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Ino is pretty sure there is someone out there who would tease her for being the one getting the flowers, being the woman, giving it to the man. But for once, she cannot bring herself to care.
It's a small bouquet, neat and tidy and all light, pastel sort of colours. She lets the smell wash over her and trudges through Konoha's streets with purpose.
The wind whistles by her, rustling fragile flowers and she pauses a moment, covering the bouquet with a careful arm, blocking enough of the wind to not cause any damage.
It takes her breath away sometimes, when she thinks about what she would be prepared to do for Sai that Ino of a year ago would never dream of.
It all seems trivial now, with Sai in mind, it's easy to fall into thoughts of what she could do for him that would make him happy, that make his mouth twitch up at the corner when he wants to genuinely trying to smile and doesn't know how to pull off the follow through.
It makes her smile thinking about him, trying to make her happy when he barely understands the emotions in himself, let alone the emotions in her, but is willing to take all the time to learn.
He had drawn her a picture a week ago. Her, as a young girl, academy age, black and white and hints of yellow that ran through with a careful hesitance of someone who was unused to the splash of colour across the page. Tentative exploration of something new.
Your mother, Sai had said, quiet and clumsy off his tongue like the word mother was not something he'd said before, she said you were a lively child. She showed me some pictures.
The flowers sway in the wind again, but she is nearly at Sai's apartment. She rounds a corner, tries to picture her mother and Sai occupying the same space and knows conceptually they would never get along, but against all the natural odds, have gotten along like a house on fire. Something to do with a shinobi mother, a shinobi family, she thinks. A civilian parent would be terrified. Sai's blank stares, he moves like a tiger - a predator. He wouldn’t be easy to like without some understanding of being a shinobi, even if Ino and no one else in Konoha with anything below a top secret security clearance understands anything at all what Sai went through under ROOT.
She can see his growth though, and she'll admit it only to herself, and to Sai in the safety of a shared bed and under the cover of darkness that she's so fucking proud of him.
She knows he won’t expect this gift. He never expects anything from her, like each act of kindness is something entirely new no matter how many times it happens.
Sai’s building looms up ahead. It’s the same one he’s had since he was assigned to their team by Danzou. The paint is peeling from the walls, and it’s cripplingly small, but it’s the one constant thing that Sai’s had since… since everything.
One day she’ll convince him to move in with her.
She comes to the staircase, darts up it, two at a time, careful of the thirteenth step that probably wouldn’t hold the weight of anyone over 10 kilograms.
She walks along the balcony, approaching Sai’s door and knocks, three times in quick succession, two times slower, half a second apart. He’ll know it’s her, even though he probably sensed her presence long before she reached the door.
He pulls it open, naked surprise on his face in the subtle tilt of his head, eyebrow quirked as she extends the flowers to him, another hand sneaking into his, interlacing between his own cold fingers.
She’ll savour all these little moments; she won’t let them slip by.