Chapter 1 - Ino

I do not own Naruto or characters.

I do not really know where this came from. It was going to be Ino/shikamaru, but...it changed...sighs...

Yuri is a strange thing. You notice it, and then it slips in, and then it decides to take the wheel and your main pairing went from straight to yuri, and then you're writing this whole big long story based on yuri... :shakes head: Chances are, nobody's going to like this, because the few yuri fans out there want Ino with Sakura or something. Too bad. I think Ino/Sakura seems a little...obvious, I guess. Too likely, too happy. Furthermore, Ino has more in common with other characters...

And not all of the couples implied by the clouds or whatever come out in the end. Yes, I continued it. Unfortunately.

Shutting up.


~1~

Ino sighed sadly to herself as she lay on a bench in the park, staring at the sky. A normal day, not many clouds, but enough that she could stare at them and think of images that might raise her from her depression.

But, alas, if anything, they reminded her of her sorrows, they unforgivingly wouldn't change shape from what Ino saw, they wouldn't stop looking like a boy with lightweight, feathery hair whose lips touched those of a girl with long hair held back by a ribbon.

'Why does Sasuke only notice Sakura, anyway?' Ino thought miserably. 'Why is it that he seems to be in love with her, but he just seems to ignore me? Why Sakura, what's so much better about her than me? Is it something about pink hair? It's not fair that she should be getting him, I've known him longer&'

The blonde closed her pure blue eyes to stop from looking at the taunting clouds. 'I'm all alone. I mean, Hinata doesn't really have anyone, but she can at least chase after Naruto--he doesn't ignore her, he doesn't hate her, if he only notices that she loves him, he'd probably love her back. He might already, but it's not like how Sasuke is with me--he actually hates me, he actually doesn't want me there. He actually has a commitment, to Sakura, that he's not going to break over some plain blondie like me. I'm worthless--nobody's going to stop for me, I'm all alone&'

She sighed again, opening her eyes halfway tiredly. 'Maybe I should just end it all. Maybe I should stop fooling myself about all this--I'm not a particularly good ninja, I'm no good with boys--the only thing I'm good at is flower arrangements, and if I'm getting allergies, I can't really do that, can I?' Ino closed her eyes again and sighed once more.

Her eyes flew open again when she realized the shape of the clouds. The boy's hair had changed--it was now sitting in a high ponytail, and the hair-like pieces of cloud were going up the top of the girl's head, too, putting her hair into a longer ponytail.

Ino smiled slightly. It looked like herself and Shikamaru.

But that would never be--she had tried once, but he really didn't seem to like her. Or any other girls, for that matter--he always brushed them off, saying that they were troublesome. Ino knew, better than anyone else perhaps, that he was either interested only in boys or he wasn't interested in anyone at all. Which was just as well--Chouji got along with him well, Ino could hardly not see the two of them getting together like that. Some people planted rumors about him and a girl from Sand Village, but really, how plausible was that? Not at all. If Ino was troublesome, a spunky girl from across cities and towns and countries and biomes would probably convince him for good that he liked Chouji better than any woman capable of existing in this crazy world.

Who else could she possibly live with? She didn't really know a lot of people--her obsession with Sasuke had kept her isolated from the rest of the male population, so the only other boys she knew were the other two from the rookie year.

And, frankly, she somehow doubted that Kiba was straight. He almost definitely liked boys better than girls. Ino saw him having dinner alone with Shino, and she distinctly remembered seeing that neither of them were at all awkward--they seemed to be meant for each other.

Ino sighed tiredly. 'Why is it that out of six boys, only two of them are straight? Although, I guess I don't really have any proof about Naruto--or Sasuke, I guess, either. If those two aren't straight they're bisexual though, confirmably. Naruto has a thing for Sakura and Sasuke...well, you know, maybe that would explain why all these years of following and he's done everything he can to avoid us rather than just go out with someone&'

Another sigh. Those seemed far too very unfortunately fitting at this second. One more, maybe even ten more in this minute alone, would probably not be enough to express her grief.

"Excuse me," a cheerful female voice asked, "could you please move your legs so I can sit here?"

Ino looked up at her unwelcome visitor. She was a girl about a year older than Ino, with brown hair pulled into two panda-like buns. Her smile somehow reassured the blonde, perhaps more so than most people would consider it, and thus Ino found herself wanting so very greatly that the girl would stay longer.

"Huh? Yeah, okay," Ino agreed. She turned to sit up straight, thus taking up only half of the bench rather than all of it, and the brunette sat down next to her.

The first girl at the bench turned her gaze back up to the skies, where the cloud that once looked like Sakura and Sasuke seemed to have broken up into some unrecognizable mass. The newly arrived girl followed suit, and something she saw made her gaze turn distant and she sighed.

"Do you know what it's like," the brunette asked, "to feel like you're entirely ignored? I mean, that nobody at all pays any attention to you? That there's nobody who'll notice you at all, no matter what you do, and you're destined or something to be alone forever?"

Ino turned her unembellished blue eyes, now wide with surprise that her mind seemed to have been read, to the panda-like girl. "Y-yes, I have," Ino responded. "That was almost exactly what I was thinking when you came!"

The smiling newcomer swiveled her head to meet Ino's bright blue gaze with her own chocolate-colored stare that mirrored the knowing smile on her lips.

Ino felt a hand holding hers, and she knew that the dark-haired girl had taken her hand, perhaps more than friendly...

"My name's TenTen," the questionably telepathic newcomer introduced. "What's yours?"

"I-Ino," Ino replied. "And...well, how did you know that..."

TenTen shrugged, still smiling. "I get ignored a lot, too. I'm on the same team as a genius who doesn't seem particularly fond of anyone and a..." Her brow wrinkled as she tried to think of words to describe her other teammate. "Um...well, he only cares about training and getting better, he doesn't pay any attention to girls--I mean, I'm not sure what he thinks about guys, but he sure does seem too distracted by training to look at anyone at all, and if he's thinking of anyone, he's thinking of this one Sakura girl." She rolled her eyes, her expression clear again of uncertainty.

Ino smiled. "Mine's not much better. Another genius who dismisses every girl he lays eyes on as 'troublesome,' and this other guy...well, let's just say that I'll probably have some part in planning their wedding. They're pretty much made for each other--the only thing that might get in their way would be the fact that they're both boys."

TenTen sighed, staring at the sky again but still holding Ino's hand. "Yeah...don't you wish there was someone there for you, someone that you loved so much that you just knew it the first time you looked at them, and that loved you so much that it didn't even matter if you were both the same sex, you still wanted to get married?"

Ino blinked. 'Those buns must be, like, antenaes or something to pick up thoughts,' Ino thought in awe, shortly before she smiled again, closed her eyes, and leaned her head on TenTen's shoulder. "Not quite...I never thought of it that way. But, now that you have me thinking of it...I wonder if I even need to, now that I've met you."

TenTen smiled as well, and leaned her head in to rest on Ino's. "No, I guess you don't...and I don't think I need to wish any longer, either."


~fin~

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