At the same time, in a barbecue place shikamaru sat eating and roasting meat in his best friend's, choji's favorite place.
He was currently surrounded by a couple people...
The troublesome teammate, ino Yamanaka...
The troublesome rival of the troublesome teammate, Sakura Haruno...
The shy and pretty, Hinata Hyuga....
And the boisterous weapon mistress, Tenten...
The recently returned, Shino Aburame...
The silence spoke volumes of how thick the tension was.
The banshee and his teammate were not clashing after all...
Rather, the mood was rather somber...
Shikamaru on the other hand, was calm and collected...
Unmoved...
Well his hand was moving to deliver the food to his mouth but well. Unmoved in the sense of indifferent.
As if the recent event did not matter in his eyes at all.
The boy sighed almost sleepy...
His mind swirling with some thoughts at a tranquil pace... like clouds in the sky...
"I thought that I will drift among the clouds first... how bothersome..."
He felt the gazes of the other five...
A dry voice escaped from next to him...
"S-shikamaru! Are you serious? Your friends just died and it seems like you don't care at all!"
Ino near screamed at her lazy teammate...
"Friends? You mean friend? I never really interacted with Lee nor Neji before our first and last mission together and I wasn't exactly friends with kiba either. Only friend that died was choji."
Sakura near choked...
"That doesn't mean that you have to act completely insensitive, shikamaru?"
Sitting next to shikamaru was a very quite boy, shino. His voice was the next one to be heard from this table.
"Even if they were not your friend shikamaru, some were your classmates and all were comrades from the leaf and should be treated with respect for their sacrifice."
Hinata nodded shyly, her voice soft.
"S-shino is right, shikamaru-san. You might be mourning in your own way but it is not right to dismiss the sacrifice of your comrades."
The chunin that was already threatened of losing this rank after a single mission stood up and walked away with a couple voices telling to come back from behind...
As he moved across the restaurant towards the exit, he gave a nod to a certain table, the one exactly behind the table of the genins...
As he finally left the restaurant he gazed upward...
A tranquil blue sky filled with clouds drifting above...
He clenched his fists...