Summary: [ONESHOT.] Ino's date with Yamato doesn't go according to her plans and at the same time, turns out exactly the way she wanted. Ino-centric. Yama/Ino.

Disclaimer: I don't own it, and I wish I did.

Rating: M. What else is new?

A/N: "Rejection" was never supposed to be a multi-chapter fic, but I reread the piece and had a sudden thought for a continuation story, so I'm writing it up. This can stand alone, but it's probably best categorized as a sequel for the abovementioned oneshot.

~ Smoke and Mirrors ~

Ino fussed at the already perfectly arranged bouquet of flowers on her coordinated table. She hadn't slept last night because of her birthday party and because of what six o'clock this evening would bring. All morning and afternoon she'd cleaned, set-up, arranged, and prepped the meal, her house, and herself. Everything must be perfect, but not look like it was perfect.

Yamato was having dinner with her.

Which, normally, she knew, wasn't such a big deal, but to her…it was bigger than a big deal. He was five years' worth of planning and careful consideration and alignment of her life. More than anything, she wanted him as the permanent man in her life, but she'd allow it if he preferred her bed to her company.

A timer dinged in the kitchen, summoning her to extract the apple pie from the oven and set it to cool. Vanilla ice cream awaited in the freezer, and the main course was arranged with chilled wine breathing in a bucket at the table. Her watch beeped- -ten minutes of six- -and she hustled around the house dimming the lamps and lighting the candles. In the bathroom mirror, she checked her teeth, lipstick, mascara, hair and dress, and did not find any flaws.

She'd picked a feminine dress, something casual, but cute. It was cocktail-length with homey fall colors and it was paired tastefully with a cardigan. Her matching shoes were new, were killing her feet, but were necessary to complete the outfit. She wouldn't be standing the entire evening, anyway.

Five minutes of six had her stomach fluttering with butterflies. Palms were clammy as she checked the front walk to see if he'd arrived yet. He hadn't. Again, Ino wandered the front room, adjusting already adjusted pictures, flowers, and swiping her finger on dusted-twice-over furniture. She'd set out her guest pillows on the couch, big, inviting, squishy things that begged relaxation from passers-by. The vanilla candles wafted that sweet, homey scent under the stronger scent of the cooked meal and apple pie.

Maybe a sip or two of the wine would help her nerves. She poured a measure of wine in her handcrafted flute and sipped the luxuriously red liquid. It tasted splendid and perfectly delectable sliding down her throat. As she rolled the wine over her tongue, she tried to think of anything she could've possibly missed this evening, but her mental list had each item checked twice. Though alcohol had calmed her nerves, the rapid knock at her door sent her heart skittering and her stomach quivering.

He was here! She rushed to the door, but abruptly halted her hand on the doorknob. She didn't want to look overly eager, so she counted slowly to ten, steadied her pounding heart, and opened the door to Yamato.

Her first impression: gorgeous. Too gorgeous. Dark, mysterious eyes, wind-tousled hair, and shoulders that filled that Konoha flak jacket quite nicely, and she had a moment where her mind sort of stopped to admire the view. A stirring was there, like a hot breeze on a still day, that reminded her of the kiss they'd shared the night before. How he'd blazed desire through her enough that she wanted to peel off his clothes to his skin and linger on his hidden places.

"Ino?"

Oh. Oops. Realizing she stared, she snapped out of her moment and beamed a wholesome smile. "Hi! Welcome," she said, stepping aside for him to enter. "Can I take your flak jacket?"

"Sure." He came in and unzipped his jacket as she closed the door. As she accepted it, she realized it was one less piece of clothing in her way. "Thank you."

"Did you find the place all right?"

"Yes. Your directions were accurate," he said.

After some general adjusting to each others' presence, they moved to the dining room, where Ino wined, dined, joked, laughed, smiled, brushed, served, and was overall the epitome of grace and hospitality, without, thankfully, any Freudian slips. Yamato seemed genuinely at ease. They finished the dinner courses and were leaning over palm-sized cups of coffee when Yamato's gaze dropped to the small, intricately designed vase upholding an explosion of flowers between them.

His long fingers brushed the curvature of the vase, caressing the enamel and the details of wildflowers, sun, and butterflies. Ino had never been so jealous of an inanimate object. He asked, without looking at her, "This is an antique vase, isn't it?"

For whatever reason, his observation made him outrageously sexy to her. "Yes. It's an heirloom from my great-grandmother. She received it as a wedding gift from my great-grandfather. The vase is one of Hatori Hanzo's last remaining creations before his death." Now please take off your clothes and make love to me, she pleaded silently.

"When did you receive this?"

She shrugged. "I inherited it from my grandmother before she died a few years ago. 'Ino,' she said," here, Ino imitated Granny's trembling voice, "'Ino, you handle this like you handle your husband. Gently, with plenty of polish to shine him up, and always center of attention.' Though," she stopped to smirk to herself, "Granny seemed to think I was two steps away from the altar at any given time."

Granny had been her confidante throughout the turmoil with Sakura those years when they'd been hateful toward one another. Ino had never allowed her mother or her father inside her heart, where the break with Sakura had been felt most acutely. But somehow, Granny had taken her into the cozy kitchen and over kneading dough for bread, had Ino tell her everything. She missed Granny, and the memory of her grandmother's silver hair and veined hands stabbed unusually hard at Ino's eyes. It was probably just nerves.

A lapse in conversation caused her to glance across at him. His dark eyes seemed to study her, watching her, and she felt his scrutiny scraping her skin. She didn't like his sudden serious turn. The seriousness washed her over with self-consciousness and the ignored exhaustion hit her with physical weight.

"What?" she asked, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"You've got dark bruises under your eyes."

His observation annoyed her. Hadn't she spent time today with concealer and powder, artfully disguising her lack of sleep? "I do not," she told him. She drained her coffee cup. "I'm very well-rested, thank you."

Yamato continued to gaze at her, not staring per se, but seemingly framing her up in his mind. "You're not the type to be caught in a lie, but I can tell that you're lying."

Again, his comment annoyed her. She snorted. The caffeine from the coffee had skipped digestion, her stomach nearly empty because she couldn't eat for the nerves of finally having Yamato with her, and had absorbed straight into her blood stream, kicking her pulse into high gear. It served to make her jittery and clammy.

Humoring him, she said, "And how can you tell I'm lying?"

"When we were talking about your grandmother's vase, you told the truth. Your whole aura changed then," he told her bluntly. "Everything else has been a lie."

Confused with the turn of conversation, Ino groped for a new track that she could lead them down. Her brain refused to cooperate. She could only think of his accusation. "Everything else has not been a lie! And why are we even discussing it, anyway? Don't you realize that this is the perfect time for us to throw caution to the wind and make wild, passionate love?" That had certainly slipped out of her mouth, but she refused to regret her words and fixated her gaze on him, challenging him to take her up on her offer.

He laughed, a chuckle in his throat, and stood. "It's late. I'll be going." Fluidly, he moved around the table and stopped her with a hand on her shoulder when she squawked in disapproval. "No need to get up. I'll let myself out. Good night."

Ino hopped up anyway and chased after him to the hallway, where he'd disappeared. He was just…gone. Vanished. Pfffft! She hadn't even heard the door open or close. Consternation swiftly made way for shock, which culminated in devastating disappointment. She failed. Unbelievably, she, Yamanaka Ino, had failed. With a man. From a distance, she floated down the hall to the dining room adjoining the kitchen. The emptiness made her feel as if he'd never even been there.

What had gone wrong? What had she'd done that scared him away?

Questions like that didn't matter. They just…didn't. Automatically, she picked up their dinner plates. Everything had been for nothing. Her chance with him…gone forever. And then, out of nowhere, her numbness snapped and became blinding rage. Screeching, she pitched the plates to the kitchen floor where they shattered, to her satisfaction, into a thousand shards.

"What was the fucking point?" she screamed, reaching behind her for those flea-market buy wine glasses. The wine bottle itself. All of it joined the plates on the kitchen floor. "What was the point?"

Over and over, Ino grabbed the dishes and plates, as many as there were on the table, and sent them hurtling into the kitchen. Her rage was hot-burning; she sweated from exertion. She was unbelievably stung by his abrupt dismissal. She'd done these wonderful things for him, for him, and he hadn't even taken notice. So what was the fucking point?

In her anger, she didn't realize what she'd grabbed until it crashed in the pile of massacred plates. Then she really screamed- -from anger and now, frustration. For in her terrible fury, she'd grabbed her grandmother's Hanzo vase. The flowers lay on the pile of pieces, and it was like standing over a grave site and the full weight of the evening and her disappointment swung down on her. Unable to bear it, Ino sank to her knees, eyes burning, but whether she was too tired or too disappointed, the tears would not fall.

"And what did we learn from this little outburst?"

At the sudden question, Ino jerked around, though still on her knees. Yamato stood behind her, arms folded on his chest, expression unreadable. Unsteadily, she climbed to her feet and she found herself much shorter than he. During her wrath, her shoes had gone flying somewhere.

"What're you doing here?" she asked him, unsure of his purpose. Had he been standing there, watching her, the entire time of her tantrum? Or had he came back for something…? Embarrassment flooded through her. "I thought you left."

"You seemed to want to play games, so I played one with you," he told her.

Ino could not comprehend this level of conversation. "I…don't understand what you're talking about."

He gestured, and to her surprise, his voice was edged with anger. "Stop it. You've been trying to ensnare me with a thousand little traps the entire evening. This whole night was orchestrated to suit your purposes."

"That's a ridiculous accusation!" Her temper had not yet cooled. "We're shinobi! Of course I'm going to employ strategy to suit my purposes!"

"Not for the express purpose of trying to seduce me," he said. "You never even tried being patient with me or letting me set the pace of the relationship."

"I was patient. For years I was patient," Ino replied.

"Why didn't you play it safe?" he asked her. "Why did you try to make a game out of it?"

She narrowed her eyes. "There was no game. This was all as real is it could be."

"None of it was real." His tone was unmistakable. Coldness, there. A callous regard that made her wince. "None of this was Yamanaka Ino. It was a play's stage, set to how you thought I'd want it. Candles, wine, food, conversation. All of it catered to your perceptions of what you thought I'd want."

He let her think about that in ominous silence; she found herself speechless. How could she counter that? It was true, she realized, it was true. But she'd wanted him so badly, she'd thought the ends would justify the means. Now, Yamato had seen through it, was confronting her with the awful truth. Bitterly, she realized she'd already lost him, so what could she do? Then she saw the one course of action left to her.

"Fine," she said, quietly, her throat raw from her screaming, her pricking eyes focused on the floor from shame, "You want the truth? Ever since I was sixteen, I've been waiting for the right moment to ask you to be with me. Five years of patience and heartache and hard work."

She forced herself to look at his dark eyes. They were smoldering with emotion. Ino continued, knowing she had to tell it all, "How could you possibly understand my efforts to make myself attractive for you so I could have this one evening, this one chance of having you? So you saw through me, eh? Well, fucking congratulations." Her voice broke at that; the hot tears brimmed at her eyes. "You deserve a standing ovation."

She turned from him to the kitchen, tears blurring her vision, chasing each other over her cheeks. "If you'll excuse me, I have to clean up."

She hated turning away, hated that she'd lost control, lost everything, and that Yamato was here to witness her being ugly. Then she saw the shattered pieces of her grandmother's vase, again, and it felt as if a kunai had flown straight and true to her heart. Weakly, she collapsed to her knees a second time. She couldn't help the high keening as more tears poured out of her eyes.

Somehow in the middle of this, Yamato had pulled her into the warm circle of his arms. He accepted it when she buried her face into his neck, and his hands on her nape and lower back soothed her. She wept and sobbed for an eternity, it seemed, and when she was all cried out, she didn't resist Yamato sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her to her bed. He was very careful in the way he positioned her on the sheets and pillows.

Feeling pathetic and useless, she flung an arm over her hot face. Her brain was empty; her scratchy eyes swollen and nose stuffed painfully. A part of her monitored Yamato's presence. He'd left her side and she heard running water. After a few moments, he returned and gently removed her arm. She was malleable for him, yet she couldn't look at him, finding it much easier to keep her eyes closed.

"Here, this will help," he said. He'd soaked a wash cloth with cold water for her eyes. It felt heavenly. "Rest here."

"You don't have to," she murmured, the dark, wet cool working wonders for the grief headache.

He laughed; irony twisted his words. "I caused this to happen, so yes, I have to help clean up."

She didn't have the energy to argue and had half-fallen into a twilight of doze and dream and self-torture. Over and over again she watched herself fling the priceless vase to the floor; over and over again she saw in agonizing clarity the fragile porcelain explode into millions of fragments. Yamato's eyes glared at her with disgust and contempt- -such cruelty from a man she knew as a kind neutral at worst- -and that hurt her worst of all.

How much time passed, she didn't know. She'd slept hard enough to be muzzy. When she roused herself, the house was quiet, tranquil, and Yamato was nowhere to be seen. Relief welled through her, and a distant edge of disappointment. But he'd cleaned the kitchen to sparkling and left her a note on the table:

Ino, I'm bringing lunch at 1. See you then. Yamato.

Oh, how lovely. Her heart lifted, as she accepted the second chance he gave her. She glanced at the clock. Okay, an hour to go. Without a doubt, he was testing her. He wanted to see if she'd learned her lesson; that's why he warned her he was coming. She rushed to the bathroom, showered off the residue of her makeup and sorrow. Then she dressed simply in jeans and a tee-shirt, leaving her hair down. Hopefully, he would appreciate the intense battle she fought with herself- -and won- -when it came to applying a light coating of mascara and lip balm and nothing else.

With a half-hour to go, Ino forced herself to relax. She would not be controlling or contrived. She would not plan a strategy for getting him into bed with her. For something to do, she brewed coffee and settled at the table with a glossy magazine, reading the articles thoroughly. An age passed. Then, a knock at the door.

Yes, it was Yamato, his arms full of offerings of food and a package wrapped in brown paper. She greeted him, relieved he was so honorable, and lent a hand. They organized themselves at the table, and she realized he'd brought a feast with him.

"Thanks so much for treating me to lunch," she told him, as she dug into some wonderful noodle concoction.

He used chopsticks to pluck a mushroom from his carton. "I thought we'd try it again. Do you like these?"

"Hm-hm," she answered and accepted the proffered mushroom right off his chopsticks. Delicious. Chewing, she continued, "You don't like mushrooms?"

"When it constitutes as a fungus, no."

She laughed. And remained completely at ease, except for the occasional glance to the intriguing wrapped box he'd set to the side. Some impulses were too hard to ignore. What had he brought her? It didn't look like clothes or anything to wear. Some sort of household item, then? But what did she need that he'd think of bringing for her? She wanted to ask, but suppressed the question and instead focused on accepting his control over the conversation and the pace of their lunch.

He still caught her sneaking peeks to the box, and he smirked with a charming quirk of his lip. "I wanted to wait to see how you'd be today. Here," he said, handing her the box. "I can tell you've taken to heart our discussion from last night."

"Thanks." She took the box and slid her nails under the carefully taped edges of the brown paper. "You shouldn't have given me anything. I was terrible yesterday."

"I was, too. You deserve something besides harsh words from me."

Under the paper was a box, which she popped open. Her excited grin faded as her heart leapt to her throat. Nestled in packing peanuts was Granny's vase. She touched the lacquered enamel. "How did…?"

Yamato put his hand over hers. "I pushed you purposely last night, and I thought this might be in danger. I switched it out without you noticing it."

"Yamato…I…" She set down the vase, and leaning across the table, kissed him.

Oh, the chemistry was definitely there, churning wonderful heat inside her, blossoming upwards. He responded in kind. His fingers brushed her neck, and then ran through her hair. It felt like an extension of the kiss from her birthday party, with him exerting the control and with her following his lead. She wanted so much more from him, so to stop herself from gluttony, she tapered the kiss. Her heart felt fit to burst.

Yamato looked ruffled, slightly out of breath, when she leaned back. "You have learned," he said. In a graceful movement, he rose from his chair and pulled her up with him. "Let's see what else you can pick up."

"Yamato?"

He smiled at her implied question, his eyes soft, and then he tugged her by her wrist to the bedroom.

A/N: I have loads of these little oneshot thingies laying around on my hard-drive. Also, I'm resurrecting a few old stories to hopefully finish them and breathe new life into them. I know I keep saying that, but I'm really ready to finish up some of my unfinished stories. Scout's honor! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. =)