Bleeding Hearts
He remembered her once telling him how much she loved the rain. That was the reason he picked this day to meet with her under the tarp he set up near the woods; their old training spot.
As he sat beneath it wondering if she would show up or not, he listened to the rain slamming against the ground making a sound that she once told him, "Is the only thing that can surely lull me to sleep." His lids were feeling a bit heavy themselves.
Don't fall asleep! he urged himself. How would that look? It would probably take her right back to our Genin days.
His head shot up quickly in an effort to keep himself alert. Just as he did so, he saw a pair of familiar legs beneath a white laced dress running their way over to him. He didn't look up to meet the face as the person stood in front of him and dripped on his hair.
Deep breaths from the runner was all he heard for a few moments, and then a soft laugh.
"In the rain? How romantic, Shika. Think of that one all by yourself or did she help you?"
He looked up to meet the laughing blue eyes, but instead he found a sad gaze behind a heavy layer of leaking makeup.
"Hello, Ino," he whispered.
Three years ago, when Nara Shikamaru was eighteen, he was sure he was in love.
Already having been a Jounin for four years, he had traveled the continent on many solo missions and learned what it meant to be lonely. The only company he had for a lot of his life was thinking up strategies and the quick sharp memories of the death he had inflicted in throughout his short life. The clouds, long ago, has lost their appeal.
He was a complete mess.
Once he had a mission to follow a traitor of Konoha and keep an eye on him, only to use killing as a last resort. He had followed the man all the way to Suna, where he watched the man kill a little girl for getting in his way. And then an old man for not giving him food for free. Watching death of any kind always made Shikamaru feel a pain deep within his chest, and when the traitor cornered a girl he had come to know and respect from previous missions, he decided there was no other way.
Although he knew this particular girl was capable enough and would be fine without him, something in his chest was screaming at him to finish off the traitor. And so he did.
The girl had gasped at that moment. Not at the dead man who was falling to his knees, but at the teenager she knew from her Genin days. She stepped over the body to the boy holding a katana, and pressed her fingers against the cold blade. "It's beautiful," she said.
And he was sure he was in love.
"Why are you here?" Ino asked as she took a seat beside him on the log. "You and Temari break up, so you've come to move back in with Mommy and Daddy?"
"No," he said simply, and turned to get a better look at her face. Yamanaka Ino looked exactly the same to him, except for her hair which was shorter and no longer tied up on top of her head. And her perfect skin was hidden behind a layer of makeup.
"...So? What brings you back to dreary Konoha, then?" She asked in a mask of disinterest. "Let me guess! She finally realized you weren't worth her time? Or no, wait! She wanted kids, didn't she?"
"Ino, you know that's not it. I told you before that I want kids someday."
She laughed a little at that, mocking him by grabbing the sides of her stomach. "That's right, I almost forgot."
Shikamaru sighed then, a bit frustrated by the fake way she was acting. "You've changed," he told her.
"Yeah, it happens. Remember when it happened to you?" She glared at him.
Closing his eyes and grabbing his temples, Shikamaru said, "So you're a Jounin now, too."
"Of course."
"And Chouji? Is he--"
"Dead."
He opened his eyes and examined her face to see if it was some sort of sick joke, and he realized he really didn't know her much anymore. He couldn't figure it out.
"How?"
She smiled a bit and he didn't know why.
"He told me, 'When Shikamaru comes back, don't tell him how I died. I don't want him to remember me this way.' You see, Chouji was always sure you would come back. Even in death he had that faith." Her smile faltered and Shikamaru tried to figure out what that meant. When she looked up into his eyes, the smile was back. She always did smile when she was sad.
"I'll never be as strong as Chouji was. I didn't have that faith, Shika. Even when you were here... You were never really here. Not after you became a Jounin."
It was his turn to break eye contact then. He remembered all too well of the time she was referring to.
Seven years ago when Chouji and Ino were still Chunnin training to become Jounin, their sensei Asuma asked Shikamaru to overlook their training since he was had a break from his Jounin missions.
All was going fine until one day, the older man with a cigarette hanging from his lips spun around quickly at the sound of flesh smacking flesh and someone's yell.
"Hey, break it up! Shikamaru, don't--" Asuma yelled while running over to the two.
"Asuma-sensei?" Ino asked tentatively.
"Ino! Don't get involved. Just go over-- Hey! Chouji? What the hell..."
Asuma pulled a pissed looking Shikamaru off the shocked Chouji. Once he had slammed Shikamaru up to a tree, he yelled, "What the hell were you doing?"
The spike-haired boy turned his head away and glared at a rock nearby. At the same time, Ino was running over to Chouji. She gasped when she saw the boy's already bruising cheek.
"Hey! Shikamaru, are you listening to me?" Asuma said as he gripped the boy's vest tighter. Shikamaru yanked away from the grip and started to walk away. Asuma closed his eyes and shook his head towards the boy.
"What happened, Chouji?" Ino asked after helping the chubby boy sit up. His shaky fingers came up to feel his bruised cheek. He winced.
"I... I'm not sure. All I said was 'You're lucky, Shikamaru. You're already a Jounin so you don't have to train extra hard like the rest of us.'" The boys eyes fell. Although he didn't know what was wrong with what he said, he felt ashamed to have upset his best friend.
"It's ok, Chouji. You didn't do anything wrong." Asuma said, still looking at the path Shikamaru had just taken. "Just give him some time."
Ino was also looking at the path Shikamaru had taken, expecting to see his lazy walk coming towards them, ready to apologize. When he didn't return back to their group until the Hokage ordered it, Ino knew something about the boy had changed for the worst.
"I know, I wasn't a good friend to you then."
Ino rolled her eyes at this.
"That's not why you were such an dick, Shika. What really pissed me off was when Chouji tried to be there for you--"
"I know, I blew you both off. I can't take that back and I'm sorry, but you don't know what I was going through. Have you killed anybody yet?"
Ino let out a breath she was holding and nodded.
"Really? I've been doing it since I was fourteen years old."
"And they have people you can talk to about that kind of stuff!" Ino yelled while sitting on the edge of the log. Shikamaru looked away from her and out into the rainy training fields.
"I'm not much of a talker," he said. "That's probably why this is so hard."
Ino's lips curved up at this and she slid back, all the way onto the log.
"Then just blurt it out. Like that time you told me to change my shirt because you could see through it, remember?"
He also smiled at the memory. It was the first time Ino saw his smile since he was just a boy. She grabbed his arm then and rubbed the rain off of it. "You can do it, Shika. Blurt away." She didn't let go even when his arm was dry, or when it stopped raining.
He placed his palm on her knee and blurted, "I'm moving back home, Ino. I've realized some things since I've left this place and one of those things is that I never had any right to claim being lonely. I would have never felt that way if I'd realized you and Chouji were by my side." He took a deep breath and added, "Especially you."
The rain clouds were parting and the sun started to peak through. It is day after all, thought Shikamaru when he felt wet lips cover his own, and his eyes closed as his heart gave into what it had been missing all these years without her; peace.
Fin
Where did all the ShikaIno love go?
I wrote this because I love Shikamaru so much, and he doesn't get enough appreciation for what he is. He's the type that could overcome the worst kind of situation.