Shikamaru leans against the memorial, turning his silver general over and over in his hand. This is the piece he wants to move, but there are two positions he could take. One would win in five moves, but he would have to sacrifice another piece; the other would take six. He has been mulling this problem over for almost ten minutes, and the general spins and spins and spins in his palm. Several more long minutes pass until he plants it on the "safe" spot, and taps a cigarette carton.
Nothing comes out. His temper flares – Ino has been rifling through his things again – then he remembers that he smoked the last of this pack after leaving Kurenai's. He hurls the carton in a sudden fit of anger. As it tumbles and bumps its way over the green cemetery, he stares after it, and a sick feeling settles into his stomach, instantly chilling his aggravation. He has many faults, he knows, but a quick temper has never been among them. The carton comes to rest against an old memorial stone, and it is crumpled and wet with evening dew, a silent reminder that things are not, and never again will be, as they were.
Shikamaru puts the Shougi pieces away, all but one knight, which he slips into a pocket. There is a chip in the piece, from a time when Asuma had slammed the knight down in triumph to check Shikamaru's king. It's a foolish, pointless gesture, but he can't bear to part with it. Already he is forgetting the look of Asuma's hands holding cigarettes, sliding pieces across the Shougi board, gripping their distinctive chakra blades. He is forgetting just how his beard was trimmed, and the inflection in his voice when he called his team together, and on which hip he wore his ninja pouch. Asuma is slipping away, like blood from a seeping wound, and Shikamaru cannot say whether healing or death waits at the end of the red tide. On moonless nights like this one, when only blinding flashes of anger brighten the cold void of his soul, death seems more likely. Or at least preferable.
Rustling leaves summon him back to the cemetery, and his eyes slide to the edge of the forest, where Chouji stands, watching, with an unreadable expression on his face. His eyes are fixed on the crumpled cigarette carton. A flush rises, hot on his cheeks; he had not anticipated anyone observing his tantrum. He looks away.
A fresh pack of cigarettes lands on the grass beside him. Chouji makes his way through the silent monuments as Shikamaru lights up.
"Thanks, Chouji," he says, exhaling a big breath of hot, bitter smoke. "How did you know?"
Chouji shrugs. "You're always out," he says mildly, without the accusation that Ino would have injected into the remark. It's a simple observation, but it stings and irritates nearly as badly as Ino's pointed digs. Shikamaru takes a long drag before answering, trying to reason himself out of his anger. Chouji has never been the passive-aggressive type – he had only answered Shikamaru's question, and with a perfectly valid answer at that. Shikamaru is always out of cigarettes. If he is worried, he will say so. Chouji's feelings never remain secret for long.
He looks up at his friend, who is leaning against one of the twisted, ancient oaks that tower over the graveyard grounds. In the weak lamplight, he looks weary and gray-faced, as if he is ill. Shikamaru examines him closely, albeit through seemingly bored, uninterested eyes. Everything sags, wilted like overwatered flowers. His eyelids and his mouth droop, both uncharacteristically uncommunicative, his shoulders slump forward, and his legs don't seem strong enough to hold him upright. Blood drips freely from skinned knuckles – he has been training, hard, and is utterly spent.
"You don't look well," Shikamaru observes, putting the Shougi board away. "Maybe you should take it easy tomorrow."
The big shinobi raises a tired, noncommittal shoulder. "Maybe." He sighs. "I really can't. I already promised Ino I would train with her."
"Cancel it," Shikamaru replies bluntly. "If you're not feeling well, Ino will understand." Or not. But who cared? Ino needed to stop meddling in her teammates' lives anyway.
Spikes of russet hair shiver as Chouji shakes his head. "I won't be breaking any more promises, Shikamaru." There is a peculiar tenor in his voice which is vaguely regretful, but which cuts with a curious edge, like a gloomy melody played on an instrument tuned a trifle too sharp.
"Gah." Shikamaru grunts disdainfully to cover his surprise. Chouji seldom spurns Shikamaru's advice. "You're not taking that bullshit from the other day to heart, are you?"
Chouji's head lolls to one side, thoughtful, and his tone retains that odd, wounded and wounding note. "It wasn't untrue," he says quietly, "and she's worried. Asuma-sensei would probably forgive me – he always did before. But Ino shouldn't suffer because of me."
Shikamaru snorts. "She's a busybody, and if she's suffering, she's brought it on herself by sticking her nose in where it doesn't belong. Of everyone I know, you're the most incapable of hurting anybody." He grinds out the end of his cigarette, as a wan smile tugs at the corner of Chouji's drooping mouth. "I'll talk to Ino;" he offers around a new cigarette, fumbling with the lighter, "you really look like you're getting sick. You should rest."
Chouji surprises him again by disagreeing. "Thanks anyway, but it will be alright. I'm going to go to bed early tonight, and I'll probably feel a lot better in the morning – I think I'm just tired." Amusement brightens his dull eyes for a moment. "Besides," he continues, "if you try to talk to Ino right now, she's just going to use it as an opportunity to tell you that you smoke too much, and brood too much, and enable my bad habits." He chuckles, a ghost of a laugh that doesn't sound at all like his usual hearty laughter.
"Bitch," Shikamaru swears, with more heat in his voice than he had intended for Chouji to hear.
The smile dies away from Chouji's mouth. "She's worried," he says again, his tone gently reproving. "And maybe she's right to be," he adds, looking at the crumpled cigarette carton lying ten meters away. "You never used to be so bitter."
"It's different now," Shikamaru snaps. His teeth come together with a click, but the words have already escaped. Has he ever snapped at Chouji before? He can't remember, but he doesn't think so.
Chouji doesn't seem perturbed or surprised by Shikamaru's bad manners, and that worries him a little. Had the big shinobi expected Shikamaru's unusual irritability to strike at him, sooner or later? Has he become so unlike himself in the ugly aftermath of Asuma's death, that this aberrant behavior is no longer strange? He doesn't know. Everything feels wrong.
"I know," Chouji is saying, "and I also know that's your fourth pack today. You know I would never tell you what to do, but I think you're carrying the smoking thing a little far." The calm, even measure of his words is the soothing murmur one might use with a frightened or injured animal. It should sound condescending, and it should be offensive. Because it is Chouji, it is neither, and Shikamaru's inexplicable anger fades, though more slowly than it had arisen.
Shikamaru thinks about that for a moment, allowing the red fire in his soul to die, and to give way to the blessed, painless darkness. "Concern duly noted," he replies finally, carefully modulating his voice to hide his emotions. He shakes the pack Chouji had given him, raising a curious eyebrow. "Why did you give me this, then?"
Chouji shrugs, that same tired, unsure gesture from before. It isn't like him to be so reserved, in voice or action. "You need it. I'm not sure why, and I don't like it, but you're smart enough to get out before you do yourself any permanent damage. You'll be okay." There is no trace of irony or doubt in his words, and the simple statement of faith makes a whole evening's worth of dark thoughts vanish. With them scatter the straggling whispers of Shikamaru's aggravation.
"Right," Shikamaru mutters, suddenly feeling a little ashamed of himself. This is why Chouji is his best friend – he asks for nothing, he only gives. Ino insists Shikamaru quit smoking – Chouji offers his concern along with a pack of cigarettes. He demands nothing from his lazy friend – everyone else has orders and requests, and orders disguised as requests, never willing to just let him be, to follow his own sluggish course.
Of Asuma's three students, Chouji has been only one strong enough and generous enough to confront his own grief, and still find the strength to sympathize with and comfort the others. He should not have to shoulder Ino and Shikamaru's pain alongside his own, but he does, and gladly. And they let him, too heart-sick to bear the grief alone. Gratitude is no just payment for all he has done, but it is all he will accept, and that reluctantly.
"Chouji," Shikamaru says, leaning back against the memorial, "you're the best." A smile flashes from the lantern-light, and Shikamaru manages a pale smile himself. "Are you really okay, though?" He is serious now; the longer he observes his friend, the more haggard Chouji seems to be.
"I'm fine," Chouji promises, "just tired." Even his voice sounds somehow weaker than it ought. Is he thinner? As he scrutinizes his friend from behind half-closed eyelids, Shikamaru brain snaps into motion, and he sees what he had failed for ten minutes to observe – there are no snacks in Chouji's hands. A suspicion clouds Shikamaru's mind. He opens his eyes fully and levels a frank stare on the weary shinobi.
"Are you hungry?"
Chouji pulls a face, the most animation Shikamaru has seen on his countenance all night. "Is it that obvious?" He sighs. "Ino says you can't lose weight without being hungry," he says, sounding a little forlorn.
Shikamaru rolls his eyes. "Let's eat, then. I'm hungry myself." He is hungry; he'd skipped dinner to play Shougi at the memorial park.
Chouji hesitates. "But… Ino…"
"Ino thinks a healthy diet is a little lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper in water." Shikamaru makes a derisive sound at the back of his throat, and even Chouji manages a laugh. For a moment, they are quiet, remembering that god-awful two weeks when Ino had attempted to subsist on spicy, sour sugar water. They shudder simultaneously at the memory, and laugh again.
Laughing feels unnatural, but it feels good, too. Healthy. As his friend nods at Asuma's memorial, Shikamaru's eyes linger on his powerfully muscled back, bent now with fatigue, with effort expended, as usual, for someone else's sake. As a child, Shikamaru had often curled against that broad back, snatching a few minutes peace from the busy, demanding world from which it hid him. Now, a Chuunin and nearly an adult, he relies on the strength and the shield of Chouji's presence more than he can comfortably admit, even to himself. And his fears about losing his friend are much darker and much more urgent than Ino's silly obsession over Chouji's weight.
With two essentially non-combative types as teammates, Chouji is the one always in danger, always on the front-lines, and always completely dependent on his team's direction and support. It isn't fair how exposed he is, how uneven the risks he takes. Shikamaru cringes just thinking about it - but he prefers it that way.
"If I'm out front," he'd once said, deprecating an injury incurred on a relatively routine mission, "you and Ino aren't." Thumping a massive bicep, he had grinned and added, "Besides – I can take it," as if it 'taking it' were simplicity itself. And for Chouji, it was simplicity. When the hammer fell, he would always be between his team and the anvil. It didn't matter that such was the lot fate had dealt him – it was the portion he would have taken for himself. It was where he wanted to be.
Shikamaru follows Chouji out of the cemetery, still lost in thought. They wander down the street, not really headed anywhere in particular, enjoying the cool autumn air and the bubbly, happy sounds of a prosperous town. Neither one breaks the silence for a long while. Chouji watches the ground before him, still a little stoop-shouldered, and Shikamaru watches Chouji. In the brighter ambiance of the village, lit by storefronts and houses, he can see the careful way Chouji holds himself. He frowns sympathetically – he has probably pulled something in his back or side – Ino had mentioned he had been training especially hard recently.
"Chouji."
Dark eyes glance back at him, and a questioning grunt accompanies them.
"You sure you're up to training with Ino tomorrow?" He's nagging, now, as blatantly as Ino ever has, and he's disgusted with himself for it. But in the clear evening lights of Hidden Leaf, there's no mistaking that besides suffering from hunger and exhaustion, Chouji is in pain. And Ino is notorious, even outside of their team, for being merciless in practice, with herself and with anyone unfortunate to be with her.
Chouji smiles. "No," he admits candidly. "I'm pretty sure she's going to kill me. I'm not sure if I'm going to starve or die of exhaustion first, though." Shikamaru opens his mouth to object – Chouji's death is not something he wants to joke about – but Chouji pulls another face, and he holds his tongue. "She might just have time enough to nag me to death," Chouji suggests regretfully.
"Maybe I'll tag along," Shikamaru offers. He has been reluctant to take this path, as it means spending a good long morning with Ino, without his cigarettes, and sweating bullets when he might have been playing Shougi under a cool blue sky, far, far away from Ino's shrill orders and ruthless calisthenics. But Chouji and his broad back have shielded Shikamaru countless times; Shikamaru figures he can take the brunt of Ino's attitude this once.
"You can if you want to," Chouji replies. The relief in his tone is only too evident, and Shikamaru immediately resigns himself to an unpleasant morning. "Although the two of you have been like a pair of beta fish lately. Are you going to be able to keep a lid on it?" He is mostly joking, but there is a serious note in the question.
Shikamaru considers it for a moment, and then he smiles. It feels a little tight, but good, like a sleepy stretch. "Nope," he admits cheerfully. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to kill her."
