A/N: I'm glad you all liked Lee. I, personally, think he's great. And yeah, Shikamaru and Ino have a lot of crud to get through. Hopefully you'll like the way things turn out by the end of the fic, though. Thanks for reading, and, as always, I'd love to know what you thought of this chapter.

He tore down the street, chasing Ino as she fled. Her skirt was giving her more mobility than he thought it would, and he was having a difficult time keeping up with her. It was times like this that he remembered that she was a high-caliber kunoichi. She darted into the trees and he followed, barely able to keep her in sight. If this situation wasn't the epitome of troublesome, he didn't know what was.

They were nearing her house when he lost sight of her. He should have foreseen that he would upset her, and that she'd start to cry and run. Why did she have to be so slippery? "Ino?" he called out, and he was surprised when she actually answered.

"Here," she replied, and he stopped dead in his tracks at the edge in her voice, slowly turning around to see her perched in a tree. Her lovely face was hard, the area around her eyes puffy, and with horror he realized she was making a seal with her hands, a seal he knew very well. She was going to switch bodies.

"Ino!" he cried, trying to move to the side, but it was too late.

He woke up some time later, face down in the dirt in a park on the other side of town. Ino hadn't been too careful with his body as she had run him across town, for there were scrapes on his knees and elbows. His face was wet with tears. Oh, just great. She had run him through the middle of town crying. He sincerely hoped that nobody he knew had seen him.

Picking himself off the ground with a groan, he knew that Ino would be safely locked up inside her parents' house. He could go and try to convince her to see him, but the thought of Inoshi guarding the door made him lose his nerve. Dying young didn't sound like a good idea. Going home didn't sound like fun, either, and so he set off towards town. Oddly enough, he didn't feel like being alone, since he knew he would just think about Ino.

He found himself outside the first watering hole he came to, a dingy little bar with paint flaking off the siding. Sighing, he pushed his way inside, immediately assaulted by a voice he recognized.

"And so I punched him!" Kiba announced, slamming his cup down on the bar. He and Naruto were sitting side by side, already well on their way to getting drunk. Kiba's hand was on Naruto's shoulder, obviously forcing the blonde to sit there and listen to him.

"Yo," Naruto said, and several heads in the joint swiveled around and fixed their bleary stares on Shikamaru.

"Hi," he drawled in response, walking past Kiba and sitting on the stool next to Naruto.

Naruto shrugged off Kiba's hand and turned to look at him. "Why the long face? What happened to your clothes?"

"I just managed to screw up a date. Sake, please," he told the bartender. "Where's Hinata?"

Naruto shrugged. "Family business, I guess. Neji's there, too." He gestured to the corner, where Shikamaru was shocked to see TenTen playing drinking games with Asuma. The woman's face was flushed, and her grip on her cup of sake was so tight her fingertips were white.

"I guess TenTen's not too happy about that," Shikamaru grunted.

"Hey, I was talking to you!" Kiba growled, and commandeered Naruto's attention once more.

Shikamaru sighed into his drink and downed it, grimacing at the slight burn as he always did. He didn't often drink, but he felt that it was the only way to unwind in his situation.

"I thought it was you," he heard someone say, and his cheeks flamed. He didn't want to turn around, knowing who the speaker was, but his upbringing won out, and he faced the speaker politely.

"Hi, Dad," he grumbled.

Shikato raised his eyebrows. "I haven't seen you in weeks and that's all you can say?"

Shikamaru groaned as his father pulled up a stool next to him. "I was going to visit, I swear. Things have just been rough lately."

"You look like hell. You pissed off a woman, didn't you?"

"Only one?" Shikamaru sighed.

His father let out a low whistle. "Wow, you're something else."

"What's that mean?"

"I didn't know you were seeing multiple people at once."

"Well, right now I'm not seeing anybody."

Shikato clapped him on the back. "I heard that you broke up with the Sand girl. Too bad. She was a looker. You could tell she was going places."

"Yeah, she was. That's why we're not together anymore."

The elder Nara's face softened. "Hey, I know it hurts. You'll get over it. Find someone new."

"I tried. She's the one I pissed off."

"Ouch."

"I'm sure you'll hear all about it. Inoshi's probably after my head by now."

"You pissed off Ino?" His jaw dropped open, and he rubbed a stubbly cheek. "Yeah, I'd steer clear of the Yamanakas' place for a while."

"I plan to," Shikamaru mumbled. He really did feel awful about how things had gone down, though. His behavior certainly hadn't been the best. He couldn't believe he was going to do what he was about to do, so he took another drink and faced his father. "What should I do?"

Shikato's eyes went wide. "You're asking me?"

"You've been married to Mom for what, twenty-six years? That has to count for something. Nobody's as crazy as she is. What do you do when you make her upset?"

His father blushed. "You really don't want to know. It's not an option for you, considering you're not with Ino yet."

"Yet?"

"It doesn't mean you ever have to be with her," he amended, ordering a drink and downing it in one gulp. Shikamaru was starting to see firsthand some of the things about his father that he had always suspected upset his mother.

Shikamaru merely grunted in reply.

"Listen, those Yamanakas are a prickly bunch sometimes. They're loyal unto death, but sometimes that passion makes them, er, difficult. You'll have to write to her."

Shikamaru downed his second drink, hoping the alcohol would let down his intellectual guard enough that he could begin to wrap his head around the situation he was in. "Write what?"

Shikato waved a hand in the air, miraculously on his fourth beverage. "Oh, apologize, talk about how awful you are, how lovely and perfect she is. . . . That kind of stuff."

"I'm not going to lie. She's at fault, too."

His father mashed his hand over Shikamaru's mouth. "Don't you ever, ever let her hear that. It will be the end of you. If she doesn't kill you, Inoshi will. I love the guy, but he's really protective of Ino."

"I noticed," the young man growled, casting aside his father's rough hand.

"Then just buy her presents. Jewelry, chocolate, and flowers are all good. Eventually she'll come around."

"Yeah, that's my style," Shikamaru grumbled.

"I'm just telling you what works," his father replied with a shrug. "Take it or leave it."

He eyed his father, wondering if the man was completely trashed or just well on his way. He was just starting to feel the effects of the alcohol, so he decided to call it a night, saying farewell to Shikato and briefly speaking with Asuma. His final deed of the night was to free Naruto from Kiba's clutches, then he slipped from the bar.

Walking out into the night, he inhaled a deep breath of fresh air, slowly letting it out in a sigh, trying to clear his head. He was a mess, body, mind, and heart confused and hurting. Taking a few more steps, he stopped, a sour expression on his face. "I just had a heart-to-heart with my dad," he muttered to himself, slowly turning around and surveying the building he had just left. "In a bar," he shuddered, and giving himself a final shake, made his way home.