checkmate in six
rating: g
genre: family/romance
pairings: shikasaku
POV: Shikaku
other notes: written for ShikaSaku Week 2017, Day 1: Duty/Free Will
word count: 1,402
i.
"Your son is unmarried, is he not?"
Shikaku does not smile triumphantly. "He is, yes."
The two men watch each other carefully.
Shikaku waits, wondering if he'll ask, if he'll dare.
Evidently, for all the other clan head's pride, the thought of tying himself to the main branch of the Nara is enough to prompt him to broach the topic.
"I have several very beautiful, very capable granddaughters…"
"The Nara are a shinobi clan," Shikaku says. "Our matriarch is, and always has been, shinobi. My cousin's son, however…
Shikaku can practically see the arithmetic happening behind the old man's green eyes.
As he continues to praise his cousins' children, Shikaku lets himself smile.
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ii.
"You've done what?" Shikamaru croaks.
Like a child again, his hands flex on the table and his eyes gleam.
"I've accepted an offer."
"You've arranged my marriage."
Shikaku doesn't wince, despite how that flat demand slices razor sharp through the room.
Yoshino frets at the sink but doesn't intervene.
"Yes."
What colour is left to him drains from Shikamaru's face.
"But you know how I feel about—"
"Just meet the girl," Shikaku interrupts. "That is all I'm asking. It will still be your choice, in the end."
Shikamaru stands up abruptly, his chair skittering behind him with a squeal.
"I think we both know that there is no choice. Not for me. Not when a refusal could ruin the clan."
Shikaku resists the urge to close his eyes.
His boy. Oh, his child.
"You will always have a choice," Shikaku manages finally. "I always want you to choose happiness."
Shikamaru's jaw flexes and Shikaku can see him swallowing down rage.
And then his son stalks out of the room.
The Nara crest hanging on the wall speaks volumes in the silence.
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iii.
"It's unlike you, to gamble so," Yoshino murmurs to him when they are bundled up in bed.
His wife leans on one elbow, her hand propping up her head so she can look down at him.
Shikaku frowns at her. "I don't gamble. I know what I'm doing. Nothing in this is up to chance."
"Oh, my love," she sighs, all fondness edged with reproach. Their son's sorrow seeps through the walls of the house they have built together. "It's always a gamble when you're playing the game of hearts."
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iv.
He is proud as he watches his son walk to his future with his head unbowed, dutiful even in his grief.
Shikaku is so, so proud and so, so ashamed.
Oh, what they make of their children, that these proud adults who were not long ago running knee high knowing nothing but little sorrows and impossible joy are now creatures of duty who fight and bleed and die for their families, for their village.
Oh, what they make of their children, and Shikaku cannot imagine his son as anything other than this man who tucks his hands into the sleeves of his kimono and does not weep for loss.
Yoshino, equally, carries pride and sorrow tucked into her eyes, the corners of her mouth.
"He might not forgive you for breaking his heart," she has warned him.
It will be worth it.
Shikamaru's happiness will always be worth it.
The door to the teahouse opens before them, an attendant ushering them in and Shikamaru keeps his eyes up and forward, not daring to look back.
Shikaku wonders what his son's hands are doing tucked in their folds, wonders how much he is carving the urge to run into the skin of his palms.
The girl is waiting there, his soon-to-be daughter-in-law, and Shikaku, if he were anything other than who and what he is, would let out a sigh of relief.
He'd thought (he'd hoped), but—
No matter. The worries that plagued his dreams are turned to vapour in the daylight.
Haruno Sakura looks up at them.
If he were anything other than who and what he is, Shikaku would have missed the tension in her shoulders that melts away as soon as she sees them.
A small, secret smile breaks across her face.
"Oh," she says, "it's you."
Shikamaru stares at her like a drowning man turns his face up to kiss the sky.
"Thank you," reads the hand signal that Shikamaru holds his fingers in, out of sight of all but his parents under the table.
As he watches the two of them watch each other, Shikaku could weep for what he's risked.
His son is a child of shadows and secrets, but his love for this girl turns him to starlight and so much impossible joy.
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v.
Shikaku watches the delicate wrinkle of her brow as she deliberates, the way a stray lock of hair obscures her eye.
It's so curious now, to see her here, his soon-to-be daughter-in-law, an after-image of a girl he remembers skirting at the edges of his son's childhood, stepping softly in Ino-chan's footsteps. She's almost too bright to look at, and yet she never outshines Shikamaru, the two of them meeting like a sharp edge, all contrast and continuity.
Suddenly, with a confident hand, Sakura moves a lance.
Shikaku blinks.
And then he really looks at the shōgi board.
When he looks back up at her, there is something honed and sly lurking in those green eyes.
He remembers, abruptly, exactly who her teachers were.
With a single move, Sakura has turned a game she was losing steadily into something dangerous.
It is not yet checkmate.
But it is only not yet checkmate.
"I was surprised when your grandfather approached me," Shikaku finally says.
Sakura raises a single eyebrow.
The motion is familiar, and Shikaku is suddenly uncertain who learned it from whom.
"Were you?" Her voice is light and mild.
"Mm," Shikaku hums in agreement.
There is a thought, lurking at the edges, but surely not—
"Are you close with your father's parents?" Shikaku asks, as if he does not know the answer.
"The Haruno are a merchant clan," Sakura answers, a non-answer that speaks magnitudes.
Even if he were not perfectly aware of almost every fracture line in the clan, Shikaku knows what civilians think of shinobi.
"We are very honoured to establish new trade connections."
"And we are very honoured to ally ourselves with one of Konoha's most esteemed shinobi clans."
Enough.
He is tired of shadows and games.
Shikaku bet his son's happiness.
He did not think he was betting.
"Do you love my son, Haruno Sakura?" he demands.
The question slices cleanly through the night.
She doesn't even stutter; a smile, all teeth and poison, dripping from her mouth.
"I do. And I will do everything I can do ensure his happiness."
Her answer is mountain roots and the pull of the tide.
Shikaku nods.
He wonders just how much she's done already to ensure it.
He thinks he has an idea.
"Do you often take tea and discuss politics with your grandfather?"
Sakura relaxes back on her hands.
Shikaku doesn't know that he even realized she was tensed.
"When it suits me," she says.
Chatter and plates clattering echo out from the kitchen to reach them on the porch.
"We're about to eat desert," Shikamaru says. He's leaning against the door frame and watching them carefully. "Kāchan says you can finish your game tomorrow."
Sakura springs up and walks over to him, the two of them drawn inexorably into one another's orbit.
Shikaku looks away, the sight not for his eyes.
When he looks up, they've walked, hand-in-hand, back into the house.
He flips two pieces between his fingers. With a touch of slight-of-hand, it looks like a single piece, pawn-king-pawn.
And then he laughs.
Yes, Haruno Sakura will do just fine.
Shikamaru will be happy and the Nara will prosper, and the Village will prosper with them.
Shikaku laughs, because he might not have thought he was gambling with his son's happiness, but Haruno Sakura's teachers were Senju Tsunade and Hatake Kakashi.
It is no wonder, then, that she learned to gamble with one hand and to stack the deck with the other.
Yes, she'll do just fine indeed.
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vi.
The day of his wedding, Shikamaru smiles so much Shikaku is almost surprised his face doesn't crack in half.
Sakura is smiling just as brightly.
They're going to be just fine, these children.
So much impossible joy.