Chapter Text
Shikamaru Nara was bored.
This isn’t unusual, Shikamaru is generally bored, it's pretty much his constant state of being at this point.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t his average “everything’s a bother, and I’m too lazy to do anything,” bored. No, it was the much-dreaded counting the tiles of the floor bored—the kind of bored where he actually wants to do something, anything, but there is absolutely nothing interesting to do.
It sucks.
He can't nap because for once he got enough sleep last night, meditation’s a drag, he already went over all his most recent shogi matches in his head, and for the first time maybe ever all his class work, homework, and reading are already done.
The last couple of times this happened Shikamru just requested to get a book from the library but he can't even do that because they’ve got a substitute teacher today and substitute teachers aren’t allowed to let kids go anywhere without a guide, which means communal bathroom breaks and no taking a trip to the library by himself.
He debates the merits of actually counting the floor tiles but the last 3 times he did that he got a different count each time (His first year the count was 1204 but last year and a month ago the count was 1210 and 1208 respectively, is it genjutsu? Are they changing the layout very subtly every year? Is he just crazy?) should he count the ceiling tiles? They should just be the same count though right? Unless they aren't and honestly Shikamaru’s pretty sure that would just make him annoyed.
Bored and annoyed.
Shikamaru leans back in his chair for a chance to catch a glance at some clouds outside but he got to class late today and someone had taken his usual seat near the window so now he’s stuck in the very middle of the classroom looking at nothing but the chipped paint on the windowsill. (which is dumb, if they have the money to change the tiling every year they should be able to do a little repaint. unless it's on purpose???)
30 minutes go by with him just staring at the ceiling pondering the practicality of an ever-changing school layout just to satisfy some elder's paranoia and whether or not it's actually useful. Literally, what does the school gain in defensibility by changing the classroom layout by a few tiles? (if that's actually happening that is, it is very possible he’s just going insane)
Shikamaru lets out a sigh and adjusts to focus in on what the substitute teacher has been lecturing on for the past 40 minutes.
Should he have been paying attention? Objectively, yes. But also most of the substitute teachers the academy procures aren't actually teachers, just Chunin or Jonin or the occasional Anbu pretending to be a regular Jonin who get hurt enough to not be able to be on the mission roster.
The substitutes aren't given the lesson plan for security reasons and are just told to teach about something they are confident in thats appropriate for 10-year-olds “ which is ridiculous, in a year and a half we’ll all be out killing people”. Sometimes the lessons are interesting, every once in a while the class will get a substitute who likes kids and is willing to impart cool tricks and useful skills (like this one time a girl with one hand came in and taught everyone the first steps to training yourself to be ambidextrous via art. “Just in case you lose your dominant hand”) but most of the time the substitutes are boring or crabby and very obviously don’t want to be teaching a bunch of snot-nosed brats. (like last time, a Jonin came in and spent a solid 4 hours ranting about the importance of following procedure and how “if you don't follow your captain's lead everyone will die”, ya that guy was fun.)
Today's stand-in is a Jonin with a sling. He seems just as bored as Shikamaru and is obviously just trying to get through the lesson without anyone interrupting him or asking questions. (he’s got a dead look in his eye and Shikamaru has an inkling that the man in front of them might be Anbu.) not passionate or nice, but not mean or crabby either.
Shikamaru finally tunes into the lesson only to hear the man talking about… blinking??
“It is important to train one's blink reflex as an enemy ninja might take advantage of your blink pattern to plan attacks at just the right moment when your eyes are closed.” their substitute states in an impressively dry tone, “It's suspected that Suna nin are trained in keeping their eyes open for extended periods of time. This hypothesis came from a Rain Shinobi noting the lower blink-per-minute average among the Suna citizens-”
“Yup, definitely Anbu”
It's a bit of a joke among the Jonin (and he only knows it because of his dad) that if you need some random obscure knowledge on no particular topic just ask an Anbu guard for a fun fact. They always take an interest in the weirdest details and pick up the oddest nuggets of wisdom. Probably just from the sheer amount of travel they do and how many of them end up on undercover missions, all knowledge is useful knowledge and since Anbu could end up going anywhere at any point at any time they hoard those stupid little details like gold. Never know when knowing the enemy's average blink-per-minute rate could save your life.
Now that Shikamaru’s thinking about it, it's actually probably a very informative lesson, and on any other regular boredom day he would most likely lay his head down and listen in but today is not an average day and Shikamaru doesn't want to listen to a monotone voice droll on about blinking habits and Rain studies on the Suna population.
Shikamaru propes his head up with his palm and lets his eyes wander the classroom, now taking a conscious note of the way his classmates open and close their eyes since the thought is at the forefront of his mind.
He finds that Kiba only blinks about 4 times per minute, and Hinata blinks at least 15-25 (which seems like a lot are her eyes okay?). Ino interestingly enough only blinks 2 times per minute and at first, he thinks maybe Uncle Inoichi trained her to break her pattern but quickly realizes that no, she just naturally blinks once every roughly 30 seconds “Seems about right” he muses “Blue eyes gotta stare into your soul somehow right? can’t do that if they’re closed.”
His eyes pass over a majority of the class absorbing the much-unneeded knowledge before landing on Sakura, who is about diagonal to him at the moment but would usually be right in front of him if he was in his usual seat, and gets stuck there,
Because Sakura doesn’t blink the same 14-20 times per minute as all the other civilian born in their class do.
No, it seems that Sakura, pink-haired, quiet, bookish, civilian-born Sakura somehow Just. Doesn’t. Blink.
AT ALL.
Or at least she hasn’t in the past 20 minutes he’s watched her.
At first, he was impressed, 2 minutes is a long time and she doesn't look to be struggling, then he got 5 minutes in and wondered if he just so happened to catch her in the midst of testing how long she could keep herself from blinking because of the teacher's lesson. He only started getting weirded out at the 15-minute mark when he realized that Sakura wasn't even actively trying to not blink, in fact, she didn’t even seem to notice what must be some serious dry eye and so at that point, Shikamaru came to the conclusion that this wasn’t the first time she had held her eyes open for long periods of time. She wasn’t even attempting to blink, there were no aborted movements or half-shuts, she just… stared at her book, like she does every day, reading whatever it was she always read… without blinking. “Is it some latent Kekkai Gnekai that’s only purpose is to keep her eyes moist? Training? Is it A family technique? But Sakura's parents aren't shinobi, are they? Did she just decide, you know what? I'm tired of this. And stop blinking? Why? How??”
It's At the 30-minute point that he decides to stop watching and turns his thoughts inward to sort through everything he knows about Sakura to try and pinpoint how exactly she was achieving such a feat.
Shikamaru quickly finds that he doesn’t really know all that much about Sakura, they weren’t particularly close, in fact, he didn’t think anyone was very close to Sakura, she was much like Shino in that way. She didn’t seek attention, didn’t initiate conversation, and despite her eye-catching hair and position as the current top kunoichi, she did a rather remarkable job of blending into the background.
Which is also kind of odd now that he thinks about it, how was it that she attracted that little attention? She’s a great student, she’s good at taijutsu, has flashy hair, and a good face. How was she not more popular?
He can remember her being a little odd in the social aspect but honestly, everyone in their class was a little odd (Kiba sniffed people on a regular basis for god's sake). He once caught Shino staring down a centipede muttering about “bugs with too many legs not respecting my Kikaichus territory” and even he hangs out with Hinata at lunch.
And while admittedly a lot of his classmate's odd habits are tied to their clan techniques (like Hinata’s tendency to only touch people with 2 fingers) Sakura wasn’t like Werid weird, he’s pretty sure she just doesn’t clock social ques as most people do so there's no reason for people to just Forget she’s there.
Well, whatever, she doesn’t seem to mind all that much anyway with the way she’s practically married to the library.
“But dammit none of this explains why she’s not blinking.”
After watching Sakura for a solid 3 hours and finding that she does in fact blink sometimes but it averages to only once an hour, Shikamaru just resolved to stay after class and ask her what’s up himself. He doesn’t know her well enough to puzzle it out on his own but he is at least aware of her habit of going to the school library every day after class.
Plus this way he’ll be able to ask with minimal witnesses, he’s sure Sakuras a fine enough girl but if Ino sees him talking to her she’ll get all weird about Shikamaru talking to girls, especially so with the girl in question Being Sakura. Ino’s got some annoying one-sided rivalry going on with her for the top kunoichi position (actually that might be why Sakura doesn’t have any friends, maybe Ino scares them all away) and might take offense with Shikamaru actually going out of his way to get some alone time with her.
Two hours later, Shikamaru finds himself chilling at the table in the library Sakura usually sits at to read. “I can see why she likes it in here,” he thinks. It’s warm and quiet, and the shuffling of paper makes for a peaceful atmosphere.
He’s contemplating just taking a nap because the library has a perfect napping atmosphere when Sakura comes in.
She doesn’t head to the table right away, instead heading over to the Bodily Science shelf in the Nonfiction section and picking her way through a couple of scrolls and books, she leaves with 2 scrolls and one book before heading over to the taijutsu scroll cubby and picking one from there as well.
Finally, once she’s meandered a bit in the History section she heads over to the table Shikamarus at and sits across from him. Sakura doesn’t seem to notice he’s there until she's setting up all her study material in front of her and getting ready to start taking notes and Shikamaru clears his throat to get her attention.
It seems Sakura really hadn’t noticed his presence because at his intrusion she startles and drops her pencil. Head shooting up to stare at him, wide-eyed Sakura doesn’t say anything but her shoulders settle a little once she realizes who’s in front of her. The way she just continues to watch him is both a little unnerving and an obvious prompt that she will not be starting the conversation (which is reasonable as he’s just interrupted her study time)
“Sakura.” is halfway whispered, they are in a library after all.
She returns his poor excuse of a hello with a slow blink which feels weird after seeing her not blink for so long, “Shikamaru.” she glances to the side, “Hello.”
There’s a pause as they both just stare at each other for a second, and Shikamaru’s momentarily caught off guard by her eyes. He’s never quite realized just how green they are, not blue-green like Ino or dark hazle like his mom's but Green green. Green like emeralds and moss-covered trees and the little clovers that grow in his back yard and for a moment he's lost in them, Shikamaru doesn't know how long he spends staring stupidly because at some point he blinks and the moment’s over as Sakura lets out a small smile and says, “I win.”
“What?” did he miss something while spacing out?
Sakura's smile dims a bit and she tilts her head to study him “I win.”
Shikamaru’s brow wrinkles in confusion, “Win what?”
“The staring contest?”
A snort forces its way out of him before he can stop it and he ends up chuckling as quietly as possible because while he was questioning the genetic ability to make her eye color Sakura was thinking they were having a staring contest. Makes sense, Shikamaru lifts his head from where it fell trying to keep his laughter muffled and sees Sakura is now frowning in confusion and slight offense, “I wasn’t aware we were having a staring contest but if we were then yes you would have won.” He reassures and watches as her face smooths out a bit once she realizes that he’s not making fun of her.
Shikamaru shakes his head a bit still with a smile lingering on his lips, “Sorry, anyways, I came because I was curious about something, not to have a staring contest.” he elaborates “ I know you’d win anyways."
Sakura doesn’t say anything to that so he leans forward a bit over the table and questions, “How are you not blinking?”
“Hmm?”
Shikamaru leans back again and lifts his eyes toward the ceiling to continue, “During the lesson, I was looking around the room counting people’s blinks per minute out of curiosity and you don’t have one-” he lowers his head to catch her eye and lifts an eyebrow, “-you’ve got a blink-per-hour rate.”
“Oh.” She nods in agreement, “Yes your right I do. And you’re right you probably wouldn’t win a staring contest. Maybe.”
“Right-“ he looks imploringly, “I was wondering how?” He pauses before adding, “And why?”
She looks at him a little funny, like shes wondering why he’s questioning her on this, “well you blink considerably more than I do Shikamaru” Her head tilts once again in thought, “-though I guess if you tried hard enough you might win?”
“What? No, not the staring contest, I was wondering how and why you go so long without blinking.” he's also beginning to realize why kids their age wouldn’t make a habit of talking to her very often.
“Ah” (and is that a pout? Why is she disappointed?) “That does make more sense” she concedes.
Sakura sighs and settles back in her seat, propping a book up against her thighs. “Well I feel it’s rather obvious, it’s incredibly inconvenient to have to blink so often in battle, and I was reading this book about water manipulation and it said you could make bubbles using just a teeny bit of wind and water nature chakra and at first I was just wondering if I could make little air bubbles in peoples bloodstream just in case I end up going into assassination later on but then I thought, “well if I can replace the water with blood why can't I replace wind with something else? Like an eyeball?” so that’s basically what I’m doing.”
Shikamaru does his best to think past the whole assassination blood bit of her explanation and squints at her in thought, “So you’ve got a bubble around your eye? That seems like it would dry your eyes out even more.” It also seemed incredibly inconvenient and a total waste of concentration, but he wasn’t going to question her on that (the control that must take is insane.)
“No no, as I said, I replaced the wind element with my eyeball, so I’ve basically just got a very thin layer of water chakra around my eyeballs like a bubble. It’s so thin it doesn’t change my eyesight at all but enough so it keeps my eyes moist,” she said in a proud tone, “technically I don’t need to blink at all, but I noticed in the week following my discovery that when I didn’t blink at least once an hour our classmates started subconsciously avoiding me and teachers were warier around me.”
“Huh,” he leans back and stares at her consideringly, “So you just.. Made a new technique?”
“I think so yes.”
“You think so?” it comes out a bit more condescending than he meant but Sakura doesn’t seem offended, “well there are hundreds of thousands of people on the earth Shikamaru, it's very possible someone else came up with this technique first. Though I didn’t learn it from them so maybe it's still just my technique?”
“I think it still counts as yours,” he murmurs distracted.
He thinks she may have thanked him but he barely hears her he’s so deep in thought.
Sakura made up a new water Jutsu on a whim because she found the need to blink annoying. She read a book about water chakra manipulation and first adapted the bubble exercise to theoretically be used as an assassination technique and then somehow used that logic to turn it into an anti-blink solution. Does she still have control over the water surrounding her eyeball? Could she, theoretically use this same technique on other people to incapacitate them via crushed eyeball? (Does Sakura ponder murder techniques often?)
He knew Sakura was smart, she got hundreds on pretty much every test they take but he always just assumed she was good at studying, that she could absorb the knowledge but like so many others not apply and adapt it. But it seems like Sakura’s a lot smarter than she lets on if she regularly just makes new jutsu. Heck, she’s probably a prodigy.
He bets if the new laws on early graduation didn’t exist she’d be done and gone, maybe. Do the teachers know she’s this advanced? Probably not he’s heard from his dad that civilian-borns get overlooked often and Sakura’s not the kind of person to seek recognition. Hmmm.
Shikamaru is shaken from his thoughts by the sound of the librarian dropping off a book on a nearby shelf and realizes that while he’s been lost in thought Sakura has gotten a start on her book about feet(???)
“Whatever, he can question why she’s reading about feet later.”
“Hey Sakura”, she hmms in question but only spares him a glance from her book, “Do you think you’d be able to teach me the bubble Jutsu you made?” because frankly, its be incredibly convenient and Shikamaru has far too many questions to just let things lie. (it also gives him an excuse to talk to her a little longer but no one needs to know that)
Sakura still doesn’t look up from her book as she answers with a quick “sure” and Shikamaru gets the feeling they probably won't be leaving until she’s at least done with the chapter.
Roughly 30 minutes later Sakura has finished a good amount of her book and taken a few notes (though Shikamaru can see they're mostly just questions to look into for the future) when she starts packing her stuff into her book bag and announces, “we can do it at your place, no chakra allowed in the library.”
And well, Shikamaru doesn't remember ever inviting her to his house or stating that they needed to start on it today but he’s not going to complain, he’s sure Mom’ll be happy he’s bringing friends other than Chouji and Ino over.
Maybe he can even convince her to stay for dinner and teach him about the whole blood bubble thing.
So far she makes for pretty interesting company.