-two-
It goes one by one, even two by two...

"Uhh, I hate you so much for leaving me with Sakura."

Shikamaru's lips curved slightly in a smile. "What's wrong? I thought you guys were best buds."

"I'm not friends with people who are delusional. She happens to fall under that category. Where are we going?"

Shikamaru did not answer; he just kept walking, hands in his pockets, eyes straight ahead. Ino rolled her eyes and walked beside him, not pursuing the question.

The sun was slowly starting to set and Konoha was cast in a lovely golden glow. Shikamaru loved this time of day the most. The late afternoon light made everything richer and more beautiful than it actually was. It hinted of a hidden world that was better than the one he was living in now. He always made sure he was outside when this time of day came around. And if he wasn't outside during the late afternoon, he would be sitting inside, sulking his head off.

He wasn't used to sharing his late afternoons with people other than himself. He usually liked being alone and the quiet calm it brought. But today, he let Ino tag along, telling himself that he wouldn't have been able to shake her off anyway.

It was hard to believe that he hadn't walked along this familiar road for almost an entire day. He felt like he was greeting an old friend as he walked, acknowledging the familiar trees, rocks, bushes, and flowers with his eyes. It had just been a day since the fire. But he felt like it had been ages ago since he last saw his house, still standing.

"Oh…oh, Shikamaru. I'm so sorry…"

Still a pile of ashes on the sorry, blackened ground.

Shikamaru did not hesitate. He stepped right into the charred ruins and started to walk farther into it. Ino did hesitate. She wavered at the edge, watching as he walked away from her. She wondered if it was her place to join him. She did not have the right to join him, certainly, but she wanted to be there, in case he needed comforting.

Shikamaru? Need comforting? Who was she kidding?

She did end up stepping into the ashes, though, because Shikamaru had found something largely still in intact and was staring at it, unmoving. Curiosity overcame Ino's indecision and propelled her forward.

Shikamaru had found a silver picture frame. The top and right side of the frame was twisted from heat and the glass had cracked in about a million places, but it was more together than anything else in the area. Shikamaru brushed imagery dust from the cracked glass and squinted at the picture within, as if he genuinely didn't know what it was.

They were all smiling. All three of them. Even little boy Shikamaru. He was in the center. His father was on his right and his mother was on his left. They were standing in front of the very house that had just burned down last night. It seemed that the day they took the picture had been a beautiful one. Shikamaru blinked his eyes rapidly, sensing that Ino was coming near him.

Things had changed since that picture. Changed a lot. His mother was long gone, now, dead from disease. And his house was gone.

But this picture had survived both. This was what he had come to the house for. To look for this. And it was amazing to him that he had actually managed to find it. Some dumb luck.

It almost made Shikamaru want to cry. Almost.

Ino had taken one look over Shikamaru's shoulder at the picture frame he was holding and covered her mouth with one hand. She could feel tears starting to pool in her eyes. Trust her, Miss Drama Queen, to get emotional at a time when she wished she could have been strong for the teammate standing next to her. It wasn't even her place to cry. She had no right. Why did she even come? She had no right to do anything on this trip.

"Let's go," Shikamaru said firmly, turning and starting to walk back to the main road. Ino was startled at his abruptness, but followed him obediently. She was glad to leave the place heavy with solemn memories. Her eyes stayed on the broken picture frame that Shikamaru had clutched in his hand by his side. The sunlight glinted off the distorted silver.

She probably knows I lied to her by now about not having anything important. Whatever. I don't give a crap.

--

"Oh, Shikaku! THAT WAS A GOOD ONE!" Ino's father roared heartily from across the table. Shikamaru sighed distastefully as his father agreed loudly and nearly knocked Shikamaru off his chair as he leaned in violently to slap a high five across the table. Shikamaru then groaned audibly and promptly slid out of his chair. If this was how it was going to be every dinner, he might as well go shoot himself right now.

He then noticed someone was missing from the table. There was Ino's father and mother, his father, himself (although technically he wasn't at the table anymore)…and where the hell was Ino?

She escaped already? Without telling me? Man, I'm gonna kill her…

Shikamaru hesitated. Maybe he should say something to tell them that he was excusing himself. Another round of raucous laughter rose from the dinner table, and he decided to forget manners. Ino, obviously, had been smart and done so long ago.

So, where could she have gone? Normally Shikamaru was completely fine being alone. But, since he was going to be living with her for god knows how long, might as well go and be friendly.

Shikamaru trudged up the stairs after making a brief sweep of the empty living room. He knocked on her room's closed door but nobody answered. The bathroom door was open, so she couldn't be in there. Deciding that he had made enough effort for today, he sighed tiredly and headed for the room that was now his, shoving the half open door more open with a shoulder.

He froze. Ino's head snapped up from bending over something.

"What are you doing?" he asked warily. What the hell are you doing in my room?

"Nothing," Ino said innocently. He could now see that there was one ear bud in her right ear that had a white cord snaking down to his…

"You have Teddy Geiger on your iPod?" she asked, holding up the electronic device with a smile. Shikamaru groaned inwardly. Great. Just perfect.

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me to delete it," he said, sitting down on the edge of his bed and watching as Ino's finger made circles on the iPod wheel. "Why were you looking through my stuff?"

"I wasn't looking through your stuff," she clarified, not even looking up at him. "I walked into your room and your iPod happened to be lying on your bed."

"And why were you walking into my room?" God, she is so damn annoying!

"You have Rihanna on here? Oh this is just too much!" Ino started to giggle and Shikamaru heard the slight buzzing of a steady bass as she selected a song. He rolled his eyes and stuck a hand in his pocket.

"Oh, yeah? Well, at least I don't have Hilary Duff," he said, pulling something out of his pocket and waving it slightly in the air. Ino looked up and her face went from amused to surprised. He was taunting her own iPod at her face.

"HEY!" she exclaimed, reaching for it. Shikamaru pulled it back out of her reach. "Since when did you start sneaking around in my room?"

"I wasn't sneaking around," Shikamaru said simply. "I walked into your room and your iPod happened to be lying on your desk."

"You jerk!" she accused, crawling forward to try and reclaim her possession. He pulled it out of her reach again.

"I want mine first," he demanded, holding out his other hand.

Ino sighed loudly. "Fine," she said, pulling the ear bud out of her ear and handing the whole thing over to Shikamaru. Shikamaru then handed her back her own iPod and she clutched it possessively. In seconds she had unraveled the earphones from around the body of her iPod and had plugged them into her ears, her index finger going around and around to find something to listen to.

Shikamaru watched her for a second, then shrugged to himself, putting ear buds into his own ears. Might as well join her in the music world. Join her? Yeah right. Fat chance he was going to listen to Hilary Duff.

They sat there for a long time, in collective silence and individual noise. It felt to Shikamaru like it had been hours when his father finally stuck his head through the door and saw the two of them just sitting there next to each other. Ino then left for her own room after that, and Shikamaru couldn't help but feel a little bit lonely when she was gone.

--

Shikamaru's body was tense. He was waiting. Waiting. Waiting…

Just attack already, Ino.

The breeze rustled the trees and bushes around him. It made him a little nervous, as it screwed with his straining ears. He had been hoping that she would make a sound when she started to attack so he could tell where she was coming from. But apparently nature was against him today.

He hated being out in the open. It took all his effort, practically, just to stay put in the middle of the clearing and not run for the cover of the nearby trees. First off, his shadow was miserably small, as it was nearing midday. And second off, the heat was making everything hazy. Standing in direct sunlight did fry your brain cells, apparently.

"Come on, come on," he muttered through gritted teeth, standing absolutely still. She sure was taking her sweet time. He was starting to regret training with her. Usually he didn't do one-on-one training with anybody, but she had begged him, so what the hell. He'd decided to give it a try. Who would have thought it was so damn taxing on the nerves…

"Think fast!" shouted her voice from behind him. He turned immediately and saw a kunai flying straight for his face. He dodged easily, feet scraping little dust clouds into existence and a smile forming on his lips. If this was all she was going to do, this was going to be too easy…

"Gotcha!" she said from directly behind him. He froze, feeling a sharp point digging into his back. What the…? "Shikamaru, you really suck at defending yourself from multiple attackers. I made a clone. Geez, for a genius, you sure are dumb."

It was true, he did need work on defense from multiple attackers. And it was also true that he needed to practice using more than just his shadow possession jutsus to fight. But, honestly, she was pushing it. Just a little.

"I'm not dumb, Ino," he said, spinning around and grabbing the kunai she had been holding against his back. His hand completely enveloped hers around the hilt of the knife and she scowled.

"You still suck," she said, slipping her hand from his grasp. "Let's go again."

"Again? Come on," Shikamaru complained. "We've been at this all morning and half the time you don't even attack. I'm just standing here, baking in the sun."

"I'm trying to build up the pressure," she protested. You're doing a good job, Shikamaru admitted grudgingly.

"Well, I'm hungry. I'm going to town to go eat," Shikamaru stated firmly, turning and starting to walk away. Ino pouted but then trotted up next to him as they exited the clearing.

--

"Come on, Ino, hurry it up a little, would you?" Shikamaru asked, leaning heavily on his hand that was propped up by an elbow on the table. His ramen bowl was already empty, with just an oily soup and sauce mixture remaining. Ino's bowl, however, was practically still halfway full.

Ino didn't like being rushed when eating. She bit into a mouthful of noodles and then made a face at her teammate sitting beside her. He rolled his eyes. "Very attractive," he commented.

"I know," she said, chewing and swallowing her ramen and then clicking her chopsticks together to scoop up some more. "I'm a slow eater, okay? So chill out. You were the one that wanted to get food and so now you're paying the price." In more ways than one, she thought with a mental grin.

Tell me about it, Shikamaru grumbled to himself.

A couple minutes passed by with the only sound being the clamor of the cooks of the shop and Ino's steady slurping. Then Shikamaru heard two sets of footsteps stop behind him and Ino. He turned to look over his shoulder, curious.

"Hey, look who we ran into, Neji," Tenten said with a grin, sitting down on the stool next to Ino. Ino looked up with a bunch of noodles still in the process of being sucked into her mouth. She gave Tenten a small wave as she continued to devour her ramen.

Neji looked at Shikamaru and Shikamaru looked at Neji. They both nodded at each other in greeting. Ino watched the exchange with amused eyes. The traditional manly exchange. No words, just nods. How idiotic.

"So what are you guys up to?" Tenten inquired casually, giving the menu a once over as Neji sat down on the other side of her.

Ino swallowed her food before she spoke. "We trained for a while. How about you two?"

Tenten smiled. "Same. It's a hot day, huh?"

See, Ino liked Tenten. Tenten was the kind of girl that wouldn't take the sight of a boy and a girl together the wrong way. She understood the value of being close friends with a guy, as her best friend was pretty much the Hyuuga sitting next to her. She wasn't like Sakura, Miss Let's-Over-Analyze-Every-Little-Thing.

"Tell me about it," Ino agreed, fishing around for the last of her noodles. She had heard a rumor somewhere that Tenten was crushing on the prodigy, but, hey, it was only a rumor. She had probably heard it from Sakura, no less. And anything heard from Sakura was always worth questioning.

Finally, she's done, Shikamaru was thinking, while Tenten and Ino were having their little conversation. Now we can leave this shop and go far away from this Hyuuga guy. He always gives me the creeps…

"Hey, I know," Tenten remarked after she had ordered her ramen and was waiting for it to come. "Why don't the two of you join the two of us for a training session? We could have, like, a two-on-two or something."

Ino thought it over while Shikamaru furiously sent her mental messages to turn the offer down. The last thing he needed was to have to fight that Hyuuga guy. Ino, however, was mulling it over in earnest and when she opened her mouth, her response wasn't exactly what Shikamaru had had in mind.

"That's a great idea!" she declared, clasping her hands together in a manner that suggested she was delighted. Oh, just perfect, Shikamaru groaned inwardly. Now I'll just be lucky to get home in one piece…oh wait, home? What home? "Don't you think that's a great idea, Shikamaru? We were getting bored training by ourselves anyway, so what could possibly be better than training with them?"

I could think of many things…

"Yeah…that's a, uh, great idea."

Shikamaru turned to look the other way and scowled. The things I do for this girl…

A/N: So. There's that. I've decided to name the chapters from a line of a song that has something to do with the scene/story/chapter. It's kind of weird, but I just wanted to do something unique. Maybe when this thing gets long, you can click on the chapter drop down menu and kind of see a little poem made up of lines from whole bunches of different songs. I wonder how that will turn out. Haha. And I think you should try to guess what song I got my one line from. Just to make things fun.

Oh, and the other thing I wanted to talk about was iPods. Obviously, they don't have any in reality but screw reality for this story, okay? You basically already did with disregarding the whole original plotline. So just stretch it a little more for me. Humor me.

Thank you so much for my fabulous readers and reviewers. Feedback is always appreciated, certainly this early on into a story. c:

Until NEXT TIME!