I don't own naruto, ( http: kumocloud. webs. com )
The question hung heavily in the air between them, there was a long drawn out silence. Sounds of low murmurs of rustling leaves in the wind intruded from outside.
Moving her palms along the tall dark walls that seemed to stretch endlessly skywards. The pale gray light filtered through the small arched entrance.
It was wood she could feel the smooth groove against her fingertips, no rough patches not even a single splinter, blindly following the contours of the wood that encompassed her, edging closer to Sasuke.
"Where in a hollowed out tree, the native's here carve them out for shelter, whilst still being able to keep the tree alive." Sasuke said starting an impromptu explanation, it was the most she had heard him say. Realizing he was trying to divert her attention from the subject at hand.
Hinata wasn't so willing to let the question drop, she wanted an answer. Knowing full well she had made the wrong decision in leaving Kakashi and subsequently Konoha as well.
His words however would determine whether she regretted it or not. "Answer me." She whispered out in a quiet voice, it didn't matter what volume she chose to speak in, it still conveyed the message clearly. And she very rarely raised her voice into an obnoxious yell.
The tension echoed around them, wanting an explanation some form of vindication. " Would it pain you to know I have no answer." He all but sneered out.
Reacting to his hostility with her own sharp remark. " I challenge you a little and you bear your fangs, grow up Sauke." She glared at him as he turned his face away. "Do you think you can do this immature stuttered emotional crap forever, why won't you look at me?"
She jerked him forward by his shirt forcing him to turn and face her. " Why are so you scared of admitting anything, why do you keep running away?" Her voices become softer pleading towards the end.
"I don't know!" he snapped standing up breaking her hold on him "I am emotionally stunted, crippled, broken, I don't know what the fuck I feel for you." He crushed his body flat against the wooden wall, allowing his arms to fall limply at his side.
Pressing his forehead harder into the wood. "I am not even sane." He choked out, as if the words pained him. " I am so confused and don't know why I am even alive, everything so warped."
His words lingered for a moment before "Is that why you saved me?" Hianta whispered remembering how she had tried to drown herself, when existence it self seemed futile to her.
"I didn't want you dead." He stated flatly, hesitating for a moment before he continued. " First I watched you dying on the forest floor, I was waiting for you to stop breathing. But you wouldn't die even when you could no longer stay a wake."
Sasuke slid down the wall and slumped to the floor. "I left you, I walked away, your dying meant nothing to me. But the next day I found you had walked in a circle and collapsed yet again."
" I found my self coming back again and again to check if you had died, that's when I realized I didn't want you dead, I haven't ever since." His gaze vacant his voice emotionless.
She said nothing and stared at the hole in the wood that functioned as the only doorway. Her eyes straining being overwhelmed and flooded by the contrast of pale light. Taking a few minute for the information to sit, allowing his words to form some kind of meaning in her own distorted thoughts.
He drew near and held her "I don't love you, I don't know what love is." He spoke softly as she curled up in his arms and he cradled her to his chest.
"Neither do I, but it's enough to just breathe." Thankful they were both alive. Her head moving along with the rise and fall of his chest, hearing the steady drumming of his heart. Both emotional and physically exhausted they slipped into sleep.