From here w/ @thirdstartokonoha
temari lifts her head from her hands, disappointment filling the surfaces of her face to find that it’s chouji in front of her and not the man she really wants to see. she had known that it wasn’t shikamaru from the sound of his footsteps, the pattern of his breathing, the way the other had hesitated slightly before asking the question, but she’s still upset. she stares at chouji, feeling somewhat DESOLATE and void of the emotional space required to discuss her emotions. shikamaru usually didn’t require words from her, and she’s at a loss trying to force some out to give to chouji, to let him know what happened.
suddenly, temari realizes something significant: maybe shikamaru had sent chouji to talk to her. for whatever reason, her boyfriend feels like he is not capable of discussing this with her anymore.
him not sharing his feelings openly is what had landed them in this mess in the first place, if you asked temari. she felt forced to coax his emotions out of him, and when that hadn’t worked too well, she had yanked them out. it’s understandable that he hadn’t liked it, but it was not understandable to temari that he had kept them from her in the first place, lied to her about them, and tried to insist that it didn’t even bother him that she didn’t want to move here.
“did he tell you?” temari croaks. her voice lacks strength and clarity, causing her to almost sound like someone else. “did he tell you that i said no?”
she COULDN’T DO IT. she can’t leave behind everything that she has ever known, abandoning her village, desecrating her family line, leaving her brothers to fend for themselves because she fell in love. she can’t subject shikamaru to a lifetime of stares, muttering about how the nara clan has CHANGED, how they never would have allowed this just a few years ago. she can’t cause irreparable damage to both his reputation and her own; she can’t move here not being able to run missions, having to sit in that house all day and pretend it isn’t eating her away inside, hide from her husband how miserable she is.
it has NOTHING to do with not loving him. she wasn’t previously aware of how much love she had to GIVE until she fell for shikamaru. it has nothing to do with her not wanting to; if it were just about her, if she, the person, was the only factor, she would have said yes in half a heartbeat. but the issue, if you asked temari, wasn’t even that she had said NO, it was that shikamaru insisted he understood. he insisted that it didn’t bother him, that they could go on like this, that they could get de facto married or whatever, the most official thing that didn’t involve any changing of citizenship.
you’re lying to me. temari had accused him. it bothers you. i know it does.
it rockets through her memory with the same ferocity that everything has been for the last forty-five minutes. it hurts, maybe from the strength of shikamaru’s denial or from the potency of her own words, asking him to leave her alone so she could think. definitely–not maybe–the look on his face when he had agreed and left her alone. there’s a storm coming in, and it isn’t even helping. the torment in the sky offers no soothing balm for the torment in temari’s heart.
she’s staring at chouji, the way she has been since he got onto the roof, and she wants, more than anything, for him to get it. “if it were just about me, i would marry him tomorrow.” she needs chouji to believe that, as shikamaru’s best friend. “but he can’t see the damage it would do to have me here. i can’t ruin his life like that.”
the wind picks up, almost violent, and thunder claps in the distance, far from them, but approaching. maybe chouji will invite her over; she doesn’t think she can go home.
“please.” she asks. “tell me i’m not wrong.”
“He didn’t tell me directly. But it’s Taiyaki Tuesday ’nd he didn’t show up. I kinda figured out the rest just from knowin’ how Shikamaru is.” And Temari had just confirmed his hypothesis.
Despite the windy weather looking as if it could sour at any minute, Chouji plops himself down next to Temari after hearing all she has to say. The Akimichi is silent for awhile, digesting all the things Temari said both verbally and through body language. Holding silence was something Chouji was good at; A silence that wasn’t judgemental or tense, but a silence that gave a chance to just be.
Though all she said was that she didn’t want to ruin Shikamaru’s life, Chouji wonders if there was more to the story. No, there had to be. He digs into his pocket to retrieve the wrapper of a protein bar. He fidgets with it while he thinks. It had to be more than about what changes she’d bring for his best buddy. It had to also be the potential changes for her. Leaving her two younger siblings behind, the village she was so proud of. The love and respect she’d gained from Suna’s civillians. It was a lot. In the last few years, he’d gained a lot of love and respect from Konoha. The idea of leaving that behind tugs at his heart strings.
But he knows Shikamaru saw things differenly. Shikamaru acted with his mind rather than his heart.
“Shikamaru sees everything like a puzzle, yanno?” Of course she knows. He continues on. He realizes he’s avoided her question, but he wasn’t sure if she wanted an actual answer. “Somethin’ to be solved. He uses his head instead of his heart. When things aren’t goin’ the way his brain’s calculated, especially when it comes t’feelings ‘nd wants n’desires, he doesn’t use his heart t’figure things out. He uses his brain. It’s frustrating sometimes.”
There’s a sigh. “Rather than thinking about how he should talk to you about this, he’s probably trying to calculate how likely it’d be that you’d change yer mind with how your interactions have gone thus far. Or tryin’ to determine what his mistake was.” He turns his attention to her, giving her a weak smile. “Unfortunately, it’s something we gotta call him out on sometimes.” We. Of course Chouji sees Temari as important and someone that will be in his life for a long time. “Not everything’s a puzzle— ‘Specially people.”
The thunder rolls above them and Chouji lifts his gaze from Temari’s distressed face to the sky. “S’gonna storm soon. Let’s talk at my place where it’ll stay warm n’ dry. I can make us some Taiyaki with red bean paste.”