"It was always going to happen, she's been dead since the beginning."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The first time Uchiha Toshiko came back to Konoha after leaving for university, she hadn't yet been back in town a full twenty-four hours before Konohamaru— her childhood rival, her friend —came barreling through her bedroom door, waking her up and sending her still half asleep self sprawling to the floor. Toshiko could hear her ōoji-san yell up from the floor below, Don't break my house Sarutobi! Or my niece!
The scarf Konohamaru had constantly worn throughout their childhood was still wrapped around his neck, patched up in various places and while he had long ago forgone the goggles, dark sunglasses sat atop his head. Despite the fact the sun had only just risen a few short hours before.
"What the hell Konohamaru?" Toshiko hissed to the cackling boy. The two of them hadn't always been close, and while perhaps they still weren't they were closer then they had been two years prior. When Shikamaru had broken her heart and everyone else had gone off to university they had been left behind leaving their childhood rivalry to flourish into an odd sort of friendship.
Konohamaru still jumped out at Toshiko and she of course still hit him over it, but they watched moved together and got food and hung out as well; their interactions were no longer just quick spars in the street or verbal beatdowns amongst their friends, namely because none of their friends had come back yet.
Even though they had all flown the coop two years before, not a single one of their old friend group— except for Naruto and Sasuke, who were still dating and of course visited home together as they were attached at the hip —had come back to town at the same time. Ino had come back only to leave three weeks before Lee or Kiba had come home and the two boys had gone back to where their school was a week before Sakura or Choji had come back to town; Shikamaru had never.
He'd gone off to America, leaving her in the dust, apparently content to forget the years they had spent together.
Friends, Toshiko wanted to laugh, Shikamaru had claimed he had wanted to stay friends but he hadn't. Shikamaru had never lied to Toshiko before, and yet he'd lied straight to her face when he'd broken her heart because it was apparent he hadn't wanted to stay friends with her. If he had he would have responded to email she had sent him his first week, wishing him well and the best of luck at some point.
But he hadn't.
He'd probably deleted the email and forgotten all about her. Forgetting about him wasn't an option, not when his name was engraved on her heart. Not when his fingerprint was tattooed against her soul.
"Come on!" Konohamaru laughed, "Don't tell me you didn't miss me!"
"Like a hole in the head," Toshiko glowered as she got up; she threw the blankets that had come tumbling off the bed with her back onto her mattress as she got to her feet. Though as she did her lips did twitch upwards; Konohamaru wasn't her best friend, no one had replaced Shikamaru or Sakura's title since either of them had walked out of her life but he was a good friend and even if he was obnoxious, he was right.
She had missed him. And he knew that because once she was to her feet and her blankets back on her bed, Konohamaru swept her up in a tight hug, one that lifted Toshiko up off her feet and had the older girl tightening her grip around his shoulders in fear he would drop her.
When Konohamaru set Toshiko back on her feet and she straightened out her arms so that she could look at him; she noticed he got a new hair cut, no longer did he have those goofy looking sideburns or that sad excuse for a soul-patch.
"Why are you here so early?" When she had been on the floor, the alarm clock that sat on her windowsill read zero-eight-fifty.
"Well, you see here Oba-san—"
"—I will kill you, Konohamaru—"
"—When a two people love each other very much—"
"—I mean my house Konohamaru!" Toshiko said loudly over the younger boy who was looking down at her with a impish grin. "What are you doing at my house so early in the morning? And how'd you even know I was home?" She hadn't told anyone she would be coming back for her summer break, she'd planned on seeing Konohamaru at some point but she hadn't given him any heads up on when that might happen. Toshiko had honestly just planned on running into him at some point; she'd never expected him showing up at her house.
"Madara-sama told me you were here."
Toshiko's brows raised, "You speak to my ōoji-san?"
"Speak to him, Toshiko I get his groceries when Obito or Kakashi-sensei can't," Konohamaru said and Toshiko's already raised brows flew farther up her forehead.
"You do?"
"Of course I do, with you and Sasuke gone, someone has to make sure he stays alive and feed-besides your cousin pays me and Madara-sama lets me keep any change from the grocery shopping," Konohamaru shrugged. As Toshiko's brows fell they clung to one another; her face softened.
"I-thank you," she said only for the younger boy to wave her off,
"You'd do the same for me." And she would, but still, Toshiko hugged Konohamaru once more, tighter then she had before. Her arms were wrapped around him, squishing Konohamaru's appendages against his sides.
"Alright," Konohamaru playfully whined, laughing and wiggling until Toshiko let him go with a laugh of her own. When her arms had fallen Konohamaru put his hands on her shoulders, "Get dressed. I told Udon and Moegi it's a you day."
"A me-day?" Toshiko felt her mouth began to curl into a smirk, "Dose that mean I get to choose what we're doing?" In high school, before she had left and when Konohamaru would want to cheer her up over something— all her friends leaving, her broken heart, yet another one of her brothers flying the preverbal coop —he would spend the day allowing her to take the lead on what they did; those types of days, of course, had stopped after Toshiko wanted to mess with Konohamaru and he had the thought of ever having a Her-day again.
At least until she had come home.
Konohamaru grimaced, the past memories without a doubt flittered through his own mind; "An us day?"
Toshiko laughed, "Do I still get to pick some stuff that we do?"
"I get veto power," Konohamaru said, "Iruka-sensei almost caught me last time." Toshiko had dared the younger boy to pantie raid his old homeroom sensei. When Udon had heard though, days later, he had apparently dared Konohamaru to wear Iruka-sensei's star printed boxers to school.
"Alright," Toshiko half shrugged, she threw her hand up and pointed to the door, "I'll be out soon."
"I'll make breakfast while I'm down stairs."
"Why?" Toshiko smiled teasing Konohamaru, "You don't want soba noodles this early?"
Toshiko hadn't smiled so widely since before she had left for university. And while it wasn't that Toshiko didn't like her roommate Yakumo— she did; Yakumo was a hard-headed, driven slightly older girl who liked to live life to the fullest after a bed ridden childhood —it was just that there was a nostalgic familiarity with Konohamaru that Toshiko knew she'd never find in Fukuoka.
Konohamaru clapped his palms together and pointed his hands at Toshiko, "I have had soba noodles for breakfast so much since you've left that if I go to the kitchen and find Madara-sama already making that for breakfast, I will lose my shit."
Toshiko's smirk grew, her head cocked to the side and Konohamaru's eyes narrowed as she felt hers grow alight with mischief.
"Again, why? You don't want soba noodles this early?"
"I hate you," Konohamaru said dryly, "Why did I even think I missed you?" He threw over his shoulder as he spun, "I must be crazy," he said lastly before closing Toshiko's bedroom door behind him, leaving the young adult woman standing in her childhood bedroom, smiling with her sheets strewn across the floor.
"That has to be the reason I subject myself to this-Uchiha's," Toshiko heard Konohamaru mutter as his heavy footsteps got quieter and quieter.
It's good to be home.
Somehow they'd wound up by the lake; neither Toshiko or Konohamaru had intended to end up there, a simple walk through the woods that surrounded their town had simply lead them to then old watering hole. The tire swing Naruto's father and Obito had hung up for them was still there, the rope though looking worse for ware.
The basket of food Toshiko had packed for herself and Konohamaru rested on the grassy lakeside shoreline as she and the younger male waded through the calf-deep water. The water was cold and the closer to the reeds Toshiko got the murkier it got but as Konohamaru told her about how Udon had— once again —messed up in asking a girl out it was hard for the college student to focus on the water temperature and not on the fact that the bespectacled boy she knew had released dead butterflies upon his newest crush.
"Oh no," Toshiko wheezed, "That's-oh no!"
For her and Shikamaru's first anniversary he had taken her deep into the trees that surrounded his home so that they could have a romantic picnic amongst the deer he and his family took care of, only to— instead of eating —chase one of the new born fawns around after it had stolen the gift he had gotten her.
And while that wasn't nearly as bad as dropping dead butterflies on someone Toshiko felt for the other boy.
"Please, like anyone's going to remember. I keep telling him that the next time he dose something dumb in the name of love this will be forgotten."
"This is normal for him?"
"Oh yeah," Konohamaru nodded, "Ever since you left Udon's been reading these cheese romance novels Kakashi-sensei recommended—" Toshiko felt her eyes close at her cousin-in-laws name and his terrible book taste, "—And getting a new idea on how to make someone fall in love with him every other week."
"That's..." Toshiko tried as her eyes opened, "Why's he reading anything Kashi recommended anyway?"
"Extra credit," Konohamaru said with a shrug. He moved to the shoreline and Toshiko followed; "What about you?"
"What?" Toshiko asked as she and Konohamaru began to shake their legs off, "What do you mean, what about me?"
"Have you met anyone new?"
Oh.
Toshiko's eyes fell, as if suddenly made of lead, and her shoulders hunched forward as she managed out half a shrug. Her arms folded themselves over her chest.
"Toshi—"
"—Don't give me that Konohamaru, it's not like I haven't tried." And she had. When she got to university Toshiko had allowed her roommate Kurama Yakumo to take her out to parties; she'd gotten different people's numbers— and for the first time in her life, even slept with one of them because she'd liked him —and gone on dates but she'd never felt a click with any of them.
At least, not the same kind if click she'd felt with Shikamaru.
"It's better this way," Toshiko said when she saw the look of pity in Konohamaru's eyes, "I mean, that way when I am ready or whatever, I can give it my all." That's why she hadn't stayed with Chojuro; as sweet and kind as he was he wasn't the young man her heart was still so set upon and therefore— at least in Toshiko's mind —it was unfair to be with him.
To use him to get over Shikamaru; not when he didn't deserve that. Besides, though Naruto had liked Chojuro when he and Sasuke had come to visit her one weekend, Sasuke had hated him; probably because he had found the open box of condoms in Toshiko's medicine cabinet but nonetheless, Sasuke had hated Chojuro and how could Toshiko ever be with someone her brother hated when family meant so much to her?
"If you're sure," Konohamaru said.
"I am." Sort of.
Itachi had told her more then once since she and Chojuro had gone their sperate ways that her whole aversion to romance was less her still being in love with a boy from high school and much more a trauma based response; scared that she'd be left again— Itachi had theorized over the phone —Toshiko cut ties before she could be left. Or at least lied to herself and everyone around her, telling herself and them that she was fine being alone when in fact she was not all so that she wouldn't be hurt again.
"Okay," Konohamaru said as he opened up the picnic basket. He grabbed an apple and threw it into the air before catching it. "I'm think going to ask Mogei out."
Toshiko felt herself choke on her own tongue.
"What!" It was sharp and wheezy and Konohamaru's head cocked to the side as his brows scrunched up.
"What?" The younger of the two looked affronted; offended. "You don't think I could ask her out?"
"Of course I do Konohamaru," Toshiko said, "I just don't think she'd say yes."
"And why the hell not! Kurenai says I'm a total catch!"
"And I'm sure you are," Toshiko said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice, "I just you'd get a lesbian to go out with you."
Konohamaru blinked once, and then twice. "What?"
Toshiko couldn't help but start to laugh. "She's one of your best friends how do you not know?"
"I dunno, I never asked. Why would I? Why do you know!"
"Probably because Naruto told me," Toshiko shrugged as she sat down on the grassy lakeside ground; "Before he went off the university with nii-san Mogie asked what he thought was better, coming out or staying in the closest. If it was lying not to tell people. He told her it wasn't and to do what felt right," Toshiko explained, she could practically hear the older blonde boys Believe it float through the air. "Anyway from my understanding, she asked Soku out last year and got rejected."
"Oh." Toshiko watched as Konohamaru's shoulder wilted and he sat down on the other side of the whicker basket, the apple still in his hands.
She felt her heart twist. Konohamaru was a good guy, sure he could be obnoxious and of course he could be loud and a know it all and without a doubt that was all grating, but he was a good guy. And amazing friend. Which was why Toshiko put her hand on his shoulder.
"Hey," she said, "It's probably for the best anyway. Take it from me, dating your best friend can be great but if it's not and it ends—" Toshiko cut herself off and instead, simply squeezed Konohamaru's shoulder. To which he nodded understandingly. Konohamaru then laid down against the grass; he settled the apple on his stomach.
Toshiko watched as his eyes closed and he breathed in— held it —and then slowly exhaled, all the while fiddling with the apple he had yet to take a bite of.
"Am I going to be alone forever?" He wondered morosely. "I mean people, they call Omago-sama because of my old man, and all the old ladies I help out, they tell me I'm a nice, sweet boy, and Iruka-sensei, he says I can go places but no one looks twice at me." He breathed deeply again; "Why do no one look twice at me?"
"Because you're a kid," Toshiko said without thinking; Konohmaru's head popped up, his eyes somewhere between wounded and indignant. "I just mean—" Toshiko back tracked, "—No one in the place you've grown up is ever going to see you as something else then what they've already seen you as. You're always going to be a tiny little boy chasing after Naruto and trying to fight me, no matter how much you change. Once you go off to university you'll understand. You won't be here anymore and you'll see the world differently because it'll see you differently."
Konohamaru's lips pressed together and his eyes fell downwards as he seemed to take everything Toshiko had just said in. She turned back to the lake water.
"Do you?" Konohamaru asked after a moment of silence. "Do you see the world differently?"
"Yeah," Toshiko nodded without any hesitation. She had been juggling coursework and a part time job and people she met in classes and had started to call friends; she got why Itachi stopped visiting after a certain point in his life. Why that summer week with her brother had been relegated to lengthy but sporadic phone calls. She hadn't understood when she'd been younger; she'd never said it like Sasuke but she had always thought that if Itachi wanted more time with them he would make it.
But there are only so many hours in a day.
"I do." There were other things she began to see differently once she'd left Konohagakure. For example, in high school she'd said she had understood why Ino and Sakura— and to an extent —Hinata had all stopped talking to her but now, slightly older and somewhat wiser, she couldn't. She hadn't put them before her brother, that was all she had done. They weren't owed the truth of Naruto and Sasuke's feelings; not when Naruto and Sasuke were owed— had the right to have —their trust and safety.
"Right then," Konohamaru nodded, "I guess I just need be as old as your are to understand the world then." He brought the apple up to his lips and loudly bit down; the fruit's crunch was auditable enough to scare off several closely stationed birds. Toshiko threw up her middle finger,
"I hope you choke on the apple," Toshiko grumbled, her arms crossing over her chest. Not mad in the slightest; slightly annoyed but mostly— thought —content with the boy by her side and the warm sun beating against them as the water dried from her legs.
Life could have been better, but it wasn't abysmal, and after everything she had lived through as a younger girl, that was enough for Toshiko.
Hatake Kakashi, Toshiko's older cousin-in-law was late. Obito, was late; together they were perpetually late and were usually lied to about the time something would start so as not to be too late. Toshiko wasn't usually late but later that day, after Konohamaru had been called to pick Mirai, as she stood in line at Kifune awaiting her usual order of liquid heart attack, Toshiko tapped her foot against the cafe's hardwood floor more and more.
Her ōoji-san had called her shortly before Konohamaru's not aunt Kurenai had called him to pick up Mirai; Sasuke— unannounced and with another several weeks before his next break —would be coming home that night.
It was obvious Sasuke had dropped out— why else would he be home so soon —but why he had done so had left their ōoji-san ranting on the phone for several minutes; Sasuke had been on an athletics scholarship, he was bright and had a wonderful future ahead of him.
Ōoji-san had sworn to throttled him when he got home and while Toshiko knew the elderly man would never actually do that— and while she loved her brother more then life itself —she wanted to be on the couch when he got home.
Between school and work and with no real social life— and after a lifetime of living with Sasuke —Toshiko was going to get entertainment where she could.
If Lee still worked at the café it wouldn't be this slow, Toshiko thought as another minute passed. The barista who was supposed to be making Toshiko and the other patrons drinks disappeared behind the swinging doors off to the side, behind the counter.
Rock Lee— who had never really been a friend of Toshiko's, always a friend of Naruto's —had quit his job as a barista at Kifune's nearly two years prior not because he was going to go off to university like Tenten or Neji, but so that he could work in a local gym the high school gym teacher Maito Gai had set up for young, at risk youth.
Another minute passed and café door that Toshiko had her back to opened; automatically Toshiko looked over her shoulder only to pause when she saw a blonde woman— not much older then her; perhaps even the same age as herself —enter.
Tourists weren't common in Konoha. Especially not beautiful tourists with seafoam colored eyes and the kind of body other women would kill for.
Toshiko, with a slight blush, watched as the blonde walked by her and to the counter where the pimple faced teen standing at the register looked up at her with a slightly a jarred mouth.
Not that Toshiko could blame the kid; the woman was beautiful.
The barista came out of the back and began to work on one of the other patrons drinks; Toshiko had ordered hers enough to know the steps by sight. Apparently, so did the skinny man next to her; he looked familiar, Toshiko knew she had been introduced to him at east once over the course of her life. The sound of one of the machines behind the counter had been what had dragged the older mans eyes away from the blonde woman.
"Can I get a medium flat white coffee with honey and almond milk?" The woman asked, only to the snap her fingers, "And um-ah small black coffee?"
"Yeah," the teen croaked, "Of course. That'll be one thousand and forty yen." The woman's lips parted, almost like she couldn't believe the price for her drinks only to think better of whatever she was going to say and instead, hand over the money that was owed.
"Ebisu! Order for Ebisu!" The man next to Toshiko moved to the counter; the name rang a bell in the back of Toshiko's mind only for her to be unable to place said bell. She knew she had met the man before.
The blonde woman stood next to Toshiko, her arms folded in front of her as she looked around the cafe in wonder; the man, as he made his way to the door looked at the woman once more. The way he smiled as he looked at her made Toshiko want to ask Obito and Kakashi if they knew the man, he looked to be about their age.
"I like your shirt." Toshiko's head snapped to the woman.
"What?"
"Sorry," the woman's face turned beat red, "Is my Japanese no good? I like your shirt," the woman said again, gesturing to the Iron Maiden shirt she had stolen from Shisui and giving it a thumbs up.
"Oh," Toshiko blinked, and then with a wide smile she held her hands up in front of her, "You're fine, you speak very well. I-thank you. Uchiha Toshiko." Toshiko then looked at the woman's outfit; tied around her waist was the same kind of jacket she had long ago bought Shikamaru for his birthday.
Toshiko tried not to think about how she would steal it; how it smelled like him. She tried not to think back to what he smelled like.
"Temari Sabaku." Toshiko's brows raised at the woman's last name. "Yeah," the woman giggled, "I get that face a lot. My grandfather's from Hiroshima."
And before Toshiko could ask if that was why she was in Japan— and just what was she doing so far from Hiroshima, in Konoha —the cafe's door opened and both she and the woman, Temari turned.
Toshiko felt the blood drain out of her face and her stomach drop as if it's been filled with led. Sabaku Temari, however smiled; standing in the café doorway, looking almost like the deer his family fed was Nara Shikamaru.
"Baby, I already ordered." Toshiko wanted to vomit; she made eye contact with Shikamaru who looked just as panicked at Toshiko felt. Like he hadn't been expecting to run into her and suddenly was thrown completely off at the very sight of her.
Which was exactly what Toshiko was feeling because Sabaku Temari had called him Baby.
"Toshiko," Shikamaru breathed stepping into the café. He didn't look at Temari who Toshiko could see from her peripheral had raised her brows. "I-hi."
This woman had called him Baby. When they had been together Toshiko had never called him such. He had never called her anything but Toshi; sometimes he would say she was beautiful but he had never called her that, never nicknamed her that.
Did he have a nickname for Sabaku Temari? Was it beautiful? It had to be, the woman was real life goddess; an Amazon among morals.
"Hi." Toshiko said, swallowing her tongue. He had moved on. When all he was all she could still think about despite her best tries he had moved on. Once again he'd broken her heart. Somehow.
Toshiko had always pictured running into Shikamaru. She always imagined smiling at him, her chest no longer feeling as if it were going to cave in upon her. She always thought they'd be older, she'd have something to show for her years away from him. Almost as if to say she was okay without him.
But here he was, still handsome and with hair on the end of his chin, and a beautiful American girlfriend on his arm while all she had were two bad hook-up's and one failed rebound under her belt.
Toshiko felt her throat close. Her hands began to shake at her sides.
"How—" Shikamaru paused; he was right in front of her. All the eyes in the café were on her. On them. Sabaku Temari's eyes flickered between the two of them. "—How are you?"
Toshiko nodded. She wanted to say she was fine. Good. Amazing. She wanted to say she was amazing.
Tell him. Ask him how he is. Ask him how his mother is. Tell him you're fan-fucking-tastic. Ask him—whatever her subconscious was whispering was ignored as she rushed forward, past Shikamaru— ignoring both Temari and the barista's "Your coffee!" —and out the door.
Toshiko didn't stop until she was at the park they used to play at as children. Her lungs burning and her chest heaving. Toshiko was plenty athletic; she knew the erratic beating of her heart had nothing to do with how much she had run.
Ice ran down her face; a burning tear dropped off the curve of her jaw.
Toshiko pressed the back of her fist against her mouth.
He'd taken Sabaku Temari to the café they used to go to; the jacket she had around her waist had to be the jacket Toshiko had long ago gotten him. What else did they do together that she and Shikamaru use to share?
Toshiko couldn't live a day without thinking of him; without connecting something back to him.
He didn't go through that. Obviously.
Toshiko turned, she turned and began to walk home wondering if her and Temari were alike in anyway or if they were polar opposites. If Sabaku Temari was more his type then she was; because he was still hers.
A/N: I'M A COLLEGE GRADUATE BAY-BEE'S! No one's asked but like when I kind of picture Toshiko, I imagine kid her to be Kurome, teenage Toshiko to be Yumeko Jabami like and Yor Forger as present (2016) Toshiko. Anyway if you liked the chapter remember to comment and if you're new to the story please favorite and drop me a comment down below!
