I was the first to snap out of the lust filled dream that lulled and dulled our senses.
What was I thinking?
I push myself off of him, my skin becoming cold. I close my arms over my chest and suppress a sob.
Why is he doing this to me?
I frantically look around for clothing to layer on top of my body. I grab something soft, and dark, wrapping it around me as quickly as a tornado spins.
I do not notice it is his.
She is off me so quickly I barely have time to react.
What is she doing?
She looks so confused, her emerald eyes are frantic, searching. I stare because I know I'm doing this to her and its making me feel uncomfortable, it's making me feel emotions I don't like to deal with.
Why is she leaving?
I run. Like everything I was at one point faced with, I run away from it. I run away from something I know will make me feel alive. I run away from what I know will be a hard journey. Because even though I am so strong, I am so scared of love.
She is out the door like a scorned women. I reexamine my last statement, and find that it is the truth. She is a scorned women.
And it is my fucking fault.
My legs push against roof tops, the tiles sting the air as the crunch slightly.
I am not my usual graceful self this morning.
I am running, and running so fast, that I don't even notice where I am going.
And before I know it, I am back at where it all began.
I follow her as soon as my daze has disappeared and I realized that this time, she has left me, not me leaving her, and the reality dawns that she is not only physically stronger, but emotionally stronger. It was stupid for me to believe that a simple touch, a few kind words and gentle actions are enough to win her back.
Because I am the one whom changed her.
I jump down, and the garment that I have wrapped around my body whips against my bare legs and I am so suddenly aware of my nudity. The grass is softer then I imagined it would be, but it after a summer's rain. I look at the ground, not expecting the two people who are in front of me, their eyes upon me. I know that the sunlight shines off the blond hair of the man to my left, and that the man to my right has just put away a very popular orange book. I know they are going to ask questions, and I don't know what to say.
She has disappeared over a ledge and I wonder if she has fallen. She has fallen so many times for so many different things and there is nothing that I know of her to say otherwise. She fell for a boy with a tragic past and onyx eyes, with high cheek bones and look of extreme boredness permanently etched across his face. She's fallen for Kakashi-sensei's allusions of my mangled body. She's fallen and fallen and I've never helped her up, but I'll be damned if I don't this time.
I now notice that the cloak that is wrapped around my body is his. It has his smell, his touch and his crest. The black fabric is foreboding, and I wonder if it is currently sucking the power from my body, just as he has sucked the love from my life. But it is so warm, and so soft, and something whispers give me a chance as I wrap it close to my body. The fabric slides across my bare skin in the wind, and there is something so inviting about it.
Naruto speaks.
"Is that the-.." he begins before I hear the dark liquid voice behind me.
"The Uchiha crest." The words are out and the truth has been spilled.
It begins.
It has been years since I have seen his face and he is aged. The blue eyes are still bright, but they have matured. Kakashi-sensei looks like the man he has always been. Orange book safely pocketed, signature cool man pose in place. It is as if nothing has changed. But everything has. Because even if the grass and the wind and the appearances are reminiscent of a simpler time, everything has changed. There is a naked cherry blossom in a cloak that belongs to a traitor kneeling on the ground, a cherry blossom that keeps them together, gathered under her refreshing shade on a hot summer's day, and her dazzling beauty, and she looks like she is about to break.
And tension could be cut with a knife.
"Teme." Are the first words uttered of his mouth. They are harsh and quite and filled with rage. His face is filled with pain and anger and hate, and it scares me. Because I am the cherry blossom and I do not want them to fight.
"Dobe." It is as if I never left. We stick with names we know in a place we remember. It is still the cherry blossom between us—it is the same old fight, but everything has changed. My revenge has been taken—the blood has been drained from his body by my superior skill. It is the battle of who is stronger; who is better.
It is the battle over who she will choose.
I feel the air charge with their fight. I know what will happen next. It is like we are on the rooftop of the hospital again. We were twelve, and they were just testing their strength. We are so much older now, and there is much more at stake. Then, they were flexing their muscles. Now, they are trained killers. I have to make a choice. I am no longer a weak, fluttering cherry blossom.
But the strong tree from which it hangs.