Title: Love Story
Pairing: Shikamaru x Ino, Sasuke x Sakura
Type: oneshot
Warnings: crack!fluff, OOC
Summary: Ino wants to be the Girl Who Got Away. Shikamaru, the bastard, refuses to cooperate.

Notes: This isn't the lighter oneSHOT promised for the reviewers of Three Kisses, though Shikamaru x Ino will be making an appearance there as well. This is simply the result of an especially persistent plot bunny that refused to let up.

Oh, and Shikamaru love. Because who doesn't? Whoever snatches him up will be one lucky girl.

Disclaimer: I can only wish.

Yamanaka Ino was pissed.

Her pants were tighter today than they were a week ago.

The cat hadn't come home after his nightly walk.

She'd messed up during her practice session with Ibiki-sensei, and the hot water stopped running thirty seconds into her morning shower.

All these, while horrible enough, weren't the reason for her face growing red with the force of her rage, or her teeth grinding against each other in a maddening rhythm.

It wasn't even that Sakura and Sasuke had finally made their secret-but-everyone-knows-about-it-anyway relationship official.

At the thought, Ino released enough anger to smile softly.

Now, contrary to popular belief, Ino was a natural blonde. Furthermore, she was far from stupid. Sakura and Sasuke eventually falling in love was as inevitable as night coming after day. The pink-haired medic was his solace; she'd never stopped believing in his goodness.

As sappy as it sounded, she'd been his salvation. In Ino's eyes, Sakura was the one thing in his life that the Uchiha had done right.

That was fine. Fate and destiny were Neji's area of expertise, but even Ino knew a lost cause when she saw one. So she was all right with that. She'd even go to their wedding—as the maid of honor, naturally—and wish them all the happiness in the world.

So Ino wasn't upset with her newly re-acquired best friend.

No, the object of her anger was currently sprawled across a stretch of green grass, hands clasped securely behind his head, brown eyes gazing contentedly at the blue sky above. He seemed oblivious to the seething girl standing above him, and his face didn't betray even a flicker of fear.

The absolute bastard.

"Shikamaru…"

The boy simply looked at her and smirked.

It made Ino want to punch him until all his pretty white teeth fell out.

She ignored the part of her that snidely insisted she'd rather kiss it away.

"Hn."

"Why not?"

Shikamaru, knowing that he would not get any peace until he answered, heaved a long-suffering sigh and began to speak. Ino decided she would ignore the way he sounded like a patient parent explaining the ways of the world to a particularly slow child.

There would be entirely too much bloodshed otherwise, and even though her traitorous pants had turned on her, she was wearing her favorite top.

Like hell would she get stains on that.

"Ino, listen to me. Do you have any idea how stupid you sound? You want me to fall in love with you, and then lose you, in a windswept courtship filled with flowers, declarations of love and obscene amounts of chocolate—which, might I add, you won't eat anyway, because of your eternal diet. All this trouble, just so you can claim the honor of having the most romantic love story in the village. And what's that about, anyway? I thought you and Sakura had patched things up."

The blonde released a frustrated sigh.

"Shikamaru," she whined, extended the last syllable of his name for three beats. "Do you not understand what this means? Sure Sakura won the battle for Sasuke. But she doesn't have to win the war! We could be the greatest love story in the history of Konoha! Songs will be sung about my beauty! Poems will be written about your chivalrous deeds.

Plays will be performed…" Ino trailed off and a shower of—strangely enough— sparkles erupted around her head.

Shikamaru wondered whether she'd been hanging around Lee lately.

"You want us—a mind-reading interrogator from ANBU, and the 'lazy genius' of Konoha—to compete with the apprentice of the Godaime Hokage and the last survivor of a bloodline clan, for the greatest love story ever told?"

Ino waited for the inevitable.

"Too troublesome."

There was a moment of quiet reflection, where Shikamaru hoped that she would see the stupidity of her plan, see that she didn't need troubadours and playwrights to wax poetic about her obstinacy, and her foolishness…her smile, and her charm…

At least, not while he was around.

The steam rising from her ears killed those hopes quickly.

Seeing that she was turning to walk away, he quickly performed a few hand seals.

"Shikamaru. Let. Me. Go." Her words, though not yelled, were spoken with a quiet intensity, and the lazy genius knew that if he did as she asked, he'd be limping home with one less limb.

He said nothing, and simply walked forward, forcing her body to do the same until they were only inches apart.

Then he released the seal.

As Ino turned to run, he grabbed her arm and turned her to face him again.

Then, he kissed her.

When they stopped for air, Ino was breathing like she'd just run around the village four times, and Shikamaru's normally impassive eyes were strangely bright. That was when she realized that she really didn't want to be the Girl Who Got Away. Shikamaru was holding her like he'd never let her go.

Ino found that she really didn't mind.

I can't explain myself either. XD

Thanks for reading! Please review!