Happy 4th of July! I'm releasing a couple of new chapters to things today as I'm moving tomorrow, so I don't know what my internet situation will be just yet. For this fic, this is something that I have that isn't long and angsty, but hopefully this will tide you over before I get back to updating!

This one came from a one sentence/word prompt thing. This is purely a drabble; short and sweet.

I had originally written it in Shika's perspective before I axed that and switched to Temari's. It might be a bit confusing.

This one is older - one of the few things I've written since I got back into the swing of things. It might come off that way, too.

Enjoy!

.::[::]::.

[74 - are you challenging me?]

Long inhale in, even longer exhale out. "Why do you keep doing this?" he drawled. His eyes opened, squinting slightly in the harsh morning light. He sighed and shrugged the closed fan away from his neck – a feat in itself, Temari noted, seeing as the fan was easily as tall as his chest.

"I'm not going to stop until you accept, Nara," was her scathing reply. She could see his lip curl as the usual annoyance began to sink into not only his posture, but in his voice.

"But you're not gonna win," he tried to reason. Temari laughed mockingly. He didn't even bother sitting up, he merely closed his eyes again. She vaguely resisted the temptation to squash his face with her weapon, but instead shrugged and prodded the side of his neck.

"How would I know? We haven't fought –"

"Except for the one time I won," he cut in, to her annoyance.

"- Since the chuunin exams," her teal eyes glinted as she chose her words carefully. The sun caught her blonde locks, extending down to her wicked grin as she tapped the edge of her fan against his neck. He grumbled in response. "And I'm sure I can kick your ass this time."

"You've said that before," Shikamaru said lazily. She couldn't help the hiss that escaped her teeth but he merely rolled away from her, sitting up before locking eyes with her. She felt as if her gaze had been captured by his own, steady stare, but that didn't mean the flow of swears and utters of challenges was stopped at all. Her mind flew to ways he could motivate him to fight – he wasn't easy to move.

Temari knew her words were falling onto deaf ears but she suddenly froze when she felt a strange coldness draining her of her body heat. When she looked down, she cursed as she noticed black shadowy tendrils crawling its way up her torso. "You sure can kick my ass, but you also fall for the same tricks twice," said the infuriatingly lazy voice, though it was edged with mischief and a little amusement.

Constricted, she shot him her best death-glare. "Shut up Nara, you haven't won yet."

He smirked as a response before he swiftly pressed his lips against her. At the contact she felt herself fall limp despite her better judgement, and as he pulled away, she found her usual insults caught in her throat.

"Checkmate," he whispered, his breath feathering against her lips. She couldn't help the flush that flew up to her cheeks, nor the curse that escaped her lips yet again as she found herself restricted and unable to move.

"Shikamaru, let me go!"

He merely walked away, throwing a hand up in a wave. He turned around and smirked. "Don't bother trying to challenge me again – you know I'll win.

Besides, don't you only call me Shikamaru in-"

Her abrupt and horrified scream of "Shut UP!" was more than enough to cover the rest of his sentence.