Inspired by Chapter 406
After that imperative speech, everything else doesn't require words.
They'd sit in silence and even the smallest grunt from either of them would make perfect sense, because if grunts don't make sense then nothing else ever would.
He said that it was a part of growing up, and Naruto knows, Naruto knows it damn well - he knew it when he forged a friendship with Sasuke, he knew it when Sasuke left for good, he knew it when Sasuke grew up, leaving him behind, leaving him in the damned lurch.
Naruto knew it, but he never really felt it. He saw it, he saw the changes, he saw Sakura becoming - well, a woman to say the most (he'd never live if she knew what he actually thought of her chest size), he heard voices break and he even rode Akamaru for 5 minutes before, but the idea of growing up never really hit him.
And then he realised, as Shikamaru lit a cigarette (but didn't smoke it), that sitting right next to him was someone he thought would never grow up, but did.
Someone who pretended to be asleep during an invasion when they were 12, someone who barely got better marks than he did because he thought pencils were too heavy.
Someone who grew up and didn't leave him behind.
Naruto tried to hide his grin as he thought of the silliest notion that perhaps Shikamaru grew up slightly quicker than he did so that there would be someone helping him along the way.
The cigarette went out, and Shikamaru sighed, his face suddenly full of tiny wrinkles that no teenager should have. He said that he'd left that spot, but he never said that he wasn't sad about it.
Naruto's expression faltered.
"Wish I could have been there."
"For what?"
"I don't know. To hold your hand... or something."
"You feeling alright?"
"Never been better."
Shikamaru reached over.
"...I'll hold your hand."
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