Wee, an actual quick update. I amaze even my self sometimes. Again, first and foremost I would like to thank everyone for the reviews (ego candy to some). And so now on with the story!
Gentle Memento
Chapter 5
Infatuation
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He could not have heard her…
Frantic, yes that's the feeling she was experiencing. Like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. There was no way he could have heard her! She was as graceful and beautiful as the wind itself!
Well in her mind at least…
'Hold your breath, don't move, and do not make a sound!' she chanted over and over in her head. Placing a hand over her chest, she was surprised to find her heart beating fast. Damn it, she had not wanted to be caught watching him.
Her cheeks colored a bit at the thought of him finding out about her. How she had came to this spot from time to time just to watch him actually enjoy himself. Although she had only started coming out here around a couple of weeks ago, it had quickly (and oddly enough) become a hobby of hers.
Ever since he had told her after the whole Sasuke incident, that this was the only place he could actually enjoy himself.
Her face reddened as she thought about that day. Although she had come close to not being there on time, she had.
And she had thanked everything she knew for that.
Scowling, she remembered the look on Shikamaru's face just before she had appeared to help. Anguish, and fear marked his typically annoyed face as his hold on that weird flute bitch was dwindling. She, on the other hand, had the look of a fierce beast about to enjoy its tastey catch.
Oh how she enjoyed swiping that look off her face!
Although he was obviously glad she was there, he still had refused to let her do all the work. He could be such a pig head couldn't he? Her smile slowly returned at that. Granted she had told him that is was an order that she was there (which was true) she had actually wanted to go.
'Oh yes, I was just dying to set my eyes on him again.' She mused sadly to herself.
Ever since he had up-staged her horribly at the Chuunin exams, he had begun to infatuate her. Maybe it was the fact that she knew (and was damn sure he knew as well) that he could have won. Or perhaps it was his unusual lazy, 'I don't care' attitude that drove her nuts. Her brows furrowed.
'No…it was that all engulfing sadness in his eyes…'
He had prepped her on the situation, but she hadn't needed it. After a few rude remarks about how he was a "dim-wit" and was giving up again she had finally decided to take care of the situation.
It was laughable; the bitch couldn't even come close to touching her! Shikamaru just kept rambling on about this and that, like how "we wont have a single clue of when or where she will attack" and what not.
She mentally shivered at what he did next.
'He popped his damn finger back into place!' just imagining the feeling, and remembering the horrible 'click' sound it had made caused her to blanch.
But anyways, she was getting fed up with him spouting about them being at a disadvantage. So she just bit her thumb, did the required hand seals, summoned Kirikiri Mai, and totally stomped that stupid whores ass.
That and everything else for about fifty meters…
All of that was irrelevant to her though. It was what took place after that continued to draw her to him like a moth to a flame. She had turned around to smile at him, and saw the cutest dumbfounded look on his face. She idly thought about how he would get angry at her, or annoyed for showing off or being protected by a woman.
But he just smiled slightly, the warmth reaching his eyes. Just remembering that look made her body tingle and her face go crimson. He had even thanked her! His actions had been so terribly confusing, and she hated being confused! It had been so unlike him, in everyway.
Not like she was a specialist on him or anything.
Still she found herself pondering days after the event, about everything she knew about him. She must have been thinking far too hard, because her brothers started to notice. Kankuro had been the first to bring it to her attention. Too deep in thought at the time, and a bit naïve enough to believe nothing of it, she had answered simply "Shikamaru".
Of course Kankuro had promptly broken out into laughter. He rolled on the ground sputtering things like "Temari likes the bum!" and "What exactly did you two do out there?"
Another thing she despised was embarrassment!
He had made her out to be some bubbly schoolgirl, dreaming about her crush. And she was not a bubbly schoolgirl!
'But what about the 'dreaming' part, eh?'
First things first, she was not falling for Shikamaru. Nope, not at all, it was impossible. What she was feeling was mere infatuation with something she could not understand. It was like building a puzzle to her. Trying to fit all the pieces together to make a whole. She wanted to know who the whole Shikamaru was.
And she always completes her puzzles.
But now she was in trouble. She had been spying on him for just a few days, and no it was not based on a need to see him! She wanted to view him for…research…
'Yeah that works…'
And now she had been caught! Damn, what would she say? Could she perhaps play it off as a chance encounter? No, he is far too smart to fall for that, and she was a terrible actor.
'Damn, damn, damn, what can I do?!'
"Ino?" she heard his tired voice call out.
"H…hi Shikamaru-kun." came another voice, this one much more feminine.
'Shikamaru…-kun?' she felt something tug at her heart.
And it hurt…
--------------------------------------------------------------------------Shikamaru was standing completely within a matter of moments. There were still plenty of people upset with Konoha, and the sooner one realized this the longer they got to keep breathing. Scanning the forest quickly he stopped when his eyes fell upon the maker of the noise.
"Ino?" he felt his face fall back into its typical scowl. He wasn't that surprised. Actually he had been expecting her to come for some time.
She was so predictable…
"H…hi Shikamaru-kun." She timidly approached him.
Gods, he did not need this right now. He was not prepared in the least to deal with this now! Granted he had, had plenty of time while waiting for her to finally approach him, it just wasn't enough.
"What are you doing out here Ino?"
"I just thought…you know…that we could spend some time together?" her smile all but melted his resolve. But it was nowhere near enough to change his mind.
Even if his heart still protested its decision violently.
"Chouji could use some company in the hospital, why not go visit him?" Shikamaru's eyebrow arched upwards demanding an answer.
She idly walked over to him looking around the area. "He told me not to come here, that you were upset and needed to think about something."
His brows suddenly dove down, and his scowl deepened. "So why didn't you listen?" now he was confused.
"Because silly," she hung her head and sighed exasperatedly, "I want to help you with your problem."
He almost laughed at the terrible irony of it all…almost.
"Ino…trust me, there is nothing you can do to help." "Your only making things worse by being here.' he mentally added.
He watched her huff, knowing full well she was about to launch into full controlling boss mode at any moment.
The gods must really hate him.
"What the hell do you mean 'Nothing I can do to help'?!" she screeched at him. "If you think that I am going to just sit by and watch you fall apart again then…"
"Stop it!" Shikamaru shouted, interrupting her for trudging up those memories.
"Don't you dare for one minute think you understand what the hell is going on with me based on that one moment!" he had way past enough. He did not want her here, did not want her acting like she knew exactly what was wrong, and certainly did no want her bringing up that time in his life!
She stood rooted to the spot, trying to remember a time when Shikamaru had actually screamed at anything in anger.
She came up with nothing.
"Tell me," she heard him seethe, "how much did your heart ache when you heard that Sasuke had disappeared?"
"I…" she fumbled for words.
"Do you have any damn idea what the hell I was put through to try and bring his worthless ass back here?!" this was it, he was finally having a meltdown. He had too much on his chest, too much on his mind. Shikamaru had been holding this back his entire life.
And he was surprised that it felt so good to finally let go.
"First was Chouji, my best friend! I had to leave him to take on an Elite Jounin, one that was a personal guard of Orochimaru! He had no chance, Ino do you understand? If he died, I would have taken the blame fully upon myself!" gods how that thought still scared him, and haunted dreams.
"Neji was next to leave us, he stayed back so that we could press forward." He stared at her flabbergasted expression, "I don't know Neji that well, but you saw what he looked like when he came back. The large holes in his chest, the endless amounts of cuts, can you even imagine going through that Ino?"
His voice cracked…
"Yet we still continued, Kiba soon took off trying to rescue Akamaru luring one of them away, and then I helped Naruto get passed the only one left there so that he could go after some guy and Sasuke." His voice began to quiet down as he began to recite the events that had occurred to him. "The person I fought laughed at me for choosing to sacrifice my teammates one by one. But I trusted them Ino, they wanted to fight. The only thing I could do was trust them."
"An…and what happened to you…Shikamaru?" the blond asked nervously. She watched as his face adopted a lost look to it.
It was a horrible look on Shikamaru.
Horrible because the only time she ever saw it on him was the one time he nearly left her and Chouji.
It was the face he had in his room the day she found him.
"I fought as best as I could. I was forced to remember some ridiculous finger movements because I'm not musically inclined." And, he had found out later, he had memorized her patters so perfect that he could replay them on a flute.
But the only time he actually played the tones, it gave him a migraine.
"I finally tricked her into getting close enough so that my Ninpo: Kage Kubi Shibari No Jutsu would work at its strongest. I remember breaking my own finger," he stopped to look at his left index finger, "to get out of one of her Genjutsu."
He grinned as he recalled his shining moment of the battle, the one where he should have been able to finish everything off. Nice and clean just like that.
But luck seemed to never be on his side during these life or death battles by himself.
"I had it all worked out, my only fault was in miss reading her true power." He hung his head as the memory of starring at the monsterous woman while his shadow slowly gave way to her immense power. The icy breath of death still lingered on his neck every time he remembered, causing him to shiver involuntarily. "Once again I thought I was done for…but someone came and saved me right as my time was about up."
"I had heard the sand-nin from the Chuunin exam were sent after you guys." Ino started, trying to break him from his reverie. "So who came and saved you? Was it that sand freak that beat Lee, because honestly…"
"It was the annoying girl I fought in the finals." He stopped her before she could rant more on one of his newer friends.
It still seemed odd to be building a friendship with Gaara, the only person he had ever labeled 'monster' for his crimes against humanity. But Gaara just proved to him that everything can change, hell in his case some things can do complete fricken 180's in a matter of days.
"Oh…"
He noticed she wore a confused look, while something dark flashed across her eyes. Noticing this Shikamaru became confused him-self, but before he could ask she began to speak.
"So what? She came and defeated a severely weakened opponent and took all credit from you. At least she managed to drag your lazy ass from a sticky situation. Guess I could credit her for that."
'Haughty, why the hell was she acting haughty?' Shikamaru could almost swear he felt Temari's rage at Ino's words.
"Ino, my opponent was hardly 'severely weakened' and she still managed to beat her in one blow!" this was ridiculous. He knew that this was just Ino being Ino, but trying to say Temari did nothing was just crazy! Shikamaru knew damn well how close he cut it that day, and had actually thanked Temari for her help. She had indeed earned his respect. Putting aside what happened at the Finals, they had gotten along pretty well on the trek back to Konoha.
As a matter of fact, he had gotten along well with all three of the sand-nin. Life just loved to surprise him with crap like that.
"She just got lucky, that's all. Seriously you think about things too intensely Shikamaru-kun."
'She tacked that endearment on again. How bothersome…the only person she ever added that to was Sasuke.' His scowl returned full force at that thought.
So he had finally become the replacement.
"Why are you calling me 'Shikamaru-kun' Ino?" it felt like there was a endless void in his stomach that his heart was slowly beginning to sink into.
She stopped mid-ramble as his question reached her ears. Ino just raised a brow as her face scrunched up. "Why are you questioning that? You should be honored! You know I don't go around adding that to just anyones name!"
"You only ever added that to Sasuke." He deadpanned.
"Eh…?" her face contorted into confusion again. "What are you getting at Shikamaru-kun?"
He turned his back to her, his anger mixing with his sadness to slowly form a deadly concoction in his soul.
"Ino, go home, and don't ever call me that again…please…" his emotions were going crazy. At first he felt like throttling her, now he just felt like crying. As was evident in his plea for her to just leave him be.
But Ino could sometimes be harder in the head then even him.
"But…Shikamaru-k…"
"I said don't ever call me that again!" he seethed. Ok, so now the anger was returning. He could still feel his heart dropping…no, not dropping; it was like it was slowly sliding downward. Down into the abyss that was his stomach. It was slowly becoming the most unbearable pain he had ever had the pleasure to endure.
She stood in front of him, wide eyed and thoroughly confused. 'I guess it makes sense', Shikamaru thought sourly, 'she actually believes that I'm still tagging along behind her.'
"I don't understand…" Ino said weakly.
"Please, just leave Ino." He found himself slowly walking back toward the hill that he had been laying on. He could hear Ino's soft retreat back into the forest, slightly glad that she had not continue to push the subject. Mentally exhausted, he found himself falling to his hands and knees at the crest of the hill. His body argued with him over whether or not he was going to cry.
Gods, he was such a wuss…this situation had become quite bothersome.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------Temari had remained still through the entire conversation. Her first thoughts were that the girl had been…well…his significant other. And that thought had made her angry, sad, and vengeful all at the same time.
'Only because she tried to underestimate me!' Temari tried to argue to herself. 'But that didn't happen until later in the conversation.' She found her brows knit together as her mind tried to sort through what just happened, and the strange emotions she felt during their exchange.
It just didn't make sense to her. That girl, Ino, seemed to be quite smitten over Shikamaru, but he had cast her away.
Which strangely caused her a lot of relief.
And now, there he was, in the one place he had told her he felt happy and content, looking as if he was about to cry his eyes out. Her sudden realization of the current situation made Temari's stomach knot painfully. 'This place', she stopped to take a look around, 'was supposed to be his sanctuary.'
She looked over to the huddled form of Shikamaru from her position behind a tree as his body quivered. Unconsciously, she took a step forward. Now in her defense, she was just so confused over what had just occurred, and more then a little concerned for Shikamaru that she instinctually made that step.
CrackFate seemed to love her sometimes; that well placed twig being one of those times. Slowly looking up her breath caught and her heart skipped a beat.
Shikamaru was looking dead at her.
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Another chapter down, up next is Kakashi and his little bouts with depression and a weird girl who likes snakes. Ino will return, her and Shikamaru have unfinished buisness. In his next installment, Shikamaru will have a heart to heart with Temari. Stay tuned!