This began with me ending up watching a documentary on Section 60 in the Arlington National Cemetery.
Disclaimer: KNO holds no claim on this Fic. How very unfortunate. ;)
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
Grave.
They didn't give him a grave to spectate at. Instead, they carved his name into that shiny rock in the middle of a clearing. The rock that commemorated all shinobi who'd died in combat.
I didn't think it was commemorating.
It made me angry, that he couldn't have his own tombstone by himself.
He was made to share it, to be pitied with other people.
That wasn't something I found respectful.
---
He deserved better.
One of the best shinobi to ever have been in the Leaf Village got to share a tombstone.
It was outrageous.
I argued with the Sixth Hokage about it, but Naruto could do nothing.
Shinobi killed in combat went on that big, shiny stone. No exceptions, apparently.
---
When I found out, I did not cry. I did not cry at his small funeral, or even as I watched them carve his name in the stone.
I cried when I was alone, where no one else could see me. They did not need to share in my pain, like he shared his name with all of those others.
---
I wanted to buy him a gravestone, even if I had no body to bury. But I didn't have enough money. When I did plead my case to Naruto, he wordlessly gave me the rest of the money I needed. He told me not to tell anyone, so I didn't.
I bought him a black tombstone. Obsidian, the stone of glass. I think he would've liked it.
---
I didn't let them engrave it.
I did it myself with a kunai.
It took me hours, but the labor wasn't something I minded.
---
I dug a small rectangle in a clearing in our training grounds.
We had as much claim to it as anyone; we'd used it for so many years.
So many years. . . Gone in as quick as a second.
---
I hadn't been with him.
He had been on a mission with his Genin.
Left behind again. . .
Ever since he'd received them from Naruto, it'd been less time for us.
It wasn't something that had happened on purpose.
We had duties to do and missions to complete.
Of course our relationship would suffer.
---
I sank to my knees, not caring if I got dirty.
The trees shielded the sunlight.
My fingertips grazed the cold stone.
"You knew better," I told him. "We told ourselves that shinobi know the sacrifices of this life. Why did you do it? Why did you die?"
Tears slipped from my eyes, and I lied down, my arms encompassing the stone as I pressed it to my face.
Shinobi were allowed to grieve, right?
And if they weren't—I wasn't a shinobi right now.
I was just a person, who had loved another person, who was now dead.
---
I'd held this preconceived idea that I would always be the one to die first, and he would be the one to weep over me.
Not that Neji would ever weep; I'd never seen him cry before.
But maybe he would've cried over me, though I knew it was quite a ridiculous notion.
And he would've done the same for me, refused to let me be just another name on a granite stone. And he would've bought me a tombstone and placed it in our training grounds and do the same thing I was doing now.
But that wouldn't have happened if I were in Neji's place.
He would've let my name rest on that stone and not tool with it; he wouldn't have bought me a gravestone, because that was just something Hyugas didn't do; and he would never had said 'I love you' aloud, because that was something that Neji had never agreed to. The expectations in those three words were too high a risk, and Neji was never a risk-taker.
---
So we remained polar opposites until our deaths, then?
How tragic, that I would be the one to do everything wrong once again. How terrible, that I forever remained the one who was constantly giving but never receiving. And how foolish, that I could think it could be any different.
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