Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me
Ah ha … I said I would do a KibaIno one-shot, so here it is. It's a bit different from my usual storytelling format but hopefully you'll feel the same way that I do towards it.
-
Just Feel
One-shot
"Why don't you just stop?"
She had asked him that once before. Quietly, unlike her usual voice, and wearily, with perhaps just the barest hint of regret.
He had simply sighed, shrugging and chuckling as if the question was one of no great importance.
And in a way, it wasn't.
It had never been a matter of stopping, or giving up or whatever else you might call it. It was a matter of being and not being, of existing and not existing. It was a matter as simple as breathing and as complex as feeling.
How can one continue to exist if they cease to tread the path they were born to follow? How can one be called living if they give up part of what made them who they are?
Inuzuka Kiba had never been good at paradoxes.
He only knew that the hard edges of his world softened with the midst of her laughter, that time slowed to a crawl in the wake of her scent and that his senses rolled headily into warm velvet at her touch.
And so it didn't matter that it was Shikamaru's name that left her lips as she wandered through her dreams. It didn't matter that her heart held only enough room for a man whose death had stolen the key. It didn't matter that when the fog ever lifted, her eyes held only grief and, at the same time, pity.
"Why don't you just stop?"
A strong tanned hand lingered in the pale river of cornsilk blonde spread across the grass beside him. Kiba looked up at the night sky, its brilliance veiled by a shroud of never-ending clouds. It was as if life had been suspended, as if nothing and everything had changed all at once.
His voice was low, rough. Unyielding and even wondering, but above all, clear. Perhaps in stating something so obvious, even the undesirable had become desired.
"I feel like I've loved you forever."
There was no glorious swirling of leaves in the wind. No climatic burst of sunlight piercing through the canopy of clouds.
Yamanaka Ino opened her eyes and stared into the distance.
-
The End
-
A/N: Yes, I know this is super short but I wanted to do something that solely focused on how one character feels towards the other. I personally like stories that invoke some sort of response - you know, the kind where one particular line or scene really resonates with you and you just feel like: 'Damn, I totally get it.'
Some authors get it spot-on (check out Mugen's last line in Citadel's Expect Little Sleep Tonight in my favourites list). I don't know if I managed it with this fic but hopefully it'll become one area that I'll slowly improve on over time.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed that and I'll be back to work on my other fics! Thanks for reading and please review!