One boy. One girl. They laugh as they run about in the field, tall grass tickling their bare feet. Their smiling faces glow in the afternoon sun, carefree and innocent as only children can be.
So different from him.
Are they really mine?
He stares, detached, distant, but still intently watching.
She sees him looking.
Her eyes widen, surprise pulses through her veins. He's never looked before.
But now…
Now…
Now, he is.
Ebony focused on the two children in front of him, slowly drinking in their joy and laughter with a cruel nonchalance. But hidden behind the ease was…something she couldn't identify.
Didn't matter.
He was finally looking.
Looking with a total attentiveness that had never fallen upon her—no, their children before.
Maybe, maybe he really does care.
Emerald softens to a hazy jade as she absentmindedly brushes strands of pink hair from her face.
She steps forward, one cautious, gentle step at a time until she if finally standing beside him.
He knows she there, how could he not, those soft, padding steps of her's are as familiar the caress of sunlight on his face. The sunlight…
His eyes close as he slightly furrows his eyebrows.
There is no more sun. It's gone, forever and ever and I must…I must…move on.
He turns to the right, expecting to see her but she has gone, gone forward to play with the children. Her smiling face and tender hands elicit shrieks of joy from the children; they've always loved playing tag, especially with their mother.
He watches them all now, seeing the happy pout at being caught, the gentle toss up into the air to bring a smile back onto the face of the newly tagged "it."
He used to play as well, with the sun bright and shining as he ran about, aimlessly free, and the rare smile would grace his face.
Not any more though.
Now…
He would never be carefree.
Never be happy.
She sees him watching.
Still? He's never stayed so long for them, for us. Not ever
She blinks, once, twice.
Perhaps, perhaps he does care…
She looks down, children forgotten in her momentary delight before she looks up again. This time smiling that gentle smile of hers, a graceful curve of full lips.
He stares.
Stares some more.
And then…smiles back.
She blushes, just like how use to back when they were twelve, back when she was still unacknowledged. Not now, not anymore. She glances downward, allowing a wave of pink to cover her face, a girlish habit that has yet to wear off.
He does care, he does!
She knows too little. His smile is not for her, not for their children. His smile is for the sun, the bright and happy smile of his that he can only see through her; the memories of him exist only in her. She does not know that she is a catalyst, that when he sees her, he looks not at her but for another, the one fate had forced to leave this world against all wishes, against all hope.
He knows he is using her, even if she does not. He knows that his smile is one of bitterness and self-contempt.
He knows that when he sees her smile, as bright and happy as it is, he wishes for another. One that was brighter and happier than hers could ever be.
She doesn't know that with her every smile, he cracks a little inside, reminded of the sunshine, hot and ever glowing.
She doesn't know that every time he sees her, he is reminded of the past, his past with…
A small shake of his head.
It is a past that he cannot forget as much as he wants to, can never change, no matter how deeply he desires it.
She doesn't know that all he sees in her bright and joyful smile, in their forever laughing children, is him.
His sunshine.
His Naruto.
~*~*~They say ignorance is bliss~*~*~
AN: Whee! Back to the mighty angsty fics! This wasn't that sad though, so I hope you still liked it. The Shikanaru fic is still burning a hole in my head, but I'm too loyal to the Sasunaru pairing to simply drop it! _ Anyways, R&R please! I'll give you my pocky from White Day!