Shikamaru was tired.

He had woken up like he usually did, fifteen minutes later than he should have if he wanted to be on time for the academy and with his mother's screams and shouts accompanying him all the way to the edge of the Nara compound, her threats on what she would do to him if she ever received a note admonishing him for being late, not realizing the helpful guard at the entrance of the family owned lands had the duty to intercept any such letter before any innocent student was unjustly punished for exercising his right to laze around.

Of course, he would never blab this to his mother or anyone else for that matter, most of the youngsters and even some of the adults considering the knowledge to be one of the most important secrets of the clan, though that had more to do with the fact almost everyone considered being secretive to be such a drag and didn't hide anything really worth worrying about going public.

Sure, there were some mission reports, relationship statuses and mindless gossip, but when the dream for the majority of the family members was to land a job as a guard at the entrance of the village, or sky gazing at the sky in search for a messenger hawk, nothing of real value could be gleaned from any spy or other nefarious eavesdropper.

Still, Shikamaru had, like he usually did, made it in time before the first bell had chimed, proving once again that his mother's expletives were mostly uttered because she enjoyed nagging, rather than any need for her to do so.

Like always, he had made his way towards the back of the class and taken his seat on the right of Choji, the kind if not slightly shy boy who had been the son of one of his father's best friends, and was shaping up to be good company after their first meeting.

Part of him should probably resent the fact that his life had a predetermined path from before his birth, his friends, future teammates and trajectory in life already known by most by simple virtue of him being born a Nara, doubly so as the son of his father, he would be becoming friends with the Akimchi heir and the Yamanaka heiress, and together, they would be put on a shinobi team under the tutelage of a Sarutobi Jonin or another, and for the rest of their lives, they would work as a team, furthering the military might of the village, getting married and producing a child or two to continue the cycle with the future generations whom in turn, would have to do the same.

Such a predetermined fate would demoralize anyone, but not Shikamaru Nara. He was more than happy to know exactly what was expected of him, and he was more than willing to do his part as a cog in the wheel of the world, satisfied with doing the absolute minimum required of him to keep his family safe and his parents off his back.

This laid back attitude was why he was so exhausted as he sat in class, trying to sleep through a history lesson but finding his eyes, despite his best efforts drifting towards his most troublesome classmate, the blond sitting in front of him, the polite, softly spoken Naruto Uzumaki.

The boy had already made a mark on the class during introductions, his declaration of wanting to leave the world a better place than he had found it already turning a few heads due to both the vagueness of the statement, as well as the sheer incredulity it generated among the student population, causing an almost even split among the boys and girls between those who found themselves admiring the ambition and those who scoffed at the way he was trying to act cool.

If it had only been the idle and at first glance unintentional boast, Shikamaru wouldn't have much cared, but the fact was that Naruto wasn't just some bottom of the barrel loser like most of his classmates were sure to become later in life, but clearly, the other boy had potential as he had demonstrated during the the physical fitness exercise, outrunning and outlasting everyone else in the classroom, barely even looking winded after Kiba Inuzuka, the second most energetic boy of the class had dropped to the floor in exhaustion.

Even now, the next day, while most of the other children were valiantly fighting against the instinct to close their eyes and slip into a peaceful sleep, an instinct to which Shikamaru gladly surrendered to, Naruto Uzumaki was busy taking notes in his notebook while seemingly listening eagerly to the lecture their boring teacher provided, but something was off about the strange boy and it took the Nara a few minutes before figuring out what exactly was bothering him.

Naruto wasn't actually paying attention to the lecture!

Yes, he was listening, and Shikamaru was confident that if asked to answer a question or repeat what the instructor had just said, the boy would have no issue doing so, but Shikamaru had pretended to endure his mother's lectures too many times to miss the signs, the subtle hums, the innocuous shakes of the heads of someone having deep thoughts within himself, or most obvious of all, the way the boy stopped writing whenever the instructor stopped speaking for a while, regardless of whether the man had been speaking long words, slowly or small words while rushing, the boy's pen began and stopped moving over the pages with the voice of the teacher, which was a dead giveaway for Shikamaru that his classmate was writing something unrelated to the class, and using the instructor's speech as a way to disguise his slacking.

Shikamaru sighed.

Of all the people in the world who did not pay attention in class, why did the only one who did so while working harder have to be in his class?

It annoyed him to no end, especially knowing that now that he was aware of the fact, sleep would elude while in class until he figured out the mystery of Naruto Uzumaki.

This was going to be a very long year, he knew.