Here I am with the AsuKure again. Spoilers for somewhere later on in the manga. 350-ish?
Setting and scene based on a role play, in which these two weren't in a relationship yet when Asuma left. The thing was started right after the chapter in which he died was released, so all that we had seen was Kurenai worrying. Let's add regretting her decision to that now, 'kay?
Read, enjoy (?), review, and rate, please? .: Puppy eyes :.
''Asuma.'' Time freezes, so do they, the word, the name hanging in the air, above their heads, like a speech bubble from a comic. If it only was one. Almost against her will, a hand slowly creeps forward, halting before it can reach its destination, pale fingers nearly touching his skin, yet not doing so. They just hover there, afraid to touch, and give off no warmth at all. Her hands are cold. They always are. But now she feels the frost.
Lips part once more, cinnabar irises trail away, over to one of the left side of the door frame, in which she's standing, to the floor of the apartment's hallway, and, if they could have, her eyes would've wandered to the inside of her room, but they can't. ''Be careful.'' The extended limb still floats there, and she somehow can't pull it back. A barely audible, yet deep breather, and she looks at him, for one split second, and then shuts her eyes and feels the corners of her mouth go down together with her eyelids. Suddenly all she sees is darkness. ''Please.''
With one little word, all her pride is wiped away, the ever straightened spine seems to bend under fear, bending, something she would never do, and all that ever seemed regal and ruling and dominating, things that she is just a tiny bit too much sometimes, just slips away and vanishes, like her plead does. Vulnerability is not a good thing, yet she can't help but feel weak right now. And not in limbs alone.
A scuffle as he turns, and her eyes open, nearly hopeful, a gleam that dims again once she doesn't see that one smile she was hoping for. No comfort. He looks deadly serious. The third of those words make a shiver run up her spine, that she manages to hide, despite her current state, and she tries to look him in the eye, not wanting to show how completely, utterly scared is she right now.
He sighs, and turns away. ''I'm not sure I can do that.''
Time starts again, but the cold creeps away into something else. She feels it when she finally pulls her hand back, moves it over to the knob of the door, when she wants to turn around and walk back into her apartment, shut the door in his face, but something keeps her from doing it. It's not her frozen being, but the voice of that of another one. ''Kurenai.''
Her sense tingle, just a little, her hand slides off that doorknob and she looks at him again, and sees a thing she's never seen before in those brown eyes. Or she has, but not such a great amount, and it makes her cringe and want to cry, but she can't, because she is a kunoichi, and she can't cry right now, for it'll only make things harder. In those eyes, she sees pain.
This is when she should kiss him. Just slip her arms around his neck, slips against him, press their lips together, and maybe, finally cry, because a kiss is, in a way, vulnerability as well, as when you give a person one, you also give them the power to break you at the same time. You trust them not to, however, and she trusts him enough to know that he won't. That's why she should give him that power. Now is one of those right moments, yet a lot of those moments have already passed. When he came back from the Fire Daimo, and caught her as she had tripped over her own feet in surprise, into his arms, completely flustered in embarassment, shame and faked annoyance afterwards. After that one awful mission, when she was desperate for comfort, and had then voluntarily fallen into his arms again. Or at her house, when the Third's funeral was over, with her head laying in the crook of his neck and his face buried in her raven curls. And so, so many other opportunities that she should have taken, but didn't.
And now, she decides, it's too late.
Her head falls down, and she turns around, one arm swaying around herself, brushing past cloth, though she can't feel what garment it is, and she goes in, the door shutting behind her, automatically, or maybe she does it herself, but doesn't notice it. Feet carry her to the couch, and there she drops, and after a moment of silence, she hears footsteps echoing through the halls, away from her. Eyes shut.
When he'd return this time, she'd take the chance.
He didn't. Or not the way she'd hoped.
And finally, Yuuhi Kurenai cries.