- Festival Snippets -
When Sakura finally leaves the hot springs, it's just late enough in the evening that the cicada's are out, singing, their cries rising into the late summer air. She takes the long way back to the bunk house, taking in the immaculate gardens. She's wondering absently about her best friend, only to find the very subject of her thoughts waiting for her when she arrives.
She'd expected him to be inside his room, asleep on his futon like he usually is, or possibly even out roaming with the rest of the convoy nin. Instead, she finds Shikamaru lounging on their shared covered porch, limbs stretched out along the shadows of her doorway.
A black and white cat flicks its tail lazily beside him, happily curling into his body heat. The sunset is glazing everything in a warm sienna glow. In his hands she can make out a well thumbed book: Advanced Chess Endgame Strategies.
He looks more at home here than she's seen him in a while. It almost seems a shame to disturb him…
Her stomach rumbles with a vicious growl. She's starving for food and the promise of the festival snacks. She clears her throat as she approaches so as not to startle her friend. The cat runs off to do what ever it is Ryokan cats do.
"You look comfortable." She says, taking in his reclined form. He looks like he's been laying there for hours. "Where's the rest of the team?"
He finishes the page he's reading, then tilts his head all the way back to look up at her. "Everyone else went off to dinner." He says lazily, happy to linger where he is as long as possible. "I told them I would wait for you."
His hair is a loose halo of dark strands framing his face. It tumbles out in every direction, spilling over the arm he's using as a pillow.
"That was sweet of you." She blushes down at him, thinking he looks rather picturesque. "Trying out a new style?"
He shrugs, but she can tell the question embarrasses him. "My hair tie finally snapped and I didn't bring an extra."
"I like it." She says, testing the compliment as it rolls off her tongue. "It's a good look for you."
It isn't a love confession or a marriage proposal. There's no reason the words should feel so awkward in her mouth. But it's a compliment all the same and she doesn't want to take back. It's a start. She was trying.
Shikamaru, on the other hand, doesn't seem to know how to handle this. His mellow energy bristles immediately into something electric. Her words make his muscles come alive. They distract him just enough that he drops his book onto his face where it lands with a muffled thump. Sakura can't contain the sputter of laughter that erupts from her mouth after that.
His reclined posture shoots up into a ramrod seat. He tells her to hurry up and get dressed already. The bridge of his nose has turned pink from the unexpected attention, and he runs a hand self-consciously through his hair. She almost touches his shoulder with her fingertips when she passes, but then an image of Temari's face flashed behind her eyes. It seem's she's not a completely changed woman. She's still second guessing herself.
'But that's okay,' She thinks, reaching into her pack. She fishes out a fresh set of clothes. Rome wasn't built in a day, after all.
Then she finally sees the time and realizes just how unforgivably late it's really gotten. She is absolutely mortified. She is two hours late for dinner.
"Im so sorry! I didn't mean to lose track of time!" She makes her apologies through the crack in her door while stuffing her feet into her sandals. No wonder the rest of the team had left without her!
"Dinner is on me tonight for making you wait!" She doesn't even bother tidying up her room before rushing back outside. But she's in such a hurry to lock the door that she collides hard into Shikamaru's chest, not paying attention to her feet.
His body is a firm rubber wall she bounces off of. A pair of arms snake around her shoulders. Hot fingertips reset her upright, then let her go immediately. He looks away from her like the touch never happened. She wants his hands on her again, steady and reassuring.
"Why are you always causing trouble." His voice is a low murmur, spoken more to the shadows than to her herself. He doesn't make eye contact when he says it. Instead, he does something unexpected…
He threads his fingers confidently into hers, his strong grip leading her down the steps and out through the breezeway. She follows him in a daze, eyes glued to their interlaced hands as she trails behind him in the setting sunlight. This time she's his shadow, following behind where he leads. She no longer cares where they are heading, just hopes they take their time getting there.
She's been kissed and touched by yume-kakashi, been held in truly intimate ways. But this gesture with her best friend somehow feels more incendiary than all those things put together. Her disobedient heart has escaped her chest. It's now an uncaged animal roaming around her body, unbeholden to the rules of anatomy.
But she must have made her grip too rigid, because when they get to the main house he lets her fingers go. His hands are shoved back into his pockets.
He's been doing that a lot lately. She wishes he would stop.
She decides to appreciate the transitory moment for what it was, rather than miss it for its loss. She doesn't have time to juggle tonight. They have a dinner to be late to and convoy-nin to locate. And, not the least of all, a festival to attend.
- Friends -
Before them, the stalls spread out in every directions. The main street is a jewel box of food smells and colored lights.
"This festival is huge." Sakura says, stepping out into the street in awe. She hadn't expected such a small town to have such a massive turn out. There hadn't even been this many vendors set up when they'd arrived earlier that day. The stalls had easily doubled in the period of time she'd been in the bath, the tourists even more so.
All the street food looks greasy and salty in the most alluring way. Sakura stares hungrily after a vendor with a push cart selling grilled meat on bamboo skewers.
The festival's assault on her senses is a beautiful distraction. Before she realizes it, the tension between her and Shikamaru has evaporated. They're so busy exploring the market stalls that she forgets to be nervous around him. Maybe he forgets to be nervous around her too.
His posture, upright and tense while in Suna, is like a popsicle that melts in the summer heat. His walk is lazy, his shoulders are relaxed. They move from attraction to attraction, unhurried. Tonight, they were just two friends talking and laughing their way from one stall to the next.
They spend money they shouldn't on carnival games. They buy diced watermelon served over crushed sweet ice. He buys her a sour lemonade blended with a botanical tea blossom she doesn't recognize. At her delighted sigh, she passes it to Shikamaru to try a sip only for him to confiscate it guiltily.
"I paid for it-" He says, holding it just out of her reach. The sour bitterness makes the dimples in his cheeks pop, and she's too busy admiring him to really be mad about it. They continue on down the row of stalls, forgetting their cares and just being in the present.
- Wonder -
Soon, the darkness settles in earnest around them. At this point, they have done a lap of the entire festival twice. Even still, Kiwa's suggested restaurant is no where to be found. Sakura is about to ask a local for directions when she sees it- The perfect carnival game.
"I want to play." Sakura said enthusiastically, slapping her money down hard on the game table. The stall vendor looks down at her with a skeptical raised brow. Shikamaru wonders what the vendor must see- Just a slight pink haired girl with a big smile and too much money.
A pit of dread drops into Shikamaru's stomach. He knows exactly how this is going to go.
"I really don't want to take your money, love." The large man gives her a patronizing look. Flashy muscles ripple across his bare arms. He keeps sizing up Sakura in a way that make his nerves prickle.
"Oh, trust me. You won't." Sakura says hungrily. She starts rolling up her selves in excitement. The man looks down at her, and then over her shoulder to where Shikamaru is finishing his last sip of lemonade.
"You sure you're okay this, man?" The arcade runner asks. His belittlement of her is the final straw. The guy was going to get what he deserved.
Shikamaru eyes the arcade sign, scanning over the hand painted section detailing how winners can double their money. With a resigned sign, he reaches into a vest pockets and pulls out another $20 bill.
"This is a bad idea." He says to the air, but he puts the bill onto the table atop Sakura's. The game runner adds it to the prize pile.
The smile Sakura gives him is a beam of sunlight, and he wants to taste it on his tongue. Instead, he wonders what it is about wicked women he's so helplessly attracted to. "Don't say I didn't warn you." He says.
In response, Sakura plants her elbow on the table, and the game runner likewise does the same. He mirrors her stance with haughty aggression, his giant palm engulfing hers like a baseball glove. Sakura isn't the slightest bit intimidated. She bares her own grip into him, grinning wickedly.
"Easiest $40 I've ever made." The man calls to his tent mate, then settles in for the arm wrestling match.
The poor big dumb fuck. "I was talking to you, man." Shikamaru says with sigh.
When the starting bell dings, Sakura doesn't hold back. She doesn't even put on the pretense of letting the game runner almost win. She smashes his knuckles down into the table so hard, the table jumps from the force like she's kicked it. The game runner lets out a cry of alarm. His tent-mate laughs in uncontrolled hysterics.
Briefly, Shikamaru wonders if she's shattered the poor guys arm. She could have easily, without even batting an eye. But she just smiles at the man's stupefied expression, reaching out for her prize money and tucking it into her vest. No, she hadn't shattered the guys arm. She'd chosen to just shatter his pride instead.
Sakura walks away from that table grinning like a madwoman. She's just made all their money back and then some. The game runners knuckles are an angry red, but not as red as his humiliated face. His knuckles will only be bruised for a few days, but his ego? That's another story.
Shikamaru watches her count out their winnings. His stomach growls and the restaurant is still annoyingly missing. But inwardly, he's thrilled to be along for the ride. He's happy to be her shadow where ever she chooses to go.
She smiles at him with her rosebud mouth, and he asks if they can go buy a second lemonade.