Disclaimer and Author's Note: Don't own Shikamaru or anything else about the Naruto series apart from a few material possessions. This is for the 100 theme challenge, but I don't own that either. The official title is Love. :3
No real pairings, apart from a few small canon ones. Oh my god, what have I done?! Okay, there is sorta kinda a main pairing that could or could not be canon. 'sup to you to decide. I know there are a lot of ShikaTema (-retch-) fans and a lot of ShikaIno fans (I personally like KankIno, so who am I to complain about that one?) and I personally like to pretend it's ShikaKiba (it makes sense, it makes sense! x3), but it's up to you. Imagine as you will. n.n
Love
Love, Shikamaru had decided a long time ago, was waaaay too troublesome.
As a kid, he'd seen the warning signs that everyone else had in their eyes of 'I'm falling in love'. He'd seen them, though at the time he didn't recognise all of them. As a pre-teen, he'd worked it all out, though perhaps not quite all of it. He'd watched as the beginnings of schoolgirl crushes and silly infatuations began to surface.
But when you're watching people fall in love, you can't really stop them, can you? Watching Ino and Sakura get crushes on the same damn guy (Mister 'I'm so emo that even my shoelaces tell me to cheer up' Sasuke – what the hell did he have that other guys didn't? An annoying superiority complex and complete and utter apathy for other people, plus a really messed up family? What part of that did girls find attractive?). And he watched as their friendship turned to what he'd thought was friendly rivalry, then actual rivalry, then to ruins.
Love was a major part of friendship, Shikamaru figured. After all, the same basic components are included. Trust, compassion, loyalty, desire of closeness… And so many other feelings that Shikamaru would not pretend to understand because he really didn't have a clue.
Love turned that friendship to ruins. Love broke people's hearts and gave people false hope and completely messed up feelings that some people (he had to assume that he wasn't completely alone on this, right? After all, he was meant to be smart and even he didn't understand it) didn't have a clue about in the first place. Love, he'd decided at the age of eleven years old, was too troublesome for him to include it in his life.
It had been a smart decision at the time. It still was a smart decision. But he realised now that it was not his decision to make.
Staring at that face, that face which had haunted all his dreams for a while now, he felt his heart flip violently, thumping loudly against his chest as he offered a weak smile to the person who was just so troublesome, walking towards them with slightly shaking legs.
Love was definitely troublesome. But the alternative just wasn't a choice, how ever much he'd love to choose it.