AN: I thought I would post this drabble series to stave you guys off until the next chapters of BOUND are published. I actually have a lot of little snippets sitting around in word documents because they either didn't fit with the story or I wrote them just for fun. I'll also post scenes I cut, too, I suppose, if I find any that aren't too god awful. For now, have some of Shikamaru's perspective of the story. Some of you have been requesting scenes from Shikamaru's point of view, anyway. Feel free to request scenes you'd like to see!

I hope you enjoy. Please review and, as usual, eternal thanks for your patience, support, and sticking around!

He had stumbled upon her by chance.

Shikamaru had been counting on a nice nap in the park after a rough day of reviewing at the Academy. It was that time of year again when students would be testing to be promoted to the lowly level of Genin. The only difference was this year, he was mandated to test out. After all, twelve was the typical promotion age. The kids who tried—and managed—to graduate earlier were trying to hard, in his opinion.

But he would be lying if he said he didn't want to graduate this year and finally become a shinobi. It was in his blood, after all. He was meant to do this.

There was a single thought that prickled in the back of his mind, though, one that always bothered him whenever big life events like this happened. On his birthdays, for example, or when his dad got that promotion on the Village Council. Sometimes, during the little moments, like when Sakura and Ino and a few other girls got into (yet another) big fight over Sasuke or when Naruto played a prank on Iruka-sensei that subsequently got himself, Shikamaru, and a string of other boys in trouble, this thought would occur to him, too.

He wondered where Ren was, what she was doing.

It had been five years since she'd gone off to train with her family in the next town over. He had been promised opportunities to see her, but as the days passed, those promises were forgotten, and he had left it alone, knowing his parents wouldn't have lied to him for no reason.

Ren was, probably, not in the next town over. Or anywhere close to him at all.

So when he entered the park on that fine day, he was not expecting to find anyone in the spot that he frequented, the spot he had been frequenting for a very long time. He saw the shadow, though, saw the familiar curl of brown hair against her neck, and without thinking (or, more accurately, because he had been thinking the thought that always occurred to him in some way or another), he said, "Ren?"

She whirled on her heels; he saw a flash of malice in her expression, the defensiveness of her stance, before she recognized him. Then her shoulders relaxed, her eyes wide with surprise, and she smiled.

"Well," she said, crossing her arms. "If it isn't Nara Shikamaru. Funny seeing you here."

"I could say the same," he said, although he thought the situation could not be accurately encompassed by "funny."

She was different than he remembered. The years could do that to a person, he supposed. After all, when they had first met on his family's deer park, she was wary, hanging by her mother's skirts even when his father tried to lure her out with promise of candy and a friend, shoving Shikamaru forward to prove he wasn't lying. The more they hung out, the more willing she was to be with Shikamaru alone, to lay in the grass and watch the clouds with him despite becoming distracted by passing butterflies or encroaching deer.

She had been, by all means, sweet and playful, talented in her chakra use before Shikamaru really even understood what chakra was, where it came from. After her family was killed in what he later found out was the Uchiha massacre, she had become quiet, reserved, clinging to his sleeve when she was finally allowed to return to school. She whispered everything she said, became defensive without much or any provocation, always seemed to be unfocused until finally—

She had left to go live with extended family in the next town over.

He never could figure out which town, exactly, was "the next town over."

But that was beside the point. The more he spoke to her as she stood before him, the more he realized she was no longer the girl traumatically affected by the massacre. Nor was she the girl who played with him in the grass, the one who watched the clouds passively. As soon as she got the chance, she challenged him to a fight, one he knew better than to decline.

There was one thing that remained unchanged, though: He was still her best friend.

And she, his.