.

Goddamn Alarm Clock

Nara Shikamaru

So Yuri and I are back together. My plan for us to get back together on her birthday worked, which quite frankly if it didn't I would have been pissed. I put in a lot of work into it, getting her a present which said I like you more than a friend but not in the super stalker-y way, tracking the times the deer came around the mountain, dropping off the food in said mountain before picking up Yuri (which took about two hours), making sure Chouji put her present on the bench at the right time, giving her the right amount of affection that wouldn't freak her out… Like I said, a lot of work.

And I didn't like that when she did agree to get back together she was crying her eyes out. I guess it's understandable, considering everything that's happened, but I don't think she completely trusts that I won't 'break her' yet, as she puts it.

"Shikamaru, slow down." Yuri tells me and I pause for a moment so she can catch up.

We're on the way to Suna, something I am not particularly looking forward to. Yuri had to follow up on some work and I figured since I had to catch up on some things as well we could go together. Although I'm expecting that sometime on this trip I will probably have to meet Keisuke. I wonder how that will go…

When we reach the gate to Suna, I pull Yuri aside right before we go in. "What is—" She starts but I cut her off by kissing her. She smiles into my mouth and kisses me back. "People can see us," she says and I kiss her again. I would like to say we're still not that couple that can't keep their hands off each other, but we kind of can't. Or at least I can't.

"I've got two years of kisses to make up. At least let me get this one in." I kiss her cheek and pull away reluctantly.

Yuri grins and rolls her eyes, "Alright, alright." She says and we head in, walking towards our hotel.

"You sure you don't just want to stay with your step mother?" I ask Yuri again. Not that I don't want to share a hotel room with her, I do, I just think it's odd how opposed to it she is.

She shakes her head, "No. That house is the last place I want to be. All those memories…" She shudders and grabs onto my arm, "Besides you've been so busy with work the past few weeks I've hardly been able to see you. It will be nice to be able to spend all this time together."

"If you say so."

On the way to the hotel, Yuri stops by a flower market to pick up some flowers for the room. "This is the Suna version of the Yamanaka's." She laughs as she enters the massive building. It has to be at least four times the size of Ino's shop.

When Yuri goes in the girl behind the counter immediately greets her. "Yuri! Oh my god!" They come out and pull Yuri into a hug, which Yuri reciprocates.

"Mariko, it's been a while." Yuri tells her and turns back to me, gesturing for me to go up to them. I slowly walk up to them, feeling a little out of place. "Mariko, this is Shikamaru." Yuri grabs onto my arm and pulls me to her side.

This place is filled with flowers from head to toe. The only place there isn't any is the walk up to the cash register, holy crap.

"As in…" The red head starts and Yuri nods. Suddenly Mariko goes from slightly excited to extremely excited, "Are you serious? What did that take, two months?"

"Well we got back together a few weeks ago actually." Yuri explains and Mariko gives her a look like Yuri did something bad.

"What brings you back to Suna then?" Mariko questions.

"I got to check up on some of my plants, do some paper work, you know the usual."

"Ohhh, I see. Well let's get you some flowers." Mariko says and they walk off into the sea of flowers.

I hang back by the cash register and wait for them to finish. It appears Yuri has a Suna version of Ino… I wonder how many different versions of us she has here. My stomach twists; the idea that Keisuke could be the Suna version of me makes me want to puke.

About fifteen minutes later, Yuri and I leave the shop with a bouquet of six orchids. When we get to the hotel and into our room I drop my pack by the end of the bed, falling into it. After three days of sleeping bags, this feels amazing.

Yuri laughs as drops her stuff on the bed beside me and places the orchids on her nightstand. "I guess that's your side of the bed?" She asks me, starting to take out things from her bag.

I nod into the blanket, "Yeah I guess." I look up at her and see what she's holding in her hand. "Oh no, you've got to be kidding me."

She has an alarm clock in her hand and it's the same clock that she had back when she was living at my house. It has the most obnoxious ring I have ever heard and I told her a million times how much I hated it but she's insisted on keeping it. Saying it's the only clock that she never slept through.

"You still don't like the clock?" She asks as she sets it up on the nightstand on her side of the bed.

I sit up, "More than don't like. Try hate." I tell her. It's so irritating. Every time it goes off I feel like throwing it across the room.

She rolls her eyes at me, "Just deal with it. All you got to do is hear it for two days."

"Three if you count the day we're leaving to go home." I remind her.

Yuri shakes her head, "Just deal."

It's 7:50am, ten minutes before Yuri's alarm clock is going to go off and I'm debating whether or not to turn it off. I turn in the bed to look at Yuri. She's on her side, facing me and her bangs are side swept towards the pillow. It's completely quiet; no outside noises whatsoever coming in from the outside world.

I can't stop thinking of when I kissed Yuri's scar and she squeezed my shoulders, digging her nails into them. I don't know why, but I want to do something to make her do it again. So I tuck some of Yuri's hair behind her ear and lean forward, about to kiss her, but pause right before I do, remembering my stupid promise.

"Yuri." I shake her shoulder a little "wake up."

She rolls onto her back, frowning at the sudden disturbance. "What is it?" She tries to say but it really comes out like 'wah is eh?'

She looks so cute half asleep like this. I put an arm around her stomach and lower my header into the side of her neck. "I feel like kissing you and I made a stupid promise."

Yuri intertwines her legs with mine and wraps her arms around my neck instead of placing them on my shoulders like I want. "Fine, fine I'm awake." Her words slowly become more coherent as she goes along.

I lean back up and smile, lowering my lips onto hers. I need to figure out a way to make her grab onto my shoulders. The easiest way I would think is to— I grab her torso and roll back onto the bed, flipping her so she is on top of me.

She moves her hands so that they're on my shoulders, but I still need her to dig her nails into them. I kiss her more fervently and my right hand lingers at the edge of her shirt, wanting to rise so badly. Yuri looks over to the clock and sees the time, "Shikamaru I need to go to work."

I grab the back of her neck and lower her head, placing my lips on her scar and sucking. "Work can wait five minutes." I tell her and continue to move up her neck, along the side of her jaw.

My right hand starts to go underneath her shirt slowly moving up her side, and she finally squeezes my shoulders. But before I can get any satisfaction from it she shakes her head and gets out of the bed, "As much as I would like to continue, I need to go." She gives me a quick peck then runs off into the washroom.

I sigh and as if on cue the darned alarm clock goes off.

I walk with Yuri, dropping her off at her work just like she had asked me the night before. I yawn and look over to her, already knee deep into some logbook. "I didn't realize you liked work this much." I comment and put my hands into my pockets.

She looks up to me and smiles a little, "Well what am I supposed to say? I like it. But hey, I want to show you something. Do you have time now?"

I nod as we arrive at the same greenhouse where all those things happened years ago. We head inside and Yuri tells me to wait by the entrance while she gets what she wants to show me. I lean on the glass wall and look up to the sky.

Not a single cloud.

Then someone enters the green house and starts to walk past me until they double back and notice me. "Can I help you?" They ask.

I shake my head, "I'm just waiting for someone." I say as they walk back to me.

"Oh well… You look like you're from Kohona, right?" The guy is around my height and his hair is all over the place.

I nod, "Shikamaru." I introduce myself, immediately regretting it the second after he punched me. Before he can get another shot in, I grab his arm, twist it behind his back and hold him to the ground. "You must be Keisuke." I should have seen this coming. Of course the second Yuri leaves me alone Keisuke manages to find me.

Then like any good story, every one in the green house comes out to see what the commotion is about. "Shikamaru! Oh my god let him go!" Yuri drops the plant she was holding onto a table and runs over to us.

"He's the one who hit me. I'm just making sure he doesn't—" I try to tell her but then she turns to Keisuke.

"You hit him!" She shouts and smacks his shoulder. At least she's not only abusive to me.

I let Keisuke go, making sure to keep my guard up if he tries to pull something again. He stands up and wipes the dirt off his knees, "He deserves it." He says loud and clear, completely sure about his statement.

Yuri rolls her eyes, "That still doesn't mean you can hit him." She tells him, not really defending me.

I put a hand behind my neck, rubbing it. "Why don't we settle this somewhere where everyone isn't watching us." I comment, looking around at all the eyes on us.

Keisuke shrugs his shoulders and starts to walk away, "No need. I'll be over there, so just stay out of my way." He spits out.

Yuri shakes her head; "We're talking about this later!" She almost shouts to him.

I walk up to her and place a hand on her shoulder, "Sorry about that."

She turns to me and the moment I see how pissed she is I back up a step. "Just go to work. I'll see you at the end of the day." Yuri says and walks off into the green house.

I look at the plant on the table she grabbed to show me. It was a small pitcher plant; it reminded me a lot of the one Yuri had told me about when she sent me that letter. Which is probably why she wanted to show it to me.

Great, just great.

"I heard about your fight in the greenhouse." Temari tells me the second I walk into her office.

I furrow my eyebrows, "I wouldn't call it a fight." It just happened, how the hell does news get around that fast?

"Well obviously." She says and rolls her eyes. "You're back with Yuri now?"

I nod, "Yeah, but maybe not for that much longer. She was pretty pissed at me for defending myself." I sit down in the spare chair she has in her office.

"Oh please, all you got to do is show her that picture of her you still carry in your wallet. She'll forgive you in a second." She laughs.

Temari must have seen the picture one time we went out to eat, whether in a group or by ourselves. "I don't have that picture anymore, I gave it back to her." I explain and rub the sides of my forehead for a second.

"What about the plant picture though, you still have that right?" I do, which is why I gave Yuri's picture to her so easily, but Temari doesn't need to know that.

"Can we just go to work?" I ask, wanting to get off the subject of my relationship. Temari always feels like prying, it's kind of annoying.

"Fine, fine." Temari sighs.

I decide not to wait until the end of the day to see Yuri and drop by at lunch to get her un-mad at me. As I enter the greenhouse I look around and see no one; this place is as dead as the streets at 4:30am. Then after a minute or so someone calls out from behind me, "Don't tell me you're…" I turn to them and they get excited, "You're Shikamaru!"

I blink as the girl runs up to me, "I can't believe it. So Yuri and you are back together." She hits me in the arm like we're buddies. I wonder if that's where Yuri got it from.

"Let me guess… Kyori?" I ask.

By her expression I would say I got it right, "You are good! Yes, nice to meet you Nara Shikamaru." She bows a little.

She seems kind of quirky. "Do you know where Yuri is?" I question her.

"Oh you don't want to talk to Yuri right now." I raise an eyebrow and she continues, "Her and Keisuke have been fighting all day. Granted they usually fight but this isn't over work stuff so it's extra juicy."

"They usually fight?" This seems a little odd to me.

"Yeah, like Keisuke knows all about biology and stuff like Yuri; in fact he probably knows a little more than she does. So they always fight about what's like the best course of action to take when she does her experiments." The way she speaks and the tone in her voice… This is one strange girl.

Then as we're talking Yuri comes out of nowhere with Keisuke in suit and Kyori pushes me back behind some big plant, "Hide!" She whispers.

"Keisuke, it's not like this was a huge surprise. I don't understand why you're so upset." Yuri's tone sounds very disapproving; I hope she never uses that on me.

"I'm upset because he did all this shit to you and you act like none of it happened." I can just imagine his arms waving around, exaggerating his speech.

"I'm not acting like none of it happened!"

"Okay, then if you're not ignoring it, you've forgiven him right?" He says it sarcastically, as if he already knows the answer.

"Of course I haven't!" I guess my thought about her not believing I wasn't going to break her was true. "It's just not enough to…" She doesn't finish her sentence.

"To not be with him? Your obsession of him is only going to end with you being hurt."

"Just leave me alone." Yuri lets out an exasperated sigh and she walks right past us out of the green house into the kazekage's building.

"Nice to meet you," I quickly tell Kyori and I follow after Yuri. Yuri goes into an office and by the time I reach the door she's already sitting in the desk, reading a book. I intentionally leave the door open so that she can't yell that loud at me without disturbing others, hopefully deterring her from doing so. "I caught the tail end of your argument with Keisuke." I say.

When I talk she looks up to me and shakes her head, "Shikamaru don't. I don't want to talk about this now."

"No. We are going to talk about this now." I say firmly. I have a feeling if we put this off we will never talk about it again.

"No we don't nee—" She starts but I walk over to the desk and pull the chair she was in from behind it.

"Yes. We do." I say, waiting for her give in.

She shakes her head again and looks away, "Fine."

I take in a deep breath, bracing myself, "You still haven't forgiven me."

Yuri rolls her eyes, "Yeah, what are you going to do about it?" She spits out.

I cringe a little at her ferocity. "Yuri I've been trying to get you to forgive me for almost two months now."

She looks at me, anger in her eyes. "I've been mad at you for two years, do you really think it'll go away overnight?"

I clench my jaw, "No I don't, but you haven't even tried to forgive me."

"Tried?" She shouts, so much for the idea behind not closing the door. "This whole time I've been trying not to forgive you!"

"What the—" I stop myself before I swear, "You've been trying not to forgive me? Why the hell would you do that?"

"Why? You really have to ask why?" She shakes her head, "You rejected me, then told me the next day 'Sure whatever'. Then you broke up with me after my accident because my Dad told you to. Then you picked a fight with me because my uncle asked you to. Then you shut a freaking a door in my face!" She screams, putting more emphasis on then every time she said it.

Ouch. Having every mistake you've made thrown in your face like that really hurts. I look away, "I didn't say 'Sure whatever'" I correct the only thing about her statement I can.

The room falls silent and all I can hear is Yuri's breathing becoming more ragged by the second. Then just as I look to her she lowers her face into her hands and starts to cry. I kneel down in front of her and pull her hands away from her face, clutching them tightly. "If we're going to be together, you're going to have to forgive me."

She looks at me, her face just a few inches away from mine. "I know." She tries to speak through the tears, "It's just… you weren't there. The whole time my father was sick I know it would have been so much easier if you were there."

I put one of my hands into her hair, holding her head so she doesn't look away. "But Yuri", I pause, waiting until she calmed down a little, "You were going to stay in Suna regardless of what I did. How were we supposed to make it work?"

"I don't know." She whispers, "But I wanted to try. I would have given anything to try." She cringes, trying to stop herself from sobbing.

I broke her. I always thought she was over exaggerating but now I know she wasn't. "Yuri," I say and stand, pulling her with me and into a hug.

She cries into my shoulder and I wait for her to get it out of her system. I wish we could just go back to the beginning, before all of this stupid crap started. But then I wonder if we would feel the way we do about each other if we weren't pushed to such extremes. I feel like some of her 'obsession' over me, as Keisuke puts it, is because of what happened to her. But nothing extraordinary has happened to me, so what explains my obsession over her?

When her tears finally stop I sigh and take in a deep breath. "If you think about it, technically we did make it work. I mean we are together now after all." I explain.

I feel her mouth go into a smile on my vest, and she wipes the tears off her face. She mindlessly taps my forehead protector on my sleeve and says, "What a shitty way to make it work."

I laugh, a kind of tired laugh. "Yeah. I agree. Let's not do that again, okay?"

She nods, "Okay."

"Finally we're going on that first date." Yuri says excitedly as we sit down in a booth at her favourite restaurant.

I open the menu and look at the contents. I have never been here before despite having gone to countless restaurants in Suna over the years. "I wouldn't say this is our first date."

"Oh really, then what was?"

"What about your birthday?"

"But we weren't even together yet."

"We spent the whole day together, just the two of us and we kissed multiple times."

She props her head on the table, "Yeah but to me a date is when you ask someone, 'Want to go out on a date?' It's all about setting the expectations."

I furrow my brows, "But I didn't even ask you this time. So even by following your definition what we are doing right now is not a date."

She holds her breath and tries to think of a counter argument, but fails. "Fine, you win. I guess my birthday can count as our first date."

I laugh and I decide what I want to order, closing the menu and placing it in front of me. "So, how did the rest of your day go?" I ask her.

She frowns; obviously something happened after I left her at lunch. "Keisuke and I got into another fight."

"About?"

"About our fight. Apparently he heard us."

"Well you were yelling pretty loudly." Maybe it would have been better just to close the door…

"Anyways, he got all pissed off at me saying that in the ten minutes you and I were arguing I told you more about how I felt than I told him in the two years I lived here."

"Boo freaking hoo." I feel like I should have mumbled that under my breath, but when it comes to Keisuke, I'm perfectly fine with the world knowing I think he is a crybaby.

Yuri ignores my statement, "Like I guess he kind of has a valid point, but… you're Shikamaru."

"Yes, I am Shikamaru." I say.

"No," She says playfully, "I mean that, in the way that I can tell you anything."

I was about to respond but then Kyori comes to our table out of nowhere, "How did I know you would be here?" She laughs and turns to Yuri.

"You know me too well." Yuri smiles, "Oh! Have you met Shikamaru?" Yuri asks Kyori, her foot starting to rub up and down my leg.

What Yuri is doing isn't distracting at all. I'm not starting to think of inappropriate things. Why would I? "Yes, Mr. Ninja and I have met." Kyori tells her.

"Shikamaru?" I shake my head to clear my thoughts and Yuri asks me again. "You two met at lunch?"

"Yeah we met at lunch." I respond, looking down to my menu again.

"Well Kyori, you know I would ask you to join us but Mr. Ninja and I are kind of on a date." Yuri explains. I think Yuri just likes the word 'date' too much.

"Alright, alright. I'll leave you two alone." Kyori waves goodbye and heads off.

"Can you stop doing that?" I ask Yuri. I'm surprised she's able to do this without blushing. Or at least, if she is I can't tell from this lighting.

"Why?"

I reach for the chopsticks on the table, "Because, if you keep going I won't have any choice but to do inappropriate things to you when we get back to the hotel room."

"If I stop will you still do those inappropriate things?" Yuri questions, a grin fighting its way onto her face.

"You're crazy."

One more day in Suna and then this strange trip can come to an end. Yuri is holding onto me, content in her sleep. I poke her face a few times to wake her, and after a while she stirs and stretches. Last night I figured out that for Yuri to dig her nails into me, whether it be my shoulders or my back (which I actually prefer now) all I need to do is kiss this one spot on her neck right below the right side of her jaw.

Without me having to say or do anything, Yuri gets on all fours and kisses me. But after a second she pulls away, "Are you Dream Shikamaru or Real Shikamaru?" She asks.

I laugh and rest my hands on her thighs, squeezing them slightly. "I'm Real Shikamaru, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too." She says and continues what she was before.

BZZZRRTT. BZZZRRTTT. BZZRRRTTTT. BZZZRRTTTT.

Fucking… I push Yuri back onto the bed, and reach for that goddamn alarm clock. "Shikamaru don't!" Yuri shouts, knowing full well what I'm about to do. I grab the clock and throw it across the room, crashing it into the wall.

Yuri gives me one of those looks and gets up to retrieve the wreckage. "It deserved it." I tell her.

"You sound just like Keisuke did yesterday," she shakes her head.

Someone then knocks on the door, pretty loudly too. "Yuri, we can talk?" I hear muffled from the other side of the door.

She cringes and runs over to the closet, "I'm sleeping." She tells me and closes the door.

My eyebrow twitches; that reaction was way too fast for comfort. I get up out of the bed and open the door. "Yo." I tell Keisuke and yawn.

He looks surprised to see me, "Can I talk to Yuri?" Why the hell is he here at eight in the freaking morning?

"She's sleeping." I lie. I wonder what he thinks about Yuri and I sharing a room; he probably hates it. Perfect.

"It's 8am, Yuri never sleeps in." He says as a matter-of-factly. "And besides anyone in a hundred foot radius can hear that alarm clock."

Considering we both agree on the clock, I let him in. "Yuri, I tried." I yawn again, "She's in the closet." I point to it and get back in bed. She's probably going to be pissed at me for giving away her hiding spot, but if Keisuke is a good friend like she says he is, then they should talk this out.

He looks at me like I'm crazy, and carefully opens the door as if he's expecting something to pop out at him. "You're really in the closet." He tilts his head and lowers himself down to be eye level with her.

"What do you want Keisuke?" She says, not moving.

"I wanted to apologize." He tells her and kneels down, "I shouldn't have been so rude to you yesterday."

There's a pause while Yuri mulls over what to say, "Not good enough."

Keisuke rolls his eyes and restates his apology, "I'm sorry I was such a jerk for yelling at you, even though I am completely right about what I said. I shouldn't have acted that way because you can make your own decisions and I shouldn't try to push my opinions onto you." He says it like he's reciting some boring speech he memorized.

But apparently it's good enough for Yuri. "Okay. Fine." She accepts his apology.

"Are you going to come out of there?" He asks.

She shakes her head, "Nope."

Keisuke laughs a little and I feel sick to my stomach. I'm fine with them sorting out their problems, but not with him flirting with her. I sit up in bed and turn to them, "Don't you have to go to work or something?" I wish my voice didn't sound so jealous.

He looks at me and stands up, almost like he had forgotten I was even there. "Yeah, uhh Yuri, I'll see you at work I guess." He says and lets himself out.

Then just as the door shuts Yuri slams into me and knocks me over. "Why did you give me away?" She yells at me.

I grab her wrists before she can hit me. "He knew you were here, what was I supposed to do?" I think the better question is why did he need to come here to apologize instead of waiting until she got to work? Probably to get some alone time with her since he didn't expect me to be here.

She furrows her brow and pouts, "you suck." She says and gets off of me.

I smile and grab onto her waist, pulling her down to be beside me. And even though she was just mad at me two seconds ago, she has a small smile on her face. "I love you," I tell her. I'm not really sure if now is the right time to say this considering we just got back together, but to be honest I never really stopped loving her.

Suddenly Yuri's small smile turns into a big grin and I know I wasn't wrong in saying it. She wraps her arms around my neck, "I love you too." She says and we kiss, another sweet and savouring kiss like we had on her birthday.

It's the end of the day and I'm heading to Yuri's work to pick her up. Fortunately, nothing too eventful happened today. Keisuke and I managed to avoid each other and Yuri and I went to lunch with Kyori.

However, right before I can walk into the greenhouse, Keisuke stops me. "Shikamaru, can I talk to you?" He asks.

I blink a few times and nod, "Sure I guess." So much for avoiding each other.

We go into a private room and Keisuke lets out a big breath as if what he is going to say is pretty important. "I'm not giving up on her." He tells me and gets right to the point.

Why is he telling me this? What exactly is he planning? "You realize we are dating again, right? Yuri is my girlfriend."

He looks to the side and shrugs, "Yeah I know." Oh I get it. He wants me to hit him so he can cry to Yuri about it.

"You're kind of at a disadvantage aren't you? Considering you don't even live in same country as her anymore." I say, trying my best not to get too worked up about this.

"Oh I guess Yuri hasn't gotten the chance to tell you yet, but I'm moving to Kohona for a bit." I clench my jaw. "Apparently the people she works with aren't really trained to handle her research, so she wants me to go and help her out."

Screw it. He threw the first punch at me yesterday, so even if he does bitch to Yuri I have the upper hand. "Is that it?" I ask him, taking my fist out of my pocket.

"Yeah, that's about it." He says.

I punch the asshole in the face and he falls to the ground. "Alright, good talk." I tell him and leave the room, slamming the door shut behind me.