WHAT EVERYONE THINKS…

Everyone thinks that Ino is pretty, smart, and happy. The truth is she hates life, thinks she's an idiot, and doesn't like how she looks. At first she was really all those things but isn't anymore. Her mother died when she turned ten. They came home to see her mother slumped over in a wooden chair. Grasped between her fingers was a glass that was dripping red liquid into the puddle that was slowly growing in size on the floor. Just as they saw her, the glass slipped out of her cold grasp and shattered. She was poisoned. Ino's father didn't take this well. He cleared out all the cabinets and the fridge. Then replaced the food and began working more to avoid coming home. Ino knew it was because she reminded him of her mother. She started taking it out on things like the wall and her flesh. She didn't cut her hair because her mom had short hair, and it would force her dad away even more.

After hearing the team she was on, she flinched slightly at a burning sensation she couldn't place. Later on she ate lunch, meet her sensei (refused to talk about herself), and went home. She untied her headband and pulled it off her waist. Then, she flung it at the full body mirror in her room. The mirror broke into a million pieces and some fell to the floor. She gingerly picked up a large triangle of sharp glass, took the white sleeve off her left arm, and studied it.

Scars and fresh cuts spread across her pale skin like little spider webs. She stared at her arm before suddenly hacking at the flesh, opening old wounds and making new ones. She stopped herself and stared out the window at the sky as warm liquid slid down her arm and dropped onto her white carpet. It was a symbol of life and she let it go so easily. No wonder she felt so weak sometimes. She didn't care at all. She dropped the bloody piece of glass onto her carpet too. Putting the white sleeve on again, she walked downstairs to the flower shop and tied on a bright yellow apron. She flipped over the open sign and busied her self with watering and arranging the plants.

There was a note on the cash register that said she only had to work three hours today instead of five. She sat at the stool behind the bar and waited.

Three hours later

Only two women stopped by to day to pick up orders for a party. Ino sighed when the clock beeped telling her that it was time to close. She stood from the stool and flipped the sign back to closed. She took off the apron and left the building, remembering to lock the door of the shop. As she slinked down the street she suddenly felt alone. She bolted down the street out of the business district. She jumped onto the room of a building. A deserted building she always went to.

She sat on her knees and leaned herself over the side. One arm was folded under her chest and the other was hanging uselessly. She could feel the blood sliding slowly down her arm. It rolled off her finger and hit into the ally below. Which wasn't a long way down because the building was halfway underground. Her eyelids drifted, she hadn't slept in about two days. Her eyes snapped open again when she felt a hand touch her bloody knuckles. Looking down she saw Uchiha Sasuke.