Welp. Here we go. Sidebar: the flashback scene may disappear if I decide it's unnecessary. I'm leaning that way. Nobody likes a boatload of exposition anyway, right? Besides, this chapter is not about what happened, it's about what's going to happen. So enjoy!

Chapter 3

Theme: Breakage of Ino-Shika-Cho

"There's nothing so defiant as a first kiss. It's telling loneliness that you've made other plans."

Anon.

Of all the predicaments in the world, Ino was sure hers and Shikamaru's was the dumbest.

For weeks it had been this quiet, controlled storm of potential energy wasted on silence and space – ever since their fathers had expressed a deep-seeded disapproval of them as, well, as a them.

She should have known better, known something was coming. It was too good to be true. But even Shikamaru admitted to walking into that meeting blind to their true intentions.

"We've heard rumors that you two have been... getting closer."

"Is it true?" Her father leaned in, glaring down at Shikamaru.

Shikamaru didn't even bat an eye as he said, "Is what true, sir?"

Her father frowned and replied, "Is it true that you're interested in my daughter?"

Her face went red at that point, and she tried to protest: "Daddy!"

But her father was in one of those very rare moods, and Ino knew she had no control. "Not now, Ino. Shikamaru?"

In a very steady voice Shikamaru said, "Yes, sir. It is." And her heart pounded with exhilaration. To declare it so boldly to her father! They had been dancing around each other for a while now, and she had told Sakura she was certain he was going to ask her soon. Certainly her dad was just trying to intimidate the boy into behaving, like he'd done with every boy that had ever asked her out.

But to her surprise, her father's look became very grave. He pinched the bridge of his nose, a frown etched into the weather-worn lines of his face;

"Have you asked her out yet, son?" Shikaku's voice was as somber as her father's.

Shikamaru turned towards his father and calmly said, "Not yet. But I was going to." The butterflies in her stomach made it hard to breathe. He looked so manly, sitting there staring bravely up at their fathers. But something ominous was in the air and the Nara's living room was heavy with a sense of unease. Shikaku sighed, broad shoulders sagging, and shook his head.

Glancing around for some kind of clue, Ino noticed Shikamaru's mother peeking in from the doorway of the kitchen. Yoshino's eyes met hers and the pity that blazed there was a blow to the stomach. If Yoshino was powerless to do anything, then that meant...

Ino suddenly knew what was heading for her like an oncoming train and she was powerless to stop it.

"We should have done this earlier. Before you two started getting any ideas."

"We just think it best to nip this in the bud."

"Ino-Shika-Cho is about teamwork and legacy."

"It's about a bond bigger than your own desires."

"We can't allow that bond to be broken over some... misguided teenage feelings."

Everything was white noise as she'd sat on that sofa, back straight as an arrow. The urge to scream rose up in her like bile.

This wasn't misguided teenage feelings. This was real. Shikamaru was... they were supposed to be...

Thoughts reeling, she grasped briefly at an itching curiosity about how Shikamaru was taking this; but she'd felt too paralyzed to look anywhere but straight ahead. Everything that followed was a blur - a ninja's duty, a team obligation, a responsibility to themselves... their fathers droned on as Ino's heart sunk.

When she and her dad finally got ready to go, she walked stiffly to the door, where her father grabbed her hand and dragged her off down the street. Glancing behind her, she saw Shikamaru standing in the doorway, but couldn't tell what he was thinking at all. She turned back around to hide her tears and follow her father home.

She'd screamed and cried and ranted all night, but nothing changed her father's mind. And everything had ended before it had even begun.

So now, they did all the things they were meant to do, without any of the actions they wanted to take. They trained, they hung out with Chouji, they took on missions, but closeness was prohibited, and talking was done as if someone could be listening at all times.

In this particular moment of adjacent separation, they were walking down the street on the way to the store, because Ino needed more soy sauce and Shikamaru had offered to walk with her. Since the forbiddance, there were so few solitary seconds for the two of them; these manufactured moments would have to do.

She walked slowly.

It was a bit like Romeo and Juliet, she thought, though with an unpleasant, ironic twist. If irony meant that their families were too close for them to be together, rather than on opposing sides. Was that what irony was? If so, irony sucked.

The boy next to her wore his frustration better than she, and she didn't know whether to be grateful that at least one of them was keeping it together or irritated at his control.

Walking side by side, their fingers almost touched, but not quite; he was both a thousand miles away from her and yet so close she was suffocating with the untapped possibility of it all. It was, in a word, unfair. Ino wanted to shout and scream and cry, but she'd done all of that and it had gotten her nowhere. So she simply sighed heavily for what must have been the umpteenth time that afternoon; Shikamaru looked down at her, expression nearly neutral.

"You've picked that up from me." His tone was straightforward, was always straightforward, but Ino took the liberty of mentally peppering it with all of the unspoken desires that laced their situation.

She felt strangled by his simultaneous sweetness and nothingness and so only choked out an, "Nn," in reply. Certainly a response she'd also picked up from him.

"Well maybe if the two of us sigh enough, they'll retract their order." He was trying to make her feel better, she knew. Was it working? She wasn't sure; everything these days made her feel like she was stuck running in place – trying and never getting anywhere. Every good feeling, every semi-sweet moment between them was tarnished by the fact that it wouldn't bring the edict down and, despite all it attempted to be, it could never be more than it was: a shadow of a real gesture. A joke.

She wasn't laughing.

They didn't talk about it often, because there were so few times to do so. But now... why not now?

"I've liked you for a long time, you know. Do they care?" The statement tumbled from her lips clumsily and urgently, and now there it was, sprawled out before them, awaiting a response.

His eyebrows creased together and for a split second she saw something strong written across his face. But he looked away before she could read it.

"They care about something bigger than that."

Stumbling begat more stumbling and for Ino, the avalanche was the next logical sentence structure.

"What is bigger than that, Shikamaru? We could be something, and have something – something they both have, except ours would be even stronger! Because we're teammates! Because of that bond they claim to cherish so much!"

He still didn't look at her, and he shoved his hands into his pockets.

"They're saying that it would end if we did that. That there would be no more Ino-Shika-Cho, if we were to get…" His sentence trickled off at the implication of them being married. But that idea just reminded her of how far from real sharing and a real relationship this was. And he'd just defended their fathers' argument.

"Are you on their side?" There was a rising nausea of resentment stirring inside of her, ready to leap up and overcome her better senses if he abandoned her now. His even tone had her fearing the worst.

"It's more like I see why their side won't budge."

At his words she felt hot and frail and foolish, and she couldn't help the edge of panic that crept into every syllable: "You rationalizing their cause will not help ours. It is ours, isn't it?"

He was so eternally calm and still. As though this wasn't making a mangled mess of his insides like it was hers.

"Tch. You know the answer to that." Look at me! This is breaking my heart, so don't be so calm!

Ino sucked back those words; instead she bit out, "Do I?" with a venom that surprised her. She was pretty sure it surprised him too.

"You're spitting fire at the wrong person…" He'd stopped walking. "Ino, I…" The way her name fell from his lips felt like a sudden caress - the most intimate sound he'd ever uttered to her - it was as though a million wants had been forced into two syllables.

She could feel herself quiver all the way down to her bones. It was then that Shikamaru faced her, stepping in front of her and causing her to nearly run into him. Brief contact itself was enough to stumble over these days.

His eyes were so open and his look was so suddenly genuine – exactly what she'd been dying for a moment prior. But sudden was too much to handle – she felt like she was being singed. Oh, foolish little girl. You're scared of the things you want most.

"Stop. Whatever fragment of comfort you're trying to offer, just don't. All it will feel like is a shadow of what we should be allowed to do, but aren't." So she was still angry. And a little self-destructive. She couldn't help herself. Ah, and that was the problem from the start, wasn't it?

But her Shikamaru knew her, and it was as though he was brushing off the layer of dust that bitterness had built up on her ability to emote - ignoring the rusty hinges on her attempts at intimacy. Because he didn't close up, despite her best (worst) efforts.

He merely said, "Ino, if we want to beat this, we have to work together."

"I'm not the one turning." He ignored her final, useless barb, and she was endlessly grateful for it.

"If we can understand where they are attacking from, then we can undermine and defeat it. This is just like a battle."

"Dating is like a battle, Shikamaru?" She folded her arms across her chest and raised a skeptical eyebrow. But his eyes were warm and his gaze was gentle as he said,

"How could it be any different, with you?" And Shikamaru was officially the first to blatantly break the rules of their decree, as he reached out and tenderly brushed her bangs out of her face. She closed her eyes for a moment as his hand lingered longer than necessary by her cheekbone, fingers lightly grazing her skin.

Her venom abated and she sighed all fears out at his touch.

"To tell the truth, I don't care as much about the future of Ino-Shika-Cho as I care about the present of Ino-Shika." She opened her eyes to steadily meet his own. And now, though she held his gaze with defiance, it was a defiance not meant for him. And though his look was grave, it was not directed at her.

"I think they know that. Ino, to beat this, to beat them, we must show them that we don't feel that way: that we can still hold the team as the highest of our regards." She nodded, ever so slightly, not wanting to scare away his touch too soon.

But the tension was building at their taboo - at the pressure of standing still in an embrace - and at its height, they broke apart almost simultaneously, lest anyone see, and began walking once more.

The silence carried on for less than a minute in real-time (equivalent to and an hour in reminiscing time). But eventually she picked up her complaint as though there were no gap.

"Well that's all fine and good, but really they don't want the combining of the clans because they don't want the loss of either family technique in the balance of the team. There has to be three. They only care about how it affects the next generation." Shikamaru was right, and so she tried to look at the root of their predicament analytically - to help.

Anyone but her might have missed the fleeting ghost of a smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth as he said, "Exactly. So we'll just have to have two children."

"Shika…" It was her turn to stop walking, heart pounding wildly against her rib cage. He too stopped, but didn't turn around.

"I'm not saying now. Or even soon. But there are… ways to ensure the future of Ino-Shika-Cho and make everyone happy. And besides…" Now he turned to face her, but his eyes remained fixated on the sky. She felt the weight of his impending words in his preparation, long before he said them.

"I've liked you… for a really long time, too." This is real.

Like a flower waiting for the spring, a change overcame Ino at his words. She could practically feel her doubts melting away like snow in sunlight. And as she spoke, her confidence grew:

"We can do this, Shikamaru. We'll make them see. We'll convince them our love is real and they won't be able to say no!"

At her outburst, Shikamaru's eyes went wide. Ino realized what she'd said and appropriately turned bright red. He opened his mouth to comment, but for Ino, it was a good ten minutes before he actually spoke.

And when he finally did, all he said was,

"Love?"

At which she very nearly swallowed her own tongue. She began walking again at a much swifter pace, brushing right past him, eyes determinedly facing forward.

"Don't read too much into that. Let's just get on down to the store so we can-" But suddenly his hand was around her wrist and ,as gently as you please, he'd pulled her to a stop and tugged her around to face him. Oh my...

There was lightheartedness dancing in his deep brown eyes, though his tone, as per usual, remained neutral.

"How troublesome. You read way too much into every nuance of what people say and do, so you can't tell me whether or not I'm allowed to read into this." His hand was still wrapped around her wrist and she could feel her own pulse racing beneath his fingers. And her Shikamaru, who was nothing right now, but everything always, leaned in and kissed her softly. And her world split open.

But it was over just as suddenly and he had already turned around and started walking by the time her brain caught up. So brief - the whole thing orchestrated as if to escape perception.

Inside she was humming.

Standing there, stunned, her fingers went up to brush against her lips, and she could feel the flush beneath her skin from sheer exhilaration.

But he turned halfway back around, a smirk on his face, and said, "Oi. Ino. Are you coming?"

Yes.

And she ran after him.

A/N: Welp. There's that. Hope I did the theme justice. Also, thanks everyone for your comments! Please review and let me know what you think. One of my big concerns is that I spell it out for my readers too much. I must be like the Bard and trust them to infer the meaning of metaphor on their own! Anyway, tell me what you think of that, and also if you think the flashback could be removed.

PLUS! Stay tuned for more soon!