Chapter 7: Ino-Shika-Cho

“Ino! Come down sweetie, your friends are here!” Fuyumi’s voice came filtering up through floor. Ino pulled on her brand new sky blue shirt which matched her eyes perfectly. 

 “Ok coming!” Ino returned, before checking one last time in the mirror, grabbing her bag and running downstairs. Waiting for her were Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Chōji, the friends she’d had from birth, regardless of whether or not she wanted them. 

 For reasons lost to time, the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi clans had for centuries worked together, both politically and in the field. That meant that if you were one of those three clans then you’d better learn to love your counterparts like siblings, because you weren’t escaping from them. Accordingly, their parents occasionally organized playdates for them. 

 “Hi Shika! Hi Chōji!” An excited Ino yelled as she hit the main floor. 

 “Hi Ino.” The two chorused back to her. 

 Ino liked Shikamaru and Chōji well enough, but they never really… did anything. They both had the ability to do nothing for hours which invariably drove Ino crazy by the day’s end. Today was shaping up to be a pretty typical day for them. They walked around for a while, eventually making their way to a park where Shikamaru promptly flopped on the ground and began staring at the sky. A companionable silence settled in, and eventually Chōji pulled out a bag of chips and Ino pulled out a book of characters and started trying to copy them onto paper. Yep. This was going to be her whole Saturday. 

 “I can’t believe you’re actually practicing writing on the weekend, in the middle of our playdate.” Shikamaru drawled, glancing over at Ino. 

 Ino snorted. “What, should I sit on my ass and stare at the sky all day instead? Or stuff my face with chips?” She instantly regretted the second statement. Chōji didn’t deserve that. But she really did want to help him lose weight… 

 “Leave Chōji alone Ino.” Shikamaru’s monotone was one of the few constants of the world. The sun, the stars, and Shikamaru’s voice, never changing. “There’s nothing wrong with relaxing on a weekend day.” 

 “You know, you two are never going to find girls to marry if you just sit around all day.” 

 Chōji finally jumped in, “But Ino we’re only five years old. Isn’t it a bit early to be worried about that? My mom says when I’m old enough I’ll find someone!” 

 “I’m gonna be six in a month!” Ino shot back. “And we’re shinobi kids, we don’t have time to grow up slow and lazy like normal kids!”

 “You know Ino,” Shikamaru tended to speak as slowly as one might speak to a 90-year-old who barely understood your language. “I’ve heard there are studies that say that ninja kids that grow up too fast go crazy, hurt those around them, and either get locked up or become missing-nin.” 

 “Psh what would you know about studies?” It was a pretty weak comeback and Ino knew it, but she could never bring herself to back down and apologize when it came to these two. 

 “Well… You know that our dads are best friends, right? I got lunch with them a couple weeks ago and they were talking about some Kiri kid who went nuts and killed all his classmates.” Shikamaru was never fazed by Ino’s insults. She wondered absentmindedly if that was why she felt the need to keep being mean. 

 “I can’t believe they talked about that in front of you!” Chōji said, aghast. 

 “They didn’t, but it’s not very difficult to figure out what they are really saying to each other.” Shikamaru drawled. “Inoichi-san made some comment about when the human brain is forced to mature too quickly it can become unstable and dangerous.” 

 Ino was silent for a while after that. It seemed like a pretty valid point, and he was even using her father’s words against her. Shikamaru was smart like that. As the silence dragged on Chōji looked like the only one who was uncomfortable. Shikamaru looked asleep and Ino had a grimace on her face, staring at nothing. 

 “Your writing already looks really good Ino!” He tried encouragingly. “You must have been practicing lots, I can only do my name! We aren’t even starting characters until just before the winter festival in pre-school!” 

 “Hmph.” Ino huffed, not entirely dismissing the compliment. “Sakura and I have been doing some stuff and I have been getting practice writing that way. Chōji you should get some hobbies too you know? It’s good for you, despite what dead-energy-zone over there might tell you.” Shikamaru yawned in response. 

 “I have one!” Chōji smiled widely. “Kaa-san has been letting me help out with cooking! I got up at 6am today to help create a marinade and prepare food for this evening!” 

 Ino pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “That’s not what I meant Chōji, although that’s still a better use of time than cloud-gazing. I meant like, I don’t know, lifting weights, or meditating or something. What do your cousins do with their free time?” 

 “Well, all Akimichi children learn to cook throughout their childhood.” Chōji responded amiably. “We start with simple dishes, like eggs, and learn more as we get older!” 

 “Welp. That explains a lot.” Ino said glumly. 

 “Ino…” Shikamaru scolded with the intensity of a falling leaf. 

 “Sorry! Sorry Chōji.” Ino put her face in her hands. “I just… I mean we’re all going to be on a team together some day, risking our lives for our village and each other, and I just want us to be a good team, and I get frustrated watching you two wasting time!” 

“Since when are you worried about us risking our lives for the village?” Shikamaru asked, leaning up slightly to look at her, which was about as good a sign as you could get he was actually interested in something. 

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“Since like a few weeks ago! We have to grow up some time you know?” Ino said defensively, glaring at Shikamaru. She wasn’t going to break her promise to Sakura for these two. 

 “Well as part of the Akimichi cooking program we learn a great deal of chemistry.” Chōji offered hopefully, trying to prevent another Shika-Ino fight. 

 “What?!” Ino’s face snapped towards Chōji’s. “You’ve been learning chemistry? You’re five!” 

 Chōji chuckled nervously. “I mean I don’t know that much about it yet, just like you probably aren’t that good at writing and reading yet. But yeah, I’ve been learning about acids and fats and salt and the way things change form and react with temperature.” 

 Ino could not stop staring at Chōji, jaw completely agape. The words coming out of his mouth were being captured by her ears, but somewhere in the processing department her brain was flat out rejecting the incoming information. “You’re saying all Akimichi know chemistry?” 

 Chōji was pretty sure that this was a good reaction from Ino and couldn’t help the smile spreading onto his face. He’d never come anywhere near impressing her before. “Yeah, pretty much.” He responded eagerly. “It makes sense if you think about it. You know that the Akimichi clan makes all of our village’s combat drugs right? Blood pills, chakra pills, energy sprays, it all comes from our compound. My clan has spent centuries developing the special pills only we can use, so we have all the knowledge and equipment to make stuff for everyone else too!”

 “I guess I remember my dad saying something about that…” Ino mumbled distractedly. 

 “Well a lot of those drugs take a lot of knowledge to create correctly,” Chōji continued cheerfully, “and we’re always trying to improve our formulas. We also learn—“ Chōji concentrated on the next few syllables, “—Fizz—ee—ology to understand how the drugs interact with the body and brain. The Konoha hospital has always requested an Akimichi clan member for like a super long time my dad said.” 

 “I had no idea…” Ino couldn’t stop staring at Chōji, her mind still wrestling with her frankly negative perception of his eating habits. “Shikamaru I suppose you’re gonna tell me you’re learning physics now?” She was pretty sure he was still awake, but it was hard to tell sometimes. 

 “Ehh… not yet.” Shikamaru responded casually. “The Nara do learn about the physics of waves and light eventually since it affects our jutsu so much, but that’s not for a few years. For now it’s just Shogi and Go and sometimes Chess. My clan also tends to have philosophical discussions while we,” he raised his hands to make air quotes, “sit on our asses staring at the sky all day.” 

 “Phil—sophy?” Ino asked, ignoring the sarcastic comment. 

 “Yeah, it’s like questions about good and evil and the unknown.” Shikamaru answered. “It’s all grey area questions, where there probably isn’t a right answer.” 

 “Like what’s the meaning of life?” Ino let out a semi-hysterical laugh, it was just too much coming from Konoha’s #1 & 2 lazy children. 

 “It’s important for shinobi to learn.” Shikamaru replied nonchalantly. “If you have four comrades trapped and awaiting death and the only way you can get them out is to sacrifice a fifth comrade, what should you do? Do you sacrifice your team member to save four lives?” 

 “What?” Ino stumbled mentally for a moment. Geez that is a pretty heavy subject for a kid to be talking about… “There would never be a situation where those were the only two options!” Ino responded indignantly. 

 “Probably not.” Shikamaru shrugged, and offered her a rare smile. “It’s good that your first reaction is to try to find alternatives. But the point is that you will end up in difficult situations sometimes and need to be able to act correctly and not freeze up. These kinds of questions are especially important to people in leadership positions like our parents.” 

 Silence descended on the group again for a while. Chōji was watching Ino worriedly, as her face became stormier with each passing second. “H-how about you Ino? Other than the reading and writing what are your clan’s pastimes?” 

 “Freakin’ nothing!” Ino yelled. “What the hell!” Six months ago Ino wouldn’t have cared at all, but Sakura’s crazy imagination had started to fill both girls’ heads with new daydreams, like saving people and defeating evil and being strong and famous. To hear that her supposedly lazy friends were learning so much already left her feeling frustrated. 

 “Maa, Ino, since when do you say so many bad words?” Shikamaru murmured. 

 “Ass and hell are hardly bad words.” She said defensively. 

 “Mm, so you’d say those in front of your mom and dad then?” Shikamaru prodded. 

 “Ugh shut up.” Ino sighed, exasperated. “I asked my cousin to teach me some. I’m tired of being brushed off as a little girl.”

 “But we are little kids Ino, aren’t we?” Chōji said in his hopeful voice. 

 “Yeah well apparently kids in your clans learn chemistry and the meaning of life whereas I have to beg for books and paper and struggle to learn on my own!”

 “Well,” Chōji said tentatively, “You could try asking your parents?” 

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