A lazy knock sounded on the door of the cryptanalysis office where Shiho was studying up on new coding techniques. Adjusting her glasses, she pushed back her chair with a frown. Her boss had gone home, adding another day to his streak of never staying late at the office, so it couldn't possibly be him. If he had forgotten something, he wouldn't need to knock on the door.
Shiho pushed herself to her feet and strode over to the door as she thought of other possibilities. Lady Tsunade could have sent someone over with a question about a code – that was very plausible. It would most likely be Anbu or simply a messenger of hers who probably didn't even know the office existed. After the invasion of Pein they got some of the credit for decoding the message with Naruto-kun's help, but after that they went back under the radar again. That was all right with Shiho; it wasn't so bad working alone all the time on something she loved.
Twisting the knob in her hand, she flushed at the sight on the other side of the door.
Shikamaru leaned against the doorframe with one hand in his pocket.
"Sh-shikamaru-san!" she exclaimed as he ambled into the room with the familiar untroubled gait of his.
"Shiho," he greeted. "Are you busy?"
"N-no, not at all. I'm surprised to see you here, Shikamaru-san. The last time I saw you, you were in the hospital with a broken leg." She flushed deeper as the memories rushed back into her vast brain and readjusted her glasses nervously. When Konoha had been destroyed due to Pein, she had been with Shikamaru and his father. Shikamaru had protected her from the main blast, but he broke his leg in the process.
"Don't remind me. I'm healed up and almost back to normal now, but that was all very troublesome."
"I'm sorry," she replied as her head dipped, deflated.
"It's all right. It was worth it."
Shiho recovered quickly and perked up, although the rosiness didn't drain from her face.
"Anyway, I've got another code for you to decipher," he said. Reaching into his flak jacket, he withdrew a folded piece of paper and handed it to her between two fingers.
"How important is it?" Shiho unfolded the note and spread it out on the nearest table to study it.
Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders and leaned back against the edge of the same table.
"One of the Chūnin brought it back from a mission this afternoon. I'm not certain it really means anything. It looked like a code so I figured you could tell me whether it was worth my time pursuing or not."
"I will examine this for you and let you know if anything of importance comes up," she replied.
"Thanks, Shiho. I'll be around, probably in the Hokage's building if you find anything within the next couple hours."
"Of course, Shikamaru-san."
Shoving off from the table, he made his deliberate way over to the door and paused.
"Shiho, you are someone I can rely on when I need your assistance. I like reliable people. Makes things a lot easier," he said, and with a departing grin and wave, he was gone.
A smile broke out on her face and red filled her cheeks even more. She enjoyed the moment for a couple seconds before kicking into serious mode and sitting down to take a closer look at the code on the page.
A little while later, the blonde was wandering around in the Hokage building like a rat lost in a maze. It was not a very busy time of day, either, so hardly anyone was around to be of help in directing her to one of the meeting rooms she figured Shikamaru would be hiding in.
Panicking, she fell back against the wall in the hallway and tried to remember how to get back out the way she came. She was smart, incredibly so, but for some reason that didn't mean the same for her directional abilities.
"Shiho?" a familiar voice called.
She sprang up immediately and straightened herself out, although there was nothing to fix.
"Shikamaru-san! I was hoping I would find you still here." The relief that colored her voice was palpable.
Shikamaru laughed and stopped just in front of her.
"What of the note? Anything striking?"
"Well, it turns out that you didn't confiscate a coded message, per se," she began, a hot blush working its way into her cheeks, much to her frustration. "You, um…you confiscated a love letter."
Shikamaru's eyes widened ever so slightly before he regained his composure and cleared his throat.
"Your Chūnin will probably be wanting that note back," Shiho said with a squeak. Digging it out of her coat, she handed it back to him. "I'll be in the cryptanalysis office if you need me again."
"Okay. Thanks, Shiho. Sorry for bothering you with something so…trivial."
"It's all right. It broke up the monotony of serious decoding. I rather quite enjoyed it. Take care, Shikamaru-san." Shiho bowed courteously.
"See you around, Shiho."
A few days later there was another lazy knock on the door to her office. Her boss was on lunch break and she was, again, the only one working on anything.
"Who could it be this time?" she wondered aloud.
The familiar slouched figure of Shikamaru met her eyes once again.
"Shikamaru! You have another code for me already?"
"Yeah, I do," he said with a smile.
Shiho was no master of the opposite sex, but she couldn't reject the positive feelings she was getting simply from his smile. He was a reserved type, she knew, and didn't seem to really smile unless it was genuine. He smirked a lot because of the unending amusement of simple minds and motivated people, but for him to smile – now that was something to behold.
"This one looks pretty simple," he said, handing her another note much like he had the first one.
"Oh, that cipher is easy to decode. Without even really looking at it, it's obvious it's a question." Flattening the page out and bending her head toward it, Shikamaru leaned back against the table with his arms crossed, but instead of a hunch in his back he was sitting straight. Tense.
Why so tense? This is a simple code, she thought.
"You see, you just rearrange some of the letters and get the intended message that way. It looks as if hastily written and then erased and rewritten a few times."
"What does it say?" Shikamaru asked softly.
"Well, if these letters switch with these ones, and that goes there, it says…."
Her eyes became the size of the lenses in her glasses and fire consumed her face in heat and blush.
"I wrote it," he put in gently after a time. "Does that help?"
"I-I…Shikamaru…do you really mean this?"
"Of course. I never trouble myself with things I don't mean."
Shiho nearly fainted right then and there.
"Yes," she squeaked.
"Pardon?"
"Yes, my answer is yes."
There came that smile again.
"I was hoping you would say that."