Belong

Part 10: The Fall

"What's wrong with me? I do look stupid. Look at me, no wonder she thinks I'm flirting with her. She even makes me resort to coming up with excuses to escape. If I hadn't gotten out, who knows what I could've said and how much of a fool I could've kept making myself. Why is she even here anyway? What's more weird is that she's acting kind of different, she's not as hostile or rude as she usually is. This is turning into such a drag."

After a minute of starring at his reflection, he dresses into his usual, proper home attire and returns back to Temari.

"How long does it take you to have a drink of water? I'm not sure if this is what you do here but we don't leave our guests alone." She remarks.

"Jeez!"

"Sorry. As you can see I changed clothes."

"Oh, I hadn't noticed. Why'd you change anyway?"

"Well.. I thought we'd go out."

"Go out? What do you mean 'go out'?" She asks looking at him with a chary expression.

"Don't give me that look. That's not what I meant."

"It better not be." She threatens as she stands up.

"Why does she always assumes things like that? I remember she did the same thing when I suggested she come stay with me for the duration of her mission. And that time she assumed I was gonna share the bed with her. She's always ready to explode and always has her guard up like she's on a mission or something. What a drag. This is why I don't like involving myself with girls. Why is she even like this anyway"

Again he couldn't come with at least a guess to these questions. But questions about  her nature were not those he should be asking, what was he to do with his new found feelings? Or maybe it could be just a crush... But what if it turns out to be more than that? What if they deepen? How would he deal with it? It is said that sometimes it's easier to just confess. He laughed at the thought. Him, confessing his love to her? Not possible.

~~~~~~~~~

"Why'd you want us to go out? We could've just stayed and played Shogi or something."

"Yeah, but I didn't feel like staying inside today."

"Why not?"

"Today is the last day before Team Asuma goes on missions again. We have training tomorrow." He states. "So I wanna enjoy this day while it lasts."

"So what do you want to do?"

"Oh, I thought we'd -"

"Shikamaru!" Naruto calls out of nowhere.

"Naruto. Where did you come from?"

"Oh, me and Hinata were just buying something over there then we saw you - Huh?" He stops when his eyes land on the unrecognizable female on Shikamaru's right. "Hey, who's this?" he asks, with the signature dumb expression on his face but immediately  knew who it was when Temari shot a glare at him.

"No way! Temari?"

"Yeah, you've seen her before." Shikamaru responds.

"Yeah but I couldn't recognize her for a second. She looks different."

"Tch!" She clenches her teeth.

"So what're you guys doing anyway?" Shikamaru asks.

"Oh, you see... Me and Hinata are on a date." Naruto confesses.

"You guys are dating?! Since when?"

"It's been a while."

Both Naruto and Hinata were bright red and it was adorable to look at even Temari liked it.

"We should do a double date!" Naruto says with enthusiasm.

"Double date?" Temari half asks not sure what Naruto means.

"Yeah, you guys are dating too aren't you?"

"WHAT?! -"

"WE'RE NOT DATING!" Temari cuts in.

Both their cheeks went red.

"Really? I assumed you guys are -"

"No, of course not!"  Shikamaru cuts in.

"I thought you're together too. You both look so good together." Hinata comments.

"What a drag."

"Yeah. Well, sorry about that. I guess we'll see you around." Naruto says.

"Y-yeah." He stutters.

~~~~~~~~

"What a drag. What was I thinking? Now people think we're together and this isn't the first time this happened."

It was true, even Sakura once said the same thing Hinata did. Maybe it was really the truth, maybe they did look good together. He laughed at himself.

Hours went by, and they even got to eat at Temari's favourite place; The one she struggled so much to find until she found herself somehow at Shikamaru's place of stay. She still hadn't regretted  her choice of staying here for a little while... At least not yet. In fact Shikamaru made her even more glad that she came here, she wondered how she found herself ending up being around him most of the time ever since she came to prepare for the Chunin Exams then it was that time in the Hidden Tree village, his face was the first she saw when she woke up.. It made her a little happy that somebody except his brothers and only two friends cared for her that much, though that feeling was short lived when he stated he 'just happened to be there when he woke up.'

What an idiot. She'd mentally spat, referring both to him and her for actually believing he cared that much.

But even so, there was still something about his presence, she felt it in her, ever since then she felt.. safe? And he often made her forget a little about the demons she battles inside. Maybe that's why she even went to visit him.

~~~~~

The view was amazing, The Sand didn't have any lakes or rivers or even beautiful waterfalls such as the one she was mesmerized by, so sights like these were kind of rare for her.

"It's beautiful." The words finally fall out of her mouth.

"I thought you'd like it. I've been in the Sand a couple of times and I noticed you don't really have any lakes or streams or rivers so I thought I'd bring you here." He says, wearing a warm smile on his face.

Caught off guard by what he'd just said and at a loss for words, she just glanced at him. How nice of him, she thought. He did this for her? And actually admitted it? Even though it was kind of different, she knew she'd felt this way before, long but not so long time ago. Her nonplussed expression changed to a rather more sad one when she realised it and when she remembered that somebody who had almost the same thing for her.

Even now just the thought of him affected her and it often reminded her to never  let her guard down so she doesn't get hurt the way she was again and even more painful it made her feel like she's going to be the way she is for the rest of her days.

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Unravel-ken: As always, thank you for readind.. dont forget to vote, comment & follow! Honestly your positive comments and votes play a major role in motivating me to write the story to the end.
and
I must say I had fun with this one. I know maybe some of you are a little impatient about when they'll get together(which is very obvious at this point) I am too but I don't wanna rush it, I'm not just trying to write a love story, I -