Once every seven days, most of the village took a day off. At times when Shikadai and other ninja on the front lines did not have a mission assigned to them, they were ostensibly on standby and also had the day off. But Shikamaru had no holidays. Even when everyone else had the day off, he would go into the office to catch up on the work he’d fallen behind on during the rest of the week.
Still, on these holidays alone, he wouldn’t go into the office until lunchtime. These mornings at home were Shikamaru’s sole break.
He couldn’t complain. Naruto lived on the same schedule as Shikamaru, while also dealing with additional cumbersome tasks, like meeting with VIPs from various countries—hence Naruto’s regular use of Shadow Clones. With a wry smile, he had once told Shikamaru about the time his son had found out he was a Shadow Clone in the middle of an important family event.
Given the pace that the Hokage had to keep up, Shikamaru couldn’t very well complain his own busyness. And he wanted to be do more for Naruto. This thought had been on Shikamaru’s mind ever since he’d become the Hokage’s advisor.
Shikamaru generally spent the fleeting moments between finishing breakfast and leaving the house on the veranda. And today once again, he enjoyed a brief respite, thinking about absolutely nothing at all while he looked out at the trees in the bright light of the morning sun.
“So about Shikadai.”
Shikamaru turned his head to look into the living room. At some point, Temari had come to sit there. She stared into her tea with a strange look on her face. Shikamaru spun on his bottom to face her through the veranda door.
“And where is he?”
“He left early this morning. He said he was going to go hang out with Boruto and his friends.”
Despite his duties as a ninja, Shikadai was still a child. He was of the age where if he had been a non-ninja child of the village, he would have been leading an easy life, playing with his friends every day.
“About that mission he refused.”
So it is about that…
He sat up straighter and waited for Temari to continue.
Face still turned to her teacup, his wife raised her eyes to Shikamaru and began to speak slowly. “I guess what the client really wanted was to get closer to you. They were trying to build a relationship with you, the Hokage’s advisor, so they requested Shikadai’s team take the mission. And then Shikadai got wind of this, so…”
“What?”
Temari’s words pierced his heart. He couldn’t believe his own position would have an impact on Shikadai’s work. He would be lying if he said the idea had never crossed his mind. but he sternly told the people of Konoha on a daily basis that they were not to give his son any special treatment. He hadn’t even dreamed that someone from another village would use Shikadai to get close to him.
“So then who’s this client?” he asked.
Temari shook her head. “Shikadai doesn’t know. He just said it’s some VIP from some small country.”
There were any number of smaller nations that would try to leverage the power of a large country like the Land of Fire. There was no doubt that this client had some kind of ulterior motive.
“Is that why he didn’t tell me?” Without knowing it, he had hurt his son. Shikamaru may not have made a mistake himself, but his own existence had put an obstacle on Shikadai’s ninja path. “Dammit.”
“Don’t blame him.”
“I know,” he said, his heart heavy.
Temari turned her eyes toward the garden. “A visitor.”
He didn’t need to turn around. The aura wafted through the hedge into the garden. This person clearly wanted him to notice her.
An orange chakra. Hinoko. She was back from Iwagakure.
“We’ll pick this up again later,” he said, standing.
Temari silently got to her feet and grabbed his jacket from where it hung on the wall. And then she went around behind her husband and helped him into it in a practiced movement.
“I’m off then.”
“Mm-hmm.” His wife’s voice was much gentler now.
I really have to think of some way to make it up to her.
Shikamaru stepped over the threshold and out of the house.
The park on that holiday morning was full of children playing with their fathers. He could count on one hand the number of times he had played with Shikadai like that. It was always work, work, work.
Shikamaru’s eyes were always turned outward. He never spared a glance for his family. And now he had hurt Shikadai as a result. He had no idea how he could make this up to him. He could say he was sorry that Shikadai had had to go through that because of him, but his son was clever enough to know only too well that Shikamaru hadn’t actually done anything wrong. An empty apology would only further hurt his son. And in that case, it was better not to apologize at all. That said, he couldn’t exactly just leave it, either.
“Family is such a drag.” Shikamaru settled himself onto a bench beside Hinoko.
“I don’t live with my parents, and, like, I don’t have my own family yet, so I dunno,” Hinoko replied curtly, her eyes turned toward the families at play. He hadn’t felt like hearing her report in his office, so he’d selected a park near his house. The parents were totally absorbed in their children, and there was also a good bit of ambient noise, so he wasn’t worried about being overheard.
“You should start your own family, Hinoko,” he said. “You’re old enough to be a mother already. Not that it wouldn’t be a loss for Konoha if you stopped working.”
“Like, what you just said is sexual harassment,” she noted archly.
“It is?”
“It, like, is.”
“Sorry ’bout that.”
“You’re not, like, actually sorry. I’ve told you a million times not to use my name. You, like, use it on purpose.” Hinoko smiled.