Ino had been counting. It had been three months and six days since she and Shikamaru had started being in what she liked to call as a romantic relationship. Girls like her – girls with violent tempers and domineering mannerisms – liked romance. Even shinobi had the right to dream about things like those, didn't they?
Shikamaru just wasn't helping by being the impassive, lazy boy that he was.
That just made Ino very frustrated. Sure, Shikamaru would occasionally say phrases such as "I love you" and "Stay with me" – at this point, Ino was desperately trying to forget the fact that Shikamaru would only say such things when he was being threatened by various girls to say them to her or if he was feeling up to it which wasn't often seeing how lazy he was and all – but those weren't enough. She wanted more.
And so, that was where she was now. Sitting on the grass beside Shikamaru and looking at the latter with fierce eyes. He, on the other hand, was lying on the grass with his arms under his head and was looking at the sky as if his... girlfriend – it was such a weird word and he hadn't really expected it, it just happened – wasn't glaring at him.
"Shika," Ino started, her voice strong and loud in Shikamaru's ears, "I have a question."
Shikamaru mumbled something that was very close to "how troublesome", but he did look at her, urging her to continue with that gesture.
Ino was a bit ticked that he would give her only a look. She inched closer to him.
"If there was no word like love or like, how would you show me that you loved me?" she asked sweetly, she asked in that voice that Shikamaru honestly didn't like at all. It sounded rather fake to his ears.
Because sweet was not what Ino was. She was more than just sweet. Sweet sounded so shallow.
But then again, that was only what Shikamaru thought. And he thought too much.
"I wouldn't," he replied, still looking at the sky.
"Huh?" Ino smartly asked.
Shikamaru sighed. This was all far too troublesome for his tastes. Women. They were almost always so doubtful, weren't they?
"I meant that I wouldn't show you how much I loved you," he said.
Ino then blocked his vision of the sky with her face.
Her eyes were like the sky. So much so. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why he liked her. At least the sky in Ino's eyes hardly ever changed. Consistency.
"What do you mean by that?!" she asked, obviously enraged.
Shikamaru thought that her eyes were pretty even if they were burning with anger. It was still the same shade of light blue.
"Well, since there isn't a word such as love, then there shouldn't be a thought or notion like love either," he said.
Ino huffed. It was going to be like that, right? She felt as if... their love, if it could even be called like that, was only based on words and thoughts and theories. Things that Shikamaru were good in. Really, Ino was much more comfortable with showing what she was saying rather than expressing them in words. It was just that when she did do that, when she showed her affection through actions, he would hardly do any reciprocating. It was irritating.
"I hate you... you insensitive creep!" she exclaimed, somewhat hoping that that would make him see his error. Errors, even.
Shikamaru just kept on looking at the sky. It was almost as if he didn't hear her. Perhaps he was ignoring her then?
Ino huffed some more before she went back to lying on the grass beside Shikamaru. It was odd. The way that she somewhat... wasn't that much angry at him. Just a little hurt, but not much. She didn't know why. Honestly, she thought that she would be impossibly angry at him and would break up with him. But that wasn't how she saw things right now.
It was more of the opposite, really. It was as if she wanted him to love her.
And she always got what she wanted.
"But then, I guess that it'll all end in instinct," Shikamaru said after a while.
Ino couldn't understand that – as she did with most of whatever Shikamaru said – but for some reason she didn't know, she felt obscenely happy. She smiled. Her hand discreetly made its way to Shikamaru's hand.
He clasped her hand. She squeezed his hand. And then she smiled some more.