Disclaimer: I'm so sad. I don't own Naruto. But I said it, which means that you can't sue me for it! So there!

A/N: Well...Here's chapter five. It's always a very ominous chapter for me, cuz a lot of the time that's the chapter that I lose interest around. But this fic is actually very interesting to me. Cuz I don't know what will happen next. I don't know what I'll do next semester when I won't have the luxury of writing in the middle of health class. What am I talking about? No health class! Whoo hoo! Anyway, R+R please!

-- Sakura Kaijuu

P.S. -- I apologize for the slight Sasuke OOC thing that I have going here. Sasuke's one of the more difficult characters to use. Especially for this type of thing. But I'm trying!

-- SK

*~*

Sasuke looked around at the crowd. They were all his classmates, and Naruto and Sakura were his teammates. He was getting more and more nervous. The others could see that there was something he needed to say, and a few of them found it slightly amusing to see Sasuke so worked up over something.

It wasn't until Kakashi poked him in the back that he remembered what it was he was going to say. He took a deep breath and didn't meet anyone's eye. "I'm sorry."

They all looked shocked. Naruto was most surprised of them all, "What?!"

Sasuke glared at him, "I said I'm sorry. I was a real jackass four years ago." He looked at the ground again. "I ran away from the village because I wanted to be stronger. I went to Orochimaru. I caused the deaths of Neji and Chouji. I am the sole reason why they are dead.

Ino breathed in sharply. She hadn't been expecting this. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but she knew that she didn't want to think about Chouji being dead twice in two days. Not that she didn't always think about him. But she wasn't forced then. She glanced quickly at Shikamaru, who was looking at the ground.

Sasuke closed his eyes painfully. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Sa-Sasuke-kun..." Hinata stammered. She was still in shock at Sasuke's sudden outburst, but continued, "I'm sure that Chouji-kun and Neji-ni-san have already forgiven you."

"Yeah!" Kiba smirked. "If you've been feeling this guilty for all these years and you STILL feel bad, then you must have worked it off somehow."

Sakura didn't say anything. She just stared at him. She half understood how much this meant to have it off his chest at last. She saw all the frustration rush out of him in a single, heavy sigh. She smiled a little. "Congratulations, Sasuke-kun," she whispered.

Kakashi clapped him on the back. "Good work, Sasuke," he whispered in his ear. "I've been wondering how long that would take you."

Sasuke raised his eyebrows and looked sideways at his teacher. Then he shook his head. He looked at each face in the small crowd. Sakura looked happy. Naruto had his usual look of confused disbelief on his face. Shikamaru was smirking. Ino looked shocked, pleased, and upset all at the same time. Hinata had a small smile on her shy face. Kiba was grinning. He looked up to the sky, "I hope that you're right Hinata. I hope they really have forgiven me..."

*~*

After the brief meeting of gennin (and one chuunin) broke up, Shikamaru and Ino started walking away. Shikamaru looked at his teammate, "Oi. Ino, you okay?"

Ino still looked a little dazed. "I didn't realize that Sasuke-kun still felt guilty about that...But I'm glad he apologized."

"Yeah..." Shikamaru looked up. "I'm sure Chouji appreciates this. Neji too," he added. "Sorry guys. I really didn't mean for that mission to go like that..."

Ino punched him in the arm lightly, "Don't you start apologizing too, Shikamaru. If you do that, I might just have to send you up to see Chouji and Neji-san."

He glanced at her and smirked, "If I thought you meant that, I might be worried. But I know that you'd never do something like that. The only thing you'd ever do is try to make yourself super skinny for no reason." He smiled wider as Ino's look turned to rage. She started trying to attack him in a rage, but he easily fended her off. 'Good thing Ino's so easy to distract...'

"Hey! --" Naruto's voice came from behind them. They turned, Ino pausing and Shikamaru relaxing. "Oh...Sorry."

"About what?" Ino was getting kind of tired of all these apologies. There were too many of them today.

"I thought I was interrupting something," Naruto scratched the back of his head. "I guess not. So what am I supposed to do, Ino?"

"What?" Ino had completely forgotten about the day before. "Oh! Sorry Naruto, it completely slipped my mind. I think that if you want Sakura to like you, you should just tell her." When Naruto looked horrified at this suggestion, Ino sighed. "Well, what do you want?"

"I want her to stop liking Sasuke first!" Naruto sounded panicky. Shikamaru looked between the two of them. This was why he thought women were so troublesome. They were so hard to deal with.

Ino placed her hand over her mouth and thought for a moment. "Shikamaru, what do you think?"

Shikamaru, taken by surprise, replied, "I don't know. It would be a pretty crappy birthday mood though, if she rejected him before next week though."

"Oh!" Ino looked surprised. Had she forgotten everything from the day before?

"Huh?" Naruto looked back and forth between them. "How'd you know my birthday was next week?"

Shikamaru looked at him in disbelief, "You told us yesterday, you moron."

"I did?" Naruto looked like he didn't believe him. Then he shrugged. "Oh well. Your memory is probably better than mine."

Ino almost sighed in relief, but caught herself in time. A sigh of relief would send Naruto hunting again. "So...um...Let's see. Getting Sakura away from Sasuke..." She thought for a moment. "I don't know right now, Naruto. Yesterday she didn't really answer my question, and then Hinata came into the shop, and then Shikamaru and me went down to the memorial."

"Oh..." Naruto sounded slightly disappointed. He was kind of hoping that Sakura had been really positive and said something like, "Oh yeah, Naruto's so cool and hot! I'm totally in love with him!" He sighed. Like that would EVER happen. "So what are we going to do?"

"I guess I'll just have to talk to Sakura again. Where does she usually go after missions?" Ino looked at Naruto thoughtfully.

Naruto blushed a little, "Usually she follows Sasuke around for a little and then heads home looking kind of sad. Sometimes she heads up to the roof of the hospital, or the bridge, and sometimes she goes to the training grounds."

Shikamaru looked a little disturbed, "Why do you know that?"

"Because he follows her around. That's why I asked him," Ino's brow furrowed in concentration.

"How'd you know I follow Sakura-chan around?!" Naruto yelled. Then he covered his own mouth, blushing even worse.

Ino smiled, still concentrating, "Because I know the kind of person you are. You and Sakura are a lot more alike than you think. I knew that you followed Sakura around, even if she didn't realize it."

"Oh..." Naruto looked embarrassed.

Shikamaru looked a little surprised. He hadn't known that Ino paid that much attention to people's behaviors. He wondered how much she knew about him. Then he shook his head, 'There's not much to know. I think women are troublesome and I'm a lazy bum who runs away. Why am I so worried about what Ino knows about me?'

Ino clapped her hands. She pushed a piece of hair out of her eyes and smiled. Both boys looked at her. "Well. I have my own plans. I'm going to track down Sakura and talk to her about you," she pointed to Naruto, "while you two go away and do whatever you want to do."

"Aye aye, captain," Naruto saluted her. She rolled her eyes and turned to leave.

"Oh, and Shikamaru?" the boy looked up at her. "Don't wander off. And don't let Naruto follow me."

He rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah..."

Ino walked down the street, smiling at what she hoped to accomplish.

*~*

Naruto and Shikamaru were lying in the field Shikamaru had been yesterday. They were staring up at the sky, and Shikamaru was glad that Naruto was silent for once. But that, of course, was too good to be true. "Oi, Shikamaru."

He sighed and shut his eyes, "What?"

"Why are you and Ino always together?" Naruto sounded genuinely curious. He was using his jacket as a pillow.

"What?!" Shikamaru hadn't been expecting that.

"Just what I said. You and Ino are always together. Why?" Naruto sat up and tried to brush pieces of grass off the back of his t-shirt.

Shikamaru sat up too, "We are not always together!"

"So now you're getting angry about it. Like that'll help," Naruto smirked. "I think you like Ino."

Shikamaru snorted and flopped back onto the ground, "No way. Women are far too troublesome. Our dads are friends. My dad Shikato, Ino's dad Inoshi, and Chouji's dad Chomaru were all on the same team too. It was another InoShikaCho formation. So we've known each other for a really long time. Chouji and me got to be friends when we were about six. Ino and me...we've always known each other..."

"Hmm..." Naruto leaned back and stared at the sky again. He wondered what it would have been like to have friends his whole life. He remembered all too clearly crying every night. Sure he had known all these people his whole life, but it wasn't until he was twelve that he actually had people who cared about him. He let out a course laugh, "I remember once, not too long before the chuunin exam, when I thought Sasuke had died."

"Hm?" Shikamaru looked over at Naruto.

"Yeah...It was when I was in the Wave Country on a mission. Sasuke protected me...And it looked like he had died...But right before his eyes closed, he told me that he used to hate me. And that he didn't know why he had just saved me...But it was then that I realized I didn't hate Sasuke, either. He's just always been my rival..." Naruto looked lost in thought.

"Huh...That's different. I've never really liked Sasuke. He's always annoyed me," Shikamaru looked back at the sky. "But I have another question for you. What do you think of Hinata?"

"Um...She's pretty nice. And really determined. And pretty cool. She's kinda weird, but that's okay," Naruto scratched his nose.

"Oh. Okay," Shikamaru wondered what was going to happen with Hinata. He was sure that Ino had some sort of plan, but if she was going to set up Sakura with Naruto, what would happen to Hinata? She'd be heart-broken. And he didn't want to have to deal with another problem that wasn't his. This one was big enough. Shikamaru finally sat up again. "Hey Naruto." Naruto looked over at him. "I think we should head back into town. Since Ino doesn't want you out of my sights, you wanna come to my house for dinner?"

"Nah. I still have my birthday present from Iruka-sensei. All you can eat ramen for dinner every night!" Naruto smiled as he remembered that Jiraiya would be there too. Then his jaw dropped. "Shikamaru! What time is it?!" he asked, jumping to his feet.

"I dunno. Probably about four o'clock by now," Shikamaru looked a little confused. "Why? What're you so worried about?"

Naruto grabbed his jacket and looked around to see if there was anything else that he needed. "I promised Jiraiya-sensei that I would meet him this afternoon so he could help me with the Rasengan!"

"Oh. Where?"

"We didn't say. But I'll bet you 20 bucks that he's out at the hot springs. I gotta go."

Shikamaru grabbed his pant leg. "If I don't go with you, Ino will have my head. And I really do want to live."

Naruto grinned. "All right. But we have to hurry. Not that he'll care if he is at the hot springs, but I don't want to risk him being too mad at me."

Shikamaru hopped to his feet and stretched, "I guess so. This is so troublesome...Oh well."

Naruto started hurrying towards the bath house, Shikamaru reluctantly following him.

*~*

A/N: Muahahaha...I hope that I keep writing this fic. But I'm also hoping that you guys like this story. But you know what you should do when you're done reading this chapter? You should go read "Solace" and "Problems There Are Always Problems". Just because they're really cute stories. However, if you don't like NaruSaku pairing, you might want to steer clear of it. But it's still cute! So you should still read it!!!!

Till next time

-- Sakura Kajiuu