"...and I can think of a Thousand reasons why... I don't believe in you..."

Seven years have passed since Konoha and Suna had missions together. You could say that after the war things slowed down a little bit.

He was meeting the new kids that would start school in the end of Summer, a Jounin like himself was expected to be there, to know all their names and to prepare to get a team of his own, afterall Shikamaru, one of the brightest minds in all the village, was only sent in S or A ranked missions. He actually had quite alot of free time.

After the war ended he and Yamanaka Ino became pretty close and with time they started dating. He though she was pretty annoying at first but I guess you can say he grew up to like her even though everything was troublesome for him. Sometimes she even talked about marriage but he was not even there yet. It was too troublesome... Specially one though that would come to his mind from time to time...

Tsunade-sama called him to her office one morning and give him an important scroll with some secret informacion about a S ranked mission. He was not to tell anyone about it, not his family, not his girlfriend. He was just told to pack a bag, some food and leave as soon as possible, his parter would be waiting halfway he was told.

He left that night.