She was thinking the other night.
She was thinking about mistakes, and how he was her best.
It was out of the blue really, to be thinking of him again.
Maybe it was the cigarettes. Seeing the way the smoke wove a thin web around the man next to her, asleep.
Or maybe it wasn't.
She was thinking about him and them and all the things that went wrong. And all the things that went right.
Of course, she felt something. She didn't know what, maybe it was sorrow?
She dismissed that ludicrous idea instantly. Sorrow wasn't an emotion she would allow herself to contemplate, not anymore. But the fact still remained that Temari was thinking about Shikamaru as she lay awake beside her sleeping husband.
Maybe it was the way he didn't snore in his sleep, a trait which she'd regularly scolded Shikamaru for possessing.
Or maybe not.
She was remembering the way he would look at her, almost gently, when they were alone. How he could make the sky bend with the simple honesty of his words.
"I think I might just be in love with you."
She was thinking of how she'd never said it back to him.
She was thinking about mistakes, and how that was her first.
And now, of course-it was too late. The fool who had once said "better late than never" deserved to be strung up by his ankles, because there Temari was, smoking in the dark with her husband by her side whispering "I love you too" to someone who wasn't even there.
Someone who couldn't care less that she was tearing herself apart over the mistakes that she'd made-and yes. He was the best.
Dear God, she was tearing herself apart so dismally that she was hardly herself anymore, but she knew she'd never change a single thing that she'd done.
So she continued, taking a long drag of the cigarette and not caring for the ashes that fluttered down to the sheets.
Let them catch fire, she thought.
She was thinking about the way his hair would fall in front of his eyes as she yanked out his hair tie and how he would chuckle at her impatience. Not that he would ever complain, he was just a little better at hiding his desires.
At pretending they didn't exist.
Maybe they never had. Existed, that is.
Maybe Temari was just so utterly deluded in her state of teenage "lust" that she hadn't noticed his reluctance.
No. That was impossible. He would be slow and gentle, but never reluctant.
In fact, he tended to be the one who initiated most of their non-PG13 interactions.
She was thinking about mistakes, and how he was her worst.
How she'd screamed at him like a child.
"I hate you." And he stared confused as her breathing rattled in her chest that felt hollow.
How he never once got angry at her.
How he didn't chase after her when she'd stormed from his apartment.
She was thinking of sense and how he made none.
How he could go from the boy who greeted her in the morning by wrapping his arms around her middle and showering her with kisses, to the man who could kill a man for revenge within a moment's notice.
She was thinking about how she left him, and that was her second mistake, launching a wheel of wretched stupidity into motion.
How he'd written her letters to ask "why?".
How she didn't reply until months later, angrily.
"It takes two to tango." He'd replied.
"It only takes one idiot to forget a fucking condom."
She was thinking about the letters of apology she'd written, and how she'd ripped them apart before the ink had even dried on them, smudging the words beyond recognition.
She was thinking about regret, and how, somehow, she felt none.
She was thinking about feelings and how she felt nothing.
He had taught her how all the senses were equally important.
The taste of his lips. His scent. The look in his eyes as they would bore into hers. The feeling of his hands on her.
The sound of him whispering sweet somethings to her.
Somethings which she'd dismissed as nothings before she could even consider them to be the truth.
She was thinking about life and how, honestly, it meant close to nothing without him.
She was thinking about him, and how she'd broken his heart. She didn't believe his sweet words at the time, but looking back, she realised how true they were.
How he would try to make her feel as though the stars were made for her eyes only.
She was thinking about time, and how all of hers was either lost or running out.
She put out her cigarette and sighed, wondering when she would next think of him.
She was thinking about thoughts and how she was still thinking them.
She was thinking about him, and how she lost him.
She was thinking about love, and how he was her first, her last and her only.
*I don't own Naruto* Please let me know what you think!
~Lee :)