Chapter 5: What a Day for a Daydream

Yoshino had been assigned a C-ranked mission along with a couple of other chuunin she recognized, to provide guard coverage for a party of craftsmen, carpenters and stonemasons traveling to the Land Of Waves. The island country was experiencing a small construction boom and given its tiny size it did not have a large pool of skilled workers to draw from. So they had contracted out a lot of their job requirements and Yoshino was escorting a contingent from Konoha.

Yoshino found her partners to be pleasant but not very outgoing. Tsuyoshi was a young man of the Uchiha clan. He had the clan's characteristic dark hair and eyes. As far as personality went, though, Yoshino thought you could hold better conversations with the wall. He exchanged initial introductions with them all and then spoke hardly another word the entire trip. The third chuunin on the mission was a woman a few years older than her, Asako Miterashi. Yoshino liked Asako, she had been on several missions with her before. She was always pleasant and relaxed. Of course her calm nature took nothing away from her skills as a kunoichi. She was quite accomplished and Yoshino often wondered why she hadn't made jounin yet.

Since Asako was clearly the most senior of their trio there was no question as to who was taking point on the operation – Asako introduced them to their charges, explained some basic commands to the travelers so that they could respond to her quickly in the unlikely event she'd have to order them all to take cover. But that possibility did seem extremely remote, unless some bandits were after the tools of various trades the craftspeople had all been wise enough to leave any valuables at home and just pack the tools they'd need with them.

So, formalities completed, they were underway. Normally Yoshino would have initiated a conversation with Asako just to pass the time. But today she took the opportunity to reflect back over what had happened last night.

Shikaku had kissed her.

Well, that was to be expected, it had been a date after all.

She frowned to herself. Of course, he had seemed to be going out of his way to make sure his friends knew it was not a date.

But then, the second time that night, after dinner, when they'd run into Chouza and Inoichi again, he hadn't seemed to mind at all. As a matter of fact, he'd seemed a little possessive – especially around Inoichi. Which was kind of cool. Of course only "kind of cool" because fundamentally that was objectifying, wasn't it? 'To be the object" of his affection? And wasn't that a Very Bad Thing? Every issue of Cosmopolitan Kunoichi she'd ever read said so. She supposed it had a lot to do with whether one wanted to be objectified in that way. If the objectify-ee wanted to be the object of affection for the objectify-or then that was okay, wasn't it? If you didn't object? Of course it was hard to be objective about this when you were the object at the center.

Yoshino grinned to herself at the silliness of her train of thought. She only thought the grin was to herself, however, Asako caught her and smiled.

"Oi, Yoshino – is your head in the game? Or in the clouds, ne?"

Yoshino shook her head and smiled sheepishly. Of course Asako was right, even though it was only a C-ranked mission these people deserved her full attention if she was going to protect them. "Sorry, Asako-san," she replied. "I'll stay more focused."

Asako just smiled and shook her head. She'd been sixteen once, she knew the symptoms. Clearly there was a boy involved.

"So, who is he?" she asked, sidling up to Yoshino who she'd put in the lead. They were still well close enough to Konoha's borders, the odds of them encountering any danger here was astronomically small. So she took the opportunity to see what she could get Yoshino to spill.

This time Yoshino didn't just smile, she smiled and blushed. How embarrassing. There wasn't anything to tell. Not really. Dinner and a movie and a couple of kisses, nothing more. If Asako was looking for juicy gossip she was going to be sorely disappointed. And there was a small part of Yoshino inside that was disappointed, too. She hadn't wanted the night to end at all. "His name is Shikaku Nara but I'm sorry Asako, no gossip, just dinner and a movie."

Asako grumbled good-naturedly about there must have been something to take her mind off the mission like that.

Thinking back about kissing him goodnight Yoshino remembered just how much she'd never wanted it to end. She'd turned toward the door and walked away but their fingertips remained touching as long as possible She almost felt each individual finger slide off his as she stepped away. And he'd not wanted it to end either, had he? It took two to hold hands that way, to hold on that way.

Yoshino shook her head to clear the mist. Best not to think any more about it, she chided herself inwardly. She'd probably never even see him again. One date. That was all it was. It was fun. It was nice. It was over.

Yoshino sighed again. It had been really nice. And even if she didn't see him again (and she really wished she would) she'd still have plenty of time on this mission to daydream.

She touched her cheek where his evening's stubble had scratched across her face and she could still hear his voice rumble in her ear, thrilling, that he'd see her tomorrow.

Well, today was tomorrow now and it was looking extremely unlikely that they'd be able to see each other at all, seeing how she was expected to be traveling or in Wave for the next 5-7 days.

And Shikaku was working with Tsunade.

Meanwhile, back at Tsunade's new lab, Shikaku was surveying the new equipment. He whistled. This must have cost a fortune. He asked her about it.

"The Council funded it. You'll see why once we get started and I give you a briefing of what all's going on. But for now, suffice it to say, it's your tax dollars at work." She stood with her hands on her hips proudly surveying her new domain.

Shikaku appreciated the pose. Hell, what red-blooded shinobi wouldn't?

But alas, they had work to do. He helped her unpack several boxes containing even more equipment and searched around on countertops for places to set it down. One of the boxes contained something so funny he almost laughed out loud.

It was a tray of test tubes, beakers, graduated cylinders and ehrlenmeyer flasks in assorted sizes.

He remembered how he'd grumbled the first time, years ago, when Tsunade had him clean the test equipment and put it back. This had been over 5 years ago. He'd grumbled until he'd realized that task actually had its upsides. First, to put them away after he'd washed them required him carrying them across the lab. Each transit of the lab gave him an opportunity to 'accidentally' bump into Tsunade. Shikaku wondered how much glassware had been sacrificed to teenage lust.

The second and probably more important thing was that it made Tsunade happy. The entire lab ran much more smoothly if Tsunade was happy. He'd seen what happened to a lab when she was unhappy and decided he did not want to be around for a repeat performance. Whatever had angered her had happened on an A-ranked mission she was on that had gone wrong back when he was a chuunin. He never got the full details about it but he knew that it involved kids. He also knew that he probably did not want the details of the story. So from that day forward Shikaku had endeavored to keep the lab organized.

Inoichi and Chouza wouldn't be able to believe this was the same lazy Shikaku who left crap laying all around their apartment. But they just wouldn't understand. Even though it took work to keep the lab organized, it was actually less work than if you had to spend the energy looking for shit all the time.

And besides, it made Tsunade happy.

Tsunade was studying Shikaku, smiling and remembering what an absolute klutz he was when they both worked together at the beginning. Shit, her glassware bill had been through the roof and she'd had to beg the council for more budget. It was good to see he had outgrown some of the awkwardness.

In the past, Shikaku would have noticed a gaze like that if she were to fix it upon him. But not today – he was too caught up in his own daydream. Okay, so maybe it wasn't actually a daydream, maybe it could more accurately be described as memories of last night.

He was remembering everything about her, about Yoshino. How she looked, how she felt, how she tasted.

How she fit. The top of her head just came up to his chin. Her hand had fit so perfectly in his. when he wrapped his arms around her and she had leaned forward to him, pressing her body against his she had just fit so well, like she belonged.

Tsunade was getting impatient. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping one foot on the floor. Let him daydream on his own time she thought.

"Oi, Shikaku, are you going to put those away this century so that we can get started?"

Her sharp voice startled him out of his reverie.

He let go of the box of glassware he was holding and heard it go crashing to the ground.