Graphestesia
If Shikamaru had been a painter, he would certainly have chosen Ino's diaphanous skin as the canvas for his paintings.
Ino's petite body dances boldly amidst the humble draperies of the rough blankets, so that even the shaggy sheet longs to bear a memory of that sliver of moonlight, brandishing the epidermis with burgundy-coloured scratches like the lips of palace ladies, pompously embellished to hide their beauty. Ino could not now be one of these, but not because she is sinful of femininity, despite the situation they find themselves in; simply, her skin needs no ointment or concealer of any kind, for she is truly beautiful as she is. Even with her emaciated body, the long scratch that disfigures her perfect forehead, her hair frayed by the lack of real water with which to wash it, the lump of blood now dried around her chapped lips but which he would never tire of kissing. Ino is beautiful and knows she is, but since the war swept over them and forced them to live every second poised between life and death, she seems to become the ghost of herself every day. She mirrors herself from time to time on the surface of the puddle of dirty water outside the camp, just enough time to catch a glimpse of her war-worn face and she immediately turns her head in annoyance, with a salty sting stuck between her eyelashes. Ino is forgetting herself but now that Shikamaru eagerly searches for her between the mischievous blankets, rolled up at her sides, she remembers she is alive; now that her best friend's lips capture hers with a kind of sweetness she feels able to love again, now that the hoarse moans are replaced by tenderised whispers, extremely breakable promises, subdued and almost fearful 'I love you's, she feels it is not over yet. Shikamaru knows that Ino's is not pure vanity, because the problem is not seeing a broken nail, but discovering herself, as a young girl alive and with a world ahead of her, suddenly an adult and about to die at any moment, with the weight of an entire village on her shoulders. But Ino is still beautiful. She doesn't know it, and Shikamaru doesn't know how to make her realise it. Because her epidermis is perfect, but it is no longer that of a lady; Ino is a ninja and her skin knows it too. Impossible, then, not to be astonished at the deep scars that slash her petite back, disfiguring that flat, welcoming sea. Shikamaru's fingers run alone to graze those scribbles on the immaculate canvas, and the artist feels deeply guilty about it all, because Ino is precious and concentrates in herself all the colours splashed by her broken palette precisely at the red. Red like the heart, red like blood. Ino's eyes are chained to the waves and cinnabar-coloured ripples of the sheets, yet her senses are alert and immediately pick up that slight tickle at her skeletal shoulder blades: she has lost a lot of weight in the last few weeks. The cobalt irises widen in surprise, and before the head can turn a few degrees, a new touch arrives to send cold shivers down the protruding spine, and her own right hand intertwines with that of the village Genius, blandly thrown over the blanket of sheets needed only to cover their nakedness. Ino lowers her eyelids and concentrates on the jagged movements of the boy's fingers on her own back, associating a letter with each of Shikamaru's caresses.
S
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R
She swallows a large lump of saliva and mentally completes the effigy branded with air ink on her epidermis. She has strands of salt water embedded in her thick eyelashes and shakes her head softly, caressing Shikamaru's face with her own silky hair.
"Shika, it's not your fault." But Shikamaru's fingers are faster than her lips and tenderly brand Ino's flesh for eternity, completing the abstract canvas on the skin of the girl he loves.
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The katabatic wind at the end of November is painfully cold and amuses itself by slapping human faces, but as Ino puts her fingers to the carving, she finds herself saying that the marble slab is even more so. The Mistral runs again and this time amuses itself by annoying the fresh flowers that have just been deposited on the ground, and although internally piqued, Ino does not care much for it as she is aware that the next day she will return there and bring a new bunch of Bach flowers and lilacs. Her pale hand trembles vaguely but not because of the cold and rests on the embossed carving of dreary black. She touches it gently as if it were scars, and in a way Ino knows that those thirteen letters carry with them a far greater wound, fresh and still open, bleeding and yearning for life torn from its jaws. A strong, sure hand rests slowly on her right shoulder, Ino turns her head slightly and hints a quivering smile. The young man's lips reciprocate in the same way and at the same moment he feels a tinge of pain seeing the small scar of a cut that will mark the cheekbone of the most important person in his life for eternity. Ino pretends not to think about it, squeezes her eyes watered with tears and then casts a quick glance at the bouquet of already somewhat wilted flowers resting on the tombstone; the war is killing even the beloved petals that have surrounded her childhood and she thinks, with a lump in her throat, of when she will be able to go back to surrounding herself with sunflowers and orchids in her parents' shop. She swallows back the tears.
"We'll bring him more tomorrow, OK?" Ino does not even hint at a gesture and Shikamaru sighs.
"Ino, it's not your fault." Ino would like to believe him and inside she knows that Shikamaru is right, that she did everything she could have done to save him but the wound was too deep and now fatal, but she still cannot give herself peace. Every night she stares at the emptiness above her head with eyes wide open, sometimes Shikamaru hears her sobbing and then he tries to embrace her awkwardly, because he is not good at that sort of thing but for her he would go against his every certainty; sometimes Ino reacts, many others do not, but Shikamaru knows that one day, when all that nightmare is over, the girl he loves will be able to find the strength to let go of everything inside. That is what he also hopes for himself. Ino stretches out her reddened index finger to graze the icy, grey tombstone and thinks that at this moment she would just like to see a cigarette resting between sardonic smiles and lighting up before her eyes; but Shikamaru is quicker and the kunoichi immediately spots the boy's finger overlapping her own. Motionless, Shikamaru waits for her and follows her time. Ino trembles, sighs, sinks the tears she does not want to shed and begins to move her own finger slowly over the plate. Shikamaru's index finger, resting on hers, follows without resistance and calmly traces one letter after another.
S
O
R
Asuma Sarutobi
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S
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