Private:
Outside the ever watching eyes of the public I can be myself in the woods of the Nara estates and in the house itself, when the folks are out. Deer don't judge you after all and yes I still live with my parents. Have to keep up that appearance that it would be too troublesome to find a place, move out, wait until dad croaks and then move back in. Someone has to see that mom is taken care of. Plus the place is plenty big enough since I am the only heir.
In the woods, in the evenings after dinner and before bed, I train. Ok, start laughing now and tell me when you're done. I'm sure all of you are like; there is no way in hell that Shikamaru voluntarily does any kind of physical activity. Do you really think I could be a ninja if I didn't train? You think I got all my muscle packed onto my sinewy frame by the cloud gazing? I wish it was that easy but it took years of training. It takes time to perfect combat techniques, Nara bloodline jutsus, Nara stealth techniques (being shadow users it's only natural to be very stealthy. In fact the Nara Clan is the second best espionage clan in the village, behind the Yamanaka Clan of course) and tactics. Why do you think the Nara keep deer? It's quite a feat to sneak up on a deer you know and ever Nara can. Plus they make great pets and the occasional meal. We wait until they die of age, we're not that cold blooded.
If I'm not out in the woods sweating, I'm in the family library reading and studying various scrolls on tactics, laws, history, jutsus, etc. Anything and everything that might be useful.
My folks were really surprised when they found out I did this. I finally let them catch me in the library staying up all night after I had secured my posting as Chief Advisor. Temari was surprised as well when I started to show her this side of me, the hard working side. I might act lazy in public but I know it takes hard work to keep Kohona safe.
I do spend at least one day a week at Kurenai's place. Babysitting mostly. The kid is pretty smart. I've been teaching him shogi and go and he knows I'm not his father, not that I ever tried to be his dad. I used to get some flak from the guys cause of it. Nothing overly harsh. Just jokes about being a fatherly and responsibility and the like. Still, now the joke is on all of them.
Like I mentioned earlier, Neji Hyuga actually asked me parenting advice. It makes sense when you think about it. Neji is smart and quiet, a lot like me so we've gotten along okay in the past. And he didn't want his kid brought up in as sterile an environment as he had been brought up so that left out getting advice from other Hygua Clan members. And lastly, out of all the shinobi in our age group I was the only one with parenting experience of any sort.
As a direct result of that meeting, I started to spend more time with Neji in social circles. Naturally Neji is one of our top Jonin so we see enough of each other at work and the rare work related dinner or two.
Nowadays though, we tend to have dinner once a week with a few other people. Hinata and Naruto are always there. The blond is a good friend, even if he is still loud and clueless, and definitely knows when to take off the Hokage robes and just be himself (actually it's harder to get him to act like a Hokage). Hinata is always pleasant to have around. She somehow has managed to train the hyperactive ninja. Not that he knows he's trained (you know, he's trained in that secret way that only women know how to covertly train their men). She can get him to calm down a bit if he needs to be calmed down. The family tie in to Neji means that she and Tenten are rather close now.
And that is a good thing for me because when Temari is in town, she attends our little gatherings. Of course she just so happens to drop in completely at random. Not that we're fooling anyone, well, maybe Naruto, but you have to keep appearances up. At first Tenten refused to talk to my sand princess but Hinata thankfully came to the rescue. Now, they at the very least talk to each other at the dinners and whenever they meet. I'm just not entirely sure how much they like each other.
Don't think I've forgotten about Choji and Ino. My old teammates are still a big part of my life even if I don't see them at work all that much. Ino's talents mean she's either working for the ANBU black ops, which I don't handle directly, or working at her family's flower store, which is where I see her most often. Choji and I always make a point of getting something to eat together once a week to catch up. He took over my spot at the academy when Naruto became Hokage and I got promoted. Now and again us three get together for old times' sake.
Rarer still are the times when Temari joins us. The two blondes aren't that fond of each other. Ino still thinks that Temari is just using me as a fling (for 10 years? I mean come on, Ino. Temari and I have been together longer then all of your relationships all put together, the current one with Choji included. I do hope this one lasts.) and I know that Ino is just trying to be a good friend and protect me. Temari doesn't make life easy because she thinks Ino is a slut (so Ino has had a few relationships before settling on Choji. Just means she's had bad luck) and it always takes some doing to keep the girls from openly killing each other.
A/N: Like I said before, this was just a stream of conscious bit of writing. A story sort of forms in the last part Secret. I'm sorry Private is so short but I really hadn't planned any of this out. I just wrote for 2 days straight and got this. Amazing what boredom and an uber Naruto marathon makes you do. I may do a companion piece from Temari's point of view that is more thought out.