Awkward Situation

Setting: Because every pairing needs an arranged marriage plot. Ino thought that by saying yes, she had agreed to go out with Uchiha Sasuke... instead, she finds herself married to his boring older brother. Alternate Universe, modern Japan.

Well… this was an awkward situation to be in, right? Ino had never really thought she would be married by the end of the day, but here she was, waiting for her husband (she'd never get used to calling him that) to come into their adjoining bedroom and uhh… see her face? How she had got dropped into this mess, she didn't know. Actually, she did. It was all Sasuke's fault. As usual.

Her husband was nowhere to be seen for now.

Ino looked around the room, almost bored to tears because she could guess the nerd-level of Sasuke's elusive older brother who was apparently a Tokyo University graduate and just plain incredible. She fell back on the bed; her arms stretched out like wings and flapped about in her ceremonial kimono. Yeah… that was her wedding. In a Kimono. Also Sasuke's fault. The things she agreed with to that sneaky brat.

"Ino… do you want to get married?" He had asked her one day, surly expression on his face, no ring, no smiles and no flowers.

"Ahahah, of course, Sasuke-Kun!" She had agreed, because that was about as close to a confession as he could probably give after years of knowing him. She had asked him out a few years back, but she hadn't expected him to fall for her like that.

"Good. Wear a kimono, dinner's at nine."

What a strange way to ask her out! But she was so happy, she missed anything else he said and simply nodded along because he'd given her the time and the venue and even a dress code. What else was there?

Unfortunately, instead of the romantic dinner she had imagined with Sasuke, the fair-haired girl had been ushered into a room, signed some documents as she was fed a variety of dishes and hugged by a huge number of crying females. She could barely remember that night, but she did have a clear memory of that extraordinarily beautiful woman, Sasuke's mother, who had come and embraced her and said she was really happy that her son was married and wasn't Ino a lucky, lucky girl?

Ino had just stared into the stern eyes of Sasuke's dad and smiled weakly and said 'of course!'

At first, she had thought that this was how every Uchiha dated. They were a very traditional bunch (I mean a Kimono on a first date, come on?), but then it slowly dawned on her that this wasn't just a mock-up... it was the real thing. She had been far too stunned to do anything about the realisation because by that time, she had been shoved into a Japanese style bedroom and an awkward situation.

Finally, she could hear footsteps outside his room (because her room would obviously have more taste and character) and sat up, attempting to smooth the rumples that had bunched up around the obi and stared at the door. She could see a shadow behind the rice paper, her heart thumping in anticipation as she would finally get to see the mysterious brother's face.

And then the shadow walked away!

"Oi!" she found herself blurting out, already stressed from the weird events of the day and jumped off the bed, the only modern thing about the room, before marching down to pull the door apart. "Hey! We need to talk!"

The man, also dressed in a yukata, stiffened momentarily before pausing. Finally he exhaled and nodded, causing Ino to drift away from the corridor, satisfied that he would be returning back to the room to continue their conversation inside.

He hadn't really wanted to approach this subject until morning, but since she had requested his presence, no doubt seeking answers, he complied. The dark-haired man slid the door closed behind him as he entered, so that the pair could have some semblance of privacy. His 'wife' was currently pacing the length of their room, muttering things under her breath and huffing at her hair every now and then.

"This was the dumbest wedding ever and you know it! It obviously doesn't count! I want a divor-" she whirled around to face him, her finger pointed at him almost accusingly but her eyes had widened in surprise. Ino couldn't believe it.

Her husband was hot!

As in reeeaaally hot!

She had only ever seen Sasuke's brother a handful of times, all when she had been little and her memory failed to provide her a time where she had thought that pale, sickly-looking boy would ever grow up to look like that. Wide, lovely black eyes with picket fence lashes, smooth skin and mild lips, a beautiful face framed by dark hair – that was the man she had married. Ino's anger melted and she could feel acid sloshing in her stomach.

"I really do apologise for this, Yamanaka-San," he began, closing those arresting eyes of his and speaking in calm and measured tones. "Of course we will submit the paperwork tomorrow for our divorce."

For some reason, Ino wasn't as happy to hear about divorce coming from him, even though she had been fuming about it earlier. Her brow twitched. "A bit quick to talk about divorce, isn't he? What, does he think I'm not good enough or something?"

"I will settle everything and make sure this does not occur again as you should not have become involved in this arrangement at all," he continued, almost as if he had rehearsed this- which he probably had.

"You have nothing to worry about, Yamanaka-San."

"But you do… don't you?" Ino wanted to interrupt him as she glanced at the stress lines that added immeasurable weariness to an otherwise flawless face. But she didn't, he was talking about the procedure for divorce and how long it would take and she really ought to listen. Not listening was what had put her in this dilemma in the first place. And so she nodded, agreed that it was far too late to go home right now, so would return during the day. Ino watched him walk away, touched that he respected her space enough and gave her his room to go outside to sleep. He wouldn't even take his blanket.

She attempted to wake up early, because Ino deemed that it would be best to avoid any morning awkwardness and so was up by 5 AM. She tiptoed out of Sasuke's house, into the courtyard and was hitching up her robes to climb up the wall and run out into the streets when a voice stopped her.

"You look ridiculous," came the familiar drawl and Ino whipped around, her eyes narrowing as she found the owner of the voice to be none other than Uchiha Sasuke.

"YOU!" She shrieked, but then quickly lowered her voice into a hiss, "you! Sasuke-Kun! You set me up for this! How could you?! If you didn't want to date me, you should've said so!"

Sasuke simply stared up at her, barely amused at the sight of the usually graceful florist with silken robes hitched up to her thighs, one leg already swung over the wall, whilst the other dangled into the Uchiha courtyard, an accusing finger jabbed at his face.

"At least this cleared up one thing. You're not a very nice boy, you know that? I don't ever want to see you, EVER again!"

Sasuke refrained from telling her that she'd said ever twice.

"It'll be a bit hard to avoid me, dear Sister-in-law," he smirked. Sasuke closed his eyes and jammed the little earbuds into his ear before opening the door and setting out for his morning run, reminding her that it would take a while to process her divorce papers and that during that time, she was legally married to Uchiha Itachi!

Meanwhile, Ino was left, sitting on the wall like she was on a motorbike only to be found by Sasuke's father.

Awkward.