Taming The Troublesome

Rating: T

Chapter One: Amusement

The 16 year old sighed, and pressed the warm inside of his elbow against his eyelids – the thin sheen of epidermis that protected his exhausted, overworked eyes. He lay with his elbow pressed to his eyes for sometime, his breath growing increasingly slower and steady as the seconds ticked. The boy was at peace now, perhaps still possessing life, but asleep just the same. His exhausted brain, the squishy pink thing that kept him a significant part of the leaf village since he had been the only shinobi to become a chunin out of all the genin thrown at him. It was amazing to see the value of a bunch of crumpled flesh with a nervous system.

Shikamaru Nara was asleep, as he was often wont to do, on a grassy hillside, just having returned from a mission during which he was sure death was coming. Having not been able to shake the feeling of his impeding demise, he decided that if, in fact, Death decided to come back in knock him off anyways, it was best he died doing his favorite activity – cloud watching.

Yes, at last he had some peace and quiet, no one to bother him, just the sky, and the grass, and-

"Wake up Nara."

It was one of Tsunade's unwilling servants. The boy drew a slight breath inward, and sighed heavily. Pulling his forearm off his face, he sat up.

"Yes, what is it?" He asked hoarsely, rubbing his face with the hand that wasn't holding him up.

The man smiled, rather sadly it seemed. Shikamaru must have looked like shit, covered in dirt and blood, dark rings under his eyes, a slight teenage stubble gracing his jaw in a rugged sort of way.

"The Hokage needs you."

"Which?" Shikamaru knew it was a stupid, an obvious question, but he had developed a new, more flippant, attitude since he had been awoken.

"The fifth." The man rolled his eyes, and tapped his foot with impatience.

"Hmmm. What does she want?"

"Wouldn't tell me."

"What a pain." Shikamaru mumbled to himself. With this new situation, and an advanced, underused annoyed brain on hand, he decided maybe it would be fun to mess with this impatient man, to make up for his interrupted nap.

"Did you CHOOSE to come and tell me this? Or were you ordered by that troublesome lady?"

The man slapped his forehead and grunted with dissatisfaction.

"I don't have time for this." He said, with gritted teeth.

"I'm not leaving until you answer me."

"Like hell you aren't."

"Watch me." Shikamaru sounded like a hormonal 14-year old girl.

"You are by far, the most..."

"Just answer me."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"Why do you care so much?!?"

Shikamaru just smirked at the fuming man.

"FINE! I'll admit, I am the unwilling servant of the fifth hokage, you happy?!?"

"Quite."

The boy pulled himself to his feet lethargically.

"Now, are you absolutely sure my presence is vital?"

The man slapped his forehead once again, harder, if anything.

"Why the hell would I be here if you weren't needed?"

"Well, you could go for me, and then come back and tell me what I'm needed for."

The man's face grew red with each slow and carefully annunciated word Shikamaru spoke. God, it was fun to prod people in the ass.

Shikamaru cut him off before the man could issue his no doubt steaming reply.

"Let's just go, this whole thing is incredibly troublesome."

XxxxX

A knock.

"Yes, what is it?" An irritated female voice and the rustling of papers.

"Tsunade-Sama, I have brought Nara Shikamaru."

The female voice was warmer now, if only the tiniest bit.

"Well, bring him in."

The door opened, and the Fifth Hokage quickly shoved some papers into the top drawer of her desk. He could see the crumpled titles of the papers. They were written in Jeraiya's lolling script. The door closed behind Shikamaru.

"Yes," came the honeyed words, "Shikamaru…"

She folded her hands loosely under her chin ad gazed at him, through a long, awkward silence. The boy broke it.

"It was you who called me here." His brow furrowed.

Another silence.

"Right-?"

"No, you're correct, I did call you here." Why wouldn't she just get to the point?!?!

Silence once again.

The Hokage suddenly drew out a scroll from the pile on her desk.

"I believe you are aware of the current situation between Konoha, Leaf Village, and Suna, Sand Village, correct?"

Shikamaru frowned. Last he had heard, they were at peace, perhaps soon to be allies. He hadn't heard anything since he had left on his last mission however; were the circumstances different now?

The Hokage spared him his brief confusion, ad answered for him.

"It is peaceful. One more positive event and we may be able to draw up a peace contract. Which, by the way, I'm putting you in charge of writing. You know how to please."

Shikamaru decided to ignore the last comment, which could have dual meanings. Wait- she wanted him to draw up the peace contract? Was that it?

"So, aside from the peace contract, how does this concern me?" 'Troublesome lady, she should get to the point!' he thought.

"I was getting to that." The smile returned to her face. The boy in front of her found it rather creepy. He couldn't place a finger on what type of smile that was…

"You are going to be conducting the last push we need to give them." Without further ado, she handed him the scroll. He flashed her a hopeless look, and pulled open the scroll. It took him a few moments to read it, but after he did, the boy seemed very confused.

"It's from the Kazekage….but…I don't quite-" Tsunade saved him from his confusion.

"You remember the Kazekage's older sister, correct?"

Shikamaru's eyes suddenly grew wide, with terror, and the scroll went limp in his hand.

"N…No, you can't possibly mean-"

The Kazekage only had one sister. The one woman he feared as much as his mother, if not more.

"Temari." Tsunade confirmed.

It was then that Shikamaru understood the look on Tsunade-Sama's face.

Amusement.

XxxxX

"Holy Shit, you're kidding, right? You are seriously not going to-"

Shikamaru said nothing, did nothing, betrayed to emotion. He resembled a quite hollow shell, eyes wide, face expressionless.

"So….you have to show Temari around…AGAIN?!?!"

Still no response.

"For how long?"

The hollow boy spoke. "A week. Seven days of hell. My last seven days no doubt."

"Well, what do you have to DO?!? She was sent by the Kazekage, wasn't she? Do you have a choice? Can't you just decline? They can get someone else, can't they?"

The Nara boy sat up, pressing his fingertips to his temples. Damn Tsunade and her sick sense of humor.

"Apparently… they're checking up on Konoha before making the move into alliance. So, I have to show her different aspects of the village for a week."

"W…where is she staying?" Shikamaru's best friend dared to ask.

"There's a bit of luck right there. She's been given an apartment in the Hokage's Foreign building. You know how we have a bunch of Waterfall shinobi training here?"

Chouji nodded.

"It's where their jounin stay. So, she'll be plenty far away from me for 12 hours of the day."

"Dude, that sucks.. But… I never really knew… why exactly do you hate her?"

"Chouji, do you want to die an early death?"

"Jesus, I was just asking!"

Silence.

"You should still tell me."

Another silence.

"She's the most troublesome person on the planet. Always up in my face, criticizing me, making me do more than I have to… and she hits me every time I do something she doesn't like. She's like my mother, except hormonal."

"That sounds like Ino to me."

"Temari is WORSE. Deep down, Ino cares for me as a teammate. Temari could kill me with no second thoughts whatsoever. Talking to her is like subduing all of Suna with a single kunai!"

There was a pause.

"Kind of funny, you know?" Chouji smiled.

Shikamaru didn't find any part of his situation funny, and just glared.

His companion continued.

"The Nara men always seem to fall for troublesome women."

XxxxX END OF CHAPTER XxxxX

Author's Noteh:

Teehee, my first Naruto fic. It pretty much started as most Shikamaru x Temari fanfics do, but since this is my favorite pairing, I want it to turn into a hilariuous romantic comedy with droplets of seriousness sprinkled about. How am I doing as far as slipping into ooc goes? Shika-Chan's my favorite character, so I'm trying not to bend my fantasy into this story too much. Please review, I won't bother continuing if nobody's interested xD. I know it's a short chapter, but it's just because I don't want to go any farther into the story if nobody's gonna read it. Anyways, see y'all later! 333 Troublesome Natto