Dreams are Dreams
Chapter fourteen
By cocoa-latte
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Sasuke sat still at his post. The snow-covered bush covered his entire body. The wet snow was beginning to damp his pants. Sasuke squatted solemnly still, occasionally sneaking a peak at the empty shovelled road to the lodge. He knew that she and Aniro wouldn't be back so soon, but he didn't want to miss it. 'I swear, if he lays one finger on her…'
Sasuke gave a silent sigh and looked up into the piercing sky. He didn't even know why he was doing this. The snow was still falling; blinding his eyes. Sasuke squinted a bit at the massive clouds above him. Night would fall soon. Sasuke dug his boots deeper into the snow. Sasuke paused sensed some familiar charka: Sakura's, Lee's, Kiba's, Shino's, and possibly Chouji's.
He stayed rigidly still as he heard their footsteps near. It was rather odd; he couldn't hear any chatter at all. Sasuke carefully peered over the bushes and watched as the five people walked silently down the road. She was back already. Without that Aniro guy, but instead, she was accompanied with four other single and certainly eligible guys.
Sasuke continued to watch them trudge along the slow, almost mournfully. He was unaware that his eyes were narrowing more by every passing second. Sasuke shifted his weight to his left foot; temporarily relieving his right foot.
He didn't expect this. What he expected was more like Sakura coming home a few hours later, with that what's his face. She'd be giggling and having a good time. The 'perfect' night would end with a good night kiss.
Good thing that he was bad at making prophecies.
Shikamaru walked down the narrow hallway, heading back to the living room, where he had last seen Ino there, curled up on the sofa, writing in some sort of notebook. He looked back at the now empty room with a pensive look on his face. He sat down at the same spot where Ino had just been.
Ino wasn't exactly a person that most people would have thought that he'd get along with. Firstly, she was persistant, a bit too loud for his own taste, and care too much of what others thought.
Yet, they were friends. Close friends, he could even say. From the beginning, since their genin days, there had been a sort of connection between the two of them. Not the connection of best friends like Chouji and himself, but something entirely different.
Shikamaru looked back down and spotted a spiral notebook wedged between two of the sofa cushions. He picked it up ginegerly and read the words scrawled on it. "Property of Yamanaka Ino," he whispered to himself.
This grabbed his attention. He flipped through the pages. It seemed to be some sort of journal or diary.
Tenten sat on her bed; fingering Neji's hand gently. "I want to go home," she sighed. She got up abruptly and glanced out the snow-covered window.
"Yah." Neji agreed. "It's coming down pretty hard."
"You make it sound as if it were raining, not snowing."
"It'll rain when we get back to Konoha," he said darkly. Neji's face brightened as Tenten turned around and gave him a distained smile.
"Don't say that! It might come true."
"It'll rain eventually," Neji pointed out, still staring fixedly on the door.
Tenten stayed silent and connected his gaze. "Why do you keep staring at the door?" she asked in a slight demanding manner. "You're not thinking of leaving, are you?"
A graceful smirked appeared on Neji's face. "Leave without you?" He forged a look of surprise. "I would never do that," he whispered slyly.
Tenten gave a laugh, pleased that Neji was opening up to her. She bent over and gave a swift peck on his cheeks. "You're too sweet," she joked jovially, "We'll all be so out of shaped when we actually get home and start training again. I felt so out of it when we were training earlier on today."
"Yah," Neji concurred, mechanically wiping the spot where she gave him the peck.
"It's even too cold to going skiing now," Tenten grimaced, "I feel like hot chocolate. Do you want some?"
"No thanks. I don't really like chocolate much."
"Oh yah… I'm sorry, I forgot about that." Tenten looked at him sheepishly.
Neji said absently, "It's okay."
"Oh, okay. Would you like anything?"
"Maybe some tea."
"Okay, I'll be back soon," she said as she pranced happily out the door.
"Who is leaving now?" he called after the talkative woman that stood before him.
Tenten stuck her head back in and puckered her brow. "If you say that again, I won't get your precious tea," she said in a slightly whiny matter.
"It's only tea."
The brown-haired brunette had an urge to stick her tongue out at him, but resisted. "You're annoying me, but I'll be nice today, and get your tea for you anyways."
She heard Neji grumble thanks as she walked down the stairs, two steps at a time.
The kitchen was empty, and the dishes from the pizza earlier on were stacked disorderly around the sink. Tenten sighed inwardly and opened the cupboard and took out the can of powdered hot chocolate and a teabag. She put a few spoonfuls of the brown coco powder into a cup, and the teabag into the other. She absently filled up the old kettle with some water and waited for it to boil.
'Things have been weird lately. First, Neji and I started to go out. Then Hinata and Naruto got together. They're really cute together, actually,' she added as an afterthought, 'and now, it seems as if Shikamaru and Ino might get together. Well, they kind of fight a lot, so I'm not so sure how that'll work out. Everyone's getting together.'
She felt sorry for Sakura. Sakura had been so excited about the date with Aniro, and he turned out to be everything that she disliked. He even turned out to be worse than Sasuke, who Sakura claimed to hate.
The low hum of the kettle got her attention back onto the electric appliance. The humming increased, and got louder. She pulled off the plug and partially poured the steaming liquid into the mugs. She paused and stirred occasionally before filling the rest. Tenten quickly added some milk and sugar to the tea, and brought the hot drinks up back to her room.
She placed the drinks down on the clean desk. "Here." She motioned to the tea.
"Thanks," he said appreciatively, "what will your parents say when they find out about us?"
Tenten blinked, "oh, they'll probably just approve of you. My parents actually like you. They think you're-" Tenten gave a small snort, "polite, handsome, and a 'true gentleman.' I don't really think they know you that well, Neji." She gave him a smile. "Well, maybe they got the handsome part right, but the rest? I'm not too sure."
Neji sat there stonily, "I am polite and a true gentleman," he disagreed, "I treated you out to dinner, I open the door for you, and let you go in first…"
"Well, I was the one who got tea for you, just then. Anyways, I don't want to argue with you, but I've been wanting to ask, what will your family think of us?"
Neji paused at her directness. "I'm part of the branch family; my decisions are not as important."
"Haha, right. You're like the prodigy of the Hyuuga clan. I'm pretty sure that they will care. I assure you that." Tenten raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for his reply.
She waited.
He remained silent.
Ino flung herself onto her bed and gave an irritated groan. 'Damn Shikamaru and his annoyingness. Why should I even put up with him?' She sat up and raked her fingers down her hair, untangling her long hair. She gave an angered sniff. 'Oh, yah, because I so-call like him.' If this was what love was supposed to be like, it was irksome.
There was a knock on the door. Ino stared at it beadily and remained quiet.
"I know you're in there, Ino," Shikamaru called through gritted teeth, "Just unlock the door, okay?"
This was so cliché.
"Now, why would I want to do that?" Ino asked calmly, aware of how annoyed Shikamaru would get. 'Serves that idiot right.'
Shikamaru could feel his blood begin the boil. "I want to talk." He tried again.
"Hm, well you picked the wrong time. Maybe tomorrow would be a better day to talk. Hm? What do you say?" she asked in the same composed matter.
"I only want to talk," Shikamaru said through gritted teeth, trying to reason with the stubborn blonde.
Ino gave a huff. "I told you; you picked the wrong time," she said coldly.
"What did I do to deserve you treating me like this?" he asked exasperatedly. 'Damn woman,' he though miserably. It always seemed that his father was wrong about them.
"I wouldn't be treating you like this is if you didn't go knocking on my door, then badgering me to open the door to talk to you, and you know what? You didn't even deserve an explanation. Go figure it out yourself. I heard you have a huge-ass IQ. Go use it."
Shikamaru stayed still at her rudeness. He never did anything to her. Unless that the crappy explanation of him knocking at her door, then supposedly "badgering" her to open it was the reason. 'Must be PMS,' Shikamaru thought with a grunt.
Shikamaru could hear his voice going hoarse and he raised his voice, "I just wanted to say-"
"Say what?" her voice echoing the same rudeness as Shikamaru's.
"I-" his voice faltered, "I just wanted to say," he paused, "that I really like you," he blurted out.
Shikamaru squinted his eyes shut tightly and took some rapid uneven breaths of air. Why did he say that? That wasn't even the reason why he came to talk to her. He was never supposed to say that out load. Ever. He could feel the blood rush from his face. What would Ino say? What would she think of him? She already had far too many men out there that fancied her, but he liked her for real. He knew her. He even could actually stand her most of the time.
"Leave me alone," Ino said coldly, but a small grin crept onto her face.She knew it. She knew he liked her, and now, she proven herself right. He did. She didn't know what to think. Sure, having a boyfriend like Shikamaru would be pretty great, but spending the rest of her life with him? She didn't want to have to hurt him in the end. She had known him since she started training at the academy, and ruining a friendship of that long for a relationship wasn't worth it.
Ino waited as she heard Shikamaru give an infuriated sigh, and his footsteps finally faded. Ino stood up and walked over to the closet and began to rummage around a massive amount of assorted clothes, and other garments that occupied the space. She pulled out her travel case after clearing some clothes off it. The young kunoichi carefully unzipped the large oblong gear and peered into it, looking for a certain object.
She groped around a bit. She knew she left it at the bottom of the suitcase. She had it just yesterday morning. Ino exasperatedly began to unzip all the zippers and prodding into the pockets. She knew she left it somewhere. Ino was positive that she put it in there.
Not giving up, she began to search the small, and untidy room. 'Maybe I left it in Sakura's suitcase by mistake. I should probably ask her before looking through it.'
Ino poked her head out the doorframe. "Sakura," she called loudly down the stairs.
She waited a few seconds before she got a hurried reply. "Yeah?"
"Come upstairs. I need to ask you something."
"Just a moment."
Ino sat back down on the cluttered floor and absently brushed a few strands of hair out of her eyes. 'Where could I have put it? I'm pretty sure I putted it back properly.'
Sakura came into the room a few minutes later. "What did you want to ask?"
"I think I might have left something in your suitcase by accident. Could I check if it's there, please?" she asked hastily.
"Oh," Sakura began, "sure. What did you loose?"
"My diary," she said through gritted teeth as she already started to swiftly delve the other girl's suitcase.
She looked up abruptly. "It's not here," she said out of breath.
"Here, I'll help you look. It has to be around here somewhere." She motioned to the messy room. "We should have kept it more neat. My mom would have killed me if my room looked like this."
Ino, feeling slightly calmed down, nodded. "My mom would make me clean it up, and then she would kill me. She tells me to clean up my room like, everything other day or something. Of course I don't always listen to her…"
Ino trailed off, and began to pick up some stray clothes on the floor, while looking for her book.
"Is it a locked diary?" Sakura asked heedlessly.
"No. It's really just a book."
"You don't lock your diary?"
"'Course not! Who's going to read it? My mom?" she gave a laugh.
"Well, we're stuck on a snowy mountain with fourteen other people. Maybe some suspicious people as well?"
Ino sighed. "Look, if you're talking about Kakashi, I doubt that he knows that I even keep a diary."
Sakura hung a shirt onto a hanger. "What does your 'diary without a lock' look like, anyways?"
"Well, it's pretty plain. It's just a regular black notebook, with a silver coiled binding."
Sakura paused and searched her brain. "I've seen it," she said quietly.
Ino looked up. "Really? Where? Did you see it today? I think I lost it yesterday morning, but-"
Sakura cut her off. "--I saw Shikamaru with it."
"Fuck," Ino hissed, "that ass has officially fucked up my life. I actually fucking wrote in there, that I-never mind."
Sakura bit her lips, not daring to move away from the outrageous blonde. "I'm sure he didn't read it," she said cautiously. She didn't want Ino to hurt him… again.
"Anyways," her tone suddenly turned to false brightness, "Be right back. I just have a few things to deal with."
Sakura gave Ino a meek smile before watching her flaunt out the door. She should have just taken the diary back from Shikamaru, then she could hide it somewhere, and magically find it. She didn't want to be the cause of him getting hurt.
Sakura sat there silently, listening to Ino's footsteps. 'I hope she doesn't hurt him too bad. A few bruises won't be to hard to mend, but if she breaks his ribs…'
Sakura could hear them arguing now. She knew that she shouldn't have listened in on them, but it was partially her fault. She was the one who ratted on him, even though what he did wasn't right.
"Well, at least I found out the truth," she could hear Shikamaru say audibly. He seemed to have lost his usual drawl.
"What did you find out? That I like you? Well, I'm sorry, but give me back my diary and I'll write in it again, and then you'll see how much I like you." Ino's voice penetrated throughout the walls.
Sakura could see Rock Lee walked past her bedroom, before stopping by the stairs, waiting for Shikamaru's response.
"You don't mean that," Shikamaru said with a hint of softness in his voice.
"I do mean it."
"No you don't. I know you better than you think." If only they would stop fighting, maybe they would actually get a chance to tell the truth to each other.
"You don't know me better by reading my diary."
"It's not from reading your diary." He really didn't want to start a whole new argument with her.
"Then what is it?" she growled.
"I just know you," he said stoutly.
"Do you stalk me or something?"
Shikamaru scoffed, "Of course not." Shikamaru looked distained.
Ino gripped the end of her hair and looked over at Shikamaru with vindictiveness. "Why do you piss me off so much?"
"You should ask your hormones," Shikamaru grumbled, only loud enough for his own ears to hear. "Look, I know you because I do. I've known you for years. I know what you like to eat, and how you like to eat, where you shop, how you clean your room, your relationship with people around you, and how you feel around them. I even know-"
"Okay. Stop," Ino said, her face pensive, "just stop." She clenched her long mane even more firmly.
Amazingly, even for someone as stubborn as Shikamaru, he stopped talking.
"Look, you're right," she whispered, "I do have feelings for you. Both you and I know it. Known it, even. I'm sorry. Maybe we can make this work, but I don't want to argue right now." She meant it. After all these years of neglected of telling Shikamaru the truth of how she felt, she finally said it aloud. She admitted it.
A smile crept onto the brunette's face. "I knew it," he said with triumph. He leaned over to her and embraced her tightly. "For once, you don't want to argue."
Ino could smell the sweet scent of his shirt as her head was pressed against his chest. "You make it sound as if it were a debate or something."
"Well, every argument between us is like war," he said thoughtfully, "We yearn to win."
Ino rolled her eyes, then laughed. "Well, of course I feel I have to win. Losing against you would be so embarrassing."
"Unless we're playing shougi," he pointed out. He sure wasn't his usual lazy self today.
"That doesn't count. What chance do I have of winning a match against you?"
Shikamaru smirked. "None," he said defiantly.
A/N: Phew! I've finally finished! Again, I'm extremely sorry that it took me about… four weeks to update. Well, I suppose that's faster than the last update, but it's still far overdue. Again, I'd like to thank all the readers, and all the reviewers for everything. I never would have thought that I would have made it this far, and with this many reviews. So, thank you!
We're nearing the end! (A few more chapters, I think) The last chapter will probably be Sakura and Sasuke finally getting together.
I would like to thank my beta, evil-mittens.
Oh, and one more thing. In case you were wondering why Naruto, Hinata, and Kiba are completely neglected in this chapter, it's because I couldn't find somewhere where they would fit in nicely. I promise that next chapter, you'll be sure to see more of them. Sorry about that!
Dragon Man 180 - Hm, nothing drastic happened with Naruto and Hinata. I'm sorry that I couldn't incorporate them into the chapter. I felt bad for not mentioning Sasuke in the last chapter, so I started on his view first. Hm, and maybe some certain shinobis/kunoichis will be kicking Aniro's ass. Thanks for the review!
Moonlightpath; BrokenAngel,ForgivenDevil; RedLotusNin and IceHunterNin; Timeshifter; WaFFleS; Hinata-hime - Thanks for the review! Sorry for neglecting Sasuke in the last chapter, I hope this one somewhat made up for that. Hm, and I really do need to do something about Kiba. An OC might work.
Destiny852; warprince2000; Sephynarutocloud; Springninja; Kagome1015; Jai0rOku; Pandora the vamprire; Sevetenks the ultimate F- Thanks for the review! Sorry for the slow updates!
Joecool4 - Thanks so much for the review! I like your fanfic! I hope you continue! (I'm really sorry, I hope I didn't nag you too much about your story!)
AnimEvivvErz- Hm, where do I start? Thanks so much for the incredibly long review! (or essay!) You're too kind. I love pinky swear. I was tearing up reading it. Yah, I like the rain too. As long as I don't have to walk home in the rain. (call me lazy, but that's how I am.) It's actually super hot where I live, at the moment. I'm sure that a lot of people that live in warmer areas would say that I'm crazy. I'm not used to hot weather at the moment… Sorry for abandoning Sasuke in the last chapter! I hope this somewhat makes up for it! (Well, I neglected Naruto, Hinata, and Kiba, so it most likely won't) haha. They'll be in the next chapter. I promise. Thanks again!
200 IQ- Please, try not to swear abusively when you review. I don't know where to start with this. Your review confuses me. I'm going to try to be nice, but really, I clearly stated all the pairings of the story in the summary. If you have a big problem with the pairings, then please don't read it. If you're so pissed that everyone's pairing Sasuke and Sakura, and Ino and Shikamaru up, then again stop reading the stories that state those pairings in the summary. Don't go complaining about it, just because you don't like the pairings. Everyone has his or her own opinions, these are mine. This is fan fiction, in case that slipped your mind. Sasuke is back and I didn't put an AU in the summary because I planned and wrote this story before Sasuke even left. (I was only watching the anime at that point, and the anime wasn't even that far in) I assure you, Naruto knows more words then Sasuke-bastard, Sakura-chan, and ramen. One more thing, what you said about Sakura and Sasuke: "placing them together in such a vain fucking relationship." This makes me ponder if you're even reviewing for the right story or if you opened your mouth a little bit too early before reading it. At this point of the story, Sakura and Sasuke are currently not in a relationship together. I could go on, but I won't. I'm not going to waste my time. If you do read this, don't review. I'd rather be left in peace.
Blue jasmine- Thanks for the review! I'm glad you liked it! Hm, I sent you an e-mail, but since it'syou have ahotmail account, I think it might have gone straight to your junk-email, and it probably got deleted. I'll send you another one if you want, just drop a note.
I'm sorry for the huge authors note! I'll stop now. Again, thanks so much for reading!