Title: Meeting

Author: fuulilac

Pairing: Shikamaru x Temari

Genre: Romance

Word count: 2316

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi

Summary: Nara Yoshino was so worried about her son's love life that she had told him several times before to get a girlfriend. Of course, it didn't work, so she decided to call Ino for help. And his blond friend was too happy and eager to help that she had made the meeting right after 5 days. Oh! The last day of his summer.

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Standing in front of the restaurant Ino had texted him earlier, wearing exactly what she had chosen for him the night before, he wondered whether he should come in or not. This was surely a bad idea. Why did he agree to this arrangement in the first place?

Shikamaru had known Ino along with Chouji since childhood, because their fathers were best friend. While Chouji was a friend he could trust his life with, he would avoid Ino as much as possible. It wasn't that she was bad or anything, just that she would drad him with her and make everything complicated. Just because his mother nagged him about it, Ino didn't have to join in (He would have to "thank" his mother for this "gift", or maybe not, 'cause it was so troublesome.). Nara Yoshino was so worried about her son's love life that she had told him several times before to get a girlfriend. Of course, it didn't work, so she decided to call Ino for help. And his blond friend was too happy and eager to help that she had made the meeting right after 5 days. Oh! The last day of his summer.

He hadn't seen the big deal of this thing. He just had no girlfriend since childhood and held no interest towards girls. All the girls he knew was no attration to him, just friendship. He had decided from his experiences with his mother and Ino and other girls-were-friends that women were too troublesome, and the less you had access to them, the better you were. The one thing to make them less troublesome was to follow their orders.

And that was the whole long story explaining why he was standing here, in this place, at this time instead of resting peacefully and sleeping at home. Shikamaru sighed heavily. If he didn't step inside, his mother and Ino would probably strangle him. Here we go.

Pushing the door open and step inside, he looked around once to have the whole view. The restaurant was definitely like Ino described. Not too large, but convinient, luxury, and probably romantic. He rolled his eyes.

A waiter approached him, "Good evening, sir. May I help you?"

"No, thanks. I have my friend waiting for me." Shikamaru said politely. Spotted yellow hair at one of the tables, her back facing him, Shikamaru remembered one of other things Ino said to him yesterday night: "She had blond hair. She will sit at the table at the right corner of the restaurant." He breathed in again. This shouldn't be another troublesome woman.

He walked up to her and stood by the table. The woman looked up at him with a question in her eyes. He nearly rolled his eyes, this definitely is a troublesome woman. She looked beautiful, too beautiful that you could call her hot. Her hair was blond, the dark shade of yellow like sand, and was pulled into 4 ponytails, which fitted her slender face and her teal eyes – eyes with the color of the sky and the leaves mixed together perfectly. The casual office black dress praised her curves, and her long, slender legs crossed under the table.

"Excuse me?" Her rought though femine voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He stared at her eyes, and she was looking right back at him. Damn, what was in this woman that Ino called "average"? He surely had to ask Ino later. And he thought that she and her other friend would come to help him. Damn her. "May I help you?" The woman asked again, her brows raised suggestively.

Shikamaru held his hand out awkwardly, "Hello, uhm, I'm Shikamaru, Nara Shikamaru. It's a pleasure to meet you." The woman didn't bother to shake hands, and still kept her glare at him. Arg, what an average woman she was! He didn't understand why he let Ino talk him into this. Ino had always been crazy (and mistaken) about fashion and women.

"So?" The woman asked suspiciously.

"Well, uhm, you're Ino's friend, aren't you? She told me that, well, this is troublesome, but we will have a date, right?" He let his hands drop to his side and silently hoped she would answer "no". Then he would have humiliated himself, but it would be better than having a dinner with this troublesome woman, Ino – another one and other woman whome he was sure was troublesome, again.

The woman in front of him frowned deeply, then looked at him suspiciously as the frown faded and she started to smirk, "Ah, oh. Shikamaru? Ino's friend." She exclaimed as if to remind herself of something. He sighed, look like luck was not on his way tonight.

"Troublesome." He muttered under his breath.

"Pardon me?" The woman asked him, but the amusement was evident in her voice and her eyes. Clearly, she had heard his every words. Arg. "No, it's fine."

"It's so rude of me. I'm Temari, Sabaku no Temari. Why don't you sit down?" She introduced herself and gestured to the chair on the opposite of her.

He sat there awkwardly and decided to say something to break the silence, "So, uhm, Temari-san, right?"

"Just call me Temari, and I'll call you Shikamaru. Formalities aren't needed." She cut him off before he could say anything more.

"O... okay, Temari." He said again. Her name rolled off his tongue perfectly, with no suffix. He wondered why he could say it so naturally, "Uhm, Ino said you are on the same classes with her?" This was the first time he faced some girl and felt completely nervous. She was perhaps bossy, but he had faced his mother and Ino times before.

"You can say so. Same classes? Aaa.." He was confused of her answer. She said as if she didn't remember having any common things with Ino.

"What about you? What is your personalily? Are you any "cool" guy out there, trying to look handsome and being rude with everything and think that every girl will be completely head over heels in love with him?"

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, astonished at her unusual question, "I can assure you that I'm not any of your described characters, though I'm very lazy and boring, according to Ino."

"I quite agree. You aren't impolite, but you aren't boring or lazy either. Any explanation?" She leaned to the table, her eyes twinkled in interest.

"Why don't you come around with me one day and decide? Lazy, boring, Ino surely described me badly. But I'm sure I'm a gentleman enough, don't worry." Okay. He didn't know what he had just said. It came like it was his instinct, to talk to her that way, like argue but not really, like he had just flirted with her. Suddenly, all his awkwardness disappeared, he was calm as usual. "About the part "genius", need any explanation?"

"No, I think I have enough explanation now." She grinned, her eyes shone as she looked at him interestedly like he was a thing she needed to discover.

"Why don't you talk about yourself? Ino said you were average, and I don't see anything in you like that." He shot back. If he wasn't, he was definitely curious now. She was smart, he could note so after their previous dialogue, and she could follow him easily. He hadn't seen any person, maybe except his father, could talk to him like that. Right sentence at right time. Like she could knew the rest of his sentence even when he hadn't finished it yet, and could think of ways to say against them. Like she hadn't prepared anything but still could make him think before answering.

She looked at him in the eyes, and he couldn't help but stare back. Her eyes were beautiful, he knew that from the beginning, but this time, these eyes looked right back at him. They were like the sky before the storm, the forest with dark shades of layers of leaves, both of which he liked to watch so much.

They maybe stared at each other like that forever if the waiter didn't caome over and ask: "Excuse me, sir and ma'am. What would you like for your dinner?"

Temari slowly smirked, and Shikamaru blushed slightly. She averted her eyes from him to have a look at the menu and flipped it open, "What do you think, genius?" She asked teasingly.

"Troublesome." He mumbled to himself, "I'd like to have wine first and wait for my friends to come around." He said more loudly this time so that the other two could hear.

"Good idea. Thank you so much." She said to the waiter.

As the waiter poured the wine, Temari leaned back against her chair and crossed her arms before her chest, "Now if you don't mind, can I ask what happened with me that made me troublesome twice this night?"

"... troublesome woman."

"Three times."

"You didn't answer my question before."

"If you answer mine, then I will yours."

Shikamaru sighed in defeat. She would certainly not surrender him.

"Fine. Just... that... everything is troublesome, don't you see. Talking, walking, working, it costs you all your energy and time and brain cells. What about cloud-watching and sleeping. It would be much better. Just lie in one plae and look at the clouds, no moving around. Why can't people be like the cloud, doing nothing, no worry, no concern." He had no idea why he poured all his thoughts out to her when he had only met her for half or maybe an hour. He just had some things in his gut of trusting her and feeling he could discuss this with a person equal to him.

She was silent for a while, as if to absorb his information, before suddenly stated, "So it means I'm troublesome like everything in your life."

"Well..." He scratched his neck, "... actually, I only call you and my mother that."

"So I'm that special, huh?"

"Oh, woman, just answer my question already." He didn't know what was really into him today. He admitted he only called two women like that, and he didnt' know the true reason to his confession. Temari's sharp tongue was truly troublesome.

"Fine. Well, I'm kind of average."

After a while, she didn't say anything more that he had to speak up, "And..."

"That's all."

"That's all?"

"Right. That's all. You want me to say what?"

"Of course you need to say more. Explain why you are average and something." He exclaimed. She shrugged nonchalantly, "Okay. I have two brothers. My parents were dead since our childhood. We are not from Konoha but from Sand city, the less popular city in the west. We moved to here for better eduaction."

"Maybe we met in high school before."

"Huh?" She asked confusedly.

"Ino said we had met before. Though I had no memories meeting some woman as troublesome as you." He explained, and couldn't help but let some playfulness into his.

"No, we didn't meet before, or I will remember such an interesting person like you."

"Ino didn't say much thing about you." said Shikamaru as he sipped from his glass.

"Sure, but didn't I say things about me already?" Temari smiled mysteriously like she had some secrets that he would never know.

They sat there in comfortable silence. He hadn't felt anything like this with any of new strangers, espically with a girl, even with his friends, except for perhaps Chouji.

She was the one who broke the silence this time, "You know, cloud-watching is energy-wasting."

"W...what?" He shouldn't have felt surprised after her show for tonight.

Temari had no chance of teasing his flabbergasted expression as a loud ringtune rang through the restaurant. He quickly drew his phone out of his pocket turned his head to see if anyone noticed, and sighed when see none. He mouthed at her "Ino", which made she chuckled slightly, then opening his phone to answer.

"Hey Ino."

Temari watched in silence his one-way conversation as he suddenly blinked up to look at her and said, "She couldn't come?"

Her mouth curled up into a smirk when listening to his next rambling, "But... but didn't you send a girl here? Isn't she that one? ... What? No one? Okay, I understand."

He clicked his phone shut and looked at her with seriousness in his eyes, "You are not the one I need to meet?"

Temari slowly took her glass, examined in and said, "Nope."

"Do you know Ino?"

Her smirk grew wider, "Nope."

"Have you had any intention?"

She finally looked at him, but this time her eyes held no amuse or smile, her smirk dissipated, "I won't blackmail you or kidnap you, genius. Just wanting to know why such a guy like you need from me ..." She snorted at the word "need" before continuing, "But you are not any guys I know."

He quieted, then swallowed hard, "I know this is the first time ..."

"You have ever met someone who can keep up with you? I know." She cut through his sentence, and he was surprised.

"You felt it too?"

"It? What it?" Her smirk found its way back to her face.

"Hey, just answer." He complained, but finally looking relaxed in his seat.

"Yes, yes I do. Not everyone can say something along with me, but, well, see who has the prize."

Silence again, he didn't know what to say, and she enjoyed seeing his reaction. In the end, she laughed quietly and, again, started a conversation, "If you don't mind, I want to keep up this evening, maybe with a new start-over. You?"

He sat up straighter on his seat and held up his hand from his side of the table, "Shikamaru. Nara Shikamaru. Nice to meet you."

She smiled broadly and shook his hand, "Temari. Sabaku no Temari. The pleasure is all mine."

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