How Troublesome

Chapter 6: Annoying Attacks

Shikamaru was woken up rather rudely the next morning.

"What the hell are you doing?" a cold voice asked rudely.

Shikamaru opened his eyes and blinked blearily, trying to get his surroundings in order. Sasuke was standing over him, arms crossed, and glaring ferociously. Shikamaru glared back, albeit lazily. This was not the most pleasant way to wake up. He didn't answer and instead focused on whatever was pressing down on his shoulder.

It was Naruto. She was asleep, head resting on his shoulder, and, sometime during the night, his arm had wrapped around her. She nuzzled against him in her sleep. Now, this wouldn't actually be a bad way to wake up, if the Uchiha had been bugging someone else. Even though he knew that glares couldn't kill, the Uchiha's came as close as one could. Finally he answered Sasuke's question. "Well, I was sleeping before you woke me up, and now I seem to be laying here," he drawled.

"You know that's not what I mean, Nara," Sasuke gritted out, clenching his fists.

Naruto conveniently chose this time to wake up.

She snuggled in closer to Shikamaru, and then frowned, using her hand to pat and feel what she was laying on, as if she was trying to figure it out, and it happened to be Shikamaru. Naruto opened her eyes and blinked sleepily before finding herself nose-to-nose with Shikamaru. And, instead of the look of shock or yell that he had been expecting, she merely said, "Ah... Er, morning," in a slightly awkward voice, a faint dusting of pink spreading across her cheeks.

Then she sat up and stretched cutely, arching her back and stretching her arms over her head, giving each of the males a rather nice view. After stretching, she looked up at Sasuke, "What's up?"

"What's up? What's up? Dobe, why is Shikamaru in your sleeping bag?"

"Duh," Naruto said, as if it was obvious, which it was to her, "You wouldn't let Shika have your bag, so I let him in mine. It wasn't fair to let him sleep on the cold, hard ground."

The fact that the ground wasn't that bad, being covered by a layer of springy grass, and that it hadn't been that cold either sprang into Shikamaru's mind, but he kept quiet. It was amusing to watch Naruto be completely oblivious to the real source of the Uchiha's annoyance.

"I don't get why you're freaking out about, Teme. We're both g-guys, and when I become Hokage I'll need to be able to take care of the people in my village, so why not start now? Besides, I wouldn't have had to share a sleeping bag if you had given him yours," Naruto said in a completely matter of fact voice.

Shikamaru hid a grin under a yawn as he got up. Naruto had essentially, but without meaning to, blamed the whole situation on Sasuke. If only Sasuke knew that Naruto wasn't really a guy. Sasuke would probably be trying to stab Shikamaru with a few shuriken and then ram a Chidori through his chest. It was weird. Naruto, now, seemed to be one of the few people that the Uchiha cared about, which meant that he was very protective of Naruto and jealous of anyone who tried to come close.

Shikamaru looked at the Uchiha closely as Naruto told him to stop being a Teme and shoved the sleeping bag in his arms.

It could be possible that the Uchiha saw Naruto as more than just his best friend, but didn't he think that Naruto was a guy? That would mean that he was... Well, it was possible. As far as he knew, the Uchiha had never shown any interest in the members of his fan club. Shikamaru shuddered slightly. Fan girls were a scary race.

Naruto's face appeared in front of him and he switched his train of thought to the present. "I'm hungry... and I don't want to die of food poisoning, so that means that Sasuke can't cook breakfast," she said, and the unasked question hung in the air.