Senbazuru

Yugao

Summary: They folded a thousand paper cranes.

Author's Note: This is possibly one of my last ShikamaruIno fics, mostly because writing them together gets me down, since I know that it's probably going to be Temari all the way for Shika. Oh well. But it's Shikamaru's birthday on the twenty-second and Ino's on the twenty-third, so I decided to give them a joint present in the form of this oneshot. This was inspired by Sadako Sasaki's story – if you don't know her, look her up, and be inspired as well. : Senbazuru, incidentally, means 'one thousand paper cranes'.

Disclaimer: I don't own Shikamaru or Ino, or Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, whose plot was adapted to suit the Narutoverse.

I shall write peace upon your wings, your heart and you shall fly around the world so that children will no longer have to die this way.

Sasaki Sadako

"I didn't know you were a reader, Shikamaru."

The blonde's comment made the dark-haired Nara turn to see what she was referring to – she was standing in his room, in front of his desk, on which a small pile of leather-bound books lay. He watched as she touched two fingers to the spine of each, as if she were reading through the sense of touch. They weren't much, really: a copy of the shinobi handbook, the kind they all received when they entered the academy; a do-it-yourself guide to ikebana (which she had given him years ago, for no real reason); a strategy book on shogi, to name most of them. But her eyes didn't wander to any of those; she looked instead at the one at the bottom of the pile, which had been a gift from his mother some time before. He shook his head (though it wasn't like she was looking at him) and said, "I'm not."

"Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes," Ino read the title out loud as she flipped it open and turned the first few pages, then abruptly flipping it over to the ending. Shikamaru rolled his eyes, now used to her rather irking habit of reading the ending of the book before its beginning. She turned back to him, before commenting nonchalantly, "It sounds interesting. What's it about?"

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, hardly able to believe that she found a book interesting. It was a compliment from her to say that anything was interesting, really, so he decided to answer her question without much hesitation. "It's the story of Sasaki Sadako – she had been a kunoichi, but around the time of the Kyuubi's appearance she was made to fight alongside the Fourth. She couldn't take the immensity of the demon's chakra. She didn't die, but some of her core chakra points were too damaged for her to be able to mold chakra again."

"Sad story, but it doesn't tell me why the thousand paper cranes are involved," she interrupted, not rudely but teasingly, because she tilted her head slightly and it was apparent she was suppressing a laugh. Then, she continued quickly (probably thinking she had annoyed him by cutting him off) with, "Please, go on."

"Her friend Chizuko came to visit her in the hospital and made her a paper crane – and then reminded Sadako of the legend of senbazuru: if you fold a thousand paper cranes, you get a wish. And she tried. But she only folded about six hundred when she died – and her friends completed the thousand and buried them all with her," he finished.

And, speechless, she could only smile and tell him they ought to get going.

It was troublesome, to say the least.

He had been working on them since the year before, when she had first seemed so stunned with the story of the thousand paper cranes. Though, he had to admit, all this work was greatly cut down when he offered Naruto a month's supply of ramen if he could use his kagebunshin to speed up the work. Unfortunately, Shikamaru was now broke because he had failed to take into consideration how much a month's supply of ramen for the Uzumaki would cost, and he decided that it would be impossible, as well as completely stupid, to pull such a stunt again.

So he had to do most of the others on his own. Though there was only half of the original number left to be done, he was one of the most in-demand Jounin of his age and was required, more often than not, to be preoccupied with matters that did not concern origami. He was lucky if he could do one each day, in between heated battles with the enemy and negotiations with rivals. But somehow, he managed to complete the one thousand by September 22nd.

It was his birthday, true, but they had never celebrated it as just his birthday, especially since her birthday was on the 23rd. What they had done since they had become a team – no, before that even, when they were kids – was to meet up somewhere on the evening of September 22 and celebrate his birthday together until the clock struck midnight and it was officially her time to celebrate. It was a strange tradition, but it was a tradition nonetheless: one he was planning to keep to.

… Which was why, in the afternoon of September 22nd, he asked Chouji to hang his paper cranes in their training area.

She had known, when she decided to take the challenge on, that it was going to be difficult.

After all, a thousand paper cranes didn't sound like any easy feat. However, from the moment she heard him talk about it the year before, the wistful look on his face and the general wonderment from the story, she had her heart set on folding him his senbazuru so that he would get his wish. She had, since she was little, dreamt of becoming his fairy godmother of sorts, the one who'd be able to put a smile on that face. And here was a chance to do it.

She was only a Chuunin, and hardly had much to do when she wasn't out on a mission. Most of the time she spent her off days minding her parents' store, and during the non-rush hours, she was inclined to pull out a slip of square paper or two and fold some cranes, adding to the growing collection in her room, a few a day until by September 22 she had finished everything. She was happy that she'd gotten them altogether by his birthday; she really didn't know how she would have reacted if she hadn't.

For as long as she could remember they celebrated their birthdays together for the simple reason that it was more convenient. People remembered it because they only threw one party (if ever), and they were on the same team, which made it even easier to keep it on people's minds. This was why she had always felt, when she was celebrating her birthday, that she was also celebrating his, as if they were one and the same person. As close friends it felt a lot like that, and she didn't mind at all.

So on the afternoon of September 22, she asked Sakura to hang her paper cranes in their training area.

It was after dinner at the Yakiniku Q and it was getting late: approaching midnight slowly but steadily, and they decided it was time to get going. They walked together, one thinking that he or she was leading the other to his or her birthday gift – and in one way or another, they were right. However that did not change the fact that they were both overcome by surprise when they entered the clearing 

they had trained in since they were children. Hanging from the boughs of the surrounding trees were fifty pieces of thick white string, from which dangled forty paper cranes in colors too many to count and too vivid to imagine. Fifty strings. Forty ribbons to each string, tying the crane to its anchor.

Two thousand paper cranes.

Ino's blue-green eyes widened, and her mouth hung slightly open in stunned silence; Shikamaru showed no outward sign of shock save the wrinkling of his brow as he turned to her and began, "Let me guess… you folded a thousand paper cranes for my birthday, just like I did for yours."

"So this is why you're a genius," she answered, and she couldn't help but laughing at the coincidence that they had come up with exactly the same gift. But as she looked on, with the moon illuminating the bright colors in the paper – red, blue, yellow, green, white, purple, pink, orange, among many, many others – she couldn't help but smile, link her arm through his, and tell him, "Well, go on, make a wish!"

He smiled a small, lopsided half-smile and told her, "Well then, I wish you're having a happy birthday."

"Lucky you – your wish just came true," she said with a laugh that kept time with the wind blowing through the two thousand paper cranes. "Happy birthday, Shikamaru."

"Happy birthday, Ino."

Author's Note: Intentionally short, but I hope you enjoyed nonetheless. So on Monday, happy birthday to Shikamaru, and on Tuesday, happy birthday to Ino! I love you guys :)