Sixth Meeting

Walking up the driveway of his family home, Shikamaru was suddenly hit with the memories he had desperately tried to leave behind. He hadn't been back in years, and although he felt as if everything around him had changed, the hedges, the gravel, even the slightly faded numbers on the door were exactly the way he left it. Things hadn't really changed as much as he had thought they would. Standing before the door he knew so well, he felt as if was still the same silly boy that had left, chasing after the girl of his dreams, only to return empty handed.

The door opened suddenly, revealing his mother and father standing side-by-side, just the way he remembered leaving them the last time he'd seen them two years before. Only this time, his mother looked a combination of royally pissed-off and about-to-call-the-police-and-secret-service worried. His father, however, looked just about the same.

"Shikamaru!"

He was engulfed by the skinny arms of his mother, who brought him into the home without any difficulty.

"Oh my goodness, you don't know how worried I was—why did you do it? I swear I can kill you myself—I was going crazy, just ask your useless father."

"She was going crazy," his father said, voice as monotone as his son's.

"I mean—Ino called me all frantic, Chouji called his father to try and find you—where have you been?"

"Traveling."

"Who's this?" His father peered behind Shikamaru at the girl standing perfectly still behind him.

He'd been hoping she was invisible. "This is—"

Temari stepped forward, bowing her head deeply. "Temari. Sabaku Temari. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Shikamaru's mother pushed him aside, eager to take a good look at the strange specimen that was Temari. He could see the gears in his mother's brain working rapidly, already more interested in her than she was in her son's wellbeing.

"This is my mother, Yoshino," he said, waving at his mother, who bowed her head curtly in response, "and this is my father, Shikaku."

"She's pretty," his father said, smiling at Temari. "Nice to meet you."

"Please, come inside," his mother said, moving aside and pulling Shikamaru behind her to give the blonde some space.

Growing up, he had found his home a huge pain in the ass. Everything was too far away from his room, especially the kitchen. He never ran (he couldn't exert the effort), but when he was forced to shuffle quickly from wherever he was to wherever his mother was, he'd end up slipping on the always-polished wood floors. There was marble and porcelain and chandeliers and gilded chairs and jewel-encrusted heirlooms, things most boys found uninteresting and Shikamaru found positively mind-numbing. He couldn't even be bothered to slide down the handrail of the staircase. Now, as he looked around the house he had so willingly left behind, he almost, kind of, somewhat missed it.

"You have a beautiful home," Temari said politely.

"Oh, stop it," his mother said, taking her arm and pulling her into the dining room. "Have you had dinner yet?"

Temari shook her head. "No, we came straight here."

"Let me go finish up in the kitchen," the older woman said, pushing Temari towards the large staircase Shikamaru remembered hating (how could there be so many damn stairs to get to his room?). "You can set your things down in Shikamaru's room. I'll send someone up to take your things to the guest room later."

The blonde only nodded, then turned to look pointedly at him, expecting him to hurry along and take her to his room.

Even in his own damn home. She must have been a princess where she came from.

Shikamaru made a mental checklist of all the pictures he would have to hide (the one where he'd just lost both front teeth and his mother had decided that being frugal was the new thing so she cut his hair with a bowl as her guide; the one with Ino making bunny ears at him while he tried to eat some of Chouji's chips; and the famed baby picture) and where they were just as his feet carried him to the last room on the left, with the small deer cartoon etched into the wood. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, hesitating.

It had been two years since he'd last been in there. Had anything changed? He felt too old to be able to go back into that room—too different from the idealistic boy that had left in the hopes of getting the girl. Now, he stood facing the same door he hadn't thought of going back to, a changed man, broken hearted and defeated.

"Are you going to open the door or are you just going to stand there and be all nostalgic?" Temari quipped, prodding him with her index finger.

"Stand here and be nostalgic," he answered. Finally, he sighed (to which he swore he could hear Temari roll her eyes) and turned the knob.

Time had stood still in his room. Although he was sure maids came in every week to dust the place off, it was all just the way he remembered it.

And he hated it.

Before he could do anything (like hide the incriminating evidence that his middle-school years were particularly vindictive), Temari swooped in, making a beeline towards the only picture he forgot he still had.

"You look really happy here," she noted once she had reached it and taken it into her delicate hand.

A part of him wanted to reach over and punch her in the face for touching the picture while another part of him wanted to pluck it out of her paws and throw it out the window to save his heart from the unexpected pain. It was the part of him that stood by and did nothing that won out in the end, however, and he watched as she turned the picture towards the fading light filtering through his large windows.

"This is Ino, right?"

He urged himself to walk towards her and look over her shoulder. She held a small, wooden frame where a younger version of himself looked back, standing beside a grinning Ino and a satisfied Chouji, while his mentor stood behind them, seemingly proud.

"Is this your best friend?" she asked, pointing at Chouji. He was glad she didn't add 'the one that married Ino.'

"Yeah."

She looked at him. "Who's this?"

He felt the lump of grief rise in his throat, constricting his voice and making his tongue laden. Taking a huge gulp of air, he managed to croak, "My old teacher, Asuma."

Her eyes were unwavering as she stared at him for a long moment, the silence settling on him like a dead weight. It was only when she looked away that he could breathe again.

She placed the picture back in its proper place, as if it had never been moved. "He must have been a good teacher."

"Aren't you going to ask what happened to him?"

"No," she replied, making her way around his room. "You'd tell me if you wanted me to know."

For the bossy, intruding, complicated woman she was, the rare moments of clarity she showed him stumped him. He swore he had her figured out. But there she was, kind and all-knowing and devastatingly beautiful with the light catching the blonde of her hair and the glow of her skin.

And there he went, thinking things he shouldn't.

Temari stopped at his desk before throwing him another picture. "For a guy, you have a lot of pictures. I'd throw that one away—you have to let that girl go."

Shikamaru looked at the picture he'd taken of Ino for his photography class and winced, feeling slightly ashamed of himself and his stalker-like tendencies back in high school.

He didn't think twice as he made his way to the trash bin nor did he hesitate when he threw the picture away—frame and all. It wasn't until he could feel Temari's eyes boring holes into his body that he realized what he had done.

He'd felt nothing. His heart hadn't faltered, his breath hadn't hitched, he hadn't had a small breakdown or the pang of unrequited love.

She offered him a sincere smile, the light of it reaching her eyes and sending them ablaze with a feeling he didn't dare recognize. "Good job."

Never before had Shikamaru felt prouder. Not when Asuma had declared him the smartest person he knew, not when Ino had hugged him for winning the chess competition, not when Chouji had given him a birthday card that declared him as the greatest friend in the world. It was there, on that summer day, with the blonde foreign beauty standing by his desk with the strap of her dress hanging off her shoulder and Ino's picture in the trash, that Shikamaru felt that he had finally achieved something spectacular in his life.

He had no doubt that he really would survive his broken heart.


Dinner, however, was a different story. And with his mother, it was completely impossible to survive.

It was silent and awkward. His mother had pulled out the most expensive dishes without so much as a nod of approval from Temari, who sat in the private dining room looking unimpressed. His father snickered every time his mother attempted to explain the cutlery rules only to have Temari already using the appropriate utensil. Leaving Shikamaru to receive every glare his mother intended to send to Temari but didn't.

"So, tell me," his mother began, her eyes on Temari as the blonde picked at a piece of marinated beef, "where are you planning on taking my son?"

It was usually the norm for parents to ask probing questions of the significant other. He saw it in dramas. Only he figured that it was the norm for parents of a female and not a perfectly grown man who had moved out on his own at the age of eighteen and didn't need his mother digging into his personal life, which had no material worth digging into.

"Shikamaru was nice enough to offer to accompany me all the way home."

"Where is home?" Yoshino asked.

The blonde girl's smile became strained. "Fukuoka."

"All the way in Fukuoka?" His mother was obviously unpleased. She cocked her head to the side. "Your family lives there?"

"Yes, my two brothers." The hitch in her voice was almost impossible to detect—but Shikamaru heard it, even though his parents didn't notice.

"But what of your parents?"

Temari visibly bristled, hand dropping to the table. Shikamaru had the sudden feeling his mother was intruding on a private matter that should not be intruding upon.

"Mom—" he tried to warn

"My mother is in Tsushima. My father lives in Tokyo. My brothers still live in the family home."

Yoshino's mouth opened, preparing to say something else, but Shikamaru stopped her. "Mom, stop interrogating her."

"I'm just curious." She eyed the blonde again. "Are you and my son having sex?"

Temari turned to him, lifting an eyebrow. "Do you want to answer that?"

"I would be perfectly fine if you two were having sex—at least I'd know he was over Ino and—"

Shikamaru groaned. There she went again, talking about Ino and their history together (or lack of, whatever).

"Ino is a great girl, don't get me wrong," Yoshino continued. "But she was never meant to be with Shikamaru; he just couldn't accept it."

He rolled his eyes. He wouldn't have minded if a herd of deer came stampeding through his living room and trampled him to death.

His father was aware of the inner turmoil—not that Shikamaru had any reason to believe that his discomfort and wish for a slow and painful death was not written very clearly on his face. The older man watched him, turned to his wife, and put a calming hand on her knee to get her to stop speaking.

"Leave them alone, honey."

Never before had he seen his mother listen to anyone but her own inner-voices. But at his father's words, she quieted, throwing the blonde an apologetic glance before moving on to the next topic of discussion.

As they finished eating and his mother stood to take their plates, Temari followed suit. "Allow me," she said politely, taking the plates gently out of his mother's hands.

"Why, thank you," his mother said. They went into the kitchen, leaving his father and him alone.

"She's really pretty," his father said, standing and waiting for Shikamaru to do the same. He led Shikamaru into the living room.

"If that's what you like," Shikamaru grumbled.

"She's your girlfriend, isn't she?"

"No," Shikamaru deadpanned, falling onto one of the couches and sighing deeply. "I met her when I tried to kill myself."

"That's nice."

"Yeah. She's annoying."

"They usually are."

"You're not helping."

His father nodded, taking a seat on his favorite recliner, propping his legs up and placing his hands behind his head, the same exact position Shikamaru had taken. "Shikamaru, the only thing I can tell you is that I'm glad you're back."

"Really?"

"No. Actually, the one thing I can tell you is something you won't appreciate."

"What, that Ino wasn't for me?"

"Exactly. Shikamaru, Nara men never marry Ino-kind of girls. We need real women. Strong, loud, bossy women."

"Just because you married Mom—"

A slipper landed on his face, but Shikamaru didn't bother moving it as his father spoke, "Listen, kid. Ino was not the woman of your dreams. If you trust your old man in anything, trust me on that."

"As long as you don't say women like Temari are, I'll take your word for it."

His father didn't speak again.

When Shikamaru lifted his head to question his old man's silence, he saw that the man had fallen asleep, mouth open, tiny snores filling the air.

Typical.

His father always did fall asleep at the most inopportune moments, especially when imparting wise words to his only son.


Shikamaru wasn't surprised when his bedroom door creaked open and Temari came in, wearing a practically useless nightshirt that left nothing to the imagination. And since Shikamaru was, ultimately, a man attracted to women, he felt incredibly uncomfortable as she closed the door behind her and neared his bed.

"Your mother just spent the last two hours trying to convince me to marry you. By the way, she thinks we're having sex."

"I tried to warn you."

Her response was a noise at the back of her throat, which he assumed was her way of admitting that she was wrong and he was right. That was enough to give him a sense of satisfaction and triumph.

A feeling that was dashed when she turned to him again, this time with a mischievous glint reflecting in her eyes. "So, are we seeing each other?" The sound of her voice paired with the lack of clothing she wore made the tiny hairs on his arm raise on end while most of his blood made its way down to a place he wanted desperately to stop growing.

"Hell no."

"Don't sound so displeased. I'm a wonderful girlfriend."

"I'm sure."

"I'm a good kisser, too."

He stared at the ceiling. "For some reason, I feel as if that's to be expected."

Her voice dropped its silkiness and turned into a growl. "Are you trying to imply something?"

He shrugged. "Not at all. I didn't know your father lived in Tokyo."

Yeah, that was it. Change the subject. Resourceful.

The bed shifted slightly as she sat down. "You never asked."

He struggled to keep his eyes glued to the ceiling. "Which is all you do."

"I want answers and can't read your mind."

"You should try minding your business." He gave in and snuck a peek at her, finding the blonde with her eyes closed.

She cracked one eye open. "You entered my life so you are my business."

He stared at her. "That is not proper logic."

She bobbed her head and furrowed her eyebrows. "And I don't care. Your family seems nice."

He made a sound of something dying and hoped she would stop speaking.

"They seem to really care about you."

Something in her voice made him turn to look at her, his eyes searching for whatever emotion had been laced in her words. But he didn't have to be a genius to figure things out.

He was a genius, though. And so he knew that Temari, despite all appearances, was jealous.

So instead of arguing with her, instead of sighing in defeat and commenting about how annoying she was, instead of pretending she hadn't said a word, he nodded in agreement and said,

"Yeah, they do."

She yawned, long fingers hiding her mouth. "Will you show me where my room is? Your mother told me to have you take me."

He groaned, silently urging her not to look down as he stood out of bed slowly, glad he'd worn his large sweats to bed.

He took her to the room beside his. Reaching a hand around the frame of the door to flick on the lights, he gestured towards the room. "This was Ino's favorite room to stay in."

Temari snorted in disgust as she laid on the bed and spread her arms. "God, does she have awful taste."

He nodded. "God awful taste."

As he closed the door, he heard her call, "And I know I'm really beautiful, but you have to have some self-control. We're going to be traveling together. Can't have you getting excited over seeing my thighs."

Instead of grumbling mean things or remarking about how much he hated her, Shikamaru laughed.

He couldn't help but agree with her.


AN: I KNOW I SUCK AT UPDATING BUT I HAD FINALS AND THEN I WENT TO KOREA AND I'VE BEEN BUSY AND I JUST GOT BACK AND I'M MAKING A WEBSITE FOR MY CLASS AND I SUCK SO

JUST REVIEW AND DON'T HATE ME. :( :( :(

(Since I'm not taking any classes til I go on study abroad in March, I have all of February to write and update. So if you leave me nice reviews telling me you don't hate me and are still reading, I might be able to update more. If you do, however, hate me and have stopped reading... wah.)