Nara Shikamaru is a creature of habits.
From the way he puts on his left shoe first in the morning to the way he idly toys with a shoji tab in his fingers when he's about to make another move – and win another game. The way he slides his hands in his pockets when he walks, the way he shuts his eyes the moment before Ino says something so inane he can't even believe it. Sometimes he considers getting up every morning a bad habit, because at sixteen – seventeen now? – the thought of sleeping all day is more appealing than ever.
Habits.
Shikamaru considers all habits to be breakable and beatable, and if he cared to put forth the energy to do so, he could drop any habit he wanted. Cared to and wanted being the operative words, there.
Hyuuga Neji is a (young) man consumed by rituals.
Everything he does, every move and step he takes, is intentional because Neji doesn't believe in accidents. Everything is planned. Everything was meant to be.
The way he arranges his tea on the table. The way he sits and the way he holds his head. The way he winds clean white cloth around his right arm and leg every morning and unwinds it every night.
Rituals.
Every bit of it is fueled by tradition and thoughts of, This is the way it is done. Has always been done. Will always be done.
And Shikamaru thinks of these things, and a thousand, thousand other things, usually in just this way:
Lying on his side, head pillowed by his elbow and dozing, more asleep than awake, on the flat tatami mats of Neji's room in the Hyuuga family's house.
With open scrolls littered around and under him, with Neji doing God-knows-what on the bed behind him, with the only indication the other boy is even awake being the soft rustling of paper and the way he shifts on his bed to arrange everything around him.
Shikamaru thinks of rituals.
The way Neji stills after a while, leaning forward on his bed until there is the pressure of chakra-warm fingertips ghosting his hipbone. Prodding him awake, getting his attention.
He thinks of habits.
The way he lolls his head backward to blink up at Neji insolently and wearily, the way he tells the other boy that if he wants something, he needs to get off his ass and get it himself. The way Neji concedes, sliding off his bed with the hint of a smirk and quiet laughter and joins him on the floor.
Shikamaru wonders when he had become unable to even tell them apart anymore.