Ino's Gift

After Wednesday afternoon's practical combat training class ended, Ino cornered Shuo Ye at the entrance to the changing room.

Calling it cornering was an exaggeration. She was merely leaning against the wall beside the doorframe, holding a pink lunch bag and pretending to rummage through it. When Shuo Ye pushed the door open and came out, she acted as if she had only just noticed him.

"Ah, Shuo Ye, there you are."

Shuo Ye glanced at her without saying anything and kept walking.

Ino hurried after him.

"Hey, I'm talking to you."

"I know," Shuo Ye said. "You were talking to the doorframe. I just happened to pass by."

"You—"

Ino bit her lip. She wore twin ponytails today, their upturned ends bobbing with every step she took.

The two of them walked along the path by the training field toward the school gate. The May breeze carried the faint scent of freshly turned earth—today had been agricultural training class, and someone had tracked mud onto the field. Now the entire western half of the training ground was covered in muddy footprints.

"Um," Ino said, "can I ask you something?"

"Ask."

"Is everything... okay at your house lately?"

Shuo Ye paused.

It was a tiny pause, less than half a second. But Ino noticed. Her eyes were sharp; observing people's expressions was instinctive to the Yamanaka clan.

"Things are fine," Shuo Ye said. "Why?"

"It's nothing," Ino said. "It's just... there have been more ANBU patrols on the streets near the Uchiha Clan compound lately. My dad told me to come straight home after school and not go that way."

"Then why haven't you gone home?"

"Because I'm talking to you!"

Shuo Ye fell silent. He stared at a stretch of dust ahead being stirred up by the wind and thought for a while.

"Don't worry," he said. "Nothing will happen to the Uchiha Clan."

"How do you know?"

"Because my dad said so."

Ino blinked.

"Your dad is from the Uchiha Clan. Of course he'd say that."

Shuo Ye choked on his words.

He could not refute her. Because what Takuma meant by "nothing will happen" was not the same as what Ino understood by "nothing will happen."

They reached the fork by the school gate. The left road led to the Uchiha Clan compound, while the right led toward the Yamanaka clan's flower shop and izakaya.

Ino stopped at the fork.

She reached into her school uniform pocket, felt around for a moment, and pulled out a small cloth pouch.

The pouch was dark blue, palm-sized, and tied shut with a string. The stitching was uneven, clearly handmade.

"This is for you."

She stuffed the pouch into Shuo Ye's hand with a quick movement, as though carrying out a mission she had planned for a long time.

"What is it?"

"Open it and see."

Shuo Ye untied the string and turned the pouch upside down.

A seed fell into his palm.

It was brownish, flat and round, a little larger than the nail on his pinky finger. Fine patterns covered its surface, and it felt like miniature tree bark.

"This is..."

"Balloon flower," Ino said. "We have them at my dad's shop. I picked the biggest one."

She paused, her gaze shifting to the cherry tree by the roadside. The cherry blossoms had long since fallen, leaving only dense green leaves on the branches.

"I heard that around your house... Anyway, this is for you." Ino's voice noticeably quickened. "Balloon flowers are easy to grow, and they look beautiful when they bloom. Purple or white, depending on the variety. The one I gave you is purple. I made sure."

Shuo Ye looked at the seed in his palm.

He suddenly remembered something from his previous life. In college, a row of balloon flowers had been planted in the flowerbed below his dormitory. When they bloomed in autumn, little purple bell-shaped flowers stood there in neat rows. He passed that flowerbed every morning on his way to class, but never once stopped to look.

Until graduation day, when he crouched down and took a picture.

That photo then stayed on his phone for three years, until the phone got waterlogged and all its data was lost.

"Thank you."

When Shuo Ye said those words, his voice was half a note lower than usual.

Ino looked at him, then suddenly smiled—not the deliberate smile she wore in class for others to see, but a light, fleeting smile, like wind brushing over the tips of grass.

"You don't have to be so serious," Ino said. "It's just a seed."

"I know."

"Then why do you look like someone gave you a kunai?"

"I don't."

"Your face does have expressions, Shuo Ye. Not every Uchiha is made of stone."

Shuo Ye put the seed back into the pouch, tied the string, and slipped it into his pocket.

"I'll plant it."

"Where?"

"In a flowerpot. There's room in our yard."

"Then remember to water it," Ino said. "Balloon flowers don't like too much water, but you can't let them dry out either. Water them twice a week, thoroughly each time."

"Why are you more nervous than I am?"

"I'm not nervous!"

Ino's face turned red. She abruptly turned around and took a few steps down the road to the right, then stopped without looking back.

"Shuo Ye."

"Yeah."

"If... if something really happens, can you—"

She did not finish.

Half a minute later, she waved her hand and walked away without turning back.

Shuo Ye stood at the fork, watching Ino's back recede into the distance. Her twin ponytails swayed in the wind like two tiny flags.

He slipped his hand into his pocket and touched the little cloth pouch.

The seed pressed against his fingertips through the fabric, hard and real.

When he got home, the courtyard was silent.

Sasuke was watching television in the living room—the volume was low, and he was watching a ninjutsu lesson program, quietly reciting the hand signs along with it.

Shuo Ye went around to the back of the courtyard, crouched in the shade of the veranda, and took the pouch from his pocket.

The moment he untied the string, something occurred to him.

The flower meaning of balloon flowers.

He had looked it up beside that now-lost photo in his previous life—balloon flowers meant "eternal love," but they also carried another meaning: "gentleness arriving in despair."

He did not know whether Ino knew that.

Probably not. She just thought the flowers were pretty, picked the biggest seed, and gave it to him.

Seven-year-olds did not think in so many layers.

But Shuo Ye did.

He placed the seed in an abandoned flowerpot on the windowsill. It still held soil left from whatever someone had planted before, dry enough to clump together. He went to the kitchen for some water and slowly poured it in. The clumps gradually dissolved in the water.

When he buried the seed, he pressed a tiny indentation into the soil with his finger.

"Grow quickly," he told the flowerpot. "Before next month."

Even he did not know what that meant.

Before next month, many things would change. Some changes would be irreversible.

He hoped this seed would not become part of those changes.

At dinner that night, Sasuke told a joke from school—during practical combat class, Naruto had performed the Transformation Technique backward and turned himself into a log, while his real body appeared on Iruka's teacher's desk, giving Iruka a fright.

Shuo Ye listened and ate with his head lowered.

He kept thinking about the unfinished sentence Ino had left at the fork.

"If... if something really happens, can you—"

Can he do what?

Take her away? Warn her family? Tell her in advance?

He could not. He did not know the exact day the coup would happen; he only knew it would be in autumn. He did not even know whether he himself could survive that night—

No.

He would survive. He was not one of Itachi's targets. He was a member of the Uchiha Clan, a seven-year-old child. Itachi's mission was to wipe out the clan, but he would not kill children—at least, the manga had never mentioned that, because Sasuke was the only one left alive.

But what if there were exceptions?

What if his memories from his previous life were inaccurate?

Shuo Ye tightened his grip on his chopsticks.

"Shuo Ye?"

His mother's voice pulled him back.

"Your miso soup has gone cold."

"...Yeah."

He lifted the bowl and took a sip. The soup was warm, and it tasted just right.

The television in the living room was still playing the ninjutsu lesson program. The narrator's voice was low and steady, like an unbroken thread sewing this moment of peace into time.

Outside the window, the moon shone brightly.

The flowerpot sat on the windowsill. Its soil was dark brown and flat, showing no sign of change.

But the seed was already inside.

Before bed, Shuo Ye washed the cloth pouch and hung it beside the sink.

The dark blue fabric had deepened in color when wet, almost black. The stitching was still visible—some places had two seams, others only one, and the thread ends had not been fully trimmed.

Ino had sewn it herself.

He stared at the wet pouch for a long time.

Seven-year-old Ino, sitting in the little room behind the Yamanaka family flower shop, holding a needle and a scrap of cloth as she sewed a pouch. Then she had placed the biggest balloon flower seed inside.

What had she been thinking as she sewed it?

Shuo Ye did not know. He did not even know why Ino had given it to him.

"I heard that around your house..."

The words she had left unfinished had scattered in the wind.

Shuo Ye turned off the light and lay down on his bed.

In the darkness, he placed a hand over his chest.

His heartbeat was steady.

He thought that if the coup really came, the Yamanaka family should be safe. The Yamanaka clan held a stable position in the Hidden Leaf Village, had no involvement in the Police Department's disputes over authority, and was not part of the chain of suspicion surrounding the Nine-Tails incident.

But there was a vast distance between "should be" and "definitely."

He closed his eyes.

Moonlight shone through the gap in the curtains, casting a thin white line across the ceiling.

That line did not move.