Chapter 50- Presents

"Don't you just love the mall?" Ino sighed as soon as they got inside. "Come on, let's go! I'll get some beads at the Bead Shack!"

Shikamaru followed her to the store. As soon as they got there, Ino was amazed by how many different colors of beads there were inside. All of them were kept in tiny glass cases, all sorted by color and design. They had pink heart-shaped beads, blue circular-beads, crystal diamond-shaped beads, ruby red beads and more. Ino started picking out different colors for her friends. "I'll get these pink ones for Sakura, these cute yellow beads for Hinata and these fuchsia ones for Tenten!" Then, she walked a few steps to her right and got some green ones as well.

"To whom are you giving a green necklace to?" Shikamaru asked, with a puzzled look on his face.

"It's a secret!" Ino said, blushing.

Then, Ino went to the back, where all of the letter beads were. She picked out silver cube-shaped beads with tiny black letters engraved into them. She picked out S-A-K-U-R-A, H-I-N-A-T-A, T-E-N-T-E-N and…

"Close you eyes, Shikamaru! You mustn't know who I'm giving the last necklace to."

Shikamaru tightly shut his eyes as Ino took out some more beads. After that, they paid for everything. It wasn't that expensive, they only used up 450 Ryo on the beads. The cashier put the beads inside a tiny plastic bag and gave it to Ino.

"Thank you! Come again!"

Then, the couple left. They walked along the place, passing by many different shops.

"What are you planning to give now?" Ino asked, "Surely you shoulda thought of something now!"

"Yeah, I thought of something!" Shikamaru replied, "I think fruit cakes sound nice."

Ino nodded in agreement. "That's a great idea, Shikamaru! Ooh! There's a bakeshop over there."

The two of them walked to the bakeshop. A friendly young man with brown hair opened the glass doors for them and happily welcomed them in. He wore a pink headband on his head and two strands of hair stood up like antennas.

"Good morning!" he greeted, "And welcome to the Pantasia Bakeshop! My name is Azuma Kazuma! Please allow me to assist you in finding the perfect Christmas bread!"

The name rang a bell in Ino's head. "Azuma Kazuma…" she muttered. After thinking for a few seconds, it finally came to her. "Ah! Kazuma! You're the dude from Yakitate Japan, right?"

"Yup, that's me." Kazuma replied, "I usually come to Konoha when our show isn't on air! I'm still baking lotsa yummy pastries, as usual."

"Do you know Akimichi Choji?" Ino asked.

"I sure do!" Kazuma replied, "Choji-san and I joined this baking exhibition a few weeks ago and boy is he good! I tried some of his cake and it was really delicious!"

"I see." Ino sighed, "Uh, listen Kazuma, um… Do you guys sell fruit cakes here?"

"Fruit cakes?"

"Yeah, 'cause we're planning on giving away fruit cakes for Christmas!"

"Ah, I see."

Kazuma put his finger under his chin and replied, "Of course we do! We sell different kinds of pastries and yummy fruit cakes are on of 'em!"

"Good!" Ino smiled, "How many more do you have?"

"We still have nine boxes left," Said another voice.

Behind the counter stood a pink-haired guy. "The fruit cakes are really biting these days!" he laughed, "My name is Shigiru, by the way."

Ino turned to Shikamaru and asked, "How many will we need?"

"Well, let me see…" Shikamaru said, "There's Naruto, there's Sasuke, there's Choji, of course… Um, Neji, and um, Lee… Kiba, Shino and…"

"How about Sai?"

Shikamaru suddenly frowned.

"Don't tell me you forgot about Sai!" Ino said, smiling sweetly.

Shikamaru was once again starting to get pretty jealous. "Ah, fine. Let's get one for the little freakazoid as well… Grrr."

"So that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…"

"One fruit cake costs 200 Ryo!" Shigiru said, "Times eight, that'll be 1,600 Ryo."

Shikamaru got his wallet and took out 2,000 Ryo. Shigiru punched-in the numbers and gave Shikamaru his change. After that, Kazuma got the boxes of fruit cakes and gently put them in yellow plastic bags.

"We're giving you our last fruit cake as a bonus!" said Kazuma. He happily gave it to Ino and she accepted it.

"Why, thank you!" Ino smiled, "You're so kind."

"It's a bonus!" Shigiru said, "Don't worry, it's on us."

Finally, with gifts for everyone, Ino and Shikamaru happily went outside Pantasia.

"Thank you!" Kazuma said, waving, "We hope to see you soon!"

Again, sorry for the slow updates… Just remember: my stories are never over unless I put "The End", okay? Still more chapters to come. ;-) Stay posted.