a/n: this story started as an anonymous request on tumblr and, though almost completely written two years ago, was worked on and off for the past few years and finally was pushed through these last few months with constant encouragement from tumblr anons. sorry for the delay, as always, and thank you for the tireless motivation. hopefully at least somewhat worth this long wait! slow burn, shikamaru-centric.
ONE
There is a sharp noise, half-squeak, half-bang; then the door opens. Shikamaru carefully moves to one knee — not resting in his kneel, merely expressing the deference that is expected of him, eyes trained to the ground, one hand over his heart.
"Your highness," Shijima says from above him, "what do you think?"
All eyes are on him — and, for someone so inculcated in remaining inconspicuous, the attention itself feels like a weight on his shoulders.
"I trust you," a second woman answers Shijima kindly, "surely anyone you appoint is worth their salt."
"Excellent."
Understanding enough — though if he's honest, apart from his training over the last month in preparation for this, he understands almost nothing about royal customs — Shikamaru stands, lifting his eyes carefully from the stone to her feet, all the way up her black dress to her shoulders, her neck, her eyes, and finally setting his gaze slightly above her head, as though at-attention.
"He's highly trained." Shijima continues. "Well-behaved; will be a good asset."
A short laugh. "Of course he is!" Her voice is strong and warm. She speaks with the well-worn confidence of someone who has had assurances of safety and privilege. Of someone who makes friends easily and is poised in the fact that they're liked.
It grates on his skin.
He's seen images of her for years, but has never heard her speak, not once since they were young. Still, he's unsurprised by the playfulness in her voice, given what he knows (though he supposes it would make more sense if she spoke with whatever sort of voice sounded like rotten intentions and hollow promises).
"It'll be good to have more company," she continues. "Plus, poor Tsubusa…."
"Ma'am!" The guard standing behind her protests, but she waves him off with a small smile.
"'Been pulling double shifts for two weeks!"
She looks over Shikamaru again, exploring. He's being evaluated, almost for purchase, as such.
She's sizing him up.
What a joke — he has more training than the man behind her (Tsubusa, apparently). It's plain in how Tsubusa stands. In fact, Shikamaru is easily the most adept in this room.
"He's been shown everything and can start right now, if that's acceptable with your highness?"
"Of course," she says again, "come along."
Shijima turns to him, away from the princess."You'll follow Tsubusa for the day," the woman instructs. She is much shorter than Shikamaru and he has to take his eyes off the princess to look at her. "Ask him if you have any questions, and then you will officially begin tomorrow."
He nods.
There is a moment of pause. A brief hesitation in the air as all wait for the transition to begin. And then the princess looks to her other guard. "I'll be in the library." She smiles again, this time toward Shijima, and she thanks the head of the Household Guard before turning on her heel, forcing Tsubusa and, in turn, Shikamaru to follow.
He hates women like that. Women like her: who appear kind and well-liked. Women who are physically attractive and know it. Women like that are manipulative, he knows. Cunning.
They make their way in silence, Shikamaru and Tsubusa shadowing her a few paces back, as they walk through the smoothed-stone hallways. Hopefully he won't be here long. Only a few months. Until now, the royal family has spent only their summers in Konoha, but the princess has changed custom this year. She's here to stay and it's only the first week of January. So the palace, which would normally be essentially defunct during the winter months, has had to adjust to her whim while the rest of her family remains in Sunagakure.
He is led into a separate wing, then another, then another. He hasn't been in this building for over a decade. If he hadn't studied the building plans, he would be lost and reliant solely on her heel.
"Usually there are meetings on Monday," Tsubusa tells him as they enter the library.
Tsubusa situates himself on one side of the entrance, eyes on her, and Shikamaru takes the other side of the door. He'll keep eyes on her at all times throughout the day unless she is in her room — the only place, bar the restroom, he will give her privacy. And, in those times, he will still be there on the other side of the door. She needs guards, they — though he is not sure who they are — believe, even in her own home.
"But apart from that, there is the same schedule every day: classes in the morning, afternoons free."
In the corner of the expansive room, the princess has pulled a book from the shelf and fallen back into a large cushioned-chair, her legs up over one of the armrests, carefree. He keeps her in the corner of his eye as he nods at Tsubusa.
"Easy enough."
Tsubusa chuckles, low. "She's easy."
Hm.
"I didn't mean it like that!" The older guard almost chokes. "I just meant she's—"
"I can hear you, you know," she condescends as she flips a page, never taking her eye off the text, and it surprises them both.
"I meant it as a compliment!"
She glances over to flash Tsubusa a wide smile. "Sure, sure."
Shikamaru watches them, silent.
He doesn't mind Tsubusa, as air-headed and earnest as the other man seems (or, at least, has initially appeared), but he despises her.
Easy?
Not for him.
He spends the rest of the day watching her, eyes on her shoulder, watching how she holds her spine straight as she addresses others of station and how she relaxes when addressing members of staff.
In either sense, she ignores him. She offers none of the easy rapport she'd shared, even if falsely, with Tsubusa.
In fact, she hardly looks his way.
When he arrives for his second day, this time on his own (on his own for the next week and a half to give the others time off), she doesn't even say a word to him. She simply opens her bedroom door in the morning and walks right past him on her way to the dining hall. She announces no intentions as to her desired plans for the afternoon. She doesn't alert him of her movements in advance, as she had consistently done the day before for Tsubusa. She pays him so little mind, he might as well not be there.
He is though. He's there. He's standing a few feet behind her at every moment.
It's easy to survey her form, to trace her mannerisms and tics as she moves through her day. It's natural. And mandatory. He must observe her, must be prepared in case there is ever anything amiss. He is her personal guard, after all.
But there is nothing reciprocal about it.
If pressed, Shikamaru would say he didn't expect anything different.
Still. He has seen enough in a few hours to learn as much as he can about her body and its idiosyncrasies, where she likely couldn't even pick him out of a crowd. Of course, he'd often observed others while unobserved himself, but that was while purposefully in hiding, utilizing his stealth, when he was trying to keep to the shadows. That's not the case here.
Here, he stands tall behind her. It's simply that: to her, he's nothing even worth noticing.
It's easy to form habits when life is so monotonous and routine.
At six am, still before sunrise so deep in the winter, he approaches her doorway and, with a few words in passing, relieves her night guard, Mijin, taking the man's place with his back against the wall beside the edge of her closed door. He stands there for fifteen minutes on his own, and then two women come through to get her ready for the day. If he leans close, he can hear muffled voices, but as soon as he straightens from the door, the old stone drowns everything out. At seven, the door opens and she strides through. Without turning or greeting him in any way, she makes a right and walks in easy, carefree steps to the dining hall. Shikamaru, as required (as hired), follows.
She does her schooling in a room adjacent to the library. She's long-past the standard age of curriculumed-education, but she has a tutor anyway. Together they read classical texts and discuss now-disproven mathematical theories. She asks questions and smiles and flirts with the man not far from their own age, who is so overjoyed by her attention to his interests, that he doesn't even notice it.
In the afternoons, she spends her time reading foreign political periodicals or walking through the gardens. Sometimes she takes a friend, sometimes she goes on her own.
They don't speak.
He won't be here long. Four months. Maybe five.
He's lucky, probably, to be guarding such a minor and untroubled member of the family. He could be assigned to one of her brothers. Worthwhile in the position, maybe, but it'd make his job much harder. Here, she pays him no mind and, apart from his presence, little more is required of him. It's good, in the end. It's good.
She speaks quickly, he's observing. When she is with friends; with her tutor — she doesn't think through her words. She has a loud laugh and never withholds it. She smiles and plays and asks questions, he believes, that she already knows the answer to. He isn't sure why she does it: to portray herself differently than she is, or perhaps to force the other person to provide an answer for themselves. She speaks like she is honest. Like she is straight.
But she's not. She's lying. About what, he doesn't know. But she is. She is.
When she walks alone, her shoulders are hard. She carries herself with tension. She's not graceful, but she purposefully moves with a silence most people have to work years to achieve.
It's cold enough, even in the immediate hours after noon, for her exhales to be visible when she adjusts so he is not directly behind her. From that angle, the sun reflects off her hair.
The crash comes twenty minutes before he finishes his shift.
Shikamaru opens the door without hesitation, without considering what it may be, though he identifies it, without even realizing that he has, at the same time he fully steps into her bedroom.
It's nothing: the door to her balcony, thrown back, slammed against the wall — probably from nothing more than a gust of wind.
It's so sudden, so stupidly inconsequential — his first real movement since he joined the guard — and it stops him short.
Shikamaru stands in her doorway, eyes narrow, as he takes in everything around them before finally settling on her.
She stands opposite, in the open doorway to her balcony; shoulders just as tense, eyes just as focused.
The wind is harsh, the only noise in the silence between them.
She is fresh out of the bath. He can feel the humidity of it; the heat. And the burst of cold air from the open balcony door, blowing against her back, moving her hair over her bare shoulders. Her night dress — thin, white, see-through — is half-sticking against her still-wet skin, half-blowing forward in the wind. If she weren't so solid, if her eyes weren't so pointed, he'd think she'd lost her mind.
Finally, after longer than appropriate, he lets his gaze fall to her bed. There's a book open on the sheet, bent at the spine.
She sees him looking and moves forward quickly to gather it up.
"You'll catch a cold."
He says it low, offhand almost. He isn't sure why he says it. He knows, even as he says it, that he shouldn't.
It's clear enough: she took a bath, got out, put on what hardly counts as clothing, and stepped outside. She couldn't have been out long — maybe she'd only just opened the door when it blew back — but it's below freezing outside and no one in her present condition should be out at all.
The princess takes a long breath and straightens, moving her eyes up and down his form. She blinks, smirking suddenly, as she looks at him as though shockingly unimpressed. She pulls her shoulders back. It's the first time all week she has looked at him.
"Strong observation," she says, and her voice, which he'd thought he'd heard enough now to be familiar with, surprises him with its previously-unheard condescension. He doesn't understand her annoyance. "You go to school for that kind of logical reasoning?"
Shikamaru bites his tongue, moving to stand relaxed, working hard to keep from rolling his eyes. But he bears it down and doesn't respond, which, if anything, seems to make her angrier. She sets her jaw.
"Come on Guard," the princess says, lifting her chin. She speaks as though she commands the whole room, even as she stands there likely frozen and almost naked. "You had to learn something in special ops, didn't you?"
He eyes her. Her shoulders, usually facing the other way, move with her breath. A beat.
She's looking for a rise.
He always thought she was an asshole. It's good now to know it, personally, too.
She's waiting. If he looks lower, which he does, if only to spite her, he can see through her dress the dark triangle of pubic hair still wet.
When he brings his eyes back up to meet hers (slowly, so she'll feel it), he can tell that she too is biting her tongue now. She's fighting the protest. She wants to say something else. But she'll wait for him. Give him a chance to hit back.
He won't take it.
"Your highness."
It's short and bitten out, accompanied by a nod in parting, and then, carefully, he steps back and out of her room, closing the door gently behind himself and leaving her there, mouth set, watching him.
Shikamaru takes a long breath. A few long breaths. And re-situates himself against the wall by her door, on guard.
Ha.
He knew it.
He's her personal guard. He follows her around. He watches in case she needs help. He protects her.
That's all.
She is the asset. The property. The object of his travails.
It's not a demotion. On paper — a promotion:
Personal guard (even if one of four) to the royal princess of Sunagakure.
But he's much too skilled for this.
And everyone knows it.
She certainly does, apparently. Apparently. Apparently, she's looked into him.
She hadn't addressed him once since they met. Apart from their first meeting, her eyes had never laid on his. When she turns corners, she's never even looked over her shoulder to see if he's following. She has never said a word to him until last night.
But she'd looked into him.
She knew who he was. The trajectory from special ops to royal guard is not one frequently traversed. She knew who he was.
This whole time. She'd looked into him. She'd been much more aware than he'd outwardly given her credit for (though he knew, he knew, didn't he? He could tell.).
As he follows behind her — still, no words spent between them — he watches her shoulders underneath her black dress. He looks at the skin on the nape of her neck and where it disappears into her collar. He knows, now (though could always imagine easily enough), her skin continuing underneath her dress, curving over her shoulder.
He had learned everything he could about her before coming. He'd had to. He had a job to do.
But she'd—well, she'd looked him up on her own volition. Hm.
Midway through his second week, her brother comes.
It's a big ado. His visit is unannounced to the public, but around the palace, it's easy to see the increase in activity. He's only passing through, Shikamaru learns, on his way back to Suna from a greater trip abroad. He comes in the later afternoon and leaves before dawn the following day.
In the final hours of his shift, Shikamaru follows them in the garden. No one else accompanies him, leaving Shikamaru to watch both of them, though he supposes there are more guards patrolling along the grounds than usual.
The prince lowers his voice each time Shikamaru comes too close, so he stays further back than he normally would with just her. Shikamaru doesn't mind it. This prince was never someone to take much interest in. Gaara, the youngest of the three, is the one Shikamaru knows. They've met before, if only in passing, during previous military considerations back when Shikamaru was working out of Suna. Gaara is the one of specific note.
Kankuro, like the princess, has never done anything more than purport his family's current-supremacy.
Shikamaru doesn't find him as smart as the princess, but both are figureheads, if anything.
Easier to guard, which, if he's honest, is what he prefers.
So, while he may dislike them immensely, at least it suits his habits to walk yards behind them instead of doing any real work. Real exertion, in any way, is never his preferred method. If the prince and princess don't want to be overheard, then who is he to try to overhear?
Ten days. Ten days without break. He came to relieve an overworked staff, which gave her current guards some reprieve, but it had been miserable for him.
Beginning next week, at least, he'll only work four days, and then have the latter three to recuperate (which is how it feels to be with her: like one must physically remove oneself from her presence to recover).
That said, he thinks the shift calendars are wrong. If split between four, six hours-on, six-off is much better than the twelve-twelve they currently divide it by. Instead of two shifts per day, he works Monday through Thursday, beginning at six am, and ending at six pm. At six — or whatever time past six they arrive back at her room — he is relieved. And at six the next morning, he walks to her door and lets the man standing there (who, beginning next week, will generally be Mijin) leave. But twelve hours are too many with such consistency. It's bad scheduling. Convenient for everyone but the guard. And a risk. Someone standing on their feet for twelve hours without rest is a liability. They should fix their system.
Whatever.
It's no skin off his back.
It's easier for him, maybe, that he doesn't have to adjust his sleep schedule apart from losing his ability to nap during the majority of the weekdays. Easier, really, that he doesn't have to think about it.
But, if she were in real danger —which he doesn't really think she is — then it'd make him much more anxious.
She's not in any danger though. Or, at least, not that he has seen. Apart from admiration, he has seen no one with their eyes on her. No one has even gestured a foot out of line. No one has put forth a toe to a line. If there were any truth to the rumors of potentiality, they surely weren't geared at her.
Whatever. Whatever.
Ten days. And tomorrow will be his first day off.
Ten days and he has hardly seen anything of interest. Just her. And even then, what he's seen. Well. It's of interest, but not something easily articulated. Put another way: he has no good palace gossip for Ino. As far as he knows, the princess isn't engaged in any torrid affair — at least not one here — and her conversation (of what he heard) with Kankuro didn't involve anything scandalous or salacious.
He'll go see his friends tomorrow and report to them simply what the princess does all day: walk around and ignore him.
That's all he will really be able to say about her. There's more, sure, but not that he can put into words. Except for the base feeling of it, there aren't words that can give it accurate meaning.
Monday morning, he relieves Araya in the dining hall.
The air inside is warm, the smell of freshly baked bread permeates the great stone room as soon as he opens the door.
"She was hungry early this morning," Araya says, his voice low. They'd only met once before this, also in passing, but Shikamaru knows him to be the severest of her other guards.
Shikamaru shrugs in response and waves him off.
He leaves without further comment.
Silently, Shikamaru straightens his uniform and moves to take a different spot than Araya had struck, positioning himself by the east exit, to the right of where he'd entered, and closest to where she sits speaking with one of her maids over coffee.
He feels off. Something feels wrong.
It's not external though — nothing around him to be worried by. It's an internal unease. Something off-putting. Something about being back here, watching her once more.
Maybe it has to do with the work itself — the strangeness of the position: the anomaly of being by somebody's form for such extended time, with such thoroughness, and then, suddenly, not at all. And now, being back.
He exhales. Best not think about it. He already pays her so much mind. Best not spare her more than he is obliged to.
His eyes settle, as they must, on her back.
And then, even though he knows there is no way she would've heard him switch off with Araya — or, for that matter, move positions behind her — even though she's never directed any attention to him (directed at him, not once, not ever, except that single night in her bedroom) she turns her head over her shoulder. She only looks at him slightly, from the corner of her eye, under her lashes, not doing anything except noting his appearance. Then, softly, she smirks. It's directed at him. No question.
It's for just a second. So brief, everyone else will have missed it. But he didn't. And she knew he wouldn't.
She looks away and goes back to her conversation.
Hm.
Playing.
He feels it all the way to his fingers.
Fair is fair, he supposes.
"Guard," she calls out as her women leave. He has stepped aside for them, holding the door open, which is the only reason he is able to hear her clearly.
Shikamaru pauses, but neither of the two women leaving glance at him or pay him any mind, despite all of them having heard her.
With a sigh, Shikamaru steps into her room, closing the door silently behind him. Bodyguards aren't servants. Unless she is planning on going somewhere, there is really no purpose in speaking with him.
It's nicer tonight with the doors to her balcony closed. Warmer.
She's standing in the same white nightdress she'd been in last time (though this time it's not wet). It lines up with his memory of her from last week well-enough.
Shikamaru takes a deep breath and lifts his chin, meeting her eyes across the room.
"Can you draw me a bath?"
He works not to react, to keep his voice disinterested. She's planned every word of her request, he can tell.
"You have people for that."
She tilts her head, blinking slowly.
"I do."
She doesn't look away from him though.
He isn't sure what game she is playing at. What is she trying for, if there is any other purpose except to annoy him. She is the Princess of Sunagakure. What more could she possibly want from someone like him? Is she really that determined to ruffle him?
Shikamaru swallows. What is she doing?
He is sure, suddenly, he has never disliked someone more.
His heart races just to have her looking back at him. Her eyes are so bright, it feels painful.
Guarding her is a health-hazard, he muses, much later that night, long in his own bed, the burn of her gaze hard to get out of his mind.
Shikamaru closes his eyes against the sun as he inhales slowly, imagining he can feel the smoke slide throughout his lungs. He holds it as long as he can before exhaling.
Maybe he'll train tomorrow? He hasn't exercised in the past three weeks since coming to the palace.
He doesn't think he should have to, really. It's not like it's hard work. The main exhaustion is standing on his feet all day. Really, the only thing that tires him in any way is her highness herself (she's travailous). The work, apart from her, is easy.
Easy.
Shikamaru pulls the cigarette from his mouth and puts it out in the grass by his side. It's cold outside, but if he doesn't move, the sun warms him well-enough.
He shouldn't have to train — it's just guarding a princess, right?
Hmph. Shikamaru feels the corner of his mouth tug at the irony of it. It's only a joke to himself. No one else is nearby. Silently, he rolls over to his side and opens his eyes, the grass of the palace hills dry and brown in the ends of winter.
Friday night they're three drinks in when he catches her enter the bar one step in front of Araya.
Bull. Shit.
Only once has she ever left the grounds with him — though, he muses, looking down at his glass and debating taking another sip, she probably leaves the palace more with the guards on the night shift than she would with him.
He does take another sip and then leans his temple into his palm, looking away from where she is standing by the bar.
This is bullshit.
She is here pointedly, no matter how he tries to reason around it.
"Hey," Choji says, elbowing Shikamaru, "did you see who's here?"
There is a moment when the rest of the bar — not just their table — seems to notice her. At first, the noise dies down. And then, after a pause, it starts up, louder this time.
"Whoa," Kiba says, looking at her, "she's even prettier in person."
Okay. Another sip.
Choji hums and cranes his neck for a better glimpse.
"Do you think she'll say hello?"
Shikamaru makes a non-committal noise. He hopes not.
"She knows you though, doesn't she? You think she sees you?"
Ino, who has had to turn around fully to see the princess and her guard where they stand next to the bar itself, swivels her stool back.
"Oh, she sees him."
Ino says it with such surety, it piques Shikamaru enough to glance, once more, over at them. They're not looking his way, but he can tell, as Ino could, in how she is standing: she knows he is looking, in the same way she'd looked at him last week for the briefest moment in the dining hall. He can't pin it down or articulate how he knows, or even why he knows, but he understands it.
"Then you should say hello."
Shikamaru huffs.
No, he shouldn't.
He sits up to drown down the rest of his glass, and, when he finishes, he hits it much harder on the table than he means to.
"We should just go."
Kiba eyes him. "If you hate each other that much," he says slowly, "...well, I guess—"
"He doesn't hate her." Ino interjects. She isn't looking at either of them, but tracing her index finger over the rim of her glass. "Even if he wants to."
Shikamaru is so surprised (and maybe a little too drunk) that he responds when he knows he should stay quiet. It's best to ignore comments like that.
"What would you know about it?"
"Enough." Ino answers. She's turned away again and is looking once more at the princess, but she doesn't look coy in her response. If anything, she looks… kind of sad.
Shikamaru exhales. He keeps quiet this time. And he doesn't order another drink for the rest of the night.
Her eyes are cutting, that's what it is.
She likes to look at people like she knows something. She looks at him like she knows him.
But she doesn't. She knows nothing.
She's by the training grounds this time. He can feel her presence before he actually turns. He isn't sure what it is — likely the change in tone of the others around him — but it seems half-preternatural, like the way an aroma shifts through the air to announce the arrival of a woman, except she doesn't wear perfume. She makes no distinctive noise or carries anything that would evoke some other sense to alert of her presence.
Except herself.
It's just her. There is just something about her. And, like the night before last when she walked into that bar in town, he knows she is there the moment she arrives.
Must be the men around him, Shikamaru muses, as they all subtly intensify their movements under her eye.
"Guard."
He glances over.
Tsubusa is with her this time, standing a few yards back as she leans her elbows on the wooden fence bordering the training yard.
Shikamaru's hair is half-out of its tie, but he doesn't bother with fixing it. He does nothing more than wipe the sweat from his eyes. It's improper to appear before her like this, which is probably the only reason he walks over.
It's Sunday. She is not his business until six am tomorrow morning.
"I'm off-duty." He says when he is before her. He pointedly doesn't add the your highness he should and they both hear the absence of it.
"I know."
She looks him up and down. He feels a drop of sweat run down his neck.
Shikamaru watches the line of her eyes. He doesn't like looking at her like this. He is too used to the back of her head. Her eyes — they do cut. Like he'd mused weeks before, they cut.
Purposefully, he looks past her, and Tsubusa lifts his hands, as though to claim no responsibility for her actions.
It's Sunday. He owes her no deference, does he?
"You're following me now?"
"This is my home, isn't it?"
Is it? He wants to ask — and he opens his mouth so quickly, he almost does.
But it's too far. Questions like that could get other men (maybe even men like him to women like her) killed.
She knows it too. She hears it too, even though he doesn't say anything. Even Tsubusa moves his head higher, eyes widening in brief shock.
Shikamaru closes his mouth; his throat dry.
But it's no matter. She has lifted her chin, as though to push him further. Again, he isn't sure what she is aiming for. To push him into sentencing himself? To tying his own noose? Because she's edging him to it. And they both know it. He doesn't know why, but she's doing it. She's walking him further to the edge of a cliff. And he isn't stepping out of her way.
"You should keep walking," he says instead of what he really wants to tell her. Her lips, slightly, part. "It's too cold to stay still."
With nothing else, he turns away.
He can feel her eyes on the back of his neck — is this how it feels for her? When he watches her, follows her, guards her… does it feel like this? Does it burn, like this? — and it still burns long after he hears her walk away.
"How is she?" The man next to him on the field asks when he returns to his spot. "Some job, following her around all day."
"Hmph." Shikamaru lifts his right hand up before his eyes. He flexes it and then fists it, watching his knuckles turn white, as he repeats the man's words, thinking them over. He echoes it, softly, to himself: "'some job.'"
He follows her without a word Monday afternoon as she takes him to the southern veranda. He stays silent even as she goes to lean over the ledge, looking over at the academy. There are whistles blowing every few seconds and the sound of children training.
"Come look," she orders.
Shikamaru, knowing he shouldn't step anywhere he can't easily observe her, but also knowing nothing will happen to her if he does, steps forward beside her to overlook the grounds below.
The kids outside are not much younger than teenagers. They're old enough to understand where they are and what they're doing, but not old enough to be sent out yet.
"I've seen you watching them," she says.
Shikamaru takes a deep breath.
There is nothing accusatory in her tone. She's asking with interest, though he believes she knows whatever answer she is seeking.
He wonders how much she sees, standing in front of him all the time. She follows him on his days off, clearly, and has no embarrassment about it — or has lived such a carefree life, she doesn't think to find humiliation in whatever her desires are — but she's never pursued questioning him about them.
"You didn't enter the military until you were older." She continues when he doesn't answer. There is no emotion in her voice, like she is simply reading a fact-sheet aloud. "But you come watch them train. Why? You never trained here."
He doesn't respond.
"They're so young," she continues, unperturbed by his silence. Everything about her is so obstinate. "Too young to be here, making this choice, don't you think?"
Shikamaru bristles, breath caught in his throat.
She steps back and away, but keeps urging him to continue looking.
Ino is so wrong. This is hatred. Pure and unadulterated.
She's asking his opinion on the war.
His head hurts. It hurts to keep his eyes open. What does she want, if not to hurt him?
"You know what you're asking?"
His voice comes out parched. Furious. There is so much rage in it, low and burning, it hurts his own ears to hear.
The princess inhales sharply, surprised by it too.
"And you know what your answer is." She doesn't pose it as a question.
When Shikamaru turns, heat rising up the line of his back, he is shoulder to shoulder with her, facing opposite directions. He works hard to keep his breath quiet, but so close like this, closer than they've ever stood, he can only watch her neck and see her shake with the force of her own inhales.
"My answer, your highness," he says, seething, "is whatever you will it."
He steps away, walking to the edge of the wide veranda, standing much further than he should. If something were to happen to her, he'd be too far to protect her. And that's where he stays as she continues staring out, head held high.
What is she thinking? What does she want?
It's a long time before she turns to take them inside.
"She's been anxious," Mijin says one morning when Shikamaru comes to relieve him. "Not sleeping well."
Shikamaru doesn't respond.
"Her light keeps turning on every few hours."
"Is something wrong?" Shikamaru asks, just to ask it.
Good, is what he wants to say; petty, serves her right.
"She usually sleeps through the night back in Suna. She's probably anxious about the rumors here. I feel like, at least a few nights a week, she doesn't make it once without waking up."
Shikamaru huffs. "There's no truth to those rumors."
"Why do you say that?"
"There are always threats of a coup. I'm not seeing any more violence today than last year. Less, even, than five years ago."
"Yeah, maybe." Mijin sighs and rubs his eyes. "I guess the rumors of a mole are a few months old. You'd think if something were to happen, it would've happened by now." Then he perks up, leaning off the wall. "Plus, no one would want to hurt the princess. She's nice to everyone."
Shikamaru almost laughs.
Nice? What a fundamental misunderstanding of who she is. There is absolutely nothing nice about her. She is violent. Everything about her, everything she says and does, every look she gives — she is nothing but violence.
Does Mijin really not see that? He'd be an idiot not to.
"If there is a mole," Shikamaru responds instead, "he — or she — is doing a piss-poor job so far."
"Don't say that," Mijin moans, "we don't want anything to actually happen!"
"Will you go ahead," she asks as the dark starts to creep over the sky in the open garden, "have my bath drawn so it'll be ready when I return?"
Shikamaru hates when she stands like this: turned around to look at him. He hates when she asks things like that of him, things she is only posing to get a rise from him.
"I cannot, your highness."
"Who do you serve?"
"I took an oath to the Kazekage."
"Nara?"
He blinks.
She's never once called him anything but guard. Of course she knew his name, but he's never been addressed by her as anything other than his position.
"Will you draw it then?"
It's humiliation. That must be what she wants: to break him.
Doesn't she know he's already broken? He's broken, serving her. He'd be broken. Doesn't she know it already?
"You are not your father, ma'am."
She sobers, and then watches him for a long moment before turning around.
"No," she says, to the open air in front of her, "I'm not."
It feels like his days off grow shorter as the weeks go on.
He spends more time training on the grounds instead of going into town.
She passes by more. Mostly she just watches. Maybe she always had been doing it and he'd just missed it. Maybe, initially, he was just confusing it for something else.
The routine falls into place without his meaning it to. She becomes the habit and it happens so quickly, he hardly notices until it's long-already happened.
She has some friends in the village. She goes into town on a Wednesday and, on her way, stops in the Yamanaka flower shop.
He doesn't speak except during introductions. The princess and Ino pick a bouquet to bring to whoever the princess is meant to be meeting. They laugh together, and he feels victimized by it, as though their camaraderie is born out of mutual animosity toward his own desires versus any genuine interest in each other.
"She's quite quick in real life, isn't she?" Ino says as they walk out. "And nicer than I would've thought."
Ino's been looking at photographs of the princess since they were fifteen though, so she's not coming from a place of true impartiality.
"She's not," Shikamaru responds, not clarifying further as he leaves Ino behind in the shop.
Just to be fair, he ignores all comments the princess makes about Ino — all are surely made at his expense — for the rest of the afternoon.
The second time she takes him for a walk out into the village, assumingly to see the same friends, it goes wrong almost right away.
They've left Ino's, this time with a bouquet of yellow flowers that supposedly should be out of season, but are blooming beautifully for the Yamanaka's, and the princess is holding them when the first explosion goes off.
They're in a square, crowded by villagers shopping around them. It's still February, but it's the warmest day so far this winter, and the square is more crowded than it's been since the holidays. Shikamaru sees it coming, though only just in time.
There is a man, tall, with black bangs swept to one side of his face. He'd been standing near the flower shop before they went in. And then, as they walk through the square thirty minutes later, Shikamaru sees him once more.
It's that, upon being spotted both times, he slips away. It's that, both times, he'd positioned himself furthest from the princess, but kept his eyes on her. Everyone else watching her either pretended not to, or moved closer.
Even as he reaches out for the princess, Shikamaru is thinking about how, overall, he's unimpressed. If this is the danger he is meant to be looking out for, the palace guard made a mistake in hiring someone like him. They could have a lesser trained man and achieve the same results.
The explosion goes off a millisecond before she is on the ground. They're fast enough to miss the worst of it, and he was fast enough to protect her from all of it. And then, a second later, another one, further, goes off.
Shikamaru is up before the dust has blossomed, before people have even begun screaming. Petals from the bouquet she'd been carrying are still falling.
The man didn't make it far. He'd stayed, as Shikamaru knew he would, to ensure his device had been well-placed. He's so close, and it's so chaotic, he doesn't even see Shikamaru coming. And Shikamaru, really working for the first time in months, dispatches him before the princess has even stood up. The man puts up no fight. Two hands on his skull, a hard twist to the right, and Shikamaru doesn't hear the crack amongst the commotion so much as feel it beneath his fingers.
"Nara!" She is on her feet, running to him, face covered in the dirt he'd pressed her into. "You—" and it's only then that he even feels the sting in his shoulder. "You're—"
Shikamaru drops the man's body and takes a step toward the princess, reaching out for her arm. He pulls her close as he scans around. People are shouting for help.
The man had no backup. That's clear enough.
"Stop! Let me go, you're hurt," the princess is saying, tugging her arms from his grip.
Lips dry, he looks down at her. "Are you okay?"
"Yes! I told you already!"
He blinks and reaches for her shoulders, squaring her off before him to take her in. He has no recollection of asking that. Her bottom lip, right by the left corner of her mouth, is cut.
"You're hurt," she tries again, eyes wild, pushing from his grip once more to try to turn him around. "Stop moving!"
"I'm fine." Shikamaru uses her insistence at getting close to him to grab her forearm and pull her back with him. "We have to move."
He leaves through the center of town, knowing that's where the guard will come first. Right now, she is the priority. He has to get her to safety. She comes willingly this time, letting him pull her along, fingers tight around her arm.
They make it almost to the edge of the village by the time the guard arrives. And then they're separated. She doesn't protest this time, as he watches her disappear, the guards taking her straight back to the palace, though he sees her work to keep her eyes on him until she no longer can.
"Here's a clean set," Sakura hands him a new uniform, all folded together, socks included.
Shikamaru takes the offering, wincing as he does so. The injury is between his spine and his shoulder blade. A piece of shrapnel wedged almost three inches into his back. The pain medication has numbed the edge of the wound where they'd stitched him up, but doesn't seem to have figured out how to numb the inner parts of his body that were torn up.
"Want to keep it?"
He looks at Ryokan and then down at the offending piece of wood, placed mostly in one piece on a metal tray. A handful of different-sized, bloody slivers — the more painful splinters they had carefully extracted from his body — rest next to the pseudo-stake.
"No."
Sakura laughs softly and then watches as Ryokan pats Shikamaru's knee before leaving to allow some privacy as he changes.
They wait in silence, Shikamaru looking now at his thighs, Sakura fiddling with something on the counter, until the older man's footsteps turn the corner, and then she straightens and comes to stand beside where he sits on the edge of the exam table.
"They say his name was Yura. He was from Suna."
Shikamaru takes a deep breath, expanding his lungs purposefully to feel the twinge of a sting in his stitches. Sakura's hand, when she puts it on his bare shoulder, is cold.
"I didn't want to do it."
He's never liked hurting anyone.
Sakura lets her hand sweep over his shoulder. "You had to," she says plainly, "it's your job."
Protect her. See it out.
And then there are footsteps outside, and so Sakura steps away, and Shikamaru, sitting in his underwear, stands up and begins to get dressed.
Shikamaru is in a bad mood long before he leaves the palace's medical suites.
He's angrier when he is greeted by Shijima as soon as he makes it into the lower floors where the guards and other staff live.
"You are to go to her room."
"Bullshit," Shikamaru says, surprising Shijima.
She reaches out momentarily, as if to put a hand on his shoulder, and then realizes her mistake. "I understand, Nara. But it's not an option. Your presence is required."
He wants nothing more than to sleep. After all, it's almost midnight. His body aches. His head hurts. The medication is making everything cloudy.
The last thing he wants to do — the last thing he ever wants to do —is see the princess.
Can't she give him any reprieve? Can't she give him this? Just this? That's all he's asking. It's the only thing he's asked of her yet.
With heavy feet, he makes his way through the halls and stairways (at this point wholly familiar) until he is in front of her room.
Both Mijin and another guard Shikamaru doesn't recognize (not someone on her regular rotation) are standing outside her door.
He's expecting Mijin to say something — the man almost always does, and tonight, at least, he'd have something legitimate to say, but instead he only nods, expression grave, and gestures for Shikamaru to enter.
If only he'd given Shikamaru any more warning that the princess wouldn't be alone, he wouldn't have opened the door in such an insolent manner. But he does — practically slamming the door open only to stop short when he sees the Kazekage standing beside his daughter's bed.
Shikamaru immediately falls to one knee, eyes trained at the man's feet.
They'd never met.
Shikamaru hadn't even known the Kazekage would be coming (clearly, he needs to work harder).
"Please," the older man says, "stand up."
"Your majesty," Shikamaru says, slowly coming to his feet, careful to hide the hurt of it in his shoulder.
"I'm in your debt tonight, Shikamaru Nara," the Kazekage says, voice different than how it sounds on the radio. The Kazekage walks closer, reaching out to touch Shikamaru's good shoulder — he, unlike Shijima, can apparently tell which one is injured, even as Shikamaru'd tried to hide it. "I'd heard there was a military man guarding my daughter."
Shikamaru nods, lips taught.
Beyond the Kazekage, the princess stands by the doors to her balcony. She has washed and changed since he saw her last, her hair pinned back and a dress he hasn't before seen buttoned to her neck. Hours ago, when she'd disappeared from him, she'd fought to keep her eyes on him, desperate. Desperate. Now, she looks near his feet, and then around, blinking at him, and then her father's hand on him, with a slow, unfocused gaze.
"How lucky," the Kazekage continues, letting his hand drop from Shikamaru's shoulder. "Even having one from Konoha." He laughs, softly, just to himself. Shikamaru wonders what he's here for — it couldn't have been because of the incident in town earlier. Suna was a three-days journey. "I'd promote you to my own guard," the Kazekage says, "but then who would protect her?"
Shikamaru nods again, eyes hard, shoulders tight. The Kazekage was right about one thing: he's military, through and through.
"Plus," the older man says, waving a hand as though he were joking, "I can't have a Konoha-citizen. You understand?" He laughs again, this time louder.
"Yes, Sir."
He does understand. Of course he understands.
It's why he is with the princess in the first place.
"Well, apart from that, is there anything I can do for you, young man, in return for your actions today? No reward would be too great for the safety of my daughter."
An inhale. He doesn't grit it out, even if he might were he speaking to anyone else: "your presence, your majesty, is kind enough. After all, I was only doing my job."
"Ah, if only everyone understood their roles as well as you…." The Kazekage smiles wider and the princess, almost pressed against the far wall now, shudders.
The footsteps come as soon as he turns into the south wing.
"Wait," she calls, but he doesn't stop.
He's aching. He's tired. His face is burning. His heart is pounding loud in his ears.
He was so close, so close….
Fuck. He should've taken the extra painkiller Sakura offered.
He should change course to the kitchen and get some alcohol.
But then she is behind him, beside him, asking him to stop.
She doesn't reach for him though. Now, she keeps her hands to herself. Instead, she follows him as he opens his door, follows him into his bedroom, and she doesn't stop until the door closes behind her and she has pressed her back against it. It is only then, once they're alone in his bedroom, that Shikamaru finally turns to face her.
In this building, the two of them have one thing in common: they possess nothing of their own except a room to themselves.
They're not on equal footing though. Hers, easily, is eight times the size of his. And she, of course, doesn't share a latrine with half the floor. And now, more palpably than he'd imagined, as they're stuck in his room together, it is nothing like when they are in hers, standing with yards between them.
No. Now, there is just a small dresser and a small bed with rusted wires. And him, dark, and her, lighting up the whole place.
"You're back," she says, but she doesn't follow it up.
What is she doing here? Why did he let her follow him all the way back to his bedroom?
"It hit you," she continues, pressing her hands back into the wooden door behind her. She looks nothing like she had in the presence of her father — timid and fazed. Now, her eyes are so sharp that, even in the dim light of his room, it feels as though they too are cutting into him. "It hit you," she repeats, voice low, "when it would've hit me."
So? He wants to ask. That's how it is. You're the target, I'm the interceptor. You're the princess, I'm the bodyguard.
"Go," he says instead, furious.
There is something about her. Something about her that causes him to never be anything but angry. Never anything but filled with rage. It's different than it is with her father. It's not just by virtue of her position.
It's her. It's her and he hates her.
"I want to see," she says, and Shikamaru almost laughs with the shock of it. He would laugh, if he could. If his heart, maybe, weren't going so fast. If his chest didn't feel, suddenly, like it was on fire. "I won't leave."
She's such a pompous ass. She's so hard. She's so hard.
He hates her. He hates her.
"You'll watch me change for bed, then?"
Her back is pressed so tightly against his door, if it were a softer material, he imagines she'd go right through it. But still, she stands straighter and lifts her chin, taking his challenge.
Shikamaru sighs. Fine. If she wants it, he'll give it to her. He'll take it this time, and this time, he'll see if she goes for the rise.
Now, he is so flushed with heat, he forgets about the ache of his shoulder. Maybe last time — maybe last time she stared him down and expected him to bruise his knees before her; last time, when she was practically naked in front of him and not at all cold from the winter air on her wet skin — she too was so flushed with heat, that she forgot about everything else.
"Have you ever seen a man change before, your highness?"
She lifts her chin even higher. Her eyes grow dark in this light. He knows their color well, he knows it's only a trick of the shadows, but it makes her look crueler, which isn't inaccurate.
She is so cruel. She has always been cruel. This is cruel!
"Some start with the shoes," he explains shortly, ire coming clear through his voice as he puts one foot on the stool near his bed, reaching down to untie the lace.
Without a word, she watches. And his fingers shake.
"Then socks," he says, slipping them over each heel one at a time. Her gaze, obstinate, doesn't leave his face. Her lips stay in a hard line; the scrape from earlier barely perceptible in this light.
"Then belt," he stands straighter, undoing the clasp. She is watching him tug it out, watching the leather slide through the loops. His head hurts. He's swimming. She's not backing down.
"Then shirt." He faces her. He doesn't let her look at his back as she wants. And she watches, silent, resolute, as he undoes one button at a time, letting the shirt he'd put on only an hour before, still stiff from the starch, fall open on his chest. And then his stomach. More, until it falls from his shoulders onto the floor.
She's so hard. She's always so hard.
So hard, for a princess.
Shikamaru meets her gaze.
He can hear her breathing. He knows her chest is heaving, but he can't look away from her eyes. This room feels smaller than ever. He's dizzy. He's so angry, he thinks he can taste it.
He pulls his hair down. And she watches. She swallows. He can hear it.
And then, pushing farther than he would under any other circumstances — though this is already so beyond the realm of custom, so far from any proprietary line, he'd need a scope to even see where he'd crossed over — he reaches for the button on his pants.
She leaves in a blur, slamming the door on her way out.
Scared. Of him.
Good.
The heat in the room doesn't leave with her, though it feels like it should, seeing as she'd brought it.
When he exhales, it feels heavy, like he hasn't been getting enough air, like maybe he was drowning without ever realizing it. In silence, Shikamaru lets his hands fall from the edge of his pants. It's painful — all of it; the weight of it. The point of it.
His shoulder hurts. He collapses to sit on the side of his bed, head dropping into his hands, letting his stitches stretch painfully over the curve of his back.
What was he thinking?
It goes both ways: he, too, is scared of her.
...
a/n:
that last scene is almost a word-for-word scene from it happened one night - i watched it on a plane a few years ago and KNEW it would end up in a st fic 😂
many thanks to everyone on tumblr who helped me (for the past few years) with the little things. and an overwhelming thank you to appy, carol, saro, em, and evie for the perfect edits, time, and thorough discussions.
this is being published the day before my thirtieth birthday, so if you never hear from me again, i died unmarried and childless in the ripe old age of this third decade 3