Eternal Yujin
patreon
TCoH—Chapter 2.12 (22)
🕑 Added 2024-05-10 12:11:40 +0000 UTC- - -
Chapter 2.12 [22]
- - -
Life was full of revelations this week. Most had come solely from and around one of his best friends. Most of the time, Choji was a fan of surprises. The ones he was used to usually had something to do with good food, which was always welcome. Unfortunately, none of the week’s news had anything to do with food.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the latest one had completely altered his worldview, which upset him more than he cared to admit. To him, the Leaf wasn’t a terrible place. It housed bad people and good people, which was a given in life, but he liked to give people the benefit of the doubt and in doing so, found himself on the receiving end of the good more than the bad.
Naruto wasn’t always an amazing person to be around. Before the Academy, Choji didn’t remember seeing him much and only heard about him from all the friend groups he’d been kicked out of. They all said the same things: that Naruto was mean and would beat you up if he caught your staring.
Somehow, that turned into Naruto being a monster; he thought it was a reputation he’d garnered alone but how could he have been so stupid? Those looks from the adults were more than just distaste—it was outright scorn. Nothing shy of him sending people to the hospital could do that. Turns out Naruto went a step further, bringing death and destruction—by proxy, they said.
In truth, Choji didn’t know much about the Nine-Tails beyond the facts: it was orange, as big as a mountain, and had nine very destructive tails. It was a topic rarely brought up except for one specific day of the year, and even then, only to mourn lost loved ones. Jinchuriki were an even stranger concept to him. It wasn’t a topic they’d covered in the Academy yet so he had to do a little digging on his own, though it wasn’t anything a quick library search couldn’t solve.
Or so he thought.
Books on the Tailed Beasts were rare in the Leaf, probably because of the tragedy of the Nine-Tailed Night. He’d journeyed to three different libraries, finding only one book on the topic, alongside sparse information on Jinchuriki—living prisons. The idea that Naruto, kind and caring Naruto, housed a creature like the Nine-Tails didn’t make sense to him. To his regret, Choji reassessed every detail and memory of his friend with intensity.
How could he carry that kind of burden with a smile?
The question troubled him while he worked to prepare his room for the day, sitting on the edge of his awareness as the tasks piled up. He got to vacuum cleaning, changing his bedsheets, rearranging his wardrobe, bringing his washing downstairs and separating them into piles, and all the mindless chores he could occupy himself with.
As the Akimichi heir, he didn’t have to do chores anyway, but with Naruto’s confession, he felt like he needed something to do that wasn’t sit down and think. He couldn’t train because he was expecting guests soon, so chores it was. Surprisingly, it was pretty soothing, but only enough to take his mind off things for a little while. In the end, one fact remained: his perception of his best friend had shifted ever so slightly, the newfound knowledge casting a looming nine-tailed shadow over everything he’d ever known about him.
Was the Leaf one big family if they excluded someone so important to its survival? How could Naruto go around with a big smile, pretending everything was okay? Choji’s walk slowed down as he approached his room, eyes wide. Naruto wasn’t okay. He’d admitted as much, hadn’t he?
Regret flooded him at the thought and he accepted it with a faint smile. As much as he beat himself up about not noticing, Naruto was right. What could he do against an entire village of people who either actively loathed his friend’s existence, or were ignorant of him?
The morning dragged into early afternoon and the sunlight beaming through his bedroom window brought no clarity to mind. All he received were more answerless questions birthing complicated emotions. He sighed and started on the week’s assignments, forcing his focus outward.
Hinata was the first to arrive, as expected, and came to his room after greeting his parents. She sat on the edge of his bed, peering over at the desk while he wrote. His shoulder was heavy with her gaze and his mind was anywhere but on the work.
“So,” He leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling, “are we gonna talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
Choji turned around the spinning chair and stared at Hinata. She squirmed a little and looked away. He continued staring until she ran out of places and things to look at, her eyes turning to face him again.
She smiled sadly. “What is there to say, Choji? Looking back, it was obvious. We never met anywhere he could be recognised, and if we did, it was always a park because everyone except Mr Teuchi and Ayame hate him.”
“Some friends we are,” he said with a rueful chuckle.
“Does it change anything?”
“What?”
Hinata smiled sadly, her eyes shining with a strange sadness despite her words. “The knowledge. Naruto’s still Naruto. Nothing we’ve done together with him is different, right?”
“He’s still my friend,” said Choji, clenching his fists. “But you know.. the entire reason he exists is to keep it contained. That’s not the kind of thing you forget—the village will never let him.”
She remained silent.
“How could he be so happy with everything that he is? I don’t think he was happy at all, so that only makes me wonder how much of it—our friendship—was real. ”
“All of it,” she replied. “Nothing about knowing who Naruto is changes what we’ve gone through with him. It doesn’t push aside everything that he is to us, Choji.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because…” Hinata swallowed, blinking rapidly. When she opened her eyes, they glinted with unshed tears. “Because I’ve known what he is the entire time we’ve been friends.”
Choji’s stomach dropped. “W-What?”
She took a moment to compose herself. “My father. When he noticed I was going out to train with Naruto, he sent someone to find out what I was doing and, when he did, he called me to his study and told me about it.”
“Why?” he asked. “It’s not his secret!”
“That’s the kind of man my father is.” Unlike before, her face was perfectly expressionless. “His exact words were, ‘As my heir, you will know exactly whom you are associating with—and only then will you decide.’”
“That’s…” He floundered until his voice rediscovered itself. “That’s cruel, Hinata! To judge a person for something they can’t control it’s… it’s so… cruel.”
“Are you calling my father a cruel man?”
“N-No, that’s not what I meant, I was jus—”
“Because you wouldn’t be wrong.” That stopped his rushed apology. “People can be cruel, like everyone who’s cruel to Naruto. But they can be kind as well. My father shared Naruto’s identity because he cared about me and didn’t want me to suffer the village’s cruelty like Naruto does. I still chose to be Naruto’s friend anyway; I chose to find out who he was—you’ve done it in reverse, but does finding out what he is change anything?”
“...No.” He stopped, digesting the full weight of her words. “It doesn’t.”
But it left him with an indescribable feeling—a constant, dragging weight in his chest. Was it because he knew what his friend was going through?
He laughed quietly to himself.
“What’s funny?”
“I’ve figured it out.” He looked at his hands. “It’s because I can’t do anything about it that I feel like… like this. It’s not like his fight with Shikamaru; it’s not a problem I can fix and… that hurts.”
“Says who?”
“What?”
Hinata frowned. “Who says we can’t fix it? Remember how Naruto was before we met him?”
“Of course. How could I forget?”
“Remember how hard it was to get him to meet us out of school the first time?”
Choji looked down. Now that he knew the reason for that, memories like that made him sad. “...Yeah.”
“We did it anyway. And the time after that and the one after that. He stopped being so closed off and started having fun with us.” She got up and jabbed him in the chest. “After you invited him to eat lunch with you one day, he stopped disappearing.”
A weird warmth spread from the place Hinata had poked him and he started to smile. She was right—about all of it. They couldn’t change what Naruto was, but they could be there for him when the world wasn’t. They could show him that not everyone hated him and—maybe one day—that would get through to the rest of the village.
Until then, he’d always have them.
“...Thanks, Hinata.” Choji looked up and grinned. “Seriously, though, I think you should tell Naruto.”
Her smile quickly turned into a grimace, and the guilt returned to her eyes. “Y-Yeah. I was planning to today… but I’m nervous.”
“Why?”
She looked out the window. “He was my first ever friend. What if… what if he doesn’t want to be friends with me anymore.”
He slapped a hand over his mouth, smothering a snicker. His eyes teared up, and the laugh burst out of him only when he couldn’t hold it back anymore. Hinata drew her eyebrows together and glared; clear hurt stretched across her face.
“I-I’m sorry.” Choji wiped his face. “You’re so dumb sometimes. If you think Naruto would ever stop being friends with you, you’ve got another thing coming. I can’t tell you how he’ll react, but if it were me, I’d appreciate being friends with you even more. Someone who looks past the obvious even if it’s what everyone else sees? They’re like finding a needle in a haystack.”
She stepped back, and to his surprise, flushed a deep crimson.
“W-What? What’s wrong?”
“N-Nothing. I… just didn’t expect you to say… that, but I suppose you’re straightforward enough to. And now? Now it’s my turn to thank you.” She gave him a deep bow and her shoulder-length hair flopped over her face. “Thank you, Choji. Truly.”
“...You’re welcome, but is the bowing really necessary?”
“Shut it and take my gratitude.”
He laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Naruto arrived fifteen minutes later, and the ensuing conversation between him and Hinata went almost exactly as predicted. He was shocked, but not upset, silencing Hinata’s profuse apologies with a smile. Something joined the three of them together then, bringing them closer than they’d been before. When Naruto looked at them, a different kind of gratitude shone in his blue eyes.
That only made what he had to do next even harder.
Choji cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but I won’t pull any punches when Shikamaru gets here.”
Hinata winced.
“...Yeah, I was sort of expecting it.” Naruto shook his head. “Don’t worry. I’m willing to accept my fair share of criticism. The things I said that day were… less than ideal.”
Hinata sniffed. “That may be the case, but who was the first person to go below the belt?”
“Hinata,” Choji warned.
“Why?” She glared. “Why do you defend him when he was wrong, Choji? Can you honestly tell me that it’s right to respond to offered help the way Shikamaru did?”
“It’s… not that. You don’t understand him.” He sighed and looked at Naruto. “Neither of you do. I’m not being biased because Shikamaru was my first ever friend, I swear.”
Hinata looked away.
“I’m being serious.” He waited until she looked back. “It’s not about not doing hard work. It’s not about hard work at all—but I’ll let Shikamaru explain it when he gets here. The real problem isn’t even the fight you two had—not to me.”
Naruto tilted his head. “What’s your problem with me and him, then?”
“It’s that neither of you wants to understand each other.” Choji said tiredly. “Hinata, you too. All three of you think your ways are the only way, and that everyone who doesn’t do things like you is crazy, wrong, or both. Well, no one except Shikamaru ever says that bit out loud, but can you tell me you haven’t thought like that before?”
“At least I have the decency not to say it,” said Hinata. “I don’t hate Shikamaru, and he’s pleasant to be around… when he’s not being an impolite, slothful human being.”
Choji raised an eyebrow and looked at Naruto expectantly.
“That’s…” Naruto winced and smiled guiltily. “Come on, you can’t tell me you haven’t thought that way before.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” he laughed. “But the difference between me, and the three of you is that I accept that Shikamaru is the way he is because he wants to be.”
“He’s wasting his potential,” said Hinata. “You, of all people, should see that!”
Naruto folded his arms and watched him.
“If he wastes his potential, then that’ll be his choice. I can talk to him but I can’t force him.” Choji said as he leaned back in his chair. “I dunno, but maybe Shikamaru would listen to you if you guys listened to him.”
“I’m guessing that’s what we’re doing today,” said Naruto. “Listening to Shikamaru?”
He smiled and let him make his guesses. Not too long afterwards, Shikamaru arrived, bringing with him two weeks of unaddressed awkwardness. Hinata was still seated at the foot of his bed; Naruto sat at its head, just behind the pillow, and Shikamaru decided to sit to the right of the wardrobe leaning against the wall.
Choji moved his chair in front of the window, allowing himself to watch all three of them. Hinata looked as nervous as he felt but hid it behind her perfect posture. She tilted her chin upwards a little—as if she was balancing a stack of books on her head—while her eyes roamed the room. Shikamaru and Naruto refused to look at one another seemingly not out of lingering animosity, but guilt.
It was a relief to see. At first, he was afraid that their friendship was dead in the water and didn’t hold much hope for today’s event, but the previous discussion and the sight of the two of them now was a relief. All he had to do was set the stage so that the two could talk—and maybe Hinata would learn a bit more about their lazy friend while they did.
So, why was he sweating? He wiped the sheen of his forehead with the back of his hand, rubbing it on the outside of his thigh. He ignored the heat radiating off his body and tried for a smile—it felt like a grimace. “Let’s start with something easy. Shikamaru, how’ve you been this week?”
“Me?” He blinked. “Alright, I guess. It’s just school, so it’s not the most exciting of stuff.”
Hinata looked like she wanted to say something but pressed her knuckles against her lips. The sight made Choji smile a little—she was already taking their discussion to heart.
“Naruto, how’s your week been?” he asked after nodding at Shikamaru’s answer.
The blond raised an eyebrow. “Good. I went back to school, fought Sasuke, and beat Sasuke. All in all? A good week.”
Shikamaru bristled and then frowned.
“Calm down, man,” said Naruto, frowning as well. “I wasn’t dragging up old drama. I was just happy that I finally beat someone who I’ve been struggling against for the longest. Is that so wrong?”
He sighed and leaned back against the wall. “...Nah.”
“See, it’s not old drama,” said Choji. “That’s why we’ve called the two of you here.”
All eyes were on him now.
“First things first, I’m going to apologise to you, Shikamaru.”
“Why?”
“Because I lied to you. Last week, I said Naruto wouldn’t be here.” He spread his hands. “But he’s here because I think the two of you need to have a conversation—the conversation. No more running away from each other. No more insults and hurtful words.”
“We’ve seen where that goes,” said Hinata, looking at Shikamaru. “Right?”
He held her gaze for a few seconds and looked away. The air between them was heavy. There was so much to say that no one could say… anything.
Naruto sighed. “Choji, not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve done but this isn’t going to work.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I think the idea is great—you’ve got the two of us in a room.” He smiled tightly. “But I think you and Hinata should give us some privacy. There are things that we can’t say in front of either of you. These things might hurt to hear, but we have to say them. If you guys are here… we won’t be able to.”
“Weren’t you the one who gave us a speech about saying and hearing uncomfortable truths?” asked Hinata.
Choji got up from the chair. “He’s going to say those truths, Hinata, but they’re not meant for us.” He walked over to his bedroom door and opened it, gesturing to Shikamaru. “They’re meant for him.”
Hinata sighed and walked out of the room, waiting for him outside its threshold. “Can I at least trust that you’ll be civil?”
“Can’t promise that, Hinata, but we’ll do our best. Choji?” Naruto smiled at him and shifted halfway between the foot of the bed and the head. “Thanks, man. I don’t know if you hear this often, but you’re a really dependable guy.”
Instead of replying, Choji slammed the door shut, his ears burning. He could hear Naruto and Shikamaru’s laughter from behind the door and Hinata took one look at him before joining them. They entered the living room where his parents were watching some kind of nature documentary and sat down on the free couch facing the television.
“What’s wrong?” asked his mother.
Choji grunted.
She raised an eyebrow. “Okay then. Hinata, why’s he being all moody?”
“Oh,” she smiled. “It’s nothing, Mrs Akimichi. We just learned your son doesn’t take praise very well.”
His father looked at him and let out a booming laugh. “My little man’s as brave as they come, but when it comes to accepting his dues, he’s as meek as a newborn calf.”
“Dad!” He groaned and slammed his face into his palms. “Stop it!”
To his horror, his mother joined in and he could only hide his face from the world in the hopes they would stop. Choji was never good with praise. He never felt like he deserved it because he was only doing the things he wished people did for him. Treating people in the way he wished to be treated.
There wasn’t anything praiseworthy about it.
He looked up at the ceiling; his two best friends were somewhere up there. Were they listening to each other, or were they just arguing? Choji didn’t know, but in the depths of his heart, he hoped and prayed that when the two of them came down those stairs, they’d be friends again. Because after everything he’d done: following Naruto, searching for Shikamaru, talking to Asuma Sarutobi, confronting Naruto at school, and finally bringing the two of them here.
After all of that, that was the only thing he wanted.
———————————
Shikamaru knew this was coming; he couldn’t escape the events of the last week—not if he wanted to keep being friends with Choji and Hinata. He wasn’t even angry anymore, just tired. Tired of the endless arguments and having to justify himself all the time. If it wasn’t Naruto, it was his parents. If it wasn’t them it was Hinata, Choji’s mother, his teachers.
Practically everyone at this point.
He was tired of being ignored because he was lazy. Nothing he said ever meant anything because everyone assumed he didn’t care about anything but that wasn’t true. He just didn’t care about being a shinobi. No one ever seemed to want to ask what he wanted—it was all about what they wanted him to do.
Despite that, he regretted how things turned out. He didn’t mean to say the things he said. He was just so… angry at Naruto that all the months of his nagging and disregard for Shikamaru’s own opinions came rushing back and he hurt Naruto the only way he knew how. Looking across the room, he saw real anger in Naruto’s eyes. Anger that he was responsible for. His usually kind face twisted into a frown.
He took a breath and stood up, sitting down on the floor and leaning against the bedframe. Now, they were level, and Shikamaru stared directly into his eyes. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t; something about the intensity of his gaze captured his own.
“You were wrong to insult me,” said Naruto. “Why? I offered help and tried to cheer you up after the loss.”
Shikamaru glared. “This isn’t about the fight or anything else that happened after it. This thing between you and me started way before that—you just refused to see it any other way.”
“Oh yeah?” Naruto scoffed. “So, what then? It’s fine you behaved like a dumbass just because we value different things?”
“No!” He clenched his jaw and forced his voice down to a talking level. “No. I’m saying that you don’t seem to care about what anyone thinks!”
“That’s rich coming from you.” Naruto laughed and he felt the anger starting to boil. “You don’t listen to anyone and you don’t give a shit about your future. There’s a whole world out there with people stronger than the Hokage, never mind you and me. Your life will be in danger just by wearing our village’s symbol on your forehead. That doesn’t matter?”
“I never said it didn’t matter!” He was standing now, his shoulders heaving. His face felt hot and his voice cracked, but he ignored it. “It wasn’t me who assumed I didn’t care it was you, Naruto—all of you!”
The room was so quiet they could hear the birds outside Choji’s window. All the anger fell from Naruto’s face and he sighed, walking over to the window and closing it. He brought Choji’s chair with him and set it in front of the bed.
“It’s obvious this isn’t working, so let’s do it differently.” Naruto sat down on the mattress and gestured at the chair. “Take a seat.”
Shikamaru shuffled forward, unsure of what he was planning, but sat down anyway.
“I’m sick of the two of us being stupid about this,” said Naruto. “You’re right, I don’t get you. The way you think makes absolutely no sense to me—I think you can be really frustrating.”
“And you’re not?”
“Even then, everyone’s frustrating sometimes. Hinata can be way too stuck-up and stubborn to the point that she doesn’t listen. Choji’s sometimes too afraid to say things that need to be said—but I guess he’s working on that. Me? I can get carried away with training because… well, because I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” he asked.
Naruto shook his head. “I’ll tell you later. Again, I don’t get your way of thinking. I never gave it a chance before, but if we’re going to get anywhere, I need to understand why you are the way you are. I think you’ve heard a lot about what I think, but what do you think and why?”
“W-What?” Shikamaru leaned back in his chair, scooting away from him.
For a moment, his brain went completely blank—and why wouldn’t it? No one had ever tried to actually understand beyond what was polite. They always gave up once it got to that point so Naruto might’ve been the first person to ask why he thought and acted this way.
“I… I guess I’d like to start with a question.” Shikamaru stopped looking away from him. “What do you want to achieve by being a shinobi?”
He scratched his chin. “To put it simply: I want the power to live a life free from fear.”
“Exactly. Hinata and Choji also want something from being a shinobi. But I don’t. Everything I want starts and ends with living an average life.” He laughed quietly. “It must sound crazy to you. I’m the son of one of the village’s biggest clans and all I want is to live an ordinary life.”
“No, not strange…” Naruto hummed. “But you know you won’t be able to, right? Just by being the only child of your parents, your major life decisions are all picked out for you. You’re in the Academy, you’ll be a shinobi, and you’ll succeed your father—maybe on both counts.”
Shikamaru nodded. “I know, alright? But my bottom line is that I don’t want to. All I want is a family, a nice house, and enough to enjoy myself. I can’t control how I was born, and I know I have duties to my parents and the village. I’ve never said I won’t fulfil them, but why does nothing I want matter?”
“I…” Naruto frowned and clutched his chin. “Let me think for a minute. If I’m going to be honest, I didn’t expect you to say anything except, ‘Work’s hard, don’t wanna do it. I prefer doing nothing.’”
“Glad to disappoint,” Shikamaru replied, snorting softly.
Naruto took a few minutes, humming to himself and frequently looking over at him in mild surprise—as if he was surprised Shikamaru was still there.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re basically telling me you don’t want to live a difficult life? As in, you want a regular family, regular home, decent position so that you don’t have to worry about anything in life, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re also aware that your environment has made a few of those things impossible.”
Shikamaru nodded. “I am.”
“But even then, you want to do… not the bare minimum, but just enough?”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Do you want me to be honest?” asked Naruto, his eyes going from curious to grim.
“...Yeah?” He sat up and eased on the apprehensive frown. “Do you have a problem with anything I’ve said or something?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Remember when I said I work hard out of fear? It’s because the village has a lot of enemies. There’s Orochimaru of the Sannin, and sure he’s been pretty quiet for years now, but what about that lunatic Itachi Uchiha?” Naruto’s smile was brittle. “I’m ignoring so many other things as well. There’s the Stone, who hates our guts, and the Sand.”
“The Sand? Aren’t they our allies?”
“You passed Economics with flying colours and the answer to your question’s right in front of you. Hidden Villages are sustained by trade and missions. The Sand trades pretty frequently with the Land of Fire, but they’re falling on hard times because it’s quickly becoming their primary source of income. How are most missions funded?”
Shikamaru frowned. “Well, you’ve got actual paying clients like regular people, nobles, and businesses, but they make up a minority of the actual mission requests and are mostly low-rank ones assigned to genin and sometimes chunin. Missions above C-rank are paid for by the Daimyo, but a village’s Kage decides what the actual mission is. Kage-decided missions make up the bulk of a hidden village’s mission income.”
Naruto nodded. “The answer to my question wasn’t a massive section in the school textbook, so if you don’t know, I’ll just tell you.”
“...No, I remember reading about it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose to help gather his thoughts. “When the Sand lost the Great War and Lord Third forced them into an alliance with us, the Wind Daimyo requested us for a lot of high-rank missions, not the Sand.”
“And there’s your answer.”
His stomach dropped. “Oh—oh. He did it to strengthen the alliance between us but that’s bullshit—he just doesn’t trust the strength of his country’s shinobi because they lost the war!”
Naruto spread his hands and shrugged. “So where does that land our alliance with the Sand? I bet its people—the shinobi in particular—blame us for their poverty. Why wouldn’t they? It’s a lot easier than committing treason.”
“...They wouldn’t go to war with us, would they? That’d be the same as inviting the Stone to try something and boom—world war.”
“I don’t know, man.” He leaned back on his palms. “I don’t know—and that’s why I’m afraid. The world is at peace right now, but it’s not a stable peace. It was always one enforced using the Fourth Hokage as a deterrent—and when he died, things started going downhill. A world like that? It won’t let you take things easy. Are you sure you want to roll the dice on your dreams like that? On your family or your potential wife and kids?”
Shikamaru looked away, unable to hold the genuine concern in Naruto’s eyes.
It was easy to gripe and groan about the burden of expectations, but sometimes, when was alone at night, his mind asked questions his tongue was terrified to utter. Questions he could ignore by pretending they didn’t exist—he hadn’t spoken them, and no one had asked him to answer. Now, his friend sat there, not only asking those questions but placing them beside actual reality.
His problems—the things he felt angry over—what chance did they stand? And yet, he didn’t feel an ounce of the burning anger coursing through his veins when his mother and father brought up their arguments about reality and consequences.
Naruto leaned forward and intertwined his fingers in front of his face. “I get where you’re coming from—at least, I think I do. It wasn’t really about the hard work more than what it meant you had to do. And honestly? Your dreams are great.”
“Um… thanks, I guess?”
“Just don’t forget that you exist in a world with all of us—people. Some of them won’t hesitate to kill you and everyone you care about. They’re not a distant threat millions of miles away. There might be people in our village who are willing to do horrible things to us. You never know.”
Shikamaru looked down, strangely accepting of the idea. “I guess… I guess I want to be free to choose. To see whether or not what I want will work out.”
“I hear you. We all want different things out of life.” He grimaced and looked away for a second. “...Listen, I know I can get pretty forceful about things. It might have come out of concern and care but I ignored your feelings and thoughts so I’m… I’m sorry for that.”
…There it was. The consideration nobody had thought about giving him before today.
That was why he wasn’t angry.
“For what it’s worth,” Shikamaru sighed, “I’m sorry for… being a dick. I shouldn’t have shot you down like that. …Not by aiming at something I knew was a sore spot. Your timing was atrocious, but that ain’t an excuse for me to lose my cool over offered help instead.”
Naruto smiled and nodded in satisfaction. He stopped and fixed his shirt, going over to the door and opening it wide. “Great—I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
He twisted his neck. “So, we’re cool now, right?”
“I might get annoyed at your laziness now and again.” Naruto chuckled. “That’s just who you are. I know why you’re like that now, and I’ve… mostly accepted it. But yeah, we’re cool.”
He closed the door behind him.
Shikamaru didn’t know what to think for a moment. To have his entire worldview disassembled and restructured to him was… an experience. By the end of it, he was slightly more aware of where he sat in the world.
Where his dreams sat in the world.
His father said it best: people made their own choices in life and whatever came from those choices, the burden of consequences—good and bad—wasn’t just a choice, it was a responsibility. His lack of ambition, no matter what anyone said, remained. But now, reality sat at the edge of his mind.
He wasn’t sure how, but maybe one day, he’d find a balance. One where his dreams and the world sat equally on a scale.
- - -
