Hey guys,
This is a rewritten version of 'Star-Crossed'.
This new version will contain some extracts from the old version if I feel that they fit in, but other than that it's all new, so enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
It is tradition that the rest of the school watches as the senior year students graduate, school spirit, apparently. It's something so particular, so trivial, that Shikamaru's already deemed it a waste of time, something he wouldn't normally bother attending, but it's Temari's - and Neji's - final day as secondary school students, so he figures that he may as well be present. However, that does little to stop him from regarding the fancy ceremony nonchalantly from his insignificant seat beside Chouji and Shiho, who appears to be watching him through her left peripherals. Tenten is effulgent - sulking? - at how her friend had skipped two whole grades and left her and Lee behind.
He shifts his gaze from the stands to the stage and watches as Temari accepts her certificates of acknowledgement, looking as bold and great as ever. The black robes she's wearing seem to make her look much older than usual, but it may have been due to the serious features set across her face; something about looking dignified.
Kankuro's grinning pridefully at his big sis', and even Gaara, who sits in between Naruto and Lee, is wearing one of his rare smiles as Temari returns to her seat.
Neji walks on stage, ceremoniously accepts a large number of certificates - an amount that Shikamaru cannot be bothered to count - and when he walks back to his seat, he's been blessed with a diploma certificate, awards, and a pat on the back, to boot. "Medical college," he said, for that's where his late father's dream lay, and apparently, where his own does too. He seems to unconsciously beam whenever asked about his future, but no one points it out because today is after all, his day, and nobody has the heart to make Neji Hyuuga blush and sputter at his final school graduation. Though, Shikamaru suspects, Tenten might just do it later for kicks.
After the ceremony, they all go to Shikamaru's house, bags lazily slung over shoulders and slurping on all too drippy Popsicle sticks. Gaara and Kankuro excuse themselves at the doorstep, the older sibling reprimanding the group for being so carefree. He tells them to finish up with their party without it getting too late because unlike them, "Sis' has work to do", and then adding, as if it were an afterthought, "as do Gaara and I," before leaving.
Shikamaru complains of the group's spontaneous intrusion but secretly doesn't mind the company. After all, whilst it's never spoken aloud, his house is the immediate go-to for any get-together because there are no adults to scold them for their fun.
Upon entering the shanty abode, Naruto makes a beeline for the pantry and makes a face when he discovers that there is no ramen in the compartments. Ino had made a quick trip to her house and had brought over a large basket of fruit.
The group settles in the living room; Sakura, Kiba, Akamaru and Tenten are sprawled all over the recliners; Hinata and Shiho are seated pleasantly by the coffee table and Shikamaru thinks that they are the easiest to handle of the bunch; Sai is staring at some old smudge on the wall; Neji's standing beside Lee and Shikamaru watches him talk to the 'senior student' animatedly, waving his hands this way and that. He has a hunch that Naruto is still in the kitchen with Chouji, Ino not far behind, shoving pieces of fruit in front of processed packets of chips. He doesn't know where Temari is and supposes she went back to see her brothers out.
It's not until she calls his name that he realises she's behind him. There's a sudden upsurge of adrenaline and he wonders if he had a heart attack.
"You have so much processed food and pay so little attention to nutrition," she mutters disappointedly. He retains the urge to sigh.
She takes a moment and asks, "is it a bother, that everyone's barged in so suddenly?"
He lets out a breathy noise through his nostrils, jokes, "It's troublesome."
Temari doesn't seem to manage a laugh however, even a grin. Apparently she had used the previous question as a mood-setter, to unveil underlying intentions. "Don't you care, that you're here by yourself all the time? You don't seem bothered that your parents are gone at all."
He furrows his brow at her, not an 'angry' expression per se, more a 'solemn' one. "Why wouldn't I care? You were the one who started calling me crybaby after they left."
Oh? She'd forgotten about that. Vague images, like a storyboard, flick through her mind; Shikamaru's tears, a long way away from herself in a tiny, cold and empty room that seemed too big for the two of them.
The silence that comes after is unbelievably uncomfortable and awkward for both of them.
Temari coughs, might try to salvage what little conversation they had going before, "it's getting windier lately." Still, commenting on the weather is hardly anything too spirit-lifting, and Temari's eyes dart frantically around the room as though the walls will provide her with conversation starters. But there is no need because it is then that Kiba's mutt decides to break wind and everyone is sent scrambling out of the room in a second.
"I want to be free of my uncle's wish for me to take over the family business. I want to be free," Neji says sagely when asked why he's chosen the path he has, to which Lee gives him the 'nice guy' pose and a grinning Naruto slaps him hard on back.
Shikamaru cannot think of anything more freedom consuming for Neji to do than to spend another thirteen years of his life studying, but he decides to refrain from pointing it out because Neji looks much too content with his decision and it would be too troublesome to convince him to change it. He instead decides to fix his gaze to the empty bag of potato chips on the floor.
They're sitting, circled around in his bedroom with Ino's fruit basket in the middle, eating, sleeping, doing nothing particularly fruitful, just talking. Shikamaru's spread across his bed, head dangling off the edge. It's too difficult to constantly crick his neck up and down each time he's addressed so he's taken to staring at the ground, letting his words be muffled by the lack of exposure to his voice.
Naruto and Kiba look as if they're silently urging him to pick up a pineapple from the basket, pleading him with their eyes. Their lips are smacked tightly together, trying to contain sniggers; the sight makes him think of a child who has just taken a bite out of a lemon. Shikamaru doesn't give them the satisfaction of cracking jokes about his hair.
As if it were a childish rebellion, Naruto manages to stall Temari until it is a little bit past six in the afternoon - too early for the sky to be considered 'dark', but late enough for the sun to be making its way down past the clouds, dyeing the scenery in magenta and orange splotches; it reminds Shikamaru of Sai's paint palettes - a messy blend of colours - disoriented, but endearing all the same. Naruto grumbles for the umpteenth time that day, upset that Gaara ignored his request to stay and had left early with Kankuro.
Shikamaru begins to pull the blinds down around the house only to find Shiho doing the same. He grins at her gratefully: 'thanks for being the only considerate one of this mob'.
Shiho's eyes widen noticeably, lips parting in an inaudible exhale. Her face suddenly looks rather flushed, and he wonders if he should open a window, wonders if the stuffiness of the room is getting to her, is about to ask her about it, but she's facing away from him.
She looks like she's stammering with her body, rather than her voice. Her hands appear to be unsure of what to do with themselves; she places them on her hips, then takes the right one down, then takes the other one down a second later. When he asks if she's okay, she freezes, mumbles something incoherent that he doesn't quite catch, and hurriedly leaves the room.
He'll never understand women.
It takes a good half hour to convince the rowdy teenagers to go back to their own homes.
Temari's house - mansion - is on the other side of town and while he wouldn't dare mention it out loud, Shikamaru secretly likes to call it the 'rich side' because no matter how he looks at it, it's in such a stark contrast to what he's accustomed to. Here, in the place of dusty windows awaiting replacement, there are extravagantly designed balconies; one would find massive double -triple - storey mansions instead of poor cottages; it may be just his impression, but even the grass really does appear greener on this side.
They're sitting in a bus - the one that goes around Temari's neighborhood. Temari occupies the left side of the compartment, sitting on one of the benches, and Shikamaru's sitting on the right side of the bus, both of them acting like a stranger to the other. A light imprint of a crescent shaped moon - like a stamp with not enough ink on it - is pasted high above in the sky. Shikamaru tears his gaze from the few, indigo shaded clouds visible through his window, and settles his eyes on Temari.
Her legs are crossed, right one over the left, and bobbing restlessly - a very un-Temari-like thing to do, Shikamaru decides, because Temari is of course, composed and as of now, an 'adult'. She looks thoughtful, as if she's tossing something about in her mind. He meets her eyes and they have an impromptu staring contest, neither of them backing down before Temari decides to break the silence with a sigh, acting like a tired adult relenting to a particularly bothersome child.
"You know," Temari begins, "with your brains you could have easily skipped a few grades and graduated this year as well, like Neji." It sounds rather impractical, even to herself - a student skipping three years worth of secondary school is unheard of in Konoha - but she feels as if some kind of jab is necessary to urge the lazy teenager to do something about his future. That's what she tells herself, but she also wants to gauge a reaction from the boy, who had barely spoken the entire day.
Her attempt seemingly falls flat because Shikamaru doesn't even bother dignifying such a comment with a reaction. Skipping grades was something an honor student - someone like Neji - would do. However, Shikamaru, whose had more days off in a semester than he could count on his fingers and toes, was in no position to be made into an honor student.
"That's something a genius prodigy, like Neji, can only achieve."
Temari snorts stubbornly, and even without looking her way, Shikamaru can hear the disapproving frown in her words, "look who's talking."
She sounds jealous, he muses, but second guesses it because Temari is smart enough to know that there is nothing he's got that she should be jealous of. She's picking a fight, he trials again in his mind, but shrugs the thought off because thinking is too troublesome, and thinking about Temari is even more so; something his brain was just not made to handle.
"If you keep sitting around on your ass all day, without any sort of objective in mind, you're going to end up studying for a worse job than me."
Shikamaru can't possibly figure out why she holds such irresponsibly high expectations for him, for his future - a future that cannot do anything productive to advance her own.
"As if studying to become a high class lawyer is anything for you to complain about, Temari," Shikamaru drawls; he knows that she'll make a good one.
From across the bus, the flash of her bright eyes and the grinding of her teeth seem almost tangible and Shikamaru balks, thinking she might just walk over and hit him on the head for getting ahead of himself.
She clicks her tongue, loud enough for him to hear it over the occasional bumps in the road, and with enough attitude for him to - as if he didn't before - notice that he's done something to set her off. Frankly, he doesn't know what they're arguing about; what she's so unsatisfied with. He thinks to question her about it, but decides against it. After all, for the two of them, bickering is a natural occurrence so he brushes it off and proceeds to stare out the window once more.
There's a pause of silence. "Just... go to school and don't ditch - even if you know you're going to ace all your exams - because whilst you like to overlook it, your attendance-"
Shikamaru gives her a look: 'you sound like a mother' - not his mother of course, because his mother is a woman who had divorced with her husband and simultaneously left her son to fend for himself alone at home. His mother didn't have the time to do mother-like things. Although, things like nagging are never missed for as long as troublesome people like Ino, Sakura and Temari are here.
It's dark by the time they're off the bus and walking towards Temari's place.
"I can go by myself from here," she says, voice loud and fearless as always. It hangs in the air for a moment, then resonates out into the breezy air, and Shikamaru wonders why Ino had even made him take Temari home because she seems a whole lot more capable of looking after herself than he is.
"Oh? Okay, I'll see you-" he breaks mid sentence, the words 'at school' melt away on the tip of his tongue because technically, it isn't the right thing to say, and Shikamaru wonders if the school is going to be much quieter now that Temari isn't going to be around. He wonders if he'll miss her presence. "... See you whenever."
She nods and turns away to head down the asphalt to her house - mansion. He turns around and begins to drag his feet back to the bus stop, all the while watching Temari's shadow overlap with his own for a second, then stretch and grow further away from him. It suddenly stops, he notices, and it almost makes his own steps falter. Temari's shadow grows slightly and the shape morphs a bit against the concrete before shrinking back into the outline of her body. Shikamaru stubbornly continues walking, acting as if he doesn't realise, and doesn't turn around to return her gaze.
It's a draining, long week until he sees her next.
A pale grey sky, clouded over, is what Shikamaru can see through the window by his seat in the classroom, fogged over in the corners by the cold. As he moves down the hallway to his locker, the clouds seem to become darker and more condensed in appearance and he takes a moment to recall whether or not he had taken his umbrella out of his bag and left it at home.
His locker is one of those old ones that have been there for as long as the school has. The green paint is peeling off in some places, revealing old, discolored brown wood as the locker's primary base. Upon opening it he discovers that since the time it rained last month, his umbrella hadn't graced his bag with its presence.
It's fine, Shikamaru decides, because the hospital is only a couple of blocks down the street and he can withstand a few droplets of water in his hair.
She's waiting at the school gate, he notices. At first glance he figures that she's probably waiting to escort Gaara and Kankuro home, but when she begins to walk alongside him out the schoolgate, he cannot repress his curiosity. Shikamaru wonders why she's here, why she's walking with him. He wonders if she's here to gloat to him about all the spare time she has on her hands while he's stuck at school losing precious hours of sleep. Senior students graduate and finish up a good month before the rest of the school calls it a year.
It takes a quick glance through the corner of his right eye to affirm that Temari's eyes are indeed trained on him in a scrutinizing stare. He waits for it to pass, but when she keeps it there, he feels like a criminal; as if she's using him as practice, studying him like he's suspect in a court case, held behind a glass window for the pleasure of her examination. Attempting to bite back the rush of self-consciousness, he stares back at her questioningly as if to ask, 'why are you here?'
"Apparently graduating from secondary school equals an upgrade in freedom," Temari takes a moment to tug the corner of her lips further down but she looks as if she's having difficulty maintaining the serious 'adult-like' frown on her face. As if confirming this, Temari crinkles her brows and Shikamaru ponders why her pride doesn't allow her to show innocent happiness when she feels it. "My father lets me go where I want now, granted that I'm always a phone call away, and given that I'm home before dark," she stretches her arms and he has to duck his head to avoid getting hit. Finally the tips of a smirk come through, "this must be what they call 'adulthood'." She seems to have given up on the pride act because a full set of white teeth are blaring at him, wild, and very Temari-like.
It doesn't sound like a very big deal to him; he's been allowed to roam around the streets until dawn, and maybe, not even come back home at all. His parents were never the kind of people who would have been concerned. But he pushes wallowing in self-pity to the back of his mind and doesn't say anything because Temari's presence and Temari's smile are both things he'd been longing to see. Perhaps a small, silly, sentimental part of him had been afraid that he'd forget what she looked like if he were to not see her anymore.
He speculates whether Temari's hair was getting wet; it must be. He can feel the area before the hair tie holding his ponytail, flattening against each droplet and sticking to his scalp.
His mind recollects a time when he had gone to pick up Ino to meet Chouji at the amusement park. Rain had begun to pour by the time he had reached Ino's house and she'd refused to even step outside because she didn't have an umbrella - something about having just straightened her hair - consequently resulting in Shikamaru having to commit to the troublesome act of going back and buying one at the nearest convenience store. Temari, however, doesn't seem to mind the rain, and a soft humming is audible over the heavy splattering on the ground.
"So why are you here, of all places?" he urges, certain that there are many more fun places to be than to walk beside him, drenched in rain on a dreary day.
"How's Asuma-san?"
Shikamaru does a double take and stares after her as she continues to walk ahead of him. He catches up, "how do you know about Asuma?" He's shocked because he never saw it coming.
Temari explains that she'd met Asuma through Sakura, who occasionally helped her mother out at the hospital. Despite only having known each other for half a year or so, the sandy blonde boasts that she and Asuma have become great friends.
"I haven't been to the hospital in a while - it's been a month, or something, I think," she muses out loud for him to hear, "so, how's he doing?"
Shikamaru's eyes drift to the puddles on the ground, he can make out a smeary cluster of colours, forming his reflection. "The same as you last saw him, probably; lung cancer doesn't heal in a month. He looks paler than before though." Something clicks in his mind, "so was it you he was talking about when he told me a girl stole his pack of cigarettes."
"Of course," she snorts indignantly. "Who in the right mind would leave those cancer sticks there knowing that's what caused this," she circles her hands around to emphasize her words. "How he snuck it into the hospital in the first place, I'll never know."
Suddenly the ground next to him sludges painfully and the next thing he knows is that Temari has both hands on his right arm, gripping his school jacket for dear life. Her left leg has skid forward and her foot is partly buried in sloshy mud. He can feel her right leg against his own and assumes she swung it back in a measly attempt to steady herself. For a moment, he stares at her blankly, wondering what he could do to help and wondering if it'd require a lot of effort.
Temari groans, staring at her filthy shoe, "shit, Father's gonna kill me." She then jolts her vision to him, but the typical piercing look is dulled by the groggy rain, making it look not nearly half as confronting, almost comical. "Pull me up."
He complies, takes his free left arm and lifts her own by the elbow. He pulls her onto the footpath, only then realising that she had taken to the muddy lawn. He watches as she shakes her left leg here and there, mentally categorizing the sight as most unladylike. But this kind of Temari is one he's fully accustomed to, missed. And he allows himself to embrace the fact that becoming an 'adult' hasn't particularly changed the Temari he remembers at school; Temari is still Temari, the Temari at her core remains the same.
The hospital is a well-lit building, so bright that it makes the windows look as if they have been tinted in black - what with the dark clouds in the sky and all. Temari walks in front of him purposefully, turns left at one of rooms - the familiar one with the peachy ivory door.
Inside, Asuma's reading the daily newspaper, a glass of water by his personalized bedside table and a half-eaten sandwich next to it - hospital food, he'd once grumbled, tastes nasty.
Temari greets him, a smile playing on her lips, and Shikamaru, from the doorframe, watches as the man comes to life like a fish in water. It feels like he's intruding on an inside joke; even though he won't say it aloud, he will admit to himself that the man's obviously become rather fond of Temari's presence.
Shikamaru steps inside to make his own existence known as well and Asuma's gaze flickers to his, then flies back and forth between both him and Temari, as if connecting the dots.
"How was school, Shikamaru?"
His smile is contagious and Shikamaru finds himself lazily grinning back, "a drag."
Temari rolls her eyes, "Asuma-san, he won't listen to me. Tell him that he needs to get off his lazy ass and work towards a dream - or something. Give him one of those wise speeches that geezers like you are supposed to give."
Asuma doesn't mind the not-so-subtle insult to his age and quirks an eyebrow amusedly, "you need to get off your lazy ass, Shikamaru."
Temari throws her hands up in the air and turns around to face the bedroom window, unsure of what to do with the two hopeless cases.
Once she's assuredly facing away from the two, Asuma's eyes rejoin Shikamaru's, but this time, they possess a foreign sparkle in them, a glint. His black facial hair form dark shadows against the crinkles of his face as he gives Shikamaru a smirk that looks overly pleased, almost smug. This expression is probably what one of Sai's books would refer to as a 'knowing look'. Except Shikamaru is unable to come up with anything that Asuma might know about him that he already doesn't. Whilst he isn't up there in years like the man, the teenager does prefer to assume that he knows most things, and the fact that Asuma is giving him such a look only makes him frown back confusedly with a hint of defensiveness.
The rain has stopped by the time they're exiting the hospital, large puddles sit in the dips in the ground. Rays of sunlight are peaking through in between clumps of clouds, tingeing the puddles with rainbow whenever they make contact.
They walk side by side this time and Shikamaru comes to the startling realization that he has grown to be taller than her - taller than Temari. His head is at about four, maybe five, centimeters above hers. Such a discovery makes him feel rather satisfied with himself because that's one thing that she can't look down on him for; no pun intended.
"So how's it feel like, going to school?" she teases and Shikamaru let's his head drop. He just knew that she was going to be gloating at some point.
"It's the best thing ever," he retorts sarcastically and Temari grins, lets out a couple of giggles in her mirth.
"Good times, good times," she says, shaking her head in amusement.
Shikamaru stops, remembering something, "how'd you know that I go to visit Asuma after school everyday?"
She pauses, then answers, "well, I didn't know that you went everyday, but I had kinda guessed that you went pretty often, considering the way Asuma-san talks about you."
"The way he talks about me?" he asks, curious as to what kind of person Asuma portrays him as when he's out of the picture.
Temari gives a half-snort, a sound that's displays her entertainment at the conversation but also possesses a soft, affectionate quality. "He talks about you like you're his almost-not-quite son sometimes; other times, he talks about you like you're his rival - he says you always beat him in some game, I don't remember what he said it was."
"Shougi?" Shikamaru offers.
Temari pauses for a moment, considers it, then nods, "yeah, that. Anyway, he really cares about you."
Shikamaru mumbles a 'yeah'; he really cares about Asuma too.
Temari's quick to knock him out of his thoughts and pulls him by the wrist to the nearest bus stand. "Wait with me."
The bus arrives a minute later and Shikamaru watches Temari step inside. "Do you want me to come as well?" Bus and walk you home, I mean.
Temari stops, halfway up the steps inside, and turns to him with wide disbelieving eyes. "No way..." she gasps conspiratorially. She quickly dips her head out the door and looks around, "No nagging Ino in sight! Could it be... Could it be that you - lazy ass crybaby - are actually volunteering to do something that requires effort?"
He scrunches his face in a pouty defeated look; it makes her laugh, dropping the sarcasm and almost feeling sorry for him. "Don't sweat it, Nara. I think I'm fine without a knight in shining armor."
Temari continues on her way inside and that's the last he sees of her through the transparent doors.
The bus shouts out a blast of smoke before departing, a trail of puffy gas stinging Shikamaru's eyes and blinding him for a second.
He wonders when he'll see her again.
~ 'I want to sleep...'
A/N: That's it for chapter 1.
Thank you for reading and I hope you guys enjoyed it! I will get the second chapter up as soon as possible.
Also, can we just spend a minute and soak in the wonderfulness of the fact that shikatema is finally canon omg.
Please review!
InnocentBlossom Xx