Summary: Shikamaru was tired of his friends' complaining, so he thought of a simple way to solve the problem... Make a bet.

Warning: Yaoi story! So if you don't like, turn back now. This is a NejixGaara, NarutoxSasuke and ShikamaruxKiba fic.


People looked away and made a path for the red head that walked the halls like he owned the school. He was on his way to the cafeteria to meet his best friends. Gaara's mischievous thoughts were being hidden completely by the serious expression on his face.

The calm boy entered the extremely loud cafeteria and walked to his usual table ignoring the nervous glances that were sent his way. Gaara frowned

'So I accidentally punch a teacher once and now they think I'm a ticking time bomb or something…' the redhead smirked 'its not my fault he annoyed me and its not like I planned to knock him out… That was purely accidental'

His smirk grew as he sat at the table were his cheerful friends were arm-wrestling. Gaara watched as the battle went on, the blond was winning at first, like always.

Both boys looked determined and suddenly the brunette of the two pinned the other's fist and won the battle.

"Damn it!" the blond was furious while the other just grinned.

"Too bad Naruto, some people are just unbeatable!" Naruto looked at him annoyed "Whatever Kiba you got lucky!" The brunette laughed at Naruto's loss and usual comeback. He stopped his laughter to start the topic they all knew was coming. "So any progress on the bet?"

This caught Gaara's full interest and he smirked. He knew he'd win soon enough. The angry blonde's mood changed completely as he grinned and filled them in with a laugh.

"You should have seen that stupid duckass when I said I wanted to change the game plan because I wasn't feeling it anymore!" Naruto laughed some more

"That was so much fun and I'm sure he's gonna crack soon!" The blonde smiled and looked to the redhead with determination clear in his eyes.

"I'm so gonna win!" Gaara returned the look "Well, you should know, I won't be losing" His eyes showed his resolve "Girly boy almost cracked yesterday" He held in a chuckle at the memory of the humorous meeting. "Honestly, I expected him to. Considering, that after hours of arguing, we'd settled on red. And when I went to leave I told them 'on second thought, you're all right lets go with purple."

The memory of their hilarious reaction caused a real laugh to come out of the redhead and the blond joined in.

Kiba smiled, shaking his head in mock disapproval "You two are closet sadists aren't you. I'd expected it from Gaara but you too Naruto? Never pegged you for the type"

The blond stopped laughing and looked at Kiba with a huge smile.

"Well at least we didn't chicken out of the bet!" Kiba's eyes widened considerably, he'd tried explaining it to them many times already.

"I did not! Shikamaru's just so lazy, he doesn't do much and what he does do are those stupid competitions Tsunade sends him on! I'm not good at those at all! Plus I'm in the wrestling team 24/7 so I wouldn't have the time anyway…" His voice suddenly gained a soft tone "…Besides, the times I've talked to him, he's always been really nice… um in a boring way…"

Kiba pouted and crossed his arms in defense. Gaara coughed and both of his friends looked at him. He'd never really been one for talking too much so he looked at Kiba and said the one word he knew would do enough.

"…Denial"

Naruto laughed harder than ever and a lot of teasing from the over excited blonde came soon after. They ate their lunch and talked until the bell rang. The trio got up and started walking out of the large cafeteria for their next class.

Kiba's POV

We're on our way to science right now and I had thought of as many excuses as I could but in the end my friends settled on the fact that I was apparently in denial. ' Seriously, why do they hate those two so much?' I laughed aloud

'Maybe they're the ones in denial…' I laughed even more at the thought. 'Like hell that would ever happen! ' It was then that I noticed id stopped and both my friends were looking back at me. "I remembered something… really funny" I laughed again to make it more believable and started walking in between them again. Then someone came into the hall that made my friends frown and my smile grew.

Shikamaru had just come out of the council room with a smirk on his face… Something about him always made me feel like some fangirl with a backstage pass. It annoyed me a bit but I didn't care much since it was a pretty good feeling…

I noticed my friends looking at me again and I was confused until I saw that I had stopped walking again. 'Damn… I gotta stop doing that!' I looked at the older boy coming our way and smiled when he stopped in front of us. He was sporting a calm soft smile that made mine turn into a grin.

Naruto frowned and Gaara just scowled at the best friend of their enemies. Though his attention was focused on me as he said

"Good afternoon Kiba, its nice to see you again" My eyes got brighter and I was about to reply when I was suddenly pulled by my arms, away from that great smile. Naruto and Gaara pulled me in the direction of our next class and both replied not even sparing one glance back.

"Well see ya Naara" was said by an aggressive but cheerful voice

"Late for class" came out in an uncaring yet slightly angry tone

Normal POV

It was lunchtime and the president of the student council was excused from his next class to handle some work that needed to be done. He'd mentioned he needed help from two students and now they were on their way to the council room. Neji was leading, Sasuke and Shikamaru at his side.

Sasuke had been pissed as hell over what happened yesterday and judging by the frown on his face, he hadn't gotten over it. Neji looked beat from staying up all night writing down the many events that took place during the council meeting yesterday, for the principal. He sported a very similar frown to the raven-haired boy.

Shikamaru on the other hand was just plain tired. He hadn't heard the end of it when his friends found him laying under a tree at lunch time and he'd been forced to give up his afternoon of cloud gazing to listen to their very detailed complaints on the events he'd already seen.

The trio walked into the room and got comfortable. Then they started on the work that one person could have done alone, in about an hour. They'd finished less than 20 minutes later and sat down on the small couch at the side of the council room. The trio relaxed and Shikamaru got the time he needed to think of a good plan. He had to do something, not to hard, but not dimwitted. Something that, if he played his cards right, would get rid of the never-ending complaints for good.

He'd once been fine with helping his best friends with any and all problems they had. But then, for some reason, the rants and complaints started coming by the truckload. He toughed it out for a while, thinking it would stop soon enough. But he couldn't have been more wrong. They had gotten worse every day.

Shikamaru yawned; he was sure it would start again in a minute or two. His prediction was confirmed when Sasuke broke the peaceful silence of the room.

"Did you guys know I was forced to meet with the idiot again this morning?" The raven-haired boy snarled "Apparently he'd asked the teacher if he could have a talk with me about the team and when we met he'd just wanted to say congratulations on our winning the game…"

Neji raised an eyebrow at the odd statement and Shikamaru was just as surprised. "Isn't that a good thing?" Then the raven continued. "He said he was surprised and expected me to ruin the game or something" Sasuke scowled "And that stupid idiot said it all with that stupid smile of his damn it, sometimes I just want to beat that idiot senseless!"

Shikamaru realized that his friend was to far into his anger to think coherently.

This continued and in a while it had been Neji's turn. He'd been complaining about the redhead for a while.

"Damn that Gaara!" Neji said as he thought of the psycho's smirk as he caused yet another problem for the stressed president. 'To be honest his smirk looked really-' Neji cut off that dangerous thought before it went any further and looked to his bored friend again " Do you KNOW what the bastard did!"

Shikamaru realized that his friend had also gone to far into his anger to think coherently.

"… Yes, Neji… I was there…" The soccer player had been talking with the student council president for a bit longer before Neji realized something as well.

"Naruto and Gaara are best friends right? " Sasuke nodded and Neji continued

"Well I guess idiots and psychos can get along "

Sasuke nodded again and added "Honestly those three are just a bunch of punks with nothing better to do than bother everyone"

Shikamaru sighed 'I suppose they have annoyed my friends quite a bit- wait, three?...'

His mind went back to the sweet boy he'd always see with the two and wanted to be sure. "Those three?" The boys looked at him and Neji answered

"That Kiba kid… I think that's his name. He's always with them so he has to be just as bad as they are!'" Shikamaru suddenly stood up a glare on his usually calm features

"Honestly, you two are just as annoying as them and you can't even see that they've been annoying you on purpose! If you'd just get off your freaking high horses you'd see you're acting just as immature by playing along! And you don't even know Kiba so how could you say he's that about someone you've barely ever talked to?"

The two boys were taken aback by their best friend's sudden outburst. Neji and Sasuke were both wide-eyed and speechless. Shikamaru saw this and realized all that he'd just said; he calmed himself down and cleared his throat. "Sorry... I just…I'm hungry… I get like that sometimes, that's all." He'd given a random answer and paid no attention to the looks of 'Since when?' that he received.

He sat down and looked away from his surprised friends as he thought about what to say to get the conversation to end how he wanted it to.

"…You two really are the most oblivious people in the world" This made both boys snap out of their frozen state and Neji replied " What nonsense are you spouting now?" Sasuke nodded and crossed his arms.

Shikamaru was gazing at nothing in particular as he continued. "Both your problems are easily solved you know…"

His statements made both boys let their guards down and look at him in curiosity.

Sasuke was tired of Shikamaru being so slow with explaining so he nudged him on "How so?" Shikamaru's gaze turned back to his friends as he fought back a smirk.

"How about… we make a bet?" The surprised boys would have interrupted but decided against it and signaled for him to go on.

"If you lose, you'll stop complaining to me about everything…for good" Neji raised an eyebrow "And if we win?" Shikamaru thought for a moment.

"Then Gaara and Naruto will be taken out of both the soccer team and the student council" Both his friends' eyes widened at this. "How?" That was all that came from their shocked forms. "I talked to Tsunade, she agreed to it once I told her all the details."

Excitement and determination danced in his best friends' expressions.

" What's the catch?"

Shikamaru looked at his raven-haired friend, he knew about their inclinations in relationships so that wouldn't be a problem. But he knew this was a long shot.

"If you can make your psycho…" his gaze shifted to Neji "or your idiot…" he looked at Sasuke " fall in love with you by the end of the year, you will win"

Both boys looked back at him, then at each other, and back at him with unsure expressions. Sasuke was the first to voice their question. "Uhh... Are we even sure they'd be... you know.. interested?" Neji nodded and looked expectantly at Shikamaru. Said brunette simply smirked and answered slowly. "Well I'm told their preferences are open to males, if that's what you mean. Now, whether or not they'd be interested in you, I suspect is far from in your favor." He chuckled a bit as his friends shared indignant expressions and answered in unison.

" It's a bet!"

Shikamaru smirked "Good, I'll be going now" He stood up and held his smirk as he exited the room. Then he saw the only person that could make his day ten times better.

The sweet boy was with the two others who he'd just been talking about. ' Man they're in for it now.' Sasuke and Neji could be very convincing when they wanted to be.

He walked to the younger boy who had stopped coming his way. Shikamaru smiled "Good afternoon Kiba, its nice to see you again." He noticed the brunette had grinned and was about to reply when Naruto and Gaara pulled him away.

' Yeah they hate me, likely because of my friends… ' Shikamaru sighed; he was frustrated that those two just wouldn't let him near the cute brunette.

" Man… I really hope this bet turns out like I think it will…"