The bracelet. It had to be the bracelet. What else would he come to Konohagakure for?

I sat on my bed, bent over the beads that I held too securely in my hands. I didn't want to give it up. As pathetic as it sounded, it was the only kind of connection I had left to Kankuro, and I wasn't ready to let it go just yet. Even the thought of handing it over made tears spring to my eyes.

I kept staring at the date on the note Kankuro had sent. It was sent two days ago, meaning I had two more days if nothing had conflicted with his journey. What was I going to do? I guess the only logic answer was to just give it back the second he asked for it.

If he was coming back, then I couldn't let him see me in the condition I'd been in. I stood up from my bed, slipped the oversized bracelet back onto my wrist, and stomped my way down to the kitchen to face my mother, who looked entirely confused.

"Haketa?" she questioned as I rummaged through the pantries. "How are you feeling?"

"Hungry," I answered, playing myself in front of an oversized bowl of rice that she had prepared a few hours earlier.

The only thing I focused on was how much rice I could fix into my mouth before I couldn't swallow. Mother watched me cautiously as I shoveled the white substance into my mouth until finally, I stopped suddenly.

"Uh-oh," I muttered, placing the chopsticks next to the empty bowl.

"I'm glad you have your appetite back, but if you keep eating so quickly like that, you're just going to end up—"

I didn't want to admit that my mother was right about my food intake, but I had no choice once my head was forced into the toilet and my stomach pushed all that rice back up. And she just stood in the doorway, shaking her head and repeating, "I told you so" in a voice that maybe she thought was motherly.

Once I was finished retching up the bile from my stomach, I leaned back against the wall and pushed my head between my legs. I felt myself panicking, but I didn't know how to snap myself out of it. Before I knew it, my head was back in the toilet, pushing out stomach acid.

My mother only shook her head, obviously tired of the same routine that I had subjected her to, and returned to the kitchen to finish whatever project she had begun before I interrupted. I slowly collapsed onto the cold floor and stared at the base of the toilet.

Who was I to burden my family with this sadness of mine? Since our return from Sunagakure, Kyan's days mostly filled with checking on me between other tasks. I had become self-centered, only thinking about myself and the fact that others should only think about me as well. And that's how it seemed for a while.

My mother slaved over different foods to make sure I could eat something, even if it was a few grains of rice. Kyan took moments out of her days for me. Sakura and Ino would constantly stop by to leave cute cards and flowers at my doorstep because I refused to open my bedroom door for a great portion of the day.

I had become a disappointment and a rock, a motionless, emotionless, selfish rock, to everyone, including myself. If my father were to see me now, he would call me a disgrace without hesitation. He would say, "Haketa, what in the world do you think you're doing? Get your head out of your ass and thank the gods you're alive. And then go out and live for them."

"But it hurts," I whispered to my father's voice.

I understood that it hurt and it would probably continue to hurt for a very long time, but this wasn't the first time I'd experienced this situation. If I could do it once, I could do it again.

()()()

The day came much quicker than I'd hoped. I didn't sleep the night before, but I figured that was okay. Scenarios kept playing through my head of how Kankuro would come to take his bracelet back.

I pictured him coming into Konohakure with an entire army behind him, snatching the bracelet right off my wrist, and walking back the way he came. And when I would run after him, the army would stop me, their weapons pointed at my throat.

But then I realized that I wouldn't try to run after him, so I made another scenario.

Kankuro would casually walk into the village alone, knock on the front door to the house, I would answer and simply place the bracelet into his outstretched palm. Then, without a word being spoken, he would return to Sunagakure and we would forget about each other again.

More than anything, I hoped for the second. However, as I obsessively swept the floor of the kitchen, I came to the realization that no amount of hoping would change what was going to happen.

Kyan watched me from her perch on the counter, her gaze following the rhythmic back-and-forth motion of the broom. I avoided eye contact with her because I knew that she was also waiting for the knock at the door.

"Do you have it?" she asked for what seemed like the hundredth time. I sighed and propped the broom against the wall.

"Of course," I replied, digging through my pocket. I tossed the bracelet onto the counter, watched it slide on the surface, and fall onto the ground. Kyan shook her head and grabbed it before I could, just in time for the dreaded knock to echo throughout the house.

I stopped breathing for a quick moment only to remind myself that this had to happen and that this moment was the reason I'd been forcing myself to eat in annoying slow paces throughout the past few days: so that Kankuro could see that I was okay without him, that I did the right thing, and that I was going to be perfectly fine in Konoha.

"Do you want me to get it?" Kyan asked, raising a brow at me. I yanked the bracelet from her grasp and set foot toward the door.

"No, I'll get it."

The short trip to the door dragged on and with every footstep, I felt myself wanting to back away more and more. By the time I was finally in front of it, I wanted to drop the bracelet, run to my room, and hide under the blankets like I was used to doing.

"Well, go on," Kyan urged. She was standing so close to me that I could almost feel her breath on my back. There was no way I could turn and run. I grabbed the doorknob, flung the door open, and took a deep breath, preparing to defend myself at any second.

Kankuro stared down at me with a seemingly bored expression on his face. His didn't wear his kabuki paint or the black puppeteer suit. He wore casual clothes, his hair a mess, just like I'd seen him so many times in Sunagakure.

"Here," I muttered, holding out the bracelet for him. He didn't take it, but instead, the bored look on his face turned into a very confused one.

"What's this?" he asked, slipping his fingers through it to take it from my hand.

"That bracelet. Isn't that why you're here?"

His gaze shifted from the bracelet, to me, to Kyan behind me, then back to me. He extended his fingers, allowing the beads to roll onto his wrist, noticing that somehow, my smaller wrists had stretched it out as it slightly dangled from his skin.

"Not…entirely," Kankuro answered softly.

I felt for the doorknob again, searching for some kind of cool metal relief for the heat I felt all over my body. What in the world was he talking about? And what had the two of them been planning this whole time behind my back?

Then, out of nowhere, Kankuro burst into fits of laughter. It continued until he leaned his forearm on the side of the house and rested his forehead against his skin, holding his stomach with his free had. Finally, it dulled into short chuckles.

"You thought I came here for the bracelet?" he asked. With a quick clearing of his throat, he straightened himself out. "May I come in?" Without an answer, he walked past me.

"Go ahead," I replied a little too late.

Kankuro took a seat at our table and only then did I realize that Kyan was nowhere to be seen. Before I could start to wonder where she went, Kankuro began to fumble with the bracelet, pushing it back and forth between his hands on the surface.

"I've kind of been putting this off for a while," he started, not lifting his face to look at me. I leaned against the counter, crossing my arms over my chest. Then I remembered that in a book I once read, that meant I was creating some sort of barrier between the two of us, so my palms were quickly pressed to the surface of the counter.

"Putting what off?"

That was when he finally looked at me. "Right after you left, Temari sat down with me and had one of those long, annoying, stupid sister-to-brother talks. I didn't listen to most of it, because she talked forever and I just hates when she talks most of them time. Most of it was just her basically yelling at me for letting you go…again."

I bit the inside of my cheek. No matter how many days and months had passed, that incident was still brought up. I absolutely hated it, but there was nothing I could do about it. As long as everyone remembered, it would still be talked about. I just had to accept it.

"But there was one thing she said that made me feel like a complete bastard," Kankuro continued. "She said, 'Hateka loves you so much, that she risked her life so you wouldn't have to go after the people who hurt Kyan. And you pushed her away because of it.' And then I realized…"

He trailed off into silence and I just assumed that he was planning his next words very carefully. His gaze dropped onto the bracelet once again for only a few moments.

"I realized that I love you with all my heart, and that sort of thing coming from me is an accomplishment because I think people are just the ugliest and stupidest things to ever walk the earth."

Kankuro stood up and moved closer to me. My heart was beating so fast and my legs were trembling so much that I felt if I tried to move away from him, I would fall and embarrass the living hell out of myself. So I had no choice but to stay still when his arms wrapped around me and pulled me into his chest.

I inhaled his scent and choked back the tears that threatened to fall. But I kept my eyes shut tightly and my hands balled into fists at my side.

"I'm…sorry for what I did. I was just being selfish and, you know, me. I know I should have been more concerned with you instead of the way I was feeling. This month away from you made me understand that sometimes, I'm going to fuck up, and sometimes, you're going to fuck up. And we're going to fuck up together, but as long as we can look past each other's fuckings up, then everything will be okay."

I couldn't stop the tears now, nor could I stop my arms from wrapping around him and holding him as tightly to me as I could. I knew that no matter what was going to happen, I was so desperately in love with him that I could never truly let him go.

"Kyan packed most of your things for you. You're coming back home, aren't you?" Kankuro asked just before kissing the top of my head. I could only nod.

()()()

I'm packing my things now, mostly the stuff Kyan forgot about. My room is more than empty, what with all my belongings in separate bags. I'm taking everything with me this time in a way to show everyone and myself that I'm not coming back to live in Konohagakure, that I'm staying where and with who I belong.

"Are you sure you don't need help?" Kankuro asks from my doorway. I stand and fling my backpack over my shoulder.

"I'm done now. How was the talk with my mother?"

"Fine, as always. She loves me."

I smile and move toward him, planting a quick kiss on his lips. "Not as much as I do."

He chuckles against my lips, causing a tickling sensation on them. "Coming back to me after the shit I've done? I wouldn't doubt it for a second."

()()()

"Can I ask something?"

"Sure."

"What would you have done if I hadn't agreed to coming back to Sunagkure?"

"Kidnapped you."

"Oh…"

()()()

"I said never apologize for how you feel. No one can control how they feel. The sun doesn't apologize for being the sun. The rain doesn't say sorry for falling. Feelings just are." – Intentional Dissonance, Iain S. Thomas

Hi there! So, this was the last chapter. This was the very first story in my seven years of writing fanfiction that I ever completed. Yay, accomplishments!

Anyway, I want to thank all of you readers who have stuck with me for the two years that I was writing Trust and Just Fall and I want to thank those of you who didn't follow me for that amount of time, but still took the time to read a few chapters here and there. It really means the world to me.

Update 6/2/14 - Sequel To Fill A Void has been published.