Konohagakure no Sato, Tuesday Daytime
Aug. 26th, 2008 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intraspectiveThe next morning came slate grey and dreary, but not wet. The streets were dry as she walked down them, blue eyes watching as the civilians started setting up for the day, opening their shops. It was just past six, and Konoha seemed, to her, to be still cradled in the hush of early morning. Each scuffle of a foot against the stone, each creak of a door, it all felt muffled. Here and again a shinobi darted by on the rooftops.
Ino kept to the streets.
She’d woken up at the sound of her alarm that morning. Four in the morning. In some ways it had been worse getting up today because she’d known what time her alarm was set to. And that, coupled with a rather restless night, had not particularly filled her with joy. Rather than grumble and fuss about it though—after all, no one cared—Ino had merely gotten up, turned the stupid thing off, and then gone for a shower. Once upon a time… she shrugged irritably, but in the next minute offered a smile to one of her mother’s favourite shopkeepers as she passed him by.
Appearance was everything after all. And right now Ino had the feeling that she was going to learn just how little she had besides that to work with. She’d been up quite late, and yet had woken in the morning not energized exactly, but not tired.
Just… a bit hollow. She was moving, smiling, acting—but it didn’t feel right, almost like nobody was home. Ino wondered at that. When she’d left the house her father had merely raised his eyebrows at her when she’d told him where she was going; her mom had hugged her again.
Ino couldn’t find it in herself to care. She felt tired, too close to just giving up, walking away, letting someone else deal with it. Surely, Team 10 could find another kunoichi. They didn’t need her. Not when all she managed to do was mess herself up. Shikamaru and Chouji and Asuma-sensei shouldn’t have to deal with that.
After all, there were options back at Fandom, she mused. No doubt three years would give her plenty of time to figure out where she wanted to live and what she wanted to do if she was no longer a shinobi. If nothing else, Ino would be willing to bet that she could start her own floral business, she certainly knew enough about the day to day work of it. But…
She still wanted to be a shinobi though. That hadn’t changed. Back in her bedroom, tying on her forehead protector—around her waist because she didn’t deserve today to wear it on her head, probably hadn’t for awhile—and putting her earring on had been almost, not quite, an act of defiance in the face of the girl she’d become.
I am not you, she’d thought, frowning at the girl in the mirror. No longer. I will not gaze so long at you that I become you so much that I cannot change.
And she’d turned away from the reflection. Once she’d been someone else, now she was someone she didn’t like. That girl was going to change. Disappear. She’d make it so. She didn’t want to be that too thin civilian girl she could see in the mirror, whose reflection she now caught on every reflective surface.
Now, starting now, she was going to have to become someone else all over again. Ino had fingered her hair thoughtfully, pulling it up into a ponytail. That would have to be dealt with too. She knew, now, that it was just another lie. A privilege that she would have to re-earn.
She would wait until she was back at Fandom to fix that though. Shinobi gossip wasn’t something she wanted to go through, even if only in her letters. And shinobi gossip would pinpoint far too easily why she would have it done. After all, if she with her blind-spots had been able to figure it out, how much more obvious must it have been to everyone else who’d seen her here?
Straightening her shoulders, Ino slipped off on to one of the little crooked side-streets that were a short-cut, of sorts, in the direction of the training area that Asuma-sensei had told her to meet them at, and at what time.
Seven o’clock in the morning, a little later than their usual, their old practice schedule, and she almost smiled wondering idly if she should mention something about it being because Asuma-sensei was getting oooold.
Ino doubted she would though. Not right now. Not when she had to concentrate to take each step, to keep moving in the right direction, to not chicken out and flee home and then back to Fandom.
She had a portal scheduled for eight that night. If this became unbearable then a few hours wouldn’t be so much of a burden. Ino could easily waste a few hours. That got a cringe though. Too much time had been wasted, and than was something that really had to change. She wasn’t going to be able to slack off for a good, long while. Stop thinking like that, Ino scolded herself. You aren’t allowed to run away.
The training ground was one of the simplest ones. A mere clearing, of a goodly size, with vibrant green grass and trees to one side of it that seemed to reach up to the sky forever—that was their training ground. Chouji was there when she slipped into the clearing and he smiled at her. It was an easy smile, one that wasn’t pretending to be anything else, just him happy to see her and it made her feel like she absolutely had to smile back as he waved her over.
She tried. And though she watched his face for a change, she couldn’t tell if she succeeded or not.
“Shikamaru’s always late,” he said, and his voice was a lower rumble than it had been before she’d left. When had that happened? “And he’s even later now that you’re not here all the time to nag him into getting up early.”
Despite his kind manner and the light way he said that, all she could hear in that was condemnation for not being around. And all of a sudden her excuses, her weakness, her running away from them because they’d left her behind so long ago, and how she’d let them leave her even further behind…
She shook her head to try and clear her thoughts. “Moron,” she said, staring at the ground. “He’ll be fifteen in September—that’s old enough to get out of bed without someone nagging him into it.”
And it wasn’t like she’d done any better yesterday—who was she to judge? What right did she have now to go and drag him out of bed?
That got a laugh. “Maaa, it’s just him,” Chouji said, patting her on the shoulder. “He doesn’t do anything unless he’s nagged into it and no one else can even come close to getting under his skin the way you do.”
“Not so effective,” Ino said flatly. “Considering that I haven’t been around.”
He met her eyes. She looked away first.
“He doesn’t need me,” she muttered. “You’ve both been doing fine on your own while I…”
Fucked up. Screwed up. Lost control of her life.
“And you’re still part of this team. The luck, to go with strength and intellect,” he said patiently. Ino-Shika-Chou, the old winning hand. Luck, intellect, strength. Her rashness balanced by Shikamaru’s tendency to spend too much time thinking—and the both of them stabilized by Chouji who had more common sense and steady, honest strength than the both of them together. Shikamaru made the plans (Ino could admit that now, though she thought still that if she were here all time he’d let her lead and feed his plans through her and think she never noticed), she altered them on the fly, mid-mission, to quickly adjust to whatever had changed, and Chouji would come to their rescue if the plans blew up in their face. Their fathers had made it famous. Ino-Shika-Chou. “It doesn’t matter that you’ve not been here.“
It mattered to her. She could barely understand the ways that they’d grown, and every glance at him made her feel more and more like a petulant child. “I—“ Ino started to speak, started to say something to that effect when Shikamaru interrupted her.
“Man, what’s she whining about now?” He grumbled, but it was good-natured. “It’s too damn early to be whining yet.”
“You’re whining too,” Chouji said easily, as Ino struggled to find words.
“That’s different,” Shikamaru retorted, completing their triangle. “I’ve always been a full of complaints when it comes to work.”
Ino kept her mouth shut, not knowing what to say. She kept her attention focused on the ground as Shikamaru and Chouji continued an easy not-argument, just a way of passing the time. Old words, old habits, she knew how it went. Ino knew it was to make her feel better, that she was supposed to jump in and say something, express her opinion, browbeat Shikamaru for being late…
Ino just felt tired. They were trying, and she didn’t know how to try.
“It’s not going to work,” she said, abruptly. They fell silent. “I’m not blind. I know what you’re doing.”
Ino could almost feel the look they were exchanging as they evaluated that, as they evaluated her.
“No,” Shikamaru said his voice a calculated drawl, one that was designed to rile her temper and poke holes at her composure. “You’re just lazy.”
She was, she couldn’t even argue with them, and he wasn’t done speaking. And it stung, because they were words she’d applied to him before. Still in that drawl, still pitched exactly right to hit her nerves. “You say I’m lazy, and now I look at you and wonder how on earth you’ve even got the nerve to think something like that. Grow up or get out, Ino-chan.”
Her temper snapped. It was easy to let it snap, it had been slowly, ever so slowly for her, rising up, clawing and crawling towards boiling point ever since she’d set foot into the village. She lunged at him, with an incoherent shriek, and he grabbed her wrist easily as Chouji backed away, letting them handle it. Probably for the best. He’d seldom gotten involved when they fought, accepting it as just the natural order of things.
“Is that the best you can do?” he, Shikamaru, taunted her, dark eyes holding a smirk. “Didn’t you used to be able to beat me into submission whenever I got mouthy?”
Once upon a time, that had been true. She twisted her hand in his grip, not managing to get loose, before abruptly dropping to the ground, her wrist still held in his grasp and lashing out viciously at his knees. She nearly connected then, but he sent her flying with a move that had a lot more power to it than she’d remembered him having. Ino managed to get her feet under her and, without thinking, not paying attention to what Chouji was saying to Shikamaru, attacked him again.
He sent her flying again, taunting her openly. “You used to be better than this! That school of yours has to be the worst.”
Ino flinched, and drove her fist at his face. He met her with one to her stomach and she went down, rolling out of his way before clambering back to her feet. That would leave a bruise. Ino was almost glad for it. That way she wouldn’t forget. She looked up to find him in a familiar stance, his shadow pooling around his feet.
“I know you can do better than that,” Shikamaru said, no taunting this time, just him. “Kagemane no Jutsu.”
She darted away from the shadow that writhed around his feet and shot after her. Ino avoided the trees—no need to give him more shadow to work with after all—and the chase was on.
After, Ino would never be able to say how long, exactly, it went on for. Just that he didn’t let up and it couldn’t have been long before she was forced to start channeling chakra to her feet and legs just to keep up a speed that would let her stay ahead of him.
He’d definitely built up stamina—but she wasn’t, hadn’t, ever been good at giving up control to anyone else and she grit her teeth, dodging furiously, trying to stay a head of him, to anticipate where his shadow would curve next. That shadow, she was avoiding. Didn’t want him to have control of her body. It was hers, however sorely she’s misused it.
It seemed like eternity, it felt like forever, her lungs were burning, legs were trembling, and sweat was a slick sheen on her body and crawling down her back by the time that Asuma-sensei’s voice called out, “Enough.”
When had he shown up? Ino didn’t know, nearly stumbling as she forced herself to keep moving, to not stop cold, because she was going to hurt tomorrow no matter how this went, but there was no need to make it even worse on herself by not cooling down properly.
The shadow pulled back, and she didn’t stop moving until she was standing beside Chouji and trying to catch her breath, to calm down after the hardest bit of exercise that she’d had in months and months. Just running away. Ino wondered if that had some sort of meaning, if it was some sort of a hint. Had she been supposed to let the shadow catch her? She didn’t know.
“You were better,” Chouji murmured to her as Shikamaru sauntered over, dark eyes unreadable. “Once you stopped thinking about things too much. Your body still knows what to do.”
Ino closed her eyes, and up-ended her canteen over her head. She shivered.
“Let’s get started,” Asuma-sensei said. Ino wanted to cry, to protest, to fall over and relax.
She didn’t. Didn’t say a word.
What followed next was the most humiliating experience she could ever remember having. It far, far outstripped Deadpool-san knocking her out when she’d freaked out over Caliban, or even Temari sitting on her.
She couldn’t get it right.
Not any of the exercises. Her rhythm was off, her movements were off, she couldn’t keep up with them, and they couldn’t slow down enough for her, and when she noticed them trying it only made her more furiously shamed.
After a while she became aware of how they were watching her carefully after every failed exercise, every mistake—almost like they were waiting for her to explode.
She didn’t. Ino didn’t let her temper out on them, turning that, instead, inwards and using it to try and drive her movements faster, more precise, trying to adapt, to keep up to what they could do. Even if she stayed here she wouldn’t be able to go on missions with them in this state. Not for a while.
It burned. Bile in the back of her throat.
She maintained her stony silence and kept trying. By the time Asuma-sensei called a halt to it, she was sweating like a horse and it took everything she had to force herself through the cool-down exercise because she knew for sure that she was going to be beyond sore.
That, of course, was when the skies opened up and it started to pour. In seconds, she was soaked to the bone, and Ino stared up at the sky, letting the rain hit her face until two hands, one from each boy, took her hands and helped her to her feet. They had a routine for this too, for after practice. She knew without asking where they were going. She didn’t let go of their hands either, even when Shikamaru huffed, and Chouji laughed. Her face burned, but she still clung.
They didn’t really seem to mind, for all of Shikamaru’s sighing and Chouji’s side-long looks. Either of them could’ve broken her grip easily, and didn’t. That counted for something. She wasn’t sure what yet though.
“Are you staying here?” Asuma-sensei asked her once they were in the yakitori place and it was another disconcerting sense of déjà vu for her. Just like old times, only not. She was different, and she wished she wasn’t. No need to ask where ‘there’ was. Or why he disapproved of the place.
Ino shook her head. “I’m going back there,” she said, leaning back against the booth seat. “I’ve got things there, people there too.” It wasn’t home, but some of the people were a part of ‘home’. And she’d messed up there. She needed to put herself back together there.
There was silence for a bit after that. Chouji looked down, and Shikamaru looked away, and she had no idea what either of them was thinking.
“Asuma-sensei?” she waited until he’d looked up before continuing, “Would you mind if I started coming back for missions? Or training, at least? There’s someone I can ask there,” even if it made her stomach roll, so had this and worse than that would. There were worse things, Ino realized, than asking for help. “But…”
Well. These people, the ones sitting here, were her team. And Ino remembered the way Temari had been confused when she’d tried to explain the difference between a team and just a group you could work with.
Ino had a team here. She had people she could work with in Fandom. And that was different from the people she loved in Fandom, and were her friends. Everything had a different category.
She felt rather than saw Chouji’s smile and there was a faint, slight shift in Shikamaru’s posture that let him look, all of a sudden a lot more relaxed. When she glanced sideways at him, he just rolled his eyes at her.
“You’re always so troublesome, you know that?”
For the first time all weekend Ino laughed, and meant it. “I know.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”
He looked almost embarrassed. “You wouldn’t be you any other way.”
“I’ll get better than I was today,” Ino said, falling silent for a moment before continuing. “I promise.” She’d been miserable today. A complete disgrace. And worse than that. She hated it, and slowly the thought occurred to her that they hated it to.
“If you didn’t,” Chouji interjected, “then you wouldn’t be you.”
And she was still Ino. However messed up she’d gotten, however far she’d fallen behind, no matter what she’d done to herself, who her friends were…
This was her home. And she was still Ino.
“Yeah,” Ino said, ducking her head. “Yeah, I’m still me.” I’m trying to be, anyway.
She wanted to be able to recognize the girl in the mirror again.
[NFB, NFI, OOC is total love.]
Ino kept to the streets.
She’d woken up at the sound of her alarm that morning. Four in the morning. In some ways it had been worse getting up today because she’d known what time her alarm was set to. And that, coupled with a rather restless night, had not particularly filled her with joy. Rather than grumble and fuss about it though—after all, no one cared—Ino had merely gotten up, turned the stupid thing off, and then gone for a shower. Once upon a time… she shrugged irritably, but in the next minute offered a smile to one of her mother’s favourite shopkeepers as she passed him by.
Appearance was everything after all. And right now Ino had the feeling that she was going to learn just how little she had besides that to work with. She’d been up quite late, and yet had woken in the morning not energized exactly, but not tired.
Just… a bit hollow. She was moving, smiling, acting—but it didn’t feel right, almost like nobody was home. Ino wondered at that. When she’d left the house her father had merely raised his eyebrows at her when she’d told him where she was going; her mom had hugged her again.
Ino couldn’t find it in herself to care. She felt tired, too close to just giving up, walking away, letting someone else deal with it. Surely, Team 10 could find another kunoichi. They didn’t need her. Not when all she managed to do was mess herself up. Shikamaru and Chouji and Asuma-sensei shouldn’t have to deal with that.
After all, there were options back at Fandom, she mused. No doubt three years would give her plenty of time to figure out where she wanted to live and what she wanted to do if she was no longer a shinobi. If nothing else, Ino would be willing to bet that she could start her own floral business, she certainly knew enough about the day to day work of it. But…
She still wanted to be a shinobi though. That hadn’t changed. Back in her bedroom, tying on her forehead protector—around her waist because she didn’t deserve today to wear it on her head, probably hadn’t for awhile—and putting her earring on had been almost, not quite, an act of defiance in the face of the girl she’d become.
I am not you, she’d thought, frowning at the girl in the mirror. No longer. I will not gaze so long at you that I become you so much that I cannot change.
And she’d turned away from the reflection. Once she’d been someone else, now she was someone she didn’t like. That girl was going to change. Disappear. She’d make it so. She didn’t want to be that too thin civilian girl she could see in the mirror, whose reflection she now caught on every reflective surface.
Now, starting now, she was going to have to become someone else all over again. Ino had fingered her hair thoughtfully, pulling it up into a ponytail. That would have to be dealt with too. She knew, now, that it was just another lie. A privilege that she would have to re-earn.
She would wait until she was back at Fandom to fix that though. Shinobi gossip wasn’t something she wanted to go through, even if only in her letters. And shinobi gossip would pinpoint far too easily why she would have it done. After all, if she with her blind-spots had been able to figure it out, how much more obvious must it have been to everyone else who’d seen her here?
Straightening her shoulders, Ino slipped off on to one of the little crooked side-streets that were a short-cut, of sorts, in the direction of the training area that Asuma-sensei had told her to meet them at, and at what time.
Seven o’clock in the morning, a little later than their usual, their old practice schedule, and she almost smiled wondering idly if she should mention something about it being because Asuma-sensei was getting oooold.
Ino doubted she would though. Not right now. Not when she had to concentrate to take each step, to keep moving in the right direction, to not chicken out and flee home and then back to Fandom.
She had a portal scheduled for eight that night. If this became unbearable then a few hours wouldn’t be so much of a burden. Ino could easily waste a few hours. That got a cringe though. Too much time had been wasted, and than was something that really had to change. She wasn’t going to be able to slack off for a good, long while. Stop thinking like that, Ino scolded herself. You aren’t allowed to run away.
The training ground was one of the simplest ones. A mere clearing, of a goodly size, with vibrant green grass and trees to one side of it that seemed to reach up to the sky forever—that was their training ground. Chouji was there when she slipped into the clearing and he smiled at her. It was an easy smile, one that wasn’t pretending to be anything else, just him happy to see her and it made her feel like she absolutely had to smile back as he waved her over.
She tried. And though she watched his face for a change, she couldn’t tell if she succeeded or not.
“Shikamaru’s always late,” he said, and his voice was a lower rumble than it had been before she’d left. When had that happened? “And he’s even later now that you’re not here all the time to nag him into getting up early.”
Despite his kind manner and the light way he said that, all she could hear in that was condemnation for not being around. And all of a sudden her excuses, her weakness, her running away from them because they’d left her behind so long ago, and how she’d let them leave her even further behind…
She shook her head to try and clear her thoughts. “Moron,” she said, staring at the ground. “He’ll be fifteen in September—that’s old enough to get out of bed without someone nagging him into it.”
And it wasn’t like she’d done any better yesterday—who was she to judge? What right did she have now to go and drag him out of bed?
That got a laugh. “Maaa, it’s just him,” Chouji said, patting her on the shoulder. “He doesn’t do anything unless he’s nagged into it and no one else can even come close to getting under his skin the way you do.”
“Not so effective,” Ino said flatly. “Considering that I haven’t been around.”
He met her eyes. She looked away first.
“He doesn’t need me,” she muttered. “You’ve both been doing fine on your own while I…”
Fucked up. Screwed up. Lost control of her life.
“And you’re still part of this team. The luck, to go with strength and intellect,” he said patiently. Ino-Shika-Chou, the old winning hand. Luck, intellect, strength. Her rashness balanced by Shikamaru’s tendency to spend too much time thinking—and the both of them stabilized by Chouji who had more common sense and steady, honest strength than the both of them together. Shikamaru made the plans (Ino could admit that now, though she thought still that if she were here all time he’d let her lead and feed his plans through her and think she never noticed), she altered them on the fly, mid-mission, to quickly adjust to whatever had changed, and Chouji would come to their rescue if the plans blew up in their face. Their fathers had made it famous. Ino-Shika-Chou. “It doesn’t matter that you’ve not been here.“
It mattered to her. She could barely understand the ways that they’d grown, and every glance at him made her feel more and more like a petulant child. “I—“ Ino started to speak, started to say something to that effect when Shikamaru interrupted her.
“Man, what’s she whining about now?” He grumbled, but it was good-natured. “It’s too damn early to be whining yet.”
“You’re whining too,” Chouji said easily, as Ino struggled to find words.
“That’s different,” Shikamaru retorted, completing their triangle. “I’ve always been a full of complaints when it comes to work.”
Ino kept her mouth shut, not knowing what to say. She kept her attention focused on the ground as Shikamaru and Chouji continued an easy not-argument, just a way of passing the time. Old words, old habits, she knew how it went. Ino knew it was to make her feel better, that she was supposed to jump in and say something, express her opinion, browbeat Shikamaru for being late…
Ino just felt tired. They were trying, and she didn’t know how to try.
“It’s not going to work,” she said, abruptly. They fell silent. “I’m not blind. I know what you’re doing.”
Ino could almost feel the look they were exchanging as they evaluated that, as they evaluated her.
“No,” Shikamaru said his voice a calculated drawl, one that was designed to rile her temper and poke holes at her composure. “You’re just lazy.”
She was, she couldn’t even argue with them, and he wasn’t done speaking. And it stung, because they were words she’d applied to him before. Still in that drawl, still pitched exactly right to hit her nerves. “You say I’m lazy, and now I look at you and wonder how on earth you’ve even got the nerve to think something like that. Grow up or get out, Ino-chan.”
Her temper snapped. It was easy to let it snap, it had been slowly, ever so slowly for her, rising up, clawing and crawling towards boiling point ever since she’d set foot into the village. She lunged at him, with an incoherent shriek, and he grabbed her wrist easily as Chouji backed away, letting them handle it. Probably for the best. He’d seldom gotten involved when they fought, accepting it as just the natural order of things.
“Is that the best you can do?” he, Shikamaru, taunted her, dark eyes holding a smirk. “Didn’t you used to be able to beat me into submission whenever I got mouthy?”
Once upon a time, that had been true. She twisted her hand in his grip, not managing to get loose, before abruptly dropping to the ground, her wrist still held in his grasp and lashing out viciously at his knees. She nearly connected then, but he sent her flying with a move that had a lot more power to it than she’d remembered him having. Ino managed to get her feet under her and, without thinking, not paying attention to what Chouji was saying to Shikamaru, attacked him again.
He sent her flying again, taunting her openly. “You used to be better than this! That school of yours has to be the worst.”
Ino flinched, and drove her fist at his face. He met her with one to her stomach and she went down, rolling out of his way before clambering back to her feet. That would leave a bruise. Ino was almost glad for it. That way she wouldn’t forget. She looked up to find him in a familiar stance, his shadow pooling around his feet.
“I know you can do better than that,” Shikamaru said, no taunting this time, just him. “Kagemane no Jutsu.”
She darted away from the shadow that writhed around his feet and shot after her. Ino avoided the trees—no need to give him more shadow to work with after all—and the chase was on.
After, Ino would never be able to say how long, exactly, it went on for. Just that he didn’t let up and it couldn’t have been long before she was forced to start channeling chakra to her feet and legs just to keep up a speed that would let her stay ahead of him.
He’d definitely built up stamina—but she wasn’t, hadn’t, ever been good at giving up control to anyone else and she grit her teeth, dodging furiously, trying to stay a head of him, to anticipate where his shadow would curve next. That shadow, she was avoiding. Didn’t want him to have control of her body. It was hers, however sorely she’s misused it.
It seemed like eternity, it felt like forever, her lungs were burning, legs were trembling, and sweat was a slick sheen on her body and crawling down her back by the time that Asuma-sensei’s voice called out, “Enough.”
When had he shown up? Ino didn’t know, nearly stumbling as she forced herself to keep moving, to not stop cold, because she was going to hurt tomorrow no matter how this went, but there was no need to make it even worse on herself by not cooling down properly.
The shadow pulled back, and she didn’t stop moving until she was standing beside Chouji and trying to catch her breath, to calm down after the hardest bit of exercise that she’d had in months and months. Just running away. Ino wondered if that had some sort of meaning, if it was some sort of a hint. Had she been supposed to let the shadow catch her? She didn’t know.
“You were better,” Chouji murmured to her as Shikamaru sauntered over, dark eyes unreadable. “Once you stopped thinking about things too much. Your body still knows what to do.”
Ino closed her eyes, and up-ended her canteen over her head. She shivered.
“Let’s get started,” Asuma-sensei said. Ino wanted to cry, to protest, to fall over and relax.
She didn’t. Didn’t say a word.
What followed next was the most humiliating experience she could ever remember having. It far, far outstripped Deadpool-san knocking her out when she’d freaked out over Caliban, or even Temari sitting on her.
She couldn’t get it right.
Not any of the exercises. Her rhythm was off, her movements were off, she couldn’t keep up with them, and they couldn’t slow down enough for her, and when she noticed them trying it only made her more furiously shamed.
After a while she became aware of how they were watching her carefully after every failed exercise, every mistake—almost like they were waiting for her to explode.
She didn’t. Ino didn’t let her temper out on them, turning that, instead, inwards and using it to try and drive her movements faster, more precise, trying to adapt, to keep up to what they could do. Even if she stayed here she wouldn’t be able to go on missions with them in this state. Not for a while.
It burned. Bile in the back of her throat.
She maintained her stony silence and kept trying. By the time Asuma-sensei called a halt to it, she was sweating like a horse and it took everything she had to force herself through the cool-down exercise because she knew for sure that she was going to be beyond sore.
That, of course, was when the skies opened up and it started to pour. In seconds, she was soaked to the bone, and Ino stared up at the sky, letting the rain hit her face until two hands, one from each boy, took her hands and helped her to her feet. They had a routine for this too, for after practice. She knew without asking where they were going. She didn’t let go of their hands either, even when Shikamaru huffed, and Chouji laughed. Her face burned, but she still clung.
They didn’t really seem to mind, for all of Shikamaru’s sighing and Chouji’s side-long looks. Either of them could’ve broken her grip easily, and didn’t. That counted for something. She wasn’t sure what yet though.
“Are you staying here?” Asuma-sensei asked her once they were in the yakitori place and it was another disconcerting sense of déjà vu for her. Just like old times, only not. She was different, and she wished she wasn’t. No need to ask where ‘there’ was. Or why he disapproved of the place.
Ino shook her head. “I’m going back there,” she said, leaning back against the booth seat. “I’ve got things there, people there too.” It wasn’t home, but some of the people were a part of ‘home’. And she’d messed up there. She needed to put herself back together there.
There was silence for a bit after that. Chouji looked down, and Shikamaru looked away, and she had no idea what either of them was thinking.
“Asuma-sensei?” she waited until he’d looked up before continuing, “Would you mind if I started coming back for missions? Or training, at least? There’s someone I can ask there,” even if it made her stomach roll, so had this and worse than that would. There were worse things, Ino realized, than asking for help. “But…”
Well. These people, the ones sitting here, were her team. And Ino remembered the way Temari had been confused when she’d tried to explain the difference between a team and just a group you could work with.
Ino had a team here. She had people she could work with in Fandom. And that was different from the people she loved in Fandom, and were her friends. Everything had a different category.
She felt rather than saw Chouji’s smile and there was a faint, slight shift in Shikamaru’s posture that let him look, all of a sudden a lot more relaxed. When she glanced sideways at him, he just rolled his eyes at her.
“You’re always so troublesome, you know that?”
For the first time all weekend Ino laughed, and meant it. “I know.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”
He looked almost embarrassed. “You wouldn’t be you any other way.”
“I’ll get better than I was today,” Ino said, falling silent for a moment before continuing. “I promise.” She’d been miserable today. A complete disgrace. And worse than that. She hated it, and slowly the thought occurred to her that they hated it to.
“If you didn’t,” Chouji interjected, “then you wouldn’t be you.”
And she was still Ino. However messed up she’d gotten, however far she’d fallen behind, no matter what she’d done to herself, who her friends were…
This was her home. And she was still Ino.
“Yeah,” Ino said, ducking her head. “Yeah, I’m still me.” I’m trying to be, anyway.
She wanted to be able to recognize the girl in the mirror again.
[NFB, NFI, OOC is total love.]
