Prodigy

Unofficial Soundtrack

Ban the Tube Top- Reel Big Fish

Battle of Who Could Care Less- Ben Folds Five

Paper Doll- Louis XIV

Pushover- Etta James

"So if we work at it, we should be able to finish these reports by Monday."

"Sakura, they aren't due for another month."

"Yeah, but if we finish now, that's another month we don't have to spend worrying about it."

"Who sez I'm worrying about it now." Muttered Shikamaru under his breath.

How Ino had convinced him that Sakura was the right person to help him with this damn thing, he had no idea.

Four days ago, the Hokage had pretty much told Shikamaru he could either submit his mission reports or submit to some serious community service, served in the form of the Hokages punching bag.

One thing had led to another, and Shikamaru had naturally asked his teammates for help. Ino, of course, had boys to wow, and Chouji brought up an issue with a final piece of barbecue that he was still sore about. So it had looked like Shikamaru was on his own. Bad news, because Shikamaru knew himself well enough to know he never got anything accomplished without someone to kick him in the ass.

And Ino had suggested Sakura.

Sakura was the biggest busybody Shikamaru knew. She was annoying, self righteous, bossy, overconfident, and didn't listen.

In a word, perfect.

But that didn't mean he had to like it.

"Look, can't we just kinda, you know, EASE ourselves into it?" Shikamaru whined.

"No." Said Sakura, brooking no argument.

It had been one day.

Sakura was ready to KILL him.

He asked for her help, she obliged, and now he was sabotaging the proceedings any way he could. He skipped meeting times, he forgot details, he spilled her coffee (double shot espresso) on the paper.

Sakura had dealt with a great many annoying men in her life. Naruto was obnoxious. Sasuke was emotionally stunted and, frankly, a prick. Kakashi was a perv and a layabout. Lee was sweet, but overbearing and in serious need of some ADD meds.

But Shikamaru took the cake. Lazy, whining, good for nothing bastard that he was, he managed to irk her to the highest degree possible while at the same time expending the least amount of effort.

The worst was the way he kept distracting her.

"I still say that society operates on an individual basis and not on a communal one." He said. They'd had that out last night before they left the office.

"And I still say that our personal society proves that otherwise. Shinobi villages operate on a community focused basis. Our economy is based entirely on the idea of spreading the wealth- no matter the pay for a mission, all the proceeds go to the village coffers, to be dealt out in rank appropriate pay. Shinobi are taught to die for their villages goals, and several have in the time you and I have known each other."

"True, but our village also encourages direct disobeying of orders in appropriate situations."

"Such as?"

"Well, what about your sensei's famous 'worse than trash' motto? It's become something of a rallying cry."

"I don't see how stepping forward to save your friends proves your theory about individualist ideals present in shinobi villages."

"If one saves ones comrades AT THE RISK OF THE MISSION, which is exactly what Kakashis little phrasing is about, then it's placing the individual, that is the endangered shinobi, above the community, which is the village and by proxy the mission."

"Doesn't it seem as though the desire to save a teammate could be construed as a desire to save another village citizen? Besides, it could also be for the same principle as tracker ninja, to keep information from falling into enemy hands."

"Semantics." Said Shikamaru, waving it away.

"You can't use semantics as an out all the time, Shikamaru. The spin one puts on a fact is almost as important as the fact itself. Without opinions, our argument has no meaning."

Shikamaru stared at her for a minute, and then started making a low barking sound. It took Sakura a minute to realize he was laughing. A real laugh, not a deprecating chuckle or a snicker, but a real belly laugh.

"What's so funny?" She said, flushing a little.

"Hehe… oh." He wiped away a tear from his eye. "I've never heard that point before. Whenever I used the 'semantics' line, Asuma or Chouji always got too scared to continue. I have to admit, Sakura, this is the most fun I've had in a long time."

Sakura blushed a little more. And then realized that he had, once again, made her go off track.

It was day two.

They had made it though about 45.3 of the reports, according to Shikamarus estimation. Sakura had been called away briefly for a small local mission, and would be back later tonight.

And Shikamaru was surprised to find himself, of all things, bored.

This was a new experience. Shikamaru couldn't ever recall being bored. It was a strange feeling, a sense of pointlessness, of waiting for something he didn't know he'd lost. He idly tried finishing a few more reports to pass the time (he'd never had to occupy himself before, either) but of course that didn't work, since he didn't want to do them anyway.

He got up and left the office, shutting the door.

Hopping out a window in the hall, he flitted down the building until he reached street level, and strolled idly through the village. When he reached his favorite hill and sat to stare at the clouds, it was with a sense of relief.

For a moment.

The little bitch took away my god damn clouds. He thought, uncharacteristic anger rising in him.

My GOD DAMN CLOUDS. He sat upright, furious. He started pacing back and forth with nervous energy.

Now what did he do? He'd be damned if he went back and waited, because he wasn't that pathetic. He couldn't stare at his clouds and the fact was that there was no-one else in the village smart enough to carry a conversation with him. At least, till he got stuck in a room with Sakura.

No shougi to be had. Asuma wasn't around anymore. He spared a moment to think of his sensei, as he did every time the mans name entered his speech.

Hmm. Maybe there was something he could do, at that.

Sakura walked into the room expecting Shimakaru not to be there, which was exactly what she got. For someone so intelligent, he sure was easy to predict. It was nice, in a way. None of the other men in her life seemed to operate on any form of reliable script.

So she turned without a sigh or a complaint and, without knowing it, followed almost exactly the same route Shikamaru had taken to his hill. But, to her surprise, he wasn't there either.

It was almost sundown, and the shadows were very long. Sakura had always liked this time of day. Right before the sun set the quality of light seemed to change from the softer light of afternoon to a brown amber, as though the whole world was encased in honey. The long black shadows added form to it, making the landscape into a network of criss-crossing black on gold. Sakura wondered if Shikamaru spent so much time staring at the clouds that he failed to see what the sky could make the earth look like.

Shaking herself out of her reverie, she sat to consider just where Shikamaru may have gone. Notoriously, if anyone needed him he'd be either here or at his house, sleeping. Or, maybe, on the Nara deer ranch. But the ranch was a longer way away than she was prepared to search, he was known to stay out of his house to avoid his mother, and he obviously wasn't here.

Leaning back on the grass, Sakura let her mind open to the possibilities. Where may he have gone?

Then she wondered why she was so concerned with finding him. The day was nearly over anyway.

She'd found herself looking forward to the end of the mission more than usual. Time with Shikamaru was restful. She knew she was more than a little loud and demanding, probably as a result of spending so much time around people who were even louder. But with Shikamaru she was finding that she didn't have to yell or screech to get a point across, and even when she did it didn't seem to offend him. He just bore it. Compared to life with Naruto and Kakashi he was like a drink of cool water standing next to a plate piled high with hot peppers.

Maybe it was because he spent so much time just letting things happen? Perhaps, under all that bad attitude, he was an optimist. If everything would turn out okay, maybe that meant there was time to slow down? Yawning, Sakura noticed the idle way the clouds billowed in the breeze. They moved so slowly, but every time she restarted a circuit, she saw they were completely different. Almost unrecognizable.

And it was about then that Sakura fell asleep.

It was day four, around midday.

Shikamaru and Sakura were both very uncomfortable.

It had something to do with the fact that they were both starting to realize that they were attracted to the other one. It also had something to do with the cramped space, and the fact that, as happens in these little situations, attempts to diffuse the tension turn into flirts.

But it had everything to do with the fact that Shikamaru had found Sakura last night, picked her up, and carried her home while she slept, depositing her in bed without so much as waking her parents.

Sakura really couldn't deal with that.

It was the kind of thing little girls wished for. It was cheesy, sappy, and cliché, but there it was. Of course, in her minds eye it had always been Sasuke who did it, even after he left. Say what you like about the man, she thought, he made good fantasy fodder. Her mistake in childhood had been confusing fantasy with reality.

But here her fantasy had sorta come true, though it couldn't be with a stranger man. Shikamaru was Sasuke's opposite. He was decidedly not a romantic figure, he lacked any ambition, he had no dark past. The fact that he'd gone so far as to extend the effort of carrying her said something, in that light. So Sakuras realization that the knowledge made her feel all warm and gooey inside (eugh) confused her a bit.

For Shikamaru's part, he had less experience hiding the truth from himself. Sakura was in his thoughts most of the time since this whole fiasco started. He found himself having conversations with her in his head that continued or expounded upon points they'd already finished with. It had only been a few days, and tomorrow was the last one, but Shikamaru was pretty certain he wanted to ask Sakura out on a date. Or something, he'd never been good at this sort of thing. Although he was a little proud of last night.

That hadn't been in the script. When he was walking back and saw Sakura sleeping where he usually sat, he debated waking her. The REALLY cheeseball thing he could do would be to lean over and kiss her, but he wasn't that much of a sap. There was a way to go about these things to avoid all the dumb confusion and drama that seemed to plague relationships wherever he looked, and as near as he could tell it seemed to be honesty. So, instead of waking her, he carried her home and left her a brief note explaining. It was the kind of thing bad romance novels were rife with, and as such he was betting Sakura would get all giddy when he did it.

What he didn't expect was for her to react by becoming all closed off. He'd tried engaging her in conversation a few times, but her heart wasn't in it. She was, on reflection, probably pretty confused. Shikamaru could see that she felt similarly to him on the subject of their relationship, or she wouldn't be all worried right now. So the only thing to do was wait it out.

But he only had until tomorrow morning.

As they finished, Sakura wondered what to do. She knew she was being obstinate, but the flirting and joking with Shikamaru had left her with a sense of comfort, and she wasn't ready to lose that yet. And she knew it was flirting, all the philosophy and pseudo intellectualism that spewed from them was no less flirting for lacking innuendo. But they now had no more excuse to be in the same room together.

Well, maybe there was one thing she could do.

As they gathered up the papers, Sakura breached the silence. "So where were you yesterday?" Shikamaru looked up, confused.

"When I came back, you weren't here. You weren't at your hill, either." She blushed a little bit.

He looked at her considering, as if debating whether it was even worth talking about. "I was playing shougi."

"Where?" Sakura asked. When he looked at her, she occupied herself with the papers. "Well, normally I'd thought you'd rather be watching clouds than doing anything else."

He seemed to think about things again, briefly. His expression never flickered once.

"Not anymore." He said, gathering up the remaining sheaf's.

"Whats that mean?"

"I couldn't watch the clouds the other day. I tried, you know." He put them in a manila folder. "But it just wasn't the same. It was a great day for it, too. But somehow it didn't seem interesting."

"Why?" She asked, as they walked out into the hall.

"Probably because before then I'd been talking to you." He said, laying out the facts. Sakuras head jerked around.

"Whats that got do do with it?" She asked warily.

"Well, frankly clouds aren't great conversationalists, and it's not a skill our village trains people in very much." He said.

"But we were just talking!"

"Maybe, but it was FUN. It was intriguing and involving. Sakura, I'd like to talk to you more often, in all honesty, if that's how it's going to be every time."

Bewildered, Sakura looked away. "That's sweet of you. But what reason do we have to be around each other after this?"

"Well," said Shikamaru, swallowing the lump in his throat, "You could let me take you out. Tonight? 7:30?"

-AAAAAAAAAND scene. The cliffhanger (such as it is) will help me come up with ways to approach the next chapter. Really. I swear. -Skuzz