Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Happy Birthday, Shika! ❯ Part One ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (or Shikamaru). I make no money from the writing of this story, but I do happily accept reviews, pocky, and virtual cookies!

Happy Birthday, Shika!

By: ladygizarme
Beta: ren
A/N: Okay, sorry this is late. I forgot to post it here in time. Happy Belated Birthday, Shikamaru!

Part One:

It was September 22nd and Nara Shikamaru woke before his alarm, just like any other day. It was troublesome, but after years of his mother harping at him for letting his alarm ring continuously as a child, he’d become programmed to wake up before the thing even went off. Now, at the age of exactly nineteen years old today, he wasn’t quite sure why he even bothered to set it at all anymore. He supposed it was just a habit that was too troublesome to quit.

Just like any other day, Shikamaru got up, cleaned up, and got dressed for his day. He knew it was his birthday today, thus making him another year older, but he didn’t have any desire to pay any more attention to it beyond acknowledging that fact. In the past, his teammates had insisted on making a big deal of his birthday, particularly Ino. Parties were usually more trouble than they were worth, though, and often ended with a huge mess and Ino chastising Chouji for eating too much cake, and complaining to Shikamaru that she never knew what to get him for his birthday since he always said he didn’t care. That was how he’d ended up with so many random, mostly useless trinkets involving clouds and deer. She claimed those were the only things she knew he liked, because he already owned every puzzle and brain teasing game she knew of, and she couldn’t exactly give him the gift of a nap. Of course, those were the times when he would comment that she could gift him with a nap if she would stop planning parties for his birthday, but of course, that was not met with approval from Ino. Most of the time he would just keep his mouth shut and surreptitiously roll his eyes, finding the argument that would inevitably ensue troublesome.

Truly, if it were up to Shikamaru, all he would want on his birthday would be the luxury of staying in bed all day, or perhaps gazing at the clouds through the sunroof in the living room area of his studio apartment (which his bed was no longer directly under, thanks to the realization one day that sun shining brightly onto his face whilst sleeping in on his days off was rather annoying). Having the company of a certain blond nin during those activities would be nice, as well. Alas, it was not to be, as Naruto was still away on a mission and he himself had duties to attend to in Hokage Tower.

Once again, it was Konoha’s turn to host the Chuunin Exams, and he’d been selected as a proctor. There wasn’t much left for him to do in the way of preparation, but there were daily meetings he had to attend. He sighed to himself. It was, indeed, troublesome.

After eating a simple breakfast, Shikamaru opened the door to leave his apartment and nearly tripped over the large box that was sitting right there on his doormat. It was wrapped in bright, metallic purple paper, the lid wrapped separately from the box so that it could easily be pulled off without tearing the paper. There was also a large, flowery looking bow atop it, with a large white card that read, in purple, typed script:

“To the Troublesome Guy
Happy Birthday”

Sighing to himself again, Shikamaru reluctantly picked up the apparent present and brought it inside to open it.

When he pulled the top off, he had to dig through filmy, white tissue paper before finally finding the item within. When he grasped something cloth-like, he pulled it out to reveal a brand new Jounin vest. Attached to one of its pockets was another typed note that told Shikamaru to, “Make good use of it and finally swap out the raggedy one you’ve been putting off replacing because it’s too troublesome.”

After that, there was a face drawn with a tongue sticking out, and Shika found it very similar to faces Ino often made at him. So Ino had started her usual birthday antics early this year. Oh well, at least she seemed to have finally found him a practical gift. So, willing to admit that his old vest was looking pretty torn up lately, the ponytailed Jounin shrugged out of the old and into the new, putting the contents of his pockets into his new vest as well before once again heading out the door.

As he was walking through the village, on the way to the tower, Shikamaru’s attention was suddenly caught by something suspicious sitting in the middle of the road. On closer inspection, he found it to be another wrapped box, a smaller one this time. The paper on this one was bright blue, with swirls of different shades of blue all over, and had a shiny blue ribbon wrapped around it. The pony tailed man looked around curiously, but found no one lurking on the street to whom it may belong. Shrugging to himself, he went to pocket it (intending to put it in the Lost and Found box at the Hokage Tower) when he noticed a small card tucked under the bow on top.

The card read simply:

“To Shika
Happy Birthday”

Once again, it was a printed card, so there was no way to identify whose writing it was, and therefore who it was from. Figuring it was somehow involved in some kind of birthday scheme of Ino’s, Shikamaru went ahead and pocketed the box without opening it. If it was another sparkly deer figurine, he did not want to open that on the street, deserted or no. A man had his pride, after all.

His day continued on as normal. The morning was spent in meetings concerning various topics, finally breaking for lunch when Tsunade-sama got bored enough to pull out her bottle of saké and, after a stern glare from her assistant Shizune, announced it was time to take five…or thirty.

As he was heading out for lunch, Shikamaru came across Chouji heading to the yakiniku place they frequented. Chouji heartily wished him a happy birthday, and invited him along for some barbecue. Deciding he wouldn’t mind some company for lunch, Shikamaru agreed. After a good while of eating and talking companionably, Chouji announced that it was time for him to leave. He had a mission to prepare for.

After fishing out some money for the meal (he insisted on paying since it was Shika’s birthday), Chouji deftly grabbed the last piece of meat with his chopsticks and stood as he chewed it with near-ferocity in his eyes. Smirking at his friend’s familiar behavior, Shikamaru watched him go to the counter to pay. It took a little longer than usually necessary, but it looked like Chouji was flirting with the cashier a little bit. He was growing surprisingly adept at that. Shikamaru turned his gaze away, looking over the menu hanging on the wall above their heads. When Chouji finally walked out the door, Shikamaru signaled the waitress for another single order. He was still a bit hungry.

When he finally turned back to the table, he found, to his surprise, another package sitting neatly atop the side of the table Chouji had just vacated. It was in simple, green paper, and had a card on top with his name on it. By this time, he was growing used to the cards on his gifts being printed rather than handwritten, so he didn’t take much notice of it beyond the fact that this one simply said, “For Shikamaru.” Wondering how his friend had managed to leave it there without him noticing, Shika grabbed the box, finding it surprisingly heavy for its size. Shaking it gently, he noticed the contents within rustled a bit with the movement. Then he heard the clink of metal on metal.

Hmm. He had a feeling he knew what this was, but he might as well open it and see.

Sure enough, when he opened the wrapping and looked inside, he found new kunai and shuriken, a roll of trap wire, and a package of exploding tags. That was a nice gift, especially the wire and tags, since he’d been using those a lot lately. Shikamaru smiled and put his new weapons in their appropriate pouches. As he finished that task, his order of meat came to the table, and he dug in.

On his way back into the tower, he bumped into Sakura who was on her way out.

“Oh! Hi, Shikamaru. It’s your birthday today, isn’t it? Happy Birthday.” She smiled at him.

He nodded. “Thank you.” He may not care much about parties, but he appreciated well-wishes.

“Is that a new vest?” she asked curiously then, giving him an appraising look. “Birthday gift?”

Shikamaru sighed, knowing how noticeable it must be that it was new, since his old one had been looking rather worn. He didn’t think it was really necessary for her to walk completely around him to inspect it, but she did so anyway. “Yeah,” he answered simply, ignoring her inspection of him.

“It looks nice on you,” she commented once she’d made it all the way around.

This was a bit out of character for Sakura to say to him, especially since she knew he and Naruto were seeing each other, and it caused Shikamaru to give her a slightly-suspicious, cock-eyed look when he noticed her cheeks were tinged slightly pink.

She laughed, pushing lightly on his chest, “I’m not hitting on you or anything, but it really does look good on you. Do you like it?”

Still looking at her slightly cock-eyed, he answered again, “Yeah.”

Her smile grew. “I’m glad.” Then, inexplicably, her smile dropped a bit as she stared (strangely) at his neck and the barely exposed collar of his mesh shirt underneath the vest. “Did you get anything else?”

“Yeah,” he answered for the third time, offering no more information since she hadn’t asked what he’d gotten. Why was she being so nosey anyway?

She frowned at his monosyllabic answer, but said no more, and left Shikamaru utterly bewildered behind her as she headed off for her shift at the hospital, glancing back at him once before walking resolutely ahead.

Once she was out of ear-shot, Shikamaru muttered, “Women. I’ll never understand them.” Shaking his head, he finally walked into the tower and returned to his boring meetings.

Not too far into the afternoon, the meetings were finally over and Shikamaru was released. However, his day was not over as he had some paperwork he needed to complete for the missions department, so he headed off to the desk he used on that floor of the tower. When he got there, though, he groaned and wished he could turn around and head the opposite direction. His desk was literally covered in flowers and balloons, and a giant banner declaring it was his birthday was strung from the ceiling. Unfortunately, he was spotted before he could even attempt his escape, and was soon caught around the arms by an exuberant, ponytailed blonde.

“Now, now, Shika, you’re not escaping your party this year,” Ino declared as she dragged her former teammate over to the extravagantly decorated office area.

“I never escape,” Shikamaru protested, wondering if it would be worth the effort to dig his heels against the floor and try to pry himself from her grasp. He decided it would most likely be a wasted effort, as determination to embarrass their friends seemed to give girls inhuman strength, so he just gave in and let himself be dragged forward, neither helping nor hindering her efforts.

“Oh, come on, you know you love it. Who doesn’t like celebrating their birthday?”

In his head, he argued that it wasn’t that he didn’t like his birthday, just the over-the-top way she chose to commemorate it. There was really no point in saying it aloud.

Ino’s display and actions had caught the attention of several other chuunin and jounin, and soon Shikamaru was surrounded by people singing to him, patting him on the back (occasionally laughing as they said they loved his new vest–this he found more than a little odd but was too otherwise harassed to worry much about it) and blasting confetti poppers all over him. By the time all was said and done, he figured half the tower had either heard or been part of the uproar, and there was no one he worked with that was still uninformed about the significance of the day. A piece of cake had been literally shoved into his mouth (he’d had to pull a confetti ribbon from his mouth before it could choke him) and there was frosting smeared on more than one of the reports he had yet to even touch, let alone finish.

Slowly, the other shinobi trickled away, returning to their own work and leaving just Shikamaru and Ino. The blonde woman did her best to clean up the mess that had been made, smiling apologetically when she noticed the frosting smeared across the desk and a few papers. Once she deemed it sufficiently tidy, she shoved Shikamaru down on his chair and took her own seat on the cleanest spot on the desk.

“Here ya go, birthday boy,” she said with a grin as she pulled a box out from amongst the bouquets of flowers suffocating the remainder of his desk.

The box was wrapped in familiar purple paper with a flowery bow on top.

Shikamaru cocked an eyebrow at her. “I’m already wearing your present, aren’t I?” he asked, gesturing to his new vest. She never gave him more than one present and a party.

“Um, no, silly,” Ino said, sounding completely sincere. “Now, come on, open it!” she gestured impatiently to the box.

With a long-suffereing sigh, Shikamaru opened his latest present, instantly regretting it when the tissue paper was pulled aside.

It was another glittery deer figurine. This particular one was painted a highly unnatural hue of purple, and appeared to be leaping over fluffy, pink clouds. Wow. Just what he’d always wanted.

He looked at her with as incredulous of a look as his normally-lazy facial muscles could muster. “I think I like the vest better.”

“Shika!” she exclaimed, looking insulted. “That was rude! I’m sorry I didn’t get you such a great gift as a boring jounin vest, but come on! This is cute!”

Okay, now he was really confused. All signs pointed to the vest being from her, down to the wrapping paper and flowery bow. Could he have actually been wrong? This was worrisome. Not only because his hypothesis had been incorrect, but because that meant there was more than one person he knew personally in the village that would decorate a box in flashy, purple paper and flowery bows.

Troublesome.

“I’m…sorry, Ino,” he finally said, still baffling over this latest conundrum.

Ino was not so easily placated, however, and still glared at him, her arms crossed over her chest. “I think you owe me more than a lame apology, Shikamaru,” she sniffed haughtily.

With a roll of his eyes, he asked, “What do you want?”

Suddenly doing a 180, she grinned at him, jumped up, grabbed his hand, and started dragging him away. “You owe me dinner!”

Shikamaru mentally groaned. He still had that paperwork to finish, and he really didn’t want to be here all night to finish it, nor did he particularly want to take it home with him. Before he could voice his complaints, however, Ino suddenly stopped.

“Oh,” she exclaimed softly, turning back to him. “But not tonight. I forgot, I’m busy.” She suddenly released his arm, allowing Shikamaru to stand fully upright again rather than the hunched position he’d been forced to take as the shorter woman dragged him. Ino started walking away, but turned around to point at him and declare, “But you definitely owe me dinner this week, Shikamaru!”

“Hai, hai,” he agreed, just happy to have his limb back and the opportunity to once again work in peace.

With that, Ino left him to his own devices. Shikamaru worked breezily through his paperwork, turning it in just before sunset began.

As he was cleaning up the remaining evidence of his impromptu party earlier, he felt a tap on the shoulder and turned around. Behind him stood Chouji in his full battle armor, a travel pack thrown over his shoulder.

“Chouji, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be leaving on your mission now?”

His friend smiled largely at him. “I couldn’t leave without giving you your birthday present!”

Before Shikamaru could blink, Chouji was holding a gift certificate in front of his face. It was to the yakiniku place.

With a determined look on his face, Chouji informed him, “I’m sorry we couldn’t spend your birthday together how we usually do, Shikamaru. This is a promise that when I come back we’ll eat yakiniku together!”

“Thank you, Chouji, but you didn’t have to do that. One present was enough.”

“One present?”

“Yeah, the box of replacement weapons was perfect timing, too. I’m almost out of tags and wire, and my blades are a little too worn to sharpen properly anymore.”

Chouji blinked at him. “But I didn’t get you any weapons.”

Shikamaru blinked back at him. “You didn’t?”

Chouji shook his head. “I completely forgot what today’s date was until I saw you at lunch. I bought the gift certificate last minute when I paid the bill. I wasn’t sure if you saw me, so I decided to wait until now to give it to you to throw off your suspicion.” He smiled at Shikamaru as if he’d done something really sneaky.

Shikamaru shook his head and chuckled, “I hadn’t seen, but thank you Chouji. We will definitely eat that yakiniku when you get back.”

Chouji nodded at him, “You’re welcome.” Then he turned to leave, but paused and looked back over his shoulder at Shikamaru. “By the way, Shikamaru, that new vest really suits you.” His grin this time seemed not only jovial, but amused. Then, with a casual wave, he left to meet his squad for their mission.

Once he was left alone, Shikamaru returned to his cleaning while again contemplating the odd occurrences today. Three mysterious gifts, and apparently they hadn’t come from his two former teammates as he had surmised. Thinking this, he suddenly remembered the forgotten small box from that morning, which was still tucked away in one of his pockets. Before he could take it out to open it finally, however, he found one more wrapped package hidden among the cluttering debris on his desk.

This one was simple; a rectangular object–obviously not a box–wrapped in yellow paper with “Happy Birthday” printed all over it. This time there was no card, but it was downright obvious it was for him anyway. He also noticed that there was a bit of frosting and confetti stuck to it, proving that it had been there the majority of the day without him noticing. Shikamaru tore the paper away and looked at the objects he now held in his hand, quirking an incredulous brow. Was someone playing a joke on him?

They were books, two of them, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was what the books were about. The top book had a picture of two hands making an odd sort of shape together, and behind them was a brightly-lit background where their shadow showed up as a vague picture of a dog. The book was titled, “Shadow Puppets for the Intermediate Shadow User, by Houseki Nicaru.”*

This had to be a joke. The second book wasn’t much better, in fact it was possibly worse as it seemed he had a stalker that liked to poke fun at his personal relationships. It was titled, “101 Uses for Ramen…In the Bedroom!, by The Ramen Perv.”

That could not be a real book. After a cursory flip through the pages, though, he found that it was. And there were pictures. Oh God, he really did have a stalker. All of the illustrations in the book had been replaced by altered versions glued over the top of them. Altered versions in which both participants were male, and one of them had three whisker marks on each cheek.

‘Oh God,’ he thought again as he paused on one particularly familiar scene, the memory of the actual occasion popping into his mind unhindered and quickly turning him on.

Okay, he really had to stop looking at this book, or he would have a very visible problem. As it was, he was already expecting to have to spend some quality time with his hand tonight, reliving those memories as Naruto wasn’t due back until tomorrow. To help calm himself down, he looked through the book of shadow puppets, chuckling at the absurdity of it.

Looking around to ascertain whether anyone had seen the books he was perusing incredulously, Shikamaru was satisfied to find the area deserted. Stuffing the paperbacks into a pocket large enough to accommodate them on his vest, Shikamaru finished up his cleaning, begrudgingly grabbed the box that still held Ino’s God-awful gift, and finally left for home as the last rays of daylight streaked the sky in orange and pink. As he was walking, he once again remembered the forgotten package from that morning, and decided to pull it out of his pocket. Since Ino had already given him the dreaded glittery figurine personally, he figured it was probably safe. Besides, after the strange day he’d had, his curiosity couldn’t help but be piqued.

Stopping on the bridge just outside of the central marketplace, Shikamaru leaned against the railing, set down the box from Ino, and opened the blue-wrapped gift. It was a small box that fit right in the palm of his hand, and if he wrapped his fingers around it, it would be all-but hidden. Stuffing the wrapping into a pocket, he lifted the hinged lid of the velvety blue box he found within. Inside laid a shining silver chain, just thick enough to not look girly, but not bulky enough to be a nuisance. Unzipping the front of his vest a bit with one hand, he lifted the necklace out, setting the box beside him on the railing, and found that the chain was just the right length to lie against the collar of his mesh shirt under his vest.

The weight of it felt comfortable against his skin and collar bone, and he smiled as he closed the box and re-pocketed it. He had a good idea now who had given him his mystery presents, and why Sakura had been staring at his neck so strangely earlier. She’d probably been wondering where the necklace was. Just to confirm his new suspicions, Shikamaru shrugged off his vest and held it in front of him, looking at the back. There, in plain view, was Uzumaki Naruto’s trademark swirl–otherwise known as his family crest. Chuckling at the discovery, Shikamaru now understood all the strange comments about his vest today–and the remarks that had seemed out of the blue at the time, about Naruto finally publicly staking his claim.

Shikamaru had formerly thought they meant the incident that had happened a few days before, when Izumo and Kotetsu had been searching for Naruto concerning his latest mission, and found the blond pinning Shikamaru to his favorite cloud-watching spot, their mouths and tongues blatantly intertwined and bodies starting to join in on the action. All in all, Shikamaru decided he preferred his new vest to be the subject of those comments.

Now everything made perfect sense, down to the apparent randomness of present-placement, and even the variations of gift-wrapping style. Naruto must have arranged for his friends to covertly give his presents to Shikamaru, since he’d had to be gone for Shika’s birthday. Shikamaru just hoped his lover would be back from the mission soon, so he could thank him properly.


TBC in Part Two!

* The idea for this book came from my friend (and fellow author) Houseki. She suggested the shadow puppet idea after I told her about the ramen book, and I stole it, promising to credit her as the “author” LOL. I made up the title myself.