Shikamaru... Genius?
Persepolis130
Thanks to a certain overly-dramatic blonde teammate, Shikamaru is having the worst day of his life...or is he?
XXXXX
Nara Shikamaru may have just committed the single most troublesome act of his life.
Not that he'd actually put forth the effort to contemplate whether he might actually have, at some point, done something more foolish. But if he'd felt the motivation to think about it, he was damn sure this would rank pretty high on the chart.
His fatigue was bordering on exhaustion, and his stomach was grumbling as if he hadn't eaten in days. The hot sun was beating down on his face, and there was a gash on his leg that stung as sweat dripped into it.
But the real kicker was the blonde girl sobbing dramatically on his shoulder. Yes, he had done a foolish thing, and now he was going to pay for it. He sighed, and his near perpetual frown deepened.
What had happened earlier that had gotten him into this whole mess was normally the sort of thing Shikamaru could ignore. After all, it was usually much less effort to simply put up with a bad situation than to actually do something about it. And if there was anyone who would put up with just about anything to avoid having to put forth effort, it was the shadow genin.
But at training today he just hadn't been able to do it.
Asuma-sensei had lost his cheery demeanor and had begun to chain-smoke even worse than before, looking as if he would have preferred to shove the entire pack in his mouth at once. Choji's eyes had glazed over, and his skin had assumed an unhealthy sheen, not to mention that he had almost completely lost his appetite, causing his chakra levels to dip dangerously low. Things had begun to look dire, and Shikamaru, his head pounding from the constant feminine shouts, had had to say something. After all, could the day really get much worse?
Maybe he should've calculated the percentage of times people had historically asked someone "So what the hell's wrong with you today?" and actually made the situation better. He was pretty sure the numbers wouldn't be very good. But even his best calculations wouldn't have predicted this outcome.
It was all so troublesome.
"It," of course, was Ino.
As a general rule she was loud and bossy, which took a bit of getting used to, but it was nothing the Nara couldn't handle. Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru worked quite well as a team, and Ino was usually pretty easy to get along with as long as she got her way.
But today she had arrived for training in top form. She didn't stop yelling all through the morning, and she objected to everything anyone told her to do, even Asuma. Nothing was right, everyone was stupid, and her existence was pure misery. It was a wonder she still had a voice left at all, with all the screaming she was doing.
But when Shikamaru had decided to ask his high-strung, high-maintenance teammate what the problem was, this was not the outcome he had expected. Of course he could have asked a bit more tactfully. But he hadn't even realized that Ino cried, much less bawled in other people's arms.
Shikamaru sighed as Ino sniffed once more, blotting traces of teary mascara off her cheeks. If there was anything more unsettling, unnerving, and just plain creepy to a teenage boy, it was a teenage girl's mood swings. How could you ever predict what would come next? None of it made any sense. One minute, Ino had been lamenting that Shikamaru was the most hopeless, worthless, sorry excuse for a future shinobi that ever walked the face of the earth, and the next she was sobbing pitifully in his arms.
At the fateful moment of his ultimate blunder, Asuma and Choji had both edged silently away, obviously deciding that they valued their sanity more than their friendship with their astonished looking teammate, who could do nothing but hold the overly-emotional girl as she wept.
Another sigh escaped the boy's mouth. This sucked.
"It's just not fair," Ino finally proclaimed.
Oh boy, here we go, thought Shikamaru. He slouched (as well as he could with a substantial-sized girl clinging to him) as his bottom lip stuck out in a serious pout. Well, I'm already in this deep, so... "What's not fair?"
Ino released her near strangle-hold on her teammate and straightened her long blonde hair in its ponytail, eyeing Shikamaru angrily. "I do everything! Everything!! Just so he'll notice me! And what do I get from him? Can you guess?!"
"Uh..." Did she really expect him to have an answer?
"NOTHING!! He completely ignores me!!" the blonde ranted, "Do you know what happened to me in front of that big-forehead freak today??"
"Well..."
"Oh, that Sakura!! How did she get put on his team anyway?! Can you tell me that??""
The boy scratched at the back of his neck, hoping above all hope that she still didn't expect him to answer. Ino had developed a completely moronic feud with her sometimes friend Sakura of Team 7 over their mutual love interest, Uchiha Sasuke. He should have known this was what it was all about...
"Well, I saw the three of them this morning-- Sasuke-kun, forehead girl, and the idiot-- sitting around waiting for that pervy sensei of theirs! So I decided to stop by and cheer poor Sasuke-kun up! Can you imagine being put on a team with THOSE TWO?! Waiting hours for a sensei who's constantly reading PORN!?
Shikamaru cringed as the irate girl turned to him, clearly expecting an answer.
The genin felt a wave of panic rise in his chest, praying he had the correct answer. "Uh... no...?"
"My point exactly!! So what could I do but stop by and say hi?! It was my DUTY as a Konoha ninja!!"
Sweat was dripping down Shikamaru's forehead, and his ponytail suddenly felt far too tight. Wow, he wished she'd use less emphatic punctuation. It was really hurting his head.
"So I just told him I was happy to see him and I hoped he was enjoying the pretty day!!"
Shikamaru felt the bile rise in his throat as he imagined what "telling him I was happy to see him" and "hoping he was enjoying the pretty day" entailed. His teammate was continually throwing herself at the young Uchiha, practically strangling the boy in her glee to make physical contact with him. Nara could hardly blame him for--
"And then, do you know what he SAID?!" Ino grabbed his shirt for emphasis, drawing the boy out of his thoughts. "Do you even KNOW what he SAID?!"
Shikamaru willed the ground to open up and swallow him.
"He said, 'Sakura, why don't you tell your..." sniff "...STUPID friend to..." sniff sniff "get lost! Her..." whimper "...SHRIEKING is giving me a HEADACHE!' WAAAAAAAH!!!!"
She threw her arms around her teammate again, sobbing loudly against his neck. "She's twisted him into hating me!! It's all her fault he doesn't love me!!!"
The genin sighed once again as the teary girl smeared wet all over his cheek. He wondered what had prompted Ino to actually take Sasuke's words to heart. Usually she was too busy trying to convince him and the rest of the world that the two of them belonged together to actually notice Uchiha didn't like her. Of course, Shikamaru didn't dare tell her this. No one did. Doing so would mean certain death. And given her current state of mind, it was likely to be a painful one.
Shikamaru sighed again, creased the skin between his eyebrows a bit deeper, and worked up a major pout. How was he going to get out of this one?
Okay, here's what we'll do: think like her. Get into her head. Become sympathetic. That's it. He was no longer Nara Shikamaru, frowning shadow genin, but Yamanaka Ino, love-struck, body-swapping fashion plate. Perfect. And he-- no, she, he was a girl now!-- had just been publicly insulted by the boy she had been having fantastic, shivery dreams about since she first noticed the male gender.
Oh, gross.
He was not only being tearfully assaulted by the still loudly-weeping blonde, but he was now scarred for life. He'd have to go to therapy to erase the dreamy, flowered shojo manga-esque image he had conjured up of Uchiha Sasuke... in his bed... completely naked... Urgh. And Nara was way too lazy for therapy. What a drag.
Alright, so plan A had failed. Pitifully. Miserably. Scarringly. Now on to plan B. Integral aspect of plan B: get the hell out of here.
"Uh, Ino...I know you're really upset and all..." the decibels of wailing increased somewhat "...but maybe... I mean... you wouldn't want him to see you crying, right?" Pleaseworkpleaseworkpleasework!
The tears suddenly seemed to let up, and Ino released her crushing hold on her teammate.
"You're right." The blonde dabbed at her eyes but failed to remove the makeup that trailed down her cheeks. "You're absolutely right."
Shikamaru sighed. Who wore eye makeup to train in anyway? "Come on, you can come to my place and... wash your face or... whatever girls do."
Ino put on a courageous look and made one last sniff before nodding and following her teammate.
XXXXX
Nara Shikamaru sat on the floor of his house eating a questionable-looking piece of fruit he'd found on the counter and dabbing at the cut on his leg with a wet cloth. Of course the medicine was in the bathroom. With Ino. Who had all but barricaded herself into the small room nearly a half hour ago. What DID girls do in there anyway? Never mind, he thought with a sigh. He didn't really want to know.
When she finally emerged, his teammate had not only washed her face, but had straightened and cleaned her uniform, wet down her hair, and apparently given herself a sponge-bath. "I'm ready to talk now."
The shadow genin frowned. What a bother.
Ino looked around the room for a suitable place to sit, but upon finding nothing that met her standards in the shabbily-furnished room, she sat on the relatively clean floor next to Shikamaru. "I'm really sorry."
Nara's frown deepened. What was this about?
"I didn't mean to get so upset about everything... it was just one of those mornings, you know? I feel really bad for being so mean."
The boy shrugged and set the remains of his slightly-fermented fruit on the window sill behind him.
"It's just... have you ever been in love, Shika?"
Shikamaru scowled and wished Choji were here. Not because he wanted to torment the other boy (too much) for abandoning him, but because he could use some support. Still, he hoped he could wrap this up quickly and move on to bigger and better things. Like doing some serious napping.
"Too tiring", he responded.
Ino giggled. "It's not something you choose, silly, so it doesn't matter whether it's tiring or not. When you fall in love, you can't help how you feel. It's almost... magical..."
Sensing a long-winded explanation of all the ways loving Uchiha Sasuke was magical, the pouting Shikamaru decided to nip this one in the bud. "But don't you think there's a certain point when you have to move on? I mean, like I said, I've never been in love, but... it seems like you're wearing yourself out over nothing."
The blonde's expression looked somewhere between murderous and suicidal. "You couldn't possibly know if you've never been in love before! And Sasuke's just so... HOT! And sexy. And gorgeous. And dazzling and adorable and alluring and--"
Nara could feel a scowl starting to surface as his teammate began to recite every know synonym for the word "attractive." His brow began to crease as she moved on to synonyms for "cool." His eyes started to squint when she began words related to "mysterious." By the time she started on "smart," his shoulders were slouched, his chin was lowered almost to his chest, and that vein in this forehead was starting to throb. Again.
Her vocabulary was absolutely unparalleled when it came to praising Uchiha. She could make a thesaurus jealous. He had to stop this.
"... and intelligent and intellectual and clever and bright and--"
"He's not."
The blonde stopped her tirade with a stunned, vaguely disgusted look. "What do you mean, 'he's not'? Haven't you been listening to me?!"
This was such a pain, he sighed. "Well, you're telling me all these great qualities he has, but I know one thing he's missing."
The brunet turned to face his teammate, who looked quite incredulous at the suggestion that her Sasuke was not perfect.
"You."
Ino blinked several times, but still only managed to present the other genin with an uncharacteristically blank look. Shikamaru was briefly reminded of Naruto.
Alright, here goes nothing: "You're pretty, right? And cool. And nice. And... fun. And you're the best girl ninja in our class. If he doesn't like you, there's got to be something wrong with him, right? I mean, how could he possibly find a girl better than you? So maybe he's not so cool or smart or...whatever..."
During Shikamaru's little speech (which, it must be noted, was really tiring), an unrecognizable look came across his teammate's features. "You really think so? I mean, you think those things about me?" she asked in a quiet voice.
The shadow genin blinked. He had mostly just said it to try to get rid of her... not that it was completely untrue, but...
Why was she looking at him like that? It was seriously weirding him out. "Uh... I guess..."
A small smile touched Ino's lips, and her cheeks seemed a bit pinker as her eyes met his. "No one's ever told me anything like that before," she half-whispered, "I mean, no one who mattered, anyway."
At this point, Shikamaru decided that fruit must have been bad, because his stomach was doing strange things. It couldn't have anything to do with the way Ino was looking at him. Nope, because that would mean--
Suddenly, Ino seemed to have gotten a whole lot closer to him. And she was still staring at him with that look on her face. That softly-smiling, pink-cheeked, starry-eyed look. And had the room suddenly gotten warmer? He shouldn't have sat under the window.
"You know, you're sort of cute when you blush. Nowhere near as cute as Sasuke-kun, but..."
Shikamaru swallowed and closed his eyes, hoping to dispel the sudden dizziness from being called "cute" which was mixing with his vague nausea from hearing Uchiha's name again.
A sudden warm breath across his lips made him gasp, and his eyes shot open. Ino's eyes were inches from his, as brilliantly blue as the most beautiful afternoon sky. The kind of sky he loved to gaze into as he drifted off for the most perfect nap. His breath caught in his throat as her lips parted. "...maybe you're not quite as worthless as I thought."
And with that, the pink-cheeked Ino smiled broadly, stood up, waved, and walked out the door.
Shikamaru blinked. What the hell just happened?
First thing this morning she had been indiscriminatingly cruel. Then she had instantaneously become the picture of piteous dejection. And she now seemed to be sweetness personified. Well, at least as sweet as Ino could be when not dealing with a certain sharingan-wielding prettyboy. And...
Shikamaru flushed even deeper. She'd called him cute. And she'd almost... Her lips were...
The shadow genin's head spun for a moment as he contemplated the meaning behind it all.
Without even trying, he'd managed to get the prettiest, smartest, coolest, most fun girl in Konoha into his house...and practically into his lap. Almost... kissing him.
And the weird thing was that before he tried to cheer her up, he hadn't really noticed she was pretty. Or fun, or smart, or... that he might want her in his lap. She was just regular old Ino, take-control team-leader who liked to boss him around and continually forced him to put forth far too much effort. He'd never really noticed before that she was... a girl... and a really hot one...
Sighing at the effort but not unhappy, he pulled himself up off the floor and sauntered across to the bathroom to clean himself up from training. A crooked little grin touched his lips.
As he turned the knob on the shower to the perfect temperature and turned the events of the day around in his brain a bit more, his grin turned into a full-fledged smile, and he was left with only one thought in his mind:
Nara Shikamaru, you genius.