Chapter (11)3
"I brought my boyfriend. This is Sai," Ino introduces the pale nin beside her to Kamaru.
Shikamaru frowns and swivels his head to look at Choji. Choji won't meet his eyes...and he suddenly feels sorry for his friend. He's only gone for several months and a lot seems to have happened.
Sai smiles at him. Shikamaru tries to return it.
"Come on, Sai, show them," Ino says excitedly.
Sai proffers a sketch—of Kamaru, sleeping; Temari, with her hair down; and Shikadai, bundled in blue.
"How?" Shikamaru asks. His gaze at the sketch—in it, he is in a slumber, his posture relaxed meanwhile Temari looks a bit miffed and Shikadai, only his tiny face peeking from the blue blanket. This is the first picture of his very own family. Shikamaru can't help but stare at it in amazement.
"Sai based it on the photo I took six days ago." Ino reveals smugly, turning to where Temari is seated on the Nara living room sofa. "Aren't you glad I took this picture?" Ino waves the actual picture near Temari's face.
Temari then makes a grab of the picture, scowling as she sees her unkempt hair. Shikamaru, still asleep. While Sasuke and Neji obviously were forced to be part of it. Ino, the only person smiling broadly—too broadly in fact, it was a bit unbecoming. Chuckling, Temari now understands why the sketch is being presented instead.
"You can have the picture too," Ino says loftily. "Of course, you can see, Sai made his sketch, a bit sweeter. Just you folks. He's super, isn't he?"
"Thank you, Ino," Shikamaru utters. "Thank you, Sai."
"You have to thank Choji too. It was his idea. Choji said that you guys probably don't have a family picture yet," Ino admits, basking in the appreciation Kamaru can't help but show.
Shikamaru's gaze is fixed on his family's picture. A gift. Shikamaru then looks up from the drawing to glance at his friends. If he grew up in Konoha, Ino and Choji and him would be close. But that isn't too late. "Thank you, Choji," he adds, "This is great."
'I didn't do anything," Choji mumbles.
Shikamaru shakes his head sideways in answer to his friend. Maybe he can do something for Choji too. Maybe he can help him search for someone he can call his own...even if this will take them outside Konoha. Shikamaru shakes his head more. His 20 steps thinking is getting ahead of him. He chuckles to himself.
Ino sits down beside Temari on the sofa. "I know Temari won't show the actual picture to anyone with her untied hair."
Temari snorts. "That's what you think."
"What? Don't you dare show that picture to anyone!" Ino turns towards Temari, her own smile dashed as she notices the other blonde woman's evil grin. Aghast, she frets, "Kamaru, help me get back that picture from your wife, my ex-friend."
—oOo—
"What so funny, woman?" Shikamaru asks when their visitors left and they are now again alone together. Well, not entirely alone. Yoshino is probably somewhere inside their sprawling home or maybe in the garden with Shikadai. Shikaku, however, already left for a mission.
Temari replies, "Ino and his taste in men."
Shikamaru raises an eyebrow in inquiry.
"First, she likes you. You know, you have this blank, overly serious face. Your hair disheveled. Your skin burnt by the sun. Then she likes Sai, who has this perpetual smile on his face, his hair more kept and skin so pale."
"I gather you're not jealous of Ino because of me anymore?"
"I was not jealous...not like someone who kept on blabbing about Sasuke."
"You did kiss him!"
"You drove me to kiss him!"
"DO NOT KISS ANYONE BUT ME. You got that?!"
Temari laughs. Then she moves closer to Shikamaru to whisper, "When you're being this forceful...it's very sexy."
Shikamaru groans. "Don't say stuffs that makes me want to—get inside you."
"Did you just hurry home because you want sex?"
"Yes."
Temari hits Shikamaru on top of his head. "Then you should have come home months ago, ass!"
"You're still angry about that?"
"You have a lot to make up for."
"This is going to be troublesome."
About to grab Temari on her seat to kiss her in atonement, Shikamaru stiffens when they hear a knock on the door.
"Who is it again this time?" Shikamaru grunts under his breath.
Temari pats Shikamaru's hand in mock comfort. So far, these past few days, a lot of people had come either in the hospital or their home. Some to genuinely welcome the baby like Naruto, Sakura and Tenten but mostly, shinobis came to check Kamaru out. Temari is aware that Shikamaru already feels like he got introduced these past six days to half of Konoha. "This is Konoha for you. Every one will come visit," she taunts as she watches him go to answer the door.
But Temari is wrong. Their visitors are not from Konoha.
—oOo—
Gaara and Kankuro stand outside when Shikamaru opens the door to the Nara Residence.
"Temari," Shikamaru calls out from the foyer. "Your brothers are here. I'll just go find Yoshino and their new nephew."
—oOo—
"Here you go." Yoshino smiles at her visitors, offering them a slice each of her chocolate cake.
Shikamaru is taken a back. "Cake?"
Temari is watching Shikamaru's reaction. "Don't eat that. I'll bake one for you."
Kankuro raises his eyes towards Temari. "But—" he starts to grumble.
Gaara, his hand about to reach for the cake, stops midway.
"You two go ahead. Kasan's cake is the best!" says Temari, pushing the plates towards her brothers.
"Why can't Kamaru-nisan—"
"Because Gaara, he still hasn't told me yet why you guys didn't celebrate your birthdays. That seems too cruel."
"You kids didn't celebrate your birthdays?" says Yoshino, dismayed.
"Tch, there's a good reason for it," Shikamaru bristles.
Temari frowns. Shikamaru suddenly just reverts to his old self. He sits there, coldly eyeing her.
Temari stretches her hand to reach for Shikamaru's face, in paticular to cover his eyes. She just suddenly glimpse an unexplained anger in those eyes and she doesn't want to see that. Now now, not ever. "Then help me understand that reason," she utters quietly.
Shikamaru grabs Temari's hand and pulls her up from her chair. "Excuse us," Shikamaru says to the three who still remain seated around the dining room table.
Kankuro just continue to wolf down his cake. Gaara following suit. Yoshino slices the remaining cake. She can always asks her daughter later.
—oOo—
"Mother died giving birth to Gaara. We couldn't celebrate his birthday without remembering that tragedy. And it wouldn't be fair if I and Kankuro get to celebrate our birthday and we can't, Gaara's. In a way—father was being fair," explains Shikamaru.
"Rasa—fair? You gotta be kidding me!" scoffs Temari.
"Let it go, Temari."
"Like you, you mean?" Temari asks sarcastically. "Do you have any idea how you looked at me a short while ago?"
"How did I look at you?"
"Like you want to strangle me in cold blood. Like how you looked at me when you pretended you can kill me in front of that—that man, that monster!"
"He's your father, Temari."
Temari shakes her head in an adamant no. "Shikaku is my father!"
"Yes. And so is Rasa."
"I know about the dungeon and how he tried to kill Gaara." Temari bares her teeth in anger.
"In the end, he tried to redeem himself."
"No! He did not redeem himself in my eyes just because he killed himself. He did that so he could manipulate his children even from the grave."
"Don't let your bitterness about your father consume you, Temari...the way bitterness consumed Rasa in the end."
"What do you mean?"
"Rasa wanted to implant the bijuu in you and that you must live. In his thinking, if he was able to do that, he could have saved mother...He was cruel to his wife, driven by ambition but in the end, when he lost her...he lost all the light that was left in him. He tried to kill Gaara, and he didn't succeed. While you, with all the years of your coming and going to Suna, he never really tried. And my pathetic show, of trying to kill you...I sometimes wonder about that. Was he really taken in? Looking back, I doubt it. If he truly wanted you dead, Temari, you would be dead. Then why didn't he?"
"Because—because he knew his secret was safe with me!"
"No. It's because Karura, your mother, his wife, wanted you, alive."
"I'm not listening to you," Temari spats angrily. "You can't change my mind. He's a monster."
"Yes. He is—he was. But there was still goodness in him."
"I'm not going to forgive him! Ever!"
"He didn't ask for your forgiveness because he knew that would be your answer."
"If you know that ass, why are we having this conversation?" growls Temari, her chest heaving in anger.
"Because I don't want you to end up like him," reveals Shikamaru, putting his hands on Temari's shoulders and looking into her eyes. "Bitter, angry, thwarted...those feelings will grow."
"Then don't look at me with your cold eyes. Because they remind me of his own cold eyes," Temari snaps as she forcefully removes the hands resting on her shoulders. "You may have forgiven him. And you might think you're strong for doing that. But you are wrong! You only appear weak in my eyes."
With those words, Temari goes back inside the house to her brothers.
—oOo—
~7 29 20 8 2 20~