Author's Note : Thankee for your reviews, and for adding this story to your favorite and alert lists. It meant a lot. So, here are the shout-outs!
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Sakura turned around in her bed in an irate fashion, and softly pressed her cell-phone to her ear, halfheartedly listening to the monologue that the person on the other end of the line was performing.
Ino Yamanaka had a crush? Heh, please. The world needs to be in existence for a few more days.
However, the fact that she'd been going on about the guy for twelve long minutes, had Sakura thinking otherwise.
Still, it was half past one in the night, and needless to say, Sakura was very tired. The fact that she'd have to wake up early in the morning the next day just added to her already mounting woes. Why did she have school tomorrow? And how in the name of Kami was Ino speaking for so long!
Finally deciding to put an end to the madness, Sakura voiced her thoughts.
"Pig, loosen down, we've got school tomorrow, and if you keep that crap up, I'm not sure if I'll be able to live much longer."
The blonde concerned, on the other end, seemed to be offended. Indignantly making a soft 'huffing' sound, the girl retorted.
"As if! I totally saw you checking out the two hotties who were sitting at our table today!" Ino's voice was as saucy as that of an experienced stripper, "So where's the nick if I happen to fall for someone?"
Sakura reddened as the implication her friend had made sunk into her head.
"I was not! Sasuke, I can understand, but Naruto? Why'd I be checking him out?"
Sakura almost felt Ino raise an eyebrow on the other end.
"Why wouldn't you?"
Opening her mouth to give her a list, Sakura suddenly stopped. Her eyes widened.
"Well..."
"There aren't many faults with him, are there?"
The emerald-eyed girl gulped.
"Anyway," continued her friend, "Shikamaru's such a sexy beast!"
Forgetting all thoughts of a certain blonde haired idiot, who she wasn't even a proper friend of, Sakura suddenly felt an intense desire to puke.
"You have a crush on an actual topper? Heh, please, your pathetic-ness disgusts me."
An ignorant sound came up from the other end.
"And why would that be? Shikamaru's hot! Why'd ya say that I don't really like him?"
"'Cause he's got money, and bitches like you run after dough."
A short silence transpired.
"That isn't true."
Sakura raised her eyebrows, while turning to the right, phone still pressed against her ear.
"Is it now?"
"Yes. Don't say stuff like that when you don't know things, Sakura."
Weirdly, the words caught up with the pinkette. What had happened between the two? Sakura's eyebrows scrunched as she attempted to concentrate.
Well, the did always hung out a lot, which sort of creeped out all the jocks in the school. But the truth was inevitable, Shikamaru Nara was one cool bastard. One would usually think that 'nerds'; as they called them, were boring, but this was no 'nerd'. The boy basically didn't study. At all. But even then, when the exams came, he came in the top three in every subject!
To add to it all, his laziness was, in a weird sense, found to be particularly enthralling by the ladies.
Sakura smirked. Many of them would be having a mini heart attack when they found out that Ino Yamanaka had a thing for the guy.
But for the time being, she had to let her blonde-haired-dunce of a friend get on with her love life.
"Sorry."
"Thanks."
"Bastard! You actually bought the radiator? What do you wanna do! Have my dick roasted, so that you can eat it for dinner?"
Sasuke Uchiha scowled at the blonde.
Said blonde pointed at him, shaking his head as he did so.
"Oh no way in hell am I gonna fall for that crap again! Don't give me those looks you creep!"
Sasuke merely 'hn'ed, and looked away. Naruto scrunched his eyebrows, and, muttering an incomprehensible sound, which indicated his extreme agitation, narrowed his eyes, sticking his middle finger out at his black-haired friend.
Said friend stuck his tongue out [Yeah, weird] while presenting the boy with quite the same gesture.
"Yeah right! Your finger's small, so your insult doesn't count!"
Sasuke looked offended.
"The fuck's that supposed to mean, you Dobe?"
"You have a puny fuck-finger."
Naruto grinned. Finally, the asshole was affected. That'd taken some work!
"Piss off!" screamed the black-haired prodigy, huffing.
Naruto's grin merely grew wider.
"Gladly."
Winking saucily at the fuming Uchiha, he hop-walked his way to his room's door, and, after briefly smacking his ass, in a successfully planned attempt at pissing off his red-eyed friend even more, skipped into the place ahead.
"How troublesome."
Chouji, Neji, Kiba, Shino, and Lee, let out a collective sigh, as they looked up at their friend-in-distress, while the latter engaged in the act of star-gazing his night away.
Shikamaru Nara had already confessed of his infatuation with Ino Yamanaka about nineteen times that day, and it was certainly unhelpful for four seventeen-year-old boys, all of whom had had wild dreams about said girl, to console the lovelorn idiot.
It had started about two months ago, when, during the assignment of the final projects of their eleventh Grade, the Nara had been paired with the blonde in question. In the beginning, both of them were extremely unhappy with the arrangement, and remarks in the lines of "Lazy Nerdass", and "Demented Bimbo", were not infrequent in being exchanged.
However, as time passed, and the two had sessions of project-making [One can only wonder] in each others' houses together, they slowly started to warm up to each other. "Lazy Nerdass" became "Cool Creep", while "Demented Bimbo" became "Funny Chick", and their project went on smoother than most!
Then, upon the inception of their Senior Year, things started to go a little out-of-hand, and, like what happened in those creepy Prom flicks, everybody, other than the two concerned, were able to understand the things going on between said couple. Ino would get angered whenever she found a girl drooling about Shikamaru behind his back, and would raise small-scale tantrums about that girl, while Shikamaru would simply whine about the stresses of infatuation.
Even then, things were still tolerable when it came down to the two, until recently, when, well... they started doing everything but dating.
They'd occasionally have lunch, and even dinner, together. They'd go to watch baseball matches together. They'd watch films together. They'd invite each other over when their parents were away. And they'd even watch romance-assed movies together.
Yet, the two idiots wouldn't believe that the other was in love with them. And that was, in a general sense, extremely pissing off for their friends.
Today, Shikamaru had called his five best friends over for a much postponed get-together, while his parents were off on a business trip to Kumo High, them being Konoha's Relations' managers. And, throughout the day, the boy had whined about the blonde haired girl, claiming that she didn't like him.
Even now, when the group was on Shikamaru's house's roof, the boy didn't stop. He had already whined twice on the rooftop, and was now dangerously close to doing it for the third time that day.
Thus, his friends decided to help him out.
"She likes you, you brain-dead pimp! And if you weren't asexual, you'd go and ask her out first thing tomorrow!"
Kiba's face bore an expression of dilute anger as he said the words.
"Kiba's right man," said Chouji, munching on a potato chip, "Stop acting like such a wuss, and man up for a change!"
Lee's eyes sparkled.
"Shikamaru-kun, it is the man who must act like the valiant knight, and woo his princess!"
Neji and Shino merely looked at Lee's gay-fucked face. The world did have strange people on board.
Shikamaru sighed. Folding his legs, and slowly getting into a sitting position, the boy turned his head towards his group of friends.
"What makes you think that Ino likes me?"
Loud moans of agony were heard from all the other boys.
"Well, let me see..." said Kiba, pretending to think as he narrowed his eyes and scratched his chin. Upon achieving the effect he desired, he made a weird expression, slapping his hands together, and widening his eyes, "Maybe because she's been throwing her pussy about when you're around, since like a month?"
The rest of the group threw looks of disgust at the Dog-freak.
Shikamaru sighed.
"Whatever."
The group watched sorrily as the boy once again succumbed to stargazing.
About fifteen minutes later;
"How troublesome."
"Okay bastard, you're dead!"
The next day, Sakura Haruno walked up to school rather groggily. Ino had kept talking about her one-sided crush on Shikamaru for about two hours straight the previous night, and, by the time the blonde had finished, it was already fifteen past two in the morning.
Damn that girl, she could basically waltz her way to school after attending a late night party! Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with her.
Sakura sighed.
"How I hate that witch."
Untrue, but it was still soothing to say those words. Sakura smiled, Ino had been there for her traumas, so she guessed it was sort of her duty to be there for the blonde when she needed her. It was just that, even though she really wanted to help the blonde with her case, the idiot just wouldn't accept that Shikamaru liked her!
The agony.
Sakura slapped a hand on her forehead, pressing hard, so as to make the intense headache she was feeling, a little less.
"Rough night?"
Upon hearing the words, Sakura snapped her head up to look at the speaker.
She was presented with sunny-blonde locks, and deep cerulean blue eyes. A smile graced her lips.
"Naruto."
The boy smiled at her. Then looking at her with a curious face.
"You look really tired, ya' know."
Sakura smiled thankfully at him, happy for the concern.
"Yeah, its just that my dumb-blonde-friend kept me up till a quarter past two in the morning!" Sakura closed her eyes, yawning, "And presently, I'm sleep-deprived."
Sakura turned her head to see a confused looking Naruto.
"I kept you up until a quarter past two yesterday?"
The pinkette's eyes widened, as understanding dawned upon her. She cracked up a little, only to add to Naruto's confusion, before bringing her hands up to slowly turn them from side to side in front of the blonde, in the attempt of clearing away his confusion.
"N-ho, it was Ino. She kept bugging me about her love problems till late into the night."
Naruto made an 'O' with his mouth, as the meaning of Sakura's former statements finally sunk into his head. He smiled in a sunny manner, and brought up his hands, settling them behind his neck, intertwining his fingers.
"Yeah, wouldn't want to get on the bad side of someone as pretty as you, ya'know."
Sakura reddened, and bent her head. Stealing a glance at the blonde, she found him smiling innocently at the road ahead. A smile appeared on her face as well.
Naruto Uzumaki did have a way of his own. And it was really infectious.
The Konohan café had its normal homely-buzz. The students went about, eating, talking, doing stuff... Well, we all know what 'stuff' means.
Ino Yamanaka turned her head around as she tried to find the guy she was searching for since the morning, but didn't have a class with.
"Nara, you lazy creep, where the heck are you?"
It was not like the guy to just up and ditch her like that. Even if they didn't have their lunch together, they'd still meet up once before break. That was a rule, and it hadn't been violated until then.
"Hey Yamanaka!"
Thankfully, it was still inviolate.
Ino turned around to find the spiky-black-haired kid lazily strolling towards her, a sheepish grin on his face. Ino placed her hands on her hips. Even then, she couldn't help the beat her heart skipped.
"Where've you been?"
Shikamaru cringed at the pitch of her voice. Boy, having a crush on a cheerleading captain sure was troublesome. Mentally sighing at his apparent demise, he finally came to a stop in front of the blonde, while said girl impatiently tapped her foot.
"The Quiz, you know that its been keeping me busy for the past couple of days. I've not been in the café in like a week!"
Ino scowled at him. 'The Quiz' was so gonna get killed by her. To think that it'd kept someone from catching up with her, how scandalous!
"Anyway! Food?"
The blonde's anger on the Nara was put at bay at the mention of the thing she'd been craving. She smirked.
"Sure. There's someone I'd like you to meet too!"
A creepy clasp formed on Shikamaru's heart. Someone she'd like him to meet? Competitor? Hopefully not.
Tugging him along, Ino walked over to the table at the corner of the café. There were many students seated around the table [Of which, Sasuke Uchiha was a surprising member], and, judging by the laughter coming off the same, Shikamaru was sure that someone had said something funny.
However, he was just too anxious to think straight just then.
When Ino finally came to a stop in front of the table, along with the Nara, the boy saw a blonde head turned in the direction opposite to him. His eyes suddenly widened, all worries forgotten, as he contemplated on whether what Kiba and the others had said the previous night.
Was it true? Was he really here?
Ino tapped the blonde on the shoulder. And as his profile became visible, upon his turning, the Nara's eyes widened in confirmation.
"Naruto?"
The blonde looked up at the boy, and suddenly, his eyes widened as well.
"Shikamaru?"
Boy, this was an interesting development.
A/N: I was really busy lately, so I don't know how this chapter turned out. Didn't have time to proof-read it ya know? So, if any grammatical error, or something of the sort turns up, forgive me. And I'm really into what's gonna happen after chapter 589, ya' know? Naruto's finally in the scene again! And the end's approaching, looking forward to some uber cool fighting scene between him and Tobi, and later, well, Naruto and Sasuke[Even though I want Sasuke to come back to the village in the end], and also, some NaruSaku action! :D Well, anyhow...
HOW WAS THIS? LIKE IT? HATE IT? PLEASE REVIEW! CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS ACCEPTED AS WELL. BECAUSE I'M NOT GONNA UPDATE IF YOU DON'T REVIEW, -_-, I'VE BEEN REALLY BUSY LATELY, AND IF I CAN STILL WRITE THIS, I GUESS THAT YOU CAN REVIEW TOO. :\
~THA musIc GuY
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