Red Is A Pretty Colour

100

Hiko's pov

Time passed by quickly due to the amount of work I was doing for Kakashi~Sensei. I was always so busy that I hadn't even noticed the months going by and the seasons changing. I spent most of my days with Shikamaru doing paperwork or nagging Kakashi~Sensei to actually do what he's supposed to although I took a lot of missions to the sand village as well. Of course Gaara was usually busy when I came by on missions but he always found some time to do something with me before I had to leave.

I was currently working on the team list for the new genin. I really had no idea what I was doing with it and found myself sitting around the academy to try and find some form of inspiration. While I was slamming my head on the desk I heard someone chuckle.

"You're special, you know that?" Shikamaru said.

"I know, I'm just the greatest." I said.

"That's not what I meant." Shikamaru said as he sat down beside me. "What are you working on?"

"I'm making up the new genin teams but I have no idea where to start." I explained. "What are you up to or are you on a break?"

"I'm writing up invitations for the next set of chunin exams." Shikamaru replied. "I thought I'd come and escape my mum, the troublesome woman won't stop nagging me."

"Poor Yoshino, she's just looking out for you." I said.

"She's nagging me about not seeing you for a while. Honestly, it's such a drag." Shikamaru said.

"I haven't had the time to drop by, we've been so busy doing Kakashi~Sensei's job." I complained.

"We have a day off soon while Kakashi deals with Sasuke, you could drop by then." Shikamaru suggested before muttering something under his breath.

"What was that Troublesome?" I asked.

"Nothing." Shikamaru said.

"If I dropped by would you be there?" I asked him as I looked down at my papers again.

"Yeah, It's my day off too you know." Shikamaru said.

"Good because I recall someone promising me a game of shogi." I said making him grin.

"I thought you forgot about that." Shikamaru said.

"Of course not, as I said, I've just been busy." I said as I circled two profiles I thought would be good on a team.

"I know, I know. How's Gaara by the way? I know you've been busy with your relationship and all." Shikamaru said.

"Yeah, making a relationship work is harder than I thought. We're happy he's just busy with the sand village, his work comes first. Of course I'm not any better, I can only find time to visit if it's for work." I explained. "Hopefully once things calm down a bit more it'll get easier."

"I'm sure it will. Everyone was shocked when they found out, it was such a drag. They kept asking me about it." Shikamaru said and I chuckled.

"Sorry, I guess I'm just the last person they expected to couple up. They make me out to be some heartless workaholic." I said. "Have you been up to anything?"

"Not really, I've just been slowing down a bit, enjoying the clouds and playing some shogi. Naruto isn't really the best opponent though." Shikamaru said with a chuckle. "He still doesn't know what pieces does what. I thought you would have taught the idiot something."

"He's a lost cause! I've tried so many times to teach him and he just doesn't get it." I said with a laugh. "The most complex game I managed to teach him to play was checkers."

"He has enough brains to play checkers?" Shikamaru asked.

"Barely. You'd think he'd have a bit more of a brain being the fourth hokage's son and all." I said. "Hey, do ou think this would work as a team?"

I passed Shikamaru a few profiles which he glanced over before smiling.

"This is like a copy of your team 7, there's a know it all like sakura, a knucklehead like Naruto, a prodigy like sasuke and a strategist like you. Not to mention captain Yamato being in charge of it." Shikamaru said. "They'll cause problems."

"What trouble can they really cause, Naruto's already done everything." I said.

"Those are some famous last words." Shikamaru said as he passed me back the papers.

"It'll be fine, they're Kakashi~Sensei's problem anyway." I said.

I clipped the papers together and put them off to the side, finalising my decision to pair them up. I turned back to the other papers and grabbed the next jonin leader candidate's papers. Maybe this job wasn't as bad as I thought.