I Won't be Lazy for Your Love

Shikamaru walked through the door of the bar, he saw her sitting there dressed in a black tanktop and jeans. He stood there for a moment trying to prepare himself for the conversation he had been putting off. His unbuttoned collared shirt now felt a bit too tight. He gulped and made his was slowly to the seat next to the woman he had turned away from a year ago. 'How could I be so selfish, she was the one I should have been striving to have? Why was I so dumb to let her slip through my fingers?' He reprimanded himself until he was standing just behind her.

Temari turned around slowly, her heart sank at the sight of the man she had once loved and made love to. "Hello." She sat firm in her barstool waiting for a response. "May I sit?" He asked politely knowing nothing else would do. She nodded her head, not looking into his eyes. Quite a difference of attitude from when they had spent so many days and nights together just gazing into the gateway of each others' souls. Temari tapped her fingers twice on the bar and signaled for two shots, one for her and the other for her former lover.

He sat down without a word just looking at her through the mirror in front of them. She was completely aware of it, but she had grown cold. The bartender sat two shots in front of the pair. She raised her glass in his direction; "to new lives" she toasted as she hit his glass and then the bar and took the shot. She didn't used to be a drinker; only now she felt her heart would never love again, and she'd drink to that. Shikamaru couldn't respond to her toast. She hadn't even been expecting him, how could she have been so nonchalant about all this. Had her identity been ripped away when he left her? Was everything he had still loved about her gone? No, no way, that can't be true. He set the shot down with taking it; he knew he could never drink to that.

"Temari, I wan- I wanted to…" He couldn't make out what he wanted to say. What he had rehersed so many times before was gone. She never took her eyes off her glass in front of her. Only this time, it was not a cute concentration that kept her distracted. It was sheer heartbreak. She didn't have tears in her eyes or a blush on her cheeks as the man she loved sat next to her. What could he possibly want to say to her after all the heartache and pain? Her life had changed drastically. He left her. He left her in that same workplace they had shared, he left her in the apartment they had made love. He left her to see the memories play everywhere she went. She had to become hard; she had to become cold. She felt it was the only way to survive.

All the bridges she burned because of him. All of the time she spent with him. When he left, what was she supposed to do? And, he didn't leave her with any sort of proclamation; he didn't even warn her he was going. One day he was just gone with a single note "Goodbye". Now it was a year later, exactly 365 days. Was this him wanting to see the product of what he had done? And now he can't even speak. Not that her heart could take it anyway. The way his voice shot through to her core. She still loved him. No, no way, she can't do it again. Without saying a word to him, she dug in her pant pocket and left a twenty on the bar. She smiled angrily to him and walked out of the bar.

The gray clouds truly were fitting. The rain would set in soon. The shout of her name was frustrating as her pace quickened as she passed people pretending not to hear the man running after her. He had really screwed up, there's no denying that. It was not as if modern technology wouldn't allow long distance relationships. He knew he had no chance with this new found Temari who had clung to her heartbreak. But he was determined. He had still loved her as well. This is something he would not be lazy about anymore. He would work at this until the day he had her again or died.