He listened to the scuffle of feet on the dirt road; the low hum of an old woman beating her rug; and the children screaming at an old cat by the sidewalk, as he laid on his back in the dwindling summer heat. It was mid-July, nearly seven years post-war, and an early fall breeze crept alongside his face, although the strange breeze wouldn't be apparent to anyone who wasn't paying close enough attention. Up on a small grassy hill, he closed his eyes and listened to his lethargic breaths heave in and out.
Shikamaru had it all down to an art, and his students back at the academy simply called him 'lazy and boring, and an old fart—even if he was only twenty-five— because he liked to watch the clouds roll by the crisp blue sky.
'My old comrades used to call me a lazy genius.' He told a group of his students, and they simply laughed at him and agreed that his laziness was a disgusting habit. He just ignored them, and continued to listen to the sounds in the streets, and read books and write, and do all sorts of seemingly insignificant things.
'Shikamaru get your lazy-no-good-little- asshole over here pronto before Asuma makes us run laps again!'
'Ino please don't yell in my ear…Shika's coming Ino…relax.'
He smirked at the memory of his team mates, and continued to idle softly in the green grass underneath him.
Although his students and those around him called him lazy and unproductive, he was rather content with his life, despite his slothful attitude. He wouldn't call it slothful actually. It was contemplation.
He began to bury his face into his hands, and inhaled the fresh scent of grass that stained his palms.
He couldn't help but laugh at his students when they called him boring, and lazy, because he knew they were so wrong, and that they were missing out.
The scrape of an oven pan, the ticking noise of a clock, a bell ringing in the foreground, the sound of feet stomping around him—all of it, he realized a long time ago, was the song of life. It was the little things—minimal and simple—that composed the song, and as he picked up each note, the song became more apparent, and the even the creaking floors seemed beautiful. So he laid in the grass and took his time to listen to the world around him, working and studying at the different ways life presented itself.
'You gotta listen son. You hear it? That's life. It's moving, it's sometimes loud, sometimes silent, and most of all, it's signing to you… To all of us.' He remembered his father say. 'So make sure you remember to sit and listen because the world practically calls out to us. I know, it's a messy song, but you'll get the hang of it son. Trust me.'
And whether it be from the worst death he experienced—
Asuma-sensei! No! Don't die.. you can't…
—Or the first note of laughter from Ino's mouth—
Naruto you knuckle head! I'll plunder you to bits ya hear? Get back over here!
—Or even from the first sound of a war battle cry—
Oh god, Neji…he's dead…Neji, please it's still too early for you to die…Please! Please don't go!
The song played louder each time he thought about it, regardless of its messy composition. And as he laid in the grass, filling his ears and heart with his melody, he couldn't help but smile up at the clouds.
Everything, he theorized, was part of the tune; sadness, anger, joy, lust, love, confusion, worry—
And if a writer can pick up the small sounds of chimes clinking together, or if a reader can hear the crickets sing as they skim their eyes over paper, than Shikamaru was an expert who had life down to an art. Because he knew that writers, and readers, and lazy people like him could pick up the sounds of life while the others played it.
It is a song with no pattern. It is a song with no apparent rhythm or direction, but it is one of the most beautiful compositions he had ever heard in his life, and he will follow it like the moon follows the earth's sun.