Shikamaru yawned. It was getting late, and the heat was maddening. It was making him sleepy. He waited, his back leaning against the wall of somebody else’s house.
Konoha was getting ready to turn on its street lamps. Workers trudged silently to their homes. The Shogi boards were brought out into the doorways and families gathered around to watch the game. Children were dragged, kicking and screaming, by their parents, who in turn complained loudly about how they would have to device new methods to remove the dirt stains out of the young ones’ dirty garments. Old men took out the bottles and croaked to a lousy meaningless tune. Birds settled in their nests and the cats came out of their slumber.
The ambassador is late.Shikamaru scratched his head and turned his gaze upwards to look at the reddening evening sky. The chuunin stood there silently as he watched the golden whispy masses float above him.
The clouds had always been a big part of Shikamaru’s life. They looked so free and detached, floating at their own pace, unperturbed by what went on around them. They mingled and morphed, but never seemed to mind. They had no friends or family to protect and worry about, no G-cupped hokage to take orders from, no deadlines, and no alarm clocks. They were everything that he couldn’t find on earth.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Shikamaru turned towards the familiar voice and yawned.
“Hey,” he grinned, scratching his head once more. Temari smiled apologetically as she walked towards him.
“Watching the clouds again I suppose?”
“The usual.”
Temari smiled. Shikamaru’s gaze turned back onto the clouds.
“You look so philosophical.”
The chuunin laughed.
“Hmm.” Temari followed his gaze and settled her own on the golden shapes. “Why do you do it?” She had asked him that question many times before, but this was probably the only time he was awake to hear her say it.
He turned to look at her. She was looking up intently at the sky, the golden rays dancing in ripples on her skin, trying hard to figure out what he had been looking at. He smiled.
“What do you see in them?” She asked once more, still not taking her teal eyes away from the object of her fascination.
He laughed and cupped his hands behind his head. “I just like watching them. Up there it seems like a whole other world, one that’s free from war and noise and sorrow. Even when it rains, it looks so… other-worldly. The earth and the sky… they are two different things. Like oil and water. They don’t mix. Sometimes…” His voice trailed off into a contemplative whisper.
“Sometimes?”
“Sometimes I wish I were one of those clouds. It’s like… it’s like this freedom that you can’t find anywhere else on earth.”
“Freedom?” She thought about it for a moment. “Is there something holding you down here?”
“Hmm.” He stole a sly glance at the jounin. “Lots of things,” he replied, shifting his gaze to his feet. “Well,” he added quickly, straightening up. “We should get going before it gets dark.” He proceeded to walk in the direction of the Konoha gates, his hands still cupped behind his head. Temari silently followed him, her mind still fixed on what he had said about the clouds.
Shikamaru was assigned to escort Temari, Suna’s ambassador to Konoha, back to her hometown. Usually Shikamaru would just walk with her up to the gates, after which she continued the rest of the journey on her own. However, the conferences had taken unusually long today and Temari had to commence her journey home late.
The evening sky looked bright and burning just now in Konoha, but she knew it would be black and chilly when they reached Suna. The desert was always harsh. Daytime brought searing temperatures and scorching winds, while the nights brought stillness and biting cold.
Shikamaru glanced at her and smiled. She was still searching the sky for something out of reach. He reached for her hand and took her gently by the wrist. “What are you looking for up there?”
Temari gasped at his touch. She felt his fingers grip her. They were gentle, not rough. His touch didn’t hurt her. His touch was different.
Not like his… His
grip was different… Memories that she had pushed to the back of her mind began to slowly resurface. She remembered clearly how he had held her wrists in the rain, demanding, almost begging her to…
No! She felt his fingers tighten around her wrists. She felt her arms going numb. She remembered the violet eternity that was his eyes. His voice…
No!Temari gasped again. She looked at Shikamaru confusedly. “What…?”
Shikamaru’s thumb softly caressed her wrist-bone. He was still smiling. “Well… I only asked what you were looking for up there. You seem to be a little preoccupied with watching the sky tonight.” He chuckled. “Thinking of taking up the hobby after me eh?”
Temari lowered her eyes and forced a smile. “I don’t know…” Her voice was a whisper.
“Hmm?” Shikamaru leaned forward towards her.
“I don’t know… what I’m looking for. May be it’s like you said… freedom?”
“Freedom? From what?” His expressive eyebrows arched pointedly conveying a rare quizzical, yet concerned, expression on his usually unenthusiastic features.
She averted her eyes. She couldn’t tell him. She didn’t know what she felt herself. It was hate, she told herself over and over. But sometimes she wondered if it really
was hate.
She still heard his voice in the depths of her dreams.
Wait for me… She had waited. She still waited. He was the reason she woke up every morning. The chance to see him again, to hurt him, to loathe his existence; that was what kept her going. But she wasn’t sure if it was loathing. Not anymore. The many months that had passed had changed something in her.
He saved me…But he had saved her only so that she could have another chance to kill him. Yes, he wanted so badly to die. And he had chosen
her. He had chosen her to be the one tormented and mentally tortured so much that her will to kill him would consume her. It would consume her so much that she would finally be able to do it, finally be able to complete his selfish desire to end his life and test his faith. But she knew she couldn’t. It wasn’t because she refused to give him the satisfaction of finally getting what he wanted. It was just that she
couldn’t.
He played with her mind even when he was not around. He held a strange power over her; a grip over her very existence that she had tried so hard to shake.
You bastard.“Temari?”
Let me go…“Nothing, it’s nothing.”
Freedom… from you…“Really…?”
Yes, that’s what I want… That was what I was looking for… up there…Temari looked up and smiled at Shikamaru. His look of genuine concern touched her. “Yes, really. I don’t really know what I’m looking for up there. But I suppose I do agree with you, about the whole thing being very other-worldly.”
And today the clouds are red…Shikamaru grinned and started to walk, her hand in his. Something was bothering her, he knew it. He could feel it. But he didn’t feel like dwelling on it. Working out a woman’s mind was a scary project, even if it was Temari. No, it was scarier
because it was Temari.
She glanced once more up at the sky as it grew darker by the moment.
The clouds. The clouds keep morphing and moving. She stared at the red swirl at the back of Shikamaru’s chuuunin vest as he walked slightly in front of her. “Tell me, genius, what good is a world of peace and tranquility if everything in it keeps changing?”
“You know, everything could just change for the better.” He laughed inwardly at her sudden equivocally philosophical mood she had decided to adopt for the day.
“But it doesn’t ever work that way, does it?”
“Not always, but that’s the beauty of change. You don’t really know when it’s going to get better.”
“It’s not fair…”
“It’s troublesome, but that’s just how things are.”
Tch!
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