They were standing in her shower, which, in Sakura's opinion, was about the least romantic and glamorous place in the world. It was a cramped little thing in the corner of her tiny bathroom and although she cleaned it meticulously every week, she could never get it sparkling enough for her taste. The tiles were too old and cracked in places, but to remodel it completely would have taken more time and money that she had these days, not to mention permission from her landlady.
Right now none of this mattered. Shikamaru had marched her in the shower and turned the hot water on and then started to lather soap on her back and Sakura instantly closed her eyes in pleasure.
She didn't think that she could ever get used to this, the way his hands were touching her, so tenderly, so reverently. Most of the time he still talked to her as he always used to - teasing her a little, or making serious conversation that probably no one else beside them would understand -, but his touch was so different, so unlike anything else before. He was talking to her through his hands, through his body in a different language that only the two of them spoke because they were the only ones able to speak it. Sakura remembered reading an article about twins with a language of their own, how the parents could teach them everyday language but the twins usually weren't willing to use it when talking to each other. Now she understood why. Who would give up something like that without being forced to, something that precious, that special, that secret?
Shikamaru was washing her with her lavender soap, slowly and with infinite care, his hands moving on her skin as if he wanted to remember every touch, every move. Sakura felt as if she were melting under those hands. It was so easy to give in to him, to give up control. With other men she was always alert, never fully relaxed, every minute fully aware of how dangerous a human being could be, how much damage they could impact on another person. She saw the results in the hospital every day.
With Shikamaru it was different. Maybe it had something to do with their work together. In the last few weeks she saw Shikamaru handle old scripts and lab dishes with the same skill and care, never in a hurry, never clumsy or distracted. She remembered an old scroll that was almost in pieces – some of these scrolls must have been untouched for decades -, and how she watched his hands working on it, those clever fingers, never fumbling, never impatient. Now that she thought of it, there weren't many people she would have trusted with this kind of work. Oh, there was a reason why she forbid her team to come and see her in the lab – Naruto, with all his good-natured roughness was a mortal danger to anything fragile, and she doubted that the others would care enough about her work to restrict him. Kakashi, maybe – he would have understood what they were trying to accomplish, but getting him to visit her alone was almost impossible. Ever since Sasuke came back, Naruto insisted on spending as much time together with him and Kakashi as he could. In fact, Naruto wanted them all to practically live together, Yamato and Sai and herself included, but if that wasn't on offer, he was satisfied with Sasuke and Kakashi. It did seem to have a healing effect on all of them, Kakashi included, so Sakura thought it best to go with the flow, but that meant she always had to deal with the boys en masse. Sai and Naruto together in the lab was a no-no.
Shikamaru was touching her now with the same tenderness and care as those priceless scrolls, as if she were just as important, just as precious. It was, in a way, funny. She read in books more than once similes where the writer compared an object to a woman, always stressing the sensitive nature, the fragility, the vulnerability of the thing in question and the hero's expert touch – but in real life it was just the opposite, since most men she knew handled their weapons with more care and respect than their women. How strange, how unspeakably strange... She never thought about this before. Sasuke, sharpening and cleaning his katana and his kunai for hours, but never holding her or kissing her more than a few minutes at the most, all the gentleness he showed her always leading inevitably to wanting sex.
She wondered if Shikamaru was like this with other women, too. Did he touch them only as much as it was necessary to get what he wanted? Or did he touch them so carefully, so lovingly, like he touched her? How would he touch those two girls she saw with him when they were walking back from the meadow?
Her muscles suddenly felt rigid. She knew that Shikamaru felt it, too; there was a tiny change in the rhythm of his strokes, a minuscule stop.
Sakura forced herself to relax and waited for the questions but Shikamaru didn't speak.
She turned and looked up at him. He waited patiently till she found the words she wanted to say. She was careful because now she knew that she was important to Shikamaru and she didn't want to hurt him or scare him.
"There is... there is still something between us, something we should talk about," she said timidly. "I know why you were placed in the seduction squad. I know basically what you did there and I'm okay with it. In fact, I'm proud of you. People like you and Ibiki and Kakashi sensei, you are our bricks. The first line of defense. The people without whom there is no Will of Fire."
Shikamaru nodded and Sakura hugged him, held him close, to tell him in their special language how truly from her heart she spoke, how it wasn't just a polite and easily forgotten phrase.
"But I still have to know about... about what Ino said," Sakura carried on. "I have to know if it's true. Did you... were you..."
She had no idea how to finish the sentence, how to find the appropriate words.
Shikamaru finished it for her.
"You want to know if I'm really a man-whore," he said.
Sakura winced.
"I'd rather call it a womanizer, if you don't mind," she said. "And before you point it out again, I also know that this all happened before we got together. I just... I just want to understand. Like you wanted to understand what was wrong with Lee and Sasuke."
Shikamaru slowly put down the soap that he was still holding and Sakura could see some of the tension leave his body.
"That's all?" he asked.
Sakura knew exactly what he was asking.
"I'm not going to leave you, no matter what," she said quietly. "I know you. I know you more than anyone else does and I don't care about other people's opinion. You know that."
"You were always stubborn," he said with an almost-smile.
Sakura took up the soap and started to wash Shikamaru's arms, just as gently as he did with her a moment ago.
"Genma said once that you only have to break one woman's heart and the girls will flock after the news reached them. Women love rakes and rogues, he said," Shikamaru began slowly. "He was right, except in my case I didn't even have to break anyone's heart. It was enough that I lost all my illusions about people in general and about myself in particular in a pretty short time. At first it was almost funny."
He looked at Sakura.
"What I said in the teashop was true," he said. "I never envied Uchiha his fangirls, or Neji's, or anyone's. I was never someone who made girls faint on a regular basis but if I asked a girl out, she usually accepted. Being just an average guy was good enough for me. But after a time with the seduction squad, things changed. My behaviour didn't change. My looks either. When I was back in the village I wanted to seem the same, be the same. It gave me a sense of stability. But still... I knew that when I walk into a bar and sit down, in approximately five minutes there would be a nicely manicured female hand on my arm..."
And in about half an hour or less the same nicely manicured hand would be in your pants, Sakura thought and gritted her teeth.
"I wasn't dating anyone at the time, Sakura," Shikamaru told her with a slightly worried look. "I wasn't cheating on anyone. I was very careful to always outline in advance that I wasn't open for anything long-term. If a girl wanted a relationship, I wasn't the man she was looking for. But even like this, I never had to spend a night alone if I didn't want to. Hell, I didn't even have to make any effort."
Sakura murmured something that wasn't very clear to herself either, something about lazy bums and their incomprehensible appeal for smart, tough, hard-working women and Shikamaru grinned.
"Look, I'm not pretending to be a martyr. At first I enjoyed every minute of it," he said. "Suddenly I was the best thing since sliced bread and it had a healing effect on my ego which was rather bruised by that time. It made sense - I knew I might not be the guy that most girls wanted to walk down the aisle with, but at least I could give them some fun."
"Fine," Sakura said. "I understand. But... the way Ino talked about it... it seems to me that something went sour. I know a few players in the village, and Ino never said anything really unkind about them. Different people, different lifestyles. I mean, after one basically has to go out almost every day and kill people, it seems hypocritical to judge people for premarital sex or something like that."
Shikamaru nodded.
"Fine. First of all, I want you to understand that that period of my life is over now. You don't have to worry about me having a fling with anybody else. I'm not going to do anything that might hurt you or make you feel you can't trust me. If I'm sent on a mission with a specific purpose, that's different, but in private..."
He looked at Sakura. She nodded without thinking. Shikamaru always kept his word, but missions were something they had no control over. She could be in the same position one day – not very likely, but not impossible either.
"I can handle that."
Shikamaru kissed her brow.
He's surprised I understood that, Sakura thought. He should have known, I'm shinobi, just like him. Oh, but he burned himself so many times – trusting others and getting hurt, just like me.
"I still don't know why Ino was so unhappy about this, though," she said. "She never wanted you for herself, but she always thought you were a great guy. She should have been proud that you were so... popular."
Shikamaru didn't seem happy as he started to explain his point of view in his usual precise way.
"The problem was that after a time sex became the equivalent of getting a stiff drink after a mission," he said. "It turned into a habit. I think Ino could see the symptoms and she was getting worried. You know, I was always careful about my drinking habits. It was just too easy – get a bottle of sake, drink yourself to oblivion. Go to sleep when you're too drunk to remember anything about yourself or about your mission. Get up the next day, pretend that nothing happened. Rinse and repeat. But after a time sex became like that, too. It was like a drug. It had come to the point when almost every day I went to a bar, picked up a woman, or she picked me up, whatever. The next day I was ready to work again, clear-headed, sharp-eyed, fast. As I should be. No drawbacks. But that didn't make it any less of a habit."
He looked at Sakura to see if she could follow his line of thinking. Sakura gave a tiny nod. It was easy to see how logical it might have seemed to a man at first. An activity that was pleasant, relaxing, something that also had the big advantage of not having any chemical residues left in one's body the next day that would have slowed down reflexes or clouded one's thinking processes.
Anyway, she remembered how she got together with Lee after that mission when they almost died – again -, and how desperately she wanted someone next to her then, someone alive and warm to chase the cold fog of fear away. That was one of the things that had kept her with Lee so long. Sex wasn't great, she knew best that it wasn't, and also that maybe it would be better with someone else, but the simple human warmth of a hug, of a smile, strong arms around her at night when she woke up sobbing after a nightmare, a warm body next to hers... who was she to say that a man didn't deserve something like that?
And maybe if her first man had been someone like Shikamaru, if she knew that she was actually capable of getting such purely physical pleasure from sex, she would have been more curious, more experimenting, more daring in her relationships. As it was, there was no point in changing her partner when she knew that the problem was not with him but with her.
Shikamaru watched her solemnly and suddenly she wanted to ask him about all this. She had no idea how to explain it, whether what she said was intelligible at all, her words were too hurried and not quite in a logical order, but Shikamaru always had this knack of getting her meaning.
"You mean if you'd known before that sex could be this good, you might have had more partners?" he asked when she finished babbling about feelings and bodies and romantic notions in books. "I think yes, that's a possibility, but I also think that in your case the price of having a lot more pleasure in bed might have been a lot more guilt outside the bed. By now, you'd have more memories about pleasant nights but also more memories about very embarrassing mornings, see what I mean?"
"Oh, so there is a balance?" Sakura asked, glad that in Shikamaru's opinion she wasn't just simply stupid to have missed out on something like this.
"There is always a balance," Shikamaru stated. "It's just not always a balance that we would be glad to have or feel comfortable with."
Sakura laughed, a sudden feeling of happiness and ease welling up in her and overflowing.
"You're so smart, has anyone ever told you that?"
"Gee, no," Shikamaru replied with all wide-eyed innocence. "Really? Good to know."
By the time they finished washing each other the hot water turned icy cold and Sakura told Shikamaru that if he kept touching her like this, they would never get dressed and if the shops closed and she couldn't buy a dress...
"Oh no," Shikamaru interrupted her while he turned off the water. "I can see how that would be a tragedy. Don't even say."
Sakura briefly thought about smacking him but he was so cute, smiling in that insolent, lazy way of his that was so much like his childhood smile. Except that now for some reason that insolent smirk made her want to kiss him and grab him and...
"If you still want to go shopping, you've chosen a damn funny way of getting there," Shikamaru commented when she let him go after a long and deep and rather satisfying kiss.
"You're just saying that because you wouldn't be able to walk properly right now," Sakura mumbled with a half-hidden grin on her face.
"Not my fault. I'm a normal male, reacting normally to an attractive naked female," Shikamaru said. "It's such a drag that you can always see the way I react to you, but if I want to know how you react to me, I..."
Sakura pushed his hand away.
"No, you don't. If you do that, we'll be late. Anyway, I'll be spending the night at your place, remember? You'll have plenty of time to demonstrate everything you learned in the special squad about boys and girls being different."
"Well, if you put it that way..."
He picked up a towel and started to dry her.
"Oh! Oh, how wonderful!" Sakura exclaimed.
"Do you happen to have a towel fetish?" Shikamaru asked while rubbing her back.
"No, it's not that," Sakura said with a wide grin. "I just realized that now I have someone I can try all the sex tips of Modern Kunoichi magazine with!"
"That trash," Shikamaru said without thinking. "How can you even read that, Sakura? You might have too many brain cells if you want to kill them so ruthlessly in such a short time."
"You have no idea what you're talking about," Sakura said. "Ino told me that a week ago she asked you to wedge her window with something so that the wind wouldn't shut it, and you wanted to use "Sexy Shinobi", the extra-special quarterly edition. And it was open at "Ten Celebrities and Their Secret Dates", no less!"
Shikamaru eyed her with hardly concealed amusement.
"Was there anything else interesting in it?" he enquired.
"Ino told me there was an article in it, "Ten Ways to Make Her Happy from Behind". I want to try that," Sakura said without thinking.
"What, handing my credit card to the salesgirl over your shoulder isn't enough anymore? I'm devastated. And anyway, personally I'd hate it if anyone tried to make me happy from behind, even if it were in less than ten ways."
Sakura opened her mouth to say something but she broke out in giggles again and couldn't stop. In the end she only said, "I had no idea you despised newspapers and journalists that much."
"On the contrary, I respect newspapers and journalists enormously," Shikamaru said. "That's why I don't read these magazines."
Their discussion was interrupted by several loud knocks.
Sakura opened the bathroom door. The noise was coming from the entrance door. She didn't even have to guess who they might be, she recognized Hinata's soft voice and the deeper tone of Tenten.
"Just the girls," she said, relieved. She knew she would have to tell her team about her new boyfriend sooner or later but she didn't feel like doing that wrapped in a towel.
"Do you want me to...?"
Shikamaru didn't have to finish. Sakura knew what he wanted to ask. Do you want me to just disappear and pretend I wasn't here?
"No," she hissed, turning toward Shikamaru. "I'm not ashamed of being with you! You have every right to be here! But maybe you should put on something..." she finished looking at Shikamaru in all his naked glory.
Shikamaru grabbed his pants, lying on top of her counter.
Oh, he's every inch the strategist, Sakura thought. No frantic rush to the bedroom for his clothes... Unlike me...
"I think I really need a shave. Do you have a disposable razor?" he asked.
"Second drawer on the left," Sakura said, then wrapped herself quickly in the biggest towel at hand and went to deal with the visitors.
When she opened the door and invited her friends in, Hinata said at once, "No, we don't want to bother, it's just...", while Tenten grabbed Hinata's arm and pulled her inside without a word. All according to the usual routine.
Sakura closed the door and started to say something about tea and apologize for the clothes on the floor and the general disorder of her flat when she realized that the girls were gawking at something behind her.
She didn't even have to turn back to know what that something might be.
"When you said razor, you meant this?" came the lazy, deep drawl from the bathroom doorway. "Oh, hello, girls. How are you?"
There was no answer from her friends.
She turned and looked at Shikamaru, his chest still naked and dripping wet, the top button of his jounin pants open, and her pack of disposable razors in his hand. The girls were looking at him as if he were the first man they ever saw without a shirt and didn't say a word.
Shikamaru was still waiting for an answer and the attention he was getting didn't seem to deter him at all.
"Yes, exactly," Sakura said to Shikamaru with a shrug. "What did you think?"
"They are pink," Shikamaru said, amused.
"Because they are women's razors, designed for getting a perfect bikini shave," Sakura said patiently. "Good for intimate places."
"You're getting something wrong there about my intimate parts, sweetheart," Shikamaru said, grinning. "It's long, I admit, but it doesn't reach my chin. I think I'd rather use my kunai. Do you happen to have any shaving cream or should I use soap?"
He absentmindedly fingered his hair tie while he waited for Sakura to speak.
Suddenly the hair tie snapped with a twang like rubber and his hair fell on his shoulders.
"Oh, hell," he said, looking at the hair tie in his hand with disgust.
Shika with his hair down still took Sakura's breath away.
She wasn't the only one.
Hinata blushed tomato red and her mouth fell open. Tenten was looking Shikamaru up and down in a very predatory way.
Sakura was feeling half amused, half indignant and wholly proprietary.
"There are some rubber bands in the upper drawer," she said. "The shaving cream is on the shelf next to the mirror, if there's any. And dry yourself before you catch a cold."
Shikamaru nodded and turned to go back to the bathroom. "Ladies," he said with a smile, then disappeared behind the closing door.
Tenten was the first to speak. "What a hunk! Sakura, it's so unfair! How come you get the best guys first? Who knew he had a body like that under that flak vest, I ask you?"
"He looks... nice..." Hinata said in an almost inaudible voice. She was still red but was already breathing regularly.
Now Sakura knew for sure that Hinata never even thought of anyone else but Naruto that way, and Tenten found all the happiness with Lee that she herself could have wished for them. But even then...
Be reasonable, Inner said in a bored voice. You only saw Kakashi without a shirt once or twice and never thought of him as a potential partner, but still, if he appeared in front of you right now in just a pair of jounin pants, you wouldn't deny yourself the sight, would you?
That's true, Sakura thought with a sigh.
"Would you like some tea?" she asked again.
"No, we would like some information," Tenten said with a dreamy look in her eyes. "When and where did you manage to purchase the product and is there any chance of a loan? Or if not, maybe getting the same make somewhere? Oh, can he make clones by the way?"
"His specialty is shadows," Hinata said with a calculating look in her eyes that was very unlike her usual self. "Did he show you any trick with his shadows?"
Sakura frowned and tried to think, but she only remembered Shikamaru opening the door with them and then taking her prisoner while he explained that he wanted to date her. Oh, and he pulled down the pillows to the floor, but that didn't really count. All the same, he might do a few more things, should she ask him...
She saw herself writhing on a bed, the shadows tying her down and caressing her, and Shikamaru watching her with eyes darkly burning with lust...
"Oh boy," Tenten murmured, watching Sakura's face closely. "He must be a whiz."
"He is," Sakura said happily. "Even without the shadows."
She looked at her friends again and saw something more than should be there, a glance, a shrug... tension. So she asked pointedly, "I'm always glad to see you but why are you here, exactly?"
Hinata and Tenten looked at each other and there seemed to be a discussion without words going on between them.
"Naruto told me a few days ago that you and Sasuke broke up," Hinata said softly. "I wanted to talk to you, see if you were all right, but you spend so much time at the lab..."
"...that we simply couldn't get you at home, and we didn't want to discuss this in front of others," Tenten finished the sentence. "But today we both heard... well, several things, and then Hinata thought we had better come here and ask you because..."
They looked at each other again.
"Well, because Naruto is very protective of you," Hinata said. She looked at Sakura, appealing without words for understanding, for acceptance.
She was sure there would be a problem when Naruto heard about Shikamaru and she came to warn me, Sakura thought. Well, she deserves some kind of explanation.
"Sasuke cheated on me. I caught him at it. I didn't tell Naruto because I thought Sasuke should tell him, but obviously he didn't," Sakura said bluntly.
She looked at Hinata.
"I'm sorry, Hinata. I told Tenten the last time we met but I didn't tell you – specifically because I knew that Naruto was very set on me being with Sasuke and I knew that he would go ballistic if he heard from you what really happened. It was really melodramatic enough, I didn't want to drag any more people into it."
"But you told Tenten," Hinata said sadly.
"That was because Tenten doesn't tell everything to Lee, but you don't like to keep secrets from Naruto," Sakura said kindly. "I didn't want to get you into a position where you would have to take sides and either decide to tell Naruto something that I told you in confidence, or keep it to yourself and suffer."
"Why didn't you want to tell Naruto?" Hinata asked quietly.
"Maybe I should have, but I thought Sasuke would do it and they would discuss it with each other. It would have been only fair, so basically it was just a question of timing – at least that's what I thought then. Only he didn't! He didn't say a word to Naruto, and Naruto kept nagging me, and I was so angry with Sasuke I could have strangled him! After that I was looking for a chance to talk to Naruto in private but these days the boys in my team always seem to come and go in a herd, and I thought maybe in a few days... and anyway, I was busy in the lab. And then, well, things just happened," Sakura finished, combing her hair with her fingers nervously.
"Yes, I can see that," Tenten said, still watching the bathroom door. Then she turned to Sakura and only asked, "When?"
"He asked me out yesterday," Sakura said. She tried to suppress the goofy smile blooming on her face but she couldn't quite succeed. "First it was just a drink, then we started talking about... well, different things, and then... well, a lot of things happened, and then he asked me out and this evening he's taking me to the Golden Dragon..."
"The Golden Dragon?" the girls said at the same time and exchanged knowing looks.
"Yes, and I'm going to buy myself a new dress, and he offered to help me choose one," Sakura said in a tone that was very close to bragging, no matter how much she tried to sound nonchalant.
"Some girls have all the luck in the world!" Tenten said with envy.
Sakura bit down on her tongue, hard, so as not to go on blabbing.
...and he loves me, and I love him, and he's just amazing in everything including sex, oh, first of all sex, and he's sweet and intelligent and he says his family will love me, too... oh God, I don't think I deserve so much happiness.
"Yes, I'm really lucky," she said, suddenly afraid that something would happen, that something bad would happen and...
"No," Hinata said in a strong voice, and the way she looked at Sakura wasn't shy or tentative at all. All her personality, all her strength of character showed in her sweet, pale face. This was the kunoichi that would have fought her cousin till her last breath, the girl that told Naruto he meant more to her than anybody else, more than her life, the woman who in her silent way stood up for the village and the Will of Fire just as strongly as Naruto did. "It isn't luck. You deserve this. You deserve to be happy, don't forget that. I'll tell the same to Naruto. And if Shikamaru has just a fraction of that intelligence everybody credits him with, he knows how lucky he is and he'll do everything to make you happy."
The bathroom door opened again. Shikamaru had his hair tied up and his face was serious.
"I won't pretend that I didn't hear what you were talking about," he said in his usual quiet way. He looked at Hinata. "I love Sakura. Believe me, I know exactly how grateful I should be to all the powers that be. I'll do everything I can to make her happy."
"That's nice," Tenten said doubtfully, "but how can you prove that?"
Shikamaru smiled. His smile was kind and a bit tired.
He thinks of us all as children, Sakura thought suddenly. It's the way I would look at a genin. They are so, so sure they know everything and there is so much yet they have to go through, betrayal and grief and pain, and there's nothing I could spare them, only pray that they have more time than we did. Don't hurry, children, don't hurry...
She looked at Shikamaru, suddenly afraid. This fear had nothing to do with her friends. What did it matter what they thought? What did it matter if Tenten spread some silly gossip to the rookie nine or if Hinata and Naruto shook their heads disapprovingly?
Time. It's all about time. How much time have we got until another ninja war? How much time until another invasion, the appearance of a new enemy or just some bad luck on a mission?
She caught Shikamaru's eyes, the light changing in them, the frown on his face.
"Don't be afraid, sweetheart," he said softly. "Everything will be all right. I promise."
He crossed the room to her in swift strides and held her in his arms. "What is it?"
She could only look up desperately and say, "Time."
"Time," he said slowly. "Such a beautiful and deadly word."
"What are you two talking about?" Tenten asked, but Shikamaru didn't care. He only had eyes for Sakura.
"Leave them alone, Tenten," Hinata whispered. "Can't you see...?"
Shikamaru smiled again and the fear in her that started to engulf her, the fear that she usually pushed back and turned into strength now retreated grudgingly from a greater force.
"Look," he whispered. "Just look."
At first she had no idea what she should look at but then she saw the thin, long fingers of shadows running up the walls like a spider's web, except it wasn't a web and it wasn't a cage because the fingers thickened and turned into...
"Trees," Sakura whispered in surprise and awe. "These are rose trees."
She saw the shadows take the shape of rose bushes – long branches and leaves and buds, black on white, and they were constantly moving, changing...
"They are growing!"
The leaves started to unfold, then the buds, slowly, oh so slowly, and one by one they turned into roses, blooming and full, then the petals started to fall, but new rosebuds appeared on the branches growing on the walls and it all started again.
Sakura looked at Shikamaru. He was watching her, his eyes full of love, his lips forming the same word again.
"Look."
He felt a gentle push on her hands – there were shadows holding both her wrists, carefully raising them until her palms were open, pushed together and turned upwards as a chalice. A tendril of shadow appeared between them and spread – a leaf, another, then a bud, then a full rose blooming in her upturned palms like a real flower, then the petals turned into butterflies and disappeared. The shadows retreated and the room was as before – a normal, common, everyday room in a tiny, not very modern apartment.
He made me a rose garden, Sakura thought. My special rose garden.
She smiled up at him.
He's right. There is no tomorrow. There is only the moment. We are nothing more than these shadow roses on the wall, here today, gone tomorrow. But we are here right now and oh, I love this man so much...
Shikamaru watched her, his dark eyes just as mysterious now as when she first saw him, years and years ago. She remembered how Ino appeared on the playground in the middle of a sudden, vicious fight between little girls – she couldn't remember for the life of her what they were arguing about -, and Ino protected her, as usual, and then she pulled her through the whole playground until they found a boy lying in the grass, watching the sky, and Ino said, 'this is my friend Shikamaru, he's the laziest boy in the world, and this is Sakura, what do you say, Shikamaru?' The eyes that opened and looked at her were these same dark eyes. She was so afraid that he would say something unkind, but he only said, 'she's got pretty hair – now let me sleep, Ino, you're such a nuisance,' and he closed his eyes. And Ino let him!
"I've forgotten that until now," she said.
Shikamaru frowned. "What did you forget, sweetheart?"
"The first time Ino introduced us to each other, you said I had pretty hair."
Shikamaru laughed. "And you just remembered that?"
"Yes. How old was I then, what do you think? It seems ages ago."
"Five, maybe. Maybe even younger. I know I was hardly older than five."
Sakura looked at him.
"So you remember it, too?"
"Of course I remember it. It's not every day one gets introduced to a girl whose hair looks like cotton candy."
For a moment they had both completely forgotten they weren't alone, and when Shikamaru raised his hand and started to caress her face, she got hold of his hand and kissed his palm.
"Uh... maybe we'd better go," a reluctant voice said behind Sakura's back.
She turned without letting Shikamaru go. Tenten and Hinata were both grinning.
"What's so funny?" Sakura asked.
"You're so cute together!" Hinata said, her head tilted, her hands on her chin.
"Yes," Tenten crooned. She looked at Hinata and they both nodded.
"We'd better leave now," Hinata said. "I'll come back later, if you don't mind."
Yes, we still have to talk, Sakura thought. Naruto still might be a problem, but I just don't care. Not anymore. He has to understand the way I feel and accept it. This is my life, my future we're talking about. Not his.
She let the girls out and she could hear them melt into giggles the moment they were out the door.
"Looks like we started a new streak of gossip," Sakura said.
"Do you mind...?" Shikamaru started to ask.
"Telling others?" Sakura finished his question for him. "Oh, no. That will save me kicking the ass of all those ANBU girls who think you're still up for grabs."
„Maybe we should just put up a banner on top of the Hokage tower, announcing officially that we're dating," Shikamaru suggested.
Sakura laughed. "If you told Ino what happened, like I asked you to, then that is absolutely unnecessary."
They finished dressing up in peace, then, still in a wordless, mutual understanding, started to put the apartment in order. Sakura felt Shikamaru looking at her in approximately every ten seconds and pretended not to notice. She was wearing the rose-coloured cotton dress and it was obvious that it met with Shikamaru's approval.
They already put all the books and almost all the clothes back to where they belonged when Shikamaru grabbed her wrist and pinned her to the wall.
"I want a kiss right now," he announced. "I've been working like a slave for hours and hours and I haven't even gotten a kiss, and..."
"Oh, don't be silly," Sakura said. "It was hardly more than ten minutes."
"It felt hours," Shikamaru said. "I want my kiss."
Sakura found it impossible to resist him. He looked so menacing and dangerous and she was so, so unused to being weak and vulnerable in a man's embrace and wanting to surrender.
The way he put his face next to hers and touched his lips to hers was in sharp contrast to how he kept her pinned to the wall. His lips were tender, his kiss almost shy.
He let her go but was still standing next to her, as if he wanted to stop the moment.
"I can't get used to being like this," she said. "Being with you and in love and... you know."
"No, Shikamaru said. "I don't."
His voice was serious again.
"What is it that you find so strange?"
There was no simple answer to that question.
"Things happen so fast," Sakura said in the end.
"Really?"
They were looking at each other but Sakura had this feeling Shikamaru was thinking of something else entirely.
"When did you fall in love with me?" Shikamaru asked suddenly.
Sakura wanted to say something flippant or roll her eyes and she stopped at the very last second. It wasn't the first time Shikamaru brought this up. Quite the opposite. In his patient way he asked this question again and again, trying to catch her unaware. Why was this so important?
Why was it so important that he was never willing to answer the same question if she was the one asking it?
Was this one of the things that he never intended to talk about? Or was he just waiting for the appropriate moment?
She had no doubt that he was really in love with her, that he wanted to make her happy. All the same, he was still full of secrets, a lifetime of secrets, and she had no idea which of these secrets was coming back now to haunt them.
She tried put her thoughts, her feelings in order, calling them up one by one to be paraded for his sake.
"I would have told you already if I knew," she said slowly. "I really have no idea. I only know that..."
"That?"
There was a quite uncharacteristic expression on Shikamaru's face, a mixture of pain and longing.
"... that I must have felt something for you yesterday because... because it was the first time I kissed a man."
The surprise on his face was almost comical and Sakura saw in a second what it was that he must have misunderstood.
"Oh...oh! Not like that! I mean, of course I kissed with men, it's just that I never kissed a man, I mean it wasn't me, that's just..."
Shikamaru smiled.
"You mean it was always the man who kissed you, don't you, sweetheart? That it was never you who actually kissed your partner first?"
"Yes," Sakura said gratefully. "That's what I wanted to say. And yesterday..."
She felt her face get warm, but really, what could she do? He'd been so sweet, saying all those wonderful things about sex and love and having children all being a miracle, and it was as if he could read her mind because she'd always felt exactly like that, except she could never put it in words, so she just had to kiss him.
She looked up and said the first thing that came to her mind. "Do you think that it's... it's unfeminine? That I kissed you first?"
He didn't answer at once.
"Or maybe... maybe you think that I shouldn't... that I shouldn't have asked you to... you know..."
This was a road to peril, she could see that. It was so easy to fall in love with someone whose ideas and thinking was the exact opposite of yours, who thought nothing of the ideals you considered sacred – why would it be impossible to fall in love with someone towards whom you felt no respect at all or someone you did not understand? Shikamaru told her a hundred times how he never understood her way of thinking. She, on the other hand, would never have thought that she would fall for someone who seduced women by the dozen – Lee would never even look at another woman when he was with her, and Sasuke, for all his faults, was never a womanizer. Or so she thought until she caught him red-handed in his flat with that woman.
Maybe it was unnatural that she could fall for Shikamaru so hard, so soon. But there was no point in counting all the ways that they might make each other miserable. There was no way she could change the past, no matter what, but anything else she would do for him, and do gladly.
She looked at him unhappily.
"I have no idea what you want from me," she said. "I would do anything for you, you know I would. Just tell me what you want."
"What do I want?" he asked and there was something very dark and strange shining through his eyes. "I want to change the past. That's what I want."
She was watching him with blank eyes, trying to understand what he meant when Shikamaru looked at her again and with a curse raised his fist and struck the wall.
Wham.
The impact shook Sakura, and she saw parts and pieces of plaster and wallpaper showering on the floor next to her.
Shikamaru looked at her with the eyes of a wild animal, angry, cornered, ready to fight.
Wham.
Another blow, just as forceful as the previous one. Sakura instinctively turned her head to the side and saw his hand disappear in the wall. When he pulled his fist back, his knuckles were bleeding.
This wasn't fear now. This was panic, full-blown, raging panic. The skin on her face and under her hair prickled as if there were tiny shards of ice bombarding her head. Things slowed down and the only rational thought that was still there in her head was that she knew, she knew Shikamaru would never hurt her but she had to stop him hurting himself.
There was no next strike, she caught Shikamaru's hand with her own.
He didn't fight, didn't struggle, just let her take hold of his hand and open it and start to heal it without a word. He was still breathing hard and fast but his face was again without emotions, empty, made of stone.
We are both in fight mode, Sakura thought. Her breathing was just as fast as his, heart beating fast, concentration on maximum, trying to supervise as much of her surroundings as possible. How did this happen?
She knew that the healing chakra usually calmed the patient – partly because it was associated with at least a momentary calm. Medic nins did do some healing on the battlefield, yes, but there wasn't much point in healing somebody if they were still under attack and in direct danger.
She was thinking fast, going through an imaginary checklist and looking for the source of the problem. Most shinobi were volatile – there was a reason why an attack with any kind of weapon was forbidden in the village, except on the training ground. A sudden rush of anger, aggression or jealousy could not only incapacitate one or both parties if they drew weapons but would result in serious damage. A few slaps or kicks were accepted, though, but Shikamaru was never the kind who engaged in fistfights or let a debate escalate into a conflict.
Was this some kind of acting out? Was there something in his ANBU past that made him liable to sudden fits of anger?
Maybe she had better see his medical dossier, but would ANBU let her handle it? Hell, she should have insisted on it when he returned to the normal roster. If anything happened, he would probably be her responsibility anyway, like any other member of the original rookie nine. What made him erupt in such a fit of rage?
"Have you ever felt that no matter how much someone loves you, they would never understand what you think or feel?" he asked.
Sakura looked up. Shikamaru was looking at the hole in the wall.
"I'll just say one word and then you'll realize what a stupid question you asked," Sakura sighed.
Shikamaru looked at her.
"Naruto."
"Oh."
"Yes. That was one of the reasons why I never considered him seriously as a boyfriend. I mean I love him, I really do, and he'd give his life for me, but even trying to talk to him if it isn't about a common, everyday thing or event gives me a headache."
"Oh."
"Yes. Oh."
She finished healing his hand but didn't let him go.
"Would you like to tell me what it was that made you react like this?" Sakura asked tentatively.
"Are you afraid of me?" Shikamaru asked, his eyes suspicious, narrow, cold.
"No. But I'd like to know what made you hurt yourself. And why would you want to change the past?"
He sighed and seemed very tired and somehow beaten, as if he made a wager on something important and lost.
"Fine. Ask me when I fell in love with you."
Sakura looked at him, speechless with surprise.
"Fine," she mumbled. "When did you fall in love with me?"
He smiled, with his old, sweet, gentle smile.
"The first time I entered the lab we're working in. Five weeks ago," he said quietly.
She knew that now he gave her all the pieces of the puzzle that he considered important, and that, for some reason, it gave him great pain to do so, but she still, for the life of her, did not, could not grasp the meaning of all this.
"I always thought this was a myth," Shikamaru said bitterly. "I always thought it was one of those romantic notions that are only alive in the heads of underage girls and old spinsters. I never thought that coup de foudre had an actual meaning."
He shrugged.
Sakura knew that coup de foudre meant suddenly and unexpectedly falling in love, as suddenly and unexpectedly as if one were struck by a bolt of lightning. What she had no idea about was how on earth this would have anything to do with her.
"I can see you don't understand," Shikamaru said with a wry smile. "You know, I was still with ANBU when one day the Hokage wanted to talk to me. That was about two months ago. I went to the Tower. Kakashi was there, too. She asked me how long I planned to stay in ANBU. And I told her as long as they needed me. So you're ok, she asked. I told her yes, I was fine. And then Kakashi said, no, he isn't fine. You should know, Tsunade-sama. You've been there, you should know. War has a way of amputating bits of people's souls until all they've got left is but a stub. ANBU is like that, too. Soon he will have no emotions left at all, except a feeling of duty. He needs to get back to his normal life. Konoha needs all the people who are still whole, and we haven't got that many of them... "
Sakura watched him with wide eyes.
Kakashi, poor Kakashi, poor sensei. To know something about yourself, to see something like that and not be able to change it, to be only able to act for others so they wouldn't go your way and be left without a soul, without emotions...
"So suddenly I found myself back in Konoha and out of ANBU and thinking about what Kakashi meant," Shikamaru carried on. "After I went through all the check-ups and the paperwork and the what-not, the Hokage sent for me again. She said I would need to do some research work before I could return to my previous job - urgent, important, my participation absolutely essential. Whatever. It was all the same to me. I went to the consigned lab next morning, opened the door... and Tsunade never told me that I would have to work with you!"
"She never told me about you, either," Sakura said.
"I gathered as much. But I opened that door and you looked up and said, 'Shikamaru, you came to visit me? Oh, I'm so glad to see you!' And you came to me and hugged me and then said, 'You're too tall, bend forward a bit, I want to give you a kiss! I'm so happy you're here!' And it was... for a moment it was as if everything was as before, as if all the things that happened since I last saw you were just a dream. And you looked so pretty and so young... When I thought of you, I always saw you serious and calm and stern, and now you were laughing and chattering and you kept pulling me after you as you went around and showed me everything, and... and my heart almost stopped, and by the time you let me go I knew I was in love."
"But you never said anything," Sakura said, amazed.
Shikamaru watched her with a strange look in his eyes.
"You were dating Sasuke," he said. "What could I say? Don't look at him. He's not the one. I know. 'How can you tell, Shikamaru? You're always so logical, so concise. Can you explain?' I can't. I just know it. He's not the one. I am. 'How can you tell?' Well, the first day I entered the lab and saw you my heart just went mad. I thought I had a heart attack. Then you turned and smiled at me and I just knew. 'Well, Shikamaru, that's a great explanation. You probably did have a heart attack or a stroke and part of your brain died too. I've waited for Sasuke to notice me since I was six and now he's my boyfriend. What made you think I'd ever give you the light of day?' "
Sakura was slowly shaking her head.
"So I was a coward," Shikamaru said. "I never said anything. I just went on working next to you. I counted the days as my time with you was running out."
"But you never asked anything!" Sakura blurted out.
"Ask?"
"About how I was. Or what I did after work. Anything like that."
"Oh yes," Shikamaru said with sudden anger. "I would have been pleased to hear that he took you out to dinner in a fancy restaurant, and bought you some expensive bauble like the bracelet you're still wearing. Then he took you home and did things to you I could only dream of. Wonderful."
"It wouldn't have been that… that pleasant."
"Yeah. Tell me, Sakura - if I told you now that I think Temari and I are still destined for each other, would you wish me happiness?"
"Would that be your heart's desire? What you really want?"
Shikamari sighed.
"For the sake of the argument let's say yes."
"Then I would wish you both happiness. What could I do?"
"But would you be happy?"
"I think the answer is that I'd try very hard to be happy for your sake. You're my friend," Sakura answered with full honesty.
"Then you can see my dilemma," Shikamaru whispered softly. "Every time I saw you unhappy my heart went out to you and I wanted to grab that moron and bend his arm until he makes you happy. And at the same time my heart went mad every time I saw that he didn't care, that it would end… And then I reminded myself that you loved him, that your heart would break… Sometimes I felt I could scream for hours."
Sakura still couldn't understand why this all made him want to demolish her wall.
"But why...?" she said and looked at the hole, not being able to voice her question properly. Why are you acting like a madman? What's wrong? Why do you want to change the past? Why now?
"Can't you see how... how ridiculous I am, Sakura? Can't you see what a position I manoeuvered myself into?"
Sakura looked at him.
"Uh... no?"
They watched each other for a full minute, both of them eyeing the other like two animals, ready to fight or flee.
In the end Shikamaru shook his head briefly and gave a long sigh.
"So you see nothing strange in the fact that I was a member of the seduction corps, trained in seduction, with a hundred percent success rate as to completed missions, and a, I couldn't seduce the girl I've been in love with for weeks, nah, couldn't even tell her I was in love with her, and b, she was never able to feel a sparkle of interest for me until we had sex? Do you think that this situation is a normal, everyday, common..."
"Oh, spare me the rest of the adjectives," Sakura interrupted him impatiently. "You said yourself that our situation isn't normal. Being a shinobi isn't normal! In our case, chaos theory is the only guiding principle. In other words, the abnormal becomes the normal and rules victoriously. When we start a family, the picket fence-two kids-and-a dog-type of family ideal might still apply but with a few tiny, negligible changes, like Naruto and Sasuke setting fire to the picket fence in a spontaneous fit of rage, our two kids being extra-intelligent and highly deviant young shinobi with evil ideas of their own, and the dog probably one of Kiba's monsters that will bite the entrance door in two in pure enthusiasm when we get home. Not to mention that chances are that deer will look in the windows, my team will still insist on raiding my pantry every week, Chouji in tow, while Ino will sit in my kitchen and gossip incessantly and my parents and your parents will agree that this is no way to raise children and the apocalypse is near."
Shikamaru started to laugh slightly hysterically and couldn't stop.
"God, I like that," he said. "Where will I be in that picture?"
Sakura looked at him lovingly.
"I have no illusions about you," she murmured. "You will be lying out on your meadow somewhere until I start to yell and the whole of Konoha can hear me when I promise you that if you don't appear this very minute, I'll find you and tear you into small and ragged pieces."
Sakura put her arms around Shikamaru's neck and pulled him to her.
"I don't know how much that means to you, but I love you and I want to be with you, no matter what," she said. "I can only hope that's enough because there isn't anything else that I could give you. I can't change the past for you. But you're good enough for me as you are – flaws and mistakes and bad decisions and wounds and everything. It's not a fairy tale but it has to be enough."
Shikamaru looked at her and nodded.
"You don't want to ask me anything else?" he asked quietly.
"On the contrary, I have a lot of questions to ask," Sakura said with an angelic smile. "But I'm going to ask them on our way to The Elegant Kunoichi."
He has to be given some time to recover and regain his composure, she thought. This will take his mind off his confession and moving is good, it burns nervous energy. It will also give me time to think all this over. Plan, regroup and attack. I have to minimalize the damage. I just can't see why he would react this way but his pain is real. I have to change the environment while I analyze the situation. It's a good thing we talked about buying a dress, this is a perfect excuse to leave my flat. He feels imprisoned here. Too much emotion, too intense."
"Trust you to go to a boutique that's Ino's second home," Shikamaru mumbled.
"Bad memories?" Sakura asked while she got her keys and her purse.
Shikamaru coughed.
"You could say that. The last time she wanted me to go shopping with her my arm was broken. It was a complicated fracture, I talked the ANBU meds into giving me a cast after they healed it. I thought that would get me out of the shopping expedition."
Sakura looked at him with narrowed eyes.
"Your arm isn't broken now, so you're not getting out of this. Anyway, did she take the cast off and heal you herself?" she asked. "That's what I would have done."
She had all the things she needed, so after a last look around she let Shikamaru out of her apartment, then she stepped outside, too and closed the door behind them.
"No," Shikamaru said with a grimace. "She said the cast would be ideal to hang her shopping bags on. She said my arm wouldn't get tired."