Pictures
Lights from the cameras flashed on the victim's body. Her figure was filled with maggots and flies, it's no doubt that she's been dead for more than a day. Muds and blood were scattered everywhere, merging with the waters from the swamp.
Brown amorphous liquid clay covered her thick hair; its color was unrecognizable from all the dried blood and substances attached. Her decapitated head kissed the end of the wetland.
Neji and Shikamaru stand in front of the scene, observing the busy workers that collect all the pieces of evidence wearing gloves. They wrote what they saw and waited for the collected report from the crime scene operatives. One man wearing full-suited protection and gloves handed the identification card from the victim slid inside a plastic ziplock.
Lily Tanaka
An image of a blonde girl in her mid-twenties was displayed in the ID. Neji and Shikamaru glanced again at the victim's head on the shore, her blonde hair was unrecognizable from all the dirt.
"She's a foreigner. Her wallet was filled with train tickets leading to the land of iron" the man spoke while presenting the evidence to the two detectives.
Shikamaru wrote the details in their report while Neji grabbed the evidence and slid it inside the box.
"Three blonde victims in a row? And all foreigners huh? I guess the killer has a new kink" Neji mumbled while checking all the evidence that they collected.
Shikamaru gripped the pen that he was holding and clenched his jaw after hearing that. It's hard for him not to think about Temari after the obvious trend of the latest killings.
He squeezed his eyes shut when a thought passed through his brain about seeing her in a muddy swap decapitated.
"No" he whispered.
"What?" Neji asked
He shakes his head and continues writing all the information in their report "Nothing, I just…nothing"
"You're worried, aren't you?" Neji's gaze focused on the evidence inside the box.
"Who wouldn't be?" he flipped the next page with force.
"I thought you already convinced her to leave the burlesque club? Tenten's contract will end next month" he chuckled "and she told me that she'll open a weapon shop to kill the killer"
Shikamaru clicks the back of his tongue and slid on the side, the frustration inside of him keeps getting stronger "I'm still trying to convince her but every time I move my fucking mouth, she always opposed it. Troublesome"
"Then convinced her until she says Yes. It's really not easy to leave the job that you really want. It's the equivalent of someone is asking you to leave the police department, right? But I hope you will convince her soon"
"Yeah, I know" he sighs
"It's her day off. Why don't you go to her place and convinced her again?"
"That's what I'm planning after this. I'll bring her dinner and I'll have to check if she's taking her meds as I instructed her to do, she's so stubborn sometimes and I hate it"
Neji laughed at him, it was his first time seeing Shikamaru being frustrated about a girl.
"That's new….you usually leave the girl if you find them troublesome. Stubborn you say? Huh?"
He scratched his forehead with his pen and cleared his throat "Yeah, the most troublesome of all. She'll be the death of me"
"That's easy, then leave her" Neji smiled at him and walked towards their car to pack up all the evidence they collected, leaving Shikamaru in his spot.
He taps the pen in his report with furrowed brows after hearing that "That's impossible" he mumbled.
They drove back to their office after collecting all the evidence and writing their report. They were greeted by a busy crowd when they entered the police department. Asuma and Jiraiya sorted all the evidence for that week inside the specific storage room solely for that case.
Sakura and Sasuke left the room when they arrived, they gathered all the evidence from Hiraya's case. The other blonde victim of the Night Scythe. Neji and Shikamaru entered the room and placed what they collected from the crime scene on the table.
"How many did you collect?" Asuma asked while walking toward their table
"24 in total for today. The crime scene investigators were still gathering all the evidence inside her car, they'll send their report tomorrow, that's the earliest they can promise" Shikamaru answered
"Perfect, thank you. We will handle the rest" Jiraiya spoke while peeking from the gondola shelves.
Neji nodded and left the room immediately but Shikamaru slowed his pace when he glanced at the two mugshots from Kiba's case. A still image of two murderers from the case of September 14 was hanging on one of the corkboards inside the room. He saw it before when they were trying to solve that case but this time he was able to observe the finer details of their faces, how can he miss their expressions from before?
He remembered seeing it for the first time, and at the back of his mind, they were displaying their impassive expressions. Probably because of his previous judgment about these two being unmerciful devils for killing their friend and his emotions just taking over him.
His feet lead him to the corkboard where he was staring and observed their eyes, he realized that the brown-haired man's gazes were full of sorrow and pain, softer than the red-haired man he was with. His focus breaks when Neji called him from the outside.
Temari woke up that day around past 12 in the afternoon, later than usual. She's too lazy to turn her heater on making her room colder than it used to. Not having enough energy to stand up from her bed after she received a gift and a call from her brother last night.
"Why did you send me that thing, Gaara?"
"Where are you?"
"What really happened?"
"I want to know"
She mutters these questions on repeat while laying in bed covered with a thick duvet. The coffee on her side table was now cold after not touching or sipping it the whole day, she only walked and eat in the kitchen when her stomach starts growling. Water and crackers are the only two things that filled her stomach that day.
The box containing the scythe knife that Gaara gave to her last night was slid under her bed, it's the only place that was low and impossible to reach by someone.
Suddenly, her phone lights up from her side table. She grabbed it and glided the notification that was flashed on her screen.
From: Shikamaru
Don't cook, I bought you curry for dinner. I'm heading to your apartment now. I'll be there in 20 minutes.
She groaned.
Temari knows they were going to fight again once he saw her looking like that so she quickly stood up from her bed and headed to her bathroom to have a quick shower, removing all the filth and dirt since last night. She then cleaned her kitchen and table to prepare it before Shikamaru reached her place.
She stood in front of a tall mirror that was standing beside her shoe shelves, practicing her smile to mask all the negative emotions she has that day. Her eyes glanced at the drawer where her prescription and medicine were hiding, she didn't take the two pills that were prescribed to her to take it that morning so she grabbed them and removed the two pills from the container, stuffed it in the sink, to match her schedule. She'll take the other pills that were prescribed at night after eating their dinner.
The doorbell rang, and Shikamaru just arrived at her apartment. She tucked her falling hair behind her ears and placed a smile on her face.
When she swung her door, he was standing in front wearing his usual dark green long coat and a paper bag in his hand.
"You shouldn't have to. I can cook my own dinner, Shikamaru"
"It's alright. I really just want to see you tonight…I'm sorry I don't know how to cook so I just bought take-outs" He scratched the back of his head.
"You idiot" She laughed and grabbed the hem of his coat and pulled him inside.
"Maybe you could teach me so I could unlock my cooking skills" he whispered to her ears from behind.
She half turned her head and their eyes met, both giggling at what he said "Yeah, let's start boiling some eggs in your first lesson. Do you like that?" Temari teases him, she knows how much he hated boiled eggs.
Shikamaru grimaced at what she suggested "No, I think we should start by frying one"
They seated and ate the dinner that he bought. After eating, Shikamaru walked to her drawer to get her prescription and fished out the orange pill container that was scheduled for that night. He checked it and hand one pill placed on a small ceramic plate and a glass of water on her table. She smiled at him and swallowed the pill for that night.
Temari stood up from her seat and walked to the sink to clean their plate and table while Shikamaru checked all her things inside, like a detective on site. She released a faint laugh after seeing him warming her place by turning on the heater, which she forgot. Temari hated when he does that, every time she saw him doing things for her, taking care of her, it was the thing that she was out of control of.
"How's work?" she broke the silence
"It's alright" he sighs
Temari catches the heavy breath that he released like there's something bothering him.
"Is there something bothering you in your work? huh? Best detective of the year?" she spilled words with tension and her face crumbled while washing the dishes, she can't help but think about her brothers while trying to convince herself again that she shouldn't be that soft to him.
"Don't call me that. I don't think I deserve that award" He softly responded
Unconsciously, her hands stopped rubbing the sponge on the ceramic plates. She turns her face to the side and moistens her lips. The words that he just said really caught her off guard.
"Why?"
"I don't know. I felt like it was fast" he shakes his head and walked to the other side of the room to check "Like all the evidence was presented in front of us, waiting for it to be solved. I'm actually surprised that we closed that case and won the detectives of the year"
"Oh" Her mind just shuts from connecting all of the information inside her brain. She felt that she was missing something and had the urge to know more about Kiba's case and what really happened that night.
"That reminds me. Earlier, we found another victim in the swamp. You know that I'm still trying to convince you to get out of the burlesque club, right?"
Suddenly, Shikamaru found a small portrait inside one of her drawers. It was stained in yellow and brown hues, he knows that it was captured a decade ago. Three little kids with a man covered with a cloth on one side of his face standing behind them. One kid was blonde, he knows it is Temari, the other kid has brown hair and the last one is a redhead.
He lifted the picture to get a closer look at the people she was with, their faces looked familiar to him, like he just saw them before. Temari pulled the picture from his hand and put it back in her drawer.
"I was calling you Shikamaru, you didn't hear me?" she said breathlessly from all the shouting earlier which he didn't hear. He was too preoccupied with staring at the picture from her drawer he didn't hear what she just said.
"I'm sorry, what were you saying?"
She gripped the end of the table and pushed her bottoms to the table, covering the hand knob of her drawers where the picture was hidden.
"We're negotiating about my job? Remember?" she stuttered "And my answer is no"
"Oh…yeah…uhm" he was still processing what he just saw.
Fear starts to linger through her skin after thinking that he might recognize who's inside the picture that he just saw. She wished he didn't, it will fuck up all of her plans. Once Shikamaru lost his trust in her and found out who she is, she might end up in the worst situation.
"But I think we can negotiate about that, what do you think?" She cleared her throat and stared at him intently.
"Yeah….I think you should…you should" he rubbed his forehead, trying to think where he saw them, the people from her pictures.
"Shikamaru?" she asked, trying to regain his focus because he seems not to hear or understand her words.
What's on his mind!? She asked herself.
"hmm?" he was startled when she called his name.
Temari wanted to know if Shikamaru found out about Kankuro and Gaara by glancing at their pictures. She wanted to know if he still trusted her, there's only one way she knows to confirm it.
Her hands glided on his jaw and pulled his face towards her, she felt his warm breath when their noses touched before reaching his lips. She kissed him, pressing her lips slowly which made him stop his breathing. Her hands glide to the back of his neck, rubbing her thumbs on his nape slowly like she was caressing a baby.
Temari was in total control of their kiss at first but she was surprised when Shikamaru starts to take over. He grabbed her waist, gripping his fingers into her soft skin, pulling her slowly towards him. He lifted one of her legs attempting to wrap it to his waist without breaking the kiss.
He pushed his lips deeply to hers; their heads turn sideways to breathe and to find a good position to touch every inch of their lips. Shikamaru grinned and smiled under her breath after realizing that finally, he was tasting her lips.
His hands slide under her silk night top, reaching the wires of her bra. Slowly, two fingers slipped inside the fabric of her underwear, feeling the soft skin inside it. The strong urge of kissing every inch of her skin that night becomes stronger and stronger inside of him.
Before she will consume by her feelings, Temari pushed him away to break the kiss. It was supposed to be a quick kiss to know if he still trusted her.
"It's getting late. You need to go home"
His face was visibly disappointed, he rubbed his fingers through his lips. Shikamaru wanted to have more that night.
"I'm sorry I need to leave early tomorrow for work, so I need to sleep early too" she apologized, reverting her gaze to the side.
"It's alright. I'll leave so you could rest early"
She led him to her door and waved goodbye.
"Call me if you find anything suspicious alright? Please call me Temari" He pleaded
She felt relieved after hearing that, Shikamaru still trusted her. She smiled at him and nodded in agreement.