a/n wow guys, I can't even tell you how much I love this story. I just finished writing it: 34,000 words in about 8 days. Amazing how productive I can be when I have insomnia :X

Anyway, I really have to thank you all for your very sweet reviews; thanks for the love and the encouragement:)

Chapter Three: Fuck Clouds

Seems every castle
Is made of sand.
And the great destroyer
Sleeps in every man;
Here comes my baby
Here comes my man,
With that silver dagger
In his hand

~"Silver Dagger" by Gillian Welch

Fuck clouds.

Usually, clouds help him think. In their nebulous shapes, he sees the forms of ideas, of grand plans and strategies; the movement of Shogi pieces; the fragments of rational thought bound up in mist and dust and ice crystals.

Today, every single cloud remind him of her.

"Take that one, for instance," he mumbles, pointing to the gold-streaked lines of cirro-stratus clouds. "They look just like her ponytails."

"I dunno, Shikamaru," Choji manages around a mouth full of potato chips. "I think they look like golden wings. Or maybe Ino's profile."

Shikamaru snorts. "Don't compare Ino's hair to angel wings. She really doesn't need any encouragement."

"Heh. You're probably right."

Silence descends for a while, punctuated only by the sighing of the breeze and the crunching of potato chips. Shikamaru blinks up at the sky, a dome of golden clouds painted with the faintest of pinks from the westering sun. The clouds shift with the wind, now forming the edges of a fan, then the rugged edges of a familiar smile, the lines of a dress.

"I swear to Kami, Choji, the damn clouds are turning on me."

"Mmmm," is Choji's taciturn reply. He hands Shikamaru the potato chips, the rustling of the bag drawing Shikamaru's gaze.

"Thanks." Shikamaru takes a few, chews them slowly; they taste like saw dust, but he eats them all the same. "You know Choji," Shikamaru mumbles, "I don't know where I went wrong. I plotted out every move, every strategy; I always listened when she talked. I brought her meals when she forgot to eat. And let's not forget, it's thanks to me that she received all those awards for excellence in the field. If it hadn't been for me, she'd have been dead zombie meat."

"Mmmm."

"I don't mean to complain, I got my fair share of metals. But did you ever hear her thank me? Nope. Not one, 'Gee, thanks for saving my life, Shikamaru,'" he intones in his best falsetto. "Nope, there was no, 'Oh Shikamaru, if you hadn't been the brains behind my brawn, those zombies would have handed me my ass on a platter.' Not one word of thanks, not one grateful anything."

There is a pause, and Shikamaru looks Choji out of the corner of his eye. "You guys were a good team," Choji offers cautiously, his hands twisting the bag of potato chips.

"Damn straight! Our battalion sealed the most damn zombies! Well, besides Naruto and his personal army of clones, but no one can measure up to Naruto."

"Nope, Naruto is in a class of his own. Can't compare to that."

"I just don't get it, Choji; things were going so well. Then the war ended… And… And then everything went to shit. What did I do wrong? What the hell did I do?"

Choji gives him a noncommittal shrug. "Women are crazy."

"Women are damn troublesome, that's what they are. Not worth the effort, in my opinion."

"You're probably right, Shikamaru."

Amiable silence ensues as the two continue to watch the sinking sun, the gilded clouds dancing around its halo. But the golden silence is broken by a strident voice; Shikamaru can make out the tone before the actual words.

It starts like a shrill buzzing, the whine of heavy machinery, until the sound comes closer and materializes into words: "…You lazy sacks of shit. Asuma-sensei literally comes back from the dead—the dead!—to lecture you on your lazy-ass ways, and yet here you both are, watching the mother-fucking clouds."

Shikamaru wants to add that the so-called mother fucking clouds all look like his ex-lover, that Shikamaru is actually very busy drowning in self-pity, thank-you-very-much; he does not need a lecture from Ino to compound his misery. However, Ino doesn't give him an opening.

"Do you realize everyone else in this village is busy? I could have used your help, lazy-ass, Choji-kun, but no, Ino had to lift all the heavy shit in the infirmary by herself. Well, no more. Come on team, Tsunade-sama has called us into her office; I think she has a mission for us."

"Oi, Ino," Shikamaru snaps as soon as the blonde shuts her trap, "why am I still lazy-ass, but Choji is Choji-kun?"

Ino giggles stupidly at that. Choji puts his arm around her and blushes. "Come on Shikamaru. I'm sure the mission won't be that bad," Choji mumbles.

Dear gods. If there is anything worse than being dumped, it is watching your two best friends—your only friends—hooking up with each other. First the clouds, now Ino and Choji. Shikamaru is sure the gods are laughing their ethereal asses off at his misfortune. Just pour more salt on my wounds; I dare you. I dare you! he mentally shouts at the cloud-covered heavens.

Ino notices his distress; she places herself in the middle of their trio, one arm around each of her teammates as she babbles the news of the day. "Get this; Naruto is convinced that he has Zombie Plague. He keeps throwing up, and he's certain he's caught a contagious disease from rotten, reanimated corpses."

"I can't believe that guy is next in line for Hokage," Shikamaru mutters. "Who ever heard of Zombie Plague?"

"I heard he just ate ramen with bad meat in it. You know how Naruto is; he eats so fast, he could consume expired food and never notice it," Choji muses.

"I wish Naruto never coined that phrase," Shikamaru says with a sigh. "Right before she left, Temari was convinced she had the so-called 'Zombie Plague,' too. Never knew she was such a germaphobe." He runs a hand through his hair and looks at the sky; a group of cirrus clouds fan out in four directions. "Don't those clouds look just like Temari's hair? I swear—"

"Gods, Shika, stop acting like a moon-struck calf," Ino shouts. "I've never seen you like this! Ever since she left, it's Temari this, Temari that. Get a grip, man. If you love her, go after her; and if you don't—"

Shikamaru shrugs out of Ino's hold and shoves his hands in his pockets. "A little sympathy, Ino? Could you give a guy—"

"You, my friend, have been wallowing in self-pity for three days! Three days! As your friend, it is my duty to help you get over it."

Shikamaru winces at that. Kiba's idea of helping Shikamaru get 'over it' was to take him to the bar and have every blonde woman in sight shove their tits in his face. Lee's idea was to run youthful laps around Konoha until he dropped dead from exhaustion. Naruto just shoveled ramen down his throat, swearing that noodles and broth were the cure for all ills. "Ino, whatever your panacea for a bad break-up is, I don't want to hear it," Shikamaru mutters.

Ino gives him a playful shove on the shoulder before linking arms with him once more. "Getting off your ass and on a mission is the best cure for you, my heart-broken fool. You need to put your mind to good use."

"I'll have you know, I was thinking up ingenious plans for Konoha's defense when you so rudely—"

"Horse shit, Shika. Come on, we're already late; it took me forever to find you guys. Honestly, how many cloud-watching spots do you have, Shikamaru-kun? Sheesh."

He doesn't tell her that he has to find new cloud-watching spots every time Ino discovers his old ones. Instead, he allows the blonde to drag him along to the makeshift Hokage quarters, a long green tent which looks more like an oblong hut.

"Finally," Tsunade's voice booms. "How long were you going to keep an old lady waiting? I have an important diplomatic mission for you, team Ino-Shika-Cho."

Shikamaru is hardly listening as Tsunade hands Ino the mission scroll. He's thinking about the fact that he, the celebrated war hero of Konoha, The Shadow-Stalker, The Mastermind, The Brain, is acting like some hack in a romantic comedy. So what if Temari doesn't love him? That's not his fault. Damn it, he did the best he could; it's not his problem that women are inscrutable, irrational creatures that operate outside the bounds of logic.

So Temari doesn't love him; so fucking what? Despite himself, he enjoyed going on zombie-hacking rampages with the wind-wielder; where he would point, Temari would wreck her vengeance. Where he would plot, Temari would command the forces with all the charisma of a natural born leader. They had been like two perfect halves working in concert; he was the brains and she was the muscle.

Afterwards, when the war had been won and they'd fallen into each other's arms like the sun sinking into the sea, well, he couldn't complain about that. Sure, it'd had been all awkward fumbling, but it was Temari's first time; he couldn't blame her for being all teeth and elbows. Kami, he is pretty sure he still has the bite marks, the black-and-blue bruises, from their first tryst.

It had gotten better after that, a lot better. And the two weeks when the Suna forces had been camped at Konoha—that had been bliss. They'd spent all day together, filing mission reports and chain-smoking cigarettes; she'd come home with him every single night.

He had simply added it all up: girl commands shinobi army with him and they both end up celebrated war heros. Girl sleeps with him at end of war. Girl comes to hometown and spends every waking and sleeping minute with him. Girl is awfully good in the sack.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was love. Or at least, he thought it was love, until Temari broke up with him—no, no, she hadn't even done that, because according to her, they had never been dating. And just like that, she pukes into his toilet, leaves his house, and goes marching off to Suna, mad as a bull. Leaving him to clean up the vomit on the tiled floor in the bathroom; Kami, she hadn't even been drinking the night before.

Well, maybe he wasn't a genius—at least, not when it came to women. That's it. I quit. I'm never dating another girl again. I'm going to live a celibate life as a cloud-watching monk, and do this ninja stuff on the side. I'm not cut out for love, it's too fucking confusing. There's no rules, no constants, just—

"Shikamaru, are you even listening?" the Hokage blusters, staring down at him. Shikamaru begins to sweat; he does not know how long Tsunade has been glowering down at him.

"Tsunade-sama, please forgive my teammate. You know Shika, head in the clouds," Ino jokes weakly.

"Your teammates can fill you in on the details," Tsunade mutters in disgust. "Now get out of my office."

Shikamaru shuffles out of the tent, not really caring what the mission is. Ino babbles something incomprehensible into his ear and shoves the scroll into his hands; he reads it lazily, his thoughts elsewhere, until his eyes catch on a single word—

Suna.

"We're going to the Sand?" Shikamaru yelps. "But why?"

"Idiot, you really weren't listening, were you?" Ino shrieks. "We're going on a diplomatic mission to request ninja skilled in construction jutsu. To help rebuild the village? Helloooo, Shika, anyone home?"

But Shikamaru stands stock-still in the middle of the street, staring dumbly down at the scroll in his hands.

Wow gods, Shikamaru thinks, you really did just make my life worse. I thought it couldn't get worse, but then you proved me wrong. Well. Thanks a lot. Assholes.

a/n I'd really appreciate your feedback via your kind review:) Thanks!