when LiFe gives YoU l.e.m.o.n.s.

[Kiwi-chan]

To many it was just another day, one like any other, and indeed there was nothing to render it memorable; the sun was shining strongly, but then it always did, unless black clouds heavy with rain obscured it, so nobody was bothering to appreciate the beauty of the clear, bright blue sky. The usual bustle commandeered Konoha's main street, people buying and selling, shinobi on their way home or to the training fields, the occasional masked and hooded ANBU on their way to the Hokage's Tower. Tenten had grown up with the knowledge that ANBU were rarely seen and never heard, but times had changed; now they could be observed at all hours of the day and night guarding the Tower, going to and fro across the village, returning from or departing for missions. ANBU was more than a full-time job nowadays. It was a way of life.

The brunette's eyes followed a blur of black flying from the roof of a clothing store to that of the dango shop and out of sight. Quick but discreet. Most people didn't notice the black ops, and those who did accepted their presence as an everyday thing and didn't stop to dwell on it: Tenten, however, knew that as soon as she was needed it would be her jumping from roof to roof, heading for the Tower to be assigned some risky mission on the trail of the latest missing kekkei genkai-gifted member of such-and-such clan. She couldn't just ignore her colleagues' movements. They filled her with irritation and something akin to dread; why remind her of her job on her days off?

It was the first time she left her apartment since her return four days ago from her most recent trip to hell. She'd kept quiet about her homecoming, locking herself inside her home and proceeding to jump into bed, not to rise from it except to pay the bathroom a visit or snaffle a snack. She ate in bed: the sheets were now littered with chocolate biscuit crumbs, bits and pieces of ramen and there was even a banana skin lying abandoned at the foot of the bed. Her ANBU uniform she'd carelessly tossed into the washing machine- there was no need to wonder if the blood and dirt would come out, they had done so many times before- and she lounged about in her dressing gown, her feet bare, listlessly watching TV or curling up under the duvet to doze or sink into fitful sleep. Her hair went unbrushed and her face unwashed.
Then, that morning, she more or less dragged herself out of bed and into the shower. She found her regular clothes, consisting of the familiar pink shirt and green pants, and put them on before twisting her long hair into the two buns everyone was accustomed to seeing.
She wasn't wandering about aimlessly now; no, she was out of chocolate biscuits and needed to buy some. If she didn't get her hands on junk food soon, she was going to go nuts.

Tenten's pace was slow, even lethargic, but only if compared to her customary bouncy walk. She trailed down a secondary street toward the convenience store. Naruto lived somewhere close by, didn't he...? And the Hyuuga compound was on her right, the Akimichi on her left, the Aburame straight ahead. It was difficult to remember where every clan had its home, but she could place almost all of them by now. The Shizen lived way over the other side of Konoha, and their neighbours were the Na...-

The kunoichi's foot caught on an uneven cobble; there was no flailing, no trying to keep her balance. She fell, hands bracing themselves automatically for the impact. A moment later she was on her knees, one throbbing painfully where it struck the cobbled street. Tenten felt too stunned and ashamed to even raise her head. She didn't want to know who'd seen her stumble. Brushing her sore hands together, the brunette raised herself off the ground, ignoring her bruised knee. She'd endured pain a thousand times worse without batting an eyelid, but this was making her blink back angry tears. It was just too much. Tenten needed someone to blame, and she chose Kami.
Looking up at the sky, she cursed under her breath.

[Shikamaru Nara]

The clear blue sky was a bliss to some, heaven to many and an annoyance to one. With nothing but miles of azure blue to cover the village, Shikamaru's day off was quickly turning into a bother. He had wanted to go and laze about in the Nara forest, only to discover that the deer where in their mating season already, and thus the forest itself was off limits even to the Nara's themselves. Only his old gran could go in there without a hoof to the head.

Then, he figured he'd go cloud gazing near the Akimichi compound with Choji, but as he got there, he found that the chubby man was away on a mission with another squad who had one team member in the hospital. It had irked him, most definitely, but he wasn't surprised. Choji had turned out to be a great asset to any team. However, his best friends mother told him she needed to work in the garden, so if he wanted to stay he'd have to help with that. He had, for an hour or so, helping her mow the lawn and weed the garden, but when her friend had come over for tea and started giggling about her new gardener he had taken his leave. His eyebrows lowered themselves until he was sort of glaring at the rocky road in front of him, the memory mocking him.

"Troublesome lady..." He muttered, his eyes scanning the little booths of the market he crossed. It was a busy day, certainly, and the sellers looked quite happy with their income, most villagers walking with several bags in hand. He briefly lingered at the fruit stall, remembering something about hot days and lemonade made from fresh lemons. Gazing upon the yellow spheres, he decided he would take some with him and try it as he got home. Money exchanged hands and several moments later he was the happy owner of fifteen lemons. Though he was certain he'd been ripped off about the amount he would need, it didn't matter much to him. His mom would be happy to help him out there.

Asuma had been busy with his kid and Kurenai, Ino had to work the shop today, Kiba was off doing god knows what, Hinata was busy in the Hyuuga Compound, Neji... He hadn't even seen or heard from in weeks and he was quickly running out of people and places to be. He simply refused to be either at home, or spend this godsend of a kid-free day at the training grounds, it would be a loss of good time.

With a huff, he lit up a cigarette, taking a deep, long drag and then blowing the smoke into the wind still air. It annoyed him that even the wind refused to blow today. That meant little chance of clouds. Days like this where a drag. Nothing to do, nothing to see, and at the end off the day, he'd feel completely spent, just by doing nothing all day. Weighing out his options as he got to a fork in the road, he stopped to lean against a lamppost. Hokage tower to bother Naruto? Nah. Hyuuga Compound to see if Neji hadn't killed someone yet? Never mind.

He was about to push of and head left, when a movement to the right drew his attention. Tenten. He hadn't seen the Weapon Happy kunoichi for quite some time. One of the few who didn't boss him around. He took a last drag of his smoke before killing it, and walked over to the other just in time to see her stumble. Frowning, he drew closer to hear her curse the gods.

"You might want to disinfect that." He said, pointing to her scrapped knee.

[Kiwi-chan]

The voice was familiar, but she couldn't immediately place it. Tenten whirled around, disbelief and annoyance etched on her face. She'd hoped that nobody saw her fall, in vain it seemed. Not only that, the witness of her little accident was Nara Shikamaru: of all the people in the village, it had to be someone who knew her.

She took a moment to look him up and down. Truth be told, she hadn't met the Nara genius for quite some time. He was essentially the same as always: slouched posture, bored expression, and right at that moment he was probably mourning the absence of clouds. It surprised her to see him holding a bag of fresh, sweet-smelling lemons: somehow he'd never struck her as the type to do the shopping, but neither did Sakura look like the kind of girl to smash mountains with her fist. People were full of surprises, some more than others. She started to be glad of the fact that it was Shikamaru standing before her and not someone else . He was a lazy, reluctant guy, but on the up side he was easy-going, honest and made a good person to talk to. Because, unlike Neji, Shikamaru did talk. Also because, unlike Lee, Shikamaru did not shout.

The brunette opened her mouth to speak, paused, then looked down at her knee. Unless the wound was deep, she didn't bother with plasters or bandages or least of all disinfectant; she let her body take care of itself.
"It's fine."
Her tone was dismissive, her brow furrowed slightly as her dark eyes flew up to meet the Nara's.

It had been a long time. When had she last seen Shikamaru? And spoken to him? Oh, she could remember yelling at him once, when he returned from that disastrous retrieval mission all those years ago...both her teammates had gone, one of them brought back near death, and Shikamaru hadn't been able to tell her anything about their condition. She would have liked to slap him for it.

That was then, however, and this was now.

Although Shikamaru was terribly lazy, the vice Gai disapproved of the most (unless you counted unyouthfulness, which Tenten didn't), he was an excellent shinobi, the first of their little group to make it to Chuunin seven years ago. Over the next three years the rest of them were promoted as well, and at the age of sixteen Neji was made a Jounin. She'd kinda lost track of everyone's advancements in rank, but she did know that after spending a few years as a Chuunin exams proctor, Shikamaru was now a Jounin, which meant he was a level above Tenten. True, she wasn't interested in becoming a Jounin herself, her goal being that of becoming vice-captain of her squad, but the Nara was to be admired nonetheless.
She cracked a smile.

"Long time no see."

[Shikamaru Nara]

As the girl rounded on him, Shikamaru could barely see several emotions running amok behind her eyes. She had been trained well, he had to search for them and even then it was probably because of them knowing each other that she let him. Tenten had most definitely changed. And he wasn't sure if it was in a good way. She had always been quite lively, one of the normal members in her team, as far as normal went in their line of work, that is. The neutral factor between Neji and Lee. The girl in front of him, she was masking her presence, keeping her chakra levels down so that she wouldn't be noticed. Her emotions hidden away behind a mask of... of what? Her eyes roamed his posture, clearly remembering things of the past, reminiscing, like he himself was.

As she, after a moment, disregarded her injury as nothing, Shikamaru shrugged. Whatever. Her choice. He leaned his weight onto one leg and cocked his head. He had always known Tenten was somewhat of a tomboy, but she had seemed to be the most sensible of her team. It puzzled him. What on earth could have happened to have her change like this? He knew she was most likely with the ANBU, and that in itself was not a positive thing for most people he knew, but still. She'd hardened herself against the world, it seemed.

Her demeanor changed a bit though, as she seemed to relax a bit more around him. She looked up at him and straightened her posture. She cracked a grin and her eyes seemed to regain their old twinkle he knew. "Long time no see."

He shrugged again and nodded his head towards the Hokage Tower. "I'm guessing we've both been busy."

What Tenten had been busy at, he could only guess. He himself, he'd been working at their connections with the Sand and his team. Which reminded him! "I've got my own Genin team now. Bunch of troublesome brats." He smirked at Tenten to show he didn't really mean it like that and nodded at her as he turned around towards his house. "Walk with me?"

[Kiwi-chan]

Been busy. Yes, she had certainly been busy. When they were genin, that classified as "sorry, got to go, I'm on my way to the training fields". But 'being busy' wasn't that simple anymore. 'Being busy' had gone global: it now meant "I'm sorry I can't fit in a two-minute chat with you, old friend, I'm off on an assassination mission, and after that I might be expected to go all the way to Kumogakure- nothing much, really, just to gather information about the latest disappearance. Nice day by the way, isn't it?"

These days, few Leaf nin got a breather: work was sweeping them all off their feet, and Orochimaru was to blame. Tenten didn't know if she hated him more because of what he did to the people he kidnapped or because she couldn't remember the meaning of the word "relax". When she lay curled up in her bed, she was tense and jumpy, keeping an eye on the window as though fearing some old enemy would try to break inside her home. When she sat down she felt like she was slacking off, even when she was off duty. It was maddening. And when was the last time she'd had more than a work relationship with a member of the opposite sex? Eighteen months ago at the very least. Way to go.

"Very busy," she agreed shortly, surprising even herself with her briskness. Was she out of practice of doing friendly conversation? Wait, since when did she even need practice? She wasn't Neji, for goodness' sake.
Inclining her head slightly, she accepted Shikamaru's invitation, although it meant abandoning her original plan and doing without chocolate biscuits. Still, something told her that her need for a normal conversation was greater than her need for a packet of fattening biscuits. She fell into step beside the Nara without protesting.

"Ah. I wasn't aware that you were assigned a Genin team." Fourteen-year-old Tenten had looked forward to having her own team...but now she didn't think there was anything she would despise more than having three children added to her long list of responsibilities. "Are the kids still being sorted using the old system? A strong element to balance a weak?" That was the way her team was formed. Hyuuga Neji, the class genius, and poor Rock Lee, the class dunce. And Tenten. Overall average Tenten, notorious for being the strongest girl and able to handle weapons better than anyone else.

[Shikamaru Nara]

As they walked through the busy streets of Konoha, many people greeted them. Most of these people had either family on the academy or employed as a ninja. Otherwise they wouldn't have been there. But still, beyond those people there was a surprisingly high amount of non-combat villagers in Konoha. Shikamaru directed his straying attention back to Tenten as she replied to him about the teams. It got him thinking about his own team. They weren't like the system, he supposed. When compared to the other teams, most of them had been build in the way Tenten's team had been. One weaker nin, one strong and one in the middle.

When looking at Kiba, Hinata and Shino, for example, for some it had been quite obvious. Kiba, the strongest and forward fighter, then Shino, the rear guard and middle fighter and back then, the weakest had been Hinata. But with his team... Thinking back on it he felt his ego go down. All three of them had been push overs, he supposed. Ino only had her mind controlling jutsu, he only had his brain and the most basic shadow manipulation and Choji... Oh, well maybe Choji had been the most powerful of them all. At least one of them knew how to use his fists. Then he pondered his own team. They still had a ways to go, but they would probably end up as a good team.

This year had been quite eventful, as the class had one team of two girls and one boy. His luck, off course, wasn't with him, seeing as he ended up with that team. The first couple of weeks had been spent with the boy whining about there being two girls and the girls fighting over who got the boy. It reminded him of Ino and Sakura back then, and he was happy it wasn't quite that bad. At least the boy wasn't blood lineage material.

He scratched the back of his head with his free hand before returning it to his pants pocket. "I suppose so. To me it's a bother. I got two girls and one boy." He grinned at Tenten then, before rolling his eyes skywards. "Imagine that. Ino, Sakura and-" He cut off his sentence before he could finish it, letting the unsaid hang around in the air. He was certain Tenten was also bothered by the fact that they had their renegade locked up in the dungeons of Konoha. Pretty much everyone was, they just never spoke of it.

Sighing, he shifted he bag of lemons to his other hand, rounding a corner. "Ah, we're here."
Knocking on the door before stepping back, he looked at Tenten, the bag of lemons and then at the sky before asking. "Doyou wanna come in? Mom may be a nag, but she's really good at making lemonade out of these..."

[Kiwi-chan]

Two girls and one boy. It was an unusual arrangement: almost all the teams she could think of consisted of two males and one female, or three males. Somehow Tenten couldn't picture Shikamaru handling two spoilt, lovesick little girls, especially if they were Ino and Sakura material. The two kunoichi in their childhood had been bad on enough on two separate teams. Together....well, the word that sprung to Tenten's mind was bedlam.

"Sasuke." Tenten finished Shikamaru's statement, uttering the name in a hollow tone of resentment, her eyes narrowed. Perhaps time was to blame for her change of heart, the time she'd spent away from Konoha fighting, but she didn't consider the Uchiha one of them, a Leaf nin, anymore. When he was first brought back she was relieved, almost happy to have their old friend among them again, even if...in a questionably sane state of mind; now, she didn't think she would care if he was found dead in his cell. For three long years, he had worked for Orochimaru, betrayed his village just for power and that stupid, stupid revenge of his.

"You once said that he was our comrade. That it was our duty to save him, even if it meant risking our lives. Because that is the way of the Leaf." Tenten paused, giving Shikamaru a sideglance as her lips twitched with what might have been bitter amusement. "Your words made quite an impression on Lee."

A short silence ensued, during which Tenten fought to stare straight ahead and not at her feet. They'd reached the Nara quarters, she noticed; not for the first time, she felt a tiny pang of something akin to nostalgia. When she was a four-year-old she was told that, if she showed signs of a kekkei genkai, she would be returned to whichever clan she belonged to; she used to hope it would be the Nara.

During the split-second Shikamaru looked up at the sky after asking her in, Tenten had the time to hesitate and make a quick decision.
"Arigatou," she said quietly, taking into account that Shikamaru's house was the modern type, with none of the old-fashioned grandeour of the Hyuuga compound; consequently it would not be bad manners to keep her sandals on her feet to go inside.

[Shikamaru Nara]

Clearing the way into the house he once lived in, Shikamaru greeted his mother with a kiss on the cheek. Yoshino was always pleased when her son brought over visitors, but when they where female, her eyes always got one of those really annoying sparkles in them. Shikamaru's approach to these was to run and hide. And, usually, embarrass himself. The spark was there, the moment Tenten uttered a soft "Arigatou." He narrowed his eyes at his mom and noticed that the moment Tenten came in and showed herself, the spark vanished again. Making a mental note to question Yoshino about it later, he moved into the kitchen.

"I got lemons, we're gonna make lemonade." Eying his mom over his shoulder, he held up a knife. "Wanna help?"

Nodding, the Nara's reigning lady got her cooking face on. Strapping on an apron, gearing up with knives, sugar, salt and for some reason a spiral beater. Staring at her, Shikamaru pointed at the thing with a raised eyebrow. Yoshino blinked, glanced down and smiled sheepishly, but didn't remove it. "A cook is nothing without her spiral beater." She gave the pair a thumbs up that reminded Shika of Lee and with a shudder he turned back to the kitchen, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

Waving Tenten over, he set out the lemons and a cutting board, knives, and a bowl to mix everything in. Yoshino moved the bowl over to Tenten's side of the kitchen and grabbed some kitchen scales to weigh the sugar. "For this many lemons, you need about this much sugar." She pointed to the pointer thingy on the scales and handed it to Tenten.

[Well.. Uhm. I hope you can work with this. It's kind of... Lame. *bows* Gomen Nasai!]