Konohagakure no Sato, Monday All Day
Aug. 25th, 2008 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intraspectiveHer alarm went off at four.
She blinked, blearily, across the room at it and glared at the time displayed on it. Who in their right mind got up at four in the morning willingly? Regularly? Ino muttered vile threats under her breath as she reluctantly wriggled out of her blankets, rolled off her bed, and stumbled across her bedroom to shut up the increasingly shrill whine of her alarm.
Her hand paused inches from the alarm. Who indeed would get up regularly at four in the morning? Who would be that crazy to do it willingly? To do it so often that half the time they'd been awake before four and had merely had to lean over from where they'd been sitting at their desk and flick the alarm clock off with an absent brush of their hand.
Once upon a time that's what she'd done. Every day. Whether or not there had been a mission scheduled. It hadn't mattered if Asuma-sensei had given them the day off or not, she'd still been up, still been mostly ready by the time four had rolled around. Bright-eyed, and determined.
Not half asleep, bleary-eyed, hair a mess, still in her rumpled nightgown and feeling the urge to crawl back under her covers for another few hours. That wasn't who she'd been back then.
It was who she was now. Her stomach lurched. Good morning, only not.
The alarm was still buzzing. Ringing in her ears, making her head pound. Her fingers trembled as she reached out and shut it off. She stayed there, staring at it, fingers still hovering over it, and wondered what had happened. Spoiled, her thoughts whispered, sounding suspiciously like Hinata in that moment, all quiet and tentative with a will of steel underneath it, layering it.
Spoiled. Lazy. Useless.
The hand over her alarm clock clenched so tightly that her knuckles went white and Ino had the sudden urge to fling the alarm to the floor and smash it until it was no longer recognizable.
She didn't though.
Very deliberately she turned away from the alarm, and picked up her hair brush. One stroke, then two. She didn't stop for tangles, didn't gently tease them out of her hair like she usually did, just straight down, without pause until her hair was tangle free. All the while her other hand remained clenched in a fist and her stomach tied itself in knots.
When her hair was brushed she left it down.
Shrugging out of her nightgown, Ino gathered her things and slipped into the bathroom. She didn't need the shower--she'd had one last night--but she wanted to look at herself. It wasn't vanity, and it wasn't arrogance. The bathroom had a full length mirror, and Ino locked the door behind herself. Never mind that her father could get through a lock like that without a pause. Locks were more of a courtesy than any real sense of security in a shinobi village. It's locked, don't pry. Could she ask for the same courtesy? Ino didn't think she could. Didn't think she deserved it right now.
Setting her things on the edge of the bath, Ino first looked in the smaller mirror over the sink. It wasn't so bad there. But her eyes carefully picked out the softer curve of her cheek, of her jaw, and she turned away from it, closing her eyes and her breathing rough in her throat. In Fandom she hadn't seen it. At home it was only too obvious.
She didn't want to look in the full length mirror. Trepidation ate at her, and Ino had the horrible desperate feeling that she wasn't going to be happy with her reflection.
Look or not--it wasn't much of a choice, not to her. If she didn't, then it would only eat away at her because she wouldn't know for sure, wouldn't be entirely honest with herself, would still be able to lie. But if she did--she'd know.
Ino was bad at lying. Her face was too expressive, her eyes too flashy, her temper too hot. Her emotions flicked and flashed on her face, through her body language, through everything she did. Bad, by shinobi standards, at lying to others, and she'd always thought that she was bad at lying to herself. And Ino had an awful, terrible feeling that she'd been a lot better at lying to herself than she'd wanted to be.
It wasn't a choice. Not to her.
Slowly, eyes lowered, she forced herself to step over in front of the full length mirror on the backside of the bathroom door. She wriggled her toes on the cool tile, stalling and knowing it, and hating that she was.
Ino took a deep breath, held it for seven seconds and then let it out slowly. And again. Trying to settle herself enough to look up. Her shoulders straightened, and she forced herself to raise her chin, inch by inch, slowly and steadily until she was looking at herself in the mirror.
The girl looking back at her, wearing just a pair of panties with little green stars on them and white bows on the sides, was someone that, all of a sudden, she had to struggle to recognize. Ino tried, at first, to focus on something familiar. Her hair was longer than it had been and she frowned, lifting it up and away from her. Had it always been that glossy? That shiny? And all of a sudden, in a memory more than a year past, she could hear that Sound bitch, Kin, sneering at Sakura and saying that real kunoichi didn't have the time to pay so much attention to their hair.
She dropped her hair as if it burned her, and flinched at the feel of it against her back. Kurenai-sensei had hair that was glossy and gorgeous a small part of her pointed out. The rest of her sneered. Kurenai-sensei was a Jounin, elite, and had earned her way up the ranks through skill. If her hair was glossy, then she'd earned the right to have it be so. She could afford to spend the extra time on it. Ino didn't think she could say the same.
Her eyes met those of her reflection steadily even though there was a pressure in her head, in the back of her throat, in the way that she had to fight not to blink as her eyes burned. Ino nodded, firmly. She continued, remorselessly, her perusal of her own body. What had happened to the muscle in her arms? Had she gotten thinner? She had hips now, real hips, and breasts however small. She looked more like a woman. And had never felt more like a child.
The girl in the mirror looked like a civilian. A thin one, almost fragile looking until you noticed that underneath the thinness that there were hints of muscle there, a fluidity that still spoke of training in the past. But that was just it. In the past. She wasn't lean, she was thin. She wasn't healthy, or even fit, for a ninja.
She wasn't that bad for a civilian. Tears tracked their way down her face, sliding down her cheeks as she continued her relentless study. As a civilian she was pretty, more than pretty even, if she wanted to be arrogant. But she didn't look like a shinobi. Try as she might, Ino couldn't see more than hints of the girl she had been. Temari was right, she was a disgrace. No wonder the other girl had been so disdainful.
Ino stared at the mirror for what felt like an eternity before turning to get dressed. Stranger in her skin. She felt like she was going to be sick.
---
There was an untouched glass of orange juice sitting on the counter and she was staring blankly at it when her father slipped into the kitchen. Ino wore her hair down, a colourful shirt, and a skirt that matched it. Civilian wear. Was it frightening that she could still wear the same clothing that she'd bought nearly a year ago? She didn't have her earrings on, that marked her as part of Team 10. She didn't have her forehead protector tied around her waist, that marked her as a shinobi.
Ino didn't feel like much of either at the moment.
"That had better not be your breakfast," he said, and she knew without looking up that he was frowning at her.
"I'm not hungry," she replied. Honestly.
He snorted, and she watched silently as he bustled around the kitchen, his hair swaying with his movements and the smell of food making her stomach cramp. She'd never been good at eating when upset, and Ino knew long before he set the plate down in front of her what he was doing.
"You're eating all of that," he said, his voice making it clear that she wasn't allowed to argue.
It wasn't that much in reality. Just two slices of toast and jam, some yogurt, and a sliced banana. It was more than she'd eaten for breakfast in months.
Ino glanced up at him, then looked back down quickly. His expression had been coolly knowing. She supposed it wasn't that hard to guess, having seen herself. A shinobi needed the nutrients, needed the food. Really, there should be more on her plate--he'd gone easy on her. Her hand shook as she reached for the toast and silently began to eat. She'd feel sick after, she knew. Too much food.
Ino didn't argue.
"What," he said, after she'd finished the toast and had started on the banana, his voice carefully measured, "have you done to yourself?"
She flinched. Ino mechanically ate another bit of banana. She'd known he'd ask that. And she'd hoped that he wouldn't. It was a small mercy that he hadn't asked her while her mother was in the room. Ino wondered if she deserved that mercy.
Another bit of banana was eaten and the food was sitting like a lead weight in her stomach, and all she wanted to do was keep running, keep hiding, keep lying. Because his question was the right one and she'd been trying not to think about that from the moment she'd seen the Chuunin at the gates. There was no one to blame for what had happened to her. It was all only her.
She took a deep breath. And told him, the words spilling out of her in a furious torrent that had no discernable end in sight, as if they'd never stop, just continue on forever and ever.
Nearly everything, she'd gone through, she told him. The only part she left out was Kabuto and her medical training. Ino came clean about everything else. Every temper fit, every bad choice, every misstep, every thing she could remember and more. About her classes, about her teachers, about Liir, and Michael, about Chuck, about what Johnny had asked of her. She told him about Temari. About their spar. Ino didn't lie, didn't soften what had happened in it. Told him of being sat on, of being called spoiled by Hinata.
She talked about how Liir had made a broom for her to fly on, how she'd been learning how to use a gun, what a gun was, about how she'd spent days out in the preserve trying to find herself and hadn't been able to. Told him about how she couldn't find her balance. About Caliban, about Cable-san, about Deadpool-san.
About Worf, and Lana, and Cal.
Amber, Romeo, Anemone. Dojima, Ned, Isabel. A.J., Cassandra, Reno. Rikku, Chad, Jeff. Ichigo, Hoshi, Warren. Triela, Annette, Adah. Robin-sensei, Brooke, Lieutenant Kerrigan. Karal. Anathema. Altra.
Ino told him about going to the O.Z. to see the Queen. About how the island was moving around. About the plague, and the stone angels. Being in the past for seven months. Hades. Principal Winchester. About her garden. What training she'd been doing. How much she'd been eating.
She told him about how she'd gone to the hospital before coming here yesterday, that she'd signed up for medical training--just as a field medic, that she wasn't planning on ignoring her family studies.
Everything but Kabuto.
It took hours. He remained utterly silent through it all, letting her ramble, letting her tangent, watching her with eyes so intent that she refused to look up and had to concentrate on not mumbling through the more embarrassing parts of what she'd done. Her cheeks blazed with shame as her pitiful training schedule was brought up, and one hand drifted up to brush one ear and flinched away from the lack of an earring there. About how she'd stared at herself in the mirror and not recognized the girl she'd seen there.
Her throat was sore by the time she wound down; the rest of her breakfast was gone, sitting like a lead weight in her stomach. She sipped at her lukewarm orange juice silently and waited for his judgment.
It was a long time in coming. And when it did, all he said, in a cool and remote sort of voice that she'd never heard before, was, "Go get dressed properly--unless you're giving up." He didn't say 'I still love you', or 'yes, you're still a ninja', or even 'I forgive you'.
She fled without a word. Up the stairs, down the short hall, shutting her door only to lean hard against it, and bursting into tears. Sliding down against the door, a huddled heap of a girl in a skirt and arms wrapped around her head as she shook and cried.
Yamanaka didn't give up. But right then and there, she wanted to.
---
Torture, she decided miserably, did not have to be all thumbtacks and screws.
This evening counted as, Ino was sure, the worst evening ever. She'd cried herself out, falling into an uneasy sleep against her door, only to wake up an hour later, stiff as a board and then had to force herself into the shower to get ready for her mother's birthday dinner that evening. Ino had slipped downstairs, as silent as a wraith, but wearing her forehead protector and earrings.
She thought she'd seen her father smile at that. But she wasn't sure as the next thing he'd said to her was that Shikamaru and Chouji were coming for the evening, with their parents though Chouza was out on a mission. Asuma-sensei would be there too.
Ino had bolted right back up the stairs and been violently ill. She didn't want to see them. Didn't want to have to look them in the eye. Not when she was this weak, not when her stupidity was written all over her face, her body, her manner.
Didn't want to though hadn't kept it from happening. She'd even managed to smile for her mother, despite smiling being the last thing she wanted to do. For a few hours she'd almost managed to convince herself that it was alright, that things would be fine, as she'd helped set things up for the guests coming over and aided with the cooking. Ino had done it without her usual complaints, and had pretended not to notice the way her father had drawn her mother off to the side and talked to her for a good long while.
Ino had pretended that the fierce hug she'd received when her mother had finished talking to her father didn't stab her to the heart even as it soothed part of her. She didn't want pity.
That hurt, though, had been nothing compared to Chouji's frozen smile and Shikamaru's slightly widened eyes and then furrowed brow when they'd shown up.
She tried not to look at them.
Didn't want to notice the way that Shikamaru no longer looked silly wearing his flak vest--he'd grown into it, become the Chuunin that they'd named him over a year ago. Didn't want to notice how tall Chouji had gotten, or the way that he practically radiated serene strength.
She'd kept her eyes lowered as much as she could, and when they asked questions had tried to deflect them. Ino pretended not to notice the fact that Asuma-sensei tracked her every move with critical eyes.
She felt like a bug under glass and a sidelong glance at her father proved that she'd have to suffer through it. He wasn't going to let her run away from this. Ino found that almost comforting. He could stand strong for her while she was weak. He was still her dad.
When the time came for them to leave Ino had never been so grateful for anything in her life.
That, of course, was when Asuma-sensei mentioned team training tomorrow and would she like to show up?
No, no she wouldn’t. The steady, rolling power of Chouji, and the darker, more insidious way that Shikamaru had kept an eye on the room, on her, on everything, told her louder than words that there was no way she was going to be able to keep up with them.
Ino said yes, she'd be there.
She was still a member of Team 10, it was written all over their expressions. No matter how broken she was inside, or how much of civilian she'd become.
Shikamaru had nudged her shoulder gently as he'd passed out of the house, only long association with him letting her know that he was worried about her. Asuma-sensei had asked to speak to her father.
Chouji had given her a bag of chips.
She stared after them as they walked away, talking in low voices that she didn’t try to hear, the bag of chips hugged to her chest as if it were something precious.
It was.
Ino had then gone to help clean up, but her mother had shooed her up the stairs and told her to get some rest, as she looked like she needed it.
Rest, though, would be a long time in coming. Ino curled up on her bed, blanket pulled up close around her shoulders, still fully dressed and chip bag cradled in her arms. Her head pounded, her heart ached, and she thought that she'd never felt quite as useless as she did right now.
Leaning over, Ino picked up the picture of Team 10 that had been taken when they'd first been formed off of her nightstand and stared at it. Shikamaru looked pissed off, and she knew it was because she’d forced him to even show up for the picture, Chouji just grinned ruefully. Asuma-sensei rolled his eyes at the three of them, and she’d been front and center of the picture. Top of the world and glad about it.
They'd left her behind. Again.
And this time it had been her fault.
[NFB, NFI, OOC is total love.]
She blinked, blearily, across the room at it and glared at the time displayed on it. Who in their right mind got up at four in the morning willingly? Regularly? Ino muttered vile threats under her breath as she reluctantly wriggled out of her blankets, rolled off her bed, and stumbled across her bedroom to shut up the increasingly shrill whine of her alarm.
Her hand paused inches from the alarm. Who indeed would get up regularly at four in the morning? Who would be that crazy to do it willingly? To do it so often that half the time they'd been awake before four and had merely had to lean over from where they'd been sitting at their desk and flick the alarm clock off with an absent brush of their hand.
Once upon a time that's what she'd done. Every day. Whether or not there had been a mission scheduled. It hadn't mattered if Asuma-sensei had given them the day off or not, she'd still been up, still been mostly ready by the time four had rolled around. Bright-eyed, and determined.
Not half asleep, bleary-eyed, hair a mess, still in her rumpled nightgown and feeling the urge to crawl back under her covers for another few hours. That wasn't who she'd been back then.
It was who she was now. Her stomach lurched. Good morning, only not.
The alarm was still buzzing. Ringing in her ears, making her head pound. Her fingers trembled as she reached out and shut it off. She stayed there, staring at it, fingers still hovering over it, and wondered what had happened. Spoiled, her thoughts whispered, sounding suspiciously like Hinata in that moment, all quiet and tentative with a will of steel underneath it, layering it.
Spoiled. Lazy. Useless.
The hand over her alarm clock clenched so tightly that her knuckles went white and Ino had the sudden urge to fling the alarm to the floor and smash it until it was no longer recognizable.
She didn't though.
Very deliberately she turned away from the alarm, and picked up her hair brush. One stroke, then two. She didn't stop for tangles, didn't gently tease them out of her hair like she usually did, just straight down, without pause until her hair was tangle free. All the while her other hand remained clenched in a fist and her stomach tied itself in knots.
When her hair was brushed she left it down.
Shrugging out of her nightgown, Ino gathered her things and slipped into the bathroom. She didn't need the shower--she'd had one last night--but she wanted to look at herself. It wasn't vanity, and it wasn't arrogance. The bathroom had a full length mirror, and Ino locked the door behind herself. Never mind that her father could get through a lock like that without a pause. Locks were more of a courtesy than any real sense of security in a shinobi village. It's locked, don't pry. Could she ask for the same courtesy? Ino didn't think she could. Didn't think she deserved it right now.
Setting her things on the edge of the bath, Ino first looked in the smaller mirror over the sink. It wasn't so bad there. But her eyes carefully picked out the softer curve of her cheek, of her jaw, and she turned away from it, closing her eyes and her breathing rough in her throat. In Fandom she hadn't seen it. At home it was only too obvious.
She didn't want to look in the full length mirror. Trepidation ate at her, and Ino had the horrible desperate feeling that she wasn't going to be happy with her reflection.
Look or not--it wasn't much of a choice, not to her. If she didn't, then it would only eat away at her because she wouldn't know for sure, wouldn't be entirely honest with herself, would still be able to lie. But if she did--she'd know.
Ino was bad at lying. Her face was too expressive, her eyes too flashy, her temper too hot. Her emotions flicked and flashed on her face, through her body language, through everything she did. Bad, by shinobi standards, at lying to others, and she'd always thought that she was bad at lying to herself. And Ino had an awful, terrible feeling that she'd been a lot better at lying to herself than she'd wanted to be.
It wasn't a choice. Not to her.
Slowly, eyes lowered, she forced herself to step over in front of the full length mirror on the backside of the bathroom door. She wriggled her toes on the cool tile, stalling and knowing it, and hating that she was.
Ino took a deep breath, held it for seven seconds and then let it out slowly. And again. Trying to settle herself enough to look up. Her shoulders straightened, and she forced herself to raise her chin, inch by inch, slowly and steadily until she was looking at herself in the mirror.
The girl looking back at her, wearing just a pair of panties with little green stars on them and white bows on the sides, was someone that, all of a sudden, she had to struggle to recognize. Ino tried, at first, to focus on something familiar. Her hair was longer than it had been and she frowned, lifting it up and away from her. Had it always been that glossy? That shiny? And all of a sudden, in a memory more than a year past, she could hear that Sound bitch, Kin, sneering at Sakura and saying that real kunoichi didn't have the time to pay so much attention to their hair.
She dropped her hair as if it burned her, and flinched at the feel of it against her back. Kurenai-sensei had hair that was glossy and gorgeous a small part of her pointed out. The rest of her sneered. Kurenai-sensei was a Jounin, elite, and had earned her way up the ranks through skill. If her hair was glossy, then she'd earned the right to have it be so. She could afford to spend the extra time on it. Ino didn't think she could say the same.
Her eyes met those of her reflection steadily even though there was a pressure in her head, in the back of her throat, in the way that she had to fight not to blink as her eyes burned. Ino nodded, firmly. She continued, remorselessly, her perusal of her own body. What had happened to the muscle in her arms? Had she gotten thinner? She had hips now, real hips, and breasts however small. She looked more like a woman. And had never felt more like a child.
The girl in the mirror looked like a civilian. A thin one, almost fragile looking until you noticed that underneath the thinness that there were hints of muscle there, a fluidity that still spoke of training in the past. But that was just it. In the past. She wasn't lean, she was thin. She wasn't healthy, or even fit, for a ninja.
She wasn't that bad for a civilian. Tears tracked their way down her face, sliding down her cheeks as she continued her relentless study. As a civilian she was pretty, more than pretty even, if she wanted to be arrogant. But she didn't look like a shinobi. Try as she might, Ino couldn't see more than hints of the girl she had been. Temari was right, she was a disgrace. No wonder the other girl had been so disdainful.
Ino stared at the mirror for what felt like an eternity before turning to get dressed. Stranger in her skin. She felt like she was going to be sick.
---
There was an untouched glass of orange juice sitting on the counter and she was staring blankly at it when her father slipped into the kitchen. Ino wore her hair down, a colourful shirt, and a skirt that matched it. Civilian wear. Was it frightening that she could still wear the same clothing that she'd bought nearly a year ago? She didn't have her earrings on, that marked her as part of Team 10. She didn't have her forehead protector tied around her waist, that marked her as a shinobi.
Ino didn't feel like much of either at the moment.
"That had better not be your breakfast," he said, and she knew without looking up that he was frowning at her.
"I'm not hungry," she replied. Honestly.
He snorted, and she watched silently as he bustled around the kitchen, his hair swaying with his movements and the smell of food making her stomach cramp. She'd never been good at eating when upset, and Ino knew long before he set the plate down in front of her what he was doing.
"You're eating all of that," he said, his voice making it clear that she wasn't allowed to argue.
It wasn't that much in reality. Just two slices of toast and jam, some yogurt, and a sliced banana. It was more than she'd eaten for breakfast in months.
Ino glanced up at him, then looked back down quickly. His expression had been coolly knowing. She supposed it wasn't that hard to guess, having seen herself. A shinobi needed the nutrients, needed the food. Really, there should be more on her plate--he'd gone easy on her. Her hand shook as she reached for the toast and silently began to eat. She'd feel sick after, she knew. Too much food.
Ino didn't argue.
"What," he said, after she'd finished the toast and had started on the banana, his voice carefully measured, "have you done to yourself?"
She flinched. Ino mechanically ate another bit of banana. She'd known he'd ask that. And she'd hoped that he wouldn't. It was a small mercy that he hadn't asked her while her mother was in the room. Ino wondered if she deserved that mercy.
Another bit of banana was eaten and the food was sitting like a lead weight in her stomach, and all she wanted to do was keep running, keep hiding, keep lying. Because his question was the right one and she'd been trying not to think about that from the moment she'd seen the Chuunin at the gates. There was no one to blame for what had happened to her. It was all only her.
She took a deep breath. And told him, the words spilling out of her in a furious torrent that had no discernable end in sight, as if they'd never stop, just continue on forever and ever.
Nearly everything, she'd gone through, she told him. The only part she left out was Kabuto and her medical training. Ino came clean about everything else. Every temper fit, every bad choice, every misstep, every thing she could remember and more. About her classes, about her teachers, about Liir, and Michael, about Chuck, about what Johnny had asked of her. She told him about Temari. About their spar. Ino didn't lie, didn't soften what had happened in it. Told him of being sat on, of being called spoiled by Hinata.
She talked about how Liir had made a broom for her to fly on, how she'd been learning how to use a gun, what a gun was, about how she'd spent days out in the preserve trying to find herself and hadn't been able to. Told him about how she couldn't find her balance. About Caliban, about Cable-san, about Deadpool-san.
About Worf, and Lana, and Cal.
Amber, Romeo, Anemone. Dojima, Ned, Isabel. A.J., Cassandra, Reno. Rikku, Chad, Jeff. Ichigo, Hoshi, Warren. Triela, Annette, Adah. Robin-sensei, Brooke, Lieutenant Kerrigan. Karal. Anathema. Altra.
Ino told him about going to the O.Z. to see the Queen. About how the island was moving around. About the plague, and the stone angels. Being in the past for seven months. Hades. Principal Winchester. About her garden. What training she'd been doing. How much she'd been eating.
She told him about how she'd gone to the hospital before coming here yesterday, that she'd signed up for medical training--just as a field medic, that she wasn't planning on ignoring her family studies.
Everything but Kabuto.
It took hours. He remained utterly silent through it all, letting her ramble, letting her tangent, watching her with eyes so intent that she refused to look up and had to concentrate on not mumbling through the more embarrassing parts of what she'd done. Her cheeks blazed with shame as her pitiful training schedule was brought up, and one hand drifted up to brush one ear and flinched away from the lack of an earring there. About how she'd stared at herself in the mirror and not recognized the girl she'd seen there.
Her throat was sore by the time she wound down; the rest of her breakfast was gone, sitting like a lead weight in her stomach. She sipped at her lukewarm orange juice silently and waited for his judgment.
It was a long time in coming. And when it did, all he said, in a cool and remote sort of voice that she'd never heard before, was, "Go get dressed properly--unless you're giving up." He didn't say 'I still love you', or 'yes, you're still a ninja', or even 'I forgive you'.
She fled without a word. Up the stairs, down the short hall, shutting her door only to lean hard against it, and bursting into tears. Sliding down against the door, a huddled heap of a girl in a skirt and arms wrapped around her head as she shook and cried.
Yamanaka didn't give up. But right then and there, she wanted to.
---
Torture, she decided miserably, did not have to be all thumbtacks and screws.
This evening counted as, Ino was sure, the worst evening ever. She'd cried herself out, falling into an uneasy sleep against her door, only to wake up an hour later, stiff as a board and then had to force herself into the shower to get ready for her mother's birthday dinner that evening. Ino had slipped downstairs, as silent as a wraith, but wearing her forehead protector and earrings.
She thought she'd seen her father smile at that. But she wasn't sure as the next thing he'd said to her was that Shikamaru and Chouji were coming for the evening, with their parents though Chouza was out on a mission. Asuma-sensei would be there too.
Ino had bolted right back up the stairs and been violently ill. She didn't want to see them. Didn't want to have to look them in the eye. Not when she was this weak, not when her stupidity was written all over her face, her body, her manner.
Didn't want to though hadn't kept it from happening. She'd even managed to smile for her mother, despite smiling being the last thing she wanted to do. For a few hours she'd almost managed to convince herself that it was alright, that things would be fine, as she'd helped set things up for the guests coming over and aided with the cooking. Ino had done it without her usual complaints, and had pretended not to notice the way her father had drawn her mother off to the side and talked to her for a good long while.
Ino had pretended that the fierce hug she'd received when her mother had finished talking to her father didn't stab her to the heart even as it soothed part of her. She didn't want pity.
That hurt, though, had been nothing compared to Chouji's frozen smile and Shikamaru's slightly widened eyes and then furrowed brow when they'd shown up.
She tried not to look at them.
Didn't want to notice the way that Shikamaru no longer looked silly wearing his flak vest--he'd grown into it, become the Chuunin that they'd named him over a year ago. Didn't want to notice how tall Chouji had gotten, or the way that he practically radiated serene strength.
She'd kept her eyes lowered as much as she could, and when they asked questions had tried to deflect them. Ino pretended not to notice the fact that Asuma-sensei tracked her every move with critical eyes.
She felt like a bug under glass and a sidelong glance at her father proved that she'd have to suffer through it. He wasn't going to let her run away from this. Ino found that almost comforting. He could stand strong for her while she was weak. He was still her dad.
When the time came for them to leave Ino had never been so grateful for anything in her life.
That, of course, was when Asuma-sensei mentioned team training tomorrow and would she like to show up?
No, no she wouldn’t. The steady, rolling power of Chouji, and the darker, more insidious way that Shikamaru had kept an eye on the room, on her, on everything, told her louder than words that there was no way she was going to be able to keep up with them.
Ino said yes, she'd be there.
She was still a member of Team 10, it was written all over their expressions. No matter how broken she was inside, or how much of civilian she'd become.
Shikamaru had nudged her shoulder gently as he'd passed out of the house, only long association with him letting her know that he was worried about her. Asuma-sensei had asked to speak to her father.
Chouji had given her a bag of chips.
She stared after them as they walked away, talking in low voices that she didn’t try to hear, the bag of chips hugged to her chest as if it were something precious.
It was.
Ino had then gone to help clean up, but her mother had shooed her up the stairs and told her to get some rest, as she looked like she needed it.
Rest, though, would be a long time in coming. Ino curled up on her bed, blanket pulled up close around her shoulders, still fully dressed and chip bag cradled in her arms. Her head pounded, her heart ached, and she thought that she'd never felt quite as useless as she did right now.
Leaning over, Ino picked up the picture of Team 10 that had been taken when they'd first been formed off of her nightstand and stared at it. Shikamaru looked pissed off, and she knew it was because she’d forced him to even show up for the picture, Chouji just grinned ruefully. Asuma-sensei rolled his eyes at the three of them, and she’d been front and center of the picture. Top of the world and glad about it.
They'd left her behind. Again.
And this time it had been her fault.
[NFB, NFI, OOC is total love.]
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Date: 2008-08-25 03:03 pm (UTC)