Disclaimer: I do not in anyway own Naruto, its plot, or its characters. They belong solely to Masashi Kishimoto and this story is for entertainment purposes only, not intended to be copyrighted in anyway.

I DO NOT OWN THE COVER IMAGE FOR THIS STORY. It is solely for the cover of the story i created and do not claim ownership of it in any way.

Title: The Trouble With Love

Author: SakuraBlizzard20

This story is rated M for sexual themes, minimal alcohol use and language. Viewer discretion is advised.

This story is a ShikaTema story with a side of SasuIno.

A/N: So, this is another story I am going to be working on along side of The Crimson Blossom. This story is going to be much more lighthearted compared to The Crimson Blossom, and since I already had this idea in my mind, I wanted to go ahead and post the first chapter (: if you would like me to continue, please share a review, because if I do not get enough feedback with this story, I will probably discontinue it. I will be updating both this story and The Crimson Blossom alternately. Thank you, I hope you enjoy (:

A box. A medium sized, brown box. That's what held everything we shared together in the past two years. Photos, letters, movie tickets and all the other dumb keepsakes that couples held onto. It was all there, every memory and cherished moment, confined into one single, corner torn, cardboard box.

I looked up to the blonde sitting on the couch in front of me. Her arms were crossed against her chest, along with her legs. Funny. The last time I saw her, she was laying on her back with her legs spread wide open for God and everyone, while Sasuke Uchiha went at her like a wild rabbit.

Now, she was glaring at me with non remorseful, pale blue eyes.

"That's all our stuff," Ino bitterly remarked after a long, extremely awkward, silence.

"What about my things?" I asked dryly. I had been staying at Chouji's house since the incident and had been rewashing the same outfit for a week because I had forgotten my clothes. You know, because the last thing you're thinking about when you're storming out of the house after pulling a naked man off of your girlfriend, is getting clean clothes for the rest of the week.

Her eyes narrowed, "I haven't gotten around to packing that stuff up yet."

I smirked, "You haven't gotten around to it? Not had the time?" I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, "I guess you wouldn't, since Sasuke probably came back for another round."

Ino's face turned a shade of pink that was almost identical to Sakura's hair, "How dare you?!"

My eyes widened, "How dare I?" I leaned back, chuckling sarcastically. What did she have to be mad about? After all, I wasn't the one to bring someone in the house, excuse me, our house and laid on my back in our bed while some woman pleasured me with pasty white passion as I screamed her name for more.

Did I mention this happened in our house?

Her eyes shifted away, "You told me you were going on a four day trip…" She said almost in a whisper.

I stood up, "It got cancelled by out clients," I replied, taking the box that sat on the coffee table between us into my hands, "Sorry I ruined your plans." I said this with all the sarcasm I could manage.

She clenched her teeth and shot up from the couch angrily, "Get the hell out, Shikamaru!"

"Gladly," I replied calmly to annoy her even more. She hated when I acted calm while she was seething with anger. "If I pass Sasuke on the way out, I'll make sure to tell him you're free and easy for the rest of the night."

"Ugh!" Ino stomped past me to the front door, swinging it open so hard it hit the wall, causing the windows to rattle, "This is why we would have never worked out anyway, Shikamaru. You never understood me and were an asshole with your sarcasm and hurtful words!"

"I'm sorry I didn't bring flowers for the occasion of walking in on you giving your sweet, sweet love to Sasuke," I bitterly retorted as I stepped into the doorway, "Or rather, I should have brought wine and a pair of scissors. That way, you could wash down his delicious juices with the wine as he used the scissors to get your clothes off even quicker."

She gasped as she aggressively pushed me out the door, screaming, "Go to hell!" She slammed the door shut behind me, the sound echoing through the neightborhood.

I turned around and yelled through the door, "Well, I hope you go to Heaven, because if you follow me to hell, the fiery pits could not possibly make me more miserable than listening to your moaning for all eternity!"

No reply shot back, surprisingly. I didn't care.

I looked down at the box in my hands while standing on the concrete steps of our small rented home. A photo laid on top of everything inside, the photo of us where Ino had her arm wrapped around my neck as she kissed my cheek. Although I looked annoyed in the picture, it had always been a favorite of mine, for an odd unknown reason. Maybe because it represented our personalities well. She was pushy, bossy, sassy and had pretty much every other characteristic you'd find in a true diva.

But she was sweet in the quiet moments, thoughtful, beautiful and creative.

And she cheated on me.

I growled as I held the box with one arm, and used the other to grab the stupid picture on top. I crushed it into my hand, the image quickly deforming and becoming nothing more than a piece of garbage. Because that's what our relationship was now. Nothing but a big piece of, lying, manipulating, cheating garbage.

I dropped the crumpled up photo onto the doormat so she would purposely see it then next time she left the house. She didn't deserve pity. She had no reason to be angry. She did this to us.

I walked down the stairs, passing by the old black garbage can that we had kept telling ourselves we would eventually replace because the dumb thing couldn't even keep a field mouse from digging through our garbage. I stepped in front of it, lifting the lid up. Holding a tear back, I dropped the entire box into the trashcan.

Where do people go when their homeless, have limited cash and have just lost the one person they thought would never purposely hurt them?

The bar, obviously.

I started off with two or three beers and decided that I didn't want to get buzzed or anything, since I would have drive back to Chouji's house and I had to work tomorrow. Stupid office job; I wouldn't have to be entirely sober for it. If you could train a monkey how to work a keyboard, it could easily take my job. And probably get a promotion before I would.

However, after seeing that they had a special on liquor, I couldn't help myself. So I took shots. A lot of shots. Of everything.

I was starting to feel something when I heard somebody sit down next to me, which usually wouldn't catch my attention, but it happened to since I was the only one sitting at that particular bar. The place was almost empty, besides a chick singing karoke who thought she was the next pop artist and a creepy guy in the corner who frankly might have been a serial killer. It was nine o'clock on a Wednesday, after all.

"One beer, please." The person, the woman, said next to me. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. She was wearing a red, lowcut V-neck with blue jeans and black converse. She had dark, almost sandy, blond hair and dark eyes. Or maybe that was just eye shadow. I kinda had beer goggles at the moment, so I wasn't one hundred percent sure if she was wearing really dark eyeshadow or if she was some kind of demonic creature that only came out at night.

She caught me glancing at her and raised a brow, "Can I help you?"

I shook my head and turned away, taking another shot of vodka.

She turned her head away as well as the bartender sat an ice cold beer in front of her. She sighed, smiling. "I've been looking forward to this ice cold beer all day." she whispered, I think more to herself than to me, as she took the first swig of her beverage.

"The first drink is always the best," I said as she put her bottle down. "Really soothes the nerves on the way down."

Rather than ignoring my comment, she actually nodded in agreement. "There's nothing better than one of these after a long day." She took another drink.

"Their good on short days too," I remarked, "Doesn't have to be a long day for a beer that good."

She smirked, "I'm Temari." She stated.

I didn't really care what her name was, but I decided not to be rude. "Shikamaru," I replied as I downed another shot.

"Good grief, how many is that for you?" she grimaced beside me.

I shrugged.

"You'd better slow down," She said in a tone mixed with concern and irritation, "You ever heard of the saying, beer before liquor, never sicker?"

I glanced a fuzzy filled eye toward her, "What's that sposed to mean?"

She rolled her eyes, "See, your speech is already slurring. You should probably call it a night."

I huffed at her. Who was she to come in here telling me not to drink? I was an adult, I could drink what I damn well pleased. To state that to her, I purposely took another shot while glancing at her out of the corner of my eye.

"Ahhh…" I said in a refreshing tone as I slammed the glass onto the bar.

She looked both annoyed and slightly amused. "You're too gone to drive anywhere. Where are you staying? I don't mind to take you home, I wasn't planning on drinking much anyway. It is a Wednesday, after all…" She trailed off, undoubtedly judging me for drinking so much on a weeknight.

A hiccup escaped my mouth before I replied with, "I'm not staying anywhere because my cheating whore girlfriend kicked me out," The words came out before they registered. Did I really just say that to a person I had just met?

Or maybe I imagined it. I wasn't sure at this point. The only thing I was sure about was that my stomach was definitely beginning to feel a little queasy.

"Ugh," Temari must have saw the look on my face and she grimaced, "Look, you can't stay here all night and give yourself alcohol poisoning. I'll get in trouble if they found out I was a witness to your ridiculous drinking." she rolled her eyes. "And I really don't feel like filling paperwork out tonight."

The room was spinning too much for me to care about her smartass comment. I opened my mouth to reply, but rather than words coming out, a burp escaped instead.

She sighed, "You're lucky I'm a good person and that I've had a few drunken nights myself so I know what its like…" she began fiddling around inside her purse. I wasn't sure what she was looking for, I was too busy trying to keep myself upright on the stool.

"I'll buy you a hotel room and drop you off for the night, but after that, you're on your own." She said stiffly as she pulled out her keys and wallet. She slapped an unknown amount of dollar bills on the bar to pay for the drinks and stood up. She then wrapped her hand around my waist and put my arm around her neck, beginning to walk me out of the bar.

I honestly wasn't sure what was going on, all I could think about was how my stomach was jumping all over the place. I had never considered myself a drinker. Sure, I would have the occasional one while hanging with some friends, but never to the point of being a fall to the ground, annoying, puking white girl.

She basically dragged me to her car, which was either black or blue, I couldn't tell because of previously mentioned beer goggles, and pretty much threw me into her passengers side, strapping the seatbelt across my chest. I was kind of a drooling, blabbering mess. I had no idea what I was spewing to her and she obviously didn't either, since she wasn't replying to anything I was saying.

I remember that the car ride was long. Like an hour long. Maybe not that long, but that's how long it felt. My throat felt like it was tightening and my stomach was on fire. All I could remember was that I wanted to get out of the car as soon as possible. The motion was making my head even dizzier.

Finally, we stopped, thank God. She jumped out of the car while I was going on about something extremely passionate about pizza rolls, and ran over to her passengers side, swinging the door wide open.

She began to get me out of the car, when it happened.

My throat tightened, my stomach burned, and a hot, chunky liquid came shooting out of my mouth, interrupting my speech about said pizza rolls.

I had never seen a woman so furious. Even with my eyes fuzzy and the entire world spinning, I remember seeing the Temari's face turn from a pretty peachy color to a dark red. Steam may have even been coming from her ears, or maybe that was me hallucinating.

"You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding me!" she screamed as she threw me off of her, leaving me to fall on the hard sidewalk. "You asshole! This was a brand new shirt!"

I blubbered something that was supposed to be, "I'm sorry," but it sounded like something completely stupid.

After she had a moment to rant and rave about how I better not have messed up her shirt, she dragged me off of the ground and threw me back into her car, not even bothering to buckle me this time.

"Where…" I muttered, "are we going?"

"I'm taking you to my house," Temari said angrily, "I can't have you laying in a hotel room choking on your vomit. I really did not expect to be babysitting a grown man tonight."

"I'm…" I began blubbering again, "Sorry," I burped out, almost afraid that more vomit was about to go spewing.

But it didn't. She didn't say anything for a moment, then replied with, "Shut up and go to sleep."

I must have gone to sleep because I don't remember anything after that.

A/N: Ehh? What do you think? As you obviously caught onto, this story more of takes place in our modern world today. Shikamaru is more of sarcastic in this story and will continue to be so, although I will try to remain as much in character for him as I can. Like I said before, I want this to be kind of more lighthearted and funny, but also have a plotline. If you would like to see more, please review! Thank you, this is my first Shikatema story! (: