I have no regrets.
It's true, believe it or not. I know what you're thinking now, "Everyone has one or two things they wish they have done differently in the past". Well, I do have. But I don't regret anything.
Let me explain. I believe life is a succession of actions, choices… well, moments, if you like. And pay attention in the word SUCCESSION. It means one moment after another. What we are now it's the result of all the moments behind us. So, if I had done something different back then, I wouldn't be the same person that I am today. And I like the present ME, so yes, I don't regret anything.
Besides this "philosophical explanation", I also have the "logical explanation". See, I don't believe in time-travel. Or at least, I believe we don't have this power right now (same result: no time-travel for me) so everything that happened before, will stay the same, I liked or not. Why bother then? Why have regrets? I don't see a point in doing that. It's just a waste of time. Too much trouble.
Now you know this much about me: no regrets but also some unfortunate choices in the past. Oh also my name is Nara Shikamaru. And yes, as you may think, those "unfortunate choices" are about a girl. THE girl, some may say… honestly I don't know. I just call her Temari.
Temari is not a girly-girl. But she isn't a tomboy either. I could describe her as a tough girl. I cannot start to imagine the things she lived through. Maybe she has some regrets, but I'm happy about the things she did in the past. Because, as I said before, that helped make her as she is today, and if she had do different stuff, she would be a different person, and maybe I would never notice her. And I'm glad I did notice her.
You know those really beautiful girls than everyone have a crush in (no, I'm not talking about her)? And some start to fantasize about how would be if we were really dating. Maybe some imagine a damsel-in-distress scenario or so. Yes I admit, I had those thoughts before. But I never saw a girl as a companion, you know, a comrade who you can trust and would be there for you. And, call me crazy, but I can see Temari on that role.
She kicks-ass. She kicked my ass before. And I kicked hers. Well, she also helped me big-time (maybe saved my life….things were pretty bad back then). So I had a hard time figuring what kind of feelings I had for her. Would it be "gratitude"? Gratitude for the life-saving thing, gratitude for the challenging fights that helped toss the boredom away? Maybe it was because I did not know anyone like her (and I still don't know). Maybe it was because I liked her.
Temari is a foreigner. And that's bad, because she lives far away. And she's from a very important family, so there is some gap between us. She came to our village to take the chuunin exams. And so did I. We meet there. We fought, I won. I was promoted to chuunin she was on a top-secret mission and she couldn't care less about being promoted or not. Then I was on a rescue mission that gone bad. REALLY bad. And she was part of the back-up team that saved our asses. And then she returned to her village.
So that's why I said you can call me crazy. Because I barely know her. But I still feel like this.
I don't regret never get to know her better. But yes, it was a sad choice that I did. And the sadder part is that I have many excuses for my behavior: she was the Kazekage sister, she was a foreigner, she probably just saw me as a kid, she probably would hate me for beating her at the exam, it was too much trouble… But the bottom line is that I never took a chance, I never tried to reach her and I hide behind some logical excuses that nobody really believes. Yeah, maybe I was just scared.
Not scared of her of course, scared about confronting my so-called-feelings, scared of a rejection. And currently I'm doing crappy self-psychoanalysis… this is just sad.
So now three years after the last time I saw her, I will try to make contact. One thing I know: I will not regret this in the future, whichever the outcome may be. Wish me luck!
The end (or the beginning, who knows…)