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There was this one field in particular that was always quite a bit out of his way no matter where he left from and in which direction he traveled. However, there was something to be said that Shikamaru was always willing to make the bothersome journey—if simply for the opportunity of not being bothered for the remainder of the day.
It was the kind of field with gentle sloping hills and tall meadow grass, with bright yellow wild flowers that grew in rampant scatterings. It got quite hot in the summer with no trees to shield him from the sun, though on the cloudier days Shikamaru liked to make his way to the very center and disappear into the grass.
It was one of such days—hot but overcast, low humidity—when the genin arrived at his preferred spot only to find it already occupied by the unlikeliest of people. His shadow cast a long harsh shape over the page and the figure lounging in the grass; and at his abrupt intrusion, a set of shocking blue eyes glanced up to squint at him—though neither seemed particularly alarmed by the presence of the other.
“Oh, hey, Shikamaru.”
When Naruto had found his chosen spot, he had gently parted the stems of buttercups and settled within their bright cradle. With his signature orange jacket neatly folded and tucked beneath his head, he shifted his attention to the scroll that Iruka-sensei had loaned him on seals.
Rather than warming his forehead in the summer heat and humidity, his hitai-ate hung loosely around his neck, just above the collar of his white short sleeved shirt, while a cool to the touch canteen lay on the grass at his side.
“Naruto,” Shikamaru greets with a touch of surprise coloring his words, “didn’t know you liked to read.”
Rather than answering, the bright haired boy shrugs. “S’too hot to do much else,” Naruto says instead as he uncrosses his ankle from his opposing knee. With a small grunt, he sits up, still squinting up at the other.
“Didya need something, Shikamaru?”
“Nah, I just came out here to cloudgaze,” he explains easily as Naruto shifts a few inches to the side. Shikamaru realizes quickly that he’s making space for him.
Slowly, he eases himself onto the grass beside the jinchuriki as somewhere in the near distance the air hums with the buzzing wings and shrill cry of an insect.
“Didn’t think anyone else came out this far,” the Nara heir remarks as he settles down, arms tucked behind his head and eyes already drifting shut. The sun quickly warm: his skin, and Shikamaru sighs.
Naruto’s borrowed scroll is temporarily forgotten as he watches Shikamaru for a moment. The cogs in his head turn over slowly, cranking away as he works through something the other boy did not bother to speculate on regardless of how much Naruto let it be telegraphed on his sun-kissed face.
“Yeah, me neither,” he finally says before laying back down onto the grass.
A companionable silence settles over them as Naruto returns to his reading.
It was a few more times that they met up with one another in the field—simple and innocent happenstance—before it turned into something a little more intentional. Quiet agreed upon get-togethers in the even smaller pockets of moments between missions and training sessions with their respective teams.
Sometimes Naruto read while Shikamaru napped, and other times they both cloudgazed side by side. Shikamaru would lazily point out various animals and objects before Naruto countered with an interpretation of his own—often something outlandish and imperceivable to Shikamaru (though he suspected that Naruto often said such things just because he could).
On one instance, Shikamaru arrived to find Naruto seated in their usual spot with a small worn basket of clothes and a decent sewing kit spread out around him.
“You can sew?” the Nara heir asks, thin brows climbing up to his jagged hairline as his sandaled feet come to a slow halt.
Naruto pauses, shirt in hand and needle pinched between his fingers as he feeds it through the cotton material with a surprising amount of accuracy and dexterity.
“Oh, yeah,” he replies, sunny yet subdued in his focus. “Ayame-nee taught me. She tried to teach me embroidery, too, but I can’t be bothered.”
Shikamaru hums a small thoughtful sound, and sits down in the grass. The grass has long flattened with the indents of their bodies into a cradle unique to them, and the genin idly notes the way his body just fit in the subtle imprint of his frame in the dirt and grass. What once had been an occasional escape to him has become a routine: known only to him and Naruto but by all means not one intentionally kept a secret. Shikamaru speculates that neither have felt the need to advertise it to their respective friends and teammates, and he has long noted the obvious shift in Naruto when they both sequester away from the public eye together.
“Hey,” he says, though unsure why and where he plans to go with it. Naruto acknowledges him with a small hum, his head turning at a glacial pace as he finishes a neat little stitch before surrendering his entire focus to Shikamaru. The Nara heir isn’t sure why, but it makes something pleasant curl in his stomach—like a too pleased cat.
“I like you like this.”
“Huh—whaddaya mean?”
“You’re calmer,” Shikamary supplies, arms tucked behind his head. Suddenly he finds himself unable to meet Naruto’s gaze: too blue, too intense. He feels too transparent: too honest. His dark gaze drifts towards the cloud filled sky instead(—because it feels safer).
“More settled.”
The response is a small and breathless oh, and for a moment Naruto is quiet as he undoubtedly took a moment to turn Shikamaru’s statement around in his head.
“I guess,” the blond finally says, his own gaze lowering to the needlework in his hands, “it’s because I feel more settled.” The way his voice forms the words imply that there is something else—like an unfinished thought—but Shikamaru thinks he knows. He feels the way the rest of the sentence hangs over the air like a gauzy veil, and for a moment he forgets how to breathe as his eyes snap back to Naruto.
“Good.”
Shikamaru takes that moment, the statement, and the feeling, and he folds it into something small before sliding it between his ribs. A favorite moment, he thinks, a memory to treasure and look back upon when something undoubtedly coaxes it to the forefront of his mind.
Something loosens in his chest, and he’s less alarmed when he wishes he could fold Naruto into the small spaces between his ribs too.
Sometimes after spending half the day out in the field, they get ramen together; and sometimes when it’s still too hot, they return to Naruto’s apartment for cold noodles and pickled things.
Once again, Shikamaru is pleased to learn things about Naruto—things that make sense and things he would have never guessed about the other. For one, he likes to keep his space tidy while still managing to maintain a lived in feeling—and sure—part of it might be that Naruto doesn’t own many things, but the things he does keep around seem to have settled in their spaces with an air of permanence.
A handful of knick knacks and mementos that no doubt possess warm sentiments, some well loved books, and quite a few potted plants that seem to be happy and thriving.
There’s a photo of Naruto and Ikaru-sensei from their academy days, another of him posing cheerily beside the hokage, and a third one of him with his team.
He learns that Naruto can cook decently well, and that he has a small assortment of cookbooks that live next to the small collection of green onions growing in jars—all lined up in a neat little line along the window sill above the stove and counter. On his balcony, nestled between his bed to the right and dresser to the left, is a small thriving garden of fresh herbs and a proud tomato plant that Shikamaru can’t help but marvel at every time he notices an increase in height, a new leaf, or the sudden appearance of a small pale green fruit.
It’s how Shikamaru learns that Naruto and his teammate Ino are acquainted: perhaps not well, but enough to be friendly.
Ino confirms it the next day during their morning warm up, not denying their acquaintance like Shikamaru half expects her to. Apparently Naruto has been a regular at her family’s nursery for a few years, buying seeds and supplies—and less often nowadays: for advice and guidance.
She asks after Naruto’s tomato plant, and Shikamaru offers her a short generic answer on how the plant is doing before refocusing on his stretches. He ought to be glad that Naruto has positive relationships with others within the village; especially with how harsh the village’s treatment of him has been his entire life. However, Shikamaru can’t help the unpleasant feeling budding in his chest in response to the knowledge that Ino has been privy to the small hidden facets of Naruto’s secret life.
The little novel aspects Shikamaru has somewhere down along the line learned to recognize as something to be treasured and guarded.
When Naruto just lets himself breathe and just be.
The first time Shikamaru brings Naruto home with him, he notices the quick slip of surprise across his mother’s features before she manages to mask it. She ushers both boys further into the house and demands to know if they’ve had lunch yet as she leads them into the kitchen. Naruto is awkward and unsure as she subsequently starts pulling out lunch items, commenting on his short stature. The implications land poorly, and Shikamaru tries not to wince.
“All the subtlety of a bull,” his father sighs—exasperated but equally fond—from where he’s lounging at the zataku in the adjoining room.
Shikamaru shares a long-suffering look with the older Nara who invites both boys to join him at the low table, and seamlessly draws Naruto’s attention into easy conversation. He keeps to safe topics, like his on-going shinobi training, missions, and the likes; and Naruto seems genuinely happy to entertain his father’s questions.
Shikamaru notes the way some of the tension bleeds from his friend’s form, and he’s sure that his father notices it too.
The Nara boy finds himself watching Naruto as he talks, and something in his chest unravels further as something light and fragile settles over the room. He secretly hopes that the feeling becomes more permanent.
Shikamaru remembers with vivid detail Sakura’s loud disdain and Sasuke’s cold indifference towards Naruto back in their academy days. He’s unsure why he thinks that the disdain and indifference hasn’t changed much since the three have become a team, so he’s surprised when the knocking at Naruto’s door transforms from polite to obnoxious (or the fact that they had sought out Naruto at all).
He hears Sakura’s distinct and shrilly admonishing in the form of Naruto’s name come from the hallway. The Nara had of course hoped that the lack of answer would have deterred her, but no such luck—perhaps courtesy of the open balcony door that’s in easy view of the street.
How bothersome, Shikamaru thinks as he musters up the care to rise from the bed [1] to answer the door.
“Hey, he’s not home right now,” he says in lieu of a greeting as he opens the door to reveal Naruto’s two teammates.
“Eh—Shikamaru-san? What’re you doing here?” Sakura asks, open confusion on her face. Shikamaru hates the way her agitation sloughs from her face when faced with someone other than Naruto.
“Hanging out,” he answers simply(—a little more clipped than he means to, but he isn’t feeling particularly bad about it either). His arm rests on the handle on the inside of the door while the other braces against the frame; and he uses both his tall frame and the bulk of the door to block Naruto’s space from view as something protective surges within him.
“Oh.”
Sakura’s answer is simple—as if she hadn’t considered that hanging out was something that Shikamaru and Naruto did. That it was a frequent enough of a thing that Naruto would leave Shikamaru unattended and alone in his home.
The interaction lulls and quickly turns awkward as Sasuke seems unwilling to participate, Sakura running out of things to say, and Shikamaru wholly uninterested in continuing the conversation any further. A stalemate that breaks when the outside door downstairs opens, and Naruto’s relaxed humming fills the cavernous hallway below and echoes all the way up to the second floor. Moments later he eclipses the top of the stairs, dressed in dark joggers, sandals, and a white t-shirt. Held loosely in his fingers is a single grocery bag.
The humming stops as he comes to a halt, blinking at Sasuke’s sour expression and Sakura’s befuddled one.
“Oh, hey, what’s up?” He says—still sedated in the way when he’s all soft and relaxed—something that Shikamaru has identified as a direct response to his own mellow calm.
“Hey, Naruto,” Sakura says, her earlier momentum waning as her posture turns uncertain. “We wanted to see if you wanted to do some training today.”
At her request, Shikamaru prepares himself to head out, but stills when Naruto declines and boldly steps past both of his teammates towards the door. In turn, Shikamaru steps back and lets the door fall open all the way.
“Tomorrow, though,” Naruto says, pausing and turning to grin at the other two, “I wanna practice some stuff first, ‘ttebayo.” Sakura nods, expression unfocused as if in a bit of a daze. She realizes a little bit too late that Sasuke has left her side and is already descending the stairs before she has enough sense to rush after him.
“Weird,” Naruto mumbles as he steps fully into the apartment and kicks the door shut with his foot. “Anyway, I got your drink.” He slips out of his sandals while rummaging through the bag and passes the cold bottle of tea to Shikamaru. The Nara accepts the drink, his mind reeling a little. At least the cold condensation gives him something to focus on.
“You’re not gonna go and train with them?”
“Nah,” Naruto says easily as he pads further into his apartment, “m’hanging out with you, ain’t I?”
And damnit all to Hell if the easy way Naruto says it doesn’t do something strange to Shikamaru. He thinks he might want to kiss the other, though he’s not sure what for.
The first time Shikamaru kisses Naruto it comes as a surprise to them both. The Nara youth isn’t sure what possessed him to lean over and clumsily press his lips against the other’s, only that some deep rooted compulsion bid him to when he caught Naruto grinning tenderly at the fawn chewing on his shirt.
“… hey, what was that for?” Naruto asks with a dazed blink when they pull apart, the speckled fawn still cradled in his arms while the rest of the herd mill about the clearing.
“I… don’t know,” Shikamaru answers, just as dazed. Vaguely he’s aware of the tops of his cheeks and ears warming up, and he imagines that they’re just as red as Naruto’s. His panic suddenly mounts: crawling and cold.
What has he done? Distantly he thinks back to the day when Naruto and Sasuke had accidentally kissed in class and the disastrous chaos that followed after. Shikamaru prepares for potential outrage, and he vows to weather it with grace and hope that the kiss doesn’t lead to a fall out between them. Damnit—he really does like Naruto—and would like to have him in any capacity possible. The prospect of losing the other’s friendship stings more than Shikamaru could have ever anticipated.
“Well, can y’do it again?”
Wait—
“‘Cause that was a bit lousy, ’ttebayo.”
—did that mean—
Shikamaru thinks through a haze that he must have been too slow, because Naruto grabs him by his vest with one hand and tugs him down for another kiss that breaks when the fawn between their bodies bleats.
—yeah, okay—
Naruto is right. The first kiss had been lousy.