"Are you sure it's mine?" Shikamaru asked skeptically.
"That time on the mission was my first time; you were my first, Shikamaru," Ino replied, sincerity evident in her voice and etched on her face.
"I thought we had decided to put that behind us and remain friends for now."
"I thought so too, but sometimes things like this just happen," Ino explained quietly as the waitress set a pot of coffee and two cups on the table.
Shikamaru mumbled a thank you and poured himself a cup of coffee. Ino watched as he prepared the hot drink the way he always did. He poured the milk for precisely three seconds. Next, he dumps in four spoonfuls of sugar and stirs in a fifth. The spoon then goes around the cup three times each way, clockwise then counter-clockwise.
He lifted the cup tentatively to his lips and took a small sip. He drank the coffee as if he was more than ready to leave the coffee shop, placing the empty cup on the table affluently. All of this Shikamaru did without speaking to Ino.
Out of habit, Shikamaru lit a cigarette. He puffed on it, blowing the smoke above Ino's head as he normally did so she would not be forced to breathe it. Shikamaru gently tapped the ashes into the ash tray every few minutes while Ino sat in mental agony. She could not comprehend how he managed to not only not speak to her for the ten minutes it took him to smoke the cigarette but to also avoid her gaze and not look at her all.
Ino was startled out of her thoughts when Shikamaru stood up to leave. She watched him put on the hat and raincoat he had been wearing when he came in. It had been raining when they both arrived, and it still was. Shikamaru left the coffee shop; without saying good-bye, without even looking at Ino.
Ino was flabbergasted. She had not expected Shikamaru to react like that; to completely shut her out like that. Not knowing what else to do, Ino put her head in her hands and cried. "I'm so scared, Asuma-sensei. What am I going to do?" she pleaded silently though her tears.
-End-
A/N – Based on the French poem "Déjuner du Matin" by Jacques Prévert (1949).