#nnnggggg 🫠

[twnj]

“Teach me something new.”

“Finnish?” he asked.

“Mhm.”

“Like what?”

“Anything. Something you think I should know.”

Shikamaru’s fingers stopped still in her hair, and his eyes opened. While tired, they seemed to burrow right through her, deeper than they had reached earlier that night. They waited for a moment, and before rubbing the sleep from them and sighing, Shikamaru gave a surprisingly nervous little laugh.

“Okay,” he said tentatively. “Repeat after me: minä.”

“Minä.”

“Rakastan,” he continued slowly, annunciating every syllable carefully.

Her hand traced his jaw, focused on his stubble. “Rakastan.”

“Sinua.” Shikamaru’s fingers re-commenced their twiddling. “Minä rakastan sinua.”

Temari looked up at him and narrowed her eyes a little, focusing. “Minä rakastan sinua,” she said slowly, and when he gave her a lopsided smile, she smirked proudly. “And what does that mean?”

Grandmaster on ao3 by @notquitejiraiya

[twnj]

'Her legs, like spindly cotton buds, trembled as she rose, but the strong hand that had pawed at her leg splayed out across her back to support her, drawing her flush against him.

Before she could process how every nerve in her body screamed at her, she suddenly lost the taste and instinctively surged forward a few centimetres to find nothing.

Shikamaru towered above as her eyes fluttered open, his dark eyes suddenly plagued with a thousand fleeting thoughts Temari couldn’t even begin to decipher. She barely made it past her own. For a second, she considered how far this strayed from her father’s instructions — from staying away. But Temari dismissed the thought as someone else’s problem. [...]

[...]When had Shikamaru become so tall? Was it before or after the apparent stubble on his chin had started appearing? And when had he become so pleasant to look at? His pointy nose, his crooked mouth, his upsettingly kind eyes…

Even with his back to the lampshade, gold danced through them.

Temari’s mouth grew dry with a series of infinitely short breaths, and once again, she felt herself staring at the sun, unable to look away. The pads of her fingertips burned as she reached up to trace his jawline, just as intricately as he had hers, until Shikamaru bit down on his bottom lip.

“I locked the door,” he said quietly.'

Grandmaster on ao3 by @notquitejiraiya