I went on a mission with the rest of my team almost directly after that. I also started having nightmares. I had never really had nightmares before, not even when I was a kid, but these weren't your typical nightmares. I would wake up after everything bad was over, and immediately start hyperventilating and freaking out. Go into shock, I guess.

Hinata and I grew close because of that. I didn't know how to deal with them, but when she found out one night she told me about having nightmares as a kid and let me hold her. Not like sex, I could never have sex with Hinata. Even before this she'd been more like a cousin or a little sister to me. But physical contact works wonders sometimes.

I'm not gonna lie, it was embarrassing. I would wake up in the middle of the night, panicked for no good reason, and then proceed to crawl under the covers with Hinata and just hug her like a teddy bear while I tried to hold back my tears. I was too embarrassed to explain to Kurenai-sensei, so Hinata just said we were dating.

Honestly. That girl has grown so much since the days when we were all genin. It makes me ashamed of myself.

I stopped sleeping with anyone after the funeral, so the lie worked pretty well. When I got worried and told Hinata that she didn't have to fake it anymore for me and could get herself a boyfriend if she wanted, she just smiled sadly and said that the only one for her was Naruto.

"What about you, Kiba-kun? You told me once that you see your beloved die in those dreams. Who is she?"

I looked down at my trembling hands.

"Shikamaru. It's Shikamaru. Over and over again. And every time, at the beginning, I know that he'll die, and I can't stop it. I fight as hard as I fucking can and nothing fucking comes of it!" I was facing away from her, clutching the blankets in my fists, trying to fight back the tears. "I hate crying." I continued. "I fucking hate it Hinata. I feel like I'm fucking three years old all the fucking time these days."

She placed her hand on my shoulder. "He left on a mission to avenge Asuma a few days ago."

My face paled. I turned to face her. The fear had stopped the tears.

She moved her hand to my cheek. "Don't worry. Naruto-kun was sent as backup."

I could see now that she was afraid too. The fear that made her want to scream and fight and cry, but paralyzed her, all of her. The same fear as mine. We didn't really sleep much that night, we just sat, holding each others hands, cuddling close together. After a while she brought out a small white board and we played games on it until morning. We both had the day off, so we just sat there together. She fell asleep first, and then me too. It was a beautiful dream, a dream of nothing.

I woke up when Neiji came to wake her up for training. He almost killed me before he realized that we were both still completely clothed. He knew my past with girls and was always suspicious of me. It hadn't improved his mood when I started "dating" Hinata.

I left and took a shower and changed and Hinata came to my place soon after. Plans unspoken and worries deliberately forgotten, we went together to the festival that night. We didn't dress up cause we didn't even know there was a festival, but we caught goldfish and ate takoyaki and played silly games and watched the fireworks.

I remember that moment very clearly. The moment that there was an explosion that didn't sync up with the fireworks. The moment Hinata and I looked at each other. The moment Akamaru instinctively lead us toward the source of the explosion. The moment I found Shikamaru, bloodied and exhausted, collapsed in the woods.

I remember carrying him. I remember feeling the back of my shirt wet from blood and tears, though I pretended not to notice the last ones. I remember being able to feel my pulse coursing through my whole body as I talked about random little things to try and keep him conscious. I remember him asking me not to call anyone, just to take him home.

I took him to my home because my mom and sister were out and I knew where all the first aid stuff was. I remember his eyes while I bandaged him. They were looking at something that was beyond anything I could ever begin to see. I remember the feeling that struck me then, that we were sitting next to each other, touching each other, but he was so far away from me, he would always be so far away from me, just like on the roof top. It was a distance I could never bridge.

The cuts had bled a lot, but they were pretty shallow over all. I gave him my bed to sleep in and some time just before the sun came up, I fell asleep next to him, half leaning on Akamaru.