Five days later, it just hit me:
Was Shikamaru sleeping with Temari, knowing he was in love with her, while still believing that she didn't want anything serious with him?
"If I'd thought there was a chance you would want to hear it".
Is he out of his mind? 😱 Just in some kind of denial too?
OR does he literally mean that she didn't want to know how he felt (similar to when she didn't ask what smoking helped him with) rather than that he didn't think, even a little, that she felt the same way about him?
In my drabble dreamland (the ongoing fantasy where i write out shikamaru's pov at different points in the story), there'll be a more narrative answers to this, but on the off-chance i don't rally, i want to give a real response to you!
(also, just caveat, this is my hc and intention while writing it, but as long as it's not part of the "official" fic, it's not officially part of the story! his intentions/feelings are still very open to interpretation! this was just my intention!!)
I think both of your options are true and go hand in hand. He definitively does not believe, throughout the entire, that their level of feeling is the same. He recognizes, very early on, that he could, and will, fall in love with her. And that his job/career doesn't allow for that. And so tries to create distance ("you're unavoidable") throughout the story (that he sometimes fails at. and, throughout, she relentlessly tries to unite them).
And then when they do sleep together, he knows, at that point (obviously), that the attraction from her is more than just a flirtation, but she's clearly not interested in further pursuit ("there is nothing ongoing to discuss"). And then also makes clear in everything she does (and says explicitly to him, but also in just her interaction with the world) that she has no interest in leaving her job. That her work is her priority.
Imo he absolutely knows she's interested in him in a major way (she's risking a lot just in having sex with him) -- and knows, probably, they would be together if circumstances were different -- but he also believes she's not nearly as interested in him (not, like, let's-quit-our-jobs-and-be-together-interested) as he is in her. So to answer your question, he definitely thinks she is interested in the same way, just not even close to the same extent.
And thus, because of that, he believes she has no interest in hearing him say he's serious. Why would she want to hear that when she's not serious about him?
