Author's Note:

Kuinichiwa! Well, here's your twelfth chapter! I'd like to thank I-Like-Pineapples, Crazy Kunoichi Tenten, BlazingStorm, Strawberry shake, and kittenkat18! I had a great set of reviews for my last chapter!

Two authors wanted me to do two different things to the story. One, wanted me to make a ShikaxIno chapter. The other wanted a festival. This chapter will be first fuffiling the ShikaxIno chapter. The next will be Neji's Birthday and a festival.

I'm going to try to make the chapters longer! It's hard to tell how the paragraph arrangement will be on the page, so it doesn't always come out as great as I hope it will. I'll try to make this long.

If anyone has any ideas for Neji's Birthday or the festival, please review and tell me or send a private message. Also, it's not going to be the Sakura festival! That gets old very fast.

End of Author's Note

Ino sighed as she finished bringing in very heavy roses from the back room of the flower shop, into the front of the store. She wiped away some sweat on her forehead. It caused the bandage on her forehead to scratch her delacate hand.

She knew that Tenten hadn't meant to throw the tile at her on purpose. She got too angry and her curse mark got the best of her. Neji told her and the others about how sorry Tenten was and all had said that they didn't have any feelings against Tenten. She was their friend.

"Need some help?" asked a voice at the door. Shikaramu leaned on the door henge as he waited for her to answer. He looked ready to fall asleep at any moment.

"Yeah" Ino answered. She walked to the back of the shop and Shikamaru followed her. There were six boxes in total. "Here." Ino said as she handed him three boxes of roses.

"Dang!" he shouted as he held the flowers. "Have you been doing this all day?" he asked her. He struggled to keep the roses in his arms.

"Yes!" she answered. She grabbed the other three boxes that were left and walked in front of Shikamaru. "Thankfully, this is the last of the boxes."

Shikamaru took back his place in front of her. He swiftly dodged a small puddle of water from a seeping plant pot. Unfortunately, Ino was not as lucky.

Shikamaru heard a loud screech. He turned around in time to see Ino fall onto her back and have all the rose boxes land on her foot. "Ow!" she shouted.

Shikamaru set his boxes down as fast as he could. He then pushed the rest off of Ino's foot. "Are you alright?" he asked her. He held out his hand and Ino gladly accepted it.

"I don't know." she answered to him. "Gah!" Ino yelled as her foot ached. She hopped on it all the way to a bench sitting in the flower shop, supporting herself on Shikamaru's shoulder.

"Here, let me see." said Shikamaru. He slid her sandal and leg warmers off to reveal very small feet. The little nails on her toes had been delacately painted blue to match her outfit.

He poked at one spot on her foot. "Does this hurt?" he asked. As soon as Ino was about to say yes, he poked her foot in a different place. "Does this hurt?" Once again he didn't let her answer him. "Does this hurt?" he asked.

"For Pete's sake, it all hurts!" she screamed at him.

"Wait here." he told her. He left the flower shop. Ino watched curiously as he sped himself up to a slow running pace.

"Is he really that worried about my foot?" Ino asked herself.

Shikamaru came back a few minutes later. Behind him was a running and heavily breathing Sakura. They stopped in front of her.

Sakura examined her foot. She began to force chakra in and out of it. A few hours later, she had finished. Sakura left Ino with a bandaged foot. She could now stand on it, but it would be sore for a while.

Just then, Ino's father walked in. He was blonde, muscular, and looked tough. His face showed anger as he looked around the room.

"What is this?!" he asked. Ino sighed and brought her head down. Shikamaru was still staring at her father.

"You're going to pay for all those roses, little missy! Clean up all this!" He pointed to the enormous pile of flowers and dirt on the floor.

"And who's that?" He asked. He pointed to Shikamaru. "Are you not attending to your customers?!"

Shikamaru watched Ino as she tried to hold back tears. "Don't just sit there crying you little peace of crap. Get up and do what I told you to do!"

"Y-Yes sir." she answered to him. Ino limped her way towards the pile of flowers. She bent down and began to pick the dead flowers up out of the pile of dirt.

Ino's father walked past her on his way out of the shop. When passing her, he gave her a kick with his boot. She fell onto her side. "Little runt." He murmured.

When Ino's father was gone, Shikamaru helped Ino up. Instead of putting her back on the bench, he gave her a hug. He knew it was what she needed.

"H-He's so s-stupid." Ino said between sobs, her face pressed into his shoulder.

"I know, I know." He replied to her. "Don't let it bother you."

After five more minutes, Ino had stopped crying. "How about I treat you to some ramen?" she asked him. "I don't want to hang out around here right now." She said.

"Sure." He answered. The two walked down the street and went into Ichiraku's. Only adults were there tonight.

The two sat at the bar in the small stools. "What'll it be?" asked Ichiraku. Ino ordered the vegetarian ramen and Shikamaru ordered beef ramen.

Five minutes later, Ichiraku brought them their dishes. "Two meals for the young couple." He said. He winked at Shikamaru.

Both teenagers spit their ramen out. "We're not a couple!" they both said in unison. Both blushed a little at the thought.

"Now don't deny it." He said to them. "One boy plus one girl eating with one another plus the two making eyes at each other equals couple on a date." He told them. The two blushed again.

"Making eyes?" asked Shikamaru.

"Whatever." said Ichiraku. "Deny it or not, you two are definitely a couple." Shikamaru attempted his first death glare, but failed because he had never used his face muscles to that kind of limit.

Ino giggled continuously. Shikamaru couldn't help but blush. The two then tried to eat the rest of the ramen.

"You've got ramen on your lip." said Ino. Shikamaru almost licked his lip before Ino interrupted. "Wait, I got it." She said.

Ino grabbed hold of Shikamaru's chin and kissed him lightly on the lips. Both teenagers blushed uncontrollably. "Aw" said the sound of many voices behind them. They turned around to find every adult in the room looking at them. "Couple" said Ichiraku as he walked past them.