Happy Birthday, Shika to Ino
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a Naruto fanfiction
by
mkh2
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Disclaimer: Sheesh, not even for my birthday, am I granted the rights to Naruto so, no, I don't own Naruto. That tasty privilege belongs to Kishimoto-sensei, whom is obviously not I, seeing as I'm not a man nor am I a resident of Japan.
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Happy Birthday, Shika to Ino
Part 1: Happy Birthday, Shikamaru!
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It was a good day by Shikamaru's standards.
Considering he doesn't require much to meet his standards, that isn't saying much.
Still, it was a good day.
Not that it was particularly interesting, well, part of it was, in his opinion, and actually he tends to find that which is interesting to be rather troublesome, but anyways… Moving on.
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Shikamaru had woken up and eaten breakfast, as per his usual routine. His mother gave him some extra crackers from the store. He liked the crackers since they were better than the ones his mother makes but he would never tell her that since he actually enjoyed being alive, thank you. He nodded his goodbyes to his mother and his father, actually calling "Oyaji" since his father seemed to be preoccupied with measuring an exact amount of sugar to add to his coffee.
Coffee is gross… but apparently the side affects more than make up for its lousy taste.
He met up with his team and since his sensei had a short mission to carry out, the team was given the order to train for a couple of hours and then break for lunch. They carried it out exactly – two hours and then lunch… or perhaps brunch, since it was only twenty after ten by that point but, being best friends with Chouji, they had to go to lunch. Shikamaru pointed out to Chouji that technically it was brunch, so Chouji insisted they have that too. Sometimes Shikamaru wondered why he even bothered – it was all so troublesome anyway.
When the two finally left the café at a little after twelve (having had both meals), they went their separate ways; Ino had vanished directly after training, Shikamaru presumed, to go chasing after Sasuke. Girls are scary, he reflected. He'd already decided that he'll never understand and, frankly, he doesn't want to. That would probably scar him for life. Besides, it was too troublesome to learn.
With that last thought, he made his way to his favorite hill to get in some quality cloud-watching time. The grass was soft and springy, the nearby oak offered him some shade without blocking his view of the sky, and the burbling brook lent to the relaxed atmosphere of the place. He'll ignore the fragrant scent of the flowers nearby, seeing as he was a man and it wasn't considered very manly to pay attention to that sort of thing. (Still, that was nice too.)
It was getting near sunset (well, an hour from it anyways… the sun was getting low in the sky, about a fist from the horizon) when he became aware of a presence heading in his direction. He stilled his movements (not many to begin with since, after all, it was too much of a trouble to be moving around to begin with when all that is on your agenda was to watch the clouds drifting by…) hoping that it was just someone passing by and not someone coming over with the malicious intent to… annoy him. (He decided that it was alright to use words other than bother and trouble on the odd occasion, so long as the main point still gets across, but it's too much of a bother to go into detail on that.)
Moments later, he found himself staring into the blue-green eyes of Ino.
Darn it…
"Hi Shikamaru!" she smiled easily. "Mind if I join you?"
Naturally, he couldn't refuse, otherwise he would end up with a severely pained head and a foot to the stomach… however, he couldn't say no either since, well, he did mind, and he would rather not be bothered. So, being the super genius that he is, Shikamaru went with the next best option.
"Hn."
"Oh, good!" Ino dropped into the grass next to him – right next to him. He could feel the warmth of her arm against his and there was a lump in his throat as he wondered what could have possessed her to sit so close to him…
"It took me a while to find you – seems I was over at the wrong hill – you know, the one closer to the training area? It also had the spring and the tree, but I forgot that tree was bigger and had branches that went waaaaaaay out over the hill and it would block the clouds from your view," Ino bubbled, rifling in the… basket? …she had next to her.
Shikamaru blinked at her.
"Anyways, I packed a picnic, thought I'd share it with you, since I'm here and all… Onigiri?" Ino offered it to the lazy boy. "Mom made it – ran me right out of her 'precious kitchen'… doesn't even let me boil water in there."
Shikamaru slowly took it from her, hoping not to set her off because of some silly thought like, "Oh, so you trust my mom's cooking but not mine?" He mentally shuddered as, for a moment, he imagined the pain that would be rained on him for such a slight.
Ino pulled another one out and laid next to him, her chin level with his shoulder as she wriggled in the grass, trying to find a comfortable spot.
"Hey, this is pretty nice," she commented. "The water sounds nice, and the sky looks even bluer here and… the flowers also smell nice."
Shikamaru was silent.
"Did you notice? The flowers, I mean," Ino glanced at him.
What could Shikamaru say? As a man, he would have to say that, no, he hadn't noticed even though, technically, he had, but that was only because, as a super genius, he was required to notice such things. Naturally. So he gave the best response he could.
"Hn."
"Well, of course you did. You notice everything, don't you," grinned Ino, biting into her onigiri, which reminded Shikamaru of the one in his hand and he also took a bite. It was pretty good. He raised an eyebrow at it.
"Mom loves her spice."
Shikamaru nodded, quickly finishing it off before he realized it. He blinked in surprise to find another in his hands moments after he was done.
"Eat up."
He did.
The rosy, fiery hues of the sunset set the sky ablaze, orange and red and yellow and purple and a hint of green coloring all of Konoha below and the clouds above. Shikamaru raised a hand to his face but was stopped short by Ino speaking again.
"You have big hands."
"What?" Shikamaru then wished he'd remembered to keep his mouth shut.
"No, seriously – look at mine and then look at yours. Let's compare," Ino shifted, raising her right hand to place her palm against the palm of his left hand that was still in the air next to her. "See? You have big hands."
"That's only because I'm bigger than you," Shikamaru stated, not relishing the sudden thump thump that echoed dully in his chest for a brief moment or the way that lump made its way into his throat again.
"So? Sasuke's bigger than you but his hands aren't this big," Ino frowned.
Shikamaru ignored the mention of Sasuke and refrained from pointing out that he was bigger than Sasuke by half a centimeter. He pulled his hand away, scratched the bridge of his nose, and then draped his arm across his torso carelessly.
"It's getting late," he mentioned, eyes drifting to the half a sun in the distance.
"Right," sighed Ino, sitting up. She glance at Shikamaru.
"Guess it would be too much to ask for you to walk me home, right?" she murmured.
Shikamaru froze, wide-eyed, well, as wide-eyed as he gets, as he looked up at the blonde girl from where he lay.
Ino smiled brilliantly. "Happy birthday, Shikamaru." She walked out of his view, basket swinging from his arm.
Shikamaru blinked after the girl. He had forgotten about that. Shikamaru started suddenly and a blush crept over his features. He didn't recall telling her about his birthday…
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The last sliver of the sun had disappeared over the horizon and the moon was already hanging low in the sky when Shikamaru slowly walked into the house, hands in his pockets and a sleepy look carefully schooled on his features—he was still wondering how Ino knew his birthday, after all. His father clapped him on the shoulder and steered him to the kitchen where a large meal was prepared and some presents placed at his seat were waiting to be unwrapped. Shikamaru blinked at the large amount of food, slightly curious, until he saw the brown-red hair of his friend, Chouji, as he peeked over the food.
"Oh good, you're here – now we can eat!"
With a laugh from his dad, they did. Shikamaru ate a little less than usual, not that anyone actually noticed – he had just eaten, after all – and opened his presents. Kunai, clothes, shuriken, a new earring, a new shuriken holster with the leaf symbol, a small barbecue, a scroll about various things that Shikamaru wasn't really paying attention to, something about fire jutsu and shadow jutsu and he wasn't interested anyway since it would mean more work, and sunscreen (Chouji said it would be useful for long cloud-watching days, and he grinned a big grin at Shikamaru while his mother shook her head.) Lots of stuff, all of which he had to carry upstairs by himself when the presents were over and Chouji had gone home.
A few hours later Shikamaru found himself lying on his bed, looking out the wind at the seemingly cloudless sky when he decided that, yes, today was a good day after all.
-Owari-
Yeah, yeah, I know, it's been forever since I posted something. Mo, don't look at me like that. It's not completely my fault. -twiddles her thumbs-
Well, that's it for part one, stay tuned for the next piece – Ino. We share the same birthday – September 23rd – and so I'm 21 now. X3 Yes, I know, I know, I'm old. O.o;;