Touch

Shikamaru sat alone at his small dining room table, jumping through his thoughts as the sun shone down on the whitest of mornings. Glancing over toward the clock on the wall, he dully noted that the time was now 11:47. Seeing this, the shirker effortlessly calculated that he had precisely thirty-one minutes before he had to leave to meet Hinata for lunch.

She had sent him a text message the day before to let him know that she had been with Naruto and that she wanted to talk about what had transpired. Agreeing to this, the two had eventually decided to meet on campus at 12:30 today when Hinata had a break between her classes and before Shikamaru went to his first class of the day. Shikamaru knew very well that Hinata would obviously be an easier person for Naruto to talk to; they'd known each other for years. Almost as long as he knew Sasuke. Maybe, just maybe, he could figure out exactly the root of the problem by listening to what Hinata had to say.

Looking out through his kitchen window, Shikamaru saw that the day was again generally gray and monotone, and once again, a light snow was falling from the sky. Even though the temperature was somewhat higher than it had been over the last several days, the white flakes still fell. Every day. The raven thought that eventually they'd all be buried in the stuff as long as it keeps up like this.

Other than the weather which refused to change or relent, Shikamaru's mind was still inordinately preoccupied with the information that he had received from Itachi yesterday. His gaze held steady to the cold outside through the window, and he endlessly wondered if he should tell Hinata about what he had learned about their late friend. Sitting in his chair for what felt like forever, he remained deep in thought for several more minutes before deciding that the information was something he couldn't share right now. Not yet. Just as he had promised Itachi, only when the time was right would he reveal it. Even then, it would only be relayed to the one person who needed to know.

Glancing from the window over at the clock again, he read the time through distorted, white-burned vision before he stood up from his table and walked over to the entrance of the apartment. Taking his coat and scarf from the closet, he wrapped the scarf about his neck and pulled his arms through the sleeves of the coat, buttoning it and removing his gloves from the pocket in the process. Pulling his gloves onto his hands, he walked through the door and outside, shutting it behind him and locking it before turning to approach the matte black Audi which awaited him.

xXxXx

Hinata had arrived at the Saige Cafe located just off campus early due to her class being released earlier than scheduled. She took her earmuffs off as she walked inside from the cold, hearing the door shut behind her.

"Hi, welcome to Saige!" the boy said from behind the counter as he lifted a sack of coffee beans off the wooden table to his side and onto the ground.

"Hi," Hinata began, "I'm just waiting for a friend first, if that's ok?" she said as she pointed toward the door behind her.

"Of course," he replied. "Take your time, feel free to grab a seat on one of the couches or something if you want!"

"Ok," Hinata smiled. "Thanks."

Making her way into the café, she sat down at a small, round wooden table to await her friend's arrival. Saige Café was the go-to hotspot for a lot of students at CDCBU, since it was just a short walk from campus, and it had the best food and coffee around. Inside, they often played independent artist's renditions of popular songs, and the atmosphere was generally very warm and welcoming, with a chalkboard menu hanging from the ceiling, the smell of breakfast sandwiches and seasonings floating through the air, and of course the sound of freshly-brewing coffee.

As she waited for Shikamaru to pull up in his car, Hinata's mind drifted back twenty-four hours, revisiting the time she spent with Naruto. When she thought about it, she wondered if her words had really helped him even a little bit. He was pretty unresponsive to the topic for the most part. Something he had never been to Hinata, and that scared her to a very harsh extent. Naruto always told her what was on his mind, but yesterday he was just…not himself. She reminded herself to check in on him later that evening. She was brought back to the present a short while later by the sound of the café door opening, and the sight of Shikamaru being greeted in the same friendly way by the boy working behind the counter. After their exchange, in which he ordered two hot macchiatos for himself and Hinata, he was told that they would bring the order out to them. Thanking him and paying, he approached the table at which Hinata sat, patiently waiting.

"Hi," he said, taking off his gloves and coat, placing it over the chair he was about to sit in.

"Hello, Shikamaru," Hinata replied lightly, smiling as he sat down opposite her at the table.

"How are your classes?"

"Oh, they're going all right. Not too hard, not too easy," Hinata answered. "How are yours?"

"Good, thanks," he replied, nodding his head with a smile. There was a pause between them for a moment in which they both occupied their gazes with thin air before Hinata quietly inhaled.

"I'm not sure about Naruto," Hinata began tentatively, gaining Shikamaru's attention back up from the table. "In class yesterday before we met up for lunch, he was just…still. It was like he wasn't even there. At the end of class, he got up and almost left without a word, like he had no idea that I was sitting right next to him."

Shikamaru listened, watching his friend with a concerned look upon his face, hands folded just under his chin. He had hoped that perhaps he was going to hear that Naruto had been dealing with the situation a bit better than before. He was afraid of being mistaken, but unfortunately, as he had initially suspected, Naruto seemed to be not dealing with it at all. It was a scary thing to see him like this; losing Sasuke really affected his life more than Shikamaru had estimated. Although, who could blame him? They were best friends from the very beginning.

"When we were walking to the restaurant, he seemed a little more focused," Hinata continued as a sadness crept into her silvery eyes before she let out a short, hollow laugh. "He even thought to go through the string of buildings so that we wouldn't be cold."

Shikamaru looked upon her with a sympathetic gaze, gently holding her attention as she continued.

"Once we got there, though, he seemed so distracted. We sat down at a booth and he just stared out the window. It was as if he were expecting something awful to happen at any moment," Hinata said as she diverted her eyes to the surface of the table, slowly shaking her head. "I'm so worried about him, Shikamaru."

"I'm worried about him, too," he said slowly, looking down to the table to think for a moment more before biting his lip and looking back up hesitantly at Hinata. "Hinata, I think he might be drinking. A lot."

Hinata looked at him, holding back a gasp. She stared back at him in absolute disbelief before shaking her head again, mouthing the word 'no' over and over. All her compounded worry and concern released itself in that moment as she felt her heart sink in the waters which threatened to drown it.

"After the funeral," Shikamaru said, "we stopped at that little bar on the edge of town. I saw him behave in a way I've never seen come from him before. At first I had chalked it up as a simple side effect from the pain that day brought him, but…the more I think about it, the more I believe he was using alcohol to—"

Shikamaru breathed before uttering, "To hide."

"What? Hide? Shikamaru, I don't understand. What did he do, exactly?" Hinata asked hesitantly.

"Hinata, he didn't even have to order," the shirker continued, a slight hardness beginning to roughly edge his voice. "The bartender just brought him two shots without him even asking for anything, and he drank them both as fast as he got them."

Hinata took in Shikamaru's words as a visibly disturbed expression appeared on her face. That sounded nothing like the Naruto she knew. The Naruto she'd known.

"It didn't end there. After those two, he got two more, and tried to suck them down just like he did before, but I tried to talk to him first. I tried to say that maybe he had had enough. When I did though, he looked at me so…strangely. He was defiant, reckless, and almost…hopeless. He looked at me right in the eyes and he drank it. Slowly. Right in front of me. He was challenging me, daring me to do something about it. I was afraid that the situation was about to escalate to violence, so just I remained calm. I did manage to get him to stop eventually, but if I hadn't, Hinata...I'm really not sure if he even would've stopped."

"You made the right call, Shikamaru," she said looking up at him. "I'm so glad that you were the one there with him. Do you think he goes there on his own?"

"Yes, I'm sure of it. How else would they know what he wanted without him having to tell them."

"Oh," Hinata hurt for Naruto so much at that moment. "It's so much worse than I thought, then. He must feel so lost…I don't know what to do, Shikamaru. He usually tells me everything, but he's not doing that. I'm so scared for him."

"Hinata, we need to be strong. We have to let him know that we're always here for him, and that we aren't going anywhere." Shikamaru said, looking into her crystal eyes. "Stay strong, Hinata. For Naruto."

xXxXx

"Me, I'm just a simple bartender. A simple kid with a simple job," Kiba said, smiling and shrugging his shoulders as he slowly poured out two shots of Glenlivet 12 for Naruto. "I'm not the best at it though, but, you already knew that."

He slowly pushed the two shot glasses toward the blonde on the opposite of the bar who was silently eyeing him somewhat suspiciously. "Am I right?"

"Thanks," Naruto said. He was about to say something further, but suddenly, another customer who was with a group of four or five other people about Naruto's age called over to Kiba for another round.

Kiba looked over to them and nodded before turning back to his blonde customer.

"Duty calls," Kiba said, smiling warmly. "Sit tight, I'll be back."

At that, Naruto's eyes followed Kiba as he took off to the other end of the bar to service the young patrons who seemed to be having the time of their lives.

Naruto felt that his mind needed dulling, so he picked up the first shot, playing with the glass between his fingers and looking at it for a second before finally swallowing it, letting the viscous substance drain down his throat. He knew he had been sitting at the bar for some length of time now, but he wasn't sure exactly how long. He picked up the next shot, only his second drink of the night, and swallowed that one as well. After placing the empty glass back down on the bar top, he looked over at the group of people, who were talking loudly in high spirits. None of them looked familiar to him, so he turned his attention back to the two empty glasses in front of him. Slowly, he used his two index fingers to push them along the aged wood of the bar. Slowly…slowly they came nearer to each other until they just barely touched, as if the rims of the glasses were kissing.

The blonde smiled lightly, then looked up suddenly in the same direction where the brunette had walked. Kiba wasn't there. He wasn't helping the other customers anymore and he wasn't leaning against the spot on the back bar he seemed to prefer.

Hm. Elusive bastard he thought as he turned to look back down at the glasses in front of him which still gently butted up against each other.

Naruto turned around restlessly upon hearing the door of the bar open, feeling a blast of cool air just barely reaching him from across the room. He saw two more people near his age come in, a guy and a girl, probably on a date he thought. He watched them with mild curiosity for a moment, until they both sat down at one of the small tables, smiling to each other.

He then slowly turned back around and was startled nearly off his chair to find that Kiba had returned out of nowhere. He was standing with the same smug smile on his face, his shaggy brown hair falling down slightly over his eyes. He placed a glass of ice water on the bar, and slid it forward a few inches toward the blonde.

"Hi," Kiba said, with a chuckle. "Drink this for now. I've got to go out back and bring in some more wood for the fireplace. I'm counting on you to keep the place standing while I'm gone."

"Oh, you're…wait what?" Naruto trailed off as he watched Kiba disappear through the door and into the back area of the bar, presumably on his way outside into the woods. Naruto smiled to himself, slowly letting his breath loose when he heard the door close from back behind the bar.

He sipped the ice water Kiba had brought for him and waited patiently. This place started losing more and more of the old faces every day. They've been getting replaced by people his age, people who didn't have a goddamned care in the world, it seemed. Naruto felt strangely okay with the noise. More at peace with the life that entered here than he ever felt.

Before he knew it, he had finished a little less than half of the glass of water. Kiba returned to the bar a few moments later, rubbing his hands together to warm them. He came up to the blonde and stopped in front of him, placing both his hands flat on the bar and balancing, leaning forward on his arms.

"So, any trouble while I was out?" he asked.

"None at all. Oh, wait," Naruto answered, looking up and seeing that Kiba had a ton of snowflakes caught in his hair. He reached out and brushed them away, then withdrew his arm quickly when he realized what he was doing.

"You uh…you had snow in your hair," he explained. "Is it coming down pretty heavily?"

"Thanks," Kiba said, laughing. "And, no, just flurries, but it's gotten really cold out. A jacket probably would've been a good idea, but whatever I guess."

"That sucks," Naruto observed and then added, "You know what else is gonna suck? My heating bill this month, shit."

"Ain't that the truth," Kiba agreed, running his hand through his damp hair in an attempt to dry it.

"By the way, how long has it been since you gave me those two shots?" Naruto asked suddenly. "I hadn't realized it but I was sitting here a while…"

"Eh, maybe about an hour," Kiba said with a shrug of his shoulders. "You were talking though, and I didn't want to interrupt you."

"Yeah," Naruto said looking down at the bar. "It was kind of funny, though…unnerving, actually."

"How so?" Kiba asked, walking backwards in order to keep his eyes on the blonde. He reached over and picked up the bottle of Glenlivet 12 and returned back to his place in front of his customer.

"I don't usually talk that much," Naruto said, not looking up.

"I see," Kiba said, laughing lightly. "It's okay, I tend to have that effect on people."

"You do, huh…" Naruto mumbled, once again staring at the two shot glasses which sat together, rims touching, connected in perfect harmony. After a moment went by, he looked up to see that Kiba was pouring him two more shots.

"Hm. Maybe I'm not too bad at this bartending thing after all," he said with another smile, putting the bottle back where he found it. "I gotta go check on everyone else, so enjoy."

Naruto watched him go out amongst the people at the tables before turning back to the two shots. He picked the first up and swallowed it, feeling the familiar warmth it created in his stomach as it settled. He then threw the next one to the back of his throat just as easily. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to let his mind soften to the alcohol.

Kiba returned a while later and poured out two more shots of the whiskey.

"Three rounds is your limit," he said. "Here you go."

"Yeah, no problem," Naruto said, watching the clear, amber-colored fluid pour from the bottle into the glasses. He then looked back up to the brunette.

"Hey Kiba, what's the story with your tattoos?"

The young man looked at the blonde a bit quizzically before the lightbulb moment hit him like a brick.

"Oh, these," he said with a chuckle, running his hand over his cheek. "Remind me to tell you again sometime. I will, but tonight isn't the night."

He then went over and placed the bottle of Glenlivet 12 back amongst its brothers on the back of the bar. He then leaned up against it to rest, in his usual spot. Naruto carefully and hesitantly took the next shot of whiskey and then placed the glass slowly back down on the bar, this time turning it upside down. He then took the sixth and final shot of the night, placing the glass down the same as the first. He pulled out his wallet and took some money from it, placing it between the two shot glasses.

As he stood up, he looked over to find that Kiba had gone to serve the group of kids that had been there from earlier. Naruto put on his scarf and coat, pulled on his gloves and glanced over again to see Kiba opening beer bottles. Upon eye contact, he waved to the blonde.

"Be careful out there," he called. "See you next time."

xXxXx

Shikamaru was once again seated at his dining room table, exactly as he had been that same morning. Night had fallen hours ago and the hanging lamp suspended over the dining table was the only source of light in entire apartment. Sasuke's journal lay upon the barren table, unopened, and Shikamaru was staring at it intently.

Finally, after a length of time, he breathed as he reached out, slowly sliding it closer to him. After curling his fingers around its borders, he opened the cover. Within, he found Sasuke's signature on the front page. He looked at it closely for several minutes.

"Forgive me, Sasuke," he whispered as he turned the page again.

January 9 - I feel elated but also like something's just behind me all the time. Like something's always gnawing in the back of my mind. Maybe I'm imaging things, I don't know. I just know how I feel, and what I want, and I don't care who disagrees. People don't try to understand me, and I get tired of trying to explain it. It's just tiresome, really. I'm tired…really tired tonight. It's getting late, but I need to head out soon so I can meet up with Kisame at his place at 10:00. Itachi wouldn't like me going there, I'm well aware. I just have to be careful to make sure he doesn't find out.

Shikamaru closed his eyes and the journal at the same time, shaking his head sadly as he rested his chin on his loose fist. He sighed deeply as he sat in the empty room, watching the branches of the trees outside lightly dance in the soft winds under the moonlight of yet another night which was colored gray as the heavens above.