Archive of Our Own ^beta

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.

Chapter Text

They don’t talk much on the walk to his house. Shikamaru mainly watching the clouds overhead, and Sakura walking with a book open in hand. It’s a good thing he’s been taking this route for nearly 5 years now because neither of them are paying attention to where they’re going.

They’re about to round the corner that leads to the Nara compound when he hears a quiet “Ah!” And Sakura stops walking to look up from her book, “I don’t have a plant!”

Shikamaru furrows a brow as he turns to look at her and before he can ask what the heck she's talking about Sakura looks him in the eyes and asks, “Do you think I’ll still be allowed in?”

“You mean to my house??” He stares, more than a little bewildered because why the fuck would she need a plant??

She frowns at him like he’s the one not making sense and says in a “Are you slow?” tone “Yes Shikamaru, I have manners, I bring plants.”

“You bring plants???” and, obviously he's asking the wrong question because instead of elaborating she just says, “Yes of course.”

Shikamaru takes a moment, closes his eyes, and inhales a deep breath, slowly letting it out and opening them again to ask, “Okay Sakura, may I ask why and where you are bringing these plants?”

His pink-haired classmate sort of side-eyes him with thinly veiled concern (which is incredibly insulting seeing as she is the one spouting horticulture nonsense), “I bring them to people's houses? Or at least I intend to. You know, like the pamphlet says, “it's only polite to bring a favor when visiting a friends house” though-” she frowns in thought, “I suppose since we aren’t friends maybe the same rules don’t apply?”

“You mean the pamphlet they give you in the first year about how to make friends?? Why are you referencing your social norms off of that it's like a hundred years old. Also, why aren’t we friends?”

Shikamaru’s kind of offended, he’s been in class with her for years and he’s taking her to his house and she doesn't even consider them friends? (he deftly ignores the fact that they’ve never really talked before this) Sakura doesn't seem to pick up on his offense though, “What else would I base my relationships on Shikamaru, do you have a better book for me to use?” then turning to look at the trees around them and Shikamaru is about to point out that she never addressed the whole “not a friend” thing when she lights up in what seems to be an ‘AHA’’ moment and pulls her bag off her shoulder, stuffs her hand in one of the little pockets, pulls out a packet of seeds and shoves them in his face.

“Never mind I have tomato seeds do you think they count as a plant?”

And you know what, Shikamaru’s never been a fan of societal norms anyway, he’s just going to give up trying to talk to her in a normal way and adopt a more go-with-the-flow approach because Sakura seems to just speak the way her brain flows and if he stops expecting the same type of conversation he gets from say, Ino, then he thinks he’ll stop being so confused. 

He sighs, “First of all, yes they’re plants, second, why do you have them in your school bag?” and turns to continue the walk to his house.

“Oh well, I had been planning to plant them in my garden and see if I could make them poisonous by watering them with cyanide water.” which is an incredibly out there and very interesting thought, and in lew of his new resolution instead of asking why the fuck she would do that and where the cyanide came from he asks, “you don’t think they'd taste bitter?” actually no he's asking where the cyanide came from, “and where did you get enough cyanide that you can water plants with it?”

Sakura’s got a finger on her chin in thought when he turns to look at her, “Oh they probably would, I tried it once with a cherry tree because cherries naturally contain cyanide and it did make them more bitter.” should he be worried that she tried them?? “And I made it, of course, poisons are regulated for Academy students you know.” and yes, Shikamaru does know, what he does not know is how on earth she Made cyanide at home.

He would very much like to learn.

Unfortunately, he’ll have to ask later because they’ve arrived at his door and his mom is, frustratingly, a rather good sensor and would very much notice if he loiters “All right I'm asking later how you made cyanide but mom has a no poison talk in the house rule since last year, it expires in a month and I’d rather not extend it.” yeah there was an unfortunate accident revolving around their lesson on acids and poisons and his mom's nice pots that he’d rather not get into.

He sees Sakura nod her head from the corner of his eye as he opens the door and shouts his arrival. He and Sakura start to take off their sandals and he’s just stuffed his feet in some slippers when it occurs to him that he should probably offer his guest a pair as well, “Hey Sakura, do you want so-” and promptly cuts himself off because Sakura is already wearing a pair of slippers.

Not one of Nara family’s pairs either, no, the ones she’s got on are pink and fluffy with floppy little rabbit ears and disturbingly beady eyes.

They are incredibly tacky and girly and he cannot help but be just a little daunted by their pink splendor for a second before initiating his second staring contest of the day.

“You brought your own slippers.”

“Indeed”

“...why?”

“My grandmother once got a fungal infection from sharing socks with her friend when she was little and now she only has 8 toes.”

“Fair enough” and that probably should be the end of it, he should be leading them to the kitchen where they can grab a snack and start their no doubt riveting conversation on chakra bubbles but Shikamaru accidentally initiated eye contact and while he knows he’s not going to win somehow the action awoke his long dead sense of competition. 

“My dad only has 9 toes,” he adds after a moment of silence. Which is kind of odd, he usually doesn’t have a problem with awkward silence.

Sakura raises an eyebrow in interest, “Did he too partake in lower appendage bacterial bartering.”

It takes him longer to process her question than it should (her eyes are incredibly green and his are already starting to burn, It’s distracting) but when he does he has to fight a snigger because he’s pretty sure Sakura just accidentally insinuated his dad lost a toe while having sex.

Then he remembers that said sex would have been with his mom and has to fight a cringe that would no doubt offend Sakura, to whom he is still making eye contact with and failing to answer.

“Oh! Shikamaru, I didn’t hear you arrive!” his mother bullshits, appearing from quite literally nowhere holding some laundry, there's no way she didn’t hear him, the woman has bat ears he swears. “Just got home, Mom this is Sakura, she’s helping me on a project.”

And Sakura, in an impressive display of competitive spirit does not turn to face his mother in introduction, instead, she tilts her head in a sort of half-head bow while keeping her sights on him, “Hello Nara-san, it’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m here to help Shikamaru expand his murder prowess via bubbles.”

This was not at all how he was expecting her to introduce herself or his purpose for wanting to learn the bubble jutsu (Shikamaru kinda just wanted to be able to unnervingly stare people into leaving him alone but he wasn’t going to tell her that) but his mother takes in good stride, with all the experience of having dealt with stupid smart family members with odd hobbies, “Oh that's lovely, it's great to meet you Sakura, Shikamaru rarely brings friends home, none the less ones with such pretty hair.” there's a pause, likely to take in the aggressive battle of eyeballs in front of her, “Would you two like a snack while you finish your game? I bought mango earlier today.”

“Mhhm”

“Yes please, thank you.”

Ten minutes later find’s Shikamaru and Sakura sitting criss-cross apple sauce on the floor in front of the door with a plate of half-finished mango his mom left them (“Tell me about your project when you're done okay? Oh and don’t block the door, your fathers coming home soon”) and some cushions to sit on.

Shikamaru is currently shedding stoic tears of determination, three minutes in his eyes started watering and they’ve been dripping down ever since. Sakura is entirely unbothered and began reciting pi at the 5-minute mark out of boredom while Shikamaru tries his best to put his mind into a state of meditation. It's not really about winning at this point, its about commitment.

And Spite .

(he also kinda wants to see how far Sakura can get into Pi, so far she’s a very impressive 3 thousand digits.)

Alas, the world may never know how long they’d last. Just as Sakura reaches digit number 3067 and Shikamaru chomps on a particularly juicy bit of mango the front door (that they never moved from sitting in front of like his mother told him to) swings open, narrowly missing Sakura and smacking Shikamaru squarely in the face, promptly, making him lose the competition.

“Hello there, and who might you be?” 

Shikaku pov:

Shikaku is a very go-with-the-flow kind of guy.

He generally has to be in his line of work.

In the beginning, he’d tried his best to plan for every occasion and “expect the unexpected”. But, after a few years in his position as Jonin commander, dealing with the no doubt PTSD-induced idiocy that afflicts the standard shinobi he’s learned to just take things as they come, hold no expectations, and stay vigilant.

Rules to live by, truly.

So when he opens his front door on a random Wednesday afternoon to find, not his beautiful loving wife, but instead what looks to be a 10-year-old pink haired girl sitting on his floor wearing garish slippers (where did she get those??) and holding a slice of mango, he does not pull a kunai as a majority of his coworkers would. No, instead he feels for the strong presence of his wife’s chakra in the living room and his much closer son who’s… behind the door? “Oh, whoops.”

After assuring himself that the little girl is not an enemy nin taking on a particularly innocent disguise and his family is well and whole he greets her, “Hello there, and who might you be?” 

The girl stands, hand cradling the mango as she does, and gives him a small bow, “Hello Nara-san, I am a classmate of Shikamarus here to help him on a project, I brought tomato seeds as an offering.”

“Ahhh…” Well, this is awkward, “I see, thank you, but unfortunately, the Nara clan hasn’t taken offerings since the warring period.”

Her face screws a little in confusion and her mouth parts a little, but before she can voice her question his son appears from around the door covered in mango bits and sporting a red forehead and teary eyes, “ugh, she doesn’t mean as an Offering offering dad she means as a thank you for letting her into our house.-” and then pointing a finger at the girl, “Did you close your eyes at all?”

And evidently, her smug pleased expression is enough of an answer because then Shikamaru is groaning and bout “-unfair advantages-” and “-won on a technicality-” as he picks chunks of orange mush off of him.

Shikaku scootches past as his son and the girl (whose name he still doesn’t have) don't explain the situation and instead move together to clear the area so he can finally enter his home. “Were you two playing a game?”

Shikamaru, ever the beacon of helpfulness, just huffs and shrugs. “Yes, Shikamaru was endeavoring to beat me at a staring contest, this was his second attempt and he lasted a very impressive 9 minutes.” she has a surprisingly proud tone as she answers his question and Shikaku spots a bit of red on his son's ears. “Well, would you look at that.”

“Is that so?” he raises an eyebrow at his son, carrying a bowl and looking entirely unimpressed, “well congratulations Shikamaru, my pride for you knows no bounds.”

That gets him the patented teenage eye-roll and scoff, he hears a faint, “yeah yeah.” as his son finally grows tired of standing in the entryway and starts toward the kitchen, “Sakura I’m going drop this off at the kitchen you ca- is that mango from the floor?” he stops mid-step.

Lo and behold, the newly named Sakura is finally eating that slice of mango she’s been holding the whole time. ( was it from the floor?) “No” she scowls, “I picked this up at number 2086.” because that makes sense.

His son looks doubtful, side-eyeing her from where he continues to creep towards the kitchen, “Right... Anyway, my dad can show you where to put the cushions, I'll meet you in the living room with some tea if that's fine? Do we need anything for the experiment?”

Sakura nods, “just a glass of water.” 

And then he’s left alone, with the little girl he’s just been voluntold to help by his son, “so, the living room is this way-” he states, turning to the hallway on the left, “-we can put the cushions underneath the coffee table.”

“Okay”

“Okay”

Shikaku never claimed to be a good conversationalist, so the emanating silence as they drop off the cushions really isn’t all that surprising. He expects it to go until his son comes back and he can finally leave to the comfort of his wife’s presence when he sits on his favorite armchair and the girl speaks.

“Has your loss of toe affected your balance at all?”

“...what?”

Shikamaru pov:

He hadn’t really thought much of leaving Sakura to his dad so he could drop the dish off at the kitchen and take a moment to change his clothes to something less sticky. But as he’s rounding the corner of the kitchen, balancing a tea tray it occurs to him that maybe leaving his father who only willingly interacts with 1 child and tolerates another 2, and his slightly socially inept classmate together after just meeting wasn’t the right move.

“Well.. whatever,” he thinks, watching his mom press an ear to the wall of the living room, “Is it painfully quiet?”

“Um no-” she mutters, hand covering an amused smile, “I think your fathers found a new friend, they seem to be getting along quite well and are discussing the merits of a prosthetic toe for those who lose one, I have no idea how it started but they're both quite invested.”

Shikamaru feels a sigh dreg its way from the depths of his soul, “Troublesome”

His dad doesn’t stay long after Shikamaru enters the room, standing as he puts the tea tray on the coffee table near where Sakura is sitting in what looks to be the most uncomfortable position known to man, he begs his pardon with a final, “It was lovely to meet you Sakura, let's pick this back up another time. Shikamaru make sure to clean up whatever mess you guys make and let me and your mother know if Sakura’s staying for dinner.”

Which is a good point actually, “Do you want to stay for dinner sakura? I hadn’t really considered it but I don’t know how long this will take and we eat dinner at around 7.”

“No I don’t think so, I started marinating okra this morning and if I leave it too long it turns rubbery.” 

“Gotcha, and what’s okra?” he asks idly, pouring them both a cup of tea, “do you take sugar?”

“Yes, one spoonful, please. It’s a type of vegetable, I found a seed packet on the side of the road and planted it and now I have a bunch of them every spring that I have to pick or the neighbors come over and steal them.”

“And why don’t you just let them steal a few?” he asks, handing over her cup of tea, exerting more effort to make someone feel comfortable in his house than he has in a long long time, “-save yourself the effort”

“well I guess I could but then I'd be letting them win.” she huffs, taking a sip of tea. “Though I guess I do have too much right now anyway, would your family want some?”

“Yeah-” he slides down the couch a bit, wiggling a bit for a more comfortable position, “- I'm not sure if my parents have had it before but mom likes to experiment with food so thanks.”

“Sure. I'll bring you some tomorrow.” she gives a little smile, turning to face him with wide wide eyes and an excited expression, “Now, let's teach you how to make a bubble around your eye without blinding yourself!”

“Oh, goody..”

3 hours later Shikamaru is lying on the couch, his eyes bloodshot and burning, rethinking his career for the millionth time. “Is protecting his friends and family really worth it? Really?”

Turns out the process of replacing the wind in a bubble jutsu with an eyeball is not as easy as Sakura had made it out to be, mostly, because in order for a bubble to keep its shape the water has to be constantly moving at least a little bit or it'll break. And the eye was not made to have water constantly swirling around it so you have to have good enough control that your eye doesn’t actually notice the water. (he also apparently needs to just get used to the sensation of his eyeball being extra “moist”)

Sakura showed him what could happen if you rotate a bubble with too much water too fast by taking a Different packet of seeds (“This one is for a poisonous flower, I want to see if I can make an ink from it that’ll make someone sick by writing with it for extended periods of time.”) opening it and pulling out a single seed, and dropping it on the wattle bubble in her hand.

The seed was instantly shredded to pieces and Sakura explained that “while the eye itself would be fine, it could shred your eyelids and that would suck.”

Over the next few hours, Shikamaru discovers he’s not nearly as good with chakra control as he thought he was and Sakura is an absolute beast that definitely should have graduated, like, years ago.

She’s seriously impressive. (alarmingly so, he can't believe she never caught his attention before)

In the end, he succeeded. The bubble being a total waste of time and concentration is irrelevant. Plus he has a theory that the bubbles would do very well in preventing debris from getting in their eyes during fights and upping his overall chakra control, so who knows, maybe instead of closing his eyes when he puts his head down in class hell just keep them open and practice till he can keep the bubble going at all points.

“ More work… what a drag”

(And as he lies down for bed that night he resolves to get to know Sakura better, no matter how much of a bother it’ll be, she’s the most interesting person he’s ever met.)