It was one of those nightmares where every step took longer than in real life, where each movement was a slow, torturous and desperate attempt to flee from a monster.
Before she got to the door Shikamaru was already there, holding the doorknob.
"Sakura. Please listen to me. Please."
She couldn't very well break the Yamanakas' door. Well, she could, but it would have been very bad manners. Shikamaru was next to her and Ino was somewhere behind her. She was trapped.
"Sakura. Don't be frightened. Please. If you want to go, I'll let you. I just want to talk to you. Please?"
She could maybe just disappear in a cloud of rose petals... but that was only a trick, smoke and mirrors to confuse the enemy while one used the effect to get as far as possible as fast as possible. Shikamaru was, unfortunately, pretty quick to see things. He proved this several times in the last twenty-four hours.
It was a pity that shinobi couldn't really teleport. How useful that would be in a battle situation, Sakura mused. All the enemy nin attack you at once, and lo and behold... you appear on a distant hilltop with an iced drink in your hands to see your enemies disappear in smoke and debris when your traps with the explosive seals are all activated at once.
Yeah, movies are wonderful.
Ino started to say something but Shikamaru with a sudden outburst of anger cut in. "Ino. If you say just one more word, I'll never talk to you again. Never in my life. I swear."
He turned back to Sakura.
"Let's go somewhere we can talk. We've known each other since we were kids, Sakura. Could you do that much for me?"
She didn't know what to say. It was madness. This whole thing was madness. Yesterday it was Friday. A normal, common, reassuringly boring Friday with lab work and coffee and an old friend as colleague beside her. She was after a nasty break-up, yes, but she was managing quite well, considering the circumstances. Sasuke was a known quantity. Shikamaru was a known quantity. Everything else was a known quantity. Life went on like clockwork.
Yesterday was another world entirely.
She was cursing her own bad judgment silently. If she'd just left, instead of trying to steal a look at Shikamaru just once more, then Ino wouldn't have seen her and she would have gotten away without a problem. She could have got home to lick her wounds in no time.
She couldn't say anything.
It was Ino who broke the silence. Her voice was unsure, frightened. No wonder. When she'd seen Sakura standing in the back room doorway, she almost fainted.
I was like the bad fairy, suddenly appearing without announcement.
"Sakura, I'm sorry. I had no idea you were here. I was just..." Ino began.
"Ino, shut up!" Shikamaru hissed.
Ino's anger flared up. "You shut up!" she hissed back. "My mom always says that when a stupid man is stupid, he's just stupid, but when a smart man is stupid, he's really stupid. You're one living example of that!"
Sakura didn't look up. She was thinking. How could Ino not hear that Shikamaru didn't come in alone? Oh, the radio. Of course. And then she stayed behind to calm herself. There was no chakra signature.
All those things Ino said, she didn't intend Sakura to hear any of them.
"Sakura," Ino said in a whisper.
Ino told her more in a minute about Shikamaru's life than he did in five weeks. That still hurt.
She didn't know this man at all.
It's not Ino's fault, though, Sakura thought. She must be loyal to her teammate. She's in a difficult position. And no matter what she said about me, she tried to protect me, to fight for me.
She found she could look at Ino. Ino was standing close to her, her face still pale.
It's not everyday that your teammate seduces your best friend just for fun and then you spill all his secrets inadvertently to the friend in question, Sakura thought. She touched Ino's hand. I'm not angry with you.
Ino caught Sakura's hand and squeezed it, tightly.
She's apologizing.
They watched each other, unblinking, then Sakura unexpectedly found herself smiling a wry little smile.
"I would have kicked Sai," she mumbled.
Ino giggled, a little shakily. Sakura knew that she understood – there was a time when Sai was kind of sweet on Ino, and if he ever decided to go for her and messed it up, Sakura would have made sure that he ended up in the hospital with a few broken ribs at least.
"Still coming," Ino said and threw an ugly look at Shikamaru. She jerked her chin toward him. "Listen to him," she said. "Maybe he's got some explanation." She looked at him and added pointedly, "He'd better."
Sakura nodded and turned toward the door. The sooner they got down to this explanation, the sooner she could get home and find some ice cream in the freezer, then take a sleeping pill and sleep through the rest of today and then spend the whole fucking stupid damned Sunday behind closed doors and kill everything in herself that ever had to do anything with love and men and dating and marriage.
Shikamaru took the lead again and they soon found themselves on a rooftop that was surrounded by a bleak wall on two sides, a lower roof on the third and no windows nearby to speak of.
He's not really keen on anybody overhearing our discussion. I guess once a day is enough.
"So?" Shikamaru asked with a scowl, his hands in his pockets again. "Should I apologize right now that I had a life before you even decided to look at me, or should we go straight to the part where you get rid of me?"
"Is that what you want?" Sakura asked dully.
Shikamaru shrugged.
"Isn't that what I'll get anyway, whether I want it or not? I know what you think of Genma and people like him. I'm not that different."
Sakura knew what he meant. When Shizune and Genma started dating, Sakura had very serious doubts about whether Genma was ready to settle down and, to put it bluntly, if he was mature enough to start a monogamous relationship at all. Genma's name was a synonym for player; nice and easy, if you were satisfied with just some fun, but a sure recipe for heartbreak if you wanted more. Sakura didn't want to see Shizune hurt. However, the only person she shared her fears with was...
"She promised not to tell anyone!" she squeaked, dismayed. "Ino promised! To absolutely nobody, she said, cross my heart and hope to die!"
Shikamaru's mouth tightened.
"You should know by now that in Ino's opinion I'm not a person," he said. "I'm an absolute nonentity."
Sakura couldn't find it in herself to care about what Ino and Shikamaru thought of each other. She had more pressing things on her mind.
"What else did she tell you about me?" she asked angrily.
Shikamaru shrugged.
"This wasn't about you, it was about Genma. And if you must know, in the past few weeks she refused to discuss anything about you. Not that I asked," he added.
"Because you couldn't care less?" Sakura asked.
Shikamaru gave an angry little noise. "Because there was no need," he said. "I've got eyes to see with. I knew you were unhappy and I knew you decided not to take notice of it and go on and on blindly just like you always do, and serve and pamper His Royal Highness, the hottest guy in Konoha. That bastard."
"Don't talk about Sasuke like that," Sakura said mechanically.
"He cheated on you, Sakura!" Shikamaru said with cold fury in his voice. "Did you forget it just like that?"
"Well, and you slept around a lot!" Sakura shot back. "How many girls did you fuck, Shikamaru? How many hearts did you break?"
"I never promised any of them..." Shikamaru began, but Sakura interrupted, "Yeah, cool, you never promised them anything! That surely makes them all feel better! You never promised me anything, either, so I guess I have nothing to complain about either, do I?"
And then Shikamaru, cool, collected, Mr. I-don't-care-a-bit, what-a-drag, couldn't-be-bothered-less Shikamaru started to roar like a dragon.
"What the fucking hell are you talking about? What? What else do you want me to do? I've been dancing attendance on you all day, and you don't even notice! What else do you want me to do? Conquer an empire? Discover a new treatment for cancer? Write a better novel than Jiraiya? Anything else in a day's work? Fuck it all! I could never understand how you could fall for that asshole so hard! I thought you'd be too smart for something like that, but no! That little prick could use you and abuse you any way he wanted to, and still you crawled back for more! Fuck him! Fuck that stupid, arrogant, selfish bastard! If Uchiha is so much better than I am then just go back to him, good luck! Tear your own heart out, I don't care!"
Sakura was so angry that for a minute she couldn't speak. Men! Completely blind, completely stupid, proud assholes! Shikamaru going through the whole of Konoha's female population like a kid going through a bag of sweets on the first day of Christmas is okay! Caring for your ex who is an asshole but is still your teammate is not okay!
"Fuck you, Shikamaru!" she screamed. "Fuck you! I'll never go back to Sasuke, not even if you're begging me on your knees, but I'll never ever talk to you either!"
Before she had time to think about it, her hand raised itself of its own volition, but instead of punching him like she usually did with Naruto or Sai, she slapped him in the face like all angry women do in the heat of the moment when they are speechless with indignation.
Crack.
The sound was in a strange way louder in Sakura's mind than in her ears.
It sounded much louder than the slap Ino dealt him just a few minutes ago, and she knew she didn't hit him any harder. It was a wicked, ugly little sound.
Shikamaru looked at her, and his face was so hurt, so unhappy. He seemed so young now.
He's just as young as I am and he doesn't have all the answers either and he can be wrong too.
Again Sakura acted on impulse and before Shikamaru would have had time to say anything she flew to him and kissed his face, once, twice, then in a desperate outburst of emotion kissed his mouth, his eyes, his mouth again and then she felt tears coming into her eyes and did what she usually did when she was on her own and scared and not on a battlefield - she fled.
She only shouted back, 'so you don't have to date me', and ran like hell, her feet finding their way home, a sudden panic giving her speed unlike ever before. It was too much, too much either way, too many things in her heart, on her mind, too intense, and she just wanted to think for a while, alone, in silence.
She tore up the stairs to her flat, opened the door in a second then shut it with a bang, turned the key in the lock and then sat down in the middle of the livingroom floor and started to cry. She cried because she was alone again, because Ino said all those things, because they were all true, she was hopeless, hopeless in these things, and even now she couldn't figure out the whole thing. It was painfully clear that Shikamaru had been offering her something all day and he thought she wanted to refuse, but he still wouldn't come out clearly with his offer.
Sakura tried to dry her eyes.
Shikamaru may have tried everything, except the one thing that she would have valued above anything else. Honesty. He didn't tell her the truth.
Lying by omission, that was the correct definition. The guy was an expert at it, Sakura thought. He carefully asked all the strategically important questions and collected the information he needed, and in exchange gave very little.
Her tears began to fall again. It was her fault, too. She answered all his questions, never thinking about leaving things out that were better left unsaid. She never quite learned this dating game thing, the carefully omitted details, never letting him know you cared, never showing your weak side, always keeping the upper hand.
Stupid Shikamaru with his stupid earrings and stupid clan and stupid meadow and stupid sweet lopsided smile.
Sakura was sobbing so hard she could hardly breathe and felt as if her heart wanted to escape from her chest. There was nothing she could do now.
Tock. Tock. Tock.
There was someone knocking on the door. Sakura tried to pretend she wasn't there. Maybe it was just one of the neighbours.
"Sakura."
She would have recognized that voice anywhere, in a storm, on a battlefield, under the sea.
"Sakura. Open the door. We have to talk."
No, we don't, Sakura thought, sniffing. You'll be right and I'll be wrong and you'll say I'm a stupid hysterical bitch or something of that effect and let's just stay friends, it will be much better that way and then my heart will truly break.
She tried to stay completely silent. He'll try for a while and be very rational and cool and collected and then he'll shrug and turn around and find a bar and a pretty girl, and...
She looked up just in time to see a thin dark shadow creep up on her side of the door and with smooth efficiency turn the key.
Sakura wanted to spring up and escape but the door already opened. Shikamaru stood in the doorway, his face dark, his eyes stormy. Before Sakura could have done anything, anything at all, the shadows were already wrapped around her.
"No, you don't," Shikamaru said in a grave voice. "You're not going anywhere until we've discussed this."
Sakura didn't feel like opening her mouth. The shadows raised her from the floor until she was standing next to Shikamaru. Their touch wasn't painful, rather soft, like silk. Like a caress.
"And stop pouting. I'm not Kakashi, you're not going to soften my heart."
Sakura looked at him with indignation. As if she wanted to!
He was holding her close but the shadows didn't let her go, either. She tried to break out and flexed her muscles, pulling chakra into them, but it was useless. Her forte was gathering her chakra and pushing it out in one fast, powerful movement, like a thunderbolt. This kind of slow, patient effort was different, it required constant, steady strength, and the shadows were not like ropes, they would never break. Her only chance was if Shikamaru got tired faster than she did.
She looked up into his face but it was smooth, empty, not showing even the smallest sign of concentration or effort.
"So," he began. "What was all this?"
She pursed her lips.
"Let me tell you how things are done when I'm around, woman," Shikamaru said. "If I ask you something, you answer. So, let's begin. Why did you say that you didn't want to go back to Uchiha?"
Sakura watched him defiantly and kept her mouth shut.
Shikamaru slowly shook his head and the shadows tightened a little. Sakura was thinking furiously. He wouldn't kill her or maim her, but he could probably do some unpleasant things to her. And, after all, what he wanted wasn't such a big deal. She could answer his questions.
"Because I don't want to," she spat.
"Why would I want to beg you on my knees to go back to him?" Shikamaru asked with a tiny note of curiosity in his voice.
"No idea."
"Why did you hit me?"
"Because I felt like it," Sakura stated.
"And why did you kiss me?" Shikamaru asked patiently.
"...because I felt like that, too."
"And why did you say you didn't want to date me?"
"That's not what I said!" Sakura shouted. "I said that you didn't have to date me! You're stupid and you don't understand and... let me go this instant, Shikamaru, or I'll beat you to a pulp!"
She tried to break out of the shadows and fought with all her strength but it was no use.
Shikamaru was watching her with a frown and Sakura was again painfully aware that her hair was probably a mess and her face was streaked with tears and maybe even her nose was running, but then something flashed in Shikamaru's eyes and he said with barely suppressed anger, "You're...not...going... to... do...this...to...me... again!"
The words were peppered with angry kisses on her mouth, her face, her chin, her hair until she hid her face on his chest.
"And now," Shikamaru's voice whispered into her ear, "let's walk through this again. Just for the sake of latecomers. Children and students half-price. So, why did you say you didn't want to go back to Uchiha?"
"I told you," Sakura said, her voice nasal with tears. "Cause I don't want to. So I won't. We're no good for each other. I didn't want to let him go because... well, in a way I'm responsible for him, but today I realized that I can't do anything for him. He's got his own path to walk. I can't help."
"What gave you the idea that I'd want you to go back to him?" Shikamaru asked, his breath warm on her neck.
"It was as if you wanted me to. You kept asking me questions about him whole day, and ..."
"The last thing I'd do," Shikamaru said very seriously, "is asking you to go back to him. I'd cut out my own tongue first."
"But you said you didn't care and..."
"Later," Shikamaru interrupted. "Why did you hit me?"
"Because you had all those girls like Ino said and I only dated Sasuke and still you went on and on how you hated him and how I shouldn't care about him and he's my teammate, Shikamaru! If you dated Ino and then realized that it was no good but she had no one to rely on but you, you wouldn't just drop her because another girl wants you to!"
"Hmm. And why did you kiss the living daylights out of me after that?"
"Because you seemed so hurt and unhappy and it was my fault and I..."
"Wait, wait. Why did you say, quote - you don't have to date me – unquote?"
"Because you don't have to." Sakura stopped for a second then said determinedly, "Because you don't want to. I asked you to and you only said yes because I asked you. That's not fair and I shouldn't have and you don't owe me anyth..."
"Sakura, just shut up," Shikamaru said tiredly. Sakura opened her mouth but before she could say anything Shikamaru looked at her with a steely eye. "I meant that."
Sakura clamped her mouth shut.
He frowned and said slowly, "I'll let you go but you have to promise you don't try to escape again. Not until we finished talking, ok? I really like you but all this running around on rooftops and shouting and being hit is a drag. On my free day, too. So you quit behaving like a four-year-old and we'll talk sensibly. Ok?"
Sakura slowly nodded. She felt the shadow ties loosen and she would have fallen on the floor if Shikamaru didn't catch her. He marched her to the sofa and they both sat down.
Sakura's heart was pounding hard. He said he liked me. He said he really liked me. I don't understand.
"Okay. So, first things first. I can prove I want to date you."
"What? You can't, I..."
"Stop interrupting, Sakura. I can prove it because in the morning when you were still asleep I sent a message to Chouji to reserve a table for two at the Golden Dragon and not to tell a single word to Ino."
"But the Golden Dragon is a terribly costly kind of place!" Sakura exclaimed.
"Exactly. So, if you think you somehow forced me into dating you, why would I get a table there on a Saturday night?" Shikamaru asked.
"Because you're a nice man?" Sakura said uncertainly.
Shikamaru gave an exasperated sound that sounded like 'harrumph'. "I'm not a nice man, Sakura. Far from it. And this kind of tiptoeing around someone so just not to hurt their ego, that's not me at all. That's you. If I do something like reserving a table at a restaurant like that I mean it. Otherwise I'd spare the effort."
"I don't understand," Sakura admitted.
Shikamaru sighed again. "It's partly my fault. I find it hard to explain things to others except if it's absolutely necessary and I don't like risks."
He searched his pockets and found a crumpled tissue and wiped Sakura's face, gently, lovingly, like a father would.
Sakura didn't even thank him, she was thinking over what Shikamaru said.
"But you were so... distant when we came back to the village. You didn't even answer my questions. You were behaving as if you had enough of my company and were completely bored with me and kept looking around as if you wanted to leave me then and there and believe me, I know the signs."
Sakura sighed, thinking of all the times when she had to read the body talk of his team because they wouldn't talk. Men. Don't. Talk. This should have been rule number one in the book of rules. It was probably in a secret preamble that was handed out only to boys.
Sai, with his artificial smile plastered on his face, pushing everyone's buttons just to see how they would react, trying to make himself feel at least half alive. Kakashi, covering all his body, complete with mask. Yamato once said that if Kakashi were a woman, he'd gladly wear a burka. Yamato, his face a smiling mask, "I'm all right, I'm always all right." Naruto, his face going carefully emotionless before the blind anger or a big, false smile. Sasuke, always Sasuke, looking away, his whole body turning away from them, afraid to stay, afraid to go.
"Sakura," Shikamaru said calmly. "Do you know what a polysemous code is?"
This was so unexpected that she found herself answering rationally, like in the lab.
"Is it like the dual code that you were talking about at breakfast?"
Shikamaru looked at her and there was a shadow of a smile on his face. For a second they were back in his kitchen, Sakura basking in the sunshine of his attention, his warmth. Her heart beat faster.
"No. Dual codes are linear codes, error-correcting codes, a different type. Polysemous codes... that's like art. One object, several ways of interpretation."
"Oh, you mean like polysemous words? Not two meanings, but several? Like flowers?"
"Flowers?" Shikamaru asked, frowning.
"Ino made me learn the alphabet of flowers when we were kids," Sakura explained. "Several alphabets, in fact. Different cultural backgrounds mean different connotations."
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, she didn't explain it like that then," Sakura said with a tiny smile. "She just said, 'this flower used to mean this and this and this,' and we tried to make complete messages out of them. It was fun. The problem was, there were lots of possible interpretations. We had to agree on a key in advance."
Shikamaru nodded. "Just like that. The funny thing is, human behaviour is, in its essence, a polysemous code. A smile or a frown may mean a thousand things. Now, the problem with polysemous codes, as you said, is that it is easy to make a mistake if you start from the wrong hypothesis." He sighed, then said quietly, "We both made that mistake."
Sakura's stomach hurt. This wasn't the pleasant anticipation that she felt yesterday or this afternoon on the hilltop. This felt as if there was a trapdoor inside her, opening up, and her soul, small and scared, was looking down into a darkness where it would be lost for a long, long time.
"I'm sorry," Sakura said. She felt the wrenching, gut-churning desire to run again, anywhere, but there was nowhere to run. She waited silently, praying that it would be fast, whatever he did.
Shikamaru looked at her. "Stupid little girl," he said, then took her in his arms and held her close. "You still don't see it, do you? Do you? I care about you, Sakura, and when I say care, it's not like for a friend. Got it now? Hell."
Sakura was, for once in her life, speechless. But not for long.
"You like me?"
Shikamaru nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me before? I mean tell, like in words?" Sakura asked, still shocked. Understanding was slowly dawning on her but she still felt cold and shaky.
"Because sometimes I forget how shy you are under all that strength and ambition and how you need everything important spelled out in black and white," Shikamaru sighed. "Also, like I said, I misinterpreted your behaviour, too, at least for a while, and you haven't lost your ability to counteract all my plans without thinking. Hell, I'm more than happy that we're in the same village. It would be a drag to work against you."
"I don't quite understand what you're talking about," Sakura said. The sun was shining more strongly now and the room was warm once again and the air tasted so sweet she felt she could lick it.
"Look, all I'm saying is that I like you, that I want to date you, and I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that I didn't."
"I don't know how you came to the conclusion that I wanted to go back to Sasuke!" Sakura said.
Shikamaru looked at her and said quietly, "Every single time I asked you what you were thinking about, his name was the first thing that came up. Or if not his name, then something connected with him."
Sakura frowned. It was difficult to remember how many times she thought of Sasuke and how many times of Shikamaru and how many times of others, like her team.
"We broke up only a week ago," she said. "And he's still my teammate. Of course I think of him sometimes, but not in the same terms as before. Yesterday I was so angry with him, and today... It's hard to explain, but the more I spoke to you, the more I understood myself and him, too. It had very little to do with love or sex or anything romantic, though," she added, thinking.
"It... it really killed me when I thought... when I thought that all the time we spent together since yesterday, you wished that you were with him instead of me," Shikamaru said in an almost-whisper.
"Are you completely mad, Shika?" Sakura said furiously. She shook her head, amazed and angry. "That's sick! What on earth gave you the idea that I would do something like that? Gross!"
"So you never wished he were in my place?" Shikamaru asked, his big brown eyes watching her face.
"Ino was right!" Sakura fumed. "You're completely nuts, completely! If I wanted to be with him, I would have sought him out, and if he was still with that whore, I would have sent her packing, and if he were objecting, I would have broken his jaw! I don't want him! It just pisses me off no end that he was such an asshole when he could have just told me! This whole week, he was sneaking around like a man without a backbone! He even left it to me to explain things to Naruto, and that's a pretty hard task, I tell you!"
Shikamaru started laughing and Sakura wanted to hit him again, and then she realized that she was telling the truth.
I'm free. I'm free of him. After all these years, I'm free of Sasuke. Whatever I give him from now on that will be because I want to, and not because I feel I have to.
She looked at Shikamaru and his eyes were shining and he was still laughing and Sakura felt her lips shape themselves into a tiny smile.
"You're completely nuts," she repeated without any conviction. "And there's nothing funny about this."
Shikamaru got hold of her and kissed her, a brief, sweet kiss. Sakura, however, had other things on her mind and swatted him away. She still wanted an explanation. Shikamaru seemed happy now, but she needed more.
"When did you realize that it wasn't like that? That it had nothing to do with him?" Sakura asked.
Shikamaru smiled. "When you hit me and then kissed me and then started crying and ran away. Strange, but in that moment I realized that I misunderstood all your reactions until then and I saw where we both went wrong. Such an extreme emotional reaction meant that you... that you must care about me, too. If you were sure that you didn't want to have anything to do with me, you would have been more polite, more... gentle. So as not to hurt me with the refusal, see?"
"But why were you so distant when we came back from the meadow?" Sakura said. She was now excited and thrilled and surprised, the black cloud of fear surrounding her disappearing little by little. "And you talked to those... those... girls as if I wasn't even there! Why?"
Shikamaru winced. "I know," he said. "It's true, in a way. I didn't want you to meet them. I... I don't know how to explain it. I tried to keep that part of my life as separate from everything else as I could. It's not that I'm ashamed of my lovers or anything. It's just... I found it easier to keep things compartmentalized, see? I never introduced them to Chouji or Ino or anyone else. It just wasn't part of the package. So it was an automatic reaction and then you just went all cold and frightening in a second before I could say anything. It was as if you suddenly became a different person."
He knows about us, Inner chirped in happily.
"It's because of that seduction squad thing, isn't it?" Sakura said slowly. "The one Ino talked about."
Shikamaru nodded. "I know I owe you an explanation," he said. "I wanted to tell you before, at least as much as I'm allowed to, but I... I just couldn't."
The meadow, Sakura thought. He told me, in a way. He told me he wanted to talk about ANBU but couldn't.
Shikamaru was watching her face and his eyes were very sad. Sakura had no idea how to say that it was all right, that no matter what he did it was all right, that she would be there for him, just like he was always there for her, all those years when he was her friend and nothing more.
She remembered Shikamaru coming back after that fateful first mission as team leader and seeking her out at the hospital – he was sad and afraid and lost, his eyes red from crying, scared to death for his teammates, because Chouji and Neji were still in intensive care, but he was still standing erect and apologizing to her for his failure to bring Sasuke back.
Each of those sound nin was bigger, stronger, more vicious than Shikamaru or any member of his team was. She heard it all from Kiba and Naruto later. But Shikamaru didn't say anything like that. He wasn't looking for excuses. He only saw that he was responsible for the success of the mission and he failed.
He was so brave even then, so much older than his years.
Now she knew what she had to say. Sleeping around in the village was one thing, and she would have some questions about that, she knew that, but she would never judge him over anything he did for the sake of a mission. She was shinobi, too. She understood.
She put her arms around Shikamaru's neck and pulled him to her. "I don't care," she whispered. "I don't care what you did. I'm sure you did what had to be done and that's all I have to know."
"Good," Shikamaru whispered. "That's good."
This time it was Sakura who kissed him, gently, lovingly, then she pulled his head down to rest on her shoulder and held him there.
He's hurt. I saw it when we worked together. I saw it and didn't say anything because I couldn't find the words, but I knew he was suffering. He looked so thin and tired and on edge. I thought maybe he'd been wounded while he was still with ANBU, those guys get the most difficult assigments, and some of those wounds take a lot of time to heal. Yamato is full of scars. Kakashi, too. But I never thought that this wound wasn't something physical.
She started to stroke his hair, his back, his arms, trying to express her feelings without words, trying to console him with the touch of her hands.
Shikamaru was grasping her as if his life depended on it. His skin felt hot on hers and he was breathing fast. She couldn't see his face.
He doesn't want me to see him scared and upset. How much did he tell Ino? Not much. I think she only knows what she knows because her father works for Ibiki. Did he trust anyone to talk about this? He probably had an advisor or a counselor assigned to him, but would he confide in them? Poor boy, my poor, stupid, proud boy. No wonder he was so jealous of Sasuke. He would have needed someone to take care of him, too.
She kissed the top of his head.
"Things will be better now," she said. "I promise. But the next time you try to pull off something like that and go all cold and mean on me instead of telling me plainly what the matter is, I'll punch you into next week."
"Time travel. Such a marvelous thing," Shikamaru mumbled. His voice was almost normal. He raised his head and looked at Sakura.
This is treacherous ground, Sakura thought. Too much tenderness will scare him just as much as too little. Men, as a rule, are usually not comfortable with rushes of emotions, and today... today even I felt as if some malevolent god tried to push and pull me through as many kinds of emotion that any human being was capable of.
"So we'll talk about this later," Sakura said. "Right now you have to go."
"What?" Shikamaru asked, uncertain.
"I said, it's high time you left. I've got a date in the evening. You said you would pick me up at... seven, was it? I want to wash my hair."
Shikamaru visibly tried to pull himself together and looked at Sakura questioningly.
Sakura smiled.
"You're okay like this," Shikamaru said with the usual insensitive carelessness of young men who still think that women dress up for dinner for the men's sake, and not so that other women could turn green with envy. "You're pretty just as you are."
"You said you were taking me out to the Golden Dragon," Sakura said slowly, with exaggerated calm. "Were you lying? Or maybe Chouji couldn't get a table or something?"
"We've got a table, Chouza knows the owner, and I'm not lying, what on earth..."
"Then leave me alone and get going, I want to wash my hair!" Sakura shouted.
Shikamaru smiled.
"Fine. Fine. However, I have some basic rules I want to lay down right now."
"Like what?" Sakura asked suspiciously.
"Well, I know that girls never, but really never get ready on time. So I don't mind waiting, as long as I can do that on your sofa and not on the other side of the door."
"I think I can manage that," Sakura said.
Shikamaru smirked.
"What, the not getting ready part? I bet."
"Moron."
"There's more. I won't mind sitting here while you are running around in bra and panties and trying to find the other shoe but I heartily detest face masks and those cotton things between the toes that make women walk like ducks. So…"
"How sensitive."
"Oh yes… and…"
"No more. You."
Sakura kissed him and this time there was nothing consoling or gentle or playful about it.
"You make me forget what else I wanted to say," Shikamaru said after a while.
"That was the idea," Sakura said smugly. She ran her fingers through her hair that somehow got mussed up while they were kissing. "Now go and tell Ino that you're taking me out to dinner so she doesn't have to take control of you on the main street and make you sing that funny song that begins with 'All the girls in Konoha are happy when I'm here' with your thumb up your nose..."
"And my pants around my ankles," Shikamaru finished. "Yeah, I'd better tell her that I'm an honourable man."
He stroked his chin.
"Yes, a shave would be nice, too," Sakura said.
Shikamaru sighed and rolled his eyes but he got up and went to the door.
He looked back before he opened it and his face showed a little uncertainty.
"So, the date is on?"
"Yes, definitely," Sakura said.
"See you at seven."
"At seven," Sakura repeated. She wanted to stay alone to think and to choose a dress and yes, to wash her hair, but still she found herself going closer and closer to the door and then she was in Shikamaru's arms and they were kissing and she didn't want to let him go.
"So you'll come back?" she whispered.
"Oh yes," he whispered back.
"Promise?"
"Promise," Shikamaru said. "And one more thing."
"Yes?" Sakura asked in a whisper.
"You said you thought you bored me. The thing is, Sakura... you amaze me. You delight me. You excite me. You thrill me. And yes, sometimes you fill me with bone-chilling dread. But ever since I've known you, ever since we were children, I never found you boring. Not one moment. Not one second."
They watched each other for a minute, unblinking, stern, then they both smiled at the same time. A last short kiss, and Shikamaru was out the door, running down the stairs and... was he laughing?
Sakura shut the door again and for a minute stood in the middle of the room, unmoving, then her eyes blurred and she was dancing around in the flat, laughing and crying at the same time. Shikamaru found her exciting and thrilling and amazing and... what else? Oh yes, he was afraid of her.
Well, if there was something amiss with this dinner date, he had better run and hide.
Sakura sniffed, then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and went to run a bath.