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Break to Breathe	By : Okami-Rayne Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Shikamaru/Neji Views: 1959 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: NARUTO and its respective characters were created and are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. No copyright infringement intended. I make no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 46
- 47
- 48
BREAK TO BREATHE

by Okami Rayne

Chapter Forty Seven

[Dedicated to AttentionDeficitDisorder]

"You bring in a dog."
Shikamaru didn't look up, his eyes fixed on the cracks in the pathway despite knowing the ground wasn't going to open up no matter how hard he stared.
"Works every time," Asuma added with a crooked smile that didn't quite hide the concern in his eyes. "According to Kakashi."
"Guess he wasn't wrong," Shikamaru croaked, his eyes still cast down.
"Yeah, wish I didn't have to tell him he was right either."
Shikamaru winced inwardly.
The ninja hound bayed, its toenails scratching on the brick as it scuttled backwards along the sidewalk, obviously pleased with itself. Shikamaru watched Asuma's shadow as the Jōnin raised his hand in a backward wave. Acknowledgement registered further along the street, where a silhouetted figure saluted with a slim book, then vanished into the stillness, the ninken padding off to follow at a lope.
Shikamaru counted the seconds until the click of the dog's nails receded.
Then the world plunged into a tense silence.
He assessed Asuma's shadow again, noting the distinct absence of the cigarette that normally dangled like a permanent fixture from his sensei's lips. If that wasn't telling enough, he could already sense the Jōnin's eyes burning into him like ember ends.
"Guess I can finally say I beat you," Asuma murmured, his deep baritone lightened by a trace of humour intended to draw Shikamaru's gaze. "But I'd take Shogi over hide and seek any day."
Shikamaru's gut twisted into a guilty knot; the kind that felt like barbed wire, which made the confrontation with Hiashi painless in comparison. This kind of guilt was the nauseating kind, the kind that was more complicated to absolve. He forced the wheels of his mind to slow from their immediate spin into a 'ten steps ahead' attempt to dodge the situation.
He couldn't.
And even if he'd wanted to, he just didn't have the energy or the heart.
Turning a little, the shadow-nin glanced further off to the side, staring at the pale scuff of the sidewalk, which looked about as worn out as any mental route he might have searched for an exit.
"I wasn't hiding…" he murmured.
He didn't see Asuma's eyes flicker and widen at the memory those words provoked.

- FLASHBACK: 10 years ago –
He wasn't hiding.
Not really.
He was scheming – shinobi style – subtle and smooth in the shadows.
Yeah right…
Asuma sighed, his lips framing a curse that swirled unspoken into a stream of cigarette smoke. Twenty years old and hiding from his dad like a kid risking a clip around the ear. He wouldn't have put that past his old man, but his father's silences were usually more painful on the ears than any reprimanding gestures or words.
Because the silences always seemed to ring with disappointment.
Asuma scowled, scratching at the stubble along his jaw.
What the hell does he want from me? Why the hell is it never enough?
He took another pull on his cigarette, holding his breath until the cloudy air burned in his lungs. He leaned back into the low wooden fencing and the planks creaked like stiff limbs. The rickety fencing cordoned off a playground in need of serious renovation.
Like my attitude, apparently…
He exhaled a cloud-like plume towards the 'no smoking' sign nailed into the wood beside his head. Not getting straight answers from his father always left him drawing his own conclusions about what the hell he'd done wrong – which was probably a deliberate move his old man kept making in an attempt to get Asuma to be more introspective.
Screw that.
Leaning forward, the young Sarutobi unfurled the map on the ground in front of him, spreading it wide in a grand and resolute gesture, holding it open with his palms.
Freedom. Opportunity.
He traced his gaze over the vast atlas, dragging deep on the cigarette.
I'm sick of being shot down…
Snorting twin jets of smoke from his nose, he took another deep, meditative drag and slipped out his cigarette packet, nodding decidedly.
"I'm outta here…" he muttered around the smoking stick.
"They're gonna catch you."
Asuma jolted so hard the movement had the map rolling up and smoke rolling out in a startled wheeze. He threw his cigarette packet aside in guilty reflex, pounding a fist to his chest as he hacked out a cough. Eyes watering, he blinked repeatedly until his surroundings came back into focus.
His gaze hit on a pair of shuttered brown eyes staring up with jaded interest.
No way. A kid managed to sneak up on me?
The first thing that struck him was the fact that he should have seen the kid's hair sawing through the smoke on his peripheral long before the boy had got this close.
"You're not very good at hiding," the kid stated bluntly.
Asuma stared dumbly for a moment, his cigarette dangling from his lips. "What?"
The pineapple-haired boy pointed his chin toward the cigarette.
"Your smoke is drifting over the fence…and you left a trail…"
"Huh?"
Without freeing his hands from his pockets, the child tipped his head towards the numerous cigarette butts scattered back along the pathway.
Asuma slanted away from the fence to follow the kid's gaze.
Shit.
The boy looked back, his hooded gaze narrowed speculatively. "So…you're not very good at hiding."
Asuma slouched back against the fencing with a snort, feeling more putout that his cigarette would probably have to be in a minute.
"I uh…wasn't hiding," came his gruff and incredibly lame reply.
"Yeah you were…" the kid insisted, watching the ribbon of smoke and wrinkling his nose against the offensive waft. "And smoking's stupid."
"So is sneaking up on dangerous shinobi."
"You're not a dangerous shinobi."
"How do you know?"
"If you were a dangerous shinobi you'd have seen me coming."
Asuma stared incredulously for a moment.
Smartass.
How old was this kid anyway? Seven?
The Sarutobi pursed his lips around his cigarette, considering the idiocy of making a child an intellectual opponent. He smiled slightly, reluctantly amused. The kid, however, maintained a half-mast gaze as if to illustrate how supremely bored he was with the interaction. Asuma might have believed it, only the boy wasn't leaving. In fact, the kid moved closer in a lazy shuffle, nodding towards the fence.
"A dangerous shinobi would also be aware of trouble."
"You're not exactly putting the fear of god into me, kid."
"You're smoking under a 'no smoking' sign."
The Sarutobi grunted at this ingenuous observation, but figured that he might as well resurrect some scruples around a child. Shrugging, he plucked his cigarette from his lips and snubbed it out against the fencing.
"Happy?" he muttered, eyeing the symbol on the sleeve of the boy's t-shirt. "Nara, huh?"
The kid nodded. "I'm Nara Shikamaru and whoever you are, you're gonna be in trouble."
Asuma blinked, eyes crinkling in suspicion. "Oh yeah? Are you some little ninja-wannabe the Hokage's sent to watch me or something?"
Shikamaru arched a brow in an amusingly dry gesture for someone so young. "No, I came to watch the clouds."
"There aren't any…" Asuma pointed out, glancing skyward to a canvas of clear blue with barely a wisp of white.
"There were," Shikamaru said, nodding towards the abandoned cigarette packet.
Asuma glanced sidelong at his hastily abandoned smokes, but resisted the possessive urge to snatch them back. He'd rescue them later. He looked back to the Nara boy, arching his brows in query.
The lazy-lidded gaze flicked away as Shikamaru stared across at the uneven grain of the fence, frowning. "I know it's not real…but…the smoke looked like clouds…"
Asuma smiled a little, cocking his head to draw the kid's eye. "So you like clouds, huh?"
Shikamaru nodded, his small mouth tugging into a smile. "They're the best."
"Yeah, I guess they're pretty cool."
"Smoking's not cool," Shikamaru said, strolling past Asuma towards the abandoned cigarette packet. "It's troublesome."
Asuma threw his arm out, practically sprawling to apprehend the packet before it could come into the boy's possession or confiscation. Shikamaru paused and levelled him with the kind of wary look one might set on an unpredictable drunk. Asuma straightened up a little more presentably, not that he was trying to impress a kid; hell, with his cigarettes in hand and runaway plan in the works, he was a Class-A promoter for a bad role model campaign.
He turned the cigarette packet over in his hands.
Shikamaru's gaze followed the movement. "It hurts your lungs and stings your eyes."
"Yeah, but it's my best bad habit."
Shikamaru stared at his face for a long, measured moment and frowned. "You're weird."
Asuma laughed, tapping the cigarette packet to his temple with a rogue grin. "And just for that, I'm gonna have another smoke right now."
"That's stupid."
"You bet. Go run off and save your little lungs."
Shikamaru arched a brow. "You're weird and you're gonna get in trouble."
"I'm a Leaf shinobi," Asuma stated with way too much pride for one running away from his village, shooting the kid a feral grin. "I can get out of any trouble I get myself in. I'm not scared of trouble."
"Is that why you're hiding?"
"Smartass. I'm still having that smoke."

He wished Asuma would light a stupid cigarette.
Or say something.
Shikamaru shifted back a pace unconsciously, the shuffling movement completely unplanned. Like this entire situation. For all his ability to think ahead, he hadn't planned what the hell to say to Asuma if he'd got caught. He'd accounted for everything and everyone else, but not this.
And Asuma's silence was beginning to unnerve him in a way Hiashi's hadn't.
Because as much as Shikamaru didn't give a crap regarding what people thought about him, that rule of thumb didn't apply when it came to his sensei. It was a hairline fracture in his lackadaisical attitude, the proverbial chink in his armour.
But Asuma never exploited it.
Because despite being manipulative in order to motivate – and damn if Asuma didn't bribe Chōji with barbecue on more occasions than his wallet could afford – he never played those games with Shikamaru. He took it to the Shogi board to 'discuss' it on familiar territory in familiar terms; Asuma knew how to speak his language, because he'd taken the time to learn it.
Fifteen Shogi games after their first match, Asuma was relatively fluent.
On that day, Shikamaru had paused mid-game, got up, and walked away.
Unlike the shadow-nin's father, who'd have waited patiently for him to come back, Asuma had followed after him – at a distance and at a lazy pace – just to make sure he was alright. They'd never spoken about that day, but that was when things had changed.
And of all the people in his life, Shikamaru held his sensei in the highest regard.
Which is why this moment was hell turning hotter by degrees.
"What happened to your face?"
Shikamaru blinked, shrugging. "I got dive-bombed by a pissed off bird."
A lie that was close enough to a truth; considering the sick bird had almost taken his eyes out.
Shit, I need to feed it…check up on it…make sure the canvas didn't—
Shikamaru flinched, jerking from his thoughts when Asuma's hand reached for his shoulder. The bronze fingers froze, then turned upward a little in reassurance.
Shit, get a grip.
Shikamaru forced himself to recover from the stupid, skittish reaction by staying still as the Jōnin hooked his thumb into the raised neck of his flak jacket, tugging the green padding aside.
Asuma stared at his throat.
Dark brows drew low over the hardening bronze of the Sarutobi's eyes.
Shikamaru swallowed on reflex and glanced off to the side.
When his sensei spoke, his voice was low and quiet. "Pretty big bird, huh?"
Shikamaru hesitated, looking torn.
The gently phrased words should have set him just a little at ease, but they only drew him further out of bullshitting territory and pushed him into the broken up place where all the pieces of the truth were still scattered like glass.
I can't do this shit all over again…
He physically inched back a pace as if to escape it and if Asuma's hand hadn't dropped to his shoulder he might have kept going.
Asuma let out a long breath. "I'm gonna need a smoke for this, aren't I?"
Shikamaru struggled to find a weak thread of humour in the massive knot of his raw nerves, looking askance at his sensei. "I should get into trouble more often. It's good for your health."
"It's really not. I came close to chewing senbons."
"Hn. Guess that's stupider than your cigarettes."
"I'll tell Genma you said that. And then get him to be the dog the next time you feel like playing hide and seek."
Shikamaru slid his gaze away and tried to scowl, but the expression crumbled, his vocal chords feeling as if they'd rusted in his throat. "I wasn't hiding…" he rasped again.
Asuma hummed, the sound like buried thunder in his chest. "Yeah…"
Shikamaru felt the large hand on his shoulder tighten gently, holding on until he glanced up and across at his sensei. He was disarmed by the concern in his teacher's expression, barely able to hold the stare for all the troublesome guilt it provoked inside him.
But then Asuma smiled a little, a shadow of his normal rogue grin.
"I'm still having that smoke."
"Hn." Shikamaru's lip twitched upward. "Troublesome."

Stillness, that's what he needed now.
Neji made the centre of his mind a surface without ripples, smooth and steady.
Serene enough to let scattered thoughts and shattered feelings wash away…
And then he made the mistake of following one…
Just one…one feeling…
And one feeling was all it took for the meditation to bleed into a memory…
"Neji…"
The clear stream of Neji's thoughts thickened and clouded into a stirring tingle that churned and pooled low in his core, swirling and spiralling.
"Why can't I tear you out?"
The stillness of Neji's breathing gave way to something deeper, something ragged…and then the image in his mind became sharper…stronger…and suddenly he wasn't the only one breathing…there was an arousing smoke-like sensation of breath between his lips.
"I don't know…"
"Tell me…"
"I don't…know…fuck…"
"Tell me, Shikamaru…"
"God…don't…don't ask me…to think…"
Neji felt the shift of muscle, lean and solid, moving beneath the glistening salt of skin as hot as fire…hotter than the flame of his tongue as it dragged along the stretch of marked throat, the tendons tight and flexing.
"So don't think…just answer…"
He bit down, pulled colour to the skin and pressed his lips to the pulse. The fire flared in a controlled knot, lashed a lick of heat along his spine. Shikamaru's breathing deepened, tore in two and pulled itself back together in a shiver.
"…I don't know…I don't want to know…"
"Do you want 'this' instead?"
Those dark, shuttered eyes rolled back briefly, flickering open again, burning stronger than their bodies.
Burning…burning…burning…
Flame filled Shikamaru's eyes and his body rose on the heat…without a sound…without a surrender…there was no submission…no yielding…so close to falling…
"Give in to me, Shikamaru…"
Neji's teeth scraped the shadow-nin's jaw and the sharp slant hardened, clenched, shook with the strain.
"You…first…"
"No…" he purred deeply into the studded ear. "Not this time."
Then he was branding skin beneath his mouth and with a whispering, barely-there touch Shikamaru's body hit the release so intensely that Neji felt the shadow-nin's heart stop for the briefest of seconds.
Neji stiffened.
The memory of this moment froze.
It amplified in Neji's mind and spread to every cell of his body as if he were reliving it.
Reliving the moment that Shikamaru tumbled off that blistering edge.
The exact instant the shadow-nin's pulse had wavered.
Because in that exact instant…seconds before Shikamaru snatched his breath, Neji caught his death…and he'd held it with a yearning that had his chest tightening at the memory of wanting to make that heart stop and start all over again.
"Was it the best way to go, Shikamaru?"
Shikamaru hadn't answered in words.
ENOUGH!
Neji tore his mind away from the memory, his glazed eyes snapping open.
He shuddered into awareness, his skin flushed and raw and cast in a sheen. Even the cool caress of the breeze felt seductive, as if the air had moulded around him like a lover, pulsing and whispering and clinging to him in the damp folds of his yukata.
Gods, I still can't get you out…
Neji dragged shaking fingers through his hair, fisting the dark strands as he struggled to steady his breathing and will away the honeyed sensation of thick arousal pooled low in his core and hard in his groin.
Damn this.
He'd meditated to escape into stillness…not to pull his body into a fever intoxicated by the erotic drug of a memory…
So real…
But then, why wouldn't it have been? It was a memory, not an imagining.
Neji shuddered out a sigh, staring blankly into the austere darkness of his modest, traditional room. The black and milky hues of night played across the fusuma panels, slashed with a single blade of moonlight slanting through the window.
It struck the futon, the sheets creased and crumpled from his restlessness.
Just like everything inside me…
Losing himself to sleep and silence had never been more complicated since Shikamaru and he had collided. But the irony was that within the eye of chaos, he'd found an incredible, soul-stilling peace with the other ninja all the same.
I have never rested that way before…I don't think I have 'ever' truly rested…
Shikamaru had brought him that rest…the deep kind that sank into weary parts that felt older and colder than his eighteen years should have allowed…
Yes, Shikamaru had brought him rest.
And now he could not find it.
And in its absence, came the bitter retrospection.
Because for all the pain, Neji could not deny the peace.
And despite the blow to his pride, he could not deny the pleasure either.
Clenching his eyes shut, he thudded his head back against the wall hard enough to distract from the rigid throb between his legs and the cruel ache in his chest.
He could almost taste Shikamaru on his tongue and across his teeth.
The hot salt of his skin…
Or was it his tears?
Neji's eyes slipped open and the fire in his blood banked to a simmer upon remembering the last time he'd stared into those shadowed eyes. Eyes scarred like the clouded black of smoky quartz…shifting and struggling with the force of what they'd forged…a need that pulled up a pang so sharply in Neji's chest he glanced down as if expecting to find a blade lodged there.
Tearing into Shikamaru's heart to save his own had been a bitter backfire.
He'd never seen it coming.
Like so much else…
"I never 'predicted' what would play out between us…and I didn't take the chance to stop it…even when I realised something was happening…"
And the insane thing was, neither had he.
No matter which way he turned it around in his mind, there was no escaping the truth that Shikamaru had given him more opportunities to stop it than the Nara had taken to start it.
I need to know…what it was…
Neji closed his eyes and pushed to his feet – although it felt like he was pulled.

Konoha twinkled with the late evening burn of hushed activity; a gentle spatter of lights that gave an impression of fallen stars glowing bright or growing cold as shop lights dimmed and lanterns or lampposts took over.
Familiar. Safe.
Shikamaru leaned into the rough bark of a tree and slouched into a gentle hollow at its base while Asuma perched beside him. The Jōnin's makeshift seat consisted of a cradle of gnarled roots that twisted up from the earth in a knotted, bowl-shaped lattice.
Nature's way of accommodating.
But right now, all Shikamaru wanted to accommodate was sleep.
Not likely…
Asuma had walked them to a spot they often frequented, a quiet, grassy slope leading down from the Hokage's mansion. The vista was impressive and peaceful and the scent of wet grass held heavy in the air, soon to be permeated by another waft of smoke.
He heard Asuma turning to crush out his first cigarette.
His sensei had spent the past few minutes relishing the smoke with the gratified expression of a man happy to be falling off the quitter's wagon straight back into the habit.
Shikamaru shifted uneasily.
His own irritating habit to pre-empt was pressing in on his skull.
But in a situation like this, his predictions were about as useful as pre-empting the shape a cloud would take. Sometimes he'd strike lucky by examining the sculpting hand of the wind – but clouds weren't clay. They were never fixed and ever-changing, their possibilities endless.
As endless as the current silence…stretching onwards…
Drawing taut with tension…
His nerves felt like elastic set to snap…
"You know, Chōji turned down barbecue for you," Asuma said, shaking his head. "I was impressed. Looks like when you get into trouble it isn't just good for my health, but his too."
Shikamaru glanced across, warily searching his sensei's profile; as far as he could tell, Asuma looked genuinely amused. He watched his sensei plant another cigarette in the corner of his mouth, lighting up behind the cup of his palm, the flame's glow catching in his eyes.
Shikamaru took a deep, shaky breath of tobacco-tinged air.
"Even Ino held up," Asuma added, slipping his lighter away. "She didn't cave."
"Yeah, she tried to cave my head instead."
"What?"
"She threw a brick of crap at me…"
Asuma choked around a lungful of smoke. "A brick of what?"
"Of crap."
"How'd she manage that?"
"She picked it up, threw it at my head and didn't miss."
Asuma brought the cigarette to his lips and grinned behind the cup of his hand. "What is it with you and violent women, Shikamaru?"
"Apparently I'm just all sorts of lucky."
"Well, luck's a lady, isn't she?
"That explains it." Shikamaru's shaky smile pulled into a wince as he shifted position, drawing both his legs up and banding his arm around his ribs. "Hn. Troublesome girl."
The soft rumble of Asuma's chuckle rolled into an easy quiet. And the quiet settled back into a pensive stillness between them. It felt close to the relaxed mood they usually held around each other.
Close, but not quite.
"Shikamaru," Asuma tumbled his name into the silence.
The young Nara blinked from his glazed stare, immediately alert. "Yeah?"
"Since we're on topic, what's your take on 'good luck'?"
"That I don't have it."
Asuma smirked, shaking his head. "And?"
"And it explains how stupid people get ahead."
The rumble of Asuma's laughter was accompanied by the gentle rustle of the leaves above them. The soft sound drew Shikamaru's gaze up from the village and higher towards the sky as he rested his head back.
"Come on, you've gotta have thought about this," Asuma pressed, smirking behind a pall of smoke.
Shikamaru grunted something noncommittal, resisting the urge to sigh. "Good luck doesn't mean anything. Cause and effect is what matters and luck is just some crappy grey area in-between. It's only called 'good luck' when it benefits you. There. Happy?"
The soft ember glow of Asuma's cigarette flared like a firefly in the darkness, ash flaking off the end. "Yeah, that makes sense, if you think about it like that."
"How else am I supposed to think about it?" he muttered, not wanting to think about it at all.
Asuma propped a foot on the edge of his perch, dangling an arm over his knee. "How about happy hindsight? Or being pleasantly surprised."
Shikamaru watched the smoke drift, staring from under sleepy lids as he considered the words. Then he frowned and cast his gaze across the village, watching the lights glitter, suddenly needing the distraction of a join-the-dots design rather than the obscurity of smoke.
"What's your point, Asuma-sensei?" he sighed.
Asuma paused here, taking a long, deep pull on his cigarette. When he exhaled, the smoke skimmed above Shikamaru's line of sight, which told the young Nara that his sensei was looking skyward.
"When we were assigned our Genin teams, I thought I was the Jōnin who got dealt the crappy hand," Asuma said. "I thought my old man planned it that way."
Shikamaru blinked as if jolted, shooting his sensei a confused glance that narrowed into a glare. The perceived insult might have rolled off him harmlessly on any other occasion – but right now, feeling so damned raw, to hear that from Asuma felt like a kick in the gut.
"Thanks for that," Shikamaru growled.
Asuma's lips curved fondly.
The smile surprised Shikamaru, knocking his anger until his frown crumbled from offence into confusion. Asuma continued to smile up at the stars, shaking his head against whatever memory was playing across his mind.
"Ino-Shika-Cho," the Jōnin breathed out, smirking around his smoke. "I got dealt a loudmouth, a slacker and a glutton. Naruto had more motivation than you three put together."
Shikamaru's lips quirked a little. "Ino was motivated."
"Competitively motivated," Asuma pointed out, punctuating the statement with a stab of his cigarette. "But towards the wrong goal and for the wrong reasons, which is why her confidence is shot now. As for Chōji…" The Jōnin shot him a playful glance. "Well, I'm guessing my wallet bled more than he sweated. And I'm pretty sure you were in a coma for most of it."
Admittedly, that might have been an accurate portrait of their early Genin days. Shikamaru conceded the truth with a shrug and a half smile that didn't quite make it across his lips. Asuma took a slow pull on his cigarette, humming as he mused.
"But all three of you had and still have something that the other teams don't."
"What? You?" Shikamaru muttered dryly.
Asuma flashed a feral smile. "You bet, but that's not it."
"Don't tell me "good luck" is the answer."
"For me, yeah. For you guys? No."
Shikamaru rolled his eyes, but his lips tugged upward. "This is such a drag, why don't you just cut to the chase already."
"Sure. You had team cohesion."
"Team cohesion…" Shikamaru echoed.
"Yeah, a rare thing at Genin level, but you kids had it straight off the bat."
Shikamaru hesitated at that, still trying to gauge the point. "So what?"
"So as a team, you're uncomplicated. I can't complain there. I got dealt the best team out of all the Jōnin. A stroke of good luck. I didn't recognise it at the time…" he trailed off for a moment. "It seems I'm always late like that. But getting there eventually is better than not getting there at all. And there we have happy hindsight."
Shikamaru's eyes flicked to Asuma's cigarette, narrowing in a way that illustrated suspicion over just what the hell his sensei was smoking. Asuma caught the dubious look and chuckled out a plume as nebulous as the conversation.
"Great, I'm being sage and deep here."
Shikamaru made a face. "No, you're being weird."
"You know, you said that to me when you were a kid." Asuma snorted with mock offence, taking a leisurely drag on his cigarette. "You're supposed to see me as a cool adult now, guess I better work on that."
"Right. 'Good luck'."
"Smartass."
"I still don't get your point."
"My point is that Team 10 is a solid unit," Asuma said. "Out of all the teams, to this day, it's got the best cohesion. No conflict. No competition. No teenage love triangles. It's strong."
Then just as unpredictably as clouds, Asuma's mood turned.
His expression shifted completely and it was like thunder stole across his face, darkening his brandy eyes and dropping his brow into a deep furrow. Even his cigarette slid – almost abandoned – to the corner of his mouth, dangling as he frowned.
"You work well together," he murmured.
Shikamaru raised a brow, watching his sensei out the corner of his eye, trying to gauge why Asuma looked troubled rather than happy about that assessment.
"Yeah?" Shikamaru pressed warily. "Shouldn't you be happy about that?"
Asuma smiled without humour, his cigarette bobbing with the bleak curl of his lip.
"You see, now that's where my good luck with you three is a blessing and a curse."
Shikamaru cocked his head. "How's it a bad thing? You said it yourself, we don't give you crap as a team."
"Yeah, you give me crap as individuals instead," Asuma grunted, holding his hands apart to demonstrate. "And then…" He smacked his fingertips together, bouncing them lightly. "You all come together and corroborate each other's crap in a big, cohesive team effort."
Shikamaru frowned, his eyes flashing. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I know you," The Jōnin said sharply. "All three of you." He plucked his cigarette from his lips, but snubbed it out in a slow, calm grind. "Especially you, Shikamaru," he added quietly.
Shikamaru's eyes widened.
A pang of panic hit him hard in the chest.
It was nothing compared to the guilt, which hit him harder in the same place.
He stared at the end of his sensei's cigarette, crushed out against the damp ground. Asuma took his time drawing in some clean air for a moment, letting a pregnant pause settle as he sat up and lit another cigarette, taking a slow, savoury drag before exhaling a thin stream skyward.
When he spoke again, it was beneath his breath, in a rumble that Shikamaru had to strain to hear. "And I know that Chōji and Ino will pretty much go against anything, even me, to protect you."
"It's not like that." Shikamaru shook his head, casting off his wide-eyed stare, scrambling for a way to mend the situation. "They weren't going against you. They wouldn't have don—"
"Hey, settle down. It's alright," Asuma murmured gently. "As troublesome as it makes things for me, I'm glad they held out against my interrogation. It says something."
"Yeah, but you're not saying anything," Shikamaru pointed out, unease colouring his face and voice. "Why?"
Asuma bobbed his cigarette quietly.
He didn't even turn his head.
Shit…say something…
"Why aren't you saying anything?" Shikamaru pressed, forcing his voice to stay steady.
He watched his sensei like a hawk, trying to read between the lines of the Jōnin's sternly set expression, struggling with a forgotten sense of anxiety and desperation he hadn't experienced with Asuma since he was a Genin.
Shikamaru swallowed, his eyes widening.
It was the same sensation he'd had any time he'd walked away from something too painful or troublesome to face, all the while knowing that Asuma was following at a distance, watching over him.
"Why the hell aren't you grilling me?"
Why aren't you following me?
It was a stupid and childish thought, but that stupid, childish thought was louder than his logic; like that part of him needed to be assured that he wasn't completely alone, even if that's all he'd wanted to be since the second he'd got back.
Because even though he'd been avoiding Asuma, he'd still known that his sensei was chasing him around like a damned shadow.
But now?
Asuma kept his gaze set ahead, cigarette steadily smoking between his lips.
He said nothing, offered nothing.
Shikamaru's throat tightened, fear crawling cold across his chest. "Why don't you just make this easier and ask me, dammit!"
Asuma glanced across at the angry outburst, his brooding look eclipsed by something a tad sadder before he turned his troubled gaze back out towards the village.
"Yeah, I wish that would make it easier," Asuma sighed, the gravel in his voice thick with tobacco and tension. "But the last time you concerned me this badly, I never got an answer."
Shikamaru's anger died in an instant.
He stared for a long, tortured second, his eyes growing wider.
Asuma shook his head. "Before you left for Hanegakure, I said I'd never had to wonder what was going on with you before. You know that's a lie as much as I do."
Shikamaru wished he hadn't known. There was a hell of a lot to be said for ignorance being bliss. But ignorance was something he'd never had the luxury of experiencing when he needed it the most.
Right now was no exception.
"You know the last time you did this, I couldn't track you down...and to this day, it still gets me." Asuma raised a hand, extending two bronze fingers. "Two weeks. For two weeks you were a different kid. No one suspected. But even on missions I knew it in my gut…and in the way you played Shogi. Like a stranger. You just weren't there."
Shikamaru's face was little more than a silhouette in the darkness. Only the flare of Asuma's cigarette caught the hurt, pinched angles of his expression as he struggled not to react to the words.
"You vanished. And then…" Asuma snapped his fingers. "Just like that you were back again. You lazed on in like you'd never been gone." Asuma smiled sadly. "But I knew you had. And that's been the toughest test I've ever had as your sensei."
Nothing could have prepared Shikamaru for that.
He held himself rigid, braced against the buffeting memory of a time he'd beaten back and sworn off remembering. He had no response, afraid that if he responded at all it would be to bolt and run the hell away rather than reply.
Fuck, please don't make me reply to that…
Immediately, his mind threatened to spin into a wild orbit, ready for a desperate attempt to find an exit, but the steady glance Asuma cast him was calm and undemanding.
"So," Asuma took another lengthy drag on his cigarette, letting the smoke stream from his nose as his lips twitched weakly. "You better not be planning on doing that again. Because I don't think I can quit smoking for two weeks without some serious damage to my nervous system."
The humour blindsided Shikamaru.
It took a moment for him to absorb it.
When the words sank in, he realised they'd been couched in the easy but steady tone Asuma always took with him when treading volatile territory, offering an exit through humour while at the same time offering a safe haven if Shikamaru chose to stand his ground and actually confront the situation.
Not run away like I always do…
The thought left him torn and tired and unable to hide it.
He looked away, taking a moment to shove down the memory Asuma had pulled up. He'd sworn never to wrap himself in shadow that way again. But Asuma hadn't seen that wound when it was raw and ugly inside him.
Shikamaru had stitched it up within two weeks.
Two weeks worth of complete distraction and absolute denial, using the strictest of mental and emotional stitches that had the damage scabbed over by the time Asuma caught flashes of the scar.
And by then, it was easy to pretend it had never happened.
It was so deeply buried nothing could reach it.
Except Neji; who'd torn into it as if it had never really healed.
Like it matters…
He had a different wound now, but this one was open and hurting and there was no way in hell he could stitch it up now. He knew it. Asuma knew it. Shikamaru's eyes began to widen at the realisation that this was the end of the road.
There was nowhere left to run.
The air began to swell painfully in his lungs and clog hard in his throat.
He told himself it was Asuma's cigarette smoke and determinedly fixed his eyes on the evanescent stream, watching it waft on the night air…spiralling off onto a crisp wind of escape…
"I can't…" Shikamaru husked suddenly; the words tight and hard in his throat.
Asuma blinked very slowly, gazing out at the village. "Try."
Shikamaru worked his jaw, going rigid against the tree as if something had caught up with him and cornered him. "I can't…"
"It's alright. Just say it."
"I don't know how…"
"You keep moving your mouth and you don't stop."
"I need it to stop. Just long enough so I can get a grip…"
Asuma offered no reply and Shikamaru might have sensed those bronze eyes fixed on him, only his own eyes felt like acid was filling them.
Words crowded his throat, strangling his ability to breathe until they spilled out in a husky rush. "Everyone looks at me like I know what the hell I'm doing…they always do...they expect I'm all those steps ahead...at the start I think I am…but I…I can't always figure it out...and then sometimes I don't want to…is that why I didn't fix it? Or maybe I was never supposed to."
"What were you trying to fix?"
What I never found…but broke anyway…
He shook his head with a bitter snort. "What the hell does it matter now?"
"It matters…"
Shikamaru swallowed, blinking hard before slashing his hand through the smoke.
"Your smoke is stinging my eyes…" he growled out in a rough, ragged voice.
Asuma frowned, reaching out to lay a hand hesitantly on Shikamaru's nape.
Shikamaru snarled and reached back with both hands to knock off the touch, lacing his fingers behind his neck in a grip as hard as gridiron, squeezing mercilessly.
Stop…god I just need it to stop…I'm losing my grip…
"Shikamaru, talk to me."
Shikamaru thudded his forehead to his knees, twisting his brow from side to side as he shook his head, ignoring the angry flare in his rib at the hunched over position.
"Shikamaru..."
The rugged concern in Asuma's voice hit him in the same place it had all the times he'd been a frightened kid. He couldn't even bolt, because he could feel his mental circuits overloading, threatening to blow as he clamped his skull between his arms again, much as he had back in the pen with the bird.
"I can't fix it…" he gritted the words out, not expecting his sensei to catch them.
He heard Asuma shift, the scrape of sandals on bark.
Then the Jōnin's hand settled on his shoulder firmly. "Fix what?"
"What I screwed up…"
"What did you screw up?"
Shikamaru's knuckles cracked, the skin turning bone-white as his fingers laced tighter at his nape. "Everything…"
"Not possible."
"How the hell would you know?" Shikamaru growled, teeth bared as he shrugged off the hand at his shoulder and shoved to his feet so fast he staggered.
His ribs cramped with pain and he hissed.
Asuma watched him from beneath the heavy "v" of his brows.
Shikamaru turned his back, taking a pace away as he carved the fingers of one hand against his scalp until they hit his hair tie. "You weren't there…and you're not there when I start turning people into playing pieces…"
"That's not what you do, Shikamaru. That's not who you are."
"Isn't it!" Shikamaru snapped, wheeling around, a tide of words rising up inside him like black water. "What if that's exactly what I do, sensei? What if that's exactly who I am? And you know what's worse? It comesnatural to me. What the hell does that say?"
"It doesn't say anything. It's what you do with it that matters."
Shikamaru gave a caustic snort. "Yeah, what you do, not what you intend, right?"
"Wrong," Asuma shot back. "Intention always matters."
"Why?"
"Because it's why we even do it in the first place, Shikamaru."
Shikamaru's eyes brightened like a drowning man finding a lifeline before they dimmed and he choked on a shaky laugh, his long fingers snapping into fists. "Yeah? Well maybe I don't need intentions, just direct orders."
Asuma's brow tightened. "You're not ANBU. Remember that."
"Yeah, ANBU don't get the standing ovation I do for screwing people over. But then I do it from the shadows so what's the difference?"
Asuma cocked his head back as if physically struck by those words. "Where the hell is this coming from, Shikamaru?"
"I'm a strategist…a manipulator…" Shikamaru spat the words between sharp snaps of his teeth, clenching his jaw. "That's what I am."
"That's what you do, but that's not who you are."
"What the hell determines that!" the shadow-nin snarled. "You?"
"This moment," Asuma said firmly. "The fact that it's bothering you this much and that it probably always will." His voice softened. "I wish I could say I'm sorry for that, but it's good that it bothers you."
"Good?" A sour scowl twisted Shikamaru's expression, but his throat tensed visibly, the bruised chords straining. "What happened to 'keeping my head clear' like you said I needed to?"
"That's true. But we're not talking about your head, are we?" Asuma returned quietly.
Shikamaru flinched, his own words coming back to haunt him.
"Troublesome Hyūga, quit making this about your head…"
His expression tore from a scowl into something stricken.
He stared unseeingly at his sensei for a moment.
Fuck…what the hell am I now? A hypocrite too?
Asuma calmly planted his feet, making to rise until Shikamaru backed away like a kid about to take a thrashing. The Jōnin paused and perched at the end of his seat instead, keeping distance.
"Shikamaru…what you do in your head and what you feel about it might not always add up, it's just one of the burdens of being a shinobi. That is why our intentions always matter."
"What if I can't do it…?" Shikamaru said, his lips thinning into a tight line as pale and tense as the rest of his face. "What if I can't carry that burden?"
"You can. But you're forgetting to share the load."
I can't...
Shikamaru squeezed his eyes shut then snapped them open. "Easier said. It's too much to account for, too much could go wrong."
"You see..." Asuma sighed. "This is what I mean about the individual crap. Trust the people around you to support you."
"Trust? You don't get it, Asuma…"
"You're right," Asuma cut back. "I don't. But you're going to explain it to me. And I don't care how stupid simple you need to make it because I'm not letting you sink into another two week vanishing act that I'll be forced to drag you back from."
"So don't," Shikamaru snapped, but his eyes flickered with hurt. "That's not your role, Asuma, you're not my—"
"No, I'm not your father," Asuma said, pinning him with a look. "I don't have his patience and I don't have his responsibilities and I'm not complaining for a second. I'm as enthusiastic about getting involved with personal trouble as you are. But in Team 10's case, I'll always make an exception. When the hell did you forget that?"
For just a second, Shikamaru's face grew slack, panicked. "It's not that simple."
"Yeah, it is."
"It's not. It's not about anyone else."
Asuma frowned, smoke misting from his lips. "Whoever wrapped their hands around your throat must have done a number on your brain for you to forget the people around you," he growled. "Your friends will always deliver, Shikamaru. They will always come through!"
"But what if I can't!" Shikamaru shouted, slashing his arm out and backing away. "They put their lives in my hands while I put them in positions that might get them killed! They trust me to get it right, but what if I can't!"
"Then you can't. We don't always succeed. You learned that on your first Chūnin mission." He gentled his voice as Shikamaru's eyes pinched. "I know how hard that hit you. I know you hate having to learn from mistakes that might cost others their lives. But you've never tried to divorce your head from your heart. Why are you trying to do that now?"
Shikamaru glared, his jaw juddering as he fought to snap it shut, his teeth set on edge against the urge to roar. "Because it's different this time…"
Seeing his struggle, the tension around Asuma's eyes softened. "How's it different? The conflict you feel is the moral compass you need as a shinobi. You're smart enough to know that. You've always known that."
Then why did it screw me up so fucking badly? Why did I let it?
Shikamaru took a step back, shaking his head. He could feel that tide swelling inside him…tremulous and unpredictable…polluted with panic…shaking with an unbridled anger and wild confusion…
Why the hell did I let that happen between us…?
"Shikamaru…" Asuma pressed, his gaze deep and searching. "Tell me why it's different."
Why did I need it to?
"Shikamaru."
Why can't I make it STOP?
The thunder of Asuma's voice exploded. "SHIKAMARU!"
"Because it MESSED ME UP!" Shikamaru roared, his words erupting in a hoarse shake, flooding over his brain's attempt to hold them back. "Maybe he had it right and I had it wrong all along! Emotions screw with your head! And then your head screws with you and it doesn't take a genius to know that everything else is screwed after that! And you can't afford to screw up when you do what I do!"
Silence dropped like a wall.
The blast of Shikamaru's words ricocheted off it and hung suspended and heavy.
Asuma didn't move.
Neither did Shikamaru.
Only the smoke moved, drifting towards the leaves that danced silver and black in the moonlight.
Shikamaru stared, his bistre orbs wild and dark with the force of his outburst.
Then his brain froze in panic and he didn't recall a word of it.
Not a word.
That is until Asuma very slowly plucked his cigarette from his lips, levelled Shikamaru with a grave, unnerving stare – and spoke one word that had the shadow-nin wishing he'd never said a thing.
"He?"
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Break to Breathe