Monday 8 th October, 8:00pm, The Party
Whether it was Ino's constant questions and conversation or the loud music inside Shikamaru had decided to venture outside of the party to the front garden.
Away from the loud music he had finally managed to get two minutes to himself. Well, almost; Ino had tagged along with him because, she said "All this fun is troublesome". The insult was not lost on Shikamaru.
"Getting' cold" said Ino in her best 'small talk' voice.
"Hn" Shikamaru said as he crossed his arms.
"Oh well, at least the rain's gone off"
"Hn" Shikamaru said aloud while inwardly screaming at her to take the hint.
She went silent for a period of time and turned her whole body around to look at him.
"Say, Shikamaru…" she began obviously thinking something over in her head "…you're last name is Nara, right?"
"Right." He said
"I knew it." She smiled at him "My dad knows your dad."
"And?" he sighed
"'And' what?" Ino snapped at him
"And…. Big deal? Our dad's know each other – so what?"
"Never mind." She snapped at him for a second time "You're so clueless Shikamaru"
She crossed her arms just as he had done and they both stared up at the sky.
A lot of clouds were hanging in the air and the rain was beinging to drizzle down yet again. Shikamaru hated rain when it behaved like this. Why couldn't it just stay raining or not rain?
'On and off again showers of rain are so trouble-'
"Why do you have a crush on Sakura?" Ino said, her voice piercing Shikamaru's thoughts. He choked as he heard the words and sat upright.
"What are you talking about?" he said, glad that his usual uninterested tone still remained in his voice, but he was very much interested.
"Well…" she trailed off "…it's just that she's so not boring… while you are. So boring I mean."
"No I don't like her" he answered
"That wasn't the question" she said, sticking her tounge out at him "Why do you have a crush on her?"
'So' Shiakamru thought 'Let's pretend she's right. The reason I feel so weird around Sakura is because I have a crush on her? That seems totally untrue… but it would explain why I came to this party when she asked. Why though? Why do I have a crush on Sakura?
Inwardly vowing to investigate this he decided it was best to satisfy Ino with an untrue answer.
"I don't" he said "Having a crush on someone would be troublesome, a pain in the neck and a drag. Why would I have a crush on anyone?"
"Because you're a guy" she said "Guys get crushes on people, not always girls either."
"You don't say" he sighed, he was sighing a lot tonight.
"Yeah, I bet it's because you're Sakura's lab partner and she's like just as smart as you are in science. You like her because she's smart. Case closed. Goodbye, the end."
"Yeah just like I thought" he said "You don't have any actual evidence, you're just assuming to make me get annoyed. Nice try, really.
"Who needs evidence when its so obvious. Besides, somebody told me. That wasn't the only thing they told me either" She said, smiling.
Shikamaru's heart skipped a beat. Someone had 'told' her? If that was the case then he had to find out who told Ino so that he could find out why they thought he had a crush on Sakura. This was already becoming such a drag.
"Who told you that then? And what did they tell you" he asked, it was a long shot but he thought he might as well try.
Ino looked like she was about to answer when a voice cut her off.
"Who told you what?" Sakura asked
"Oh… nothing" Ino said "Where've you been, Sakura?"
"I was talking to Naruto about something. Nothing important though. Only, I really have to go now, are you two ok making your own way home?"
"Yeah, we'll be fine" Ino answered for both her and Shikamaru.
Sakura hugged Ino, smiled at Shikamaru and left, apparently walking home.
Ino stood up, calling after Sakura. Apparently they were both going to walk home together.
Before she caught up with her friend Ino turned to look at Shikamaru
"I wont say anything" she said "until you have it all figured out in that noggin' o' yours, so don't worry."
She flashed him a quick smile and was gone.
He looked at his watch. It was getting Late. Everyone around him seemed drunk. Maybe it was best if he made his own way home too. The only reason he was here was because Sakura was coming… or was that the only reason?
Maybe tomorrow he could find out who had told Ino what exactly they had told her. No matter what happened tomorrow; the quest to find out why he liked Sakura had begun.
A/N: I decided to go with a Shikamaru sub plot where he tries to find out why he likes Sakura, to add a slight bit of variety.
That's it for the party; the next chapters take place the day after, in School. Everyone finds out about the dance etc, so the plot will really start to take off. Basically; everything up until now has been setting up the plot