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They’ve officially turned into their fathers.
Or so Shikamaru ruminates to himself as they stand in loose formation outside of their favorite BBQ place. This isn’t as unpleasant a revelation as it might’ve been a few years prior. The loss of his father as well as Inochi is still pretty fresh, after all. The previous Ino-Shika-Cho were infamous for their regularly scheduled food and drink nights where they got together to reminisce about their war stories and get unintelligibly drunk while doing so. Ino had jump started that tradition somewhat suddenly a few months ago.
Shikamaru really wasn’t sure if this was intended as an official homage to their parents. She’d started nagging them about wanting to ‘reclaim their youth’, that they were young adults and no amount of crushing responsibility should keep them from enjoying their lives. Thus she’d demanded they’d have a huge meal at Yakiniku Q and head straight over to the nearest bar to ‘keep the party going’. As if the two of them watching Chouji eating most of the barbecue while the group vented their problems was a ‘party’ in the first place. At the very least, Ino paid for their first round of drinks, which somewhat made up for the fact that Shikamaru kept getting stuck with the BBQ tab more recently.
They were on their way to the bar now, but had paused briefly outside the restaurant so that Shikamaru could take a quick smoke break. Ino had started the ‘party’ a bit earlier than the rest of them, and was nursing a cocktail in a glass she’d just brazenly walked out of the restaurant with. Shikamaru figured that they were such regulars at this point, the owner and wait staff weren’t worried they’d never see their glass again. They had let her walk out with her drink without batting an eyelash.
Ino was already starting to get a little tipsy, as indicated by how she leaned into Chouji to ‘whisper’ about Shikamaru as if he wasn’t leaning against the corner of the building only a few feet downwind of them. Ino’s tone was so loud, he could hear every word of her typical ‘smoking is incredibly unhealthy’ rant. Chouji inclined his head down towards her obediently, nodding along at all the appropriate parts. The speech was kept vague, as if somehow not directed towards Shikamaru directly. Neither Chouji or Ino never outright told him to stop smoking. The way their eyes lingered on that familiar lighter kept their disapproval at a tolerable distance. They still made comments in this way, though. As if it was a casual conversation topic that Ino had plucked out of thin air, completely unprompted. Shikamaru rolled his eyes and let them be, flicking ash to his feet. The lack of reaction usually meant that Ino would get bored and move on quickly, but it was Chouji who suddenly started the next topic.
He interrupted Ino with a laugh, waving his hand as if to clear the air. Something about the way he was so jovial, typical after a long night of eating, seemed to settle Ino down a bit. She huffed and took another long sip of her drink.
“So I’ve decided on the woman I’m going to marry!” Chouji announced, filling in their companionable silence with a rather heavy announcement, totally unprompted.
Ino sputtered so hard her drink splashed out of her mouth, leading her to cough hard at the sudden burn of alcohol not quite making it down her throat. Chouji laughed again at her reaction, reaching out to pat her heartily on the back. The force sent her stumbling forward, and she scrambled to save her clothing from any more of her drink escaping the glass.
To his credit, Shikamaru’s reaction wasn’t quite to extreme. He exhaled a cloud of smoke in a quick puff, and found himself shifting upright. He glanced around quickly, trying to determine if this was some sort of weird joke Chouji had dreamed up with some of their other friends. It was still just the three of them hovering there as the BBQ shop behind them was beginning to shut down for business. A few civilians were making their way home, or possibly on to other plans, but he didn’t spot any familiar faces around. Shikamaru settled his eyes on Chouji over Ino’s hunched over form. Chouji was smiling cheerfully as if he hadn’t just dropped a giant bombshell on his two former teammates.
“I’M SORRY, WHAT?” Ino had regained her composure, and had already started off as dramatically as possible. Shikmaru didn’t deny her the pleasure of her theatrics, and had simply flicked his cigarette in silence as he waited for her to start off the interrogation. Chouji seemed equally as un-phased by that shrill tone of hers. It was to be expected, after all, Ino could be ceaselessly over the top about mundane things. Much less giant revelations that caught even Shikamaru unaware.
“I’ve decided on the woman I’m going to propose marriage to,” Chouji explained, slowing down his speech a bit as they often had to when Ino was drunk. Ino wasn't drunk, not yet anyway. In fact, Shikamaru felt as if she’d sobered up in a heart beat. She set her glass down on the restaurants windowsill, specifically so she could set both of her hands on her hips. She had widened her stance a bit, going into full-on tirade mode.
“I heard you the first time, Akimichi, I’m asking what in the hell you’re talking about? You’re dating someone? Since when? Why don’t we know about this?” Ino’s interrogation training must be going well, because she’s managed to taper back on how shrill her voice is, and she’s keeping her questions direct and level headed. Which is a relief, since Shikamaru really didn’t need the headache of her going into a full scene in the middle of the street. His relief lasts for two seconds until her head swivels in his direction. Her blue eyes were narrowed to sharp points.
“Did you know about this? You guys know I hate it when you keep secrets. We’re a team!"
They technically were still a team, though it had been a while since they’d all worked together on a mission. Shikamaru’s growing responsibilities in coordinating the Shinobi Union as well as his leadership over the Blood Prsion kept him out of the village a lot more these days. Ino had been heavily encouraged by her clan to take more of an interest in taking up her father’s mantle, and she’d been training more and more with Konoha’s Intelligence Division as of late. Chouji was the only one still regularly going out on missions, and he’d been assigned more frequently to rebuilding efforts and transportation missions where his strength was best utilized. Their little dinner and drinks routine was the one thing keeping them current on each other’s lives.
Shikamaru was just as in the dark as Ino. Though he still saw Chouji pretty frequently for occasional lunches together, not once had his best friend mentioned dating anyone. Or dating in general. They weren’t really the type to sit around talking about girls. And they definitely hadn’t been talking about marriage, of all things. That particular life step seemed like a future-problem. Something they’d all eventually be cornered about by their parents and clan members. Not something they’d deal with in a post-war society struggling to reshape the dynamic of their world. Hell, weren’t they all still kids? They hardly considered themselves as adults, despite having taken up social drinking as of late.
Before he could deny any of Ino’s accusations, Chouji’s laughter rang out again. He was in an excellent mood, despite the fact that he’d turned their entire night on it’s head.
“I haven’t been dating anyone actually. I just met the woman I’m going to marry, is all.”
Ino was back to staring at Chouji like he’d offered to go on a diet. Shikamaru raised a brow and dropped his cigarette to the ground with a barely perceptible sigh. He stomped it out and fished his pack out of his vest pocket. This was about to be an incredibly long conversation. He lit his second cigarette, and Ino dug in her heels to her next round of questioning.
“Chouji,” She was trying to sound patient, to her credit, “How do you know you’re going to marry a woman if you’re not even dating her? You can’t just decide something like that. Do you even know this girl that well? She could secretly be crazy, or a gold digger, or like… I don’t know, a spy maybe? What, is she like a master chef or something? You cannot decide you’re going to propose to a girl just because you know she can cook!”
Chouji rubbed the back of his head, his smile fading somewhat. He looked up at the sky, where the stars were just starting to appear and hummed a bit as if considering how best to explain himself. Ino wasn’t quite so patient as she was trying to sound.
“Also, you can’t just do things so out of order. What is this poor girl going to think? Some random guy drops out of the sky and proposes marriage? What year do you think this is? Have you ever considered that she has thoughts and feelings? Chouji, you have to at least ask this girl out to even know if she’s remotely interested in-” Shikamaru coughed a bit, indicating that Ino was about to cross the line. She deflated a bit, readjusting herself before continuing, “An active duty shinobi who’s obsessed with food and doesn’t even know a thing about her besides that she can cook?”
Shikamaru watched Chouji’s smile fall further, because while Ino hadn’t used the “F” word, she was still implying that Chouji’s choice in women was entirely food based. They really hadn’t been given that much information, so that was an assumption that Ino was making with unflattering overtones. Considering she was the first person in line to complain about Chouji’s eating habits, this was unsurprising, but Shikamaru could tell it was bothering Chouji.
He decided to alter the course of the questioning a tad. The more Ino made assumptions, the more off course they were going to be in trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Chouji, buddy, who are you even talking about?” Shikamaru asked, trying to keep his tone casual. As if he wasn’t completely stumped, himself. Ino finally released her hips to throw her hands in the air. She turned to snatch up her drink again, which she proceeded to throw back. It was a relief to see that she’d stepped off a bit, as some tension visibly left Chouji’s shoulders. Nonetheless, it looked like she was just recharging for a fight, which would be even uglier if she hastened her way to being drunk in the process.
“Well, her name is Karui and she’s from Kumogakure-”
“Karui?” Chouji had finally caught Shikamaru completely off-guard. He inhaled a little too hard on his cigarette and found himself coughing out the name in surprise. He was well aware of who Chouji was talking about. He was more familiar with Omoi, who was starting to play a larger role in the Shionbi Union as a representative to Kumo, and he was frequently accompanied by his former genin teammate, Karui, when it came time for meetings. Having a troublesome female teammate of his own to contend with, he’d commiserate more than once with Omoi about the overbearing females. Shikamaru hadn’t spoken much to Karui, as she wasn’t always an accompanying member of Kumo’s representative team, much less a Union participant. Nonetheless, he’d seen her strong-willed personality and over-the-top outbursts with Omoi just enough times to have formed an opinion. Never in a million years did he ever imagine that kind of woman being compatible with Chouji, much less Chouji’s type.
Not that he’d dwelled on it much, but his initial image of Chouji’s perfect woman was someone soft and sweet. Round faced and gentle with a contented smile. A civilian rather than a battle hardened kunoichi, and- though he hated to admit it to himself- someone who would happily cook his best friend large meals that she also enjoyed eating. None of those things fit his current perception of Karui in the slightest.
“You want to propose marriage to a kunoichi from ANOTHER VILLAGE? From KUMOGAKURE?” Ino had finally lost it, raising both her voice and her glass in Chouji’s face. Any shinobi shrieking another villages name in the middle of the street at night with the amount of incredulity that Ino was displaying was sure to draw some attention. There was more than one pair of feet that had paused mid step, and twice as many eyes turning in their direction. To his credit, Chouji didn’t look too upset, but rather smiled passively in the face of Ino’s outburst. Shikamaru was more worried about the public’s unrest, and stamped out his second cigarette so he could move forward and block the passer-bys from observing any more of Ino’s outrage.
The tone she’d used was more than a little accusatory, and speculation could just as easily spiral out of control if Shikamaru didn’t put a lid on things. He put a firm hand on the top of Ino’s glass, forcing her to lower it out of Chouji’s face.
“I think it’s time to move onto the bar, we can finish this there.” It wasn’t a suggestion, and while Ino’s look informed him she was not happy at being told what to do, she was quick to spin on her heels and march off down the street. Chouji shot him a thankful look, but Shikamaru was too busy pinching at the bridge of his nose to notice. The two men fell into step next to each other, and to Shikamaru’s surprise, Chouji seemed to be humming a little tune to himself. Somehow he appeared to be completely unbothered by any of this. Shikamaru shoved his hands into his pockets, giving his friend a single sideways glance before falling into quiet contemplation. He wasn’t the type to interrogate, the way Ino was, but rather was trying to put the pieces together in his head.
The bar wasn’t far from their favorite restaurant, but Ino’s angry power-walking meant she’d beaten them two it. Chouji lead the way to an empty booth that was nearest to the exit, settling himself down the a contended sigh that was barely audible by the overarching buzz of conversation. It was a popular night to be out, and there was a good mix of off-duty shinobi and civilians crowded around the bar in large groups. Ino had clearly beelined straight for the bar and had elbowed her way through the crowds to order drinks. This gave Shikamaru a minute to contemplate Chouji as he settled down in the seat across from him. He found his hands settling in a familiar formation beneath the table and after a minute’s hesitation he decided to say something while the two of them were alone.
“Marriage, huh?” Shikamaru asked, lamely, “That seems… Fast.”
Chouji chuckled warmly, leaning forward to rest his chin on his two fists. He had a sort of dopey look about him that was normally reserved for discussions about his favorite snacks. His eyes were raised somewhere over Shikamaru’s head, slightly unfocused as he spoke his reply.
“I mean, Ino is right. About dating and all. I guess that comes first. I guess I’ll figure that part out as I go. But I’m going to marry that woman, I’m sure of it.“
Ino slammed three glasses of beer down on the table, honing in on the last part of Chouji’s statement as she dropped into the booth next to Shikamaru.
“How could you possibly be sure of something like that? How do you even know this girl, who is she?” Ino snapped, clearly unable to pull a solid memory of the person in question.
“One of Killer B’s former students, she was on the same team as Omoi, one of the candidates for Kumo’s Union rep,” Shikamaru supplied. This seemed to have connected the dots for Ino, as she fell quiet in order to process the information. Her brow furrowed, and she now seemed be going through the same process and she analyzed Chouji over the rim of her beer glass. She clearly couldn’t see how Karui had caught Chouji’s attention any more than Shikamaru had.
“She and I got assigned to a mission together a couple of weeks ago,” Chouji explained, answering at least one of the millions of questions his teammates were trying to puzzle out. Their contemplative silence finally gave him enough room to speak. He chuckled to himself, “She was incredible. A force of nature. It was surprisingly easy to work with her, considering how hard some of these international team pairings have been to cope with. I really like her, so I’ve decided she’s the woman I’m going to marry.”
“You decided this after one mission together? So you literally barely know anything about her? And she’s from a different village altogether, how is that even going to work? What about her has got you this certain you’re going to up and marry her? How does that make ANY sense??” Ino was beside herself, and a lot of beer waving was going on. Shikamaru scooted to the side a bit to avoid potentially being soaked, and he dragged his beer along with him. He took a sip for fortification, because for once he and Ino were thinking the exact same thing and that was unsettling.
“I mean, I guess you could say it was love at first sight?” Chouji offered, shrugging. He sat up a bit and took up his own beer, taking a hearty swig. His motion was large and dramatic, and he set the beer back down with an audible thump. It almost looked like he was bracing himself also. The amount of sheer determination in him was almost as surprising at his romantic announcement.
“Love? At first sight? Do you even hear yourself right now?” Ino asked, somewhat alarmed by this.
“That’s crazy, since when are you so… Sappy? Love at first sight is just… Like how on earth does that even happen?”
Considering how many times and how many guys Ino had waxed romantic about, this seemed like a somewhat unfair coming from her. Shikamaru decided to smooth that over.
“I think what Ino means is that still seems like a pretty important decision, based on something that you’re only just experiencing for the first time,” Shikamaru supplied. As far as any of them knew, Chouji had never really experienced anything of this nature in the romance department. The odd crush from their youth, sure. Shikamaru couldn’t remember the girl’s name, or the context, or even when Chouji had once confided this information. But it had to have been years ago, an Academy crush that was destined to go nowhere.
“I mean, my parents had only met each other once when they were arranged to marry,” Chouji pointed out. This bit of information wasn’t new to them, due to the number of years the three had known each other's families. It was something that had slipped their minds, though, of course. There were a lot of old arranged marriages in the former generations of their clans, though the practice was slowly slipping out of popularity. Shikamaru’s own parents were a love-match, (to his chagrin), so he’d really never put too much thought into whether or not his clan had the same plans for him up to this point.
“My parents have been perfectly happy, despite that, so I feel like it’s not too crazy to pick a person to marry that I actually like. It’s better this way, even. We can always get to know each other. Plus, I just know I want to marry her. She’s strong, she’s pretty, she’s smart, and she’s really nice,” Chouji explained, counting off on his fingers as if checking off the qualifiers he had in his head.
“That’s great, buddy,” Shikamaru offered, trying to be supportive since Chouji looked so impassioned about it. He still had his reservations, of course, and he was still trying get Chouji’s description to line up with his mental image of the girl in question.
“Okay, yes, Chouji in love. That’s great. Questionable, but great. But you can’t just go deciding you’re going to marry some rando, Chouji, that’s like a really, really big deal. Maybe this is like a crush, but there’s no way you can actually love someone that quickly,” Ino stressed, leaning forward with a serious look in her eyes. She looked genuinely concerned instead of just put-out, finally. Chouji smiled back in that simple way of his, not at all concerned.
“I mean, I don’t see how it’s any different from how you claim you fell in love at first sight with Sai?” Chouji asked, which was a surprisingly brutal jab, made worse by adding, “Or Sasuske?”
That shut Ino up so fast it looked almost as if she’d swallowed her tongue. Shikamaru hid a small snort of amusement behind his beer glass, but froze when Chouji slid him a sly look as well.
“Or you with Temari?”
Shikamaru immediately balked at the accusation, “I did not fall in love with Temari at first sight.”
Ino recovered from her own dismay a little too quickly, and she and Chouji traded that one look. Shikamaru hated that look. He rushed on, realizing he had to correct himself quickly.
“I am not in love with Temari at all. We work together, maybe once a month tops. You could barely call us colleagues. We’ve known each other forever, that’s it,” Shikamaru insisted. Annoyed that this had even come up at all. Serving alongside Temari in the war, along with their long running history of having worked together, had somehow stirred up some international gossip that the two of them were something more than just allied forces working together. A rumor made worse by their increasingly more public roles in village leadership.
“Mhmm,” Chouji agreed, smirking. He probably was pleased with himself for diverting the conversation, as Ino was particularly fond of fanning these flames. Not much got Shikamaru riled up in this way. Ino wasn’t taking the bait the way she normally would today, though.
“But Shikamaru and Temari have known each other for literal years. Since we were teenagers. It’s not the same as deciding you’re in love with a girl you’ve met, what, one time?” Ino accused, gracelessly skipping over the allegations made against her about her one-sided devotionals to her own love at first sight candidates. Sai was a touchy subject for Ino currently, as she was both equally as frustrated as she was enamored by him. They'd never bothered to get into it with her, which is why she'd been so quickly stunned into silence by it before.
Chouji shrugged his shoulders, “I mean, you’re right. But you pointed it out earlier, I should probably ask her out first, so she can get to know me better. I definitely plan on doing that first before anything else. Even then, I can’t guarantee she’ll even say yes when I do propose. Dating is going to be hard enough as is, plus we’ll have to talk about how we’ll meet, and when… Not to mention how we’re going to get married and where we’ll live-”
“EXCUSE ME?” Ino was on her feet, both hands planted on the table with an audible slap. Once again, half of the people surrounding them were looking their way. Shikamaru was also too stunned to care about an audience at this point.
“Are you seriously thinking about leaving the village?” He asked, sounding every bit as shocked as he felt. And equally as hurt.
“Well, I mean, I’d rather not,” Chouji conceded, crossing his arms. His eyes slipped closed in contemplation, though both Shikamaru and Ino felt it was also to avoid their heavy stares.
“But it’s also not fair of me to propose to her and expect her to give up her village, either. It’s definitely something we’ll have to work on. Maybe she’ll turn me down altogether. Who knows? That's all stuff Karui and I will have to work on by ourselves, after all.”
“But hey,” Chouji added, filling in the silence that followed, “I won’t know until we try!”
Shikamaru breathed out a heavy sigh, and Ino deflated into her seat once again. The fight was gone out of her in an instant, possibly do to how much thought Chouji seemed to have actually put into this. Neither of them knew what to say, truly. So both of them sat in their own thoughts, Ino slumping down a bit and Shikamaru pulling the lighter out of his pockets to fidget with. This didn’t seem to bother Chouji in the slightest. He had been completely calm through-out. He knew his teammates, and how they would react, and how they would worry. He knew it came from a place of care. Chouji wasn't going to hold it against them. Instead, he resumed drinking his beer, allowing them time to ruminate for a minute.
“This is insane,” Was all Ino said finally. She picked up her own beer, lifting the glass high and starting to chug. She’d be drunk soon, and that seemed to be her goal.
“Love makes people crazy, I guess,” Chouji offered with another love-lorn smile. Shikamaru finally found himself reacting, Chouji’s words dragging a genuine laugh out of him.
“I guess so,” Shikamaru conceded.
“So…” Chouji fidgeted with the rim of his glass for a second, waiting until Ino set her now-empty glass down. Suddenly hesitant, he finally inquired, “How do I ask a girl out, exactly?”