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"Aburame Shino."
"Here."
"Abashi Tenma."
"Hai Sensei."
Yamanaka Ino took in a series of deep breaths as she decided to calm herself.
She was a member of the Yamanaka Clan which prided itself in its mind arts, and as such, she, as well as numerous others privy to the intricacies and delicacies of the clan's workings were expected to keep a level head, and to calmly analyze any and all scenarios which came before her.
The Jonin you would find angrily snarling as he kicked a stone down the street and brandished his kunai at any minor offence was more than often, troubled, and his temporary anger which he displayed was not an enduring personality trait, but rather, more than likely it was a standalone feature that had arose due to external circumstances.
"Hyuga Hinata."
"H-hai sensei."
"Inuzuka Kiba."
"I'm here sensei!"
"Arf! Arf!"
Her father had taught her more than once, to always keep an eye on the people around her, as that was how you knew the 'good' shinobi from the 'bad' ones, and it was always best to avoid getting on the bad sides of certain individuals who may or may not be deemed 'unstable'.
He had also told her, not to judge others, as well as to avoid having any undue prejudice against people, because no one existed with their entire life stories trailing behind them, and as such, they all had different reasons or motivations for one thing or another.
This of course, did not mean that Yamanaka Ino was able to take all that advice to heart, especially when it did her absolutely no damned good.
"Uchiha Sasuke"
"…here."
"Uzumaki Naruto."
Silence.
"Uzumaki Naruto?"
Ino did her best to try and remain unflappable, desperately fighting the urge to shrink into her seat with all vehemence.
Of course, the dog-breath just had to have noticed it, as Kiba gave her what she easily considered to be the sixth most irritating grin in existence, as he spoke up.
"Naruto still hasn't shown up for class Mizuki-sensei!" the canine enthusiast yelled out, once more speculating the rumors that went flying around the class.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah! It's been three weeks since we had to deal with the orange idiot! Ha! I guess we have you to thank for that Ino!"
Once more, Ino resisted the urge to shrink as the eyes of everyone in the class fell upon her.
Sasuke-kun was staring at her!
He was actually looking her direction, which, on any other occasion, would have made her feel giddy with joy, but his eyes were not looking at her in the same way she would have wanted him to.
Of course, she was Yamanaka Ino, so despite her own inner thoughts, she ensured, meticulously, that her own body language and outward appearance constantly maintained the aura and look of someone who was utterly self-assured, utterly confident, and did not, for even the briefest of seconds doubt herself.
"I don't know what you're on about mutt-face!"
He growled.
"Yeah right! You think we didn't hear 'bout how the blond knucklehead asked you out and you turned him down flat cold?"
The mumbles and rumors were spreading to a level she did not find herself particularly comfortable with.
"So? He asks forehead over there out on a daily basis, and she turns him down all the time!"
Said pink-haired bimbo let out a shout of indignation at being called 'forehead' that Ino promptly ignored.
"Well 'cept she never turned him down hard enough for the idiot to just up and vanish for three weeks! Hell, I haven't even seen him around the ramen stand that he loves like it's his mother!"
Correlation does not equal causation, Ino had wanted to say, but she restrained her tongue from emitting the initial consonant because she knew that it would go over Kiba's head, and more importantly than that, it would only either mean that Shikamaru had been rubbing off on her more than she would like, or that she was another nerd like forehead-girl.
"And how is any of this my fault? For all we know, he could have just woken up one day and decided to drop out!" Ino argued, her voice laced with frustration.
But as she spoke, her mind replayed the events that followed her rejection of Naruto. He had come to school the next day, seemingly unaffected, which had initially eased her guilt. However, when he abruptly stopped showing up, her relief turned to concern. Each day, she found herself hoping he was just sick or skipping school, anything to suggest his absence wasn't because of her.
Even as she tried to convince herself otherwise, a nagging feeling tugged at her conscience, making her wonder if her words had indeed played a role in his decision to leave.
Ino clenched her fists, her frustration growing.
Why does my mind always go back to that orange idiot and that stupid conversation after I rejected him?!
"Geez I don't get you," Kiba said, scowling "It's not like the knucklehead ever had any real hopes of becoming a shinobi, and I'm sure even Academy Teachers have tried more than once to get him to quit – but you managed to pull it off with a few words, so why the hell won't you take the credit?"
Yamanaka Ino blinked, then rapidly resisted the urge to yell and instead bit the inside of her cheek.
Take the credit?
She was supposed to be proud of harshly turning down Naruto's enthusiastic, bubbly request for a date?
To feel accomplished that she had shot down someone's confident advances, when there were numerous hopeless romantics out there who would never even possess a shred of that same courage to brazenly ask out someone they fancied?
She stared at Kiba, wondering if the boy even fully understood the implications of what he was saying, and she sorely doubted that he did.
What she found doubly disconcerting however, was that there were numerous other people in the class, who for one reason or another, actually shared in Kiba's sentiments.
For kami's sake, no matter how annoying or how bright or how obnoxious Naruto was, the boy had done literally nothing wrong for people to feel completely vindicated by the fact that he was potentially heartbroken enough to stop coming to school.
But she did not voice that.
No.
She was not a person easily cowed by peer pressure, but she was a person who cared about her image.
The knuckleheads around her would one day in nearest future possibly be her teammates that she would need to rely on in the field, and as such, it was best to move with the flow of the crowd, to be of the same mind regarding certain topics, and to ensure that she was not viewed too differently or ostracized.
Idly, her mind noted a lesson her father had once showed her, during one of their clan training sessions.
A brief experiment where he had brought up three kunai, two of them were twelve inches and one was eleven, and then showed it to a group of eight volunteers, asking them to pick the shortest.
Seven of the volunteers were in on the experiment, and all picked the wrong kunai, but the actual subject was confused, and he knew that the kunai picked was the wrong one, yet, in order to avoid being at odds with the group, went ahead and picked it anyway.
Yamanaka Ino was an impressionable twelve year old girl that would soon graduate and become a shinobi.
This was true, but she was also the daughter of Konoha's foremost Psychologist, who was the Head of Konohagakure's Torture and Interrogation Department.
She was the friend to a genius with an IQ of 200 that occasionally made rare quips and comments that belayed his extraordinary intelligence, despite his outwardly lazy persona.
Then, she the heiress of a clan that could casually stroll through your mind like a schoolboy galloping a field of flowers and make your tongue unleash your deepest desires.
Even without using their Clan techniques.
As such, Yamanaka Ino knew exactly what to do.
Slamming her hand on her desk, she twirled her hair, placed her hand on her hip and let out a huff, utterly turning away from Kiba's question.
Kiba's eyes narrowed, "So it's not that you don't want to take the credit! You just wanted us to make you think you didn't care! You were pretending all along weren't you?"
"Whatever makes you happy mutt-breath."
"Why you – "
Mizuki-sensei clapped.
"That's enough. Kiba, if you have any problem with Ino, take it out in Taijutsu practice. Assuming you can."
A collection of snickers went up at the room at the slight.
"It was one time Mizuki-sensei! I lost to her one time!"
Yamanaka Ino did not focus on any of this however, instead, her mind found itself begrudgingly drifting towards someone with blond hair and blue eyes.
Why had Naruto suddenly asked her out if he was supposed to be infatuated with Sakura?
Had he known what she was up to and then did it to save her face?
Was that why she found herself questioning her infatuation with Sasuke now and then?
She had doubted Shikamaru's words before about Naruto being different, adding up to another time the pineapple haired Nara had been right, and kami knew that if Shikamaru wasn't so lazy, half of their conversations would be filled with "I told you so".
Still it just didn't seem to fit.
If Naruto was changed, why was he the dead-last?
Did graduating and becoming as shinobi not matter to his interests?
She found herself biting on the edge of her pen and took in a deep breath.
It seemed like she knew what she was going to do after school today, solving the enigma that was Uzumaki Naruto.
Assuming she could find him.