A/N: Oh my Lanta this is later than late! *cries slightly* I've been sick for almost five weeks straight, so I guess that excuses me slightly, but you don't want to read about my excuses. You want ShikaTema! And so, here we go...

Confusing and Unnatural

"Oi, lazy-brains! Shikamaru!"

Shikamaru looked back over his shoulder at the spikey-haired blonde running towards him. "Shikamaru," Temari repeated, "you should know that you walk a whole lot faster than you have any right to." He raised an eyebrow, almost daring the troublesome woman to explain. Accepting the challenge, she scolded him.

"Someone as lazy as you are should NOT be able to walk at a faster pace than me."

"Maybe you're just getting fat," he smirked.

"WHAT!?" She yelled, charging towards him. Before she had a chance to pummel him into the ground, he raised his hand and flicked her in the forehead.

"Just~Kidding." He said in a sing-songy voice, an infuriatingly content smile on his face. Temari's face twitched. "TRY DOING THAT TO ME AGAIN, IDIOT!" she yelled as she smacked him with her fan, sending him flying.

.0.0.0.

"I don't know what his deal is!" Temari smacked her cup of sake against the table in frustration. Across the table, Ino grimaced in sympathy, "What did he do this time?" Against all odds, the two girls had become drinking friends, often sitting in the back corner booth of the restaurant and ranting about the idiotic boys in their lives.

"He's been acting waay too normal lately. When I suggested that we go visit his parents, he just said,"okay," and smiled a little. When has he ever enjoyed going to his parents' house?! And once, I found him grinning at me, for no reason. Grinning at me! I was beginning to question if his face was even capable of so much movement!" Temari's faced flushed even redder in anger. "Then later, after telling me that I was fat, he flicked my forehead before I could pummel him and said,
"Just~kidding," in this sing-songy voice and this little smile on his stupid face. Why the crap would Shikamaru, of all people, do that?" Ino furrowed her eyebrows in thought.

"That is really strange..."

"It's confusing and unnatural!" Temari smacked her face into the table, wrapping her arms around her head and sighing in frustration.

After thinking it over for a bit, Ino smirked slightly―the obvious solution being quite an amusing thought. Looking up at the sound of Ino's slight chuckle, Temari became instantly wary.

"Whaat...?" the Suna nin asked slowly and dangerously, her eyes narrowing. Ino smiled knowingly. Temari's past wariness tripled.

Ino grinned and said simply, "He likes you."

'!'

Temari's face twitched in a rather bemusing manner, managing to somehow look part horrified, part disgusted, and part just plain shocked. Needless to say, Ino's amusement was definitely increased and thus proceeded to laugh harder.

Temari smacked her hand into her forehead, groaning slightly. "Duh!" she shouted, severely annoyed at herself, "that's the ONLY EXPLAINATION! Gosh, I'm so stupid... I can't believe I missed that." Ino laughed even harder.

"Only you," she managed to sputter out between her laughs, "would react more to missing the signs than the fact that the boy you like is in love with you."

"I can't believe that never occurred to me..." she grumbled.

"Well," Ino began, her laughter subsiding, "I suppose that you should confront him about it now. It's definitely mutual."

Temari scowled, "Well what am I supposed to do? Walk up to him and say, 'You like me, don't you'?"

.0.0.0.

"You like me, don't you."

Shikamaru choked on his noodles. Of the one hundred ways he anticipated this would go, that was *not* one of them.

Temari pointed her chopsticks at him threateningly. "Don't even pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Temari smacked the side of his head. "You're an idiot, you know that? Just suck it up and admit that you like me already!"

Shikamaru stayed silent for a moment, trying to find a way out of this with the least amount of effort and pain on his part. Unfortunately, since Temari was involved, the variables were confounded greatly and the answer was not clear. This was definitely troublesome.

Tired of waiting for a reply, Temari rolled her eyes, mumbling a bit about 'lazy bums.' Taking matters into her own hands, she leaned over and smashed her lips onto his. After a few moments, she pulled back and walked away, saying, "come talk to me once you've figured out a painless and easy way out of this."

'Not that there is one,' Temari thought, smirking to herself as she walked away from the ramen stand.

'Troublesome woman's too smart for her own good,' Shikamaru thought with a sigh. He could see the now all too imminent doom of his 'single' and 'easy life' status.

He sighed again, walking off to enjoy his last days of freedom. However, he couldn't keep himself from thinking...

"But, damn, that kiss was worth it."

A/N: Ahhh, that was fun to write. And Ino and Temari are friends! (in this one-shot/drabble-thing, at least) I needed someone for Temari to talk about boys with, and Ino was the best(?) solution. Not that it would ever happen in canon.

:D See you (figuratively) in the next chapter! (Of which will hopefully be out in less than a month...)

And now for a little shameless advertising. I've started a Bleach fic. Which pairings, you ask? Well, all of them, Frank. Yes, it's an in-universe shipping war of massive proportions, headed by Matsumoto, of course. Please check it out. I do hope it will be great fun.

Thank you for reading!

*bows*

-drawnoflife