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that_nara_kid's Journal

Created on 2007-04-06 01:58:55 (#12659342), last updated 2008-03-28

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Basic Info

Name:	Nara Shikamaru
Birthdate:	09-22

Bio

Nara Shikamaru

Age: 16
Portrayed By: Hyde
Title: prince
Aristocratic Hobbies: kyudo, cloud watching/star gazing, reading, doing what his mother tells him to, playing guitar/singing along

The Nara family itself has a long history in Japan, dating back hundreds and hundreds of years. Descended from a long line deer herders-cum-medicinal specialists, as a young boy, he was expected to know the majority, if not all, of his family's history, as well as everything there is to know about the city's resident deer population. After all, some day it will be his turn to pass on the same knowledge to his own son, although how much bearing it has on modern medicine is another question, which he often asked himself growing up. Residing in the city of Nara, over which his family has a large holding, his father imparted on him all of the family's knowledge, while a good school in the city provided him with his general education, and private after school tutoring taught him all the things he would need to know to function in upper society if it ever came to it. He hated every moment of it, and really only took an interest in the kyudo and guitar lessons, both of which thrilled his mother-- an interest in a Japanese tradition, and an interest in music, even if she had wanted him to play piano. Music at all was good enough, though, as it showed that her lazy son was taking some sort of initiative. He never mentioned it, and still hasn't, but the only reason he took it up was as an excuse to keep her and her nagging away. If he was practicing, she wouldn't bother him, and he found that the chords came naturally to him.

In reality, a lot of things came naturally to Shikamaru, at least when he took an interest in them. A particularly keen teacher took note of this at some point before he entered high school, and managed to slip him a cleverly-disguised IQ test, which yielded what very few might have guessed: Shikamaru was a verifiable genius. The problem, he would later admit, was that he was just too lazy to do his homework, and lifting the pencil to take the tests in class was too much of a bother. By all means, he could have been well into high school, but his lack of effort kept him back. There was no real reason for this laziness. His parents had done everything they could to foster an active, young son (or his mother had, at the very least) but it seemed as if Shikamaru was doomed to keep himself back due to his own lack of interest in just about anything other than his most favorite hobbies. It wasn't even that he thought he was going to get an easy ride off his parents' money; in fact, he was well prepared for the money to run out at just about any time. He just plain didn't care.

Beside themselves, they had to come up with a plan. And the only thing that could motivate him to do anything was the fear of even harder work. So they leveled with him. He would either attend--without a fuss--a prestigious school in Tokyo, or he would be made to become an apprentice at the Kasuga Shrine. Whether or not that was even possible, Shikamaru didn't know. But with his mother, she would probably find a way to make it possible if it wasn't already, and he knew that taking care of a shrine would be a whole lot more work than pulling good grades. He'd much rather lift a pencil than lift a broom. When the next school year came around, his bags were packed and his family was on a plane to Tokyo, where his parents left him with cheery goodbyes, as he dreaded the school year ahead of him.

The private academy was anything but his "kind" of place. As far as he was concerned, the majority of other students there were not only stuck up and snobbish, but were simply along for the ride. Sure, some of the scholarship students were smart, and there were a few members of the nobility who actually cared to learn anything, but those were not the ones he saw the most. Lucky for him, most people were not interested in hanging around him. He was brutally honest and sarcastic at times, in that lazily perceptive way that he had always had. He wasn't particularly mean spirited, so much as he could easily pick any of their statements or arguments apart and reveal the faulty logic. He faced the same dilemma most people of his intelligence faced, but the difference was that he didn't particularly care. He managed to make a few friends here and there, but otherwise stayed to himself, breezed through his schoolwork--when it suited him--and tried to stay out the way of anyone too big and tough.

Despite what he might say, he loves his mother, his father, and his former home, and misses them sorely. (More than once, he's wondered if he could find a way to smuggle one of those deer into his apartment, but has not yet come up with any flawless plans for doing so.) He has a sort of secret pride that he keeps to himself. He is fiercely loyal to his clan and home, as well as his friends, perhaps to a fault, although all these things can be somewhat hard to see through his completely aloof attitude. However, no matter how hard he tries, he cannot get himself interested in the upper echelon of society. He cares little for titles and lineage besides his own.

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