Mind (Jutsu) Games

Warning: Lime, Mind Control, and a touch of Angst

Chapter 2 - Givng Notice

Ino was cranky. Not bossy, which was normal. Not irritable, which was her state whenever Sakura showed her up or Sasuke ignored her. Not even annoyed, like she was whenever that idiot Naruto opened his mouth. She was downright cantankerous. And Shikamaru couldn’t figure out why.

Maybe she thought he’d done something while they were asleep last night. Maybe he had done something while he was asleep. Maybe it was that time of the month. How was he to know?

In actuality, Ino was angry with herself for giving up on Sasuke so easily. Sure, she had no chance with him, and hadn’t even before he’d left the village. She wasn't so vain as to think herself in the running for the cold-hearted boy's affections. Due to team placement, Sakura was the only girl who had a prayer of knowing their mutual crush well enough to stand a chance. And, in the rare moments where Ino was being completely honest with herself, her best friend really was the only one who could possible attract the icicle, anyway. She had an open temper and warmth that Ino lacked. The face Ino showed to the world was more than a little fake, and the blonde knew it.

So when it came time to date, Shikamaru was the logical choice: on her squad, not bad looking, and he was the only one to have passed the Chuunin exam. The only one. Compared to that, Sasuke, no matter how cool he was, shouldn’t have stood a chance, but Ino wasn’t the type to admit a wrong course of action. Shikamaru might be logical, and Sasuke might be taken, but that didn’t mean that she should just call it quits without even putting up a fight.

And yet, she had. She’d spent the last several evenings talking with Shikamaru, and she now realized that she had been flirting with him, even if only a little. And then, last night, she had slept under the same covers as him, and he remembered. She knew he did.

Why had she done that?

Because, the new voice of reason explained, Shikamaru is a catch that any female ninja would kill to have. If you don’t lay claim, and soon, then someone else will snatch him up, and you’ll be left behind. No Sasuke or Shikamaru either. Just you, all alone.

Not alone, surely!

Yes. Alone.

But I have plenty of time, and any boy would be crazy to pass up a gorgeous ninja like me, and so intelligent, too.

Couples are forming earlier and earlier these days, and you don’t want to miss out. And wouldn’t it be awful if your first kiss wasn’t his as well?

She had to concede that point.

Then you’d best hurry up and get him before you loose your chance.

I doubt he’d notice me, even if I did try to get his attention.

Maybe he’s noticed already? The voice had an edge of laughter in it. Turn around.

Ino did glance over her shoulder then, and found, much to her surprise, that Shikamaru was indeed watching her. She was startled at first, but then smiled and almost laughed at the surprised look on his face. “Chouji!” she called back to her lagging teammate, “if we make it there before 7:00, dinner’s on me!”

The blur that had been Chouji blew past her, leaving his friends to catch up. Now she did laugh. “Hurry, Shika-kun, or we’ll loose him,” she stated around her giggles, catching his wrist in her hand, and moving with the supreme speed only ninjas could obtain, leaving him to keep up or be dragged behind.

“How troublesome,” he mumbled, putting on a burst of speed, then adjusting it so he and Ino were holding hands, rather than her pulling him by the wrist.

Ino blushed at that, but hoped the running would account for her color, and attempted to ignore it as best she could.

~~~~*~~~~

Laying there on his futon, staring at the ceiling, Shikamaru wondered if it was worth the hassle to get up and go outside where he could see the sky. But that was too much trouble, and he simply lay there, not even bothering to count the little shadows on the uneven ceiling. The door to his room slid open, and he had a kunai in his hand before he even had to think. Glancing up at the door, he quickly dropped the weapon in shock.

“Ino? What are you…”

She didn’t reply as she moved into the room, shutting the door softly behind her, making no more noise than a cat. She was wearing a sleeveless, knee-length yukata, obviously her pajamas, with her hair loose, and he again wondered why she was there when suddenly she was beside him on his futon.

“Ino…” he tried to ask again, but was silenced by her fingers on his lips as she brought her own to his cheek. He stiffened, shocked by the sudden affection, but she kept going, moving her lips down to his jaw, then up along that line to his ear. Kissing the soft part just beneath it first, she then hesitantly caught the ear itself lightly in her teeth.

That shy nibbling finally spurred Shikamaru into action, and he pulled her hand away from his lips so he could apply them to the creamy neck right in front of him. The low moan he felt more than heard as it escaped her throat did nothing to slow him, and he clutched her arms to pull her against him before rolling, pinning her beneath him.

He kissed down to her collarbone, then back up, over the jaw, onto the cheek, pausing to pull back just before he could meet her lips. “Ino, are you sure you want to…”

She didn’t respond verbally, but as his mouth felt hers moving against it, he surrendered, opening for a deeper exploration. She tasted of mint and chocolate, and he smiled against the kiss as their tongues met and slid over one another tentatively.

Running his fingers through her silky hair, he finally broke the kiss, breathing heavily. He nuzzled against her with his nose, enjoying her squirming as his breath tickled her flushed skin.

He knew they should stop now, before things got out of hand. Ignoring her silent protests, he rolled them over, settling her in the same position she’d woken to that morning. After pulling the blankets over them both, he continued running his fingers through her hair, enjoying the odd purring sound that emanated from the back of her throat. Several minutes later, he remembered that he still wasn’t sure why she was there, and why she had done what she had.

“Ino?”

The only response he got was a murmured “mmm…” as she shifted in her sleep. He sighed, muttering something about troublesome women, and moved her slightly so the weight of her head wasn’t pressing directly against his collarbone, staring at the ceiling once more. Sleep was long in coming, and his dreams that night would have embarrassed him greatly if he’d remembered them the next morning.

~~~~*~~~~

Ino awoke around ten o'clock to Chouji standing in the door, laughing. Not the most agreeable of morning people, she attempted to turn away and ignore him, but there was something behind her that kept her from moving. Quickly taking stock of her situation, she realized that her pillow was actually an arm belong to the solid mass at her back, and that it’s other arm was holding her tightly around her waist. From the scent and the sound if his breathing, it was Shikamaru.

Realization dawned as she finally understood at least part of the reason behind Chouji’s insane antics and tried to bury her face under the blankets. Unfortunately, her bed partner was also a blanket hog, and wouldn’t let them go that far. So she covered her face with her hands as best she could, and ordered her rotund teammate out of the room with a threat of destroying his ability to father children if he told anyone.

Her loud outburst finally awakened the young man behind her, and he cracked open an eye just in time to receive a wink from Chouji before he walked off and shut the door, still chuckling and saying something along the lines of, “Shika, you dog.”

At that, Ino gave the blankets a hard yank and pulled them up over her head, not caring that he was now uncovered and a little cold. “What are you doing in my room, you perv?!”

Shikamaru blinked. “Ino, this is my room.”

Ino’s face flushed again as she realized she must have been sleepwalking. “What… what happened? We didn’t…” she couldn’t bring herself to actually say it. “Did we?” The last was nearly a whisper, begging him to tell her that she hadn’t completely shamed herself.

“You mean, you don’t remember?” He was a little disappointed, but quickly shoved that aside.

Ino shook her head, then realized that he probably couldn’t see that as she was still completely under the covers, and squeaked out a hesitant “no.”

Shikamaru sighed. It was bad enough that their first kiss hadn’t been at his instigation, but then for her not to remember it the morning after. “No, Ino, we didn’t have sex.” He rolled his eyes at her startled gasp, and continued. “We didn’t even grope each other.”

“Shika!” her indignation was obvious even with her voice muffled by the thick, feather-filled blanket.

He shrugged. “What? You asked.”

After a minute, her head tentatively poked out from under the blanket and she sat up, sighing. “So, nothing happened.”

He couldn’t tell if she sounded relieved or disappointed, but he was determined to be honest with her. “Well, not nothing.” He took great pleasure, though you couldn’t tell by looking at him, in the blush that rose to cover his teammate’s cheeks.

He took far less pleasure in the fist that threatened contact with his face. “Nara Shikamaru, if you don’t tell me what you are talking about right this moment, I will…” she trailed off into almost incoherent sputtering.

“We kissed,” he stated simply, staring at the ceiling as if he hadn’t a care in the world, though he was actually so tense his neck muscles were starting to give him a headache.

Ino stopped at that, taking a bit to process the information. “Kissed how, exactly?”

Shikamaru froze, trying to think of a polite way to say she had started making out with his jaw and ear before playing tonsil-hockey. “Well, you kissed me…”

“I meant, open or closed.”

Gaping at her like a fish out of water, he tried to make sense of what she had just said and failed… miserably. “Huh?”

Now it was Ino’s turn to roll her eyes. “Mouths, Shikamaru. Open or closed?”

“Uh, open.” He blushed, remembering in detail what had happened the night before.

“Tongue?”

“Yeah.”

Now is was her turn to flush, and she could not bring herself to meet his eyes. “Gomen, Shika-kun,” she whispered.

“It’s not a problem, Ino, really.” He tried to reassure her, but wasn’t sure it was working. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about it?!” she nearly shrieked at him. “I sleep-walk into a guy's room, he steals my first kiss, and then says not to worry about it!”

“It was my first, too, I’ll have you know. And, as I said before, you kissed me!”

She glared at him, her eyes aflame, opening her mouth to retort, but then shut it quickly, biting off her comment.

“What?” He was even more confused than before, a feat he hadn’t believed possible. “What’s wrong?”

She just shook her head, once again refusing to look at him until he grabbed her face between his hands and forced it upwards. The look of anger, shock, fear, hope, and a thousand other emotions he couldn’t place at the moment, yet all somehow present on her face at once, threw his very logical mind off it’s intended track. His mouth suddenly felt very dry, and the sight of her tongue snaking out to moisten her lips didn’t help any. It merely drew his gaze to her soft mouth, and he remembered the feel of it pressed up against his own, her taste, her scent… Shikamaru found himself closing his eyes as he attempted to recapture the moment, wishing that he could feel them again, wishing she’d kiss him again.

Whether he moved or she did, neither of them could say, but he suddenly felt the semi-familiar sensation of her lips on his, and refused to let it go this time, determined to make the memory of this kiss last forever.

She seemed far more timid this morning than she had the night before, but something about this kiss seemed warmer, more sincere. Opening his mouth, he was almost surprised when she didn’t open hers in response. Running his tongue across her lips, he gently persuaded her into parting them, once again enjoying the taste of chocolate and mint.

She tensed up when she felt the, frankly, weird sensation of his tongue in her mouth, but as he coaxed hers into playing as well, she surrendered to his insistence and the feeling in her chest that threatened to overwhelm her. Clutching his shirt, she pulled him against her and leaned back, lying against the futon, his warm weight pressing down on her.

Shikamaru certainly wasn’t expecting that, but he couldn’t think of any reason to object. In fact, he couldn’t think much of anything at all. Her mouth left his to catch her breath, and he felt bereft until he started moving his own against her skin, taking his cues from her reactions. For example, when he sucked in a bit of the skin on her throat, she gasped, and when he licked the lobe of her ear, she groaned and pulled him closer. And, oh, the noises she made when he traced the line of her shoulder down her neck, across, and down her arm. He ignored the fact that his nose had been pushing fabric aside for that last until she gasped, this time in an almost frightened way, and shoved him off, attempting to cover herself as quickly as possible.

Her face turned cherry-red, though his couldn’t have been far behind as he got a brief glimpse of what she was hiding before her yukata was completely in place. “Gomen, Ino! I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You didn’t do that last night, did you?” she choked out, afraid he’d been ogling her while she was unaware.

“No!” his response was too quick and shocked to have been feigned, and she relaxed ever-so-slightly. Taking a beep breath to calm his nerves, he started again. “No, Ino, I did nothing of the sort last night. Gomen, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She shook her head, banishing as much of her blush as she could. “Just forget it, Shika-kun.”

He stared. How on earth did she expect him to forget something like that? She, however, seemed oblivious to the reasoning behind his discomfort. “What?”

“Do you honestly think I can forget that? What do you think I’m made of, stone?!”

Her flush returned with a vengeance, and she mentally started on a mantra of think clean thoughts think clean thoughts. “No, Shika-kun, I know you’re not made of stone.”

Her voice was soft and inviting, and it took far too much willpower for him not to pin her against the futon again and never let her leave. His hand rose to cup her cheek, and he frowned at her. “Do you have any idea how troublesome you are?”

She looked confused for a moment, then smiled and placed her hand over his own, rubbing her cheek against his palm. “Am I?” she asked in a teasing tone.

His breath hitched in his chest as he watched her slowly turn her face and kiss his palm, then pull away slightly and place a soft, hesitant kiss on one of his fingertips before sucking it softly into her mouth. Oxygen is good, he reminded himself, forcing air into his lungs. However, he could only take so much in the way of taunting phallic symbolism before he found himself grasping her shoulder with his free hand and yanking her roughly towards him, crushing his lips against her own as his other hand buried itself in her hair.

This time, it was she who got adventurous, running one of her hands up and down his chest and stomach. After one downward stroke, her fingers caught in the edge of his shirt, and quickly found themselves beneath it. Startled, but refusing to back down, she traced upwards lightly, over surprisingly smooth skin and well toned muscles. When she reached his sternum, she stretched her hand out, flattening it over his heart, which beat against her palm so forcefully she was afraid it would give out from the strain.

Hesitantly, her other hand came to join the first in an attempt to remove the offending article of clothing so she could have free access to his skin. He had to release her in order to pull it over his head, but neither of them seemed to mind this as her hands began to roam again, tickling across his exposed chest and sides. She smirked when she found a particularly responsive spot, making him twitch repeatedly before moving on to slightly safer territory.

He merely groaned into her ear and proceeded to lavish little, tickling kisses along her neck in retaliation. Slowly, shyly, he nuzzled her yukata aside again, moving his mouth down as gradually as he could, giving her plenty of time to stop him. The hand on her shoulder also moved down, pausing a hair’s breath from touching one rounded piece of flesh through the cloth as he looked up to meet her gaze with a question in his eyes.

Her eyes seemed slightly unfocused as she blinked at him slowly then nodded. He froze, not sure if she understood what he was asking. Does she really mean that I…

A hand around his wrist solved that dilemma as she pressed his palm tightly against her, gasping softly at the sensation. He almost gasped as well, marveling at how well she fit his hand. It was as if she was made expressly for him.

Tentatively, he tightened his grasp, half-expecting her to change her mind and slap him, but she did nothing of the sort, arching her back and forcing herself firmly into his hand. An idea formed in the back of his head, and he released her, amused by her soft, pouting whimper, and laid her back against the futon. He kissed her once, quickly, then made his way down, over her chin, along her throat, past her collarbone until his mouth pressed against the sensitive skin between her breasts. Sucking on a small piece of that skin, he closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, resting it against her gentle flesh, slowly acclimating her to his presence in that region.

After a minute, she grew restless, shifting slightly beneath him, and he smiled, placing one last kiss in the valley of her chest before allowing his mouth to work it’s way up one of the peaks. One hand carefully pushed the cloth aside before him, while the other mimicked his mouth’s movements on his target’s twin, pressing softly with the pads of his fingers as he kissed her, scrapping lightly with teeth and nails, nibbling and pinching. She squirmed beneath his attentions, her yukata falling open even wider with her movement.

Shikamaru pulled away and sat up, eliciting a quiet whine of protest from his beloved’s throat. Finally, he dared to open his eyes, locking them with her own before sliding his gaze down her body. Her hair was splayed across the futon behind her, and her skin was flushed from his attentions, her nipples perked and erect. He took it all in unhurriedly, memorizing her as she lay before him. Then he lazily leaned over her, pressing his bare chest against hers as he whispered in her ear. “Mine.”

She giggled, a sound he had rarely heard from her, and threw her arms around his neck.

“If you two are quite finished,” Chouji’s voice came from the far side of the closed door, “they’re going to stop serving breakfast in ten minutes. Hurry up!”

Mortified, Ino buried her face in Shikamaru’s shoulder, clutching his biceps. He merely laughed. “We’ll be there in a minute. We needed to sort some things out before she decided to kill me.”

Chouji’s answering grunt was brief, but amused, as he turned and made his way back downstairs.

“Shika!” Ino hissed at him. “Now he’s going to think that we’re… I mean, that we…” she blushed even more, inducing a chuckle from the boy on top of her.

Once more whispering in her ear, he asked, “Would he be wrong?”

She shoved him away, staring, and he laughed again, pulling her to him gently. “Ino, will you be my girlfriend?”

A small part of her mind couldn’t help but think that they had gotten things out of order somehow, but her voice agreed with the rest of her, including that new voice in the back of her head. “Yes.”

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In honor of my first review, I've decided to grant Saitochan's request and post a little earlier than I'd intended. Thank you so much for your positive feedback, and please continue to let me know what you think of the story as it progresses.
This it my first time posting in a public forum, so I'd love any and all comments you wish to make.
Oh, and just to make it clear, no I am not a review whore. I will not refuse to post without reviews, or anything silly like that. It's just that seeing people's response to my writing - even if they object to something - makes me happy. And the happier I get, the more anxious I am to see what you guys think of the rest of it.
On a totally different note, I wasn't sure what to call this chapter. After casting aside dozens of ideas, I debated between "Notice," "Giving Notice," and "Taking Notice" for about ten minutes while I was posting this. Titles have always been tricky for me. Maybe one of these days I'll find a beta, and he can help me toss ideas around before it's time to post. (And, yes, that was the proper use of the gender-neutral "he." The word "they" is not the proper term for that sentence. Sorry, just didn't want anyone to think I was dismissing the ladies.)
This chapter's quite a bit longer than the last. I'm not sure what my average chapter length is going to be, as I'm still dividing up the story. But I figured I didn't want to get too far into the nitty-gritty bits of the story in the very first chapter, so I kept that one short.
Well, let me know what you think. Have a good day, and good reading to you!

Crimson Iris