A.N: LOL IF YOU HAVE NO LIFE AND ARE READING THIS JUST TO TROLL, KEEP GIVING MY STORY PAGE VIEWS ;P

A Fine Mess Tokyo

Chapter Five: Learning to Run Fast

Hinata felt like a traitor.

She was bathed in dark light, her clothes as dark as her hair as she sat, waiting.

Sasuke hadn't come back yet, and he acknowledged—or she'd thought he did—her little 'small' crush on Naruto. She'd told him she'd liked the blonde man's smile, but it was beyond that. It was also his short whiskers, it was also his ocean-blue sparkly eyes, it was also his humor, it was also his laughable mistakes and his un-laughable determination, it was his bright clothes, it was the world he created when it was just them, it was the down-but-not-broken stray puppy that he was that she just wanted to scoop into her arms and carry home to bathe and love forever—love. Hinata loved Naruto.

She just didn't know if she loved him. She loved many of her friends, but none of them made her heart pitter-patter like this. He swallowed most of her thoughts that could never wander too far from him in the first place, and he had a special home in her heart that knew when he was coming like a veteran writing home from the war.

Which probably explained why she was waiting for him. In the dark.

She was atop one of the buildings she had chose so she could see the manor so she could rush home when Sasuke did. She looked between there and the entrance gates of Konoha, needing to make sure Naruto came back okay, before he'd sign up for the next mission and rush off before daylight.

She gathered her breaths waiting, patiently.

An hour had passed, but she sat in the same spot, gazing one way, then the other.

"Waiting for someone?" a voice spilled into her ears, making her whole spine shudder down.

"Sasuke?" Hinata asked, turning around.

Dark, amused eyes gazed back at her. He seemed to be in an almost…playful mood as he looked at her. As if he knew something she didn't, wouldn't, know. As if he were happy about something.

"I was-I was just-I'd been-uh," she began, realizing he hadn't asked her what she was doing, only if she was waiting. "Yes, or no, no I—"

"No, you're not waiting?"

"The stars," she said, pointing up. "They're beautiful here."

It was a 'misdirection' not a lie necessarily, she told herself. Still it made her stomach twist. What was even harder was the fact that Naruto could be on his way in and she'd miss him, not being able to see his face, if he was okay, if he'd gotten any injuries. She stayed seated, as if trying to force herself to remain determined—until Sasuke sat down next to her.

She stood up quickly.

She almost made the excuse that she was only star-gazing for a few minutes, when she realized she could just pretend to not know Naruto was on his way back. Pretending is okay sometimes. Like when she pretends to like to cook, or when she pretends to have conversations with people she's too nervous in real life to go up and talk to (and even then she still stutters with anxiety, but at least she talks), and when she pretends that she's not imagining Naruto when Sasuke's next to her.

"So, um, you have fun tonight?" she asked. Three years in and she still had to get used to conversations.

Half of Sasuke's lip cracked up. He hid it behind his dark ANBU water bottle. "More than you can imagine."

"Were you training?" Hinata asked.

"Something like that," he smiled.

Sasuke could still feel Ino's legs soaked around and through his in her bed. Half of her hesitated at the door, expecting Shikamaru to be there, forgetting he hadn't been there in months. She'd insisted they only talk about their feelings, since it was serious. She sat him down at the table, but he found the chairs uncomfortable and she sat on the freshly cleaned floor, but he helped her to bed. It was late, tiring, and he just wanted to 'rest up' before going home. She scooted over and he got in. Then kissed her neck. Then rolled on top. Then gripped her waist. When her hand came up, he expected her to put it on his chest to stop him.

But when it went to his cheek to fuse their lips closer, Sasuke went closer.

"You want this?" he whispered in her ear, feeling the tingle make her shudder against him. Her skin was so warm, he even shuddered, coming in from the rain and night chill. He wrapped her sheets around them, prepared to go on all night in their warmth.

"Not sex, but…" she started, but her words trailed. She wasn't drunk, not then, she'd kept herself from ordering more sake, and the tipsy walk in the rain sobered her, the good, cold air breathing saneness back in her, still there was this viciously fighting part of her insisted that having fun wasn't the same as directly trying to hurt Hinata. It was almost as strong as the memories she'd had with the Sasuke and the ones she still wanted with him. Her mouth opened to say more, but his tongue brushed against her and she got so excited, she gripped him harder, their tongues battling in the heavy, warm kisses they shared, then they rolled over.

Ino sucked in a breath, realizing she was on top.

Sasuke reached up, touching her bare belly. "I could go up or down," he offered.

She grabbed his hand and held it, begging her mind to press it back to him, but she brought it lower.

Sasuke sat up, bringing his arm around her, and slipped his fingers back inside of her. A tight mewl sounded from her and her toes curled in her medium-blue ankle socks she slipped on when she got inside as she brought her arm around him, scraping her fingers on his back as she grasped his uniform. She rested her cheek against his long shoulder, so familiar and remembering so much, she closed her eyes and sighed out, happy.

But then her eyes squeezed. Don't do this, don't do this. He broke your heart, remember? she reminded herself. That helped steele her as she gave Sasuke an even look, through hazy, watery red eyes. He looked back, his eyes clear, but slightly hungry. "What is it?" he asked, his voice roughened from years of learning every type of look, but softened, because it was her. It was Ino. She was his for two whole years, and in his arms, she still felt the same, loved the same. She still fit perfectly in his arm. "What is it?" he asked again.

His lips touched the cove of her neck, and she nearly leaned to give him more room as he slowly kissed up, leaning forward to shift her onto her back from straddling his lap. "What is it? What's wrong, Ino?"

Nothing when he was kissing her like that, but everything when he was kissing her like that. She sweetly peered up at him, but it soured each time and she batted her lashes away, gazing elsewhere.

"What is it, Ino?" he asked. "Just tell me."

"You know what it is, Sasuke."

"I know we love each other," he told her. It was true. "I know how much we both want this."

"You can't leave her," Ino whispered brokenly. He couldn't because it wasn't fair to her. He couldn't because Ino would never be able to handle the guilt. He couldn't because the Hyugas would launch a war over it, or shun him wherever they politically could, even maybe their children too. Could she handle that? Sasuke could, he undoubtedly would and overcome it, like he has everything else, but was it worth it? Her heart pounded, knowing it was.

"I can," Sasuke responded.

"It's not—" she whispered, as if Hinata were right there in the room, "it's not fair."

"Ino, so much, so much in this world is not fair," he said back, almost sympathetically that he couldn't heal the guilt out of her. "But this, what we're doing, is right."

She sat up on her elbows. "In what way, Uchiha?" she chastised, not knowing how much he loved it when she did. Whenever she got sassy, or hot, or burst into an argument with him, he was ready to fight it with an energy until they were rolling over in bed, the sex amazing. They rarely disagreed on anything before, they had the same mind. It drove him crazy with happiness that he has a woman that could get under his mind as greatly as she could get into his bed. That she had thoughts, opinions, ideas, determination, steel, resolve. That was the woman that would be the mother of his children.

"In what way, Sasuke?" she repeated.

"In every, every, way this is right," he said, meaning it with every bit of him, but he wasn't able to explain it as deeply as he felt it. "I really do love you, Ino. I've loved you since we were eighteen."

Ino's heart swelled, filling with air as she looked up at Sasuke. The lights in her room were dimmed, mood-setting for the effect of it, but that was real, so real it stole the breath out of her. "Sasuke Uchiha, you do not—"

"I swear," he promised her.

"Sasuke," Ino began, still not believing it. Even when they were teenagers, he hadn't said it. Not once. He'd shown it a few times in gestures and words that said it without saying it, and once he'd come close to saying it, she'd thought, but it was right after sex and she didn't know if it counted. Now looking at Sasuke in his eyes, she knew he was being honest. She trembled, feeling the pressure, the tears of finally having someone love her back after her crushes and chases and adorations, someone that she loved, loved her too and said it as bold as day as deep as night. He took her hands in his, linking finger through finger.

"I love you, Ino Yamanaka," he told her.

"I love you, Sasuke Uchiha."

She wanted to give herself to him in that moment, permanently. But first she had to do it in a way that didn't completely destroy Hinata Uchiha, and dirty her reputation in the process, let alone embarrass Hinata. Ino slipped her arms around Sasuke's neck, as he lowered himself. He pressed his weight against her, sinking the kiss deeper. She freely, willingly, opening her mouth for him.

Sasuke gripped her side in his hand, her clothes bunching as their lips fused again. He bit her softly as she rolled them over, bringing herself back on top. Half of his mouth flickered up in anticipation, but it tapered down when she pressed her hand on his chest and gave him another look.

"I'll only go through with this if you want to marry me."

He touched her hand directly on his chest. "Of course I plan to marry you. I want you be the mother of my children."

Ino shivered with obsessive joy whenever he said that, which was often lately. He meant it. "Okay, but we also have Hinata to think of."

"And not Shikamaru," he added, giving her a look of his own. "You're done with him, right?"

She nodded, slightly. "Not in that many words," she mumbled.

Sasuke sat up immediately.

She pressed him back down. "You don't get to say anything, you're married!" she scolded him.

"I'll say what I want, Ino," he said. "I need to know everything between you and Shikamaru is over. Do I need to visit him?"

"No," she said. "I just…" Shikamaru was the biggest, greatest, hurdle. If she publicly married Sasuke, it'd infuriate him, but more than that, their families were already close. She might scar marriage for him, and she didn't want to do that. She wanted him to be happy. Even if it is with that other sand-blonde woman from the Sand Village.

"So what's the plan?" Ino asked Sasuke suddenly.

"The plan?" he echoed.

"How do we do all of us without causing a big ruckus and what not? I'm sure in a few years it'll blow over enough for us to get married—"

Sasuke sat up fully, Ino sliding off his lap. "We are not waiting a few years for this."

"What you plan to do all of this right now?" Ino asked. "Just spring it on Hinata like ripping off a bandaid and hope she gets over it in time?"

"Exactly," he responded, "It will be exactly like that. I want this all taken care of by winter, and we'll be married in spring."

"You know we'll have to go to the Hokage for that and she's…tough, to say the least."

"She's impossible," Sasuke agreed.

"And she favors Hinata," Ino added, crossing her legs in thought.

"So we kill her."

Ino's eyes shot to him, and he laughed warmly. "I'm only kidding." He frowned. "Sort of."

"Sasuke, we can't—"

"Not directly," he said. "That is something that requires precise planning."

"Just get on her good side," Ino said, shoving his waist.

"You sound like that isn't hard. I attacked this village, remember? I attacked her, personally, trying to siege the entire Hokage building. She almost didn't heal from it."

Ino remembered. "You aren't her favorite," she agreed.

He frowned again at her understatement. "She wanted me executed."

"Yes, but that was ten years ago."

"A woman never forgets anything," Sasuke muttered.

Ino shot him another look. "Excuse me? Was it her fault you decided to attack the village?"

"Was it my fault what my brother did, manipulated?" he asked back, slightly agitated.

Ino's eyes lowered away. "Okay."

"Okay, what?" he asked.

"Okay, I'm with you," she said. "We'll work on you getting on her good side."

"More than Hinata already is? That's not possible."

"Not without her assistant's approval as well. She's good at counseling Tsunade."

"How good?" Sasuke asked.

"I mean," Ino corrected, "she's not great or anything, but at least there's a twenty-one percent chance."

"Twenty-one percent?" he asked, not convinced.

"For someone trying to persuade Tsunade-sama, that's a lot!" Ino insisted.

Sasuke rested on the bed, just happy to be with her, even without Tsunade-sama's approval. The woman was becoming a dictator, trying to run a dictatorship to him, making it harder for people to get married. He and Hinata had barely escaped her new wave of tests that started two years ago. She's also started to make enemies of other areas, but that was none of his business. She controlled the ANBU, but once he became the Head of the ANBU, he'd change that. Permanently.

Seven. That's how many years it took to have him even live in the village under her rule. That's why it was so important to marry Hinata. People trusted her and, by connection, him. Her family was high enough to bring his up when he restarted.

"I will marry you," he told Ino. "I will."

She nodded, trusting him. That made him more than happy, it made him grateful, pleased. Like it could work, after all.

"So you like the stars?" he asked Hinata, sitting down, taking the smooth, flat rock on the roof as a seat. She scooted over to gift him space, but her attention seemed…divided.

When she didn't respond, he asked her again. "You care for the stars?"

"I care for the…the what?" she asked, almost idly, staring out into the horizon just before the forests.

"You like the stars?" he asked for the third time, confused she seemed so distracted. It wasn't until his eyes trailed her gaze that he realized she was waiting for something. Someone, maybe. It couldn't be an elicit affair, because she wouldn't do it with him, but it was something. Perhaps she was meeting Neji to go over her performance. But why this late—early in the morning?

Hell, maybe she did like the stars and expected them to change whenever she looked away. He was just getting comfortable, deciding to wait with his wife (for as long as she was still his wife) for her protection, because she wasn't paying attention for anything.

Someone.

He realized as a tuft of blonde emerged from the forest that she'd been waiting for someone. For Naruto.

When Sasuke looked to her, he saw the pale skin of hers that mirrored the clear, pale, cold moon above, but it was now with a bloody, deep color on her cheeks, neck. Naruto? When she had her fill of gazing, which for as long as it was still didn't feel like enough, she finally remembered Sasuke and peered up to the sky, pretending to be so very interested.

Sasuke smirked a little.

The little twerp was stealing his wife. For as competitive as the Uchiha was, he was fine with that. Or he told himself he was as Naruto came closer. Hinata, truly, could do so much better. So much better. He'd find her someone. Anyone but him could have her.

"So you like Naruto?" he asked quietly.

She turned to him, waving frantically. "No! N-no, no-no-no-no-no-no-no," she swore.

"So you don't like him?" Sasuke asked, unconvinced. She was talking about his silly little smile the day before. She stayed out late for him.

"No, I mean-I mean, I like him as a person," she tried to explain.

He sucked in a breath, standing up. He held out his hand. "Let's go home."

She glanced back at him, at Naruto. Then, hesitatingly, grasped Sasuke's hand. "Okay."

Naruto couldn't see them from where he was walking, probably straight to his apartment to sleep half the day away, before trying to prove to Tsunade he could be the Head of the ANBU, and eventually the Hokage, by being the youngest ninja to have successfully completed the most missions—ever.

Even if he did manage it, he still wouldn't be as great as Sasuke. He certainly wouldn't take his wife.

[NORTH KONOHA, HOKAGE OFFICE]

Tsunade's head didn't even lift from her paper to Ino's awkward smile. "Can I help you, Ms. Yamanaka?"

"Well, you see, I thought your—is Shizune-san here?"

"She's not," Tsunade frowned. "Some sort of flu. Can—I—help—you."

"Y-you?" Ino stammered. She felt like she was melting in front of the woman, even though it was, to be fair, eighty-five degrees in the room. It was like that at all times. Tsunade liked to keep her guests as uncomfortable as possible, it gave her the edge over every situation.

"I did say 'I' correct? That would be me, myself," she said, taking off her glasses to look the blonde, long-haired woman in the eye. "What do you want, Ino?"

To marry Sasuke Uchiha, yes, that Sasuke Uchiha. Yes, horrible, I know. "I just want to see how you're doing…is all."

"Not enough work at the flower shop?" Tsunade asked dryly.

Ino held two takeout plastic bags, hoping to at least have lunch, but there was a steamy pile of ramen noodles in front of her. She watched Tsunade tent her fingers and look more intently at her, so she took a seat.

"I brought some lunch—"

"I have some lunch," she responded.

"It's really good, it's from this new place that—" Ino stopped herself as Tsunade, a woman who never enjoyed repeating herself, and rarely ever did, set her eyes on her and narrowed them. Her looks could slit Ino's throat, she was sure.

"Can I at least eat with you?" Ino asked nervously.

"Did I keep you from sitting down?" Tsunade asked, plucking two chopsticks and eating the steaming, piping hot pile of noodles without so much as blowing a breeze to cool them before she slurped them into her mouth. "So are you still practicing healing chakra?"

Ino nodded quickly. "I am. Not as much as before, but…I am."

"Good," Tsunade responded. "You were always deft at that."

Ino's eyebrows rose. Tsunade-sama didn't gift compliments easily. Or ever, really. It almost got her excited to tell the woman everything, but she knew she'd get crushed as soon as she tried. So, she asked, "What do you think of marriage?"

Tsunade's eyebrow slightly arched, before her eyes narrowed again. "I think it's a waste of a young woman's time, energy, and resources. Unless a woman's greatest achievement she wishes to strive for is to be a mother, then marriage is of little use in a growing world of potential for a woman. That is what I think, Ino."

Ino swallowed.

Was marriage important when she put it like that? Ino cleared her bowl, trying to focus on that instead of Tsunade's reading looks.

"Why?" the older woman asked. "You and Shikamaru aren't together."

"How did you— n0, we're not."

"So you're just asking in general?" she asked, poking at her noodles with the sharp tip of her chopstick. "Or are you interested in eligible bachelors? I wouldn't be of much help."

"No, I have someone. I mean— I'm just curious of your, um, worldviews."

"What else do you want to know?" Tsunade asked.

Ino blinked. "Um." She hadn't, truly, thought that far ahead. "What do you think of being a female hokage?"

"I think it is something that I will be a long time. Regardless of what you and your secret lover, Sasuke, are planning," she said, nearly casually, if her look wasn't so measured.

"Secret-lover?" Ino laughed uncomfortably. "What makes you think that's what I came for?"

Tsunade's lips glossed into a strict frown. "Sasuke, who is aiming to be the Head of the ANBU, undoubtedly also aiming to be Hokage himself, is using you. He arrived before I did to my office, two staunch drinks in hand like we were friends and asked to have you back on the healing scouts for missions. I found it a strange, specific, very specific request. And then you show up to my office, asking me about marriage."

"Sasuke came here? I didn't know if it," she said truthfully, he hadn't even mentioned it to her.

"He's using you, Yamanaka," Tsunade said knowingly, boredly. As Ino rose in her seat to protest that idea, Tsunade waved her down idly. "Don't be naive. He wants both, undoubtedly. He wants the sexy bombshell wife he can fuck, one who will give his future children the ultimate mental advantage by literally being able to take over people's bodies, with him as the Head of the ANBU, as the Hokage, and with the Sharingan, he'd be unstoppable. Unkillable. Don't tell me you weren't swayed by the idea of him being all of those things. How powerful you two would be together."

"I—" Ino hesitated. "I don't believe you. There's nothing going on."

Tsunade leaned forward, not angrily, just calculated. "Ino, do you really think I'd allow him back into my village without full, and constant, supervision? Do you really think I'd ever be that weak again, after losing three of my own, and nearly myself? You lost Asuma, does it not hurt how directly he was involved with that?"

Ino's whole body tightened. "That was a different time, Tsunade. That was ten years ago—"

"Of course it was," Tsunade agreed. She darkly added, "How quickly we seem to forget."

"He's not my secret—"

"He is. I've seen you two. It'll be easier now to be upfront so I can deny all requests, rather than wasting anymore of both of our times."

"Fine," Ino agreed. "We love each other, which hurts, because of Hinata, but we loved each other before Sasuke married her."

Tsunade stood up. "And do you want to know why he married her?" she asked, walking around her desk to the front, and taking a seat directly in front of Ino. "He married her because she was of a good status, decent abilities, someone easy to marry. Now that he realizes that he could've just done the long haul with you, rather than jumping to nobility with her, he wants to go back and restart after five years of being married to her. Is that the kind of woman you want to be, Ino?" Tsunade asked.

"Don't worry about me, Tsunade-sama, I'm fine."

"Good luck convincing me that either of you two deserve to do this to Hinata," she said, dismissing her.

Ino stood up, standing evenly with the older, other blonde woman.

"What?" Tsunade asked, teasing. "You don't need luck, because you have love?"

"No, I have the Sand village. We'll just get married there."

Tsunade frowned. "I disallow re-entry."

"Disallow what you want, but it'll be illegal to deny us into Konoha for getting married."

Tsunade gave her a small, menacing flick upwards of her lip. "We'll see."

Ino looked back at her, before leaving. "I guess we will."

A/N: Mainly writing this for the people that message/comment for more :)