Chapter 9- Quality time

While Shikamaru wrapped up Becky's hand she fidgeted she couldn't stand the awkward silence.

"Why are you doing this for me?" she asked.

"Well why not?" Shikamaru raised an eyebrow replied.

"Well I mean, Naruto acted like Sakura was going to bandage my hand."

"Well I was already here so deal with it."

"Fine be an douche bag"

"Well sorry but you really need to relax your starting to get as annoying as Sakura"

"YOU DID NOT JUST COMPARE ME TO A FUCKING BITCH LIKE SAKURA. THAT'S WORSE THAN BEING COMPARED TO FUCKING RUKIA!!"

"B-but I didn't m-mean it t-that way" cringed Shikamaru.

"NO! You didn't don't try to squirm out of it"

"I'm sorry ok I didn't mean to"

"AWW you're so adorable! I was just kidding Shikamaru." Becky said smiling just as Shikamaru finished wrapping up her hand. Becky got up on her knees and gave Shikamaru a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks. Hope I wasn't too troublesome." and with that, she walked over to Kakashi, Sasuke, Naruto and Renji to go watch Ichigo and Rukia spar, leaving a shade of crimson on Shikamaru's face. "Uh-Oh get it!" Shikamaru looked over to his right to see a smirking Steven. "Oh get over yourself Steven, like she actually meant something by that." Shikamaru said trying to cover up the blush that was glued to his face.

"Dude, I know Becky, and I know that she doesn't just kiss guys on the cheek for no reason, usually not even to say Hello."

"Look, if she did mean anything by it, it was more than likely just a thank you thing. I mean, what's there to really like in me?"

"Well dude, I'm not one to answer that because I don't really go that way but if you want a real answer, I'll go ask Becky." Steven chuckled.

"NO! Don't do that." Shikamaru exclaimed.

"Why not dude? Don't you want to know?" Steven questioned kind of sarcastically.

"Well kinda but I mean why do you have to ask her?"

Just then they heard Becky, Naruto and Renji jump up cheering as if they were at a football game and their team scored a touchdown. They looked over to see Ichigo beating Rukia but then out of nowhere, Rukia pulled a strange move and Ichigo was down on the ground with the wind knocked out of him. Renji, Becky, and Naruto whined, pouted, and slumped back down into their original spots. Rukia went up to Ichigo and offered her hand, which Ichigo turned down. Rukia gave him a death glare, "If you don't lose your attitude, I'm going to put another Kido on you!" Rukia snapped. Ichigo immediately took Rukia's hand.

"Aw come on Ichigo, don't be such a pansy!" Renji yelled laughing.

Ichigo growled at Renji and charged at Renji with Zangetsu. Renji quickly grabbed Zabimaru and dodged Ichigo's attack and they started to fight. Becky and Naruto looked at each other and they could just read each others faces and knew that Renji and Ichigo were not playing around, they were not training, they were fighting to the death here. Naruto looked at Kakashi, who was just sitting their reading his book (as usual), and tried to get Kakashi's attention. Naruto finally called him and pointed at Ichigo and Renji's little display. Kakashi quickly got up and in the blink of an eye, Kakashi had them each tied up in that special string that he carries in his vest. Becky was amazed. She had never seen anything like that done right before her eyes.

Steven called Becky over to where he and Shikamaru were sitting and Shikamaru started to get tense. Shikamaru was starting to realize that even though Becky was pretty energetic, sarcastic, and seemed to be pretty happy most of the time, that he was getting a little crush on her. When Becky got over to where they were, his heart started to beat faster and he started to sweat a little bit. Shikamaru was so into trying to get himself to calm down that he didn't even know that Becky was already sitting down talking to him.

"Earth to Shikamaruuuuuu!" Becky said looking at him with a cocked eyebrow.

Becky looked at Steven when she noticed something wasn't right about Shikamaru.

She put her hands up to her mouth to make a walkie talkie noise and said "Houston, we have a problem."

Steven started laughing which caused Becky to giggle and roll her eyes. She then crawled closer to Shikamaru and then kind of tapped his face trying to get his attention. She got some of his attention because now he was actually responding to her actions. He kind of got startled that she was right up in his face and fell back to the position that he was leaning on his elbow.

"Steven I could have some real fun right now." Becky said to Steven grinning from ear to ear.

Shikamaru's face grew even redder, but for some reason he started to calm down. He stopped sweating and his heart went down to his average rate. Becky was going to do something but then she kind of thought about it and decided to leave Shikamaru alone. She knew that there was something wrong and didn't quite know what it was, although Steven knew quite well what was wrong. A loud grunting noise that came from Ichigo caught Becky's attention and she quickly turned to see what was going on. Kakashi was trying to calm down the two raging men. It wasn't really working and Kakashi noticed.

"Either you two get yourselves together now or you both are going to sit here until you set your differences aside."

Renji and Ichigo both looked the opposite way and just ignored each other.

"Well it looks like this is going to take a while." Kakashi said while sitting down and taking out his book.

Becky looked back at Shikamaru and she was still partially hovering over him so she backed up to give him space. "Well I think I'll leave you two alone for now, plus I have some unfinished business to attend to." Steven stated while getting up to go speak with Naruto and Sasuke. He seemed to fit in pretty well with them. He was like both of them combined. He had and ego like Sasuke and he was hyperactive like Naruto.

Becky looked back at Shikamaru with a cocked eyebrow but then grew a concerned look. "What's the matter Shikamaru?"

"Uhm n-nothing! What would make you think something is wrong?"

"Well your acting strange."

"I am not acting strange!"

"Yes you are and your starting to raise your voice again."

"NO IM NOT!"

Becky kept her voice down because one thing she knew was that if you're trying to calm someone else down, raising your voice as well will just make things worse. "Look Shikamaru, I'm just trying to help. Can you please tell me what's wrong?"

Shikamaru tried to find a way to put his thoughts into words but not let too much information out. "Look maybe I just don't find you as troublesome as most of the other girls are okay?!"

Becky grinned a little bit and knew exactly what was wrong with him. He had a little crush on her. She didn't really want to make him mad or embarrass him so she kind of kept her thoughts to herself and glanced over to the ladder.

"Let's go find something to eat ok? I'm starving!"

Shikamaru relaxed a little bit and went with Becky and started climbing up the ladder.