Another hard chapter. I hope it's all right for you all!
23. Veracity
Shikamaru envied birds…and clouds—really he envied anything that was free from societal expectations, jobs that require all to have blood on their hands, and most of all, pregnant teammates that are obviously hiding secrets and have dramatically and suspiciously changed into a different person over the course of six months.
On days where people expected him to sit at a desk and review strategies, Shikamaru lounged at his desk and gazed out the window, longing for a chance to morph into a bird and fly away from the job that breathed down his neck twenty-four-seven. Today was one of those days, but he didn't feel like morphing into a bird today—it was too damn hot to do any sort of morphing, so Shikamaru sat there and thought.
Shikamaru liked being in the background, away from the attention. He preferred to live like as a shadow, trailing behind people and acting upon their actions unless he was a captain on a mission, but those instances didn't count; he's on duty. Shikamaru, when off duty, lived to blend in the background and keep the attention away from him. Constantly, people came up to him for advice on mission tactics, and some academy students ask help on their homework, which Shikamaru declines. Sometimes, he hated being a known genius, but if he's smart, he's smart.
Shikamaru crawled below the gossip radar, and he liked it that way. No one gossiped about his latest hookups or screw ups. No one knew anything about him. He perfected blending in with the crowd and side stepped rumors, remaining incognito from gossip mongers.
Really, he couldn't see why anyone would want to gossip about him. His life wasn't exciting by all means. His parents didn't hate each other, and from the looks of them, they didn't want a divorce. His father gawked at his mother with lovesick, puppy dog eyes and vice versa—however, his mother was still grouchy and highly tyrannical, so the lovesickness and the puppy dog eyes don't come very often, but it's there.
Moreover, Shikamaru wasn't on the verge of losing his job, and last time he checked, he wasn't having an affair with his boss—Heaven forbid that he ever touched Tsunade in such way (insert shudder). Also, he didn't exactly have a girlfriend to cheat on. He couldn't call Temari his girlfriend. It was more of co-workers who liked spontaneous, casual sex with a couple strings attached. He couldn't help it if he had feelings for the woman and vice versa. No one could gossip about casual sex anyway since some people enjoyed no-strings-attached sex.
Shikamaru heard footsteps walking down the hallway. As the footsteps grew louder and louder, ceasing in front of his door, Shikamaru glanced down at the blueprint of a gang's hideout the ANBU planned to breech. When the footsteps carried on, Shikamaru leaned back in his chair and glanced out of the window with different scenarios and tactics playing in his head. He would report it to the ANBU later….
Ino brought excitement into Shikamaru's life really. Well, actually, she brought drama into his life. Drama he didn't need. She was pregnant—of all things, she had to be freaking pregnant—and Shikamaru guessed pregnancy can be an exciting thing. However, who in the hell got her pregnant? He knew Ino's habits of one night stands. Perhaps this one night stand went wrong.
Could it be that Takao guy? No, Ino never liked red heads all that much. Maybe it was Konan. He was tall, dark, and handsome…ish—Ino's type of guy!
Shikamaru wondered what she planned to do with the baby after she gave birth. She never mentioned anything about her plans. Then again, she refused to inform him about her situation….
Above the mystery of who impregnated her, another question hovered in the air. What happened to her? Outgoing, fearless Ino disappeared and a soft spoken, jumpy Ino replaced her. However, her brutishness still remained, which was something Shikamaru wanted to disappear….
She kept a secret, and he intended to find out exactly what it was. She was hurt, and he intended to comfort her, give her all the support she needed. Shikamaru was, after all, her teammate and a friend. However, Ino didn't want a hand to hold as she tried to pick herself up, so all Shikamaru could do was stand behind her with his arms open wide, ready to catch her if she fell.
Shikamaru slammed a fist in the table as an idea sparked in his noggin. What if she could asexually reproduce?
Ba dum. Ba dum. Ba dum. Ba dum. Ba dum.
Ino wiped her clammy hands on her pants, nervous. Her stomach hurt…badly, like she suffered from severe food cramps after stuffing her face with too much food during breakfast. Or maybe it was because this thing knew she tried to abort it several days ago, and it avenged itself by making her feel uncomfortable with relentless pressure on her spine and hard kicks to her bladder, sending her to the bathroom almost every time.
Well, this thing had a heartbeat. Ino kept her eyes closed and listened to the rhythmic beating of the child's heart, which sounded like the wings of a hummingbird, a constant rhythmic drumming. This thing was real, not a nightmare Ino could wake herself from if she simply pinched herself awake—she already tried that. If it wasn't her stomach that made her realize the veracity of her pregnancy, it was the heartbeat of the child.
She felt the transducer slide across her skin, and she heard Akanishi hum as if she discovered something worth opening her eyes. So, Ino opened her eyes and glanced at the screen that held an image of a figure the size of a pear. In amazement, Ino gawked at the figure wiggle inside of her with its tiny arms and legs stretching out in her. She could even see the two-chambered heart beating as she listened to it.
She heard her pink haired friend gasp in amazement. Ino glanced up at Sakura, who had been feverishly clutching Ino's hand and cutting circulation from her fingers. Ino squeezed Sakura's hand. Sakura looked at Ino then back up at the screen, watching the baby move. Her eyes widened in bewilderment.
The night Ino went to the clinic, she didn't come home till early morning. When she arrived, Sakura sat on the couch with a book in one hand and Naruto using her lap as a pillow. Sakura combed her fingers through his hair with one hand and turned the book's pages with the other. Ino, trying to be quiet, squeezed through the door, but with her luck, she accidentally bumped into the wall. When Sakura found her curled up against the wall, on the verge of tears, she cradled Ino in her arms. That was when Ino decided it was time she told Sakura her secret. Sakura's reaction to the news surprised her. She jumped up, spun around a few times, and with utter, disgusting delight, invited herself to Ino's next appointment.
Akanishi jotted down notes and then said, "It has a healthy heart beat."
It had a heartbeat, a freaking heartbeat.
Akanishi rolled the transducer around her skin, creating a better view of the baby's body. "Are you sure you don't want to know the gender?"
"No," Ino mumbled. She wasn't ready to know that.
"All righty, then," Akanishi sighed as she turned off the machine and wiped the gel off the transducer and Ino's stomach. She then continued, "The results of the blood tests will be given in the next week, so I'll call you when that happens. You're doing well, Ino. I hope you have a good day."
"Thank you," Ino whispered, hopping off the examination table and leaving the hospital with a heartbeat playing in her mind.
She walked down Main Street in heavenly bliss. Every step felt like she floated, never touching the cement sidewalk. It didn't matter who saw her saunter down the walkway because for some odd reason, she felt happy again, happy to be alive. It must be the hormones.
"I heard…." Ino slowed her pace as she listened to the woman walking behind her talk to another. She couldn't catch the rest of the woman's sentence, but Ino kept her ears alert, waiting for a response from the other.
"Is that right?" another woman gasped. "Just nineteen and she's already doing things like that," she whispered back. "What do you think her father thinks about her doing that?"
"Apparently he's fine with it since he's doing his job like he doesn't know that Ino goes around."
"I hope she's proud to be a mother at such a young age…."
Ino stopped and turned around. The two women, two older kunoichi, stared back with their jaws hanging down. Their eyes danced around her body, eyeing her stomach first then her faces and back to her stomach. These people disgusted her, gossiping about her when they didn't truly know what happened.
"Ino," Sakura mumbled, grabbing her wrist but once Ino took a step towards the two women, she didn't make an effort to restrain her. Ino took a step then another and another until she marched towards the women, who bounced from foot to foot, panicking and wondering what they should do. Ino picked up the pace and walked between the two women, straight for the Hokage's office with the heartbeat still on her mind.
Ino wanted people to know the truth behind her pregnancy. However, those two kunoichi back in town weren't people that deserved to know. They were the people that would have to guess and continue to tell their lies. There were people that did deserve to know about it, like Shikamaru, like Tsunade…. They needed to know the truth before the rumors reached their ears.
She passed blurs and bumped into figures with no faces; Ino had one goal in mind, and that was to go to the Hokage, and maybe, talk about the events that led to her disappearance in Kumo. If not, then Ino would have to wait until her interrogation.
The scarlet, double doors appeared before her before Ino fully understood what exactly she needed and wanted to do. Ino froze as her knuckle connected with the wooden doors. Before Ino could run for the hills, Tsunade opened the door with a gentle smile on her lips. She beckoned Ino to come inside, which she reluctantly did. Her heart flurried into a rapid pace, and it felt like it grew two sizes bigger as Ino sat herself in the chair placed in front of Tsunade's desk.
Tsunade leaned against the desk, which gave a loud creak. "I had my suspicions when you walked through those doors a few weeks ago," she said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her doctor's note. "Eighteen weeks pregnant at the time, meaning you were also pregnant while stationed in Kumogakure, correct? Why didn't you say anything, Ino?"
"I was scared," Ino confessed, keeping her eyes on her feet. "I was going to wait until my interrogation, but I can't wait anymore. I can explain everything, Lady Tsunade."
Tsunade crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. "We'll have to wait until then. Now isn't the best time for stories. My question is what you plan to do with this child?"
What did Ino want to do with it? She couldn't abort it and would never. "I wanted an abortion. The day I had my ultrasound, I went to the clinic to abort it. I'm still so confused on what I'm doing with myself. I'm wondering if I should have aborted it, but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to do it. The father is a monster, but that doesn't necessarily mean this thing—er, child should be expunged. It has possibilities."
A knock came at the door then a hushed, "Lady Tsunade, it's Kotetsu."
Hastily, Tsunade said, "You do realize you can be stripped of your occupation if you decide to raise this child. There are times when shinobi are able to raise their children, but it's not easy. I want you to seriously think about your decision. I understand that you're an adult now, but you're also very young."
"I understand."
"One more thing: do you parents know?"
"No."
"I suggest you inform them soon before things start becoming complicated. You're dismissed."
He contemplated seventy-two ways to commit suicide in his office. Shikamaru loathed his desk job, really. He loved being lazy and doing nothing, yes, but being cooped up in a tiny room when he could be outside gazing at clouds and daydreaming was torturous and should be against the law. It seemed like Tsunade wanted him to waste his life cloud gazing through opaque windows when he should be analyzing blueprints and statistics of enemies. He'd rather be up and about, kicking ass and rescuing damsels in distress, and everyone knew how much Shikamaru hated doing that.
For the past three hours, when pondering about life bore him, he halfheartedly played tic-tac-toe with himself. When that didn't entertain him, he went to work with an hour of the work day left to spare. He sighed and flipped through the pages of a packet that offered blueprints of the hideouts the ANBU wanted to ambush. Quickly, he scanned the outline and within second, he carried over two-hundred tactics. Eventually, he'd narrow everything down and present the strategy he thought would be best.
With fifteen minutes left of work, a soft knock sounded from his door.
"What?" Shikamaru growled. If it was another ANBU officer with a folder of more blueprints or statistics of gang leaders, he might shove a pencil up his nose.
"Shikamaru," a muffled voice said, "Can I come in?"
He grunted and flipped the packet shut, reaching for another on the mountainous stack piled up on the corner of his desk. Shikamaru glared up at the intruder as they cracked the door open. As he opened his mouth to provide some verbal abuse, Ino squeezed through the door then quietly closed the door behind her. Shikamaru jumped from his seat, accidentally sending his packets and work flying to the ground.
"Ino," he stammered while awkwardly trying to collect the bundle of papers on the ground and pull up a seat for her with a foot at the same time. "What are you doing here?" He looked at her with a sheepish grin. Ino stared at her feet with glazed over eyes as if she wanted to cry but fought against the tears. "Ino?"
His teammate shook her head, coming back to reality. She scanned his office and the state of bewilderment Shikamaru was in. "If you're busy, I can come to your house later," she suggested, already turning towards the door with a hand on the door knob.
"No, you just caught me, uh…off guard. What did you want to talk about? You can sit down if you want."
Ino shook her head. "I won't be long. I just needed to talk to you about something."
"Well, what is it?" Shikamaru remembered the girl named Ino he met back in Kumogakure, the girl whose eyes held no emotion and the face that held no expression. It was the Ino that stood in front of him.
"I'm telling my parents about…this." She gestured to her belly, a swollen bump that looked too big for Ino's thin frame. "I'm just scared," she continued. "What if they ask about the father?" A silver tear dripped from the corner of her eye, sliding down her porcelain skin. Shikamaru wanted to reach over and wipe it away, but he knew he'd receive a blow to the stomach if he did. "He's a horrible man, but what am I supposed to say to everyone?" she cried, exploding into tears. Shikamaru pushed a box of tissues in her direction, which Ino grabbed a handful to dab at her flowing eyes.
The scene broke his heart into a million pieces. He hated seeing his friend in such a vulnerable state, but he was her friend, and if he could, just for a moment, switch places with Ino so he could experience her pain for her, he would. Sucks that life chose to crash on its victims at unexpected moments.
"I know exactly what you need to do, Ino."
Through the clump of tissues she buried her face in, she said, "If you're thinking about finding the father, I'd rather jump out the window right now. "
"No, what if I were the father?"
Before he could see Ino's expression, she threw the handful of used tissues at him. "Have you gone freaking insane?" she shouted. "Do you have the slightest idea what you would get yourself into? My father would kill you if you were the father. Your father would kill you, and that's if Sakura doesn't kill you first. That's the worst idea I've ever heard." Ino rolled her eyes, turned and left.
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