He has always been a man of habits, but now his life has become a following of actions absent-mindedly done; those actions has become what define him now.
Smiling to the kids; laughing and joking with the guys at the mission office; handing mission to people he has never seen before and will never see again; throwing pieces of chalk to kids trying to sleep in his class; eating at Ichiraku; yelling detentions; avoiding poorly-aimed kunai and shuriken; going back at this place he can't call 'home' anymore; showering and shaving in a too-silent bathroom; burning food in a deserted kitchen; having nightmare after nightmare in the too-large bed at night.
He stopped crying a while ago; he doesn't remember when.
He never went to the monument. His head knows his name is there, along with the others he was mourning for, but his heart, stupidly, says that if he never go there, there's always a chance that he'll come back one day. He'll pass him in the street, his single gray eye locked on this stupid book, he'll smile in this way of his, and everything will be back to normal.
He doesn't notice the worried looks his friends are giving him when he doesn't watch. He doesn't notice the sad look in the Hokage's eyes every time she crosses him in the Hokage's tower, in her office, at the mission desk.
Those actions defines him now, because when searching for something behind, there's nothing else left.
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This is the result of too much Zack/Cloud angst. cry