Hey guys! So I don't know if anyone knows this song but there is a song called Donut Hole and I absolutely fell in love with it that I just had it toying around in my mind for a while with a story because it is a song that tells a story. I simply didn't know which ship to use, I mean I wanted to use NaruHina but I already have a super angsty oneshot planned for them so instead and also their personalities didn't exactly tie in well. So I decided to use one of my other endeared ships; SaiIno, they simply seemed the best fit for this sort of thing.
I do not own Naruto, that's Kishimoto's thing but I graciously thank him every day for making my OTP and all my preferred ships cannon.
He didn't know who the blond woman was, not even what her name was, though he did remember that she had shared some sort of warmth with him. Even that warmth was beginning to fade though.
No one was entirely sure when the world went to shit, hell even he didn't know. All the pale man knew was that he had woken up in a hospital one day with a note next to his bedside with one simple warning.
Fear the dark.
And he quickly took to that warning, looking himself in hospital bathrooms the first few days, though they were muffled and barely audible they were there. Growls and groans. The only thing that hadn't been quiet was when he had been at the hospital for the fifth day, he heard glass shattering and rushed voices in hushed tones. They were running, there was running down the halls and eventually, they reached his floor, he almost opened the door to ask them what was wrong when he heard a blood-curdling scream followed by the ripping of flesh. Backing up against the walls of the shower he listened to the screams as they died out but the ripping of flesh remained until the early hours of the morning.
Blood.
It was everywhere, oddly he wasn't bothered by it. Not even the torn apart carcass he had to step over while he was investigating the hallway. It was the only remaining thing there that told him there had been people here, torn apart but they were here. Other than that a machete caught his eye at the end of the hallway. Picking it up he gained the confidence to venture out of the hospital.
For the first few weeks, he remained close to the hospital. He regarded it as a sort of lifeline, the windowless bathrooms with a thick wooden locked door and the cold wall of the shower against his back during the night gave him comfort. The farthest he ventured was a large store in which he found clothes, walking around the outside world with his ass hanging out of a hospital gown wasn't exactly ideal. He had tried on a few before he found some form fitting jeans and a loose black shirt, he found they were easy to move in. He also took a leather jacket, it was warm and the days were starting to get cold.
Walking out he took notice of the sign and learned the store was called a mall. He had apparently forgotten a lot of things while in the hospital; he couldn't even remember his name. Not that it mattered, it wasn't as if he had anyone to talk to.
The dreams never went away though, it was the same every night, even if it was interrupted by grunting and growling that got too close to the hospital room for comfort and woke him from his sleeping until it left, the dream resumed right off from where it had been. There was always the same blond woman there, she had turquoise eyes, she looked at him in a kind but concerned manner. Perhaps even in an adoring manner. While her pink lips formed to make words he never heard them, he simply focused on her features. She felt so real.
She smiled and rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. She always had her hair up in a ponytail with bangs parting to left side of her face. He didn't have a name for her, he couldn't think of one, none seemed to fit her. The only way he could refer to her in his head was 'Beautiful'.
Eventually, he left the hospital, the creatures that came out at night were interrupting his sleep too many times during the night for it to be comfortable. For a moment he was grateful those people who had broke in earlier during the month died. If it wasn't for them he would still be living silently here and those monsters wouldn't be coming in so in his eyes they got what was coming to them, but then again if it wasn't for them he wouldn't have had the weapons to protect himself. Plus the food and resources there were beginning to dwindle.
He ended up relocating at the mall he had found before. There were chain-linked fences that closed off the stores to the main area, during the night he took to one of the stores, closed up and went to the backroom. Every now and then he heard growling and grunting but most of the time they weren't present. He assumed the mall was a great place to be due to that.
The mall was safe. It had an abundance of resources. It was warm.
It became home.
He found it interesting, wandering around, the different stores there gave him endless entertainment. Once he found a TV which was telling the tale of a princess who was rescued by a prince. That night the dream about the blond was different. He saved her there and she was the princess and him her prince.
Life became bland too soon. It was tedious. It was lonely.
The only time he had come into contact with other human beings and the only reason he had any sort of inclination that there were still some out there was due to the fact there was a group of them in which had been ripped to shreds in the hospital.
He wondered if human beings naturally traveled in groups. Was that why he felt less and less inclined to hide from the creatures who growled and grunted at night? Maybe. He read in one of the books he found that loneliness sometimes leads to depression which at times led to suicidal thoughts and actions. The dark-haired man wondered if he was depressed, maybe he was suicidal too, maybe that was why sometimes he didn't want to close the chain linked fence at night.
The only thing that brought him comfort were the dreams of the blond woman. It was really the only thing that kept him from closing whatever store he resided in during the night. If he was ripped apart like those people before him he wouldn't be able to dream about Beautiful again.
He wondered what the word was that he felt for her sometimes, it was a nice thing to debate with himself about. He felt warm when he thought about her, more at peace with the world despite the fact it had gone to utter shit. He felt content with the way things were because even though he was alone he had the thoughts of Beautiful in his mind.
He was reading a book once that described his emotions in the word 'love'. For a while, he believed he loved her but then crossed that thought out when he read that when you loved someone you would die for them. He wouldn't die for Beautiful, no he couldn't die for Beautiful because he lived for her. So he must have felt something else towards her.
There was one night specifically that he wondered if she was real; if she was an actual person he knew.
She must have been, there was a feeling of emptiness, like a hole inside of him that came with the thoughts of her. That was really the only thing that made him sure she must have been real. There must have been a point in his life that she filled that hole.
He would wait until she filled that hole again.
He didn't know how long he had been living in this world. It had gotten very cold, then that passed to a more manageable warmth, then it got too warm, and then it became a little cold again. He learned these things were called seasons in a book.
Spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Those were the names of the seasons, he personally liked winter the most. Even though it was cold and he was certain he despised it, he felt like he met her then.
He hoped that when winter came again he would meet her.
It came but she didn't.
He would wait though.
He began to lose hope when he stopped dreaming of Beautiful and memories began to fade.
Eventually, it became the third time winter came around. He learned that meant three years had passed. He had stayed in the mall for three years. He also learned he should go find more food, all the canned food was gone and instead of having read it somewhere he learned the hard way that any other food than canned food would make you sick.
The streets were empty. They always were.
Though after a moment he saw something in the distance. It was approaching slowly but it was something. It came close enough that he knew it was another person. It was then he started sprinting. As he got closer he knew they were holding their side and were limping. He stopped when he saw her.
Beautiful.
She looked thin and sickly, there was dried blood dripping down her side but her eyes still looked as bright and as big as ever. Maybe even bigger because she was obviously looking at him in shock.
"Sai?"
So that was his name. Suddenly a rush came to him and he knew her name. He finally knew it. Her name was-
"Ino."
It wasn't as fitting as beautiful though.
