I didn't have the heart to put up angst so soon after Shikatema became canon. So here's two.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere."

"Do you have a preference?"

"No."

"How do I look?"

"Good," he says, his response monotonous. She stares.

"You didn't even look."

He raises his head from whatever the hell he had spread in front of him, his eyes raking over her body once before he drops his gaze. "You look good."

She slams a palm down on the table, the entire frame shaking at the sudden force. He, however, remains unperturbed, his face now icily calm as he lifts his eyes, but not his face.

She's sick – she's sick and tired of this stupid fucking behavior her boyfriend had been showing her for two years. A stupid, noncommittal passive aggressive bullshit that had worn on her and had driven her insane. At this point, there is nothing left for her to feel – the small voice inside her heart that had once stopped her from exploding now absent, the defensive rebuttal she'd force herself to feel when she remembers why she bothered in the first place.

She had fallen in love, with a Konoha nin no less. One who's smart, charming, the right kind of challenging that was both frustrating yet exhilarating at the same time.

But looking at him now, with his eyes almost bored and somewhat bleary – it is an expression she'd begun to get used to seeing, and each and every time she'd feel all the more annoyed. Angry. Upset. Disgusted.

Betrayed.

She doesn't know how to communicate it, because she's a physical person – she shows her emotions through her actions, her face. She shows her disappointment from their increasingly bad sex, the way they'd sometimes ignore each other as they march out their shared doors and straight to work. She doesn't know how to keep them together, because hell, she's trying but she knows its not good enough and when she's not even sure if he cares, well, how could it ever work?

And there he was, with his uncaring eyes, with his uncaring self.

She kicks his chair from underneath him.

If he's surprised, he doesn't show it as he lands ungracefully on the floor.

"Where the hell is the shinobi who fought me at the chuunin exams, who proved to me that first impressions means nothing?" she spits, and his eyes suddenly shoot up. But she doesn't care anymore, she doesn't back off because hell she is so frustrated that she swears she can feel angry tears building behind her eyes, but she blinks them back and swallows through the thickening of her throat. "Where is the shinobi who charmed me whenever I came to Konoha, who had found the nerves to ask me out despite being the laziest shithead I've ever met?!"

He blinks, all he does is fucking blink as she raises her chin, to which he hardly reacts to, either. However, it's that stupid word that he breathes that makes her lose it. Tears actually slip out of her eyes as she nearly wrenches him up and slams him against the wall. It takes all her willpower not to, because her blood is boiling and her head is light, she can't think straight, her hands and feet numb.

"No, this isn't called being troublesome, it's called giving a shit!" He's standing, she doesn't know when he was standing but her finger jabs into his heart, punctuating her every word. "You – never - care! For two fucking years you just don't care, I'm just so tired. I swear to god, Shikamaru, you make me wish I'd never moved!"

He stares back, his voice icy cold. "If you're so tired, I'm sure you're welcome back in Suna. It's not like you're tied down, or anything."

She stands motionless, her brain processing every word. And so as the words sunk in, one by one, she can't control how her voice rises. "Not tied down? Are you fucking kidding me? We're dating, Nara."

He looks her dead in the eye.

"That hasn't stopped you before."

Deep down, she knows – she knows he's a physical guy as well, and as much as he may outwardly show his disinterest, he was a passionate lover, he'd always been. But that wasn't enough for her – that wasn't enough to keep her away from her home, from her family, from being annoyed and hurt when she sees the man she fell in love with only reappear when they were in bed.

But his words ring a certain truth – when they'd begun, she was still working as an Ambassador. Truthfully she'd moved to Konoha after a year into their relationship – and she didn't know what the hell she was expecting, especially not now, but it was never this.

She knows him. She knows him so well. And even if nowhere he shows it – not through his words, his body language, anything – she knows.

But there is only so long someone can hide behind a shadow of an excuse.

"I'm sorry if I moved here expecting something more, okay? I'm sorry I moved here because I love you, because I want to start a life with you here." She swallows, each words falling off her tongue like tar – thick and dark and gritty and leaving bile in her mouth. He only stares, his mouth hard pressed but she can see his hands are clenched, his posture stiff as the words she knows she'd said stings him. Good, because she'd picked them on purpose. "What did this whole year even mean, what does this mean, if you're too scared to ever move forward?!"

She hopes for anything –a swallow, a twitch of his eye, anything – that told her he cared – that it matters to him the same way it matters to her. But he stands there, motionless, though his eyes flash dangerously.

She knows him so well.

"You're such a fucking coward, Shikamaru, a fucking coward."

She doesn't wait for an excuse, she doesn't wait for the words that would surely have her crawling back to him – have her forget that she had ever felt these feelings until they grow and grow and she's ready to leave him all over again. She doesn't wait for the kisses of apologies and the empty promises that he's trying, because God has he said that so many times but trying resulted in change and that hasn't happened once in the two years they've been dating.

She doesn't wait for his footsteps to chase hers, for his hand to grab her, for herself to completely freeze from their connected shadow. She doesn't wait for the cry of her name, the way he'd inevitably break and start crying on his own, and then she's the one making sure he's okay because she's so fucking in love with him.

She slams the door behind her, as she's done so many times before.

But this time, he never comes to get her.