Hey guys! Long time no see! Yeah, that's terrible of me. But the end of Naruto and the death of our hopes for being canon got me a bit down about writing ShikaIno. But *#% that, right? Who cares if it's cannon; we know it's best :P

Anyway, this theme came from a suggestion long ago, for a chapter to Ten Times Shikamaru thought about Kissing Ino. The prompt was ice cream, or Shikamaru watching Ino eat ice cream. I look a little bit of creative liberty with that, and here we are!

As you may know, I like to experiment with my writing - try new things. This time I delved into the rarely-used second person, as well as the also rarely-used present tense. I thought it would be an interesting way to tell a story - distant, but really, really close. Please tell me if you like it. Also, please let me know if you like the very, very end. I thought it might be a fun thought to end on. Again, I'd love to hear people's thoughts.

Above all though, I hope you enjoy. :)

Chapter 5

Theme: Ice Cream

We spent that week wide open,
Upside down beside the ocean;
I didn't know where it was going,
Just trying to keep my heart on the tracks.
I should have known that kind of feeling
Would last longer than that week did.
Blown away and barely breathing.
Sunday came and it was over…

Luke Bryan, "Roller Coaster"

She worked the ice cream cart on the beach in front of your parents' vacation house, blowing huge pink bubbles with her gum. You are there for the summer with your family but sunny days are few and far between this year. It's overcast, mild and rainy, and spending such a summer on the beach is the worst way to rub it in. But here you are.

You have been here since Friday and every day, without fail, the girl with the ice cream cart goes by. Against the murky sky, the ice cream girl stands out like a banner.

Her sun-bleached hair is always in a messy pony tail that whips about in the constant ocean breeze; she wears white bikini bottoms and a baggy orange shirt that reads Sunny's Ice Cream in yellow lettering, the color raucous against the grey of the overcast sky.

. . .

The weeks roll by, your parents urge you to make friends, to talk to the other kids your age. The only one you know in the neighborhood is Chouji. You go to the same college, live in the same dorm. His family has a beach house here too. Some days you sit and draw in the wet sand, or stare at the clouds. Once or twice you bury each other for fun. The boardwalk is fun, but there's not much else going on.

Then one day you decide to buy the two of you ice cream. You don't really feel like it, but it's something to do. Chouji agrees immediately. The girl with the sun-bleached hair glances your way as you jog towards her on the beach; her orange shirt billows about her.

"Chocolate for me, please." She makes the cone for Chouji wordlessly. Up close you can see that her eyes are as blue as the sky would be, if the sky weren't grey.

"Vanilla for me." She looks you over for quite a few seconds longer than necessary, and you get the distinct feeling that you are being sized up.

"Vanilla is so bland. There are ten flavor options. Why would you want vanilla?" You shrug.

"People think vanilla is just a base flavor – the absence of flavor, maybe – but it's not. Real vanilla is its own flavor. And I like it." You're not the type of person who ever cares enough to worry what other people think. But she stares at you for another long moment and something about it feels more colorful than anything else has so far in this muted summer. Chouji begins to fidget.

"Do you not have vanilla?" You aren't feeling anxious exactly, but the air is empty and she's got you somehow trying to fill it with words. That's pretty uncommon for you, honestly.

"No, we do. No one ever orders it is all." She reaches down into the freezer of her cart and scoops some into a waffle cone and hands it to you.

"Thanks – what do I owe you?" You reach for your wallet.

"Don't worry about it." She shrugs flippantly as she goes about shutting the lid on the freezer in her cart.

"Are you sure? I don't mind, I can pay."

"Nah, it's on me. I like you guys." You feel a bit flustered despite yourself.

She glances down at her wrist, and your eyes follow. Some of the vanilla ice cream got on her hand, and it's dripping diagonally down to her wrist. She lifts it to her mouth and licks it off in one long swipe of her tongue, head turning slightly as she does so. Something about it is fascinating to you. Not in a sexual way, per say, but in that same sort of slow-motion hypnotizing, way she had about her when you watched her other days, crossing the beach with her cart, a stamp of life against the surf. The whole picture she paints so effortlessly draws you in for reasons you have not deciphered.

You are staring.

"That's unsanitary," is all you say.

She barks out a laugh; "What, do you want your money back?" She grins at you, teeth flashing, and then turns and begins pushing her cart up the beach once more.

As she gets smaller and smaller up the beach, you wonder how she makes any money when there's hardly anyone out here, and you two just got yours for free.

The ice cream has begun to drip down your hand, and it reins your thoughts in.

. . .

The next day, late in the afternoon she finds you and Chouji on the pier, staring off into the dull grey sea.

"Hey, Vanilla!" You turn to see her running towards you, sandals pounding against the old wood, her voice cutting through the air over the sounds of the seagulls.

When she reaches you, you say, "It's Shikamaru." She's breathing just a little harder than normal and just nods, one hand on her hip, turning towards Chouji.

"Okay. Who's your friend?"

"I'm Chouji." He offers a timid wave.

"Thanks for the ice cream." He smiles at her, and she grins back.

"Yeah no problem."

Before you know it, she's plopping down between the two of you, and bombarding you with questions about yourselves.

It's unnerving how open she is willing to be with strangers. It's even odder that you reciprocate with hardly a though to it. (You won't realize this until later, however, when you are lying awake in bed with the salty smell of the ocean filling the air and the puzzle of her filling your mind.)

"Where are you from?"

"Konoha. It's three hours from here." The clouds are moving quickly across the sky. There's a fishing boat way out at see that appears to be getting rained on.

"I know where it is. Do you go to school?"

"We'll be starting our junior year at KU in the fall."

"What do you want to do?"

"My parents are both mathematicians. They want me to follow in their footsteps."

"He's really good at math." Chouji chimes in.

"I didn't ask what you parents wanted you to be." You turn to look at her, pulling your attention from the grey clouds above for nearly the first time since she sat down.

"I don't know." She seems to open up at that – in a way that you can't put your finger on, exactly. But you hold eye contact for a very long moment, and it's much less antagonistic than before. Not that before was that aggressive, but now it feels as though you're watching her change her mind.

Then she turns to Chouji and asks him the same things. He blushes a bit, most likely at the rapt attention of a pretty girl. The two of you tend to keep to yourselves at school. There hasn't been a pretty girl since… well since Temari. But you don't really feel like thinking about that. What a drag.

She tells you her parents are divorced. That her father lives inland, but she came with her mother to the coast when they split; she was a freshman at KU, but she left to go with her mom. She thinks she should have gone with her dad. She tells you she was in school to be a nurse; that she loves painting and dancing and floral arranging and thinks she could be really good at any of these things, if she wanted.

She says it's too late now, though: "If I started over now, it'll take four years of school. By then I'll be 26." You ask her how old she'll be in four years anyway, even if she doesn't go back to school.

She says shut up. You say okay.

Her legs swing back and forth off the edge of the pier, and one of her orange sandals falls. She watches it go, you and Chouji do too, and it hits the water with a splash you see but cannot hear.

"Oh no!" Chouji is on his feet. "We can go look for it! Come on, Shikamaru!"

But she doesn't move. She stares at the water contemplatively, before shrugging, and kicking off the other sandal too. You watch the second one fall, seeking out its mate in the dark water below.

Chouji stares for a moment, and then sits back down in silence.

. . .

She didn't tell you her name, and you somehow forgot to ask; you only realize right after she leaves.

It's Ino.

You track her down the next day to find this out, not even going to Chouji's first. You walk along the beach looking, but it doesn't take very long to find her.

When you approach her cart, your heart beats faster. Maybe it's guilt for not asking such a simple thing. You know she's an only child. You know she loves learning all the different meanings flowers can have. But you don't know her name.

"Oi," you call through the crashing surf instead. She turns from her cart at the sound of your voice. When she sees you a grin illuminates her face.

"Hey, Vanilla. Here for more ice cream? Won't be on the house this time." You scratch the back of your neck and feel particularly awkward.

"Uh, I don't know your name." Her smile grows a bit wider at that.

"No, I guess you don't." She crosses her arms and leans her elbows on the cart, her smile more of a smirk now.

"Would you want to tell me?" You feel warm for such a balmy day.

"Ino." You nod. Her baggy orange shirt has fallen off one of her shoulders and you realize she's wearing a swim suit top beneath it. Why this information feels surprising or relevant or why it even matters at all is beyond you. You knew she was wearing bikini bottoms, so of course she's wearing a bikini top. You're wearing a swim suit too, along with your t-shirt. This is the beach and your overthinking it is making things weird that aren't weird, so stop it and just say something.

"Gotcha." The silence feels overwhelming and you feel kind of dumb. Best to try again.

"What are you doing after your shift?" She straightens up again.

"My dance card it open. Why?"

"Dance card?" You don't know what that means.

"It's an expression. It means I'm free." That's what that means.

"Oh. Cool."

"Geeze Vanilla, you are so odd."

"It's Shikamaru."

"Shut up."

"Okay."

But she's been smiling this whole time, and she continues to do so as she adds, "You're lucky I like odd. Anyway, what's up?"

"Do you want to meet Chouji and me at the boardwalk?"

"Sure. We can meet at the Blue Dolphin Surf Shop. We'll go to the arcade and then grab dinner somewhere. I'll be there at three. Don't be late."

"Okay, cool. Sorry I didn't ask your name yesterday."

She brushes it off with a wave of her hand as she leaves, pushing her cart down the beach. You are weirdly fine with her bossing you around; it doesn't give you the itchy feeling it does when it's your parents. That may or may not be a good sign.

. . .

The three of you spend every day together after that. She tells you where you'll meet, and you and Chouji go with the flow. She takes the two of you places – dunes she knows, the old lighthouse, all sorts of places that tourists would never know to visit. And the three of you do nothing, but together. You talk about nothing-subjects. And it's fun. It goes on until it's time for Chouji to leave, two weeks later. He's not staying the whole summer like you. At the beginning you were a bit jealous. But now…

He's standing by his parents' car, facing you and her. She hugs him goodbye for a very long time. Longer than you think is necessary.

But soon Chouji's family is driving away, and Ino turns to you.

"Race you to the lighthouse, Vanilla." You are not a runner. You don't like running. But you like her. You even let her win.

You tell yourself it's because her losing would mean she'd pout and that would be troublesome. But if you're being honest, you just like the way she grins when she wins, out of breath, red in the face, messy blond hair everywhere in the wind. She looks full of feeling then – not the girl who gave up and threw her other flip-flop into the ocean.

. . .

One evening, when the sky is actually clear and the stars hang over the beach at dusk, the two of you head down and just lie in the sand. You ask her if she has a boyfriend. You've seen her once or twice talking to guys at the bar. You don't mean to ask, but the words come out before you think about them.

She sits up and looks down at you, the long, deep purples of twilight do just enough to mask her expression in shadow.

"I don't do boyfriends." What in the world is that supposed to mean.

You ask her exactly that. She tells you how inland guys visit plenty – they say she's special, they share lovely weeks together and then the men leave.

"Why would you want that?" You don't really understand. You think you want to.

"It's like all those girls in the country songs. People meet on vacation, and act like they're madly in love for a week. They're not. But it's sure fun to pretend that sort of thing. Then the week ends and the man leaves, and he dreams of her forever because that one week was perfect. She is his fantasy that he compares all things against and it doesn't matter if she's actually really bossy or crass or loud or anything, because for a week she was perfect."

She stretches her arms above her head, and you can see her white halter top rise up her torso in the fading light, the angles of her shoulder muscles drawing together. You think about how she is flesh and bone and blood and not a fantasy at all.

"I wouldn't really want to be someone's fantasy." The growing blackness surrounds you and you feel like being incredibly honest.

She says nothing and you decide this means you should go on.

"I'd rather get to know someone really well and be comfortable around them, instead of pretending to be someone else because you think that's who they want you to be. That sounds so troublesome."

"Okay, so then what if someone doesn't like the real you?"

"Then who cares. Don't hang out with that person." She's silent for a long moment.

"Do you like me, Shikamaru?"

The salty air is thick and warm; today was nicer than any day so far this summer. You think about telling her how you really feel. That you like her company infinitely more than anyone else's you've ever met. Instead you say something you think is far more worthwhile, "If I didn't, it wouldn't matter. That's the point. You don't have to be liked by everyone."

You can sense her lie down in the sand next to you again.

"Sometimes I feel like a lighthouse, you know?" Her voice is wistful. You don't know what being like a lighthouse feels like. You tell her that. She swats you in the arm.

"Shut up."

"Okay."

"It means that I feel so stationary, like I'm just stuck on this rock watching all the boats pass by."

You think about how similar the two of you are. Not doing what you want to do is just as bad as only doing what other people want you to do. Both will make you unhappy. Which of you falls under which heading is hard to tell. Perhaps the two of you are both.

"The thing is, I feel like I can tell you anything, Shikamaru. Like I don't have to pretend to be anyone else with you. Like you said. And that's cool."

You think that's pretty cool too. You think about how you like that she's bossy and loud and full of surprises. You don't say anything, but when you feel her hand brush against yours in the dark, you grab it without a second thought, and lace your sandy fingers with hers.

. . .

The weeks pass like this. You go everywhere together. You hold hands not infrequently. Your heartrate spikes every time.

You don't see her at the bar with guys anymore and you hope this is because of something more than just coincidence and timing. You tell her more and more about yourself. You tell her you think you'd like to be a strategist – maybe for the army – or maybe you'd like to work in law enforcement. You tell her you hate math. (You've never told anyone that you hate math.)

After a week of actual summer weather, the sky goes back to overcast as its default. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes you two get caught in it. She doesn't care at all. Some people might think that she would but she doesn't, even when her mascara runs under her eyes and she looks like a raccoon. You tell her that once and she laughs loudly before punching you in the arm really, really hard.

"Ass." But she doesn't move to fix it either.

One of those rainy days she takes you to an alcove cut into the stone by water and time. She's never brought you here before. She tells you she doesn't bring anyone here, ever.

The two of you have been there, sitting in silence and watching the rain for a very long time, shoulder to shoulder, the wet skin of your bare arms touching. She feels so warm; the overpresent humidity of the alcove verges on suffocating, but it also feels so insular – like the rest of the world doesn't exist. There is only her and only you.

"You are so different, Shikamaru." She has that wistful lilt to her voice again and the words rattle around inside of you; you feel like the churning sea. The rain pounds hard outside of your shelter and this feels more monumental than most anything else you've experienced in your young life. Internally you debate whether or not it's one of those moments that will stand the test of time, until you hear her voice in your head, telling you to stop overthinking everything. Just live, dummy.

"Are you ever going to kiss me?" You can't say anything at this, your tongue like a stone in your mouth. She blinks her large, blue eyes at you, the silence hanging in the thick, wet air. She huffs impatiently and says, "Fine."

And then, with a half-hearted smirk, she leans in towards you. You lean away almost instictively. The thought of kissing her is wondrous and terrifying. But how could you kiss her and leave? And yet, how could you leave and not kiss her?

Your thoughts pound through your head with the hard rhythm of your heartbeat and you feel a little nauseated as you watch her eyes narrow. Her expression takes on the overcast of the sky, an oncoming storm roils in her eyes. "Of course."

And she stands and goes out into the rain. No whirlwind, no tantrum, no fight. She takes the storm with her, and leaves you feeling windblown and empty and really, really stupid.

. . .

Two more weeks creep by, and every day you look for the ice cream cart but it doesn't come.

With only three days left of summer you can't imagine not seeing her. Even though you spend your days searching in all the places you've gone, she's vanished like a ghost, and the surf is still dark and tumultuous and grey.

One your second-to-last day you find one of her orange flip-flops in the surf. You wonder if it's the first one or the second one, and what that means, or if it means anything at all.

She lets you find her on your last day, hours to spare before your parents go. She's sitting in the sand, staring at the murky sea, just down the beach from your parents' place. Her back is to you and her messy pony tail whips about in the wind. The sight hurts it's so familiar; you don't realize how very much you needed to see her until you do.

"I haven't seen your cart."

"No one wants ice cream." Her voice is bitter and dismissive, and she does not turn.

"I'm sorry." The words come out desperate, but strong. You don't think you'll ever be able to express a feeling as honestly as you just did with that short statement.

She still doesn't turn around, and her reply is as flat and cold as stone.

"It's fine. I should have known better." The dark clouds over the water look more ominous by the second, and the wind whips harder about the two of you. After three months of dour weather, it's not like you both don't know what this sky has in store.

"I make the same mistake a thousand times. Like fucking yelling, 'ice cream' at people who don't want it."

Hard rain drops start to fall, spotting the sand around you. Her voice is so, so bitter and you must do something.

"I was scared." The words are nearly lost to the crashing waves.

"Of me?" You can see the tips of her fingers curl around her arms.

"No, of me. Of how alive I feel around you when you're really being you. Like the world could be grey, but you fill mine with color." If she thinks your words are sweet, she hides it well; even from behind you know she's rolling her eyes.

"You're one to talk: really being you. You do what your parents want, what Chouji wants, what I want, what everyone else wants. What the hell do you want? Do that!" She turns her head slightly in your direction and you take it as the best invitation you're going to get – even though she's shouting your own sentiment back at you – and you step forward, plopping ungracefully beside her.

"Well, since you told me to, I will." Her head whips around to face you. She holds your gaze, the wrinkle between her eyebrows staying put.

"Shut up."

"Okay."

But you lean towards her, and she doesn't pull away. You grasp her chin and pull yourself to her, your lips crashing against hers. Here is where all of the color has been all summer.

It's raining hard now, but that doesn't matter even a little bit. Not a lot matters right now; just her and you, her mouth on your mouth. You are both soaked through in minutes, but you haven't let go of her face, and she is grasping your t-shirt so tightly that you're pretty sure she's stretched it out. You really, really don't care.

Eventually, you break away.

"I still have to go."

"I know that."

"But you're not a lighthouse."

"Yeah well you're not a mathematician."

The rain beats down and the surf tosses against the bruised sky. You say goodbye with more feelings than words. It's not like a country song. It's not as poetic, and she's not perfect; neither are you. But it was real, and you feel what it's like to be yourself.

. . .

Perhaps you meet again, six months later, during the beginning of the spring semester. And you're running just a little bit late to class for ROTC. And she's stepping out of the art building, but you don't see her. Perhaps you run into each other quite literally, and your books and her paint supplies go sprawling everywhere. Perhaps you're more than a little bit late.

. . .

Or perhaps instead, you meet again in five years. And you're a cop with three broken ribs. And she's the one standing in the doorway of your hospital room, her hands gripping your chart so tightly that her knuckles are white, eyes locked on yours, "Vanilla" on her lips. Perhaps she reassigns herself as your permanent nurse.

. . .

Or perhaps it's Mother's Day, ten years later, and you take a lunch break from your job at the CIA to buy flowers to bring to dinner with your parents. Perhaps she drops the bouquet she's arranging when she sees you walk through the door of Yamanaka's Florist.

. . .

Perhaps you get married.

. . .

Perhaps you have two beautiful, healthy children.

. . .

Perhaps you grow old together.

. . .

I don't know.

But perhaps you do.

A/N: The one thing that I was afraid of when writing this was falling into the manic pixie dream girl stereotype. So I decided to take a stand against it, instead. Ino here feels like that's who she should be, because that's what people like. And it seems a bit true at first. But Shikamaru actually begins to like her the more he gets to know the real her. And Shikamaru falls in line because it's just easier to do what other people want him to do. I wanted it very much to be about them helping each other – a balance of sorts.

Let me know your thoughts!