[Thread] You got me off the sofa, just sprang out of the air.

[lazyish]

Who: Shikamaru, Itachi, and later Nill and Naruto.
Where: Terra; Yosuke's apartment.
When: Friday the 13th..! After the sky turns yellow.
Summary: A little student-teacher bonding is misinterpreted. Maybe..?
Rating: PG-13?
Other: Oh sensei~~

Comments

[pogromanate]

If anything, Itachi would only observe. But even with the reason he had given himself not to have the sudden urge to succumb to his exhaustion he did not even open his eyes -- nor did his frame seem to falter at the explosion of self-boasting of the display that laid before the teenagers.

It was a slow moment, painfully slow, the way that Itachi let his eyes half open in rhythm of a barely-there exhale that finished with Itachi’s position resembling that of a gentle slump. And even with the coldness of the object in hand, Itachi made no effort to remove the lid from the container.

Neither did he make a effort to prevent him from closing his eyes once again. Or to have him so very slowly and so very inconspicuously lean to the heaviness of his coiled fist produced from the weighing of his visage. But the will to consciously sleep slipped away, and he only slept when it was of absolute need. It must have been unfortunate really, that after the extravagant forming of words that spewed from the blonde’s mouth and himself slowly tilting to one side of the couch (unaware himself) was one of those times.

[silencedbird]

Nill’s expression almost immediately shifted from the slightly glum once she’d been wearing to a near exuberant grin when Naruto rushed over and all but dragged her and Shikamaru over to the table, where he’d set up the food just as Shikamaru had told him to; and, of course, Nill listened quite intently as he listed off all the various ingredients and all the reasons it’d be a huge seller from now on.

Naruto was sort of infectious like that, Nill thought, staring down at the noodles for a moment. Being around him, he just... he was the type of person that made others happy. At least, he seemed to be, and that was all that really counted in the end. (there was no way he was dangerous.) She had to admit, though, the food looked and smelled great; leave to to Naruto to know his ramen. She hadn’t even known it could be made that way before meeting him.

She didn’t move to try and, since he’d nudged Shikamaru and probably wanted his approval before anyone elses, so the blue-eyed girl shifted her gaze over slightly to Itachi to see if he’d be joining them or not. She blinked, tilted her head to the side for a moment, looked at him and blinked again. She’d never seen Itachi just... sleep like that before. Never. She contemplated that thought for a moment before reaching a hand out to tug on Naruto’s sleeve, before lifting her other hand and holding her pointer finger up over her lips in the universal signal for “please be a bit quieter” before gesturing with that same finger towards the Uchiha. If he was sleeping, then... they definitely shouldn’t have woken him up.

[lazyish]

Shikamaru couldn't help but smile at Naruto's enthusiasm. Just a little. Barely. Who the hell could get so worked up about ramen? Although that was probably to be expected from someone raised into the ramen business. At least he loved his work?

Normally he would've waited for Nill to try some first, as she was the lady here, but since she nudged him he shrugged and helped himself to the bowl presented to him. Ramen wasn't his favorite food but after a taste his eyebrows raised in appreciation. Rasen's noodles were normally good but this was really delicious! "Whoa," he uttered. "Just... whoa."

He raised his chopsticks for another slurp when he felt a light weight rest upon his shoulder. He glanced over... Oh, not again. Itachi was really intent on sleeping on him today, wasn't he? His face flushed again but he didn't shove his sensei away. Instead, he went back to eating with movements careful enough to avoid disturbing the sleeping man.

[unfeasible]

Naruto beamed. By now he knew that for Shikamaru, just those few words were the equivalent of a parade and fanfare. He made sure not to neglect the small, quiet one of the group, and smiled widely at her.

"C'mon Nill, you gotta tell me what you think too!" He pulled back an empty chair for her to sit in, a steaming bowl awaiting its occupant. And then she saw her put her finger to her lips and motion to Itachi. Naruto blinked and saw that the person in question had, indeed, passed out. ...Huh. He nodded dumbly at Nill in response, then looked at Shikamaru. ...Why was he red?

Naruto waved frantically at Shikamaru to get his attention, and mouthed dramatically, "What did he fall asleep for?!"

[silencedbird]

Itachi really worried Nill sometimes. She could tell he didn’t take proper care of himself, that he seemed to forgo eating entirely at times (except ice cream, apparently, which was still very unhealthy on most levels other than ‘dairy’ consumption...) and just didn’t sleep at other times. She couldn’t really fix it or help much, though, so she contented herself with keeping an eye on the man and trying to get him to be more careful when she could. Shikamaru probably would’ve had better luck, being the closest to Itachi, but... she doubted he wanted to question his sensei.

So instead of bringing up anything on the matter of why the Uchiha had fallen asleep for (no doubt seemingly, to Naruto) no apparent reason whatsoever, she smiled somewhat cheerfully-it was hard to imagine the conversation from just moments ago had occurred, really-and gave a short nod before taking the seat that Naruto had pulled out for her. She looked at the food set out before her for a moment, not entirely sure she’d gotten to actually try some of the ingredients up until that point (the shrimp looked kind of funny, she thought.) before pulling the bowl a bit closer and eating some of it. No one would ever be able to say that Naruto wasn’t a good cook; the ramen was really tasty! The blond-haired boy was really good at his job, and pretty enthusiastic about it, too. Spanner would’ve probably liked him.

Lifting hand and grinning, Nill gave a somewhat awkward looking thumbs up to her friend, a gesture she’d never really tried before but figured conveyed fairly well that it was delicious without her having to pull out a notepad.

[lazyish]

Shikamaru snorted quietly as Naruto suddenly switched from shouting to mute communication. "Idiot," he muttered. "You can talk, just stop yelling." If that were even possible for Naruto. Maybe his volume really was just an on-and-off switch.

With another glance at Itachi, he could tell the man wasn't going to be waking up so easily anyway. Someone would really have to try to disturb him. So Shikamaru relaxed a little and went on enjoying his ramen even with Itachi resting on him. "He's been working hard lately," Shikamaru answered vaguely, "so he hasn't been getting much sleep at night. You guys interrupted his afternoon nap, so..." He shrugged and tipped his bowl, slurping down more noodles.

[unfeasible]

"Oh."

Naruto blinked at Itachi, then shrugged. He could be quiet, right?

Having helped Nill into her own seat, Naruto plodded quietly to the empty seat and sat down with a graceless thunk, looking expectantly at Nill. When she gave her silent approval, he chuckled and started eating his own bowl, slurping noisily.

This was...nice. That wasn't quite a big enough word for it. Even if they had to be quiet, it was a much friendlier atmosphere than mealtime at Rasen - where he and the old man had to takes turns eating. And Sakuma wasn't exactly a warm person.

"What does he do? For work," Naruto managed through a mouthful of broth and chicken.

[silencedbird]

At the mention of having interrupted Itachi’s afternoon nap, Nill paused in eating to give Shikamaru a slightly apologetic look, but soon resumed slurping up her own noodles; she was a bit quieter about it than Naruto and her senpai were, (-come to think of it, was Naruto her senpai, too? Nill wasn’t really sure-) though whether or not that just kind of figured or if she was purposely trying not to make much noise for fear of waking Itachi up, it was hard to say.

The winged girl looked at her senpai out of the corner of her eye when Naruto asked what Itachi actually did. It seemed like he didn’t want their friend to know-and, considering all that Itachi ahd been through (though she didn’t know most of the story) maybe it was for the better. But even so, she couldn’t really bring herself to lie to Naruto. Especially not when she joined Itachi on a somewhat regular basis.

So instead she shifted her gaze upward, line of sight lingering on the ceiling for a moment as though in thought, before mouthing out ‘a lot’, attempting a bit of vagueness herself- though she doubted if it would really work.

[lazyish]

Shikamaru cast a sidelong glance at Nill, watching her reply while he finished off a mouthful of noodles. He hadn't expected her to answer truthfully, but he also hadn't expected her to answer at all. She wasn't the lying type. Although vagueness, he supposed, wasn't exactly a lie.

Naruto was the type to ask more questions though, so Shikamaru took it upon himself to elaborate just a little more, in the most boring way possible: "He's a consultant. Contracted third-party work." Not exactly a lie either, was it?

After a sip of broth, he changed the subject, "You should come over for dinner more often, Naruto. It's probably boring to eat at the stand all the time, right?"