"a date, huh?" the words slip serenely off her lips, as though no part of her is aware her entire life is about to change. she lets him sweat, too, controlling herself and breathing in through the anticipation in the air between them. only when he asks 'you don't want to?' meekly, like he really thinks she might say no, does she finally let herself grin. hands on her hips, she bestows the full power of her radiant smile on him. "mendokusee."
what, exactly, was shikamaru thinking, asking the woman he’d worked so hard to push away out on a date? it was as though he assumed she would forget the way he’d treated her for two whole years and jump into his arms with an exuberant yes falling from her lips. (he knows better, of course; suna no temari would not cry out her answer for all to hear while jumping into the arms of a man who, up until a little over an hour ago, had made her cry. neither was she the type of woman to answer such a question with exuberance.)
though his hands are stuffed deep within his pockets (his go-to defense mechanism), he can’t help the anxiety plastered across his face. temari is taking an awfully long time to answer his question, which has him incredibly worried. uncomfortable, he shifts his weight from left to right to left, readying to force a laugh and pass his inquiry off as nothing more than a poorly thought joke. but then she does something incredible, something that leaves him speechless and frozen in place.
she grins at him, uttering his word in answer to his question, and it is something incredibly precious to shikamaru.
he can’t help the smile spreading from ear-to-ear.
“troublesome?” he asks. “a date with me?”
“i’ll see you soon, then.”