Decisions

A lot of time has passed since that evening when Shikamaru fell asleep on the bench. Well actually, it's been two and a half months since then, making it just about three months since I moved in with the Nara's. "Shikamaru-kun, welcome home." I greeted him as he came through the door.

"Are you going to do that every time I come home now?" He asked me, this being the third time I've done this in a week.

"Well, do you like it when I greet you like this?" I questioned him a smile beginning to lurk its way onto my face.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Ok! I'll do this every time you come home." I smiled, as he shook his head and walked past me to the living room, sitting down on a couch.

"What's the matter Shikamaru-kun?" I asked him sitting beside him on the couch, tilting my head slightly.

As you can see, the original awkwardness is gone now.

"Troublesome women." He mumbled while placing his hand over his eyes. "First in the mission today, and now when I get home. I can't get away from them." He continued to blabber.

I laughed slightly, "Women are important Shikamaru-kun. You shouldn't mistreat or disrespect them." I told him standing up and grabbing my bag, "I'm going to get some flowers, would you like to come?" I asked him politely.

He looked at me with weary eyes, as if asking "Do I really have to?" I stood there waiting for a response, when he sighed and stood up, "Alright, I'll go." He agreed, followed by a sigh.

As we walked into the Yamanaka's flower shop, Ino's mother greeted the both of us, "Good afternoon. Good to see you both."

I nodded, "Nice to see you too. What kind of flowers do you have in today?" I asked her as I walked over to the counter, Shikamaru-kun taking his normal spot, leaning on the wall.

"Well actually, we ordered some flowers from the water country because the medical ninja needed it, but we received one we didn't order. I was wondering if you could figure out what it was; it's not in any of my books."

I was now standing at the counter when Ino's mother brought out the flower. "Oh wow." I took one at it, knowing immediately what it was, "This is quite rare. Wow, and it's almost in bloom. That's amazing." I looked in awe at the purple, yellow and pink flower.

"What is it?" She questioned me again, looking at the flower.

"Strelitzia Parviflora. Usually around 4 inches tall, requires full sun for optimal flowering, but partial shade to produce more attractive leaves. Average amount of water needed and can grow all year." I listed off the fact of the flower off the top of my head, opening my bag and pulling out a book.

"Surprisingly, I just read about this flower yesterday," I told her, flipping through the pages, "Ah, there it is. That's how it looks in full bloom." I pointed to the picture and showed her.

"It becomes very beautiful. Different, but beautiful. Don't you agree?" I asked her as she nodded.

I smiled. This is what I'm good at. Flowers. "So by the looks of it, it's bound to bloom any day. You're very lucky to have that shipped by mistake." I laughed slightly; she really didn't know how lucky she was. In Kohona, we hardly get any interesting flowers, so a lot of the interesting flowers I've seen it's only been in books. My father is so lucky that he gets to go all over the place to see these flowers in person.

"How about you take this flower Yuri? I think you deserve it." She asked me politely.

"Oh no! I don't have the proper set up at the Nara's for this type of thing. If I was at my house still, I could take it on, but I can't now. You should keep the flower here and just follow the conditions it says in this book." I advised her.

"Alright Yuri, if you insist. Let me just copy down these conditions for the flower." She told me grabbing a pen and paper and began to copy down the instructions from the book.

I nodded, and looked back at Shikamaru-kun. He always stood there and looked bored whenever we came into the flower shop. Although this time he seemed a little intrigued. "What is it?" I asked him as he came over.

"It's interesting how you were able to remember all that about the flower. It just surprises me." He commented as he looked over to the flower, "You really like flowers huh?"

I giggled slightly, "Of course, I intend on making it my career and my life basically. Well, they already are pretty much." I told him as Ino's mother finished with the book and handed it to me.

"Thank you so much Yuri-chan, for your help, you can pick out any flower you'd like." She told me as I smiled and nodded.

"Arigato."

After picking out a pink carnation, I held it in my hands as Shikamaru and I left the shop. "Why do you always get flowers everyday? What's the point if they're just going to die." Shikamaru seemed to be a bit curious for once. Very surprising.

"That's exactly the point. If they're going to die then they need to live out their lives instead of sitting in a shop being admired. I place these flowers in places in hopes that some time later, someone will come by and it'll brighten their day. Flowers are meant to bring happiness, that's why they're sold in the first place. So helping that process, I'm helping these flowers to fulfill their purpose." I explained to him as we walked through the village.

I stopped once I was done and looked at him and smiled. There was this odd kind of look on his face, like he was looking to see if I really believed in what I just said. "That makes sense." Was all that came out of his mouth, as I laughed.

"Didn't think it was that complex huh?" I said with a hint of laughter in my voice.

"It's not all that complex." He told me, becoming flushed and slightly annoyed. "I just didn't think you thought that much about it. That's all."

I was about to reply when Shizune interrupted us. "Sorry to interrupt you two love birds, but I'm going to have to steal Yuri-chan here for a bit." The brunette explained as she walked up to us.

Both of our faces became flushed as we both quickly tried to explain that we weren't love birds of any sort, but it just came out as gibberish. The medic-nin laughed, "I'm only kidding you two. It's so cute how you two react in such a stereotypical way." She told us as she pulled me along, all the way to hokage's mansion leaving a confused Shikamaru-kun behind.

Once we were in Tsunade's office she leaned on her desk, picked up a folder and looked at me, "Before we start Yuri, I was looking over your file and I was surprised to see you went to the ninja academy. Why did you drop out?" Shizune asked me very bluntly.

Taken a little aback by her… well frank attitude I replied, "Oh… Well I don't usually tell people but while my mother was out on a mission, she died. Leaving my father and me. And well, it had such a devastating effect on my father that I couldn't bear to do that to someone else in the future if I was to die on a mission as well." Oddly enough, I explained to her without much hesitation.

"Wow… And you were how old when this happened?"

"Only 8 years old."

She looked down for a second and breathed, "To be 8 years old and to have that sort of mentality just astounds me to be honest. I can see where you're coming from on this. I myself had put my husband through a lot. I'm just happy he was able to forgive me for all of it." She sighed contently as she put down the folder on the desk.

"Well anyways, back to the reason I stole you away from Shikamaru. We received word from your father that they discovered a lot more of the flower they were extracting. I forget the name, it was written down somewhere. But since it took him these three months to extract one of the flowers, and now there's a lot more, it's obvious that he's going to be there a little while longer. He wrote that it would take more than a year or maybe two." Shizune explained to me the situation as I stood there twirling the carnation in my hands.

"So, then will I stay with the Nara's?" I inquired, fiddling with the carnation some more.

"Well that's your decision. Your father stated that you can stay here and remain with the Nara's or you can go over to Suna and join him. And I've already spoken with Shikaku about this issue as he came by to report his mission this morning, and he told me that you were welcomed to stay if you chose to." She stopped leaning on the desk, and went around it and sat down in Tsunade's chair.

"When do I need to have my decision by?" I asked as I looked down at the soft pink petals.

"By the end of the week, so your father can make living adjustments if you decide to move over there."

I nodded as she finished, "That's it, you can go now. Report to me about your decision as soon as possible. That way we can send a carrier bird over there."

I looked back down to the carnation, and then back to Shizune. I walked over to her desk and held it out to her, "Here. Take it please." I requested.

She looked a little taken back, "Are you sure?"

I nodded and smiled, "I don't need it and I'm sure you'll find a good use for it. Besides if the hokage catches you in her chair you'll need something to distract her." I placed the flower on the desk, as Shizune laughed nervously.

A few days later and my decision still wasn't made. This was a chance to see the flowers in person and handle them! I didn't get why I just didn't really want to pack up my bags and leave. I guess I have a fondness of Kohona.

The door of the house opened and Shikamaru-kun entered. He stood there a little surprised as I looked at him from the living room. I had sort of been avoiding him since Shizune told me about my father. "I thought you said you were going to greet me every time I came home." He told me sitting beside me on the couch, sort of like how I sat beside him on the couch a few days ago.

"Remember when Shizune pulled me away the other day?" He nodded as I continued, "well she told me that my father was going to stay in Suna a lot longer then expected, and asked me if I wanted to move out there with him. I need to tell her my decision by tomorrow and I'm still at a loss at what to do." I sighed as I looked down at my legs, fidgeting slightly.

Shikamaru-kun sighed deeply, as if he was annoyed slightly. Probably some more 'troublesome' women or something. Or maybe he would change it up today and say 'What a drag.' But what he said next surprised me, "I think you have your mind made up already. You just don't want to admit it. But… how about we go over to the bench and look at the clouds today. Looking at clouds always helps." He told me standing up.

Seeming a little out of his character I stood up and asked, "Are you just trying to get me to go over there so you can fall asleep while looking at the clouds again without any trouble from me?"

He paused for a second and had a look of panic in his face, "Uh…" Ha! I caught him!

I laughed and shook my head, "Well, it worked. Now come on." I told him heading to the door and walking out.

With a sigh of relief Shikamaru-kun followed and we headed out to the bench. As we arrived we took our usual spots, he sat there looking up as I placed my palms to either side of myself and swinging my feet below me. I looked up to the sky, as it showed a nice deep blue with a few clouds here and there. Not much to look at today, but then again the colour of the sky was more then enough to marvel anyone. I love how Kohona just had that perfect weather, which is ideal when it comes to regular gardening.

Then it hit me, the weather in Suna is hot and dry as my father told me in letters and the lifestyle there was just different. And I just didn't want to leave behind the life I had here in Kohona. The village, the flowers, and its people. I just didn't want to go.

I spoke up, "You were right; I already knew what I wanted…"

"And?" He questioned without looking away from the sky.

"I'm going to stay."

"That's good." He told me as he yawned and laid down, placing his head in my lap.

I blinked and looked at him for a second wondering what the heck he was doing. "S-Shikamaru-kun?" I asked, a faint blush appearing on my face.

But he didn't reply, he simply fell asleep again. I guess he didn't notice his head was on my lap for I don't think he would do that on purpose, I thought and looked back up to the sky. "I could get used to this." I stated out loud and smiled.

What I didn't notice though, was that some ninja that just returned to the village saw Shikamaru-kun and I. One of them stopped and commented, "AW. Isn't that cute Sakura? Isei?" A spiky blonde haired one, that I knew as Naruto told the two other girls he was traveling with.

"Naruto, stop spying on other people's business!" The pink haired girl, Sakura, hit him on the head. Although she couldn't help but giggle at the cuteness of the situation.

"OW. Sheesh. Fine, I'll stop." He told her as he rubbed his head.