endgames | 025 -- [Action || Voice]

Entry tags:

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Naaah. Too troublesome. Easier to get cereal.

Why would you get cereal after eatin' ramen? [He meant right now.]

-oi, if you meant here, what's the point? We came all this way, and you're eating ramen now.

'Cause it's good! I could still go for some more.

Maah... Just order another bowl then. I'm not stopping you.

[The stuff here is pretty great after all, with Sanji as the head chef.]

[Naruto nods, about to do it when he remembers why he took Shikamaru out here in the first place. He falls silent and moves a bit in his seat.]

... You wanna talk?

[Not missing a beat. Naruto's silence was telling to what was coming - he could read it in his face, and prepared.]

Tch. You can't talk and eat at the same time?

You know how that sounds. [Sounds like a whole lot of disgusting.]

Never stopped you when we were kids.

Doesn't help when I get all my food inside my journal... [Are you deflecting the conversation topic, Shikamaru. It's quite effective.]

[So far only Masaomi has been blunt enough to not let him get away with it. Good practice, this has been, even if he knows it can only go on for so long.]

Be grateful you don't have a huge gut, Naruto. The way you eat, it's amazing you're not mistaken for an Akimichi.

... 'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult. [Give it another minute or so of this before he catches on. He's just a little grateful for normal conversation after everything that happened in the village and on the draft.]

Not from me, it isn't.

[Naras are too close to the Akimichis for it to be, not to mention one is his best friend.]

Haha... thanks, I guess! [He guesses. Hopefully he never tries to kill people for calling him fat.]

... We gonna talk?

Go place your order.

[Not deflecting anymore. Just implying things aren't so serious. Get more food if you're hungry. He should be about done with his own food by then.]

[Just gonna lean back a bit with no words. See how serious he is? Not even gonna bother eating.]

[...so it's gonna be like that, huh?

Well Naruto can open with whatever he wants to say. Shikamaru has nothing. Unless something is said, he'll continue to slowly finish off his breakfast, eyes trained on his food.]

[It's gonna be just like that. Naruto smiles faintly.]

This helping any? [The going out and eating.]

It was.

Didn't want me to bring it up?

[He doesn't answer at first, poking at the remaining noodles some more with his chopsticks.]

...I'm not cut out for so much heavy conversation.

[Naruto looks over to him.]

Not too sure about that. [Shikamaru has done heavy conversation like this before, and handled it well. He even took Naruto out of his huge funk back home.]

[It gets tiring, though. And that's all his conversations have been for the last month. There was the mission where Masaomi could've died, then this business with Bil... that stretched on for a while.

The last week has probably been the worst, though. He took up the duty of playing decoy and watched someone following his lead get killed, only to come back to find out Temari died too. She's still not back. He spent four days poisoned in the clinic too anxious to sleep properly, and now... there's all this.

There's nothing he wants more right now than to not think of that stuff. At the same time, he knows it was only so long this could remain a normal conversation. Still, he yawns purposefully and tries to look bored.]

[Yeah, he notices that. And Naruto also knows at least half of those things and that they're pretty much piling up on Shikamaru like a bomb of stress waiting to explode. The thing is, Naruto doesn't want to sit to the side and let that kind of bomb explode in his friend's face like that.

Naruto leans back a bit more, making sure not to fall back in his seat but also to relax.]

You can't just sit there tryin' not to talk about it when you didn't even try sayin' you were alright when I asked. Gotta talk about it eventually, right? [Better sooner than later. Get it out, all that crap.]

[...aa. So that answers that.]

I don't see the point. [He shrugs.] I won't lie about how I feel, but even if it hurts now, eventually I'll move on from it. So it's not like I need to dwell on the bad.

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]

[Action]