Many Masks

Written By - Treina

VI

Shikamaru's Mask

Every morning at six am my body wakes up, no matter how much I protest. Every morning at seven I get out of bed, no matter how much I protest. By this time my stomach is rumbling, telling me its time to eat. Every morning at seven thirty, my mother calls me down from the kitchen, "Shikamaru! Its time to eat!" I sigh and grab the rest of my things before leaving my room.

Eating breakfast is always the same, mom in her cheery tone, complaining to father about either something he did, or something he didn't do. It seemed like he never cared, so there was no reason for me to care. He chose mom and he was happy with his choice, there was no reason for me to interfere with any of it, son or not. I finished my food and left the house, heading to the clearing where every morning at eight, my team meets for discussion on what we are to do today. Asuma was assigned to a mission and wouldn't be back for a number of days, so we had spent the last few days lounging on the small hill in the clearing.

As I approached the hill, I noticed that both Chouji and Ino were already there and waiting for me.
"Mou!" Ino groaned as I approached, "your always so late"
"No," I answered, laying down under the big tree, "your always early"
"What?!" Ino yelled, knowing that he was in the wrong.
"Nope, Shikamaru is right," Chouji said in between crunches.

I hated to argue with anyone, too much thinking involved. It was bad enough that everything I saw my mind would break down until it couldn't be analyzed anymore. Arguing made things worse, so it was best to just drop it, let her win and get on with watching the clouds for the day. So I shrugged my shoulders and looked up to the sky, "Ino's probably right," I comment, waving my hand around to show that I was done with the subject.

Chouji frowned, he knew that Shikamaru was right on time, it was both him and Ino who would always show up early. He did it so Shikamaru wouldn't be kept waiting, and Ino did it... maybe her clock was wrong by a half an hour too early?

A few hours went by and Ino and Chouji decided to take a break from their training. "So Shikamaru," Ino began, grabbing for her water.
"Why are you always watching the clouds?"

Chouji was happy that Ino had finally gotten up the courage to ask Shikamaru about the clouds, he himself had always wanted to know...but never asked, because he understood about those sorts of things. He was always grateful that Shikamaru had never asked him about his chip eating habit. These were just some of the things that each never talked about.

I moved my stare from the clouds to look at Ino, flushed red from her training, "its kind of troublesome..." I began, not sure how to explain it. Chouji nodded in the background with enthusiasm; as if he knew exactly what I was talking about...sometimes I wonder if really does know what I am talking about before I say it. But before I could get any further.

"Troublesome?" Ino said with a half smile, "how can watching the clouds be troublesome"
I sighed and shook my head, now knowing that there was no possible way to explain anything as complex as this...to her.
"Never mind," I replied, lying back down to watch the clouds.

Chouji also sighed, knowing that he will probably never get the chance to ever know why I watch the clouds.

If Chouji thought hard enough, he would realize that he already knows why I watch the clouds. One day Chouji came to me when we were kids, he told me how amazed he was that I was so smart, but that there was one thing he didn't understand. I raised an eyebrow at him and when he told me this, I thought that there were a lot of things that he didn't know. But he asked me a question, "why do you always say that things are troublesome?"

As a child, this was the first person who ever asked me this. I was somewhat intrigued, so I sat him down and tried to explain it to him, and he understood every word. Since then many people have come to me and asked me, but none of them ever understood, just Chouji. If my good friend ever came to me and asked me, "why do you stare at the clouds all day?" I would tell him that when I look at the clouds, I analyze nothing, all I see are clouds and my mind can be at peace. When I say something is troublesome, it means that I don't was to deal with the stresses of looking at every single solution and answer every possible question, it means that its troublesome and that its not worth the stress and trouble.

I closed my eyes and began to doze off, thinking about the puffy little white clouds that block out my mind from the rest of the world.
"Oi Shikamaru!" I jolt awake from the sudden disturbance to see Asuma standing over me, "I'm back!" He said with a smile, "while the other's are training, how about a game of shougi!"

I frowned and noticed that the clouds had dissipated and sighed, "how troublesome."