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Temari blearily opened her eyes, then immediately closed them when they met the sunlight filtering in through window. She cautiously peered into the room again, searching for the alarm clock with squinted eyes. Once she found it and stopped the irritating beeping that had woken her, she was tempted to slip back into slumber. But nobody ever said being a ninja would be easy, and Temari was fairly sure that sleeping in wasn’t in the job description. So she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, yawning and wiping the sleep from her eyes. After some idle stretching and some more yawning, she walked into the kitchen and began making coffee, humming quietly as she did so. Once it was ready, she leaned back against the kitchen counter and sipped at it, savoring the bitter flavor. She’d always preferred her coffee black. After she’d downed the last sip, she placed her mug in the sink and set a fresh one out for Shikamaru, along with the massive amounts of sugar and cream he would need to spoil her excellent coffee properly. She walked over to bed and sat down on the edge, turning to attempt to shake the Konoha ninja awake.

“Wake up, you lazy bastard.” Temari grumbled. “I went to the trouble of making your worthless hide some delicious coffee, so do me a favor and drink it while it’s hot.”

A muffled voice from beneath the blankets said irritably, “Go annoy someone else, bothersome woman.”

Temari turned away from him, chuckling, and said in a sing-song voice, “That’s not the tune you were singing last night, grumpy.” No response from beneath the blankets, which meant Shikamaru had either fallen back asleep or was too tired to come up with a witty comeback, so Temari shrugged and said loudly, “I’m going to go get dressed. You ‘d better be up when I get back, you bum.” She stood and walked to the bathroom. Closing the door behind her, she pulled off her tousled sleep clothes and stepped into the shower. Several minutes later, she emerged from the cascade of scalding water and toweled off. Wrapping the towel around her, she left the bathroom to retrieve fresh clothes from the bedroom. Shikamaru was still snoozing, which she had anticipated but did not yet deign to correct. Temari retrieved her clothes and returned to the bathroom. After spending several minutes fixing her hair, she quickly slipped into her clothes and returned once more to the bedroom. There, she found Shikamaru still wrapped up in blankets and still very much asleep. Placing her hands on her hips, Temari thought to herself, ‘Alright, sleepyhead. No more Miss Nice Girl.’

In a loud voice, she announced, “Shikamaru, if you don’t wake up right now, I’m going to tell Gaara that you tried to take advantage of me.” This time Temari didn’t have long to wait for a response. Shikamaru shot up, a panicked look on his face.

“Gaara? Where?” he asked frantically, then glowered at Temari when she began laughing. “Shut up, woman. You know your little brother scares the hell out of me, Temari.”

“Your soon to be brother-in-law, you mean?” Temari asked playfully.

Shikamaru sighed and flopped back down on the bed, covering himself with blankets once more. “Stop it with that crap already. It’s such a drag.”

“I’ll stop when you propose, you lazy bastard,” Temari replied with a smile on her face. She strode over to the grumpy ninja and sat down on the bed next to him. He opened one eye and glowered at her some more from under his messy black hair. Temari laughed and pinched his cheek. “You’re cute when you’re sulky,” she whispered, and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, but he reached up and pulled her into a full-on kiss, wrapping his arms around her neck. After a few seconds Temari pulled back a few inches and made a face. “You still have morning breath, sleepyhead,” she informed him. Shikamaru snorted and pulled the blankets back over himself, causing to the sandy-haired kunoichi to chuckle. Then she leaned down and whispered in his ear, “I love you, you lazy bastard.” She waited for a response, but another sigh was all that emerged from the sleepy shinobi. Shaking her head, she stood up and was walking toward the door when something caught her eye. Temari stopped and smiled, staring at the door. The shadows had shifted to form sloppy, spidery handwriting on the face of the door.

“I love you, too,” the note said.

“You’d better,” Temari whispered. Then she eased open the door, grabbed her fan, and slipped outside, closing the door carefully behind her, so as to not wake up the sleepy ninja within.