Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
Warning: Character Death
He was dead.
Murdered in a crime of passion.
Loved and hated to death at the same time, by the same person.
And as they say, love is blind. He never saw it coming.
As if he was handling china, Neji brushed a lock of coffee-coloured hair from his lover's pale face.
Neji's lips were set in a thin line and his mind in a daze of denial.
"Shika..." He whispered, his tone soft, urgent and heartbroken at the same time.
No answer came.
"Babe?" He questioned, cradling the lifeless body closer to his chest. "Answer me." He had to push the words out, desperation filling every vein in his body and a coldness washed over him he was sure would never leave again.
A lone tear found its way down his cheek, but he paid no heed to the sign of weakness.
He did not care nor thought he would ever care again.
Gently he brushed his long fingers across cold skin, over high cheekbones before burying it in shoulder-length hair. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat yet it did not go away. His breathing would not settle down and his heart would not stop beating rapidly.
And that was when the tears fell, dripping from his eyes like rain from an angry sky and a sob wreaked his emotionally weakened body.
With a loud agonized cry he buried his head in the neck of his now dead lover and pulled the body as close as possible.
"Please come back to me." He begged on a raw voice.
His fingers grasped idly at the Shinobi garb decorating Shikamaru's body yet he froze when his fingers smeared across slightly sticky, tepid blood. An unsteady breath was forced out of his body at the realization blood had dropped onto the ground, creating a pool of dark-red liquid which made Neji's stomach turn. He felt sick, disgusted and momentarily forgot his agony.
Yet the kunai, mercilessly plunged through the Nara's heart slammed reality back into him with so much force it had him reeling.
The pain had ebbed away, leaving only an empty place where once his heart had been. Never would he feel an emotion close to happiness again.
"Please," he begged, voice barely a whisper and shaking as tears were still flowing freely down his cheeks. "I can't live without you."
And he couldn't. The empty feeling spread, leaving him a puppet to his body's will. He had now become the heartless bastard everyone thought him to be.
He had lost his heart, for it lay in his arms as dead as his father's body had felt in his arms when he was little.
Footsteps.
A hollow sound echoing through the empty halls of the compound at this late hour.
Yet even though the hour was late, many were awake. For almost all residents had heard the agonizing cry.
The door to his room was slid open and was immediately closed again.
Neji did not look up, kept his face buried against the now cold skin for as long as he was permitted to.
This would be the last time he ever touched Shikamaru and even though the body was lifeless and cold, he would treasure this moment.
The gasp leaving his uncle's lips upon seeing his nephew holding his dead lover was almost deafening.
The Hyuuga stood frozen on his spot. "What did you do." He demanded appalled, his eyes wide in shock.
A pitiful cry left Neji and his shoulders shook. He sobbed, knowing he would be taken away from the Nara's body, never permitted to even visit the grave of the man he had lost his heart to.
A hand touched his shoulder, weighing down on him pitifully. "Neji," His uncle hushed in an attempt to calm the Hyuuga prodigy.
"I want him back," Neji rasped, squeezing what was once Shikamaru almost impossibly close against his own body.
"Neji," Hiashi sighed and his tone was filled with regret and sadness when he spoke again. "You took him away yourself."
Neji cried out, shaking his head in disbelief. "I-I..." He wheezed.
He pulled away slightly, blinking as he watched his dead lover's expression. Betrayal, pain, shock. Those eyes, empty from death and skin ghostly pale.
Realisation seeped in slowly and it was carving away on his insides. "I loved him too much." Neji whispered, voice empty and expression dead.
Hiashi sighed. "Neji, I need to alarm the Hokage of Shikamaru's murder." He said.
Neji froze and for the first time since his uncle had entered the room looked at the elder man.
Hiashi, taken aback by those empty eyes, mustered a half-hearted smile on his lips. "Say goodbye and disappear."
With haunted eyes he watched as his uncle respectfully turned away from him.
His fingers shook when he lifted them, a sad smile gracing his lips when he caressed the most beautiful face he had ever seen, trying to picture it smiling.
Yet he could not, reality kept flashing in the back of his mind until tears were falling again, Neji sobbing at the horror of his own deeds.
At the thought he had lost what he had loved most and had taken it away himself.
"I'm sorry!" He cried out desperately.
"Neji, I will spread word about the murder in fifteen minutes." Hiashi told his nephew, and with one last look left the room, knowing he would never see the Hyuuga alive after this moment although he was certain he would soon lay eyes upon his nephew again.
The moment the door slid close, Neji laid down onto the ground, dragging Shikamaru's body with him. An almost loving smile played on his lips and he cuddled against his love's side for the last time, burying his face against a cold neck and arms snaking around a clothed waist. Lying like they had rested many times before.
"I love you," he murmured, his eyes closing in an attempt to keep reality from his mind.
Yet no answer came to his words, the chest he leaned against did not rise from breathing and Shikamaru did not chuckle affectionately.
The loving smile turned cold, bitter almost and Neji fisted his hand against his boyfriend's chest. "I am sorry, but it was your own fault." The words sounded dead, emotionless and cruel all the same.
"You are my world Shika, my everything. You bewitched me and took control over everything that was me. You should not have done that." Neji murmured in an accusing tone.
"I thought of you, always. Everything I did, I did for you without thinking twice." Neji continued yet paused.
He bit his lip and after a second of silence snorted. "Just hours ago I was stripped of my Jounin rank. I could not perform anymore, Shika. I almost got Hinata killed because you had taken hold of every single thought. You ruined me."
After those bitter, cruel words had left his mouth the youth tilted his head.
Yet it seemed that seeing those dead eyes staring emptily at the ceiling made him realize again what he had done.
That the body he rested against was without life and would remain so for eternity.
"I'm truly sorry." He whispered mournfully, burying his face in the crook of Shikamaru's neck once again. "If only you had not gotten so mad when I told you I could not be with you anymore. If only you understood I would not stop loving you, I never could. I just had to push you away a little, be my own person again." He said.
"But you know what?" He asked, tears coming to his eyes yet again and a bitter laugh escaping him. "I was wrong."
And the salty drops fell, because he realized he had to leave. Had to flee or be taken prisoner.
It was almost impossible to force himself to sit up, every bone and every limp aching and screaming he should stay, that he could not leave Shikamaru alone.
But he had to. He could not be captured. He had to go to that place.
He cried then, mourning for he would never lay eyes upon his lover again. His heart taken away by the cruel hands of fate, a fate he had written himself.
He pushed himself to his knees and with bloody fingers caressed that lovely face for the last time. "I was wrong. Living without you isn't better."
And he watched with a grimace as dark-red blood stained beautiful un-marred pale skin. He brushed his thumb over petal-soft lips and murmured: "But don't you worry."
He leaned down and brushed his lips against cold ones, lingering only for a second.
"I'll be with you soon." He whispered.
And while tears still found their way down his cheeks, while his body still shook from heart-breaking emotion and while his mind could only think about his now dead lover, Neji Hyuuga fled into darkness.
Never to be seen alive again.
He stood underneath a tree, atop of a hill, watching the dark sky with a blank expression.
This was Shikamaru's hill. His special place.
Yet to Neji, it felt empty.
Never would this place be the same again. Never would his life ever be the same again.
He had taken away everything he had in a sheer moment of madness and forgiveness could not ever be found.
Not even by himself.
Yet soon things would be all right again. Soon he would atone for his biggest sin.
And he did not mind, did not care. For what was life without Shikamaru? What had possessed him to even think his life would be better without the other around?
With a sigh he sat down, leaning his back against the tree.
From his pouch, he retrieved a kunai and held it gently in his hands, gazing at it almost lovingly.
Shikamaru Nara
The name was carved into the side of the kunai. A gift from Shikamaru when they had been together three years.
Its twin momentarily buried deep inside the giver's chest.
Neji Hyuuga
They had been perfect kunai, their names carved in the most beautiful of writings and now they would bind the two together for all of eternity.
A genuine smile appeared on Neji's face, bloodshot eyes closing. "I love you Shikamaru." He whispered, yet no-one heard.
No-one but Neji himself would ever know that his love for the Nara had been genuine. That he had loved Shikamaru more than life itself, yet had been so afraid of that.
That fear, if only temporarily, had taken hold of the Hyuuga and that that had been his downfall.
The death of two persons.
The ruin of a love so deep, so strong that even dying for the other seemed like a trivial thing.
And under the all-seeing eye of the moon and the stars Neji Hyuuga robbed himself of his own life, a gentle smile playing on his lips.
The End