Chapter 7
Naruto was angry. Suppressing the nine-tails on his own with the help of his father had brought with it the suppression of the healing chakra. Of course, the blond hadn’t noticed until Pain had died and for some reason, he’d looked at his wrist.
Shikamaru Nara
The penmanship was familiar, the Nara had always had beautiful writing and seeing his name scribed on his wrist in hues of green, brown and black was the most beautifully artistic thing he had ever seen. Immense relief washed over him. Sasuke was not his soulmate. After so long of no one coming forward in the village, or anywhere else he’d been, he’d truly feared it was the Uchiha. Naruto couldn’t deny he loved the man, but it felt more brotherly than anything intimate.
Shikamaru on the other hand…
Warmth filled him from head to toe, a smile breaking across his face. The smile would be short lived as he imagined the brunette and the band over his own soulmark was like a slap in the face. Shikamaru hid. He didn’t want the bond, didn’t want to be with Naruto. There could be no other explanation. Seeing the fear on his supposed soulmate’s face when briefly confronted with the truth only confirmed his thoughts.
Shikamaru Nara did not want him.
Well, if Shikamaru did not want him, he did not want, or need, Shikamaru Nara.
—xOx—
“Shikamaru…” Choji starts after the Nara sits up. It’s the first time he’s taken in his surroundings since his two friends pulled him from the angry eyes of his soulmate. Ino and Choji have him with his back to a tree and their warmth on either side of them. He can see a large wet spot on Choji’s armor and he wonders how long they’ve been here. Here, ends up being the edges of the Nara forest that were spared during Pain’s assault and he’s so fucking grateful to the both of them that the lump in his throat overwhelms him.
“I’m okay,” he says but neither of them comment. They don’t need to. Both of them know he’s far from okay but he’s cried out. What he needs is a distraction and Ino, who had always seemed to be able to read his mind, pressed on his ankle causing him to hiss. Right, broken leg. She’d splinted it but he needed to see a medic.
“We can bring Sakura here. I’m sure she won’t mind.” Another wave of overwhelming gratefulness has him leaning into her side and hugging her tightly. She holds him for a moment until he can tamp down on his emotions, before gently pushing him back against Choji. “I’ll bring her back soon and then we can set up camp. It’ll be like old times,” she smiles and pats his cheek before standing.
“Tomorrow, I will talk to him,” Shikamaru whispers. “Now that I don’t have to, I’m no longer going to hide this. If he rejects me after that, then he’s within his right, but I need to tell him why and how I feel. We need to be the ones to decide our future now, no one else.”
Ino and Choji both smile, the former running her hand through loose hair that’s fallen from his ponytail and the latter pulling him into a warm embrace.
“Tomorrow then, we’re going to make your soulmate listen even if we have to tie him to a tree,” Ino grins and Shikamaru smiles softly. He has such good friends, he thinks.
After she’s gone, he feels the day begin to weigh on him. He feels utterly drained of everything. His mind is a blessed fog and he’s glad that he seems incapable of focusing on anything. Choji is rambling somewhere beside him and it’s good background noise that he doesn’t have to focus on.
A slap across his face makes him blink his eyes open, unable to remember when he closed them. “S-Sakura?” Had he fallen asleep? Ino, Choji and Sakura are staring down at him and behind him he can see the clouds moving lazily across the sky. He loses time again, another slap across his cheek bringing him back to the three hovering over him.
“Keep him awake Ino. He’s hemorrhaging Chakra.”
“What? How?” Ino shrieks and he feels the giggles bubble up inside of him.
“He rejected me,” Shikamaru snorted like it was the funniest thing ever. It’s not, but he can’t help but feel that it’s deserved. After everything, Naruto finally made his choice, when everything else was decided for him, he made the choice on who to love. The genius is proud of his soulmate. It doesn’t even hurt like he thought it would.
“This isn’t something to laugh about, Shikamaru!” Ino shrieks again and he rolls his head away as her green eyes water with unshed tears. Choji has already let loose and the Nara is vaguely aware that he should be concerned. He’s dying. He should be angry and bitter at the village that made him lie to his soulmate, but he’s not. It’s just… He would have made the same choices. Protecting Naruto was always the only choice.
“Don’t tell him,” he gasps, knowing Naruto would feel guilty over one death, even if he hated Shikamaru. “Sakura, Ino, Choji, don’t tell him. I don’t want him to feel bad. Protect him. He’s going to be…Hokage someday. Promise?”
His teammates are nodding and even Sakura agrees as she pours healing chakra into him. It’s enough to let him give in to the darkness around him, even as he hears Ino scream.
—xOx—
Naruto is woken early the next morning with a rock in his gut. Something doesn’t feel right, he thinks and knows the feeling is too strong for him to go back to sleep. Looking around his surroundings, the night before comes back to him. Someone had led him to a tent, Yamato, he thinks to sleep off his exhaustion. Stumbling out of the tent showed that it was still nighttime though dawn seemed to be coming soon if the pink glow in the eastern sky is any clue.
He makes his way through the other tents and makeshift shelters that are left in the aftermath of Pain’s Assault, but he doesn’t really see anything. He isn’t aware he is going anywhere until he sees Asuma smoking outside of a tent with a light on. If the Jounin is surprised to see him, like Naruto is, it’s hidden by a mask of anger that quickly melts away into neutrality. Naruto is surprised to see it because as far as he knows, Asuma has never been angry before. It reminds him of the looks he received as a child and he opens his mouth to say something when the Sensei merely opens the tent and gestures for him to go inside.
The first thing Naruto notices is that it’s crowded with people he doesn’t see often but knows who they are. The Akimichi and Yamanaka clan heads along with their wives sit with their children on makeshift bedding on one side of the tent. On the other side are Asuma and Kurenai.
“What are you doing here?” Ino barks, sitting up from where she had been leaning against her Inoichi. The venom in her voice makes him recoil, but before he can reply, or she can press, Choji speaks up.
“Ino, we made a promise.” The fight in the blond seems to dissolve before a sob rips from her throat and she’s pulled into an embrace by her father. Now, Naruto looks to the center of the room where a familiar head of pink hair is leaning over someone, hands glowing with green healing chakra. Shikaku Nara and his wife Yoshino are on the opposite side of her. When Sakura stops, Naruto finally gets a good look at the person in the bed.
Shikamaru is pale. So pale that his skin has taken on a gray pallor instead of the normal warm olive tone he did have. There are dark circles under his eyes like the shadows themselves are tugging his eyelids closed.
“Shikamaru,” he whispers the bad feeling he’d felt when he woke up increasing ten-fold. “What’s happening?” He yells, even as his teammate shakes her head back and forth, green eyes full of tears as she looks up at Shikaku.
“I’m sorry, Nara-San. That’s all I can do. I can’t seem to stop it.”
“What’s going on?!” Naruto yells again and approaches his teammate. The pain he feels in his chest is worse than any kunai, worse than knowing that he’d never see Jiraiya again. Shikamaru was fine when he saw him earlier. Pain was supposed to keep this from happening and Naruto…Naruto didn’t understand why his soulmate was lying in a medical bed like his life was fading away. He looks at Sakura who won’t meet him in the eyes before turning to Ino and Choj who also avert their gaze. He can’t fix it if no one tells him what’s wrong. He can’t lose the other man. Even if Shikamaru doesn’t want him as a soulmate, he knows he can’t lose him like this.
“He’s dying, Naruto.” Shikaku finally speaks up. It’s obvious Shikamaru inherited his father’s eyes when he turns the same chocolate brown towards the belligerent blond, and yet those eyes lack any of the warmth that Shikamaru has.
“How?” Naruto croaks, hands clenching at his side. How is he dying? For a moment, no one answers him. Looking at Ino, Choji and Sakura, they all shake their heads. They don’t want to tell him, or they can’t, but it doesn’t matter. He feels his own eyes burning in response as he turns back to the figure in the bed. “How?” He says again, this time his voice barely above a whisper, yet when silence trumps the room again, he inhales to yell.
“Soulmate rejection.”