Author's Note: Third-person again. Probably semi-clichéd, but whatever. Don't worry, all will unfold very soon. Just sit back and be tortured—I mean, entertained…and keep it up, my lovely readers and reviewers! You guys are awesome!
Twenty. Tea With Temari
Temari entered the doorway of a small teashop. It seemed like a facility that she would normally pass right by, but today she had a purpose in noticing. Shikamaru had left early, taking just enough time to kiss her goodbye and whisper the plans for the day in her ear. And, as it so happened, meeting at this tea shop was all part of the plan.
He was having a smoke at the back table when she entered, looking good as ever. She crossed the wooden floor. Shikamaru's head rose. "Hey. Good to see you."
She grinned. "I'd hope so. Although, it was even better seeing you last night."
"Should we make tonight a replay of that, then?"
Temari sighed, and a dark shadow fell across her thoughts. "A replay without interruption, hopefully."
Shikamaru fell silent, lingering on his smoke. The waitress passed, and Temari ordered a cup of tea. The minutes passed silently, the waitress brought Temari's tea and left.
Shikamaru finally spoke again. "Poor guy. He just never gets a break, does he?"
Temari sipped at her tea. "It's strange, seeing him this way. I've never really seen him show any emotions besides anger or fear. To see him in love…it's scary. I don't think he ever even imagined what he was getting into when all of this started."
"None of us ever expect it to be this troublesome. Books and people make it sound like it's all puppies and rainbows. Truthfully, I think love is almost harder than being a shinobi. At least a shinobi has set boundaries, set rules. Love has just about none of the above."
Temari toyed with her mug, drumming her fingers around the rim. "I wish I could have told him…I should have been more persistent…before things got so complicated."
Shikamaru shook his head, putting out his smoke on the table. "You couldn't have known, Temari. Didn't you say this whole thing developed on a mission Gaara sent Kankuro on?" he frowned. "How troublesome. Those two…they're just going to have to work out their problems They have to realize that…they're so much alike they can't stand one another. It's something you can't help them with. Think of it as a final mission. They're both going to come out of it dead or alive, and you can't be there to help either one of them." He pounded his fist onto the table, causing Temari's mug of tea to jump a few inches. "You just can't save everyone, no matter how much you want to!"
"Calm down, Shikamaru. This is about Kankuro and Kiba, not Asuma."
"I know," he mumbled, resting his head on the smooth tabletop. "I know. It's just…I know what it's like to have that constant fear of losing someone. How it hurts, how you feel like you can't ever breathe again."
"And you think I haven't felt that? What about the time when Gaara nearly died, or all those times he and Kankuro came so close to killing one another? That's why I was born first…to keep the peace. And now, I'm not even sure if I can keep my own peace anymore."
The bell above the shop door rang. A slender blonde shinobi strode in, looking very perplexed, as though she wasn't sure where she was. Then she spotted Shikamaru at his table in the corner, and her expression became a bit brighter.
"Shikamaruuuu!" she crooned.
"Ino. What brings you here?" he said.
She blushed, and her expression became guilty. "I-I've done something horrible."
"So?" he waved his dead smoke around in the air, waiting for an answer. "What'd you do, sleep with Shino again?"
"No…it's…it's worse than that."
Shikamaru looked shocked. He was silent, as though he could not come to terms with the magnitude of trouble she had just expressed. "Damn it, Ino," he finally growled. "How can you have done something that bad?"
"Well," she began, taking a seat next to him. "You know how Kiba was in love with Kankuro? I sort of…took drastic measures into my own hands…"
"Shintenshin no jutsu? Ino, you didn't—"
"But I just had to!" she burst out. "I mean, that freak with the face paint was hoarding in on my territory!"
"'Freak'?" Temari questioned. Her voice had sharpened considerably, and a malignant gleam lingered in her eyes. "That 'freak' you just spoke of happens to be my little brother."
Ino's eyes widened, as though she was fully registering Temari's presence for the first time. "Oh. I mean—"
"What the hell do you mean, 'shintenshin no jutsu'?" Someone else yelled, bursting though the door. The bell chimed once, twice, thrice. Three more figures entered the shop, one of whom was still shouting. "Do you mean to tell me that dumb blonde used some sort of party trick on Kiba?"
"Kankuro," Shino said, keeping his voice level. "Lower your voice. If you upset the other customers, they'll force us to leave." His eyes flickered over the customers, taking in their expressions one by one. His eyes met Ino's, and there was a split second for the time it took his brain to register his presence. "No, not here."
Kankuro and Hinata—who had loyally stayed by the Suna shinobi's side—followed Shino's gaze.
"Oh, hell," Kankuro muttered.
"K-Kankuro," Hinata said in her small voice. "Please, don't hurt—"
But it was far too late. Kankuro had already stormed over to the corner table, where Shikamaru sat with Temari on his left and Ino on his right.
"You," he snarled.
"Me," she smiled, not showing any fear. "What are you going to do about it, anyways?"
"What the hell does that mean?"
"I don't see a puppet on your back. What, you going to defend your boyfriend's honor here? Don't even try. Without that dolly of yours there's nothing—"
Her words ended there. Kankuro floored her with a well-placed punch to the nose, knocking her backwards off her chair and sending her flying, where she landed in a heap in front of Shino.
Shino grabbed Kankuro's upper arm. "Stop it," he said. His tone was even, but a bit of anger bit into it. "Fighting isn't going to get us anywhere. The thing that's important is that you know what happened. Our only choice now is to find Kiba and get out of this whole mess."
Ino groaned from the floor. "Finding Kiba…will be tough…once he runs off, you can't catch him. He…he won't want to be…caught."
Shino gave her his hand and helped her off the ground. He pulled her in closer and stared her down for a minute. Nobody could tell what exactly passed between them, but something inside Ino seemed to change.
"Kankuro," Ino whispered, turning towards him. "I know that this is one of those times when nothing will make your frustration go away. I can understand if you hate me, if you never forgive me. But please…I'm sorry."
She meant it, too. Kankuro could tell that from the bottom of her heart, she was sorry. She had meant to cause pain to him and him alone, but she'd ended up hurting Kiba, as well. And by hurting Kiba, she seemed to have also wounded her own pride. Maybe she cared for a Kiba a little more than anyone had realized.
Kankuro clenched his fist. He held it, letting the fingers tense, and then dropped his arm altogether. "I shouldn't have helped him to cheat on you."
"I cheated on him first," she whispered. "You may not know it, Kankuro but…when I was with him, there was always a part of him that was…off. He was somewhere else in his head and his heart, even if his body was lying next to mine. And I think all along his heart had been in Suna…with you."
Kankuro felt a weight lifted from off his heart. It had been so deflated, choked from life. Now it sprang up like a bird, fluttering back to life inside his chest. "I don't mean to hurt you any more," he said, a smile playing at his lips, "but it makes me feel so…happy…to know that. I haven't felt this well in a long time."
"You've been sick?" Temari asked. Her voice was filled with a bit of sisterly compassion, something Kankuro had never really heard her use towards him before.
"Sick of the heart, I think. He kissed me and said he loved me but…I don't think I even really realized how much he loved me until now. It's a good feeling. I wish I could share it with you, Temari."
Shikamaru wrapped his arm around her waist. "I think she already has it, kid."
And for a pure, blissful moment everything seemed alright. That was, until Hinata spoke. "Inuzuka?"
Kankuro turned, expecting to see Kiba, but instead there was Inuzuka Tsume, grimacing in the doorway, her great hound by her side. "Hinata," she said. Her tone was short and unhappy. "Have you seen Kiba lately?"
"About an hour ago, at t-the Ichiraku Ramen Shop," Hinata stuttered, evidently intimidated by the woman's presence. "Is s-something wrong?"
"About an hour ago," Tsume repeated, murmuring it to herself. Then she continued, her gaze resting on Kiba's two teammates. She barely seemed to recognize any of the other shinobi at all. "Nothing's wrong, Hinata," she assured her. "It just that…about a half an hour ago Kiba came home and packed his bags. He said he had a mission he was going on—alone. I thought it was strange that he'd be sent on a mission in such short notice. His eyes were watering, and he seemed oddly detached. He barely had time to even catch his breath before he was out the door." She turned towards the exit. "Tell me if you see him around," she said. "I'm going to ask Tsunade about this. It doesn't smell right to me."
The other Shinobi were silent for a bit. They all obviously knew Kiba had not been sent on a mission of any sort. Still, the magnitude of Tsume's message had yet to hit them. Kankuro shook his head, not wanting to believe it. None of them wanted to believe it, not even a word of it.
Finally, Ino spoke. "It's like I said," she whispered in a semi-horrified tone. "When Kiba runs away, it's hard to catch him." Her eyes turned on Kankuro, hard with determination. "And it looks like this time we won't be able to catch him at all. Because he's not coming back."
