Hey everyone! I'll warn you now and say this is a short story. Not a one-shot, but it's only going to be four chapters long. I just thought a Nara could easily outsmart a game of hide-n-seek so wouldn't it be cute to see him do it. That and since my regular computer is at the shop I can't work on my Kidnapped one. This is sort of an apology for making you wait so long.

Hope you enjoy,

Trouble 1

Reason 1: They don't want to

One fine day, a six year old Shikamaru was sitting under a tall tree on the school yard, content to watch the clouds pass by throughout his whole recess. But his fellow students had other ideas.

"Shikamaru! Come play Hide-n-seek with us!" Ino yelled a few feet away. Instead of flinching, he simply peeked at her with one eye, unstartled.

"Why?"

"Because I told you to, that's why."

"That's not much of a reason."

"Well, you can't sit under that tree all recess long. That's boring!" Shikamaru closed his eye, dead set on defying her. Until that dreaded statement was said. "And if you do, I'll tell your mother."

With that the young Yamanaka got both of the boy's eyes open and his full attention.

"Seriously?" She nodded. With a sigh the Nara climbed to his feet. "Troublesome blond."

"Hey guys! I got another player!" Ino called back to her group.

Said group included Sakura, Kiba, Choji, and strangely enough, Naruto. Ino usually didn't include him in any of the games she organized so seeing him among the people playing was very strange indeed. Shikamaru wondered absently how much the blond had to beg to get Ino to reconsider. Regardless, all of them came running towards her in order to start the game.

"Ok, whose seeking?" she asked, causing Naruto's hand to shoot into the air simultaneously.

"Let me seek! Please! I'll be the best seeker ever! Datteboyo!"

"Fine, you can seek," she said with a sigh.

"Yes!"

"Stand facing the tree and count to a hundred."

"Ok!"

He spun around to cover his eyes before he started counting. As he did, the rest of the group scattered in all directions, eager to find a good spot before Naruto reached the triple digits. Shikamaru sighed again, reluctantly leaving to look for his own, at a much slower pace.
-

Naruto didn't quite know how to count to a hundred but he didn't want to tell that to Ino. It took him forever, and swearing to do her school chores for a week, to get her to let him join the game. He wasn't going to ruin it all by telling her he couldn't count to a hundred. So he counted by the tree to as high of a number as he could, then made up a few numbers to go between that and a hundred.

As soon as he thought the right amount of time had passed, he shouted "One hundred!" and went tearing out into the yard in search of his classmates.

The first one he found was Choji. He could hear the crunching of chips from where he hid in the bushes behind the school. Next he found Kiba. It was hard to miss the brown spikey hair poking out from behind the trash can. He found Sakura and Ino hiding together in a tree, talking about their hair so loudly he was surprised he didn't find them first.

But no matter how much he searched, he couldn't find Shikamaru. He searched the entire yard twice but still didn't see the pineapple headed boy. At this point there was only five more minutes left of recess so he got the others to help him look. Yet, when the whistle blew they still hadn't found him.

They went trudging back towards the building only for all five of them to stop in surprise, seeing the Nara leaning against the tree napping. The same tree he had sat at before being disturbed. The one Naruto had been counting at just 20 minutes earlier.

"Shikamaru!" Ino shouted, waking him from his slumber. "What are you doing!?"

"Napping."

"How long have you been napping?"

"How long ago did Naruto start counting?" Everyone just stared at him in surprise.

"Recess is over."

"Oh. Guess I won then." He stretched as he got to his feet, ignoring everyone else's stares.

"We're having a rematch tomorrow!" Ino exclaimed as Shikamaru began to walk away. "This time you're going to be seeking! That way you can't fall asleep!"

"Troublesome."