Unable to see through Gengo’s genjutsu, he had been caught up in it, and only when Temari came along and saved him had he been able to wake up; he had been rescued by his comrades, right up until the end. He hadn’t accomplished a single thing by himself.
“Although you really didn’t have to write such a detailed report during your holiday…” Kakashi’s eyes dropped to the mountain of papers in his hand, a bundle of nearly fifty pages. The papers he had been neatening up before were the report Shikamaru had written.
In the end, it had been the present-tense missions and alliance he hadn’t thought about during his break; the incident in the Land of Silence was different. Summarizing everything into a report was one of the duties of a shinobi, and it was only natural that he would do this much during his break. That said, it had been light work, only about an hour a day.
“I’ll look it over.” With a sigh, Kakashi placed the report on top of the mountain of papers on the edge of his desk. And the mountain stretched closer to the sky.
Without a glance at the unsteady pile of paper, Kakashi turned his gaze on Shikamaru. “You’re someone we really need both here and in the alliance. You need to take better care of yourself, okay?”
Someone we really need…
“What a drag.” The words spilled from his lips automatically.
“You’re all right now, huh?” Kakashi laughed, staring fixedly at Shikamaru’s face.
“Yeah.” Shikamaru laughed too.
“Okay then.” The Hokage placed his hand on the back of his neck and shook his head several times before slipping his other hand into a desk drawer. He pulled out a document of some kind and offered it to Shikamaru.
Shikamaru took it and dropped his eyes onto the page. It laid out the details of a mission stamped with a red B-rank mark: Follow and act as guard to a retainer of the daimyo of the Land of Fire to deliver a sovereign message to the Land of Lightning.
Thanks to the impact of the new connections between ninja forged by the alliance, public safety was greatly improved, and traveling back and forth between two countries was markedly easier than it had been in the past. The daimyo’s attendants alone were basically sufficient, but several ninja were attached to the party in case of anything unexpected. It was a case that could be satisfactorily handled by any ninja at the chunin level or higher and didn’t especially require Shikamaru.
“It’s a mission that’s too easy for you, but—”
“Kakashi, can I say something?” Shikamaru said, cutting the Hokage off with his right hand.
Kakashi stared at him with a surprised look. “It’s been a while since you called me Kakashi. You kind of threw me there.”
“I decided to quit twisting myself up into some ideal, worrying about form and appearance all the time.”
“Glad to hear it.” Kakashi nodded, and Shikamaru returned to the issue at hand.
“About this mission, could you give it to someone else?”
“Why?”
“Oh, it’s just that the day after tomorrow…” Averting his eyes, Shikamaru’s cheeks took on a red hue. Cocking his head to one side, Kakashi waited for Shikamaru to continue. “I have a date.”
“Pft!” Kakashi erupted, and Shikamaru glared. “I’m just surprised. I never thought you’d refuse a mission for a date. But that’s great! You go and enjoy.”
“Thank you.”
“That thing called youth, huh?” Kakashi closed his eyes and crossed his arms, nodded several times.
He’d given up on a just-right life. So he deserved this much at least. “Well, I’ll excuse myself then.” He turned his back to Kakashi and set his right foot forward, moving to leave the room.
“Shikamaru.”
When he turned around again, Kakashi was standing up. “I figured maybe the current you might understand a bit better. Can I ask you one more time? What does it mean to be an adult?”
Turning his eyes up to the ceiling, Shikamaru thought about it for a while. And then he let the words that popped into his head come out as is. Honest. “Giving up on something and finding something more important… Maybe something like that. Although I’m not totally sure.”
“Giving up on something and finding something more important, hm?”
“Some guys are like Naruto; they’re totally focused on one thing from the time they’re kids. But most guys are lost and they give up on a thing, but they still keep on walking, and then finally, they find something important, and maybe they live toward that.”
“Makes sense.” Kakashi crossed his arms and lowered his eyes.
“Okay then. I’ll be on my way,” Shikamaru said, turning around, too embarrassed to stay there any longer.
“Go and have fun, Shikamaru!” The instant he closed the door, he heard Kakashi’s bright voice.
“Thank you,” Shikamaru said, words that wouldn’t reach the Hokage.
∞
Get everyone on board and the time flows gently…
Does he look like me?
The baby was crying languidly, as though he had seen through everything in this world, even though he had only just been born into it.
“It’s okay. There’ll be a time when you realize you don’t know anything. You’ll make friends who’ll head toward that moment with you.”
The baby, who of course couldn’t understand anything I said, stared at me, opening wide, single-lidded almond eyes—his mother’s eyes.
“Guess I can’t say ‘what a drag’ or anything anymore.”
“You can a bit. Just don’t get crazy with it. And before you really stop moving, I’ll yank on your cheek again and send you flying.”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
What should we call him?
“What a drag.”