Title: Ties that bind
Rating: G
Pairing / Characters: Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji
Word Count: 217 words
Warnings: Nothing really
Summary: Shikamaru and Chouji know what holds them together – and to each other
A/N: I like this one. Theirs is such a perfect friendship.
We were young once, when the most dangerous thing in the world was the monsters that lived in the closet.
(no one knows that we were afraid because we never told them.)
We were young once, when we played with cardboard shuriken and dreamed of being famous shinobi.
(you would be a jounin-sensei and you told me that I would be Hokage.)
We were young once, when our world was the academy and the friends we tried – and failed to make.
(we preferred each other's company anyway, and we both knew it.)
We were young once, when we graduated from the academy as starry-eyed genin wanting to change the world.
(you told me our dreams were just beginning and I believed you.)
Now we aren't so young anymore, you and I. We've seen the death of a Hokage, the inauguration of another, and the defection of a comrade. We came close to losing each other, but it never happened. We're unbreakable, you and I, and this fragile yet uncrushable thing called friendship. No one understands it, we're exact opposites – but it works. It always has.
There are ties that bind us together, regardless of what they say.
Shikamaru and Chouji, Chouji and Shikamaru, best friends and team mates.
Neither of us would have it any other way.