"Feral." That's what they called him, "You're feral, you should be in a cage." They laughed. "Feral. You're a beast. A feral beast!" Oh how he hated labels.
"Shy." She felt like crying, "You're not a shinobi! You're not even worth your own name!" They pushed her in the dirt and laughed. "You're so shy! You don't dare anything!" Shy. Once again. How she hated labels.
His fingers traced the cut that ran down from his chest across his abs and only ended on his hip. His fingers were red from the blood that was still on the cut ,which was soon to be a scar. He stepped in the shower, the warm water running down his body. He bit his lip as the hot liquid stung on the wound. He watched how the diluted blood streamed down his waist and coloured his pelvis and legs red. He was angry, so very angry. As he stepped out of the shower he walked to the mirror. It took only one slash with his sharp nails to leave a nice scar of three long stripes on the mirror. "I didn't deserve it."
She watched as the foam surrounded her feet and disappeared in the shower drain, taking all the mud along. The cold water contrasted with the warm stream of tears that ran down her face. She bit her lip as she tried to get the bubblegum out of her hair. She took the pair of scissors that she had left on the little shelf. She took a strand of hair and cut off the part that was stuck together by the gum in one swift motion. As she let go of the strand, she started crying even harder. "Labels! I am so sick of Labels! I am not weak!" She cried more when the point of the scissor made contact with the palm of her hand and penetrated her skin.
His fingers retreated and he put his hands in his pockets, walking through the halls. He stopped at the mirror and turned to look at it; his hair hidden under the hood of his black hoodie. His sunglasses on, a scarf wrapped around his chin and covering his lips. He wore sweatpants and high leather boots. We turned away from the mirror and patted his ever-present companion who jumped up at the touch. "I see you at the training grounds buddy, will you be careful?" His friend nodded and he exited the house, immediately ducking under a bush to make sure no one saw him exiting that house. He looked around and caught the gaze of his best friend behind the window of the door, it killed him to see that worried look in his eyes. But he raised his chin and stood up to make a sprint for the training grounds. He jumped up to hide in a tree as he saw an old friend pass by; Naruto. He wished he could jump down and talk to Naruto, but he knew he couldn't, not for himself, not for Naruto. So he waited patiently for Naruto to pass by and was about to jump down, when he caught a familiar scent, he decided to make a detour through the trees to see what was wrong and whose tears he smelled.
I looked around cautiously, Neji was just left the training grounds, meaning that she was an easy target for anyone that wanted to bully her. No sound was heard. She activated her byakugan to look around and did not see anyone that could damage her hurt soul and body even more. She was alone. Alone. Her knees gave in and she fell to the ground. That's when she started crying silently.
She was so sunk back in thoughts about her own misery that she did not hear, neither see the person approaching her, she did not notice his worried looks. She did not notice the way he shuddered in disbelieve. She did not notice that his eyes had broken. She did not notice how the guy was like a wandering soul searching for words to help a girl in misery. She straightened her back and jumped up when she saw the boy in front of him. She did not recognise the boy, he wore sunglasses and a hoodie, a scarf to cover his mouth, all skin that was visible were his fingers, sticking out of his leather fingerless gloves, reaching out to her. "Who… are you?" She brought her hands defensively in front of her and stepped back.
"Why are you afraid of me?" He asked. "Why do you think I would hurt you?" his voice sounded so broken, so hurt… He took off his sunglasses and pulled down his scarf.
"K-Kiba…" her eyes widened and she took another few steps back.
"Hinata! Why are you so afraid of me!? You were my little sister!" He screamed in frustration. He scared her.
He was so aggressive, she had to get out of here! What if he would bite her? What if he would scratch her? What if he would… hurt her?
"Hinata…" So broken… He was so broken… She had never seen his hands tremble like that. "I would never hurt you! I would never hurt anybody…" It shocked her that his words were so true that it struck her right in the heart. He had never hurt anybody. He had never done anything to scare her. Yet she was so afraid of him.
"Get away from me! You… feral beast!" She screamed and took another step back. His eyes widened at the exclamation. One single tear rolled down his cheek.
"Labels…" He stuttered before he fell down to his knees, hiding his hands in his face.
She wrapped her hands around her mouth, did she just label him? She was such a hypocrite! He wasn't feral! He was the most caring and sensitive guy in the world, and she knew it! But she had seen people break him down. She had witnessed him clawing at a tree in aggregation, she had been scared of him, she had been avoiding him ever since. But only now she noticed that she was labelling him. He was not feral! He was hurt! He was broken, he was scarred. They had been cruel to him and instead of her being there for him, she just threw it right back in his face. How could she? How could she do that when she saw him coming at her, when she saw his soul in his eyes, begging for somebody to accept his presence, to acknowledge his true personality. How could she do that when she knew he was the only person to have always said that she was the strongest girl in the world, that she was capable of anything.
"I hate labels." Tears ran down her face when she heard his voice again. It broke her heart to hear him say that, when she had screamed it out so many times.
She ran at him and wrapped her arms around his shuddering body. Holding him close until he stopped shuddering so much that he was able to look up in her eyes, he shook his head.
"I came to dry your tears." He said.
What? He would come all the way to calm her down? And she had the nerves to call him feral? She dared to be scared of him? Of her best friend? Of her brother? Now that she remembered, he had come to her house more than once, because he saw her breaking down every day. But she never let him in, because she was labelling him.
"Hinata, please let go of me." He asked, "You've hurt me enough already. I am leaving."
"No! No, you won't!" She cried and her tears dripped on his shoulder, "please! Please, Kiba, don't leave me! I am sorry!" She held her grip on his neck and cried on his shoulder, "please… I am begging you to forgive me…"
"For what? I need to thank you. All this time I've been wondering why you didn't want to see me. Why you shut the door in my face over and over again. I've been wondering why you walked around me in a big circle like everybody else. I'd come up with several option, one of them being that you might have been embarrassed of being seen with me in the open. But you avoided me in private to. You locked me out, ignored me. I was all alone. I figured you would have a good reason for abandoning our friendship, but I never, hear me, NEVER imagined you to label someone." He turned his head away from her.
"And yet I did, I was a bad friend. I was a horrible friend and an even more horrible sister and teammate. How could I do that to you? I don't know. All this time I thought I had it bad, but I never even thought about how you felt. And I am sorry, I know you're not feral. I knew it all the time. But still I chose to ignore what my heart said, and listened to my head. I was cursing all people that labelled, never knowing that I was cursing myself! I am so sorry Kiba! I am so very sorry!"
She looked down at her lap, having let go of his shoulders. He stared at her figure and noticed the scar in her hand palm, the scratches on her cheeks, the uneven strands in her hair, the wounds on her lip from biting. He analysed every single detail of her body, every little scratch, thinking of how beautiful it made her, how it made her into the person she is now. He took her hand in his and studied the scar she made last night with the scissor. With his other hand he cupped her cheek and examined her scratched nose, chin and cheek.
Then he brought her close and kissed her lips, curing all the invisible scars, taking away all the pain she had on the inside.