Chapter 10

As soon as Temari's confession is uttered out, it hangs in the air like a heavy presence.

Slowly, Shikamaru's arms around her become slack and when she shrugs them off, they immediately drop returning to his side as he takes a step back away from her.

His action isn't lost to her. Her tears drying even before they can actually form, Temari tilts her chin up as she glares at Shikamaru, bracing herself against the condemnation she expects to see from his eyes.

Glowering is her defense while scrutinizing him closely. His chin is covered in beard to his ears before blending to his dark hair. His eyebrows are a lot thicker than before, below them, his usually bored brown eyes returning her stare with mixed expression of confusion and accusation.

Temari can't blame him for being confused and for accusing her...Shikamaru has thought it is his fault for ogling her and now that he realizes it isn't...That he's inflicted with her curse. He deserves to have an explanation.

"You asked me once for my story," Temari speaks quietly. "When I was barely sixteen, one of my brothers—Kankuro—met someone who shared his passion for puppets. He was an old man with a really bad back. So bad, he had a hump and stooped perpetually. But his eyes, they didn't seem to match his age. His eyes were piercing and cold."

Just then Shikamaru scratches his itchy chin and feels the hair, longer than a mere stubble. "It's going to get much worse, won't it?"

Temari nods her head.

"Go on," he mutters, irritation lacing his voice even when he seems to be fighting for calm.

"The old man, named Sasori, lived in a shack quite a distance from town but Kankuro visited him regularly, wanting to know his secrets about the puppets he invented. I was older by one, two years but still I feel responsible for my brothers ever since our mother died. So when one time Kankuro missed his dinner and did not return the next day, I was frantic. I went to find Sasori's shack and discovered that my brother's leg was badly injured after a fight, of all things, with a puppet and couldn't travel back to our home on his own and I couldn't carry him either."

Temari has that faraway look as she remembers the event that happened almost six years ago. Taking a deep breath, she continues, "Sasori offered to me to stay for the night and I did. The next day, with the sun already up on the horizon, I told him I will be back with men that will carry my brother back to town. He announced coldly that he didn't want strangers coming to his home. He was really angry but I wasn't scared of him. If he had met my father he would understand why I was impervious to his icy rage."

"I was allowed to visit my brother but not to take him home. I threw a fuss about that but Kankuro, the idiot, didn't want to go home just yet. He used his so called disability to stay and learn more from his friend. So for a week or so, that was our routine. I went to Sasori's place, bringing food and a change of clothes for my brother. As the days passed my stay gets longer. Sometimes I simply watched them while they tinkered with their toys, sometimes I do my brother's washing, clean house...things that a housewife performed."

"Let me guess, while you're doing all those things that creep, Sasori," spats Shikamaru, unable to mask his ire any longer, "watched you, following your every movement."

Temari is taken aback by the spite in his words. If she doesn't know better, she would think Shikamaru's jealous and hates the very idea of her staying in another man's home. But she shrugs her suspicion away. Her mountain trespasser is angry because he's intelligent enough to guess where her story is leading to...The start of her curse and his.

"If you want me finish the story," Temari warns, "then better shut up."

"Tch, I really don't need to hear more. Obviously, that bastard fell in love with you and when you refused him, he cursed you," concludes Shikamaru, again scratching his chin. He notices that the more agitated he becomes, the more that those black hairs seem to break through his skin, giving him this deep itchy feeling.

"No," scowls Temari, "It wasn't like that!"

"No? You didn't refuse him?" Shikamaru questions sharply, anger towards Temari exploding in his chest while an almost unbearable twisting pain radiates across the bridge of his nose.

Temari flinches as Shikamaru's nose widens and turns black. With the dark fur covering the lower half of his face and his snout-like nose, he's becoming nearly unrecognizable. His rage is now transforming him fast. Like it did to her at that time ages ago.

Guilt ridden, Temari can only answer, shaking her head adamantly, "No, Sasori didn't curse me and furthermore, he didn't want his curse on me."

"The bastard dared to love you and it turned you into a monster," snarls Shikamaru.

"Yes, he loved me but no, he was not a bastard," rasps Temari, outraged at the perceived unfairness to Sasori giving her voice courage. "At that time, that fact didn't matter to me but now I understand that it does."

"That monster still was the reason you were cursed," utters Shikamaru, his tone abrupt, "So don't defend him."

Temari can see the anger consuming Shikamaru more and more. She clenches her fists, gritting her teeth, she spells the word out, "I'm defending him because right now, I am in his position."

Taken aback, Shikamaru stares at Temari.

"You see me as the reason why your fate is about to change for the worse. That you are angry is understandable," Temari utters. "I felt the same towards Sasori. I blamed him. I hated him."

"Good."

"You are missing my point." Temari snaps, frustrated. "I don't hate him anymore."

"Nice of you to be forgiving. Because unlike you I'm not," exclaims Shikamaru, his eyes sharp as he gazes at Temari, openly criticizing her for coming into Sasori's defense when she has suffered a lot because of that monster.

Temari recognizes what Shikamaru is saying, that he can never forgive her. It will be just futile trying to explain to him that Sasori never wanted to turn her into a monster in the same way that it is never her intention to inflict her curse to him. The ass obviously doesn't desire to listen to her but still she needs for him to understand. "I didn't want to love you—"

Shikamaru snorts loudly, not allowing her to finish. "First, you say you love me then before I can recover from that you say you don't hate Sasori in the same breath you say you don't want to love me." His lips purses tightly. "I'm starting to feel like you're just stringing me along. Like you're concocting a tale to try to pull something over my head."

"Ass, I'm trying to say I didn't plan it for you to turn into—whatever you're turning into!"

Shikamaru bristles. The woman doesn't seem to realize that even if his appearance changes he's not turning into whatever, he's still him. "If that's an apology, it's not acceptable."

Temari's body stiffens as the words she already expected from her mountain trespasser are spoken. Not trusting her voice, she simply nods her head as an uncomfortable silence ensues.

Breaking the uneasy silence, Shikamaru clears his throat, muttering, "After that old man Sasori fell in love with you, what happened to him?"

"He turned into this red-haired good looking young man," Temari says, tight lipped.

"Do you still see him?"

"No. But I will search for him once I get off this mountain."

Shikamaru sneers, "No matter how handsome he turned out to be, he turned you into a witch while I turned you into that." He gestures at Temari from her head to her foot. "If you dislike how I will look like later, tough! You'll just have to bear it."

"I already said I'm not squeamish of you!" snaps Temari.

Shikamaru gives her a disbelieving look.

"I told you I love you, didn't I?"

"Tch, don't worry about that. By the sound of it you're on your way to falling out of love," utters Shikamaru. "By the time I'm fully transformed, you are completely cured of your infatuation."

Temari stomps her foot. "You are aware how ridiculous this conversation is leading to, right?"

Shikamaru gives her a serious look, when she returns it with a withering look of her own, he grumbles, "If you love me, prove it."

Temari raises a dainty brow, wordlessly asking him how.

"Kiss me," replies Shikamaru.

Surprised, Temari stares deeply into Shikamaru's eyes, gauging if his request is just a joke.

"What?" he scowls. "The thought of doing so makes you flinch?"

Temari beholds the challenge glittering in Shikamaru's gaze. Rather than shake her head, she tiptoes, slowly leaning towards him with her hands on his chest supporting her body as it moves upwards. Gradually tilting her head to one side before gently, her lips contact his in a feather light kiss.

Shikamaru's arms shoot up and wrap around her once more, duly stopping her when she's about to move away from him, opening his mouth over hers as he does so.

Temari gasps as she feels the wet exploratory touch against her lips and Shikamaru takes that advantage to deepen their kiss.

Temari can't help it but return the embrace, as her hands creep up to his shoulders, and the kiss, as she tries to mirror his action.

After a while, with both of them breathless, they stare into each other's eyes, trying to read the expression of the other.

Shikamaru speaks first, "Did that break the curse?"

Temari's hands, still resting on Shikamaru's shoulders when one involuntarily lifts up, her fingers ghosting over his cheek to his lips before brushing the beard near the corner of his mouth. "No," she answers and her mind supplies her with the why.

"The kiss won't do. Not, when you don't love me," a voice in her head grumbles at him.

—o0o—

~12 12 13AF P12 22 13~

A/N: As promised, fast update!