A/N: Like I said last author's note, don't expect updates so quickly starting next week. But I'm super bored so I suppose I should post this chapter... The harvest festival is modeled after Thanksgiving in America, I feel like most cultures have a holiday to celebrate the harvest so I didn't call it 'thanksgiving' explicitly, but it's the same idea. Anyways, please review, favorite, follow, whatever. I know, I'm an attention whore, but it gives me incentive to write, so... AND THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO'S ALREADY DONE THAT BECAUSE I GET SUCH CUTE REVIEWS AND IT MEANS EVERYTHING TO ME SO THANK YOU, HOMIES!

Shikamaru POV

Our clan was especially happy because for the first time in a long time, every member was present, with the exception of a few who were gone on missions. Most of our clan lives on the compound, but I have plenty of extended family, cousins, uncles, aunts, whatevers, who live in other places in the village. Hell, even in other countries. Only the elders and the main branch are required to live on the compound. But everyone was here for this day, the harvest. It's the day that clans, historically, brought the fruits of its labor to the Hokage. For the Nara clan, that meant bringing deer antlers and medicines.

Clans still bring presents to the Hokage, but it's just a tradition. It's not required, like it was in the olden days. The elders, dad, and I brought some things to Lady Tsunade in the morning, and then we hurried out of there. It's always a busy day for everyone. Most people will bring her gifts, so she has a busy day, and after you bring your gift, decorations and lights are put around the village, everyone makes a surplus of food, which is used to feed the poor, and it's also a tradition to invite any homeless people, especially children, to eat with your family. So all around, everyone is happy on the Harvest.

When she finally showed up, everyone had already arrived. It was pretty comical, how all the men and then some of the women looked exactly alike, with the pony tail and bored expression. The women, usually, looked pretty different, but they all bore the Nara clan symbol on some part of their apparel. Some people wore the traditional attire, but usually just the old people. Mom wore some modern casual clothing, but only to cook, she'd change into traditional robes for the actual dinner. Dad was sort of required to wear robes, and he forced me into some, too. Being a clan heir is so damn troublesome.

Temari wore one of those dresses that if you saw on a mannequin or on a hanger, you would think it quite conservative, but on Temari, is was the most sultry dress ever, and it was going to be the end of me. When I greeted her, I pretended to not be shocked by how amazing she looked, it didn't work, though.

"Oh, hi Temari."

"Sorry I'm late, Ino wouldn't let me go."

"Tch. Ino. You look—eh..."

"yes?" she provoked.

"you look good."

Her cheeks lit up. "Thanks, cry baby. Your dress looks good, too." I went red.

"it's not a dress, it's—you know what, nevermind."

"hmm I win." She smiled. Indeed, she had won. When we had conversations, it was sort of like a game, trying to see who could make the other one more flustered without making a direct move on them. It was basically intense flirting, and it was driving me absolutely crazy.

I led her into the house, and took her to my dad to say hello.

"Oh, Hello Temari!" He was in the middle of speaking with an elder, but he paused his conversation to greet her. "You look stunning, as always. I'll be sure to get a photo of you and Shikamaru as soon as I'm done with this." I flushed red. My dad was so troublesome. "Shikamaru, go bring her to your mother, she's in the kitchen." It was a little bit odd, it kind of felt like Temari was a toy that I was showing off to people. On our way to go see mom, I heard an elder laugh and say to my dad,

"he's betrothed already? Don't you think he's a bit young, Shikaku?" I hoped to any god out there that Temari didn't hear it.

"Am I the only non-Nara here, Shikamaru?"

"maybe."

"Temari! Oh you look so precious! Shikamaru, go get the camera upstairs."

"Thank you, Yoshino. Your house looks amazing, and everything smells so good!" She referenced the food which, indeed, smelled good. I couldn't help myself, I started picking at one of the dishes that was cooling off.

"Shikamaru! Stop that right this instant, I told you to go get the camera! So unless you want to leave this Clan with no heir, I suggest you go do that." The women in the kitchen had a field day with that one. Almost every woman in the house had that same dry, scary sense of humor. And I knew my mother would 100% follow through with her word if I didn't do what she asked. I didn't even bother refuting, I just rolled my eyes and went to go get the camera.

I wasn't sure which one she wanted so I brought down her fancy camera and my polaroid one. The polaroid one reminded me of the picture of Temari and me on Halloween. She was so mad, grabbing my shirt and everything, I thought it was pretty funny so I kept it. It was actually on my bedside table, along with some pictures of my team, and pictures of me and the deer.

I really should not have brought down that damn camera, but in fairness to me, how was I supposed to know that the damn woman was going to be taking photos of us all night. Of course, my mom wasn't doing the actual photo taking, she was too busy hosting, but she assigned one of my most troublesome cousins to take photos of us.

It's too bad because I actually liked my cousin. He played for the 'other team' if you know what I mean, so he understood when I would talk about how troublesome women are. When he came out to me, he acted like it was a big deal. I don't see why, I mean, I think he's a genius for being able to avoid the Nara men curse. In the end, he didn't escape it, because his husband is very, very loud and demanding, just like my mom. And anyways, I thought he was all trouble that harvest, because he would not stop talking about how nice a couple me and Temari were.

Actually, my entire family was being troublesome. Even my trusty father, who usually would help me when my mother was being troublesome, left me for dead. Not only did he leave me, he joined their side. Temari took it surprisingly well. She thought the whole thing was funny, she'd just laugh it off and explain calmly that we weren't together. Of course, she snapped at me all night, as per usual, but she was really nice to my whole family. I was getting more and more flustered, the more my family kept pestering me about her. It was all 'ooh Shikamaru, when's the wedding date?' 'can I be your best man' 'use protection!' 'quite eye fucking her, it's very awkward for the rest of us'. What does that even fucking mean? 'eye fucking', tch, people are so troublesome.

The meal wasn't so bad, since everyone was stuffing their mouths with food, instead of talking to us. I sat next to Temari, of course, I was her guide, after all. But after a quick tease from one of my cousins, asking us not to play footsie with her sitting right next to her, people went about their usual banter, not just questioning us. After all, we weren't the only source of 'news' to be covered. One of my aunts just gave birth, so a lot of the women were cooing over those two twin baby demons. Two of my cousins got married (not to each other, we haven't allowed that inter clan marriage bullshit in like, a hundred years), so everyone was inspecting those two new women in our clan.

After dinner, everyone was beyond stuffed, and Nara men are already lazy, but since they were all in a food coma, practically, most people weren't even moving. They just assumed a place on the couch, or grabbed a chair, and fell asleep. Mom and some women were cleaning up, and she gave me and Temari the troublesome task of going to the food pantry (where they feed the homeless) and giving them some leftovers.

We spent most of the walk in a comfortable silence, since we were both too stuffed to talk. I eventually broke that beautiful silence, and I missed it sincerely.

"I'm sorry my family is so troublesome. They're so damn pushy." She smiled and put a piece of flattened hair behind her ear. I noticed that her hair seemed straight and flat. It wasn't bad, but I preferred how her hair was usually, better.

"It's okay, I think it's cute." My ears went red, I know, but I hid it by continuing walking, and slightly faster.

"did Ino straighten your hair?"

"yes. Do you like it?" Temari was acting kind of strange, almost like a normal girl. She was kind of shy and coy, and it was very, very strange. Also, troublesome.

"no." She pouted. Again, this was weird.

"I like how it usually is, better."

"you're lying. When I wear my hair naturally, it's like having four rats nests bunched up sporadically across my head."

"well, you asked, I'm just saying the truth." She crossed her arms and gave me an incredulous.

"Well, I think you're lying." We walked for another thirty seconds before she added, "but thank you. Most people aren't very nice about my hair."

"troublesome." I kicked a pebble out of the way, then shoved my hands into my pockets. "it's nice, it looks soft."

"well, it's not. It's kind of like straw."

"it doesn't look that way."

"but it is!"

"Temari?"

"what!"

"shut up, just accept the compliment."

And surprisingly, she actually did. She just didn't respond after that. I went into the pantry alone, she didn't want to go in, probably because the night was so nice.

Instead of walking back to the house, I walked her to her dorm. Everything went back to normal. The silences were comfortable, but it was usually filled with our banter. We took a short cut to the dorms through my clan's forest. But we heard a rustle in the bushes somewhere. And sure, I guess we both guessed that it could have been something harmless, like a bunny, but automatically we put our guard up. At the end of the day, we are ninjas.

The source of the rustling was an evil, evil demon that had no chance, even with an exorcism, so I was honestly planning on just throwing it back in the bush. Temari got it off my face, which it had scratched up pretty well. The demon was small, I saw, she carried it in her arms, and it immediately settled.

"aww good kitty, you're so precious." She cuddled it to her chest and kissed it on the head.

"Temari! Watch out it's going to kill you."

"Shikamaru, you cry baby, it's just a cat! Look how sweet he is." She started to kiss the orange thing some more.

"it's a demon."

"you're just mad because now you look like your dad." It was a low blow, but a funny one. I probably did look like my dad, with the cuts that damn cat gave me.

"Temari, put him down you can't keep him."

"Don't tell me what to do, Shikamaru. He's my cat now."

"Temari! You can't be serious..."

"I'm very serious. And you know what? I'm going to name him..."

"Oh, don't do it."

"Shikamaru!"

"Oh my god."

"cry baby."

"you don't even have a place to but the demon."

"Shikamaru, it's a cat. And yes, I do. He'll live with me, in the dorm rooms."

"don't they have a rule against that?"

"probably, but I can hide him. It's not like the RAs are responsible. I mean, I think I've seen Anko maybe once this entire year. Plus, Naruto burned the place down under her watch. She mostly sleeps and threatens people, then goes back to sleep."

"well what are you going to feed him? Won't it be obvious when there's a bag of cat food?"

"Shikamaru, have you ever been bad, like in your entire life?"

"sure."

"like when?"

"Well I fall asleep in like every class and then I end up ditching because I take a nap, often, as well."

"you truly live on the wild side. Say, do you think the Inuzukas are done with their harvest dinner?"

"Probably not, but I'll take you to them tomorrow."

"Thank you! You're the best." She kissed my cheek and walked into her dorm room, leaving me speechless, but that's nothing new.

A/N Pt 2: I know, I put a meme in there, please don't kill me *hides in a trash can where I belong* FAVORITE, FOLLOW, REVIEW, WHATEVER, I LOVE YOU ALL