Chapter 2: Beginnings Are Such Delicate Times

Shikaku dashed through the streets of Konoha after Yoshino. The only good thing about this fuck up he thought to himself was that at least he'd stuck those two idiots he called friends with the bill. For once he was glad Chouza had selected barbeque.

He saw Yoshino turn the corner ahead of him and he sped up after her calling out her name, "Yoshino. Yoshino, wait up a minute."

She stopped, hesitated then turned to look at him. "Yes, Nara? You want something?"

"I, uh, I, uh…my friends are jerks. Sorry that you overhead them back there," he struggled, running his hand through his hair.

Yoshino arched an eyebrow and asked, "Just your friends, huh? They're the jerks?"

"Yeah, well," he gave her a lopsided grin, "I guess I am, too, sometimes." Okay, whew, well, at least she hadn't bitten his head off. Maybe there was still hope. Of course the fact that he was hoping for anything was bothering him somewhat. Just what the heck was going on here, anyway? Why did he care what his friends thought of her? Why did it matter if she was mad at him or not? To a certain extent, he meant what he said to Inoichi and Chouza – she was just a girl. She wasn't anything special. Not really. So why was his mind tacking on a "not yet" to that stream of thought?

She relaxed just a little bit and said, "Well, at least you're honest." She gave him a faint smile and Shikaku found that he was fascinated by what it did to her eyes, they went from flinty to soft just like that. How did she do that?

Yoshino may have been relaxed but it was indeed only just a little bit. She asked guardedly, "So, um, if you want to call it off tonight…that's okay…" her voice trailed off. It was probably better not to start anything in the first place, anyway she thought to herself, not exactly feeling sad, more like just a little wistful.

"What? Oh, wait, no, that was just, you know, shooting the bullshi…er, crap, er,…breeze with the guys. No, sure, I still wanna go."

"You still want to go to dinner? I thought you were just eating now eating with your friends."

Shikaku laughed. "You try eating with Chouza sometime. Yes, I am still hungry."

She smiled just a little bit more and said, "Well, do you still want to meet at 7? It's only 6 now. I was just at the barbeque picking up something for my dad. Mom's out and he should be back before she is. I usually cook when she's gone, but since we were going out tonight I thought I'd bring him something from the restaurant."

"Oh, yeah, right," Shikaku spoke lamely. Sixteen. Oh shit. She still lived at home with her parents. Shit, was he going to have to meet her parents? Well, at least not tonight, from the way it sounded. He and Chouza and Inoichi had had their own apartment for the last three years, and even though it usually looked as if a shinobi war had been fought there, it was blessedly parent-free.

They walked along to her house, chatting along the way. He learned that although she wasn't the only shinobi in her family, there weren't very many. Primarily her family were shopkeepers in the village, running a variety of grocery and dry goods stores. She learned that even though most of his close family were shinobi, there were actually very many in the Nara clan who were not, preferring instead to devote themselves to a life of research in chemistry and medicine. And also that he had had one brother who had died in the last shinobi war.

When they got to her home, she set the table for her father, left him a note and the bag in the kitchen and went to change clothes. Shikaku tried to look nonchalantly around the living room at family pictures and other things, all the while fearing that at any moment her father would return and he would have to actually talk to the man. He really wished she'd hurry up.

Yoshino didn't take long. She appeared having changed into a blue silk tunic with white trim and black hakima to go with it. He smiled appreciatively and she positively beamed. While she was changing he had actually had a weird image of her in something gaudy, flashy, with too much make-up and jewelry. Shikaku was relieved to see her looking great, just looking like herself.

She'd teased him, asking if he wanted barbeque again but he smirked back that one visit to the barbeque restaurant today was enough to last him for quite some time thank you very much. They agreed on sushi and left.

At the restaurant they chatted some more, much to Shikaku's amazement. There had been one extremely awkward moment when the magic SIXTEEN number had reared its cute little head again when it came time to order drinks and he realized she could only have soda. But the conversation had been fun nonetheless. It had always seemed like such an effort before to carry on a conversation with anyone. Too much work. He took great pride in the fact that the Ino-Shika-Cho team had progressed to the point in their relationship where most necessary communication could be carried out with a series of grunts or monosyllabic utterances with 'shit', 'piss', and 'fuck' sprinkled liberally throughout the day, sort of like verbal commas.

This conversation with Yoshino, however, required some effort on his part. To be clever. To pay attention to what she said. To respond. To not use 'shit', 'piss', and 'fuck' in all the normal places where he would have inserted them in what passed for a conversation with Inoichi or Chouza.

And it was actually…fun. He wanted to hear what she had to say. He wanted to see her eyes get all sharp if he did let the stray 'shit' or 'fuck' slip in, then soften back up when he would change it to something like 'sheesh' or 'freakin.'

For Yoshino, it was a thrill to be here with someone her father would absolutely disapprove of. Not that she was using Nara, of course not. She really liked the guy and she couldn't say why. Which made it really scary because any other time she'd had a crush on a guy before there had been some specific reason such as he was the cutest or the most handsome or the one that was the guy everybody else was crushing on that year. Shikaku was none of that. He was nice looking, sure, but certainly not "the" cutest or "the" most handsome. He was tall but not too tall, muscular but slender. So since there was no one thing she could put her finger on as to why she liked the guy she had to admit that it must be everything about him or else simply him. Which made it scary as all get out. She'd never felt this way about anyone before.

They'd finished dinner and sat awkwardly for a few minutes, Shikaku, with the word SIXTEEN still sneaking out and ambushing him every once in a while, feared she was going to say something awful like "curfew" or "bedtime" but fortunately she did not.

"Well, ah, thank you, Shikaku, dinner was lovely," she said, not wanting this to end.

He didn't either. "So, ah, do you need to get back home?" he asked and then hastily added, "Do you have an early mission tomorrow?"

"No, nothing particularly early," Yoshino answered, glad that he seemed to not want the evening to end, either.

"Well, we could go see a movie or something." As soon as the words left his lips he feared sitting through a chick flick for two hours. Why hadn't he suggested something else, just tea and dango or something?

"That would be nice," she said, waiting for him to suggest one.

"What would you like to see?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter, you pick."

Shikaku started to name something and then realized that every movie he knew that was out carried a "restricted rating," no one under seventeen admitted without parent. The last thing he wanted to do was to end up somewhere with her where she was carded. "Tell you what," he said hastily, "you name three you'd like and I'll pick which one out of that three – fair?" He was hoping that there were only two chick flicks at the multiplex so that he would at least have one viable option.

Yoshino nodded and then thought for a minute. He was probably expecting her to pick one of the chick flicks that was out. Bleah – why did guys always think those were "date movies"? Still, it was probably expected. She tried to think of the name of the current Princess-what's-her-face movie that was out. Misaka, that was it. Princess Misaka. She couldn't remember the name of the movie but the character was Princess Misaka. There was also some documentary that was out. Boring. But if she threw that out, plus the Princess Misaka movie and her third choice, then maybe he'd pick the one she really wanted to see.

"Well," she said, "There's a Princess Misaka movie that I've heard a lot of people talk about and then there's that documentary 'The Road to War' about the first shinobi war and then there's… the new Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari movie."

"Jiraiya Goketsu?" he asked. "There's a new one of those out?"

She nodded, her eyes positively beaming. "It's supposed to be really good, better than the junk from Ryoto Industries for the last twenty years or so. This one is being compared favorably to the Kurasawa versions from the fifties and is supposed to be the most complete production and most faithful to the original storyline from the 1850s. The actor in the lead role has actually played Jiraiya Goketsu on-stage in all five of the Great Nations. The special effects are supposed to be out of this world, they're done by Industrial Labs, the same people who did the Gojiro movies…"

Shikaku's eyes were crinkled up and he was smiling that lopsided smile at her once again.

Yoshino blushed. "Did I…did I say something wrong?"

He just laughed and smiled at her. "You sound just like Inoichi. Come on, that's the one. Let's go."