He shook mud off his shoes, trying not to sigh with irritation. At least they were on dry ground, and in a grove which was reasonably sheltered. If he had been in a better frame of mind, he might have appreciated the rugged beauty of their environment and the soon-to-be-setting sun. Instead he just asked lazily, "How did you pass your navigation proficiency test anyway?"
"I passed it with the highest marks of my class, alright? And no, the examiner didn't give a damn who I was." She huffed heavily, the spiked ends of her ponytails bouncing. The steep path they just took hadn't improved her temper. "It's just that... I took it in the rock outcrops, not in a dense jungle."
"Dense? This isn't a hair on the forests behind my family estate!" he snapped. Annoyed, he snatched the map out of her hands and studied it. "Woman, we are not even on the right track. This is the black path for expert hikers. We're supposed to be on the blue, for intermediate."
"You're the one who wanted a challenge!"
"You're the one who said women can read maps."
She narrowed her eyes, tan skin flushing. "You are so gonna pay for that remark."
He raised a brow and smirked. "Like you can be any more troublesome than you are now."
As she tackled him and wrestled him to the ground, neither admitted that they liked being lost, with only the other for company.
Anything to get them away from paperwork and to grab some private time together was good, thought Temari afterwards as she snuggled against Shikamaru's shoulder – even if she had to play a dumb blonde.