Yamanaka Ino was a princess.
She was privileged to have such a caring mother and father. Her family's background was high in social standing. It was one of the shinobi clans and a pillar of their village. Though they were extremely well off, they didn't live in a mansion or clan compound like the others from her clan.
Her father, though extremely doting, was strict and didn't want his family to rely on the wealth of the clan. He didn't want them to be spoilt as he stated that money made a person useless, it makes a person greedy and rotten.
He didn't want her to grow up like the other stuck up clan kids who relied on their money. He wanted her to be disciplined and therefore, if she wanted something, she would have to work for it.
As mentioned before, she didn't live in a clan compound or a mansion, they lived in a normal house in the civilian area. Since her father didn't want to rely on the wealth of the clan, he opened up a flower shop and they live off of their earnings from the shop and her father's salary.
If she wanted something, she would have to work for it.
Though she loved her dad, she thought it was ridiculous. Other kids from the same clan lived such a better life than her and her father was the clan head! How come other members lived like kings compared to the clan head's family.
She honestly couldn't wrap her mind around her father's decision.
What made it worse was the fact some civilian kids in her class had deeper pockets than her. They would always have the newest trends in fashion! They were civilians, but they were rich civilians. Her classmate came from a family of well off merchants.
She struggled to work in her family's flower shop to get a salary so she too could get the newest trends. She didn't want anyone looking down on her, she was Yamanaka Ino, the fashion queen!
She wanted to impress the prince of their year, Uchiha Sasuke. Like most girls in her class, she had a crush on the extremely handsome Uchiha heir. He was so cool and she felt that the first time she laid eyes on him, he stole her breathe away. Though to be honest although he was handsome and cool, he was extremely hard to approach.
She had once tried to give him a flower but he just looked at her like she was crazy before turning her down and leaving. She remembered crying that day. What was worse was that her best friend, Haruno Sakura saw her doing that.
At the time, Sakura also began crushing on the Uchiha heir and got mad at her for making a move on him despite knowing he was her crush. That day was when their friendship ended. To be honest after that day, she began to feel less attracted to the Uchiha prince. She tried to tell Sakura but she wouldn't listen to her.
That was why she would so desperately try to compete with Sakura on trying to gain the Uchiha's affection. It was their only connection left, and she didn't want her bond with her former best friend severed, even if they were no longer friends and were instead 'rivals'.
------
"Daddy! Can I have my salary early this week?!" She asked her father as she finished tending to some flowers.
"Why?", Inoichi, the Yamanaka clan head and Ino's father asked.
"There's this new fashion wear releasing today, and if I don't have them, then the other kids will look down on me!" She said quickly as she pleaded.
"Sorry hun', I can't do that just for such a silly reason. Why can't you wait until the end of the week? Surely you can wait a few days to get them" He stated but Ino still relented.
"Please daddy, I haven't wanted something so bad in a long time! If you do it I won't bother you for a month!" She pleaded.
*sigh*
"Fine, but on one condition" Inoichi said before he brought out a book. Flipping through he stopped at a page with a picture of a brown flower.
"This is called the Solitary Rose, a special type of flower that only grows on cliff side terrain" Inoichi explained "I received an order for a bouquet of flowers, but the customer specifically said that it must have Solitary Roses. If you can find me at least five then I'll give you your salary early" Inoichi said.
"Solitary Roses, where do I find them then?" Ino said burning the name and image into her memory before asking eagerly.
"Near the the Hokage Monument. Just go to the bottom, there should be some there. Just make sure to be careful, there should be some at the bottom since that's where most people harvest them. If it's too high don't get them" Inoichi said but before he finished Ino already dashed out.
---
"Ah, there's only three!" Ino said panicked.
She had come at the bottom of the cliff and easily found some of the flowers. Unlike other flowers that grow in groups this particular one are solitary as why it's named as such. She searched the entirety of the bottom of the cliff but only found three.
"I'll just go deeper..." Ino said as she put away the three other stalks of flowers into a basket before heading in deeper toward the forest.
As she went in deeper in the forest, she tried to keep an eye out. Who knows there might be an unsuspecting flower hidden behind one of the bushes near the bottom of the cliff. After ten minutes of walking and having no luck she sighed and thought it was time for a small break.
She walked near a tree to sit under before she realized the were rusty shuriken imbedded at the trunk of the tree. The shuriken though looked a bit aged and rusty, one could tell someone tried to fix them and get rid of the rust.
Ino then inspected the area she was at closer and found that she might have trespassed into someone's training ground. There was a river near her and next to it was a campfire. She looked around and found old shuriken and kunai imbedded to tree's and the tree's had an X marked on them that looked to be slashed by a kunai. It seemed they acted as targets.
There was even a makeshift punching bag. She thought it was rude of her to trespass so she got up and was about to leave until something caught her eye. It was Solitary Roses! Another three and they were near each other!
The only problem was, it was too high for her to reach...
"Unless... I climb..." Ino mumbled.
------
Chapter End
------
I have a thing for Ino. I don't care what you all think! It's my favorite ship, I read too damn much on NarutoxHinata fics that I got tired of that vanilla shit! I also think Ino was hotter than Hinata, she was my childhood crush therefore I think she's the best, fight me!
And yes, I did make a flower up for the boy meets girl setting
I've been put off because of the recent bug where the updates wouldn't show. It's been fixed but I've barely read anything since
it's been fixed. I've also been really lazy to update and write any fics.