In His Shadow (Shikamaru x reader)

2. Reconciliation

The next day I woke up at 6:30, contemplating whether or not to go to training like Naruto had asked me to. Sleeping seemed like a much better option, but I knew he really wanted me to go.

So I got up, got cleaned up, dressed in my usual baggy attire as of late, grabbed my weapons, and then headed to the training grounds. It was still pretty early and not many people were out yet, thank God.

Being up at the crack of dawn used to be something I actually enjoyed, but right now I was pretty tired. But I was doing it for Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi-Sensei. And maybe Sasuke.

When I got to the training grounds, Naruto and Sakura were already there, sitting underneath a tree.

"Hey, (Y/n)!" Sakura greeted me when she saw me approaching. "Come sit." She patted the ground adjacent to her.

I obliged and sat down with them.

"What's up?" Naruto asked me.

"Not much.. so, I guess it's safe to say that Kakashi-Sensei is still always late?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Never stopped."

"Never stopped what?" The familiar voice of my Sensei asked.

We all craned our necks to look up at him.

"Finally you're here!!" Naruto yelled.

I was waiting to hear the usual, "Sorry I'm late, I saw a black cat and had to go the other way," or the infamous, "Sorry I'm late, I'm afraid I got lost on the path of life," but instead what left my Sensei's mouth was, "(Y/n), is that you?"

"Yeah, she got back yesterday!!" Sakura spoke for me.

I guess I'll never tell them I've actually been back for a month, I thought to myself.

"Hmm? Well, welcome back." He gave a closed eye smile.

"Good to be back."

For the next three hours we did nothing but intensive training. We sparred, worked on changing chakra forms, and ran over a hundred laps. I swear Sensei never pushed us this hard before, but I guess because of the Fourth Great Ninja War last year, he wanted us to be at our best. I wouldn't really know if that was the reason or not, because I was sent away shortly after that.

"Good job today, guys. (Y/n), I'm glad you're back," Sensei told us when training was over. "We'll meet again, same time tomorrow."

We all nodded and started to leave.

"Hey, (Y/n), if you still want to hang out with everyone later, go to Ino's at around five," Sakura said.

I agreed and said goodbye to my teammates before going home. All I wanted to do after all of that was take a shower and a nap. And that's exactly what I did.

//

I didn't wake up from my nap until around 4:15. A sigh left my mouth when I remembered I had to go to Ino's and socialize. I looked at myself in the mirror and was definitely not satisfied. My pregnancy belly was basically gone, but it left me with love handles and thunder thighs.

As much as I wanted to wear something cute, I doubted that my old clothes would even fit. It was worth a try though, right? I tried on a pair of jeans that had always been a little too big on me and they fit perfectly! I almost cried tears of joy. They were high waisted so they concealed my tummy and kept everything nice and tucked in. Since I no longer had to worry about my stomach looking so huge, I decided to pair it with a big white t-shirt I had, and tucked it in to my pants. I put on a little makeup and this time smiled at myself in the mirror. I looked kinda cute.