Looping, oh the fun! (Naruto)

Ch22 A clue!

"Ring ring"

The person in bed groaned as the sharp jingling noise pierced through the thick quilt and into his ear. Facing down, he slid down the bed and picked up his pillow, then slid back up and smothered his head with it. It was no use; the sound penetrated through the soft materials easily as if the pillow was made of air. Finally, after twenty seconds of torture, he pulled up a slim hand and slammed it onto the alarm clock.

Silence engulfed the room until a rustle was heard as the figure underneath the quilt shifted slightly, causing it to slide down, revealing a head of shoulder-length black hair. Half-lidded brown eyes peaked out from long bangs and blinked a few times as the owner tried to get used to the morning brightness. Closing his eyes with a lengthy sigh, Shikamaru propped himself up with his elbows as he murmured, "Alright, I'm up."

It was thirty minutes later when he managed to brush his teeth and tie up his hair neatly without dozing off in a standing position, being the lazy Nara he was. When he made his way downstairs, his mother was already up and cooking, while his father was reading the newspaper while having seated at the breakfast table, yawning all the while.

"Morning," Shikamaru mumbled, receiving a weary nod from Shikaku.

"Morning, dear," Yoshino replied cheerily as she flipped a grilled salmon onto a rectangular plate. "Breakfast's almost ready. Go pour yourself a cup of milk."

Knowing better than to defy his mother's orders, Shikamaru groggily did as he was told and sat down in front of Shikaku. He scanned his eyes across the scattered pages until he found the one read "Literature." Under the curious gaze of Shikaku, he picked it up and began reading the newest poem from Nakamura Tenzoi. The title was "Melt."

Early in the morning I woke up,
And immediately I started to think of you.
I decided to cut my bangs,
Just to hear you say, "What happened?"

A pink skirt, and a flower barette
And it's time to go
I'm looking super cute today!

Melt - I'm about to melt
I can't tell you that I like you... but...
Melt - I can't let our eyes meet
I'm not into love and all that
But I do... like you

The weather report lied
It's pouring down
My umbrella still folded in my bag won't do
So I gave a sigh

At this point, Shikamaru paused abruptly and went back up to reread the title.

"Melt," he mumbled. "How could it be?" Then he noted that the first sentence of this poem was, in fact, not a dialogue."Why? This doesn't make sense."

Ignoring his father's questioning eyes, Shikamaru bolted upstairs to his room and took out all the poems published so far. According to his deduction, the arrangement of the sins and the first sentence being a dialogue should be a clue to the hidden messages. But the first sentence of today's poem, "Melt," which obviously wasn't about the sin Envy, was not a dialogue. Was the sins not supposed to be a clue? If they were, shouldn't today's poem be about Envy, and not a random girl falling in love? Was he wrong in thinking that the dialogues were meaningful? Why was "Melt" the only poem that doesn't start with a dialogue, and why was "Regret Message" the only poem in the Evil series that does?

The sound of heavy footsteps approaching his room brought him back to the present. Shikamaru turned, expecting to see a frowning Yoshino telling him to "get [his] ass down and eat [his] breakfast", but instead he saw Shikaku staring at him curiously.

"So what got you all worked up, son?" Shikaku said with a lazy grin as he trod closer to his son.

"Nothing important."

"Want any help?"

Shikamaru huffed and stepped aside. He hated it when his father acted all-knowingly. It made him feel naked in front of Shikaku.

Shikaku took one look at the poems and let out a whistle. "So you're trying to figure out the hidden messages huh? Do you actually believe there's such a thing?"

"Sakura made a deal with me. If I help her find the hidden messages, she would get Ino off my back," Shikamaru tried to defend himself. "But now I'm beginning to think that this hidden message thing may be just a prank. Why else would Seito spend 1 million ryou on finding these things? It's abnormal even for someone like him."

"And what makes you believe that?"

"All my deductions seem to be wrong. Because all the poems posted until yesterday were about certain sins, I thought the sins and perhaps the arrangement of them was a clue. But then today's poem turned out to be about a troublesome girl in love. If my deductions are correct, then today's poem should be about the missing sin, Envy.

And one other thing. All the poems so far begin with a dialogue, while the only poem in Evil series that does so is "Regret Message." I thought maybe each sin is supposed to have one poem that begins with a dialogue, and perhaps this is a clue of a sort. But today's poem didn't start with a dialogue, as you can see clearly," Shikamaru thrust "Melt" in front of Shikaku's face as he finished his rant, frustrated.

Shikaku glanced at the poem, pushing it aside and quickly reading the other poems, then he chuckled.

"What?"

"Did you ever think that maybe some poems need a dialogue while other don't?"

"What do you mean?"

Instead of telling him the answer directly, Shikaku placed the poem down and said, "Think of it this way. Why are the dialogues placed in the beginning? What role do they play by being the first sentences? What would happen if the dialogues aren't placed in the beginning, but, say, in the middle, or in the end?" Turning around swiftly, Shikaku exited the room, leaving his son to his own musings.

Shikamaru stood in the middle of the room as he slowly digested the hints his father had given him. Dialogues... first sentences... beginning... first. In a flash, he was by the desk, running his piercing gaze across the poems. A smirk slowly crawled up his face as his eyes glinted like that of a hungry wolf seeing a trapped rabbit.

He had found it.

A possible beginning of the hidden messages.