Chapter 141 - Chilled Leftovers

The turning point, as Takeru and Shikake would collectively remember it, was on a November day with a sky as steely and dull as Shikake's beloved metal tools.

Shikake turned up at Takeru's house at her usual time; by that point, she was visiting every day to gently tease him through his physical therapy, bending his legs up and down and catching him when he felt like trying to stand up. His mood had been improving since she replaced his mother, certainly, but for the past few visits he'd been increasingly terse with her, snapping at even the slightest step too far, instead of laughing or snapping back.

That day, when she came by his room, he was sitting by the window, a sour look in his eye.

Shikake immediately noticed. "Okay, what's crawled up your ass today, cripple?"

He didn't look at her. "Not now, Shikake."

The charmingly familiar "shrew" was missing. She put on her guard. "Jeez, sorry. Still, what's the matter?" She approached his chair with her hands in her pockets, as gently as she could manage. "You run out of pain meds or something…?"

"It's not physical pain."

"Then what is it?"

He didn't reply.

"Look, I'll leave if you're having a shitty day, I don't wanna make things worse." Because that just wouldn't be fun to play with, she told herself.

He just sighed, bitterly. "Try having a shitty life."

She quieted her voice. "What happened, Takeru?"

He didn't look at her when he finally replied. "My birthday was two weeks ago."

"Oh." She slid on a casual air. "Did you expect a present or somethin'? 'Cos you should have told me if-"

"This isn't. About. You." He swiveled his head sideways, and she could see that his eyes looked slightly puffy. "I turned twenty. I'm an adult now."

She sided with caution. "Yeah? So… what's your deal?"

"I didn't really expect to hear from my father. Given that he's run off on us." He groaned, shaking his head. "But then? Some man shows up on behalf of him with a present and a letter for Inou. My younger brother. This… little weakling that he never liked. He gave him a present and a letter."

"Uh… huh." Shikake scratched the back of her neck in a show of indifference. "So I'm guessing he didn't send you anything."

"No. I waited, even. I mean, his gift to Inou was late, so maybe mine would be, too." His head lowered. "He's sent me nothing. Not even a letter. On the biggest milestone of my life."

Shikake, after thinking it over for a moment, ended up shrugging. "So he forgot your birthday, big deal."

Takeru violently turned his chair around to face her. "My father and I talked for hours about the things we would do to celebrate my becoming an adult. He hasn't sent me anything, Shikake. He's disowned me. He's abandoned me."

Shikake considered her options carefully.

She took the situation into account.

For safety and comfort, she stuck with the usual.

"Well, c'mon, you can't be surprised. I mean, you're his wife's bastard. You can't expect him to get over that right away, can you?"

Safety and comfort betrayed her.

"My mother ignored me too. Everyone forgot my birthday. The most important birthday of my life. Even my friends."

Despite the absolute poison in his voice, she continued on. Maybe out of instinct, or fear.

"You're surprised? Damn, you're oblivious as hell, Takeru. Last I remembered, your mom ignoring you was the status quo. And given what you've told me about the people you call your 'friends'? They have absolutely no reason to give a single shit about you."

His eyes turned to stone. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, do I? Come on. You have nothing but shit to say about the people you hang out with, aside from me. And last I checked? They're not the ones coming to visit you, much less do your therapy for you. Those cripple legs of yours ain't exactly appetizing to look at, you know."

"Shut up."

"C'mon. You know I'm telling the truth. Even you can't deny that."

Takeru didn't say anything, which was as good as an affirmation, to her.

"Face it. I'm the only friend you have, Takeru. So, honestly? The only person you have to blame about people forgetting about your birthday? Is you. One hundred percent you. You could have at least told me when it was, if you wanted to make sure you weren't a total loser on your damn birthday."

Takeru sent out a triad of pale blue chakra-threads from his hand, and they snapped against her cheek like a whip. "Get out, you fucking bitch."

Shikake covered the bloody sting with her palm, clenching her jaw. "I'll leave you alone." She turned for the door. "But you have nobody to blame but yourself, Takeru."

She left without so much as a word on her way out, keeping her feelings and her words to herself.

Takeru, personally, was grateful she'd left, because any more of her painful honesty, and he'd have probably lost composure even more than he had already.

Of course he had friends. He had plenty of friends! And they knew when his birthday was, they were just… busy, for whatever reason.

His father—he wouldn't refer to the man as Sasuke, not like that whore of a mother of his—was an exception to the rule.

…but something in the girl's words pulled at him, nagging insistently.

He had friends. He had admirers, worshipers, even. They cared enough to celebrate his birthday, and would certainly have visited if they weren't occupied.

He just.

He didn't need to make sure.

But he wanted to.

After making sure his face was made up, that he looked cool and composed, he wheeled to the kitchen and used the phone.

He'd call Gyosei. Gyosei was the closest thing to a best friend that he had. He'd certainly have a legitimate excuse for not visiting on his birthday.

The wait for him to pick up was excruciating.

When he picked up, he heard a woman gasping, moaning on the other end.

"Mm, who is this…?"

Takeru had to swallow. "Gyosei? It's Takeru."

"Ah, Takeru, old boy. What's the occasion?' Gyosei sounded astonishingly casual, considering the girl he was obviously pleasuring at the same time.

"Just… wondering why you didn't come by to visit for my birthday."

"Oh, it was your birthday? Terribly sorry. Was it yesterday?"

The girl in the background gasped with pleasure.

"It was—two weeks ago." Takeru had to swallow again.

"Two weeks ago? How can you expect me to remember, then?" He hummed, deep and satisfied. "You should have told me."

"I… figured you already knew."

"Come on, now. You're wonderful, Takeru, but you can't expect me to remember these things. Not when I have so much else on my plate."

Takeru could hear the girl speaking.

"Mm, Gyosei… For lunch… I'm wondering what we should have for lunch…"

The voice was bubblegum-familiar. It belonged to the girl on Hajime's team. The Haruno midget.

For the first time in his life, Takeru felt disgust for the conquest of women that he once celebrated with Gyosei.

And his disgust only thickened as Gyosei continued to talk to him, completely ignoring the girl. "If you want me to come by and visit, then let me know in advance, won't you? Make sure you're feeling up to it. You're no fun when you're… how should I put it?" He hummed again, in pleasure. "Ah, yes. Acting like a victim or in pain or whatever. Since you're so above that, aren't you?"

Takeru hung up without another word.

Sure, mentally, he never really thought of Gyosei as a "best friend" or whatever frivolous title "normal" people dealt with.

But he at least relied on the man to… remember something like his birthday. He remembered Gyosei's birthday, and would treat him with interested girls, or a dinner out, at least.

And Gyosei was the man he had the most trust in.

Who could say how little his other peers thought of him?"

"Takeru…? What's wrong, are you okay?"

Somewhere in the thinking, Ino had appeared. Her hands were cautiously held at her waist, and her expression was almost afraid.

Bitterness was on Takeru's tongue, and bitterness is what came out.

"Am I really so despicable as to have my birthday ignored by everyone I know?"

Ino's response was hardly immediate. She drew a little closer. "Takeru, is this because I didn't throw you a party for your birthday…?"

"You didn't throw a party for Inou." He sniffed. "You cooked both him and me the foods we enjoy on our birthdays. I expected that. So don't use that as an excuse."

Her voice grew softer. "…is it Sasuke, then…?"

He chuffed. "Even you can't call him my father any more, can you?"

Ino didn't reply.

"Please, save yourself the guilt. I already figured he'd… ignore me or disown me, now that the truth is out." His bitter mouth crusted over onto his lips, crackling into a painful smirk. "It's not about him."

"Then what's the matter, Takeru…?" She was only a few steps away from his chair, now. "Is there something you want me to do for you?"

The bitterness in his mouth was becoming liquid, and threatened to overflow.

"If you could? Stop people from pretending that I don't exist any more, now that I'm like—this." He reached for his wheels. "No pressure, though! I don't expect much from you."

He charged into the hallway before she could reply, before the threat of tears could latch onto his face.

In an instance of lucky horror, he ran into the freak on the way there.

He didn't worry about her judging him or even having any sort of emotional reaction to his unkempt face; that wasn't in her nature.

He poised a sharp-edged insult to get her out of the way.

But.

Maybe it was the sheer upset of the day, or the feeling of invisibility in his life that was growing greater and greater by the hour, with each interaction on the street, with his so-called friends, with his family.

But he realized, as messed-up as it sounded, and as immediately as his mind recoiled against it.

Nadeshiko was probably the person that understood him most, at this weakest, most pathetic moment in his life.

Why he said anything to her was anyone's guess.

But he said something to her, as he passed.

"Anything I've said to you, about how you deserve to be ignored or passed-over or hated? I take it back. Nobody deserves that." He passed out of view of her. "Not even you."

And he heard her reply, as he reached the door of his room.

"No. Nobody deserves that."

He sighed, the only sign of commiseration or acknowledgment he could spare, before closing the door behind him and covering his eyes with his palms.

He wasn't crying.

But for all the loneliness and abandonment he felt, he might as well have been.

Although he was entirely unaware of it, Shikake understood Takeru's troubles on a visceral and immediate level.

She just had to get home and think about it first, before acting.

What mainly and immediately concerned her was how much she cared. And related to that, how that fact disturbed her.

Sure, messing with Takeru had been fun, but she never expected to actually feel for the guy like she did.

After all, there were very few people she truly cared for, and she knew it. Neither of her parents had wanted her, but kept her around for whatever the hell reason; Inou and Chouko were her teammates for similar reasons of family obligation. They weren't the sort of people she'd willingly hang around with, after all. Everyone else was just a tool or a connection to something she needed, and she liked it that way.

Her uncles, Gaara and Kankuro, and Morizuru, she kept near to her heart because they actually listened to her, or at least let her do what she wanted willingly. She'd grown up playing with blocks in Gaara's office, and helping clean the tools in Kankuro's workshop, soaking in his art with eager ears. And as she grew older, she confided in Morizuru, who at least could sympathize in her feelings of indifference and separation from the rest of the world. They were people she needed nothing from, yet wanted to be around.

And now, she felt that way about Takeru. Practically, again, she could say he was a way to pass the time, a convenient source of blackmail on the side, but the more time they spent together, the less she wanted to actually toy with him like that.

He listened to her. He learned from her. And now, she knew all too painfully, that her acknowledgement of him was something he desperately needed.

(And something she needed as well.)

And there she'd gone and pulled the dick move of telling him that, not only did he not have any friends at all besides her, but that he had nobody else to blame for this.

She wasn't lying, of course, and she would never take it back. After all, Takeru had nothing but feathery gossip at best for the people he called his friends, and would talk about their greatest failings without a moment's hesitation with her. He obviously had little respect for them.

(And perhaps that was one of the reasons they got along so well. There was a certain loneliness that came with that sort of thinking.)

But for people like him (and like her) true friends were rare treasures, and to have one's trust betrayed like that was a low blow, even for their standards.

Yeah, whatever, so she cared about how he felt, the end. That was out of the way. She wanted to get to the matter of making it up to him without the messy business of saying she was sorry directly.

The best thing to do was probably to go back and pretend nothing was wrong, doing his therapy, practicing the puppet jutsu, all that. Knowing Takeru, he'd probably do the same, pretending that his show of weakness had been a delusion. Nothing wrong with that.

But in the long run, she had his mood to deal with. Having to deal with his mopey ass would be way too much trouble over time.

Well, nobody had given him a birthday present. She could fix that, easy.

The problem was what would suit him.

She knew what he liked: expensive tea, pretentious books, classical music tapes from foreign composers. This, she knew, mostly from the few times he'd complained about stuffy air and insisted she wheel him out to a café or whatever. He paid for them both, whenever they went, so she knew that there was no way she'd be able to afford any of that kind of stuff with her savings from the wimpy missions she'd done with Chouko and Inou in the past.

She could always give him one of her old puppets, so he could actually own one, but he wasn't the sort of person that valued owning leftovers; he'd probably mock her—and not playfully—about it if she went through with it, much like she felt he would if she'd scraped up the money to buy an album and discovered in the giving it that it was one he already had, or hated.

…a new puppet, though?

The gears in her head began to turn.

And the next day, she came by at her usual time, acting as if absolutely nothing had happened. Takeru's mood was still quite dark, but at least he played along. And she came back the next day, and it was very much the same. A few weeks passed like this, and eventually, she figured, he decided to forget about it.

But she refused to.

Outwardly, she gave absolutely no indication that she'd been affected, or that she was even taking action.

She was, however, found out. Though luckily for her, it was somebody she couldn't have cared less about.

Shikake had taken care to keep quiet while she was working, getting most everything done while Shikamaru was asleep or out of the house. She'd made calls to Kankuro during this time, as well, usually at night; the time difference between them meant that she'd be able to talk to him comfortably in private.

She was using an adze that evening, which produced a considerable scraping noise against the wood. And Shikamaru heard.

He opened the door without knocking, his eyes narrowed from lack of sleep. "What the hell are you doing."

Shikake looked over her shoulder from where she was working at her desk. She had her goggles on. "I'm working. Did I wake you up?"

"Yes. What are you working on?"

"Nothing too important. Go back to sleep, Dad."

Instead, he came closer. "Is that a puppet?"

She returned to her work, scraping at what was going to be a skull-piece. "Yes, it's a puppet."

"Who gave it to you?"

She sighed. "Nobody. I made it."

"You made it?"

"I bought the raw materials in the industrial district with my savings and I call Uncle Kankuro whenever I get stuck. It'll be done in like a week." She blew the sawdust off the piece.

Shikamaru crossed his arms. "When were you out of the house?"

She turned around again. "If you don't know when I've been out of the house then I don't think it matters."

"You're supposed to be grounded."

"Doin' a real great job of enforcing that, Dad." Shikake put the adze away and reached for some sandpaper.

Shikamaru grumbled. "You know, how am I supposed to punish you when you don't even listen to me?"

She shrugged. "I dunno, maybe try paying attention to me for once? If you cared a little more you'd know what I've been up to."

"Guess I'll have to take your tools away, then." He reached for one of her screwdrivers.

Shikake, however, stopped him, grabbing his wrist and turning around on her stool. "Okay, this is a bad idea for a lot of reasons. For one, I'll just find where you hid them and go back to doing my thing, so it won't mean anything. For two, you'll forget about it and, again, it won't mean anything. And for three? I'm making this puppet for a damn good reason, though I don't expect it'd be one you'd understand, given your track record."

"What wouldn't I understand?"

"Caring about someone other than yourself."

Shikamaru's face puckered slightly, as if he were trying not to yawn. "Since when did you get so disrespectful?"

She didn't even care enough to laugh. "You've asked me that at least once a month since I was twelve. It doesn't change anything for either of us, so you're probably better off going back to bed. Less troublesome, mm?"

Shikamaru finally yawned. "Keep the noise down."

"Oh, trust me, I will. Don't want you bothering me, after all." She went back to work, but added something in. "Tell you what, though. You stop pretending I'm grounded, and I'll tell you whenever I leave the house. Deal?"

Shikamaru sighed, scratched the back of his head, and turned for the door. "Just don't get in trouble."

Shikake smirked, and listened as the door closed behind her before returning to work.

It was the first time she'd ever felt like she'd come out of an interaction with her father as the winner, and not the recipient of a stalemate.