Friendship and family
Ino’s cousin was a bitch. An absolute, irredeemable, evil, bitch. Ino was pretty sure the adults of the clan secretly agreed with her on this, but they still refused to take sides. It was irritating. The fact that she was best friends with Sakura’s cousin in no way mitigated this, in some ways it might actually make it worse. And the very worst thing was Sakura couldn’t agree with Ino that Hana was a bitch, because that would make Sakura’s cousin sad, and Ino was obviously far too reasonable a person to make her choose between friendship and family. Honestly Ino herself wasn’t too keen on the idea of making Kyouko sad, the girl had the wide tearful eyes and wobbling lower lip down to a fine art. Her tears were weapons grade. Ino still wasn’t sure why she was best friends with Hana.
For as long as Ino could remember, she and Hana had never got on. Ino had been a social butterfly, while Hana had been an abrasive loner, Ino liked to be in charge, while Hana… also liked to be in harge. They had fought, constantly, viciously, it was the stuff of clan legend. And then at about the age of three Hana had got weird. Suddenly she was spending all her time with some civilian girl named Sasagawa Kyouko and her crazy brother. And she listened to Kyouko, and was nice to her. If Kyouko hadn’t been one of those people that are impossible to hate Ino would have hated her guts. It just wasn’t fair. Of course losing her cousin’s attention had led her into making friends with Sakura, which was… quite possibly one of the best things that ever happened to Ino, but still. It was a matter of principle. Sakura was an amazing friend though. They did fight it was true, but they also did other stuff, they played ninja, and braided each other’s hair and had sleepovers, it was way better than spending time with Hana had ever been. But still, the way her cousin no longer had time for her hurt.
Attending the academy was a double edged sword. On the one hand it meant she got to spend time with Sakura, on the other hand meant she got to listen to Shikamaru’s paranoid theories about the cult that Sawada Tsunayoshi in the year below was running. A cult that, incidentally his cousin, her cousin, her cousin’s best friend who happened to also be Sakura’s cousin, and her cousin’s best friend’s brother, were all a part of. The problem was Shikamaru was smart enough to make his conspiracy theories sound uncomfortably reasonable even when they were completely insane.
She’d found herself watching her cousin and taking notes for her crazy friend. It was slightly creepy how so many people seemed to follow Sawada around, but her cousin was just as bitchy to Sawada as she was to everyone else. If Ino was going to put money on it she’d guess it was Kyouko who was the cult leader. Except that she couldn’t say that because that would upset Sakura, and upset Sakura was angry Sakura, and angry Sakura meant screaming arguments that cousin Hana would not fail to comment on later. Just because Hana was creepily well behaved around her best friend didn’t mean everyone always had to be perfect. Fighting was perfectly normal.
In any case her cousin was a bitch, for a lot of reasons, but mainly for leaving her alone in charge of Akimichi Lambo. Hana had taken one look, said she didn’t sign up to deal with that snot nosed brat, and ran off to parts unknown. Leaving Ino to entertain their guest, who was really supposed to be Hana’s guest because he was in Hana’s year and would thus form part of Hana’s Inoshikacho team. At least that was the theory. In practice, well, a lot of people were hoping it wouldn’t come to that. Actually that year’s Inoshikacho team was a slightly horrifying thing to contemplate even in theory, because it would involve combining Shikamaru’s demon cousin Hayato, of the home made explosive tags and terrifying temper, her superbitch of a cousin Hana who lived to provoke people, and Akimichi Lambo, the worlds most hyperactive, attention seeking Akimichi. There was no moderating influence on that team. Ino really hoped the elders came to their senses before team assignments, if ever there was a time for exceptions to be made it was now. For the sake of the village’s structural intergrity.
Anyway Akimichi Lambo who was supposed to be her cousin’s guest, but had somehow ended up her problem. Why oh why was she stuck supervising the one Akimichi in the universe who couldn’t be entertained by just sitting quietly with a bag of chips. She seriously considered just leaving him to it and letting him run wild but then Choujo would give her the disappointed look, for not looking after his poor helpless sickly cousin and she just couldn’t handle that.
Personally she didn’t buy it. Lambo was about as helpless and sickly as Maito Gai and a whole lot less easy to deal with. As far as she could see the reason Lambo wasn’t putting on any weight was because he wouldn’t sit still for five seconds at a time. But the Akimichi were convinced that he had some sort of metabolic disorder and they were all very worried so everyone had to be nice to the spoilt little brat.
Who was fully aware of that fact and in no way ashamed to take advantage, and her cousin was a grade A bitch for leaving her with him. Even if she had sent that Aburame girl Haru to take over after a few hours. That was still three solid hours trying to keep the brat from destroying the compound, and dealing with his screaming temper tantrums whenever she refused him sweets. Honestly he was only meant to be a year younger than she was, why couldn’t he act his age. Still she thought darkly to herself. It could be worse. She could have Nara Hayato there as well.