Chapter 108 - Meat Flower

A year before the marriage of Sasuke and Ino, Neji had been betrothed to a Hyuuga woman named Hasami during the clan's great New Year celebration; since this was when the whole clan got back together, it was the optimal time to announce arranged matches. And Neji didn't seem to mind her so much, since they had an amicable relationship to begin with, if distant.

And since good things obviously came in threes, Lee began to wonder if he was to be the next of his peers to take the step into the great summer of adulthood by joining a woman in marriage.

And, of course, he had only one woman on his mind: his darling, beloved, Haruno Sakura-san.

Obviously, the time was ripe.

Lee began to prepare, fervently seeking advice on formulating the Perfect Proposal Plan.

Because, after all, a proposal was a Very Special Thing, and he had only one chance to get it right. Lee was adamant about not making any errors.

His research was, of course, ludicrously thorough.

A proposal had to be MEMORABLE. Acceptable means of proposal included, to his surprise, offering the ring to the beloved within something she herself enjoyed. Though the use of food invited caution, for he did not want her to eat or drink the ring. Flowers could perhaps be a substitute, though Lee wondered how he would be able to present a ring through a bouquet of flowers, and there was also the problem of which flowers would be best suited for the proposal…

…well, frankness was also an acceptable path, just asking her directly. Which Lee latched onto immediately, for he was a forthright young man, and he did not want to conceal his feelings. Besides, he was brave! He would ask her without flinching or looking away!

Though he still needed for it to be memorable. And this caused him a great deal of pondering and consternation.

Destiny, it seemed, was on his side, however. Because before Lee could explode with despair, Naruto appeared.

"Hey. I hear you're lookin' to propose to Sakura-chan," he said, unblinking, unflinching. His face was stern.

Lee, from his lonesome, contemplative perch, gulped at his expression. "That is indeed my intention," he said.

And Naruto's face snapped from a scowl to a jubilant grin. "Dude, let me totally help you."

Their collaboration was most fruitful.

And on the first day of spring, after a cold, torturous winter of waiting, the cherry blossoms burst into bloom.

And Lee and Naruto put their plan into action.

Sakura heard about it, before she saw it. She reported in to her shift at the hospital, and found herself the target of giggles and people asking her, repeatedly, what she thought of it.

"What do I think of what?" she said.

She was told to go outside, and look at the Hokage Cliffside.

There was a message written for her, in bright pink paint, each letter ten feet tall.

This was what it said:

HARUNO SAKURA-SAN
I LOVE YOU AND WANT
TO SPEND THE REST OF
MY LIFE WITH YOU
WILL YOU DO ME

She had an immediate suspicion that this possibly Lee's doing—nobody else called her Haruno Sakura-san—and that Naruto was definitely involved.

She went to go talk to Kakashi, her ribs hurting from all of her restrained laughter.

Kakashi, feeling very put-upon, confirmed it, and explained that he had caught them before they could write the last two lines:

THE HONOR OF
BEING MY WIFE?

Naruto had fought against his intervention hardest. "C'MON! A little more desecration won't hurt, y'know!"

Kakashi told him that he was twenty, not twelve, and that he and Lee were to spend the rest of the day cleaning the proposal off of his and everyone else's faces.

"So it was… a wedding proposal?" Sakura said, softly, after Kakashi finished.

"Seems like," Kakashi replied. "I didn't mean to humiliate you, since… well. But the elders would throw a fit if it stayed up. Duty over sentimentality."

But Sakura responded that she wasn't hurt at all—it was more hilarious than hurtful, though now it seemed more sad than anything.

"You should have let them finish," she added, "then had them scrub it off. Because now everyone's talking about how much Lee wants me to do me."

Kakashi just shrugged. "You should probably go talk to him about this before the end of the day."

"Oh, I'll be talking to him, all right," Sakura replied.

She waited until her shift was over at the hospital, however. Duty over sentimentality.

Plus, she needed some serious time to think.

The sky was turning a pale blue from the distant, approaching sunset, when she finally went to the Cliffside. The message was little more than muddied, pink scribbles at that point, streaking down from the top of the cliff.

She called out from the nearest roof. "Hey, Lee!" There was no response. She leaped nearer. "Rock Lee!"

Lee was on a rope seat, his green sleeves rolled up around his elbows. He had a sponge in his hand, and his head was lowered, in the absolute depths of despair. "Do not look at me, I am an absolute failure of a man…"

"Lee, come on. Get down here, I wanna talk to you," Sakura replied.

(Naruto, on his own, nearby rope-seat, leaned over closer, to listen.)

"No, I shall not come down. I am not even worthy of looking upon your face," Lee replied.

"If you don't come down I'm gonna make you come down, Lee," Sakura said.

So Lee came down, but he kept his face away from her. "I do suppose I owe you an apology, Sakura-san," he said. "This is the greatest waste of time in the entirety of my twenty-one years, and of your twenty. Scrubbed away by the very hands that created it…"

"Oh, come on, Lee," Sakura said, "it's not that bad."

But Lee shook his head. "No, it is that bad. I was only allotted one chance in my entire life for a proposal of marriage, and I have utterly wasted it." Large tears were beginning to well up in his large eyes. "I keep wondering, perhaps I should have woken earlier today, or perhaps I should have tried a different method, but now I see that I was doomed to never be your husband, right from the very start."

"Lee…"

"That is my cruel, lonely destiny, I suppose. Where I cannot succeed, I must be struck down before I can fail further… I suppose that is less painful…"

"Lee..."

"I apologize again, Sakura-san. But you will be happier with a husband that is not as terrible a failure as I am."

Sakura sighed, deeply. "Lee, stop saying that. You really think you only have one chance to… propose to someone?"

Lee nodded. "Yes, that is law."

And Sakura was silent for a long while, which caused Lee's head to dip down even further.

"…well, that means I have one chance, too. And I haven't used mine yet."

And Sakura got down on one knee, and took Lee's hand, smiling with what was almost amusement at his snot-and-tears face. "Rock Lee, I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you do me… the honor of being my husband?"

And Lee started bawling.

"Yes, yes, of course, yes, oh, yes, now it all makes sense…" Lee sniffed loudly, and wiped his face off on his forearm. "No wonder my attempt failed, you are so singularly wonderful, Sakura-san, that anything less than you proposing to me would do you no justice…"

Sakura stood and gave him a very, very big hug. "C'mon, silly. You want me to help clean the rest of this off?"

"Nope! I'll do it!"

Naruto, above them, had the most enormous grin on his face.

"I'll just get a couple clones made and we'll have these rocks clean in no time, y'know. You guys go have fun!"

And they did.

"We went out and bought a ring, after that," Sakura said, recounting the whole thing to Ino over their tea. "Nothing too fancy, but… look!" She shoved her left hand forward, where a small band of silver gleamed. "Can you believe it? I never expected that… you know, after being just friends—I mean, really good friends, but still—for so long he'd just spring this on me, but… well, I figured if I told him I'd propose later it wouldn't make sense, and I… didn't want to reject him, you know? I figured I'd just… go for it and figure out the details as we went along, you know?"

Sakura looked down, thoughtfully, turning the ring around on her finger. "I think all I needed was some time to think and consider his feelings for once and… take my head out of my ass and realize just how much he really meant to me. Or something." A spontaneous laugh jumped out of her mouth. "Jeez, Ino, I'm sorry, you're the one who called us together, didn't you have something to say?"

"Oh, no, that's fine," Ino said, her smile empty. "I'm very happy for you, Sakura. Lee is a very good man."

Sakura grinned. "No, but really, what was your news?"

Ino inhaled.

Everything seemed so much smaller now.

"Well… Sasuke and I are having a baby."

Sakura gasped. "What the—already?"

Ino nodded, shrugged. "Well, he—we've both been… sort of eager in bed, from the very start," she said.

"Wow, I never… pegged Sasuke for a sex maniac," Sakura said.

"He is not a—sex maniac! He's just… very attentive," Ino replied, shortly. "Goodness, Sakura, where do you get these ideas."

Sakura pursed her lips cheekily. "Well, either way, it's certainly saying something when you're barely four months married and you're already expecting. When's the baby coming?"

"September. Sasuke's already thinking of names," Ino added, with a laugh. "Hajime for a boy, and Hatsumi for a girl. He really wants a boy, though."

"Not surprised," Sakura replied. "He's really excited?"

"He can barely restrain himself," Ino said. "He's already bringing up nursery furniture to me, and planning out how we're going to set up the room."

Sakura laughed so hard she almost snorted. "I wish I could see this, it sounds hilarious."

"It's cute," Ino replied. "He can't wait to be a father."

"And how are you feeling?" Sakura said. "Nervous, overwhelmed?"

"I'm just fine," Ino replied.

She came away from her meeting with Sakura feeling almost vindicated, snatching back the attention she felt her announcement deserved.

Of course, she felt happy for Sakura too, but she wanted someone to feel happy for her, and to a greater extent than Sasuke was.

Sasuke's excitement over preparations gradually faded, though, once they had the crib and the changing table and other furniture delivered and put up on the second floor. He wanted nothing to do with the baby clothes or the decorations or the prenatal checkups—after a while, all he wanted was for the baby to finally arrive, so he could stop fussing over whether or not they'd prepared enough and actually get to raising it.

And, of course, he didn't attend to her, physically. Ino supposed that was fair, since, with her growing belly, intimacy would be… difficult. Though she was somewhat disappointed that the most she would receive from him would be the occasional hand on her wrist or her stomach when they sat together on the couch to watch television, and his hands on her arms when she greeted him home from work.

Ino made up for the lack of attention with shopping trips out with Sakura. Lee's family was taking care of the preparations, since they wanted a traditional ceremony, unique to their clan, and Sakura had no objections to this. She recounted to Ino the joyful bizarreness of her meetings with his family; they had emigrated to Konoha from a small country near the Land of Earth when Lee was a very small child, and had taken their language and traditions with them.

"Apparently, since I was the one that proposed, Lee is technically the bride, and I am the groom. So he's going to be taking my last name, isn't that interesting?" she shared, one afternoon. "I think I managed to talk them out of putting Lee in a dress, though the wedding costumes look so strange, I can hardly tell the difference between them."

"Sounds fascinating," Ino said, holding up a onesie. "Look at this, isn't this cute?"

"Adorable," Sakura replied. "You know, I'm thinking of learning Zonguen so I can talk to Lee's mother more easily, she has such a difficult time with language."

"Go for it," Ino said. "You're smart, you'll figure it out."

Their wedding was in the summer. And, of course, Ino and Sasuke were both invited.

It was a very loud event, both in color and sound. Lee's parents' house was decked out in shining golden banners with red calligraphy stamped upon them, and red lanterns hanging from every ceiling beam, and there was a great deal of singing and dancing, with firecrackers set off in the courtyard every now and then. The only silence during the entire thing was when Sakura and Lee exchanged vows, the both of them wearing red robes, heavily-embroidered with golden birds and green dragons, and black vines.

"We're leaving after dinner," Sasuke told Ino, leaning in and almost shouting to get the message to her. "This is wearing me out."

Ino was tired, as well, but she at least wanted to be polite and socialize.

She managed to get in her congratulations to Sakura before Sasuke lost his patience, and before Sakura could be pulled off by Lee to receive words from Neji and his own, heavily-pregnant wife. Ino tried not to stare, and tried even harder not to feel spiteful.

It was even more difficult not to feel frustrated when Sakura came to her house for lunch, a week or two later—Ino wasn't in the mood for going out—and breathlessly recounted how wonderful her honeymoon had been.

"Why the hell didn't we date seriously earlier," she said, almost gasping. "I can barely keep up with him but it's wonderful."

"Wonderful. Good for you," Ino replied, slicing firmly into the chicken breast she was preparing for a salad.

Sakura seemed not to notice.

(Sakura also didn't seem to notice that her own daughter was on the way until maybe two months before her arrival the following March, not thinking anything of the inconsistent bleeding throughout, since her periods were usually irregular, which was common for many ninja women.)

(Sakari was conceived during this most enthusiastic honeymoon, and she carried very small. Sakura didn't even have to buy maternity clothes until Kenji came along.)

Eventually, Sakura's overenthusiastic glee over her honeymoon faded, and she went back to work.

And Ino waited for the baby, trying not to let her impatience and her need for attention overwhelm her, and seizing every ounce of joy she could with tight fists.

Hajime arrived, as expected, in early September. Sasuke was gone on some sort of mission when Ino's water broke in the kitchen, so rather than waiting for him, she walked to the hospital, alone, and checked herself into the maternity ward. Though she denied it, the staff could tell that she was terrified.

Sakura, once she found out, said she would go get him herself, which Ino much appreciated.

"He'll be back before you know it, I promise," Sakura said.

But when she finally found him, on city patrol with Naruto, he seemed indifferent to the news.

"Come back and get me once it's born," he said. "I'd rather be doing something productive while I wait."

Sakura grabbed him by his collar and pulled him very close, baring her teeth.

"No, you are coming back to the hospital with me, and you are going to support your wife, who is having your child," she said. "And if you don't, I'm going to knock you out and take you there myself."

"…yeah, Sasuke, you should probably go do that," Naruto added, waving a hand. "Come on, dude, it's your kid, y'know!"

"…fine, I'll go," Sasuke grumbled.

Ino was moaning through a contraction when he and Sakura finally arrived.

Sasuke didn't want to go in.

So Sakura slapped him.

He went in, with a red cheek and a bruised ego.

Ino, in a hospital gown, her hair slightly wet from perspiration, gasped out a smile from the bed. "You came…!"

"Yeah, I'm… here," Sasuke said, quietly.

"Do you need anything, Ino?" Sakura said, butting in, uncomfortably close to and behind Sasuke.

"My back… really hurts…" Ino said, leaning forward, and trying to smile through a wince.

"Well, let's have Sasuke rub your back, then!" Sakura said. She nudged him forward quite forcefully.

Sasuke stumbled, looked back to glare at Sakura, and sighed, defeated. "Sure, I'll… rub your back."

In the few hours that passed, Sakura managed to also goad him into getting Ino some ice chips to suck on, and to also hold her hand so that she had something to squeeze whenever a contraction hit. After a while, he didn't need to be reminded about the hand-holding, getting out of his chair to be by Ino's side, and eventually just dragging the chair over to the bed, so he wouldn't have to make the effort.

But once it was time to push, he had his eyes shut tight and his head lowered, and it seemed fairly certain from the distressed humming noises he was making that he would have been covering his ears if Ino weren't squeezing his hand for dear life. Sakura ended up doing most of the coaching, standing behind the midwife, offering encouragement and assurances that it was almost over.

And, finally, there was a baby.

"It's a boy! Ino, it's a boy!" Sakura cried, near to tears.

"A boy… just like… we thought…" Ino was gasping for breath, her face shiny and flushed. The midwife put the baby on her chest and she let go of Sasuke's hand to cradle him with her hands on his back. "Oh my goodness, look at him…"

A towel was produced, and the midwife began rubbing the baby off. He began to cry.

"Look, Sasuke, a boy… Hajime, it's our Hajime…" Ino's voice was airy, almost delirious.

"You wanna cut the cord?" Sakura offered him.

But Sasuke shook his head, slowly, then quickly, his eyes still closed. He was taking deep breaths. So Sakura did the honors.

Ino took her time in cooing over Hajime's fingers and toes, and the bare streaks of black hair on his lumpy head, which were quickly covered by a blue hat. He was taken away, with her permission, to get properly cleaned and measured and wrapped up, while they delivered the afterbirth. Sasuke stayed near the nurses, during that part, observing with an almost child-like curiosity as Hajime's footprints and handprints were taken.

In time, Hajime was returned to his mother. But Ino held him only for a moment, before she asked, "Sasuke, do you want to hold him?"

Sasuke's mouth fumbled with words before he finally, weakly nodded, and took the baby from out of Ino's arms with an uncharacteristic delicacy.

An open-mouthed smile slowly and subtly began to grow. And he began swallowing and blinking far too much, his right hand playing with the edge of the blanket, where one of Hajime's hands had come to rest.

"He's, uh. He's perfect," he managed to say, sounding like he was clearing his throat. "Uchiha Hajime. Our first." He cleared his throat again. "Wow."

And perhaps it was Ino's exhaustion and the own tears in her eyes, but she could have sworn that Sasuke was crying too.

They took Hajime home a few days later, after receiving far too many visitors for Sasuke's comfort. And he was placed into his new crib, where he promptly fell asleep in the company of a green dinosaur plush doll, one of the few contributions from Sasuke to the nursery.

He woke up about an hour after that, and Ino immediately went to tend on him.

This became the norm, and Ino did not mind at all. Taking care of Hajime gave her something to do, which was more than she could say from when she was pregnant with him, and all the activity improved her mood like nothing else. Whenever he woke in the middle of the night, she would go upstairs and pick him up and feed him or change his diaper or rock him, depending on the cry.

She got particularly good at figuring out what Hajime wanted after his mind was joined to the Yamanaka network of consciousnesses, when he was a week old. Inoichi and Ino very, very gently entered his mushy, developing mind, and opened it just enough for it to have the capacity for later inter-family telekinesis. This was a painless ritual, and Ino kept the link from closing by periodically reaching out into Hajime's mind to sense his wordless thoughts. This also got him familiar with her presence, so that if he were to learn the Yamanaka arts later in life, Ino could train him most easily.

Sasuke, of course, stayed out of the business of diapers and bath time. And though Ino breast-fed Hajime, she had formula set aside for if Sasuke wanted to have a try, though he never did. But he held Hajime plenty, when he was home. This usually happened when the baby was awake, and laid out on the living room floor on a blanket with cloth blocks and his dinosaur while Ino got work done in the kitchen. And Ino took glorious pleasure in seeing Sasuke's attempts at stoicism while Hajime drooled on his lap.

Autumn became winter. They shared their first New Year together as a family, and had Naruto and Sakura and Lee over the day after for a meal, and there was much laughter over Sasuke's obvious grumpiness at Naruto's refusal to never not be holding Hajime.

By all definitions, things were good.

Ino's menstrual cycle returned, which was the biggest confirmation for her that things down below had finally gotten back to normal. And Hajime was sleeping through the night, among other milestones.

So she asked, one Saturday night, if Sasuke was feeling good.

"I'm feeling fine, why?" he replied.

"You wanna have sex tonight?"

"…no. Why would you even ask," he replied.

His hard tone surprised her, and she took a while to reply. "…well, it's just, it's unlikely that Hajime will interrupt us, and I'm in the mood, so…"

"Well I'm not. Goodnight," Sasuke said, and he flopped over sideways, pulling the blankets with him. His back, facing her, seemed like a mountain.

"…I'm sorry, maybe another time…" Ino said, quietly.

"Good night," Sasuke said again, from his side of the bed.

Ino waited a few days, before asking again, figuring that perhaps he was just overwhelmed with work that particular day.

But the next attempt fared no better. "No, I do not want to have sex right now, go away," was Tuesday's reply.

"Is there… any particular reason why…?" Ino asked, her voice straining.

Sasuke's eyes flicked over her, for a moment.

"No. I just don't want to. I just want to sleep," he replied.

So Ino left him to sleep. Even though she did not.

That flick of the eyes.

It had to be her. Her body.

She had to admit, she wasn't in the… best of shape. Her silhouette had recovered some, in the months since Hajime's birth, but the skin underneath was still a far cry from its usual smoothness, and the stray fat around her hips made even her feel somewhat disgusted.

…well, she would fix that. She was a pro at that.

She fell asleep, smiling. She'd fix things.

Ino took to the new diet and exercise regimen like a woman possessed. She cooked meals of steamed vegetables and brown rice, and lean fish; Sasuke raised no fuss, so she took it as a minor victory. She strapped Hajime to her chest with the baby carrier while she did chores to the music on the radio, for extra resistance, which Hajime seemed to enjoy. The same went for the dozens of walks she took during the week—to the market for groceries, to Sakura's house, to the park, to nowhere in particular. Hajime always went with her, kicking his feet in the baby carrier or napping in the stroller. And every night, after her bath, she rubbed lotions on her skin to make it smooth and tight again.

Before long, she was looking fine. She could even argue that, with what the pregnancy had done to her breasts, she looked even more amazing than usual.

…but Sasuke still wouldn't sleep with her. And though he was perfectly civil during the day, when it came to the bedroom, he would scowl at her like she was a heap of rotting meat and ignore her unless she talked to him.

This troubled her to no end. What was she doing wrong? Because surely it was her fault; Sasuke would say—he always did say—if he was too tired, or if he wasn't feeling well. This wordless avoidance dug under her skin and stayed, and itched ceaselessly.

Ino turned to outside sources for their opinions, leaving Hajime with Sasuke or, more often, her father, for excursions like breaths of fresh air.

"Well, in my opinion, you look amazing, Ino," Sakura told her, cradling her mouse-haired Sakari, the tiniest baby Ino had ever seen, in the crook of her arm. "Seriously, I don't think Sasuke appreciates how hard you work. You ought to let him know."

But that didn't help.

"You look perfectly fine, Ino, honestly," Chouji, humbly single, told her, while barely fitting onto a café chair. "You shouldn't worry so much about your appearance, it's really bad for your health…"

That didn't help, either.

"He's gotta be insane," Shikamaru informed her, over mixed drinks in his kitchen. "I mean, I wouldn't say no."

And Ino, upset enough and frustrated enough and maybe slightly drunk enough, replied, "You wouldn't?"

Shikamaru, swirling the ice cubes around in his glass, lowered his expression. "What's that look on your face for."

"Well, if you wouldn't say no… Why don't we go for a quickie, right now?"

"…right now?"

"Yeah. No-strings-attached sex, Shikamaru, what do you say?" Ino leaned over the counter.

"…aren't you married? Because that seems like way too much trouble than it's worth."

Ino sighed, unbecomingly. "I don't care, come on. I haven't had sex in over a year, I'm dying." She pouted. "Please, Shikamaru…"

Shikamaru considered, for a moment, his eyes to the ceiling.

"Just a quickie, huh?" he finally said.

"Please," Ino replied.

"Eh, I guess," Shikamaru said. "This had better not become a recurring thing."

"It won't," Ino said.

Ino, after the act, after the buzz of the martinis had worn off, felt sick to her stomach, despite the warm flood of post-coital tingles stretching into her joints. She left immediately, which Shikamaru didn't mind, because he had fallen asleep with his pants still unzipped.

She almost forgot to pick up Hajime from her father's place, on the way back home.

What the hell had she just done?

That was… cheating, wasn't it? She'd had sex with Shikamaru, because Sasuke wouldn't.

But that was only because she was desperate, because she was drunk, because she was upset, because…

…but she had still done it.

She dropped off Hajime in his crib and, immensely grateful that Sasuke was not yet home, went into the bathroom and hosed herself off with cold water.

It had merely been an act of… weakness, of desperation. She was disgusting for it.

(But she had needed it, oh, she had needed it.)

(Compared to sex with Sasuke, sex with Shikamaru felt incredible, though truly rather sub-par when considered after the fact. She had actually climaxed, how long had it been since that had happened for her?!)

…no, stop, she had to stop that thinking, that was wrong, she wasn't supposed to cheat on her husband.

(She would not become her mother.)

She shivered from the cold water, but took it as punishment, only drying herself off once she felt she was truly remorseful. Afterwards, she redid her hair and makeup, went to check on Hajime, and got dinner started.

When Sasuke returned, however, so did the thoughts.

It was less out of primal need and more out of nagging curiosity that caused her to ask him, that night, if he wanted to sleep with her.

"Why do you keep asking," Sasuke replied, "I don't want to. Leave me alone and go… satisfy yourself in the bathroom, if you're so eager. You can do that, can't you? I won't care."

He sounded so, so disgusted at the end of that sentence.

"…I'm sorry, forget I asked," Ino replied. "Goodnight."

Sasuke didn't say anything, just settling further into his side of the bed.

Her anger and frustration began to grow again.

What was wrong with her? No, no, no, what was wrong with him? What was his problem? Shikamaru obviously didn't have a problem.

(Though she also got angry at herself. Why did she even care about this so much?)

(The obvious answer was because she felt it was unfair that her husband, the man who was supposed to love her the most, over all women, didn't love her enough to have sex with her.)

(That hurt.)

Because of this, when Shikamaru called her one afternoon, saying he was bored and, yeah, he'd said he didn't want this to become a recurring thing, but one more quickie couldn't hurt, she accepted.

It wasn't like she had any feelings for Shikamaru.

(Not like her mother had feelings for other men.)

He was just a means to find the satisfaction that Sasuke wouldn't give her.

Besides, it wasn't like she was going to leave Sasuke for him. Hell no.

(She wouldn't, couldn't do that to Hajime, even if Sasuke became… unbearable.)

("I'm sorry, Inoichi, you're nice, but you're so… boring.")

And nobody was going to find out.

(She would not become her mother.)

(She would not allow people to talk about her like that.)

Shikamaru was fine with all of these conditions. There were few things in the world he hated more than when girls he just wanted to casually sleep with got all emotionally invested, and clingy and whiny. Which seemed to happen far too often.

Ino promised that this wouldn't happen with them.

"It had better not," Shikamaru replied.

Their arrangement worked well for a surprisingly long while.

One or two afternoons a week, Shikamaru would call Ino, or the other way around, and Ino would drop off Hajime at her father's flower shop, saying she was going to be shopping, and would return soon. And Inoichi, ceaselessly fond of his grandson, would never refuse.

The sex was always quick, passionless, wordless, and usually on Shikamaru's couch or bed. And Ino would clean herself up afterwards and leave without much ceremony while Shikamaru napped the encounter off.

To Ino's surprise, Sasuke's mood seemed to be improving, all the while. He returned to fondly saying goodnight to her, when they turned in, and would lean his head in for her expected kiss, whenever he got home from work, and he would smile at her.

Hey, whatever worked.

Ino wondered if, maybe, Sasuke just had a really low libido and hated expending energy when he didn't have to. After all, he'd had no problem with her right after they'd gotten married. Or maybe he was like an animal that only went into heat at certain times. That would certainly explain the painful-sounding grunts and groans…

Whatever the reason was, he seemed happier just sleeping beside her and not with her. And Ino was satisfied with her own situation on the side.

And then she missed her period.

And a store-bought test confirmed it.

Rather than filling her with dread, however, this discovery just filled Ino with annoyance.

She had told Shikamaru that she wanted him to use a condom, but he said that it was too much trouble. As usual.

Well, there was no need to fuss. Chances were that it was a false alarm, or she would miscarry and be able to pass it off as her period. And if that didn't happen, then…

Well, hopefully she wouldn't have to resort to that.

She really had no cause to worry.

Until, one night, Sasuke told her that he wanted to begin trying for another child.