7. "Sometimes, I catch myself thinking..."
It is three minutes to midnight, the hour that signals the subtle change, when his day becomes hers, the brief moment when they almost touch.
"Sometimes I catch myself thinking…" she begins.
He catches himself thinking more often than he can say.
"Sometimes I catch myself thinking about what would have happened, if circumstances had been different. If we hadn't been born when we were, if our families hadn't been so close…
"Sometimes I catch myself thinking we wouldn't have even known one another."
Sometimes he catches himself thinking the very same thing. That if their fathers hadn't been teammates, that the bossy, Sasuke-crazy, appearance-conscious Yamanaka beauty would never have even given him a second thought. That if they hadn't been born just a day apart, he, the lazy genius, would never have spent a spare moment on the brash, loud girl who loved flowers.
But sometimes he catches himself thinking that he would always have noticed her, the girl with the bright, perceptive eyes, the girl with the staggering talent for knowing the content of innermost thoughts, the girl who would protect her teammates with her dying breath. The girl he has caught a thousand times, and would catch a thousand times over again. The woman who is so blindingly bright, he cannot imagine how he wouldn't have noticed her.
"Sometimes…" She smiles. "I catch myself thinking that I can't imagine that world."
It is a minute to midnight.
And sometimes, he catches himself thinking that there can be no other ending to their story.
A/N: In honor of Shikamaru's birthday.
