After dark - that's when all those bad thoughts you try to bury away come back to surface. And with no one around to help, you find yourself falling into them.
Well, you were never alone. You'd always have something there for you.
naruto!various x...
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A few hours later and it was still raining. You never felt the need to use an umbrella, it never affected your temperature, but now it felt cold. A metaphor maybe, to remind you that you had just begun to experience the world, dark and cruel--and you only just opened your eyes to it. Silence, no ghosts, no teammates... Only you.
As you entered the hospital, it was silence checking in, the doctor offering you a greeting that fell on deaf ears. Only silence making your way up to the second floor, the smell of hospital was common now, seeing as you were meant to be in here yourself--but you couldn't bother with your own recovery. Your connection with Diaval meant the minor injuries would recover anyway, you had even allowed him to come back to surface, contrary to what you told him. To see what had been happening, and to hear every word. Because you decided—he'd be a big part of training.
Your head was lowered as you neared what would be Nejis room, taking a seat beside someone--you weren't aware of who, you couldn't care who. But it was nice to know someone else had been waiting for your teammate to recover.
"[Firstname]." You looked up at the calling of your name, quiet, but it managed to break the streak of silence you lost yourself in. It was Shikamaru, he sat across from you. Next to you was Temari, unexpected for the both of them to be here, but better than no one at all. He was looking straight at you, his fingers fidgeting.
"When you had said you could help, I should've agreed." You were silent still, face plain as you watched him speak, bringing his fidgeting hands up, his head lowering to meet them halfway. He was massaging his forehead, "I'm not cut out to be a shinobi. If there was anyone that would've had everyone coming out at least conscious, it would be you. Or, at least... You can pull off a poker face I can't." He confessed.
You could pull off a poker-face, sure... But the situation was eating you up inside, just as it was Shikamaru. "It was the first time I led a team, and this is how it turned out..." His gaze lowered toward the floor. You weren't sure what he wanted to hear from you, words of reassurance, pity, comfort, you were never good with that, anyway. "I trusted them to much, and I let myself relax out there."
"We're only human..." You responded, sitting yourself up against the wall. "No one blames you for what happened out there, it's eating me up inside too, but if you're gonna sit there and say that someone else should have been in your shoes--that you didn't put your all into it, then maybe you're right..." It was all backhanded, harsh, a hint of truth--yet something that sounded like reassurance.
"You wouldn't be cut out to be a Shinobi if you didn't trust your teammates out there. There's a reason Shinobi work in teams, they trusted you—you trusted them, and you want to say that it would've been better if I led?" Shikamaru stood, and your eyes followed him. He was still looking down.
"If you really had relaxed, then my teammate wouldn't be given a second chance in that room—but if you think you're not cut out to be a Shinobi, I won't beg you to stay." Your speech died down, head lowered similarly to him. If there was anyone you wanted to blame right now, it'd be Sasuke. He said the two of you were similar—but he was wrong, you two weren't similar in anyway.
