A/N: Sorry about such an enormously long wait for an update, but I forced myself to sit down and churn out this little number. Finals are this week, but I am going to be editing the previous chapters, and may even be able to update again. Ambitious? I'd like to think so. Don't forget, reviews make my world go round!
The image that was refracting through his eyeballs being processed regardless of is mental stability was something Shikamaru had never though he would have experienced on this great green earth. Not even the product of a hastily and rather unwise decision to undertake a bet involving a waffle iron, ribbons, and several pints of alcohol had yielded such a remarkable feat of edible proportions.
A decidedly animated and lively scrambled egg was levitating over his head, complete with two enormous blueberries that were wiggling around excitedly, and a strip of bacon that kept ripping and then gluing itself back together.
Shikamaru sincerely hoped that Ino hadn't made that for breakfast. Then he'd actually have to eat it.
Fortunately for our assumed victim, this blob of breakfast material was a very worried Yamanaka Ino, who was regretting that the love of her life couldn't stand up to a single lousy punch.
More of a smack, actually.
But even though it was undeniably and irrefutably his fault, he acquired a lump the size of a small orange on the side of his head, and she felt rather guilty for slugging him. After all, he had dragged his lazy ass all the way up two flights of stairs just because she had witnessed her ex-boyfriend practice resuscitation techniques with the only man in the office. And she loved him. That counted for something.
"Sorry about your face," she said, brandishing an ice pack and a couple pills in his direction. "Guess I just don't know my own strength."
Cue the eye roll, courtesy of Shikamaru.
Though he had bore witness to the bizarre, righteous fury that Ino had displayed over the years, he was still at a loss to explain it. A tiny girl should not be able to hurl a two-hundred and twenty pound football player into a wall, nor should she possess the ability to knock out a six-foot two man, e.g. Shikamaru, with a single punch. Granted, a woman scorned does not obey the laws of physics (or any other type to law for that matter), and that a woman scorned on behalf of her friend, as was the case with the football guy, could tear metal apart with her teeth.
"S'okay, I have a hard head." She laughed at that, but still wouldn't meet his eyes.
He watched as she ran nervous fingers through her hair, which was escaping from a haphazard braid. A golden halo of hair coupled with big blue eyes could mislead many. And if Shikamaru hadn't been suffering from what he believed to be a mild concussion, he would have remarked that Ino looked almost angelic.
Both he and Chouji liked to believe they had grown somewhat immune to Ino's looks, but neither could deny that she had grown into an extraordinarily beautiful woman. A woman who was disposed to sudden and rather violent mood swings, but a woman nonetheless. And he would be a down-right liar to claim that he never snuck glances, which he did nearly every moment he was with her, but he was discrete.
So while Shikamaru may have appreciated Ino's beauty and may stare at her more often then he'd like to admit, he wasn't blinded by it. He knew Ino, he'd known her when she would stick macaroni up her nose and into her diaper, when she said "Sii-ka" for the first time, when she had first reached for his hand and held it in pudgy fingers. He knew how selfish and temperamental she could be, how she hogged the covers and controlled the remote, how she hit people when she was angry and flirted with anything that moved.
But he also knew how she brought flowers to his house when his grandfather had died, and how she always stuck by her friends. How she gave money to the homeless man who slept near the dumpster, and that she still cried when they watched "The Lion King" together.
She wasn't an angel.
She was Ino.
His Ino.
And Shikamaru loved her.
But try as he might to hide it from the world's prying eyes, Shikamaru was actually a pretty decent guy. And a decent guy simply does not go around kissing his object of affection when said object is obviously distressed about a failed relationship and emotionally unstable.
Sometimes, having morals sucked.
Ino, rather shaken by the intensity of his gaze, jumped unsteadily to her feet and began fussing with the blankets Shikamaru suddenly found himself cocooned in. Actually, a more accurate term would be smothered by.
"Ino, it's okay, I…"
Smack went the cover.
"I really don't nee…"
Smack.
"Troublesome woman, I…"
Smack.
"Ino, stop it!"
This accidental bludgeoning her invalid friend receiving stopped immediately, and she looked at him with eyes that caused his stomach to seize up and his pulse to race.
"I have something to tell you," his voice sounded gravelly and he licked suddenly dry lips.
Come on now! Let's show her to old Nara courage. Get up off'a that bed you lazy oaf, if you're going to say this, at least say it properly.
Struggling against several pounds of blankets and bandages Ino had applied during his short stay on her couch, Shikmaru proceeded to dump water all over the carpet, break two dishes, and fall into a heap on top of the love of his life.
Such was the strength of his passions.
Unfortunately, the lady who garnered these passions wasn't exactly passionate about being crushed to death against wet carpeting by a man who was notorious for not moving.
"Argh! Shikamaru, you lazy bum, I can't breathe!" Ino had resorted to using her knees as leverage against his stomach, while her hands beat uselessly against his shoulders.
Meanwhile, her knight in shining armor was attempting to free himself from his blanket-infested prison in order to confess undying devotion to his one and only love, which was currently jabbing him in the gut with her knees repeatedly.
"Gah, Ino! Just give me a sec' you troublesome woman, I'm just trying…"
Her nimble hands had made contact with his right shoulder at such an angle that his whole elbow locked up on him.
His body, of course, was already pressed up against Ino, but his lips suddenly decided to join the party too. He felt her soft lips crash against his own, and he could have sworn he saw fireworks.
Ino was in shock.
Shikamaru was kissing her.
Shikamaru was K-I-S-S-I-N-G her.
Hot damn.
'Well,' she thought, as she slid her hands up to his shoulders and around his neck, pulling him down, 'that went much smoother then I'd expected.'
Shikamaru felt a groan wriggle its way through his throat as Ino did something very interesting and very enjoyable with her tongue. The hands he had circled around her waist were buried into her shirt, and he was fighting the urge to move them somewhere a little more intimate.
He had never considered himself to be a very motivated individual (actually, to be honest, a squirrel probably had more drive then he did), nor had he ever truly desired something above all else.
Except for Ino.
He'd always wanted Ino.
But for the first time in his life, Shikamaru felt he was where he wanted to be. He wasn't staring half-heartedly at a chalkboard or typing aimlessly at a computer, wishing for a grassy hill and a cloud filled sky. He wasn't dreaming of the way Ino's lips curved in a smile as she lay next to him.
He was kissing those lips.
And it felt right.
Suddenly, a bolt of blond hair kicked down the front door, and swept into the front room. Ino and Shikamaru, panting and red in the face, jumped nearly a foot in the air when they saw their untimely visitor.
He stood there for a moment, surveying the scene, and then whipped out a small silver cell phone. Punching a button on the keyboard, he waited a few moments, and then proceeded to bellow words of victory that had been building for over twenty years.
"Shikaku, you owe me ten bucks! I told you they'd get together before thirty."
Ino looked at the man with an expression usually reserved for little green aliens or Bigfoot.
Shikmaru quickly untangled himself from the blankets, and hurried over to stay by her. He cleared his throat, quite conscious of his messy hair and the vivid mark that graced Ino's neck.
"Hello Mr. Yamanaka, how are you doing?"
Inoichi clapped a heavy hand onto his shoulder.
"Son, you have no idea how happy you just made your mother. Were you two thinking of a spring wedding? Ino would look just ravishing amidst the blooming…"
Ino let out a strangled squeak.
Shikamaru sighed, as he watched the older man chatter on about flower arrangements and matching china.
'Shouldn't I be able to predict these things?'
Alas, even he wasn't that good.
Damn.