#yoshikaku

[signal-less]

sometimes love is just a gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss and her silly little jiangshi

[cherryblossomshadow]

ShikaTema

So I saw a post about anti shikatema, and they had several very valid points.

They compared it to Taming of the Shrew

They didn't like how Temari got thrashed by Shikamaru in their Chunin match

(On that note, canon has really only ever shown Temari beating female opponents)

Temari is shown being abusive to Shikamaru in Boruto

These are excellent points and I feel like addressing them because I'm bored, ShikaTema is my OTP, and why not.

Okay, Taming of the Shrew is lauded as a great Shakespearean play and honestly, I don't see the allure of it. I identify as a pretty hardcore feminist, and basically nothing about a "husband" torturing his "wife" into doing her "womanly duties" is redeemable. If ShikaTema were just like TotS, I can see the dilemma. However, Much Ado About Nothing is a much better play, and honestly the one I would compare ShikaTema to personally. The characters are both intelligent and sarcastic and actually agree to be with each other, like ShikaTema.

Shikamaru admitted that without backup, Temari would have won, but really he got the victory. And that was fine, cool fight. We learned that they are both intelligent and that introduced the characters to us. That interaction didn't really build the ShikaTema ship for me. The moment that launched the ship was when Temari saved him from Tayuya and impressed him with her "scary yet beautiful smile." "She's subtle as a rhino 🦏 and Scarier than my Mom." And then she comforted him in the hospital (the best she knew how). Because in this arc, not the Exams, they both developed respect for each other's skills and hearts.

As an aside, someone else pointed out that Temari is only shown to win against girls. And I had never noticed that. We are certainly led to believe that she can and does regularly kick guys asses, too, we just never see it. And that is definitely a problem with the source material :( #KishiWhyMakeGreatKunoichiAndNotUseThem? #LetGirlsKickAssToo

Okay, lastly, I have to admit that I have not watched Boruto. I honestly don't really consider it canon (not the same creator) but it kinda is? Kinda isn't? Idk. I do know lots of people are pissed off by Studio Pierrot (is that spelled right) so there's that. I have seen posts on Tumblr showing good aspects of ShikaTema in Borutoverse but also bad so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . Anyhoo, if ShikaTema is really being shown as abusive, that's a real shame, because the strength of ShikaTema and why I think it would have worked is because they both add to each other. Shikamaru is intelligent but lazy, and Temari is fierce and driven. Instead of her strong-arming Shika into action, she inspires Shika to be better. And he softens her fierceness (not abuses her or 'tames' her) and shows her it's okay to wear your heart on your sleeve. Remember how awful her childhood was? How violent and bloody an atmosphere she was raised in? Yeah, Konoha is vvv calm in comparison. This is what was beautiful about ShikaTema. Now, that being said, the Narutoverse has a direct precedent to the abusive!relationship with Sakura (and Tsunade, I guess). I'm not bashing, because she's a great character, but the manga shows her regularly beating up people (namely Naruto) for no good reason (except shadenfreude i guess). The anime makes this even worse. This is partially just an overexpression, a joke, a trope in anime not just Naruto. But it's still damaging. It's one of the reasons I have NEVER liked NaruSaku, because the frequent Naruto beatings made me very uncomfortable. Shikaku x Yoshino suffered from that, too, especially since the relationship was shown from Shikamaru's perspective. The shadenfreude aspects of NaruSaku, Yoshikaku, and SP!ShikaTema are highlighted for comedic value at the expense of the relationships. I honestly have no response to item #4 except #animetropes and #fanonisbetterthancanon.

[virgolinguist]

Me trying to get my writing muse back by writing another ship I love that I feel less pressured to write about, shikayoshi. A gift for @illshowyouwheremyshoefits because eveything shikayoshi I ever do will always be for her.

--

There comes a point in every woman’s life where she simply cannot stand it anymore. Her patience runs out, not that Yoshino has a lot of it, and she explodes.

 “Can I help you?” She whirls around, eyes blazing. She spun so fast she stepped on his foot, but she doesn’t really care. He deserves all the feet stomping she decides to give him for following her all the time.

 “Nope,” he says, “could you get off my foot?”

 He has to look down to look her in the eye, because he’s so freaking tall, and it’s pissing Yoshino off. She ought to knee him in the groin so she can stand over him and he can know how it feels to have your space crowded by a giant.

 “Can you stop stalking me?! It’s freaking me out!” He’s still tall, and he’s still staring at her, and it’s putting her even  more on edge now that she’s close enough to see the flecks of grey in his eyes.

 “I’m not,” he claims, “I’m also not the one initiating physical contact.”

 Rage bubbles in Yoshino’s chest, and with an aggravated grunt, she stomps away from him, cursing his existence and the fact that he was ever her examiner. She’d have never met him otherwise, if any of the other several hundred jounin had been picked to give her test, and then his creepy stalking thing would never have started.

 There’s only so many times she can be expected to actually talk to him first, and she’s pretty sure she’s reached her limit. Next time he was getting an elbow in the face. She’d have to jump to do it, but it’d be worth it. Or, she could knee him in the groin first, and then he’d be low enough that no jumping would be necessary. And then she could--

 “It’s Yoshino, right?”

 She whirls around again, somehow more fiercely than last time, fists clenched and teeth grinding together. “Yes, that is my name! Crazy stalker jounin! What do you want?”

 “I’m Shikaku,” he says, “go out with me.”

 It’d take her less time, but the dumbfounded expression on her face inhibits her voice. But at last, she finds it again. “No.”

 --

 For the next few days, Yoshino keeps remembering the audacity of that man, and every time she does, it pisses her off all over again. It’s been hard work being that angry all the time, so she’s been in a terrible mood. She can’t even enjoy the fact that he’s fucked the fuck off, that’s how pissed and slightly disturbed she is.

 At least Sandaime called her in today to assign her to a mission. Getting out of the village, being able to work off some steam, would be good for her. She has plans to come back refreshed, an accomplished Chuunin with her first B-rank mission under her belt, and apologize to Kushina for snapping at her so much. A few days with an absolute guarantee of never running into Nara Shikaku is exactly what she needs.

 Confidence building in her belly, she knocks on the Hokage’s door and announces her presence by name.

 “Enter,” comes the Hokage’s voice.

 Yoshino walks through the door, bowing slightly. “Reporting for duty, Hokage-sama.”

 “Yes, thank you for coming, Yoshino. You’ve been requested for an intelligence-gathering mission. You really impressed one of your superiors at your Chuunin Exams, and he wants to give you a shot.”

 It’s difficult to keep the grin off her face, and truthfully Yoshino completely fails.

 But Sandaime smiles back, so she figures there was no great breach in protocol against smiling at the Hokage. “Here are the mission details,” he hands her a scroll, “good luck.”

 She bows and takes her leave. As she runs to the gate, she indulges in the excitement pumping through her veins. Her first B-rank! She impressed a superior! Finally, she was getting somewhere in her career. She was going to do great on this mission, too, hopefully earn his continued approval, and then she’d do more missions and more missions and finally be financially independent.

 At the gate are two tall men, but they are both faced away from her so she cannot make out their faces. She lands next to them, just the same. “I won’t let either of you down.” She proclaims confidently. “I will do my very best to serve our village.”

 “I’m sure you will,” the slightly taller turns around, dark eyes fixated on her, “nice to have you on board, Yoshino-san.”

 She’s so shocked she almost drops her scroll. “You--” is all she can get out around her rage-induced sputtering.

 “Let’s go,” Shikaku says, leaping off in the direction of the northwestern forest.

 “How can he leave so soon?! I don’t even know where we’re going--”

 “Best just to follow him, if you ask me,” the blonde man explains, offering a sympathetic shrug, “he’s been in a bad mood these past few days.”

 Stowing the scroll, Yoshino nods. This one, at least, seems amicable enough. The mission should be alright with him as a buffer.

 She can think why Shikaku has been in a bad mood, or why she even cares.

 “So, who’re you?” She asks the blonde, once they’ve more or less caught up to Shikaku.

 “Yamanaka Inoichi,” he says, offering a friendly smile, “it’s nice to meet you, Yoshino.”

 “Ohhh, you guys are part of that trio thing, aren’t you?” She says as the realization hits her.

 “The Ino-Shika-Chou trio,” snaps Shikaku, as though she’s an idiot for not knowing the name of his stupid little boyband.

 “Not that I was talking to you,” Yoshino snaps back, then looks again at Inoichi with a smile. “Chouza is in it too, right?”

 “Ahh, you know Chouza?” Inoichi says at the same time Shikaku mutters, “You know Chouza?” with an altogether different inflection.

 Ignoring him, Yoshino looks at Inoichi. “Yeah, we’re good friends. He showed me this barbeque place he really likes, Yakiniku Q.”

 Inoichi nods, pushing off the trees with such ease that it makes Yoshino jealous for that kind of grace. “He takes us there, too.”

 “How often does he take you?” The anger in Shikaku’s voice is gone, or at least it’s been set on simmer, and he’s waited back to run at her side.

 Raising a brow at him, but by this point she’s decided to try and get along for the sake of the mission, she shrugs. “I don’t know, every month or so?”

 “Hn,” Shikaku makes a displeased sound and Yoshino only just manages to hold back a snort.

 He goes to speak again, but she talks over him, at least half-intentionally. “So, why am I here?”

 “Chouza is sick,” Shikaku explains, “we need someone who can beat up the enemy mercilessly.”

She can’t help it. She starts laughing.

 “That’ll teach you not to stalk a young woman who said no to a date with you!”

 “Shikaku asked you out?” Inocihi comes in the conversation again. “And you said no?! That’s why he’s--” But Inoichi’s laughter overpowers his speech, and he doubles over, clutching his abdomen, still somehow with perfectly-timed steps.

 “That’s why he’s what?” Yoshino asks eagerly. She really was going to like Inoichi if he laughed at Shikaku’s suffering; maybe this mission would be so bad after all.

 “He’s been in--” Inoichi starts to explain, but the branch in front of them explodes and it stops all their cheerful (apparently loud) discourse.

 The branch shatters, splintering, and Yoshino jumps back, with her arms up to protect her face and chest. When she lands back, on a different branch, she sees that both Shikaku and Inoichi have used replacement jutsu; logs have taken their places--meaning they aren’t injured at all.

 She falls back into basic academy training, ignoring her stinging arms, and jumps higher and in alternate directions to find a place to hide to assess the situation. She doesn’t bother pulling the splinters out of her arms; a little pain is nothing.

 She doesn’t have to wait long to hear the sound of kunai on kunai, so she travels in that direction, concealing her presence by traveling in the canopy of the trees. Down below, on the ground, she sees Inoichi and Shikaku battling two enemy nin. Their headbands say they’re from the Village Hidden in the Grass. What they’re trying to do isn’t clear, but their killing intent is.

 Shikaku and Inoichi are both mid to long rage types, she knows that, which is why it’s so good that Chouza is on their team. His close range techniques enable them to use theirs at an advantage. Well, she was brought on this team to beat people up, as Shikaku said in his own words. She supposes she should start.

 The grass nin are so focused on their opponents, jounin-level shinobi with actual reputations, that they don’t pay attention to the small chakra presence gaining up on them quickly. Her opponents always underestimated her. That’s how she won her exam so easily.

 Jumping off the highest branch she can get to in order to build as much gravitational force behind her kick as possible, she aims directly for the chest of one of them. Her foot connects with their sternum, she also hears a satisfying crack, and then she whirls around, to use that momentum still, and kicks the other one in the side of the head.

 Groaning, they both fall to the forest floor.

 Yoshino jumps away, drawing a kunai of her own in case, to stand between Inoichi and Shikaku.

 She waits a few seconds, but they don’t act. She looks up at the both of them, they’re both so damn tall, but they’re simply looking at her with wide eyes and opened mouths. She’ll mock them for it later.

 “Well, go!” She yells at the pair of them, because apparently they were too stunned by her awesome kick to think of using their techniques on their own.

 “Right,” they say together, and Shikaku’s shadow slinks out and captures them both, just starting to come around. Then Inoichi walks forward, placing his hands on either of their heads. She’s never seen the legendary Yamanaka clan techniques up close before, and watching it is a treat. Inoichi is completely still, delving into their minds and extracting the information he needs. She plans to ask him about it later, what it’s like being in someone else’s mind, if it’s hard to sort through all their memories.

 Since she’s in a good mood, she turns to Shikaku and flashes him a friendly smile. “I really admire his technique. It looks difficult to master.”

 To her delight, Shikaku’s left eye twitches. “Yeah,” he says tightly, “but you know, my technique is hard, too.”

 Theatrically, she glances at his feet, tracing the shadow to its end. Slowly, she lets her eyes land on him again, and she offers a shrug. “Two doesn’t seem that hard. Fifty, maybe, would be impressive. But Inoichi is in someone’s mind. What’s cooler than that?”

 The twitch is constant now, but she only says it because it seems like his concentration is about to break. “I’m kidding! Geez, lighten up, you’re wound too tightly. I was only saying those things because it’s so easy to rile you up.” She pats his arm. “Your jutsu is cool, too.”

 The twitching has at least stopped, but his expression is taking on a dumbfounded look, so she’s getting ready to explain in more detail, maybe mock him a little that the Nara clan genius didn’t understand something right away, because apparently she should never wait to mock Shikaku.

 She opens her mouth to speak, but Shikaku’s not looking at her anymore.

 All she has time to process is his eyes widening and the impact of a nearby tree on her back. The situation forms in slow motion--the tree at her back, the hands on either side of her, his twisted expression, him coughing up blood, the shuriken in his back…

 He saw that coming, and she didn’t. He could’ve gotten away, but he chose to save her instead.

 Something funny settles in the pit of her stomach.

 She moves out from his arms, ignoring the way he shakes his head no at her, tries to speak but only coughs up more blood, to face their opponent. It’s a kunoichi, scowling at Inoichi and what he’s doing to her comrades, and she’s drawing a shuriken to throw into Inoichi’s neck--she can just tell by the angle, the killer intent in the air. She throws it, and Yoshino feels her body act, throwing a shuriken of her own.

 They collide in mid-air, and then Yoshino charges.

 Inoichi is vulnerable, Shikaku is hurt, it’s up to her.

 The kunoichi is about her size, about her strength, and for each blow Yoshino delivers she receives one equally as strong. To her ribs, to her side, a hard blow to the back of her knee that nearly makes her lose her balance. But taijutsu has always been her best area, so, even though it’s not advised and is more of a genin-level technique, she swings her fist, with all her power, into the stomach of her opponent.

 She coughs, doubling over, and Yoshino seizes her opportunity to stick a kunai into the woman’s neck.

 There’s sputtering as blood enters her lungs and she aspirates too much carbon dioxide, but Yoshino merely steps over her body. She’s a kunoichi and she will be emotionless in the face of this kill, this mission. Her teammates need her. Her own horror is not important.

 Inoichi is still in their minds and Shikaku is still leaning against the tree, so she goes to him first. She rests her hand on his arm, waiting until their eyes connect to speak.

 “I’m going to take out the shuriken. It’s going to hurt.”

 He stares at her for a long moment, the labored breathing of his chest the only sound between them, before he nods.

 One by one, she pulls them out, until at last, his back is free of them. “Lean on me,” she says, “while we wait for Inoichi.”

 Yoshino and Shikaku stand in silence, she listens only to some birds, far away, and his breathing gradually sound better, until Inoichi comes out of it.

 “You okay?” Shikaku calls in a gruff voice.

 “Slight headache,” Inoichi reports, “but I’m--” His eyes happen upon the corpse of the woman in front of him, and as he turns around his eyes widen at the sight of Shikaku and Yoshino. “What did I miss?” He asks helplessly, an attempt at empty humor.

 “Just get those two, our mission is over.” Yoshino says.

 Despite the fact that she’s a Chuunin and he’s her superior, Inoichi does what she says.

 The trek back to Konoha is slower, and no one talks much but for Shikaku and Inoichi. Yoshino doesn’t pay them mind, though, unless they say her name or anything. She hasn’t killed in a while, and it takes her a while to process her murders.

 They part ways with Inoichi so he can go drop off the enemy nin to the T&I unit, a place he himself is frequently employed at, and Yoshino heads with Shikaku to the hospital, despite his protests.

 “I’m fine,” he insists yet again, as they walk through the actual hospital.

 “Fine, fine, you’re fine,” her tone is mocking, “then call me a worry wart and do this for me.”

 “Heh,” he laughs, just a little, they both ignore his wince, “didn’t know you cared so much.”

 “Of course I care, you’re my teammate.” She gives him a look, a hint of danger lurking in the sharp edges of her expression.

 But he doesn’t let up. “I meant it. When you impressed me at your Exams. And again, with that kunoichi, you really were merciless.”

 “I did what had to be done,” she affirms, “nothing more.”

 “It was impressive,” he insists again, instead of taking her hint to stop making a big deal out of it, “for your first B-rank.”

 He’s staring at her again, and against her will her face is heating up.

 It takes her a while to think of something to say, and when she does she can’t manage to make it sound angry.

 “Just follow the med nin to your room, hotshot.”

 Which is a strange thing to say, too, since he needs her help to walk, but at least it shuts him up.

 After a short exam, the medical ninja insists he’ll be fine, heals the superficial wounds on his back, that luckily did not hit any major arteries, and leaves the room.

 And Shikaku is staring at her again.

 Maybe it’s because she’s confrontational, or maybe it’s because she’s curious, or maybe she’s a little too brave for her own good. But she asks him about it.

 “What?”

 He takes his time answering, as she grows hotter and hotter under the weight of his gaze. “We started out this mission with you hating me. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”

 “No,” she says, even though she could lie, “it’s not.”

 There’s more staring, that she for some reason engages in, and she thinks he’s going to get out of the bed. Panic kick starts her system, and she jumps off the opposite wall.

 “I’ll check on you tomorrow,” she says before running out of the room.

 She couldn’t be in there with him any longer, now that they’ve been back in Konoha long enough for her to realize her heart isn’t accelerated because of the adrenaline from her mission. And she couldn’t take the way he was looking at her.

 --

 “Can I help you?” asks the civilian at the desk.

 Clearing her throat, Yoshino manages, “Yes, hello, I’m here to see Nara Shikaku. We were teammates on the mission he just got hurt on, and…”

 The civilian waits for Yoshino to add to her sentence, but she does not, so she flashes a polite smile and moves to locate his file.

 “Ah, he was already checked out this morning, by himself no less. You know jounin; they hate to stay here. I’m surprised he didn’t sneak out during the night again.”

 “Again,” Yoshino echoes, but it’s too quiet. The med nin doesn’t hear her.

 “What?” She asks for Yoshino to repeat herself, but Yoshino just smiles.

 “Thank you.”

 It’s weird, this feeling in her gut. It sort of went away last night, but at the prospect of going to the hospital, of seeing him again, it flared back up. And now that he’s not here, she’s disappointed. Actually, really, ruin-her-morning disappointed.

 What, she scolds herself, just because he takes a few shuriken for you suddenly he’s date-worthy?

 But the scolding doesn’t work. She knows that’s only a little of why.

 The disappointment hasn’t settled into anything more than a hard ball by the time she makes it back to her house. She might as well try to sleep some more, then later go over and apologize to Kushina. She is excited to see her friend again, tell her about her mission, maybe even tell her about Shikaku, and see if Kushina can help her figure out why she feels this way.

 But as she approaches her house, there’s a tall figure already there.

 “You found my house.” Her voice is flat, reminiscent of the way she spoke to him before the mission several days ago.

 “It wasn’t hard,” he admits, pushing off the wall he was leaning against.

 I must have just missed him, she thinks. He probably arrived right after she left.

 “Well,” she tries, but she’s a little flustered, “what do you want? Because you’re taking up that whole stalking mantle again, and I really hoped we’d be past that after going on a mission together. And should you really be leaning against things with all those injuries to your back? You should probably still be in the hospital. Did they even clear you or did you just leave? I went to see you and you were already gone, you know--”

 The deluge of words stops flowing out of her mouth, because he’s kissing her.

 She has to lean so far up to kiss him that it’s a strain on her feet after only a few seconds, but once her body eases, loses its tenseness brought on by such an unexpected move, she rests her hands on his chest, tilts her head a little more to the right, and finds it’s much easier this way, anyway. She forgets all about her aching feet.

 She doesn’t know how long it’s been when he stops kissing her, but her eyes take a few seconds to open and his hands are still on her face, cradling her cheeks, where he’d grabbed her so she wouldn’t move when he tried to kiss her.

 “What--?” Her voice is soft, breathless with confusion and there’s a feeling flowing through her chest that isn’t helping her speak normally.

 “It was all I could think of to get you to stop talking.” He admits, sheepish. “But you kissed me back, so I don’t think I should apologize.”

 She shakes her head no, confirming that he should not apologize.

 “You…” She starts, but that’s all she manages.

 And then Shikaku laughs at her. “Damn, I didn’t know I was such a good kisser.”

 A laugh cascades out of her mouth, and she smacks his arm. “I was just very surprised!”

 “But you like me,” he grins, “or else you would’ve slapped the living crap out of me.”

 She takes his hands off her face, but only to hold them in her own. She nods, to indicate that he’s correct.

 “So I managed to make you go from hating my guts to kissing me back in a few days, just by risking my life for you.”

 “It was really stupid,” Yoshino says, wondering how she can both hate and love a smirk so much, “you were more important to the mission than I was.”

 “You finished it anyway,” he says, “you really were impressive, I mean, you’re short but you use every pound of weight you’ve got to make those kicks. And I saw you jab a kunai into her neck without even blinking, just because she might be a threat to your teammates. It was incredible; I still have trouble doing that--”

 “Keep using yourself as the golden standard of shinobi, it’s really attractive and not at all incredibly arrogant.”

 He winces. “Sorry.”

 She nods, accepting the apology.

 There’s even more staring now, but it feels like she has the upperhand this time.

 His voice is breathless when he speaks again. “Does that mean I can’t k--”

 Her lips are on his, this time.

[illshowyouwheremyshoefits]

say something

so i came up with how i think the harsh period between shikayoshi ended and how they made up. it’s a 2-part thing, don’t fret.

part 1

It’s silent when he wakes up. At least, silent except for the running water of the shower. It’s not normal, not at this hour of the day; since Yoshino is always the first one up, she should already have showered and be running around getting ready for the day. But she’s not, and Shikaku immediately senses something is wrong.

He gets out of the make-shift bed he has made himself on the living room’s sofa — though they don’t use it much now that they don’t even greet each other — and slowly makes his way to the master bedroom. It’s the same one he has shared for the past ten years alongside his wife, the same one he had to desert after a particularly nasty fight a few months ago. He stopped counting the nights on the couch. After all, if things kept going this way, maybe it would become a permanent solution.

As he thought, the door to the bathroom is closed. But it definitely isn’t what gets his attention.

No--what gets him to fear for what’s coming is the bag on the bed, open and full of clothes. Her clothes, all cleanly folded (that beautiful dress she loved to wear so much back in the days he took her on dates is one of them) and placed inside one of her old Chuunin equipment bags.

Immediately, he understands: she’s leaving.

Panic.

He needs to find the wall behind him so he doesn’t lose his balance. As he crashes into the wall, the thoughts crash into his head: Yoshino is leaving, she’s leaving him, she’s leaving— Shikamaru. The thought is much slower to process than his body is to react, as he’s already rushing through the hallway before his brain processes the panic. It’s without any other ceremony that he enters his son’s room, opening the door with trembling hands and a terror-stricken mind.

The small bed is empty, and the bed is made. Shikamaru never makes his bed, which, Shikaku deduces, means that Yoshino got him up and made his bed for him.

With panic comes the tiniest bit of anger. Anger is gone by the time he finally realizes -- a few seconds at most --  that it’s his fault that his wife is leaving today, that his son is gone, he lost them and it’s his fault.

He fucked up. He fucked up so badly.

He rushes back to the bedroom. There is no way this is happening. There is no way he let this happen. There is no way he’s the one who broke this family apart.

Yet, the bag is still here when he arrives, porcelain hands slowly closing it before his very eyes.

The first thought that crosses his mind when he sees her sounds off, considering the circumstances. As he details her body and the clothes covering her slight curves, the lines carving into her face way too strongly for her age, her brown hair still wet from the shower falling down on her shoulders, he can’t help but think about how beautiful she is and how lucky he is to love her.

Their eyes meet and the panic in him is suddenly silenced. For a moment, just a few seconds, Shikaku is back to when he was a much greater man, capable of love and tenderness, just by the look Yoshino is giving him. It only sounds like a memory, a far-away story but she still remembers. And he needs to remember too.

“Shikamaru is at Chouza’s.” she says, quietly, before lifting up the bag from the bed. “Just… until we-- I find a solution.”

He’s unable to answer, words refusing to leave his mouth. She can’t be serious. Not after all they’ve gone through, not after all they’ve tried to accomplish, not after the war, the wedding, Shikamaru. He has so many questions -- many starting with why -- to ask, answers to get but he can’t speak. The sole vision of her, ready to leave, is enough to silence him.

“...Aren’t you going to say something?” Yoshino asks, under her breath. If their house hadn’t been so silent, he wouldn’t have heard her.

He has so many things to say, but he cannot put words next to each other to form a sentence, cannot put his thoughts together to explain, to apologize. He just stares, expecting her to understand from the way his eyes are starting to shine with water filling them, expecting her to translate into words the mess going on inside his head.

He expects too much, especially after he put her through all of this. The alcohol -- the problem he has with alcohol --, the quarrels, the yelling. Everything, all of it; his fault, her suffering.

“Say something,” she continues. “I don’t care what, but say something.”

Still, he can’t answer. He just keeps his eyes in hers, as slowly tears slide down her cheeks. He tries to take a step forward but just like his vocal chords, his body doesn’t answer. How useless of a man he is, for not being able to comfort his own wife, not being able to keep her.

“I…” she starts, but finally, he’s able to speak.

“I’m sorry.” he blurts out, and he’s forced to look down, because it’s way too hard to just watch her cry. “I’m sorry.”

“...Me too.” she whispers. “But that’s not enough, Shikaku, I can’t…”

“I’m sorry.” he repeats. “I-I’ve been blind to everything I put you through and I--... Please, Yoshino, don’t… Don’t go.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

She looks down as well, eyelids fluttering while small teardrops fall onto the hardwood floor. He watches her take a step forward, both her hands on the handle of the bag, before she finally looks back up to him. She’s not crying anymore.

Yoshino takes another step towards him but he’s still frozen in his spot, unable to move, to reach for her, to prevent her from leaving. He could fall onto his knees, beg for a second chance maybe, but he knows her better than this, he knows them better than this.

He loves her enough to let her go but doesn’t love himself enough to keep going afterwards.

As she takes a final step right in front of him, their eyes lock once again, in the same manner they used to when everything was fine.

“...I love you.” he whispers, and he can feel the tears overflowing from his eyes.

“I know.” she answers, her hand coming to wipe the tears off his cheek, tender and loving on his skin. He can’t even recall the last time she touched him, can’t remember the last time it was out of love and not anger.

Her fingers quickly leave his face and her arm falls back to her side before she continues towards the bedroom door. All he can do is watch her go, his body still frozen in place, his mind convinced it’s the right thing to do. He wishes he could grab her wrist, catch her into his arms to keep her with him, but deep down, he also knows it wouldn’t make any difference. She might be leaving now, but it’s been months she’s been away.

When she’s out of sight, he waits for the sound of the door closing behind her. He even hopes for a second it won’t come and maybe, just maybe she’ll come back to their room, give him another chance, give them another shot.

She closes the door very quietly, as if she knew the sound was going to break him to pieces.

[virgolinguist]

A birthday gift for Fi. I love you a lot, bbs. I promise this is happier than Caca’s. shikayoshi

Temari both likes and dislikes to watch them. Each emotions is felt equally as powerful, though both are overtaken by discomfort.

Shikaku and Yoshino are so comfortable around each other. Yoshino moves a little, adjusting something on the stove, and Shikaku crosses his legs. Yoshino stirs the pot of rice, Shikaku's foot twitches. It's almost mesmerizing, watching them revolve around each other like attracting magnets. They rarely touch, she sees (at least in front of others), which is ultimately different from her relationship with their son, but something about them is intimate all the same.

Something--maybe she should say everything.

She sees where the long-held shared looks is from. Shikamaru picked it up from his parents, and she’s honest enough with herself to say they participate in them just as often as Nara Yoshino and Nara Shikaku. She’s even a little ashamed to say her face probably looks just as enraptured.

Yoshino can tell what he’s thinking. Like, before he even asked for the salt she was already tossing it to him. Before Shikaku so much as finished his question Yoshino told him where the crossword was.

Shikaku has this easy way of reminding Yoshino she needs to sit down. She’s getting on in years--they both are; Temari’s parents would be too if they were still alive--and all Shikaku does is kick out her chair and it’s enough to make her sit down. And it isn’t the scrape the chair makes across the floor that gets her attention; it’s the action of Shikaku’s leg. Like she’s so attuned to him that she feels every action he makes.

Like he’s disrupting the space around her, or something. Like he glows, just for her, just a little brighter than everyone else. Like she’s always aware of his presence in a room, of his every twitch and breath and blink and question.

Shikaku has a lot of questions, just like Shikamaru.

It’s at the breakfast table one morning, when jokes about new last names are tossed around like the snowflakes that drift around outside seemingly without pause--like the sand in Suna, she thinks, except maybe the snow’s a bit kinder--and she’s sitting with Shikamaru and his parents that it occurs to her how easily she fit in.

She has, what, nine months of seriously dating their son and she’s already so easily part of the breakfast table?

It kind of feels like fate. And the inevitably associated with such a word makes Temari want to struggle against it. She doesn’t, in the end, because Shikamaru puts his bowl in the sink, and when he comes back to the chair next to her very purposefully runs into her knee with his own.

He doesn’t look at her, of course. His eyes are impassive, the way he always looks in the morning before he’s seen the clouds, but there may be the tiniest hint of a smile on the right corner of his mouth. The one closest to her.

The impulse to kiss that same corner rockets through her, and with its arrival comes the departure of the impulse to fight.

Why would she fight this? Especially if it makes her so happy?

It obviously makes Shikamaru happy, she’s reasonably sure it makes Shikaku happy, and she knows it makes Yoshino happy, so why in the world does part of her remain, intent on resisting such a happy fate?

She’s direct and curious and well-spoken, so it comes out. One day at breakfast, at the table with his parents, with his knee brushing hers.

“Do you need to have a child if you become the Nara Matriarch?”

Shikamaru chokes on his miso, but Temari pays him absolutely no mind. Her question is for his parents.

Shikaku takes a moment to clear his throat. It’s his tell, Temari’s figured out, now on her third six-week stint of living with the Naras, he clears his throat when he’s nervous or uncomfortable. Or about to lie.

“Tell the truth.” It’s almost an order, if her tone of voice is anything go to by. But Shikamaru has long told his parents many times over that this is just the way she speaks.

“It’s not necessary,” he manages easily then, almost as though he couldn’t wait to get the awkward words off his tongue, “but it is frowned upon to not birth an heir as Nara Matriarch.”

Temari nods once to indicate her understanding, and then her eyes are for Yoshino. She won’t pretend she hasn’t spoken to Shikamaru’s mother about this before. In fact, Yoshino doesn’t pretend anything either. To Temari’s knowledge, both Shikaku and Shikamaru are in the dark about the long-held looks between Nara Matriarch and Nara girlfriend.

It’s probably why she trusts her, Temari thinks. She kept something from her husband, for her.

That likely seals her fate in more than one way.

“Here’s the thing,” Yoshino’s voice is all business, “once you’re Nara Matriarch, you can tell everyone else to stuff it.”

Temari’s laugh rings loud and clear. She laughs boisterously, uncommon, maybe, to what everyone would think her laugh sounds (and looks) like. But her when her eyes catch Shikamaru’s, the surprise he was (surely) feeling is gone, and there’s a slightly-larger smile than the one displayed earlier on the right corner of his mouth for her.

---

“Alright, Temari, this is your first lesson on How to be the Nara Matriarch. I promise you it’s easy. It’s a real snore.”

She still somehow hadn’t gotten used to her soon-to-be-Mother-in-law’s jokes, but Temari was working on it. An exaggerated smile got Yoshino to laugh, anyway, and for the moment that was all Temari could offer.

“You’ll have an easy time with it. Your upbringing as the Kazekage’s daughter should help.”

Temari nods thoughtfully, but her teeth still worry her bottom lip.

“It’s all just very…”

“What?” asks Yoshino patiently. “Scary? Intimidating? Huge? Nara?”

That draws a smile from her soon-to-be-Daughter-in-law. “I just never thought I’d be here, you know?”

Yoshino nods, lost for a few moments in a memory stream, and Temari can’t help but wonder if she will be experiencing something similar twenty years from now.

“The thing that gets overlooked about Nara men,” Yoshino heaves a great sigh, and then blooms a brilliant smile, “is that no one ever talks about how they get us strong women to fall for them. Something about patience, something else about forgiveness, and then something more about fumbling idiots who still can’t say ‘I love you’ in front of anyone else after twenty-eight years.”

Temari laughs, at last. “Shikamaru said it in front of Naruto. He brings it up at every available opportunity.”

The nice thing about talking to Yoshino is what’s nice about talking to her son. There’s no pressure to converse, no pressure to respond to the other’s comments. You just listen, and you probably smile, and you connect on the level that only the Strong Women Who Love the Nara Men can connect on.

“I never thought I’d be here, either.”

Temari almost asks what Yoshino’s remembering, just like she does every time. But she chooses to keep the question to herself, to save it for another day, maybe the one on which she’s wear a ridiculously expensive kimono, and let Yoshino remember by herself again.

If her relationship is anything like Temari’s--and Temari knows that it is--she’ll only be remembering by herself until she sees Shikaku again later today.

[virgolinguist]

Strong On The Outside

shikayoshi Fi made me write a Shikayoshi thing.

--

She doesn’t know why she’s looking back at this particular moment, something about fate and soulmates, probably. A pull, the same pull he’s always had over her no matter how hard she’s tried to fight against it, made her look.

When she was younger, she always fought, and she usually won. Even if her resistances lessened over time, she always won despite the difficulty. Somewhere around thirty she stopped fighting, and she hasn’t fought a time since.

So when Shikaku staggered, filthy, visibly injured, into Shikamaru’s wedding, of course Yoshino looked.

She watched his progress with statued eyes, an expression of skepticism and disbelief carved in stone on her aged face. Five years has felt like fifty, and now fifteen seconds feels like fifteen life times.

He passes unnoticed, just another Nara in a room full of several hundred, and her eyes are stuck on him the entire time. She can’t breathe, not that she’s been able to breathe for years, but now it’s intent and constant and piercing.

He has all of her attention. At her son’s wedding.

She’s focusing on him, back from the dad as he apparently is, figment of her imagination as he probably is, at her son’s wedding. And her daughter’s wedding. She’s grown to love Temari just as fiercely as she loves Shikamaru, fiercer, maybe, in a way, since she’s lost both her parents and she’s going to be the next matriarch in a few hours and maybe she just has more in common with her, and Shikaku has, of course, chosen this exact moment to appear.

The anger hits her, and she can breathe. She’s focusing on him, during her son’s wedding.

She will not do that disservice to Shikamaru and Temari.

He sits next to her, in the seat she left for him (not Yoshino, Temari, in a rare moment of sentimentality, and Yoshino hadn’t the heart to tell her it wasn’t a wanted measure), and he reaches for her hand.

She stiffens, but lets him.

And then, taking her time to breathe and hold herself together, she speaks.

“You,” Yoshino says very quietly, “will not ruin our son’s wedding.”

Shikaku pulls his hand away, and she’s pleased to note it doesn’t hurt her. She’s far, far stronger from the glass she was when he didn’t come back.

“Sorry.” His voice is gruff from disuse, and her heart leaps up from the pit of her stomach.

They sit in silence, and Yoshino focuses on her son. He’s incredibly handsome, and he looks incredibly happy. She’s rarely seen that smile on his face, and really that’s probably the first reason she fell for Temari, the smile she gives her son.

Temari’s radiant, plainly breathless, and as she comes down the aisle to Yoshino’s son, Yoshino can see without trying at all how happy she is to finally be here.

She’s been an outsider to their relationship, and really she’s only seen the last part, but she knows it hasn’t been easy for them to get to this point. And that’s exactly why she won’t let Shikaku ruin it, even if he’s come back to dead.

“Are you real?”

She can’t hold the words back, and her only comfort is that Temari isn’t down the aisle yet. She hasn’t ruined the exact moment, at least.

In lieu of answering, he takes her hand again.

She grips it, incredibly tightly, because it’s the only way she’ll get through the ceremony without losing it herself. This is Shikamaru’s day, Temari’s day, she will not take it from them.

Not even if the love of her life has come back to life.

[illshowyouwheremyshoefits]

we’ll be okay

sooo cacatuasulphureacitrinocristata has this really sad and painful headcanon where yoshino had a miscarriage before having shikamaru. so yeah. here have some more angst. 

i do write happy things sometimes, i promise

It all happened so fast.

First, she screamed. All the way from the bathroom, her voice half muted by the door. He could still hear the fear and the panic in her tone, the way it pierced through his ears, made his body move without his mind needing to command it. He could still feel the cold feeling of the same fear, the same panic, washing over him like a cold shower waking him up from a happy sleep.

There were tears already rolling down her cheeks by the time he got to her. She already knew what was going on. He didn’t. He didn’t want to know. He scooped her up in his arms, whispering to her soothing words he wasn’t sure would help, before rushing to exit their home to get her to a doctor.

He did his best to ignore the blood.

Little hints like fear hidden behind the warm brown of her eyes. Behind the gentle smile he loves so much. Blood spotting. As if she was getting her period, but she couldn’t be, she shouldn’t be. She insists; she’s fine, she says, fine as in “I will deal with this alone”.

Yet, here she was, leaning on him for support while her legs are failing her after the news the medic just gave them. After he just broke their dream, right there in front of them, stamping on their desire for a family as if it was nothing more than just words, prayers. As though it didn’t count, as if the life that was held inside her body just about a week ago didn’t matter. “There’s nothing we can do.”

No, there’s nothing they can do, except for waiting for this to end.

Shikaku wanted a girl. He didn’t have a reason why but he had expressed the wish multiple times, in the darkness of their room, the privacy of their bed. A murmur, just about forgotten, in the crook of her neck, as he was half falling asleep. A girl, with her hair, her eyes, maybe his nose and his way of walking. A girl with the same fire character as her, with the same way of caring almost too much, of loving almost too deeply.

Even if she only had her smile, he would have been the happiest man on the planet.

They walked home in complete silence, him barely noticing her tripping over those words he should have been saying. He had never been a man of words, never had found ways to comfort or to heal with the syllables flowing out of his mouth in his gruff voice. He could hurt, break, destroy with voicing out his deep thoughts but couldn’t bare to console her over the loss of their unborn child, didn’t find good enough words, gestures, gentleness.

He didn’t have it in him. She had always been the comforter, the strong one, and it would have been a lie to say he wasn’t expecting her to ease his grief. Because it has always been like that, she’d gently hug him, let him cry on her shoulder, in the crook of her neck, answering the sobs with only her hands on his backs or quiet shushing and rocking him ever so slightly. Just like a mother would have done.

He had to be there. Had to do something, had to be her support for once, to be her rock to lean on, to take strength from. It wasn’t just some kind of simple situations where she’d cry it out by herself in the shower instead of his arms, where she’d take it all on her own shoulders because crying, suffering is a weakness and she didn’t have the right to be weak.

That’s why he made her sit down, didn’t let her get away to a room where she could lock herself from him, from anyone. That’s why he made her tea, bringing it to the living-room and leaving it to cool down on the coffee table.

He kneeled in front of her grabbing both her hands in his and bringing them to his lips. She didn’t react; didn’t move.

“We’ll be okay.” he whispered. “I promise you we’ll be.”

He heard her gasp lightly before he felt her hands starting to shake from the sobs that were coming back.

“How?” she asked, with a voice that carried grief heavy as a stone. “Tell me how we can get through this.”

“Because I love you,” he answered, determination hidden behind the quaver of his tone. “And you love me. We both loved that baby, we still do, we’ll do forever, and so, we’ll mourn, we’ll take our time to move on. But we will. Together. I promise you that. We’ll make it okay together.”

Shikaku finally looked at her seeing her nod to his words, before he brought himself back up on the couch. He embraced her, slowly but tightly, her face hidden in the crook of his neck as she wailed.

And he rocked her, hands gently caressing her back, in the same exact manner she’d comforted him before.

They’ll be okay. Somehow, they’ll be okay.

—————

“I’m pregnant.”

He looked up from his book, sudden fear showing on his features. Though, there was a small smile on her lips, as her hand reached down to her belly who looked significantly bigger now that he knew about the small bit of life hidden inside of it. How did he not notice?

He stood up and very slowly made his way to her, confusion adding to the fear, both covering up the joy he was really feeling.

“I’m 3 months,” she went on. “I went to the doctor’s this morning to get checked up, in case… He said everything was going fine.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I should have come with you.”

“I wanted to make sure everything was fine.”

Both his hands cupped her cheeks, slowly bringing her face to his. All fear is now gone, all confusion, and there was nothing more than joy, pure, genuine happiness, in the way he smiled, in the tears flowing down his cheeks. And he kissed her, as if it was the first time again, as if they had never gone through such hard times.

“I’m going to be a dad.” he smiled, between two kisses. “I’m going to be a dad.”

He could feel her smile and when he was finally done kissing her, his hands made their way down her body, coming to caress her slightly rounded belly. He kneeled down, an unknown tenderness painting his features as he watched the almost unnoticeable baby bump.

He smiled once more.

At last, they were going to be just fine.

[illshowyouwheremyshoefits]

uhhhhhhhhhhh

i need more art of my otp