A/N: Well! I'm kind of surprised this one won the vote. I had been planning the plot for Helping Hand for a long time and had written a chapter of it. Intense had been in planning for about a week and Caught…well, I came up with it spur of the moment. Needless to say, I was very surprised. So, now that it's being written, vote in the poll! NaruIno or LeeIno? Other pairs are KibaHina, KankuSaku, DeiTema, ChoTen, light SasuIno, NejiHina, ChoIno.

"Stop it right there, missy!" an angry clerk shouted. "Don't think I didn't see you put that in your pocket."

Yamanaka Ino pretended to not hear him as she sped up a bit more, trying to make it out of the store before she got caught. She knew this store was small and didn't have the alarms at each door. If she could just make it out before someone got her…

A strong arm grabbed her with an iron grip, forcing her to stop. He reached into the pocket of her tight jeans, only to receive a punch to the nose. This girl was pretty strong for someone so thin.

"It wasn't in that pocket," the store clerk who had been yelling at her said. The security guard nodded, despite the pain in his nose, and reached into the pocket of her purple jacket, which had been odd on its own, seeing that it was early fall. School had just recently let in; there was no need for jackets yet.

Ino struggled to try and break free, but he didn't let go as he pulled out the purple purse, which had been wadded up and crammed hastily into her pocket.

~X~

The girl later found herself at home, where her father, Yamanaka Inoichi, paced in front of her, going on and on about how he couldn't believe that she had done this.

"You have everything! If you had wanted the purse, I could have given you money for it, it's not like we're poor and it was a really cheap purse anyway! Why did you try to steal it?"

Ino, however, still refused to tell anyone why she had taken the purse. It was still a mystery as to why the sixteen year old girl with long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, who was very rich, had tried to steal something.

Her life was seemingly perfect. She went to an exclusive school, Konoha Academy, and was dating one of the most popular boy there. She had two great friends, a loving father, and a lot of money. She had never known her mother, who had died when she was just a baby, but she had never had many issues with that.

So why had she suddenly tried to steal something that she could have easily bought?

When faced with police, it had been up to her: community service or an after school program. She had obviously chosen the after school program, at least she could keep it a secret from her friends. It wasn't something she wanted to do, but she had gotten caught, now she had to pay the price for crime.

Without a word to her father, she slipped upstairs and fell asleep quickly in her large room, painted purple, her favorite color.

~X~

The next morning, she silently slipped out of the house and into her purple convertible. She was at school in no time and parked in between Haruno Sakura, one of her best friends, and Uchiha Sasuke, her gorgeous boyfriend that everyone had been after.

Hyuuga Hinata, her other good friend, was riding with her older cousin Neji, who had just parked on the other side of Sasuke.

"G-good morning, Ino," Hinata said quietly. She was a timid girl with indigo hair and white eyes. Her cousin Neji had dark brown hair and eyes of the same color. He wasn't bad looking, but everyone knew he and Hinata were both off limits.

The reason was one that disgusted Ino. The two were forced to marry each other, an arranged marriage. That was positively horrible to imagine for Ino, because she believed that they should only get married if they were truly in love.

"Hey, Hinata, Neji," the blonde said cheerfully, not letting on that she had anything out of the ordinary going on.

Neji gave a quick nod in response and went to go join his friend Lee, and Hinata walked alongside Ino as they went to go meet Sasuke, Sakura, Shikamaru, and Chouji.

Nara Shikaku and Akimichi Chouza were both good friends of Inoichi's, so Ino had grown up with their sons, Mr. Lazy Bum himself, Shikamaru, and Chouji, who was nice, if you could get around his eating habits. As in, he was hungry all the time.

Shikamaru had dark brown hair and Chouji had auburn hair, and the two were almost inseparable. They were close enough with Ino to frequently be seen around her and her best friends.

Ever since black haired, onyx eyed Sasuke had begun dating Ino, he had become a part of their group. He was formally a bit of a loner, and was the silent, mysterious type, which meant all the girls wanted him. Lucky for Ino, she was good enough for him.

Haruno Sakura, her very best friend in the entire world, had sugar pink hair and emerald eyes. The two had been friends since elementary school, but constantly fought and competed over things. Sakura had at first been very jealous of Ino's relationship with Sasuke, but had finally accepted it and was willing to find someone else to crush on.

None of them would ever believe that Ino had been caught shoplifting the night before or that she was going to a program after school for a few months. Still, nobody had to know. She would just not tell them what she was doing, and they would never know.

As she reached her friends, Sasuke placed a gentle kiss on her lips, something he did every morning. She was really happy to see her friends and boyfriend, at least until Chouji opened his mouth.

"Ino, my dad was talking to yours last night. Did you really try and shoplift and now have to go to a troublemaking teens program after school for a while?"

A/N: Just a little cliffhanger to get us started. I wrote that pretty darn quickly, I must say. It really wasn't very hard for me to write at all. Maybe this idea won't be a dud.