Chapter two: Hummingbird
The deafening tweets of the nearby birds gave Shikamaru a rather unpleasant awakening. It was early, the sun had barely broken out from behind the mist covering the soft, green hills in the horizon. He stretched and glanced over at his clock on the bedside table. It was only 7.35 am. On his day off.
"Oh man, what a drag!" the sudden chock from seeing the time and stretching out at the same moment made him fall on the floor with a low thud, making the wooden planks creak and the dust fly everywhere. Maybe he should clean up some day. At least not today.
Fairly irritated, he stood up from the floor and rubbed his now aching back. He thought about going back to bed, but then again he wasn't even tired anymore. After some time just standing by his bed, solemnly staring out the window he turned to fetch his clothes and shoes. He was going out for a walk.
Once he was outside, he breathed in the fresh cold morning air in his lungs. This made him cough a little and do weird faces while doing so, it was too cold. He just hoped no one had seen him. He put his hands in their usual position, deep down his pockets, and started walking in a slow pace, not rushing anywhere. He wasn't really the type of person that would ever rush. Sometimes that was good, and sometimes not. But most of the time he didn't really bother. He found the majority of things in this world too troublesome to give too much thought to. Especially women, they were mostly just troublesome, nothing else. For being a man with an IQ hitting the barrier of 200, he wasn't really engaged in anything. He didn't even had a steady job at the moment. Basically, he never gave a damn unless it was about an issue important for him. Which, it rarely was.
He looked up, realising he had without even thinking of it, walked in the direction of Yamanaka's flower shop. Well, wasn't this just embarrassing? He quickly turned into a sideway alley which showed up just to be a dead end. Slightly annoyed, he spun around to take another way when an incoherent humming was approaching his position. He froze, not really knowing why, and remained still a bit into the alley, undetectable for the humming person. His jaw dropped when he noticed the tiny blonde unlocking the doors of the flower shop and walking inside. He was about to leave his hiding place and go say hello to her as she started putting out some random pots flooded with colourful flowers of all sorts, but the sudden appearance of a rather unpleasant friend made him stop. It was Kiba. God dammit.
"Hey Ino babe, whatcha doin?" he asked rather rudely to his girlfriend, unnecessary since it was fairly obvious what she was doing.
"Kiba I'm working, please don't disturb me right now." Ino's answer was short and laconic. Shikamaru was astonished. Weren't boyfriends and girlfriends always happy with each other? Wasn't that why they were even together in the first place? But oh well, what did he know? He had never had a girlfriend, hell he had never even had a crush on anyone. Sometimes he thought to himself that his only love was the clouds. He suddenly got to think of that stupid assignment they had gotten 10 years ago at the academy, on one of his last week of being just a regular student. It was weird, he had never given that single paper any thought at all until now, and all these years he had just repressed it far off in his unconscious. At the sudden thought of the academy some fragments of their conversation caught his attention. He concentrated his listening.
"Well, I heard they're gonna arrange like a throwback party at the academy next week."
"Really? For who?"
"Us I guess. I spoke to Kurenai and she said it was for students who graduated 10 years ago. So…" he paused briefly to do the simple math in his head. "I suppose it's for us. You're gonna go?"
"I don't know honestly…" Ino said, looking puzzled. "Well of course it would be fun seeing everyone, but I might have to work."
"Eh! Just leave it to your mum, she can handle it can't she?"
"Yeah, but I have to ask her first if she actually can." Ino gave Kiba an annoyed glare which he didn't see.
"Okay, great! Well, I'm off. Gotta go training with Shino. See you later hun." With those words and a brief kiss on Ino's cheek he jogged off down the street.
Shikamaru breathed out, he could finally leave his hiding place without bumping into an awkward conversation with Kiba on whether he had been laid yet or not or something. Somehow, it seemed that at times Kiba was the biggest gossiper in town. He always bragged about himself, but yet he always wanted to know everything from his friends, mostly the dirty secrets of course. Kiba always teased Shikamaru because he knew he had never gotten a girlfriend, and truth was actually that he was, in fact, still a virgin. That didn't really bother Shikamaru too much, but sometimes when looking at all of his friends getting girlfriends he couldn't help but think if there was something wrong with him. And, well, Kiba wasn't really helping him get over that issue.
-X-
Ino was just finishing off her work of opening up the shop as she caught a glimpse of a pineapple pony-tailed man sneaking out from the an alley just across the street. Was that Shikamaru? Before she had time to react he had gone too far down the road for her to say hello. Oh stupid early mornings, Ino thought. Now I'm even too tired to recognize my own friend in time!
Friend. She thought about the word as she entered the shop again to fix some things in the connecting greenhouse. Where do you draw a line between friends and best friends? What about friendship and love? Ino was feeling rather gloomy, thinking about that. She realised she wasn't even sure herself anymore, considering her relationship with Kiba. He had been her friend up until they started going out on his request. She still thought of him as a friend, since they rarely did what couples usually did. They had kissed, like for real, twice. Twice. And yesterday was their two months anniversary. Not that she actually liked kissing Kiba, he somehow smelled like dog all the time. He wasn't even her type. Suddenly, the bell by the door jingled, and Ino's face immediately lit up.
"Forehead! What are you doing here?"
The pink-haired girl smiled at her. "Hi Ino-pig. I just stopped by to see if you wanted to have lunch with me?"
"Sure Sakura, I'd love to." Ino said. "I close up at 12, I'll meet you there. Where are we going?"
"Ramen noodle place? I mean, we mostly go there." Sakura pointed out. Ino almost felt stupid for asking.
"Good. See you!" She threw a last dazzling smile at Sakura before she left the shop, leaving behind only a faint echo of the jingling bell.
Ino leaned on the counter again, at least feeling a bit more positive now than before.
-X-
"So, what do you think?"
Tsunade eyed Shikamaru as she was waiting for his response. He sighed before he answered. This was going to be such a drag.
"Sure, why not?"
"Great! You will start immediately on Monday, you'll only have one group to lead that day by 11 o'clock. Come to me when you're done and I'll give you a schedule. Got it?"
"Yeah," Shikamaru answered, just wanting to get out of the Hokage's small and clammy office. He had never liked being in small rooms like this one.
"Great. Dismissed. Next!"
The door flung open by the person standing outside for his turn to borrow some of Tsunade's valuable time, and Shikamaru took his chance to finally get out. He needed to go to his favourite hill, watch the clouds and just relax. And he definitely needed to ponder on why he had just signed up to teach at the academy.
As he reached the top of the hill, he gladly laid down and stretched out in the soft grass. He closed his eyes and embraced the calmness, but he was interrupted immediately by the faint sound of his name. His nickname. This person, he didn't mind getting disturbed by though. The voice came closer.
"Shika? Shika! Oh, there you are!"
She bumped down in the grass next to him and pointed on his arm until he opened his eyes with a slightly irritated look on her. After a moment of staring, he finally spoke.
"What Ino?"
"I just wanna hang with you, and it's quite hurried since I'm supposed to meet Sakura in 15 minutes."
"Then why now? Can't we meet afterwards?" He honestly couldn't think of anything being so urgent that they had to hang out right here and now. They rarely even spoke anymore, she just hung out a lot with Sakura and he… well, he hung out with himself.
"Well, yeah, but you know I wanted to ask you how your meeting with Tsunade went? Choji told me you were summoned there. What happened?"
"She offered me a part-time job, teaching at the academy." He said. "I said yes."
"Isn't that great! I'm happy for you Shika!" she exclaimed and hugged him. Something about her hugging him and hearing his nickname at the same time made his heart skip a beat. He sighed inwardly as he hugged her back with one arm. What was happening to him?
"So, I guess I should get going now, Sakura's waiting," Ino said with a funny smile. "Promise me we'll see each other soon okay?"
"Sure," he said and waved goodbye to her as she ran down the hill. "I promise" he added, almost whispering it to himself. Ugh, he needed someone less troublesome to hang with. He decided on searching up Choji.
Not that he didn't like being with Ino, he loved it. But she was a girl, and as most girls she was troublesome. Therefore, Choji would be much more of a calmer company. He found him, of course, nearby the town's barbeque place.
"Hey, Choji! Wanna come with me and eat? I'll buy."
Choji gladly said yes and accompanied Shikamaru to their usual table. As they sat down, Choji immediately started to jabber about the academy throwback party.
"…and everyone's gonna be there, and I bet it'll be lots of food too! Are you coming Shikamaru?"
"Hmm, depends on what we're supposed to do there." Parties didn't exactly float his boat.
"As of what I've heard, we're basically just gonna hang out and maybe they'd bring some nostalgia to it. Basically, it will all be a nostalgic evening with good food."
Food food food. He would've guessed that was on Choji's mind. Nostalgia wasn't exactly his thing either, to be honest.
"Is Ino coming?" why was that all of a sudden so important.
"Yeah, we talked about it this morning. What about you?"
He gave it a few more seconds of thought before he relied. "Troublesome, but sure." With that answer he gained a smile from Choji before he went on to chat about other things. Shikamaru was grateful. Either, Choji was so oblivious he would never notice the slightly concerned intonation on his last question. Or, he had noticed and was just being a good friend not asking him about it. He definitely hoped on the first option. He didn't want Choji to dwell on things like that, especially when Shikamaru himself didn't know what he dealt with.
Why all these thoughts about Ino all of a sudden? Why? Well, sure she was one of his best friends but still it was unusual for him to spend this much thought on anyone. Maybe he was just feeling a friendly concern for her, since she somehow hadn't been quite like her old, witty self for some time now. Maybe he just didn't like Kiba, and that was why? Ugh, he got weary of thinking this through. So, for the meantime, he decided on just trying to suppress it.
-X-
