Disclaimer: This fanfiction and image used for the cover is merely written for the enjoyment of the author and readers and is in no way associated with the creators or producers of Naruto, no copyright infringement is intended.
Shikadai definitely had his father's brain. That much he knew, he was analytical, he could pass the academy classes in his sleep. He wasn't your average kid but sometimes he couldn't help but wish he was. When he was young home was everything it should be. It was warm, comforting, welcoming. His mom was never the most coddling mother out there but he never minded, that's how she was but she was never cold either. No that hadn't started until he was around four or maybe she had always been that way and she had just hidden it better. His parent's interactions had become brief and tense.
Something had happened to his father a long time ago, something that had made him always seem to have an air of bitterness more often than not, like he was made at the world. He still loved him though. He was often busy being the Hokage's main advisor and was seldom home but when he was sometimes he'd play shogi with him or they'd go cloud watching together and he treasured those memories because that was when the bitterness would slightly fade and maybe the odd time his father would crack one of his small smirks. The only time he could recall seeing his father truly at peace was when his Aunt Ino was around, even then there was always a hidden sadness that seemed to linger. He had asked Uncle Choji once, what could have possibly made his father like that.
"People will always want what they can't have Shikadai and if you were to somehow get what you had always wanted more than anything only to have it ripped right out of your hands one day in an instant wouldn't you be kind of bitter too?"
That was the only response he had received but being the observant kid he was he couldn't help but notice the slight sadness in his Uncle's eyes or the way they had drifted down the table to when his Aunt Ino and father had been quietly conversing at the other end when he had said this.
His mother too he had noticed was not happy a lot of the time. She was always kind to him but she was bitter too and even more so when his father would come home and then disappear again to the roof or the backyard to cloud watch. She was easily agitated, but she hadn't always been that way. He had tried to remember a time before and then had realized it had started when he was very young, he couldn't pinpoint exactly when it began but he could remember a time when she always had a warm smile and comforting ara but now that felt like a lifetime ago. Now she was always stern and seem to take more and more frequent trips to Sana like she was running from something.
It didn't seem to just be a problem between his parents though. He noticed it whenever the three families would get together, it was always easier to see connections when everyone was in one place. His father's gaze always seemed to linger on his Aunt Ino whenever he seemed to think so one was looking and her eyes always seemed sadder somehow whenever his mother would be with his father. The more he watched her the more he saw his Aunt in a whole new light. Nowadays she always seem to do a slight double-take when she saw him, or how there was always a more prominent gleam of sadness in her big blue eyes when she looked him in the eye.
It had been on one particular afternoon when he was around seven that all the pieces had finally made sense to him. His father had made a rare appearance at the flower shop, something about a message for his Aunt from the Hokage but as he stood in the doorway waiting for Inojin his curiosity got the best of him and so he stood there watching them interact and that's when he saw it. How his Aunt's hands reached for his father's hair and his father's own hand had reached for her cheek and his fingers so softly brushed over her face. It was the softest look he had ever seen on either of their faces and the touches of a lover. Then it all began to make sense, why his father always seemed bitter at the world or why his mother was running. She was trying to get always, away from the heartache, the heartache that her husband was never really hers, that she was merely borrowing him for an unspecified amount of time. His heart had already belonged to someone else and that someone else was his Aunt Ino.
He had his mother's eyes, that's why his Aunt always seemed to hurt when she saw them she had always wished they would be her eyes not his mother's.
When he had come home that night the moon already rising he found his mother was gone. Probably back to Sana. But his father, seeing his father had made his heartbreak all over again. He was laying in their backyard looking up at the night sky and he had looked broken,
"If you were to somehow get what you had always wanted more than anything only to have it ripped right out of your hands one day in an instant wouldn't you be kind of bitter too?"
To this day years later he was never told the full story but he didn't need to be. He had enough information to make a pretty good guess. His father and his Aunt were probably together long before he was even a thought but then something must have split them causing this chain of events. Causing all the heartache, the more he thought about it the more it made sense. They were practically made for each other, like yin and yang. Such opposites, he was calm and lazy and she was loud and bossy but together they made perfect sense. Then he thought about his mother and Uncle Sai, it was almost sad how similar they were to his father and Aunt. In the end his father had picked a woman that resembles her. His mother, a strong, independent, bossy woman, and his Aunt had picked a man that was quiet, strong, and calm like his father. They learned to love them, probably over time but it would never be true love. They were only stand-ins, substitutes because no matter how harsh that sounded it was the truth. In the end, they were only borrowing them for an unspecified amount of time. They would always make their way back to one another in the end because that's just how fate had written it and fate will always favor the original story.
