POV – Addendum, and if I can, can I get a Neji and/or Shikamaru POV?

shanatical:

(x)

“Something I can do for you, Nara?” Uchiha asked, once they were several blocks away from the park and the two girls she had left there, stunned.

Shikamaru made her head nod

“Yeah,” he drawled. “Got a question for you, Uchiha.” He kept his body loose and lax, but he couldn’t get the image of Ino’s face—the progression from delight, to uncertainty, to devastation—out of his head.

“I’m listening,” Uchiha said, cool as could be. As if she did this everyday of her life.

“If you were apparently so worried about their friendship, why didn’t you have this little talk with them years ago?” Shikamaru asked, somehow keeping his voice level and mostly-disinterested. A part of him knew he was over-reacting, knew he should step off, that she could raise all kinds of hell, just as the last female member of a prestigious founding clan held against her apparent will.

But he also knew himself, and that he wouldn’t feel at ease around Ino until he got a straight answer. 

“Because,” she said slowly, “until recently, I didn’t care enough to make the effort. The state of their friendship didn’t matter to me at all.” 

Shikamaru chewed on that for a long moment, and released his technique.

“Yeah,” he sighed. She regained her balance with a smooth grace that was almost distasteful to him. “That’s about what I figured.” She turned and he shot her a flat look. “You know, Naruto’s been raving about how nice you are? Says he pegged you all wrong, and you aren’t half the bitch some of us thought you were.”

Ah, damn it. He was letting it get to him more than he thought he would. She was cold, his cousins from the year below had reported. Focused. Didn’t even have time for her would-be rival, once she got bumped up, and even made him agree to stop bugging her outside of class, when it happened.

“Uzumaki and Haruno are my teammates.” she said, her voice soft and steady, her eyes dark and fathomless. “They matter to me now.”

“Just like that, huh.” He bit back a sneer, or at the very least did his best.

“Not all of us are bred according to a schedule and shoved into a ready-made set,” She said, the words almost not registering to him when they were delivered so smoothly. “Some of us need to actually put effort into creating a worthwhile dynamic.”

He snorted, and pushed off from the fence he had been leaning against. “Nice to see you haven’t lost your touch, Uchiha,” he told her, bitterly pleased now that he had goaded her into meeting his expectations. 

“Thank you, but I have no interest in playing shogi or being played,” she had once said, not sparing his father a glance as she headed home for the day.

Shikamaru banished the memory, and the analytic, unavoidable thought that her sharpness was always reactionary, before turning and walking away. “I was beginning to get worried.”