Temari dropped her eyes at Shikamaru’s curt reply. “Okay,” she muttered, lifelessly. In the next instant, the brief look of sadness on her face changed to anger.
It was all he could do to take a breath. He had no room to dodge; before he knew it, Shikamaru was flying. He tumbled down the hall a few times before ending up on his backside in a seated position. The right side of his face swelled up, bright red. Stroking his hot cheek, Shikamaru looked up at an indignant Temari glaring down at him.
“I never actually thought I could’ve misjudged you so badly!” Her angry yell turned into a powerful wind, pushing up against his face.
“I-I’m sorry…” The words were unconscious. He unthinkingly took on the persona of his father stumbling home in the morning, only to get yelled at by his mother in the entryway.
Taking long strides, Temari passed by Shikamaru and disappeared, her eyes slightly damp.
∞
“You haven’t even touched your food,” Choji said, sitting in front of him and puffing out both cheeks like a chipmunk.
They were at a yakiniku place. Ino was sitting beside Shikamaru. Both of his friends had become serious adults over the last two years. Choji was as chubby as ever, but his eyes were fearless now, and he had grown a beard of all things. Ino let her hair grow ever longer and wore it unbound, which made her look a fair bit older than her years.
“Did you eat before you came?” Choji’s cheeks sank in, his throat moved up and down, and the meat fell to the bottom of his stomach.
“Shikamaru and I both had our growth spurts a long time ago, so we don’t need to shovel food into our faces like you do!”
“No way!” Choji’s eyes grew round.
Unthinkingly, Shikamaru laughed out loud. A gentle wind blew through his heart. He hadn’t felt this way in a long time. “Why would I eat something when I know I’m coming to have dinner with you guys?” he said, reaching out to the grill with his chopsticks and grabbing a piece of meat on the verge of burning.
“I was cooking that!” came Choji’s angry yell.
“Woh-kay.”
They had danced this particular dance who knew how many times before. In a familiar gesture, Shikamaru put the piece of meat back and turned his chopsticks to the beef rib next to it. He glanced at Ino out of the corner of his eye. She nodded, and so he took the rib and set it on his small plate.
“It’s been a long time since you asked us out,” she remarked.
“True. And lately, you guys only hang out with me when I ask you out, so.”
“You’re super busy, Shikamaru, with alliance work, supporting Lord Hokage. We can’t take up all your time or anything.”
Eyes slightly cast downward, Choji puffed his cheeks out. “Yeah, but still…”
On the one hand, he was honestly glad they were concerned about him, but he was also sad there was this distance between them. Now that he was grown-up, he couldn’t do whatever he wanted like he had when he was a kid. Things were different now. The days when he would meet his friends after the academy lessons and play until it got dark were over.
In the same way that he had responsibilities with the alliance and in Konohagakure, Ino and Choji were also quite valued as capable chunin who had made it through the Great War. They could talk all they wanted about how busy Shikamaru was, but the fact was they weren’t in any position to take time whenever they wanted to either. Still, when he said he wanted to see them, they just came and hung out without another word.
They were the best friends.
“What’s wrong?” Ino asked Shikamaru, tilting her beer mug back in a masculine fashion.
“Nah, it’s nothing. I just wanted to talk with you guys is all.” Shikamaru brought the meat on his plate up to his mouth.
“Oh, that all?” Ino didn’t ask him anything else.
Choji kept shoving bits of cooked meat into his mouth, the smile never leaving his face.
The back and forth of easy conversation.
The way Choji ate.
Ino’s love stories.
And memories of Asuma…
His distance from the two of them shrank.
He almost went back in time to the self he had been when they first came to this restaurant with Asuma. Back then, every other thing he said had been “what a drag.”
Looking at Choji and Ino all grown up, Shikamaru whispered in his heart that they could never go back to those days.
∞
He walked home alone. In the end, he hadn’t been able to tell them.
If he was going to go to the Land of Silence, he had thought it would be with them, which was why he’d invited them for yakiniku. But when he looked at their smiling faces, he couldn’t bring himself to say it.
The road he was about to step onto was dark. To save Konoha, the alliance, and all ninja, he was going to kill a man. He wouldn’t be fighting tall and proud and winning. He would be killing in secret. Assassination. Which was not all that remarkable for a shinobi. Once you grew up, you understood that this sort of thing too was necessary in the world.
But…
The fewer people who got their hands dirty, the better. He couldn’t bring himself to drag Choji and Ino into the darkness.
“Guess it’s the Anbu, after all.” There wasn’t a single star in the night sky to which he raised his face.