Copyright
©2024 by keira (narumybae)
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Colors
Red
Ino couldn't paint for shit. Sai had thought long and hard about whether or not this was an contrary difference in who they were as people but he hadn't yet come to a conclusion.
He simply hadn't expected it, surrounded by light and color as she was in her role at her family flower shop.
Sighing, the artist felt a hand snake around his waist before drawing him closer to the warm body behind him.
"What's wrong?" a sultry voice asked. He closed dark eyes and sent a silent wish up to his brother that this mission ended soon.
"Nothing's wrong," he murmured tonelessly. Everything's wrong. It was the wrong sultry voice; this woman had fiery red hair and blue eyes that were a mere washed-out imitation of Ino's expressive depths. The attitude was wrong, too: Ino was loud and brash and confident at all times but when she took him to bed she liked to be loved. This woman wanted a quick fuck from a man half her age, and he'd given her it, because the Village had told him to make sure she didn't suspect the kill.
Sai wished he were lying in Ino's green atelier.
"Then come back here," said the woman - he'd forgotten her name - and he rolled over and complied, then watched with impassive eyes as the light faded from her eyes and she lost her final breath.
Blue
"Do I want counselling?" Sai repeated the question, incredulous.
"Yes," replied Sakura, no trace of mirth in her expression. "I try to ask everyone who works on a, a difficult mission, these days."
"A difficult mission." Had it been difficult? He'd killed the target easily enough. Came home with only a minor scratch and wouldn't have gone to the hospital at all if it weren't for Sakura's threats when he skipped. That, and it was Wednesday.
Ino worked in the ward on Wednesdays, stretching herself further and further still, part florist, part interrogator, part counselor. Smiling at everyone with her perfect teeth and earnest blue eyes and coming home exhausted.
"No, I don't want counselling," Sai decided. "I want to have a day off at the same time as Ino."
Sakura leaned forward, arms on her knees as she discarded the professional exterior of the head of the hospital.
"You'd better have something good planned," his teammate said, using that mysterious tone of voice she adopted when he'd something interesting but not necessarily correct.
It wasn't an outright no , and Sai remembered that of course Sakura had the power to give Ino a day off. She probably had the power to give anyone in the village a holiday, whether they wanted one or not. He'd forgotten. To him, Sakura would always just be the open, willing woman who honed her patience on him and taught him the fundamentals of interpersonal relationships. He'd only been venting to her, his habit of speaking his inner thoughts in her presence seeping past the professional examination.
