025 -- [Action || Voice]

[endgames]

[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.]

Comments

[generalflirt]

[He shrugs] A mission I have in mind runs a risk to your health, but I don't know the woman well enough to sabotage her.

[endgames]

[Mission, huh?]

Now's not a good time.

[generalflirt]

I know. I can't run it until I confirm all the players anyway, and even then I'll need your genius to make it work.

[endgames]

[You sure you can rely on that?

Then again he promised they would, whether or not Masaomi said he couldn't say such a thing. ...and despite breaking it in the worst way today.]

Okay.

[generalflirt]

But, since it is my business- [He gets into a more comfortable sitting position and... decides to be cruel. Not purposelessly, but.] I didn't get to talk much with the man. Tell me about Asuma-san?

[endgames]

[Hrm. It's almost too soon. He really just wants to be anywhere but here.

...maybe if he starts at the basics?]

Sarutobi Asuma. [...] I've never respected or admired anyone more than him.

[generalflirt]

[He makes a noise of confirmation. Go on]

[endgames]

He was the son of the Third Hokage - one of the most powerful ninja ever known, and the leader of Konoha. They didn't get along well, which I know bothered him after the old man died.

[...] He was occupied saving my life when that happened, actually, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

[generalflirt]

Yeah, keep is flowing.

[endgames]

He left the village for a while when he was around my age - officially, not as a missing-nin. He was in the Daimyo's personal guard: one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja. They were disbanded for a while after he left - there was a messy coup within the group, and to make it short, in the end only two of the twelve lived.

[The group's been reinstated, Shikamaru remembers. Mostly because a month before Asuma died, he declined the Daimyo's invitation to join.]

Got a bounty on his head in the black market for it. Came back a chain smoker, too. [He wrinkles his nose in distaste, and looks at the wall again.] Shit smelled awful - he was always getting smoke in our eyes when Ino and Chouji and I were put in his cell.

[generalflirt]

[And yet you're coming in smelling like smoke?

...Stupid. That's stupid sentimentality. But he says nothing]

[endgames]

I remember him complaining at first that he got the short hand. "A loudmouth, a glutton, and a slacker." is what he'd say. He had two Dead Lasts, and Ino was boy crazy... [He shakes his head. They really were something else back then.]

He resorted to bribery to get us to do stuff. Ino wasn't hard, he just let her be boss of us guys. When we trained well, he rewarded Chouji by taking everyone out to barbecue. About got himself in debt like that.

[generalflirt]

Hooh, that says something about a ninja's salary.

[endgames]

And an Akimichi's appetite. Chouji likes to order two of everything off the menu.

[generalflirt]

[Hm. Oh well] And then?

[endgames]

Then he just had to motivate me.

[generalflirt]

More about the man.

[endgames]

[It's connected, sort of, in that Shikamaru was the one he spent the most time with.

He doesn't say these things to talk about himself - he hates doing that - but the amount of pride Asuma took in him... well, it's stupid, but it is who he was.]

He taught me shogi, and lost every game after. I spent more time with him than my parents, but he didn't seem to mind having a dumb kid like me bothering him and cutting into his free time.

He tricked me into an IQ test, and wouldn't stop bragging about it or how soon I was promoted to chuunin, which was troublesome. Getting the vest is supposed to be a rite of passage to adulthood, but our clans do things differently.

[He flicks one ear now with his finger, hitting the stud.] He had the final say, and he waited two years until Ino and Chouji were promoted too.

[It's not enough to say what he was like, you see, because that would never describe it. It's in the things he'd do. And he did a lot for Shikamaru.

.....but there was another side of him, with things he'd do for someone else.]

And it was around that time I think he fell in love.

[generalflirt]

[There's a lot he could pick apart there, not to mention some things he'll probably flicker back to. But for the time being-] Love, is it?

[endgames]

Yeah.

[And he sighs, because it's hard not to think back to Kurenai this morning. But he smiles anyways.]

It might have gone on even longer - to be honest, it's hard telling when it truly began. People thought they were dating for years, but they always said otherwise.

They were private about it, but I know he loved her for a long time. We were always running into Team 8 - that was her team. They'd take walks and get dango, and deny it all the while. He was a dork around her - it was gross and they never even kissed in front of us.

[At least that was his twelve-year-old view of it.]

After they didn't have teams anymore, I'd catch him at her house more often than his. He'd buy flowers and never say who they were for, but everyone knew.

[generalflirt]

Hoooh, so he's what you'd call "smooth."

[endgames]

I don't know how, but he must've been to have gotten with her in the end.

The truth of it remains between him and her, though. [Kenta circles around, and he pets him once again.] All I know is that it was special... something just for them, removed from a shinobi's regular way of life.

[generalflirt]

Ah, how so?

[endgames]

I told you he likes [-it's a slip, and his eyes flash but he won't backtrack to correct it-] to brag, right?

He wouldn't, when it came to her. Not to the Third, not to me.

But her place is where he would go, before we left on every mission. He'd stand across from her balcony when he didn't think we were waiting on him. If she was there, she would always smile.

[It's going to be a while before she smiles again.]

[generalflirt]

Liked. [Masaomi corrects quietly for Shikamaru around the time Shikamaru is mid-way through the rest of his explanation. Dead, dead. You can't think in present tense for it. There's no luxury for that. But.]

Hooh. That's a quaint couple though. Nooot sure it tells me as much about the man himself.