Chapter 2:
"Your pathetic, a weakling sent to sacrifice his worthless life to save the mission."
"Your wrong, Shikamaru has faith in me, I will defeat you!!"
"Stupid fat kid, your nothing, after I rip you apart, I' m going for your puny friends, and I will find and kill this Shikamaru slowly, just so I can torture your damned soul!!"
"No. . . I . . . Won't . . . LET YOU!!!"
Images of the sound-nin blinked away, Chouji's eye snapped open, as he bolted upright. Frantically looking around, he realized that he was no longer in the forest, but now found himself in a hospital room.
The room was empty, standard hospital equipment lay scattered around. Reaching to scratch, he found himself hooked up to IV. Beside his bed were two chairs sitting closely together and he noticed that on the window seal was a vase holding beautiful daffodils, a sure sign of Ino's visit.
Chouji felt different, it was a good different, taking notice of a mirror opposite of him, he stared wide eyed, letting out a small gasp. Even through the over sized hospital gown, he could tell he was thinner, very much so in fact. He quickly thought back to the fight with the sound-ninja. Yes he remembered, to defeat him, he had to use all the 3 pills, but if he ate the last pill. . . why wasn't he dead?
Question of his sure demise were cut off when the room's door open, revealing a surprised Shikamaru.
"Chouji!" Shikamaru called out as he rushed to his friends side. "Glad your finally awake."
"Ah, Shikamaru, how long have I been out?"
Before Shikamaru could answer, his companion came through the open door, wearing a blue dress down to her knees, and her blond haired tired up in its normal fashion.
"Chouji!" Temari gasped, Quickly seating next to Shikamaru, giving him a look of love as she did.
Chouji looked at Temari with surprised, why was she here. Then he noticed how as she sat next to Shikamaru, the two looked at each other, it wasn't a normal look, it was one of. . ..
Chouji pointed at the two "So. . . you two are. . .?"
"Yes, yes we are "Shikamaru replied, a feint blush appearing on his face, as well as on Temari's.
"When?"
"Ever since the mission, we slowly fell for each other."
"Mission? You two were on a mission . . . wait, wait, wait, first tell me how long I was out and whether or not our mission was a success." Chouji couldn't wash the confusion from his face.
"Oh, yeah sorry, well I hate to say, but you've been in a coma for the past 2 weeks. As for the mission, it was a success. Naruto was able to defeat Sasuke and we brought him back alive."
"Wow! Two weeks, and you said Naruto defeated Sasuke? How did he get so strong?"
"Yeah, Naruto did put a beat down on the pretty boy Uchiha, as for Naruto being so strong. . . well I have my suspicions, but lets just say we must have really underestimated him. But forget that, you sure gave that sound-ninja a good ass-whooping."
"Thanks, I knew you had faith in me. Well anyway, so tell me about you and Temari, how did guys get together?"
"Well, the mission we were on was one in the same as yours. Temari came to my rescue, as did her brothers for Kiba and Lee. I guess something just sparked, I don't know. Anyway, about a week ago, we finally just got past the awkwardness and asked each other out. Its nothing special, and its troublesome to talk about it."
Temari shot a stare of pure evil at Shikamaru, "Troublesome, our relationship is troublesome!? Hmmf, I'll show you troublesome boy..."
"No, No, No, I didn't mean it like that." Shikamaru shot his hands up in defense, "I just didn't want to go into a long drawn out story when he just got up. Sorry Tem, I didn't mean it like that." Shikamaru was sure his word soothed here, he thought to himself that he just barely avoided death.
Chouji couldn't help but smile at the situation. "So Shikamaru, I see by the flowers that Ino has been here, hows she doing?"
Shikamaru sighed, "Well. . . It turns out that after we got back from the mission, Ino finally revealed to me that she liked me. She said something about that the whole Sasuke crap was just to piss Sakura off. Anyway, unbeknownst to her, Temari and I already had feelings for each other, and I told her that when she confronted me. I simply said she waited too long. After that she became broken, and I haven't really spoken to here since. But I do know that since then, shes been visiting you every day. In fact, we passed her on the way out, well at least Temari did, I was hiding."
"Ha, your such a chicken Shika." Chouji said with a grin.
"Nah, its just too troublesome to deal with." Shika shrugged, "Well anyway, I got to go, I didn't expect you to be up, I just wanted to check in just in case. I have some training to go to. I'll talk to the doctors, see how long you have to stay in here. Oh, bye the way, do you like your new look?"
"Well, even though the majority of my techniques were based off of being. . . overweight, I guess I can live with it. In fact, I don't even feel like eating."
Shikamaru's mouth dropped, "Chouji, thats the first time in my entire life I ever heard you say that, you really must have changed."
"Hehe, yeah I guess so, just hope I can still use some of my families techniques."
"Yeah me too, well anyway, I gotta run, I'll try to visit you later."
"Okay, bye Shika, and see you later Temari."
"Later Chouji."
At that, the pair departed, leaving Chouji alone once again. After a few minutes a nurse came in, stating that he would be able to leave tomorrow. Chouji desperately wanted to train for some reason, despite a burning desire to get stronger, he forced himself to fall back asleep.
