So Extraordinary, It's Borderline Crazy
Ch.1 Why Him?
Temari had never considered herself a normal girl. Sure, she had normal tendencies, but she wasn't one of those pathetic, tittering females who fell 'in love' and lost focus of everything. She'd always been sure she would never become the girl who would fall for some shinobi and think about him on days that would be better spent training.
After all, men were men; there were more than enough of the useless species, why should any of them occupy her mind at all? They were nothing special.
But there she was sitting on a sand hill her eyes drawn up to the empty sky thinking of some stupid boy.
Because he was a boy. For goodness' sake, she was thinking of a boy three years younger than her and not only that, he was the laziest, most irritating ninja she'd ever had the misfortune to meet. He definitely wasn't worth her time. He was pathetic. He was useless.
Which was why she was so irritated that she could not stop thinking about him.
Nara Shikamaru.
What kind of a name was that anyway? Shikamaru. Shikamaru. She frowned, okay, so it was a perfectly acceptable name. There was nothing wrong with it, but there was nothing extraordinary about it either. Temari tended to like extraordinary. Normalcy was so…cliché and he seemed to only want normalcy.
She growled again.
A soft whisper of a cloud drifted lazily across the sky. Although it could hardly be called a sky. A sky with only one cloud (if it could even be called a cloud) shouldn't be called a sky.
She resisted the urge to sigh. The sky was always so boring in Suna. If she could fix the sky then it wouldn't bother her, but no amount of yelling or threats would mold the sky. Stupid stubborn sky.
Temari longed to be back in Konoha.
The sky was nicer there.
He was there.
She growled again.
What was it? Why did that insufferable baka interrupt her every thought? Why was she thinking about him when she could be training?
He wasn't even remotely interesting.
Temari ran down his attributes in her mind.
He had slanted eyes. They looked nice, but that was it – just nice. They weren't…alluring.
He sported a spiky ponytail... It looked odd, she liked it, but at times she wanted to snap the rubber band holding up his hair to see what Shikamaru's hair looked like tumbling down over his shoulders. Although she suspected the image wouldn't make her heart thump loudly or chills run down her spine. In fact, she imagined it would just make her smile.
He always donned that lazy – everything. Lazy posture, lazy smile, lazy scowl, lazy mannerisms, lazy attitude. That was annoying. It was worse than annoying; it made her want to strangle him.
He wasn't stupid obviously. They called him a genius and with good reason; he was a great tactician. Frankly, it was the reason she respected him; but that wasn't enough to make her swoon.
What the hell was it?!
She growled again. This was getting to her. She could only take so much uncertainty. Her nails dug into the warm sand beneath her.
"Oi, Temari."
Temari looked over her shoulder.
Lovely, it was the object of her irritation. She stood up and turned around to face him. "What are you doing here?"
He smirked, "How polite of you."
"I'm not a polite person, Shikamaru."
He was slouched slightly and his hands were shoved comfortably in his pockets. He looked as bored as he always did.
Temari suppressed another growl of irritation. Why him? She asked herself for the millionth time.
"I know. You don't enjoy being polite too often." He paused. "You're in a bad mood aren't you?"
Temari just glared at him. He clearly wasn't interesting. Not even the slightest bit. Hell, he was annoying. "What are you doing in Suna?" She asked again.
He shrugged. "Political chats. I'm just here to oversee the whole process. It's—"
"Troublesome." Temari finished for him. "Everything is so damn troublesome for you."
He frowned, "Are you—"
"I'm fine." Temari said firmly.
"You just seem more hostile than usual."
"Hmph! What would you know?" She turned her head up to watch the sky. "You don't know me." Temari dropped her gaze back down to him to see his reaction.
"…" He looked up at the sky lazily.
Temari wondered if her response had been too cold, too curt, too rude. What if he stopped talking to her? Despite how annoyed she was at him, she enjoyed their conversations; he was one of the few she actually talked to. Temari had never been a great conversationalist. She had two social modes: the one reserved for political situations and her regular persona, which tended to turn people off and push them away with her bluntness.
"Your sky is boring." He said simply.
"It's not my sky. It's just…sky." She said with slight relief. She hadn't fazed him; she hadn't pissed him off.
Her mind drifted back to her previous thoughts.
What was it? It had to be something. She felt the lure, the slight thump, thump of her heart, but couldn't place where it was coming from. "But I suppose you could call it boring." She continued, "You can hardly ever see clouds from here."
His eyes dropped back down to her, clearly bored with the sky. "What were you doing before I showed up? Obviously not looking at the sky. It's dull."
"Thinking…about a problem." She doubted he was really interested. He didn't sound it. His apathy was getting to her.
"D'you figure it out?"
"No…" Temari paused, something becoming very clear in her mind. "Say something." She ordered.
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "What?"
Temari felt a slight blush creep along her cheek. "Dammit." It was his voice that did it. His stupid voice.
"Temari…are you blushing?"
"No!" She tried desperately to calm herself down. Him saying her name had enflamed the slight pink into a furious red. "Baka, stop saying stupid things."
He raised an eyebrow but didn't speak.
Thankfully.
His voice dammit. He had a really hot voice. She felt her stomach squirm pleasantly.
"Tem—"
She held up her hand authoritatively, "Don't speak."
He sighed.
Oh, that's a great plan, Temari, Good Temari whined inside her head. Whenever he's in your presence tell him not to speak. That'll work great She had a strong feeling that if Bad Temari was awake she would agree with Good Temari. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" She asked, thoroughly annoyed. She had blushed dammit! Sabakuno Temari did not blush. Especially over Nara Shikamaru. She was clearly losing it. Maybe if he left, her head would regain its sanity. She hoped so; she was very much attached to her sanity.
"Am I allowed to speak now?"
He didn't sound angry. Or irked even. In fact, he just sounded bored.
BORED.
"Why are you like that?!" She asked, steadily growing more irate. "You are exhausting to be around with your stupid bored attitude!"
"Are you trying to tell me to be someone else? I'd figure you of all people would be the last to say that."
"Cheh. You know I don't mean that. I just – I'm…"
"Pissed off? Irritated? Needing to attack something?" He supplied teasingly.
Temari smiled, "Are you offering yourself?"
"As if." He smiled a small smile. "Since a man can't hit a woman you'd kill me with your fan. I'd just have to stand here and take it."
She chuckled despite herself. Looking up at him she smirked, "You and your stupid man and woman crap. You couldn't beat me even if you tried."
"You and your cocky attitude, Temari."
"Do you want to try to prove me wrong, Nara?" She goaded him, a grin on her face.
"Too troublesome."
"'Too troublesome.'" She mimicked. "I think that's just your excuse when you know you can't win."
He leaned forward a cocky smile on his lips. "I'm not the one obsessed with winning."
She grinned, "No, you much rather enjoy giving up."
"Troublesome woman."
"Crybaby."
"Are you still on that?"
"And I will be until I die."
"Won't be too long then, someone's bound to kill you someday soon with that mouth of yours."
She laughed. "Oh, please. You are so lame, Shikamaru."
He chuckled. "Meh."
"Aww...Too lazy to respond?" She teased.
"TEMARI!" The blonde woman sighed as she heard someone call her. Kankuro was jogging up to them.
"What is it, Kankuro?"
"The council wants to see you."
"Am I—"
"No. No, missions. Some political baloney. They declare you're the only one who can clear it up and talk sense into Gaara."
She sighed. "What's Gaara trying to do?"
"I didn't ask."
Another sigh. "I'll head over then. I hate this political bullcrap." She looked at Shikamaru. "When will you be leaving?"
"In two days."
"I'll see you tomorrow then. These kinds of things usually take awhile. Gaara's incomparably stubborn."
He glanced at the sky, "All right then, I'll see you tomorrow, Temari."
A heavy blush spread across her cheeks.
Damn, damn, damn. She was not the kind of girl who blushed dammit! Ever. EVER. And now she'd blushed twice! Why did he have to say her name? It sounded so hot coming from his lips.
Kankuro's eyebrows drew together. "Why the hell are you blushing, Tem?"
Temari wanted to grimace. Kankuro would be bothering her about blushing for the rest of her damned life; as if she didn't have enough issues to deal with on her own. Stupid males. "I'm going to go now." She said ignoring the puppeteer's question and heading off.
A crush and her brother pestering her on said crush.
Great, now she had normal girl problems.
Although she sincerely doubted normal girls were attracted to a guy's voice.