A/N: I'm usually hardcore ShikaTema, but this came to me the other day when I was thinking about how alike Shika's and Ino's earrings look.

Kishimoto-san's characters are not mine. This is just a silly little flight of fancy I made up about a couple of them.


Conditions

The bell on the door of the flower shop tinkled, catching her attention.

She looked up from the counter to lay eyes on a familiar face. "Oh, hi!" She smiled brightly. "What brings you here?"

"I heard you have a birthday today." The boy she'd known for years and had recently been on a few dates with gave her a lazy grin.

"You heard right," she laughed.

"Any plans?"

"My parents are taking me out for dinner."

"Can you spare me a few minutes between now and then?"

"Sure. I'm actually closing up now."

She walked over to the door and flipped the "Open" sign, then approached the dark-haired shinobi. "What did you need?"

"I have something for you." He presented her with a tiny purple velvet box. "Happy birthday." Her usually cool and calm teammate cleared his throat nervously as she took it.

She slowly lifted the lid and gasped at the silver hoop earrings inside.

"You said you liked mine, so..."

"They're amazing!" she exclaimed, giving him a grateful kiss on the cheek. "Thank you!"

"So you'll accept them, then?

She looked up at him with a confused expression.

"I have just one condition. If you accept them, you accept me. Me only."

"Are you asking me..."

"If I have to spell it out, yeah... I... I wanna be your guy."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Ask away! And make it classy!" she bossed him with a mischievous look on her face.

He sighed. "Here I am, trying to be creative, and you ruin it. Such a pain... but okay."

He took her hand that wasn't holding the earring box.

"Miss Yamanaka, will you be my girlfriend?"

"It depends, Mister Nara..." she countered coyly, reciprocating the playful formality. "What kind of boyfriend will you be?"

"I'll be the kind of boyfriend who appreciates you and tends to your needs, no matter what a drag it may be," he replied with a smirk, inching closer to her.

"Well, in that case," she answered, "I accept. I'll be your girlfriend. But I have a condition, too."

"What's that, you burden of a woman?"

"Swallow your pride and admit it already."

"Admit what?"

"Don't play dumb, Shika. You know what I mean."

"Oh, fine..." He rolled his eyes , but then looked at her with a bit of a blush as he spoke the three words she'd waited to hear for so long...

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"

Ino snapped out of her reminiscing, looking up from the small objects in her hand.

A bouncy, black-haired little girl with spiky pigtails bounded into the room with her almost-white-blond younger brother on her heels. "Daddy says to stop being troublesome and hurry up!"

"Well, Shikami," she replied with a loving chuckle, "You and Inoka go tell Daddy he can just hold his horses for a few more minutes because I'm the birthday girl."

"Hai."

Her beautiful babies left the room.

She looked back down fondly at the earrings she had rooted out of her jewelry box - the pair the children's father had given her years ago. Her smile never faded as she put them on and rose from the bed to join her family.