CHAPTER ONE
THE MORNING OF A BOTHER- I MEAN ANOTHER DAY
"Yawning is a sign of laziness."
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"Wake up!" "Did you hear me? I said wake up Shikamaru!"
The sound waves resonated in his inner ear, but it took awhile for his mind to activate, now too late to register the fading noise. He vaguely recognized the sound of foot steps stomping away from him. Suddenly, something firmly grasped his arm and violently shook him. Startled, his eyes popped open and he abruptly sat up in bed. In the brief moment of consciousness he suffered from the surprise, learning it was neither an earthquake nor thunder clap that induced his suffering, he willed himself back to sleep.
The peace he experienced did not last long. From far away, he began to feel…. a ringing in his mind. That ringing was quickly becoming louder. What was it? Why was it bothering him? Some part of his mind disclosed to him it was a reminder. He had something he needed to do. 'Are you sure?' he asked that ceaseless ringing. What idiot would intentionally withdraw from this blissful state?
The human mind is an extraordinary thing; the concept of thought, how we think, conscious and unconsciously. The mystery of the mind will never be unraveled.
"SCHOOL!" he exclaimed, finally full awake and mind functioning. Literally, out of nowhere, he hadn't even realized he'd stopped musing to himself and even the nagging feeling had disappeared, that word came to the forefront of his mind.
Turning to his dinging epitome of Mother, he looked at the time. "What a drag. I'm going to be late again," he unenthusiastically drawled. Waking up was such a bother.
Showering, he decided long ago when his mother first began to enforce his independence, was such a bother. He had to be clean and smell tolerable for the conventions of society.
Changing clothes, too, was such a bother; although, getting dressed he found, was a necessity.
His mother was silent as made his way to the kitchen table in search of the nutrition that humans such as himself required. That constant slow shuffle and slouching posture irritated his cultivated and capable mother. Agitation was written all over her face. The yawn about to break from his widening face hole was the last straw. With the precision of a medical shinobi, she pitched a round juicy apple for a hole-in-one.
"Honey," Shikaku nervously began, "I don't think choking Shikamaru is a very good method of encouragement. He can't become a fully fledged jounin if he's dead."
Shikamaru silently stared down his eggy, yellow omelet while Shikaku coaxed his wife into restraining herself….Eating itself wasn't so much a bother as what it generated is.
