I realize this scenario has been done to death but I just felt like writing since when I'm stressed out I tend to read and write. I apologize if it seems similar to other works and whatnot.

Shikamaru Nara was a lazy man. Fact of life. Just like how the sun rose in the east and set in the west, how gravity is always present, how the earth revolved around the sun.

There was no in-betweens. No arguing about how the grass isn't always green or how the sky isn't actually blue but rather white light reflecting only the blue spectrum.

He was lazy. Fact of life. End of story. He knew it, and everyone in Konoha knew it and accepted it. Just like how they accepted that Naruto would always be loud no matter what, and how Chouji was always snacking on something or how Lee was always exploding with self-claimed 'youth'.

Well, technically everyone who lived in Konoha. Temari was a shinobi from Suna. And well she couldn't understand it at all. He was a certified genius with a 200 plus IQ. He had a pretty decent family bloodline, manipulating shadows is nothing to laugh at. He was surprisingly fit and had amazing reflexes that belied his half-asleep demeanor. So why was it that he so apathetic and determined to have an ordinary life when he was obviously destined not to?

"Too troublesome", he would say. Well, one day when she bugged him about it for the 23rd time, he retorted with a, "It's too annoying, arduous, belligerent, bothersome, burdensome, demanding, difficult, disturbing, fractious, inconvenient, irksome, onerous, oppressive, pesky, problematic, tiresome, trying, unruly, upsetting, vexatious, vexing, wearisome, worrisome." He stopped to take a breath, "Did I miss anything?" Temari stared at him with a blank look on her face, taken back by the onslaught of adjectives. "Troublesome..."

"Right, that. That's the reason."

But it didn't end there. She was too stubborn, too hardheaded, too her to just let him off the hook that easily.

"So..." she trailed off, swinging her legs back and forth as she looked down from her perch on a tree branch directly above Shikamaru.

"..." Shikamaru was finding that cloud-watching was extremely difficult when you could almost see up the skirt of a very, not that he would ever admit it, hot Suna kunoichi.

"Oi. Still alive down there?" she asked, almost hanging upside down by now, from leaning forwards so much.

Great, now he could almost see up? down? her shirt. A very small, form-fitting, low-cut complete with mesh shirt.

He grunted, "Yeah, what?" and hoped that his elevated knees would cover up the problem that was starting to stir.

"So...when are you gonna take the Jounin test?" she asked as she deftly somersaulted from her post and landed, feet on both sides of Shikamaru's waist.

"That again?" he stared in fascination through half-lidded eyes, as she started to lean towards him, her face getting closer and closer.

"Yes that again" she prodded his chest with a slim, delicate finger. She was surprised by the resistance her finger met. It felt like she was poking a brick wall. She knew that Shikamaru was fit, but she couldn't really imagine him as, well buff.

"You never give up do you? For the 24th time it's too..."

"Troublesome?" she offered. She was honestly surprised that he had been keeping count, "Or were you going to spout off a whole list of other adjectives that mean the same thing?"

"Nah, troublesome works just fine" he smirked faintly and shut his eyes.

Temari frowned, a deep furrow forming between her eyebrows. He had used this method at least a dozen times to get her off his back and most of the time she relented, ending up laying down next to him. But not today.

"Do you even train at all? Not counting the mandatory training."

He grunted. She scowled. What he didn't tell her was that after everyone else went to sleep, he spent two to three hours training by himself in the dark. After all the dark was one of his greater weaknesses and he knew it but she had to make it painfully obvious.

"You have got to be the laziest guy on the face of the earth"

Another grunt. Another scowl. He didn't tell her that he woke up hours before even Naruto or Lee just so he could go running and do some physical training without anyone finding out. Being a ninja meant that you had to maintain a certain fitness level, but the last time he went running out of his own free will was...well, never.

"I mean you really do need to train. Your hand to hand combat just kinda sucks ass, really. Your genjutsu...do you even have any genjutsu skills? And your ninjutsu is sub-par at best. Actually how did you even become a chuunin in the first place?"

He didn't even bother to answer. Pretending to be asleep worked well for him in the past, why should it not now? Of course he could never tell her how he tried getting tips for weapon combat from Tenten, or how he almost died because he made the mistake of asking Gai-sensei for training tips, or how he even tried to get Kurenai-sensei to teach him some intermediate genjutsu skills.

She grimaced. What had been meant as encouraging words for him to work harder somehow came out as an insult. There were things that her pride just prevented her from saying. She sighed silently, tugging at one of her ponytails. Why did it matter to her anyways? It wasn't like it really affected her life at all, and she sure didn't go around pointing out the faults of every other Konoha ninja. Well, not on purpose anyways. There was just something about him that really irked her.

"You know, you really piss me off"

Shikamaru felt his eye twitch as he heard this. Temari winced slightly. Did she say that out loud?

He cracked open an eye, slowly, just like how he did everything in life and studied her. She had sat down next to him when she began on her tirade. She had her knees tucked into her chest and she wasn't really looking up nor was she really looking down. She was looking ahead, off into the distance. Into the future. Just like she always did.

He sighed. He really couldn't measure up to her. He had just realized recently his old method of getting through life was just his way of trying to avoid responsibility. She lived her whole life with the mantra 'Do whatever you can to be better' and 'There is no try, just do or do not'.

He was still lazy, yes. He just didn't like doing things that were unnecessary, but he understood the difference between what was 'troublesome' and what was needed. He unconsciously rubbed one of his eyes. He certainly wasn't getting as much sleep as he used to. Any observant person could note that. He always looked more half-asleep than usual, his ponytail wasn't as tight and strands of hair littered his forehead, and his clothes were always abnormally disheveled. But a little less sleep would be worth it in the end. The future's always more important than the past or the present.

"What are you thinking about?"

He looked over to see her looking at him, with, was that concern in her eyes? He wondered what she saw when she looked at him.

"The future" and he smiled one of his few genuine smiles.

He didn't tell her that Tsunade had already promoted him to Jounin. And his mind swarmed with scenarios of the future, all of which somehow included her.

I wanted to include more fluff but then I just felt like ending it. I realize that it kind of is ambiguous and leaves a lot of loose ends but oh well. That's what you get when you're stressed out about the college process and is trying to write a college essay and somehow end up with this.

Writing cause I feel like writing. Review if you feel like reviewing.