It's even shorter. I owe you a bonus chapter, ne? I felt myself loosing this fic, so I needed desperately to cap it off before school starts and I get even more hectic. I need to be able to write chaptered fics and finish them, right?
XI
They're eating ramen at the usual stand, together. They'll end up doing a battle over the cheque, but for now it's just a comfortable silence, legs brushing together under the small corner table. Kakashi is done his and starts eyeing Shikamaru's, who just glares at him, daring him to try and steal some of his food like a starved dog. Kakashi makes the comparison gleefully, setting his prodigious imagination to imagining Shikamaru as such an animal.
The usual scramble for the bill is made and then they're walking back to the apartment, slouching along with hands in pockets and eyes on altertively the ground, each other, or the sky.
The dogs bark joyfully at the sound of Kakashi fumbling with the keys in the lock as Shikamaru leans on the guardrail surrounding the landing. The highly intelligent dogs nudge each other out of the way in order to get out the door and swarm around them, each of them rivaling the others to tell their story first in their own special language.
Shikamaru has gotten used to having them around, the hair on everything, the ones that like to sleep at the foot of the beds and the ones that are relegated to the floor and sofa. Some stay wherever they're summoned from, but there are usually at least five in the apartment at any given time. Certainly, it's a tight squeeze, and expensive to feed, but they generally take care of themselves. Like Kakashi.
As they flick on the lights and pass through the rooms to ready for a welcome sleep the rooms are comfortingly familiar, shadows in the corners and furniture in worn spaces. Various weapons and scrolls and books clutter the kitchen table and some of the floor, there is a ninja-sized dummy leaning against the walls, there are even photos on one of the shelves in the bedroom.
Photos of them together, of all the dogs assembled, of Kakashi's teams and Shikamaru's, of the Jounin all together, of Shikamaru's parents and him as a child.
They have found that they like sharing memories.
Perhaps I'll see you in the future?
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