They're eating barbeque again. Everything is different, of course, because the little restaurant where they had shared one of their last meals with him is gone, obliterated. Their booth by the window is a memory, as is its wobbly tabletop and the little notch in its seat, where one of them, as a clumsy genin, had inadvertently scratched the wood with an unsecured kunai. The samurai painting that hung across the way is so many ashes scattered on the wind, buffeted into the past along with the porcelain dust of dainty blue-and-white tableware, from which they had sipped soup and plucked up rice and pickled vegetables. The new restaurant is identical to a dozen other shops along this road, one of the quickly constructed shelters raised in the days after the attack of Pain. Like all the others, the café's interior is serviceable, but painfully bland: no art on the walls, no pattern on the ivory china, no personality of any kind.
But they are shinobi, and they don't really mind the simple tableware or the barren walls. What burns is that he isn't here. They're here, together, eating barbeque as they used to do, but he isn't. Like their old haunt, Asuma is gone, a memory scattered on the wind, a scratch in a piece of wood consigned to flames long ago. The empty seat next to Shikamaru puts them all edge. After all the violence, somehow they feel his absence more keenly in the peace.
Shikamaru won't look at the empty seat. Ino can't stop looking, though it's a debatable whether she can see it at all. Her eyes shine with unshed tears, which threaten at any minute to spill over her pale lashes. Chouji is eating, of course, efficiently, quickly, mechanically, but without his usual appetite. Eager to escape Shikamaru's poorly concealed regrets and Ino's tears, he snaps the hot meat from the grill and swallows it down almost whole, burning his throat. He isn't particularly hungry for barbeque, not here, not while they are pretending like things are the same as they used to be. Barbeque with Team Ten has been a failed experiment. It isn't the same without Asuma.
Asuma-sensei's death isn't exactly fresh, and yet it is, because they had never really had the time to come to terms with it. Before they had even laid his memory to rest within themselves, he had returned to haunt them. His parting words of praise hurt terribly, because he should have been there. He should have seen them become the masters of their arts, should still be guiding their paths, their careers. The brief reunion had festered in wounds which had never healed in the first place and made the loss of him all the more painful.
Chouji's eyes linger a moment on the empty chair before alighting on the grill. He takes a big cut and stuffs the whole thing in his mouth, almost choking on it. Four pieces remain, and then they can leave this painful, awkward place.
"For gods' sakes, Chouji, slow down." Ino's voice is steady, despite the tears shimmering in her jewel-like eyes. "You'll make yourself sick."
A couple behind them snickers, and Chouji flushes. Shikamaru regards the pair of diners with a cool warning in his eyes, and the snickering stops. Since the ending of the war, that vaguely hostile chill pervades his character. Few of their friends know how to converse with him anymore; he is distant, cold, and inscrutable.
Ino's mouth purses angrily. She probably hadn't meant to embarrass him in front of anyone else, but she is as stubborn as a child, refusing to recognize any fault of her own.
She shoves her plate away. "I can't eat here," she mutters. Twisting in her chair, she jabs at Chouji. Her finger burrows cruelly, deep into the meat of his torso before he flinches, and a wall of thick muscle meets her elegant, tapered forefinger. "And you were supposed to be trying to diet, anyway."
Swiping at her eyes, she jabs the muscle again and leaves her finger buried in the soft flesh. "Didn't you promise?"
He opens his mouth to mumble an explanation, to tell her that he just wants to get them out of here, to finish whatever it is that they're doing as quickly as possible, but he can't find the words. He puts another piece of barbeque in his mouth.
"I guess your promises don't mean very much," she accuses softly, hunching futilely against her grief. Her voice is as cold as Shikamaru's eyes.
"Ino," Shikamaru snaps, turning that icy stare on her. Chouji looks at his plate and puts his chopsticks down.
She snaps back, because anger is easier to bear than sorrow. "I don't think gorging on barbeque counts as keeping his promise to…" She can't say his name, so she coughs to cover her breaking voice and turns back to Chouji.
"Anyway, it shouldn't be too much to ask for you to take care of yourself." Her finger never left his side; she takes a hunk of his flesh and twists it, as hard as she can, before finally releasing him.
"Dammit, Ino." Shikamaru slams his hands on the table, hard enough for other patrons to turn, curious about the argument.
"Well, it's selfish!" Ino hisses, shaking, eyes bright with fury and tears. "We already lost him, and now Chouji's trying to eat himself to death." Her arms cross her chest, hands gripping her upper arms so tightly that the pale skin turns white under her fingers.
"Chouji is fine the way he is," Shikamaru tells her flatly. "Asuma-sensei should have known that. You should know it, too." He glances at Chouji, who can't look at his teammates. "So should Chouji," he adds.
"Fine?" Ino's scorn is full of bitterness, full of regret. "He'll have a coronary before he's thirty. And I…" Her voice breaks again. "I can't…"
"I'm sorry, Ino." Chouji finally manages to speak. It isn't the first time she's gotten angry about his apparent lack of concern for his health. It is the first time her fears for him have reduced her to tears.
"See you later, Shikamaru." He slides out of the booth, patting Ino gently on the back as he goes.
"Chouji, don't be stupid. Sit down."
Shikamaru is upset. That in itself is telling, because Shikamaru rarely bothers to get upset. Mildly annoyed, perhaps. He is angry and hurting, and truthfully, so is Ino. So Chouji shakes his head kindly, raps the table with a farewell gesture, and tries not to let his own hurt cause his friends to suffer further.
Besides, Ino is right. Her own pain may have caused her to lash out without discretion, exposing her feelings and augmenting them with passion, but she is right. He hasn't done as Asuma-sensei requested. Shikamaru is wrong; he isn't "fine" the way he is, if he can be so callous toward a friend's suffering, so indifferent to his beloved mentor's last request. But then, his worth is the only thing about which he has ever known his brilliant, indolent friend to be mistaken. He no longer marvels at the novelty of his old friend's over-favorable opinion of him. Rather, he strives to be the man Shikamaru thinks he already is.
Someone calls Chouji a fatass on the way back to the Akimichi estate. He should pound the man into a pulpy mess on the sidewalk, but he doesn't. He doesn't want to fight, not with Ino's accusation playing on repeat in his head. The words sting – but she's like that, a stinging insect who injures and then forgets about its victim. Quick to anger, quick to forget.
Chouji is precisely the opposite. No stranger's passing insult could pierce his soul like Ino's biting observations that he dishonors their teacher, or her sincere fear that he is causing irreparable damage to his health. (On the latter point, he thinks she is probably wrong. There is no history of cardiovascular diseases in the Akimichi family, nor any other of the diseases she recites whenever she tells him to diet, and every physical to which he has ever been subjected has pronounced him perfectly healthy.) But whether she is right or wrong about his health is a moot point, because she is right about his promise to Asuma-sensei. And because she believes he's digging an early grave for himself and is afraid of losing him, so afraid that watching him eat makes her cry.
At least she wants him to diet because she's worried about him, he muses, as his steps carry him to the Akimichi compound. She nags him because she cares, not because she's embarrassed to be seen with him. There was a time she would have avoided appearing in public with him. Ever since Asuma died, though, she seeks him out more and more frequently. It's sweet, in a way, because Chouji hadn't been entirely sure of her feelings toward the men in her team until after their sensei's death. But her warmth for them isn't the natural bonding that occurs after the death of a loved one. She's afraid, terribly afraid, that Asuma won't be her only loss.
She needs to talk, but few of her closest friends have experienced such grief, and she lacks the patience to wheedle anything from Shikamaru, who only talks when he's in the mood to do so. The brilliant nin's own grief weighs so heavily on him that he can scarcely bear being in the presence of hers, let alone in conversation with it. So Chouji smothers his regrets and listens to her, validating her feelings, soothing her anxieties, neither challenging her rampages nor discrediting her exaggerations, grateful to be of use.
Shikamaru has also been more talkative, lately, at least to Chouji. Reminiscing occasionally causes him to fall into that black despair that plagued him early on, but such bouts are seldom long. Once in a while, he can even laugh at bittersweet memories. But he is taciturn and moody and waspish, snapping at Ino, at his family, at his superiors. Anger, never fully appeased, seethes in his belly, fermenting into a bitter cocktail of loss and regret, and impotent fury. To cope, he has latched onto behaviors and mannerisms that keep Asuma alive. He spends a lot of time with Kurenai and plays a lot of Shogi. And he smokes. Incessantly. And when he isn't smoking, he coughs, deep, gut-wrenching coughs that shake him like a leaf in a storm, barely holding to its tree.
If Ino seeks Chouji out when she is anxious, then Shikamaru always seems to appear when his mood is bleakest. Almost nightly he appears in Chouji's window, black eyes shadowed with ugly things. Sometimes he'll talk, quick, racing descriptions of what had taken place at Kurenai's, memories of old missions, jokes he'd heard. And sometimes he says nothing at all, but throws himself into Chouji's chair and stares at nothing until he finally passes out, so weary of being weary that he can no longer keep his eyes open.
All of this frightens Ino, particularly the smoking. Perhaps it's the medic in her, or perhaps, like Chouji, her insides seize up with sympathetic pain at each ragged cough. She had nagged Asuma about it occasionally; now full-blown shouting matches erupt between her and Shikamaru - Shikamaru, who never used to bother arguing with her. Chouji doesn't like the cigarettes or Shikamaru's hacking coughs any better than Ino does, but he understands. Shikamaru cannot relinquish his unhealthy misery, because moving on means leaving Asuma behind, losing some of those insignificant memories which are now of paramount importance.
Ino worries about Shikamaru. She frets over his brooding silences, his uncharacteristic outbursts, and his cigarettes. She complains to Chouji, often and earnestly.
Almost as often and as earnestly as she nags and wheedles and cajoles and scolds him about his weight.
When someone has an irrational fear, telling them not to be afraid is pointless. Perhaps someday Ino will outgrow her phobia. But in the meantime, he has been unfaithful to his word, and unkind to Ino. He is her friend and Asuma's, and up until now, he has failed them both.
The only comfort to a person with a phobia is to remove the source of their fear. Though he always reeks of cigarettes, Shikamaru doesn't smoke in front of his team when he can avoid it. He, too, has recognized her fears for what they are and tries to avoid frightening her. It would be better if he quit smoking altogether, and Chouji knows he knows it. He can't do it. But he does what he can; even vexed with her (as he continually seems to be), he tries to shield her from her fears, an effort that does the lazy shinobi credit. Chouji hasn't even done that much, but he is going to do better.
He slips into his house unnoticed, just another tall, beefy guy with reddish hair. The stairs that lead to his room are close; he mounts them thoughtfully, mulling over his resolution. Removing the source of Ino's fear means dieting, and he has never been good at restraining himself. He is a born hedonist, enthusiastic, whether eating or fighting, loving or training, he puts his whole heart into the act and takes whatever pleasure he can from the moment. Consequences are always a thing for the future.
There is a full-length mirror in his bedroom. Always he has found his reflection mildly surprising, because he rarely looks at it. His hair falls just as it wishes, regardless of his machinations; his armor is a simple pull-over affair that requires no special adjusting. He cannot remember the last time he saw himself naked.
With a sigh, he locks his door and undresses. As he goes to the mirror, a heavy feeling settles in his stomach. Though his heavily muscled frame bears the extra weight well, there is a silly looking tan line around his neck and wrists; his arms, torso, and legs are as white as snow. He can clearly see the livid marks – they would bruise – where Ino had pinched him. Grimacing, he takes an experimental pinch of flesh for himself, watching his hands in the mirror. His belly overflows his fingers, so he gathers it in his hands, realizing for the first time in a long time just how much of it there is.
His stomach grumbles, and he rolls his eyes. It sounds a bit like a mewling animal, crying piteously for food. The Great White Beast, he thinks ruefully, and pats his belly in sympathetic commiseration. He can't feed it; he has made up his mind to do right by his promise to Asuma and his responsibility to Ino. So there is nothing left to do but redress and avoid the dinner table.
Belting his trousers, he moves the buckle to the next hole, mostly out of curiosity, and an idea comes to him. Perhaps what he needs in order to succeed at this diet is a constant reminder, an ever-present consequence.
He finishes dressing and heads back down the stairs, out the door, and into the workshop across the courtyard. The man there, one of many employed by the Akimichi clan, is pleased to assist him. He measures out and cuts a length of iron chain for Chouji, approximately the gauge of security chains occasionally found on household doors. It's good, solid chain, sturdy, reliable, and heavy. Chouji asks for and receives a small, locking clasp, similar to a screw-lock carabiner, of the same gauge as the chain. He thanks the workman and returns to the main house.
In his room he removes his red armor once again and stands before his mirror bare-chested, feeling foolish. He would like to forget the whole thing – he has been over-eager, as usual, to jump on a silly idea. But he sees the livid skin on his side, and he remembers Ino's tears and her fear-driven cruelty. He still desires to be the person Shikamaru thinks he is, and he thinks that such a man could bear some humiliation for the people he loves.
Holding up the chain, he eyes its length warily. If he cannot restrain himself, if he overeats, the chain will be there to remind him of his duties. The relationship will not be a friendly one, he fears, but he cannot ask anyone else to keep him in line and cannot trust himself.
Besides, it will be good to be able to keep track of his progress. It will be motivating, he tells himself, trying to be happy about this unpleasant decision. He tries to think of an appropriate reward for meeting his goals, but his stomach growls again, and all he can think about is food.
Chouji wraps the chain around his waist, just above his hips. His estimate had been close; there are only two links to spare. He tightens the chain two links, one for Ino and one for Asuma, reconsiders, and places the clasp six links from the end of the chain. Two extra links, he reasons, as an apology to both for taking so long to fulfill his responsibilities. The chain is awkward, but he expected that. He begins to screw the clasp in place, but reconsiders again, and leaves seven links free. Five links too tight.
Pale, flabby flesh bulges above and below, and for the first time, he finds himself a little self-conscious. A deep breath fails to calm him, because it is suddenly hard to breathe deeply. His belly strains against the chain, the flesh swelling even more noticeably. The armor will hide any tell-tale disfigurements, he knows, but he tries it on anyway, twisting and turning in front of the mirror. Nothing is revealed, and Chouji never takes his armor off in front of anyone. His private crutch will remain private.
The chain is uncomfortably tight as he lowers himself to sit on his bed, and he wonders if he shouldn't loosen it. That last link he had taken for himself, maybe it wouldn't be too wrong of him to undo it. But it is a punishment, albeit self-inflicted. Punishments are a kind of consequence, and consequences don't go away just because they hurt. Chouji should have stomped all over the man who insulted him on the walk home, and he didn't. So he shakes his head and leaves the chain alone, hoping the discomfort will remind him to take care of business next time.