AN: This one's pretty self-explanatory.
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"I killed someone yesterday," Shikamaru says out of the blue.
They're in Shikamaru's favorite cloud-watching spot, Chouji leaning back against a tree with the ever-present bag of chips in hand, Shikamaru leaning back against Chouji. Akimichis make great pillows.
I killed someone yesterday. That's all he needs to say. Chouji understands.
He remembers being angrier than he's ever been in his entire life, angry enough to almost negate the painful side-effects of the red pepper pill long enough to make his own first kill.
He doesn't remember much else. Bandages around his hands stained with blood and a message of hope on a tree. He threw up later. Much later, after waking up in the hospital and realizing that he'd killed someone.
"Slit his throat," Shikamaru says quietly.
It's interesting—they're similar in a lot of ways, but in this, they're different. Chouji is a kind person. He doesn't get angry easily (well, unless you call him the f-word, but everyone has their exceptions, right?). So it makes sense that his first kill is made while in the grip of an incandescent fury.
But Shikamaru is almost always coolly calculating, never making a move until he's sure how much it will cost him. And Chouji suspects that his first kill was in cold blood. It would fit, in a strange sort of way.
Shikamaru's looking at his hands, in that way that means he's not really looking at them, he's looking through them and seeing something else entirely. And Chouji's a little sad, because he remembers how it felt, how it still feels, the queasy twist in the pit of his stomach that puts him off food for hours sometimes, and he doesn't like the idea of his best friend going through that.
Chouji squeezes his shoulder awkwardly, offers him the bag of chips. "It's all right," he says, because he doesn't know what else to do, and that's what his mother did for him when he woke up with nightmares or the other kids were picking on him.
Shikamaru snorts a half-laugh and jerks his eyes upward, to the clouds, absently snagging a chip or two in the process. He still looks troubled, though, and Chouji doesn't know how to fix it. Sometimes he thinks Shikamaru is spindly and fragile and about as liable to drift away as a kite.
So he rolls up his bag of chips. "I'm hungry," he announces to the world at large.
"You're always hungry," Shikamaru grouses, but Chouji senses a funny sort of relief at the sheer normality of the conversation, and his friend gets to his feet anyway.
"Lunch?" Chouji suggests.
"You think we could con Asuma-sensei into paying?"
Shikamaru's mouth is pulled into that crooked not-quite-smile, and he doesn't have the not-there-ness he gets sometimes. Chouji smiles. It's good enough for him.
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Endnotes: Chouji needs more love, people!
EDIT: What. The. Hell. Stop killing my horizontal rules, you crazy site!