Song: 'Bones Bugalu' by Gabriel Rios.

Challenge: My first fic which is limited-omnicient; it goes into both Kimimaro and Tayuya's mind simultaneously.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. I don't own 'Bones Bugalu', or anything connected to it. I do own a love and fascination for almost every male member of Naruto…

Bones Buglau

A friend had died, and Kimimaro was mad.

He was used to it by this time, he supposed, but death always came as an unwelcome visitor. He went to the funeral as he should, but he wasn't really sad like the idiotic, sobbing family of the deceased. In fact, he suppressed a grin at what Orochimaru would say of the hysterical mother.

It wasn't that he was heartless or anything. Death had simply become little more than an annoyance, because he experienced it so much.

The funeral, though, was when he got to know her.

Tayuya didn't particularly care about death either. Yeah, the dead guy was her friend, but she didn't see the point of spending a whole day crying and remembering him when there was so much else that had to be done.

She had come for the free food.

When she spotted Kimimaro's white head of hair, she'd been very pleased. She had always found his bloodline limit fascinating- and as for his physical personage, he was definitely not unattractive.

She couldn't know Kimimaro felt the same way when he'd seen the red of her hair as the usher led him to his seat.

The two spent the entire service thinking about the other.

As their luck would have it, they were seated at the same table at the lunch afterwards. Tayuya, in a typical display of bluntness, began their conversation.

"Y'know, I think you have the coolest power- I've always thought growing bones out of yourself must be awesome."

He was attracted to her forthrightness. Kimimaro appreciated people who weren't overly emotional, and her upbeat conversation, despite the funeral they'd just attend, matched his mood perfectly.

"It is powerful," he affirmed, deciding it wouldn't be too bad to make it obvious he was eyeing the red-head sitting opposite him.

Said red-head was ecstatic. The Kimimaro, Orochimaru's favorite, was checking her out!

"What about you?" Kimimaro continued, cutting short her mental celebration. "You control demons, right?"

"With a flute," she told him smugly. "Orochimaru-sama says that I'll soon be as powerful as Sakon. Thought never as much as you, of course," she added hastily.

Kimimaro smirked to himself. It seemed she was interested too… "Hey, I'd like to see your attacks. Do you mind if I come over to your place after?"

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours," she said sweetly, earning scandalized glances from the other people at their table. She loved shocking people. Kimimaro, though, didn't seemed taken aback in the least.

In fact, he grinned at her, and as another track of their dead friend's favorite music played, he asked her if she would dance.

Tayuya was rather surprised that their table mates' jaws didn't hit their plates. So here was someone else who enjoyed shock value…

Kimimaro and Tayuya stood up and put their arms around each other. Neither had really danced before, but their intensive training transferred quite easily into a rather suggestive mambo. The young couple laughed as mourner after appalled mourner left the room, abandoning their half-eaten meals at this blatant display of frivolity.

Though, as the dance started to reflect their boiling young hormones more and more, the two paid considerably less attention to the quickly emptying room.

It was only when Kimimaro muttered hoarsely, "Speaking of bones…" and broke their concentration, that they realized they were the only ones left in the room.

"Good," said Tayuya and rammed her mouth against his.

He responded to the kiss eagerly, ravaging her mouth with his tongue. It was only when the janitor, who had come in to clean up from the funeral, hit Kimimaro on the back of his head with a broom handle that they separated.

Kimimaro clubbed the man back with a bone gown from his elbow.

"You said you wanted to go back to my house," Tayuya said, trying not to sound too breathless after the incredible kisses she'd just given and received.

"Yeah," said Kimimaro, turning hungry eyes back to her. "That'd be good."

They walked home, neither giving a sign of what had transpired between them. They weren't sure what Orochimaru believed in regard to relationships.

But once they got to Tayuya's room…

Let's face it. They were way too young.

But these were two young people who had grown up without a parent's love and guidance, who had grown up with the knowledge that they could and would die any day.

Any regrets would not last long.

The next morning, as Tayuya draped the sheet over them to combat the chill, Kimimaro opened his eyes a crack to ask a question which had bothered him for a while: "What is dying? What do you think?"

Tayuya considered, dropping her head back onto his shoulder. "Death is like… your bones, the ones you fight with."

He was certain he'd heard her wrong. "What?"

"Well… you know…" she paused to collect her thoughts. "Like, it can grow out really unexpectedly, and you really fear it, but- it's kinda sexy too. And it can be short and sharp, or long and drawn out, and it usually hurts. And it can mutate into tons of different forms, all equally bad, but there's something really beautiful about it at the same time."

Kimiaro reflected. Death was his bones. He liked that.

"You're hot and smart," he told her, kissing her neck. "But I've gotta go- Orochimaru's teaching me some new jutsus."

Tayuya never saw Kimimaro again.

But she thought of him, as months later she faced Temari of the Sand, and death was coming to meet her.

And that same day he thought of her, as death pulled him from defeating Gaara.

And both thought the same thing.

Damn those bones.