Shikamaru realizes that he has achieved peak adulthood as he finds his own boredom unbearable. The older he gets, the dirtier he wants his hands. Or perhaps the past few months have changed him. He's not yet unrecognizable to himself, simply he feels that difference like night and day.
He doesn't quite know how to broach his current predicament to Kakashi without sounding ungrateful, or whiny, or worst of all egotistical.
"So..." Kakashi slightly sings, knowingly in a way that's discomforting– as if he is still that child with a lot of basic questions.
Shikamaru clenches his jaws, dropping all traces of his perpetual coolness. He takes a deep breath through his nostrils.
"I feel stagnant." It might as well have taken all the wind out of him to say so.
"And whose fault is that?" Kakashi folds his fingers on his chest as he leans back in his big chair.
Shikamaru thinks of everything that has grown like moss on his soul. A pain crawls into his throat. He doesn't want to nod in agreement, so he presses his lips together, staring pointedly back at his superior.
"Honestly, Shikamaru, It's never too late to set bigger goals for yourself. Where do you see yourself in five years?" Kakashi doesn't move, acutely aware that his straightforwardness has threatened Shikamaru's newly acquired maturity. He doesn't shrink like a child but neither is he ready to dry-swallow the truth, even if he's been aware of his fault for some time now.
"I have no idea." Shikamaru responds tersely.
"Well, at least you've finished the first step towards progress. You've addressed the issue. Stagnancy." Kakashi's chair creaks as he fixes his posture.
Two minutes pass before either of them speak. A bird thumps against the glass window.
"It's easier to just keep yourself busy, but not everyone has been given the gift of limitless capability. It just boils down to how much you understand your worth." Kakashi props an elbow on the arm of his chair, and presses his cheek against his knuckles. All resilient and cool and unbothered, but still very great in presence.
"Sure." Shikamaru clams up.
"And to be honest I don't see a hunger in you, but you can't have an appetite for a thing you've never tasted."
"Yea."
"Yea. That's all you have to say, kid?" Kakashi's eyes widen.
"I'm absorbing your wisdom, sir." Shikamaru replies flatly.
Kakashi's brows wrinkle and he frowns with his stare.
"I get it. You can't understand desire when you're lost. I have common sense." Shikamaru loosens himself.
There's no reason to challenge him.
"Common sense is what you do have. You aren't completely hopeless since you're vocalizing your dissatisfaction, despite your inarticulacy." Kakashi sighs.
The same bird dives against the window again, with enough force to drive Shikamaru's attention away from Kakashi. He turns in his seat to observe the crack-free glass. Fingerprint-like smudges stain the surface. The sky is crowded with formless clouds.
"Have you considered Anbu?" Kakashi sits upright and brings himself closer to the desk.
Shikamaru faces him with a grimace. His mouth widening into a deep frown. "No."
"Why not? I think it's up to your speed."
"I'm not exactly partial to murdering for the sake of murdering."
"Whether you have a weak stomach or not isn't what separates Anbu from jounin," Kakashi says incredulously.
Shikamaru has no rebuttal. He scratches the back of his neck, sagging his shoulders. There's never been a moment when someone's judgment made him light headed.
"Why Anbu?"
"Because I have a job for you. I don't think anyone else is as capable and thorough as you. You rarely make mistakes."
"What you're saying is you think I'm good at taking orders."
"Better than most. And when you do make mistakes your cleanup is effortless." Kakashi points a finger at him.
"No." Shikamaru doesn't falter. A job means that shit isn't alright, and shit has been fine for a while. He doesn't believe he is fully capable of handling another shit storm. Jounin aren't in the dark for the most part, but he likes not being familiar with the back end of politics.
"I'm not asking for an answer right now. I just want you to think about it. I could be wrong, but like you, that's hardly ever the case."
"No."
"Think about it. I know where your head is. I've been there. Asuma isn't here. Neither is Shikaku, but we were raised to be shinobi. Killing is just as much as a chuunin's business as it is an Anbu operative's. Death is a constant visitor to the dinner table..."
"It's not about Asuma or my dad."
"It is. It's about everything you've experienced that has shaped your perspective. I don't think either of them would want you to stifle yourself over fear. If it's not fear then it's uncertainty. You're single with no family to come home to. It's the best time to take advantage of the skills you sleep on."
"You put it that way and it sounds fucking morbid."
"Everything we do is morbid." Kakashi states gravely and Shikamaru can't argue with him.
Realistically, he is not morally superior to Anbu. Their society as a whole isn't.
"I rest my case. I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to." Kakashi stands and this concludes the conversation. Shikamaru doesn't rise immediately. He swims in his head.
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And the daze doesn't wear off an hour later. Shikamaru doesn't mingle with his peers after Kakashi's weekly summoning of the active shinobis. He silently melts away in a corner, redefining his earlier intentions. Sure, he was bored with what felt like, to him, menial tasks but isn't it a good thing that work hasn't been dirty in the past few years?
What exactly is he hungry for?
"Why do you look so dejected?" Naruto startles him. Typically nobody startles him. He steps out of the traffic of his headspace and blinks at Naruto, who holds two cans of ginger ale.
"Why are you staring so hard at me?" Shikamaru wasn't completely not himself.
"Don't flatter yourself. You're definitely not my type. You're way too ugly." Naruto shoves a can into Shikamaru's chest. Hinata isn't ugly. Far from it. Shikamaru takes the can but stares at it for a long while before popping it open.
"Is it Ino?" Whispering, Naruto looks to his left and right.
Naruto has been good about not mentioning Ino. Shikamaru sees it when he sweats that the curiosity is murdering him on the inside. The fact that he hasn't asked at all, until now, must mean that Hinata is a special and good influence. It could very well mean that his loyalty is with Sai.
"Not at all." Shikamaru gives him an ugly smug smile.
"Then what?"
"I must really look bothered."
"You do and it's making me uncomfortable." Naruto takes a huge gulp, his face contorting as he swallows.
Shikamaru scans the hallway, contemplating if he should mention it to anyone at all. Let alone Naruto.
"Can you keep a secret?" Shikamaru leans forward.
"Oh my god! Yeees! Absolutely!" Naruto's cheeks burn red and his blue eyes sparkle in amazement. "You have secrets, Shikamaru? I mean...two timing with Ino was a secret."
Shikamaru lowers his head, pursing his lips and sighing. He peels his back from the wall.
"Suddenly I've changed my mind." Shikamaru begins to walk away with one hand in his pocket.
"Oh c'mon!" Naruto hisses between his teeth and stomps after him. "I don't blame you! Obviously I'm spoken for and very very very faithful..."
"Obviously..." Shikamaru drawls.
"But I'd imagine Ino is insanely hard to say no to!" Naruto grossly slurps from the can.
"How perceptive of you, Naruto...She your type?" Shikamaru doesn't stop walking and Naruto doesn't stop following.
"She's everybody's type!"
"Not too ugly, yea?" Shikamaru takes his first sip of ginger ale.
"Definitely not. I'm married but women haven't stopped being beautiful!"
Shikamaru's ego causes him to hesitate, but what is one to do with an indigestible conundrum? It's pivotal moments in his life like this when he misses his father. So not only is the problem too fat to swallow, but he gets a pain in his throat that reaches his temples. His mouth starts to water.
When they've reached an unoccupied section of the hallway, Shikamaru stops at a window sill and Naruto clumsily stumbles beside him. Before speaking, Shikamaru sweeps his eyes down the echoing hall one last time. The dull ache of his temples becomes a mild migraine.
"Would you go through with Anbu recruitment?" Shikamaru doesn't exactly whisper but his voice is low. All the spirit in Naruto's face blanches. He lowers the ginger ale from his lips, losing that glow about him that people often mistake as callowness. Naruto doesn't break eye contact, but his fading smile reveals thoughtfulness.
"I mean...it's not exactly something I've thought about." Naruto's forehead crinkles as he lowers his chin.
"Yea. Me neither."
"Kakashi offered it to you...?" It's more a statement than a question. Naruto doesn't expect a direct answer. A stiff but affirmative nod suffices.
They share a brief moment of silence before Naruto straightens his neck, "What did you say?"
"No. Clearly." Shikamaru sits his can on the window sill.
"Why!?"
"What do you mean why? Is that something you'd wanna do to yourself?"
"Well...no, but Kakashi wouldn't ask you to do anything you're not capable of. The fact that he asked in and of itself is a compliment." Naruto folds his arms.
"I'm just not interested in becoming a glutton for punishment."
"Hell, how do you not exhaust yourself being so passive, Shikamaru?"
"I don't think not wanting to shorten your life expectancy is being passive."
"Sucks that you've realized too late that you just might be in the wrong profession...granted it's not like you had much of a choice." Naruto effortlessly crushes the empty can, unfolding his arms, observing the crushed aluminum, and it's folded yellow design.
Shikamaru loses the desire to finish his ginger ale. He tenses up as he muddles over the sentiment.
"You've always done the bare minimum, but somehow your bare minimum always sets the bar higher. I guess I just can't empathize with not wanting to be your absolute best self– can't relate." Naruto shakes his head and then scowls a bit. "Shikamaru, do you think you've just capped?"
"What do you mean?" Shikamaru is the one a little bereft of words this time.
"Is this..." Naruto gestures wildly at Shikamaru "...as good as it gets? How are we supposed to change the world together if this is your stopping point?"
There's a genuine intensity to Naruto's disbelief. At the moment, Shikamaru can't tell if it's a disgusted disbelief or a crushed belief in something more. He would hate to admit it, but Shikamaru hasn't given himself time to think that far. After the war, something stopped, but maybe nothing had ever started.
"I don't know." Is what he says to Naruto.
"Figure it the fuck out." And Naruto wouldn't hear any more of it even if Shikamaru had more to say.
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The day he decides to pay his respects to the dead is the day the sky chooses to be cloudy. The universe is somehow, just has to be, keen to the small choices he has been making. From putting on his shoes to taking the long way to the cemetery versus the short one. It's a late summery grey humidness and his black T-shirt absorbs his sweat. Kakashi's proposal still sits in the back of his as if the mere suggestion had been a curse.
Though he immediately rejected the idea, the shiftlessness of his life has been devoured by the corporal change of his curiosity. As a boy, he could not have been convinced that he would reach a point in his life where this, who is now, would feel so drastically unhappy doing what felt like absolutely nothing. Temari had been right in her accusation before they called off the engagement. Shikamaru did not want anything extraordinary to become of his life. He couldn't understand why it bothered her then, but now it's a strong taste in his mouth that no amount of toothpaste can scrub off his tongue.
It's been a week and he's thought a lot about Anbu. The thought alone already subjects him to feeling isolated.
Ino is stiff beside him with armful of pink hydrangeas. Very present and warm. As silent as the sky before the storm. A whole person isn't enough nor is this stretch of land occupied by ghosts. They stand over Asuma's gravestone– not exactly speechless. For they both share hope that the universe allows the dead to hear thoughts.
"When was the last time you were here?" Shikamaru only speaks to break the unsettling quiet.
"Don't make me answer that." She sniffs.
"I'm not judging you for it." He sighs.
"I know you're not, Shikamaru."
"Isn't it kinda stupid that our entire lives we've been preparing to die– but we got no crash courses on grieving?" Shikamaru reads the date under Asuma's name over and over, as if it would change every time he blinked.
She turns her head to look at him, focusing on the shape of his nose. Instead of speaking, she brings the flowers closer to her chest.
"Survival is supposed to be the reward I guess." He continues.
"Death isn't exactly punishment." She clears her throat.
He stops staring at the imaginary point on Asuma's headstone, takes a good look at her– a really long look that sends him many years back. Ino travels in time with him, more a victim than a passenger to his broken-heartedness. It materializes so clearly for her but she feels a vicious stab of guilt.
"Thank you for coming." His eyes are glassy. She's not only seen this look before, but has been the direct cause of it many times. It's only different today because the sky doesn't cast any shadows. There's no shimmer, just a poignant dullness that's somehow harder to stomach.
"Don't thank me." Ino weakly protests.
He massages the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes.
There isn't more that needs to be said. Any form of politeness is futile. The crazy thing about death is when much time has gone by, it becomes more of a disappointing fact than it is a strong invasive presence. Like forgetting to shut the stove off or misplacing a spare set of keys. Important but not exactly intrusive. At least for the majority of the time after many, many years. Ino bends down to rest a few hydrangeas on Asuma's headstone.
"Dad next?" Shikamaru drops his hand to his side, exhaling as if he had just thrown ten punches in the air.
Ino gives him a slight over the shoulder nod.
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Happiness cannot be quantified. He could find it for a month, but he always ends up realizing that he's pretending. A layer to what he's been ignoring under the surface.
Ino pours him a glass of lemonade. Not even the most harmless act of intimacy made him feel better. He supposes he had used it all up along the way.
Life lesson number three hundred and fifty-six: It is, in fact, possible to squander away contentment.
Were things ever looking up though? He can't recall.
"You're quiet." Ino states the obvious.
"When do I ever have a lot to say?" He's never been much of a talker.
"It's not the 'I have nothing to say' type of quiet." She sits the lemonade in front of him. He doesn't argue with her, because he's never been one to lie about his feelings. However, this time, what he is feeling is too personal for anyone to compartmentalize for him.
It's a touch of sadness tangled up in this need to jump out of his skin. There's not a word for suicidal without the desire to die. It's not exactly self sabotage either.
"I'm fine. It's just a different kind of day." He takes the glass. Ino doesn't take her eyes off of Shikamaru. She sits across from him at her tiny table.
A touch of lightning zips across the sky. Thunder follows shortly after. As her thoughts chase the thunder, she watches him finish the lemonade. Ten minutes have gone by, but she can't come up with anything– and really what right did she have to say anything at all?
He sits the glass down with a quiet thump. Licking the corners of his mouth, he folds his arms across his chest, sinks a little lower in the seat.
"I feel incomplete. I think I've felt this way for a long time." His knees brush against hers.
"Why do you think that?" Ino almost jumps from her seat with anticipation. Maybe she won't have to blame herself.
"There's only so much growth you experience sorta skirting by? Does it make sense?"
"You haven't been 'skirting by' though, Shikamaru."
"I think about how dad is dead. I've been engaged once, I've capped at jonin. Before now and in between I have nothing to show for 'progress'. I couldn't even be engaged right. I think dad would be more disappointed than mom."
"Being engaged is not measure of success. You've never showed an interest in anything outside of jonin anyway." Ino grimaces at the thought of anyone being with Shikamaru other than herself.
"Ino, that's not the point."
"Other than being sad, what is your point?"
He doesn't want to articulate himself, he'd much rather just feel it.
"I have somewhere I need to be. Thank you for spending time with me." He says mechanically. It startles a strange hotness at the back of her mouth. Completely shattering her stoicism, it takes a lot not to cry on impact.
Shikamaru gets up to leave. Ino rises and follows him to her door. She can't beat the vulnerability out of him. Once he's made up his mind, he's uncompromising. And she most definitely is not his girlfriend and has never been a fiancé.
The goodbye is an even colder exchange. She doesn't even get a hug.
After he's gone, her apartment has never felt colder.
Ino walks back to the table to put his glass in the sink, but when her fingers touch where his mouth had been, her legs freeze.
She remembers buying a second chair specifically for him. It doesn't match the table nor the other chair. It's his specific spot in her home.
It thunders but rain never falls. The storm passes over.
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Where the bird had flown into the window, the smudge remains. It occurs to Shikamaru, days later, that it could've broken it's neck and died in the brambles below the Hokage's office.
"I'll do it." Shikamaru doesn't take a seat.
"I knew you would." Kakashi stares back at him brightly.
"I have nothing else better to do."
"We won't allow that kind of speech. It's ok to acknowledge that you're tired of not challenging yourself. Later you will find it empowering. Being blunt is not the same as being honest."
Kakashi walks from around his desk.
Shikamaru doesn't argue with him. He's irritated by the simplicity of Kakashi's logic. The corner of his mouth twitches.
"When can I start?"
"Eight weeks." Kakashi sifts through his personal file cabinet.
"Eight weeks!?"
"If I'm being honest, eight weeks isn't long enough for the required training."
"Why eight whole weeks?" Shikamaru falls into the soft chair. The cushions sigh under him. His anxiety strengthens.
"Now don't go spitting a million questions at me. Training is eight weeks and there's a possibility that you'll give up in the middle of it. I don't think you will, but...I can't ignore the many outcomes. There's still a lot I can't disclose to you." Kakashi pulls a folder, keeping his back turned as he flips through its contents.
"I was raised to be a murder machine and I've still got more training..." Shikamaru laughs in disbelief. "There's only so many ways you can mangle a body, Kakashi. Blood is blood. Sometimes it gets everywhere."
Kakashi slightly turns to glance at him. "You know an awful damn lot of nothing, Shikamaru. I'm genuinely surprised."
Shikamaru closes his mouth. Kakashi doesn't engage him for a moment. After slipping the folder back into the file cabinet, Kakashi returns to his desk empty handed.
Instead of sitting down, he chooses to stand, pressing his knuckles against the surface. The softness of his usual expression fades. He gives Shikamaru a solemn look, narrowing his eyes.
"For eight weeks you won't have any agency over yourself. Don't make important commitments after today. When you're summoned, always be punctual. You will understand why time will be significant to your proctors, who will eventually become your peers." Kakashi sits on that note.
"I'm an adult." Shikamaru frowns.
"Yes you are. I like that you're already overestimating yourself. Makes me feel good." Kakashi's broad smile wrinkles the corners of his eyes. "Be back in my office in two days."
Two days is an easy wait.
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Or so he thought.
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A lot can be accomplished in two days. In the middle of hanging his laundry on a clothesline, the strong smell of fabric softener awakens something inside of Shikamaru. He recalls a childhood memory as if it had happened the day before yesterday.
The first time he had ever failed at anything– no matter how diligently he had watered his plant, it never grew. Reliving it, it's ridiculous that such a trivial moment had traumatized him. The precursor to experiencing loss, failure came first, and then things became pointless.
Things seemed to always go wrong whenever he tries.
It took two days to deconstruct years.
Who would've thought that out of all the messy people in his life, that Shikamaru Nara would be the one with 'letting go' issues. As he attempts to hook a sheet in a clothes pin, the wind causes it to billow around his face. Maybe it's genetic, inherited from his mother who refuses to buy a dryer.
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Sakura's apartment is a crammed shoebox. Purposefully modest, its size is meaningful. Sakura had somehow figured out how to ascend the flesh. She doesn't desire materials without sentiment. Clearly, one who doesn't mindlessly consume doesn't demand much from anyone else. Ino had always written it off as Sakura not understanding her self-worth, but that is nowhere near the truth, despite how much Ino wanted that to be the case.
"Where do you see yourself five years from now?" Sakura shuts a window with a hard thud.
"If I'm honest, will you judge me?" Ino feeds Sakura's goldfish.
There's a brief pause as Sakura wanders from the window into her bathroom.
"No? I'm not in any place to judge anyone, Ino." Sakura's voice echoes.
"I always say that when I'm about to judge."
Sakura slams a drawer closed and makes a small squeak. "Good thing we aren't one in the same, yea?"
The last streaks of sunlight cut through the mini blinds. With a plastic neon green cup, Ino waters Sakura's neglected plant.
"I just want to be happy." Ino answers after a while of staring down into the potted soil, until the texture regained a moisturized grittiness.
"Well– how do you measure your happiness?"
That answer used to be easy, but she hadn't given herself space to really undress it all. Sometimes, it hits her like a pungent smell, but more often than not, something else replaces her anxiety.
"Is it bad that I don't have an answer?"
Sakura leans outside of her bathroom, tendrils of bright hair fall around one side of her face.
"No," she replies with a smile, "sometimes it's more like a chase."
Leaning against the window, Ino smiles at the sentiment.
"You're so positive." She always has been.
"What's the other option? Being dead on the inside?" Sakura hums and drops something hard but tiny into the bowl of her sink. Then chaos erupts and the sound of bottles and jewelry tumbles around.
Ino anchors her attention out onto the darkening pavement. She's never considered chasing happiness. She's always assumed it's just supposed to happen. A street lamp flickers but the bulb pops into tiny sparkles of glass. Like that! An instant explosion of heat that startles her soul straight from her body.
"What if it's too late and I'm dead on the inside?" Ino inhales the evening air, takes it all in her chest.
"You should volunteer! Help me do medic type stuff."
"I don't think I can handle people bleeding from every orifice as a hobby."
"When you witness other people going through rough times, it makes you wonder why you ever spent time sweating the things you can't control."
Though she isn't entirely partial to the idea, she can see herself beside Sakura. Unlearning and relearning.
"Hell, Sakura..."
"What?"
"That's not a bad idea...but my mom." Her mom has never really needed her emotional support. Sakura shuts off the light in her bathroom and closes the door behind her.
"Your mom is fine. Damaged, but fine. We all are."
It could be much worse.
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Ino always opens the shop. It gives her enough time to enjoy the mushiness of her early morning brain. Nothing is cumbersome when you're barely awake. Her body just moves on its own. Sakura's offer is even brighter the next day. It would force her muscles to remember new things, instead of how to properly hold a broom against a dustpan.
"I'm dead on the inside." She mutters to herself as she empties the dustpan into a bin.
She experiences the sound of her rustling about outside of herself.
"When did I become so boring?"
Ino rolls up the blinds and the hot sunlight feels like a second warm shower to start the day. Her eyes hurt, but in a good way that makes her feel less like a vessel. All of her is there and not as scattered as she fears it has been. At least for the moment.
When her vision rights itself against the sunrise, she focuses on a very familiar silhouette.
Shikamaru stands on the other side of the window very awake. The way the sun glows around his form, it looks like he's come back from a magical death.
They gape at each other. He mostly looks perplexed, liked he's forgotten why he had come or if he shouldn't have. Shikamaru rarely expresses a distinct emotion. After a minute he gestures for her to open the door with a fuck-it-all grimace.
"What are you doing up this early!?" She lets him in.
"Why are you so loud this early?" He retorts flatly, rubbing his face.
Ino slams the door with a fake air of trepidation. "You stormed off and didn't apologize."
"I was in a bad mood."
"You're always in a bad mood." It occurs to Ino that there isn't a cause for an apology. Instead of falling for the trap she had accidentally set, Shikamaru doesn't 'bicker' back. He only sighs, stretching his arms with wide yawn.
"Can I be completely transparent with you?" He asks, but when is he not transparent?
"So now you wanna have a heart to heart. What if I don't feel like talking today?" She locks the door.
"It's nothing heavy." He stands beside the new rack of greeting cards her mother had ordered a month ago.
"Good 'cause I'm running on an empty stomach." Orange juice and toothpaste don't count.
Shikamaru either has the power to make her whole body feel like nothing but air on the inside or can make her so solid, her heart thumps as if it's buried an unfathomable amount of feet beneath the ground– and not inside her ribcage underneath all her muscle.
"If someone gave you the opportunity to alter your life right now, would you do it?" He covers his mouth with a hand as he chews the inside of his jaw.
Ino gives him a pinched frown, "What's the consequence?"
"That's the catch. You don't know the consequences."
"Are you not already happy?"
He puffs his cheeks, breathing between his fingers. Shikamaru rolls his eyes hard enough to give himself a headache.
"I'm not gonna answer that." He rubs his face.
"You don't gotta answer it. Only mildly miserable people want to alter their lives." She would know.
"I never said I wanted to alter my life. I simply asked you for an unbiased opinion, Ino."
"Whatever it is then do it, but if a part of you isn't broken then why go off fixing it...or 'altering' it?" She air quotes with her fingers, sticking out her bottom lip. "What did Choji say? Did you ask him?"
"But I am broken, Ino," he says with a lot of defeat.
His shoulders sag. The amount of times he says her name is always different. Each time conveys a certain emotion. Not clearly, but undeniably evident to her ears. It's something only she can recognize– magnifies how particular they are when it comes to each other.
He stops looking like the man she has swapped and mingled body fluids with. Sex not only complicated dynamics but deformed them. Intimacy added a grosser layer.
Shikamaru looks like who he had been before they had ruined whatever normalcy they had in their interactions. The wholesomeness of sharing ramen, politely conversing about the weather under a streetlight, asking her where she had been all this time– way before their teeth pierced each other's skin.
"Then fix yourself" is what she says with a lot of pain, but necessary sternness she'd learn from her mother.
"That's funny coming from you."
"What's funny is that you asked me of all people." She walks past him, angry that he had lied about the conversation not being heavy, but it was like dry-swallowing an entire bottle of fat pills.
"I asked you because you're the only person in my life who isn't..." He follows her behind the counter.
"Isn't what!?" She kneels beside two boxes, shuffling them around mindlessly until she finds the box cutter she had misplaced the other day. You always find things when you're not searching for them.
"You're the only person in my life who is everything but also nothing." It makes more sense in his head.
"What does that even mean!?" She stabs the blade into the box and slits the tape in half.
"One moment you're one thing, then next, you can easily decide not to be that thing anymore. I don't know. I sound dumb." He leans against the counter and hides his face in the palms of his hands.
"You're not dumb...You're other things but definitely not that. I'm fickle, that's not something to aspire to." She huffs.
"I'd much rather be fickle than always so sure of myself. Pride can make you look stupid."
Ino rises, tossing the dull box cutter on the countertop. She folds her arms. "Then you wouldn't be you and we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't have gone and done a lot of other things that led up to now. That's more important than you feeling sorry for yourself for no reason."
Shikamaru swallows and his ears no longer feel like there's cotton inside of his head. Then he bites his bottom lip, his chin wrinkling.
"I just wanna be different. Shut myself off, reboot, start over." His eyes never stray from Ino's engulfing bright stare.
"There's nothing stopping you."
"Then right now this is just me fessing up to not being perfect...I guess."
"No one has ever told you that you had to be, Shika. And if that's seriously how you feel then we've all failed you."
And that statement emancipates him. He never knew he needed to hear it. Or maybe he has, but it was never a clear necessity.
"How many graves did you have to rob to get all this wisdom?" He smiles at her.
"Not one." She shakes her head with a laugh.
"The day you start making sense means something dark is afoot."
"Don't you have somewhere to be? You always come and go as soon as I start enjoying your company." Ino spins her hair into a tangled bun, squinting down at a smudge on the floor, pretending to not feel liquidy. Her tone drops three notches.
"I do." Shikamaru observes the short strands of hair at the nape of her neck.
Unbeknownst to one another, they have a strong feeling that it would be a long time before they spoke so candidly again. Shikamaru wants to express this feeling but it's damning if he does. It's like wishing for the worst to come.
Ino smoothens her top, turning her head, he notes the way the tendon in her neck shifts under her skin as she turns her head away from him.
I love you– if he's ever thought it before, it wasn't so loud inside of himself the last time.
"Then you better hurry up." She snatches open a drawer and fishes out her apron.
Instead of leaving it all alone, he doesn't allow her to unfold the apron. He fills up the small space that separates them. He takes her in a strong embrace. It startles her at first but eventually her limbs turn into silly putty, molding herself around the command of his body.
"It's too early for this." She mumbles softly against the damp skin of his neck. The taste of his body wash gets in her mouth.
He wants to explain to her the depth of his feelings though he fears it won't change anything. It can't fix the time he spent ignoring that the higher power had always intended for them to be together. Probably not an infinite amount, but definite. Expressing how in love he is won't erase the pain that's bled into other areas of his being.
If she had enough power to contribute to this spiraling sense of desperation, then it's best to keep it to himself. It's not like it's going anywhere any time soon and it hasn't grown too big for him to carry around with the rest of his turmoil.
He's been here before. All over again.
"I think I want to be different too." Ino tilts her head back to get a better look at him.
Shikamaru moves his hands from her back to sprawl his fingers around the sides of her face.
"You can't be too different. You're head is still too big for your body."
"And you're still kinda ugly. A bit less ugly but ugly nevertheless." Her inflection is watery. She smiles under the pressure of his thumbs.
Ino is beautiful because no one can hold her for too long. She's awful because she's unaware that it's not because no one has enough room to contain her– she just loves the idea of absolute free-will. Through the lens of diabolical determination for incompleteness. Coming full circle wouldn't leave room for the 'what if' that could save her from an invisible mistake. This is how Shikamaru perceives her.
They don't have a definition for what they are anymore.
"You've got an obligation, right?" She mutters.
Shikamaru catapults himself into the vibrant blue of her gaze. The kiss he gives her is different than the ones that came before. It doesn't match the many she has instigated either.
It's not wet. She retains her breath. There's only the softness of their lips locked. Without romance but not lacking in feeling. She relaxes into the tenderness and wraps her arms around his torso.
At the very moment they peel their lips away, the front door clicks but they are deafened by a nauseating bitter sweetness.
"I'll see you later." Shikamaru releases her.
"How late is later?" Ino's arms loosen but she's not ready to let him go.
The shop door swings open, the wind-chimes are enough to break apart the thickness of their moment soon swallowed up into the past- a thing that happened a few minutes ago but felt like a bygone forever-ago.
"Later." He manages to squeeze out of his throat. No commitments. And he breaks away from her.
Mrs. Yamanaka witnesses the tail end of the clearly obvious. She gawks at them with misty-eyed curiosity.
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Running away can be good for the soul. Running is good for learning how to breathe.
"You won't be receiving any intelligence during your training," Kakashi steps into the elevator behind Shikamaru, "so you can always back out if you can't handle it."
"No offense, sir, but I think I've been through the worst. A man who is ready to die learns to never be surprised by the worst." Shikamaru can't exactly remember if he heard that from Choza or Asuma.
The absolute worst was losing his father.
"Hm." Kakashi breathes and his mask sinks into his nostrils. "Are you really prepared to die?"
"It's a symptom of what we've been brought up doing, no?" The doors shut and the button panel lights up.
"I think you're conflating preparedness with emotional vacancy. The latter you don't have. No man with a fruitful life just accepts dying in the face of death." Kakashi folds his arms in his sleeves. The bell pings each passing floor.
Shikamaru doesn't have a rebuttal. He sticks out his bottom lip and rolls his eyes. There isn't exactly tension cramming the elevator. The air is just stuffy with expectations. He is doubtful but he would never admit it to the Hokage.
"Keep this in mind..." Kakashi extends an index finger into the air then gently taps it against the side of his head, " This is a choice. Not an order. No one will keep you from bailing."
They finally reach the last floor and the doors slide open with a depressed sigh. When Shikamaru doesn't readily step from the elevator, Kakashi presses the button that stalls the doors from closing.
"How many people fail?" Shikamaru takes a deep breath.
"One out of every four."
"That doesn't make me feel any better."
"I was under the assumption that you were fine, Shikamaru."
With that, Shikamaru steps out of the elevator with his fists shoved deep in his pockets, nails painfully digging into his palms.
"I am fine." He shakes his head.
"Alright then. The last door on your left it is then."
Kakashi releases the button and the doors quietly shut, possibly ending the last real conversation he will have in a long time. He stares down the pristine white hallways. It's desolate enough that his own thoughts echo down the corridor.
He puts one foot forward, after the last step he would obtain a level of privacy unnatural to typical humans. This is what his life has been leading up to, he supposes. He wants to believe that this won't alter him too much. There should be more than enough of him to take back home to his mother. Standing outside of the door, he curses himself for thinking so morbidly.
He licks his lips with a dry tongue, sliding one hand from his pocket. The skin between his fingers is cracked. The unforeseeable state of his future is more terrifying than eight weeks of not entirely belonging to himself.
And it's not like he had much of a choice in the beginning anyway.
He turns the knob but, of course, the door is locked, but he's not waiting for long. The lock clicks and whoever stands on the other side cracks it open without a greeting.
Shikamaru stares at the slightly parted door. This is his choice, but choices often leave lifelong consequences. Massaging his chest with a hand, he nudges the door open with his foot.
On the other side, the light is much brighter. A clean fluorescent glow bleaches the walls, the floor. The tiles extend outside of the room, but inside the humming light fixtures give it a glassy shimmer. Like a morgue that's been thoroughly cleaned.
Sai sits at a table in the middle of the room, he rises with a blank expression, setting a brightly colored paperback face down. Two glasses and a pitcher are the only semblance of decoration.
Many questions turn over in Shikamaru's head but they won't be answered. He is to remain in the dark until he has completed the eight weeks.
"I have answers." Sai's voice surprises him, like piercing a dream.
"I thought..."
"Just take a seat." Sai kicks the metal chair around with his ankle, then scoots it on the opposite side of the table. "Sit," he says with a little more command.
Shikamaru does what he is told, readily, ill-prepared all the same, ill-equipped mentally for what could transpire in the next ten minutes. Sai props himself of the edge of the table, folding his arms.
People who are unreadable have always made Shikamaru uncomfortable. Sai's fettered attitude never sat well. He wonders how Ino ever managed to coexist with such iciness.
He knows he shouldn't judge Sai so cruelly. It might not be iciness at the surface. Just well sorted logic. Emotions and logic rarely mix well together.
"Kakashi thought it would be appropriate for me to be your proctor." Sai's eyes don't reflect the light. The darkness of his stare engulfs Shikamaru's overworked ability to think.
"I thought you didn't miss this kind of work." Shikamaru recalls Naruto saying so.
"Times have changed," Sai says prophetically. "I never missed it. It's never been an identity. Identity requires emotional labor."
Sai extends an arm across the table for the pitcher of water and begins to pour Shikamaru a glass.
"But...I'm glad to be here." Sai's brows wrinkle together as he thinks of something. Even with a clear expression, Shikamaru can't figure what would cause him to ponder so.
"Glad. Yea. That's the word I want to use." He hands Shikamaru the glass.
"You're passive?" Shikamaru receives it, perplexed by the generous gesture. The back of his ears grow hot thinking about the obviousness of his anxiety.
"Passive. Maybe." Sai pushes himself from the table and walks around to where the chair had once been.
A cold moment of silence follows after. Shikamaru's sweaty hands slip around the glass as he throws his head back, downing it like it's air.
"How is Ino?" Sai doesn't blink.
"More or less the same." Shikamaru isn't startled by the question. The normal social barriers between them had not only been destroyed before hand but have no place now, considering that they are on the path of becoming equals.
"Do you still love her?"
"In the friendliest way possible." Shikamaru wipes his lips with the back of his hand.
Since the moment he had stepped inside, Sai has watched Shikamaru with a hawkish attentiveness. It breaks briefly when he looks down at his hand, drumming his fingers. A quirk that makes him more human than robotic.
"So tell me about yourself, Shikamaru Nara. What do you plan to personally achieve through all this?" Sai asks with a rare show of emotional perceptiveness. "How do we share the same friends but lack a relationship?"
A tiny thump of pain starts at the back of Shikamaru's neck. He raises a hand to rub the spot, wincing.
"Would I lose credibility if I admitted to being a victim of my whims?" Shikamaru manages a small laugh.
"No." Sai doesn't laugh with him.
"Then...I have no real answer. I'm betting I won't have one until the very end." Shikamaru clears his throat.
"That's a good thing. It means you won't expect too much of yourself. When you fail, your disappointment will have less of an effect on your mental."
"You already think I'm gonna fail?" Shikamaru's brows wrinkle. The warm pain trickles down his spine, his head feels heavy on his neck.
"Are you naive enough to think you will always succeed?" Sai's expression doesn't change. It's not an insult, Shikamaru reminds himself. An insult necessitates cruel intent. He can't respond. This could be his very first test. There's a possibility that this conversation has a script with a predetermined answer: 1, 2, or 3.
Shikamaru shifts in his chair, unable to feel his back side. The room is so white that he doubts his blurring vision. The only color to latch onto is Sai, but Sai's form doesn't warp. He's too close.
"Failure builds character," Sai says after a while.
"I don't fail often."
"How old are you?"
"23." Shikamaru hunches forward, propping his elbows on the table. Suddenly he breaks into a cold sweat. The spaces wear heat collects sting; the crook in his arm, his pits, the back of his legs, where the skin folds. Even the corners of his nose.
"You've got time. Statistically forty more years." Sai's tone stays the same.
They are quiet, save for Shikamaru's breathing. The table shakes as Sai pushes himself upright. His footsteps are a hard pounding outside of Shikamaru's foggy consciousness. Sai says something but it's a mutter lost in the very bright white.
A few minutes pass and Sai nudges Shikamaru with another glass.
"Do you need another glass?" His voice sounds like he's on the opposite end of a tunnel. The lights around his head faintly shadowing his pale features.
Shikamaru stares at the warbling shape of the glass– it makes complete sense then.
Forty more years isn't a long time, but he realizes he won't have to wait at all. It will only take a few more seconds and that excess of forty years will drop off like dead weight.
At this point, he only knows it is Sai before him because it is a fact. Not because he can properly access his bone structure or the gait of his walk. Shikamaru buries his head in the crook of his arm, succumbing to the muscle melting migraine.
Sai kneels beside him...and mutters something. It's not clear, Sai could be screaming at him and he wouldn't have the senses to know.
Shikamaru fails a test for the first time. Accidentally. That's the last thought he has before the glistening white turns purple to black.
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A/N: So here is my excuse as to why its been so long. I've been without a proper working laptop for a while. I just bought myself a new one. My old laptop would not work unless the battery was hooked up to the charger and it would repeatedly shut off. I couldn't work like that so I had to put writing on a hold. Also, I've been in the middle of writing an original story. I feel weird saying 'I'm writing a book'. It doesn't feel like that to me right now, but all of your comments have sort of inspired me to create my own fiction. Maybe one day I will finish it and attempt to get it published.
I'm also in a transitioning period in my life. I finally have a good paying full-time job that takes up all my time. By the time I get off, I just wanna drink myself to sleep, but it isn't emotionally commanding so it doesn't take away from my creative drive. Even when my laptop stopped turning on, up until that moment I was still working on this. Like always. Sometimes a sentence a day or a sentence an hour. I have no plans on abandoning my baby, so no worries for those who expressed concern. I just take a while to update.
I don't have a Tumblr anymore for personal reasons.
Thank you guys for being so patient and awesome. Even if its been a while, leave your reviews. It lights a fire under my ass and holds me accountable.
