a/n: kind of back in my old style, though in a shorter version. inspired by a manga I once read. This is fulfilling a request from applejax.
The Kids Are Alright
Shikamaru sets down his knife and uses his fork to stab a piece of his freshly cut steak. He isn't in a particularly nice restaurant. It's okay, he figures. It's Asuma's favorite, but he thinks the guy doesn't have really high standards. It is near work though, right down the street, in fact, which is enough for him. It's convenient, and Shikamaru tends to avoid things that aren't.
He lifts his fork and takes a piece of meat into his mouth.
Asuma is talking to him about something. It has to do with work, but it is anecdotal and not very important.
Shikamaru, on the other hand, is keeping the counter in the corner of his eye while simultaneously pretending, more to himself, really, that he has his full attention on his food. Or Asuma. He can't remember which one he is supposed to act more inclined towards.
Out of the corner of his eye, she stands up from her stool and reaches over the counter for the plastic bag. She takes her food and exchanges a word with the waiter before stepping away. Shikamaru's head is turned now, fully facing her. She carries her takeout in one hand as she maneuvers through the tables to the door. It is pretty cold outside and she is wearing a coat.
Before she leaves, she turns her head in his precise direction, probably aware of his eyes the whole time. The corner of her lips crease and she raises a hand. Her wrist flicks to the right in a slight wave. He gives a light smile back to her, and after another second, she leaves. The bells on the door clink on her way out. It really is a crappy place to be eating steak.
"Hmph," Asuma snorts, watching the exchange before taking a long sip of his drink. Shikamaru waits until he puts his glass down. He swallows and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "Rough few weeks, huh?"
Shikamaru rests his chin in his hand and looks away from the door Temari just walked out of. He shrugs. "Yeah, but it'll be all right."
He thought he saw her in the restaurant. He wasn't quite positive. After all, it'd been six or seven years, and it was a given that she'd look very different. But he was pretty sure it was her.
Considering he hadn't actually thought about her in a long time, it seemed unlikely that she would just pop up in his imagination now, so he allowed that there was a possibility that it was her. Sometimes things like that happened.
Sometimes people came into your life one more time. He figured it was nothing. A few years ago, he ran into a friend from high school. He didn't remember this guy that much, but this guy had remembered him. They'd bumped into one another in a restaurant much nicer than the one Shikamaru had seen her in. The guy had sat next to him and they'd talked for about half an hour before they parted ways.
It was only by coincidence that they met. They hadn't exchanged contact information or anything. It was a big city, but sometimes you see someone or something from your past.
He'd thought it was the same with her. He'd seen her eating with someone else. He'd glanced at her. And then when it hit him, he'd looked for her again, but she was gone.
He figured that would be it. He could have talked to her, but he didn't. If he was given the chance again, which he doubted he would be, he might do it the same way. After all, he had no idea what he wanted to say to her. He didn't really care how she was doing. He certainly didn't think about her or anything.
Anyway; it might not have even been her. There was no way to know for sure.
He didn't forget about it easily though. Or maybe he would have, but he wasn't given much of an opportunity.
That was during lunch, and when he got back into the office, he saw her again. And this time he knew it was her. There wasn't much of a doubt this time.
"Nara," Asuma said, putting a hand on Temari's back, "this is your new author."
He hadn't said anything. He was too surprised.
She looked exactly as the girl in the restaurant had — though he acknowledged that it was possible the girl in the restaurant wasn't actually her —, hair longer and clothes sharp and business-like.
He didn't even wear such nice outfits if he could help it.
"Oh."
"You two know might actually know each other," Asuma said, "you went to the same high school."
"It was a big school," Shikamaru responded. Temari was looking at him, but he kept his eyes away.
There was an slow pause, before Asuma cleared his throat. "Shame. Well, Temari has just moved back to Japan and we represent the rights to her japanese novels, so her publisher sent her here. I've put you in temporary charge as her editor, as we're a little short on available staff right now."
Shikamaru gave a slow nod and finally glanced down to look at her. "You have a new book?"
"An extended essay," she answered.
"I know nothing about physics or engineering or shit like that."
Asuma laughed, "he is a quick learner," his chief said, "don't worry. I'm sure you'll work great together."
They took the elevator up to his office in relative silence until the end.
It was stifling and hot and he had no idea how to act around her. So he ignored it, for the most part. She had a habit of annoying him with her presence.
Temari too, didn't seem to have any inclination to say anything for half a minute.
"How are your friends?" She asked eventually. They were side by side and both facing the doors. He had his hands in his pockets.
He grunted. "Good."
A few seconds passed with only the whirring of the lift-pulley again.
"I didn't think I'd ever see you again." She said, not really trying for any conversation and not at a loss of how to start something, just as a clear-cut statement.
The doors opened. Shikamaru stepped out and she followed.
"Same here." He turned the corner and lead the way down the hall to his office. "I honestly kind of forgot about you."
She didn't say anything more on the personal topic and neither did he. But she didn't seem very affected by his very rude and very grossly inappropriate words.
He wondered why he'd said it. And why she didn't react.
He never really forgot about her.
He knew that.
He certainly acknowledged it.
He didn't think about her. But he remembered her. Maybe all of it. Maybe not.
He wondered how much she knew. Or remembered, actually.
He also wondered why she had chosen to come back to Japan. There must be some reason he was unaware of. She had brothers. One of them ran a huge investment firm downtown. He wondered if anything serious had happened to make her come back.
Or maybe she was just homesick.
He didn't know. He didn't pretend to know. He never really knew anything about her. Honestly, it was a little bit ridiculous that he was her temporary editor. Out of the dozens of others in his department, he'd been assigned to her. That was odd, wasn't it?
"Faster," he'd managed, gritted through his teeth, head hanging because, jesus, the effort to hold his head high took too much thought and too much skill and her hands were flying over his cock, light and fast, and just fuck.
She was too good at this. Too good. He didn't understand, and god, the noises he was making were certainly horrible enough to make him understand that they were loud and humiliating, which was saying something considering he could barely process a complete thought.
Temari had him pinned against the wall of the boy's locker room, as she had done so many times recently, his erection half pulled from his sweats, lips locked around the back of his hand to maybe, possibly, muffle the sounds he was currently emitting.
But oh christ her fingers. HOW? He had been doing the exact same thing to himself for years before this, and not once had it ever been with this kind of technique. It's not like she learned by practicing on herself. Did she practice on other men?
Temari rubbed a thumb over the tip and Shikamaru shook, groaning and biting into the flesh of his hand hard enough to break skin. He was close.
There was a sound from her and he managed to open his eyes, barely, through the haze of tears from over-flow of emotions, and see her looking down at where her hands flew over him, faster and faster, and he managed — barely, because shit — to place both palms on her shoulders and try to push her. Or grip onto her. He wasn't sure.
"I'm… I… Te—"
She took the hint, though not really in the way he'd meant, and rubbed her thumb over his tip one more time. Shikamaru came, shaking. It was harder than he'd come last time.
His hands fell from her shoulders and his knees gave out, leaving him slumped on the floor in a heap of sweaty drawstring pants and his spent cock sitting listlessly, dirty.
Temari only stood there, messy hand still held a few inches away from her. She was breathing hard, her pants a counter-point to his heavy, slow breaths. Her cheeks were red and sweat beaded on her neck and even in his half-conscious state he registered the fact that he — even after so many weeks — could still hardly wrap his head around Temari.
Shikamaru woke up with a start.
His bed was wet from his sweat, a dark V staining his collar. He was also sporting a massive hard-on, painful and throbbing beneath his shorts.
But he did nothing about it, even with the ache.
Why now?
Why was he dreaming about her — about that — now? It had been years since then. Years.
Was it because he'd seen her again? Could that have anything to do with it? Probably.
But it wasn't like when he saw her, he only thought about those evenings in the locker room. He didn't. He hadn't.
Shikamaru groaned and, pushing into his mind some stupid porn he'd seen two weeks before, started to emulate exactly what Temari had taught him.
Work didn't change. He hadn't seen her since the day they were re-introduced. She sent him a very rough draft, he reviewed it and faxed it back to her, notes on the paper, more through email, and a few problem areas discussed by phone.
He was usually more actively involved with his authors. He would meet with them once a week or so, maybe once every two weeks when they're still just drafting out their work. All other communication is done through email and the like — but with Temari, he limited things.
He didn't ever propose a personal meeting and she never said anything.
He wondered if she knew that he was being less involved with her in comparison to his other authors? He wondered what she thought.
Then he got upset when he realized he was thinking about her.
She annoyed him. Deftly.
But he'd allow certain qualities- she does her work well. And efficiently. It had been two weeks since she'd first come to his company and she already had an almost-complete work done. She wanted to add a few lines, but otherwise her essay was ready to go to print.
It was impressive. She'd had all her information. She'd known what she wanted to say. He worked with non-fiction, but not essays and never science publications. But had she been anyone else with her work ethic, he would have been honored to represent her.
But she wasn't. And so he wasn't.
They go out for drinks when the essay goes out to print. Her research team. Her agent. Asuma. Sales. They're all there.
He liked to watch her. It was odd, considering he didn't particularly like looking at her, or rather, liked looking at her when she was looking at him. But he did like to watch her.
Shikamaru wasn't stupid.
Smart actually.
Quite smart.
And he knew what the signs of attraction were. He'd been attracted to dozens of men and women during his lifetime.
He knew exactly what the draw was. What the image was. He knew it with Temari too, more so, as he'd actually seen it.
She was sitting across from him and one over, talking with her agent and a member of her research team. Her face was glowing. Her lips were red. She looked beautiful.
He wanted to have long, hard, capricious, superlative sex with her.
It annoyed the fuck out of him.
"Why were you watching me?"
He had been assigned to catch her a cab by his chief. They're alone now. Shikamaru stood on the edge of the pavement, scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, hands shoved in his coat pockets.
"I wasn't." A stupid denial.
"Hmph."
Cars pass by, but none of them are yellow.
Neither of them say anything. The lights over the intersection down the road changed back and forth.
"You said you've forgotten…" Temari said tonelessly. He could feel her eyes on his cheekbone, but he didn't turn his head. "But I remember… all of it."
His head snapped toward her, chest suddenly clenching and blood pounding in his ears.
Their eyes met. Her expression was hard. But also asking. He wasn't sure what she wanted and he knew he had no way nor inclination to give her anything.
"I remember everything." She finished.
Shikamaru looked at her, long and steady, before exhaling and looking away. From the distance, a cab approached. He leaned forward and extended his arm to hail it down.
Temari stepped beside him, toes falling off the curb. She wasn't watching the cab. It came to a stop before them and finally, he looked down at her to gesture her away. "Did you really forget?"
Shikamaru blinked and gave no answer.
There was a beat and then the cabbie honked.
Temari stepped away and onto the road, pulling open the door. "I'll see you around," he said as she slipped inside, "…take care of yourself."
They saw one another the next week. They're in the elevator again — accidentally this time. She is there to negotiate an extension of her contract. Apparently, she liked working there.
He ran for the lift and she held open the door.
Barely a nod and that's all.
Shikamaru hated smoking. Hated it.
But there he was, sitting on the floor by his bed, head leaning back against the mattress, glasses perched on his nose and cigarette dangling between his lips. In his hand, lifted up to eye-level, are the statistics on Temari's essay's sales.
It was selling well for such selective genre. Really well. She was giving a speech on it next week in Osaka at a large convention for physicists. She was famous. He forgot sometimes.
Shikamaru flipped through her papers.
He'd read her books before.
Well. Not really.
He'd read reviews of them though.
She was a physics professor and was often on political talk shows and shit like that. She'd written two books already and a dozen articles. He had actually read one of the articles, but that was when she was first published in a high brow newspaper and he was just starting out as an intern for the company. In some half-ass initiative he'd taken back then, he'd read a lot of articles.
He'd kept with her, anyway.
He was loath to acknowledge it, but he did. Very passively, but the intention still existed.
He was always analyzing her. Analyzing everything. Over and over.
She was on the student's committee back then. He wasn't. Against it, actually. It wasn't that he ever did bad shit. He just didn't particularly like class. He didn't really like showing up to things he didn't like.
They'd often find him in the field or on the roof during the day. Just lying there.
She was often in charge of disciplining him.
And then one day, completely out of the blue, he'd been getting out of swim practice and she'd been let out of track and they were in the gym and she started yelling at him for staying late. And then, as he was trying to leave, she somehow managed to pin him against the wall and he was suddenly hard and then she was tugging at him and he was helping her and they were both breathing heavy.
And he never knew why.
Or why he stayed late the next practice.
Or the one after that.
Or why she let him. Why she did that to him. Every week, over and over until graduation came and he never saw her again.
He came to hate her, he realized, exhaling the smoke after a particularly long drag. Sighing, Shikamaru slipped off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. I came to hate her. And then I did nothing but watch as she disappeared from my sight. He groaned. I let it happen.
"You have a bigger room than mine," Temari said carefully.
Shikamaru stood by the open door. It was early evening, but he'd been asleep. The arrival to Osaka had started early and ended late. He was exhausted. Much too tired to deal with her, in the least.
"Don't you think the author should have a bigger room than her editor?"
Shikamaru yawned and walked toward her, shutting the door behind him
She sat down on the edge of his ruffled bed. He stood in front of her.
"Why are you here?"
Temari inclined her head. "It's been grating on me. I wanted to tell you — I followed you in the paper." She said. "Followed your work."
Shikamaru perked up, wayward tiredness inching away. "Huh?"
"I saw your name on things, editing for some big time people."
"You knew I worked here?"
Temari shrugged.
"'I honestly never thought I'd see you again'?" Shikamaru gave a sharp exhale. "What a lie."
"It was the only company I knew in Japan." She justified quickly.
"You want to work with me?" He continued, ignoring her comment. His voice got louder. "If you wanted to work with me, you never had to leave the country in the first place!"
She was the one who'd left. She could have stayed. She could've explained what their quasi, half-ass relationship had meant. She could have stayed. He could've — fuck it, should have — chased after her.
She opened her mouth to say something.
It was wishful, ignorant thinking. It was only chance that they'd been placed together. Only coincidence. They're dozens of editors in the non-fiction department. Dozens.
But she didn't contradict him.
It had been one month after they'd met again that she sat down at his table.
He was in that crappy restaurant, eating a salad when those annoying bells clinked.
He didn't look up from his meal until she sat down at the empty seat across from him.
He was surprised. They hadn't talked at all since she left his hotel room back in Osaka, which had been a handful of days before.
Shikamaru looked at her, perplexed. She was still wearing her coat and didn't seem at all inclined to settle down.
He hadn't invited her there. He didn't know why she'd come.
They sat in silence for a full minute before she opened her mouth.
"I knew you'd hate it if I pursued you. I knew you hated me. I'd knew it… I know that, but —"
Shikamaru set down his fork, effectively cutting her off. "I never forgot about the things you did to me." There was another pause. He could feel his pulse pounding again. "Not a single thing."
His groin was hot.
His gut too. And his chest. As well as his head.
Temari didn't say anything more. And neither did he.
Eventually she stood up, pushing her chair back. He was watching her again. Perhaps more intently than the last time at the bar. Or maybe not.
Temari stepped past him, pausing only to place a gloved hand on his shoulder. He was too hot and he didn't understand why, considering he was well into his late twenties and not allowed to act like one horny, hung up school-kid.
"I'll see you around." She said.
Shikamaru exhaled lowly and looked down at his food. He'd lost his appetite. "Take care of yourself."
His steak is over-cooked. It always is at this joint. He really dislikes it here. His fondness for it's crap food and shitty service is only born out of wayward appreciation for it's overall horrible quality.
Temari is sitting by the counter. She's probably order food to go. She does that sometimes. She lives near the company. They'd both grown up in Shikoku. She supposedly didn't know Tokyo really well and had just bought an apartment in the area she found convenient.
Asuma is saying something. Shikamaru isn't quite paying attention. He finishes chewing his piece of steak and swallows.
From the corner of his eye, Temari stands up and reaches for her food across the counter. It is in a white plastic bag, and she grabs the handles in one hand and straightens her coat with the other.
She begins making her way through the tables to the door. When she reaches the end, she glances at him then, knowing exactly where to look. He wonders how long she's known he has been watching her.
She gives a small smile and lifts her hand in a small wave.
He responds and then after one more look, she turns and leaves. Shikamaru takes another piece of steak.
"Hmph," Asuma snorts, watching the exchange before taking a long sip of his drink. Shikamaru waits until he puts his glass down. He swallows and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "Rough few weeks, huh?"
Shikamaru shifts position and shrugs. "Yeah, but it'll be all right."
okay! let me know what you think! also, Kim Demon has a pretty cool sounding beta/authors pairing program, so check out her profile if that's something you're interested in. I'm definitely considering it.
Leave requests and reviews! They're the nicest greatest thing in the world.