Author's Note: All characters involved are the creative property of Masashi Kishimoto. Also, any similarities between this piece and anyone else's is completely coincidental. I'm so sorry if something like this was already done! ^^; Anyways, thank you for taking the time to check this story out, and please enjoy!

Though no one ever said it out loud, it was well known that Shikamaru was always the one to catch her when she fell.

With what was one of the few major flaws with Ino's Mind-Possession Jutsu, even someone as dull as Naruto or as socially inept as Sai could realize that she had to put in a lot of trust into her teammates to protect her body; to make sure that it would be safely waiting there for her mind to fall back in to when the purpose of her Jutsu had been accomplished.

"But that doesn't mean you can just leave yourself here whenever you want, troublesome woman." Shikamaru complained with a heavy sigh, dropping down by her body. Frowning as if finding someone where he usually took the time to gaze up at the clouds was the absolute last thing he'd wanted to see today, he didn't seem to pay her any mind as he got himself comfortable. The small, white card Ino held loosely in a hand was something Shikamaru didn't appear particularly interested in: it'd probably just prove that he shouldn't have a panic attack and she'd "be back in a bit". He frowned, but kept quiet. After all, it wasn't like she could reply when her mind was somewhere else, so complaining at her body would be useless.

At least she bothered to leave him a message this time: unlike like the first time he'd found her like that, a reason for Chouji and Kiba and the other boys to playfully jeer at him for the next couple weeks about.

The very thought was enough to make his face tinge a guilty shade of light red, which he then wanted to cover with his hands. It was completely and utterly unfair that those bastards got to get away with jabbing at him playfully when Asuma-sensei and Chouji – apparently already heading his way to make sure that they were still on for barbeque after tomorrow's training – had sprinted over to his favorite cloud watching spot in the field only to find him holding their female teammate, shaking her and calling her name in what he refused to admit was an emotion as troublesome as worry. It really wasn't his fault, though. In fact, he should've gotten thanks instead of the frantic flailing and yelling from Ino when she returned to her body and the snickers from Chouji that were only encouraged by Asuma's light, casual smirk. After all, what if that perverted old sage Naruto slipped under the wing of found her? He had no idea what sort of "research" Jiraya'd be interested in if he found a young girl simply passed out on the ground, but Shikamaru was sure that he didn't want to find out. Hell, he was sure that Chouji or Asuma or even Sakura would've done the same thing he had! Shikamaru gave a snort in disdain as the memory replayed in his head, and he tried to cast it away before he could feel any color rising to his cheeks. Hmph. He'd swear he'd never forgive the troublesome woman about that, and he reaffirmed it just now.

Rolling onto his side, Shikamaru looked over at Ino's body and lazily looked her over. It was the third time she's done this in several weeks, and he couldn't really figure out why. "Keeping an eye out for possible spies in Konoha?" Shikamaru mused to himself, staring at her gently closed eyes, eyelids concealing one of the most intense and fascinating shades of blue he knew beneath. "Eavesdropping to see if there's any new scandal you're not in on yet?" He offered her a bemused smirk to go with the insinuating tone he used, despite knowing she wouldn't see it while her mind could be miles away. Shikamaru sighed and rolled onto his back again, falling temporarily silent and going back to staring at the sky. There wasn't as many clouds as he would've preferred, and what clouds were there barely stood out as wisps of white against the infinitely blue sky. Still not as blue as her eyes, he thought. But no sooner did the words form in his mind did Shikamaru suddenly open his eyes and he sat up. The hell was that? He usually tried to avoid anything cheesy like that, so what made him think something so… so lame?

Frowning sternly down at the grass between his feet, Shikamaru pushed the idea from his mind. "How troublesome," he muttered, looking back at Ino's body, "I'm getting as corny as you are when it comes to your latest crush." With another slow sigh, he let his eyes lazily linger over the kunoichi's form and he couldn't help but to compare the two of them. Her skin still held a light, peach color despite hours of training, and his skin darkened to a tan; her outfit was playful and light, and his was dark and boring; her hair was reminiscent of the sun, his the shadows; she was all soft curves, he was hard angles; her eyes…

He didn't want to try and compare their eyes after the previous thought.

Shikamaru realized after another moment that he'd been staring at her for more than a minute, which was more than the few seconds he'd originally planned on. Rolling his eyes, he flopped back down, muttering something about "damn hormones" and resumed gazing at the sky. God, how long was she going to be gone? "You usually don't take this long, you know." He muttered, looking up at the sky and watching a string of clouds roll by. Despite being a boy genius, he felt so clueless when it came to women. There was his mom, of course, and how – yelling and occasional item to the head aside – she could go from apparently being such a nag to melting in his dad's touch during the few stolen, more intimate moments Shikamaru had the luck (if you'd want to call it that) to see. Just what was it that made his dad want to even deal with all the bothersome things his mom put him through for a smile in the first place? What was it about just a touch that made him forget how troublesome she-?

Glancing over at Ino thoughtfully, a pondering glaze coated his eyes before he shut his eyes tight and shook his head. No. That was one of the worst ideas he's ever had. No, not even one of the worst: just one of the most stupid. Jerking his head so it was looking back up at the sky, he didn't dare open his eyes for a few minutes as if Ino would've awoken and be staring down at him judgingly. Slowly creaking open his eyelids, his frown deepened when he realized that the clouds he was once watching had left, leaving the sky clear. He had no longer been staring up at the sky, but focusing on it: that no, that thought was now out of his mind.

His gaze soon slacked off in its goal though, and Shikamaru rapidly found his eyes trailing back to Ino. He frowned at her serene figure, and felt his hand twitch. Blinking, Shikamaru looked down at his hand, and scowled at it. "You, too?" he asked, before swearing under his breath. Tch, this was so troublesome. Besides, he never really – how was she supposed to help him answer those questions when he certainly never felt that way about – and then he knew she probably never –

Half against his own will, he looked around nervously for any signs of people before Shikamaru swallowed hard. It wasn't like he was doing anything particularly bad, right?

His hand inched closer to Ino's body.

No, he was just doing this to answer a question. Er, or try to.

His fingers gently began to brush against her skin.

After all, no good shinobi – especially a genius as himself – should leave a question unanswered… wait. Why did he even need to make an excuse for this? He wasn't like he really needed to stall, or-

Finally shutting down the inner banter in his head, Shikamaru quickly grabbed Ino's hand.

When he finally managed to loosen his grip on her hand to something of a normal hold, Shikamaru didn't even realize he'd screwed his eyes shut and moved to have his other hand ready to block any incoming attacks until he slowly reopened his eyes. Huh. Was… was this it? His tight lipped look of possible impending doom soon slipped back into the usual frown. Was this all his dad suffered for? "Too troublesome for just this," Shikamaru breathed under a snort of disappointment. He couldn't wrap his head around it. Wasn't there supposed to be fireworks or something when you held the hand of someone you-

No, he immediately thought, you don't. You'd never let yourself get bothered by such a troublesome, confusing thing.

Shikamaru very quickly realized he had a problem by the fact despite his mind telling him this, his hand began to very tentatively brush against the one it held. Looking over to their hands, he had a serious look on his face as he attempted to analyze their hands. Despite everything that was different about them, he couldn't help but notice the similarities. As if in a show of rebellion to all the sweet smelling lotions and care she'd put into her hands, her hands had new calluses forming where old ones were beginning to fade; while Shikamaru had simply never put in enough effort to take care of ridding his hands of them, they showed what Ino's hands would have definitely been like if she gave up the good fight. While he never painted his nails, both shinobi kept their nails short and fairly clean. Both had slightly slender fingers. Both had held and caught kunai, had thrown punches, had trained side by side. Their hands had really done most everything he could think of on the battle field or with hanging around the others he could think of, really, besides hold each other.

Shikamaru stared down his hand in hers for several more moments before he decided it was safe to get a bit bolder with his small experiment. With a grunt, he untangled his hand from hers and moved to pick her up a little. But the moment he'd held her in his arms, Shikamaru realized he didn't know what to do with her. Would he maybe figure it out if he just let her head rest in his lap? Should he just put her behind him so their backs would rest against one another's and maybe something would happen then? "You're really not making this easy for me, troublesome woman." Shikamaru muttered to himself, looking down at her body while a crow cawed in agreement from its tree. He stared at Ino's face with an irritated, yet thoughtful look. As if his answer was lingering just beyond a final unknown hurdle, Shikamaru slowly brushed her bangs out of her face, a foreign yet oddly familiar feeling surfacing from the depths of his guts. It wasn't exactly a bad weird, either. In fact, it felt like-

The crow had cawed again, disturbing Shikamaru's thoughts. Casting an irked look over at the bird, he went to look back down at Ino again before stiffening in realization. Wait, her Mind-Transfer Jutsu also worked on-!

In surprise and shame of being caught, Shikamaru nearly dropped her body as Ino slipped back into it, the first thing Ino feeling when she returned to her body being one of falling. Shikamaru instinctively grabbed for her again, and Ino grabbed for his neck, wrapping her hands around it and jerking Shikamaru's head down a little with the force. "What the hell was that for?" Ino snapped at him, and Shikamaru momentarily felt at a loss of words. "I was just moving you so your joints wouldn't get stiff, troublesome w-" "I meant why you almost dropped me?" Oh, right. Shikamaru rolled his eyes at her and shook his head, moving a little to rise her up a little as if to prove his hands were beneath her. "I caught you, didn't I?" He retorted, staring at Ino's pouting face. While he had her quiet, he quickly moved to turn the tables and possibly distract her from asking about what she might've seen, "Just why were you a troublesome bird, anyways?"

"If you must know," Ino began, but curiously trailed off, causing Shikamaru to quirk a brow as she blushed lightly. Hmph. He knew she was probably just snooping on the latest gossip or something troublesome like that.

"I like the feel of flying. It helps clear my mind, you know? It's nice. I mean, getting to just fly away from everything for a little." Well, that certainly wasn't what Shikamaru was expecting. He blinked, processing this while Ino mumbled something about it also being good training, but he didn't quite catch it as Ino suddenly looked into his eyes, offering a slight shrug and a small, sheepish smile. "Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to get lost in the sky every once in a while?"

Shikamaru stared into Ino's eyes for an eternity in a minute, thinking about her question. Before either of them knew what was happening though, he was bringing her closer to his face and she was pulling him closer to hers, inspecting each other's perplexed gazes. "Yeah…" was the only thing Shikamaru muttered before their lips met. It was something that happened so easily, it probably surprised Ino as much as it did Shikamaru. Their kiss was far from perfect; after all, he was sure if Ino knew this was going to happen, she would've added lipstick to her smooth lips, and Shikamaru… well, he didn't think he could do much that wasn't troublesome to fix his chapped lips, but he would have at least brushed his teeth or something. But it was theirs, and there was something in it that answered all his questions with something more powerful than words.

They pulled away from one another, Shikamaru's cheeks feeling as heated as Ino's cheeks looked. There had been no real reason for them to kiss, but they did anyways. And now, it felt as if the sky lacked clouds because they were all inside Shikamaru, making him feel light. He stared down at Ino, who didn't seem so sure if she, too, knew what to feel, but moved to slide into his lap and pull his head down again, kissing him once more. Shikamaru slackened his hold without a fight as she moved and felt himself wrap his arms around her, the second kiss as surreal as their first.

Well, if this didn't explain what his dad found was worth it.

When they moved away from each other again, they stared at each other with looks that slowly evolved into knowing, yet still slightly abashed smirks. "I think I like getting lost in your eyes a lot more." Shikamaru finally said, breaking the silence. Ino gave a small snort and a laugh, nudging him playfully in the chest. "Really, Shikamaru? God, when did you get so sappy?" She teased, and Shikamaru gave a shrug and a laugh, moving a bit beneath her so she could comfortably turn around in his lap to rest her back against his chest. They both gave a sigh, and watched as the sun sunk lower, allowing the stars to glimmer proudly in the cloudless sky.

"By the way." Ino said, leaning back to look at Shikamaru, who gave her smiling face an inquisitive look.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for catching me."