A/N: What kinda food soothes a fractured heart?

Heartbreak Ramen

Really… what was the point of living anymore?

That was the most recent dour thought to push its way to the forefront of Ino's frayed mind, and while even she had to admit it was a bit dramatic, the sentiment was no less sincere. As she stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror, noting the way her eyeliner ran in rivulets down her cheeks, the puffiness of her eyes, her cracked lips, and the overall shabbiness of her attire, Ino couldn't help but wonder… when had everything gone so wrong?

She sniffled, felt her face begin to scrunch up, saw the pain that etched itself into her face—and then she couldn't stop it. Her mouth split in a trembling whimper that gave way to a dragging cry, one that echoed from the depths of her aching soul, that brought forth a wave of fresh tears to burn through her mascara.

Her shoulders shook, her stomach clenched, she felt nauseous and lightheaded all at once. The noise that burst from her throat could be described as crying to anyone listening, but to a more perked ear, it sounded more… wounded, more scarred and terrified.

There was something deeply wrong with her.

Crying wasn't helping her heart any, the tears only widened the jagged tear that had been sliced into it. Each heave of her chest hurt something physical, breathing had been a chore for the longest and she had to wrap her arms around her midsection for fear of what she might do with them free.

How much time had passed with her like that, hunched over on her knees with her face shoved into the sheets of her bed, hoping against hope that she would swiftly asphyxiate and be gone from this pain?

When she finally collapsed onto her side, she was still quivering from head to toe, still sniffling and hiccuping, her eyes clenched shut as if trying to deny the presence of some terrifying apparition in her room.

But, unfortunately, she was quite alone within the four walls that was both her room and her prison. Which was worse. She would have loved for some horrible figment of her jaded imagination to be the reason behind her tears—at least that could be fixed—but this…? This ache clawing at her from within, pulling her lower and lower into a cold darkness? There was no solution for that, none that she could see.

The only she could see behind her clamped eyelids was him.

Him approaching her after class….

Him pulling her off to the side….

Him with that charismatic grin on those oh-so-kissable lips….

Him being so gentle, making her think he was about to say something romantic enough to buckle her knees….

Him, saying that it wasn't working out….

Him, saying that he had found someone else….

Him… walking away without so much as a backwards glance….

The moment she shattered into pieces was the moment when the world seemed to tilt, leaving her dazed and confused. A nervous laugh bounced off his retreating back, she remembered… a nervous little cutesy giggle, because there was no way she had just heard right. So she called after him, called him to come back, really, but he didn't, he didn't even acknowledge her voice.

Which was strange, because she had clearly spoken english.

So she called him again, a bit louder. And then again, with more force, thinking this time would surely unlodge whatever had clogged his ears. But he kept on walking, strolling leisurely, until he took a corner and was out of sight.

Not that that deterred Ino, who only proceeded to keep shouting until her throat grew sore and her voice brittle, until she had collapsed to her knees under the crushing weight of what she didn't want to face: the fact that she had been tossed aside.

That one moment continued to live rent free in her head even a couple weeks later, popping up at all hours of the day and replaying incessantly like some twisted merry-go-round of grief. Every pass broke her down deeper, knotted her stomach tighter—sometimes she couldn't eat, most times she was just thirsty, and sleep was a distant reprieve that only came to claim her when she was exhausted from crying into her pillow.

And what hurt the most… the thing that picked at her heart with all the grace of a jackhammer was seeing him with her. Oh, she knew their names, of course she did, but she would rather be dragged down to hell before she let those identifiers cross her lips. They were little more than snidely smirking mannequins now, taunting her whenever they laughed together, or ate together, or held hands… just doing all the things that… that she and him used to do.

The promises they had made, the life they had planned out together… all his words of protecting her and taking care of her, telling her she was his main source of inspiration, that her smile brightened him up no matter what he was going through… which in turn just melted her heart, captured her soul, and she endeavored to greet him with a smile as much as possible.

Anything for him.

Anything.

Any-fucking-thing.

The scream that burst from her throat rolled out like a dragons flame, hot and acrid against the tongue and ultimately muffled against the pillow she had smashed to her face. Somehow, someway, there had to be an end to this misery, a way to bottle up all this hurt and suffering and scatter it to the four winds, freeing herself from these charred tendrils doing their damnedest to drag her under. She just wanted to live life again, to go back to the time before she had ever met him and fallen for that shitty grin and those empty promises, a time back when she knew herself—as much as she felt any fifteen-year-old could at any rate. A time before this gaping hole had been torn into her heart with no conceivable way to close—

knock, knock, knock

The eye that wasn't hidden behind her pillow cracked open, still just as strained and bloodshot, while the rest of her froze. What was that…? Someone at the door? Or had she hallucinated it?

Holding her breath, Ino kept silent, listening intently, though nothing but quiet met her ear and she rolled her eyes. Great. Now she was starting to hear th—

knock, knock, knock

She flipped upright, hair flying everywhere in straggles, and merely sat there, poised like a cat trying to sense out where the danger was doing from. This time she had definitely heard it, that knocking, which now begged the question of just who in the hell would be at her door? She wasn't expecting no one, no one was expecting her; she had basically turned into a recluse in the span of a few days.

"Maybe it's billboard brow," she reasoned a couple seconds later, having dragged herself from the depressing comfort of her room. She stepped with all the grace of a three-legged dog in clogs, not even caring to keep even an ounce of the poise she was quite known to possess, and she truly didn't care. Her parents weren't home, she couldn't remember where they said they were going, because they had definitely told her, it was just the pain rending her heart in two took precedence—

knock, knock, knock

"Okay, okay, Sakura-chan," she grumbled, reaching the front door and pulling it open, "hold your hor… wuh?"

Oddly enough, it wasn't Sakura who Ino had been expecting—and secretly hoping—to see standing on her porch, no. It was—

"Naru… to…?" The name passed her lips with a foreign inflection and she blinked a few times, wondering, borderline hoping, that this boy with the bright blonde hair would disintegrate; she would rather think herself going mad and hearing things than deal with whatever annoyance he was undoubtedly waiting to unleash on her. "What… why're you here?"

Standing there in his trademark orange jumpsuit and silhouetted by the blazing afternoon sun, Naruto didn't say anything at first; in fact, he didn't do much of anything for the next couple seconds except hold her gaze. And that right there was almost enough incentive to slam the door in his face because Naruto was never quiet, Naruto was never one to stand still—the Naruto she regretfully knew was always running around yelling his lungs dry about being the next Hokage. Hell, she and him used to make fun of this annoying blonde all the time.

Staring at him now, Ino had half a mind to suddenly apologize for all the hurtful things she had said behind his back, because while he was quite possibly the most annoying soul she had ever come across in her short life, that didn't give her the right to demean him like she did, laugh at him like she did… spit at his dreams like she did.

"So… how's it feel?" he suddenly asked, inclining his head somewhat.

The wind picked up somewhat, tossing a few eddies through Naruto's hair in an impressive way that Ino probably would have never noticed until now as she stood there, staring between locks of her own swaying hair.

And then his question did a second lap through her ears in a way that actually registered and her stomach clenched, causing a quiver to run the length of her spry legs. There wasn't a need for her to ask him what he was talking about; she knew exactly what he was talking about, what he was referring to with that cryptic question that would have come off vague to anyone else. She knew, and it flipped a switch within so fast that she was lightheaded by the time her lips parted.

"How does what feel?" The question slipped through teeth that were ground together and suddenly, Ino's face had twisted from confusion into pure rage. "A-are you… are you asking how it feels to be dumped?"

Those blue eyes never once looked away from her own and Naruto hunched a shoulder. "Kinda, yeah."

"IT HURTS!" Ino screamed almost before he could finish, and her voice cracked, booming around the area, possibly infiltrating the surrounding houses. "It hurts like hell! It hurts being left behind, being discarded like I—like I never mattered, like I was being lied to the whole damn time!" The bile was churning hot in her stomach but she couldn't stop; the valve had been turned with that single innocuous question and everything was pouring out. "I did everything RIGHT! Everything! I was there! I was supportive! I—I smiled! I d-didn't deserve… when I was just trying to do my best and—and—"

"—and no matter what you did, which was probably nothin', how you were treated just don't make no sense," Naruto supplied with an even edge, almost like this wasn't his first time saying those exact words for one reason or another.

It was his response that lodged a wrench in the turning gears of Ino's rant, which had her voice growing steadily shriller with every syllable uttered. She blinked, taken aback, then was doubly shocked to find that she was outside her house, that she had taken a few threatening steps in the other blondes direction. She stood about a good arms length away, just close enough to get a good punch off, which, judging by how tightly wound up her hand was, it's probably what she planned on doing before snapping back to reality.

She stared at him now in a tight-lipped silence, brows furrowed, one hand wringing the bottom of her two-sizes-too-large over shirt. Ino was far from the term 'stupid' so she knew that what Naruto had just said, that he was enlightening her in the most passive aggressive way possible that she was explaining his entire existence. She could see that, the parallels there, she could see the fact that her boy troubles didn't amount to the years of ridicule and mistreatment Naruto had been through—but still… just because he had had it rough since apparently birth, that didn't make her feelings any less valid, did it? Just because someone else had suffered far worse didn't exempt one from feeling their own turmoil, right?

"I've seen you 'round the academy," he continued, taking a step in her direction, one that caused her to stiffen. "When you were with that asshole… and now without him. Heard how you guys used to make fun of me like everyone else… oh, I'm not mad," he told her when her eyes listed to the side in a chastised fashion, "I'm so far used to it, been called worse by better."

When he smirked, Ino actively rolled her eyes, sucking her teeth. She really had nothing to say because her mind was reeling with questions now: how long had Naruto known? Was he upset? He didn't look it but still—and was that why he was here? To get revenge? That had to be it. She and what's-his-face made fun of him and now… now that she had been effectively replaced and tossed out like last nights trash, he was here to go "nyah nyah nyah now look who's the loser." And, honestly? Why the hell not. Karma had been stomping her ass all up and down the street, this was just another fated kick to the gut.

So she stood there, clutching onto her elbow with her shoulders hunched up in wait for whatever vitriol Naruto planned on spewing her way. Because he had every right to. The way she had talked about him before she met that jerk was bad enough, and that was just in passing with Sakura, but it got ratcheted up to a whole new level of complete disregard once she became his girlfriend. Rude didn't even begin to cover it, because kids could be just as cruel as adults, if not more so.

Hopefully, God willing, this would be the cherry to her fucked up cake of inner turmoil, the last topping before the healing could begin… if he didn't completely eviscerate her entire existence right now.

When he exhaled through his nostrils, the force of it caused her to flinch. Daring to look into his face, even if it was through her eyelashes, Ino watched as his gaze moved from her face, traveled down her front, ended at her feet, then came back up, leaving her feeling as though she had just been run through an x-ray. He was probably looking for something to point out, something on her to make fun of or use as an excuse for why she had been unceremoniously dumped.

"Go put some shoes on," he finally told her, nodding at her bare feet.

What he said didn't even register with Ino at first. She had been so secure in the thought that the first thing out of his mouth was going to be something hurtful that she had already hurt herself mentally, to the point where her lips trembled apart and she tearfully began to yell, "J-Just because I s-said that stuff, that d-doesn't mean you—" but the moment Naruto's actual words ran through her mind again, she abruptly stopped. "…W… wait, what?"

Naruto regarded the sniffling girl with a cocked brow, not quite sure where that budding outburst had come from. "Yeah, you're not handlin' this well at all." He pointed down. "Whatever you thought I said, I didn't say it. What I actually said was go put some shoes on."

Now Ino was blinking sporadically like she had a tick, struggling to understand. "I… shoes? Wait, but aren't you gonna, like… weren't you about to yell at me?" she blurted out, only to have Naruto tilt his head to the side.

"Yell at you? Why?"

"Because! I used to make fun of you, you numbskull—like stupid bad!" And now, for some unexplainable reason, Ino was starting to get annoyed, a feeling that turned visual by the way her hands curled into fists at her sides. "I know you must've heard me with Sakura and—and that jerk ass! We were loud as hell! That's why you're here, right? You're here 'cause I got dropped flat on my ass and now you're gonna laugh and point and tell me that's what I get and—"

All it took was one finger. One finger that Naruto swiftly brought to Ino's lips that quieted her like she had never spoken. The way her eyes widened like Naruto had grown a second head, her entire body froze at his touch, just seized up like he had caught her in a genjutsu. And then neither moved for a few tense beats of Ino's heart, mostly because her mind was going into shock and she didn't know what to do, or why she hadn't slapped his hand away yet.

"You started to sound like me for a second there," Naruto remarked, "and that's one road you don't wanna go down. Well, any more than you already have…."

When his finger fell away, Ino was left in a tight-lipped silence. She didn't quite trust herself to speak right then; whether she would yell at him, thereby adding more flame to her guilt, or burst out in sobs was too up in the air for an attempt, so she just sucked in her bottom lip and held it.

"The only thing I'm ever yelling about is bein' the next Hokage," he went on casually, jerking his head at seemingly nothing, yet Ino knew he was indicating in the direction of the Hokage monument, "and, y'know, the best food ever created: ramen."

The scoff that left Ino's lips was perfunctory and she rubbed at her eye with the back of her hand. She didn't like feeling so sensitive, like every little thing that happened had a direct impact on her heart, on her mind; and the worst part was not knowing how long this would last or what she could do to fix it.

"So go put some shoes on and follow me," Naruto instructed once more. "We're gonna get some ramen."

"Ramen…?" Now Ino's face contracted with disgust. "Whoa, whoa, wait… you"—she pointed at him so sharply her finger almost went up his nose—"actually want to take me"—she turned that finger on herself—"to get some ramen?"

"Yeah, there's this new teriyaki flavor that just came out yesterday and it's pretty good. I'm thinking you'll like it."

His reasoning was so simple and genuine that Ino blinked. Never mind the fact that Naruto, the king of brain lesions, was "thinking" at all—which was yet another insulting barb that she mentally berated herself over immediately—but she just couldn't work out the logistics of why he wasn't berating her, hurling out verbal insults on par with what she struck him with. Not only was he not yelling, she couldn't detect a single glimmer of rage or disdain in his eyes, nothing resided in those cerulean pupils… except…

On a whim, Ino stepped closer, breezing into Naruto's personal space and causing him to tense somewhat; she could feel this kinetic swirl of energy ignite around him and ignored it, focusing instead on his eyes. Bypassing their shimmering, gem-like qualities, she could see something there… something that came across as horribly familiar.

And then she smiled. It started out as a little 'o' of surprise that slowly lifted into a genial smirk of affection. Chuckling, she lifted a hand and let it drop heavily over Naruto's head, almost impacting his neck and causing him to grunt.

"Ino…."

It was like Naruto had never spoken when she ruffled his unruly mop of hair, curling her fingers in his locks. He was shorter than her, not by much, but enough that when she leaned forward, her chin met his forehead. When she threw her other arm around his neck, Naruto was left with very little choice but to awkwardly shuffle forward into whatever embrace this blonde girl was forcing him. Not that he really minded; she was strangely, intoxicatingly soft, and she smelled better than ramen.

Way better.

"So you want to take me out for some ramen," Ino whispered against him. When he nodded as best he could, giving his neck a quick jerk, she had to stifle a giggle. "And this is becauuuuse… why? You think we're like, what, kindred spirits or something? Heartbreak partners? The downtrodden duo?"

Every inhale filled Naruto's nostrils with more of this girls natural scent; it was quickly apparent she hadn't bathed yet and had worked up quite a sweat since she had stepped outside. It was stifling, somewhat cloying, and somehow maddeningly enjoyable to the point where he had to keep from exhaling through his mouth because he knew that would seem weird.

"Ah dunno," he uttered against her with a half-hearted shrug.

"Are you trying to make this like… a date?"

Naruto registered those words just fine, he had a good grasp on the english language after all, but they still proceeded to turn his brain into mush and cause his heartbeat to quicken. His breaths turned doggish in response to the lump that had formed in his throat, and maybe it was the rough exhales against the curve of her neck that caused Ino to laugh.

"Can we, um, cool it with the breathing? You're tickling me," she admonished playfully.

"Ah wike bweathin' tho'," came the garbled response.

"Hm. Okay, that checks out. Breathing is important, I guess," she agreed almost begrudgingly, and then Naruto let slip a groan of discomfort; the hold Ino had over his hair suddenly intensified, to the point where he felt a few hairs part ways with his scalp actually, and then he knew fresh air when she pulled his head back in a move that was both dominating yet tender at the same time, "but you still didn't answer my question," she pointed out casually. "Are you, Naruto Uzumaki, asking me, Ino Yamanaka, out on a date?"

Really, what could said about Naruto that he was finding this situation somewhat enjoyable, the way Ino held him, practically snatching his head so that he had no choice but to meet her inquisitive eye? He didn't want to dwell on it, seemed like a deep dive into a certain part of his mental psyche that he knew for a fact he wasn't ready nor prepared to deal with just yet.

"You didn't know? Eating ramen can heal what ails ya," Naruto said nonchalantly, lifting an arm and wrapping it around Ino's lithe figure much like the way her arm was still around his neck. He felt her tense under his touch and smirked somewhat. "It's been fixing my broken heart for years now. I'm thinking it'll work wonders for yours, Ino-chan."

"Ha. So what we're really going out for is a little heartbreak ramen?" Ino gave her head a pitying shake, admittedly enamored by this blonde's bold move. "Alright, goofball. Let me go get my shoes… and you're paying."

An incredulous look lit up Naruto's whiskered face. "Who's paying? I get it for free. Me and Mr Teuchi are good friends."

Ino genuinely laughed, something she hadn't been able to do for who knows how long, and God above did it feel good. "Oh, you come with perks, I see."

Naruto's grin turned handsome. "Several."

/