Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be. Blah, blah, blah, the customary witty spiel.
Author's Note: NaruSaku... I've got to say, not really my thing, but whatever. I guess there's a first time for everything (even pairings I usually dislike immensely). At least I can console myself with the fact that it's one-sided... kinda.
"Do you love me?" he asks, and she knows what the answer will be even before he's finished the question. Yet even so, she waits before replying, feeling the words string themselves out on the ground before her, fragile and delicate- so easy to tear.
She's used to this, used to this strange sort of desperation. She can feel it tugging at her, whispering ruthless little comments into her ear. But she never gives in; she knows she can't. They'll both break if she does. And so the cycle continues and the lies pour out of her mouth, day after day, stretching away into monotony.
--
"Do you love me?" he asks, and she feels the resentment and disgust bubbling up within her. Fingers clench and pull at the grass beneath her, white knuckles straining in the tug of war between suffering and letting go.
Words claw their way up her oesophagus in their strange sort of desperation and she knows she can't give in. But that doesn't stop her from wanting to.
"We'll see," she answers, just as she always does. She doesn't need to turn around to see his expression (it's already been branded into the soft pink behind her eyelids), but she does anyway.
It isn't really an answer, it doesn't even make sense (they both know it) but that doesn't stop her from saying it.
--
His expression is solemn, features calm and relaxed, his eyes the only thing reflecting his disappointment, and all of a sudden she wants to laugh. She just wants to laugh and cry and hit him until he breaks, until flesh parts and that pretty crimson is dappled across his skin.
But she doesn't, she can't because she knows she won't be able to stop if she does. So instead she lets a small smile slide across her face. Just a lift of the lips and a crinkle of the eyes. Simple really and yet it's not right; she can feel it. It isn't sitting properly and it feels wrong. But she tries anyway. Because it helps somewhat to know she's not the only one suffering.
"Do you love me?" he finally questions, breaking the roving silence, and she gives him the only answer she's ever given:
"We'll see."
--
Pink shines and gold glows in the filtered moonlight, the colours bright and clashing and yet beautiful all the same. Fingers are entwined and heat is exchanged and yet she finds no warmth in the simple connection of skin against skin.
The silence grows strained between them, she can tell he wants to speak, and she knows what he's going to say even before the sound leaves his lips.
"Do you love me?" he asks, and she feels the words string themselves out on the floor before her- so easy to trip.
Slowly she twists to face him, ready for the regret, waiting for it to settle in her gut, slick, slippery and littered with a thousand different undeclared words.
Her fingers twitch and she's about to speak, on the brink of a reprieve- and then she catches the look on his face, and it wasn't what she was expecting. He's smiling, a smile so small and strange and bitter on his face it makes her wonder if she knows him at all. There's something nameless lurking there, something twisted and too complicated and she can't find a definition for it. Or maybe she just doesn't want to.
The words are still there, strung out on the floor before her. They're waiting for her to fall, waiting for her to cave and trip and end up with nothing but dust and the regret of a thousand undeclared words.
"Yes," she replies.
Her words are a farce and she has broken, but there is no regret.