embarrassment breeds familiarity
Shikamaru was feeling kind of disappointed in himself, to be honest.
He had rushed to the park after school giving his friends some excuse that his mom needed him when they looked at him funny for moving faster than a leisurely stroll, all because he was excited to actually talk with Sakura, to have a real conversation and become friends in more than just name
But that didn’t happen.
Because Sakura doesn't come to the park right after school, no, she usually comes around 4 which is an hour to an hour and a half after school ends, and Shikamaru knows this, he’s unintentionally studied her with his eyes closed for the past 89 days, she never comes to the park right after school, she probably goes home and eats and lets her parents know where she’s going or something.
So now Shikamaru is yet again laying on the grass underneath his favorite tree feeling dumb except this time he’s not meditating, just watching the clouds, sulking. “What a drag” is mumbled before he falls into thought about one specific bunny-shaped cloud.
30 minutes pass and Shikamaru has been going over in his head that, in hindsight, it was rather obvious that Sakura was an academy student. She was incredibly light-footed, had unnaturally even breathing (something taught in their first year of the academy), and her chakra was activated, a civilian's chakra is never activated at 7 (was she 7?). Plus on top of all of that, she’d been reading a state-regulated history book. “History of Tea” was probably an incredibly dry read and very oddly colored (it was neon yellow with bright purple stars on it) but it still had a big ol’ Konoha stamp on the front, so while the book probably wasnt anything confidential or anything, no civilian would be allowed to read a book with the state seal on it. (Shikamaru guesses she probably got it from the academy library.)
He’s about to mentally debate the pros and cons of military-systemized education when someone lays down next to him and points at the sky, “That one looks like a bear.”
Shikamaru is startled until he sees pink in his peripheral vision, he’s briefly elated that she’s decided to come early before being utterly offended at her proclamation “What no it doesn’t it’s obviously a bunny”. (Shikamaru would know, it’s the cloud he's been looking at for the past 20 minutes, he’s bonded with that bunny, given it a backstory, and named it Usagi. It watched him sulk he watched it drift, she can’t just claim it's a bear!)
“No, it’s definitely a bear, its arms are up and it’s sitting” she defends, shifting a little and he’s distracted for a second when he catches a whiff of moss and rain. “Why on earth would a bear be sitting with its arms up, what is it inviting prey for tea?” is shot back before he can think better of it, this is the humor he uses with Ino and Chouji, not a new friend, he doesn't want to scare her off or anything. It's quiet for a moment and Shikamaru worries he might have upset her when she answers in a hesitant tone, “Maybe… it wants a hug?”
And he just can't help bursting into chuckles and sitting up to face her, “So the bear wants hug’s huh?”. She giggles in response and it sounds like bells and sunshine and exactly how Shikamaru imagines a fairy would laugh, “You're here early, do you usually look for shapes in the clouds?”
Sakura sits up as well, fiddling with the grass in front of her, “Mmm, sometimes, when my book ends up too boring I like to watch and daydream.” her fingers start braiding a strip of grass, “but not often, most of the books from the academy library are quite fascinating.”
“Really?” Shikamaru kinda doubts that “even “The History of Tea?”” He eyes her fidgeting hands and reaches out to the side where a group of daisies are, plucks them, and hands them to her so she stops tormenting the grass with a too-tight French braid.
She glances down at the flowers, “Oh no that one was incredibly dull. Suspiciously dull in fact. So I finished it anyway and ended up finding a hidden code.”
“Wait really? What did it say?” he’s mildly surprised a book like that was in the school library, but maybe a chunin misplaced it, they tend to do that.
She shrugs, looking up from a half-formed flower crown, “Nothing interesting, I think it might have been a book the older students use when learning code-breaking and intel gathering.” she pauses, reaching over to grab more flowers and Shikamaru catches more of that moss and rain scent, he was distracted by the whole bunny/bear discussion earlier but now he has time to be surprised by the fact he can actually smell her natural scent before he realizes its not her he’s smelling, it's her chakra. “Is she unconsciously letting out her chakra right now? Why?”
He’s about to ask when Sakura finishes off the crown and puts it on her head and any comprehension Shikamaru held towards the Elemental nation’s language disappears because Sakura looks like a gosh darn flower nymph and instead of asking “Hey Sakura are you aware you're letting out chakra right now?” he blurts “You smell like moss.” his face flames, “and rain.”
( nonononononoWRONGWORDS)
He catches Sakura’s wide-eyed stare at the most likely unexpected and slightly creepy conversation turn and closes his eyes in mortification, drops his head back, and sends prayers to Kami that he can somehow come up with a time-space jutsu that would take back the past 30 seconds, “wait but then I won’t see Sakura in a flower crown, which is worse, no flower crown Sakura or her thinking he has mortifying creeping tendencies.”
He spends a good 30 seconds with his eyes closed using every meditation technique he knows trying to clear the embarrassment so that when he opens his eyes he can apologize and explain himself when he feels Sakura lean close and for a momentt he’s worried she’s going to punch him or something (god knows Ino would) but instead she, sniffs? Him?
He opens his eyes to Sakura who now has hers closed, her eyebrows furrowed, and has leaned in very close in an attempt to smell him. “Why don’t you smell like anything?” she opens her eyes and tilts her head in a questioning manner, “- like a cute little animal-” Shikamaru clears his throat and leans back a bit in response and Sakura thankfully gets the hint and backs up, “I um, use scent blocking shampoo.”
Sakura looked a little confused, “Well yes, but so do I, we’re instructed to do so in the first week. I thought since you could smell me maybe it wasn’t all that powerful?” ah he understands her confusion, and now, to his continued mortification, she expects a response on why he can smell her, “umm, no it's not you I was smelling, it was your chakra, you’re kinda… spilling it.” he finished lamely.
She looks incredibly shocked and slightly embarrassed by this revelation and Shikamaru is suddenly worried that maybe she didn’t know and there was something wrong with her coils when she whispers yells, “People can smell when I let out chakra?!”
He snorts, forgetting the situation's awkwardness for a second, and answers, “No they can't, don't worry. My dad taught me how to thread chakra through my nose last year because I had offhandedly asked what he thinks people’s chakra looks like and he said, “No idea, but do you want to smell it?” and I've been stuck with the ability ever since.”
Sakura looks relieved, “So most people can’t smell my chakra right?”
“Correct”
“Oh thank goodness,” she pauses and a small blush spreads on her cheeks,” I’ve been letting it out every day after school because I read that depleting your reserves could help in growing chakra stores.” her shoulders deflate a little, “Moss and rain huh? That's interesting, I wonder why?.” she turns to look at him and he’s struck by the fact that she STILL wearing the flower crown (and blushing and looking so very very pink) “can you teach me? Smelling chakra sounds cool.”
“Sure”, he answers without a second thought (he seems to be doing that a lot around her). Usually, teaching is a bit of a drag but Sakura has shown to be pretty smart and at least has enough chakra control to not kill herself by letting copious amounts of it just spill out of her.
“So, we’re going to have to sit a bit differently for this, it’s sort of like meditation except instead of just clearing your head and stuff you're going to circulate your chakra as well.”
He adjusts himself so he’s sitting directly across from Sakura in a lotus position and she mirrors him to match, “Um, I’m going to need to hold your hands, just to show you how the chakra enters my nose so you can replicate it.”
At this point when Sakura places her hands in his he’s given up fighting the blush, at least with the pink staining his ears he can match Sakura in coloring. He doesn’t expect to like holding her hands though. He’s never been a huge fan of physical touch but holding hands with Sakura feels nice. comfortable (like he could do it all day every day all the time), he’s going to have to come up with more excuses to hold hands, that’s for sure.
The next 5 minutes are spent showing Sakura how he carefully molds his chakra into something similar to a thread and laces it through the lining of his nose to create a sort of net so that when he smells in he filters the surrounding chakra, sending a comparable scent to his brain. (Because chakra doesn’t actually smell like anything, his brain needs to compare it to a scent he already knows or he’d just be smelling air and nothing would change)
She’s a very quick learner, picks up the threading and chakra net thing on her first try (which is pretty impressive, it took Shikamaru at least 5) and the second she’s done threading she inhales, and sneezes.
“Ya that makes sense”, because it’s not just humans that have chakra, Everything has chakra, so basically, on top of smelling a whole bunch of new scents everything also smells stronger than it had before. (In hindsight he probably should have warned her)
Once she gets done with her (adorable) little sneezing fit Shikamaru apologizes, “That was my bad, should have warned you” Sakura blinks at the apology, “It’s fine, but I still can’t smell you?”
“Oh that’s just because I’m not letting out any chakra right now, one sec” Shikamaru lets out the smallest bit of chakra, just enough for her to smell and not nearly as much as Sakura was letting out earlier
She leans forward once again and Shikamaru feels… oddly exposed. Which is ridiculous because he’s already done this with both Ino and Chouji when they asked him to teach them, (Chouji smells, predictably, like a grill, and Ino oddly enough smells kind of like carbonation, she wasn’t happy about that)
“Hmmm, you smell-“ she takes another sniff, “like incense, kind of spicy” She leans back and tilts her head to the side, “it’s very peaceful, reminds me of a shrine I went to with my grandmother.”
Huh, that’s interesting, Ino and Chouji had described Shikamaru as “smoky” but maybe that's just because they don’t use incense. “I wonder if the chunin and jounin ever get distracted by their opponents' chakra scent in battle.” Sakura seems to wonder aloud.
“Oh no they don’t, this isn’t really a widespread technique, not a lot of shinobi know it” Shikamaru states a little awkwardly.
“that’s a shame, it seems useful for tracking, I wonder why it’s not popular” She takes her flower crown off with a hand and sniffs it with interest then scrunches her nose.
Sakura’s not wrong, if it was available to the public he’s sure it would be very popular, that being said, it’s definitely not available to the public as *technically*, it’s a Nara clan secret, Sakura doesn’t need to know that though. (He’s not sure how he feels about the fact that he apparently has no qualms about sharing clan secrets with a girl he basically just met)
Shikamaru is about to start the conversation up again when Sakura lays down and it’s brought to his attention that he’s still holding one of her hands when she tugs a bit to get him to lay down next to her.
“This is a lot easier than I thought it would be.” she says once he’s settled and they’re both looking at the clouds once again.
Shikamaru relaxes at the familiar position, “what’s easier?” He’s a little disappointed when she releases their hands but mollified when instead of letting go she just readjusts them. “Talking”
He doesn’t know if she means talking to him or talking in general but he for one is also surprised at how quickly he’s gotten comfortable around her so he just says “Yeah, it is.”
(He would later regret not asking for clarification.)
A good hour passes with them on the ground cloud-watching. Just talking back and forth, sharing fun facts and tidbits about themselves. (“My shadow is naturally longer and darker than other people” “If I focus enough I can move my chakra through individual strands of hair and make it float, it looks a bit like a jellyfish” “I’ve only drank coffee once and I hated it, couldn’t sleep at all for like 7 hours”)
“Really? What about the boring ones?” was Shikamaru’s response when Sakura told him her goal of reading the entire academy library.
“Yup, I think I should be able to finish by the end of our second year, I try and read a different book every day” she sounded rather proud, “and most books are interesting in some way or another, even if only because the cover is strange.”
That sentence struck him for some reason and Shikamaru squints in thought, “Is that why you picked “History of Tea”?” suspicion lacing his voice, “Because it had a weird cover?” there was silence for a long moment before he heard a mumbled, “Maybe.”
He can't help the snort that turns into a cackle when she smacks him in offense.
(Sakura)
Sakura had started the day thinking her meeting with Shikamaru would be uncomfortable and awkward but ultimately nice
She had prepared a speech on why he should be her friend and why it would be beneficial to the both of them. When she caught a glance of him at lunch Sakura had been excited that she wouldn’t have to wait until after school to present it to him. But then she finished rounding the corner and saw him with other people, with friends (the blond one was talking and the large one was laughing and Shikamaru wasn’t joined in the conversation but he was smirking looking incredibly content.)
And suddenly all of Sakura's confidence was thrown out a window and kicked into a tree. See, Sakura had thought they could be friends because she assumed that he was also looking for one, he spent his afternoons alone (like her) and seemed kind of socially awkward (like her) like he didn’t know how to react to people sometimes (the staring), but, he did have friends, good ones it looks like, so why on earth would he ever need her as one?
She watched them for a little while, partly in longing and partly because she had already eaten and had nothing else to do. Then suddenly, his friends left. Shikamaru didn’t look surprised, did this happen often? If so, maybe Sakura could be his friend when his other friends are gone!
She watched him for maybe another 10 minutes (to ensure his other friends wouldn’t come back and kick her out), then, she made her move.
She goes for natural and approaches him like she always does, with a book in hand, sitting next to his head, and when he doesn’t stir she fidgets with a page and wonders if she should wake him.
And then, suddenly, he’s awake, asking her questions and telling her they’re already friends, and Sakura just can’t contain her smile. She doesn’t care if it'll give her wrinkles like Mom says or if it’s ungainly like Grandma said or if it’s “unrefined for a lady to smile so unrestrained Sakura, do better”, she doesn’t care. (what’s one more rule they aren’t here to see her break)
So she smiles and she is so so relieved.
Sakura, unfortunately, cannot go to the park first thing after school. She has to go to the post office her parents use to see if there's any news on their return. This particular post office is only open until 5 on weekdays so it's best if she goes right after school every day and not risk missing anything. (She missed a letter once and was told it had been placed in the Haruno mailbox but Sakura does not have a key to the mailbox and cannot get one without a parent present, and she couldn’t send them a letter to explain this because they always include the address of their current location in the letters she at the time could not read, it was very frustrating.)
After checking and being told she had no mail (she hasn’t for the past 10 months) she hurries over to the park and finds Shikamaru once again lying on his back, except this time he’s got his eyes open, gazing at the clouds.
Before Sakura can lose her nerve she plops down next to him and scurries to find any topic of conversation she can and ends up pointing at the first thing she sees and saying “That one looks like a bear.” which is wrong, it looks nothing like a bear but she’s just said it with such confidence sakura has to back it up now.
Turns out Shikamaru is very serious about his cloud-watching and they debate before falling into laughter and the conversation turns to books. And Sakura, Sakura is nervous, she’s nervous she’ll mess up, or say the wrong thing, or worse run out of words again. So, she fidgets. Starting with her fingers and then moving on to the grass when finally Shikamaru hands her some flowers and she imitates something she saw Ami do before and starts weaving it into a crown. (she bets it’d look lovely on Shikamaru. Just maybe not with his ponytail.)
She’s just tucked the last stem and takes a moment to debate if she should wear it or give it to Shikamaru (he did give her the flowers after all) when she ultimately decides to just keep it. She heard from her grandmother that most boys don’t like flowers anyway.
The moment she puts the crown on her head Shikamaru tells her in a non to coherent speech that she smells like moss and rain and Sakura is incredibly confused because she’s pretty sure she used her scent-blocking soap this morning but maybe she needs a different brand? But she uses the brand the school recommended so maybe it's rubbed off?
Sakura sniffs her hand and when she can’t smell anything she looks up to question what he means and sees that Shikamaru is no longer looking at her, he’s dropped his head back with his eyes closed and his face is incredibly red. For a second she worries he’s choked or something but then she sees the visual cringe on his face and realizes that he's embarrassed.
Sakura decides to not bother him while he’s doing… whatever it is he’s doing to calm down because she gets it, sometimes you say your inside thoughts outside and it’s embarrassing, but after like 20 seconds of just watching him seemingly meditate (just like old times) she grows curious and leans forward to see if Shikamaru's soap has also rubbed off, “Why don’t you smell like anything?”
The conversation following that question is both mortifying and fascinating and leaves Sakura holding Shikamaru's hands. It’s very nice, the last time Sakura held hands with someone was with her father during the chunin exams to make sure she didn’t get lost in the crowd. This is nothing like that, her father's hands are large and rather smooth, they squeeze, and Shikamarus are as small as hers and as rough as someone learning to fight would be (like hers) and incredibly gentle. She likes it.
Shikamaru guides Sakura through the chakra molding necessary to smell chakra (SMELL IT) and Sakura is so excited that the very moment she gets it down she inhales, and sneezes. She thinks she’s spent her life nose blind because good lord are there a lot of smells and her flower crown doesn't smell nearly as good as she had thought it had but Shikamaru smells infinitely better. He smells like incense and spice, a little smoky and somehow warm and it just makes Sakura want to lie in bed and snuggle into a blanket.
But she can't do that right now so instead she lays down on the grass and does her best to snuggle his hand without actually snuggling it.
And then they talk. Just talk and talk and Sakura learns what she feels like is everything and nothing about Shikamaru. She learns he’s left-handed, that he’s an only child and from a ninja clan that deals with shadows, his two best friends are named Ino and Chouji (“I'll introduce you guys sometime, I think you’d like them”) and his favorite chore is feeding the Nara deer.
And finally, it’s sundown, and Sakura just can't believe how much fun she’s had today. She doesn’t want to go home (to an empty/cold/dark house where no one visits or stays or laughs or holds her hands and teaches her things) doesn't want to make herself dinner or take out the trash. She doesn’t want it to end, and when she tells this to Shikamaru he just smiles and says not to worry, “It’ll happen all again tomorrow remember?”
So Sakura walks home. She cleans the kitchen and makes herself dinner and takes out the trash and she does it all with the biggest smile she can manage in this house because if every tomorrow is just as great as today then it won't matter if her parents never come back, she has tomorrow.
And when Shikamaru goes home he's wearing his hair down with a flower crown on top, wondering how he’s going to ask his dad to get background checks on all the teachers without telling him why. Troublesome.