The "mood" took me and I just had to attempt another Shikamaru fic, this time on a new account. Please treat me well, and if you wish, provide me with some constructive criticism! I'm constantly running my OCs through Mary Sue litmus tests, and I absolutely detest Mary Sues, so GIVE ME A WARNING IF I'M STARTING TO LEAN IN THAT DIRECTION. I'm going to try and make this as un-Maryish as possible.

Thank you for stopping by!

Disclaimer: I do not own Shikamaru or Naruto. OCs are my own.


Chapter 1: Coffee, Laundry, and Sunshine

He and the weather had a love-hate relationship. When the weather was nice, Shikamaru's mood was lighter—happy, even. And if it wasn't…well, you know what happens then.

His favorite sort was those lazy days when the sky was a baby blue and had the perfect amount of clouds floating through it—the perfect day to just sprawl out on the green grass and do whatever you want: sleep, eat, cloud-gaze…breathe.

That's what he needed right now: to breathe. No more work, no more stupid meetings, no more paperwork. He'd had enough with Tsunade-sama wringing him out with new jobs, with his father commenting about his attitude ("You're 16 already. When are you going to shape up?"), his mother making herself comfortable at his new apartment ("Your flat is a pigsty. Are you a human being?"). And they asked why he had zero motivation.

Today was as awful as anything. Nothing was going right—he overslept and skipped breakfast to make it to the first meeting of several, dozed off during the third before being rudely awoken by the growls of his own stomach, and was given an earful by the Hokage herself and, as a crude punishment, was sent to be yelled at his own mother.

His mother. He was 16, for God's sake!

To make things worse, the insultingly gray weather had taken a turn for the worse: the rumble of thunder made it clear that a storm was coming.

Just as the first few droplets pelted his head, Shikamaru glanced at the note in his hand:

To the lazy bum who is my son –

Shape up and stop getting yelled at. Tsunade-sama put me in charge of putting you in your place. You're off from work for the rest of the day, but I know that you're just going to take this time to do nothing productive. Run some errands for me.

Or I'll kill you. Twice. With relish.

Shikamaru groaned before checking behind him for his tyrant-of-a-mother. Some of the headache panging at the back of Shikamaru's head lessened but returned at full force as he scrutinized the note again, ignoring the fact that he was getting soaked by the rain.

Tomatoes: organic, not too red, not too green, firm to the touch, Nakabara style (4)

Also, go to this address and borrow a malamba lamp for me:

Asakusa Street, Unit 4

Crazy old woman. What kind of obsession did she have with tomatoes, anyway? And what wasNakabara style?

Shikamaru slung the shopping basket over his shoulder and yawned. If only it was sunny and the grass was dry...

The outdoor market wasn't bustling as it usually was; only a few stragglers here and there. Shikamaru bent underneath the flap of one of the little tents selling produce and glanced at the tomatoes, silky and red in their little cardboard pockets. The signs said, "Ringo style", "Akai hana style", "Yasha style", and "Akapolka style", which was a very mysterious purpley-looking tomato that seemed to have sprouted another head.

Shikamaru didn't want to know what the last one was.

"Uh..." he asked, catching the shopkeeper's attention. "Do you have, uh...organic, not too red, not too green, firm to the touch, Nakabara style tomatoes?" As soon as he was done with this, he could go home and sleep. A breeze blew past his clothes and he shivered. Maybe get some ramen at Ichiraku's too.

"Oh, Nakabarastyle!" the shopkeeper exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Yes, yes! I have a very special stock-how many do you need?"

Shikamaru recalled his mother's words. "Four."

The shopkeeper dug in a small carton of tomatoes-they looked like any other tomatoes, really-before coming out with four ripe ones. "Here you go, 10,000 coins, please."

"What?" Shikamaru's eyebrows drew together as he glanced at the tomatoes, which honestly looked the same as the "regular" tomatoes at 500 coins apiece. There was no way he was going to pay such an exorbitant price. It was a hassle to haggle, anyway.

"Never mind, I'll have four of the regular tomatoes, please," Shikamaru sighed. The shopkeeper looked like she wanted to argue, but a loud clap of thunder interrupted her onslaught.

"It's storming! I need to close up shop soon, sir, that'll be 2000 coins total." Grabbing the money hastily out of Shikamaru's hands, she gestured for him to pick out his tomatoes and leave.

Shikamaru glanced at the array of produce before snatching up any four of them and ducking to avoid the incoming rain.

"Great. Just what I needed," he muttered as he ducked under another shopkeeper's canopy.

"Hey, get out of there, boy, I need to close up shop! It's going to be a real bad storm, and it's not going to let up anytime soon!" the man hollered.

Groaning inwardly, Shikamaru protected the tomatoes as best he could and searched for the nearest place he could take refuge in...at least until the storm was over. As he squinted through the pelting rain, he saw a small sign leading towards a back alley:

Bored? Visit Asakusa Unit 4 for all your cures for boredom! Open anytime, any day, but not every day.

Currently: OPEN

The name seemed familiar; Shikamaru realized that he needed to borrow some kind of lamp contraption from them. Dashing into the alley, he pushed open the creaky metal door and entered the small landing. It led to a steep staircase going downwards into a basement. There was laughter filtering through the bead curtain separating the bottom of the staircase from whatever lay beyond. A distinct burnt smell also wafted under Shikamaru's nose.

He had half of a mind to hightail it out of there and visit Choji's apartment for use of his warm house, and considered abandoning his mother's mission.

"Or I'll kill you. Twice. With relish." Somehow, the idea of sneaking to Choji's house didn't seem so appealing anymore.

In any case, Shikamaru was getting cold so he ventured down the staircase and lifted the teal-and-pink bead curtain, relaxing when he was greeted with a blast of warm, comforting air.

The room was larger than he thought it would be. Filled with bookcases of an assortment of memorabilia, the room's warmth came from a roaring fire from a fireplace at one side of the wall. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling, and several armchairs and couches were scattered around a single square table. Piles of books were stacked in a corner, and the room smelled of musty tomes, coffee, and something else that Shikamaru couldn't quite pinpoint. Something nice, like the smell blankets had after being dried in the sun for an afternoon.

There was a door leading to a back room and a staircase leading to another floor. A sign hung across it, saying, "PRIVATE - OWNER'S QUARTERS"

There were several people crowded around the table, bent over what seemed to be a card game. They looked up when Shikamaru entered the room.

The first was an elderly man with spectacles and a balding head. He squinted at the newcomer for a moment before muttering something and turning back to the card game. The second was a small boy, about nine or ten, who locked gazes with Shikamaru for a second before he, too, returned to the game. The last was a middle-aged woman with shocking red hair, who grinned, revealing a missing front tooth. "Hey! I haven't seen you before!" Turning, she yelled into the back room, "MAHIRU! Get your butt out of the kitchen, there's a new kid here!"

Shikamaru watched as a small, wiry girl dash out of the back room, black hair fashioned in an intricate side braid. There wasn't much unusual about her face, but he thought she was around fourteen or fifteen. Maybe even the same age as him. Catching sight of Shikamaru, she smiled broadly and skidded to a stop in front of him. "Hi there! May I help you?"

"I'm just getting shelter from the storm outside," Shikamaru commented as he looked around. "Some place you've got here." His eyes flickered to the girl, who held his gaze steadily. "You seem kind of young to be running a place like this by yourself."

She shrugged. "Not so young. I'm 16. And this is something of an early inheritance." Evidently, she noticed the expression of disbelief on Shikamaru's face, because she sighed and shrugged. "Baby face. Runs in the family. I get asked about it a lot.

"Anyway, welcome to my place, where the wanderers, stragglers, and bored people come to play. Open any time but not all the time. I'm Mahiru."

"Shikamaru," he replied.

"You can set those tomatoes somewhere-go warm yourself up by the fire. If you'd like to join those three, they're playing poker." Shinju pointed at each of them in turn. "The old guy's Basha. He's your typical persnickety old coot." (She continued on, ignoring a deadly glare from the elderly man.) "The crazy redhead is Auntie Oma, and the baby's Ko."

Ko's eyebrows drew together indignantly. "I'm not a baby! I'm ten!"

"Ten and short," Shinju countered. "Anyone who's younger and shorter than me is a baby. Now, sit yourself down and I'll get us all some coffee. Not to brag, Shikamaru, but I make the best coffee in Konoha!"

"Can I have coffee, too?" Ko asked, eyes sparkling.

"Cocoa for youngsters," Mahiru called from the back room, which Shikamaru suspected the smoke was floating out of. He set his shopping basket next to a kaleidoscope and a snow globe before walking to the room that Mahiru disappeared in.

It was a kitchen, with blue-and-white tiles and an old yellow refrigerator in the corner. There was a door leading out to the back; from the window, Shikamaru could make out a little vegetable garden. The smoke was indeed coming from a pan of charred something. It was too unidentifiable to tell.

Mahiru was bent over a coffee maker, grinding some coffee beans insistently. They probably smelled nice, but Shikamaru's nose was too clogged up with smoke to be able to tell.

She glanced up apologetically. "Sorry. Failed attempt at pancakes. But don't you like eating pancakes in drafty weather like this?"

"Not particularly." In fact, he hated pancakes. However, Shikamaru's sullen retort did nothing to sway her mood, and she put the coffee-bean-grinding on hold to scamper outside.

A deep, sweet wave wafted into Shikamaru's face as she blew past him. He found himself inhaling deeply, closing his eyes and relaxing. It smelled not only of coffee, but also of warm sunshine and the scent of laundry after it dries for an afternoon.

It smelled good.

Mahiru had probably fiddled around with a record player buried somewhere in her mess of treasures, because soon enough, she returned to the kitchen humming to some jazz music. She was dreadfully off-key, even Shikamaru could tell, but he didn't have a musical bone in his body, anyway.

"I love coffee," she said conversationally. "I guess you could call me an addict." She poured the ground coffee bean bits into a type of cylindrical can with a spout on the end and added hot water. Then, she took a long-handled spoon and pressed the coffee down before pouring in some more boiling water.

Shikamaru found himself leaning forward to watch. She smiled, catching him off guard. "Smells good, right? I make a trip every year to a special coffee bean farm just to get these babies."

He nodded mutely. She kind of had a pretty smile.

Mahiru put the top on the can and pressed down the plunger on the cap before lifting it up slightly. Then, she waited.

"Do you like coffee?" she asked again.

The coffee questions were starting to get a little annoying, but Shikamaru decided not to be rude. After all, he was imposing on her shop. "Normally I drink tea. If I do drink coffee, it's instant."

Her expression was so exaggeratedly aghast that Shikamaru snorted. "What kind of a face is that?"

She blinked several times before joining in his laughter. "Well, how can you drink that stuff? It's like…watered down dirt in a cup!"

He shrugged in response. "Never drank a good cup of coffee, I guess."

"Ha." Mahiru stuck her nose up in the air proudly. "Trust me, one drink of this elixir and you'll never go back."

"Right…" Shikamaru said doubtfully.

"Oh, hush. Drink!" Tossing the first dash of coffee that had some bits of bean in it, she poured him a cup of the drink and shoved it into his face.

Somehow her forwardness reminded him of his mother, but he pushed that thought away as he took the cup.

Covered in a thin layer of foam, Shikamaru had to admit that the coffee smelled good. Like a thicker, deeper version of the cloud that was still jogging his brain as Mahiru stepped near him, carrying a tray of jam cookies.

"Come on, let's sit and relax until the rain stops."

Relax. That plan was very appealing to him.

Shikamaru waited until he was seated comfortably in a plushy armchair before he finally took a sip.

Aaaaaah.

He cracked open one eye to glance at Mahiru, whose eyes were glittering in expectation. Somehow he didn't feel like satisfying her…yet. "It's okay, I guess…"

The girl's face fell. It was comical, really; her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth dropped dramatically, her eyes drooping downwards. Shikamaru forced down the snort of laughter in his throat and smoothed his expression out.

"Better than instant, though."

Her entire expression brightened, and she nodded in a sort of 'I-told-you-so' way. "Are you kidding me? Anything would be better than stuff like that."

Meanwhile, Ko's face wrinkled up. "What about my cocoa?"

"Oh, shoot! I'm sorry!" Shooting up from her seat next to Shikamaru, she dashed into the kitchen. There was a giant crash and a shriek as the sound of pots and pans tumbling down echoed throughout the room.

Great. Now I have to get up again. Shikamaru snuck another drink from the cup before stretching and walking to the kitchen, feeling slightly worried. He leaned into the room to find Mahiru laughing sheepishly under a pile of kitchenware.

"I'm okay!" She crawled to her feet and slipped on the tile floor, uttering a piercing shriek again.

This girl is a handful. Sighing, Shikamaru stepped forward to catch her. "Just…stand in a corner or something and don't make trouble." He bent down to collect the brass pans, feeling tired, annoyed, and overworked. Why am I doing this?

"Are you sure? But—" the girl started to protest, but he quelled her with one irritated look.

"Go stand where you won't knock stuff over."

"Yes sir." She slunk away, watching him worriedly as he hung the pans up and collected the other fallen items.

"Where's the cocoa mix?" he asked, washing his hands wearily. Why am I doing this? he asked himself again.

Somehow, he couldn't find the answer. That bothered him.

"In the cupboard, second from the left," she called from her stance in the corner.

He pulled down a cardboard box labeled 'Cocoa' and glanced at the packets lined up neatly inside, a paradox to the state of the outside room. "Instant, huh?"

She flushed and looked away. "Cocoa's different. It all tastes the same, anyway."

He shook his head. "Hypocrite."

"I am not!" She burst out indignantly. "I'm just…selectively biased."

"What's the difference?" he scoffed, measuring out two spoonfuls and haphazardly dumping water into a yellow mug that he found under the sink. Mahiru winced noticeably, but she stayed in her spot until Shikamaru finished stirring.

He set the mug down in front of Ko, who glanced at it apprehensively. The brown liquid still had chunks of powder floating around, and Ko had to stir it to dissolve the remaining particles.

My work here is done. Shikamaru collapsed onto his armchair, sipping his coffee once more.

Aaaaaaaah.

Meanwhile, Mahiru slunk down to the seat next to him and drew her knees up forlornly. "I'm sorry." Her voice was small. "I'm an idiot. I don't even know you, and I made you mad."

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Her brown eyes were glassy and her bottom lip was quivering. The coffee soured in his mouth, and he put his cup down.

"Don't be. I'm just tired." When the girl still didn't look convinced, he sighed.

This is troublesome.

"I'm just unusually irritable today, okay? Just forget it."

"You're not making me feel any better, you know!" she yelled, wiping at a tear that slipped down her cheek angrily.

Shikamaru felt bad, but somehow he wasn't feeling up to being polite and gentlemanly. Besides, she was annoying. More than Ino, even.

"Then what am I supposed to say?" he hissed, not exactly shouting but not quietly either.

Mahiru jumped.

The other three, who had been quietly playing a game and eavesdropping on the two, dropped their cards simultaneously.

Even Shikamaru was surprised at himself—he didn't expect to yell at her, but it just slipped out.

Mahiru stood abruptly, her bangs hiding her expression. "I'm sorry, can you please leave? I don't want to talk to you right now."

Feeling the tips of his ears burn with embarrassment and frustration, Shikamaru silently stood and walked out through the bead curtain.

It was still raining outside.

He closed his eyes, raised his head to the sky, and let himself be soaked.

She gazed at the coffee cup left on the table. It was empty, drained of it contents completely.


"Shikamaru, where—goodness gracious, you're soaked!" His mother ran to him with a towel, rubbing his hair before studying him closely. "…You're angry. What's wrong?"

"I'm tired and I don't want to talk about it." He passed by her in a sullen wave of heat.

"...You didn't bring my tomatoes back. I was going to make your favorite tomato pie," his mother mumbled.

He cursed inwardly. Her and her stupid tomatoes! "I left them at her place. And I hate tomato pie!"

Shikamaru regretted his words instantly.

"Well, you didn't have to say it like that!" Yoshino shouted, furious but with a distinct wobble that told Shikamaru that she was near tears.

Just like that stupid, scrawny midget.

"Fine! If you don't want to eat my food, don't eat at all!" His mother stormed off.

He groaned.

Great.

Now there were two troublesome women mad at him.


The next day, Shikamaru went to work, dreading yet another tiresome day.

"Parcel for you, Shikamaru!" One of the office clerks waved around a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. "A girl came by really early and dropped it off for you."

He accepted it, confused. There was a note attached to it, written carefully in a smooth, clear hand:

I'm sorry.

By the way, I still have your tomatoes.

M

He lifted the parcel to his nose and breathed in the scent of sweet coffee, fresh laundry, and sunshine.

Then, he realized that he never did get the malamba lamp after all.

And to his growing horror, he found that he was smiling.


I'm still figuring out the logistics behind Shikamaru and Mahiru's characters so please go a little easy on me for that bit. :P For those who were referred here by my account, I did change their ages from 26 to 16, the approximate ages during the Shippuden series. I might include the Shinobi War in this story (depending on if I'm able to even GET there) but for convenience's sake, just ignore the Shippuden timeline. There will be minimal conflicts involving the actual Naruto storyline, and Mahiru will (most likely) NOT become a ninja.

Until next time,

Twiggy

R E V I E W !