This chapter is out early because XOXOLauren left a review so perfect, I'm still laughing about it.
- Answer -
When Sakura turns to face Shikamaru, it takes all his strength not to flinch away from her. He's seen her spiral before. He's seen her angry and he's seen her glow… But when her eyes land on him, they are so full of fear that it makes her numb. There's a hollowness there that he's seen only once before when they attended a funeral in the rain together. It's the same look Asuma carried for a year following Hiruzen's death. That's what she expects when she looks at him; a final, permanent goodbye.
"Shika, I…" Sakura begins.
But her words falter, and so do his. He doesn't know what to say, or what she needs to hear from him. This isn't the type of problems he's use to solving. He thinks about everything that has transpired between them over the last seven hours. Seven days. Seven years… Still the numbers don't add up.
Behind her stands the new variable in the ever changing equation for her heart. He has to admit, he'd expected some issues to surface upon returning to Konoha. But between the Daimyo's ultimatum and now Kakashi… he's had more surprises than even he could have calculated.
"How much did you hear?" Kakashi has the audacity to ask.
When Shikamaru's eyes find his in the dark, a cold chill overtakes him. Overhead, there is a streetlamp casting just enough light to cut his shadow. It bends into a hard line of obsidian across the pavement. For the briefest fireflash of a second, his shadow churns of its own volition, curling into something predatory and dangerous…
But then he sees the trembling girl before him, and he snuffs out his anger like a birthday candle.
It's surprisingly easy to do. He's already determined the outcome of any altercation that might ensue tonight. His chances of winning always diminish after sundown when his Jutsu is at its weakest. But even if this were a showdown at high noon, the person who would suffer the most from their fight is Sakura. This is what he keeps in mind when he levels Kakashi with his guillotine gaze.
"I heard enough." he says, clipped. He doesn't owe Kakashi an explanation.
He takes a breath, dropping into his center- the place he goes when he has to think clearly when the world goes mad. What drives him now isn't a surge of jealousy. It isn't sorrow or even aggression. When he looks at Kakashi he just feels…nothing. And that's when it all clicks into place.
What he feels for Kakashi is not the presence of rage, but sudden absence of respect. Not for likewise falling in love with the same brilliant girl he himself has… but because of his careless handling of her despite that supposed love. It's clear he's neglected Sakura in more ways than one, and it's been affecting her for quite some time now.
Asuma would never be so incompetent.
Shikamaru is reminded once again how grateful he is to have such a Sensei as his; to still have his entire team intact. If he were to show up at Asuma's apartment, even this late unannounced, the man would have a cigarette ready and his ears open to listen for as long as Shikamaru needed. He'd always made time for them, individually and as a team.
But as for Kakashi… he decides to save analyzing the man for later. He is not the priority here, Sakura is.
He focuses on the girl in front of him as she works herself into a spiral. Without another word, Kakashi slips out gracefully, or as gracefully as he can. Sakura doesn't notice him go. If she does, she doesn't seem to care.
"I can explain." She says, schooling her voice into an audible octave.
"I don't need an explanation."
Because, in the end, he doesn't. He's already heard everything that matters. Anything beyond that, well… it just doesn't. She hadn't asked him details about Temari after seeing her in Suna. She'd allowed him to share what he'd felt was appropriate, and to do it in his own time. In all their man years together, she'd never been nosey of his previous loves. Maybe they just hadn't had time to get there yet, but he wasn't about to rush them there now.
But he does have to make himself clear.
Better get this over with.
And so, Shikamaru puts on his battle gear. He takes a deep breath and puts his hands in his pockets. He relaxes his shoulders and forces what tension he can out of his posture. He walks over to where she stands, knowing she's probably frozen to the spot. He places himself before the girl he loves, and even knowing what he does now, he's ready to put his heart in her hands.
'Love is a terrifying act of trust. But when it's right, it's worth it.' His mothers words are a bell in his chest, and he rings it now for luck.
"Do you know why I wanted you to take some time to consider your feelings? Why I wanted us to wait before anything further happened between us?"
Sakura looks down at her hands, unable to hold his gaze.
He thinks of another time she couldn't look at him. Where he'd openly poured his heart out to her while she poured herself into the water cup in her hands. This time, just as then, he just wants her to look up. Please Sakura, look up.
"So that we could make sure we were doing the right thing…that we weren't acting on infatuation."
The word infatuation feels like a child's toy compared to the weapon obliterating his heart.
"That was part of it, yes. But I always had this suspicion that your heart was already occupied. When Temari and I first started dating, you listened to me complain about how the distance was hard… but even as I spoke about our difficulties, you were always envious of our strained relationship. Not because of me specifically, but because you clearly longed for love in general. And yet… I never saw you pursue someone, even though you could have had anyone.
While I didn't know for sure if you had lingering feelings for someone…I knew it was a possibility. Maybe that was part of why I held myself back from loving you like I did. I kept telling myself that you already had someone you were waiting for, and it wasn't me. I thought maybe those feelings were for Sasuke…but I recognize my error now."
Here, Sakura shakes her head, eyes on everything but him. The sidewalk, the trees, the stone park benches. "I'm so sorry you had to learn about everything this way. I wasn't trying to hide anything from you… it's just been complicated for so long."
"I think complicated is an understatement." He says dryly, because really, it was. "Like I said, I don't need an explanation."
"Then what do you need?" She dares to ask. She almost puts a hand on his arm, but he flinches away before he can catch himself. Her face breaks with unnamed emotion. She plays the movement off by running her fingers through her hair.
He wants to hold her.
He wants to die.
"I just…I think I need time." It's the one thing he really needs, and thanks to the Daimyo, it's the one thing they do not have.
"I understand." She whispers. Her hands return to small fists balled at her sides.
But because he's Shikamaru and he's terrible with change, he falls back into terrible habits. His mouth runs, unimpeded.
"Don't misunderstand me. When I told you that I loved you, Sakura…I wasn't speaking from fresh feelings. I've known you most of my life. I know who you are. I've seen you with a temper, and I've seen you be compassionate. I don't think for a second that you were leading me on. But it's clear you have some unresolved things to sort out first. Not just with Kakashi, but team 7 in general."
And these are the words that really seem to hit her. She blows out a breath like she's blowing out cold air, and he can hear her diaphragm waver. She's trying to control the avalanche of what ever is happening inside her.
"I think team 7 is broken for good this time." She says. Her whisper hits him like a bang. "Except this time, I'm the one who broke it."
Shikamaru doesn't understand the dynamics of their team… but he likes to think he understands teams pretty well. He was practically raised in a crib with Choji and Ino, and as kids they would fight more often than they got along. Even now, at any given time, he's closer to one of them than the other. Sometimes he just hates everybody across the board. But they always stick together.
If his parents marriage has taught him anything, it's that romantic love is a lot like family love. When it's real, it always comes back around again. Even in the darkest of times, it was very rarely gone for good.
But it's not his place to say this to her, because he doesn't know Team 7 at all. He hasn't seen Naruto in years, and Sasuke… he'd made his own choices.
But what he does know is Sakura, so he chooses to lean into that.
"Hey, come here."He says lightly. He has to, or she's bound to see exactly what this is doing to him.
There's reassurance in his voice, but there's a sadness to him too. He doesn't let himself reach for her, but keeps his hands anchored in his pockets. It's for his own sanity, not to hurt her. His fingers shiver from how badly he wants to touch her, but this is as close as he will allow himself to get.
He leans down and rests his forehead to hers, and for a moment they both just close their eyes. He goes back to a better time when they were alone in the Ryokan, safe inside the bubble of her room. He breathes in that memory like it will sustain him and tries to pass that energy on.
"I don't think anything about you is broken." He whispers. "And as for Kakashi, he's not broken either. He's just…not ready. He might not ever be ready. But for a long time, you weren't ready either. Maybe you two have more in common than you think."
Not kissing Sakura is agony, but he knows that kissing her would be even worse. And so, to save her and himself, he pulls away while he still can, hand in his pockets and heart in his throat. Because now, he has a Hokage to see about a 5 year prison sentence.
"I know that look." Sakura says. The little bit of reassurance he'd been able to give her is overshadowed by his total inability to keep a strait face.
"That's your chess look, Shika. You make that face right before everything is about to go bad."
Because no matter how well he thought he knew her, Sakura knew him front to back. He was so bad at hiding things from her…
"I told you you were going to be trouble." He grumbles. But it's affection as well as forbearance.
"What aren't you telling me?" She asks, stepping back into his space. He'd broken the barrier between them, and now he was going to pay for it.
Because he doesn't want to lie to her. He'd been determined to come tell her about the Daimyo; had been rehearsing his speech all afternoon. He'd tried to come up with just the right way to tell her their relationship was doomed. That it would be forced to sit before it even had a chance to run… but now their potential love felt doomed anyway. If not forever, then at least for a time.
He wants to ask her what to do; how they are going to get out of this mess. But she's already in a mess, and he doesn't want to add to it. So instead of the other hundred things, he asks her the only question that matters.
"Do you trust me?" He says with a breath.
Sakura takes a step back in response. She's had too many surprises today. "I don't like this." She says, warily.
"Do. You. Trust. Me?" He says it slower. Quieter.
Something seems to click inside her, like she's making up her mind. "I trust you." She finally says.
"Then I need you to trust me to make a choice alone that I wanted us to make together. I'll have to be gone for a while…I don't know how long yet, but while I'm away, do me a favor? Take care of Ino and Choji for me. You know how troublesome they can get without supervision." He uses the joke to cover up how badly he doesn't want to go.
It doesn't work.
"Don't do this to me. Please, not here."
When she says here, he looks around. Absently, he realizes he knows this place. He knows these familiar stone park benches, and what happened here with Sasuke years ago. This is the realization that makes him weak, because her lip is trembling now.
He wants to go back to the Ryokan.
He wants to go back to the Embassy.
He would even go back to 1am, working on the Daimyo's bill with her, just happy to be in her presence at all.
He knows he can't stay a second longer, or his resolve is going to break. He has to go talk to Tsunade before he chickens out, before he thinks too much about it and gets overwhelmed by inertia.
But because he can't just leave her like this, he makes her the only promise he can. Not that everything would be okay, or that they would find a way to work through this. He just doesn't know enough for sure. There's too many variables and not enough time.
"I am coming back, Sakura. I swear it." He drives his hands deeper into his pockets. He fights his own body to keep himself together. He's determined to be a fucking grown up for once instead of taking the easy way out. He's had a lifetime of doing the bare minimum. One could only outrun adulthood for so long…
Her eyes are the glazed green of celadon pottery, and they cut him to ribbons in the glow of the moonlight. When her lip trembles again, he forces himself to turn and leave. He's already on his last thread. If he looks at her a second longer…
She grabs the elbow of his jacket, not knowing he's in hell.
"Before you go. I need you to know, my feelings for you are-"
"Don't." He says it rougher than he means to. This he absolutely can not do.
When his mouth crashes into hers, it's every hungry desperation he's ever kept contained. It's every kiss with her he'd ever denied himself poured into this one now. She yelps against his tongue in shock. He uses the break in her defenses to shatter them even further. He pulls her deeper into the kiss, determined to destroy her with his mouth. He wants to ruin her the way she's ruined him, so that no matter how long he has to stay gone, this kiss will remain seared into the back of her brain.
He fists fingers into her hair and possesses her with a need he did not know he had. When she moans he drinks in her voice and every sound that it makes after. He doesn't let her go until she gasps, from breath or ecstasy or maybe both.
Because what ever she was about to say, it doesn't matter. If he hears her say she loves him, he won't be able to go do the task that needs to be done. If she says it now, he will consume her. He will take her back to her apartment and lose himself in her until they own each other, and then he'll never be able to leave.
And if she says she doesn't, well… he wouldn't be able to live with that either.
He doesn't want her answer yet. He just wants time.
He kisses her with the only real thing he has to give: an imperfect love that maybe wouldn't be of any real use to her, but he gives it to her all the same.
He's finishes communicating to her what a thousand words could not. Then, he pulls back just enough.
"Tell me when I get back." He says.
And before he can crumble for good, he marches himself out of the park towards Tsunade's office, resigned. He doesn't pick his eyes off the pavement until he gets into her building. He waits until he's found her door to look up again. He doesn't want to take a last look at everything he will be leaving behind.
He pushes his way into Tsunade's office without knocking. His Hokage's eyes take him in. She's obviously a little drunk, but even so, she see everything. Somehow, she always does.
She lets out a deep, rattling sigh like she can feel his pain from there. "…Shit. Well, let's do this Nara."
There's a bottle of something open on her desk, a clear bottle with a gold and white label. It's already been drunk down to the dregs, but there's still enough left for one.
Like magic, she pulls out a fresh cup and empties the last of the liquor into it. "Here, I think you need this more than I do." She says.
He knocks it back without trying to taste it, until he coughs it back up, tasting it a second time. "This shit is terrible." He says with a croak. His face flushes hard when it burns up his nose.
"If only you knew." She replies. There's something else beneath her words, but he doesn't have the bandwidth to analyze it. "So, what have you decided?"
"I think we both know it was never really a choice."
She at least grants him the dignity of not pretending otherwise.
"Tell the Daimyo's I'll take the position. But first, I need to visit the Fire Castle before I take the job. Hitoshi and I need to have words. Consider it a last request."
"You make it sound like an execution."
In a way, it was. "The world won't let me stay a kid forever. I'm about to leave behind the only life I've ever known. Who ever I am when I leave here…that guy might not be coming back."
Tsunade stares at him for a long time. When he offers nothing further, she moves behind her desk to pen out his inescapable future.
Who ever he becomes after all this, they might be rich and they might be powerful. They might be confident and grateful for this turn of events. But even if he becomes a beautiful thing, it will still be a different one.
When he signs his name on Tsunade's dotted line, he prays he can survive it.