With This Soul, I Remember

A/N: I'm back, peeps. This should be proof I'm still alive, for now at least. Anyway, this is the first Naruto ficcy I've written (God knows I've read much more) and I'd appreciate any likkle comment or constructive criticism. But if you don't have anything nice or remotely helpful to type, stay the fuck away because I am not afraid to lash back with everything I've got. Homophobes are not welcome. And for all you ShikaNeji lovers, enjoy! This is just a little sad piece I wrote when I was gasp, faint thinking. Oh yes, there are mentions of other pairings in here so you get an invisible treat of your choice if you can spot 'em correctly. XD
-Spaz

The Other
He can see the loss when he looks into the other's empty, empty eyes. He can watch the numbness in the other's arms and the tautness in the other's face; and he feels a simple sadness. But when he tries to touch upon that thread of sorrow, the other's face changes and he is repelled. The other's face reverts immediately to its blank, horrid state. When this happens, he likes to think that the other is a reflection; before he forgets everything.

He feels lost once more.

Sometimes, though, sometimes he can hear the other's voice in his head and it is such a very comforting voice; not too high, but low and flat, with a cynical tang to it. Sometimes he can see the other's true visage, the one with the sparkle in the eyes and a stretch of the mouth, not too wide, but a small tug on the other's lips. He often marvels on the other's beauty because it fascinates him to no end. It makes him feel happier and he tries to cling to the visions with an iron grip. But he is too weak and the other fades away very quickly, leaving him in his darkness. It is then that he feels like a harmless infant gasping for his own air in thoughts of the other; before he forgets.

He feels sad once more.

He always hears people talking, whispering, and he wonders why. They seem to walk faster or closer together when he is around. He only wishes he knew. He listens to them sometimes, though, when he goes for a visit to the white building for a checkup. They say things, many things, about him but he can never seem to remember. He's not sure if he wants to because they see him and shoot him those loathed looks of... of pity. He does not want their pity; he wants his other. However, when he turns around, he does not see his other, but a girl. A small, petite young woman who has identical luminous orbs and soft, dark hair. He knows she lives with him and she helps him to the white building with all the gray people. He hates the building, but he likes the sweet girl, so he listens to her when she says it its good for him. He only wishes he could remember her name until he forgets that too.

He feels hopeless once more.

He likes to read lips. He has done it ever since he can remember, so the sweet girl says. She tells him that he has only remembered one word, a name, and that he will never forget it. She then smiles, but it is strained. She is not so sad when her person is with her. He thinks that she smiles more and her eyes are not so dull when she is kissing her person, but then again, it might be just him. He does not even wonder at her person's odd forehead symbol; it is love and it is enough. He is a little jealous, not of her or her person, but of them. He wants to be like them, with his other, and lose his pain to the air where it will evaporate into a nothingness, destined to plague him no longer. He wants to be like the reclusive, strange-eyed young man and his lover, the blond spastic with the sunny smile and loud energy. He wants to be like the rosy-haired girl and her young husband with the bowl head; he wants what they share with each other and he tells his sweet girl and she does not give him pity. She touches his cheek and she smiles a very sad yet comforting smile. He knows she understands before he forgets everything.

He feels lonely once more.

His sweet girl tells him stories of her first person, a girl with the hair tied up into a very long blonde streak. She says that her first person left for 'that' place. She has long finished her tears, but he can see a red color in her eyes because he looks into her past and he speaks flatly.
"Blood."
She nods, melancholy. "Blood," she agrees and pats his pale hand.
He understands. He goes to sleep and sees the deep color in his dreams and his other wearing a pallid, empty face and he awakens with a horrid jolt. While he upends his meager dinner, she is always there, his little person, his 'sister', and she comforts him by rubbing his shoulders, whispering meaningless words he cannot understand. He is shaking and shivering and sweating so bad because he could not save his other in that dream, that very real dream and he continues to whisper a word over and over. It is this word he speaks everyday. Before he sleeps, when he awakens, at breakfast, anytime, anywhere he knows this word, but he cannot comprehend it. It is a nice word and he knows it is a name. But it is also a painful drug that addicts him and draws him, coiling its passionate tendrils around his heart ever so easily because he does not fight it. He does not wish to fight it. Because he knows then that his other is there when he sees the face, hears the voice, speaks the name, but he does not know where. Hence, he forgets.

He feels tired once more.

He wonders, often, why he cannot see the other, why the other never comes for him and sometimes he crosses an invisible line and he asks his 'sister'. His heart is pounding because her head is moving away and turning to face him and he glimpses an ancient sadness in her youthful eyes. She clenches her fists or drops whatever she is holding and then there is a sudden crash of something breaking into several jagged pieces or the smell of blood when elegant nails dig deep into porcelain skin. He sees this. He is almost sorry he has asked. But he quickly forgets when she looks at him with a heartbroken smile so drained of anything lively and she tells him the same thing she does every year.
But he always forgets.

"He... your other... he will not come, Neji-nii." She sounds like she will cry as she continues, stuttering slightly. "Shikamaru was... was k-killed five years ago." She has a single tear running down her cheek and Neji absently wipes it away. He feels as though it is just a dream, just a nightmare, and that he will wake soon. "He can n-never come... back. I'm... sorry... sorry... " Her eyes hold an immeasurable amount of hurt and self-loathing as she remembers her own share of death. She shakes her head, understanding, and holds his face in her small hands. "Neji-niisan... look at me. It wasn't your fault... and it wasn't his. He loved you, Neji... like... like she loved me..."

He remembers her name, then, while she is embracing him gently, and he is so blank.

Hinata. It is a nice name. But it does not stop there.

Ino, Gaara. Sasuke, Naruto. Sakura, Lee. Konoha, Leaf...

Along with the names, flows the memories, like an oncoming shove of water, he is engulfed in the rapids of the images and emotions and he cannot move. The last name, memory, triggers a frozen, heart-stopping horror.

Shikamaru. Nara. Death...

That is when the small water trickles are running down his face, he remembers everything about his other. Their love and joy, the anguish and blood of death. His body trembles as the torrent crashes through and he feels his cold heart turning brittle and shattering into a million pieces of thawed flesh. He clutches the warm body in front of him, unrecognizable in his pain, as he cries for everything, everyone he knows because he could not remember. He does not shout or wail. His tears are silent and they flow forever. Neji closes his eyes and wills the pain and ache to disappear. Shikamaru, Shikamaru, Shikamaru, Shikamaru... I need... I love... Shika...
It is strange that he feels bittersweet suddenly, but that feeling will end. He soon forgets. He always forgets and today is no different.
Because today... today he has lost his soul one more time.

Neji feels dead once more.

.Fin.