A Game Well Played
Shikamaru was bored. Asuma was on a mission and it was raining outside. He had no one to play shōgi with as everyone else was ether too bad at the game or having something else to do. Going for a walk in town was boring 'But it's more troublesome not having anything to do.'
Walking past the Jōnin lounge Shikamaru decided to see if there was anyone inside he know 'and I'll get out of the rain' and at the very least there would be a couch to nap on.
Inside the lounge was almost deserted, which was to be expected by the amount of missions circulating the village, looking around Shikamaru noticing a vaguely familiar spot of white hair at which he uttered a quiet "Troublesome" and walked over.
"Kakashi-sensei" he greeted the man and sank down in the couch beside the man reading a familiar orange book. The man looked up for a moment saying "Shikamaru" in ether a greeting or confirmation (he was uncertain, but it didn't really matter, maybe it was both?) before looking down into the book once more. Slouching back in the couch Shikamaru allowed his thoughts to wander.
"Why are you here?" The sudden question startled Shikamaru looked at the man beside him a moment before answering.
"Nothing to do." The silence stretched out between them again. Shikamaru's gaze wandered about the room landing on a shōgi board a few tables away before turning to Kakashi again. "Ne, Kakashi-sensei, do you know how to play shōgi?" the man looked up again seemingly distracted from the question, but answered anyway.
"I've played once or twice. How so?" However Shikamaru didn't answer right away. Gaze wondering to the board again the question slipped from the younger mans' lips.
"Would you play again?" A dark eye landed on the dark-haired man before that eye slipped to the shōgi-board as well.
"Sure."
Shikamaru wasn't sure of how it had happened, but he had (for once) been beaten in his favorite game. The older man had seemingly done it with the same level of disinterest he did anything (which meant reading and sloshing and still doing just about anything perfectly) and when the game was over simply looked down on the board, slid his last piece into place and saying "Check". That had been it, and then the man had looked at the clock and saying he was late enough shunshin'ed away to god-knows-where.
When Asuma returned a couple hours later the boy sat in the same position, still thinking over the single game and still not knowing how the man had beaten him. Well he knew technically, but didn't understand how he had been fooled to walk into the man's trap. On Asuma's insistence Shikamaru walked home, mind still stuck on the first game of shōgi he had ever lost to someone not from his family
An: Soo… this has been on my computer for a long time now and I figured "Why not?" and decided to post it. Hope you like it! OvO