Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. YET!
Dedication: E, I, J, S, L and the other L. Best friends everrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Rant: HELLUUUUUU! Kind of sad that my inspiration has gone on vacation, haha. Actually, scratch the haha. It's not funny, especially not when I can start writing other stories, like, coming 2-3 chapters with them but this one doesn't flow. AT ALL. Luckily, I did manage to write this out. It's kind of one of those chapters when we're dealing with the aftermath, so not really eventful. Anyways, I'd say there's about two chapters left of Cousins. Yes, I know Naruto's there for a year and I'm not even at Christmas yet, but I don't think it's going to be good if I continue it after this arc, I don't really have any ideas. But I'm open to ideas! So yeah.

Anyways, if you ever go to Sweden, go to an ICA store and buy Kivik's Pärondryck (pärondryck= peardrink). It's so awesome!

BY THE WAY, MERRY CHRISTMAS! A little late. Dad bought ps3. I'm sooo happy :D

HAPPY NEW YEAR, TOO!

And now for the chapter :D

A nice police officer named Genma Shiranui questioned me on the sidewalk quickly, looking understanding. After a few minutes he decided I was too tired and that he'd question me again the next day, and I thanked him with a lifeless "thank you". He replied evenly and then asked if I had any place to stay since my parents were in the city talking to Naruto's parents. I shrugged, and motioned to the house, suggesting I'd stay at Shika's now that I already was there. Genma agreed easily.

Shikaku and Yoshino, Shika's parents, stood at the door, looking concerned. I walked up to them, and Yoshino started to throw questions at me, but Shikaku raised a hand to stop her. She shook her head and apologised, and then proceeded to yell at Shikamaru to come down.

He looked as if he'd been sleeping, which wasn't really a surprise. Shikamaru stared at me, as if asking what the heck I was doing there. His mother explained the situation, and then he softened a bit and led me up to his room.

I peered inside, eager to find something to talk about that wasn't filled with problems. The room was white, but Shikamaru had never been one to pick another colour.

"What happened?" he asked, walking over to the wardrobe and pulled out a t-shirt for me to sleep in.

I shrugged stoically, just like I had responded Genma, avoiding his eyes and staring down at a nice spot on the floor.

"You know you'll have to talk about it sometime," he told me, his tone serious.

Maybe I did, but as the anger started boiling inside of me, I wasn't thinking straight. "Whatever, I don't care."

"Like you ever do," he muttered, and it hit me how weird this was, coming from Shikamaru. Since when did he care if I talked or kept my mouth shut?

"What's your fucking problem with me?" I turned to glare at him fiercely, now too mad to not look at him.

Couldn't he ever get that life wasn't all about sleeping and playing boring board games? The rest of us actually did have more emotions than sleepy, even if it to him seemed to be so absurd.

"I think the right question is more about what your problem is," he spat, and walked over to me, almost close to glaring. "You've been angry with me for nothing, you ignored Chouji and me the whole summer, and you're only thinking about yourself. Don't you think the rest of us are also worried about Naruto? You're not the only one here."

I glared, and jabbed a finger into his chest. "You ignored Chouji and me? As if I ignored you! Maybe I ignored Chouji, but never did I ignore you, because you never bothered to call!"

"Well what the heck was I supposed to do when you ran around acting so weird? It's tiring to follow your train of thought."

"Don't you get that you too have to work for this friendship to work!" I yelled, and bored my blue eyes into his brown ones.

Right then I knew that wasn't really true because he had tried more than I had lately, but I was too angry to care. How dared he come in and think I'd tell everything just like that? We weren't five anymore!

"I do try," he backed away, and suddenly the irritated expression on his face faded away, and was replaced by a worn face. "I try."

Just as he started calm down – whatever caused that – I was getting more riled up. I was positively sure my cheeks were red from the anger, and the embarrassment of him noticing that we'd been drifting apart. The fact that the most of it was my own fault just made it worse, and when you added the Akatsuki thing, I was at my breaking point and Shikamaru was the one who'd have to take the blow.

"YOU'RE TOTALLY FUCKING STUPID!" I yelled, waving my arms frantically. "You don't try, I try more than you do, you lazy ass!"

He pulled a hand through his hair and sighed. "Look-"

"Don't act like you know a thing about how I feel! You have no idea how it's been for me lately, you idiot-"

"SO WHAT?" he snapped. I froze. Shikamaru didn't do yelling. "I'm trying right now."

Glaring, I pointed at the door, not wanting to hear another word from his mouth. "Go out. I'm changing."

He just shook his head and left, "Whatever."

Shikamaru and I were having a glaring contest.

"You're sleeping on the sofa. I'm not sleeping in the same bed as you," I told him, my arms crossed.

"No way," he said, and at my protest, threw himself onto the bed. "Either we share or you take the sofa. I'm not going anywhere."

"Why? Because it's too troublesome?" I said in a fake-concerned voice.

He nodded, "Yes."

"Get off the bed," I commanded harshly, sending him a glare as he closed his eyes and put the duvet over himself, smiling.

"Shikamaru Nara, get off that bed in this instant!" I tried again, my voice failing at the end as I suddenly felt like crying. Mood swings, no joke.

"We've slept next to each other since we were born, it's not a big deal," he muttered, his voice muffled by the pillow.

Glaring, I grabbed his feet and pulled, yanking him of the bed. With a big grin, I threw myself where he'd just been laying and landed gracefully, stretching out my arms and legs to take up the whole bed. "It's because I'm mad at you. You deserve sleeping on the sofa."

He moved my right arm and leg, lying down before I had a chance to take over the place again. As he slapped my arm away as I tried to push him down from the bed again, I decided it wasn't worth the effort and I was feeling really tired.

Did Shika know his bed was like heaven?

The next morning, we had overslept. Yoshino just shrugged as I chased Shikamaru down the stairs to breakfast.

"I called them. Said you were taking the day off," she explained as we sat down and started eating our pancakes in a fast pace. Or, I did. Shika probably ate as slowly as he could just to annoy me.

"Then I'm going back to bed," he said and stood up, but didn't have a chance to leave since both me and Yoshino pushed him back into his seat again.

She glared at him. "Eat up!"

"Yes, mum," he replied, and I snickered. Poor Shikaku and Shikamaru – they were both as whipped as possible. "Troublesome women," he muttered to me, loud enough for me to hear but not his mother.

Sadly – or maybe luckily - she seemed to have amazing hearing because she swirled around and glared at her son. "I heard that!"

"Sorry," he offered.

"You'll clean your whole room today, and yes, that includes making your bed, putting away all those board games, hovering and the rest. And you know what the rest means, so don't even try, Shikamaru," Yoshino instructed, and then turned to me, smiling. "Ino darling, you can do whatever you like. You cannot, however, go back to your house because the police are there after yesterday's incident."

She picked up her bag and took the last things with her before leaving for work. "That's it; I'll see you this afternoon! And Shikamaru, don't forget to clean your room!"

The door closed after her. I laughed at Shikamaru and his depressed demeanour to which he replied with a glare.

"Can't you help me out?" he asked, almost begging.

I shook my head. "Nope!"

"Well, at least tell me what happened yesterday?"

I felt the shiver in my body but ignored it as I tried to not avoid the facts any longer. I would tell Shikamaru. I would regret it. And then I would regret that I regretted it.

"They were in my house, and then they saw me and they started chasing me and in the end I came here and they suddenly were gone," I blurted out while fiddling with my hair.

"Okay," he said slowly, as if he was having a hard time getting it. I didn't blame him. Lately everything had been a mess. "Are you alright?"

It was a stupid question, which I said rather politely. He, surprisingly, agreed. Then I skilfully directed the conversation another way, and he played along even though he knew that I knew that he knew what I was doing.

Zapping through the channels on the TV, I lazily stopped at the channel with the monkey program, too tired to even bother to switch again. So I started watching and after a few seconds, I found myself laughing at the monkeys again. Then I turned my head to my side, grinning, and was just about to ask Naruto if he still couldn't handle monkey sex when I realised it was empty. And that I wasn't even in my own house.

That dropped my mood instantly.

A few hours later, Shikamaru descended down the stairs with a bored look on his face. "I'm done."

"Give me ice cream." I glanced at him and turned my face into a pleading one.

"Get it yourself."

He dropped down on the sofa.

"Please?" I begged.

"I cleaned my room, Ino. Now I'm going to sleep."

I glared, and swatted him with the remote to the TV. "Do as I say, now!"

He didn't even respond as he held his cheek with his hands, cursing. Then he stood up, and at my pleased look shook his head. "I'm not going to get you ice cream, so don't look so smug. I'm getting myself an icepack."

"You're so selfish-"

"You slapped me with the remote. I honestly don't think it's selfish of me to not give you ice cream," he cut me off, and raised an eyebrow at me.

With a sigh I realised I couldn't argue with his logic, and even proceeded to stand up myself. Following him into the kitchen, I annoyed him further while he searched for an icepack. When Shika finally moved away from the freezer I went in for the ice cream I knew he had. After a few seconds I had a packet of vanilla ice cream in my left hand and a spoon in the other.

He rolled his eyes, and seemed to be just about to insult me, but the phone interrupted him. Ringing away, I gave him a questioning look. "Aren't you going to answer?"

"It's your cell phone."

"Oh."

I put the spoon and the ice cream on the table and went into the dusty hall. "You should clean the hall!" I informed Shikamaru, him being behind me the whole time.

"It's dad's job," he said and shrugged.

I sat down on the floor and started a frantic search after my phone as it kept ringing. Shikamaru sighed and sat down too, handing me my bag. A thankful look later, I had the phone in my hand and was answering happily.

"Hey," Naruto's voice said. I froze. Shikamaru looked confused at my sudden change of demeanour.

Then I regained my composure. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" I screeched. "YOU DON'T KNOW HOW WORRIED I'VE BEEN! HECK, EVERYONE'S BEEN WORRIED!"

"I've been around."

"YOU HAVE NOT BEEN AROUND! YOU NEVER CAME HOME! WE WENT TO THE CITY TO FIND YOU, YOU IDIOT!"

"I know, I'm sorry," he said, and I knew he was scratching the back of his head, wondering what to say. "I just spaced out… I didn't really know what I was doing…"

I tried to calm myself down with breathing evenly. Shikamaru gave me an annoyed look, saying "Do you have to be so loud? He's safe…"

"Where have you been?" I asked again, barely managing to not yell. "Where are you now?"

"I… well…"

"Okay, we'll talk about this later," I murmured, with a little hint of a threat at the end of the sentence.

He didn't answer, and not before then did I realise I was hearing a beeping sound. He had hung up on me.

I turned to Shikamaru with a frown on my face. "He's an idiot."

That evening the police decided it was fine for us to come home. Mum and Dad had been looking for Naruto all night and day and when they saw me they apologised a thousand times for leaving me all alone. Dad almost suffocated me when he hugged me. Of course I wasn't grounded anymore, to my own advantage.

Naruto came home later, and before I even had a chance to say a word to him, Mum grabbed him and forced him into the kitchen where the discussion started. I was caught eavesdropping by Dad and he sent me back to my room again. Up there, I turned on my computer with a sigh.

Sakura had practically spammed me.

From: Sakura Haruno
To: Ino Yamanaka
Subject: OMG!

I need you right now. Kiba's gone all weird on me. Help, please?

From: Sakura Haruno
To: Ino Yamanaka
Subject: WTF?

Come on Ino I need help here!

From: Sakura Haruno
To: Ino Yamanaka
Subject: ANSWER ME!

I think the subject line says everything.

From: Sakura Haruno
To: Ino Yamanaka
Subject: …

Don't answer me then. Fine, it's whatevs.

From: Sakura Haruno
To: Ino Yamanaka
Subject: I HEARD ABOUT IT

Are you okay? I heard about the whole thing today from Chouji who'd heard it from his parents who heard it from Shikamaru's parents who heard it from the police officer who heard it from you! The whole school knows about it and everyone's been nagging me about you.

Gosh, I'm worried. Call me!

Sorry about the bitchiness before, it just kinda happened.

I decided I didn't fancy answering all those emails, so I went and got myself the telephone from the hall and dialled her number.

An hour later and we still hadn't finished talking, and my parents hadn't stopped talking with Naruto either. My cousin's parents were on there way and I could imagine Kushina's face right now. She wouldn't be happy.

Sakura and I babbled on, now having long before left the subject of Naruto. We were currently discussing Kiba and his… Kiba-ish ways. I tried to convince her to well, talk to him. It didn't go down too well.

"He's the one who's acting all weird suddenly," Sakura said in an annoyed tone. "And therefore I'm not going to apologise, since I haven't done anything. Gosh, boys confuse me."

And so on.