"I still say you're strange," Ino stated, "I mean, you don't like girls, not at all?"
Shikamaru shook his head. "Like I've said, they're too troublesome and nagging."
Ino ignored the hint. Chouji munched another chip.
"Not even sexually?" she persisted. Shikamaru scoffed to hide his surprise and slightly flushed cheeks. Chouji's chip-eating halted after a few more moments of Shikamaru spluttering on his words.
"Shikamaru?" he mumbled quizzically. Shikamaru cleared his throat for the umpteenth time.
"What the hell, Ino?" he finally managed, an eyebrow ticking, "That's not a question you just ask a guy!"
She pouted. "Why not?" she asked, "I've known you since we were in diapers. I thought we were past the whole barriers thing! I talk to you guys about boys all the time, but I never hear a single word from you, Shikamaru!"
Shikamaru ground his teeth. "Incase you didn't notice," he drawled, "We don't exactly revel in your rants about Sasuke."
She rolled her eyes. "But at least I try! Really, Shika-kun, I was being serious! You aren't even sexually interested in women?"
"No!" Shikamaru exclaimed, beet red, then leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. "Happy?"
Both she and Chouji were shocked into silence. Shikamaru made a tch sound and glared out the window of his bedroom. Why or how his room had become their unofficial meeting place, he didn't know. But it was troublesome, and, after the first time Ino screamed at the sight of his boxers on the floor, more than enough incentive to clean it once in a while.
"What about guys?" Ino whispered, her expression of shock morphing into one of wide-eyed curiosity. Chouji began ravenously chowing down on his chips.
"That's not your business," Shikamaru spat, getting up. "I'm going to go ask mum for some tea. Is there anything else I can ask her for that'll get you to shut up?"
Ino glared and Chouji requested food in general. Shikamaru slunk downstairs.
"Hey, mum," he called, slipping into his chuunin vest that had been left precariously thrown over the back of a chair, "Ino and Chouji want tea and food. Could you bring it up?"
"Why can't you bring it up yourself, you lazy son!" Yoshino retorted from the kitchen, "For the First's sake, they're your friends!"
She did, however, set the kettle on the stove to boil and open the pantry.
Shikamaru sighed and grabbed his set of keys. "Thanks, mum," he tossed over his shoulder, exiting the house. He breathed deeply, pocketing his hands as he strode down the street at a brisk pace, knowing his window faced away from where he was traveling.
With all luck, it would take Ino and Chouji a good five or ten minutes before they figured out he'd abandoned them and their annoying antics.
Sexually interested... tch. Shikamaru had better things to occupy his mind with, like missions or Shogi.
At the thought of Shogi, he adjusted his course to take him to Asuma's, reaching his destination in due time. He was mostly sure (somewhere between 80 and 95) that they would check Asuma's place third. First, they would check his cloud-gazing spot on the hill at the edge of the Nara pastures. Second, they would check his other favorite cloud-gazing spot on the roof.
Some Shogi and tea with Asuma would give him plenty of time to prepare himself to logically combat the absurd possibility that he was even sexually interested at all, let alone in men.
It was growing hotter outside, even as the sun was beginning to set. Shikamaru wiped his brow before kicking off his shoes and walking onto the back porch of Asuma's home. The sliding doors were not locked, as always, and were noisy when he opened one.
"Oi," he greeted, forcing his feet into a pair of slippers by the entrance that Asuma had specifically bought for him. Having been bought when he was twelve- a gift for reaching gennin- his feet had long since outgrown them, but he never mentioned it, so Asuma never bought new ones. These ones had sentimental value; and besides, Shikamaru didn't want to get rid of such comfy shoes.
"Hey, Shikamaru," Asuma answered, emerging from his room. Shikamaru glanced up, thoughts about counter-arguments to sexually interested swirling around his head, saw Asuma, still in the process of pulling on a shirt, and blushed rather deeply. He shook his head and wiped his brow again.
"What're you doing here?" Asuma asked, "Shogi?"
Shikamaru nodded. "And some tea, if you have any sugar."
Asuma chuckled, but nodded and strolled into the kitchen while Shikamaru drug their Shogi board out of a cupboard and set it up on the low table in the main room. He was twirling a bishop absently, focusing on not knocking over the pieces around it, when Asuma returned with the tray of tea and sugar. There were two containers of leaves, and Shikamaru took from the one with green leaves while Asuma helped himself to the bitter jasmine. He watched bemusedly as Shikamaru measured out exactly four and a half teaspoons of sugar, dumping them into his cup without flourish.
Today, the board was set up for Asuma to play first. He frowned down at his pieces for a while. Shikamaru only wanted Asuma to go first when he was upset and/or brooding. "What's up?" he asked as he advanced the first piece. Shikamaru slurped from his cup, setting it aside with an exaggerated sigh.
"Trouble with Ino and Chouji," he muttered, making his move. Shikamaru didn't like to think about the game until a good ways in, so that he found himself in a new situation each time.
"Oh?" Asuma raised his eyebrows, contemplating Shikamaru's move before making what he felt was a good preemptive countermove.
"Yeah," Shikamaru nodded, ignoring the handle on the mug of tea as he held it around the middle, grasped firmly with his right hand, and took another loud sip from it while making his move, "Pestering me because I'm not sexually interested in women."
"Oh?" Asuma said with a bit more nuance. Shikamaru sighed again, resting his cheek on his hand as he waited.
"Um-hm," he mumbled around the edge of his cup, scowling when he found the liquid near the dregs wasn't as sweet as he liked. Asuma watched him dump in two more spoons of sugar.
"Ino even suggested that I might be sexually interested in men," he scoffed, "Troublesome. What an absurd idea."
Asuma laughed, finally deciding on his next move and executing it.
"Is it now?" he asked jokingly. Shikamaru wrinkled his nose.
"Of course it is!" he snarled, slamming his rook halfway down the board viciously. "I've never even thought about it before."
Asuma gave another gruff bark of laughter, easily capturing Shikamaru carelessly placed rook.
"Really?" he suggested, "Sorry, Shikamaru, but I've got to side with Ino on that one. You sure make it sound like you are."
"What?" Shikamaru gaped, and Asuma shook his head, amused by the fact that his genius student with a 200+ IQ hadn't already happened across that possibility.
"Well, when you say you don't like women," he explained, nudging Shikamaru with his foot under the table to incite the lazy nin to take his turn at the Shogi game, "It seems like what you're trying to say is 'I'm interested in men, leave me alone!'"
Shikamaru gaped for a moment longer, then snapped his mouth shut, shook his head, scratched just above his ponytail, and finally made a move after some deliberation. He poured himself some more tea while Asuma sat back to consider his next move. They were approaching the middle of their game, he knew, when Shikamaru began thinking.
"So," he continued lightly, finishing his turn just as Shikamaru finished his last, half-of-a-teaspoon dump and turned back to him, "Are you... ah, sexually interested in men?"
Shikamaru frowned down into his tea, watching the sugar granules melt into the hot liquid.
"Like I said," he mumbled, "I wouldn't know. Anyways, I don't think sexually interested is something one can just figure out from thinking."
Asuma shrugged. "Never know. A lot of people can get off just by imagining someone-"
"Asuma!" Shikamaru gasped, "Don't tell me stuff like that!"
Asuma laughed again. "And who's the genius?"
Shikamaru muttered and countered Asuma's most recent move.
"Anyways," Asuma added softly, "If it's something you don't you could figure out just by thinking about it, why not just give it a test run?"
Shikamaru scowled, glaring at the game as if it were his desire to cause the pieces to combust.
"That would be awkward," he concluded, speaking slowly as he mulled it over, "I couldn't just go up to some random guy and kiss him. Hell, if I made a mistake and kissed Neji he'd have me flat on my back in the infirmary for weeks, he'd be so pissed off. Besides, if I were... sexually interested in males... I don't think I'd want all of Konoha to know."
"Then how about someone you trust?" Asuma proposed, and Shikamaru frowned.
"Well, that wouldn't be too many people," he thought aloud, slurping at his tea. "Ino's a girl- hey, don't give me that look! I know I complain, and yes, she really is as obnoxious as I say, but I still trust her. There's also Chouji, but he's my best friend. I don't want to cross lines like that. And you, but you're my teacher- wait, that's right, you're my teacher..."
Asuma glanced up from the game, unsure of where Shikamaru was headed with that train of thought. Shikamaru's mouth formed a pinched line, bringing his hands into a box. Asuma recognized it immediately and leaned back to wait.
Five minutes later, Shikamaru eyes opened, studying Asuma's face intensely. "Shikamaru?" Asuma asked, but the shadow nin didn't answer, and his fingers remained tightly pressed into a box.
Asuma sighed and resigned himself to waiting some more, watching instead the figure formed by his student's hands. He had tried to contort his hands into that simple little box once, but it was so difficult to do, and his hands had hurt much afterwards. After that, he found himself easily entertained by watching Shikamaru's hands in that painful little box, admiring the dexterity and flexibility of the joints and the way the tips of his fingers met just so to make the perfect shape.
Finally, Shikamaru spoke.
"Asuma, you're my teacher," he stated again, and Asuma nodded, "So teach me."
"Teach you what?" Asuma asked, even though vague notions were already forming in his mind. He briefly wondered exactly what he had gotten himself into as Shikamaru got up and rounded the table, settling on his knees at his sensei's side, regarding him.
"Sexually interested," he murmured, reaching out and grasping the collar of Asuma's shirt, but not pulling or yanking or in any other way forcing Asuma to come closer. No, he only maintained eye-contact. Asuma blinked a few times, uncomfortable with the eye-lock.
"W-well," he stammered, "If it will help."
Shikamaru seemed to smile a bit, and swayed forward, but just barely, and Asuma recognized that he would have to clear the distance.
He did it a bit hesitantly, because for one, Shikamaru was his student. For two, Shikamaru was so much younger than him, but again, Shikamaru was his student who needed his assistance and guidance. For three, he knew that he, Asuma, swung both ways, enjoying his fair share of bad alcohol, men, and women.
And that, ruled out number one, which ruled out number two, and so they were all irrelevant, and he forget them all as his lips brushed against Shikamaru's.
They both gasped faintly, Shikamaru's hand that was curled tightly into the folds of his shirt beginning to tremble. Asuma pushed more pressure into the kiss, sliding his lips against Shikamaru's and shifting closer, until their legs touched and his hand slipped around to cup the back of Shikamaru's neck- he swore, he didn't intend to, it just... happened- and Shikamaru's free hand reached up, twisting in his coarse hair.
He leaned more into Shikamaru, licking the teen's lower lip as prudently as such a sexual act could possibly be performed, and Shikamaru gasped very audibly this time, buckling under the mounting pressure from Asuma leaning into him, bodies pressing together. Somehow, they ended up sprawled on the floor, Asuma's one hand tangled in Shikamaru's mess of a ponytail, the other resting somewhere between his student's waist and hip. He was about to pull away, realizing again that this was his student, but Shikamaru's mouth opened, the slightest of whimpers escaping him, and Asuma couldn't break this. Not this, no; he slipped his tongue into his students mouth- his student's mouth!- and explored tentatively, expecting any moment for Shikamaru to pull away and spit, to gulp down tea, then complain about how gross and disgusting this all was-
One of Shikamaru's hands that had been doing god-knows-what that had felt so good shifted and gave a gentle but insistent nudge on Asuma's shoulder- whether or not Shikamaru was aware that he was pressing right over Asuma's heart, Asuma didn't know- so Asuma let up, finally rending the kiss.
They both gasped for air- Shikamaru more than Asuma, because it was only his second kiss, and his first ever with tongue or hands or groping or floor or god, just so much feeling that felt good, because he didn't know how to breathe properly.
"Sorry," the younger mumbled, running a hand through his loose hair, the other still covering Asuma's heart, "Needed air."
Asuma nodded and shifted to remove himself from on top of his student. His shin brushed against Shikamaru's crotch with the movement and his eyes widened, glancing down at Shikamaru's tented pants, then back up to the flushed face of his student.
"Sorry," he repeated, "Guess I'm more sexually frustrated and sexually interested than I thought."
Then Asuma laughed, making it okay for Shikamaru to smile.
And somehow they wound up in another lip-lock, and it was okay, even if Asuma was Shikamaru's teacher and Shikamaru was Asuma's student; even if Shikamaru was a year under legal adulthood, meaning any relationship they shared was a year away from legal; because...
It just felt so damn right.
"I told you we should have checked Asuma-sensei's place first!" Ino seethed as they approached the front of Asuma's home. Chouji shrugged apologetically.
"Sorry Ino," he whined, "But it just made sense to check the other places first. I mean, after that I thought Shikamaru would want to cool his head, you know, watch the clouds to relax."
Ino shrugged it off, "Whatever."
As they approached, the pair noticed that strange... sounds... were emanating from the abode. Ino raised a finger to his lips, unnecessarily shushing Chouji, who swallowed his last chip and placed no more in his mouth.
"Guess Shika-kun's not here," she whispered.
"Then we should go check the next place," Chouji reasoned, thinking back to the Academy where Shikamaru sometimes liked to vent to Iruka, who sometimes had advice even Shikamaru couldn't think of.
"Wait!" Ino hissed, "I want to know who Asuma-sensei's with!"
Chouji rolled his eyes, but followed her as she crept around the side of the house. Crouching beneath a window, they continued to listen. The sounds grew louder, moans and groans and skin on skin. Ino felt her cheeks heating up as she came to the realization-
"He's with a guy!" they both whispered at once, staring at each other with wide eyes.
Too shocked to grin or call the jinx, they scrambled to peer in through the cracks in the blinds.
What they saw inside was Asuma, lip-locked, hovering over, thrusting into, and giving a hand job to the one and only Nara Shikamaru. As if on cue, as their jaws hit the floor, Shikamaru- sweating and flushed and so very near tears, as they had never seen him before- broke away from the kiss, arching his back as he came with a shout. By all indications on the sheets and other places neither Ino nor Chouji would ever admit that they had looked, it was not for the first time that evening-almost-night. They ducked again, too shocked to react as they heard Asuma following Shikamaru with a moan.
"W-well," Ino stammered, stunned, "I guess that answers my question."
Chouji whipped out his bag of chips, stuffing his face as quietly as he could.
"So that's why Shikamaru never called him Asuma-sensei."
______________________________________________________
Just to clear up any confusion... the last one talking is Chouji. Ino always calls him "Shika-kun".