#diorcrystal

But, in Itachi's medical opinion, she should stay in hospital for overnight observation. Unfortunately, the only other eventful thing that happened at the hospital was the ugly gown they gave her in the hospital. It opened at the back - gross!

“Ah, but your heart seems fine, it looks like you'll be discharged in the morning and can wear your own clothes again,” one of the nurses reassured her.

Unfortunately, when Itachi arrived again to discharge her- he couldn't. He looked so cute in his white coat and was wearing his hair in a ponytail today... that her heart monitor started jumping all over again.

“I think another night might be best,” he added cautiously, and then smiled kindly at Ino. “But you seem healthy, so we won't need to give you any drugs. Just observation.”

Ino's heart fluttered inside her chest and she returned his smile with her own.

“Okay, Doctor-San~” she complied happily.

Ino wandered about the ward, chattering with a few patients- especially the sickly girl beside her own bed. Yakumo appeared to be cheered up that Ino would be staying another night.

-x-

Unfortunately, this occurrence happened, without fail, with each arrival the doctor made. He would read through her notes, satisfied that her condition was stabilised, but as soon as he stepped into view, her monitor would jump in all different directions. 

“It’s not a symptom of white coat hypertension either,” Itachi shook his head, discussing Ino’s notes with another colleague, Tsunade, who was suddenly looking bemused.

“Itachi, have you ever considered that her heart only palpitates irregularly when you are around?” Tsunade informed him with a knowing smile.

The man in question looked puzzled, but the busty doctor didn’t elaborate and tapped Ino’s files. 

“She’s to be discharged tonight. There’s nothing wrong with her that this hospital can cure. Let her know she’s free,” were Tsunade’s final words before clicking away.

-x-

Itachi strode over to his patient, and sure enough, the girl whose heart monitor had displayed a healthy number started jumping into overdrive when her blue eyes landed on his. This was a very bizarre case in deed- but if Tsunade was happy to discharge her, then he would as well. 

“Ah, Ino-San, how are you doing today?” he asked with his usual, polite smile, stethoscope wrapped around his neck. “I have some good news for you.”

The girl returned his smile with a cheerier one of her own and grinned. “I’m feeling great now that I’ve seen you!”

He felt prickles of warmth flood his cheeks, but continued smiling as he informed her she could go home.

“Aha! Great! You’re a fab doctor!” Ino told him, jumping over to throw her arms around him. “But you don’t know that much about the heart.”

A ridiculous thing to say. He was a very well-known cardiologist.

But he humoured her. “Ah, how did I disappoint you?”

 “Even though you listened to my heart, you didn’t understand a thing!” She told him with a disappointed look, cheek puffing out in anger. “You didn’t say yes once to when I asked you out for some tea or coffee!”

... Ah.

Now he understood. When she put it so plainly for him to understand. All the nurses were grinning and pretended not to hear, but the patients clearly wanted him to say something. 

Itachi closed his eyes and shook his head. Really... this girl.

-x-

"That's the building we need, sir. Once we get an advertisement board there, then we can grab the attention of the commuters."

The dark-haired man turned to his employee and nodded thoughtfully. "I see, does anyone live here?"

"A girl, named Yamanaka Ino. We can talk to her."

-x-

Suited men marched into the ad agency's set.

"Sir, we're looking for a Madam Yamanaka."

"First of all, she's not a madam - and second, who are you?" The harassed looking owner asked. He was clearly still annoyed with Ino and not at all happy that these odd people were here.

"We are the representatives from Uchiha Corporation and I am the CEO, Uchiha Itachi's, personal assistant. Is it alright to have a word with her?"

His brows shot up. The Uchiha Corporation? That multi-million company that supplied plasma screen televisions and all sorts of lenses to the entire world? He pointed to the make-up room where Ino was at and frowned. How odd... why would such important people want to talk to Ino?

They thanked him in unison and headed over to the make-up room where the long-haired woman was seated.

Curious, he crept over with the rest of the staff members. Calling over an errand boy, he grabbed a tray and put glasses of water on it.

"Oii, Konohamaru, leave the door ajar for as long as you can and go in with this water and come back!" He instructed, nodding.

Finally, they could hear snatches of the conversation.

"Sorry! Just stop trying so hard! I don't care if your director or chairman is enamoured- I have to agree too!" Ino's objections were loud and clear.

Ooh. This sounded like a lover's tiff!

Konohamaru returned and they heard another snatch of juicy gossip- this time what sounded like a pleading voice coming from the suited man who had introduced himself as the personal assistant.

"Please madam, we're humbly requesting on our chairman's behalf. Please think about the proposal-"

"What's there to think about? Just leave please."

The conversation was over, but the PA did not give up and offered her his card.

"Just in case you change your mind, madam. Please do give us a call."

They bowed and left.

Ino waved at them and then turned to the rest of the crew, who were goggling at her.

"Ohh! I'll go change for the scene!" Ino told them apologetically, rushing back in.

"Ino-Sama!"

"Ino-Chan!"

Ino blinked- what...? Sama and Chan? She had never been addressed so lovingly before. She slowly turned around, just what was going on?

"Look, I'm sorry to say but we've heard pretty much everything that went on in that room," her boss sighed.

He quickly ordered a big throne-like chair (it was a medieval style shoot) and some juice.

Ino sat down, confused and bewildered, but thanked him for the juice.

"Look, we'll tell you what happened. I bet the chairman must have seen you somewhere and completely lost his heart to you. Am I right?"

"Actually..." Ino winced, but was urged to sit back down on the throne by a pair of hands. She was given a biscuit with her juice.

"Ahahaha... ye-yeah, that's right," she said.

"Look, Ino... they've come to ask for a proposal from him and you're turning it down? It's such a good match. You've got to think on it more."

Ino almost spat out her juice. Proposal?! It was about her building, but her work mates thought she had received a proposal from the CEO of Uchiha Corporation.

...

"Oh-haha... well, I mean today I got a proposal from the chairman of Uchiha Corporation, tomorrow, I'll get a proposal from Bill Gates- does it mean I should just say yes?"

Ino didn't even know what she was talking about, but the lie was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. The way everyone's eager eyes were on her, Karin's googly eyes behind her glasses, Kurotsuchi's jaw-drop and her boss... he was beaming.

"Look Ino-Sama, think how well this proposal will work out for our ad agency too!"

"Yes, you should just say yes- overthinking things ruins lives," the main actress, Shiho, chimed in.

Everyone was in agreement and her boss took her phone without warning and dialed the number to the office of the Uchiha corporation.

Ino died inside when the phone rang and was answered by a hard-nosed sounding man.

"Hello... this is Ino speaking," she said coolly into the phone.

"OH, you? The one with the terraced apartment? Look, we've found out everything about you. You haven't paid rent and that building doesn't even belong to you! Stop calling us."

The phone hung up and Ino cringed. The only thing stopping her from putting her own phone away was the excited looks everyone was sending her way.

"Everyone at the office is cheering..." she told them with a fake grin. "... Just tell your boss- that Yamanaka Ino has said yes."

Ino put her phone down and grinned. The staff around her exploded with joy. Within moments, she was made the lead for all sorts of ads from soaps, jewellery to clothes and her favourite - perfume.

"The fragrance of lovers," Ino sighed, looking dreamily into the camera and holding a tiny bottle of perfume that cost more than her month's food bill. It was gorgeous.

After the perfume ad, her boss sheepishly approached her with a glass of juice.

"Oh, sir, why did you bring this?" Ino asked, looking up from the book she was reading.

"It's no problem," he smiled in a fatherly fashion and turned to Ino. "Look, Ino... it's just we're getting a popular marketeer who will arrive soon. Is there any way to... tell him that our lead model has a thing with the owner of Uchiha Corporation... then our company's reputation will go up. If you can just talk to him- that'll give us a leg up in the rankings for making even bigger ads."

He gulped and looked down, but Ino was smiling broadly at him.

"Oh sir, don't worry about it. I'm totally like a magic wand, wave me around everything wonderful will happen for this company. It's totally okay for him to talk to me!"

Her boss left her room, all smiles and teary-eyed.

-x-

"Hello, I'm a journalist and I'm here to write a story about struggling models- is there a model I can talk to here?" A rather over-worked man tentatively asked a big guy. The big guy had a half-masticated burger in his mouth and was heaving huge pieces of a background from gothic looking set.

Chouji, the set designer who was clearly too busy to pay much attention to some oddball, offered the journalist a friendly smile and pointed to Ino's room.

"Talk to Ino, she's our top model."

And she was becoming a big deal lately.

-x-

Ino whirled around when the journalist approached. Unbeknownst to her, she assumed this was the hotshot ad maker her boss wanted to convince of her love affair with Uchiha Itachi.

"Ah, you caught me at the right time. I have a flight to catch in half an hour with Itachi-San~"

"Itachi?" The journalist asked quizzically, staring at the fair-haired model who was sitting pretty in a plush, revolving chair.

"Uchiha Itachi, you know, the owner of the Uchiha Corporation. Actually, funny thing is, our first meeting was also at Nagasaki Airport. He just stared at me the whole time- at that moment, I didn't know who he was. Then he even sat next to me on the plane!" Ino launched into the story. She'd had a long time to work it out, what with people asking her all the time how they met and stuff.

"He said ‘HI, I'm Uchiha Itachi, the owner of Uchiha Corporation’," Ino carried on after a breath, making an eager sort of expression on her face to show the journalist how much of a rush Itachi had been in to get to her. "And then I also said 'hi'.  I found out he was Uchiha Itachi then. Kami-Sama, the whole trip from Nagasaki to Narita, he just talked on and on and on-"

"Wait!" The journalist interrupted Ino, grabbing a pen and paper. "Could I write this down?"

"Of course," Ino smiled, then launched back into her story, gesticulating wildly about all the things Itachi had said and how he had suddenly confessed that he loved her and wanted to marry her.

"Aiish, I was shocked and then I told him, please- love and marriage are not things you can decide in the air! Isn't that right?"

"Totally," the journalist agreed, madly scribbling down Ino's account.

"Well, when we landed, he gave me his number and out of pity, I gave him mine too. Then I got phonecalls and texts and all sorts of requests from the guy, begging me to marry him and how happy he would be... finally, I felt sorry for him and agreed too. I mean, he's really sweet and so in love with me."

She smiled as the guy finished writing and left her with a hearty smile.

Life was changing as the lover of Uchiha Itachi, CEO to Uchiha corporation.

-x-

Unfortunately, the news was out the next day, to a glowering Itachi who was inundated with phone calls to ask about his supposed 'love affair' with a model.

He didn't know why someone would say such things, but was grateful when one of his assistants pointed out that neither his, nor her photo, had been published.

"Okay. I want to meet her. Find out where she is," Itachi ordered, frowning as the news constantly bombarded his company's name.

'UCHIHA OWNER'S LOVE AFFAIR WITH A MODEL' -x-

Finally, they had found her new address and where she was- a line of sleek cars set out from his work place. Itachi's bad mood was alleviated by an incident he saw on a stop at a red light.

There was a group of children clustered in front of a set of steps; all who appeared to have various special needs and in wheelchairs. They looked disappointed and the grown-ups that were with the children looked heartbroken.

"We should just go home, there's no way we could all get past those stairs..." a small boy pouted, looking desolately at the building and doing a bad job of hiding the book he had brought with him. The book was titled 'Red Sand'.

Akasuna no Sasori... that was the artist that would be at this gallery today. He had a showing and it appeared that these children were all fans. Even if there were only a few steps, it must appear to be an insurmountable mountain for the children.

Itachi sighed, still arrested by the sight in front of him. To think, a moment ago he was concerned about the lines of traffic in front of him.

He saw a fair-haired woman in a ponytail get off her scooter and talk to the grown ups, asking what the matter was.

"These kids want to get to the gallery, but we weren't aware there was no disabled access," the woman sighed. "We don't even have a ramp of any kind..." 

Itachi’s deduction had been correct. Meanwhile, the woman with fair-hair glanced around at the troubled children's faces, to her surroundings. Only a road with traffic, some stairs to a gallery and a couple of shops.

"Wait one minute- and look after my scooter!" Ino held a finger up to the kids and dashed inside a furniture store. Within moments, she arrived, heaving a large, squarish plank of wood and placed it carefully among the steps of the art gallery, to the ground.

"Right! One at a time - I'll hold it in place!" She smiled, waving them forwards.

One by one, the children’s chairs were on the ramp and pushed above the steps and into the gallery. The girl hadn't let go of the ramp, right until the last of the children had gone up the steps.

"Children, say thank you," their teacher instructed and all at once, a chorus of tinny 'thank youuu' was chorused among them. The girl laughed and patted their heads, even accepted their hugs as she bent down and pulled their cheeks.

Itachi smiled softly. The world was full of hardship, but perhaps... it was to showcase moments of kindness like this.

The lights turned green and his car was off again.