Thankyou so much to my three lovely reviewers who I love with all my heart.

UE: to you, the perky voice of fangirl/boying, thankyou for your beautiful review which brightened my day, inflated my ego and made me feel ready to tackle this chapter. And don't worry, shikamaru will most definitely be wearing glasses, not contacts. This is the first time that someone has said a fic of mine rulz (I think)!

Tami: to you, the calm voice of constructive criticism, thankyou for sparing my fragile feelings by merely stating that the chapter was not action-packed. I cringe to say that probably this chapter will not be either…but please stick around. And ARGH for the proof-reading. I swear that all those words weren't like that when I read it. Please believe me, please?

And finally to flare2: to you, the kindly passerby who spared an encouraging word for this fic, thankyou. Your review tipped the scales and made me believe that maybe that more than three people (including me) would be interested in reading this fic.

Hehehe, now that that's done…oh yeah, I don't own Naruto. If I did…(insert sleazy/humourous/plain freaky plan here).

Contacts or Glasses?

"Nara Shikamaru?"

Anyone else would have jerked upright at the sudden shattering of the peaceful waiting room silence by a rasping voice that bore resemblance to the sound of fingernails drawn sharply across a blackboard.

As it was, Shikamaru merely winced slightly, then dragged himself up off the scratched wooden surface of the bench on which he had been lying, oblivious to the disapproving stares of the sixty something year old women in the corner.

After all, (they muttered), you would think that one of Konoha's most valuable jounin would have the decency to behave with some dignity in public!

The owner of the screeching blackboard voice, a slim, leggy brunette with a face like a Barbie Doll, glanced up at Shikamaru, then briefly consulted a clipboard in her left hand.

"Ah yes, you've come to have an eye test and possibly a prescription then?" she asked.

Shikamaru winced again. Damn this chick was pretty hot, but didn't receptionists usually have bright, perky voices? Way to break the mould…

"Yes that's right, I think I might be short-sighted…" he was cut off as the girl interrupted him, her vocal chords scratching and seeming to shriek in protest to her words.

"Ok then, Haruno-sensei will see you now. Follow me please."

And with that, she turned and walked briskly down the sterile beige corridor. Shikamaru followed her slowly, trying to get the images of fingernails and scarred blackboards out of his head. Fortunately, this exercise was helped by observation of her excessively long legs and swaying hips as he slouched along behind her.

They stopped at door at the end of the corridor and the banshee-voiced Barbie doll knocked lightly. A muffled "Come in" came from the other side and the receptionist stepped back, holding the door open for Shikamaru as he hurried inside before the banshee could torture him…whoops, could say anything else.

And there, sitting against one wall, was the most fiercesome-looking chair apparatus Shikamaru had ever seen.

Kind of looks like a dentist chair, but one equipped for the purpose of drilling your head open and sucking out your brains…or maybe your eyes…he thought, as his gaze shifted to the piece that overhung in front of the chair at face level.

I don't want to put my face near that thing…man this is troublesome…

A familiar voice brought to him attention, which in Shikamaru's case meant that he lazily turned his head just enough to bring the speaker into his line of vision, while keeping his eyes half shut.

"Hey, Shikamaru, how've you been," came the perky voice of one Haruno Sakura, highly respected medic nin and capable kunoichi.

Over the last few years Sakura had matured and improved her medical skills, grown into her over-sized forehead, and now broke young masculine shinobi hearts with a delicately featured face of surpassing beauty, framed by glossy pink locks that set off her clear green eyes.

Unfortunately for Shikamaru, all he could make out at the moment was a rather pale, skin coloured oval, surrounded by pink and set with two more bright green ovals, below which hovered a pair of pink lips of an indistinct shape.

"Not bad," he said, moving surreptitiously closer to her and squinting hard. It was really annoying being unable to read her facial expressions clearly. "What on earth are you doing here? You're practically at Tsunade's level. Wouldn't you be needed for more urgent cases?"

Sakura smiled at the inadvertant compliment and, taking the lazy jounin's arm, led him to the fiercesome brain-sucking chair of doom and pushed him to sit down.

"I only got back recently from a mission. It was pretty gruelling. Tsunade-sensei thought I should have a temporary break. Plus, I thought it would be interesting to see how my skills are with healing normal civilians as well as shinobi. After all, though it's hard to remember somtimes, Konoha isn't just about people like us, is it?"

Shikamaru looked/squinted at Sakura/the fuzzy blur with some respect. It was true; many shinobi did tend to forget about the everyday civilians who worked in the background, completing the menial and not-so-menial ordinaary tasks, keeping Konoha functioning normally.

He couldn't remember last time he had thought about civilians that way, rather than as faceless people who usually got in the way of missions or the old man at Ichiraku who, according to Naruto, should be revered as a demi-god because of his ramen-making powers.

Then again, everyone is looking pretty faceless and fuzzy at the moment…my eyes feel like they're getting worse…argh…but speaking of civilians…

"Hey Sakura, that's a pretty hot receptionist out there, shame about her voice though," he commented absently, feeling uncomfortable as Sakura fiddled and adjusted the peculiar contraption resembling spectacles that she had placed on his nose.

She stopped in mid-fiddle and stared at him. "Huh? Hot receptionist? You don't mean Sachie?" Concern in her face struggled with the smirk that tugged at her shapely lips. It was a losing battle.

"Hmm, I think that's a sign we better get to checking these eyes of yours, Shikamaru sweetie." An audible chuckle escaped her.

What does she mean by that? The jounin wondered (AN: yep, you guessed it) lazily.

For the next twenty minutes, Shikamaru stared at the chart on the opposite wall, trying toidentify letters and symbols, distinguish which colours seemed brighter and answering Sakura's questions as she slipped lenses of different strengths into the peculiar frames clamped to his face.

At last Sakura rose from the stool on which she had perched and spent a few minutes looking over the notes she had scribbled, smirking.

"Congratulations, Shikamaru, you're only half blind." The smirk dropped into a scowl as she stared at her patient in the seat.

He was fast asleep.

"Typical Shikamaru," she muttered to herself. She had been just about to have some fun taunting him about having the eyesight of a 55 year old, but oh well. Other people would do it for her. The sight of Shikamaru in glasses would be too funny.

Sakura giggled at the thought of the lazy shadow user in round steel-rimmed glasses like Yakushi Kabuto, the light reflecting off them in a sinister fashion as Shikamaru snored under a tree or sat playing a game of go with Asuma.

She snickered even louder at the thought of him wearing large horn-rimmed glasses like a ninja she had seen at the chuunin exams, or little old lady pince nez while battling S class criminals.

He might even pick up that annoying habit of pushing up his glasses all the time. How funny would it be if he did that while holding someone in the Kagemane no Jutsu? At that thought, Sakura clutched her stomach and laughed freely.

Unless…he picks contact lenses instead of glasses…Sakura's face dropped, then brightened. He won't if I tell him how much maintenance and troublesome work they require…

She glanced back at the snoring jounin on the chair. Now, what did Ino always say was the best way too wake him up quickly? Oh yeah, continued and repetitive beatings accompanied by incessant screeching...

Strong men in the waiting room turned pale and mothers covered their children's ears at the sounds that could be heard from the consulting room. Even Sachie (AN: the "scraping-blackboard-with-fingernails" voiced receptionist) began to look disturbed.

A particularly piercing screech caused three young chuunin to flee the room, babbling that they must have mistakenly entered the ANBU interrogation department. Then, there was silence.

"Alright, alright, I'm awake…you didn't have to scream the place down…troublesome…"

Glad to see that he was finally awake, Sakura cleared her throat and looked down at Shikamaru's mangled form on the ground.

"Now, I have already explained exactly what is wrong with your eyes, but you slept through all that, and I am NOT going to repeat myself, so just leave everything to me and answer one question." He blinked up at her, body aching and ears still ringing from her "wake up call".

"What?"

"Contacts or glasses?"

"Which one is more troublesome?" he asked, closing his eyes again, missing the smirk that tilted up the corners of the medic's pink lips, lending her a frightening resemblance to a certain Sharingan-wielding bishounen.

"Definitely contacts. They can cause eye infections if not rinsed twice daily, they are expensive to replace, they can cause horrific damage to-" she was cut off in mid-sentence by a half hearted flap of the shadow user's hand, which could be interpreted as a gesture of consent.

"Whatever. Glasses are good. Whatever is less troublesome," Nara Shikamaru said, before letting his hand flop back down and shifting on the floor so as to be able to see the clouds out the window of the consulting room.

Sakura grinned. Shikamaru in glasses. She could hardly wait. This will be the best laugh…

AN: Ok, so how was that? Not too bad? Ok, I SWEAR next chapter will have shikamaru in glasses…then the fun begins…(evil grin). Please review. I love encouraging one liners!

Felt better about this chapter, probably coz I didn't write it at 2am like I did the last one…argh. Still in Korea. Can't wait to get back home and catch up on all the naruto episodes I've missed!

I'm drawing on my own experience as a short-sighted person who had glasses and now wears contacts and who has visited the optometrist (my uncle!) to write this. And if you think Sakura's comment about being half blind was weird, that's what my uncle says to people (he's brutally honest and a LITTLE off centre…). Anyway…