Silhouettes and Cynicism
Description: Sometimes, Shikamaru wishes he could just stop thinking for a change. It'd be a whole lot less troublesome. But then, he wouldn't be Shikamaru. Shikamaru contemplates life in a series of drabbles.
Warning(s): Err, I don't know. There might some iffy language at times. This is rated "T" right now mostly because I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen. The rating may change, but if anything, it'll go down.
Disclaimer: All the characters and places mentioned belong to Masashi Kishimoto, and I bow down to him and his awesome mind.
Lately, whenever I look at clouds, all I can think of is Asuma.
His face.
His voice.
His laugh, even.
And whenever I think of Asuma, I seem to loose focus. I hate losing focus. It's…
Troublesome.
He was so much more than my sensei. I mean, I could say he was like a father to me, but that wouldn't be right. He was a father to me, plain and simple.
But now he's gone. And nothing can change that.
Of course it's not okay that he's gone; it's really not. But, what I'm trying to say, I guess, is that everyone dies. And, I mean, that's what happened to Asuma. He died. And I'm going to die, too.
You can call me morbid, but I'm just being honest.
Then again, the life of a shinobi is pretty morbid, isn't it? We're taught that death is inevitable as soon as we can talk, for the most part. And some parts of me find that very, very wrong. Other parts of me, though, know that it's the right thing to do.
You can't go through life thinking things that just aren't true—things that will never be true. That's the worst thing anyone could ever do. You can't just blindly accept things that you think are real.
Obviously, no one wants to die. The whole idea of death sucks. But it's going to happen.
It happened to Asuma.
It'll happen to me.
It'll happen to everyone.
But just because it happens doesn't mean you have to be happy about it. It's okay to be indignant. It's okay to go down kicking and screaming.
I avenged Asuma for that reason. My persistent indignation is the reason why Hidan of the Akatsuki is currently buried underground, in hundreds of pieces, slowly starving to death amidst the dirt of my clan's forest.
But not even the sound of explosive tags blowing up the person who killed your friend can get rid of the terrible feeling that comes with losing someone you hold dear—and still do hold dear, even after their death.
I know it sounds cheesy but: Asuma will always be with me.
I could honestly care less about whether or not you believe in the afterlife, or if you believe in a god, or if you have a religion. Even if you don't believe that Asuma's watching over me, you have to believe, at the very least, that his memories are still with me.
And they always will be with me.
Until I die, that is.
Anyway, now that we've got that out of the way, I think I'm going to go back to cloud gazing.
The sun is setting, and the oranges and reds of Konoha's sunsets are pretty easy to get lost in. And that's why I love cloud gazing. It's a chance for my mind to stand still, to stop all the little gremlins in my head that insist on banging at the inside of my skull. But getting lost in the clouds is different from losing focus, which I already told you I hate.
Because whenever I'm looking at the clouds, I sometimes pretend that I'm one of them, just floating along, without a care in the world. And if I were a cloud, I wouldn't have to think of all this crap I'm thinking of now.
…Troublesome.
Hi, everyone! This is the first drabble out of what I hope will be many more. Some of these may get rather heavy, but I guess that's just Shikamaru.
I'd love to hear what you think. Or not. That's cool, too.
As of yet, there's no schedule for when I'll be updating, but my guess is that I'll get a new one up every week, if I can. It depends on how much work I have, though, unfortunately.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope you liked it! There's more to come...
-Cole