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What an ugly woman , he thought, when she batted her eyes and tossed her hair and laughed obnoxiously at his sarcastic responses, trailing along after him as he went about the village doing errands.
What an ugly woman , he groaned internally when she babbled endlessly about insignificant things that had happened to insignificant people as his peaceful lunch break rapidly deteriorated.
What an ugly woman , he grimaced when, twirling her hair and biting her lip, she found his nook in the outskirts of the village where he had escaped to sketch.
It wasn’t long before he was taking roundabout routes throughout the village, frequenting different restaurants, and abandoning his former sanctuary all in favor of avoiding her.
It was at his new sketching place, an alcove behind the library, that he happened upon an unexpected scene: Ino was kneeling before a tearful student. He had gone unnoticed, but as he edged closer to peer at them, he found himself captivated by the expression on her face, the effect it had on her features. Her eyebrows were raised delicately, her eyes as soft as their color. Through the leaves above, her figure was cast in a muted light as she comforted the girl, another child with a missing relative as a result of the war. We will never give up on a precious comrade , he heard her murmur, kindly wiping at the girl’s tears just as he was slipping away.
What an ugly woman , he thought, more out of habit than anything else, but the words, he found, lacked conviction, and that realization brought him up short. Because, certainly, he didn’t think her skinny limbs and long bangs were anything praiseworthy. Her loud persona and violent nature weren’t particularly appealing, either. And yet he often found himself by her side, nodding along to her idle chatter if it meant he could hear more of her voice, admiring the way the sunlight illuminated her silky tresses into spun gold. He had once told her that her eyes were nearly the exact shade of the forget-me-nots she sometimes sold in her family’s flower shop, and her cheeks had blossomed brighter than a cardinal tulip.
That same evening, he began painting her. It was unintentional, almost involuntary, but his mind conjured her and his hands moved of their own accord and, soon enough, the room was filled with images of her—graceful fingers with brightly colored nails wrapped around a steaming mug, leading up to a delicate pair of wrists; a slender neck, naked as a gust of wind flung her hair into a graceful dance behind her, marigolds interwoven with the silk of her locks; a dainty pair of pink, glossy lips, rewarding him with a laughing smile, topped by a sophisticated nose and rosy cheeks. He never completed an entire painting of her because these pieces were strangely overwhelming in themselves; a full canvas of her likeness would surely do something irreversible to him.
His night was spent gracing his canvases with pictures of her, each more elegant than the last. By sunrise, his swollen heart was near to bursting with an emotion that terrified him in its intensity. His paint-stained fingers left smudges on the pages as he perused his latest library rental, Getting Acquainted With Your Feelings . He had gotten it out of curiosity more than any real necessity because, surely, he was more in touch with himself than he ever has been, more than he will ever need to be. But this thing inside him was wholly out of his control; it was something that surged and thrashed against his rib cage whenever he glanced at his artwork. Nothing in the pages of the books, however, could tell him what he was feeling, so he went to the only person he felt comfortable talking to about predicaments such as these: Sakura.
She glowed with pride and excitement and, perhaps, a little bit of embarrassment as she informed him that what he felt was love. Affection. Fondness . “That can’t be,” he told her, but when he departed, his feet carried him to the flower shop where he knew she would be and the words that struggled their way to her couldn’t make it past his heart in his throat. So he simply grabbed her hand and brought her to his home. It was only when she was looking at his paintings, his paintings of her , that he realized their fingers were laced together. As she marveled at the art, he marveled at their hands, the paint stark against his pale skin and hers smooth and beautiful. Beautiful? Is this woman somehow beautiful? he pondered, and a small voice answered, Yes , and he realized that Ino Yamanaka was doubtlessly the most beautiful woman he will ever see.
His heart, impossibly, swelled all the more.
It was his name on her lips that brought his attention back to her, and her eyes, that mesmerizing blue, were blurred with tears. The sight shot panic through his chest, but before he could say anything, he was enveloped in her embrace.
“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear, her voice hiccuping, and he wrapped his arms around her waist and murmured into her hair.
“I love you.”