I do not own Naruto in any way. All rights belong to the makers of Naruto.

This is my first multi-chapter story on the site and my first long piece of writing in well over a year, so any and all C&C is greatly appreciated.

It will centre around Shikamaru Nara, an unmotivated worker at the head office of a huge company based in London, and the events that happen to him, his friends, and his rivals. I've cast several Naruto characters well out of type, which I hope will make it a refreshing and fun story. Then again, I've been wrong before...

Hope you enjoy!

Drama Incorporated.

Chapter 1 – Fresh Air

In the midst of a vibrant city a massive pillar of glass and steel speared into the sky, catching the afternoon sun on its sharp apex and blinding all who dared look at its summit. This titanic blade-shaped monolith was the headquarters of a huge corporate multinational and an entire empire of commerce was controlled and orchestrated from its sleek, modern interior. Whether it was investment banking, high-powered legal disputes, military contracts or assimilating smaller entities into its vast spread, wherever there was money, so to were the tendrils of this huge conglomerate.

Around halfway up this behemoth of a building, on the 36th floor to be exact, a perpetually active hive of work was to be found. Yet here, in amongst the most driven young businessmen of a generation sat a distinctly still person.

Shikamaru Nara sat back in his swivel chair, idly drifting from side to side of his cubicle. He was a twenty-five year old of average height, with a bored yet solemn face and a wiry frame which belied the toned muscle that lay under his suit. With his mid-length black hair tied up out of his way in a coarse tuft, he could easily be considered attractive, but for that assessment to be made he would have to be noticed, and with his carefree and lazy demeanour he found it easy to allow a woman's gaze to go straight through him, as if he were invisible.

The young man had a telephone wedged in the crook of his neck with his head tilted over to hold it in place, and allowed the man on the other end of the line to drone on endlessly, while he stared off across the busy office and out of the window, seemingly intent on a aimless cloud which listed slowly by in the clear sky.

His eyes were suddenly jerked away from the sight, when the sun glinted viciously off the burnished window frame and into the office, forcing Shikamaru to drag his sight back to the sprawling spreadsheet before him, blinking with the sudden strain as he did so. There was silence on the phone, and he realised that his input was required.

"Yeah…..that sounds….fine…" He muttered and stifled a yawn as the chatter on the line started up again. Vaguely wondering what he'd just agreed to, he tabbed out of the meaningless screed of the spreadsheet and over to a specialist car parts site, and began trawling through endless items, each more complex than the last, scouring his way through for a specific something, his eyes glinting with the first genuine interest of the day.

After deciding that what he needed wasn't available on the website he closed the browser, to look this time at a 3-D design tool, where an exploded view of an old American muscle car rotated on the screen, dragged this way and that by Shikamaru's deft finger work on the mouse. To the left of the screen was a list of unintelligible car parts; some green to signify that they had been purchased; some grey to show that they were in transit; and the vast majority in red, to show that no work had been started on them at all.

The tired looking man had inherited this rusted old husk of a car when his father had passed away, whose labour of love it had been to slowly restore it back to its prime. When he had died, the monumental task had fallen to his only son Shikamaru, who allowed him self a small amount of money and time each week to work on the beast, painstakingly nursing it into something resembling a working machine.

Shikamaru was a vast intelligence, and knew that the sheer scale of work set before him could never hope to be completed in the timescale he had set for himself, but carried on steadily regardless. He knew with regret that he would have little else to look forward to at work if he didn't have the beat-up old machine crying out for his attention each weekend, and was content with the miniscule progress he made each time he visited her.

"So I'll meet your boss to discuss this in detail on the 12th then?" came the first clear sentence all phone-call down the line expectantly. The 12th? That's in two days… what a drag… thought Shikamaru, realising that he didn't even know who he'd have to tell his boss they were meeting with.
"Sure." he drawled, still annoyed at having made more work for himself, and feeling relief as the flat dial-tone signalled the end of the call. "Typical." he muttered as he looked down at his watch in disbelief. "As if a two hour phone wasn't bad enough."

After grabbing a late lunch to avoid the queues, Shikamaru slumped back into his office space, and sent off a few quick email replies, barely paying attention to what had been written. He was smart enough to look over a piece of writing and deduce the best response for ending the dialogue swiftly, to save him grief in the future. Barely ten minutes of real work had gone by before the dark haired man had given up, and started looking back at his pet-project, specifically the radiator he had been trying to get working in recent weeks. He had barely begun to make a plan in his head for how to proceed, when he was startled from his reverie by a bright voice, full of wonder, which sounded over his shoulder.

"Wow! That's really detailed! How long have you been working on that?"

Collecting himself and turning around to face the interruption, he found himself nearly touching an attractive, young, blonde girl face-to-face.

She was dressed in a crisp white shirt with wide lapels folded out over her form-hugging grey jacket and her lustrous hair flowed down her back in a ponytail, and in thin strand down the left of her face, framing her kind blue eyes spectacularly. A matching shapely, grey skirt completed the ensemble and even the normally unflappable Shikamaru couldn't help but note her body appreciatively.

She had stepped back murmuring a soft apology, suddenly aware of how awkward her proximity to Shikamaru had been, before carrying on.

"I'm sorry for prying… I couldn't help noticing it over your shoulder as I walked in." Shikamaru was still a little shocked from the sudden entry, and merely gave a nervous smile, before she continued. "Anyway, I'm just coming round to see if anyone wanted a warm drink… I was off to make a pot of tea and-"

"I'm fine thanks." Interrupted the young man, not unkindly, but far too briskly, and he could tell he'd put the blonde off. What's wrong with me? He thought to himself, not fully understanding what had rattled him so much. By the time he'd resolved to apologise and introduce himself, the young woman had already turned and begun to leave his pokey little cubicle, and it was with a stutter that he sprung to his feet and called to her to stop.
"S…sorry Miss…" he tailed off as he realised he'd not even asked her name.

"Yamanaka… Miss Yamanaka." she said as she turned to look over her shoulder at the flustered young man before her. Her face softened when she saw his discomfort, and she added kindly, "but Ino's fine…" before moving on serenely.

"Shikamaru." he spoke quietly afterwards, and she raised a hand as she walked to show that she'd heard. He sank back into his chair, perspiring a little from the stressful situation he'd inadvertently created, and inhaled deeply whilst leaning back on his chair. He was surprised then by the fresh, natural, almost spicy scent that hung in the air where she had just stood. She smelled like the outdoors, he realised with a start, like the crushed pine needles that had rustled under his feet in the forest where his father used to take him hunting as a boy

"Ino." he whispered, tasting the sound of the name on his tongue. He turned back to his desk, with just the very corner of his mouth tugging upwards in a brief smile. Perhaps there's hope for this damn job yet…

As he pulled his chair back toward his immaculate desk an infinitely friendly voice heralded the arrival of Shikamaru's oldest friend and colleague.

"Quite something huh?" the chubby 25 year old exclaimed in quiet admiration as he sauntered into the cubicle. "We could do with a few more like that around on this floor you know… What do you think then?" he asked eagerly. Shikamaru turned to look at Choji Akimichi, a friend he'd made when he was barely five years old and kept close ever since. Messy brown hair sprung up in unruly tufts from his friend's distinctly round face, and his eyes sparkled in perpetual good cheer.

"She's a human being Choji." Shikamaru admonished gently, "You shouldn't stare like you did… She's not a piece of meat!" The irony was not lost on him however, as he realised that he'd been doing exactly what he'd told Choji off for up until right before his portly friend had entered. He was torn from his introspection however, when a second man appeared to the left of the first. Kiba Inuzuka was taller than his overweight companion, and burly with it. Not insignificant muscle was trapped under a pale, blue shirt with sleeves rolled up nonchalantly. The newcomer had his hands stuffed into his neatly pressed trousers, and a jovial smirk lighting his face as he leant on the cubicle divider before speaking.

"I'm gonna have to disagree there Shikamaru. I'm afraid 'piece of meat' is exactly the right expression for Miss Yamanaka… Fresh for the grinder!" he chuckled gleefully at his wordplay before continuing, "We'll see if she's still wearing that smile after a few weeks working up here. She was promoted from that 'kindergarten' on 7th just this morning… hasn't even met the boss yet." Choji snorted at that final remark before muttering,

"Hmmm, wouldn't mind being in the same boat myself to be honest… what a man-eater!" This assessment got the two of them laughing, and even Shikamaru added a brief snap of mirth at the comment but his grin swiftly slipped as he noticed who had just entered at the far side of the office. His pair of friends quickly noticed the change in mood from within the cubicle and followed the young man within's stern gaze towards the newcomers just exiting the lifts in the corner.

"That looks like trouble." grimaced Kiba, becoming serious at once. "I wonder what's brought Uzumaki and Uchiha down from their thrones on 37th..."

If Shikamaru had been asked to describe the pair that had just entered in the form of a metaphor, he would have likened them to a haughty upper-class man and his faithful hound. The spiky blonde head of Naruto Uzumaki nearly always slouched along behind the shock of jet black hair that hung around Sasuke Uchiha's face.

The glowering young man couldn't deny that Uchiha was handsome; ludicrously so in fact, yet he possessed pride and arrogance to match, traits which everybody managed to ignore, failing to see the disdain that Shikamaru could watch oozing from Sasuke's every pore. He wore his dark-blue, tailored suit with distaste as well, looking down on everyone from his classical, pale features with dark eyes. He was a department manager on the floor above the three watchful friends, a position he never failed to use to his advantage, and Uzumaki was his loyal underling, ever faithful, ever present.

Shikamaru turned to Naruto now, seeing another undoubtably attractive man following his superior into the office, with a look that would be more appropriate if he were entering a filthy barn. Where Uchiha was stern and guarded, Uzumaki was loud and open, speaking his mind plainly like a spoiled schoolboy.

It bewildered Shikamaru how so many people had been sucked into the allure of the despicable pair, but the evidence was all there in front of him. As they stood by the water fountain, a sizable crowd of people had already gathered around them to chatter idly, and attempt to curry favour with these two business heavyweights. Uchiha was mobbed by fawning male and female staff alike, but spoke little, preferring to let his entourage answer their questions amongst themselves. Naruto on the other hand, was far less calculating, flirting shamelessly with a small group of women who swooned around him as he sat at-ease on someone's desk.

Normally Shikamaru would've been content to smirk at this performance and then carry on the day, but not this time. This time he spied someone who made his heart sink. Carefree and smiling, Ino was walking directly through the mob to get to the office's small staff kitchen, and Uzumaki had already spotted her.

"Looks like we won't have to wait for her to meet the boss for her to lose that smile huh Kiba?" said Choji softly. "Getting harassed by those bastards will see to it shortly." and the taller man's grunt of reply was almost a growl as he looked on through his thatch of messy brown hair.

Shikamaru knew better though. This wasn't the first time he'd met a staff member who seemed nice. There had been plenty of those in his three year tenure with the company, but it had never come to anything, purely because of the duo by the water fountain. All it would take as she walked by would be a few choice words from Naruto, or perhaps even a glance from Sasuke, and she'd be smitten just like so many before her. Even as he thought this, he saw the leery blonde spy her shapely form edging through the pack and even caught the normally stoic Uchiha stealing a glance. Shikamaru mentally braced himself for the disappointment and watched on in mute disgust as Uzumaki went one further than his expectations.

Ino had just gently elbowed her way through the last of the simpering pack, and was nearly in the open, when Naruto had reached out and given the new staff member a firm slap on the right buttock.

Shikamaru watched on, enraptured. He'd never seen Uzumaki go this far before, but still knew what would come next with the sickening detail of past experience. The girl would turn at the contact, shocked, and upon seeing who'd perpetrated it, smile demurely, then turn and carry on her way with the seeds of attraction already planted in her.

To give her credit, Ino Yamanaka did hold to the formula in one aspect, as she glided off smiling shyly, but the resounding slap had startled everybody in the office into silence, and the red mark on Naruto's face had been delivered with such force that it would be an ugly blackened bruise by the next morning.

Grinning despite himself, Shikamaru looked on as his friend's disbelieving, ecstatic faces swung back to him. Gazing onwards past them again, he caught the smiling girl's eye with admiration and approval writ large across his features, and Ino had beamed back, just for a moment, as if to say, 'That felt really good!' before she passed behind the high walled offices at the end of the room, and left his sight.

Still smiling, Shikamaru stood and lifted his suit with one finger from the back of his chair to hang it over his shoulder. Meanwhile Kiba uttered what had become his 5 o'clock catchphrase with alarming accuracy considering he hadn't even checked his watch.

"I could do with a pint after that!" he smiled, fully aware of his predictability.

"For once Kiba, you won't have to drag me along with protests ringing in your ears." said Shikamaru grinning. "I think we could all do with a drink while we fully process what just happened! Jiraiya's?"

"Yeah, Jiraiya's." answered Kiba, looking to Choji for the third vote of confidence in the plan. The chuckling man obliged him contentedly.

"Jiraiya's."

I have material sketched out for at least 10 more chapters, but I can see myself continuing on to 20 overall.
Once again, C&C is really welcome, and I hope you check in a few days from now to read chapter 2!

In addition, I also wrote and published a NaruSasu one-shot story recently and I welcome any comments you might have on that as well...
Thanks in advance if you take the time out to read it here: .net/s/7402321/1/bA_b_bDay_b_In_The_bSun_b
It's mainly written as a bit of light entertainment, so don't take it serious... at all!
I hope it proves to be a diverting few minutes if nothing else.