Day 14

"Homecoming?"

"That's right," Sakura said, pasting the last piece of paper to the poster board for her and Ino's English project. "It's this week. You haven't heard?"

"Not at all."

"The dance is a ton of fun," Sakura grinned, "it's more of a costume party than a formal one, and the theme is ninjas. I've already got my outfit and everything; I'm just waiting to buy my ticket."

Ino frowned, "I've never been to a homecoming dance. Freshman year I missed it entirely, and sophomore year I got asked out, but we moved just the day before. I had to sell my ticket."

"That sucks," Sakura said, writing their names on the back of the poster board, "But you just got here two weeks ago, I don't think you're going anywhere any time soon. Why not go ahead and buy a ticket?"

"I guess it wouldn't hurt, but who would I go with?"

"Find a date, it's not hard."

Ino laughed, "But the only two guys I really hang out with are Shikamaru and Choji! Who would I ask?"

Sakura blinked, looking at her as if it were obvious, "Shikamaru or Choji, duh."

"I don't know," Ino pondered, "Choji is nice and all, but his gluttony is just too annoying. And Shikamaru…"

"Is perfect?" Sakura giggled, thinking about the previous Friday night.

Ino blushed, "No!" she immediately exclaimed, averting her eyes, "He's… just… let's turn this project in, okay?"

"Don't change the subject! You like him!"

"I don't like anyone." Ino narrowed her eyes, "I can't like anyone. I'll move soon."

"So it's a long-distance relationship, big deal."

"I can't handle a long distance relationship, Sakura. I'll get paranoid that they'll cheat on me. If I have a boyfriend, I need him to be around me."

"Have you ever even had a boyfriend?"

Ino frowned, "No."

"So you don't know! Cheer up, all right? Everything will be just fine." Sakura winked at her and stood from her chair to turn the project in. Ino drummed her fingers on her desk and thought about what she would want to do for the dance until her return.

"Hey Sakura, who are you going to go to the dance with?"

Sakura blushed and grinned, "Well… I was thinking about asking Sasuke." She giggled.

Ino raised her eyebrows, "Asking Sasuke, huh? Isn't it tradition for guys to ask girls?"

"Pssh, no one cares about that."

Ino looked across the classroom where Sasuke was finishing his project with Gaara, "But from everything I've heard, Sasuke's pretty godly. Do you really have a chance?"

Sakura smirked, "You underestimate me, young Ino. But I have plenty of guys chasing after me to fall back on, anyway." Sakura flipped her short, pink hair and laughed again, "But anyway, we should find you a date! Tickets go on sale today, and the go fast!"

"Tickets go on sale for seniors, today, Haruno," a tall boy with long, black hair tied back in a lose ponytail looked down on Sakura, his silver eyes piercing through her, "juniors can get them tomorrow."

"Neji!" Sakura gasped, "You surprised me! Why are you here?"

Neji held up a slip of paper, "Office aide, I've got a message for Kakashi."

"What about?"

"Gai's sending threat letters again," he rolled his eyes; "apparently they're doing another one of their weird battle-skits at halftime during the game."

Neji left Sakura's desk and deposited the note on Kakashi's desk, the owner merely nodding and thanking him silently, being engrossed in another weird book. He waved and left the room.

Ino watched the door close, "He was kind of hot."

"I'm sure his girlfriend Tenten thinks so too."

Ino blushed again, but then stuttered, "Well don't think for a minute that I'm going to find a date for this dance, I'll go by myself!"

"Whatever."

Ino walked into gym later that day with a bored look that could have rivaled Shikamaru's. Homecoming week was the least exciting thing to her at the moment: it just didn't seem so great when there wasn't someone special for her to spend it with.

"Shikamaru!"

The bored look disappeared from Ino's face quickly when she snapped her head in the direction of the calling. Temari.

"Shikamaru!" She grinned seductively and ran up to the boy in question, who merely grunted and looked away. She hugged his arm and grinned at him, "I bought tickets to the homecoming dance, you wanna come with me?" She purred.

"No," he grunted again.

"Temari," Ino walked up to them and crossed her arms, "I thought you were a junior, how'd you get tickets?"

Temari spat, "I'm a senior, dumbass."

Ino looked surprised, "then why are you in my chemistry class?"

"Temari took IPC her sophomore year," Shikamaru explained, "She's a year behind in science."

"How special for you."

"Shut up Blondie," Temari accused, completely ignoring that fact that they shared the same hair color. She turned back to Shikamaru and beamed, "So how about it, Shikamaru? You, me, dance?"

"I already told you," he met her gaze this time and glared, "No. I'm not going to any stupid dance."

Something about this made Ino's heart sank. Shikamaru didn't want to go to the dance? She scoffed to herself, what do I care, I'm going stag, right? She stole a glance at him quickly, noting his usual bored and dazed look. I guess part of me just hoped…

She blushed, hoped for him!? No way! I don't like that lazy bastard! We're just friends… she paused, with the same schedule. And our parents just happen to be good friends, so that's got nothing to do with it. He's just a good friend of mine who happens to be a guy. She smiled; proud of the assurance she had given herself. No way would she be let down by Nara Shikamaru.

She soon found herself staring at him, eyes tracing every detail of his face, his hair, and soon his body. Shikamaru was well built for a lazy bastard; he was in great shape and even had a nice looking face to match. Those black eyes were filled with mystery… a hidden agenda, perhaps? Ino had always thought that people with black eyes were rather cold and insensitive, but Shikamaru wasn't much like that…

She sighed and sat down in her spot for roll call, frowning and resting her chin on her hand, damnit, I really have fallen for this guy, haven't I? Prepare yourself for a let down, Ino, because not only is he not interested, but you're probably moving soon anyway.

Ino drummed her fingers, bored, against the computer desk. Web mastering could be such a boring class sometimes because you could so easily run out of things to do. She had already finished all her other homework, plus memorized all the symbols of the periodic table for her chemistry test the next. Then she had typed up her entire report for English and printed it, and that wasn't even due until Friday. She'd surfed and checked all the updates on her regular sites deviant art, and various web comics) and even checked them more than once. She'd taken a trip to the bathroom and even a trip to the library. She'd read some of her book that was stashed away in her bag, but got bored of that quickly and wished for something else to do.

And yet there were still thirty minutes left of class.

I knew I should have taken BCIS, at least they do something all period… Ino scowled at the black screen of her computer screen, which taunted her with the bouncing Windows logo. Her eyes were locked onto it, bouncing against the side of the screen with the logo and skidding across it right after. If only I didn't have enough pride in myself, maybe I'd just fall asleep after my work like Shikamaru does.

She slowly turned her head to the side and looked at the formerly named. He wasn't asleep, it seemed, and instead he was sitting cross-legged in his chair and staring at the screen. She could tell what he was doing from her seat, and didn't want to get up to find out, so she just watched for movement.

He did move, slightly, to get his hand on his mouse and click something. But then a second later it was down on his lap again, and he returned to that same old contemplative stare.

Ino turned her head back to her computer and opened up AOL Instant Messenger. Sure enough, Shikamaru was there online. She opened up a chat window and typed in her message:

NavyBrat: what are you doing?

Ino turned her head to see at Shikamaru again to see if he would answer. His stare was broken when the window popped up in his screen, and he frowned slightly and clicked again. He didn't type in anything in response. Ino frowned as well, watching to see if he would respond soon at all, but only observed him making a few clicks on his screen. Eventually, she did see him reach for his keyboard and type something in real quick, then clicked once more and stared at the screen again. She turned to see if there was a message waiting there for her.

LazyCloudwatcher: Playing online chess against Asuma.

Ino looked over across the room to where her teacher sat comfortable behind his desk, his hand stroking his beard while his eyes shared the same contemplative stare as Shikamaru.

NavyBrat: Oh, who's winning?

Once more she observed him until he responded. After a few last clicks, Shikamaru smirked and laughed silently at the computer, then typed in his message:

LazyCloudwatcher: I just did.

She looked over to Asuma, who was frowning and typing on his keyboard furiously.

LazyCloudwatcher: And now he's begging for a rematch.

NavyBrat: Haha, do you always beat him?

LazyCloudwatcher: Yea

Neither of them messaged for a few moments after that. Ino figured that Shikamaru had begun another match against Asuma, given his contemplative stare, and decided it best not to bug him. However, one question hung in her mind… what about homecoming?

Tired of thinking about it, she decided to bring it out into the open:

NavyBrat: What are you doing for homecoming?

LazyCloudwatcher:Sitting at home. I'm not much of a dancer. Or a party kid.

NavyBrat: Oh… well I just thought it'd be cool to go. I've never been to homecoming.

It was another moment or two before Shikamaru responded again. Ino thought it to be his chess match, but the stare on his face didn't nearly look thoughtful enough. She sighed; maybe she had freaked him out…

LazyCloudwatcher: Troublesome woman…

NavyBrat: What's that now!?

LazyCloudwatcher: Nevermind.

Ino pouted a little until a thought burst in her head. A plan began to formulate, and she grew excited. She typed into the message box quickly:

NavyBrat: If I bought you a ticket, would you go with me? D

LazyCloudwatcher: …

NavyBrat: I'll teach you to dance too!

LazyCloudwatcher: …

NavyBrat: Come on, Shika!

LazyCloudwatcher: Fine, fine. I'll think about it.

NavyBrat: Yaaaaaay!

LazyCloudwatcher: I only said I'd think about it!

Ino didn't care, it still meant a lot to her.

"So it looks like I've got a date after all."

Ino adjusted the Bluetooth headset on her ear before continuing with her homework. She sat cozily on her bed, propped up against some pillows set up against the wall. Her bed was situated in the corner of her room so that she could easily sit against the wall to watch TV. Her backpack sat at her feet, zipped open with all her books sticking out of it. She scribbled away at chemistry problems confusedly.

"Oh, with who!?" Sakura squealed delightfully on the other side of the line.

Ino hesitated, "Shikamaru."

She flinched at the loud squealing on the other line, "I told you he was perfect!"

"I had to bribe him into it with a free ticket and dance lessons, and even then he didn't seem to want to go. And it was in a chat on AIM during web mastering."

"But still, you have a date! You're all ready for the dance! Well, no, you don't have a garner to give him… but I can help with that."

"Garner?"

"Well, yeah. It's tradition for homecoming that in couples, the boy buys a mum for the girl and she buys him a garner. The school sells them, but sales ended last week. You can make them yourself, though. I can help you."

"Can I really trust Shikamaru to buy me a mum?"

"I can take care of that too. Trust me."

Ino sighed, "Are you in chemistry right now? I can't figure out this stoiciometry homework…"

"The only chemistry we should be talking about is that between you and Nara!"

"How about your chemistry?" Ino said, trying to change the subject in another way, "What happened with Sasuke?"

Only silence was heard on the other line. Ino took full advantage of Sakura's silence to read a question over and over to at least try and burrow it in her mind so she'd be able to figure out how to answer, but she hadn't come close when Sakura spoke again.

"He said no."

"Sakura, I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay. You were right. I shouldn't have thought that I was up to his level."

"But hey, you even said you had plenty of other guys chasing after you, right? Like… Lee and Naruto! What about them?"

"I suppose. But I think I'll just wait to be asked."

"That won't take long."

"Thanks Ino. I'm going to go now. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Maybe we can get together then to take care of Shikamaru's garner."

"See you then, Sakura." Ino hung up and returned to her homework. Tomorrow she'd buy her ticket, Friday she'd go to the football game, and Saturday…

Ino smiled. Saturday she was going to the dance.

Enjoy? You better. Sorry about last chapter, I FULLY UNDERSTAND I WAS A DAY OFF. Meh. Anyway, it's not that significant.

Please send more reviews? Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase? The more reviews I get the faster these chapters come and the more motivated I get. So no reviews no chapters. So remember…

EVERY TIME YOU READ WITHOUT REVIEWING, AN IGUANA FALLS OUT OF HIS CAGE THAT WAS SITUATED IN THE BACK OF A PICKUP TRUCK THAT WAS DRIVING IT HOME FROM THE PET STORE AND INTO THE STREET AND GETS RUN OVER.

Save the iguanas!