He had questioned if it would be liked the movies. A dark room with a single bulb, a metal chair and a cold table, a cop across from him giving a good guy-bad guy persona. He had wondered if there would be camera's focused on him, with a sleek window hiding the smoking investigators that watched for the melodrama of a trembling figure whose face spoke nothing but guilt.
He doesn't expect a small office, no matter how many times his father brought him here in the past.
It's in his nature, he argues, that he would wince at the click of the metal door opening and the sound of shuffled papers in the man's hand.
Kakashi Hatake was a symbol of damage control. Surrounded by cameras and microphones, his respect for his mentor did not overpower his dislike for Konoha. His record as an investigator and prosecutor made him well-known, and the teen could guess that his skills would excuse the white mask he placed over his face.
He had used every excuse of the mask: from the Konoha air to a disease that's passed when he spoke.
He won't point out the hyprocrisy of the man looking for the truth all the while hiding too much of himself in the process.
"You look nervous."
"I'm 16," he answers quick and he suddenly is reminded of his father, "I could ask how you would react if the police came into your classroom and excorted you to the nearest interrogation room."
"You're a smart kid," the Hatake sighs, "I don't have to tell you that if you got nothing to hide you shouldn't be nervous."
"I don't remember anything."
Gray eyes examined darker ones. All his years in debate clubs, law school, police exams, and official practice had made him a god of some sort. His ability to pick out the liar by a flick of the eye, the drop of sweat, the tremble in the hand, or the lick of chapped lips.
But he knows whose son this is and some things are just hereditary.
"You don't," he conceded, "But you do remember what happened before."
A shift in the seat across. Perfect.
"I'm not concern with Konoha's reputation. If anything this things will disappear in a few years and move on to the next town that has some sort of political scandal. You want that as much as the rest of these people living here do."
The young teen met his gaze once more and he watched as those eyes once again narrow. He wonders if there is a bias. The mayor had called him in as a way to show the people of this town that there was no vigilante chief investigator who wanted to make the town a fool. But Hatake, while seasoned with great respectability, was a pupil of the Mayor during his early years in university and beyond. Did he know more? Had he spoken to him?
"You're subjective."
"I'm realistic." He had seen enough of these cases fade to nothing.
The boy stared down at his bare arms, the slight marks of grass stain and dirt splotched together like some sort of abstract art. Bruises and scratches that tainted his elbows and knees spoke of the team, sacrifices they made for him as much as he would for them.
Their comradery linked them to not only what went on the field, but the silence that surrounded what was off it.
His father had never warned him of it, but he suppose it was as subtle as the way he never spoke of what went on in that tiny office of his or of his relationship as the mayor's criminal advisor. Any mention was met with a shrug or slight stern change of subject.
His mother was bred in the business world. Rules of proper etiquette and surrounding one's self with the right people. Her smile shined white, and her eyes flashed with distrust at a loose handshake.
He'd be born in families of trust and secrecy, and he wonders if he could blame his parents of this predicament he was in. Alcohol wasn't the barrier, he had listened in (at least partly) in his psychology class to know that when human nature wants to forget, it will forget.
"It's in your hands," the investigator broke the silence, eyes dulling and pulling out an orange novel to show the numerous hours he had and how long he would use it to keep the teen in the room.
His mother and father taught him to avoid the "what ifs" in life. Take advantage of what was in front of him, his mother had insisted, and his father had laid a blunt response that questioning the past is as useless as imagining the future.
A day at a time.
But what if he hadn't shaken his hand? What if he hadn't shown the fake ID? What if he had ignore the honk of the car, the feminine call of his name, the beer shoved in his hand?
Whatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatif….
But it's just one day at a time.
"Okay."
You're gonna keep your mouth shut. Because you know why? Nothing fuckin' happened, Shikamaru. Nothing.
The click of the tape recorder stings him, rushing hot guilt through his body like a fever.
"This is Kakashi Hatake, investigator 310-49 at the Konoha City Police Courthouse. It's 10:30 with witness #1, Shikamaru Nara. S-H-I-K-A-M-A-R-U, correct?"
"Yes." Because nothing fuckin' happened.
"And N-A-R-A?"
"Yeah." Okay. Okay.
"We are discussing case #621573. Shikamaru, take us back earlier the day on December 10th."
"It was actually a week ago…"