Disclaimer: Naruto and all associated characters are the sole proberty of Kishimoto-sensei and other people who aren't me. No money made, spent, or rolled in naked.
Shikamaru isn't much of a dog person. They're too energetic for him; too eager to please, too stupid. Cats however. . .well, that was something else. But he doesn't hate them----it wasn't worth his effort to hate anything, really----and given the choice, he'd rather hang out with dogs than with certain individuals he could think of.
So a mission involving walking some woman's dogs was neither good nor bad, but it was safe and required minimal effort and therefore perfect in Shikamaru's mind.
Then he met the animals in question.
They were small. Bouncy. With lots of fur. And they sounded like dying squeaky toys.
"Oi, sensei," Shikamaru says, holding the pink leash he's been handed at arms length and staring down at the fuzzball attached to it, "Someone needs to tell Takazuki-san that she got ripped off. These aren't dogs."
Asuma lets out a long sigh---which are dramatically different from his short sighs and suggest a greater degree of annoyance----and moves his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other. "They're called Pomeranians and they're supposed to look like that. Actually, these show dogs are prime examples of their breed."
Shikamaru could care less. "Fancy name for a hairy sewer rat."
Beside him, Chouji muffles a laugh and Asuma-sensei sighs again, even longer this time. Ino is not so amused.
"Shut up Shikamaru, can't you see how adorable they are?" Her voice gets high pitched with the last few words as she directs them to the orange ball of fluff dancing ecstatically around her ankles.
Shikamaru scowls and digs at his abused ear. Ino likes the yappy little rat-things. Figures.
"There are ten dogs," Asuma speaks up over mindless squealing of various forms, "So one of you will have to walk four at once. Takazuki-san and her helpers usually take them on a circular path around the park, about a mile on the straightaway."
"Time frame?" Chouji asks, because someone has to and Shikamaru's perfectly happy not to be it.
"They have to be back for feeding time in. . .two hours. Feel free to take your time," Asuma says, playing for a moment with his watch, and then pointing at Takazuki's large blue house, "I'll be on the porch doing paperwork. Call me if you run into any trouble. Have fun, kids."
Waving farewell with one hand and flicking open his cigarette lighter with the other, Asuma leaves them to their task.
Shikamaru huffs out a breath. His gaze travels slowly from the one dog bouncing at his feet like a demented wind-up toy, to the seven other animals still in their wire mesh pens. By now, they are so worked up that they look ready to drop dead of heart attacks. The thought cheers him.
"Come on," he sighs in a way that suggests even that is exhausting him, "Lets get this over with."
___________
Losing a round of Jan-Ken-Pon earns Chouji the dubious pleasure of walking four dogs while Shikamaru and Ino spilt the remaining six. They spend twenty minutes getting all of the animals leashed and sorted. Two of the dogs try to gnaw each other's ears off when allowed too close. A third shows his opinion of Shikamaru by lifting his leg and taking aim. Shikamaru doges the intended insult and grouchily passes that leash to Ino.
Maybe he does hate dogs.
...Nah. Still not worth it.
The path Asuma-sensei mentioned is paved with rounded cobblestones and meanders aimlessly around the trees and patches of dark grass. Chouji heads out first, grumbling over not being able to eat because his hands are full, Shikamaru follows him and Ino comes up last. Soon, they form a strange procession of disgruntled young ninja and mutant dandelions with feet.
Shikamaru is moderately pleased----or at least, not as irritated---to discover that the rat-things are trained enough not to tangle each other up in the leashes. They trot along in an orderly row, panting with excitement.
Further into the park, the path widens and since there is no one else out, Ino picks up her pace until she is walking abreast of Shikamaru. She begins talking. About her parents and her cousins, and business at the flower shop. About that new shampoo that she doesn't really like and the book Chouji let to her and the weather last week. Sometimes Chouji contributes and sometimes Shikamaru grunts to let them both know he's still listening, but mostly its just Ino.
It's almost pleasant, with the wind blowing and the smell of moist soil and growing things and the sound of his teammate's voices. Maybe this mission isn't so bad after all.
They'd reached the apex of the circle and were heading back toward the house when Shikamaru saw the squirrel.
This is not a major event. He's seen many squirrels over the course of his life and another one isn't anything noteworthy. Even his little pack of rat-things (which he was becoming oddly fond of now that they had decided to quiet down and perform their required duty in a compliant fashion) didn't do much more then yap vaguely in the squirrel's general direction.
Ino's dogs, on the other hand, seem to find the rodent's presence the most exciting thing this end of Fire Country.
The three beasts explode into a flurry of ear-splitting barks and dart at the squirrel, their combined force enough to yank Ino sideways. She bumps into Shikamaru with a yelp. The commotion upsets his dogs and they start running around each other and the two humans, getting their leashes twisted together.
"Hey, hey!" Shikamaru protests, yanking ineffectually on the leads to try to bring them under control.
"Shikamaru, get out of my way!" Ino yells, shoving him hard in the shoulder and disturbing his already shaky balance.
"Yap yap yiiieeeep!"
Pomeranians, it seems, do not appreciate being stepped on. Shikamaru curses under breath and jerks his foot off the unfortunate dog, which has the side effect of throwing him even more off balance. Someone, either the dog or Ino, yanks on one of the leashes wrapped around Shikamaru's other leg and he goes down hard.
Generations of deceased Nara-clan shinobi hang their heads in shame.
"Why did I get out of bed this morning?" Shikamaru snappishly inquires of the sky peeking between the green leaves above him. The dog next to his shoulder answers by sinking needle sharp teeth into his jacket and tugging enthusiastically. Shikamaru's lower lip pushes out into a pout of massive proportions. He can faintly hear Chouji getting his own pack settled down and speculates on how much longer he can stay uninvolved. This is a nice piece of ground, really.
"Don't just lay there on your ass, get up and help me," Ino orders from somewhere beyond his line of sight, "Grrr, stupid dogs!" Her tone is decidedly murderous.
Shikamaru groans and begins the ponderous task of sitting up. Arguing with Ino is pointless even when she's in a good mood. Better just to obey now and whine about it later. He doesn't get very far before a screech of feminine fury rents the air, causing him to look up just in time to see Ino taking a rather ungraceful nosedive. She lands---on him. Hard.
Shikamaru jolts upright in surprised pain and finds himself confronted with a sight he's never expected to see outside of the occasional wet dream.
Ino's beautiful blonde head facedown in his lap.
He freezes, both from the shock and the possibility that he's drifted off in the middle of the mission (it happens occasionally, much to Asuma-sensei's dismay) and this *is* one of those aforementioned dreams. Though, the barking dogs and general excess of clothing really should have clued him in. No one ever accuses him of being quick.
Shikamaru realizes the full extent of his mistake when her head jerks up and---instead of going for his zipper, which is how such dreams are supposed to occur---she lets out a piercing scream.
"Pointing out that this isn't my fault won't help me, will it?" he asks weary resignation.
Ino has articulate fists.
____________
"You could have at least dodged," Asuma says, evaluating his student's awesome black eye before turning that same regard to the corner of the goban he's being maneuvered out of.
"Why? She just would have hit harder when she finally caught me," Shikamaru mutters back, placing his next stone, "Atari."
Asuma hisses out a breath, though whether it's from the comment or the move, Shikamaru can't tell. "At least you completed the mission," he says after a while, giving up the one battle for lost and moving onto another.
Shikamaru snorts. He doesn't want to remember it. Not about how two of the leads broke and the puffballs proved to be really, really quick on their feet. Not about Chouji almost getting stuck when trying to rescue one of the little morons from the tunnel it crawled up. Most certainly *not* about the four-year-old that smeared ice-cream over three of the dogs and having to do an emergency washing so Asuma-sensei and Takazuki-san wouldn't find out.
But that one part, just that. . .
"Shikamaru," Asuma-sensei says, obviously amused, "You're smiling."
Shikamaru corrects the problem and retaliates by winning the game.
END