Stones in the Water
The street, he thought, was a concrete ocean, and he was drowning in a puddle of lights and sounds. All around him people swam like the slipperiest of fish, escaping nets of noise.
Businessmen carried briefcases, bumping shoulders with him as they hurried on by, but he stood as still as humanly possible; a living statue erected in the center of a road sparkling with the bustle of success.
Long, spindled fingers knitted around the reflective surface of a scratched hitai-ate. It was oddly right that an object of defense present on the head of every shinobi should have to bear the heaviest battle scar.
Something pink skirted by, and he jumped, startled, searching for Sakura.
…It was a piece of luggage.
Slowly he breathed out, holding the hitai-ate tighter, comforted only with the thought that he was murdering Sasuke's memory.
When he screamed into the air—into the ocean—his voice was a mixture of gravel and honey, sculpted through the withering days of failed retrieval missions and huge letdowns, life on standby.
It was then that he wondered just how many others there were like him: how many other stones in the water.
Astonished by such a thought, he clutched the strip of metal so roughly that it shook.
Fin.