3. Memory Inconsistency
He spilled over text over subtext of psychogenic amnesia.
Shikamaru lay out discontentedly on the library table, feeling every languid muscle fiber in his body stretch taut. His face was halfway hidden in the arch of the textbook in hand, shielding his eyes from the bursting sun that filtered obnoxiously through the window by their table. Following suit, Choji sighed unenthusiastically and buried his face into his arms, chair screeching back against the tile floor as his book toppled against the surface of the table from his limp grasp.
They'd been at this for the past four hours, maybe more. And that hardly accounted for the sheer number of days they'd been at the library since their return from the battlefield. Shikamaru always had trouble staying awake for long and this turned out to be no exception. His onslaught of renewed resolve lasted for about the first two days in their return before it faded into a seed of halfhearted doubt and borderline defeat. He couldn't keep this up—but he tried his best and did what he could and continued pouring over these words until everything ended up sounding the same.
There were no absolute answers in these books. Only facts painted over numbers that meant absolutely nothing in the long run.
And Ino.
It was the little, peculiar idiosyncrasies that fucked with Shikamaru's mind the most. The stupid anecdotes Sakura would tell him—how Ino couldn't remember anything for long, that the pink-haired kunoichi would have to constantly remind her best friend that she was in Konohagakure—how Ino couldn't remember how she ended up in different places, and most of all, how Ino couldn't remember anyone, anything—not even her family. Her short-term memory was damaged; but that was almost a given considering the force of the impact.
It just never accounted for the long-term memory loss.
"Have you seen her yet?" Choji asked, voice muffled into his folded arms.
Shikamaru grunted.
Truth is, he'd been avoiding her. He'd always been exceptionally good at hiding from his problems (in the shadows, so to speak). He knew their paths were bound to cross eventually but for the time being, he preferred to lock himself up in the Nara family library, trying to find a goddamn reason. People stopped by occasionally but few actually understood the extent of what was going on. Naruto was still out there somewhere on the battlefield (the dobe had always been good at cleaning up the messes other people left behind, which never quite explained the mess that was his apartment) and Sakura never stayed in the village for long, always by Naruto's side.
Shikamaru had never been much of an "up-stander," or whatever the hell that meant.
After all, he'd always been the one watching all the bullying unfold since he was seven. It started with Choji and the only consolation Shikamaru had given himself was to at least pull his new friend out of that pitfall after all those insensitive fat jokes. Kids were probably the biggest assholes and even he knew that at such a tender age. He was languid, tired and far too removed for a seven year old—and he learned since then that neutrality was easy; drama was annoying and troublesome. But that didn't mean had had no conscience; and his friendship was the most he could give to Choji.
But Ino would never be that kind of girl.
Ino was the up-stander.
She was the one who picked Sakura up from the dust. Shikamaru would be damned but he was almost sure that pink-haired blossom wouldn't be where she was today had it not been for Ino. Ino—who chased away Sakura's bullies—and Ino who chased away Sakura's insecurities and monsters.
He was always kind of jealous of her—jealous of her capacity to give a damn. She was compassion personified and always shielded herself with indifference in the form of narcissist conceit and just plain ignorance. But he knew better than anybody in the world that Ino should've been born to be an actress.
She could've fooled anyone with that smile.
"Why couldn't it have only been retrograde," Shikamaru muttered under his breath, "why the hell did it have to be psychogenic?"
Truth be told, he already knew the answer.
Long-term memory loss was rare in average civilians, but in the shinobi world, it seemed to be some unexplained anomaly. Granted, there'd only been ten recorded cases of this kind of memory loss in Konohagakure history, at least seven of these cases were shinobi. The same seven that occurred prior to the second and third shinobi war.
Psychogenic.
(It just left a bad taste in his mouth)
It wasn't just the impact from the implosion, Shikamaru learned; and it wasn't just from getting thrashed around like a rag doll.
It was the war.
They were only fifteen—fifteen and fighting. Fifteen and taking lives.
Fifteen years young with blood on their hands.
They were only kids, and this was the kind of fate that fell to their hands.
Traumatized. Really. Her candid smile back when Shikamaru asked her if she still remembered him could've thrown anybody off.
(After all, Ino was a fantastic actress)
He pushed back the textbook onto table and shielded his eyes languidly with his forearm, grinding his teeth, "I should've seen this coming."
We're going home soon, aren't we?
"Goddamn," he breathed in.
If we both come back alive, let's get married.
"Goddamn," and breathed out.
Shikamaru perused through the streets of Konoha with expectant nothingness, his walk languid and slow until the sun from above fell below the horizon. The sky bloomed in shades of red and orange and Shikamaru stared and stared until those colors embedded themselves in the shape of stars and cosmos flowers in shades of purple and blue in his peripheral vision. And then he continued perusing until he found himself at the high-rise arch that overlooked the village.
He took a seat at the edge, sliding his legs through the gaps between the handlebars.
Shikamaru surveyed the rooftops of the village with disdain.
Everything was newly furbished. Ever since Pein's attack on the village, it'd been all about picking up the pieces and rebuilding a new world. It was almost a miracle to see all those dead being brought back to life—
—then again, it was only a miracle. And that was all it was meant to be in the end.
"Man, you need to stop sulking."
Kiba materialized from the distance with no Akamaru, plopped down next to Shikamaru, crossing his legs Indian style. Dog-boy relented an irritated sigh and closed one eye, peering over, "You're just breeding gloom. It's kind of contagious, you know. I can smell it a mile away, not to mention you're a total eyesore. It'd be nice if you—you know—stopped this."
Shikamaru grimaced.
"The whole feeling sorry for yourself act isn't doing you any favors," Kiba continued offhandedly, shifting his gaze to the high-rise rooftops, "especially not with the ladies."
Shikamaru stretched his arms out, feeling each muscle fiber stretch taut as he sank into the concrete, eyes raking the sky as he opened his mouth to retort, "Like I give a crap."
Kiba snorted, "Right. I should've expected that much."
They weren't good friends. Even considering him a childhood friend was pushing it. Outside of skipping academy together with Naruto and Choji, they hardly knew each other. Shikamaru could barely consider Kiba an acquaintance and he knew there was a reason why he didn't associate himself with dog-breath. As much as he didn't want to admit it, Kiba always knew the right way to get under his skin, to get under anybody's skin—because Kiba was known for asking the questions that nobody else bothered to (or dared to) ask.
"She told me about the proposal."
Shikamaru blanched and sat up almost too quickly with a grunt, all the blood flushing into his face as his cheeks tinged pink. Kiba continued staring at the sky baked in shades of red and scratched the back of his head sheepishly while he pulled his feet in closer. They sat in a fleeting awkward silence and Shikamaru stared at him expectantly, waiting for an explanation or something worthwhile.
But then he wondered why the hell Ino would confide in someone like him?
Kiba narrowed his eyes in the form of a playful glare as he finally averted his gaze, "You are—no offense—dense as hell."
Again, he remembered why he hated dog-breath so much.
Kiba always asked and pointed out the things nobody else would dare say aloud. Things like, Ino—stop crying! (You barely knew Sasuke). And Shikamaru couldn't tell whether it was because he was just plain stupid or because it was because he didn't give a shit about what other people thought about him.
"Ino always knew nothing would happen if she didn't speak up first," Kiba conceded quietly, "the war terrified her. For a while, she was convinced she wouldn't come back alive. Did you even know?"
Shikamaru didn't.
Apparently, there were a lot of things he didn't know about Ino.
That night, he returned to an empty compound.
He tossed his keys carelessly into the string basket alongside his bedroom entrance.
He peeled off his shirt first, a gentle wave of cold air kissing his sweat soaked skin. He followed with his pants which pooled around his ankles in a pile that he kicked away indifferently to an unsuspecting corner of the room. Finding his sleeping shirt tucked away under his pillow, he stuck his arms through the appropriate holes and fitted the last one over his head.
He collapsed onto his bed and propped his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
Stars blinked.
Well, almost.
These were the kinds of plastic stars that Ino pressed against his walls when she was nine. It was photoluminescence at best—but Ino was thoroughly charmed by these artificial stars. Years passed and most of these stars peeled off on their own but the few that did remain were the ones stuck to his ceiling.
Back when it still mattered, Ino would sneak in through the back, over the walls that led to the Nara courtyard, and replaced these stars; but ever since Sasuke entered the picture, and ever since they began to drift apart with all these social obligations, she stopped coming over. She stopped caring. These were the kinds of things that stopped mattering to them in the long run and Shikamaru quietly wondered how he could've possibly missed the signs. The stars, the dinner parties, the playdates. For a guy with an IQ higher than 200, it was almost ridiculous how little he noticed up until this point.
Maybe Kiba was right.
Shikamaru shrugged the thought off.
There was some shuffling in the back.
He arched a brow, turned on his side and spared a glance at his door. His parents couldn't have been back soon. Shikaku, Yoshino and the entirety of Team 10, along with family and friends were out for dinner. And they were notoriously known for taking their sweet time. Back then, they'd left Choji, Ino and Shikamaru in the Nara compound while they went out but over the course of these eventful years and with all the growing up they'd done, their parents had stopped worrying.
Inoichi had been handling things fairly well with his daughter. But a lot like Ino, he was also known for being a fantastic actor. Shikamaru made a mental reminder to visit him some time and ask how he was doing.
He pushed himself up from his bed and exited the room, strolling down the corridor quietly.
It took him only a few seconds for him to reach the courtyard, where he caught sight of a very familiar looking blonde sitting in the pool that was the koi fishpond.
Shikamaru blinked inquisitively and paused at the edge of the floorboard, leaning against the shaft that held up the canopy over the hallway. The image was nothing short of absurd and he probably would've owned up to a laugh or two had it not been for his concern over the fish that may or may not have been dead in that same pond.
But the fact was—she had been able to climb over the wall with no memory of her shinobi existence.
Muscle memory; he mouthed the words quietly underneath his breath. Though, he was almost sure Ino didn't remember the koi pond being there, considering the fact that it was only installed after Pein's invasion and subsequent destruction.
The blonde veered her gaze over to him and pushed herself up from the pond.
"Shikamaru—right?" she stated, taking one step out of the water, followed with the other foot, "I'm Ino."
It took him a while for this to register, "I know," and he opened his mouth to say something more but in that moment of hesitation, he realized he might just say something wrong and lose her completely.
Ino approached him in her wet mess of a t-shirt—technically, the same t-shirt Shikamaru had but in a vivid shade of orange as opposed to his lackadaisical green. She seemed to register the same thing as she turned her gaze from her shirt to his, most likely wondering how in the world they matched something like this coincidentally.
Then again, even shinobi had their casual days. And seeing Shikamaru wearing that same black shirt everyday prompted Ino to go out of her way to buy him several copies of the shirt he was wearing now. "Green because it suits you," she'd said at the time, "green because your clan owns that section of the forest with all the doe and deer." Green because ever since Shikamaru got that Chūnin vest, Ino had convinced herself that that was the color that belonged to him.
"I don't really know why," she started awkwardly, scratching the back of her head, "That wall looked so familiar. I just…felt like I should climb it. Stupid, right?"
But the words were screaming to him—muscle memory.
"I should really go though," she followed with a sheepish smile, "I'm wet and gross, and I have to change."
"Stay," Shikamaru said almost too quickly, "I'll give you a spare change of clothes. Just, um—stay."
She looked only halfheartedly surprised. Shikamaru shifted all his weight to one leg, unable to hide the very apparent flush in his cheeks as he turned his gaze to the floor.
He led her down the corridor but she took off first and found her way to his room on her own, turning her heel gracefully while he watched in surprise from behind. When he finally caught up with her, he found her standing at the edge of his bed, on her tiptoes as she reached for the stars printed against the high ceiling of his room. She shifted all her weight to one foot as she lifted one leg back, leaning forward as she finally made contact with one.
Shikamaru shuffled towards his dresser and pulled out a pair of green trousers back from his Genin days along with a shirt identical with the one he had on right now.
"Here," he held it with his arm outstretched as Ino settled her stance, jumping off the edge of his bed as she took it into her arms.
"Warm," she commented wryly, hugging his clothes to her chest, "just came from the dryer?"
"Yeah," he answered her question awkwardly, leaning down to pick up a random kunai spilled over the floorboard of his bedroom; it would be a travesty if Ino actually ended up stepping on it and he wasn't exactly prepared for their impromptu meeting so cleaning his room wasn't very high on his list of priorities. That went along with the spare pair of pants he'd kicked carelessly into a corner earlier before she came.
When he stood back up, he tried not to flinch as he found a very half-naked Ino in her undergarments pulling his shirt over her head.
"Oi," he snapped, covering his eyes indignantly, "warn me when you do that!"
Ino grinned apologetically and slipped her shorts off as they crumpled into a heap around her ankles, leaning forward so that the hem of his green shirt strategically covered her boy shorts, "Sorry."
Truth is, Shikamaru had probably seen her in less. Considering the number of missions they'd been on, and considering the fact that most of these missions went over night, they were bound to have been half naked in front of each other at one point or another. Ino had always been rather proud—and she should've been because she dedicated time in sculpting her body the right way. She had the whole you only live once philosophy embedded in her genes and that went along with the purple midriff she traded for when she turned fifteen.
Muscle memory. She fell into comfort around him by instinct.
She pulled up his shorts and placed her hands on her hips, "I'm done. You can take your hands off your eyes now."
Shikamaru reluctantly obliged and conceded a soft sigh, rubbing the pressure point on the back of his neck while he turned his gaze towards Ino, who was still staring up at the stars attached to his ceiling.
"Those are really nice," she pointed out with a half smile as she made her way towards the door of his room, "you have good taste."
Ino departed his room without another word.
Shikamaru stared at those stars for an extra half second before taking off behind her.
By the time they came back out, the stars outside were blinking.
Ino wedged her fingers underneath her thighs and leaned forward, smiling effortlessly as her gaze shifted to those high above. Shikamaru watched her for a moment before taking a seat next to her, following her gaze.
She had always been headstrong and reckless but if there were one thing that could truly calm her down, it was these stars. People never gave her enough credit for her fantastic memory and she could not only recite every flower family along with multiple variations, but she could also name all the constellations from dusk to dawn. These were the kinds of stupid things that could take her breath away, easy. Her weakness, so to speak.
Ino was somewhat of a stargazer.
"I used to have this dream," she started, "that there would be these…things chasing me. I would run so fast—that the moment I jumped, I was high in the sky, speeding through the clouds, trying to touch the stars."
Shikamaru averted his gaze over but Ino had her eyes glued to the sky.
"—but it was only a jump and I ended up falling back to earth anyway."
Ino brushed a lock of hair pin straight hair behind her ear and slipped her fingers from underneath her thighs, brushing them against the wrinkles of Shikamaru's shorts. She pulled a knee into her chest and cradled her chin at the crook, "Those things would find me when I fell back and I realized they weren't really what I thought they were. Not monsters."
She looked over at him and smiled, "They were my friends. Weird, huh?"
Shikamaru stared at her lips shamelessly.
"Yeah," he conceded, "weird."
They sat in silence for a few more minutes while Shikamaru thought desperately of something to say—anything. They were teammates; they'd gotten along before all of this nonsense and he could've even brought up what happened during the war—and most importantly, the night before the war—when she'd given him that proposal with a smile to kill.
"Thanks for not asking me what I remember," Ino stated, suddenly, "you know, it's kind of been getting on my nerves. And that pink-haired girl with the huge forehead doesn't seem to let it up. It's like she thinks I have the attention span of a goldfish or something because she keeps asking me if I know where I am every five minutes."
Shikamaru smirked, "It's only for your sake, idiot," and made a mental note that Ino had said something like forehead girl, which must've meant something.
Ino grimaced uncharacteristically, "Please. Like I need to be reminded."
Her memory was improving.
But there was something Choji wasn't telling him. Shikamaru always knew something was wrong and could read his friends easy. His best friend was keeping something from him and Shikamaru wanted to know, but was terrified to ask.
"Sorry…how did I get here again?"
And then Ino would say something like that—and left Shikamaru feeling completely winded.
He relented a sigh and turned his gaze to the cobblestone of the courtyard, "You, um…accidentally fell into that koi pond," he motioned lazily towards the pool along with the wet footprints still fresh in the ground, "then I gave you some spare clothing."
Instinctively, they both spared a glance at the green shirt she was wearing. The same green shirt he was wearing.
They looked away.
She rolled her eyes, "Yeah right. I did not."
"Yeah—" Shikamaru grunted slightly, unable to hide his amusement as he lifted his gaze, "you kind of did."
"No," Ino snapped indignantly, "I did not. That's just—stupid."
"Well you do tend to do a lot of stupid things," Shikamaru admonished with a reflective smile, "remember the first time we took the Chūnin exams? We bumped into a really powerful member of the Hyūga clan—and you decided to distract him with your good looks. Needless to say, he saw right through you and we wound up in the same place where we started."
Ino knit her brows, a tinge of pink flushing her cheeks, "Oi. How about you tell me a good memory instead?"
Shikamaru hesitated—and allowed himself the luxury of forcing a weak smile at her request's expense.
"Well, one time, we were trying to infiltrate this lucrative, underground trade system for the headman's daughter, who was kidnapped—and things got messy. I made a hostage exchange in her place but—Baji, the guy in charge of this underground tunnel, sealed my voice with his jutsu. So I couldn't give you the signal to find me."
Ino's eyes widened, "So what happened?"
"You could tell," Shikamaru said slowly, "you could tell something was wrong the moment he put that seal over me during the exchange. And you took over my mind with your jutsu at the right moment to find out where Baji was taking me…"
"Without a signal?" she asked, arching a brow.
Shikamaru smirked and leaned back onto the floorboard, propping his arms behind his head as he stared up at the sky, "Yeah—you just knew."
Ino turned her gaze back up at the sky and Shikamaru stared at the back of her head, sincerely wondering how different things would've been had this not happened.
Ino always knew nothing would happen if she didn't speak up first.
"Ne—Ino?"
She blinked and turned to look at him, "What is it?"
Shikamaru opened his mouth to tell her something like You know I'm always going to be here for you, right?—or something like You're not alone—and if you need to talk about something, I'm right here. We don't even need to talk. You can just sit there and we can just…be quiet together or something—and even The night before the Shinobi War, you proposed something to me. And I just want you to know I won't let something like that happen again. I know I can be dense—but I just…
I really think I want to know you better.
But everything was far too trite and cliché for a boy like him so instead, he veered his gaze to the sky and watched as those stars winked back at him, "Never mind. It's nothing."