Disclaimer: Naruto = not mine.

When Geniuses Fall In Love

Chapter 1: Cue Genius

Nara Shikamaru had an IQ of above 200. He was the best strategist Konoha village had ever seen and there wasn't a game of Go he couldn't win. Hey, he even had a special pose for when he was contemplating! In short, Shikamaru was the smartest dude you would ever find if you upended the whole world through a Smart-O-Meter filter. In shorter, Shikamaru was just smart.

Yes, Shikamaru might have been extremely intelligent, but when it came to matters of the heart he was hopeless. There is a reason why the heart is a separate organ from the brain, you know. In fact, the brain…but never mind, this is not a story expositing the differences between the mind and the heart. This is a story extolling the woes of Shikamaru's romantic life and the reasons for his current ridiculous predicament.

Hear ye now the famous words of Shikamaru.

"This is so troublesome…"

"Stop saying that! You gotta act the part" Chouji said, trying to separate Shikamaru's clump of hair in search of something remotely resembling bangs.

"…"

"That's much better," Chouji said, tugging a few random locks of hair to form the fringe and squinting critically at Shikamaru's new hairstyle in the mirror. "You think this looks like Sasuke?"

Shikamaru raised his eyebrows. He looked at his squinty eyes, the eyelids so close they seemed almost slits, the long, thin lips and somewhat non-existent flat nose.

He tried. He really did. "Well…we...both…have two eyes," Shikamaru finally hit on a similarity.

Chouji sighed and shook his head. He retrieved a bag of chips from a pocket on his clothes somewhere and popped it open, stuffing the chips unreservedly into his mouth. "And they call you the genius," he said in a muffled voice.

"Hey, you be the genius then!" Shikamaru said in annoyance.

"I already am. See, I'm helping you in your transformation into a hot Sasuke look-alike right now."

"Um wait, backtrack a minute. In what way does that make you a genius?"

"Well, duh." Chouji rolled his eyes, popping more chips into his mouth. "You're a genius, you can figure it out."

Shikamaru blinked. Now, he was pretty sure Chouji was committing the logically fallacy of red herring, because that sentence hadn't made sense. Neither had the one before. And…in actual fact, this whole situation didn't make sense.

"Did you say hot Sasuke look-alike?" Shikamaru suddenly realised.

"Uh, cool Sasuke look-alike?" Chouji offered.

"When did I ever say I wanted to become like that Uchiha kid?"

"Do you have short-term memory or what?" Chouji asked in irritation. "You practically said so just now, while we were playing go."

"All I said was that I wanted Ino to like me! And that was only because you tricked me!" Shikamaru argued, sitting down on his bed in a huff, a scowl on his face.

"It's too bad if a so-called genius gets tricked so easily." Chouji scoffed.

"What is your obsession with me being a genius?" Shikamaru ground out, his scowl deepening.

"Hey, maybe I have a deep-rooted pathological jealousy of your intelligence that has plagued me since young," Chouji said breezily. He finished the last of his potato chips and dumped it into the dustbin beside the window.

"Yeah, right," Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Can we go back to playing go?"

He looked longingly towards the board where the pieces were haphazardly arranged, still waiting for them to finish the game they had stopped halfway.

"No!" Chouji said, sounding aghast. "We have to help you snag Ino! And this is so much more fun than go." He added the last part in under his breath.

"What?" Shikamaru asked suspiciously.

"Uh, come, we must work on your expression!"

Shikamaru glared at him.

"There we go! You've got uh the 'swoon-worthy glare' down pat, now, guess we'll go on to 'amazingly hot pensive stare'," Chouji said, consulting a rumpled piece of note-paper he produced from somewhere on his person.

"What the hell?" Shikamaru said. He snatched the paper from Chouji and ticked down the list of words. "These are all quotes from Ino about Sasuke!"

Shikamaru sounded amazed. "Have you been planning this?" He asked threateningly.

"No, of course not, what would make you think that?" Chouji blinked his eyes. Shikamaru forced himself to count to ten.

"What makes you think acting like Sasuke will make Ino like me anyway? This is a stupid idea!"

"Of course it will! Ino likes Sasuke, therefore if you act like Sasuke, Ino will like you. Duh," Chouji rolled his eyes.

Shikamaru stared blankly. There had to be a logically fallacy somewhere in there, he was sure of it. But then again, it did sort of, possibly, maybe, plausibly make some sense. After all if Ino Sasuke = love, and Shikamaru = Sasuke, then Ino Shikamaru = love too!

"Ah, brilliant!" Chouji's voice interrupted his mathematical calculations. "You've almost go the 'amazingly hot pensive stare' down, you just need to try to open your eyes a bit more. You have to emulate Sasuke's uh, 'smouldering black orbs'."

Then again, Shikamaru ≠ Sasuke. "You're kidding," Shikamaru said flatly. "The last time my mother tried to force my eyes to open wider, our entire rack of plates was destroyed."

"Cool! What did your eyes do?" Chouji asked in awe.

"Nothing. My mother knocked over the rack while she was hyperventilating with laughter," Shikamaru deadpanned.

"Really? Let me see!" Chouji said in excitement, advancing on Shikamaru, who hastily got off the bed and moved away.

"You try and I'll kunai you to the moon," Shikamaru threatened.

"Aww," Chouji said sadly. "I guess we could work on your speech. You're about as reticent as him, which is good, but you have to learn to be more smug and insulting."

"Okay, how about this. "'Dobe, you suck. Get away from me so I can carry on practising to be beautifully melancholic.'"

"Wonderful!" Chouji cheered. "You're really getting into the spirit of things!"

"Uh, I was just kidding," Shikamaru said.

"Yeah, but you know that underneath it all, that's just what Sasuke is thinking!"

Shikamaru raised his eyebrows. "Shouldn't I have more cause to hate Sasuke than you?"

"Yeah, but you're kind of apathetic that way, so I'm feeling all your emotions for you."

Shikamaru felt his eyebrows strain from trying to rise beyond their usual limit. Definitely a logical fallacy there, he thought.

"Alright," Chouji said. "Now, next on our agenda we have to –"

"Whoa, wait a minute," Shikamaru interrupted. "We have an agenda? Since when? You planned this all, didn't you? You have some inane diabolical scheme to match-make me and Ino right?"

Chouji blinked. "Cool. You haven't said that many words at one go in…well, a long time."

"It's go right!" Shikamaru suddenly yelled. "It's because you hate go so much! Fine! We'll play shougi instead!"

Chouji's mouth, for once not to stuff food, dropped open. "Uh, Shikamaru, I'm not doing this because I hate go…much. It's because I care for your emotional welfare! You're starved of feelings, Shikamaru! You have to learn to get in touch with your inner romantic soul!" And shougi really isn't that much a better alternative than go, he added silently.

Shikamaru snorted, having recovered from his previous outburst. "The psychiatrist talk doesn't jive with me either."

"Oh come on," Chouji said, getting exasperated. "At least you're being proactive this way. You can't just like Ino but sit around and do nothing!"

"Um, Chouji, that was the plan."

Chouji rolled his eyes. "You're going to regret not ever trying, Shikamaru! After all, what's the harm? The worst is that she'll think you're turning into a nutcase."

"And that's not bad at all, sure," Shikamaru said sarcastically.

"Hey, that's why I said 'worst', you know," Chouji said patiently.

"But…" Shikamaru sighed, deciding it was way too troublesome to explain to Chouji exactly what was wrong with his word phrasing.

"Okay, now we have to go and search for suitable clothing," Chouji said, eyeing Shikamaru's outfit critically. "That mesh shirt definitely has to go."

"Are you insulting my fashion sense?" Shikamaru asked in some annoyance.

"No, I'm complimenting Sasuke's."

Shikamaru debated whether or not to strangle Chouji, but decided funerals were definitely sky high in the troublesome range.

"So let's go now!" Chouji said, finishing the last of his potato chips and tossing them into Shikamaru's dustbin. He walked to the door.

"Now?" Shikamaru asked in surprise.

"No time like the present!" Chouji said chirpily.

Shikamaru winced. "Why're you so energetic today? Has Ino rubbed off on you?"

"It's called the power of love!" Chouji said loudly, pumping his fist in the air for good measure.

The door suddenly flew open, narrowly missing Chouji. Shikamaru's parents stood at the doorway, staring expectantly into the room.

"Who's in love?" Shikato asked, an excited look on his face.

"Shikamaru," Chouji required with equal enthusiasm, pointing his finger at the horrified looking Shikamaru.

"Oh, with that uh, what's-her-name, Hinata, right?"

Chouji and Shikamaru blinked.

"No, Ino, dear," Shikamaru's mother said.

"How do you know?" Shikamaru asked accusatorily.

Shikamaru's mother shook her head and gave an expression which clearly said Mothers Always Know, Dear, Cos We Rule! Shikamaru was a bit fuzzy on the last part though. Even after spending most of his life with very scary women, it wasn't all that easy to decipher their coded looks.

"Oh, yes, Ino. You're going to chase after her then, aren't you?" Shikato grinned broadly.

"How do you know?" Shikamaru asked accusatorily. For some peculiar reason, he felt this sense of déjà vu.

"Of course I do, I did the very same at your age!" Shikato smiled fondly.

"What? Is that how you ended up with mother?" Shikamaru asked in surprise. "But I thought that was because you had this problem with –"

"Uh, no need to repeat the details!" Shikato interrupted hurriedly. "Of course I didn't meet your mum that way, I was going after this other damsel, she was really pretty, had these huge violet eyes and –"

Shikamaru's mother coughed. Very loudly.

"Oh, but that was a long time ago," he finished quickly.

"Then did you get her?" Chouji asked in some interest.

"No!" Shikato said cheerfully. "That's how I ended up with Shikamaru's mother!"

This time he received a hefty thwack on the head from his wife.

"Oww…" he muttered, rubbing his head ruefully.

"What!" Chouji said, realising that Shikamaru was staring at him very meaningfully.

"Oh! You want to go already!" Chouji said in a burst of inspiration.

Shikamaru nearly fell off his bed in shock. It wasn't possibly that someone could be so pigheaded, right? Right?? Shikamaru thought somewhat desperately. He couldn't lose faith in humanity. He –

Shikamaru suddenly felt himself being dragged to his feet and revived from the inner recesses of his mind to take in the fact that he was being dragged out of his room by Chouji, his parents tailing them in anticipation.

"Bye!" Chouji called cheerfully as he hauled a somewhat uncomprehending Shikamaru out of his house. "We're off to get Shikamaru a girlfriend now!"

"Good luck!" Shikamaru's parents replied, waving enthusiastically at their retreating backs. Shikamaru swore he could see his mother dab her eyes. This was Not Normal.

Shikamaru shook his head, trying to rid his friend's grip on his arm. "Uh, Chouji, maybe –"

"Oh my gosh, this is fate."

"Uh, Chouji? Have you been seeing Neji recently or something?"

"No, it's Ino!"

"Yeah, I realise you must have been meeting her a lot too, your enthusiasm is starting to scare me."

"No, it's Ino! Here!" Chouji said, gesturing towards the girl who was just walking out of a grocery store, several bags in her hand.

"Oh well, guess we'll be walking this way then," Shikamaru said and turned promptly around, not wanting Ino to have a chance to rile at him about random stuff some more. Oh, and also not to see the ridiculous hairstyle he had on at the moment.

"No, no," Chouji said, swivelling Shikamaru around again. "This is perfect! You can go up and Sasuke her now!"

"You're even worse than Sasuke's fangirls, you know that? You just made him a verb."

"That doesn't matter!" Chouji hissed. "Now go on!" He gave Shikamaru a push which barrelled him a good two metres forward.

He sighed and looked towards Ino. He guessed it wouldn't really hurt. Uh wait, did he just say that? Damn, he must be falling for Chouji's devious logical fallacies! He looked back at Chouji, who was making urgent shooing motions at him. Ah, but it would be more troublesome to convince Chouji he didn't want to uh, 'Sasuke' Ino than to actually do the deed. There, that reason felt so much more right.

He shook his head and made his way up to Ino. Now, how should I do this? Shikamaru pondered. An effective entrance would pave the way for an easy 'Sasuke', and give him less trouble too. Therefore, he should try to appear to Ino as much as Sasuke as possible upon first meeting her, then he would not have to impress his renewed Sasuke attributes so strongly onto her later.

Shikamaru wondered how he should call her attention to him. Sasuke hardly talked to anybody, and obviously would not randomly say hi to people on the streets even if he knew them, and much less if he knew the person was fanatically obsessed with him.

I guess I'll just have to do the classical Sasuke, Shikamaru thought (oh no, now even I have promoted him from a pronoun to noun). He stationed himself in Ino's line of path.

"…"

"…"

"…!"

Ino walked right into him.

-to be continued-

I've always wanted to write a humour/romance fic, so yay. :) I fear my humour skills are rusting away in the prevalence of all my angst. Hope you didn't think so!

Till the next chapter,

&SnoOza