endgames | 025 -- [Action || Voice]

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025 -- [Action || Voice]

[When Shikamaru heads down to Asuma's apartment Monday morning, he finds it empty of everything but Kurenai's things and a silver lighter standing on the table. It's wrong, but he doesn't give in to the false hope.

Of course it would stay. Even though Shikamaru gave it back to him, the lighter stopped being Asuma's the moment he picked it off his dying body.

Kurenai must've stepped out before it happened. She's a ninja, and not so senseless to have left the door wide open and run off in her grief. And so he waits for her, and tries to find his words.

After he leaves Kurenai, he has to tell Ino. Team 8 he'll find in person too - he has a request for them on top of this. It's been too long since they've heard a stir from their enemies.]

[It's well past midnight before an announcement comes, after he's made this post and spent a few hours going over the discussions there. When people are either busy with the information he gave them, or asleep.

He smokes a cigarette on his way back to his apartment in the night air, putting it out before he steps into the building, his posture falsely relaxed until he steps into his own room.]

Sarutobi Asuma is gone. [There's a pause and- no, he doesn't think it was mentioned.] Also, Haruno Sakura returned to her world a few weeks ago, for anyone who knew her.

Funnily enough, I haven't seen that masked Akatsuki guy in a while either...

[Too many people to filter that too. It's vague enough, but anyone who needs to know should get what he means. It would have been better news if he'd known before.

He'll answer journal comments in the morning.]

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[Neji's not all that good at sympathy, but this is something he can't let pass without comment.]

I'm sorry to hear it. That extra time with him...

[That's because even Neji knows to value his comrades. What a change, from when they were younger.]

I'm grateful for it. But extra time is all it was, from the moment he got here.

[And Neji can imagine all too well the bittersweet feeling of seeing a dead loved one again. There are faces he fears arriving in Luceti...]

Gratitude and pain are not mutually exclusive.

[A hesitation. He's not good at offering comfort, but he wants to try.]

If you are in need of... anything...

[Company, is what he means, but can't find a good way to say it that isn't pushing himself forward too far.]

[...he can understand what you're trying to do, Neji, and he appreciates it. At the same time, he doesn't know what to do with it, like he doesn't know what to do about this.

It's for a similar reason that day of the funeral he dressed in his mourning clothes only to find his feet taking a path far away from the cemetery.]

...your birthday is coming up soon.

[Shikamaru can't be bothered to remember his own birthday most of the time, so this is an obvious diversion. At the same time, to him it's not a subject change at all.]

[Gee, Shikamaru, be less subtle about your diversions, why don't you? But on the other hand, it is an answer, in its own way.]

... It is. Not that I would be taking the time to celebrate it, were we at home.

[Because there's more important things to do on the battlefield. But right now, with cleanup starting to take reality and nothing else to do... why not?]

Parties are troublesome. [So. Totally agreeing.] But the restaurants here are decent.

Mm. So I've gathered.

[It's nice when agreements don't have to be spoken aloud.]

There is one I've been intending to try... assuming it survived intact, of course.

The Seventh Heaven?

Mm. That's the one.

I heard repairs finally kicked back in there. It'll probably be doable in a few hours.

It's a plan, then.

[And if Shikamaru wants to call it celebrating Neji's birthday, well... that's fine.]

[Hey, it's hanging out. Nothing wrong with that.]

You can invite other people too, if you want. Either way, I guess I'll see you later.

See you then.

[He might invite one or two people, but more likely, he'll keep it to just the two of them. There's nothing wrong with quiet.]

[Nope, nothing at all. Quiet is blessed, says the guy who's grown up around too many troublesome women.

Also should we thread this or would you like to handwave...]

[With the full agreement of the guy who grew up in the midst of false serenity.

Also, I'm up for threading it out if you've got the time to spare...]

[ALWAYS. And so...

Actually, he has no idea what time Neji wanted to do this thing. Welp, he was in town anyways, meeting Katara's future granddaughter (wow what a weird thought), so he'll stop in on the restaurant and see if Neji's been around there at all. If not he can figure out an actual time.]

[Well, it's roughly the dinner-ish sort of hour, right? Neji knows they didn't talk about time, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to wander down and keep an eye out for Shikamaru.

Convenient, that. There's the spiky head right over there, and so he saunters in his friend's direction.]

There you are.

Aa... [He turns.] Sorry. Did I hold you up?

Not at all. I just got here. Shall we go in?

[That smile's a little off -- but Neji understands why. He'd be surprised if Shikamaru were showing no effects from Asuma's disappearance.]

Hoo, lucky timing.

[And sure, sounds like a good move. He goes past to find a seat. Just them, huh? ...he'll grab a table for four anyways. If no one else is coming, he can use one of the chairs as a footstool.]

Indeed.

[Table for four works fine for him; it's less intimate in appearance, an subtle invitation for others to join, if any of their friends happen to see them.]

So. Things seem to have... settled a little, after all that.

[His first real experience with the insanity of Luceti. It's unnerving.]

Yeah. It's not usually so intense. [He picks up a menu, and puts up his feet.] You managed throughout it all right?

[Neji takes his own menu, studying it with seeming attention, but his mind is still on the conversation more than anything.]

I managed, yes. Is it too much to hope that those events were rather unusual for Luceti?

[Because as much as the transformations he endured previously were irritating, they were much less catastrophic as a whole.]

I won't say they're not frequent. But it was a surprising turn for everyone involved.

[That should tell Neji something.]

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