The Lives Worth Saving

Chapter 5: Of Opinions and Games

Chapter 5 – Of Opinions and Games

By the time Haruki reached his apartment, he was tired, hungry, and beyond irritated. Really, did he have 'SPEND TIME WITH ME' tattooed on his forehead or something?

Tossing his coat onto the couch, he made his way to the kitchen, grimacing as he remembered being accosted by three different people before finally reaching his flat.

* Earlier *

"How would you like to play a game of shogi with me?"

Haruki stared for a long incredulous moment, mind racing to find a good excuse to turn Shikaku down. Naras never did anything for no good reason. Of course, they thought not doing something because it was troublesome was a good reason, but there must have been an alternative motive for the Jounin Commander to ask.

"I'm not all that good, Shikaku-san," Haruki voiced uncomfortably, slipping his hands into his coat pockets to hide their minute restlessness. It was true. In his timeline, both Shikaku and Shikamaru had kicked his ass almost every time they had played, though both Naras had admitted that he had become more and more of a challenge to defeat as time passed. He had even won the last few games he had played with them but after Konoha had been destroyed, none of them had had time for shogi anymore and Haruki hadn't so much as touched a piece in over a year.

"Well I can be the judge of that," Shikaku's posture was still in a somewhat lazy slouch but his eyes never wavered from Haruki's. "Shikamaru has training tomorrow until late afternoon and the other people I usually play with are all busy so I won't have a shogi partner." (Here, Haruki snapped mentally, ' You have an entire clan of shogi partners! They can't all be busy! And you're the Clan Head! You can order them to play with you if you want your shogi fix so badly!' ) "You can come over to the Nara Compound any time before that."

A dozen excuses raced through his mind, just as quickly dismissed a second later. Shikaku would counter every one of them anyway. It wasn't that he didn't particularly like playing shogi, he really had nothing against it, but to Haruki, he would technically be sitting across from a dead man, most likely fielding questions the entire time because he had no doubt Shikaku had seen through the earlier farce and would probably want answers, and that was fine because Haruki had expected it. What he hadn't expected was for the Nara to come straight to him. He had figured that Shikaku would go bug the Hokage and Sarutobi would be the one stuck with dealing with the Jounin Commander.

And the other problem he found with Shikaku's request was the fact that he knew Shikaku's playing style inside-out. This didn't matter in his timeline since Shikaku knew his playing style as well, not to mention that it had been the father and son whom had taught him how to play in the first place. But here in this timeline, Naruto would have quite a bit of an advantage and it wouldn't be fair to Shikaku.

So here he was, impassive on the outside but somewhat frantic on the inside as the Nara Clan Head waited for his reply. Somewhat belatedly, Haruki realized that he had been silent for several long seconds already, and though Shikaku looked as patient and unbothered as ever, the silence around them was beginning to turn awkward.

"I am... busy tomorrow, Shikaku-san," Haruki finally threw out, shoving down a flush of embarrassment when the Nara Clan Head raised a half-skeptical, half-amused eyebrow at him.

"Oh?" The Jounin Commander cocked his head and the slightly mocking edge that his smile had taken on was definitely calling the redhead out on his bullshit. "With what? Perhaps we could schedule the match afterwards."

"With..." Haruki casually turned to his left and gestured vaguely in that direction to stall for time. And lo and behold, his gaze fell on a familiar figure and he almost cheered when he realized his excuse had, quite youthfully, presented itself to him.