A/N: In the fog of my present head-cold, I completely neglected to thank the brilliant Kanji no Sakka both for beta-reading this fic and for completely hooking me on Naruto. (And it was her idea about the earring posts.) And, yes, I WILL be writing more in this fandom. :) Stay tuned!

Ino leapt with her young team of genin, flying from tree to tree with impossible speed, but there was still no sign of their quarry, and the day was no more than faint pink cloud streaks above the forest. The world was gray and the shadows were long. Behind her, the brats quarreled amongst themselves, which was nothing new, but after two sleepless nights, the Hokage's panicked summoning that morning, and then a full day of strenuous travel with little to eat and no time to rest, Ino could no longer maintain her cool.

She felt a fresh wave of panic. Where the hell is Chouji? She knew they had to be close to the ambush site by now, but she didn't dare use telepathy to find him. If he was in the midst of a battle, even a split second's distraction could get him killed.

Frustrated, she held out her arms and her team alighted amongst the trees.

"Finally," Shin muttered, but Ino's glare shut him up. She squatted on her branch, surveying the terrain and its wildlife. Within a minute, she'd identified her target. Hawks were good for this sort of surveillance.

"Listen: I'm scouting ahead..." She met Yuki's eyes. "Guard me." Beside Yuki squatted Shin. "Shin, you're rear guard." Minoru stared back at Ino in pink-cheeked defiance, daring her to see through him, which she did too easily. "Pay attention and don't start any fights while I'm gone. You're supposed to be a ninja, not a shrieking chimpanzee who alerts every enemy in the forest of your team's position because you're pissed off about someone spilling food on your favorite shirt last night!" Ino looked at all three and widened her eyes for emphasis. "We're heading into a dangerous situation that requires teamwork if you want to survive, so work it out while I'm gone!"

All three of them straightened. She nodded. "Be good and I'll take you guys out for barbecue or something when we get back. Bicker and you're stuck in town until your back stoops and you have hair growing out of your ears."

Her comment was met with stern resolve: three unison expressions determined to prove her doubt in them misplaced. When in doubt, Asuma-style motivation sufficed. She just wished it would last for longer than a mission.

Slowly gathering chakra, Ino wedged her body within a tree trunk's ample cleft; Yuki spun a web of chakra to hold Ino's body in place.

"Done, Sensei." Yuki's cheeks were still pink with embarrassment from Ino's lecture. She viewed herself as the perfect type, and did not enjoy exposing her flaws any more than she enjoyed praising others. Ino met Yuki's eyes and nodded.

"Okay." Ino pressed her palms together and her fingers flew into their familiar hand signals-Ram-And-Bird!-and she was moving again, her thoughts drifting in slow motion toward the hawk she'd spotted earlier. The bird twitched, sensing her approach. Its head turned. Its wings flapped. Ino feared the hawk might move before she reached him, but the moment of contact came and Ino slipped easily within the hawk's puny mind. Mind transfer complete, Ino did not pause. She sprang aloft and directed the panicked bird northeast, flapping toward their quarry, gliding on the wind so quickly her feathers rippled along her crest as she traveled farther and farther from her body and her anxious team.

After several nights without sleep, her chakra levels were depleted, but she had enough for this, and she could take some soldier pills later. Through training and self-discipline, she'd increased her stamina for this jutsu over the years, but she didn't have much longer than twenty minutes to accomplish her objective-thirty if she was extremely lucky and managed her chakra well. It was one of the many areas where her medical training had helped.

Though she pushed the bird so hard she knew that she'd ripped the muscles within her own arms, Ino found her objective-damn, but they were another hour away. Her quarry had eleven hostages, all civilians, some of them children. He was alone, separated from the rest of the ambush party. He kept his hostages locked within a water prison that he sustained with one hand, impatient, staring into the woods with expectation. It was just as Naruto had hypothesized, which meant that the rest of the man's ambush party was still busy with Chouji's team.

Hope pushed Ino onward, and on a second spiral above the woods, Ino saw with relief that her enemy's back-up would never arrive. Chouji had been busy. Her friend was also an hour away by normal methods, standing among the fallen bodies of the enemy as he directed his genin with hand signals. Quiet. He knew they were near the hostages, but did not know how near.

But the bird's eye view wasn't enough to gain a sense of the hostage situation's urgency. She had a little bit of chakra left. Perching the hawk on a branch overhead, Ino steeled herself and dipped into the mind of the water nin. So long as she didn't force him to act differently or otherwise alert him to her presence-if she could just dip one corner of her mind into his-he wouldn't notice.

She met with seething hatred. Memories of past kills. Anticipation and excitement for the kill to come. Impatience with his leader. Suspicions of his teammates. The smell and taste of blood. Idle desire to kill ahead of schedule. Faint thread of hesitation because the aftermath of a sudden bloodbath would cause personal trouble.

All of this she plucked from the enemy's mind in the barest fraction of an instant.

When her prey reflected at length on the pretty girl amongst his hostages - when he mentally caressed her smooth skin, undecided between murder or something else as his mind wandered into fantasy - Ino canceled her jutsu. She fell back into her body in a rush through miles and miles so swift she thwacked her head against the tree hard enough to see faint pinpricks of light in the air before her. Once more amongst her young teammates, breathing hard, she leaned against the tree and regained control of her racing heart. Her physical reaction was worse than usual. She'd over-extended herself.

"Damn," she muttered weakly. The water-nin's images had been strong. So strong. She would have nightmares for weeks.

"Ino-sensei!" she heard Yuki exclaim. The girl's brown eyes were warm with concern, as were the eyes of her other teammates. "You were gone so long..." There were remnants of fear in her voice.

That long, huh?

Ino's arms ached from the hawk's flight, as she'd known they would, and she was barely able to move her head. She had no idea how long she'd been gone, but knew it was the longest she'd ever used that jutsu. She'd consumed almost every last morsel of stamina within her body to sustain the mind-body transfer. Even breathing seemed like too much effort right now.

Well. That's what soldier pills are for...

But she wasn't so weak that she didn't notice the way her team had changed while she was gone. For once Yuki, Shin, and Minoru were getting along and paying proper attention to their surroundings. While maintaining their duties, they talked quietly amongst each other, discussing what to do next without ego or condescension. They were united in their concern for her. Ino smiled weakly at them. Their concerned faces were almost enough to overcome the awful images newly imprinted on her mind, super-imposing themselves over the darkness she'd felt during most of the previous day. She felt a swell of pride, but could imagine Asuma's lazy visage looking at her, slightly unfocused, with that stupid, eye-stinging cigarette dangling from his lips. Focus on the task at hand, Ino. Don't get so damn distracted all the time.

Okay. The thought of Chouji facing that bastard alone had been enough for Ino to shake off her selfish shame spiral of angsty doom and then drive her kids to the edge of their limit, and Ino to hers. Now she knew that Choji wouldn't be alone after all, that they could converge on the enemy at the same time.

And it seemed that the hostages weren't in any particular danger either, not immediately, but Ino didn't like the bent of the water-nin's thoughts. Even now, miles away, she could not shake the gloom his mind had inspired. His thoughts prodded hers, stirring the darkness within her, dredging up every self doubt, every anxiety, and every fear.

Ino steeled herself to it. The important thing was that her group was not too late after all; they hadn't rushed for nothing. The water-nin could eat slugs and die for all she cared, hell yeah! So what if Chouji didn't know how to treat her anymore? If she never brought up their awkward parting, perhaps they could just stumble back into some sort of normal friendship, but maybe without the letters, and...

And this is really not the right time to be thinking about this. Pull it together, Ino!

"You guys eat?" Ino asked, and they nodded.

After Yuki cancelled the chakra threads that bound Ino's body, Ino unbent from her crouched position, popped a few soldier pills into her mouth, and fished a hunk of something edible from her pouch. She ate it absently while her mind assimilated the details. This guy was worse than she expected. He might be alone and have one hand tied up with his water-prison technique, but the images she'd seen depicted him surviving worse odds. All she and Chouji had were six inexperienced genin. Ino looked at her kids as she chewed. They were re-packing their things, preparing to move. One of them could very well die today.

She could feel the soldier pills working, filling her body with energy. Her mood lifted a little.

Six barely-trained genin were better than three. He didn't need her yet, but Chouji would, and she had promised Asuma to protect him. Determined, Ino rose from her position and signaled the rest of her team.

"We're close." She allowed them a small, encouraging smile. "Good work, brats. This guy is strong, but we won't face him alone. Keep alert. You ready?"

They smiled back at her, unfazed, and leapt through the woods behind her. Tree to tree, silent and focused, as they moved toward the water-nin.

"Who're we meeting?" Yuki asked.

This was not the first time her subordinates had asked this question that day, and it was not a question Ino cared to answer because she knew exactly what her genin would think. They knew about the letters, of course. She was well acquainted with the buzz of speculation and silent joking that followed the arrival of each new letter.

Normally, Ino didn't bother avoiding such speculation. She never tired of speaking the words, "He's just a friend." It wasn't until her mother had discovered the letters that Ino found the grins and groans of her teammates annoying instead of cute. Before, their gossip had merely reminded Ino of the way she'd speculated with Chouji about Asuma and Kurenai.

It's just that...after everything that had happened that week, Ino thought such speculation would be too painful to handle. Just thinking about it caused that dull ache to return and intensify.

But the soldier pills had helped some, and her group would join Chouji's soon enough. Better to get the buzz and speculation over with before their groups converged. Kinda like ripping off a bandage. One, two, three...

Ino stared straight ahead, her expression determined; she braced herself for their reaction. "Team Chouji," she said.

Yuki did not speak, but Ino sensed the crackle of her student's broad grin and she heard the exact tone of Minoru's voice when he groaned a half-hearted, "Aww, again?"

It hurt worse than she thought it would.

"Don't be annoying," Ino snapped.

On the next branch, Ino pushed off a little harder, crushing the wood beneath her feet, running ahead of the kids to better ignore the looks she knew they gave each other because she had over-reacted. She only wished she could ignore the darkness that squeezed her heart. She tried desperately not to think of the future. Right now, the only future that mattered was the one where she saved Chouji.

#

When they drew closer to the enemy's position, Minoru made a strangled sound, but Ino had felt it too. It felt like Chouji had used that jutsu.

"Chakra," he said, and they moved the direction he indicated.

Her team arrived just in time, like heroes. After telepathically directing her genin to serve as distractions, Ino tucked her body into a screen of bushes behind the stationary enemy. The weakness of Ino's jutsu was that her opponent needed to stay within her target long enough for her slow-moving projection to reach him. But the idiot had his hand thrust within his water prison, trapped though he spun shuriken at Chouji and his dodging genin with lazy ease. Chouji had the handicap of wanting to protect not only his teammates but also the hostages trapped within the prison.

The water-nin acted as though he had already won the fight, and Chouji's team was clearly low on chakra from both the ambush and their previous battle. The water-nin might have defeated them if Ino hadn't arrived.

If.

Smirking, Ino entered Chouji's mind just long enough to warn him of her presence and suggest their old maneuver, and then-Ram-And-Bird!-she overtook the water-nin's mind. It was time to make that bastard suffer.

Her victim did not have time to prepare himself, and she had been in his mind before, so Ino knew exactly what ideas would shove him deep within his darkest self. Ino felt filthy inhabiting his mind and skin, and she was fully there this time, not just dipping a toe into the fetid water, but it couldn't be helped. Their struggle of wills was brief: Ino had surprise and indignation on her side. He won another sort of battle altogether as new images added to the old ones he'd given her, some of them involving people she knew, but there was no time to process this, and even in the most depressed corner of her mind, she was tough enough to overcome the bastard.

Fully in control of her quarry, Ino looked at Chouji through her enemy's eyes and smirked. Winning that battle made her feel better already.

"Glad to see me?"

His eyes disappeared as he smiled. "Ino."

Ino released the enemy's water prison while Chouji explained to his genin that reinforcements had arrived. His exhausted team smiled as they leaned against each other, panting in relief.

Ino located her subordinates and waved at them. "Yuki! Bind me."

Chouji directed his genin and Ino's remaining teammates in caring for the freed hostages. She spotted Sen right away; the tiny medical-nin cast repeated anxious glances in the water-nin/Ino's direction as she tended the survivors.

Yuki approached. With practiced efficiency, she bound Ino's borrowed body.

"Don't worry about Ino's comfort," Chouji called from his side of the clearing.

"I never do," Yuki answered, face impassive. True enough. Ino suppressed her smile, knowing her amusement would annoy the girl, but Ino found Yuki's tough exterior cute.

When Yuki had finished, Ino made a few attempts to escape the binding while Chouji stood beyond them, squinting at her again. He was happy to see her, and the relief she felt upon seeing his sustained smile overwhelmed her. Maybe everything would be okay. Maybe their friendship wasn't ruined after all. And, oh...he'd over-extended himself again, which meant that he was about fifty pounds slimmer and it wasn't that she didn't find Chouji attractive generally, because she'd abandoned that sort of shallow thinking long ago, but the shift in weight was like seeing your friend after he or she had a really good haircut. The change forced her to see Chouji anew, and he really did look pretty damn good.

...Aaaaaand the water-nin's body was reacting to that. Perverted bastard. Ino flushed with embarrassment. The ugly killer probably hadn't blushed since he was thirteen. Ino did multiplication tables in her head to distract herself and hoped that Chouji hadn't noticed. She hoped that none of them had noticed.

"You're getting better at it," she said to Yuki after one final attempt to escape the bonds which was mostly an excuse to turn her body away from anyone who might notice. "Um...can you gag me, please?" She didn't want the water-nin saying anything she didn't want the others to hear. She directed her thoughts at him. I am seriously going to kill you, you perverted piece of.... She flashed Yuki a smile before canceling her jutsu and returning to her body.

During the mind-body swap, Ino had fallen against the bushes and punctured her cheek. Her arms still ached from flying as a hawk, and now they ached from attempting to escape Yuki's binding, but Ino ignored the pain as she rose from her hiding place. Chouji needed her. They had to get the hostages back to the village and take their prisoner in for interrogation before this mission could be officially counted as a success.

But first...

Ignoring protocol-because after the last few days, she'd earned this moment, and she didn't give a crap about protocol or what any of their genin knuckleheads would think-Ino embraced her old friend. If she held on a little tighter this time, Chouji didn't comment on it. He didn't even react in embarrassment. Beneath the blood, sweat, and worry he smelled like sunshine and barbeque chips. He smelled like the better days of childhood, and in his spirit there was not a trace of the darkness and danger that had permeated the days since their last meeting. And she needed that moment of light.

Hugging Chouji wasn't enough to banish the darkness, but everything seemed a little better, a little easier when she leaned her head against the soft spot between the open flaps of his flak jacket. His kind heart was in there, somewhere beneath that flesh, and she could hear it calmly beating. And, in that quiet, perceptive way of his that had nothing to do with telepathy, he seemed to understand what she needed. His arms closed around her, briefly. It was a short hug, nothing weird or worth commenting on, not even when his hands brushed against the bare skin on her back, but Ino felt as comforted as though she were in bed at home, warm beneath her blankets as a new day's sun slanted light against them both, heating her skin...

Uh...oh, crap. Not again.

"Hmm." He released her, oblivious. "Hey, Ino." He smiled. "Thanks for saving our asses again." When he smiled like that, his eyes were happy squints of light, but Ino was too annoyed with herself to dwell on that.

"I keep telling you," she said, hands safely on her hips. Damn hormones. "I promised Asuma I'd keep you out of trouble." She frowned, taking in his appearance again. It really was no damn wonder she'd started thinking about soft beds and the rest of that dangerous, annoying whatnot. Ino punched him in the stomach. "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU GIGANTIC DUMMY? YOU COULD HAVE KILLED YOURSELF!"

"WHO'S GIGANTIC? JUST DEFENDING MY TEAM, YOU SKINNY BITCH! JUST HOW MANY SOLDIER PILLS HAVE YOU HAD TODAY ANYWAY? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

It was a show...well, half a show, but the dropped jaws from their genin subordinates suggested that nobody would be gossiping about their relationship...tonight, anyway. Unless they were gossiping about which jonin would kill the other first. And that was good. There was a job to do. Work to do. Important work. There wasn't time for gossip.

Ino still felt raw and ready to fight, but when she turned again to Chouji, he was the picture of patient calm. He was quietly addressing the tiny Sen, the lone survivor from Team Four last winter. It made sense for the Hokage to put Sen with Chouji after he lost a team member that spring. Naruto always seemed to know who needed to work with whom.

"...I'm sure Ino-san would not mind," he said, one large hand on the genin's shoulder. "Ino? Sen's found something unusual with one of the hostages."

"I'll be right there," she said, waving the girl ahead, and she approached Chouji one more time.

"You okay?"

He swallowed, and she could have sworn there were new worry lines etched into his forehead. "Ino...I'm glad you came. We wouldn't have made it...not all of us."

What she couldn't say was how fast she'd run, and how much she'd risked to get to him on time because she didn't want Chouji to go through another loss again. Not ever.

Ino plucked at the loose fabric of his shirt and extended it as far as it would go, to where Chouji's body had still been before he'd converted all of that fat to chakra. She smirked, because humor was best at a time like this. "We wouldn't have made it...not all of us," he'd said.

"Not all of you did."

Chouji laughed despite himself. "Bitch."

#

During the long trek to the village where the hostages had been seized, Ino walked between Sen and Yuki, instructing both girls further regarding the hostage's peculiar medical case. At one point, Ino made the mistake of looking behind them to check on her boys. Minoru and Shin were chatting happily with the former hostages, but it was Chouji that she really noticed. And Chouji who noticed her. He stood behind everyone, the prisoner slung over his broad shoulder and a warm expression on his tattooed face as he watched Ino and the two girls. Her body filled with warmth and hear face heated; Ino turned quickly turned to hug both Sen and Yuki closer to her.

"Almost there!" she sing-songed. "I see chimney smoke."

#

While Chouji escorted the prisoner to the local jail, Ino and the others settled the recovered hostages with their families. Though the hour was late, the village entrance soon filled with people both bleary-eyed from sleep and red-eyed from lack of sleep. But all of these new faces held smiles, and many of these faces were wet with the sudden tears that sprang so often from relief.

"Um...not to complain," Minoru said, and Ino was fairly certain the young genin did not intend to clutch his stomach as he did, but she felt the hunger keenly as well.

"Tch," Shin muttered, but his voice lacked its usual hint of vinegar.

Ino smiled at them and pointed. "This way. There's an old shinobi way house...should be well stocked this time of year." And when Sen hesitated, looking back the way Chouji had gone, Ino placed one hand upon the girl's back. "Chouji knows the way."

#

But long after eating and long after the young shinobi laid their pads on the tatami mats and passed out upon them, Ino worried that perhaps Chouji did not remember after all. She huddled near the door with the screen parted just enough to watch for him. They had been there with Asuma once before and once again after he died. The room seemed so much smaller now.

She missed the cigarette stink.

In the silence, while the younger shinobi snored beneath their blankets, Ino could no longer avoid the images implanted within her while she inhabited the water-nin: bodies. So, so many bodies. The memories of kills which did not belong to her, and the memories of bodies bleeding into the hungry earth reminded her of Asuma. It reminded her of Chouji's face when he thought his father and Kakashi had died during Pain's invasion; it reminded her of Shizune dying right before her eyes. Yeah, Kakashi and Shizune had both come back to life, but they had been dead. And it reminded her of everyone who had died during the Fourth Great Shinobi War, the ones who hadn't come back to life. It reminded her of the lives she couldn't save because she'd run out of chakra and soldier pills.

"Oh," she said, hoarse from the ache of suppressed sobs. She didn't dare let herself grieve openly for fear of waking the others, but she was at her emotional limit, and the dangerous part of the day had passed. Her father had said, once, that it was important to take care of these emotions right away, that they were no less real or poignant if they belonged to someone else first because they belonged to her now. And it was safe here in this old, familiar place that was part of her past and part of her present.

Ino touched her forehead to her knees and allowed the tears to fall until she'd soaked her skirt. She couldn't have stopped them if she wanted to.

I am turning into the biggest damn crybaby.

The building groaned and shifted. Ino looked up to find Chouji staring at her through the half-opened door. He said nothing, only watched her face as he removed his foot from the porch with deliberate slowness. Still watching her, he sat, his body turned toward the courtyard and a brilliant expanse of stars. He placed one large palm face down against the deck beside him. Ino swiped her eyes and half-walked, half-crawled toward him-she had to slide the door a little to squeeze outside, but the noise did not rouse their subordinates.

She sat beside him and he put his arm around her in that familiar, friendly way. Ino shuddered as she leaned against him. So warm. I'm so glad I didn't lose this. She closed her eyes, enjoying the soft snores of their genin and the breeze that sent tendrils of hair sliding one by one along her cheek to tickle her nose.

"Ah, Ino," he breathed. "It was the water-nin, wasn't it? I stayed for most of his interrogation, just in case. He did such terrible things during the war, and terrible things after too." Chouji began that slow, rhythmic movement of his hand against her back that was so familiar to her. "I worried about you. But we stopped him, Ino. There's one less of them out there, now."

He was right.

"The resentment he had..." Ino said. "No one came to his village's aid that day when the war began. He lost everything, and he still resents us for that. It reminds me of...well. You know." Sasuke. It was still so appalling the way their classmate had fallen into darkness. Though Sasuke was now a stable member of the village again, committed to righting past wrongs, he was a breathing example of how far a spirit of vengeance could drive a person from humanity.

Ino sighed, and Chouji's arm came again to rest around her shoulders. His long hair tickled her bare arms. One of the genin rolled over and the floorboards groaned, reminding Ino of where they were.

"A grudge over food is deeper than the ocean," Chouji quoted softly, and Ino didn't mistake him the way the others might have. She knew perfectly well he wasn't talking about food.

"We can't be everywhere at once," Ino grumbled, bitter. "We didn't exclude that water-nin's village on purpose. We could barely protect our own village that day."

"The insurrectionists will understand some day," and Chouji didn't need to explain his faith. The Hokage held the power to change people, to transform them. "If we try to understand them."

The soldier pills were wearing off.

Sleepy, so very sleepy, Ino reached one arm around Chouji's lower back and curled against his side. He was so warm and soft. She placed one hand against his heart, against that silly kanji for "EAT," that amused him so deeply, and she could feel a cavernous, shuddering sigh rumble through his body. His arm around her shoulder tightened, and he touched his head to hers, awakening her other desires, the ones she strived to keep in check. His nose slid against her cheek, and his lips were just a slight turn of her head away from hers. Was he doing that on purpose? Ino's pulse quickened. This was very different from the usual way he held her. His guard was down, and hers was too. The danger of the moment zinged through her nerves like lightning.

"You have such a kind, kind heart, Chouji," she said, overwhelmed by her conflicting desires. She'd spent two days believing she'd lost his friendship forever and here she was, tempted to ruin everything for good. Except...she thought she knew what these signals meant. This changed things a little.

"..." His nose slid until his cheek was against hers. She was trembling, and this was now officially a problem which Ino could no longer ignore.

Ino turned her head so that he was against her hair and she considered separating herself entirely, though she didn't want to. She had to put a stop to this, and she certainly couldn't continue relying on Chouji in this way. Getting this close to him was too distracting. She just needed to find some other way to pick herself up on the dark days. Maybe she could take up reading. It seemed to work for Kakashi...

Chouji's entire body was stiff, wary. His heart beat wildly beneath her hand, which didn't help her resolve. Ino dropped her hand to her lap.

"I don't know anyone kinder," she continued. "Unless someone takes the last slice of meat from the grill," she amended, and saying this, she intended to laugh, but it came out as a sob instead. He laughed, because he couldn't see her face then, and he didn't notice.

"You're one to talk. I couldn't believe when you did that to Temari..." He stopped. He'd noticed. "Ino...?"

Ino wiped her eyes, but it was a pointless exercise. She moved away enough so that he had to drop his arm. Time to stop this. "I'm sorry...Look, I'm sorry about my mom. You can just forget about all of that, right?"

"Hunh? About what? What did your mom do?"

And when she couldn't answer beyond a vague wave of her hands and a, "You know," he started rubbing her back again. That just wasn't fair. Honestly, this was worse than sitting next to him as he ate chip after delicious chip, taunting her with the overwhelming smell of barbecue, grinning because he knew exactly how difficult it was for her to resist dipping her hand into the bag of salty goodness and grabbing a fistful. "Do you want one, Ino? What? How come you're on a diet again? Hee Hee." Jerk.

"Not really. Sorry, Ino."

Shikamaru and Asuma had never understood why she and Chouji fought so much about food all those years ago. Every single bloody time she called Chouji fat and ordered him to diet, Chouji tempted her with a striptease of food. He was every bit as kind and good as people believed, but when it came to food, Chouji was downright evil sometimes, and it went way beyond beating people up for eating the last scrap of food on their plates as though he was some vengeful food demon that required your last morsel as some sort of fucking sacrifice. This whole rubbing the back thing? It felt like he was deliberately teasing her.

"Well, everything was so awkward that night, and I thought..."

"Oh. That." He sounded embarrassed. "Well, there was that dare I made with Shikamaru, and...you said it was lame for someone to confess because of a dare, so then I didn't want to say anything to you because I..." His voice trailed off. "Oh. Wait. Maybe I should have just said something to you back then, because you probably think this is even lamer."

And while he tried to laugh this off, realization sparked Ino's senses and she at last understood what he was saying. "You said it was lame for someone to confess because of a dare, so then I didn't want to say anything to you..." She clutched the fabric at the small of his back, and Chouji's nervous laughter died. In fact, he stopped moving completely, even the backrub part though his hand remained against her. She wasn't sure if he was breathing; she didn't breathe as the details of that night at the barbecue clicked into place. She recalled the exact words spoken, the looks given, and the phrases exchanged and now interpreted them with this new lens of information: the subject of the Chouji-Shikamaru dare had been one loud-mouthed bitch who took the rug of confidence from beneath Chouji by saying something completely rude and dumb.

Ino realized her mouth was open. She looked up at him. He was watching her closely with those kind eyes. It was too dark to notice things like color or see things like reflections or any of that, but the intensity was there. This was that serious, brave side of Chouji that not everyone got to see. Ino couldn't look away.

Actually, Chouji, this isn't lame at all.

"You like me."

"Yeah." She could hear him swallow. "I hope that's okay...I don't want to ruin our friendship or anything, but something changed after Daisuko died and I feel like maybe you...I don't know." He sighed and his free hand was in his hair. "It just seems like things are changing, and it's starting to hurt inside, like I'm lying to you or something." He was looking up at the stars, now. "It's getting really difficult to act normal around you, and then Shikamaru and Temari the other night...with all of those hormones flying around, what a nightmare. I wanted to shove that stupid earring in Shikamaru's eyeball."

Ino sighed, because his words were so close to how she felt it was scary. "Chouji...I'm sorry for what I said about the dare. I shouldn't have said that."

"It's fine." He grinned. "No, really. You were right! What a totally lame ass reason to confess to someone."

"Chouji..." She imagined how differently that night might have been had he confessed instead of running away outside her door. Maybe if her stupid mother hadn't interrupted them, he'd have said something anyway, despite her blunder at the restaurant. "Actually, Chouji, I don't really think-"

"-Oh, never mind that, Ino, I don't care," he interrupted. He was laughing and nervous. "We can still hang out, right? I'm not scaring you away, right? I know it might be awkward at first, and you can just shove me away if I do something weird or uncomfortable, but...I can't lie about this anymore." He laughed again. Each time he did, she felt a profound discomfort. "So what did you think was going on that night? You haven't been this tense in years...something got you worked up. Heh-heh. Everything's okay in Konoha, right?"

Ino put a hand on his knee. That shut him up. "I was tense because you ran away after Mom invited you in for tea. I thought we ended our friendship that night."

"What?" She could hear his confusion clearly in that single word. "How?"

Ino drew a deep breath. He'd confessed how he felt, so she couldn't just leave the situation alone. She still didn't know if it was better to date or better to remain as they were, but Chouji's confession had already changed everything. Telling him how she felt wouldn't make things either better or worse.

"Okay. This might take a while."

"That's okay." He sounded bewildered.

Behind them, one of the genin sighed in his sleep. A slight breeze made Ino wish she was wearing something a little warmer. She folded her arms over her chest to warm them. She couldn't read Chouji's face in the dark, but she could tell that he was watching her.

"Okay, I guess I'd better start. Well, ever since the funeral, I've felt that things were different too. And, like you, it's become impossible for me to ignore my feelings for you. I'm always worrying about you, or wishing you were around. I've written you so many letters that my stupid group of knuckleheads tease me about it. My mom and I got into a huge fight when she found my stack of your letters." She blushed at this.

"See, my mom thinks we should just date if we like each other, but you know me, Chouji...I keep getting entangled with my friends, and then they get sick of me and all my stupid bitching-" She tried to laugh this off, but it came off sounding false even to her ears. "And then when we stop seeing each other, I've lost another friend."

Chouji still hadn't said anything, and she was getting nervous.

Ino swallowed. "So, I told my mom that I didn't want to risk losing your friendship. But then Mom told you to take me out, and then she asked you to come in for tea...and I saw your face when you ran away." The pain of that day returned with such intensity that she clutched the front of her shirt. "So I thought that you knew everything by then, and that our friendship was over."

Eyes still shut, Chouji pressed his lips together. "You really think I'd abandon a twenty year friendship over something stupid like that? Geeze, Ino."

"Well..." she thought about getting defensive, but anger sparked instead. "Well, how the hell was I supposed to know why you ran away, dumb ass coward?"

He had been angry, but now he was furious. When his eyes snapped open, she recoiled. "Well, there's no way I would ever do that. Ever. Ino, those so-called friends, the ones who went out with you and then broke your heart? Those guys, every single one of them, they were idiots! I'm just mad I never said so, but...I was always afraid that if I started in on them, I'd never stop until you knew exactly how I felt, and that's my fault. Shikamaru warned me. Look-"

And he was looking at her, really looking at her, the way he did right before saying something that was difficult to hear but necessary. She braced herself for the worst.

"Ino, everyone knows that you're bitchy and bossy, but so what?" His expression softened. "You only act that way when you care about people...and your true friends know that. It's so obvious." The wind was moving again and it blew her hair across her face. Choji hooked one finger around the long end of her bang and gave it a gentle tug, setting it back into place so that he could see her. "But lately, when you yell at me...actually, sometimes, even back when we were kids..." he swallowed. His face was so close to hers now, and his voice finished, low, "When you yell at me, I know that you love me."

Ino didn't dare speak as Chouji's shaking hand smoothed her forehead and tucked her hair behind her ears. His hesitation was so sweet to her, and she knew a little of how he felt...how there were things you wanted to do but didn't feel brave enough to try. But he'd said just the right thing as usual. He'd known exactly what would give her the courage to move forward. Ino unclenched the fabric of his shirt and instead sought lower until it found the hem of his tunic. She slipped her hand beneath and up, reaching until she could feel the warmth and strength of his back beneath her palm. She had expected him to say the worst, but he'd given her something so totally unexpected. As usual. He was always more perceptive than she thought.

But then his words caught up with her. She clenched her teeth. "Wait. Did you just call me a bitch...fat ass?"

"Hee. Yeah." His eyes disappeared as he gave her the peace sign. "I said I know it's how you show your love, right? But did I mention that I think it's cute, too?"

Ino blinked at him, taking in his smile and confident hand sign. One moment passed, two, and then she dissolved into helpless laughter. "You idiot." She got braver and walked her fingers a little farther up his back, to where the skin was warmer.

"Wait..." He shifted so that she was no longer against his arm or his side. His hands trembled upon her shoulders, his palms sweated, and this was the only warning she had before his soft lips crashed against hers and brought that ache, always just beneath everything and sharp as a shuriken, surging to the surface. The ache shattered. The pain was exquisite.

"Oh, hell yeah," she breathed, and he laughed against her mouth before completely distracting her all over again when his lips began to move. This was it. The endless diet was over, and there was instead a feast of lips and tongue. In the moments she'd allowed herself to think on it, Ino had imagined that Chouji would kiss the way he ate his food, but he didn't. He was surprisingly gentle and slow, savoring. Even that first touch of his tongue against hers was gentle, and she wondered distantly if lips could be kind. It felt like he was listening to her through them, paying careful attention as he always did, hearing what she didn't say and interpreting what she did say so that she came out something better than she was.

This time, when Ino moved her fingers up his back, he reacted with fingers of his own, and then hands. Warm, soft hands just resting on the bare skin above her hips.

"Oh..." she said, breathing hard, leaning in for seconds, but Chouji pressed his forehead against hers, stopping her. He was no less out of breath than she was.

"Ino," he said, and the way he spoke her name made her smile. This was Chouji, and he thought her bitchiness was an act of love. How long had he practiced that line anyway? Genius...

Ino leaned in again, but Chouji turned his face away, grinning. He was squinting again.

"Hee hee. No, stop. Look." He turned her face with a gentle finger. "We woke everyone."

Ino followed his gaze and found six faces pressed against each other as they strained to watch through the open door. Yuki's face was covered in a sheen of tears, but she was smiling.

"I knew it," Yuki said, nudging Shin. "I told you so."

"We thought you hated us," Minoru told Ino.

"No," Shin said, annoyed. "You thought she hated you."

Ino clenched her jaw. "I DO HATE YOU. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PERVERTED CHILDREN DOING? If you guys don't go back to bed and close that door, I'm not taking you anywhere tomorrow!"

Chouji was laughing. "See?" He told them. "She loves you." He readjusted his hand against Ino's bare waist and shifted her closer to him. Ino flushed to her hairline. With his other hand Chouji leaned toward the genin and his thick fingers clutched the door frame. "So, goodnight." The kids recoiled in time to avoid the sudden slide as Chouji drew the door shut between them.

"Goodnight!" they chorused, and then followed the buzz of barely suppressed excitement and giggles that Ino had always been afraid of, but didn't mind now. Beside her, against her, Chouji shook with silent laughter.

"What?" she murmured.

When he turned his head Ino's direction, his smile was as wide as she'd ever seen it and it warmed her to her toes.

"They're just so cute! Were we ever that cute?"

She thought of a younger Chouji taunting her with food and grinned. "Hell yeah we were." She paused, inching closer to him. He stilled. "What I want to know is how I'm supposed to get your earring stuck in my hair tonight." She rubbed her head against his ear. "But I think you need ratty pony tails for that trick. My hair's too slippery."

He was still laughing silently. "Don't be perverted."

"Hm." She gave up. "I'm too damn tired to be anyway." She settled beside him, curling against his side the way she had earlier. His arm tightened around her. "I wish I wasn't tired, though," she mumbled. "Hot blooded adult, you know. And you're lips...who the hell have you been practicing on, anyway? I don't know whether to thank her or claw her eyes out."

He was still laughing. "No one, I swear."

"Oh, fine, I believe you."

That sense of peace and home was returning. She could feel her breathing slow and deepen. Her eyes drifted shut and she yawned as she nestled closer, "I should crawl onto my sleeping mat before I fall asleep here. I haven't slept since..." she couldn't think, couldn't calculate the days. "I don't know, but it was before you left, so...I guess you could say it's been a pretty long day."

"I knew you were taking soldier pills again. Gotta stop doing that, Ino." His hold on her shifted abruptly, startling her, and suddenly she was in his lap and her head was against the smooth fabric of his shoulder. "God, I've wanted to do that for a long time. There. More comfortable?"

"Mm, yeah but we're still in the middle of a mission," she said. "I can't stay here with you."

"Yes you can and no we're not. I filed our report before I got back here." He sounded amused.

"Still, this isn't setting a very good example, and it's getting cold..." But she didn't protest any further, and she sighed happily when he put his arms around her, enveloping her in warmth. "That's better."

"I'll move you later. Don't worry." Then, "I forgot how talkative you are before you fall asleep. Shikamaru used to call you a tranquilizer behind your back; said it put him right to sleep."

"Heh...jerk. I bet you thought that was funny of him."

"Well...he's a funny guy."

"Mmm. You know, if we'd done this when we were as young as those knuckleheads behind us are, Asuma would have given us nine kinds of hell." Chouji's hand drifted along her arm and then down her hip in the same careful, studied way his lips had moved before. She smiled against his shoulder. "Goodnight."

She felt his warm breath against her forehead and his lips followed.

"Yeah. Thanks again, Ino."

She was still awake for a few minutes after that, though she was too tired to say anything. The breeze continued, but it seemed only pleasant now that she was protected and warm. The genin were settling back into sleep, too, judging by the renewed sounds of steady breathing. The stars...she didn't know about the stars because her eyes were closed, but Chouji continued to do stupid little things like touch her hair or smooth her skirt, and that was as beautiful as any tangle of galaxies in the sky above them.

Ino cast one weary corner of her mind to a mind resting a full day away, but it was a place she knew well, and it was always easy to find her.

Mom? I'm sorry. And she sent her mother an image of where she was at the moment. And what she was doing.

Her mom didn't send back words so much as approval and excitement - she was pretty much incoherent in her delight. Ino had a feeling that by the time she and Chouji arrived back in Konoha, their mothers would have their entire futures planned out for them, but that was a problem for another day.

For now she focused on the language of Chouji's hands, and she let them sing her to sleep.