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Finally, Halloween is on a weekend.
It was a school day, a couple guys from school were throwing a Halloween party that weekend as people always do.
“-and we’ve got to go!” Choji slammed his phone on the desk his best friend was resting his head on.
Shikamaru slowly dragged his head off the wooden desk, his tired eyes focused on Choji's phone, where messages were pulled up.
“Naruto and sasuke?” He asked plainly, only paying attention to the name at the top of the screen.
“Technically, it’s just Naruto, but Sasuke will just happen to be there.” Choji corrected.
“By the way, they broken up or still together?” His face twisted in curiosity.
“Uhh…” Shikamaru scratched a scab on his neck, thinking.
“Together? Definitely together as of now.”
“Ahh right.. so come on! You have to go with me!” Choji's round red cheeks curved up, hoping to convince his friend to attend the party with him.
“Now why are you so adamant on going?” Shikamaru smirked and curled his eyebrow.
“Well! I was just excited to be invited like personally…” Shikamaru recalled being invited, and to bring Choji, but the messages always went to him and not his friend so he understood why he was so excited.
“I’ll be there ma-“
“I also heard they’re having a big ass candy tray!” Shikamaru's eyes widened.
“Was already convinced, but a candy platter never hurts.” He smirked again and the two friends continued chatting about the upcoming event.
Out in the corner of Shikamaru's eye was a shining figure. The TA, an upperclassman. Neji hyuuga.
They’d known Of each other growing up, it was a small town after all. But recently, Shikamaru started to stare for just a moment too long.
“Dude?” Shikamaru hummed in response, Choji frowned but then saw what, who, had Shikamaru so distracted.
“Hey guess what…”
“Hmm” he hummed once again still staring off at the TA talking to the teacher.
“Neji might be there-“
“WHAT-!” Shikamaru shot up, hitting the tip of his head onto his friends flat nose.
“Fuck-!” Choji cried out in pain and Shikamaru held his head, already feeling a bump forming.
Thankfully, it was lunch, and there was only a couple other people in the class to witness this embarrassing moment.
On the other hand, that means Neji definitely saw.
He did, he’s looking over at them with that air of superiority he always carried with him.
“God he’s cute…” Shikamaru mumbled.
“Okay well screw me I guess-“ Choji said, holding onto his now red, throbbing
nose.
“Nah man I still think you’re cute-“ Shikamaru chuckled and reached up to pinch Choji's cheek, a common bit they did.
“I meant you didn’t even say sorry…”
“Oh right… sorry” he gave a sheepish smile.
Choji turned to look in the same direction Shikamaru was, directing his attention back to Neji.
“You think he’ll wear like… a sexy costume-“
“DUDE!” Shikamaru's mouth agape, never had he ever had such a thought.
“I don’t think he would, doubt he’ll even show up.” He sighed.
After taking forever to settle on a costume, it was Saturday and the sun was going down tinting everything in its path orange.
Choji had a huge smile on his face, waiting in the car for Shikamaru to come out.
After a couple minutes and honking of his horn, shikamaru emerged from the front door, a couple long bandages wrapped around each limb and showing from underneath his baggy tshirt and basketball shorts.
“man you look sick!” Choji gave a half smile watching Shikamaru buckle himself in.
“Nejis 100% gonna be there…” he mumbled, staring straight at the glove compartment in front of him.
“Thank you, I like your costume too.” Choji said sarcastically at the immediate mention of Neji.
The two friends drove 15 minutes to the house where the party was at, and by the time they got there the sun was mostly down and the world was dark.
Even from the car they could hear music blasting and multi-colored lights flashing from inside.
As they got out of the car, shikamaru actually took a good look at Choji.
“Are you a cat?” He asked, pointing at the ears similarly colored to his hair.
“You’d know that if you paid attention when I called you this morning..” Choji narrowed his eyes.
Shikamaru let out a meek chuckle and apologetically patted Choji's back.
When they walked in they were greeted with a big hug by Naruto, in his football gear and zombie makeup.
“Check it! I’m like that scene in glee!” He said with a smile so huge that his eyes were squinted. Choji and shikamaru looked between each other, having never watched glee before but nonetheless smiled back at him.
“What’s glee?” Choji whispered to shikamaru.
“Uh… not too sure?” He shrugged.
Choji, of course, scanned the room, looking for the kitchen where the snacks would be held. As he did this, he spotted the pretty boy who took up his best friends every waking thought. He smirked and elbowed shikamaru darting his eyes, directing him to Neji.
Shikamaru looked over with wide eyes, and unlucky for him, he got caught staring by the older student. He immediately looked away and back to choji.
“Choji.” He grit his teeth and his face was bright red.
Choji decided to just smirk once more and swueeze his shoulder encouraging him to go over to him. He went to the kitchen to grab some snacks, but there was another set of footsteps behind him.
He’d like to have thought it was a cute girl trying to talk to him about his lit ass costume, but no, unfortunately he knew his best friend too well.
“Shikamaru!” Shikamaru, who was acting as if he had no idea why choji was making that face, as he himself was eating a lollipop he grabbed out of the bowl next to him.
“Yeah.” He said nonchalantly, a little lisp in his voice from the candy in his mouth.
“Go talk to him!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about” he says, crunching on the small lollipop then throwing away the stick before reaching for another.
Choji sighed and gave him one more squeeze of encouragement before leaving to go talk to some others. He knew shikamaru had to talk to Neji tonight or else he’d never shut up about how badly he missed an opportunity.
As he walked away, the redheaded boy saw something sparkling in his rearview. He turned around, and saw a girl in a suit of costume armor.
His eyes widened, she was beautiful.
He had never seen her before though, he did a double take, she was way too good to be true.
He wondered if this is what shikamaru felt like when he saw Neji for the first time.
Choji turned on his heel and strides towards her, feeling his face warm as she got closer and closer.
She wasn't even paying attention, he loved a strong, nonchalant woman.
And luckily for him.
Ino was talking to her.
He had an amazing excuse to talk to the mysterious beauty.
“Heyyy Ino!” He said with a wide friendly smile, while the blonde raised an eyebrow wondering what was up with this extra friendly act.
“Hey Choji…” she said, rolling her eyes.
Choji glanced at the girl in armor, her eyes were wider and it looked like she had sucked in a breath.
“Hey Ino, who's this?” He asked with the same smile.
“Ahh!” Ino caught on to Choji's angle. “This is karui! we talked a little over insta and I decided to invite her!”
“Yeah! No one at my school does things like this.” Her speaking was rushed, and Choji would say she was blushing but it was hard to tell under the colored lights.
“Really? Where do you go?” Ino took this as her sign to leave, she smiled and walked on over to her pink haired best friend.
“Kumo , you know up northeast.” She smiled, and no matter how much it dazzled choji his attention was reeled back to his best friend sitting around on some couch with another sucker hanging out of his mouth.
“Hey..” the minute the word left his mouth Karui's face dampened a little, his shift in tone obvious. “Hey uh sorry, i love to keep talking but…” he looked behind her and pointed to his best friend. “ My friend’s a little pathetic…” he sighed with a smile, she understood.
“You know at my school, my brother’s the pathetic one.” she giggled and covered her mouth, choji followed suit, he waved her off but not before exchanging numbers and set off to cheer up shikamaru.
“Dude, he's the reason you're here and-” choji looked behind himself to see neji swiping quick glances in their direction. “Oh my god and hes even lookingback at you, if youve really been paying attention youd know hes at least a little interested back!” once again shikamru shrugged
“I dunno…”
“Quit acting like you can't see him looking over here-” another loud crunch of the sucker on his teeth. Choji pulled the stick from Shikamaru's mouth. “Quit that too, your teeth are gonna be rotten by the time you guys actually make out.”
“We’re not gonna make out?!” shikamaru yelped, catching the brief attention of neji who was in the middle of talking to his own friends.
“Yeah cause youre too chicken to actually do something.
“Jeez you’re such a child.” He sighed and grabbed shikamaru and turned him around to face the older boys direction head on.
“You know enough about him don’t you? Go talk to him.”
Shikamaru pressed his lips together and they formed a thin line, the gears turning and turning thinking of anything that could happen, what he could say.
“Ha- worst comes worst, he smacks you away and his friends laugh at you.“ he snickered, earning a mortified look from his best friend.
“I’m kidding! Look, it's gonna start getting late and remember we have to drive Ino home! She needs a ride! Remember!” He said directing exaggerated hand motions towards where their blonde friend was.
Shikamaru rolled his eyes and swallowed the lump in his throat. He cracked his knuckles, stretched out his shoulders, got a judgy look from Choji for being dramatic, straightened up, and walked in Neji's direction.
He felt his heart pounding, or was that the bass of the music? His fingers fiddling with the mummy bandages around his other wrist.
As he neared, he noticed a small smirk climb onto Neji's friend's face.
‘Oh shit…’ he thought back to what Choji said.
But instead of being ridiculed, Neji swiftly turned to face him. His long hair carried the faint scent of fresh shampoo to Shikamaru’s nose.
“It’s nice to see you here?” His words came out sounding too much like a question for his liking but he had to go with it since the words already left his mouth.
He watched the details of Neji's face twist into somewhat of a, smile?
“Hey, Shikamaru from fourth period, right?” Butterflies seemed to eat away at Shikamaru’s insides.
“Yeah! Yes, yes, from fourth period.” There was a moment of silence between the two, an in that Neji’s friend announced his departure.
“Well Neji Neji, looks like you got it?” He smirked, handing Neji the prop to his costume, a heart arrow?
‘Oh my god…’ Shikamaru blushed, Neji’s friend knew what was going on, did he have some preminition and dress for the occasion-
“Sorry, he's, weird…” Neji sighed. “Cool costume.” He smiled, looking shikamru up and down seeing the bandages running across his body.
“Yeah, it was kinda last minute, shoulda seen my friend Choji, he’s a cat, he was really excited about this.” Shikamaru calmed down, recalling his friends costume.
Neji chuckled and looked over Shikamaru’s shoulder and pointed towards the prior subject of their conversation.
“So, what are you?” Shikamaru too this moment to actually look at the others costume.
“Ahh! You see, I told tenten no one would be able to tell here.” Neji grumbled.
“Legolas, like lord of the rings.” Neji pushed his thick brown hair off his ears, revealing the now pointed tips.
“I loved those books!” Shikamaru grinned and accidently grabbed Neji’s hands in excitement.
“I haven’t gotten around to watching the movies though…” shikamaru said, now he realized it was decently obvious who Neji was. He noted the thin crown, and pulled back hair revealing a scar across his forehead, as well as a cape draping over his shoulders.
“Really? I understand, they’re all pretty long. I’ve got them on dvd if you ever want to watch them.” Neji’s face was warm, there was something he was implying but Shikamaru just couldn’t figure it out.
“You know after you pointed it out, I can tell what your costume is, maybe I should borrow the movies from you so I can actually see who you’re supposed to be.” Shikamaru noticed the tensing of Neji’s lip, almost into a small pout.
“I really enjoyed the movies, I have been planning on rewatching too.” The tone Neji used, what was it. There was something Shikamaru just couldn’t register…
“Shit you’d better do that first then, you know before you hand them to me.” Shikamaru scratched the back of his neck and his eyes wandered around the dark room.
“We should watch them together sometime actually.” Shikamaru’s eyes widened, it finally clicked what it was Neji was implying, and the look of shock on his face made Neji chuckle.
“With me?” Shikamaru pointed to himself.
“Yeah,” Neji reached out to Shikamaru’s pointing hand, a bandage was unraveling itself so he carefully wrapped it back around his wrist. “I’d like that.”
Shikamaru watched Neji’s graceful movements, his face heating up more than before, and Neji asked him out? He wasn’t able to come up with anything to say with Neji’s cold hand resting on his wrist.
“What do you say?” Shit, now Neji was waiting for an answer.
“Yeah! I’m down! Hey you know what, could u get your number, you know, for lord of the rings!” He quickly took his phone out and handed it to Neji so he could punch his number in.
“Cool, text me,” his eyes shifted to someone next to Shikamaru, and his smile dropped.
“Hes back…” Neji sighed and waved off Shikamaru as he strides towards his blond friend, who immediately took back his Cupid's arrow and turned to make eye contact with Shikamaru.
He waved the arrow at him and Neji held his head down, embarrassed and still waving goodbye.
Shikamaru just stood there, recalling the entire conversation, Neji’s friend dressed as Cupid, being asked out by Neji!
As soon as Neji was out of sight, he peaked at his watch, it was almost time to head out and he scanned the room for Choji or Ino.
~~
In the car, the three friends cheered at Shikamaru’s success.
“I told you dude! Who told him?” Choji said, directing the question to Ino, who was sitting in the back seat.
“You did!”
Shikamaru’s smile seemed permanent, staring at his phone with the screen turned to Neji’s new contact.
“Yes I did!” Choji smiled, keeping his eyes on the road.