A/N: Boys will be boys. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

"Happy birthday, Choji."

He set down his gift, which was bulky and wrapped in copious layers of paper and ribbon. Choji tore into it to reveal a giant hamper of his favourite foods, much to his delight, as well as some butterfly-shaped shuriken.

"Wow, thanks Shikamaru! It looks awesome."

He shrugged. "Thanks for being my best friend all these years."

Choji patted him on the back and smiled.

"Come in! The party's just getting started. Where's Temari?"

"She…couldn't make it. She sends her apologies and birthday wishes."

He was initially perplexed, but quickly forgot about it. "That's too bad. I'll catch her some other time. The rest of the guys are on the sofa trying to catch grapes in their mouths if you wanna join."

He laughed. "I think I'll grab a beer first."

Shikamaru headed for the fridge and grabbed an ice cold Asahi from the inside shelf. As he shut the door, Ino appeared.

"Shikamaru!" she cried, giving him a brief hug. "I haven't seen you around for a week. Did Kakashi send you on an A-rank mission again?"

He smiled. "No, nothing like that. Just busy with paperwork, that's all."

"Well, it still proves how important you are to the village," Ino affirmed. "I hope you still made time to see Temari. You're all she ever talks about."

His heart felt like it was breaking all over again, though it hadn't healed at all either. Nevertheless, he put on a familiar grin. "Really? I never suspected that."

"Well, it's all she ever talks about to me anyway," Ino amended. "You're pretty much the only common ground we have."

He smiled to himself. "You won't need to search for anything else. We broke up."

Ino's eyes popped. "WHAT?!"

"Shh!" Shikamaru quickly hushed her with his finger. "Don't make a big deal out of it."

"But it's a HUGE deal!" Ino insisted. In a quieter voice, she asked, "What happened, Shikamaru? Are you okay?"

He sighed. "A lot of things were said, and she ended it. Her personal life interfered with her professional life, so she wanted to return to Suna. That was the gist of it."

Ino looked sympathetically at him. "Sometimes things just don't work out the way you want them to, I guess."

"Does anyone really know what they want, though?" he quizzed. Realising he would probably start ranting if he wasn't careful, he composed himself. "Anyway, now you know. Just don't tell everyone, please?"

She nodded in understanding. "I won't, promise. But when did this happen?"

"About a week ago."

"Shikamaru!" she exclaimed. "It's been a week and you didn't think to let me know? I thought we were close friends?"

"We are," he said. "But honestly, I've been trying to forget about it myself."

She looked sadly at him. "Time heals all wounds."

"Let's hope that's true."

"I just don't understand…" she whispered. "Why would she just…leave? That's not like Temari at all."

"She probably has troubles of her own to worry about," he suggested. "And involving me would've been too much."

"But…she loved you."

He was silent.

"I mean, she did love you, didn't she?"

"I don't know anymore, Ino. It's been a very troublesome week for me emotionally. But if she's going to move on with her life, so am I."

"That's a good attitude to have," Ino said encouragingly. Then she caught the eye of a particular someone walking past. "Hey, Shiho!" she called. "Come say hi."

The bespectacled girl walked in and greeted them, blushing as her gaze fell on Shikamaru.

"Shikamaru-san, it's nice to see you here," she said sweetly.

Shikamaru was on edge. He knew exactly what Ino had in mind and his gut reaction was to get out of the situation. But that wouldn't be socially acceptable, and Ino would probably kill him. So he simply stood there, smiled and conducted his social graces.

"I need to go refill the punch bowl. You two reminisce over your time in the intelligence department!" Ino said brightly, and in the next second, she was gone.

"So, I didn't realise you and my teammates were good friends?"

"Well, actually, neither of them invited me," Shiho admitted, fiddling with the arms of her glasses. "Sakura did."

Sakura? he thought to himself, puzzled. Then he remembered she was the first to know about his breakup. So this is what she meant by bouncing back…

"That was nice of her," he murmured, half paying attention.

"Yes, it was," Shiho agreed. "Although I think it was because she feels sorry for me. We first met when she was helping the Fifth after Lord Jiraiya's passing, and I confessed I didn't really have friends in my own generation since I'm not a shinobi."

"Did you ever think about becoming one when you were younger?"

"No, I let my brothers take care of that," she said innocently. "It's kind of a man's duty, don't you think?"

All he could think about was how Temari would never take that lying down. She and him had bickered a thousand times over this sort of thing, and she was always right.

"I suppose," he replied airily.

"I heard you were promoted to jonin recently," she smiled. "Congratulations!"

"Yeah," he said. "Although it only means more responsibility."

"Wow," she said, genuinely amazed. "I always knew you were very talented, Shikamaru-san. The people who become jonin at your age or younger, they're the really impressive ones."

He had a perfect example in his mind.

"Well, I should go…I have an early start tomorrow morning. It was really nice chatting," she chimed, then quickly scribbled something on a tissue lying on the counter. "Here's my number," she said, thrusting it into his hand with a newfound confidence that she worried would not last any longer than a few seconds. "We should hang out sometime. I really enjoyed working with you, you know."

She left to say goodbye to Sakura, while Shikamaru simply stood there with a crumpled tissue in his palm. He tried to make sense of what had just happened, but thought it better to breeze past it. So he returned to the living room, dropping the tissue in the bin on the way out of the kitchen.

"There you are!"

Before his eyes was a shock of blond hair that was unmistakably Naruto's. "I was wondering where you were all evening."

"I've been here for an hour, Naruto."

"Oh," he said blankly. "Huh. Well, you've clearly been hiding from me then."

"Or you were too preoccupied catching grapes in your mouth."

"Twenty-one in a row, you know!" he exclaimed proudly. Then his smile faded as he muttered, "Although Choji managed thirty-five."

Shikamaru laughed. "What did you expect?"

Naruto shrugged. "At least I beat Kiba."

"He isn't hard to beat."

"Shut up, Shikamaru!" Naruto replied irritably. "You seem to have it all figured out. Let's see how many you can catch."

"I'll pass, thanks," he droned. "I think I'm just gonna head home."

"So soon?" Naruto asked. "The night is still young!"

"The last thing I need is an alcohol-fuelled evening of regrets," said Shikamaru. "You guys have fun."

"What's gotten into you?" Naruto wondered. "Did the scary Sand lady hurt your feelings?" he teased.

Shikamaru looked at him morosely. "She broke up with me."

The colour drained from Naruto's face. "Seriously?"

"Yeah."

Without further discussion, Naruto dragged Shikamaru towards the door and called over the rest of the boys.

"Where are we going?" Shikamaru asked anxiously.

"The bar. We're getting you drunk."

Naruto and Choji, having essentially tied themselves to Shikamaru, plonked their lanky friend down on a bar stool and the rest of the guys surrounded him, leaving him with no escape route. He sighed.

"This is a bad idea."

"As they say, alcohol is the best cure for a broken heart."

"No one says that."

"Shut up and drink, Shikamaru."

They pinned him to his seat as Choji ordered some shots from the bartender. "Make that six rounds," he added.

Shikamaru's eyes bugged. "You guys…"

"You want to forget about her, don't you? This is how you do it," Naruto claimed.

"What if I don't want to forget about her?"

"Well, you at least want to forget about the heartache, right?"

He couldn't argue with that. So he inhaled deeply, took the shot glass from Kiba's hands and knocked it back.

"That's right," Kiba grinned. "Who needs a bitch like her, anyway?"

"Don't call her that," Shikamaru snapped. "That's not for you to decide."

"This is good, let out all those pent-up emotions," Kiba said encouragingly. "All the anger, the resentment, the frustration." He handed his friend another shot.
Shikamaru downed it in one go. "It must be bad if I'm realising you're right."

"Thank goodness you're awake."

Shikamaru looked up and noticed he was sitting in one of the booths in the corner of the bar with Choji, Naruto, Kiba, Lee, Sai and Shino eyeing him intently.

"What happened?"

"It doesn't matter," Kiba muttered. "You won't remember any of this tomorrow, anyway."

Shikamaru sighed. "I miss her."

"We know."

"I love her."

"We know that, too."

"I just can't believe she…she just left like that," he complained, his words still slightly incoherent. "I just…why?"

"I can't believe it wasn't the first thing you thought to tell me today," Choji grumbled. "I'm your best friend, man. I'm supposed to know you inside and out."

"I didn't want to spoil your birthday," he mumbled in response.

"Sit up, Shikamaru," Choji instructed him, to which he grudgingly obeyed. It took him a solid minute to muster the physical competence to prop himself up on his elbows, then actually sit up.

"Fuck," he groaned, clutching his temple. "Got up too fast."

"Too fast? You took an eternity-"

"Shut up, Kiba," Sai muttered, and for once, on cue.

"We should get him back home," Lee suggested.

"Are you kidding? If his mom sees him like this, she'll have a fit!" Choji exclaimed. "Naruto, go get him some water. He'll sober up in no time once he flushes it all out of his system."

Naruto complied, while Shikamaru continued rambling. "I don't know if she feels the same, and she said a lot of things and I'm just so confused and this is all one troublesome mess and she has no idea." He paused. "Hey Kiba, why are there three of you?"

Naruto returned with a pitcher of water and a glass. He handed them to Choji who poured and then held the water to Shikamaru's mouth.

"Drink."

"Noouhhhh," he slurred. "No more drinking. Everything is spinning. And spinning. Round and round and round and round…"

"It's water, Shikamaru. Drink some water. Everything will stop spinning once you chug down this glass."

Shikamaru sat still for a moment and eyed the glass carefully. "If this is vodka, I swear to God…"

Choji sighed and tipped the glass between Shikamaru's lips before he could protest. Shikamaru spluttered at first, but eventually the glass was empty.
Choji wiped Shikamaru's mouth with a napkin. "Better?"

His best friend nodded. "More," was all he could cough in reply.

After draining the pitcher of its contents and a hasty trip to the men's room, Shikamaru was finally feeling stable enough to head home. Nonetheless, he was helped from the bar to his door by Naruto and Choji.

"Now remember," Choji whispered. "If you wake your mom, focus on one of her pupils and with any luck you'll stand still. But whatever the case, head straight to your bed with minimal fuss."

"Got it," Shikamaru said, although he'd already half-forgotten the advice. "Sorry I ruined your party, Choji."

"Don't worry about it, man," Choji replied breezily. "Ino's great at these things. I'm sure she had it all under control in my absence."

"Happy birthday, again. Thanks for everything."

"Night, Shikamaru."