Howling for the Moon.
By Gare de Lyon
000
'It's me and the moon' she says
And I've got no trouble with that.
They loved the twilight, him and Akamaru. Not because it was the perfect time to hone their tracking skills by scaring academy kids, and not because when the light was fading that way, his mother wouldn't be able to catch 'the state of him'. Not because the air always smelled so good then, when the people were mostly home and the wind picked up, and the rich earthy smell of the forest filtered back into the village.
But because in that time, when most people were home, and there was still plenty of light for them to see by, they would go out running.
Outside the gates (because Inuzukas were allowed to go out, to train their dogs), they'd break into a run, and hurtle into the forest, using up chakra (because it was worth it) to feel the cold kiss of the nighttime air on their faces, and then they'd go off the paths and deep, deep, into the bush, running and running and running over the broken ground, knowing when to duck and when to jump, and which trees would suport them and which would give beneath their weight.
Running and running and running and running on until his lungs cut like glass in his chest and he was sweaty and sticky and covered in dirt, and then he'd collapse, waiting for his heart to stop hammering, and for being alive to not hurt so much on the soft crumbly earth. Until the ache deep beneath his collarbones went away, and then he'd pull Akamaru up into his coat, and they'd climb up into the canopy.
If he had been any other person, it would have been dangerous. Climbing trees in dense undergrowth, in the dark. But he wasn't any other person, and his nightvision was good. And Akamarus was better. And they had particular trees by now.
See, up high, there was still light. Up high, they could still see the sun, and the way it set, and the way that the gold to red to purple to blue to black sky threw it's colours on the moon. In that time of day that gave them hope, when, just for the smallest second of time, the moon wasn't silver, and cold, and far away.
In the twilight, it was the same colour as those flowers that smelled so sweet in spring. A purplish colour. Light.
Inevitably, his thoughts would turn to her.
It had snuck up on him, the way he felt about Hinata-chan. And he knows that he should know when it happened, but he can't pinpoint it, at all. Just that one day, things were different. That there was a sort of glow about her one day, that he'd never noticed before.
Home spun desperation's knowingInside your cover's always blown
After that, he paid more attention to her. Not just how nice her shiny dark hair looked when it started growing out, or how gracefully she moved. The other things.
The way that she sometimes showed up to trainings and meetings with bruises she wouldn't explain. And that despite that, (and he wanted to do something, but he didn't know how…) she would smile (beam), train harder than either of them, until her tiny flower hands were dirty brown with drying blood (hers), and she was swaying on her feet. Sometimes she collapsed that way.
The way she was always kind to everyone. The way she never ever cried.
The way she was so filled with hope.
It took him far too long, longer than it should have, for him to think it, let alone say what he felt for her. Long enough for Naruto to get back.
Long enough for Hinata to get hit by the brashness of the dumb moron's voice and for her to cheeks to flame up red when he shrugged her aside, the way he always did. Long enough for her to stop laughing so freely. Long enough for her to (though she never ever said a word. A kind of sadness that seeped into her smiles was the only giveaway) be hurt by him. And so, by proxy, hurt him.
Thinking about Hinata-chan that way when the moon was that colour made him feel sad. Thinking about her that way when the moon was that colour made it turn silvery again. And made her not belong to him (just him) anymore.
And when that happened, him and Akamaru would jump back down to the broken black ground, and then they'd walk home.
What a lucky man
To see the world before it touched his hand
When he first dared think it, he started sleeping with his windows open.
He knew that he probably shouldn't, not at that time of the year. His sister gave him hell, because, according to her, she could feel the draught from her room (down the stairs and across the hall…yeah, right), and his mum threatened that he'd have to start vaccuuming his own room, because she was sick and tired of the trash that blew in on gusty nights. So he scowled and said he'd close it.
He didn't though. He stole down to his sister's room like a ninja ought and stoppered up the gap beneath her door. He picked up the worst of the debris – the skeleton leaves bigger than his hands that crumbled up into dust if he held them too roughly, the sometimes feathers, and, when no one outside was looking and the wind picked up, he let them go again.
There was probably something symbolic to be read into that. But that sort of thing was what Neji did, not him.
And he wasn't like Neji.
He knew that people could be whatever they wanted to be, and that nothing at all was set in stone.
(And he'd never do That to her)
Okay, he knew some things were set. Just a handful. Just Enough to make him wish like hell that they weren't.
That Hiashi-san would never be able to get over Chiasa-san's death.
And just what That would never mean for Hinata.
That Kurenai-sensei would always carry with her the grief of losing Asuma.
That grief he's so terrified of, because he's a ninja, and he shouldn't feel the way he does about the people he cares about, but he does. And that scares him. Far too much to lose.
That the only fixed thing in the whole wide world, is just how unfixed it really is.
One handful. Things that were set, and that wouldn't ever change. Things that, if he were to think about them too hard with his dumb brain, would make him run out of Konoha, and run and run and run and run and never ever turn back.
But, because he can't not think about them, he thinks about the variables instead.
That what Hiashi couldn't, Hinata could. That what Hinata wouln't ever have, she didn't really want. That the grief of losing Asuma, infinite though he guessed it must be, was nowhere near as strong as her love for him, and for their child. That…that even if he did lose them, all the people he had to lose…he'd rather have held them so tightly that they couldn't breathe, than not at all. That the world might change, and always be changing, but the moon was always constant. Watching over them, everywhere.
And that was why he slept in the moonlight. Just so that someone would be able to guard him, however far and cold and distant that person, or thing, or…rock, really, might be.
And invariably, his thoughts would turn to her.
And to him, and how there were probably a couple more set things, or variables. About them.
That they were seventeen now, and Naruto had gone after Sasuke again.
Hinata had started tying her hair back, pinning back the sloppy fringe that blocked her sight sometimes. He had grown his hair out, just a bit. He knew when to catch her when she fell into unconsciousness now.
Akamaru was shedding like mad in the summer heat. His mum was threatening to make him vaccuum the WHOLE house, let alone his room, for keeping the windows open, so that dog hair spread everywhere.
The night that the moon shone with a green-gold ring around it, bright as the sun, he knew he'd have to tell her soon.
And the night that the moon eclipsed (a few nights later), he tried to tell himself it didn't mean anything. That there were no signs. Just set Things and Variables, with no signs along the way.
He heard Naruto's voice, saw his infectious grin, on a summer afternoon when he'd been challenged to teach them something he'd learned with Jiraiya.
And he wondered who exactly he was trying to fool.
I follow to the edge of the earth
And fall off.
The next day, he went to their meeting, like usual. And none of the others turned up. Perturbed (not worried) he went up to see Godaime Hokage. Shino was there, numb in the corridor, and he could hear Kurenai-sensei swearing fit to bust a gut through the closed door.
Hinata wasn't there.
The puff sound of ANBU members regularly appearing and disappearing was the most frequent he'd ever heard, and he wondered what the hell was going on.
Finally, one slouched past them, and he grabbed Shikamaru's arm.
"What the hell is going on?"
Shikamaru took off his mask, and Kiba could feel his heart hammering in his chest. He knew Shikamaru. He knew that Shikamaru's lazy couldn't-give-a-fuck attitude was only because he couldn't stand talking nonsense or doing pointless things. And he knew that Shikamaru never minced his words, and that, even if the information was as confidential as the circumstances seemed to suggest, Shikamaru was about to tell him exactly what was happening. And that he was going to get the truth he wouldn't be able to ignore anymore scared the fuck out of him.
"She's Gone, Kiba."
There was sadness in the jonin's eyes. He could see it. Just as he could see that Shikamaru was still talking, his mouth opening and closing and making shapes that were maybe making noises. But he couldn't tell. His hearing, sensitive enough to hear a pin drop a mile away, had been overwhelmed by an altogether different sound.
Somewhere, Things were being set in stone.
And the variables were slipping through blood-stained (herblood) hands.
He sort of gathered himself. He summoned the strength to get up, and, jerkily, he walked out of Hokage Tower, and down through Konoha. His pace became faster, and more stumbling, and before he knew what was happening, him and Akamaru were running. Running and running and running and running and running and running and going further than they ever had before. Feeling the cold air slapping at their cheeks, stinging as it mingled with the salt there. And he couldn't bear to stop. He ran and he ran and he ran and he ran so far, sure that he'd be able to catch up with her, if only he didn't stop. As long as he kept moving, she couldn't get further away from him.
But soon they didn't know the lie of the land and a chakra pumped foot pushed off a branch that gave beneath his foot, sending them flying, (in her direction,) into cold stone arms.
The rain woke him, in the dark. Drumming into the inside of his soul, little bullets trying to penetrate the great reservoir of loss already lurking there. And he wondered how he could feel so full and so empty at the same time. It was dark, and he could feel Akamaru next to him, feel Akamaru climbing up on to his chest and licking his face desperately, so that his skin was sticky with salt and spit as well as rain. He opened his eyes onto darkness, and regretted it. It was dark. Not usual night-time dark. Not eclipse not-dark. Once-a-month dark. Dark-of-the-moon dark. The penetrating smell of light flowers had vanished. She was…she was gone.
"You know what? The moon actually gets further and further away from us, every single year. Only by a little bit, but, eventually, it'll be out of our – the world's – reach. Weird huh? It's been there forever, but…we could wake up one night, in the proper dark."
On nights when the wind blows, in the spring, and the smell of light flowers haunts his room, he closes the windows (to try to catch it). And when he goes running now (and he's jonin now, and Akamaru can climb up the trees himself now) and he looks at the moon, the ache beneath his collarbones doesn't go away the way it used to.
And he even knows that he shouldn't feel soothed when the moon goes that purplish colour.
But he is.
And now, when he leaves, when the colours disappear and the moon turns silver again, he promises
"I'll find you." I love you.
But he doesn't go running as much as he once did.
Because, now that he's been watching the moon so long, he knows that some nights, it doesn't hold traces of spring flowers. That sometimes it is just silver (and cold and far away) and the ache deep beneath his collarbones tells him that he won't find what he's looking for.
Nights like that he pleads for missions, and for company, and for sake that burns, but not as strong as he always thought it would.
And on those nights, he longs for another existence. To wake up one day in anyone else's body. To not be a ninja. To not be a person.
(to not wish for people, and promise so much, and reach and hope and love and lose)
Longs to wake up one day as…as a nothing. A cloud. A breath of wind. A shadow of a skeleton leaf.
Failing that, sometimes, even though he knows that it should terrify him, he understands – longs to be – nukenin.
It's really dumb. But not dumb enough.
His roots are in Konoha, fangs sunk deep into the leaf-moldy, crumbly black soil. But sometimes, still, he howls for the moon.
000
/story.
It's interesting…this one got away from me and what I'd thought I'd write almost as soon as I started writing it.
Chiasa is Hinata's mum.
Seriously, don't climb trees at night. You pay for the wonder and magic in twisted ankles…which isn't actually such a price to pay, now that I think about it…
The song lyrics (except for the last bit) are there because I didn't want to put in line things, or something like that to break up the scene-type bits.
I own nothing.
Cheers for reading