a/n: First, I'd like to send out a big shout-out to HyUcHiHa, for all the continued support of my work. Thanks for letting me write this! (As for the song I quoted in that review- it's "Til I Get Over You" by Brian McKnight.)
This is a companion fic to HyUcHiHa's Moonshine fic. It's considerably shorter, but I think it gets the job done. It's a look at the situation from Pein's perspective. I strongly recommend that you check out Moonshine first, before you read this.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Moonlight. The faint luster upon the velvet of night.
Some said the night had a gentle embrace. He didn't feel it. He never would. No warmth, no coldness. Only the dim light, which he knew shaded over the contrast between the concentric circles around his pupil. The light which dulled the tone of his orange hair.
Pein looked up at the moon. It was but a reflection of the sun, a white disk with no light of its own, set against a background of deep blue, nearing indigo. One face always turned to the earth, the other constantly hidden. Waxing and waning, but always there.
A familiar feeling surged up inside him. The sensation wasn't quite foreign. Indeed, pain was second nature to him, if not the first. Grief, suffering, solitude, and deprivation… all pain. He'd seen more than his share of it; it didn't faze him one bit. It was the same, as always. But it wasn't.
He hadn't felt hollow in a long time. That emptying feeling of loss, of isolation.
Pure white, set in indigo. A flower amid satiny strands.
It all reminded him. He didn't wish to think about it, but he did.
She was like the night, like the moon. Her hair, the indigo sky; her flower, the white moon.
But the night offered no gentle embrace, no matter how close. Perhaps it would, if Pein knew what the dark side of the moon looked like. But he would never know. Though his eyes commanded the power to create or destroy, there was no way he could see something like that.
Konan was so close, yet so distant. She was gentle like the night, but the night was but how she looked on the surface. Pein knew not of the sun that shone to give her moon the light with which it shined. It was a mystery to him, like the dark side of the moon.
Pein closed his eyes. Night was beautiful. Sleep brought blissful forgetfulness. But he was the antithesis to beauty and bliss. He was pain.
Making hand seals, he opened his eyes once again. At his bidding, the clouds gathered quickly, obscuring those relics of the night that so reminded him of her. Soon, water droplets fell from the now overcast sky, swiftly turning into a downpour. As always, he felt nothing even as the torrential rain struck him.
Pein kept looking at the sky from his vantage point on the roof. After a moment, he removed his cloak, exposing himself to the elements. He spread his arms, to catch the rain.
Perhaps there was a reason why rain rhymed with pain.
After an indeterminate amount of time, Pein quietly descended to street level. Standing at the bottom of the building housing the Akatsuki's living quarters, he looked upwards, toward Konan's room. Darkness still cloaked the land, and the rain fell unceasingly.
'But look, what light through yonder window breaks…'
Still, in all likelihood, she was asleep.
Pein looked at the sky again. They said the rain washed away the pain.
He stood there. If only the rain could wash him away.