My dad wasn't really a father to me.
You always were.
---
A lofty sigh leaves my lips. It was another rough day at work. Almost lost my left arm and eye today...an unusually wily Rain-shinobi caught me off-guard. Of course, I was the one reprimanded for letting my guard down; they docked my pay from the mission and sent me home with less money than I really deserved.
Bakas.
I come home to a loud apartment. My 3 children are - yet again - jockeying for my attention, shoving one another down the halls to race to hug my knees. I struggle through the bundle of mini-mes to drop a gentle kiss on my newly-awakened wife's cheek as she struggles into a sitting position on the couch. It's been a long day for us both.
Dinner consists of nothing more than food flung across the room. Some mashed potatoes make it into the eye I nearly lost earlier today. Strike two for Shikamaru's left cornea. My son is lucky I have a relatively even temper at the moment - I've been known, when angered, to dangle my children over door frames by nothing more than a kunai in their shirt-collars. Ino tempers me and I permit myself to finish dinner quietly, subjecting myself to torture by steamed carrots.
--
While my wife puts our children to bed, I am forced to clean Mochi's litter box. It's not a pretty job (in fact, it's my least favorite to do around the house), and it leaves me fighting the urge to drown the beast in the bathroom sink. That stupid cat needs to learn how to get rid of his own excrement, or use the toilet like the rest of us.
Grumbling, I begin the filthy task. Mochi is waiting on the windowsill, watching me with moonlight reflected in his greenish eyes. I flip him the bird as I work, glaring over my shoulder at the black-and-white mongrel as he waits to dirty what I have only just cleaned. Imagine my surprise when, out of the blue, a tiny tidbit of love appears right before my eyes.
Mochi's pee is shaped...like a heart.
I pause, arching a delicate eyebrow as this small symbol of care appears out of a place that has had none. Surely this was just chance, just a coincidence - or maybe I've been smoking a bit too much. Certainly Mochi didn't care about me enough to shape his urine into the symbol of love; that cat despises me. And it doesn't really look like a heart - the left side's a bit too misshapen, and the right is too...
Who am I kidding? It's a heart, plain and simple. I stand back to look at it in a bit more artistic mindset; sure, it's rather dirty and underhanded - a heart made of cat pee and clumped litter - but that is the beauty about it. It reminds me of someone I loved...
The man who blew smoke rings to the stars.
Oh Kami, Captain Asuma...this is unpleasent for the others to know...
---
My dad wasn't really a father to me.
You always were.
~~~
If it weren't for your maturity none of this would have happened...
If you weren't so wise beyond your years I would've been able to control myself...
If it weren't for my attention you wouldn't have been successful and
If it weren't for me you would never have amounted to very much...
~Alanis Morissette, "Hands Clean"
~~~
OWARI
A/N: So dudes, I don't own Naruto. Or Shikamaru. I just thought this would be rather fitting...since today, I really did find a cat-pee heart in my cats' litter box. xD It just...inspired me so.
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