Chapter 30: Epilogue: You've Lost That Loving Feeling

Twenty years later, during the time period between end of original Naruto series and start of Shippuuden...

Shikaku sighed and took a look around the bedroom. His bedroom. Their bedroom. He knew he shouldn't do this. He was going to hate himself for this tomorrow. But while Yoshino was away he had to…

He had to know…

He had to find out…

Just once…

He shook his head. Something was wrong between the two of them. Something was decidedly wrong. He wondered when it had happened. Unfortunately there wasn't a particular event that he could put his finger on, nothing where he could say 'see here – this is where we went wrong…'

It would be too easy then. If there was one assignable cause then you could fix that.

But a broken marriage wasn't like some piece of crystal that got knocked off a shelf and shattered in a spectacular rain of shards with edges that could cut you. Nope. It was more like a favorite earthenware cup or bowl. It might get scratched or knicked or cracked, broken little bits at a time but still functional, up to a point. And all the while you're thinking it's still good and it's still working until you realize that it is looking pretty banged up and maybe it's just not worth it anymore. Then you just throw the bowl or cup out.

Man, that sucked.

And he knew, he could tell, Yoshino thought it just wasn't worth it anymore.

He could tell when he kissed her, she didn't feel anything anymore. Not that they ever really even kissed that much nowadays anyway. It was usually just a peck on the lips or on the cheek when he left in the mornings. Some mornings if she was busy with the laundry or something in another room, they'd just call out 'bye' and 'see you later' to each other as he headed out the door.

And she'd started acting so guilty lately. Sometimes she had papers spread out in front of her at the kitchen table, probably budgets and shopping lists and other mundane household things she was working on. And when he'd come into the room, she'd hastily stuff it all back into a binder and close it up, like she didn't want him to see. Not that he really cared about household stuff, but it was just odd that she so obviously didn't want him to see.

Nagging, gnawing thoughts at the back of his mind, there was something she didn't want him to know about. He feared it was somebody she didn't want him to know about.

Shikaku took another deep breath. Something was wrong. Something was wrong in his house with his marriage. And here he was contemplating doing something he'd never even considered in the last twenty years. He was actually considering violating a trust they'd had between them that entire time.

Considering? Hell, he was going to do it. Yoshino was out for the day. Shikamaru was away on a mission for the next week or so. No one would ever know.

He walked over to her side of the bed, reached out his hand and hesitated.

Over the course of the years he had learned that there were two holiest-of-holys to kunoichi – that little zippered pocket inside their handbags and the nightside table drawer.

The little zippered pocket held tampons and postage stamps, although he never really could understand the logic of storing them together. He'd made this discovery once years ago when he'd asked her if she had any stamps and she'd told him they were in her handbag and she'd get one for him. Since he was closer to the bag and she was busy in the kitchen he'd just decided to get one for himself. Lesson learned – as he suspected, she really did sharpen her tongue the same time she sharpened her kunai. After that he never, ever, ever went searching in her handbag again. And he always bought his own postage stamps.

But that pocket in her purse wouldn't be big enough to hold what he was looking for, what he suspected was a cache of notes and letters from someone else. No, he scoured the whole house while she was out today and there was only one place left to look – her nightside table drawer.

Sure, he had a pretty good idea what was in there – hand lotion and face cream, sudoku puzzle books and pencils, plus that little pair of reading glasses that no one in Konoha ever better find out about or he was one dead shinobi.

The drawer, however, would also be big enough to hold cards, letters, notebooks, address books, just exactly the types of things he was looking for.

Steeling himself, wondering if he was really prepared to know the answer to the question of who she was seeing, he pulled the drawer open. Gently rifling through the things, he saw the standard items he expected.

Hand lotion, check.

Face cream, check.

Notebook, check.

Reading glasses, check(not that he would ever let anyone know).

Notebook, check.

Notebook, check(there sure were a lot of notebooks).

Sudoku book, check.

Icha Icha books…

He cocked an eyebrow skyward. Not that he minded in the least, after all, Yoshino knew where his porn was. She knew where Shikamaru's porn was, too, since she'd come waving it at him when she'd first found it and riding his ass about having the talk with their son before he got some kunoichi pregnant. He knew she still knew where his was, too, because periodically he'd find the stack straightened neatly. It was just one of those things they never talked about.

Well, whatever. Book weren't what he was looking for. The notebooks however, might have clues, a name or an address.

He picked up the first one and started leafing through it.

After a few minutes, he sat down on the bed, notebook opened on his lap…

Shit.

It had been a while since he'd read the Icha Icha series, but still, he thought he recognized several of the characters' names…

Holy shit.

Yoshino wrote this?

The handwriting was unmistakable, a neat, tidy script that flowed over pages and pages (and pages and pages) of…smut.

Absorbed in the writing in front of him, he didn't hear the front door open, nor did he hear Yoshino come into their room. He did however, hear her say quite crossly, "Is there something you're looking for Shikaku?"

Jerking his gaze up from the papers, realizing the table drawer was still open and he had her notebooks scattered around him on the bed, he still managed to snap back, "Well, I don't know. Is there something you want to tell me?"

"Hn, yeah, as if you'd listen," she said waspishly, setting her shopping bags down and going to the bed to begin arranging and re-stacking her notebooks. She snatched the one he was holding out of his hand. He snatched it back standing up to face her.

"Give it to me!" she demanded.

"No! Yoshino, did you write this?"

"Yes! What's it to you?"

"Well, I mean, I just…why?"

Exasperated, she stood glaring at him, hands on her hips, notebooks tucked under one arm. "Sometimes I just don't like the way the stories turn out. So I…come up with my own endings…and other stuff."

Conflicting emotions played over his face, relief that there wasn't actually someone else (since he really wasn't going to count the fictional characters in Jiraiya's books as competition) but concern as well. "Yoshino – some of those are …boys…they're the same age as Shikamaru…"

She waved a hand dismissively. "I was just trying out something new. I'm not really good at the boy-love stuff. I haven't published any of that. I stick mostly to the het stuff."

"Published!"

"Well, not published published, but sent off to some people who run fanzines, they've printed a few."

Shikaku pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, not really wanting to consider any postal code implications here. It was bad enough to think that his wife's erotic imagination, her rather vivid and descriptive erotic imagination, was being read by other people and he didn't even know it existed until now.

"Okay, but still…why?"

"What? Do you mind? Do you not want me to?"

"No, it's not that I mind…I'm amazed…"

"Amazed! What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped. "You didn't think I could write something like that, did you? You don't think of me that way do you? You don't think of me at all! You're just always off with Inoichi and Chouza…"

Shikaku shook his head, not really following how Inoichi and Chouza had crept into the conversation.

He held up one hand yelling back, "Amazing…okay? I should have said amazing! Not that I'm amazed you wrote it but that what you wrote is amazing and…," he faltered, " …hot. But what's this about Inoichi and Chouza?"

"You're always with them…"

"Why don't you say something?"

"Because I don't mind you being with them…it's just that you've completely stopped being with me. You used to come home to me. Now you just make it as far as the couch and fall asleep there."

"I don't want to wake you up! You're always tired!"

"I was tired when I was chasing a toddler around! I was tired when I was riding a lazy kid's ass to do his work as well as my own. Said kid who is now a teenager and out of the house for a week in case you hadn't noticed! Not that I would expect you would! Not that I would expect you to look forward to us actually having the house to ourselves for a change!"

Oi, on a tear now, a good one too, he hadn't seen her this wound up in quite a while. Although come to think of it she did have a good point – Shikamaru was gone for the week. And her looking forward to the kid being gone and her being alone with him was kind of cool…or hot…depending on your point of view.

She brushed past him, slamming her notebooks back into the nightstand. Whirling away before he could say anything else she went back and snatched up her shopping bags. Infuriated, Shikaku stopped her with kagemane so fast she dropped her bags.

Frozen into place, pulling hard against his jutsu she snapped at him, "Dammit, I bet you made me break the eggs!"

"I don't care about the damned eggs! You're not leaving here until you tell me what's wrong. What's going on?" he asked walking around to face her.

"What's going on is I'm trying to put the damned groceries away, what's left of them that is!" she snapped back, eyes flashing, chest heaving, pulling against his hold with all her chakra.

"No! With you. With me. With us!" he crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her.

"I have a hobby, okay? Why not? Why the hell not? I might just as well, since I just stay in bed at night reading and waiting for you to come home. I was so bored with reading I finally started writing. At least if I write it I…," she closed her mouth shut, biting back the rest of her sentence.

" 'At least if you write it …' what?" he asked still glaring at her.

"Nothing."

"Dammit. What? If you write it – what?"

"If I write it I get what I want okay? Or at least the girl does. Or somebody does. There are you satisfied?" she huffed at him blowing a stray strand of hair back out of her face.

"Well, what the hell is it you want?"

"I…I," her chin was quivering now as tears welled up in her eyes. "I want you to want me…the way that you used to."

Oh crap. He could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he'd seen Yoshino cry. Crap. Crap. Crap. His shoulders slumped and he released his jutsu. He let out a deep breath and said softly, "You troublesome woman. What the hell are you talking about? Do you know I was in here looking around because I was afraid you wanted someone else?"

One corner of her mouth twitched up, ever so faintly. "You're kidding, right?" And she was in his arms, head against his chest. Shikaku rested his chin on the top of her head and they stood there just holding each other.

After a few moments she snickered against him. "So, you read the boy ones, huh?"

"I have to confess, I flipped through those in a hurry."

She laughed again and he continued, "But the other notebooks were pretty… hot…," he slid his hands to her hips, holding her against him, "I especially like the one about the shadow bind. I'd never thought about…"

Yoshino pulled back and looked up at him, "God, Nara , you are so naive…"

Sometime later, as she lay nestled in his arms, the sheets rumpled around their legs, he smoothed her hair and kissed her, telling her the three words every kunoichi longs to hear, "I love you."

She propped herself up on one elbow, looking into his eyes, smiling and said, "I love you, too, Shikaku."

Then Yoshino turned and reached into her night table drawer and pulled out a well-worn copy of a certain orange book. Smirking and turning the dog-eared pages to a particular chapter, Shikaku heard her say the three little words every shinobi longs to hear…

"Let's try this."

= The End! = (For real this time.)

A/N: Reviews and comments would be appreciated. Feel free to leave a review or PM me. Cheers, Loves.