There are a time and a place for admiring the beautiful things in life, and these are the moments where he sincerely cherished what he saw. When the sun first hit the wall of darkness, it gave birth to warm hues - it made him wonder how it reflected in his eyes. Goosebumps climbed up his arms and tingled his neck - to which he pondered if it was the devastatingly gorgeous view or the minuscule but sudden shift in temperature that brought forth the wave of goosebumps. But also, what the sudden change in temperature brought was a slight sniffle - and it bothered him a lot.
"Shikamaru, it's not going to do you any good to be out here in this weather. The seasons are changing, and even though you're a conditioned shinobi, I doubt normal human anatomy would be able to withstand the weather."
"Sakura. Good morning to you too."
The best medic the world had to offer stared at him with glints and shimmers of question, concern, and amusement. He recalls the time when she and his old Genin teammate were friends, rivals, then friends again. He appreciated it when the two were on happy and bright terms in their innocent years. He disfavoured it when the two were on brattier and ten-times-more-likely-to-induce-a-headache terms. He was relieved when they stepped past that barrier of an obsessive love for Sasuke Uchiha and aimed to make themselves better people, kunoichi, and friends. It gave light to their talents and an innate skill to learn quickly - to which everyone respected and valued. It gave way for him, Shikamaru Nara, to develop a crush on the rosette.
The development had troubled him a lot when he first realised. It brought forth an onslaught of repetitive remarks of the specific word, "Troublesome." It was also highly unfortunate everyone knew of his little crush, everyone except for Sakura Haruno. Somehow, Konoha Twelve and their old Jounin instructors knewof it. He singled it down to the only person with an abnormally amount of intuition to find out about his puppy love and then to tell everyone about it, Ino.
Occasionally, it would infuriate him how little he did because he was such a lazy fool. But at the same time, it relaxed him because he acknowledged his fear of confessing. He preferred the simple things in life and playing it safe was the simple way to go. Unfortunately for him, this is where it gets difficult - where his mind starts to go in loops. It starts to whisper to him about how Sakura's scent would drift with the wind where he'd get whiffs of it, distracting him. Then the paranoid half of the brain would whisper-shout how creepy it was. The two halves would go back of forth, back and forth, always the same sequence: her silky hair, her eyes, her giggles, her crazily sexy strength. It would then morph into: she'd find him weird, refuse to talk to him, refuse to see him as a patient, straight up shut him out of her life. These arguments always made his stomach flutter with love or churn in distress. It made everything more,
"Troublesome."
"What is, Shikamaru?"
"Sun."
"Don't your pupils stop a lot of light from entering your eyes?"
He grunts, hoping that it sounded like neither an affirmation or refutation because he refuses to be caught in a dumb lie. He catches the twitch of a smile in Sakura's face and it sets him on edge.
"You know, Shikamaru, the sunrise brings out your softer side. While I may be dense, have a little more faith in my ability to realise when someone has a crush on me. There's also the fact that you've been staring at my profile for 5 minutes while looking wistful."
He grunts again to shamefully avert his eyes to stare at the brightening dawn.
"Come here the same time tomorrow. Maybe then you'll have enough guts to tell me how you feel and then I'll let you know I feel the same way."
For a millisecond, every cell in his body freezes before going into an excited frenzy. Her footsteps fade away and he stares down the rising sun. Dawns are really troublesome.