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Chapter 11
Swish. The last blunted kunai careens into the thicket behind the training post, wobbling precariously as it joins the nineteen others that came before it.
"Again?! How did I miss again?!" Naruto clutches his head with both hands and stomps his foot, scrunching his face into a scowl.
Honestly, the guy is so troublesome. Shikamaru sighs and rolls onto his side facing away from the noise, clapping a hand over his exposed ear as he tries to drift back to sleep.
A shadow falls softly over him. "Shikamaru, it's your turn."
"Yeah, Shikamaru! You're up!" A muffled crash echoes from the foliage. "Uh, just let me find the kunai!" comes the distant call.
With another heavy sigh, Shikamaru forces one eyelid open and props himself up with an elbow to sweep his bleary gaze over the Academy's training ground. The other groups are still practicing, albeit with various levels of excitement and ability, and the air rings with the unsteady, staccato rhythm of metal against wood. Iruka-sensei is nowhere to be seen.
Shikamaru flops back down. "Naruto can go again. I'm tired." Rolling onto his back, he throws a hand across his eyes and yawns.
He feels rather than hears Sakura hesitating above him. "Maybe you should try a couple of throws, though. Iruka-sensei could be back at any moment." She nudges his side gently with her foot. "Yoshino-san will be upset if you get another warning."
She's probably right. Shikamaru groans. "But it's hot," he grumbles weakly. "Can't you just be my lookout?" He peeks at her between his fingers and tries to look beseeching.
"...No." Sakura bites her lip. "But you can just sit and watch, if you give us pointers." She extends her hand to him with a smile that is simultaneously amused and apologetic. "I know you've got good technique."
The haphazard rustling of branches bending and snapping heralds the return of Naruto.
"Oi, I got them all!" Recklessly brandishing a bristling bouquet of knives with one hand, the blonde ruffles his hair with the other and shakes out several stray leaves. "Hurry up and get over here!"
How troublesome. Shikamaru ignores the call and considers the girl above him with squinted eyes.
She stares back at him steadily.
Sigh.
"...Fine." With monumental effort, he takes the offered hand and hauls himself into sitting position, cradling his forehead at the sudden dizziness. "Oi, Naruto, you can go again. I'll give you tips."
Naruto looks confused, excited, and suspicious all at once.
"W-wait, hey, how do I know your tips are any good?!" He points a finger at Shikamaru accusingly. "You better not be trying to sab-sabo-sabo-," he falters, then regroups with double the anger, "...trying to make me worse!"
Shikamaru runs a hand over his face and chooses not to mention that there's literally nothing to sabotage when it comes to the blonde's skill. Sakura is weirdly protective of the guy.
So troublesome.
"Don't worry, Naruto-san, Shikamaru's really good at this," Sakura reassures.
Naruto immediately deflates, and Shikamaru smirks. The other boy had tried countless times in the past month to get Sakura to call him 'Naruto' instead of 'Naruto-san,' but to no avail. The girl is meticulously polite. Shikamaru feels a tinge of superiority whenever he remembers that she has never called him 'Shikamaru-san'—just 'Shikamaru,' always, from the beginning.
Motioning for Sakura to turn away from the training post, Shikamaru grabs her hand and tugs her to the ground before arranging himself to sit back-to-back with her.
"You need to loosen your wrist and use less elbow," he drawls at pouting sunny-boy. "Bend your knees more to stabilize your stance, then make sure your wrist, elbow, and shoulder are lined up before you fling the kunai. Take a moment to prepare before you throw."
Swish. The knife whizzes into the thicket. But the prior wobble is now more of a tremor, and the blade misses the post by feet rather than meters.
"Less elbow."
Swish.
"Relax your wrist more."
Swish.
"Don't rotate your shoulder when you release."
Swish.
"Less elbow!"
"You're doing well, Naruto-san!"
Swish. Naruto accidentally lifts his back leg as he throws and trips as a result, limbs akimbo as he crashes to the ground.
"Itai…," Naruto groans as several classmates begin to snicker nearby.
Sighing again, Shikamaru closes his eyes to block out the sight and rests his head against the back of Sakura's.
"Why are we paired with him again?" he asks, but with no real bite. Iruka-sensei had practically beamed when Sakura had invited Naruto to join them during a study hour several weeks ago, and it seems like the teacher has now taken that single instance as a cue to treat the blonde as their group's unofficial member for all activities—even though students are technically supposed to work in teams of two.
Shikamaru isn't a genius for nothing. He can understand why Iruka-sensei would be so happy that the class loner (who also happens to be his favorite student, Shikamaru can tell) has finally been accepted into a group. And it is easy to guess why Sakura would have a soft spot for the boy.
'He and I are the same,' she had told him. He understands.
Doesn't mean he has to like it.
"Naruto is my friend," Sakura says, a soft edge sliding into her voice. It tickles the back of his skull and vibrates all the way down his neck.
"Yeah yeah, I know," Shikamaru mutters. "He's my friend too." A really loud and troublesome one. He watches as Naruto launches another kunai into the bushes.
"More wrist!" he calls out, raising his voice with effort. Naruto hollers back a jumbled, incoherent retort, voice colored with frustration.
Swish.
The guy is a lost cause. Closing his eyes, Shikamaru surreptitiously makes himself more comfortable against Sakura's back and settles in for a quick nap. Sakura's frame is too petite to be a sturdy pillow, but it'll do. Plus, her soap smells nice, and her long hair is soft, which is a bonus. Inadvertently, Shikamaru yawns.
Sakura yawns with him.
Some of Shikamaru's lethargy immediately drains away and he straightens, eyes snapping back open.
"Sakura?"
"Hm?"
Shikamaru catches the sliver of exhaustion that creeps into her voice despite her most valiant efforts to sound normal. Frowning, he recalls to memory the dark smudges cushioning her eyes, the enhanced paleness of her already-fair skin, the slightly quickened rhythm of her breathing when she had greeted him this morning.
He should have noticed.
"Have you been having trouble sleeping again?" he asks, eyes narrowed.
She bobs her head against his neck. "I'm still having nightmares."
Shikamaru squashes down the worry swelling in his chest. "It's been weeks. They haven't gotten any better? I thought...why haven't you mentioned anything about them?"
Sakura sighs. "They've actually been getting worse. I just...didn't want to trouble you guys, I guess. I still get enough sleep most days…"
"Clearly not."
"I know. But honestly, it's really quite manageable usually." She pauses, then sighs again. "It's just, Kumo-chan's been acting strange. I guess it's just the added worry…"
"Of course it's the cat." Shikamaru accidentally rips a few blades of grass out of the ground in a reflex action. "Weren't you supposed to get rid of it?"
Not that he doesn't like cats, of course, because he does, but this one is just so weird. And high-maintenance. In his opinion, taking care of it really isn't worth Sakura's energy and health.
Shikamaru has always known that Sakura is tough. He remembers the chakra meditation mishap she'd had a few months ago, the excruciating pain that had twisted across her face and crackled down her body, and how she had seemed completely unfazed by it a mere day later.
'It's getting fixed,' she had told him, eyes steady and light, and he had believed it would be okay.
The fact that the arrival of this strange animal has affected Sakura to the point of showing physical signs of wear...worries him.
"I haven't been able to find an owner," Sakura sighs. "I've looked all over the neighborhood, posted signs everywhere, even in other parts of the city—"
"I told you, the cat's probably a stray," Shikamaru cuts in. "It's most likely a nin cat—its mannerisms are way too elegant and deliberate to be a normal cat—and you know we have a couple of clans that breed nin animals. It probably failed the training and got released."
"...I know. But if he's an abandoned animal then I can't just—just dump him in an alleyway!"
"Sure you can!" Shikamaru takes a deep breath in an attempt to keep himself from getting too worked up. "Sakura, it's a nin cat. There's no way it won't be fine living on the streets again. It could probably beat up all the other feral cats in the city if it wanted to!"
Sakura is quiet for several heartbeats.
"I know, Shikamaru." She slides her head down to rest against his shoulder. "I just...can't bring myself to abandon him like his past owner did. He's a friend, now."
Shikamaru sighs. "I know," he says, gently. He adjusts his position so Sakura can lean on him more comfortably, and glances to where Naruto is throwing his last few kunai. "But you can't just keep on taking in strays."
She understands.
"I am a stray."
"Which is exactly why you can't afford to take in more!" Shikamaru clenches his jaw and yanks out another clump of grass. "Sakura...I just want to make sure you're okay."
For a moment, they simply breath together, silently.
"Thank you," she whispers, and he knows she means it.
"...You're not getting rid of it, are you."
"Probably not." She chuckles ruefully. "Kumo-chan is actually very easy to take care of. No fuss at all, really. "
"You didn't use to have nightmares until the cat arrived."
"Yes, but I think it's just psychological stress. It should be temporary..."
Shikamaru sighs.
"Alright," he says. "For now. But if it keeps getting worse I'm actually just going to take the thing away."
"You'd sneak into my house and take him?"
"Yup."
"That's burglary!"
"Would you report me?"
She swats his arm lightly. "You better not steal him."
He swats back at her, but it's more of a pat than anything else. "We couldn't even go cloud-watching the other day because the cat needed more fish," he grumbles half-heartedly. "You promised!"
Sakura snickers and lets him change the topic. "I'm sorry, Shikamaru. Maybe we can go this weekend?"
"On top of the Hokage Mountain?"
"Sure. I'll clear my whole schedule. And if it's not too heavy, maybe we can bring a shogi set and you can teach me some?"
Well, Shikamaru definitely won't be saying 'no' to that.
A muffled thump derails the conversation, as does the screeching that follows.
"Oh. My. GOD. I DID IT!" A thatch of blond hair is suddenly thrashing in Shikamaru's face as Naruto begins an improvised victory dance around his two friends.
"Congratulations!" Sakura claps and stands up. "That's amazing."
"Not that impressive," Shikamaru corrects. He gets to his feet as well. "It's not close to the target at all."
The blade is crookedly embedded at the top of the wooden post, still a solid foot-and-a-half away from the red-painted target.
"Stuff it, Pineapple! This is called IMPROVEMENT!" Still giddy over his achievement, Naruto bops Shikamaru on the shoulder and skips towards the thicket. "That was my last one!" he calls over his shoulder. "Help me find the others!"
A gentle hand lands on Shikamaru's arm as he is about to stalk (amble) after the rude boy and give him a piece of his mind.
"I'm sure he didn't mean it."
'I'm sorry,' she means.
With a long-suffering sigh, Shikamaru gives in and follows her into the trees to help retrieve the kunai. Once they collect them all, however, Shikamaru quickly snatches the ones Naruto had found out of the blonde's hands.
"Oiii! Pineapple! Give them back!" Naruto makes a swipe for them, but Shikamaru sidesteps. "Let me try again, you jerk!"
"No." Shikamaru dumps the knives into Sakura's arms. "Your turn."
"O-oh," Sakura mutters. She tries to rearrange the blades into a neater bouquet without dropping them. "That's okay, Naruto can go again if he wants."
"No," says Shikamaru, flatly. "Your throwing sucks."
He almost feels bad when Sakura flushes to the roots of her hair, but it's true. Her shurikenjutsu is nearly as bad as Naruto's. When Shikamaru sees how incredibly she performs in terms of chakra technique and shinobi theory, he feels guilty at her poor performance in practicals. It reminds him of the fact that she doesn't have a private tutor, doesn't have a revered clan leader (or said leader's wife) to patiently guide and coach and prod her day and night until she can finally hold down a passable form. Some skills simply require practice, and it is in those areas that Shikamaru's advantage starkly reveals itself.
The blonde is squawking with indignation on Sakura's behalf, but Shikamaru ignores him. Instead, he gently nudges Sakura toward the training post. An apology.
"Try it."
She smiles embarrassedly and nods, accepting the gesture, and crouches into shaky position.
Swish.
The blade misses the post by at least a meter.
"Not bad, Sakura-chan!" Naruto crows. "You just need to use more elbow and throw it at a higher angle! Here let me help!" Grinning, he swaggers up to the girl and attempts to adjust her grip on the next kunai.
Shikamaru swats him upside the head.
"Shut up, baka." He grabs the knife. "I'll teach her."
Naruto is so annoying.