Clouds, Storm and Sun

By Maroon Sorrow

Chapter 4: Waiting Through Rain

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Unless you reviewed previously you have no right to yell at me for the lack of an update. If you flame me, Naruto marries Rock Lee. ( Naruto: Whaaaaaattt!)

Grinning, but out of breath, Naruto arrives in front of Shikamaru's house. As Shika is half a minute or so behind him, Naruto has a moment to catch his breath while glancing around at the outside of the house. He notes the carefully kept plants in the window box and thinks of the plants languishing at his house. I need to water them when I get home, he muses. Although the thought doesn't extend much further, it conjures a up picture of dying plants during the summer, stifling while Naruto is with Sasuke...

Naruto looks for something else to think about. Unfortunately, several strange lawn ornaments in the Nara family yard make Naruto think of the strange Branch house and the designs that were littered throughout it. ' Funny, it was never warm in either of their houses. Not like the Desert...'

Shikamaru crashes into Naruto's arm. " Ack... well, I suppose that you'd have to be in much better than shape than me, being the Future Hokage and all that ..." Shika grins up at Naruto, slightly winded. Naruto grins back. " If you could outrun me, I'd be doomed." Shikamaru shakes his head, dog-like, sprinkling water everywhere. Naruto inwardly laughs at the similarity between Shikamaru and Kiba for that moment.

" Tisn't much of an accomplishment to outrun an ambitionless Chu-nin such as myself..." Shikamaru kneels and starts to work on the lock. " Lock Opening no Jutsu..." he mutters under breath, picking the lock with a kunai and ducking to avoid a bunch of shuriken that fly at him in response.

Naruto blinks. " So- why are we breaking into what supposedly is your house?" For a moment the thought of Shikamaru as a thief crosses his mind, but he quickly dismisses it. " Is there something you aren't telling me, Nara?" he says mock seriously.

" Yeah- duck." says Shikamaru as one of the statues in the garden spits a kunai at Shikamaru, trying to spear Naruto in the process.

What the hell? thinks Naruto, neatly catching the kunai.

"Anything ELSE you want to tell me?"

" My mom sets up several security traps on the door- just for me. She used to arrange them to all go off when I used my house key, so I started just picking the lock. This way I deal with the traps one at a time. Really, they aren't dangerous, only troublesome." Shikamaru winces. " The door's being stubborn today."

" Why...? "

" She figured that if she couldn't make me practice at school, I'd at least get trained at home."

A quiet descends, interrupted only by the sounds of the lock clicking and traps going off. Naruto has been bludgeoned into silence by Shika's calm statement, so he concentrates on avoiding several traps, including a small fireball and a net.

Avoiding a vicious flowerpot, Shikamaru chuckles somewhat bitterly, remembering the countless projects his mother would undertake around the house to get him to train. 'The most ridiculous were... "the kitchen cupboards..." he says out loud.

Naruto sweatdrops. " Cupboards...?" he asks no one in particular.

' What a weird lock...' It's strangely funny now that he thinks about it. Him, standing there, wet, Shikamaru, calmly picking an apparently evil lock, and several random objects attacking them.

'Being attacked by kitchen cupboards...is surely the most undignified thing any Shinobi has endured...' thinks Shika. He sighs. The lock clicks open. Several small fireballs fall from the overhead. " Dispel no Justu " says Shikamaru, absently making the signs of the Monkey and the Rat. " This is why envy is a sin..." mutters Shika as the fireballs dissipate.

Standing, he opens the door for Naruto, who hesitantly steps in. " Why does she still rig your lock though? You aren't really in the academy anymore."

" I guess it's become a hobby for her. At least it's just the door. She's toned it down, believe it or not. Back when I was in the academy, any random object might attack at any time."

Naruto sneezes. " Oh- crap- Sorry to have kept you in the rain. Stay there and I'll get you a towel." Shikamaru takes off his shoes and vanishes behind a door, muttering something about " Drying - Off no Jutsu."

Naruto is left there dripping onto the Nara carpet, surrounded by a living room that looks like something out of a " Happy Homes " magazine. It's quite a contrast to the deadly garden filled with traps.

" Aah- Achoo!" At least I'm not under the tree, he thinks.

Meanwhile, Shikamaru is hunting through his closet for a suitable towel. He spots a non- peach pink one, but as he's getting it, several towels decide to tip over and fall on his head. " Mmph!" he says angrily as the towels try their hardest to squish him. " Levitation-no-Jutsu!" he thinks angrily, putting the towels back. After doing this, he stands there for a moment, suddenly aware of the silence and the rumblings of thunder peppered with lightning flashes.

"It was a dark and stormy night..." he says sardonically, thinking of a time when the towels attacked him in quite a different way.

I wish I could tell you, Naru. My mother, riddled with ambition and envy, decided my future before I was born. Bored with our ordinary way of life, she threw herself into making me the best ninja she could. Tactics, battle training...she started teaching me as soon as she thought I could understand. And as soon as I turned five- survival exercises. She made it so any object around the house might attack at any moment. If I went to the kitchen to try and eat, I'd have to get around the booby trapped door, avoid several trip wires, not get eaten by the cupboards and then ascertain whether or not the bread was poisoned. After all, to be the Hokage, I'd have to be the most clever of all the Shinobi of the time... This was the justification for putting me through hell every day. And people ask me why I have no ambition.

The only things leisurely I could do during the week were reading and Go: she said it would help me become an expert at considering several variables. After considering all the variables, I decided I didn't want to be the fucking Hokage if I couldn't have a normal life. I never told my mother.. Once when I was little, I asked her for a break during training. She laughed, and told me to look up " Sloth " in the dictionary. The first day at the Academy, I did only one assignment. I drew the word Envy and wrote a definition.

When I got back, I gave her the paper and left to go watch clouds.

I didn't know it was legal to use Genjutsu's on your children. Or to have towels and bed sheets attack them. All for my own supposed good. People whisper about how lucky I am to be so smart.

...After all, if was going to waste my time at the Academy, then I certainly couldn't waste time at home. After all, it's not like I needed sleep. She thought that I was going to give up. She thought that I was going to ask her pardon and start training. Again. And people asked me why I slept in class.

Well, Naru is freezing in the living room, and that Uchiha can go to hell, because Shikamaru knows that genius has to be worked for and Sasuke was always doomed. And Naruto is never wearing gray again as long as Shikamaru is around, because there is something worth trying for now. And he's angry now...

Shikamaru comes back into the living room holding a large blue towel with a cloud pattern on it and hands it to Naruto. " Don't you need one?"

" Nah. I'm fairly cold resistant. "

" Lucky." Naruto sighs. " I don't like rain."

Shikamaru is torn between laughing and helping Naruto towel off his hair. Shame he doesn't have a camera...Naruto's hair is dark gold when wet.

"C'mon, let's get some Hot Chocolate or something. And... you should take off your sweater, it'll just make you colder at this point."

Naruto glances around at the impossibly neat living room and realized that he's leaving water footprints in the carpet. " Where would I put it? I wouldn't want to mess up your living room."

"We can hang it up in the bathroom later." ' No more procrastinating, take off your damn sweater!' Naruto does, and Shikamaru goes into the kitchen and concentrates on getting out the Coco packets before he starts staring.

Naruto pads in with a " squelch, squelch..." He glares at his shoes.

" Can I help? "

" Take off your shoes, wring out your pants, and wash your hands in the sink. Then, pour some water in the teapot." says Shikamaru without turning around.

" Sure... " Naruto takes off his shoes. " I shouldn't have run through those puddles."

" No kidding...'specially in that clothing. Sweats absorb water. Now...the fishnet I'm wearing is mostly holes anyway... and my pants are waterproof." Shikamaru tries not to be too appreciative of Naruto's wet grayish- white t-shirt.

Naruto can't help but feel a little awkward. Here he is standing in the middle of Shikamaru's kitchen, holding a sodden rag that was formerly his sweater, watching his- his friend ( how did that happen?) make Cocoa. His supposedly super-lazy friend. Where is all this energy coming from?

As if reading Naruto's thoughts, Shikamaru turns around, dries off his hands and pulls up a chair.

" Sit down."

The blond looks down at the chairs. " I can't. I'm all wet. And... there's little deer embroidered onto the cushions. Embroidered."

" When did that happen?" Shika shrugs. " How strange... If it bothers you, just remove them and sit on the chair. I don't care... but you aren't going to stand there the entire time while we wait for the water to boil."

" Ack- the water!" Naruto hastily pours some water into the teapot that Shikamaru got out. He then places it on the stove, and then... Shikamaru is making a valiant effort not to enjoy his view of Naruto's back.

' At this rate, I'll end up like Jiraya...' muses Shikamaru.

However, Naruto is humming and it almost feels normal to have someone over. After starting the water, he gingerly picks up the cushion and sets it neatly on the counter. The kitchen is warmer than he expected and Naruto hasn't been over to anyone's house in oh -so -long. Shikamaru is staring out the window, watching the rain splatter. His silhouette is framed against the window, chocolate brown hair spilling down his fishnet shirt in a braid.

" I don't think you're as lazy as everyone believes you are."

"... really? " Shikamaru's tone momentarily makes Naruto think he's treading on dangerous ground.

" Yeah. It's easy to oversimplify, you know? It probably takes a lot of effort to be that lazy..." Naruto laughs.

" You get used to it... It must be hard to be that energetic."

" You get used to it. Ramen is a great energy source." 'People start to expect things of you and you can't let them down, can you?' It's not like Naruto isn't energetic, he's just not always energetic...

There's a strange kind of tension between Naruto and Shikamaru, something in the way their gaze meets. Not hate, or love, not yet, not anger. Just something shared...

"It is easy... to stereotype people." Shikamaru's words are spoken softly and clearly. " To be cruel to them just because everyone else is. Even though they didn't do anything... Even though they aren't any more strange or cursed than you yourself are." Shikamaru regrets the words as they come out.

Naruto's eyes have gone strangely distant. " Yeah, but...everyone has some personal curses and blessings. They're usually abouteven. I mean, look at me. Because of my sunny personality, I can mostly ignore all the bad things. But if I were Sasuke- well, I would've gone psycho quite a while ago. I'm happy that I'm not Sasuke!"

Solemnity gone, Naruto pulls up a chair. " Do I get marshmallows in my Cocoa?" he asks, apparently unaware that he's just said something that's borderline philosophical.

Shika blinks and then throws a perfectly embroidered pillow at him. " Get them yourself, lazy."

" YOU are calling ME lazy? " says Naruto, pointing. " Although- actually I am. So, where are the marshmallows?"

"I have no clue." shrugs Shika. " How troublesome. We'd better start looking."

" You don't know where the marshmallows are...? Are you completely sure this is your house?"

Shikamaru mutters something about "Food Summoning no Jutsu" and starts to open cabinets, not noticing that the rain has started to dissipate.

After a brief, angry downpour, the rain seems to have rained itself out. Inside the warm kitchen, Naruto and Shikamaru are busily forgetting everything that they remember about each other. And Naruto is learning that Shikamaru drinks his Cocoa with no milk and Shika secretly thinks that Naruto is going to get a sugar high if he eats one more marshmallow. Oops, too late.

It's funny, but melting marshmallows look almost cloudlike. Shika can't remember the last time he was so sunny. Probably, the first time he went out to watch clouds.

: Sunshine is most enjoyed after a Cloudy Day:

tbc?

Author's rant:

The depressing lack of responses to my last chapter almost made me quit. And who the hell are all you people who've put me on your author's alert list but haven't reviewed even once? I'm not fishing for freakin' compliments, I just want a " I was here." There's no point in wasting my time writing if no one is reading my story. Show your support for Shikamaru/Naruto, people!

Actual A/N:

I'm not writing the last chapter of Colors until I get up the guts to write poetry. Sooo... it could be a while. ( Yeah, I know I promised...) Shikamaru and Naruto are finally starting to act a little more like teenage boys. I know that Shika doesn't really braid his hair, but things have changed in five years, no? I might be adding Ino next chapter, maybe even Ino/ Sakura hints too... And I like Hinata/ Rock Lee, although I'm not sure how I'd do that. Yes, I'm addicted to strange pairings. If there's anything else you think I could fit in, ask! Otherwise, it might me another few months before I get un-lazified enough to do Chapter Five...

Uh... Kyubi keep you safe.