Title: Something Electric, Something Inevitable.
By: Kaara.
Disclaimer: Naruto is owned by Kishimoto.
Rating: PG15, mostly for language.
Note: More slice-of-life thing. Only slightly more depressing than the previous one. Just slightly. Do enjoy and leave a review if you like it? Incentive to write more Genma/Ino, after all.

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Something Electric, Something Inevitable.

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1.

"There's this boy I like."

Genma looked up from the array of senbon on his coffee table, cleaning rug in one hand because it was one of those rare off days where he had nothing better to do than trivial domestic duties. Like cleaning his preferred brand of sharp projectile. And entertaining teenage girls with disturbing tendency for juvenile theatrics. Ino had arrived at ungodly hours and proceeded to nest into a corner of Genma's battered couch, where she had pondered over her toenails for the better part of her home invasion scheme while he regained some semblance of fine motor skill.

He belatedly noticed that she was waiting for a response, missed the timing by about fifteen seconds and ended up with an articulate, "Huh."

"Yeah," Ino nodded. If she found his contribution to be lacking, she knew enough to keep it to herself and continued to stare at her toes. They were a queer shade of blue. "We just met."

Genma hmm-ed.

"He works at the Academy and has this adorable smile," she paused to giggle, fingers curling over the slanted line of her lips. He noticed that her nails were painted that same shade of blue. "Not one of us but he's really sweet."

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought I told you it gets complicated with civilians."

"Toru thinks I'm just a normal chuunin."

Genma's other eyebrow joined the first one. "So you lied to him."

"Half-truths," Ino sing-sang and cocked her head to a side. Her hair pooled around the soft angles of her face. "It's easier to tell half-truths than outright lies."

"Don't get smart on me, kid. I taught you that shit."

Ino grinned, looked far younger than her seventeen years and a lifetime of half-truths. It was the same grin she wore when he told her that kunoichi couldn't afford to fall in love. "I'm a fast learner."

Genma didn't object, because he knew she knew it was true. Despite Ibiki's prior apprehension (not that that scarred, poker-faced asshole ever displayed outright emotions but apparently Yamanaka Senior had stormed T&I headquarter, nearly came to blows with Ibiki and only backed down after severe warnings from the Hokage), Ino settled into the lessons without much difficulty. She listened and reacted well, more attentive to instructions than most of her peers and he found a willing, if somewhat peculiar, student in Ino. The fact that she was more attractive than the average kunoichi didn't hurt either.

Genma sighed. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

She crawled over the coffee table that separated them, sat on his lap (bones and skin, this one) and kissed him, fingers sliding over his unshaven jaw. Her frost-blue eyes were quiet and gentle, thoughtful. "Thank you, sensei."

2.

The boy couldn't have been older than twenty. Typical heartbreaker with his dark hair, darker eyes and slow, unhurried smiles. Ino kept to a type after all. He had an arm around Ino's waist in a casual loop, pressing possessive fingerprints over her paper-thin dress as he stared intently at the laughing curves of her mouth. She allowed him to steer her through the market's crowd until they stopped at a vendor selling trinkets, fake crystals sparkling in radiant hues under the bright sunlight. He murmured something too quiet for Genma's ears but he noticed the way Ino's eyes lit up when he slipped a charm bracelet around her lily-white wrist, cheap silver of tiny, perfect hearts. She smiled shyly, prettily at him, the kind of smiles she wore for her missions.

He held her hand for the rest of the day.

Genma crouched further behind the camouflage of a tree and decided that no, he didn't like that boy. Not one bit.

3.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Shut up, Raidou."

"Seriously. What. The. Fuck."

"Stop being a drama queen and gimme those scissors."

"You went on a B Rank escort mission. B Rank. That's cakewalk." Raidou tossed the scissors, blades first, at Genma's head. It narrowly missed his eyeballs. "Why are you bleeding on my floor?" Raidou scowled. "I just cleaned my floor."

Genma snipped off the thread and spat blood onto the couch, bruises darkening along his ribcage. He ignored Raidou's highly unamused glare in favour of inspecting the line of stitches snaking down the length of his right arm. It looked alright for a hack job. "We were ambushed on the way back."

"You had Anko in your team. And Aoba." Raidou's glare turned accusatory. "Were you drinking on the job again?"

"No, asshole. That was only one time and you know Iruka spiked our canteens. Get some more bandages, will you?"

Raidou grunted something about him having a dick therefore not being one of Genma's bitches but he shed his flak jacket anyway, left it on the kitchen counter as he rummaged through a drawer. A roll of gauze bounced off Genma's head shortly afterwards. "So. What happened?"

"Got distracted for a second and fucker came at me with a wakizashi."

"Please tell me you're kidding," Raidou groaned. "Are you senile already? You know we can't afford distractions."

Genma scoffed and offered the universally-accepted excuse of, "Shit happens."

It wasn't a deep gash and the Sound kunoichi was probably only a chuunin, who managed to pull off the stunt because Genma saw her eyes glitter blueblueblue in the darkness and hesitated. Careless, that's what he was. Could've been killed because of that half a second and his generations of shinobi ancestors would've kicked his ass in the afterlife for that mistake, dishonouring the family name and all that. He sent a senbon through her eye, right to the back of her head once he deflected the blade and mostly managed to ignore the odd look Aoba threw him on the way back. No way was he telling Raidou about that though. Genma tentatively flexed his stitched arm and grimaced when he felt coarse thread pulling at his torn skin and muscles.

The gesture didn't go unnoticed and Raidou padded closer to inspect the extent of Genma's injury. He looked more annoyed than concerned. "You should go to the hospital. Or at least get a medic nin to look at that."

Genma's hand stilled.

"I'm fine. Nothing a good hangover can't fix. You still have any of that West Land booze around?"

4.

"I heard you have the hots for Yamanaka."

The bar was loud enough to drown most of Anko's words but Genma caught on, read the cues from the lines of her smirk and flash of white teeth. "Yeah, sure. Inoichi's looking really sexy lately."

Raidou snorted, choked on his sake and coughed as if to dislodge a lung. Genma grinned.

Anko surged into his personal space and he fought the urge to flinch under the knowing, savage look in her eyes. She was sharper when intent on something, almost carnivorous in her persistence and her fingernails dug into his arm. Genma had a premonition of doom when Anko pulled back, tongue sneaking over her lower lip.

"Interessssting."

5.

Ino peeled off the bandage in slow, deliberate circles and smiled when Genma flinched. "Hurt?"

"Like a bitch," he grunted through clenched teeth as a fresh ripple of pain erupted across his arm.

He didn't think it was a big deal and had been sent on a week-long mission into the jungles (why couldn't missing nin pick a classy hotel for a hideout for once) only to discover that the pain had worsened somewhere between the tracking and elimination of subject. He walked into the Torture and Investigation wing just in time to catch Ino at the beginning of her shift. There was that Inuzuka kid with her, which was odd because Inuzuka didn't really have any business being there in the first place. When she came back to her office, she was alone and looking just a fraction too pleased about something. To his question, her response ran something along the line of 'offering necessary sacrifice to the lesser of two evils'. Mental cases, these Yamanakas.

Ino unwound the last few centimetres and dropped the stained bandage into a bin under the table. "Of course you'd know." She leaned over to get a closer look at the angry red lesions raised along the edge of the wound. "When did you get this?"

Uh oh. Genma knew that Tone. "Last week?"

"And you sutured it yourself?"

"Yeah." He shrugged when Ino threw him the Look. Apparently, he was getting the whole 'Highly-Disapproving Ino' package. The fact that she was a medic first before she was – well, whatever she was under Ibiki – had almost always slipped Genma's mind. "It didn't look so bad."

"It probably wasn't," Ino scoffed. She headed for one of the cabinets, pulled out a bottle of clear liquid and some swabs. "But now it is. I'm going to clean the wound and dress it again. It's just a minor infection but you still have to be careful for a couple of days. Okay?"

"I'm still clear for… ah, strenuous activities though?" He hinted just the correct amount of smarminess to underline his words. Smarmy came easy to Genma. Smarmy was familiar. "The ladies miss me, you know."

Genma stifled a grin as Ino glanced at him from underneath soot-black lashes in reproach, looked properly chastised just to appease her for the moment. She set to work immediately, hands moving in that fluid grace he had come to appreciate about her. Her skin was unblemished and her fingertips were lightly calloused, more practised in the arts of seeking information through gentler (if crueller) means than the harsh nature of cold, biting steel. Genma tore his attention away from Ino once he realised the beginning of a heavy ache settling somewhere within his ribcage (whoa back off; dangerous territory there, old man) and cast a sweeping glance around her office to distract himself. The window had been flung open to admit fleeting breeze whispering through the curtain, a see-through material printed with colourful abstracts. There was a vase of carnations on her desk and their petals of bright red and orange made him think of fire. The air was lightly scented, a pleasant reminder of spring and her favourite perfume. For a T&I office, Ino's was inexplicably (and perhaps ironically) cheerful.

"What time is your break?"

"Why?"

"Let's have lunch together."

She paused and her eyes flickered to Genma for a second. "I can't. I promised Toru."

Genma acknowledged her answer with a slight displeased curl of lips and leaned back against the chair, counting the various ways to methodically dismember a man while keeping the heart and brain alive.

6.

Raidou stared at Genma and half-sighed, half-scoffed. "Come in. I hope you brought your own goddamned booze this time around since I'm not gonna pay for your death spiral into alcoholism."

Genma cocked the two cases of beers he had lugged through the village and flashed Raidou a rueful grin. He toed off his sandals and followed Raidou to the kitchen, where a half-eaten bowl of udon was left on the counter next to several opened scrolls, a scatter of scribbled notes. Genma gave the papers a cursory glance and picked out different sets of seals flanked by Raidou's untidy handwriting, as well as diagrams on elementals reaction to chakra. The owner came back after a few seconds, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and wore a resigned look on his scarred face when he realised Genma was still there.

Genma wasn't sure whether to roll his eyes or punch Raidou's teeth in. He settled on neutral ground and popped a can open instead.

"One hell of a midlife crisis you've got here, buddy." Raidou observed conversationally after his (Genma's) seventh beer. Raidou had always been a chatty drunk. He took another long swig, drops of condensation staining his fingers. "You know what your problem is?"

"No. But I bet you're gonna tell me."

"Your problem is that you're pissed off. Because someone else stole your toy."

"Ino is not my toy, asshole."

"You played around with her all the time and then some boy puts his grubby hands all over her. She likes it. You don't. Which is why you're here, sulking and being pissy as hell."

Genma wasn't drunk enough to handle epiphanies courtesy of a drunk Raidou so he intentionally-accidentally pour beer on Raidou's carpet. "Fuck you."

Raidou nodded and his grin was toothy, shark-like when he slurred, "I'm sure I can find a chuunin who's down with that."

7.

Ino sat on the edge of the couch, a blanket draped around her shoulder and her discarded clothes folded neatly on his coffee table. She had wrapped her slender arms around her knees and pulled them against her chest, cradling her face in the tiny crevice between her kneecaps. Her legs were one of her features and Genma took several perverse seconds to enjoy the view. He hadn't seen her in nearly a fortnight; Ino proved to be strangely elusive when she wanted to and Genma wasn't about to waste his time playing a game of cat-and-mouse. Ino would come to him when she was ready, when she wanted to and true enough, there she was. It felt like a homecoming of some sort, bizarre, and Genma realised with uncomfortable clarity that he had missed her.

"He called me a whore."

Genma frowned. Her voice was loud against the silence. "What are you talking about?"

"Toru. His uncle's a jounin and he found out—" Ino shrugged, creating ripples of gold over near-translucent skin. It made her look ethereal, nigh untouchable. "It doesn't matter. I guess you're right."

"Your information's supposed to be classified."

She shrugged again and underneath that calm, unperturbed façade, Genma saw something that looked too much like cynicism. Too old for someone too young. "I just thought it would be nice." She smiled at him over the curve of her shoulder and it was a poor imitation of the real thing. "To fall in love."

That wasn't love, Genma thought. The old ache was back, thousandsfold. It was never love.

"Come back to bed," Genma said instead. Because some things were better left unspoken. He reached out and carded his fingers through her hair, fingertips grazing the back of her neck. Her shoulder blades. The raised bumps of her spine, sharp and brittle under the skin. "It's cold out here."

Ino's sigh echoed loud and desolate in the space between them.

8.

It was easy for Genma to find the jounin. An arrogant old-timer who was stuck doing menial missions and patrol duties, with a mouth loud enough to compensate for his numerous failings. He was lucky to have lived long for a ninja, unlucky to have shared information that was not his to share. Genma took a step forward and Raidou looked at him in alarm, hand reaching out to grab Genma's arm.

"You're gonna do something stupid, aren't you?"

"Yeah." He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Pretty much."

Raidou relinquished his hold, brows furrowing. It was either from derision or exasperation; Genma couldn't tell and didn't care. "You're in way too deep. She's just another kunoichi."

Genma paused, considered what his long-time best friend had just said and shrugged. Ino had slept in his arms like a mannequin bent out of shape, her eyelashes wet against his neck and the memory was enough to make his blood simmer in that slow, familiar heat that came right before a particularly satisfying hunt. He clapped a hand over Raidou's shoulder.

Just another kunoichi, huh?

"Not anymore."

9.

"Kunoichi like you," he said, rolling the senbon from one corner of his mouth to another. Slowly, leisurely. "Can't afford to fall in love."

Ino blinked and there's a spark of defiance lurking behind those frost-blue eyes, as if he had just dared her to do something she already thought of doing. Her face remained impassive when she nodded, polite to mask the microscopical slip. "I understand, sensei."

"Love is going to complicate things. You're in no position for complications."

She inclined her head, just a slight tilt and regarded him quietly. "And you, sensei?"

"What?"

"Do you fall in love?"

Genma looked up from her personal folder spread over his lap and stared at the slip of a girl in purple across him. She returned his scrutiny with a hint of a smile painted in cherry-red.

"No, Yamanaka. I don't fall in love."

10.

"You lied, sensei."

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END

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