A/N: I got distracted yesterday evening, and completely forgot to update! I apologize sincerely to those following this story - thank you for your support!


9/25

She had known it would happen.

Of course it was impossible to deny Naruto's friends the right to invite whomever they wanted. It was similarly stupid to not go just because the person she liked least would be there, too. The stupid thing was: she did not dislike him. She liked his intelligence, and his sight. She just did not like how he used both against her.

The regular movie theater evenings Naruto had established with his friends from school a long time ago and which he had continued on at the university – which, she suspected, had been one of the major tactics in his courtship of Sakura – slowly started getting out of hand.

Probably nobody cared, except for Ino.

She couldn't fathom why it was that way. Shikamaru just seemed to hover at the edge of their group and yet the guys had quickly adjusted to him and his friend Chouji, who was studying to be a nutritionist and dreamed of taking over his father's restaurant. Mostly, he'd hang back and listen. But now and then he would throw in a lazy comment and all the guys would laugh and agree. Or a discussion would start, one of those meaningful ones, one of those in which Ino found herself silenced because she did not know much about politics and history. Sometimes, he didn't even say a word and still he was part of the group. For Ino, who firmly believed in society's rules – socialize, interact, smile, remain superficial – what he did was something close to sacrilege. How could someone stand apart from a group, and yet be part of it? How could he present so different opinions, and yet never incite a discussion that went out of hand? Shikamaru never argued, never got caught in heated exchanges, never used illogical arguments. He approached everything calmly and rationally. Maybe that was why everyone liked him.

Shikamaru only argued with Ino.

"It made no sense," he said, after the third movie installment of an adaption of one of Ino's favorite books. "How can so few people keep the others in check? And what happened to the rest of the continent? Where are the people?"

"The movie is based on a YA novel," Sakura said. "The background was never fleshed out completely."

Shikamaru shrugged. "It's about the complete context. How can one tenth of the population be in complete control of the rest? It's logistically impossible."

"The book isn't about military politics, statistics and logistics," Ino argued, enraged, knowing she would lose the argument. She always did. "It's about the decisions people made when faced with an extreme situation. On how propaganda can influence peoples' minds. The movie was good."

"One does not need a brain to enjoy things."

Ino opened her lips to retort and closed them again. Glared at him, instead. There were a myriad of swear words she had in store, most of them reserved just for him. It was the strangest thing, even stranger than her strange attraction.

Usually, Ino waited until she got to know people better before she called them names, but Shikamaru was proving to be an exception.