other girls, Ino is ill."
Shikamaru's eyebrows lifted to his hairline. Since when is Ino ever sick? He couldn't recall Ino ever being sick, except that one time when they were about thirteen when she decided to go skinny dipping in a lake while it snowed. Her reason: "Not showering for four days straight is disgusting."
"Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow night."
Shikamaru shook his head in response after a long silence. "Right."
Ino missed her flower shop and wanted nothing more than to lock herself in the flower shop filled with extravagant flowers with the most divine smells one could only dream of. She missed spending her mornings making bouquets fill with luminous colors and scents and wondered what love-struck man would come in to purchase one of her lovely bouquets for his significant other.
Ino never expected to be working in a bar with men that obviously didn't smell as great as her flowers. The disgusting body odor shouldn't be compared to the delicious scents of her flowers. Men and their smell shouldn't be in the same sentence as her flowers - it was flower sin!
The harsh sense of homesickness struck Ino while she thought about the flower shop she'll never work in or see again, which forced her to think about the family and friends she'll never see again. Sakura won't be barging into her room, waking her up by pulling up the blinds, throwing off her warm blankets, and jumping on her while shouting at Ino to wake up. Naruto won't be standing in her doorway, laughing and telling Sakura, "Ino needs her sleep." She won't see her mother and father anymore, nor will she see her teammates—well, besides Shikamaru, who is stalking the sidewalks of Cloud this very moment while she worked the counter.
"Blondie!" Ino jumped when the loud voice boomed in her eardrum, making her drop the two shot glasses she had in her hands. "Now, ya done it, butter fingers!" A round of laughter echoed in the small pub as Ino bent down to pick up the shattered glass. As she picked up the glass, her hands quivered which slowed down the process of cleaning up, resulting in more taunting from the customers.
"Can everyone stop teasing Ino?" she heard Minako's voice from behind her. "Honestly, she's the one who serves your beer! Be a bit more grateful, you turd buckets! If I see you teasing her again, I'll spit in your drink!" Despite her sounding like a complete fool, Minako got her point across, and the men dispersed to the other side of the pub.
"Thanks," Ino muttered, quickly retrieving the broken glass into her hand and briskly retreated to her place behind the counter.
The time ticked painfully slow, leaving Ino antsy for work to end, so she could clock out and pass out. Every time Ino glanced at the clock, only a few minutes passed. If she didn't look at the clock, she concluded time sped up. After an eternity of ignoring her urge to peek at the time, Ino finally let up and glanced at the clock. Only half an hour ticked by. She rolled her shoulders in a circular motion to relieve the tension in her shoulders and neck. She just had to be patient with time and the rude customers, which seemed impossible with what little patience she already had.
"I'm taking out the trash."
Ino wrapped the plastic trash bag around her hand, heaving the heavy bag out of the trashcan with all her strength. Despite the hysterical cries of Jin, she dragged the trash bag across the wood floor, not caring whether the bag ripped open or not. The box said "heavy duty! Doesn't rip!" so if it ripped, it'd be false advertisement. Then, Jin can happily sue.
Grunting and puffing to throw the trash bag into the dumpster seemed to be the hardest thing Ino's ever done in her life. Forget the miles of running Asuma made her do and trying to perfect the mind jutsus, dumping a bag into a dumpster twice the size of her was difficult.
"Let me help you there." Burly arms surrounded Ino as her heart pumping erratically in her chest and her hands quivering in fear, and the man lifted the trash from her hands and dumped it into the dumpster. The smell of cigarette smoke filled her nose, making her wrinkle her nose at the unpleasant odor.
"Thanks," she whispered, ducking under his arm and attempted to scurry back to the safety of the pub, but with her luck, the man grabbed her wrist and slammed her against the wall.
"Please, stop," she hiccupped.
"You'll be lots of fun." His legs pinned her own, prohibiting her from kneeing him in the groin, and his left hand pinned down her wrists, so she couldn't think about punching him in the face to get out of the situation. A finger slowly trailed her side, down the clothing then traveling up her bare side.
"Stop, stop, stop," Ino chanted, squeezing her eyes shut, hoping it was just a dream, and the alarm clock would ring soon.
Ino rolled her head to the right for momentum, and then swung her forehead into the stranger's forehead, knocking him to the ground. He gawked at her in shock as blood dripped down a cut just above his left eyebrow.
Not a gracious thought ran through Ino's mind as she pummeled the man's face, slamming her fists into the side of his face, tears splattering on the gray t-shirt of the stranger. She didn't see the face of the man who just tried to violate her but the man who already did. She imagined her fist slamming into his face, breaking his jaw in half and messing up his sinfully handsome face.
Another pair of arms wrapped under her arms, stopping her from punching the man in the face, and pulled Ino off the poor patron, sliding Ino to the other side of the alleyway and creating a space between her and the bloodied bar patron. Ino struggled against the binds of the person's arms, trying to claw at the stranger's face, eyes blind with her hatred towards the man.
"Cut it out, Ino."
Sachiko's voice rang through Ino's ears, bringing her back to reality. The tears ceased but the blood running down her forehead and into her eyes blurred her vision until she blinked the drops away. The dim lights hid majority of the man's face, but Ino noticed the blood dripping from the man's face into a dark pool on the ground. Blood smeared across his grey shirt.
"Get out of here," Sachiko said as she leaned in front of Ino, blocking her sight from watching the man stand up and running away like a pansy. She didn't care; he deserved it. Sachiko told Ino's face into her warm hands, forcing Ino's attention on her. Her eyes were hard and held disappointment in them. Ino shifted her eyes to the side, avoiding Sachiko scrutinizing stare.
Sachiko wrapped her arms around Ino's head, bringing the sobbing girl into her chest, soothing her with quiet shushes and petting her hair in a slow rhythm. "You're all right, Ino. You're safe now."
Welp, it's been about...two weeks since my last update. Sorry for the delay of update, I've been a very busy woman! But, enough of the excuses. I have to say, this chapter wasn't easy to write. I had major brain farts and writer's block when it came to this chapter. It also took a million and two years to edit because I was constantly adding and deleting many things. After all of that, this is what came out.
I plan on editting chapter six after I finish writing all my thoughts down hither.
Has anyone noticed the title of the chapters are song titles? Probably not, but if you figure out the songs, I'll be very impressed! haha!
And I'm pretty sure I'm done writing all my thoughts down hither. I just have to say the usual things, like thank you everyone for reading my craziness, and thanks to those who have reviewed and favorited my story. So, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, and if you have any constructive critism, or if you have anything nice to say, make sure you review. :) I'd be greatly appreciated! Or, if you have any questions, feel free to askkkkk!
HAVE A GOOD DAY.