He was just about to lose it when he was interrupted.

"Excuse me?" he heard a voice behind him and he rejoiced inwardly.

He couldn't leave the kid but he couldn't ignore a customer either.

He turned to see a girl behind him, maybe fourteen, fifteen at most. Her head jerked in surprise when he faced her and her eyes and voice went straight to would-be sultry. "Where can I find some..." She looked confused for a moment. "... tools?"

He had to bite his cheek in order to contain a chuckle because not only was younger girls not his gig but neither was ditzy.

"What're you lookin' for?" he answered with a question.

"Uh…" She hesitated and he waited patiently because this was a hardware store and even though they got a lot of girls there who knew what they were doing, they also got a ton of airheads. "…I need a hammer and some nails." She finished, looking unsure.

"Third aisle and I'll be right behind you."

She nodded, a little disappointment evident in her eyes (probably because he hadn't rolled over and asked for her number simply because she batted her lashes) and walked towards the aisle.

That's when Kiba turned to Inari, extremely tired of their game, and plucked the cone right out of his hands.

"Hey!" Inari cried. "That's mine!"

Kiba dropped the cleaning cloth from his hand and walked away from the counter. On his way to the aisle, he dropped the cone right in the dustbin and called over his shoulder, "I'll buy you five tomorrow and you'll eat them outside, brat."

"You jerk!" Inari called him what he always called him, but he lacked his usual fervor, probably considering the idea if not completely mollified with the thought of five ice cream cones.

Kiba sighed as he approached the girl and pointed out the types of hammer and nails she might like.

His life was chaos, starting with his mother and sister, school and the crap-load of homework he already had awaiting him at home, not to mention Inari being an annoyingly irritating aspect of his job and younger girls (like, younger) eyeing him all weird for some completely unhinged reason.

It was utter chaos.

It was also contenting.

—* * *—

Kiba was changing out of the collared white employee shirt in the back room at twelve after seven. He thanked God Tsunami had swung by and picked up her little monster (how he was her son, Kiba would never know, she was sweet as pie and that kid was a piece of work) some while after Kiba had dumped his cone. After she'd left him and the others who worked there a batch of freshly baked cookies, Kiba had taken a seat, popped one in his mouth and kicked back. Tazuna wasn't around to frown at him for his relaxed ways and it was a slow day which was always something rare but hardly unwelcome.

He grabbed his employee shirt, stuffed it in his locker and wasted no time in getting out of there. He was off the clock and no way was he sticking around when he had the crap ton of homework Genma expected him to complete awaiting him when he got home.

He walked down the aisles and spotted a familiar blonde waiting for him at the entrance.

"Yo!" Naruto greeted as he walked up to Kiba.

"Hey." Kiba furrowed his eyebrows. He was pretty sure they didn't have game night with the guys tonight so Naruto couldn't possibly be here to pick him up. "What're you doin' here?"

Just then, the door behind them to the store opened and Kiba whirled to see, no joke, Sakura, Ino and Hinata strolling in, looking as if they came to Tazuna's every day (and they sure as fuck didn't). They stepped in and paused at the entrance, regarded the store in a cool manner—that was, until Ino squealed in delight and rushed off to section of the girlie wallpaper samples.

Kiba didn't know what to make of the fact that these girls, the untouchable ones, were now strolling into a hardware store with various bags (and reading the labels, Kiba saw that most of them were shoes) and containers of frozen yoghurt in their hands. And why were they even eating that, anyway? Didn't girls like that scream, melt or simply evaporate when they accidentally inhaled sugar?

With a glance at Naruto, he saw that his friend was also stunned into oblivion.

It was reasonable, really. This was not exactly the place that came to mind when someone wanted to spot the town's sweethearts. Vell's, maybe. Not Tazuna's.

Then he saw Sakura's gorgeous green eyes land on him and Naruto and then she gave them a brilliant smile, as if they were long lost friends (well, okay, Naruto probably kind of was) which was weird because even though Kiba wasn't blind and he knew she was fucking gorgeous, they only exchanged one word whenever they saw each other and that was either "Hey" or "Yo", depending on how he felt.

Even though this whole event made it to Kiba's top ten of all the weirdest things that he'd ever seen (and damn, he'd seen serious weird shit which was a given considering he was a chameleon and a sponge, always adapting to a situation quickly, and continuously blending and soaking), he battled the urge to look for any hidden cameras (since this had to be a joke) and called out to her, "Somethin' you need?"

There was no hesitation when she approached him, Hinata with her. "Yes, please. We need to do some painting. Do you have the Grey 2.0, the one Vell's carries? And the accents for feature walls, in silver? Or better yet, do you have a booklet thingy where I could just check out some samples?"

Kiba nodded to cover up his immense shock at the fact that Sakura Haruno, a girl so immensely sophisticated and refined that she shone of it, was dirtying her hands with a task as mundane as buying paint.

He headed over to the table, grabbed a booklet and handed it to her. Then he went back to the table and looked around for someone to stay with the girls and get them what they needed. He caught Kiri's eyes across the back, a junior in Konoha University who worked the night shifts at the store, and then signaled him to take over with the customers. Kiri wound his way over to Sakura and Hinata, said something to them, they nodded and then he began leading them down the sixth aisle.

"That was weird," stated Naruto from behind him.

"Yeah." Kiba said. No kidding. Then he refocused back on his friend. "You never said what you were doin' here."

Naruto shrugged. "Got nothing going on. Been wonderin' about it for a while now. Decided today to finally haul ass here and ask."

This made absolutely no sense to Kiba so he just raised his eyebrows and waited.

"Want a job, man."

Kiba's head jerked back in surprise. "What?"

Naruto wanted a job. A job. To work.

This was sure as fuck an interesting day.

Naruto shrugged again. "Nothing regular. Weekends, every now and then. And it's not like I couldn't use the pay."

Kiba stared at the counter, thinking he could see this. Even though after his parents' death Naruto had become the sole recipient of a large amount of constant wealth (something most of Konoha had), he only got an almost-generous allowance every month instead of the real thing. To get the whole thing, he'd have to be eighteen, something which was only about two months away.

Kiba could share his feelings about it. When Kiba's dad cheated on his mom and she found out, she divorced his ass and totally cleaned him out, which was cool, considering the guy was a doctor and he was pretty damn rich. But it was far from cool that Kiba was permitted only about a tiny fraction of an allowance from it.

His eyes went back to Naruto.

He was far from needy but if he wanted a job, he'd get a job.

"I'll talk to Tazuna." Kiba replied and Naruto's face split into a grin.

"Thanks, dude."

"Yeah, whatever."

For this reason, this deepened his friend's smile into a shit-eating one. "Boy, am I gonna fucking love working with you."

Kiba stared at him for a few confused seconds before it hit him. "You wouldn't."

Naruto simply kept grinning.

No.

Kiba groaned.

Inari.

And now Naruto.

With that, what he could look forward to was two annoying aspects to his job.

He'd just fucked himself and did it royally.

Christ.

"That one looks like a cow."

That was Chouji.

They were staring at the clouds on their backs, in the grass under the huge tree by the side, their usual spot in Konoha Park, with the sun going down in the horizon.

Shikamaru snorted. "That's no fuckin' cow. It's a duck."

"Dude, it's a cow. How is it even a duck? Just look at it."

"It's a duck."

"A cow."

"Duck."

"Cow."

They fell into comfortable silence, which was how it'd been since kindergarten when Shikamaru got bored in class and snuck up on the roof to watch the clouds, finding that Chouji also snuck up there to get away for a peace of mind often. Once, Shikamaru had tired of seeing Chouji sitting on the seat in the corner and invited him to watch clouds with him. And just like that, they'd become best friends.

Since then, they'd carried on with the proud tradition of cloud-watching together.

Suddenly, Chouji cleared his throat and began, "Uh… how'd it go? The first day of school, I mean? Better than last year?"

Shikamaru frowned at the leaves overhead. It had been a couple of hours since they met up and now it had to be around seven. His mom was going to lose it if he was late for dinner and would hand him shit (something that never failed to amuse his dad), so he needed to get up and get going with a ten minute headstart on the fifteen minute walk from North Park to his house on Zipper's.

Zipper's was a well-known, reputable residential and was just like Cherry Street in every sense except for the fact that Zipper's was way more fucking crowded (also, Cherry Street was near the lake, whereas Zipper's was a little further away).

Chouji had it good, of course, living at Cherry Street. He didn't need fucking headstarts to get there in time for dinner.

But then again, Chouji was always on time for dinner. Even though the guy had lost a ton of weight since last year, he liked food and made no bones about it.

Personally, Shikamaru considered everyone rich and famous to reside in Cherry Street or Zipper's. No fucking way could anyone not rolling in it be at Cherry or Zipper's.

But then again, that was Konoha. Money was one of the perks of living in a well-off small town.

Shikamaru sighed before turning to his best friend. "Anything would be better than last year, Chouji."

Chouji smiled. "Ain't that right?"

That's when Shikamaru knew he was pushing his luck, got to his feet, brushed the blades of grass off his jeans and looked to Chouji.

"Gonna take off now."

Chouji gave him a chin lift and reminded him, "Touch base with me tomorrow."

"Will do. Later."

"Later, Shika."

He made the brisk walk out of Konoha Park and turned down at Cross. There, he passed by the ever-growing crowd at the mall and spared Tazuna's a glance, slowing down for a second when he spotted Kiba and Naruto through the glass double doors. Kiba was standing with his hands at his hips, wearing a pained expression and even though Naruto's back was to him, he could see his mouth moving and he was saying something to Kiba.

It was around the time Kiba got off work, Shikamaru knew. Whatever warranted Naruto's arrival and Kiba staying late, he didn't know.

Maybe he could swing by, see if they wanted to join him on his walk home, seeing as they lived at Zipper's too.

That's when he saw her.

Ino, arms flowing with shopping bags, coming up behind Kiba and impatiently gesturing at some sort of booklet in her hand.

Bitch could shop.

She and her girls could always shop.

She could also be an annoyingly hysterical customer, something she was no doubt doing right now as Kiba's expression went from pained to harassed within a simple second and he turned from Naruto towards her.

Then as she proceeded to rant at Kiba, Shikamaru thought about her. He thought about what a great friend she'd been, then what a horrible girlfriend. Then he thought about the ugly break up. Then he decided to stop thinking about shit related to Ino because that was the only way he'd ever find peace.

Suddenly, she looked up over Kiba's shoulder and caught Shikamaru's gaze and promptly froze.

No, he thought. Fuck no. He turned sharply back to the road. She could make her wounded eyes at someone else. No fucking way was he getting reeled into shit he was glad he was free of.

With that thought in mind, he strode through towards Zipper's when what just happened truly hit him. He'd just avoided his friends because of his shit with Ino.

He changed his actions to accommodate her existence.

This was alarming.

He was going to have to do something about this, outline barriers, make fences, strengthen the gap, highlight where she stood when it came to him and his life.

And she'd better stand far, far away.

Because if he didn't make it so, he could be changing his life to mold it to Ino's whims whether she knew it or not and no… fucking… way was that ever happening again.

Ever.

He quickened his pace and laced his decision with steel; ready to deliver the blow to his ex-bitch whenever he could that she was to retreat.

He didn't imagine she'd take it well.

He also didn't fucking care.

She'd played with matches when he told her getting together was a bad idea. She didn't listen. She never fucking listened.

And now that there was fire, and definitely not the good kind, she was the one acting hurt.

He had a pretty damn high IQ. So why couldn't he be rid of his recklessness? All that idiocy that led him here in the first place? Jesus, what was he even thinking when he got into it with Ino? He was so done with the whole last year bullshit.

He hoped everyone else was too, because no matter what he did, he couldn't shake the feeling that the mess of all that was Konoha High was going to get messier. There was no doubt about the fact that he'd dug himself out of a ditch when last year ended. But he had the nagging sensation that he was going to end up back in the ditch again, only this time it'd be deeper.

He wasn't loving this.

Glancing at his wristwatch, he realized he hadn't really hurried by much considering he was late by two minutes. Man, was Ma going to lay into him big time.

Another thing he really needed right now.

Fuck him.