18 - Ino's Plan

"Hey, Fuyuka~!"

Ino was storming her house now.

The blonde genin cheerfully pranced into the house despite receiving no invitation at all. She took a seat at the couch, again without any invitation, earning a small glare from Fuyuka, who sat at the kitchen table with a box of caramel ice cream and of course, Bleach.

"Fuyuka, you need more friends," Ino declared, standing up. "I'm taking you to go hang out with some people, cuz your social skills suck and I decided to help a fellow girl out."

Fuyuka flipped a page of her manga, her face completely blank. "No."

"Oh come on, Fuyu, I'm the best person to help you make some friends!"

"I don't need friends. Also, since when were we on nickname basis?"

The girls had a subtle stare off for a second. Unfortunately for Fuyuka, Ino had done her research on best ways to blackmail and bribe grumpy Fuyuka Hoshinos.

"A 5-piece box of sushi a day," she offered, leaning against the couch handle. Fuyuka hesitated, blinking a few times.

"...what do you want me to do?"

"Hey, Shikamaru, Choji!" Ino dragged Fuyuka to find her teammates, who were sitting around and watching clouds. Although, Choji was more focused on inhaling the bag of chips in his hand as fast as possible.

Shikamaru turned around, his expression mildly annoyed. "Yeah?"

Ino grabbed Fuyuka by the shoulders and shoved her forward. "Fuyuka here needs help with her social skills, so I need you two to hang out with her."

The blonde genin helped herself to a seat opposite the boys, gesturing for Fuyuka to come over. The blue haired girl scowled, mentally promising herself to get an extra platter of salmon from Ino.

"So," Ino decided to help strike up a conversation. "What are you two doing?"

"Watching clouds."

"Eating chips."

The blonde sighed, not at all surprised at the non-social activities of her teammates. "Okay, Shikamaru, I never imagined I'd be saying this but... tell us about your, uh, clouds."

The brown haired boy sighed. "What a drag... I don't know about clouds or anything, I just like to watch them."

Ino proceeded to drag the three unwilling participants of her friendship activity indoors, so Shikamaru can talk about shogi. Instead of talking, the boy just beat Ino and Fuyuka in the game with a clean 24 win streak in the hour they played. Choji watched, finishing 5 bags of chips.

Ino strolled down the streak, a slightly less annoyed Fuyuka in tow as she was giving her the promised daily sushi. Fuyuka insisted she add a platter of fish as well, which the blonde decided to give her once her friendship activities were over.

"I'm thinking of a one-month socializing schedule," Ino said as Fuyuka ate her sushi, earning another scowl from the girl. "Why me?"

"You're pretty nice now that I've spoken to you, and you really need more friends. Girls need plenty of friends and socializing to survive," she responded eagerly. Fuyuka shot the blonde an unamused expression. "A smoothie a day on top of the sushi, then. Or soda, I'm not picky."

"Fine, then."

About a week later, filled with daily socializing (ew), Fuyuka received a letter.

'To Fuyuka,

This is Kogane. Yamiki told me about the blondie and the blondie 2 and the purple kid, good to see you're doing fine and randomly escaping the village. Since there's currently no Hokage, we're trying to slip a few letters through to you.

I'm on shopping duty these days, I'll say hi if I see you.

Kogane,'

Fuyuka hadn't even realized, without a Hokage, nothing's stopping Shadow Star from stampeding the village and hanging out.

Another thing- was she allowed to talk about all the Tsuyoku things? Technically she wasn't supposed to, and whenever a new Hokage finally gets here, they are just as obliged as Hiruzen to stop Fuyuka from saying anything.

Welp, time to break rules. Since Ino would follow her around for most of the day, it wouldn't be exactly possible to keep it quiet.

The next morning, Fuyuka was interrupted from her peaceful breakfast of sickeningly sweet jam on toast and, of course, Bleach reading.

"Fuyuka~! Time to socialize!"

"Let me finish my food," Fuyuka scowled as Ino helped herself to the couch. Actually, how did she even get in? Fuyuka definitely locked the door.

As soon as she finished up her breakfast, Ino dragged her out. The blonde reviewed the schedule in her hand. "Let's see... today you're going to go shopping."

"I hate shopping!"

"Don't be like that, Fuyuka."

The blonde genin hauled Fuyuka to a random store, where she began to look over some accessories. Shopping was the bane of the blue-haired girl's life- the thought of walking around, staring at entirely useless things, being forced to dump endless amounts of money on things she doesn't need.

Ugh.

"Are you going to buy anything? We're going to the next shop!" It had been about five minutes, and Ino had already returned with an entire bag of whatever she liked to buy. The girl shook her head. "Definitely not."

An hour of window shopping (since Ino would definitely burn up her entire wallet if they actually went into every store) and Ino forcing Fuyuka to talk with every familiar person they met, Fuyuka was finally free. The girl walked on home, having only bought a smoothie, some sweets and a fridge magnet.

Since she didn't need or want to buy anything, unlike Ino, the girl had been settling for fridge magnets whenever the blonde pushed her to do some shopping. By now, a sixth of her refrigerator was covered in a variety of magnets, including a custom made one of her Night Star flower.

"Fuyuka!"

Her pale blue eyes snapped upwards, finding a familiar girl sitting on a tree throwing sticks at an apple, because apples don't deserve to be happy.

"Kogane!"

The older girl grinned. "I knew I'd see you soon. Sorry for disappearing, Hokage-sama wouldn't let me say anything."

The two traded stories, Fuyuka explaining her discovery of the Night Star and confronting the Hokage, followed by the trip to see the Tsuyoku's and seeing Yamiki. Kogane explained how Shadow Star worked, with each of the Hoshino leading a division of sorts.

"Of course Katsume gets the emo assassination job," Fuyuka commented with an eye roll. "Will the others be hanging around the village too?"

"Dad's too strict and serious, but mom and Yamiki might be around. I'm trying to convince Katsume, but he insists he's the 'responsible older brother'," Kogane replied. The two arrived at the door of the house.

"I'll see you around, we should hope we don't get a new Hokage anytime soon," the black and gold haired girl joked. "Tell me more about what you've been up to these days, alright? Bye."

Fuyuka nodded silently. "K. You too."

Well, okay, if it weren't for Ino, Fuyuka probably wouldn't have left her house at all. She'd probably read Bleach all day while stuffing herself with ice cream and sweets and salty fish, not at once, clearly.

Maybe she should thank Ino for bothering her.