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The rush hour is over. Shikamaru takes off his apron, folding it neatly before storing it behind the counter. He makes himself a large coffee and waves at his brother, wiping off a table further into the room. Chōji answers with a bright smile and a mouthed “thank you”. Sighing quietly, Shikamaru cracks his neck, stretching his whole body slowly. He grabs his coffee and goes to the other side of the room where a large curtain cuts the room in half.
Going through, he gets to his side of the shop, that he left in Ino' competent hands while he helped Chōji during the morning rush like he does on the days Mirai has off. They work as both a barista in Chōji's bakery and as a cashier and sorter in Shikamaru's bookshop. Ino has her own assistant, technically her apprentice, Hinata. Their system works well, and InoShikaChō's Lair is one of the most successful businesses in town.
Their shop is right in front of Konoha's third largest college, UK3, the Arts and Human Sciences University, and its 70,000 students make for an amazing clientele. On top of that, a block away from them, is the second largest, UK2, the Sciences and Computer Studies University. They are far from going out of bushiness.
The library/bookshop side has both books for sale and a large half of the room where books are available for free for the students coming in to study. There are single tables, group tables, computers and even two small rooms to study privately. Wi-Fi is unlimited if you buy anything from either Ino's or Chōji's sides, you can bring your books in Chōji's bakery and stuff to eat in Shikamaru's library, and they have a customer card for students coming in often. All in all, it works, and this year, they're making profit for the first time in the six years since they've opened.
They have their recurring customers, their favourites, and with how often they get students, they're starting to recognize all the faces coming in. usually, the oldest they get are in their early twenties and they easily spot whenever they get someone older. That's what being next to two universities mean. They almost never get people over twenty-five. Which is why they would have spotted the newcomer immediately simply because she looks about their age, closer to her mid-thirties than undergraduate.
But they didn't need to notice her age. It's not possible to miss when someone comes in using a cane to help with the metal prosthetic right leg, and the green cardigan wrapped around a right side stopping at the shoulder joint, the entire right arm missing.
Shikamaru has to kick himself mentally to stop staring. The new customer is deathly pale, cheeks gaunt and dark circles under eyes that are cast downward in the universal sign for shame. Her sunflower dress clings to a toned waist, making obvious the muscles in her torso, her broad shoulders and muscled arm. Her left leg is stable on the ground, her calf chiseled as well.
Her bowed head almost makes Shikamaru miss the large burns on her right cheek, coming up to her milky, unfocused eye and ending on her temple. Swallowing the surge of almost pervert curiosity, he fixes a welcoming smile on his face and waits to see if the woman will browse the bookshop shelves, the library bookcases or go to the computers. Mirai is sorting new arrivals, having come in as Shikamaru finished with Chōji, and they're filling the slowly growing poetry section. They're watching what the woman will do, but she's standing unmoving in the middle of the room, looking lost and increasingly distraught.
On instinct, Shikamaru grabs his still full cup and hurries to the woman's side. She doesn't look at him, which only serves to make him worry more. Gently, he puts a hand on her shoulder, talking in a low voice.
“Hello, ma'am. Can I help you with anything? Would you like some coffee?”
She looks at him with wild eyes, startles but not jumping at his touch. She nods silently and take a small sip of his coffee before cleaning her throat.
“Hi, I'm sorry about this.”
“No, don't worry, it's alright. What are you looking for?”
“I was wondering—” again, she has to clear her throat, her voice still rough. “I was hoping you could show me books on meditation. Do you have anything like that?”
Glad to have something to do besides standing there like a worried chick, he nods and points toward the self-care section.
“I'll show you what we have. Would you like to come with me or sit down at a table on the bakery side, and I'll bring you what I can find?”
She nods again. “Yeah, I'll— I'll do that.”
Slowly, she walks up to the curtain where a sign leads to Chōji's side and Shikamaru wills himself to get moving and bring her what she came her for. Not on his watch will someone who so obviously needs some help and kindness not find it in their Lair.
He browses through their shelves, picking up meditation books like she asks, and on a whim, adds a book on social anxiety and one about therapy. Maybe she won't need it (though she does look like she could use them) but she doesn't seem like someone who would take offence at being offered the options.
Grabbing a notebook and a pen from the stack he keeps behind his deck for the students, he goes through the curtain and quickly scans the room to find her sitting down in a corner, watching the room with hunched shoulders. There is a steaming cup in front of her and a piece of carrot cake, but still more than enough room for the small stack of books he's bringing her.
Shikamaru plasters a confident smile on his face to make up for his beating heart and approaches her. He has never stressed like that at the idea of interacting with a customer but he could so easily fuck this up that he can feel the sweat gathering at the back of his neck. As patronizing as he knows it sounds, Shikamaru can almost touch how much courage it took her to come into their shop, and he'll be damned if it's not rewarded in the best way he's capable.
And after that, he's taking a nap. There is only so much anxiety he can take in one sitting, and between the woman and him, he might as well be saturated with tension.
“Hey,” he says softly, hoping not to scare her. She barely jumps, which he privately counts as a win. “I've got the books I mentioned, I found a bit of everything. I also brought a pen and some paper, in case you'd like to take notes.”
She listens to him with rapt attention, only serving to increase his unease, knowing something is wrong and not being able to fix it.
“We're open all day long and we close at 9,” he continues. “If you need anything, you ask Mirai, they're the one with the black hair and green sweater sorting books. And I'm also available for any question or recommendation, alright?” He feels stupid, talking to her like a child, but he's completely out of his depth. “All the books I've brought you are in our inventory, so if you want to keep any of them, you can either get a card for the shop and borrow them for two weeks, or you can buy them. Go to the desk when you want to leave and we'll handle it together, okay?”
She nods, her short hair bobbing along with the movement. She's beautiful, he can't help but think, noticing her freckles and the nice curve of her jaw, the hard muscles underneath her skin.
He admires her more than anything, Shikamaru ponders, because it's obvious what happened to her ; and yet she put on a yellow dress with sunflowers growing from the bottom hem and circling her waist, the least discreet clothing she could have picked, and her hair is dyed a pale pink, almost pastel, and as lovely as the colour is, it only brings more attention to the angry burns on her cheek and the melted corner of her mouth, her closed nostril where the skin was destroyed, and the white, unseeing eye.
She chose all of that, she went out without being ashamed of her wounds and scars and missing limbs and cane, her broad shoulders standing straight. It's only as soon as someone talks to her, tries to interact, that she curls back into a shell of jumpiness and anxiety Shikamaru only knows too well. He's read a number of books on the subject, after his old Literature teacher and family friend, Asuma, killed himself.
Before teaching in the university Shikamaru attended, Asuma was a Lieutenant who had a ten-year long career before going back to his first love and starting his teaching again. Shikamaru saw him often, being both a neighbour and a dear friend to his father. The Yūhi family was invited often in the Nara home, with Kurenai being a foster child and Asuma having been disowned by his own family, making them and their baby Mirai a welcome sight at their table.
Then Shikamaru had graduated, worked a couple of months for a newspaper to earn some money that he put with Ino's and Chōji's saving. They opened the Lair together and everything was good for a while. But the changes in Asuma were unmistakable, until he was finally diagnosed with PTSD, paranoia and social anxiety. It all quickly escalated until Asuma could add depression on top, and at that point he had a breakdown. He suddenly needed to seek adrenaline, action. In secret, he joined a group, maybe a gang, that he was introduced to by another veteran, Hidan.
He put himself in more and more dangerous situations, and Shikamaru, not knowing what to do and panicking, turned to the books that never let him down to read all he could on the condition of his teacher and friend, pouring hours upon hours into his research. But Asuma kept going, until Kurenai confronted him with an ultimatum that put a brutal stop to his nightly outings.
They all thought things were better. He told them so. That he was okay. That he didn't crave the danger anymore. But in reality, not only was he hurting himself, but he was desperate at the idea of not doing things anymore, and just as terrified of losing his wife and child. The dilemma was ultimately too much and four years ago, Asuma took his own life.
The shock for all had been cataclysmic, no one understanding why he had done it, how it could have gone so bad without anyone realizing. So Shikamaru read, and read some more, hoping to find an answer to his grief and his guilt. He didn't. He just learned to grow with it, and gained an impressive theoretic baggage in psychology of war veterans. They hired Mirai, after they expressed not knowing what to do with their life and going crazy in their silent home, and here they are now. All of them working together in the shop they've dreamed off, slowly moving on with their life. And with a bonus probable war veteran looking to start meditating.
Why not.
In the next hour, Shikamaru does his best to ignore the woman's presence, with varying degrees of success. She's going through the books he's brought her at an impressing speed, taking rigorous notes and mouthing words he can't hear from afar. As she notices more and more that no one is paying attention to her, she seems to relax, sneaking looks here and there, until she crosses Shikamaru's eyes and ducks her head as quick as she's able.
From time to time, she orders a new cup of coffee, or a slice of Victoria cake, at one point even a pot of ginger tea with a full plate of scones and clotted cream. On her first re-order, she painstakingly stood up, dragging herself to the counter with the most tragic look on her face under Chōji's horrified stare. After that painful experience for all, Shikamaru's brother is keeping tabs on her, noticing when she raises a timid hand and going to ask what he can bring her. She's not even hiding how relieved that makes her feel and Shikamaru takes pride in the idea that maybe it's their place that's making her feel comfortable enough to accept the help.
After a while, he gets caught in the cycle of new customers, purchasing or borrowing books, recommending his most cherished ones when people are just coming in to spend a nice time inside. Ino brings him a cup of herbal tea she's making herself, to get his opinion on her new blend, and he brings a full page of orders for Chōji to sign some time later. He doesn't see the clock ticking and even ends up forgetting about the woman, steadily making her way through the stack of books.
Shikamaru eventually looks up and suddenly it's already time for his lunch break. It's the one time all three of them gets to spend together during the work day and they try as hard as they can not to miss it. They leave Mirai and Hinata in charge of the store and go to their table, in the corner of Chōji's bakery side. The table has a permanent “Booked” sign on it if one of them wants some time away from their respective counter or, in Shikamaru's case, a space to enjoy food or drinks that won't put his books at risk.
Chōji has already laid out their meal when Ino and Shikamaru sit down, in a relaxed conversation about the renewed interest for gardening the twenty-something seem to have taken. Shikamaru's brother lets them have their fun, splitting the food between the three of them and handing them cutlery. As he finishes pouring some ginger beer in each of their glasses, steps get closer to their table with a weird lingering sound to it. Startled out of their routine, given that their customers all know to leave the shop owners and the forty-five minutes they take to eat unbothered, all three of them look up.
Shikamaru curses himself, mortified at having forgotten their unusual visitor and he can see, from the corner of his eye, Chōji's stiffening shoulders. His brother hates making people's lives difficult and he probably had enjoyed helping the woman when she asked for his attention.
She's standing, a bit unsteady on her prosthetic because of the amount of things she's carrying. She has all of Shikamaru's books balanced on her remaining forearm, a paper bag displaying the Lair's logo hanging from her wrist. With all this, Shikamaru notices right away that she isn't using her cane, making both her ability to stand and his ability to feel even more guilty, impressive.
Scrambling up, he immediately offers to take the books for her while Ino quietly sneaks behind them to grab the cane she left at her table and giving it back in a matter of seconds.
“Oh, thank you,” the woman says quietly, blushing faintly.
“It's really nothing,” Ino smiles, sitting back down and looking away to give the woman the sense that she isn't being stared at.
“I apologize,” Chōji says, looking truly distraught. “I should have made sure you'd be alright.”
“No, please, it's okay,” she replies right away. “You have a lovely cashier who made sure I'd be alright as soon as you left to get lunch. They brought me the menu and I purchased some food to go. I'm alright, really.” The dust of pink on her cheeks is unmistakable and Shikamaru hates it, hates that she feels embarrassed by something as mundane as getting food for lunch.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asks, biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from apologizing as well. He's sure it would do no good. “I can ring those books for you if you'd like, or write you a come-back card if you'd rather borrow them.”
She looks down to her mismatched feet, increasing Shikamaru's unease at her own discomfort. “Yes, I— can you, could you...”
Shikamaru rushes to nod, feeling like he understands what she's saying despite everything. She nods as well in response, both looking at each other with matching strange expressions until Chōji pokes his brother in the thigh, seemingly waking him up. He jerks his head towards the curtain in an inviting manner and finds an eerie sense of happiness in realizing he doesn't have to slow down his usual slouch to match the slow pace of the woman. There is something he finds comforting in seeing himself walk side by side with her without having to pretend.
They reach the counter on his side, blessedly empty with Mirai mostly standing in for Chōji during lunchtime. Shikamaru sets down the woman's books between the two of them, taking out a card for her to fill in her information.
She does so with an absent-minded expression, looking up at him briefly before focusing on the card again, her voice rising up barely in the noisy shop.
“I don't know if you realize what you did for me today,” she half-whispers. Her voice is more assured than he's heard it all morning, though nothing close to confident. “Not one time did you treat me differently, or like I was helpless. You gave me attention without treating me like a child, helped me only when it was clear I couldn't do it myself.”
She looks up, sliding the card across until it touches his hand. In a daze, he lays trembling fingers on the paper, staring at her, a counter and a world separating (or joining) them. Her own fingers are still on the card, a dice of space between her and his hand.
“I haven't gone out of my house in fourteen months.”
Shikamaru holds his breath, his eyes burning shapes of understanding into hers. The Earth-Fire war ended fourteen months ago by the recall of Earther troops from Fire Country territory. No one had won the eleven-year long conflict, the end of it only signed by the lack of resources to continue it on both side, soldiers dying too fast to be replaced by the shrinking number of volunteers enlisting in either armies. Once the specialists had predicted a shortage of wood coming if the war didn't stop, both sides agreed to a cease-fire. Fourteen months later, the peace still isn't technically signed.
“I've been terrified of the smell of cooked meat. There are food trucks in almost every corner of Konoha, except here.” She sounds so relieved that Shikamaru's eyes water without his control. “You don't even serve meat,” she says, her voice cracking on the last word.
In a rush, Shikamaru sees flashes of their meetings in Choji's kitchen, trying out dishes and deciding on what he'd offer for the morning breakfasts and for lunch and what would be taken to go. He remembers himself, so young and terrified of all that could go wrong with their shop, with little money to spare on anything unnecessary. Suggesting that maybe, in the first few years, they stick to a vegetarian menu, to cut on expanses.
Then, as years went by, realizing how appreciated their plant-based dishes were, in a city known for its beef. Hearing from people who aren't vegetarians, telling them after ordering an omelette that they had a good time and they didn't know there was something a little less restrictive than veganism.
He sees all that in flashes superposing with the woman's pale face, pain obvious in the lines of her skin.
“Can I give you a hug?” His rushed words come crashing down in the sudden silence between them, terrifying in their heaviness.
He stops breathing, his heart beating wildly against his ribcage. He feels fear, profound and new, years of nonchalance and laziness breaking in the face of true pain, on a face he could be seeing every morning in the mirror, with their matching age lines beginning to appear, the same number of years etched into their Identity Book a startling similarity disproved by the century-old look in her tired, mismatched eyes. They're the same age and nothing could make them more different and yet—
Her voice breaks as she says Yes.
He stumbles from behind the counter, shaking from nerves and fear, a sort of breathlessness he hasn't felt once in his life. He doesn't know what's happening. He doesn't feel his arms opening, in a daze, until she falls against him and he realizes she's a thumb taller than him and finally, her head is in the curve of his neck, her harsh breathing pooling against his throat.
She's shaking. He can see it, feel it, when he closes her eyes and pulls her tighter against him.
“It'll be okay,” he whispers against her hair, feeling the absence of her right arm and compensating for it instinctively. “It's gonna be okay.” He's humming, he doesn't know what, but it makes her try to bury herself deeper into the hug, like she's trying to disappear.
He doesn't know what's happening.
He doesn't think he'd want it to happen any other way.
A few, long minutes later, he shows her to the door, still feeling unsteady inside, still unsure of what happened, of why he did that, him, so far from being social, tactile.
She turns around to look at him, standing in the street of a city hostile to her, looking up at a place that was her safe haven for a few hours. She finds his eyes and doesn't look away. He feels that something should be said, that they can't go like this, move on with their lives without... something.
“Thank you,” she says quietly, never looking away even when people have to walk around her on the pavement.
“You're welcome,” he says in the same voice. Then, as if stolen from his throat, “Will you come again?”
A small smile on her face, easing the exhaustion and the pain for a second. “I'd love to, Shikamaru.”
He returns her smile, thrilled for a reason he doesn't understand that she looked at the sign inside the Lair and figured out which one of the three he is.
She looks away, severing something that tugs painfully in his chest. His heart is beating fast.
“Can I have your name?”
She smiles wider, when she turns back to him. “Fleet Admiral Haruno Sakura, at your service. It was so nice to meet you, Shikamaru.”
He watches her leave, speechless, all the facts he knows about her bombarding his brain. Commander Haruno, who liberated the Kiri province in Water Country with her fleet of fifteen ships, loosing every single one of them in the process. Commander Haruno, declared MIA at the end of the Earth-Fire War, after her ship, the Seventh Titan, left the province liberated from Earthern troupes and made its way back to Fire Country without her.
He didn't recognize her, because every photo he's seen has her in her uniform, red hair pulled back into a tight bun, standing in front of the Fire flag. Pastel pink hair and milky, blind eye seem to be new additions, as well as her title, the highest in the Fire Navy.
Fleet Admiral Haruno, found again, and hiding away in their shop. Hiding from a world that took everything from her and then some, after she protected it with everything she had.
Shikamaru looks back to the street where she disappeared.
She can come back any time she likes. It's their turn to protect her from the shitty world. It's his turn.