Ino's just like Naruto, she thinks, loud and reckless and blonde.
Hinata's eyes track her movements like an assassin, long after she tucks away her knives.
---
"You're a piece of work," Ino declares one day, in a voice that splatters the canvas of her closed eyelids with colors too bright to see. They're the first words Ino's said directly to her, and in the face of such a forceful personality Hinata blushes.
"See? That's what I mean!" She throws her arms up in exasperation; hands wave like free-falling. Curses are barely audible over the whisper of her breath. Fingers grip Hinata's chin and turn her face up to meet cool blue eyes.
Forceful, but gentle. Ino's hands are freezing. The ice travels from fingertips, spreading across Hinata's cheeks and infiltrating defenses until even her heart is afraid to keep beating.
She can't keep that stare for long, glancing as far downward as she can in her position. Unfortunately, that leaves her gaze to settle somewhere around Ino's chest. There is no safe place anywhere. She blushes again.
"Why are you so shy?" Ino all but demands.
Hinata blinks, looking up, tied in place by Ino's eyes more than by the power behind her thin wrist. "I-I don't..."
A sigh, and Ino relinquishes her hold. Warmth returns with force like rain. Hinata brings a hand instinctively to her jaw, lightly grazing over invisible bruises.
"You need to hang around me more," Ino says. "Otherwise you'll never get Naruto to look twice at you."
By the time Hinata gains the courage to tilt her head back (her axis is off-kilter, knocked out of place), Ino's already walking away, thighs brushing with every step.
Her eyes widen, hurriedly looking away at anything else but that. Why does she get the feeling that Ino wouldn't have minded?
---
She catches glimpses of that long ponytail everywhere, suddenly, swishing like a runaway.
It takes a week before Hinata gathers the courage to actually walk up to her, teeth scraping against bottom lip.
This is where her courage fails.
"N-Naruto," she finally manages to say, and Ino's puzzled expression quickly becomes amused.
"You're just like Sakura." This is a pronouncement. The way she talks makes Hinata want to cover her head and hide -- because surely everyone can hear that brassy voice. "You just don't know what you want."
She winks, and Hinata frowns. That's not true. She's wanted Naruto ever since they were tiny, so why would Ino say something like that?
Angry. She's angry at Ino for making assumptions, for pretending she knows everything.
"I know I want Naruto," Hinata whispers, and if it's not fierce it's strong enough to get the message across. She can't help blushing anyway.
The grin only widens. "It's nice to see you're already learning." And with a quick kiss on Hinata's cheek, she's gone again.
Her entire face stings.
---
When Ino crosses her path again, they've both perfected that I'm-definitely-going-somewhere routine. Hinata knows Ino doesn't have a mission today. (She thought to check beforehand; her investigation skills are nonexistent and Shikamaru had to ask three times before Hinata could form the question properly.)
"Ino -- wait."
The girl turns around, surprised. "So you've seen through my act. You're not doing anything special today either, are you."
This is not a question.
"Um...no," she answers anyway.
"Well, don't just stand there! Let's go eat."
Ino takes her to a light, airy restaurant -- a place designed, it seems, to contain no hiding places. (They passed Ichiraku Ramen on the way here. Ino turned her nose up and kept walking, and Hinata was glad. A surprise visit from Naruto would have been far too likely.)
After ordering, Ino glances at Hinata, amused again: like she knows exactly what's going on but wants to see someone squirm.
"Ino, I...I just want to know how I can get Naruto to notice me."
An eyebrow lifts. "Of course I know that. What are you really trying to say?"
"I mean, I like Naruto."
Rolled eyes are her only response.
"I don't...like..." At this point the word girls sticks in her throat and she catches herself staring at the line of Ino's neck -- that smooth skin and stong chin...This is why she should keep her eyes on the ground at all times.
Ino just laughs. "If that's what you think, Hinata."
They spend the rest of the meal in near silence, but whenever Hinata glances up she notices that Ino hasn't stopped grinning.
"This doesn't have to be a date if you don't want it to be," is all the blonde girl says.
When the bill comes, Ino pays.
---
Stand up straighter.
Cold hands rest, one on her spine, one near her navel. She shivers and complies.
Do you ever laugh?
A forced chuckle grates like metal; Ino winces. Soon there are fingertips on every inch of her skin, lightly fluttering over her sides, her neck, her stomach. She lets laughter bubble up instead of a deep moan.
---
This is how you kiss.
---
Smiles come so easily to everyone but her: flitting across faces, so quickly you'll miss them if you blink for too long. They're fleeting but they're strong, conveying brilliant emotion in a half-second.
She doesn't have that gift. Her smiles are half-hearted feeble things that spend most of their lives convincing themselves they exist.
Do what Ino does, she instructs herself, and as Naruto passes by she manages a wave and a grin.
Naruto nearly trips during his double-take.
"Um..." Don't say that! "Naruto. Hi."
She fights a blush and for the first time, she wins. Nods. "How...have you been?"
Naruto is still comically shocked, but after a few seconds he seems to regain his composure. "Good...Wow, Hinata. You're so different. Did something happen to you?"
"That's no way to treat a lady," comes a voice a little above Hinata's head. Ino's hand rests on her shoulder.
This time, her warm face disobeys.
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