I do not own Naruto in any way. All rights belong to the makers of Naruto.
This is my first multi-chapter story on the site and my first long piece of writing in well over a year, so any and all C&C is greatly appreciated.
It will centre around Shikamaru Nara, an unmotivated worker at the head office of a huge company based in London, and the events that happen to him, his friends, and his rivals. I've cast several Naruto characters well out of type, which I hope will make it a refreshing and fun story. Then again, I've been wrong before...
Hope you enjoy!
Drama Incorporated.
Chapter 10 – Together, Alone
It was something that had veered violently from uncertainty to full blown fear that gripped Shikamaru as he reached the foot of the building. Standing in deep thought wondering how he was meant to get in, he almost missed his opening as he realised that Ino was buzzing him in from upstairs. Catching the door in the nick of time he entered the building, and found an odd finality in the way that silence now reigned in the stairwell, now that the door had clamped shut on the calming thrum of city traffic.
It's make or break time now, Shikamaru…
He climbed the stairs with a familiar feeling of trepidation clenching within him. It was a mirror of the way he had felt on his way to Tsunade's office a few days before – but possibly worse. Even for someone as clever and quick-witted as Shikamaru, the sheer number of things that could go wrong tonight was causing him no small amount of grief.
Which floor am I on now? He wondered, mouthing the words out, but not making a sound. Christ, Shikamaru! Get it together… Pay attention.
He briefly paused to look down at his phone and check the time, surprised to find a pair of texts waiting for him. He wasn't unduly surprised at having missed them as they arrived. He had been distracted. First by Asuma, and once he'd left the cab, by a desperate urge not to urinate or flee.
'Remember what I said; tread very softly!' Came the sage advice from Sakura. Funny how it always sounds like a threat coming from her, Shikamaru mused. He thumbed a pair of buttons to swiftly bring up the next message. Kiba; this should be good…
'Sakura just told me where you've gone. GET IN, DUDE!' Shikamaru smirked at the bloke-ish ignorance of Kiba's message. Way to misread a situation, mate…
A nervous smile brought to his face by the 'encouragement' of his friends, Shikamaru began to climb again, now with a little less reluctance. He reached the top floor, and after carrying out a little mental gymnastics, worked out from the position of her window which door was Ino's. She was right at the far end of the corridor.
As he passed the halfway point, a man appeared near Ino's apartment exiting from the adjacent door; marked 'roof'. Shikamaru prepared to give a cursory nod of acknowledgement at the new arrival, but was cut off when the man stopped dead ahead of him, his body filling the narrow space in a way which would make it difficult for Shikamaru to squeeze past.
"You here to see Ino?" The man asked bluntly, without bothering to start the conversation cordially. He didn't wait for an answer, merely snorted softly and went on: "Christ, she isn't messing around."
Ah. Shikamaru caught up with events in a flash of realisation. The Ex-boyfriend…
A scathing retort escaped his lips before his brain had a chance to reason on whether or not it was a good idea to antagonise this man.
"No, she isn't. You were. That was the problem." Having said that, Shikamaru finally began to notice how much taller the other man was than him. He was lean and rangy, with a mess of stormy grey hair that almost brushed against the low ceiling. The lower portion of a narrow and solemn face was covered in stubble, making the man attractive, if in a rather rugged way.
He squinted at Shikamaru through dark eyes, not in a frowning or threatening way, but definitely not with a friendly intention.
"Hmm."
Unable to press on past the other contemplative man, Shikamaru stood still, wondering how he could at least continue the dialogue to a point where they would both be satisfied with the exchange and he could leave.
"I thought you left a while ago." Shikamaru thought out loud, hoping that this might be the spark that set their conversation in motion again, and dragged them a little closer to its inevitable end.
"I was on the roof… Smoked a few cigarettes, phoned some friends. I'm off to meet them now." He leaned against the wall nonchalantly.
Super… He's here for the long-haul.
Shikamaru rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, shoving his fists down into his jeans' pockets.
"You aren't keeping them waiting?"
"They'll take a while to get there." Said the other man casually. "No point in rushing."
"Well I am keeping someone waiting…" Shikamaru muttered, rapidly growing tired of the other man's no doubt feigned calm. This was unsettling. It wasn't quite out-and-out macho posturing, but if definitely wasn't friendly.
"Oh, sorry."
He shifted a fraction of a centimetre out of the way. Despite being confronted with a man displaying attitude of the most petty and irritating kind, Shikamaru kept his cool, and did his best not to give the Ino's ex-boyfriend the satisfaction of riling him. Assuming a similar 'couldn't care less' lean against the wall, Shikamaru struck up conversation as best he could.
"Fine. I'm Shikamaru."
"Kakashi." Came the grunted response, as its source sized him up lazily.
"So… How are you?"
As Kakashi made to answer, no doubt with something non-committal and trite, Shikamaru was spared the ordeal of having to listen to an answer he truly didn't give a fuck about. An angry female voice blared out over Kakashi's shoulder, causing both men to wince at its severe volume.
"Oh get out the way, Kakashi! Can't you see he's getting sick of your crap?"
Kakashi turned towards the interruption, finally revealing the welcoming sight of the far end of the corridor, and Shikamaru's destination. Ino stood with her hands on her hips, framed by the doorway and the light streaming out of her apartment into the dull walkway. In the bright glare, the edges of her hair looked like spun gold. Shikamaru found himself swallowing with newly returned nerves, as Kakashi jerked a bemused thumb back at him, gesturing to Ino.
"What's he gonna do?" Kakashi said, almost just wondering out loud. He stooped forwards as he spoke, bewilderment plain on his face. Despite his eyes looking heavy-lidded and tired, they actually conveyed a great deal of expression. Shikamaru could easily imagine being able to gauge the man's mood even if most of his face was covered.
"With any luck, teach you some fucking manners!" Came the quick fire rejoinder from Shikamaru's back-up. Her tongue was knife-sharp when her blood was up.
Kakashi ran a hand through his incredible mess of silver hair ruefully, squinting in an odd sort of eye-crease which said; 'you got me'. Hands were shoved firmly into pockets as he spun around and slouched off past Shikamaru. A mumbled 'see you' was his last utterance before he disappeared into the gloomy stairwell, and out of sight.
A moment passed in silence between the remaining pair, before Shikamaru sighed deeply, before revealing a tired grin as he gazed wistfully at his soon to be hostess.
"I would kill for a cup of tea…"
A wicked smile formed the young lady's reply, as she revealed a pair of empty wine glasses.
"Screw that." She said, her voice clear and firm, as she turned and padded further into her home, her absence becoming the invitation for Shikamaru to follow.
In a bizarre turn of events, Shikamaru found himself threatening his own consciousness with a rhythmic mantra of: Just one glass, just one glass, just one glass…
Shaking his head slowly as he found an evening which had started off challenging, turning into something nigh impossible to succeed in, Shikamaru followed his friend into the flat, softly closing the door behind him, and leaving the corridor in darkness.
Turning away from the door, he found himself in a brightly lit and modernly furnished apartment. It was nothing like the cold, impersonal space which Shino's taste in furniture and furnishings had created. Pale blue walls enclosed the space, and a small amount of clutter littered the surfaces of the room; not enough to be considered truly messy, but enough to make the place seemed lived-in, as apposed to the clinically neat confines of Shikamaru's flat.
"Come in." He heard her voice from further into the apartment. Somehow she had made the welcoming request sound more like a demand.
The short entrance corridor ended abruptly after around a metre, opening into a modest living area. A small kitchen formed the right hand corner, whilst to Shikamaru's left; a comfy blue sofa looked out of the huge windows, angled indirectly at the television in the corner. Through the only other door in the main room of Ino's home, Shikamaru spotted a luxurious double bed, and just past it, the entrance to an en-suite.
Scouting for a place to put his jacket in amongst the open DVD cases and books, Shikamaru soon gave up, and stood with it held awkwardly in his hand, until Ino dragged it impatiently from him.
"Give me that. Shoes off by the door." She nodded imperiously, as she wandered over to the kitchen island and hung it over the back of one of the chairs surrounding it.
Despite the orders she was reeling off with a frequency and commanding tone that would have made a sergeant blush, Shikamaru couldn't help but notice the slowness of everything she did, and the telltale downcast flicker in her eyes. She wasn't feeling her best, no matter how hard she tried to hide the fact with slightly overbearing bluster.
Accepting a fully laden wine glass with a nod of thanks, Shikamaru decided the time was right to try and get to the bottom of the situation. If he got things sorted quickly and without getting drunk, he could leave without having managed to ruin everything. Shikamaru realised deep down, that this was a vainglorious hope.
"So what's wrong?" Shikamaru asked, taking a tentative first sip.
"Nothing." She replied, almost comical in her over-defensiveness.
Shikamaru placed his drink down on the counter and patted her on the shoulder as he walked past her.
"Alright, see you tomorrow!"
She grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip, but when he looked back to her face, she was grinning cheekily, although in the same subdued manner she had been displaying since Shikamaru had arrived.
"Okay! You've made your point, sit down."
"…Well…?"
"Well I'm feeling like a bit of a mess at the moment." She admitted, speaking quickly, as though she needed to get it off her chest as fast as possible. "Seeing Kakashi again today really threw me."
"That's only natural." Reassured Shikamaru, watching with trepidation as she took a second large gulp of her drink. He carried on with a smile. "He seems to have a gift for unsettling people."
"Yeah, sorry about that." Shrugged Ino. "It might have seemed like he was picking a fight, but he probably wasn't. He's not actually a bad guy."
"Apart from the infidelity…" Prompted Shikamaru, causing his friend to giggle softly.
"Apart from the infidelity." She agreed, with the shadow of a smile still on her face.
To diffuse the burgeoning silence, Shikamaru attempted to make a joke.
"If Kakashi took all of his stuff away, why is there still so much crap in here?"
She punched him on the arm. Hard.
"Shut up." She muttered, walking away from him. "Come sit down. I wasn't kidding about the shoes by the way."
Shikamaru rubbed his dead arm absentmindedly, as he kicked off his shoes and left them near the door as instructed. Judging by the clutter in evidence around the flat, Ino couldn't be considered house proud, but she definitely had rules, and you definitely stuck to them…
By the time he reached the sofa, Ino had already set up camp at its far end. She sat leaning on the armrest, with her legs daintily crossed in front of her. Her right elbow was propped up on the true backrest, so that the cool glass rested gently against her temple. He took his seat in a less unorthodox position, on the free end of the couch, his head angled to meet her thoughtful gaze.
"Why are you here?" She breathed into the room, seemingly rhetorical. Shikamaru decided to grace her unsettling question with an answer, in a bid to ease the tension that had suddenly gripped him upon her proclamation.
"Believe me. I've been wondering that all evening." He chuckled self-consciously.
As though she'd just been reminded that she wasn't alone, Ino sat bolt upright as he announced his presence. She shook her head, as if to shake off the previous, sincerely odd, thread of conversation, then took a slow, calming draught of her wine. It struck Shikamaru then, that she may have had a few glasses before he arrived.
"Thanks for bothering to come and see me, Shikamaru. I know I shouldn't have disturbed you, but I didn't really know who else to call."
Shikamaru remained mute, still confused by her bizarre question.
"I suppose you've got as good a chance as any of cheering me up."
"I'll give it a shot, but I'm not promising anything…" Shikamaru muttered, soon becoming surprised to find that his honest self-deprecation had been interpreted as humour. Ino's subdued laughter filled him with relief, as a small amount of the maudlin atmosphere dissipated. "That was a complete fluke. It won't be happening again…"
Against all odds, this further comment brought an even more open grin out of his companion, eliciting yet more shock in Shikamaru. Maybe I'm not completely useless…
"So come on. What did Kakashi do to upset you today?"
Ino's smile died slowly. I guess I spoke too soon. As much as he regretted nipping Ino's emerging good mood in the bud, Shikamaru knew that he needed to get to the bottom of things if he was ever going to help, and then leave without screwing anything up.
"Nothing. Like I said, he's not a bad bloke, really." Ino shook her head. "Turns out he was a shitty boyfriend, but he's not the sort to be spiteful about it."
Shikamaru let his silence be the prompt for her to continue explaining.
"It wasn't anything he did. It was just, him, being there, I suppose…"
Although Shikamaru didn't quite understand, he was glad to finally start getting to the root of the problem.
"Just, awkward I guess?"
"Umm, kind of." She wrinkled her nose prettily, with eyes closed in thought. "Not really. It was casual enough, just unpleasant. It needed doing. Having all his stuff around wasn't exactly going to help me get over him, but at the same time I actually needed to see him face-to-face to get rid of it all."
"Unpleasant, but unavoidable." Confirmed Shikamaru, as Ino shifted position, bring her legs up in front of her and hugging them gently. He noticed then that she had painted her toenails purple, and grinned at her twin obsessions with that colour, and the blues he saw all over the apartment, in a similar shade to her eyes.
"What are you smirking at." She almost growled, backhanding his nearest arm playfully. "Is my plight that amusing to you?"
Shikamaru glanced back up at her face with a smirk flitting across his face, and an apology tumbling from his lips, in case he had actually irritated her. He was sure she'd taken it in jest, but it was always best to make sure; especially with a woman as unpredictable as this.
"No, not at all. Sorry." He murmured, before explaining his grin without thinking. "I was just, looking at your toes…"
He tailed off. You were what?
She looked at him with confusion, squinting as she tried to determine whether she was somehow being cryptically insulted.
"What's so funny about my toes?"
Yeah Shikamaru, came the snide internal question, whose tone sounded like it was sincerely enjoying the hole he had dug for himself, What's so funny about them?
"Nothing!" He blurted out, a surge of blood shading his cheeks faintly. "They just look nice… in that colour…"
Ino laughed at him.
"You tit." She shook her head at him in disbelief, shaking with mirth. As she settled down, she regarded him with deep blue, and incredibly bemused eyes. "A smirk generally isn't the best way of expressing that sentiment."
"No shit…" He muttered, in disbelief that he'd managed to walk away from that faux-pas unscathed. He necked the last of his drink in a futile attempt to quell his nerves.
Still chuckling, Ino snatched the glass away from him as soon as the last drop trickled into his mouth, making her way lithely to the kitchen to refill.
"I'm alright thanks, Ino. Work tomorrow."
"Because you've never been hungover at work before?" She scoffed, pouring them both a new glass despite Shikamaru's protests.
"Good point, but seriously, I'll go without, I don't feel like drinking…"
Ino turned back to him, left leg cocked and with a hand firmly on her hip.
"Remind me where you were going when I called you."
Shikamaru sighed, as he realised where she was going with her latest instruction. He should have known that this would happen.
"…A pub…" He said with resignation.
"A pub." Ino agreed, smiling sweetly. "So shut the fuck up."
Shikamaru gave up, as he so often did when faced with even a minor obstacle. Some debates were worth seeing through, some would be an exercise in futility.
So much for one glass…
Over the course of the next few glasses, conversation rapidly moved away from dwelling on Kakashi's visit, and into the realms of banal chatter. The pair were both content in one another's company, and idly passed the time with light-hearted conversation and eerily similar senses of humour.
Shikamaru found himself quite conflicted at the change in tone of the atmosphere. Although it was admittedly far easier to have this sort of conversation with Ino, he was concerned that they weren't actually dealing with the crux of the problem. In the end, however, he surmised that taking her mind off things was about the best he could hope for in terms of solutions to her situation. Plus, he hadn't been slapped, shouted at, or asked to leave, which Shikamaru saw as encouraging signs that he wasn't quite as socially retarded as he often suspected he was.
Apart from the toenail thing. That had just been fucking traumatic.
"So he was checking out Director Tsunade that obviously?" She sniggered, doubling over as Shikamaru did an exaggerated impression of Kiba ogling a woman obliviously.
"And then she called him on it."
"Seriously? How?"
"Oh I dunno, something really sarcastic…" Shikamaru wracked his brains, trying to recall his boss' acerbic retort. "That was it. 'Yes Inuzuka, those are my breasts.'"
"Nice!"
"I know. He looked like he'd been hit by a bus…"
"I wish I'd been there to see that." She grinned, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
Shikamaru drew in a shuddering breath, trying to calm himself from the uncontrollable laughter of moments before. He found it worrying how easily Ino could bring him out of his shell, when he was normally incredibly quiet and reserved in social gatherings; even amongst his closest and oldest friends.
"So if Hinata was there with Choji. Does that mean you left Sakura at the mercy of Kiba?" She wondered, in a comically over-the-top voice that suggested she had discovered a bloody crime scene. "That's cold, Shikamaru. Even for you…"
"Even for me?! What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Ino giggled, slightly tipsy.
"Nothing, it just sounded dramatic…"
"Well, as long as you had a good reason…" He replied, shaking his head in disbelief at how silly she was being.
With a jolt of alarm, he spied Ino's legs stretching out across the sofa, towards him, and casually got up to stand looking out of the expansive windows. She had rested her legs on him before, at Shino's party, and clearly didn't mean anything by it, but the breaking of these physical boundaries still made Shikamaru a little uncomfortable, given the feelings about this woman that he was trying to suppress.
As he finished collecting his thoughts, and turned back around to face Ino, he leant back on the reinforced glass. She was sprawled out on the sofa, feet dangling off one end, head resting at the other, holding her wine by the stem of the glass as it rested on her softly moving stomach.
"I…"
Shikamaru gave up trying to ask for his seat back before he began. The look of content on Ino's face told him that he would be onto a loser there. Instead, he finished the wine he'd been nursing in an effort not to get drunk and do something stupid, and placed the empty glass silently on the coffee table between him and the thief of his position on the sofa. He remained standing there for a few minutes, his hands shrugged calmly into his pockets as he enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere that had developed.
"I wasn't going to kick you or anything." Ino informed him almost primly out of nowhere, tilting her head to face him, which inadvertently caused her fringe to ghost across her nose as it swept back into its usual position over her left eye. The gentle contact elicited a sneeze from her, and she glared at him when he smirked at the resulting snuffle of sound she produced.
He raised a hand with his trademark docile lack of haste, apologising for his amusement without requiring a word.
"What do you mean?"
She sniffed at him impatiently, as if the answer was obvious.
"You jumped up like you'd heard shots fired the moment my leg started moving." She explained cautiously, despite the momentary irritation she had displayed seconds earlier. "Have I developed a reputation for violence, or is physical contact from me really that repellent an idea?"
Shikamaru was shocked by this awkward, faintly embarrassed side to Ino, and made to reassure her at once. He rounded the coffee table and swept down to sit on the floor, his back resting against the centre of the sofa, and his head turned to allow him to look at Ino sincerely.
"God no. No, nothing like that." He squeezed her forearm, which dangled off the sofa right next to him, in an attempt to emphasize the point. "You just startled me, that's all…"
She shivered at his touch, but as soon as he removed his hand and the gentle pressure it had brought, she smiled in contentment, and returned the gesture to his retreating limb.
Crisis averted… for now… Shikamaru felt an internal wave of relief at Ino's acceptance of his explanation. As he survived yet another dangerous situation without any major consequences, Shikamaru was shocked to hear a rustle behind him, as Ino shifted position.
What surprised him further was when he felt her slide down past his right-hand side, incidentally brushing against his shoulder as she moved down to sit on the floor directly next to him.
"I'll fall asleep if I stay lying down." She explained as she made herself comfy in her new seat. "I haven't had much sleep the past few days…"
"What about the past few nights?" Shikamaru asked, so unnerved by her proximity that he fell back on appalling humour as he tried to retain control of the interaction. Whether she was being generous, or was just sleep-deprived enough to be genuinely amused, she chuckled at his weak attempt at cracking wise.
"Fine, Mr Semantics!" She exclaimed, breaking the low volume threshold they'd been occupying for the past few minutes. "I haven't had much sleep in the last few nights."
"Lift your arm, Shikamaru."
"…What?"
"Lift your arm." She repeated, with an almost imperceptible pout. "I'm cold."
When Shikamaru failed to respond, she took charge, as she so often did, and grabbed him by the wrist. Lifting his limp arm and raising it above her head, she shuffled her body close to his, and lowered his limb to rest around her shoulders. As the skin of his arm came into contact with her shoulder, where her cardigan had slipped down, he noted that gladly, there was a noticeable chill to her body. Nonetheless, as honest as her intentions were, this was exactly the kind of situation he could not afford to be in, however much he truly wanted it.
Perfect. He thought inwardly, somehow making the bitter word emerge sounding like profanity. Ignoring the weary sarcasm which laced his previous utterance, another voice answered him as he analysed the latest turn of events. Yes, yes it is…
Ino's head moved against his right shoulder, and he dragged himself back to awareness as she looked up at him; blue eyes locking onto deep brown.
"Cheers. I'm comfier already." She smiled openly for the first time that evening.
"No worries. The men in my family have always made good furniture." He said wryly.
A puzzled glance and a brief wrinkling of the brow was all it took to get an explanation out of Shikamaru.
"My mum used to walk all over my dad…" He enlightened her, with a nostalgic smile entering his features. "Come to think of it, she walked all over me as well… She was such a pain…"
Ino joined him in a brief chuckle over Shikamaru's recollections, before teasing him gently.
"Walked all over you, huh? I don't find that hard to believe. You're too bloody lazy to bother fighting your corner."
Shikamaru conceded the point with a magnanimous nod, shifting his weight by spreading his free arm out to rest on the lip of the couch.
"I suppose so, but I don't think we do ourselves any favours either. My dad used to say that the Nara's have always been attracted to strong, assertive women."
You do realise you just said that to a strong, assertive woman who you have your arm around, right?
Moron…
When Ino didn't take up the thread of conversation following Shikamaru's blunder, he felt panic rising swiftly within him. Had she taken his ill-advised comment at face value; a wistful memory of his father, or had she noticed the unintentional second meaning one could draw. Unlike Shikamaru, Ino wasn't a moron, and he strongly suspected that she had quickly noticed the hidden layer in what her friend had just said.
She still wasn't speaking, but reached out to reclaim her glass, and finish the last of the fragrant off-white liquid within it. When the vessel returned to the polished surface with a 'clack', the moment appeared to have passed, and Ino smirked in a delayed reply.
"So you're saying that you're too weak to take care of yourselves?" She challenged, with a cocky eyebrow raised. As hard as it was to take someone seriously when they were staring up at you at such an awkward angle, the conviction in her eyes made it difficult for Shikamaru not to. "You need someone to hold your hand?"
Whether she had not actually seen the unwittingly flirtatious side to what he had said, or whether she was covering it with bravado, was something that Shikamaru knew he was likely to never know the answer to. Managing not to dwell on it, he countered, as best he could. It had become increasingly apparent to him over the past week, how handy Ino was in a debate, and he didn't like his chances of coming out on top at the end of this one.
"Remind me who couldn't bear to spend the evening alone, will you?" He smirked as he entered the verbal joust he was almost destined to lose. His self-aware smile went unnoticed by his opponent, who had joined him in staring aimlessly out of the window, unable to keep her slender neck locked in such an awkward position any longer.
"Remind me who came running at the first mention of an invitation?" She shot back. The response was as cutting and sure as he'd expected, but exceeded even his expectations of Ino with its speed.
"I was just worried." He started falteringly, still reeling from her light-speed retort. "You already have such a reputation for being a wuss. It wasn't hard for me to imagine you crying alone in the dark…"
"Like you were in the changing rooms at work?"
Balls…He breathed. Out for the count already. Pitiful display, Shikamaru.
"If there was money to be made in making you feel foolish, I'd seriously consider going pro…" She muttered, sniggering. The sound of her gently mocking laughter was inaudible, but Shikamaru could feel the telltale tremors through his contact with her, and spied the merest upturning of lips in the minute corner of her mouth which was still visible.
"Don't look so pleased with yourself. There isn't much glory to be had in getting one over on someone as pathetic as me."
"Pathetic?" She mused at his choice of words. "Angling for a compliment?"
"Please." Shikamaru shook his head in admonishment. "Now that would be pathetic…"
"What did you mean by it then?" Ino wondered. She had been slowly slipping down into a slouch, by virtue of the laminate panelled flooring, and wriggled herself back into a more upright position as she quizzed him.
"Well, you have to admit. I'm not what you could call… charismatic…" He explained thoughtfully. "I'm more than content to fade into the background most of the time. I'm not exactly a…" He paused, trying to fish for the right end to his sentence. "…Not exactly a Sasuke Uchiha, am I?"
"Thank fuck for that." She exclaimed, with genuine venom. "I'd be off to take a shower… Man that guy is oily…"
"Oh. You've had the pleasure?" He asked with interest. He was used to finding common ground with Ino already, but to find out she understood his loathing of Uchiha was an added bonus to their new friendship.
"Never spoken to him, no." She admitted. "But did you see the way he was looking at me on my first day?"
Shikamaru nodded, before swiftly realising that Ino couldn't see him.
"Nod." He blurted out without thinking.
"I know you did!" She snorted, laughing at his stilted, unintentional injection of humour into the conversation.
"I'm glad the embarrassment of others is amusing to you…" He muttered, not actually irritated, but presenting a close semblance of it for Ino's benefit.
"Hey, why do you think I made friends with you?" She joked, her head lolling back into the crook of his neck as she continued to chuckle.
Dragging the conversation away from the evergreen topic of 'stupid things Shikamaru has done lately', he restarted the Sasuke thread, interested to know how she'd come to dislike him.
"A look can't have been that bad." He pondered. "Not worse than slapping you on the arse, surely?"
"Way worse!" She disagreed fiercely. "You can deal with the Narutos of this world with ease. The real trouble is with the Sasukes."
She paused, fiddling with her shining hair idly.
"He has a way of moving which says: 'I'm better than you, and I know it'." She sniffed in derision at the attitude of the haughty raven-haired man. "I mean he might as well be handing out gift cards that say 'I think you are scum.'"
Shikamaru grunted in agreement, an uncharacteristically brisk and clipped response for him. Dull anger ebbed slowly away from limbs which seemed to give up halfway through growing tense with irritation. It amused Shikamaru to realise that not for the first time in his life, he wasn't just too lazy to talk about something which annoyed him; he was even too lazy to remain angry about it. He suspected that this surprising lack of ill-feeling had something to do with the woman who rested against him. Ino seemed to have a knack for almost leeching his low moods away.
"You're not wrong there…" He affirmed, building on his original monosyllabic response.
She sighed in fake weariness.
"We've been over this, Shikamaru. I'm never wrong. I'm the best. What was it you called me at Shino's party."
Shikamaru's near eidetic memory brought the relevant turn of phrase back to him in an instant. He regaled his companion with it, for some reason still forming his speech as a question. Perhaps on some level he didn't want her to suspect that he dwelled upon their exchanges as much as he inevitably did.
"Worldwide champion of everything?"
"Hah! Yeah, that was it!" She looked pensive for a brief moment after her short outburst of chortling. "The only reason I hit you with that cushion after you said that, was because I didn't want you to see the stupid grin I had plastered all over my face."
In a rare moment of inattention, Shikamaru was caught in the unusual sensation of giving an open compliment to a woman.
"You shouldn't have bothered. You have a nice smile."
"Well look who turned out to be a little charmer!" She teased in return, letting out a cute laugh. She had her face buried in her cardigan sleeves, where her hands rested on the knees she had once again brought tucked up close to her body. As if to counter-balance the sweetness of the giggle, her left arm rose, with the back of her fist coming down with a dull thump on his sternum.
As a gesture, it was clearly meant to be the closest approximation of a jokey punch she could conjure up from the angle at which she was sitting. In actuality, it had kind of hurt, and Shikamaru was glad his arms were spread out along the rim of the sofa, tensing his chest and meaning that he hadn't been winded by Ino's 'friendly' tap.
Bringing his knuckles across to massage a little life back into his chest, Shikamaru reflected that at least she hadn't been facing him, in order to see the pink tinge which had flushed his cheeks and neck when he realised that he'd told her that her smile looked 'nice'. The compliment wasn't an art form in which Shikamaru could claim any talent, and he could only count his blessings that Ino had laughed off the pitiful display.
"What happened there, Shikamaru?" She wondered, the seemingly innocent question setting his heart racing as he tried to keep up with the uncomfortable direction the conversation was going in. "You know, when we said goodbye at Shino's party."
Shit…Mouthed Shikamaru, realising too late that the conversation had reached the stage at which he was wistfully staring at 'dangerous ground' in the rear-view mirror. If Sakura had been observing the evening from within Shikamaru's mind, he'd be enjoying the mother of all headaches from the volume at which she would have just yelled.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't be coy. You froze up as though you'd just seen a violent murder!"
"Ah, right." Shikamaru murmured. He was caught in the headlights of this new line of questioning now, and knew that no amount of frantic backpedalling could return them to the easygoing chatter they had been enjoying before. "I don't know, Ino."
"Yes you do!" She exclaimed with amused exasperation. "God, why do you do this?"
"Do what?"
"Talk so guardedly. We're supposed to be friends, yet you act like revealing your emotions is going to make you physically ill."
She shook her head in disbelief, and Shikamaru could imagine the look of irritated confusion that was probably spread wide on her face as she did so. The slow movement of her head span her golden hair softly, letting a few strands come to rest on Shikamaru's bare neck. It tickled him immensely, but moving it would involve touching her hair, and such an act would further damage the barrier between them, which was already weakened to breaking point by her troublesome proximity.
He couldn't deny that her warmth against him felt good; even exhilarating, but he knew that he needed to leave soon, to avoid making a final mistake, which would inevitably make their relationship irreparable.
"So? What scared you back there?" She ventured, breaking the deadlock that her assessment of Shikamaru had brought on in the first place.
"Not giving up on that?" He sighed, though his bleak outpouring of breath quickly became a chuckle when Ino nodded assertively, causing her hair to ghost along his exposed throat.
"Not until I get an answer. You evasive bastard!"
They both laughed at the typical Ino outburst; belligerent, profane, but with just enough dry humour within it to take away its harsh edge. As a pinprick of light in Shikamaru's mind's eye winked shut, he gave up on the faltering hope of emerging from the conversation without having to give any revealing answers. Throwing caution to the winds, he told her.
"I though you were going to kiss me."
She hummed at his explanation, sending another pleasant reverberation through her body and into his.
"I was." She said, softly, and incredibly slowly, as if she had spent whole minutes of thought on the simple admission.
"Oh." Said Shikamaru, so stunned by her confession that all thought of tact left him as he blurted out a question rudely. "Why?"
"There you go again, putting yourself down…" She sighed, still almost whispering, although no-one but Shikamaru could hear her words. "You're attractive, intelligent, just… nice…"
Her head lolled forwards, gracefully rolling away from the shoulder she'd been leaning on. As she shifted, her hair almost washed over her shoulders, falling like pale-gold rain to shield even the sides of her face from Shikamaru's eyes. Through the blonde curtain that hid her from Shikamaru's curious gaze, her voice emerged muffled, and more vulnerable than he'd ever heard it before.
"But even though you were… are all those things, I couldn't tell you why I tried to kiss you. I was still trying to work out what I was doing when I'd almost made it half the way to your lips, and then you stopped me."
"Do you know why you did it now?"
"No, I'm still confused as hell."
"That's two of us then."
He heard her snigger faintly, and clutched onto the brief burst of mirth as a lifeline, which told him that levity hadn't entirely left the pair of them.
"What would you have done? If I had kissed you, I mean."
"Oh you know me. I'm too much of a pussy to make up my own mind. I'd have done what I was told."
There was another short snatch of laughter, then a silence, and then an earnest question.
"Did you want me to kiss you?"
"I don't know…Ahh!"
Ino had pinched him on the outstretched leg, hard. Raising her left hand up so Shikamaru could see it clearly, she wagged her finger at him.
"Answers, Shikamaru. Answers. No more wishy-washy chatter."
"Alright, alright!" Shikamaru winced, rubbing the sore patch on his thigh where Ino had delivered her stern warning. "Yes, probably."
"Probably?" Ino startled him with a fit of guffawing. "Jesus, Shikamaru. I was getting more out of you when you were being all secretive. What is 'probably' supposed to mean."
"It's not straightforward, Ino."
"Just try."
"Fine. Yes, of course I did." He admitted, shocking himself with his own sudden candour. "You must have known how I felt. As shit as I am in social situations, I must have given the game away at least ten times by now…"
"You're weird." She chuckled softly.
"Huh?"
"Most people who say self-deprecating stuff like that… Well, they're just fishing for a compliment. But you actually believe yourself, don't you?"
"Look, it's not a matter of believing… It's…"
"You're going to go down swinging, huh?" She cut in with a sarcastic tone to her voice. "If we're supposed to be friends, then trust me when I say that you are a good person. Smart, in good shape, friendly, frequently hilarious… You've got attributes which people would kill for, and you can't even see them."
She let out a mirthless chuckle, and Shikamaru smirked when he heard a muffled utterance of Ino's all-purpose rejoinder; 'Moron'.
"Why did you stop me then?" She asked, before adding an explanation somewhat unnecessarily. "You know, from kissing you."
"I…"
"Don't you dare say 'I don't know', Shikamaru Nara! I will not be responsible for my actions."
Shikamaru laughed openly at her near psychic knowledge of how he was going to respond, making the loudest sound that had been heard in the apartment all evening.
"God, you are such a drag…" He muttered, somehow making what could appear to be an insult, into an affectionate comment. "Initially, I stopped you out of pure shock. I hadn't seen it coming at all."
"But then?"
"But then I was glad I had done it. You'd just ended a long-term relationship, you were tired, possibly still a little drunk from the night before… It wouldn't have been right."
"But it might have been fun." She pointed out, in a jokey tone.
Shikamaru didn't laugh. He wasn't quite ready to have his fledgling attraction to Ino be mocked. Showing yet more insight into her friend's thought processes, she promptly apologised.
"Sorry, bad joke."
"Don't worry. I get a lot of those. Friends with Kiba, remember?"
"How could I forget?" She chuckled.
"Thanks for being honest with me, Shikamaru." She said, seriously, giving his hand a brief squeeze where it rested on her shoulder.
"No worries. I'm just glad you didn't have to end up beating it out of me…"
"Oh, I got pretty close…"
The pair laughed briefly, filling the modest flat with the happy notes, before it fell away to a pregnant silence. Shikamaru couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt at making a joke out of Ino's honest and heartfelt thanks, so tried to rectify the situation, resolving that he'd made enough of a mess out of the night, and should try to wind things down.
"Thanks, Ino." He replied, murmuring the words in an odd, thoughtful tone. On impulse, he followed by wrapping his arms around her, gently enveloping her in a tender hug.
He found himself instantly shocked at her reaction, which was to suddenly wriggle in his light grip, turning to return the warm gesture, and burying her face in his chest. Tremendously unsure of himself, Shikamaru let his arms come to rest on her arched back, still holding her against him gently, whilst noting how tense she felt under his touch.
Pulling away, she resurfaced slowly, with a shy smile gracing her features as she looked at Shikamaru. She stopped retreating, leaving the pair staring at one another with barely a foot of space between them. As she stopped, she tucked her usual fringe behind her ear, revealing her left eye, and fixing Shikamaru with the full intensity of her startlingly blue gaze.
He felt her cool breath playing across his skin, which did nothing to calm the racing of his heart as his body frantically tried to deduce what was going on.
He opened his mouth to speak, but quickly realised that he didn't have a clue what to say. This left him sitting there rather dumbly, with his lips slightly parted, forever teetering on the edge of speech. It seemed to him - in a fleeting moment of clarity amongst the haze of confusion in his mind - that Ino had done something similar; making ready to talk and then thinking better of it.
His eyes couldn't help but be drawn away from her piercing stare, and onto the equally attractive sight of her full, perfect lips. Before he knew what he was doing, he had closed the minute gap between them, and pressed his own lips against hers, in a nervous, but passionate kiss.
In the moments that followed, a multitude of thoughts warred inside Shikamaru's already overactive brain, as he deepened the kiss between them.
She had recoiled slightly at his first advance. Not far enough to prevent his questing kiss, but far enough that Shikamaru noticed the shock that her body language conveyed. It didn't matter - he had crossed the line, and all he could do now was carry on, and fervently hope for an end to the evening which still saw him still drawing breath.
They had started tentatively, with his lips gently pressed to hers, but soon after her initial shock at the gesture, she seemed to give into the situation, and let her head tilt over to the left, allowing Shikamaru to deepen the exchange.
Lungs screaming for air, despite the seemingly sedate nature of the kiss, Shikamaru broke away slowly, letting his forehead rest against hers as he drew in an almost fearful breath. His eyes were closed in shock at what he'd done, and inside his mind, the arguing voices that had erupted in chorus as he made his move appeared to have reached an agreement – namely, that he was an idiot.
His breathing rate returned to its shallow norm, but he couldn't bear to open his eyes, finding a small comfort in the reassuring darkness he currently experienced. He would have to look at her soon, and face the consequences of his mistake, but for now he hid inside his head.
He was so engrossed in trying to wish away the situation, that he almost missed Ino's breathy reply.
"Moron…" She whispered, not for the first, nor even the fifth time that evening. She had spoken at such a hush, that it was a wonder Shikamaru had heard her at all, but against the odds he had, and he painstakingly opened his eyes to look at her.
She was smiling.
A gleeful grin had spread across her features like wildfire, with the telltale twinkle in her eyes telling Shikamaru that the expression had more to do with baffled amusement at him than straightforward happiness.
"You absolute, utter, moron." She repeated, pushing him back against the foot of the sofa.
Hi all! It's been quite a while.
Once again, real life did a magnificent job of getting in the way of what actually matters - writing to get approval from people I'll never meet! :P
Another part in the huge gap between chapters was the stupid length that it was getting. In the end, I split it at what seemed like a logical point, which means that I'm currently working on chapter 11 which already stands at 9000 words.
A note on Kakashi: He's not a complete asshole in this chapter, but he is definately not too friendly. I put him in the story as the ex-boyfriend purely because I realised that I hadn't included one of my favourite characters, and Ino's ex was the only person left unintroduced. Sorry if this offends any Kakashi lovers. I'm one of you, really! I swear!
By the end of this chapter, having no doubt read plenty of other fanfiction, you'll probably have an inkling of what chapter 11 is likely going to focus on. If you don't like reading that sort of thing, I'd skip the next one... There, you've been warned!
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on my mauling of the English language.
Take care, and please forgive the wait!