Ino has always taken the role as an adversary in his life. Since she was five, if he had to pick a starting point. The worst about it is that she does it without trying hard. It's just a skill she has sharpened over time. And then she dropped off the face of the earth for a year and a half. Well—it took him a year and a half to realize she hadn't been present.

It feels wrong to touch things in his mom's house without washing his hands. There's no possible way of Yoshino ever figuring out that he's touched the walls with dried semen on his hands, but he won't be able to comfortably watch her reach for the door knobs.

Shikamaru scrubs his hands with soap then again with dish washing liquid between his fingers. If bleach didn't burn, he'd dip his hands in that too. He shuts off the sink, watches the suds swirl down the drain.

He comes to recognize an error in his way of thinking. After all this time, maybe he and Choji hadn't given her enough credit. They had missed something in the middle of making themselves feel better.

'No commitments.' Kakashi reminds him.

Shikamaru had lied to him though. It's probably the first lie he's ever told in his adulthood.

He observes his arm and peels off the gauze. Tiny clusters of dried skin made his skin red.

"What the fuck did they do to me?" Shikamaru asks no one.

The years, months, days, minutes to seconds he spent doing any and everything cause him to fall apart. Shikamaru thinks over and over again until his chest tightens— What have I gotten myself into?

He violently throws up into the sink. His stomach is empty but he heaves like he's infected with a virus. It's just clear acid that collects around the drain, mixed in with bubbles of his saliva.

The front door opens and he shuts on the faucet. Shikamaru does his best to compose himself, using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe away the tears a body makes when the throat and nasal cavity is on fire.

"I thought you didn't feel well?" Yoshino stands in the doorway. She looks so much smaller than she normallyl does to him. He's not all that tall to begin with. It must be the dizziness of not eating a proper meal.

"I don't." He rubs a trail of snot on his wrist.

Yoshino glares at him with all the love he's been missing for a while. It can't be mistaken for anything else. She throws her bag on the counter and snaps for him to take a seat at the table.

"Did you eat what I sent you?"

"Choji ate it." Shikamaru sits.

"Shika...I really don't get your unhealthy habits." She begins to rummage through the fridge. "You might as well eat gravel for all the cigarettes you smoke."

"I just don't have the appetite."

"Because you sit in your room and mope like you don't have anything to live for."

Shikamaru shuts his mouth. Is that what he looks like to her? He rubs his chin.

"I don't mope."

"Don't argue with me. What do you have an appetite for?" She looks at him sideways.

No sugar or salt. Shikamaru folds his arms and considers his options.

Yoshino stands away from the fridge, propping her elbow against the door, one hand on her hip.

"Rice." He fakes a smile.

"That's it!?" She sucks her teeth.

"That's it."

She doesn't challenge him, just frowns and makes it her mission to satisfy her only child.

"Did I miss anything?" He wouldn't have gone even if his body felt up to it. With all of the focus he has, multiple conversations in one small room make him irritable. Most of all, he doesn't want to participate in a pity party thrown for Kurenai. It not only reminds him that Asuma isn't alive, it makes him feel like a failure for not being able to prevent it.

"Nothing you would've found interesting." She takes a pot from the cabinet.

The rice cooker he bought her sits on top of the fridge still in its box.

He holds down the need to throw up again. His mouth fills up with spit.

"When was the last time you talked to Ino?" Yoshino does everything the old fashioned way: a pot and water. Technology imposed too much on her particular need of doing things the way she had been taught. She scoffed at rice cooker like he had insulted her enough to be disowned.

"Not too long ago." A half truth, not exactly a lie. He realizes his fly is still unzipped and corrects it under the table.

"It's a wonder she hasn't run off and changed her name—Chiharu has her whole hand down her throat." Yoshino rinses the rice through a seive.

Shikamaru doesn't know how to respond. Ino rarely complains about her parents, even as a child. She always zooms in and complains about everything else that offends her.

"And you don't have your hand down my throat?" He teases.

"I'm proud of you no matter what you choose to do or not to do." Yoshino dumps the rice in the pot and sits it on the stove. "Just don't go off and die."

"That's nice to know." Hopefully, he won't be dying any time soon.

"I get wanting the most for you, but I don't think I can openly express my unhappiness with you to an audience." She adds a little bit of water.

"What did she—"

"Chiharu embarrassed the girl. She ran out with her tail between her legs and you don't just run out on a full Akimichi plate..."

Shikamaru bites down and his jaws lock. If Ino had just talked about it, he would've been able to save himself from a sticky orgasm on the couch. He lets out a ragged sigh. The entirety of his face turns pink as he revisits their skin clapping.

Enough time passes for him to not realize that Yoshino had finished his rice. She sits a bowl in front him. The sound it makes against the table startles him straight out of his day dreaming.

Kakashi is right. There's a possibility that he won't finish the eight weeks. If he can't uphold simple rules that is. His future is a lot bigger than how wet or dry his dick is.

Yoshino peers down at him through the thick of her lashes. The corners of her lips are pinched downward but it's not a frown.

"As much as I love Temari and wanted to see you two married, I'm glad it didn't happen. You can only be as happy as your child." She helps herself to a bowl as well and sits across from him.

.

.

Anbu is going to make him a liar. He's going to have to lie to everyone. Civilians, family, victims, and prey alike. There's only one way to navigate impenetrable secrecy and that's to treat everyone as if they are a suspect. Shikamaru brushes his teeth in hopes to scrub away the craving for a cigarette.

Fakery isn't his strong suit. He hadn't been raised that way. Shikaku and Yoshino always told him the truth even if it made Shikamaru hate them for a day.

With a barely satisfied hunger, the toothpaste that he accidentally swallows causes his stomach to ache. He spits out the rest and turns the faucet off.

"I'm going to have to feel like this for eight weeks." Shikamaru talks to himself.

And for a very brief moment, he doubts his ability. Shikaku didn't raise him to be a punk, but fear is a normal human emotion. Not allowing himself to feel it could later result in an irreversible trauma. Avoiding his reflection, he shuts the light off in the bathroom.

Choji had left the container open and the room smells like it.

Sai told him to never get too comfortable— Shikamaru looks at his bed and tries to quantify a level of comfortability without being paranoid. Ino's shoes lay in the middle.

He picks them up by the buckle, lets out a grumbly sigh and glares out the window perfectly positioned in the middle of the wall.

"Why am I always apologizing first?" He asks his faint and transparent reflection in the window. It's because he loves her unconditionally, at his own expense. Shikamaru tightens his hold on her shoe straps and heads out of his room.

He just hopes that between now and the trip to Ino's place, his time to himself will go undisturbed.

But he stops to listen to Yoshino holding a conversation as he makes it down the stairs. He hears Sai before he turns into the kitchen and his stomach does a back flip.

Whatever they had been talking about, it had charmed away Yoshino's hard exterior. Shikamaru can't imagine Sai being good at jokes nor compliments. Sai has a beguiling effect on women, but Shikamaru didn't think his mother could easily fall victim to it. Sai sits at the table, specifically Shikaku's place, and wears his usual expression of indifference. Shikamaru has to remind himself that it's not intentional—that he's just readily defensive.

"Shikamaru, you're supposed to speak to a guest." Yoshino waves a hand.

Shikamaru doesn't budge from the doorway. Ino's shoes dangle at his side. Sai conjures up a slow and steady smile because they both share a similar thought—Shikamaru has to submit to whatever Sai demands of him.

Before Shikamaru can speak...

"Those belong to Ino." Sai stands up from Shikaku's chair. Yoshino makes a face at both of them. Words just refuse to reveal themselves to Shikamaru.

"Yea—" He tries to say more but Sai cuts him off.

"Is that where you're heading to?" Sai's presence is commanding and he seems unaware of it. He's curious in a way that isn't malicious. However the circumstances make Shikamaru's blood boil.

"Why did Ino leave her shoes?" Yoshino rests her chin in her hand, frowning incredibly hard, the wrinkles in her face defined.

"She was in a hurry." Shikamaru's words finally come but they aren't what he needs to use. He grimaces at how incriminating the statement is. Sai bewitches women and makes Shikamaru uncomfortable.

"I can come with you." Sai folds his arms then turns to smile at Yoshino. "It was nice getting the chance to properly meet you, Mrs. Nara."

Yoshino seemingly forgets that she had caught Shikamaru in the middle of a half truth and beams at Sai. "You're most definitely welcome, Sai. Rub some of your good sense off on Shikamaru."

Sai nods his head and turns to Shikamaru with a perfect smile. It's a very real smile, like Sai had gotten genuine joy out of Yoshino's company. Shikamaru doesn't even bother to challenge it, not that he has the option to. He sucks in a breath, and waves a weak hand at Yoshino. Sai follows him out the front door.

Shikamaru fumbles with the keys in the lock. All of his nerves are shot. He locks the door, blinded by a white rage.

"What's it like having a mother?" Sai still has his arms folded.

Shikamaru slides his keys back in his pocket and glares at Sai, bewildered.

"Are you being serious?" It rolls effortlessly off his tongue and sounds cruel. Sai shakes his head, doesn't blink.

The sun is out of view but a faint gold glow bleaches the impending darkness.

"Answer the question." Sai commands him with his natural softness.

Shikamaru stands straighter. Ino's heels poke his thigh. He doesn't know how to answer it, pressed to open his mouth because he might not answer it the way Sai wants him to.

"It's a feeling you just have to know. I can't explain it." Some people have bad mothers.

Sai lowers his head, takes his eyes off Shikamaru and looks up the road, licking his lips then biting the bottom one. Sai begins to walk in the direction of Ino's apartment and Shikamaru follows behind him.

"I see." Sai says after a while and a dark silence falls over them again. Shikamaru stares at the stars blinking down at him. It's amazing how your life can be dug so far in a hole but the world still remains beautiful, completely indifferent and oblivious to the shitty things humans get themselves into. The stars shimmer for Sai too, even though nothing good is about to transpire in the next hour or so.

Out the corner of Shikamaru's eye, he notices a shadowy figure scaling the buildings. Of course, Sai wouldn't come alone. At first he thinks, for Anbu, they should be more inconspicuous, but then he understands that they want him to see them. It's purposefully only at a peripheral view.

"What if she's not home?" Shikamaru sort of hopes she isn't out of one in a thousand chances. The village is small but something feels wrong about bringing a shadowy entourage to her place. Sai had stolen a secret and exposed it to the world.

"She's home." Sai says cooly.

Shikamaru had either shut off the spot in his brain that understood time or he had never realized how close she lives to his mother's house. Which is odd for him because he knows the exact time, down to the seconds, it takes for him to get anywhere else. Had it been a subconscious choice not to know? Did his mind just suddenly choose not to remember the minutes between him and Ino?

They stop at the bottom of the stairs. Sai faces Shikamaru, lips in a straight line as he leans against the railing. Shikamaru gapes at him discomposedly.

"I'll give you ten minutes." Sai doesn't stutter.

"You don't wanna say hi?" Shikamaru's palms are sweaty.

Sai smiles and shakes his head. "Not at all."

Ino is home. The light turns on in her bedroom and he can make out her silhouette behind her curtains.

Shikamaru doesn't waste another minute. As he climbs the stairs, Sai says to him, "Don't go inside."

"Why?" Shikamaru frowns.

"Because you won't come out in ten minutes." Sai is befuddled that Shikamaru has the nerve to ask like it isn't a very clear order. "If you can't do something that simple, then you're wasting my and Kakashi's time."

Ten minutes is a generous amount of time to spend on a porch.

.

.

.

The world just isn't right after any kind of disagreement with Shikamaru. She loses the ability to think straight, dropping things when her arms aren't full, occasionally stubbing her toe against hard corners.

The bottoms of her feet sting. She had chapped and beaten them on the way back. The ground had been so hot that she felt the heat rising like blood to her head. In the moment, it didn't matter, until she stepped her feet on the cool wooden floor of her apartment.

As she tiptoes around her place, she wishes she hadn't exploded. She could've held it in a little longer, screamed it inside of a jar or a pillow, like she has been doing for the past couple of years.

'I'm numb.' She had said some months ago.

'That's not numb. There's nothing numb about anything you do.' Shikamaru made smoke rings that widened into the air.

Ino drops her brush on the floor and just stares at it. The hair tangled in its teeth make her skin crawl, even though it's all hers. She feels terrible but she deserves to feel like this.

She doesn't know how to change the way she is or if it's possible to be less violent towards herself. Any other way feels untrue.

Her heart thumps like it could punch clean through her chest with Shikamaru's sequence of knocks on her door. If it had been anyone else, she would've shut off all the lights and hid behind her couch.

Not for him though. She can't push him out of her life. She had tried and her body protested against it.

When she answers the door, he looks unusually dejected but she blames herself. Her stomach fills up with butterflies. She never realized how much she loves his ears.

"You left your shoes." He smirks painfully, holding out her shoes.

Ino catches herself relearning his new face. His haircut is never going to get old.

"What if I don't want them anymore?" She lightly scoffs.

"Pfft...well I sure as hell can't get my feet in them."

She opens the door wider and waits for him to come inside. He doesn't and it confuses her. He just extends the shoes and she glares at them. They aren't what she wants and he knows this.

"You're not going to come inside?"

"I have some business to take care of. If I come inside I won't make it out in time."

"Right. Like that's a bad thing." She brushes her bangs out of her eyes.

"Don't say it like that." He tosses the shoes inside and they roll on the floor.

"You're really not..."

"I'm really really not gonna..." The most he does is lean against the door frame, close enough to inhale the scent of her shampoo and shower gel.

"Tell Kakashi to hire another glorified secretary." She snorts.

"Woooow. No. I'm not doing that." He laughs.

The overgrowth that made it difficult to love anything had revealed itself to her, yet truth be told, Ino isn't ready to carve it out. It's been there for so long, she's not sure if she is capable of surviving without it. Shikamaru regards her with so much restraint, she lets out a long breath.

"I'm sorry." He means it with every cell in his body.

"I bet you are." She stares back at him, doesn't blink.

"I will make it up to you."

"How?"

"I don't know yet but I will."

"Just five minutes?" She tries again, just to upset herself.

"I can't, Ino."

"Then I will see you later."

"Ok..." His smile fades and she tries her hardest not to melt.

They linger, waiting on the first goodbye.

"I'm sorry." Ino doesn't have it in her to close the door.

"I forgive you. See you later." He licks his bottom lip then bites down, tearing skin.

Ino keeps the door open until she can no longer hear his footsteps.

.

.

.

And it's done just as quickly as it started. It didn't take ten minutes.

.

.

.

.

Shikamaru can't help but to speculate that Sai had meant to invade his safe spaces. If it is the case, then he had succeeded, but Sai gives him no inkling that his assumption is right. Shikamaru does his best not to show that his focus is divided.

They journey into the outskirts until the sky is completely dark, clouds casting a smokey film before the moon. Summer bugs are a lot louder at night, away from the human invasion of buildings. They scream through the shadows with an instinctual indifference towards the season coming to a slow end.

"Have you ever considered your limits, Shikamaru?" Sai turns his head.

"In what capacity?" Shikamaru can think of a few without context, but it's small things like not being able to hold his pee or his irrational disgust towards wet leaves on tile floor.

"Your pain threshold."

"I don't like any kind of pain. Mild nor severe." Shikamaru rubs the back of his neck.

"If you expose yourself to it enough, it's just an itch...or a sneeze stuck in your nasal cavity." Sai stops walking and stands directly in front of Shikamaru.

The air smells like still water, the grass is damp, the soil soft clumps under his feet.

"Give me your right arm." Sai doesn't ask.

Shikamaru stands in place, face crinkling into a dark glower. He makes a fist and the corner of Sai's mouth twitches. It's so dark that the shadows around Sai's face give the faint illusion that his eye sockets are empty. He shifts to a different angle and he looks less like a ghost.

Sai takes his arm without force. Shikamaru allows himself to submit to the slight pressure of Sai's fingers on his skin, drawing air through his teeth as Sai pushes up his sleeve.

The tree canopies rustle and feet plummet to the surface like comets beating against the Earth. Five shadows take solid form, one shadow becomes fire and Sai's skin shimmers back to something human-like. Out of the dark, Sai had obtained a shuriken and presses a sharp edged into the scabbed patch of red on Shikamaru's forearm.

Sai doesn't press too hard. Squinting, he observes the puss pooling around his thumbnail. The fire faintly lights Shikamaru's arm, bright enough to make out the protruding vein in it, not enough to help with a precise cut. The reflex to jerk back is halted by an arm locked around Shikamaru's neck, and his free arm constricted behind his back.

There aren't enough days in a year, not even in a lifetime, that prepares you for pain. He doesn't gag at the sight of blood anymore, can breathe it in like the scent of clean linen.

Sai prods at the puss, peeling back the dried layer of skin and crust. The wind sweeps away the flakes.

"I don't need to tell you that this is going to hurt, but you cannot scream."

Shikamaru understands. Screaming would draw attention and it defeats the purpose of the trial. Fortunately, for the cause, Shikamaru believes he lost the ability to scream years ago.

"Why not?" Shikamaru just needs a few more seconds to adjust his eyes against the makeshift shadows of his peers and the shapes of their mask.

Sai doesn't look up. With clenched jaws, he digs the edge of the shuriken under Shikamaru's skin.

The pain disperses itself like a tiny explosion. He feels it in his knuckles, up the length of his neck to the tip of his earlobe, but he doesn't make a noise. Shikamaru balls a fist and his breathing scatters.

Sai digs around in the wound, and Shikamaru's only wish is that he doesn't touch an artery. Despite the pain being insufferable enough to faint, he doesn't think it's the worst thing that's ever hurt him. Physical things hurt but the soul can't easily be sewn back together. You can't catch smoke nor force its shape.

Sai drags his thumb through an outpour of blood and puss, then uses both of his thumbs to push. Shikamaru's elbow throbs like it could be broken, but it's just the skin swelling and tightening. Sai makes a noise of satisfaction when he finally finds what he had been searching for.

The harder he presses his thumbs into Shikamaru's skin, through the thick of blood, three worm-like shapes free themselves. Like tiny grains of swollen rice, they wiggle in distress to the sudden cool air. Attempting to drown themselves in his blood, Sai picks them with his fingers.

They'd put larvae inside of him. Shikamaru's skin pales to Sai's complexion. This still isn't the worst thing to ever happen to him. He tells himself so he doesn't strangle on his own vomit. With all the muscles in his throat, he gulps it back down.

"It looks worse than it feels, I bet." Someone's voice is muffled under their mask.

Two bugs crawl from his mangled flesh.

Sai brings the larvae closer to his face like a child unearthing an obvious truth. The arm that had been suffocating Shikamaru frees him and his body's immediate response to the trauma is to drop to his knees. It stings like his skin had been rubbed off against hot cement. He breaks out into a sweat, shuddering— he counts a series of tens in his head.

"Who told you to sit?" The voice comes from behind him.

"Let him sit." Sai rebuts. "We're going to be here for a while."

'A while' makes him dizzy. Shikamaru shakes but he overcomes the fear of touching the mess of his arm. The warmth of his own touch jolts him. His thoughts circle back to Kakashi and he cringes at the sickening amount of confidence he had when suggesting Anbu.

Change is a violently slow process. Shikamaru becomes aware that he's replacing something old for new. Not exactly discarding it, but giving it a proper burial. Like he had been raised to, he gets up with a rush of adrenaline.

"What's your definition of weakness, Shikamaru?" Sai's voice synchronizes with the shake of the trees.

"Accepting that there isn't an answer or reason for a problem." Shikamaru's palm is sticky with blood.

A shinobi steps from the small circle they had formed around him. The eyes of his mask protrude gibbously red like a lunar eclipse.

"If you can't question something, how do you know it's right or wrong...if you just accept it without consideration?" Shikamaru takes a deep breath and his vision tries to fix itself.

Sai extends the larvae in his palm to the shinobi in the moon-eyed mask. The mouth of it like dulled fangs. Not an animal Shikamaru readily recognizes. Perhaps, not an animal at all.

Nodding slowly, Sai wipes his hands on his shirt. His expression stays the same.

The shinobi tugs his mask back slightly and licks the larvae from his fingers with his mouth open wide. He rolls them back on his tongue and swallows. Two gulps as though it were a minor struggle to ingest them without chewing.

"History warns us that a shinobi plagued by too many questions shows signs of disloyalty." The shinobi speaks directly to Shikamaru with a heavy focus.

"He asked for my definition." Shikamaru now understands that the weight of someone's gaze can be more than just a euphemism. If it weren't for the searing pain in his arm, he'd challenge the shinobi's gravitas.

"I didn't ask to debate it." Sai places himself in the middle of the one sided crossfire. "Are we not individuals?"

"I didn't say we weren't, but when have we ever considered balancing the rights or wrongs of what we do? I think, before we do anything else with him, we destroy that sentiment or he is already unfit." The shinobi scoffs and tugs his mask back down over his mouth.

Shikamaru's spirit recoils and he can't place why the statement is so personal. Opinions are leaky assholes. Some gape. Some are too tight to whistle through.

"If that's how you feel..." Shikamaru catches himself.

"I don't think anyone here cares to unpack what is and isn't moral bankruptcy." Sai air-slices his hand across his neck. "If that's your concern, perhaps you've lost sight of yourself and should be dismissed immediately."

At that, the shinobi shuts his mouth, but gravity settles his invisible leer on Shikamaru's shaky shoulders.

After a lengthy stretch of silence, Sai rattles his throat and Shikamaru recognizes Shino's voice behind the mask. The locusts and crickets had stopped in the middle of his accusation with the insentient desire to listen.

"I like your definition, Shikamaru. It gives me some optimism for your first trial." Sai gestures for two of his peers to step forth. A bear and a tiger mask, both of them cradle scrolls.

Shino had already held his own trial and had ultimately decided that Shikamaru is guilty. He tries to remember the last thing he had said to Shino, combs through the months of memories in agonizingly long meetings. What he does remember is hardly an interaction. Shikamaru only remembers passing off a folder he hadn't opened. No words were exchanged.

"You're not known for being the strongest physically—do you consider yourself to be strong?" Sai helps the bear and tiger mask with their scrolls.

"Stronger than average, but not the strongest." Shikamaru frowns but he can't feel the muscles in his face sagging.

"That's your honest opinion of yourself?" Sai drums his fingers against a scroll.

"It's a realistic opinion." Shikamaru has a thought—Shikaku blesses him from the blackness of outer space. It has to be the only reason he hasn't collapsed from the trauma.

Sai unrolls the scroll, in one sweeping motion, like untying a soft ribbon. The wind blows hard enough to whistle, pushing the clouds west. Sai uses the same shuriken to slice open his palm. He cuts through his skin with a horrifying lack of effort.

Gently sprawling his fingers against the paper, Sai's lips move but the wind suffocates sound. A cloud of smoke rises from the scroll, curling up as tendrils into the westbound air.

"Before man used tools, we only had our teeth, nails, and senses. Imagine the superiority of a body that could purely sustain itself on adrenaline—I think we can get close to that state of being but we can never replicate it." An assortment of weapons rise from the misty puff of nothingness. The impact of the jutsu splits his dark bangs haphazardly across his sweaty forehead.

"We evolved, Sai." Shikamaru wheezes.

"The way we interpret the world around us evolved but our primitive instincts are still there. Every time you have sex, the irritation you feel when you've gone an unreasonable amount of time without eating..." Sai stands on his feet and admires his own effort.

"Pick three and pick wisely." Shino, again, steps out of turn but Sai remains collected.

"What am I picking for?" Shikamaru's black sleeve is hardened by dried blood.

"Three tools in the absence of your jutsu. I want to measure what you can do in the worst case scenario." Sai simply states.

"So I'm just supposed to let you beat my ass?" Shikamaru bristles.

"If that's your attitude, then sure." Sai folds his arms behind his back.

Not having an option other than withdrawing from the whole damn thing, Shikamaru steps up with his limbs like cement—hard, heavy, wading through imaginary water.

If by the will of some magnificent force he were sapped of all his inherited strength, he has five options: flash bombs, a tanto, kunai, shuriken, and kusarigama.

First, swallowing a wad of spit, he reminds himself that he's here to sate an appetite for something different. Then he begins to coach himself through the 'worst scenario'.

"You can't use your jutsu." Sai's voice is like a sharp jab.

"I figured that's what you meant the first time." Shikamaru observes the blades, but his body can't manage the work it would require for technique. Where he sweats profusely, his cotton shirt sticks to his skin.

"If I fail?" Shikamaru looks to Sai.

"We learn a weakness. That simple."

And Shikamaru decides on two flash bombs and one kunai. He waits for another stipulation, but no more come, so he lets out a shaky breath of relief. Sai nods and gleamingly smiles.

The circle breaks and someone snuffs out the fire. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. The clouds unwrap the moon, freeing enough light that he can still make out Sai and Shino's mask among the many in his vantage point. They all look like glowing eggs the way the moon cuts light across the angles of their masks.

"No one wants you to fail, Shikamaru." Unfortunately, that hardly matters. He doesn't want to resign himself to defeat, but the rawness of his torn skin burns. It looks a sooner loss than any kind of victory.

Shikamaru blinks and before he can set his mind on prevailing, only Shino stands in the clear line of his vision. The rest had melted into the shadows of the forest. Even Sai.

An unexpected cold feeling of aloneness takes his breath away. Shikamaru's second instinct is to put as much distance as he can between them. He takes off in the opposite direction with all the strength in his legs. It was like dragging bricks with his ankles.

If you don't try, you might as well lay down and die. Asuma used to say a lot.

Trying makes it easier to lose.

Shino falls in place behind him, as if he expected Shikamaru to fudge for as long as possible. Shino's footsteps are soft like wind combing through tall grass. To be someone so comfortable in natural darkness and shadows, Shikamaru struggles to pick out the shape and thickness of the trees. When he holds out his arms to hoist himself onto a branch, his muscles tighten and ache. A bone pops. He had moved the wrong way and angered a joint.

Shino deliberately misses and lunges his fist directly into the three. The bark doesn't crack. He'd hit it with a controlled force that disperses a vibration. Shikamaru scales the tree until there isn't a branch left to climb. He makes it high enough to peer out into the sky. The tops of the trees sway like a dark ocean. Shikamaru gives himself sixty seconds to think.

The moon stares back at him.

Sai had dug the bugs out of his arm, but he considers the chance of being poisoned. How much has it contributed to his handicap? Is there a bug somewhere under his clothes? On a scale from one to ten, his pain is at gloomy seven. Holding the kunai in his mouth, he proceeds to pat himself down under his shirt, then his pockets.

Sixty seconds pass.

He looks down and curses. Shino had moved into an unoccupied shadow. Rummaging in both pockets, he notices a distinct changing pattern of darkness along the bark. It moves in the opposite direction of the natural shadows disturbed by the breeze.

Two minutes.

He fishes out Asuma's lighter, takes two attempts to light it and holds the fire downward. A swath of Shino's beetles trail in his direction. They break off into different routes like a black river cutting through terrain.

"Shit." Shikamaru says under his breath. Setting the tree on fire would alert the village, and that's what he shouldn't do. Anbu isn't about chaotic victories. As he gauges what he can and can't do, he senses the closeness of Shino's chakra a moment too late.

Shino emerges like a bolt of lightning from the rustling leaves. His strikes Shikamaru in the chest with a tempered strength that knocks all the air from his lungs.. The kunai cuts the corner of Shikamaru's lips when it falls from impact.

The fall from the tree doesn't hurt nearly as bad as gasping for air. His head rings on the way down but he fears the little time he has more than what the ground will feel like against his body. He conjures up enough chakra to land on his knees without breaking his bones. Shino's bugs crawl under his shirt and one down the bridge of his nose.

"I'm being easy on you, Shikamaru." Shino says above him. His feet crack the branches as he descends.

Shikamaru sits in place, picking the bugs from his face.

"Truthfully, I don't think you're cut out for this kind of work. You lack the right amount of ambition."

He isn't wrong. Ambition isn't what brought Shikamaru here. Shino stands on the last branch. The moon specks his chest with swaying shadows. Shikamaru can't help but observe how fitting the Anbu uniform is on Shino. Even though Shikamaru can't see his face, he doesn't look like a child playing pretend.

It all becomes very real. He's never had ambition.

A distinct memory of Asuma's smoke curling up to the ceiling hurts worse than his arm. He's at the cusp of vomiting, but the memory is too vivid. He can smell the brand of tobacco, the cleanliness of the room, and a fly burning itself against the light fixture.

Shino plants his feet hard on the ground and again, Shikamaru sprints in the opposite direction. His mind creates a clear path for his next move and he guesstimates the time he has before he can no longer depend on his chakra. Shikamaru decides to exert it. He scales another tree until he makes it to the top.

Shimmying out of his shirt, he leaves it dangling around his head. He counts Shino's pace as he retrieves the flash bomb from the pocket on his leg. He then wraps the sleeves of his shirt around his ears and eyes. When he's sure of the last step Shino has to make, he drops the flash bomb.

As soon as it detonates, Shikamaru gives himself two minutes before propelling into another tree. He doesn't look down to observe Shino. If he does he will lose focus on his plan.

Shino has several minutes of deafness and dark confusion. That's several minutes Shikamaru has to take apart Asuma's lighter. He snatches his shirt from his head and sits it on his shoulder. Shino groans a stream of obscenities. The bugs stop crawling, they sit in place on Shikamaru's skin. Unclamping one of his earrings, Shikamaru uses the pointed back of it to lift the bottom of the lighter open.

There's not a whole lot of fluid, but enough to set a trap.

Taking a deep breath, he climbs down the tree. It could either go very right or very wrong, but at least he tried. No one can fault him for trying.

Shino senses him before he drops from the last branch and plants a foot in his back. The flash bomb had only been a mild inconvenience. Shikamaru takes the blow because he has to. There's enough low hanging tree limbs and leaves above them to catch fire.

Shikamaru's only priority is to empty the lighter fluid in a circle around them. He does so while poorly dodging and taking a few lunges from Shino. As though fate had grown bored of favoring him, in the midst of dumping the rest of the lighter fluid around them, Shino catches him by his sore arm and thrusts a series of punches in his abdomen. Each punch worse than the last with Shino's consistent chakra control.

Asuma's empty lighter slipped from Shikamaru's greasy fingers.

"Our Lord Sixth ordered that we keep your face intact." Shino shoves Shikamaru back with an effortless kick. The amount of bugs that crawled on him double, some wiggling their way in his crusting wound.

"I don't think it's possible to make me any uglier..." Shikamaru rasps on his hands and knees. That would be Kakashi's only stipulation.

Shikamaru takes the window of opportunity, shoving himself on his feet. He leaps backwards and tosses his last flash bomb. The sparks start a fire.

His circle hadn't been perfect. He can tell even with his blurred vision. The ringing sounds like a whispery scream. If he didn't have ambition, he made up for it with his determination. Shikamaru pushes through his confusion. Shino stumbles back.

The wind stokes the fire. Twigs and leaves ignite and fall together. The bugs no longer cling to Shino's command. They rise frantically. The mass of their bodies together, the zip of their wings creating a subdued hum. Insects were drawn to light.

"Phototaxis." He had read about it. Determination and curiosity.

Shikamaru doesn't have to wait for Shino's next move. Shino serves him exactly what he wants. He pummels Shikamaru to the ground.

What is an Aburame without the control of bugs?

Shino hits him in the face multiple times before Sai intervenes. He manifests from the smoke, almost translucent against the fire. He tugs Shino to his feet.

"Not his face!"

Shikamaru reads Sai's lips. The ringing vibration fills up his head, but it's doesn't dull his sharpness. He draws up a knee and shoves all of his foot between Shino's legs with the last ounce of chakra he had been saving.

Shino's knees buckle and he vomits. It leaks from his mask onto Shikamaru's stomach. Sai steps back.

Shikamaru rolls from beneath him and stands. A branch consumed in flames cracks from the tree and falls. The bugs shake in unison.

Not looking in Sai's direction, Shikamaru summons his frustration and grief, thrusting his fist in the center of Shino's mask, cracking it in half. Eyes rolling back, Shino falls unconscious.

The spirit that kept Shikamaru from collapsing freed his body. He allows himself to feel the trauma and he too falls in a dead faint.

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Sakura holds up a tiny bottle of rosewood oil, observing the amount she has left through the light of her kitchen. The sleeve of her pink kimono rolls down to her elbow, her hair pulled back in a tight short ponytail, so tight, Ino can make out the bone behind her ear. She mutters as she sifts through her pantry of bottles, which Ino thinks is incredibly morbid to have next to a fridge.

"Do you not have any hyssop oil?" Ino winces. The bottoms of her feet are cracked and any applied pressure is painful. She sits propped on Sakura's kitchen table. Next time, she will know not to stampede her emotions onto scalding cement and sand.

"Hyssop oil..." Sakura repeats in a sing-song tune as she re-arranges the bottles. She hums a noise of satisfaction, pulling out the hyssop oil and kicks the pantry door shut.

Sakura turns to Ino and smiles—her prettiness stuns Ino with a sour melancholy. She had really grown into herself in a way that Ino covets. It's a natural attractiveness that you can't study up on. It occurs almost as suddenly as an earthquake. Once it cracks up the old surface, a new one emerges and it only changes by human will or another disaster.

"Give me your foot." Sakura pulls up a chair. Ino hesitates because she hasn't bothered to re-paint the chipped corners of her nail polish. And her feet look like she had done laps on hot tar.

When she doesn't move fast enough, Sakura grabs her by an ankle and sits it on her lap.

"You're gonna get oil all over your kimono!" Ino whines, but Sakura unscrews the top and begins to dab the oil on Ino's feet.

"Stop protesting and let me help you!"

Ino leans back on her hands and lets out a gargle-like moan. She hadn't bothered to comb out yesterday's waves in her hair. Something had jumped inside of her this morning, prompting her to embrace a no-effort attitude. She had no appetite stepping out of her bed, threw her hair up in a tangled braid and picked the dullest of her three kimonos. Which isn't too dull. It's plain only because she feels plain.

"So...what's going on between you and Shikamaru?" Sakura can't read minds. Ino frowns. Apparently she's seeping her energy out into the air for any and everyone to catch a whiff of like cat urine.

"Why?" Ino frowns at her.

"Last time I heard..."

"Who are you hearing from?" This is the second time.

Sakura stops rubbing her foot and looks back at her in earnest. She sucks in her lips and thinks before she speaks, "Naruto. Obviously."

"Right...of course." Ino gives Sakura her other foot.

"We were all at the table, Ino..."

"Like one big happy family I bet." It had happened so long ago, she wonders why it still sits in the back of their minds. It isn't like she robbed anyone.

"I've just been waiting to ask."

"He's not my boyfriend if that's the answer you were searching for."

"I didn't think so."

"And what's that supposed to mean, Sakura?" Ino doesn't mean to raise her voice. She is grateful for someone wanting to soothe some damaged part of her. A shame it's the state of her crusty feet.

"I mean, considering he was engaged not too long ago—who would want that emotional baggage?" Sakura is the queen of subdued nosiness. She coats it with a real sweetness anyone would fall for. Ino allows herself to fall for it only because she is lonely.

"Some people are worth it. You of all people should understand that." Ino lowers her voice. Sakura rubs the last drop of oil into the cracks of skin, doesn't seem fazed by the statement.

"So you're admitting to something?" Sakura mumbles.

Ino hesitates. The intense need to cry all over again swells up in her chest, but she suppresses it. She taps her nails against the table and closes her eyes.

"You're so nosey." Ino sighs.

"I just wanted the truth from the source and not Naruto's imagination. Sai still doesn't talk about you at all."

"I wonder what he would say if he did." Ino says facetiously.

A pause. Sakura lets go of her foot and reaches for the bandages on the table. Ino straightens her back and readjusts the fold of her kimono.

"I was serious when I asked you to come to the hospital with me." Sakura begins to wrap up Ino's feet.

Ino doesn't respond, she just stares off into space.

"I think you've allowed a superficial anger or sadness to distort your own image of yourself." Sakura's fingers are like feathers.

"A superficial anger." Ino has never considered this.

"Yep. Don't let enough time pass or you will forget yourself."

"What would you know, Sakura?"

"I apparently know better than anyone else." Sakura's smile brightens. Ino's soul escapes her body.

The front door clicks and opens. They both crane their necks.

Sasuke steps inside and for a moment Ino forgets that he belongs here just as much as the fly running into closed windows. Her nose wrinkles up at the sight of him.

He mumbles a breathy 'hello' that sort of disrupts the air. The weight of his chakra causes the tiny hairs of her arms to stand. It's been a while—that's what her body tells her.

Sakura gently brushes Ino's feet from her lap so that she might stand to greet him. She doesn't wobble nor has the disposition of someone who has been silently enduring neglect.

"Ino, you're the last person I expected to see." Sasuke allows Sakura to help him out of his jacket. She does so with a noticeable tenderness—with a fear that if she overwhelms him with too much attention, she'll damage and crack up all his hard spots.

There's a tough squeeze at Ino's heart, she doesn't know why they cause her to feel so melancholy.

Maybe it's nostalgia.

"I never expect to see you either, Sasuke." Ino slides from the table, frowning at the pain when she applies too much pressure to her feet.

Sasuke smirks because there's no other way to respond to the truth. Sakura glares at Ino as she folds his jacket in her arms.

Some things are only meant to be silently understood—that's something Shikamaru would say.

"Don't miss the fireworks you two." Ino says absently, slipping her feet into her sandals.

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Suffering builds character.

If you can survive a war, you can survive anything. Time is the salve.

Shikamaru didn't have to stand a trial for his punishment. They didn't need to tell him what rule he broke. Sai ushered the ritual with no enthusiasm. They had carried Shino's body away and that was the end of that.

For his punishment, they dragged him out of his lightheadedness with cold water to his face. At least, that's the last thing he remembers before blacking out. The after smell of burnt wood and grass is what awakes him. Sunlight hurts his eyelids. He's brought back from temporary death with his arms and legs strung up to the trees that didn't collapse to the fire. The grass beneath him is black, still wafting traces of smoke.

Shikamaru hacks a dry cough. It feels like the balls of his joints are being tugged out of their sockets. His body had been coated in honey. The heat lifts the smell. Flies and light green bugs stick to him.

Someone had pitied him enough to bandage the bloody gash in his arm.

This is the time to think about what this all means. He should've asked Kakashi what he would stand to gain from this shit. Maybe the point is to beat a dog hard enough until it learns mean ugliness, but Shikamaru is sound enough, or so he thinks he is, to not be affected by this kind of abuse.

The longer he bakes in the sun, more bugs attach themselves to his sugary skin.

And then he starts to question...how many buzzes in his ear can he stand before he goes completely insane?

And the questioning stirs his appetite. The walls of his stomach want to cave in.

He watches his shadow change size to keep up with the time of day. Time is salve.

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Ino knew anger could be blind, even misplaced, but never thought to sit it next to superficial. A part of her wants to ignore any little insights Sakura might have but it only hurts because it's true. She can't exactly understand the chemistry to why it's true, she just knows how it feels and shoves a fist full of cotton candy in her mouth. Frowning at the shocking sweetness and the sugary residue that hardens at the corners of her lips.

Ino slumps forward on the bench, folding her feet together, the sand and dirt cake up on her sandals. The oil between her toes glues grit to her skin. As she tugs at more cotton candy, she realizes that Sakura has ghosted her for Sasuke. She chews faster as she thinks—this is her first Founder's Day alone.

No dad. No mom. Just her lonesome and loneliness. Tears puddle her vision, but damn it she is surrounded by so many familiar faces. She shouldn't feel so isolated, but it grows for every kid with a proud parent and every person with a partner—whether it's a partner in crime or partner in life.

Before the war, there are gaps in her memory. She can't remember a single Founder's Day, yet she's just fully aware, on her lonesome, that her dad is gone and there isn't anyone to distract her with new memories to challenge the old ones that hide from her.

Ino looks up into the blood orange sky, wiping her tears with her knuckles. Her fingers are sticky with sugar. With her mind, through the power of her heart, she asks the mighty universe to chase away the irksome presence of her gloominess.

But it tells her to befriend this homesickness without a home. She'll be better off if she did.

Wisdom. She hates its persistence.

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The sky changes colors.

Shikamaru's stomach feels like it's eating itself.

A white shape flutters forward, gliding directly against his forehead with a soft tap. It falls down but sticks to his stomach. It's a piece of paper. Then two more papery butterflies float from various directions, pecking him on the sides of his face. They also crumble and die.

"Did you know today is Founder's Day?" Sai's voice sounds like it comes from every direction. Shikamaru closes his eyes and shrugs to the best of his ability. Sai waits for a response he doesn't have. All Shikamaru can think about is the acid in his stomach. The rest of his discomfort shrinks. No pain is worse than hunger and dehydration.

"I woke up and noticed how decorated everything is—I spent all of yesterday wondering why shops were filling up their windows with ornaments. It's so easy to lose track of time."

The paper dissolves into ink on Shikamaru's abdomen, seeping down the defined curve of his pelvic bone. He still doesn't dignify Sai with an answer.

Sai sits in a patch of healthy green grass with his legs crossed, sitting his sketchbook in his lap.

"I didn't want you to spend it alone."

"How thoughtful." Shikamaru rasps. The energy required to speak worsens his fatigue.

"When Kakashi gave me your file, I wanted to reject you." He draws more butterflies. Shikamaru absorbs the sound of his ink pen against the paper.

"I didn't want you to think I hated you." Sai goes on.

"Why would I think that?" Shikamaru's tongue feels like sand. He doesn't want to talk about Ino.

"You know why I would think that. There's no need to skirt around it."

"You're projecting, Sai."

"No. I'm attempting to apologize."

Shikamaru opens his eyes. It takes a minute to not see double. Sweat trickles down the cave of his eye socket, burning as it collects in his tear ducts.

"I don't know what you want me to say." Shikamaru spits onto the ground. The side of his mouth is scabbed.

"To be honest, I don't expect you to say anything. I just want to establish that I'm only following protocol. It's not personal." Sai sends forth another paper butterfly, it explodes into ink on contact with Shikamaru's arm.

"I wouldn't care if you did hold a grudge against me."

Sai smiles at that—he doesn't say anything else. He sits quietly, gently tossing up his pretty ink bombs and detonating them on various parts of Shikamaru's body. Sometimes a butterfly, sometimes a bird. After a while, he only drew shuriken.

Shikamaru stops feeling everything altogether. It becomes an unspoken game of how long he can endure it without convulsing.

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"Sometimes I forget how big the village is!" Naruto slides a grilled chunk of meat from a stick, digs his teeth into the texture, pulling it back slowly as if to savor the flavor, but he just looks ridiculous. Hinata taps a napkin on his cheek, rubbing away barbecue sauce.

They both slide next to Ino on the bench, and Naruto, grubby fingers and shiny with sweat, swats her on the back. The wooden bench creaks like it's not strong enough to support their weight.

"Long time no speak, Yamanaka!" He sings into her ear. Hinata leans around him to greet Ino with a bright smile. Her meek greeting is swallowed up by Naruto's loud burp.

"Hinata still hasn't house broken you—I don't think you can, girl. Divorce him while the ink is still wet." Ino shakes her head, pinching another clump of cotton candy.

Hinata gets out one word—an airy 'But', that Naruto clips with a thunderous cackle. He chokes on his own saliva and coughs. One good whiff of his breath and it's evident that's he's had at least one bottle of cheap beer. Hinata clings to him and brushes back his hair. There's a subtle stain of sauce on her chin as well.

Ino imagines that it's the outcome of a slobbery kiss and her ears turn red.

"Where is Sakura?" Hinata wears her hair pinned up like the step away from royalty that she is, no makeup and a kimono that looks like it's a year's worth of Ino's rent. She resists the urge to reach out and caress the fabric with her sticky fingers.

Their relationship used to bewilder her. It seemed to not only happen out of thin air, but it made perfect sense. Naruto is the type of guy any woman can get used to. The chubbiness of his face had smoothened out into his own distinct and bold features.

While Naruto is an every man for every woman, Hinata is only one woman made specifically for Naruto.

"Sasuke is back." Ino tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Sitting next to Hinata, she's put to shame.

"Hell no! And he didn't come to see me first!?" Naruto spits out crumbs.

"Yup, they stood us up, kiddo." Ino crosses her legs.

Scowling out at their decorated surroundings, Naruto swallows his meat without chewing.

"You wouldn't come to see me first, Naruto?" Hinata looks at him curiously. Her eyes shimmer, revealing a secret cunning nature. Ino's neck begins to sweat with jealousy.

Naruto grumbles and slaps his chest to force the food down.

"Yea, yea. Sure. Of course I would, Hinata..."And it's that easy. Ino wonders how she convinces him to do the dishes without asking.

They go back and forth, Ino a nonparticipant in their conversation. Hinata will spot a detail, anticipating Naruto's opinion— from the village symbols on the lanterns to the funny shape of someone's head.

"The sun needs to hurry up and go down." Naruto groans.

And Hinata says, "The faster the sun goes down, the faster tomorrow comes."

"I don't want to get up early..." He rubs his belly and slumps closer to her shoulders.

"I don't want you to get up either."

Ino makes it her purpose to finish the cotton candy before her stomach flips. It takes all of her home training not to gag.

Something catches Naruto's attention and he shoots up, squinting between the hoards of people. He lowers his head and his mouth hangs open. Handing Hinata the last of his shish kabob, he sets off into the crowd without a word.

Hinata is unfazed like it's a normal occurrence. She helps herself to the rest of his food.

They don't speak for some time. Hinata wipes the grease from her fingers on her kimono and Ino grimaces.

"Ino." Hinata hiccups softly into her hand.

Ino clears her throat and pretends to not be flummoxed by the grease stain on Hinata's nice kimono.

"Yeah-huh." Ino wobbles the plastic stick covered in dried cotton candy goo between two fingers.

"Are you feeling better?" Hinata turns her head in Ino's direction. The color of her eyes, or the lack of, gives her an otherworldly appearance. She gets this strong feeling that Hinata is an old soul with a gaze that can splinter bone if you look back for too long.

Ino stops herself from completely falling prey to Hinata's charm. Loud acts of weakness aren't included in Ino's emotional catalogue.

"Not really." Ino draws a dirt circle on the ground with her foot. "But it's a new day."

"After you left she didn't speak nearly as much. I think she was embarrassed." Hinata finishes the shish kabob.

"Embarrassed of me?"

"Of you and herself—mostly herself. I'm almost certain."

"When did you get so blunt?" Ino laughs disbelievingly.

"I'm sorry..." Bursts of pink color Hinata's cheeks.

Ino gets up, but not the least bit offended. It's no secret to anyone in Konoha that for all of her beauty and skill, she is a directionless failure to her mother. Despite the fact that she knows the precise point of each main artery in the human body, she is nothing if she is not making her mark in history. Forget the war and the smell of blood she couldn't get out of her uniform.

'What are you doing now to make yourself memorable, Ino?'

Naruto stumbles from the thickening crowd with three candy apples.

"Oh no, Ino don't leave— I barely see you!" Naruto's eyes shift from Hinata to Ino. Hinata holds her head down with her lips in a straight line. She takes a candy apple from him.

"Make a habit out of buying your pretty wife some flowers and you'd see me more often." She smiles weakly.

"I'd like that..." Hinata mutters, peeling the plastic from the apple.

"Then it's decided!" He hands Ino the candy apple.

She hesitates because it's too much sugar in one day, but he gets her with his one man for every woman smile and she accepts it. It's the biggest apple she's ever seen, the stick wedged in the core is weak in comparison.

Akamaru appears seemingly out of nowhere, squeezing himself between Naruto and Ino to sit his head in Hinata's lap.

"Oh hell..." Naruto rasps to himself as he tugs the ribbon from the plastic of his candy apple. "For a dog so big, he has feet like a ghost."

"Ghosts don't use their feet, Naruto. They float." Hinata pets Akamaru. Ino hates the way they communicate with each other.

"Whatever." He drags his tongue over the thick red shell of sugar.

Two hands gently grab Ino's shoulders and she doesn't have to turn to know it's Kiba. He carefully moves her to the side as he steps between her and Naruto. A fox mask sits on his forehead, covering his eyebrows.

"The older he gets the more stubborn he becomes!" Kiba has the kind of laugh that shakes birds from trees. Naruto narrows his eyes and begins to sweat. Ino can almost taste the energy seeping from his pores. The wind collects it like tiny dust particles, so she knows Kiba must taste it too.

"Well you don't have much of any manners either, Kiba. I wonder where he gets it from." Hinata says matter-of-factly. Akamaru strains his neck to lick Hinata's candy apple. Kiba releases Ino's shoulders and gives her a quick smile of acknowledgement. He stands squarely between Naruto and Hinata. He's incredibly brusque in his stance. Naruto drops his candy apple as he avoids Kiba stepping on his foot.

The hard thump the apple makes against the ground kicks up a tiny cloud of dirt. Naruto's face pales.

"Ino, does it sound like she's accusing me of uncouthness? I definitely don't go around sniffing out women and shoving my face in their thighs!" Kiba looks at Ino and his smile widens.

Ino's bottom lip slowly drops in a quiver, but she sucks up the gasp, holds all the air in her mouth. Naruto's skin whitens. Something unseen to the naked eye exits his body. Ino just tosses her braid over her shoulder and takes the first bite of her apple.

Hinata blinks for a few minutes, eventually smiling. Akamaru takes his nose from her lap and begins to sniff at Naruto's lost apple.

"How are you gonna speak to my wife but not me, huh? What's your deal?" Naruto growls.

His wife—Ino sniffs and rolls her eyes.

Kiba turns to face Naruto. The sweat makes his skin shine. He pushes his mask back further, the sleeve of his yukata folding back. His mesh undershirt is frayed, some holes bigger than others.

"Hey, Naruto..." Kiba sheds his smile, but he doesn't lose the joyousness in his tone. There's also the possibility that he has been drinking. Ino makes a point not to get closer to find out. She presses her tongue against the candy sticking to the roof of her mouth.

"Naruto, he's just happy to see me!" Hinata can't or won't stop giggling. Ino shakes her head.

"I just want the same energy is all!" Naruto shakes a little.

"Oh, I'm happy to see you too, Naruto. Even happier that she still thinks you're marriage material. I've been a little concerned..."

Naruto hooks his fingers in the mesh of Kiba's shirt and shakes him one good time with both of his hands. It's enough to bleach the color from Hinata's cheeks. She finally stands up. Ino wonders if this is the second or third time...

"I will stomp all your teeth out of your head if you don't apologize to me!" Naruto manages to alert the circle of people around them.

"What I got to be sorry for?" Kiba's face doesn't change. Ino realizes it was the good spirit of tranquility that left Naruto pale.

Unable to stomach the gossip that could reach her mother, Ino makes it her business to intervene. For the sake of poor sweaty Hinata and their reputations.

"C'mon guys, it's supposed to be about the food and fireworks." Ino steps between them, shoving away at Naruto's arms. Akamaru stops wagging his tail.

"I'm going to kill him before I'm thirty..." Naruto says to Hinata, pointing a finger.

"It's still about the food and fireworks." Kiba rubs his stomach.

"Can you shut the hell up please?" Ino grabs Kiba by the arm and tugs him away. Akamaru follows them into the crowd.

"He wasn't going to do shit." Kiba rubs his nose along his knuckles. Ino lets go of him when she thinks they've made it a good distance away from Naruto, who can still be heard choking insults into the air. "He's soft like putty around Hinata."

"What a master manipulator you are." Ino suddenly loses the desire to finish her candy apple. The sweetness makes her nauseous.

"It's just too easy." Kiba rubs the back of his head, and whistles away the tension in his muscles.

Ino catches her breath and eyes her apple pitifully. It suddenly becomes awkward when neither of them speak nor go their separate ways. They just savor the memory they have just made together. Akamaru whines and Kiba gives him an 'Oh really' expression.

"Well..." Ino begins.

"Ino, did you come out here all by yourself?" Kiba shakes his head at Akamaru's silent thought.

"Not on purpose—Sakura stood me up for a boy." She shrugs, looking down at her feet. The sky had darkened and the lantern-drawn shadows intensify

"No ShikaCho?" He laughs.

Ino has no idea where Shikamaru could be and has tried her hardest not to think about him. Choji is wherever the food stands are in abundance.

"We aren't kids anymore." She shrugs again, acutely aware of how he gazes at her.

"No but it's still weird not seeing you guys together."

"Contrary to popular belief, Ino, Shika, and Cho aren't extensions of each other."

"I guess it's normal to grow out of friendships." He chews his bottom lip.

"None of us really has anything in common other than history." Ino huffs, knowing good and damn well its ninety eight percent a lie. She blushes thinking of the hickeys Shikamaru has given her collar bone.

"I can believe that. That's part of being an adult. Growing up and apart..." He pauses and keeps his mouth open. Ino stops staring at the ground and looks back him, trying not to appear so knowing.

"Choji is still a good guy. Shikamaru...eehhh..." He shakes his hand.

"What's wrong with Shikamaru?" She's curious if it's something she doesn't know about. It has always bothered her that Shikamaru has a clean rapport.

"He's got no sense of humor." Kiba wrinkles his nose, recalling a memory Ino will never be privy to.

"That's not true at all." She sucks her teeth.

"I don't think I've ever seen him smile and he's so short when you talk to him."

"You only feel that way because he's not intimidated by you." Ino smirks.

"No! That's definitely not what it is!" Kiba retorts gruffly.

"That's exactly what it is. You can't just puff your chest and stomp your feet to get a reaction out of him." Aside from Temari, she can happily say that she is one of the two people that can upset Shikamaru Nara. It's gratifying. Too bad she's second place.

"You think that's what I do? Walk around like an ugly bear and snap at people?" He's not the least bit slighted.

Ino stomps a foot at him and jabs two fingers in his chest. "The ugliest damn bear in the whole wide world!"

"That's pretty damn ugly!" His laugh comes straight from his gut.

"Down right atrocious." Ino hesitantly licks the candy apple once more to decide if she still wants it. She really doesn't.

"Watch the fireworks with me and Akamaru," He says bluntly. It punctuates a short silence from Ino. She gapes at him and licks the stickiness of her lips.

"Ask me politely first." She holds his stare.

"I don't see why not. You're alone."

"Ask me."

Akamaru makes a noise of protest and Kiba's nostrils twitch. Rolling his tongue against his cheek, he lowers his lids.

"Ino."

"Yes." She flutters her lashes, sharpens the pitch of her voice.

"Will you watch the fireworks with me?" Kiba submits with a lot of effort. His shoulders fall like he had to physically drag it from his soul.

Her anger with Shikamaru is still fresh—it could be a 'superficial anger', but that doesn't make it hurt any less. Pain has been the way they've communicated. The feeling of a knife twisting its way through flesh to touch bone, it's really how they started. Parts of her body tingle.

"Please?" Kiba's face softens.

Would watching the fireworks with Kiba hurt Shikamaru's feelings if he knew? She imagines him coolly accepting it with a rage so quiet, it sucks the heat from her skin.

"Yes. I would love to watch the fireworks with you, Kiba."

So now we're even—Ino confronts the imaginary Shikamaru that takes up space in her heart.

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At some point, Shikamaru had slipped into unconsciousness. Pain—he can't feel it anymore. Night time happened so suddenly, he thinks he's dead when he opens his eyes to a blanket blackness. Sai had left. He's going to be here another night or two.

The fireworks disrupt his morbid line of thought. He is not dead. A shower of green lights up the forest. Then a rainbow eruption chases away the spots of darkness in between explosions.

'How do you say goodbye to the dead? They can't hear you...' Choji had whispered in his ear. They both watched Ino bury the shoebox with a plastic shovel. Shikamaru remembers the barrettes struggling to hold down her hair.

The fireworks color their ghostly bodies like he isn't hallucinating, but watching a moment in real time.

'Ino, this is dumb. You could've just flushed him down the toilet instead of dragging us out here.' Shikamaru grumbled. 'For all we know, fish might not even have souls.'

He doesn't feel that way now. It's hard to believe he ever felt that way.

Ino stood and stomped her feet. Her large eyes sparkled with tears. It's distinct in the darkness. 'You're a heartless stupid dumb moron! Fish do have souls!'

'Why can't fish go to heaven, Shikamaru?' Choji never could handle Ino's tears.

The apparitions lose their colors, turning into simple shadows at the last fade of fireworks.

He is wide awake now.

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Ino doesn't care about the fireworks. After the first three colorful explosions they all begin to look the same. Kiba doesn't care about the fireworks either. It was never about the fireworks in the first place. After the first shot in the sky of green, he watches her the entire time from two steps below. Ino keeps her eyes in the sky.

Akamaru isn't too ecstatic about her presence. She is stealing time that belongs to him. Every now and then, a soft growl rumbles his belly.

"Ino, I'm sorry about your mom."

"Not like I asked to be born, right...?"

She drops her attention from the yellow sparks in the sky to look at him. Kiba's sudden intensity sort of startles her. He turns away and chugs his bottle of root beer.

"It ruined the rest of the day, but it was doomed from the start. I don't know why Kurenai lets them cluck around her and Mirai like chickens." The food was good though, so he couldn't really complain.

"Lonely people do lonely things." Ino would know.

"What have you been up to though?" he asks. It's a normal question, yet it bothers her. Rubbing her shoulders, she recoils a bit, unsure how to really answer aloud. He notices the shift in her demeanor. She shudders knowing he knows the exact scent of her anxiety. Another person she can't hide anything from.

"I've been up to absolutely nothing," she says softly. A loud pop showers their little world in a fading glow of red.

"That's not true," he wheezes.

"It's the whole truth and nothing but the truth." She props her chin on knuckles.

He doesn't know what else to say. They've never had anything in common—Ino has never had to hold much a conversation with him. She could ask him what he's been up to lately as well but it feels too inviting.

"You've got good timing, Kiba." She leans back against the stairs.

"Some would argue with you about that..." He wipes his mouth against his wrist. The brown bottle glitters from within as another shot of multiple colors spray the sky.

"You saved me from an awkward social situation, so thank you."

"Oh yea—Naruto and Hinata make me dry heave. Hinata can do better..."

"I stopped riding the Naruto hate train years ago, you should too—"

"I did, but I still think she settled." Kiba lifts the bottle to his mouth again and it looks like he's drinking green, red, and yellow stars.

"And who would've been better than Naruto? You?"

He laughs and strangles on his root beer, but Ino is gravely serious. There's a brief pause in conversation. Kiba continues to smile, but she can tell he's sifting through multiple thoughts.

"You're welcome" is what he decides to say first and then, "I should really be thanking you."

"For what?" She rubs the back of her ear.

"I get to watch the fireworks with one of the prettiest girls in the village."

Ino sticks out her tongue and gags, but she'd be delusional if she doesn't acknowledge that it fed her ego. Kiba really does have perfect timing or vulnerability smells terribly sweet like honey.

"You're gonna run me off if you keep that up." She blushes like it's the first time she's ever heard it.

"If the truth makes you run, then so be it." He shrugs.

For some very odd reason, that stuns her. She just accepts it for what it is. Though he managed to be completely transparent, he doesn't look at her. She can't recall Kiba ever being physically unattractive—but she sees that he's grown into his features. He'd completely lost all of his baby fat.

"I guess I'm running." She gets up and descends the stairs. He reaches for her hand, fingers coiling around her tiny wrist so that she doesn't trip. It's pure instinct. His touch is hot, but it could be her mind playing tricks. All bodies with a steady heart beat are warm.

At the last step, their hands lock and neither of them make the effort to break the contact. Ino does make a point to not look at him directly.

"Can I walk you home?"

"No."

"Why not?" His smile fades.

"Because if you do, you'll invite yourself inside and won't leave." She lets go of his hand and takes the last step down.

"Is that a bad thing?" He gets a serious look that causes all of her covered skin to sweat. Yet she has enough sense to know that it's not a good thing to revel in. This is what loneliness looks like—mouth watering for temporary cravings for attention.

"Don't stay up too late and don't get into any trouble." Ino leaves it at that. She doesn't even have to hold her breath because he doesn't bother to chase her.

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A/N: I'm trying to stay consistent with the updates. Once a month isn't a tall order. I think it's reasonable too. This took a different turn and I hope I won't lose anyone along the way. I'm a little beside myself. I wrote this a year ago with no intention of making it multiple chapters and HERE WE ARE eight whole chapters later with a plot. One day I'm going to give y'all the romance you deserve. Thanks a million times over again for sticking around since the inception of this soap opera. I hope I haven't let anyone down.