For a few days after the meeting, Shikamaru’s workload doubled. Then the onslaught suddenly evaporated. One day, he was working until late into the night, and the next he was free by evening.
Normally, he would use his free time to train in the deserted mountains or go home and relax, but today, his feet naturally turned toward the town. His destination was obvious. And he had no need of a map. He’d been to this particular place many, many times.
When he turned onto the road leading to the shop at the end of his journey, he spotted his old comrade watering the flowers. The countless bouquets in cylindrical silver containers could not be contained by the store itself, and they spilled out to line the street outside. The woman giving careful attention to each and every one of them was a florist through and through, but she had been a capable ninja once, and had come through any number of bloody battles with Shikamaru. Even now, she went on missions from time to time, flower in one hand, sword in the other.
“Well!” the woman said, and stopped her watering.
“Been a while, huh, Ino?” Shikamaru called out.
Yamanaka Ino had fought with Shikamaru during the great war as part of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio. Among the young ninja who hadn’t experienced the war, the trio of Shikamaru’s generation was still a topic of conversation even now. Individually their skills were a step behind the likes of Naruto and Sasuke, but as a three-person cell, a fundamental ninja formation, Ino-Shika-Cho were lionized as a head above the other ninja of the village. Some of the books written after the war even offered analyses of the trio’s fighting techniques.
Ino had gotten married and carried out her duties as a ninja while tending to her family’s flower shop. Her son Inojin, also a ninja, belonged to the same team as Shikadai. Shikamaru thought it was very like her to give everything she had to both her household and her work, always pushing forward undaunted.
He slowly walked over to stand in front of the shop.
“What’s up?” Ino asked, still holding her hose. “Pretty unusual for you to come all the way to the store.”
“Oh, uh, the thing is…” Shikamaru looked up and away as he scratched the back of his head.
“Uh-huh.” Ino peered at him, a mischievous smile on her face. “So you’re trying to make up for your anniversary then?”
Shikamaru was dumbstruck, and Ino laughed out loud.
“I didn’t use my jutsu or anything, you know.” Ino could use her Mind Transfer jutsu to enter the mind of another person.
“She told you?” Shikamaru asked, the corners of his mouth turning up, and Ino nodded. Because their sons were on the same team, Temari and Ino were known to chat with each other. They were both taking care of their families too, so they shared things in common.
“You went and forgot your anniversary.” She sighed and shook her head. “You’re the worst, you know?”
“Does Sai get that kind of stuff right?”
Ino’s husband Sai used to be Naruto’s comrade. He was not very good at openly expressing emotion, but he was a skilled ninja who’d trained with the Anbu since he was very small.
“He’s a serious guy. He always makes sure to do something—for my birthday, our son’s, Christmas. And of course, our wedding anniversary. If he’s out of the village on a mission, he asks a colleague to give us presents.”
Faced with this, Shikamaru couldn’t very well argue his own case.
One little mistake and this is what I have to deal with?
The words “what a drag” spun round and round in his mind.
“So you came to buy some flowers then.”
He had known Ino since childhood. And for generations, the Naras and Yamanakas had held each other in mutual respect as families that formed the Ino-Shika-Cho trio. He might have been the Hokage’s advisor now, but to Ino he was still the same old Shikamaru who thought everything was a huge hassle. All he could do was nod obediently.
“In that case, you want this.” Ino pulled out a single yellow flower from a silver canister standing against the wall of the shop. There were no leaves on the long, slender green stalk. Yellow petals spread out in all directions.
“It’s a flower from Iwagakure,” she told him. “Perfect for Temari, right?”
The yellow flower blooming at the top of the perfectly straight stalk did indeed make him think of Temari. This was actually the flower that Shikamaru had come to buy. If he were going to give Temari flowers, he figured it had to be these.
“Guess so,” he agreed amicably, and Ino nodded, satisfied.
“You are, of course, going to make a bouquet, right?”
“Give me all the ones there—no, everything you’ve got,” he said.
“Oh!”
Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice from the street. Turning to look, he found a figure so enormous it blocked the road.
“Choji,” Ino greeted him, still holding the yellow flower.
Akimichi Choji, the third member of Ino-Shika-Cho.
A girl with a similar physique was standing next to him. Unlike the easygoing Choji, her lips were pinched shut, and she wore a complicated expression. Her skin was tan, a popular look with young girls. This was Choji’s daughter, Cho-Cho. She was also on Shikadai’s team. The Ino-Shika-Cho trio now belonged their children’s generation.
“What’s up?” Shikamaru asked. “You buying a flower for your daughter?”
“I prefer dumplings to flowers,” Cho-Cho said before Choji could respond.
Choji smiled at her. “I have today off, so I figured we’d all go to Q, the whole family.”
Yakiniku Q…
Choji was a regular at the yakiniku grilled-meat restaurant. Back when the three of them had been on the same team, they’d hung out at the restaurant too many times to count. This was the place they went to celebrate after the end of a mission when their instructor Sarutobi Asuma was still alive. Asuma’s treat, naturally. The restaurant was permanently burned into the back of his mind.
“Cho-Cho,” Shikamaru said. She raised her thin eyebrows slightly and cocked her head to one side. “Sorry about Shikadai.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Oh, he turned down that mission, right?” Shikamaru said. “Just when you finally get an S-rank mission. Sorry about that.”
“Whatever,” Cho-Cho replied coolly.
That was all he got from her. She kept things simple. Shikamaru wondered if all the kids were like this these days.
“It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, so Daddy’s gonna talk to these two for a minute,” Choji said to Cho-Cho. “You go on ahead. I think Mom’s already there.”
“Got it.” Cho-Cho trotted off without looking at her father.
“She looks more and more like you every day, huh?” Ino said to Choji as she watched her go.
“You think?” Choji rubbed his large belly happily.
Smiling wryly, Shikamaru lowered his face. “I have to apologize to you guys, too.”
“What for?”
“About what?”
“Your kids had some trouble because of Shikadai. Sorry,” Shikamaru replied, still staring at his feet. A child’s misconduct was the parent’s responsibility, but his blame ran deeper than that. If Shikamaru hadn’t held the position he did, Shikadai would never have been put in that situation in the first place. He was responsible for this not just as a parent, but as a ninja.
Both Choji and Ino burst out laughing.
He hadn’t been expecting this reaction. He lifted his face to find them smiling at him.
“Just when I was wondering what you were going to come out with, it’s that?” Ino said, placing the hand gripping the hose on her hip.
“Shikadai’s not the first member of the Nara family who hates a hassle,” Choji noted. “We can just look straight to you if we’re wondering about the source.”
“That’s why I’m apologizing…”
They laughed again loudly, as if rejecting Shikamaru’s words.
“Shikadai for sure has his own way of thinking about all that,” Choji said. His high-pitched voice didn’t go with his fat body. “He’s not the sort of kid who’d dump something just because it’s a drag. The fact that you’re apologizing to us is proof of that. Or am I wrong?”
“Don’t you have something more important to do than apologize to us?” Ino asked.
Shikamaru raised a questioning eyebrow.
The kindhearted mother sighed. “Did you actually talk with Shikadai?”
“No…”
“You know, you’re a genius at work, but when it comes to family, you’re a total disaster,” she told him.
He couldn’t say a word to that.
“There’s the thing with Temari, too,” she continued. “You gotta really see your family. They’re the ones supporting you behind the scenes so you can go out and do your job. A guy who can’t take care of the people closest to him isn’t going to be able to keep the village safe now, is he?”
Ino was right. He knew it. He’d thought about it. What he didn’t know was how to communicate his thoughts and what he was feeling. And he closer a person was to him, the harder it was for him to open up to them in a real way. It was utterly pathetic.
“The two of you have opened my eyes. Thanks.”
How could a man who can’t face his family protect the village? Or avoid a war?
I have to get even stronger…
“Let’s have dinner sometime soon.” He turned his back to them and started walking. Ino was shouting something, but in his head, he was too busy interrogating himself to hear her.
“Ah!” Once he was pretty far from the store, Shikamaru remembered at last and came to a stop. “I forgot the flowers.”
He really was the worst.