[001] Theme: Deep in Thought
Characters: Shikamaru and Lee
Word Count: ~686
Like every afternoon of spring, Shikamaru had found his favourite patch of grass. He lay flat on his back, the slight prickle of grass blades bristling across the back of his neck. To anyone that walked by, he appeared to be sound asleep. Contrary to appearances, he was not.
"Nara-san!"
One of the Nara's eyes cracked opened fractionally before he caught sight of the green clad ninja skipping over enthusiastically.
"Spring is such a lovely season!" The raven-haired ninja cheered with energy to spare. "May I join your cloud watching?"
Shikamaru knew how Rock Lee was. "I was sort of thinking-" of relaxing alone, he had meant to finish.
"Thinking?!" Lee interrupted, completely oblivious to the brunette's attempt to kindly brush him away. "I must say! Thinking is a valuable skill for a ninja of our ripe springtime of youth!"
"What?" The shadow user tipped his head up to look quizzically at the fellow leaf shinobi, a man he barely knew.
His companion nodded fervently whilst his finger pointed upward as if suddenly having a point to further cement his stance on the skill of thinking. "Yes, especially in light of Yamanaka-san's blossoming over the years. You are both like wee flower buds blooming into glorious and grand daisies! I'm sure you must be thinking of how beautifully she has blossomed, correct, Nara-san?"
Shikamaru only wished Lee was trying to talk about the flowers from Ino's shop, but had inadvertently mixed up his own thoughts and expressed it incorrectly. His genius told him the taijutsu expert had meant everything the way it had come out. His genius also told him to tell Lee that his sexual preferences swung the other way just to get rid of the obnoxiously happy ninja. But then his genius relayed that the repercussions of that little lie would be too troublesome, so he dropped it.
"No. I do not have those kinds of thoughts about Ino," Shikamaru answered flatly before dropping his head back down to the grass.
"No?" Lee echoed the word, his abnormally circular eyes blinking in puzzlement. He glanced up to the sky, to the clouds, and then back to Shikamaru. He then quirked one of his thick eyebrows in a gesture of utter bemusement. "Darn, I was so sure your thoughts were of the beautiful Yamanaka-san." His body then stiffened noticeably as he pumped a fist in the air. "I will now do 500 laps around Konoha to rectify my mistake in observation!"
Shikamaru relaxed back into the grass, assuming Lee was going to leave him alone now, but then the comment sunk in and he furrowed his brows. "What about me did you observe that made you think I was thinking about Ino?"
"Oh!" Lee exclaimed with a sparkling grin. He dropped down eerily close to Shikamaru on the grass, excited to have been given a chance to express how his skills of observation and deduction had improved. "Okay. So I knew you were not sleeping because I have noticed your breathing is different on those days you had fallen asleep!" He explained, rather proud of himself. "So then I assumed you were watching the clouds! But, to my utmost surprise, you were focused solely on that cloud!" He pointed to the large cloud above them. "Then you said you were thinking!"
"You're strange, you know that?"
"Yes, Neji and Tenten tell me all the time!" He grinned, teeth gleaming. "Gai-sensei tells me it is endearing and intrinsic to my springtime of youth."
"Wait, what does this have to do with Ino?"
"You did not notice, Nara-san?" He edged closer to Shikamaru and pointed. "The cloud you were so enthralled with looks exactly like Yamanaka-san, blossoming with so much beauty! So I deduced you were deep in thoughts of her, because you are both ripe in your springtime of youth!"
Shikamaru looked back up. He angled his head. His left eye twitched violently. He had been watching that one cloud for a long time and it did look an awful lot like…
"I have to go," the Nara declared before abruptly leaving the field.
A/N: Originally this project was going to just stay at my LJ, but I decided to make my LJ account my personal journal. So all my fics will be of here. Oh, and I just started this to pass time, so no frequent updates either. The chart for drabble themes and pairings has been linked in my profile.