I have a dream
There are many things in this world that I find superfluous. Dreams for example are one of those things. It has been said than men without dreams are hopeless and destined to fail in life – I really don’t think so.
A lot of the behaviors our recent society portrays are perfectly understandable if one considers the circumstances under which they started to develop. I cannot say that I don’t find them perfectly retarded and unnecessary but neither can I rub my findings about it into people’s faces. In this world, I am an outsider, even though the vast rest is the one behaving stupidly.
“What do you mean you’re not much of a day dreamer?” Ino asks amused.
“I’m just not” I answer calmly and lie back on the grass.
“Then what do you do the whole day? When you’re not actually dreaming, that is…”
I sigh. “I think.”
“See?”
“There’s quite a difference between thinking and day dreaming, Ino. Day dreaming is usually not very reality attached” I reply but the blonde doesn’t seem satisfied.
“So what do you think about then?”
I don’t know why that should be any of her business. Can’t she just mind somebody else’s life?
I reach into my pocket and pull out a rectangular metal box and a lighter.
Slowly, I open the little box and take a cigarette out of it. I leave the metallic case upon my chest and draw the cigarette to my mouth until I finally light it.
“You’re starting to seriously get on my nerves, you know?” I say and she lies back exhaling angrily.
“Do I look like I care?”
You actually do, it crosses through my mind but I’d rather spare me the trouble that it would bring along if I should say it aloud.
Both of us are quite for a while until Yamanaka turns to her side to face me.
“Don’t you feel sad about it?”
I raise an eye-brow: “Should I?”
“Well”, she begins, “it is kind of sad tha-“
But I break her off: “Rhetoric, Ino. I don’t precisely care to know.”
Furiously, the blonde girl sits up and looks down at me: “Well, cope with it, mister! It’s sorry, you know? What kind of a world would this one be if we didn’t have dreams?”
A disappointment-free one, I think but don’t want to tell.
Why should I even bother to explain? It’s not like I’d get anywhere with it.
Ino sighs loudly before she carefully lies back down.
“It just transmits a certain psychological stability…” she explains.
“Not to me, it doesn’t.”
The blonde hits my stomach and my abdomen tightens in response.
“You’re such an insensitive jerk, Shika!”
Instead of showing me any other kind of dislike as she would usually do, Ino draws closer to me and reaches out to the cigarette packet.
Abruptly I snatch her hand and she gives a dull screech: “God, what’s wrong with you?”
“What makes you think you’re getting one?” I ask annoyed.
“Fine! Jesus, talk about vices… Do I at least get a drag?”
I look at her incredulously: “Look, if you want to smoke, get your own puff or find someone else who’ll give you some!”
A bit stressed I inhale the substance and reluctantly blow it out again. Ino has sat up and now looks at me with her typical what-the-fuck-expression.
I’d just prefer to leave her like this. I wouldn’t mind all that much if she’d stand up and leave. Yet somewhere I do.
“I’m not going to be the one who gives you a smoke, Ino. That’d be irresponsible.”
Even though she called me “Idiot!”, looked at me madly, and knocked the metal case off my chest, she now rests her head down on it instead, satisfied.
We lie on the grass field, quietly, and I eventually finish smoking my cigarette. When I put the box back to my pocket and Ino doesn’t react, I realize that she’s fallen asleep.
I can’t understand how fantasizing about a marriage with Sasuke Uchiha can stabilize her mentally, when he doesn’t seem to care for her at all. Neither can I understand Sakura on the same subject.
I close my eyes and breathe out heavily. Maybe I don’t like to hope for things because all around me I see how those get crushed. How does the idea of a better life help me deal with this one?
My rationality has actually helped me to weigh out my future and to prepare for it.
I have wished that Asuma was alive a few times after his death, and I can assure that that did not let me handle his passing away well.
Also, I have had a crush on Temari and wished that I could love her but I knew that my feelings for her would eventually fade away. She is a very attractive young woman, very talented and clever, too. I won’t say that we don’t have our disagreements but all in all we match very well.
Time has passed, and Ino hasn’t moved one bit. I just lie here; listen to the renewed life that arises when spring begins. Twice I find myself waking up from a few minutes during which I might have fallen asleep, and realize that I did so because of some kid’s laughter further away from us.
Eventually, I carefully move my arm upwards until I gently caress through Ino’s hair so that she wakes up.
The girl takes hold of my shirt in response and yawns silently.
“Come on, I’ll walk you home” I say and slowly sit up with her.
On our way to the Yamanaka residence, Ino tells me about recent happenings in the village and a few other things that I find rather uninteresting.
She doesn’t let go off my arm and some passing children who might know us randomly look at us funny.
At some point, and I couldn’t quite make out when, she gets serious and tells me: “I miss you a lot, you know?”
At that I look down at her in surprise.
“It’s not like I’m gone for that long…”
“Are too!” she says and lets go off me unconsciously.
When I reach out for her hand she takes mine without really thinking about it.
It’s weird. This kind of physical contact between us was unnatural just a few months back but now it all seems quite normal.
Repeatedly, silence spreads between us and again it is Ino who breaks through it: “Don’t you ever wish that things were… different?”
“Sometimes” I reply and swallow hard, “But usually, I just calculate how something is most likely to turn out and learn to deal with it.”
“Well, what about sex?”
I smile a little: “What about it?”
“Don’t you ever wish for something in that subject?”
“I don’t consider them to be wishes but more like… urges” I answer sincerely, “Something that can’t be controlled by a rational mind. And it’s not like I’m in serious need of getting any.”
“Right”, she murmurs, “So, you’re still with Temari then?”
Now I look at her again, displeased, and automatically pull out my cigarette package. Situations like these make me want to feel nicotine pump through my body. How in the world did she go from sexual desires to that?
“Why would I ever be with Temari?” I ask huffishly.
Now the blonde’s the one who seems astonished: “Well, I thought-“
“Wouldn’t I have told you by now?”
This really bugs me. You’d think that she knows me well enough to at least be sure that she would find out about something like this!
Rattled, she shrugs her shoulders.
To light the cigarette, I let go off her hand and she suddenly stands still.
“Are you mad or something?”
Once again, I inhale the smoke into my lungs.
I walk on a few feet until I stand in front of the Yamanaka’s entrance door.
“I guess I am.”
Ino slowly moves towards me and stops inches before me.
“I just… I get the feeling that you keep a lot of things to yourself, Shika. Especially from me. I wished it wouldn’t be that way! I care about you, you know?” she temporarily halts in her speech, looks at me, and I hesitantly nod, “I tell you things; although I know that you don’t really care about stuff like that. It’s just that…”
“Ino, shut up!” I exclaim, “Just shut up, please!”
I suppose I just hurt her feelings but I know that she understands because after looking baffled, she kindly smiles, grabs me by the collar and kisses me on the cheek.
“Thanks for not letting me smoke.”
Then she goes inside, hastily saying “See you tonight” before closing the door behind her.
***
I feel bad about how I left her. I can’t help but worry about her and that has been this way for as long as I can remember. That’s why I now stand in her doorway while Mr. Yamanaka opens the door.
“Shikamaru! Long time no see! How have you been doing in your new home, son?”
I smile politely: “Pretty well. Thank you for asking, sir.”
He guides me to the living-room and demands that I have a seat. He addresses me about my studies and tells me about a conversation he has had with my father not that long ago.
“So, you’re here to pick up my daughter, I suppose?” he eventually asks.
Before I can reply, he makes a few steps towards the stairway and shouts: “Ino, Shikamaru’s here! Don’t you let him wait, darling!”
Then he turns to me again: “Well, it was certainly nice to see you again, son. I do hope to see you once more before you’re off again but now I’ve got to leave myself! We’re invited for dinner at the Akimichi’s as you might very well already now, since your parents will be attending as well.”
We bid our farewells, Mr. Yamanaka even does so with Ino by yelling a “Goodbye, sweetcheeks!” up the stairs and he and Mrs. Yamanaka leave the house; not before the Lady and I have gone through the formalities too, of course.
I exhale relived once they’re gone, and sit around for a while longer.
After almost twenty minutes have passed, I start to wonder and go upstairs.
With every step, the music withdraws louder into my hearing.
I knock at her door and shortly after I perceive a “Come on in, I need to ask you something anyways!”
When I open the door I see Ino from behind, just wearing bra and thong.
“Mom, do you think that I could borrow your black heels? You know, the ones with the peep-toes?”
“Uhm...” I stammer, “Not your mom, Ino.”
The girl abruptly turns around, facing me, gives a high screech and uncoordinatedly grabs for something to cover herself.
“For god’s sake! What in the world are you doing here, you perv?!”
“Perv? Your parents left, I thought you’d expect it to be me!”
“They did? And when did you even get here?”
“I guess you just didn’t realize with the music and all that. Should’ve known, since you didn’t answer once.”
For a moment or so, only the music plays until she says: “Well, could you leave?”
“Oh, sure! I’m the one with the trusting-issues but you don’t mind if Chouji sees you like this while you do when it’s me? I’ve known you just as long as he has, remember?”
She wraps the silky cloth tighter: “It’s not the same with you!”
I sigh annoyed but leave. Nothing but trouble that woman!
The stereo is being turned off and after a few seconds she opens the door again, this time she has got a robe on.
“Come in, I got to tell you something, Shika.”
I walk back in and sit down on the edge of her bed.
“Just… let me get some clothes on. I should definitely have clothes on when I tell you.”
She grabs a few things, disappears in her bathroom and comes out again, minutes after.
“Why were you mad when I asked you about Temari?” she asks instantly after she’s come out.
“Weren’t you the one who wanted to tell me something?”
“Shika,” she pleads, “please, just tell me!”
“I don’t want to tell you yet, Ino! But I’m not mad anymore, really. In fact, I’ve come to pick you up to sort of apologize. And it wasn’t because of Temari. Well, it was but it was especially because of the ‘not caring’ thing.”
Ino groans and starts tidying up her room.
“I figured that” she says, “It’s just… you two are so close, and you know, with our fight and all… Maybe you felt uncertain about telling me.”
“I would have hoped to be with her” I reply after a while and she looks at me, not even trying to hide the disappointment, “She’s hot, smart and most of all uncomplicated; in the long shot, that is. Unlike you.”
She gasps offended, so I stand up and draw her closer to me by pulling on her wrists.
“In reference to the ‘uncomplicated’ part, silly.”
She seems irritated and blushes before freeing herself from me, sitting down on the chair in front of her desk.
“I think I love you, Shikamaru.”
“What?”
“It’s weird” she mildly smiles, “It took me Sasuke’s going forth, your college at the other end of the country, your thing with Temari, and about seventeen years to realize. I’m sorry.”
I grin: “What for?”
“Well, mostly for myself.”
“This is such a drag” I suspire deeply, “I think I’ve loved you my whole life.”
“You…” Ino’s blue eyes widen, “you have?”
“Yeah, that’s why I got mad. It’s unbelievable that you haven’t noticed! And judging by your reaction you haven’t done so up until now. “
“No, I definitely haven’t…”
“Didn’t even have a clue, huh?”
She smiles and slowly shakes her head. I silently laugh. She’s turned completely red and doesn’t even dare to look at me. So I stand up and take her hand: “Let’s go, the others might be waiting.”
She grabs a handbag and we walk down, she locks the door once we leave.
None of us says anything on our way to the restaurant where some of our former classmates have decided to meet and catch up.
Shortly before we arrive, she suddenly stops, pulling me back a bit.
“Didn’t you ever dream about us kissing?”
Her tone is alluring and yet mocking at the same time. I wheeze amused.
“I did, actually” and once again, she takes me by the collar and pulls me down to her until our lips meet.
Well, there are exceptions to the rule! And thank god for that.
