While he was in the hospital, Chouji did not see Shikamaru even once, and it worried him. Asuma came to visit, and they spent a long time dissecting the details of Chouji's fight against the Sound-nin, going over fighting strategies – what Chouji did right, what he should have done better, what he couldn't have anticipated and how to react to things he couldn't anticipate. His parents came to visit, smuggling in his mother's excellent cooking so that he could get back up to an Akimichi-healthy weight quicker and get released. Even Ino came to visit, telling him she was sorry she hadn't gotten sent on the mission with him and Shikamaru, and that she was proud of him for doing so well against someone as strong as that.

But Shikamaru didn't come to visit, and that made Chouji worry.

Asuma assured him that Shikamaru was fine – that out of the five of them, he actually came out the best, suffering only chakra drain and a broken finger. Chouji and Neji had nearly died, and Naruto and Kiba hadn't been in such hot shape afterward either. That was reassuring news for Chouji; Shikamaru was extremely capable and almost frighteningly brilliant, but Chouji knew his friend well enough to know that Shikamaru often didn't do as well on his own, comparatively weak in physical force and jutsu. They were a team, and they did best fighting as a team.

But if Shikamaru was unhurt, then why didn't he come? Chouji missed him, and worried about him, and beyond that, Chouji was very bored, confined by the damage done to his body by the soldier pills and the need to rebuild his shattered metabolism. He appreciated the visitors he got, of course, but Shikamaru was his best friend – and Chouji felt that the best-friend bond was important and special in a way that teammate or family bonds couldn't touch. You didn't get to choose your team, and you didn't get to choose your family – even though he loved his parents dearly – but your best friend was absolutely someone you chose.

It was a long, miserable week before he was declared to be at a healthy weight and discharged. He was still a little under what he'd been before the mission, but that would be remedied quickly enough; he tucked a few bags of chips into his waist pouch and went to go find his friend as soon as he was free to wander.

Shikamaru wasn't on his favorite cloud-watching hill. He wasn't playing shougi with Asuma. He wasn't at home. Ino hadn't seen him for the last few days. His mother told Chouji that if he found Shikamaru, he was to tell him he had four days' worth of unfinished chores to finish, and his father had no clue that Shikamaru had even pulled a disappearing act.

Chouji even asked Iruka, wondering if Shikamaru might have been handed a mission, but he hadn't.

He was, quite simply, nowhere to be found. Chouji fretted and worried as he searched the village, and after getting permission from Shikaku – although he had a feeling that Shikaku might not even remember giving it, as he'd been rather inebriated at the time – he began to check the Nara family lands as much as he could, wandering through the trees and catching glimpses of deer as he searched for his best friend.

And finally, finally, just as he was starting to get worried that he might never see him again, he found Shikamaru. High in the branches of a tree – surprisingly so; Chouji would have thought it too much bother for him – Shikamaru was sitting with his back against the trunk, staring up at the sky.

"Shikamaru…?" The Akimichi frowned in concern, noting the way the genius was staring so fixedly at the sky, an unusual line of tension in his body language. "What's wrong?"

Silence. Shikamaru's only motion was to shake his head very slightly, his face turned away from Chouji.

Well. Chouji wasn't going to put up with that. Shikamaru was his friend, and whatever was bothering him, Chouji wanted to fix it! Besides… he had to admit, he was a little hurt. Here he was, recovered and out of the hospital, and not only was Shikamaru apparently not particularly happy to see him, he hadn't even come to say hi while Chouji was stuck in bed! Chouji would be mad, but he knew it wasn't at all like Shikamaru to do that, so more than anything else, he was worried. Shikamaru just wasn't the sort of person to do something like that.

He climbed up the tree, nimble despite his weight – he was, after all, a ninja first and foremost, even if he was heavy – until he sat on a branch a little lower than Shikamaru's. "Hey, Shika, what's going on? Where've you been the last few days? I've been looking for you."

Silence. Then, quietly, "Chouji?" A pause, oddly hesitant. "I'm sorry. It's my fault." Shikamaru's voice was flat, toneless – underneath it, Chouji could hear a stir of some obscure bitterness. Whatever Shikamaru was talking about, he felt it deeply.

"What's your fault?" he asked, tilting his head a little and looking at the Nara. "What are you talking about, Shikamaru?"

Silence. Shikamaru folded his arms and kicked his heels against the bark of the tree, the tension in his body increasing to nearly unbearable levels. He wasn't good at talking about things that bothered him; Chouji knew that well enough. Shikamaru was a brooder – when he was upset, he closed himself off and thought about things, and it was too easy for him to slide into obsessing about them. Being a genius was not always a good thing; Shikamaru sometimes needed to be distracted from his thoughts.

But he couldn't adequately distract him if he didn't know what he was trying to distract him from. "Shikamaru," he said again, more insistently. "What's bugging you so much? You're being weird." Hunger nagged at him, and he pulled out one of his snacks, starting to eat, but his gaze didn't leave his friend.

For a moment, Shikamaru was silent, and then he sighed, shoulders slumping. "It's my fault," he said again. "I was leading. I was in charge. And… I almost got you all killed." The word had a harsh twist behind it. "Aren't you upset about that?"

Chouji blinked. He knew he'd almost died – hell, he knew what those pills did! But to think that Shikamaru was blaming himself for that – that hurt, in a strange way. "Upset?" he repeated, cocking his head slightly and frowning. "Shikamaru… We all did the best we could." They'd failed, though. That was inescapable. And as lazy as Shikamaru was, Chouji knew that he was not accustomed to failing when he put the full power of his formidable brain behind something. "You did, I did, Neji did, Naruto did, Kiba did. We all gave it our best." Missions were failed sometimes; it was a piece of advice his father had given him back when he'd first graduated from the academy. You failed missions, maybe because of your own mistakes, or your teammates' mistakes, or maybe the situation just went to pieces on you. But you picked up and kept moving. Apparently no one had told Shikamaru.

"I can't stop thinking about it," Shikamaru mumbled, pressing a hand against his forehead. "Going over everything… thinking of a thousand things I should have done. I was the one who failed the team… my fault."

It hurt Chouji, seeing his friend in so much pain. "It wasn't your fault," he said firmly, full of conviction. "You did your best, just like the rest of us. And the strategy… there was nothing wrong with it." He shook his head. "In the end, our opponents were defeated, weren't they? That means you didn't fail."

"I almost got you killed!" It was nearly a scream, the anguished snarl of sound making Chouji flinch backward. "That isn't something I can live with, Chouji! How can you expect me to just shrug that off and say 'Oh well, I did my best'?"

"You're wrong," Chouji said quietly, firmly, his gaze fixed on Shikamaru's face. It was not something he expected ever to say to his genius best friend. "You're wrong, Shikamaru. You didn't almost get me killed. I did. I made the choice to take that soldier pill, and I did it knowing what the consequences would be. That was my choice as a ninja. It's the same for Neji," and there he was guessing, not knowing much beyond the bare details that the Hyuuga had also been near-fatally wounded, had survived only because Konoha had some of the most skilled healers in the world. "He made his own choices during his battle and the result almost killed him, but gave him the victory. "You gave us our orders, yeah, but you didn't tell us what to do or what not to do in the battles. My choice, my responsibility. My fault, if you want to see it like that." The bag of chips was empty. Damn it, and he was still hungry too! He pulled out another and continued, punctuating his words with the wave of a half-eaten crisp. "You didn't shove the pill down my throat. Did you even know I had it?"

"…No," Shikamaru muttered quietly. "I didn't. But it was still my fault that you were alone facing that guy, Chouji. My strategy that left all of you alone."

"And we agreed to it. It was the only way to handle things, to catch up to Sasuke as quickly as possible. If we'd all stayed to fight each of those guys together, Naruto wouldn't have even gotten close to Sasuke." Chouji ate his crisp, and then a few more, because his stomach was nagging him.

Shikamaru was silent, but some of the tension had bled out of his posture. For several long moments, neither of them said anything. And then, softly, "Chouji… I'm glad you're alive." Shikamaru's voice was soft and husky.

"Yeah," Chouji nodded a little, smiling. It seemed like the worst was over. "Me too. I'm glad we all made it. …Especially you." He couldn't imagine what it would feel like, waking up and hearing that Shikamaru hadn't come back.

Finally, Shikamaru actually turned to look at him, and there was a small smile on his face, the return of warmth in his eyes, even if only the smallest spark of it. "Thanks," he said softly, and reached out a hand to Chouji; the Akimichi took it, a clasp of friends. The forgiveness Shikamaru needed, and the reassurance Chouji needed.

It's not your fault.

We're still friends.

All was not well, but it would be.