Immortals (Naruto fanfic, Modern AU)

Immortals Chapter 18 - Bowling

"Shika!"

Shikamaru turned around, just as Ayame jumped at him. He stumbled back, struggling to keep his balance, barely able to realise Ayame had caught him in a hug.

"Hey there," Shikamaru greeted awkwardly, placing a hand on her back.

"Hi!" She chirped, leaning back.

"You seem happy." He commented, raising an eyebrow.

"I am! I'm going out with friends; that is something which barely ever happens," Ayame grinned, lifting a hand to brush her hair back from her face.

Shikamaru laughed. "All right, let's go meet up with the others," he said, and she was surprised when he reached out and took her hand. He obviously wasn't too afraid to try it.

"Let's go." Ayame agreed, nodding. She followed after him as they made their way towards the local arcade. Ayame had spent a lot of time here in her childhood, and she had fond memories of her all of her family here together. That hadn't happened for five years.

Ayame smiled when she saw her friends already there. They were waiting in the café section of the darkened arcade, each either with sodas or snacks.

"Hey, guys!" Ayame greeted, releasing Shikamaru's hand and rushing towards her friends with open arms. Naruto was the first to leap to his feet, being able to react to Ayame's hug easier than Shikamaru had, simply because of better footing. He caught her, spinning her around and setting her on her feet.

"You seem really happy today, Ayame-chan!" Naruto said, frowning as he looked at her.

"I'm with my friends! Of course I'm happy!" Ayame said, smiling. She knew, deep inside, quite a bit of her happiness was false. She was trying very hard to appear like she was having the time of her life, when in fact, to be able to do that, she'd need Sasuke there too.

She greeted the rest of her friends in a similar fashion, giving Ino, Sakura, Hinata, Tenten and Kiba hugs. She was determined to make this as normal as possible- and hopefully, forget about the supernatural for a few hours. She would push Sasuke to the back of her mind, and maybe even out of her mind. But if she could do that, she would have done it a long, long time ago.

The group quickly got to bowling. As they changed their shoes for the bowling shoes - after the boys had teased Ayame about her small shoe size - Ayame sat beside Naruto, looking at the blonde. Now was the perfect chance, while the others were out of hearing distance.

"Is Sasuke-kun coming?" Ayame asked hopefully, looking at him. Even though she'd told herself she was going to spend this time with Shikamaru, she really wanted to see Sasuke.

Naruto sighed. "Nah. I couldn't convince him, but I will tell you somethin'; when I mentioned you were going, he seemed to perk up, like he did want to come, but somethin' was stopping him."

She looked down in disappointment. "Oh..."

"Did you want him to come?"

She nodded. "It would have been nice to have him here too."

Naruto smiled sadly. "Sasuke's never been one for socialising. Even at parties, he'd barely speak to anyone and get drunk."

Ayame giggled.

"Come on, you guys!" Sakura called from in front of them, where they were making their way down to a free lane.

Ayame jumped to her feet, grabbing Naruto's hand. "Come on. I want to try to forget him for a little while!"

"Jeez, you got that right!" Naruto said, agreeing. Then, he yelled in surprise as Ayame yanked him along behind her.

The next few hours were a lot of fun, something Ayame hadn't had in a long, long time. Like she'd hoped, all thoughts of Sasuke left her mind, and instead, she had thoughts of her friends, and thankfully, Shikamaru. She had been hoping she would, but they weren't like the thoughts she'd have of Sasuke; the thoughts about Shikamaru weren't romantic. They were more like on the friendly side, and no matter what, she couldn't force them to move to a more romantic level.