Naruto: If I ask you to kill Sasuke, you will become a succubus?

Hearing this, I breathed calmly, but my eyes became wet uncontrollably.

I turned away, not wanting Shikamaru to see my faux pas.

If I wipe away my tears with my hands, my hand movements will be visible from behind, and Shikamaru will definitely guess my condition. I don't want that.

I blinked as naturally as possible and looked up.

Shikamaru's voice came from behind: "Asaro..."

I was afraid that if I opened my mouth to reply, my voice would reveal weakness, so I pretended not to hear him and remained silent.

“朝露？”

He called me in a low voice, and I heard a rustling sound, which was the sound of his clothes rubbing against each other when he stood up.

I felt him approaching me, until he was very close to me - maybe he was squatting behind me?

I wanted to stand up and walk away from him, but as soon as I moved, he seemed to have predicted my move and grabbed my arm.

He hugged me from behind.

I was startled and felt his forehead against my shoulder, his arms wrapped around me tightly but without the feeling of force or oppression.

The temperature of Shikamaru's body, the feel of Shikamaru's body, was somehow completely different from what I remembered.

When he was a kid, he used the Transfiguration Technique to transform into an adult and go to the movies with me, and I hugged him the first time we went to the movie theater at the Uchiha Resident.

But at that time, there was nothing special about hugging Shikamaru. It was no different from hugging a cute cat, a soft pillow, or a big doll.

But why is it different this time?

My heart seemed to be grabbed by something, it felt sore and swollen, and the unfamiliar feeling made me feel a little overwhelmed.

My skin felt tingling where he was holding me, as if an electric current was passing through it. It was inexplicably piercing, but not painful.

But I can clearly tell that this is indeed Shikamaru, not someone else pretending to be him.

Shikamaru hugged me for a while. I didn't know when he would let go, nor did I know what I was feeling at the moment. When Shikamaru let go of me, I realized that I had been in a daze without realizing it. When I came to my senses, I found that my tears had dried up without me knowing.

I turned to look at him, his face was looking at me very close.

He looked into my eyes at first, then suddenly his eyes flickered, and he looked away slightly, looking at the end of my eyes.

Shikamaru raised his hand and touched my eye sockets. I suspected that he saw the traces of tears, but he just rubbed my lower eyelashes with the back of his knuckles and said nothing.

"Is Zabuza good to you?"

"…Yeah. He taught me a lot."

"For example?"

"For example..." When Shikamaru asked this, many things Zabuza said flashed through my mind. What I remembered most clearly was: "For example, he said that as a rebel ninja, I have to lose my manners first."

Shikamaru's eyebrows relaxed and he smiled: "Are you sure these are his original words?"

Looking at his smiling face, the impulse that had been suppressed just now came back. I pursed my lips, threw myself into his arms, and hugged him tightly.

Shikamaru was startled and froze for a moment, "Asaro?"

"As expected... I still like the way Shikamaru smiles."

But I remembered that I was a rebel ninja, so I just hugged him for a while and quickly let him go: "But I will not return to Konoha."

Shikamaru looked at me with a dazed expression: "...I know."

"Won't you persuade me to go back?"

"You must have your reasons for not wanting to go back, but I will wait for you in Konoha."

I looked at him and blinked.

Shikamaru took out another letter from his ninja tool bag, "This is a letter from Hyuga Hiashi-sama, the head of the Hyuga family, to Neji. Can you pass it to him for me?"

I took the letter without saying anything, but I already agreed.

Shikamaru whispered, "Thank you, Asaka."

I looked up at him, and he looked at me: "I'm relieved to see that you are fine."

"…Are you leaving?"

"Yeah... staying here all the time is not a solution." Shikamaru joked, "Can't you bear to leave me?"

"Ah."

As if he didn't expect me to answer like that, Shikamaru was stunned: "Huh?"

I lowered my head and hooked the fingers he placed on his knees, holding them tightly in my palms, like a child who was reluctant to let go of his favorite toy: "We finally met once, and I don't know when we will meet again in the future. I can't bear to leave you."

When I said the last sentence, I burst into tears again.

But unlike before when I was unwilling to expose myself in front of Shikamaru, now I feel at ease in front of Shikamaru, because I feel that no matter what I look like, he can accept me.

"..."

"Can't Shikamaru stay?"

"…Stay?"

"Well... Shikamaru will stay in the Hidden Mist Village too, and we can be together like before, okay?"

Shikamaru held my hand, and at that moment I felt a fierce struggle erupting in his silence.

He whispered, "When I knew you were leaving, I thought about what I would do if you came to me alone and said, Shikamaru, come with me."

"what would you do?"

"I don't know... Some assumptions never really happened, and there will never be an answer. If you need me, maybe I will go with you regardless of everything, but sometimes I will convince myself that I still have my family."

Yes…Shikamaru still has a family.

Family is very important.

"I'm sorry, I'm not asking you to abandon your family. That's not what I mean."

"I know. I'm not angry," Shikamaru said to me, "I'm happy that you want me to stay with you. But my willingness to be with you and my joining the Hidden Mist Village are two different concepts."

"We want to change this ninja world," I looked at him earnestly, "The Hidden Mist Village is just a beginning. We will not do anything to harm Konoha. If you are willing to join us, you will definitely be of great help to us!"

Shikamaru smiled bitterly and said, "I don't have the same lofty ambitions as you, Asaro. Originally... I just wanted to be a ninja, make some money, and then marry the girl I like. If she likes children, we'll raise them together. If she doesn't like children, we'll live together until we grow old. When I make enough money, I'll retire from my position as a ninja, raise deer and play chess at home leisurely, and then die in my sleep on the same day as my wife, and we'll be together for the rest of our lives. That would be the best."

I looked at him and suddenly burst into tears: "I don't want it."

"Eh?" Shikamaru was surprised: "Don't want what?"

I cried, “Shikamaru is such a good person. Whenever I think that one day Shikamaru will no longer exist in this world, I feel so sad—woowa—I don’t want Shikamaru to die—wooaaaaaaa…”

"No? That's just a hypothesis!" Shikamaru tried to wipe my tears, not knowing whether to laugh or cry: "I will definitely be an old man with white hair by then! Besides, who is immortal?"

"I don't want Shikamaru to grow old, I don't want Shikamaru to disappear, why can't someone as good as Shikamaru live a hundred years, why can't everyone be immortal?"

"Alright! Alright!" Shikamaru hugged me, stroking my hair and patting my back like he was comforting a child. "I'm still here. I'm still young and I can live a very, very long time."

In the end, I cried miserably in front of Shikamaru, and I had no idea what the point of being patient in the beginning was.

I leaned on his shoulder aggrievedly, sobbing from time to time: "Shikamaru, super...super good."

"Really."

"……I will work hard."

"What's the effort?"

I wiped my tears and said, "Try to make Shikamaru live for a long, long time!"