A/N: I do not own the (semi-vaguely) referenced characters below.
I don't know how I feel about you.
The phrase echoed through her ears in phantom whispers, pulsing in rhythm with the taptaptap of fingertips softly striking the targets. After splintering the last one, she used no chakra, letting her body follow through the dance her nerves and muscles knew. Taptaptap.
She now recalled that she had cut him off, mumbling through a garbled version of the explanations and acceptance she had long rehearsed. She gave a weak excuse for being elsewhere (some vague duty on the compound) and quickly walked away, shutting out the assuredly awkward and apologetic phrases he must have added. They became a background murmur to the dissonant clash of reason and raw disappointment.
Avoidance. Curt greetings in passing. A nod and indirect glance before finding a new destination. So the week passed, and here she was: straining exhausted digits and not ready to think, to focus, to accept...
Her teammate's hand on her shoulder caused her heart to skip and then gallop in a strange triplicate syncopation to compensate. She tensed before slumping in front of the naked concern in their eyes. The sympathy lent weight to her feelings. Made them real. Made them present. (loud and busy and expected...and God, those long-held hopes had been so deliciously bittersweet while they had lasted)
Home. Extravagantly, distractedly long shower. Dinner, then dressed for bed and the semblance of sleep. Taptaptap. Calm and relaxation, so maybe they could bleed into the turmoil of her heart and there foster a renewal of the peace she craved.
Rejection seemed too harsh a word, and without clearly remembering whatever else he'd said as she walked/ran (taptaptap) away, she was grasping at emotions to find a name for this suffocating malignancy. Taptaptap.
I don't know. I don't know how I FEEL. How generously ambiguous. A mild response to spare her feelings and protect her heart while tearing them open on the jagged implications.
Time would let her accept, let her heal as best she could, but now was (taptaptap) the time to grieve the loss of what would not be.
She had stood true. She had been strong, a glimpse of the leader that lay beneath the surface. She would mourn but not regret. Not the idealism or the daydreaming, the secret pride or how he made her pulse raceTapTapTap.
She wiped her eyes on a sleeve, curious and distracted from her thoughts, and rose to see who was so insistent at her bedroom window.
A/N: So...insomnia before work. Answer? Write fanfiction, of course! 30 min of tapping on the phone after a 14hr shift, so I apologize for typographical oversights on my part (though most punctuation variance is intentional). I wanted a choppy chaotic little snippet, as bad news isn't always clearly (or cleanly) thought through.
Open ending is open. May write the happy ending I have in my head, but feel free to choose your own adventure.