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Instead of replying right away back to Sakura, Shikamaru just shrugged. Sticking his hands in his pockets, as his eyes swept up to the sky. "It's not a big deal."

Hearing that brought a smile to Sakura's face. Focusing back forward, she crossed her arms over her chest. I don't really mind I guess. The company isn't too bad. Following Shikamaru's lead, her eyes moved upwards to look at the starry sky. Today went by pretty quickly. Maybe these two months won't be that bad after all.

The next day, Tuesday

Having finished breakfast almost half an hour ago, they were all settled in the living room. Shikaku was focusing on the shogi board that he was setting up, across the room from the others. Shikamaru was, against his will, sitting with his mom and Sakura instead of playing with his dad.

"Okay," Yoshino started speaking, having finished writing something down on her pad of paper. "We need a theme. Any ideas?"

"Why does there have to be a theme?" Shikamaru questioned, looking away from the shogi board his dad was setting up to his mom. "And more importantly, why is it such a big deal?"

"Because, it's to keep it from being repetitive each year Shikamaru," his mom shot back, as she looked to Sakura. She could already guess that Sakura would most likely be the only help in this part of the planning. "Ideas?"

"Well last year's theme was darker for the official party on the first day, and darker colors were a strong point throughout the festival and ball as well. So maybe we should switch it to lighter colors this year," Sakura suggested, having had the notebook and the folder with the history of the parties that she and Shikamaru filled up yesterday. The page that had all the details of the last part was where she had opened the notebook up to.

Yoshino nodded in agreement. "Alright, light colors it is."

"I think white is a good base color for the party on the first day," Sakura started, having been putting thought into this idea over breakfast. "We can have it outside, since last years was inside. Maybe at... at the big garden area in the district. We can balance out the white with some green plants and have some flowers. The flowers can be mostly white, and we can just add an occasional random color of flower to give it a pop of color here and there. Lighting wise we should stick with some traditional black lanterns, and maybe have a few parts of the centerpieces on the table be black as well as having the green vines and flowers. Oh, maybe instead of having the flowers being the main part of the centerpiece, we can have black lantern in the middle, and then craft around it with the flowers and vines."

"That's a good idea," Yoshino agreed, having been writing as Sakura was speaking.

Sakura looked to Shikamaru, to find his eyes had been on her already. "What do you think?"

Shikamaru just watched Sakura, kind of surprised at all of that had just come out of her mouth. "That you switched places with Ino for the day. How did you even come up with all of that on the spot?"

Sakura grabbed the notebook off the table, and lightly smacked Shikamaru's shoulder with it. "Okay one, just because Ino and I are competitive doesn't mean we don't have some similar likes. I am very creative, thank you very much. And two, I wasn't asking you how you felt about my apparently sudden creativity, I was asking about what you thought about the theme. Stay on track Shikamaru."

That had Shikamaru's dad smirking from over by the shogi board. "I can already tell you that everything you just said about the theme probably went right over his head. This isn't his style to be so involved."

Shikamaru, who was rubbing his arm from where she hit him, nodded in agreement with his dad. "Yeah, my dad's right. Can I just go over there-"

"No!" Both his mom and Sakura interrupted him. Yoshino speaking more. "You have to start getting involved in these things Shikamaru. Eventually in a few years or so, this party is going to be your responsibility entirely."

That made Shikamaru sigh, and drop his head on the table. "Don't remind me. I'm already dreading it."

"Oh please," Sakura laughed at Shikamaru's dread-filled tone. "I picture that even when it is your time to be responsible for the party, you'll probably just give all the responsibility to whoever you get married to. The only thing you'll end up doing is just showing up when the week of the party happens."

Shikaku laughed along with Sakura. "She just told your future, son."

Shikamaru grumbled something incoherently, before sitting back up. Propping his head on his hand, he sighed. "Can we just finish this already? I don't care what the theme is."

Yoshino laughed. Her eyes sweeping over to Sakura. "So sticking with the light theme, during the week I was thinking we can have some color there. A different theme each day to give the visitors we have something new to look forward to each day."

"Hmmm," Sakura hummed in thought. "Okay, if we're doing colors, we should do something that we can tie to the entertainment and the activities during each day of the festival… since there is five days of the festival, we can do five different colors… the five elements. One each day. We can do it starting with water, then air, then lightning, earth, and the end with fire. That way on the fifth day we can do something fun like fireworks."

Yoshino nodded, and wrote that down. "Then for the ball, that's when we should really have something interesting to put in for the theme."

"I noticed in past parties there were themes but they all follow each other in a way of just kind of reflecting the first day. Instead of doing that this time instead of white we can do black… and gold. But more focus on gold and maybe white to be the colors we use, and black can just be like the stand out color. That way we can have it be fun decorations, but keep it traditional with the tux's and dresses. Maybe even up the dress code a bit dress wise to allow the women and men to coordinate with the theme. I can see it now, sparkly dresses, feathers, all of that."

"That's perfect," Yoshino agreed, writing it down. Looking over their ideas, she nodded once more. "Okay, it looks like we've got a theme. I've already started working on a rough guest list from what we had last year, but most of the guests that usually attend are on a different list somewhere upstairs. So you two can get to work on that in a little while. We also need to get invitation designs, as those need to be sent out by either the end of this week or the beginning of the next."

"Oh, can I cover the invitation designs?" Sakura asked, moving to stand up from the couch when Shikamaru's mom nodded.

Shikamaru finally paying attention at her moving. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to consult with one of the best artists I know, and I also want to go get Shadow and Tank. I'm going to bring them to the Inuzuka's to hang out for the rest of the day so they won't be stuck inside," Sakura replied, slipping her bag on over her shoulders. "I'll be back in a couple hours or so."

Watching Sakura slip on her shoes next, Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "Is this your way of getting out of finding the guest list?"

Sakura smiled at Shikamaru's question, and shook her head at him. "Don't give me that. You didn't help at all with planning the theme."

"I was sitting here wasn't I?" Shikamaru countered.

"Not the same thing," Sakura replied with a laugh, as she moved to leave. "You can find the guest list, and start working on that while I'm gone."

"This isn't fair!" Shikamaru called over to her, as she had walked out the front door.

"Suck it up Shikamaru!" Was the last thing Sakura said, before she closed the door. Her laughter was heard, as she walked off the porch.

Her words had Shikaku and Yoshino laughing, and Shikamaru shaking his head. However, he found himself watching through the large glass windows. His eyes following Sakura until he could no longer see her.

Sakura's POV

"We're going to make a stop first boys," Sakura talked to her dogs, as she walked up the next flight of stairs. The dogs clearly recognized the building they were at, as they were already trotting over to the door Sakura was heading towards. Opening the door, Sakura let the dogs in first, before stepping inside.

"Of course it's you," the voice of Hinata was heard, before she appeared walking out of the kitchen. Just in time to watch Shadow and Tank jump up on the couch, her eyes went to Sakura, and she sighed. "Hello Sakura. Thank you for inviting yourself into my apartment."

"Well," Sakura started, moving over to sit on the couch opposite to the one Shadow and Tank had made themselves comfortable on. She kicked her feet up on the coffee table after slipping off her shoes. "You always hate it when I knock."

"No," Hinata disagreed, rolling her eyes and smirking back at Sakura. "YOU hate it when I knock on YOUR door. Not the other way around."

"Yeah, yeah," Sakura shot back, as she reached in her bag and pulled out the list she and Shikamaru's mom had been making for the theme for the Nara party. "I need a favor. And it involves your expert artist skills."

"And that's what I was waiting for. You need something," Hinata said, shaking her head, and sighing. "Hold on." She turned and went back into the kitchen. Coming back out a moment later with two cups of tea in hand. Setting both down, pushing Sakura's feet off the coffee table, before sitting down on the floor beside it and looking at the list. "What am I looking at-"

"Oh that's disappointing," Sakura said seeing the tea, but picking it up anyways. "I thought you were bringing me alcohol."

"It's not even noon yet," Hinata shot back, not even giving Sakura a glance. Tank had jumped down from the couch to lay on the floor right beside her. Snuggling his head on her lap, as his tail thumped on the carpet. She began to pet him as she continued looking over the list. "Now, what am I looking at?"

"You are looking at what's the start of my next two months," Sakura replied, smirking at Hinata's look. "Oh yeah. So you know how Shikamaru and I were summoned to the Hokage's office a couple days ago?"

Almost two hours later

Looking up at the blue sky, brought a smile to Sakura's was on her way back to the Nara compound from the Inuzuka's, where she had just dropped her dogs off. Her eyes had been focused up at the sky almost since she left. A cloudless sky. It already feels like Summer-Stopping mid-thought, she slowed down her walking. Her eyes cutting around her. Trying to make it look casual and less suspicious, she paused at a stall in the market. Picking up an apple, as if she was going to buy it. Her eyes swept around herself.

Someone's following me. The feeling of being followed was strong enough to catch her attention. But, it seemed that once she stopped, whoever it was, appeared to be gone. Nothing looked out of place or even remotely suspicious to her. Unable to find anything after another moment, her eyes went to the owner of the stall in the market. Pulling a dollar out of her bag, she handed it over. "Keep the change." She told the woman, a warm smile on her face.

"Thank you, the apple has already been washed, so it's ready to eat," the woman replied cheerfully. "Have a nice day."

"You too," Sakura replied, slightly distracted as she turned to keep walking. Turning the apple around in her hand, as she walked. Maybe I was just imagining things. Or I wasn't. The rest of the way to the Nara compound seemed completely normal. No longer feeling like she was being followed, but mentally that wasn't enough to convince herself that she had just simply imagined it.

Back at the Nara's, she walked right inside at the motion of his mom to come in instead of knocking. Shikaku was still by the table with the shogi board, and Shikamaru was laying back on the couch. Eyes closed. Seeing this, Sakura frowned, and walked right over, she dropped her notebook right on top of his face. "Wake up."

That was enough to slightly startle Shikamaru awake. The notebook sliding off his face onto his chest, his eyes went straight to Sakura. "What the hell?"

"Shikamaru," his mom said his name with a scolding tone at his cursing. His father-on the other hand-just laughed.

Shikamaru, pushed himself to sit up, and his eyes remained on Sakura. "Why did you do that?"

Sakura, slipped her bag off her shoulders, she dropped it on the floor by the couch, and moved to sit down. "Don't act so mad about it. You should be glad I didn't take it a step further, and straight up push you off the couch and onto the floor. That's how my teammates and I wake each other up."

"No wonder why you and your teammates don't get along," Shikamaru grumbled, rubbing the back of his head, and picking up the notebook with his other hand. "Any particular reason why you dropped this on my face?"

"Go to the page that has the paper sticking out of it. It's the invitation sketch, and you need to look at it to see if you like it," Sakura replied, leaning back against the cushions on the couch, and biting into her apple.

Shikamaru sighed, as he started flipping pages. "I think it's already established that I don't really care about all that stuff."

Sakura chewed the bit of apple she had in her mouth, swallowed, then laughed. "Shikamaru, what did I say yesterday? This party is practically a first for the both of us considering you haven't really attended any before. I mean you have, but not really. So it's decided that both of us have to participate in everything, and enjoy it."

"I never agreed to that," Shikamaru pointed out, completely stopping in flipping to the pages.

Smiling back at Shikamaru, Sakura shrugged. "Okay, so I decided that both of us have to participate and enjoy it. So you should probably get on with the whole participating and enjoying it part before you have to suffer the consequences."

Raising an eyebrow in Sakura's direction, Shikamaru frowned. "Suffer the… What consequences?"

"I don't think I'm going to tell you. You can find that out when it happens, but I will tell you that you aren't going to like them one bit," Sakura replied, laughing, before growing a mischievous smile on her face. "After getting stuck being around males most of my life, whether it be through ninja work, or in my family, I have had to learn a lot of ways to stand my ground against them. And I can tell you from the experience I've had; I play dirty. So you don't have any chance at defending yourself against anything I come up with."

It went quiet in the room, as Shikamaru stared at Sakura. "I can't tell if you are being serious or not." Which is odd, because I'm usually pretty good at reading people.

Sakura smirked back at Shikamaru. "I don't advise it, but if you really want to test me, go for it."

Again with the silence. Shikamaru finally looked back at the notebook, and flipped through the pages a lot quicker than he was before. "This whole enjoying this thing is going to take a few days to get used to, so I'd appreciate if you'd hold back on attacking me in my sleep for at least that much time."

Sakura laughed along with his parents at that. "We'll see."

Shikamaru got to the invitation then, and was surprised to find it wasn't bad at all. "This actually is pretty good. Who did you get to do it? And this amount of time?"

"I'm not going to tell you who, because I'm sworn to secrecy," Sakura replied rather dramatically, but she laughed at Shikamaru's raised eyebrow. "Just know that she's the real deal, so if this is what we decide on, she'll do a final copy and then we can get the rest made."

"It's fine- I mean I like it," Shikamaru corrected himself mid-sentence at the glare Sakura sent his way. He had to fight the urge to roll his eyes at his mom and dad laughing at him. Passing it over to his mom next, he shot his dad an irritated look at him still laughing.

"These are really good. I don't think there's anything that needs to be changed," Shikamaru's mom said, passing it back over to Sakura, then she addressed her son and Sakura. "You two need to get started on the guest list now."

Hearing that, made Sakura raise an eyebrow at Shikamaru. "I thought you were doing that while I was gone."

"In case you forgot," Shikamaru replied, slouching back on the couch, as he sent a glare Sakura's way. "When you first came in and-oh so nicely-dropped your notebook on my face, I was sleeping."

"And somehow I'm not even slightly surprised you didn't do any work," Sakura replied honestly, noticing how his parents laughed at that. Her eyes caught sight of a bird flying to a bird feeder on the front porch of the house. The blue sky in the background brought her mind back to the events before she came back here. The feeling of being followed sent a shiver down her spine. But that was enough to make her push it to the back of her mind, and she stood up. "Come on Shikamaru. Let's go upstairs and get started on this list."

A few days later, Friday

Starting up the stairs to Sakura's third floor apartment, Shikamaru yawned. The sun had just now started to rise, and the light was reminding him how tired he was. Reaching the second floor, he started up the next flight of stairs. For some reason, I feel like something's different this morning. I've been doing this since Monday. Waking up early, and walking over here to Sakura's. I know I don't have to walk over here, even Sakura has insisted that I don't. But, I know that if I leave it to her, she'd probably forget to set an alarm like she did the first morning, and I'd end up having to wait on her even more than I usually do.

That got him thinking back to the very conversation they had just yesterday before breakfast about him walking over to her apartment every morning. How when he told her why he kept walking to her apartment, it made her laugh, and tell him that she's not as forgetful as he thinks she is. Which he completely disagreed with, and that seemed to make her laugh even more. The thought of her laughter lightened his mood up, and had the corners of his mouth turning upwards.

Reaching the third floor, he started towards Sakura's door, and again, felt like something was a bit off today. Knocking on her door he shook the thought from his mind, as he found his answer. There's no chaos happening. Unlike past days, there wasn't any sound of her dogs barking or her occasional cursing at getting to the door. He had only been standing there for all of six seconds when, to his surprise, the door swung right open.

Sakura stood there, completely dressed and ready to go. Her eyes on his. However, a growing frown started on her face as they stared at each other for a moment. "Why in the hell do you look so surprised? It's like your surprised to see that it's me opening the door. Who'd you think it was going to be? Shadow or Tank? That wouldn't make any damn sense."

Well that's a normal greeting at least… Maybe a little more hostile, but normal. Shikamaru thought, slightly frowning as he shook his head at her. "I was just surprised that you are already dressed and ready to go." Studying her a moment longer, he grew a smirk on his face and shrugged. "This sure is a change. Me not having to wait on you."

At the sight of Shikamaru's smirk, Sakura rolled her eyes at him. "Shut up."

That got Shikamaru to laugh, as he stepped inside her apartment at her motioning for him to. "Now, that's the Sakura I've come to know over the past few days," he said, still laughing as Shadow and Tank came to greet him as usual. However, after they greeted him, they didn't go out the door, but back over to where Sakura stood. "Have they already gone out this morning?"

"Uh huh," Sakura mumbled through a yawn. Stretching her arms a bit, she turned to go towards the island bar. "Let me grab my bag."

The second Sakura turned, Shikamaru's smirk dropped. Something's off about her today. I can't put my finger on it. It just feels odd. She's all ready to go it seems, and its like she's been up for a while. Usually she's always running around in the middle of getting ready when I arrive.

Sakura grabbed her bag, and started to make sure she had everything. When she made sure she did in fact have everything, her eyes went to the counter top where Baby sat on her bed. Petting Baby, she found herself slowly giving into her thoughts.

Shikamaru noticed her freeze up after a moment, and raised an eyebrow at her not moving. "Are you okay this morning?"

Hearing Shikamaru's voice had Sakura snapping out of her thoughts, and she shook her head to refocus. "I'm fine, let's go," she said, getting an odd shiver of a bad feeling, she shook her head again to rid the feeling, and started towards the door. They took Shadow and Tank with them as they left, as Sakura was now taking them to the Inuzuka's everyday so they wouldn't be cooped up inside all the time. Which they enjoyed. They got to play with other dogs, and get some real exercise.

On the way there, Sakura was noticeably quiet. Barely focusing ahead of them as they walked. Just having a lot on her mind.

Shikamaru remained studying her from the corner of his eye. Noticing the slightly dark bags under her eyes, and how she seemed stiff. Something was clearly on her mind. "Are you okay?"

Hearing those words had Sakura snap out of her thoughts again, and without much thought, words started flying out of her mouth. "Why do you keep asking me that? I'm fine!"

Shikamaru, raising an eyebrow at her suddenly snapping like that. "Sheesh, remind me never to ask you questions anymore."

That seemed to do the trick to soften Sakura up. She put a smile on her face as she looked in Shikamaru's direction. "Sorry. This is just me without caffeine and breakfast. This is partially the reason as to why I keep telling you that you don't have to walk all the way to my apartment in the morning. I'm really not that pleasant of a morning person when I don't have my coffee."

"Well, next time I'll remember to get coffee to keep you from killing me," Shikamaru said, noticing that as soon as their words were over, Sakura had went back to her plain expression. No smile or light like usual. Just plain. Something's not right here. And I'm not really certain, but I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that she hasn't had coffee yet.

Almost an hour later

Having dropped the dogs off, they went to Shikamaru's breakfast, and were in the process of finishing up eating breakfast. Shikamaru's mom just now started to go over what they needed to get done that day.

"So after breakfast, you two need to finish the list of the guests we'll be inviting."

"We know that mom," Shikamaru started up after his mom finished talking. "We've been the one's doing the actual work here."

"I'm just reminding you Shikamaru," Yoshino replied, waving off her son's words. "You also need to finish writing the last of the names on the invitations, and put them in envelopes. Sakura, you have the rest of the invitations with you, correct?"

Silence followed after Yoshino's question, leaving them all looking at the pink haired woman. She had her elbow resting on the table, and her chin on her hand. Her eyes fixated on the big window on the wall across from the entrance to the dining room. The view outside was the back yard of the house.

"Sakura?" Shikamaru asked, getting no response. "Sakura?" Again no response. This time he reached over to rest his hand on her shoulder. "Hey Sakura-"

Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin at the feeling of Shikamaru's hand on her shoulder. Looking over at him, she pushed his hand off her shoulder. "Why in the world did you do that?"

"Why are you so jumpy?" Shikamaru countered, an eyebrow raised at her.

At him pointing that out, Sakura turned her head away from him, and sighed in annoyance.

Shikamaru, ignoring her attitude, spoke up again. "What is this? The third time this morning you've spaced out like that. The fourth? Fifth? Sixth-"

"Would you stop?" Sakura asked him, slightly annoyed, but took a breath to lose the annoyance from her features. Looking to his mom she smiled. "I got the rest of the invitations with me by the way," she said, then her eyes went annoyingly back to Shikamaru at his look. "Stop looking at me like that. I told you everything is fine. Just because my attention span is about as short as a grain of salt this morning doesn't automatically mean I'm losing my mind."

"That's not what I'm implying," Shikamaru told her, unable to help but smirk at her example. "Something is on your mind-"

"Stop right there," Sakura said, standing up to get her empty dishes from breakfast. "Why are you making it such a big deal? Not everything that goes through my mind needs to be public knowledge."

Even though Sakura had moved to walk out of the dining room to end the conversation, Shikamaru was quick to stand up. Gathering his empty dishes, and following shortly after her. "You're being defensive now."

"I'm not being defensive," was Sakura's reply, as she put her dishes in the sink. Moving out of the way so the others could do the same.

"Yes you are." Shikamaru shot back.

"No, I am not-" Sakura stopped when there was a knock on the front door. Unable to see who it was, as the curtains were pulled over the windows, she moved towards it, as it was an excuse to end this conversation.

In walked Hinata, who didn't wait for Sakura to speak, as she stepped inside. "I got your message this morning. Why didn't you tell me that-" Hinata stopped at the glare in Sakura's eyes, and she sighed heavily at Sakura. "I need to speak to you outside.

"I can't," Sakura replied almost immediately, crossing her arms over her chest. "Now is not a good time- hey!"

"Now Sakura," Hinata had pulled Sakura by her elbow out the front door.

"I wonder what that was about," Yoshino said, while her husband just shrugged.

Shikamaru, however, found himself more curious about it than his parents were. How did Hinata know Sakura was over here? We haven't told anyone else that we were working together on this.

Outside on the porch

"You waited until this morning to tell me!" Hinata exclaimed, clearly pissed off at her pink-haired friend. "You almost were attacked last night-"

"Hey, keep it down would you?" Sakura interrupted, glancing once at the door to the house, before looking back at Hinata. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you until this morning. But, I couldn't do it last night."

"What do you mean that you couldn't do it?" Hinata questioned, clearly still pissed, but trying to contain her anger.

Sakura sighed at Hinata's look. "I told Shikamaru that he didn't have to walk me home like he has been doing. So I went home by myself. On the way, I realized I was being followed, but the people disappeared because of some ninja sweeping the streets. When I got home I was really anxious. So I took a long bubble bath and drank nearly a whole bottle of wine. I figured the wine would get my mind off of it, but I ended up slightly drunk because it was a really big bottle. Of course I almost had a panic attack when the wine didn't work, and I was sort of drunk."

"Why am I not surprised?" Was all Hinata questioned back to Sakura. Sighing when she noticed Sakura's frown. "You didn't tell Tsunade did you?"

"No I didn't," Sakura replied, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm in a complicated situation here. I can't just go off to go talk to the Hokage. Shikamaru's suddenly suspicious of me as of this morning. What if he gets too curious?"

"You know that this wouldn't be such a big deal if you would just tell your friends-"

"No," Sakura interrupted, a serious look in her eye. "I don't want to do that, and you know very well why."

Hinata went quiet after Sakura finished talking. Staring her friend down for a long moment, she finally sighed, and moved towards the stairs. "I'm going to go talk to the Hokage for you. I'll do a little recon, and see if I can find out if there has been any sense of unwanted visitors here."

"Thanks," Sakura spoke up before Hinata could start down the stairs, then she sighed deeply. "Why can't my life just be normal like everyone elses?"

Hinata shook her head, and turned her head to look back at Sakura. "Normal is not a word I would use to describe you ever," she replied, attempting to joke, but knew that Sakura wasn't in the mood. Sighing herself, she turned back forward, and started down the stairs. "Don't worry Sakura. We'll take care of this."

Watching Hinata until she could no longer see her, Sakura finally turned, and went back inside.

"That was quick," Shikamaru spoke up almost as soon as Sakura walked in.

"She just wanted to come by and ask why I didn't tell her that I was temporarily borrowing her shoes," Sakura replied quickly as an excuse, as she shut the front door. "Apparently she didn't appreciate me breaking into her apartment last night to grab them. Of course she said I broke in, but it doesn't really count as breaking in when I have a key. Although I guess I can't disagree with the part about her her saying I stole her shoes."

Raising an eyebrow at Sakura, Shikamaru remained quiet for a moment. Knowing very well that clearly was not why Hinata came all the way over here. But, he decided not to push it at the moment. "How did she know you were over here? I thought we agreed to not tell anyone else about us working together until we had to."

"Yeah, well Hinata's my best friend, and I tell her everything," Sakura replied as if it was obvious as to why she told Hinata. Grabbing her bag from the ground by the couch, she moved to the hall that had the stairs on it. "Now are you going to come and help me finish up writing the names on the invitations? Or sit there and continue questioning my personal life?" She asked, pausing at the entrance to the hall, as she turned her head to face him. "I mean, if you really want to know where I get my nails done, I can give you a recommendation."

While that made his parents laugh, Shikamaru just rolled his eyes, and got up from the couch. "I'm coming."

A couple hours later

Over the past couple hours, they had been writing names on invitation, and sticking them in envelopes. As it was getting to be around noon, the temperature kept rising, and it was getting hot. Typical of the warm weather Konoha had starting in May and going well into September.

Sakura was currently settled laying on the ground. Sprawled out so that way more of her skin was touching the much cooler floor. "We're probably going to have some extras. They might come in handy though. I'm sure there will be some extra people that Tsunade will want to invite."

"Probably," Shikamaru agreed, sealing another envelope, and setting it down on the pile after writing the guests name down on the outside of the envelope. He was sitting a few feet from Sakura, except he was sitting up, not sprawled out on the ground like she was. His eyes flickered over to where she was, and he observed her. How she seemed so carefree and happy now, unlike how she had been acting that morning.

Grabbing another invitation, Sakura crossed her ankles. Her legs from knee down were up in the air. Her shoes long forgotten. Beginning to write down the next name, she laughed when she almost wrote her own name instead. "I've been writing so long, I think I'm starting to lose it."

Shikamaru smirked, and his eyes traveled back to her after sealing another envelope. Watching her occasionally reach her hand up to flick her bangs back away from her face. And with how she was laying on the floor, her top had rode up to where he could see her lower back. It was something that kept catching his eye even though he tried to focus on anything else. That thin inch of revealed back and sides on her just kept grabbing his attention. Finally he had to force himself to turn his body a little bit more away just so he wouldn't catch sight of it so easily. My parents just had to make a big deal about this…

Finishing the last few invitations, Sakura passed them off to Shikamaru, and sat up. "We can go bring these to the Hokage Tower, and send them out after we speak to Tsunade," she started, moving to stand up, and stretch. "I'm already dreading the walk there. It's probably so much hotter outside."

"Probably," Shikamaru replied, his eyes flickering over to her, then back to finishing up sealing the last of the envelopes.

An hour later

They had spent a good amount of time at the Hokage's office, more or less, just because they didn't want to leave the air conditioned building to go back out in the heat. But they finally decided to go back to Shikamaru's house, and that's what they were doing now.

Shikamaru glanced over to Sakura a few times since they started walking back, as he had observed her happy mood. It wasn't until they were close to getting back to his house that he spoke up. "You've been in a good mood these past few hours. Unlike this morning. What changed?"

At Shikamaru bringing that up again, Sakura just sighed with annoyance, and shook her head. Crossing her arms, and not replying back to him.

"I would let it go," Shikamaru started after observing her irritated expression, and lack of response. "But for some reason, I can't. You being all mysterious and secretive has intrigued my interest. Which you better feel damn special for managing to catch my interest like that. So it's only fair you tell me what's going on in that head of yours-"

Sakura's laughter interrupted Shikamaru's words. When she managed to sober up her laughter, she shook her head, and smiled. "You are persistent, I'll give you that," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, as they walked up on the porch. "Not as good as me of course, but you are acceptably okay when it comes to being persistent."

Stopping beside Sakura on the porch, Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at her. "Does that mean you are going to tell me?"

"No," Sakura replied shortly, moving to open the front door to walk inside. "Hello." She greeted his parents, who were sitting over on one of the couches.

Shikamaru remained standing there, watching her for a moment, before following her inside. Finding himself feeling oddly annoyed with her lack of telling him what was going on. But, at the same time, the way she handled herself, it amused him. Smirking, he shook his head at her, as he started taking off his shoes. "You're troublesome."

"And right now you're annoying," Sakura shot back almost immediately, as she kicked off her shoes. She turned away from him. "And when you're done pouting about it, you can help me clean up the mess we made upstairs." That was all she said, before walking down the short hall to the stairs.

Sakura's words actually got Shikamaru to laugh. Enough to where he couldn't stop laughing. Hearing her laughter join in from upstairs, made it even more impossible for him to stop laughing. That woman is strange that's for sure. He thought briefly, finally sobering up his laughter. Sending a nod his parents way, he started towards the hall the stairs were on. Having not noticed the raised eyebrows from his parents.

A couple hours later, dinner time

"So I guess this means we are done for the week," Shikamaru's mom said, looking at her check list for the week. Her eyes went to Sakura after she set her notebook down. "What do you have planned for the weekend dear?"

"Well, I'm going to go train some- which all the questions from my team is going to be fun," Sakura started, her tone sarcastic. Sticking her fork into her salad, she thought about what else she had planned. "Then I'm going to be working at the hospital when I can over the next few days. Oh, and I think I'm going to take Shadow and Tank out to the mountains to jog a little bit."

Shikamaru had been watching Sakura take a bite from her salad, and it made him shake his head. He had been the only one not to get a salad, as it wasn't something he could make himself eat. Looking at his parents, he smirked. "Her dogs have about five times the amount of energy that Sakura has. Which should already tell you that it's a lot, because Sakura's already almost borderline insane with her energy."

"Shut up," Sakura retorted almost immediately, lightly pushing his shoulder, and shaking her head at him. "I'm not that bad."

"Have you met you?" Shikamaru countered her.

That made both his parents laugh. His mom spoke up first after they stopped laughing. "Are you going to relax at all Sakura? It seems like you're going to be busy the whole weekend?"

Thinking for a moment, Sakura shrugged her shoulders. "I like having things to do. It keeps my mind focused, and it gives me an excuse to get out of my apartment." The thought of having a full list of things to do over the weekend, brought Sakura's thoughts back to how busy her mind would be worrying over being watched or followed. The busier the better. Less time for me to sit and worry about that stuff.

The rest of dinner went by quickly, and it wasn't until after putting up the dishes, Sakura moved to grab her bag, and slip on her shoes. "I'm going to go ahead and go. I need to go pick up Shadow and Tank before they think I forgot about them."

"I'll walk with you," Shikamaru said, standing up from where he was sitting on one of the bar stools.

That made Sakura pause after she put on her shoes. Shrugging her shoulders after a moment, she looked at him. "Well come on then."

Ten minutes later, they left the Inuzuka's and started towards Sakura's apartment. It had been fairly quiet between them on their walk over to pick up the dogs. Shikamaru having been thinking about how she didn't disagree with him walking with her today, and finally he decided to bring it up. "You didn't resist at all like you usually do when I offered to walk with you home… Which is strange. Especially after last night when you nearly punched me to keep me from walking with you."

Sakura was quiet for a moment, and finally she sighed. "Okay… You win," she started, looking in his direction, before focusing back forward. "Last night when I was walking to go pick up Shadow and Tank, I felt like I was being followed. At first I wasn't sure, but then I confirmed it when whoever it was followed me down four streets that basically put me walking in a full circle. They were getting really close to me, but there were some ninja sweeping the streets. Then whoever it was disappeared."

"You're okay though right?" Shikamaru asked, surprising himself with the note of concern in his voice.

"Obviously I'm fine. Don't freak out over it," Sakura replied quickly, as she looked over to meet his eyes. "It's just after they followed me like that, it kind of got my imagination running all over the place."

Shikamaru was quiet for a moment. "Which is why you were spacing out so much today."

"Yeah," Sakura confirmed with a nod. An annoyed expression on her face. "I've been allowing myself to keep picturing what would have happened if those other ninja weren't surveying the streets like they were. Of course I could have handled it, but an attack in the village would just get my team all annoying and in my business worse than usual."

Once again Shikamaru was silent, as he watched her. "That's why you made all those plans to stay busy this weekend isn't it?"

"Kind of," Sakura replied, reaching the stairs to her apartment building, she started up them. "I do like to be busy, but I like to relax too. I just feel like this whole thing is just an excuse to do more."

"Why would someone be following you?" Shikamaru asked as they reached the third floor.

"I don't know..." Sakura trailed off. They reached her door, and she unlocked it. However, instead of going inside, she just kept the door open, and turned to go over to the railing. Looking down to the ground to see Shadow and Tank roaming around. "I don't want to think about it anymore. It's nothing to worry about. I just can't stop my brain from focusing on it."

Watching Sakura for a moment, Shikamaru crossed his arms, and leaned back against the railing. "Have you enjoyed having a break from training these past five days? Because I know I have."

At the change in topic, Sakura sighed with relief, and nodded once. Turning away from the railing, she sat down on the ground. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she crossed her arms over the top of her knees. "I feel like I should say no, but these past five days have been wonderful. I haven't realized how much I was working on training and missions until I got to actually sit back and do something else."

"I understand that feeling," Shikamaru smirks then, as he actually sat down as well. Except he had moved to sit across from her. His back against the wall her apartment door was on. "Of course it's not like I wasn't taking breaks during my training."

That brought a big smile to Sakura's face. "I bet. You were probably gone somewhere looking at the clouds everyday."

"Nothing wrong with that," Shikamaru said, shrugging his shoulders. A smirk on his face.

That made Sakura laugh, just as Baby strolled out of her apartment, and over to where she was sitting. She adjusted so Baby could climb on her lap and lay there. Starting to pet her, Sakura looked back to Shikamaru. "No there isn't anything wrong with that." Hearing Shadow and Tank barking, she turned her head to see they were just playing around. Looking back to Shikamaru, she smiled again. "Having time to be alone and relax is something I probably need."

"I could probably teach you my ways if you want," Shikamaru said, smirking back at her. "You might be mission impossible, but I think I'd be up for the challenge."

That had Sakura laughing. "Good look with that. You'll be pulling out your hair after one lesson." She said, before she laughed along with Shikamaru. The feeling of anxiety about what happened last night seemed to fade away as she laughed. This might just be what I need to get my mind to settle.

A/N: Okay, so I know I've been MIA this past month, I talk about where I was over on my blog. But, I am ready to get back into the swing of things. Which kinda sucks because I've already managed to be a day off on my uploads. But it's all good. At least I'm getting the chapters up haha. My favorite scene this chapter was probably the scene between Shikamaru and Sakura at the end of the chapter. What was your favorite scene?

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