Monday is the day of the week that's supposed to suck...

Tuesdays are even worst.

Wednesdays, tch…smack dead in the middle, is neutral.

Thursdays are a little bit better.

Fridays sucked…well at least for Temari.

They were always a constant reminder of her duty as the eldest and only daughter of the governor of Suna, marriage meetings. She wasn't even out of high school yet and her father insisted on her going to meet her "potential" husband. At the ripe young age of 17, she was to meet and greet young men of the same circle as her family to be married off to after she finished college.

Of course she pleaded and begged her father to wait until she got her degree before she got sent off to play housewife.

She knew it was all for political and business benefits. Not only was he the governor, but he owns a chain of very successful hotels and two private islands. One of which contain the largest of his hotels, with over water bungalows. After he inherited the business and got it to its most successful point, he decided to go into politics.

She hated it.

A year ago, her father explained to all three of them that Gaara, her youngest brother, was to be the one to take over the family business while Kankuro, was to follow in his father's footsteps and go into politics…while she gets married off to the highest bidder.

So far, most of the guys she met were, self-center, arrogant, assholes. This was the nicest things she could say about how she felt about them.

But she had to suck it up, because in her mind, her family came first.

It was summer time. Schools wouldn't open back up for another month and a half. Even so she still had to go to these meetings, which is where she was currently running late getting to.

"Damn it!" Temari huffed as she sat in the back of her black Rolls Royce Phantom. "Baki, is there any way to get there faster? Like a short cut!"

"I apologize young miss, but this is the only way for us to get there safely." Baki replied in a calm voice. Baki had been her family's driver and caretaker for as long as she can remember. She once asked him if there was anything else he wanted to do. He told her that because he owed his life to her father that he put up with her and her brothers. To them, Baki was like a really older brother.

"Well then I guess you can explain to my date why we are 20min late." She said with annoyance laced in her voice.

"Young miss, you must be patient. We are not that far away" he returned with the same annoyance. He was annoyed by her constant huffing and she was annoyed because they've been stuck in traffic for the past 30 minutes.

"How far away are we then?"

"A few blocks away."

"Good then I can walk." she said as she opened the door and climbed out.

"What! Wait young mi-" but she had already closed the door. He rolled down the passenger window. "Young miss that's not a very good idea. Everyone knows who you are and could do harm to you."

"Relax, Baki. You said its a few blocks away. I bet ill get there before you even make it up this block." She said as she starting walking away.

"Temari!" he called out. She turned around and started walking backwards

"I'm a big girl. I know how to protect myself." And with that she turned back around and walked towards her destination. It wasn't like she was in a rush to meet him. She just doesn't like making a bad first impression, especially if it was to help improve her father's business.

She was meeting him at an art gallery. She figured even if he wasn't good company, she would at least be able to look at the beautiful pictures. Walking up to the building, she let her eyes roam over the name of the building.

'Shin to Sai?' she thought 'I bet his brother is proud of him.'

She had known Sai since their elementary days. She had always found him to be a little off because he was always smiling at everyone. But at such a young age the boy could draw and paint beautiful pictures that made even most veteran painters feel ashamed of their own work. When they were younger, he told her that his brother was the reason for him getting into art. His brother passed away due to sickness when they were in middle school. It had been the first time she ever saw him without a smile on his face. He had moved to France with a relative and just moved back here six months ago saying he was opening up a gallery.

Other than her best friend, Tenten, he was the only other person she really talked to. Even though most of the time she wanted to mash his face in because of his rude comments.

As she was walking the revolving doors she never turned her head to see the boy walking out of the same doors.

xoxo Mutual Fate xoxo

Mondays always sucked.

Tuesdays sucked even more.

Wednesdays, even though are the neutral days, sucked.

Thursdays were a little less suckish.

Fridays were decent….. Well at least for Shikamaru.

They were always suppose to be his days of relaxing. As the son and only child of Shikaku Nara, founder and CEO of Nara Inc, it was always and irritation having people in your ear. Since he was the heir to the computer programming empire, you would think he would have people waiting on him hand and foot. It wasn't quite like that. He was expected to be first on the scene if anything went wrong with a system.

Well to put it plainly, Shikamaru was a genius. At the age of five, his father had walked into his room where Shikamaru playing on his computer, only to discover that what the boy thought was a game was him actually hacking into top government documents from three different countries. More than shocked that it was his 'five year old' son, he started preparing the boy earlier than what he planned in the ways of the digital world.

Shikaku had developed computer software while still in high school and managed to grow it into one of the world's top digital empires, as he like to call it. Nara Inc has developed everything from games to security, to PC's, laptops and desktops, and phones. But like most of the world everything has balance. He created the good, while his son, now 15, created the bad.

Shikamaru was a hacker. Not just any hacker, but a grey hat hacker. To him, this was entertainment watching someone else fail and get paid in the process. To add injury to insult, he would hack into companies that had contracts Nara Inc security. He would be in and out of a system long before the owner would catch on and then call them to inform them that there was a breach in security. Then make them pay a small fee to get rid of it.

When his father found out about that and more, he sent him to France to stay with an old classmate from high school for two years. What he didn't inform his son was that his father's friend was the warden of the only high-level maximum security prison in Europe.

Shikamaru thought the scarred straight program would have done it for him.

The only good thing that came out of his 'visit' was had someone his age to talk to.

He met Sai on his first day. In fact, he was the first person he met walking off the plane. At first he thought he was a creepy French boy, but he came to find out that he was a creepy Japanese boy who happened to be his guardian's nephew. He didn't know how the two shared the same blood till Sai opened his mouth. Whereas his uncle harmed you with his 'iron fist', Sai harmed you with words.

He was forever grateful to never get on Sai's bad side.

But that was two years ago. He's been back home in Konoha for seven months. Not even wanting to think about hacking into anything.

He now worked directly under his father fixing up computers and computer programs rather than causing trouble. He was in Suna at the moment for business and decided to drop by to see his old friend.

He walked into the gallery and felt his face turn red. The first picture he saw was of a naked girl on a bed wrapped in midnight colored sheets and chains with her eyes closed. Her hair seemed to blend in with the sheets.

'I always knew he was a pervert' he thought to himself. He was so entranced with the picture that he didn't notice his friend walking up to him.

"Hypnotizing isn't it?" he friend whispered in his ear. Shikamaru jump and turned to face the man.

"You really are a pervert. A creepy one at that." He chuckled.

"You say pervert, I say art" s he replied as his signature smile never fell from his face.

"Tch…whatever. And what have I told you about doing that?" he said rubbing his ear.

"That if I do it again that my smile will meet you fist and since it hasn't happened yet, I continue to do it." Shikamaru rolled his eyes.

"Now I remember why I hate you" he sighed at his friend. "So what girl did you trick into letting a seventeen year old paint her like that?" He then leant in to whisper "She is of legal age right?"

"Of course she is. She's a girl I met when I first bought this place. She said she had seen some of my previous work and wanted to know if I could paint her." The two starting walking more into the gallery where there was more of the adult content on display.

"Paint her like that?" he asked, surprised when his friend nodded in response. "Did you bang her yet or is she still being left hanging off a cliff?"

"Ha ha….You should know better than anyone else that I don't mix business with pleasure"

"Yea...what about Mika?" he asked with a smirk.

"That's was an exception I will never do again?" Sai had met the girl in France and after he did a commission for her things escaladed when Sai wanted it to be over the girl wouldn't take no for answer. Can you say stalker to the fullest meaning of the word? "Anyway how have you been?"

"Can't really complain about much." He said shrugging his shoulders." My father has been keeping an eye on me since I got back. And my mother's constant nagging isn't getting any better than it was before I left. I think it got worst" The two laughed as they walked into a small café area inside of the gallery. A girl with a white apron came over and sat two cups of coffee on the table. Shikamaru looked around on the table for some sugar only to find there was none. He looked behind him and tapped a shoulder of a boy with light brown hair and hazel colored eyes who seemed to be deep in conversation with someone the phone.

"Excuse Me." he said waiting for the boy to respond. He tapped a little harder

"Father, I've been here for ten minutes already and she still has not showed up. I- "

"Um excuse me?" He waited till he had the boy's attention. "Does your table have any sugar I can borrow?"

"Oh, here it's all yours! He said passing the sugar.

"Thanks"

"Your Welc- No wait father don't hang up!" the boy yelled into his phone. "Damn It"

He placed his hard on the table and started to grumble. Now Shikamaru wasn't one to get into another's business, but he guy look like he could use someone to vent to.

"You can join our table if you want till whoever you're waiting for gets here" he said looking back at him. The boy lifted his head to look at the two sitting behind him.

"Were you talking to me?" he asked

"Yes, yo-"

"Who do you think he was talking to?" Sai cut in. "We are the only ones sitting over here?" The boy's face instantly turns into a scowl.

"What he means is… yes you?" Shikamaru said trying to eliminate the tension that enveloped in the air. "Look how about you join us and wait for you friend"

"That's very kind of you….a"

"Nara. Shikamaru Nara."

"Nara. Of Nara Inc?"

"Yep….the one and only"

"Wow it's an honor to meet you!" the boy said excitedly getting up from his seat to an empty chair between Sai and Shikamaru. "When I was, well when we were, in middle school we heard about how you hacked into your school system to change the grades of not only your friends but the whole school. Of course this was only by word to mouth. You were highly praised in my school district."

Shikamaru had wanted to forget the incident. It's what got him sent to France. The school district was baffled as to how all of Konoha middle got straight A's, even those who were failing most of the school year. His father had somehow found out it was him before anyone else could catch on and sent him away. The district never found out it was him.

"That's just a rumor" he nonchalantly stated. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear."

"So you haven't told us who you are yet." Sai cut in, quickly changing the subject. He knew of the incident and knew that it was not to be discussed out in the open."I'm Sai and I own this art gallery"

"I'm Hitoshi Ichihara first born son to Hiiro Ichihara, owner of and CEO of 50 outlet malls around the world."

"So formal!" both boys said with wide eyes.

"Do you always introduce yourself in such a way?" Sai asked.

"Only when I deem it necessary."

"Whatever floats your boat" said Shikamaru as he sipped his coffee. The three boys talked for another 10 minutes before Shikamaru said he had to leave promising to visit the next time he was in town.

As he walked out to the revolving doors, he never turned his head to see a girl walking into the same doors.

xoxo Mutual Fate xoxo

Ok so that's about it for the first chapter. I just wanted to give a little background to the characters before the story actually get going Regardless of how many reviews I get…I'm going to finish this. But I do ask that for those who read it let me know what you think.