For Nobara

Chapter 19: Greed

This chapter is long overdue. I'm sorry that it took so long, my writer's block was just so horrible. I've gotten rusty, so excuse me for whatever this turned out to be. Any confusion, I'll explain at the bottom note.

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It's as Kakuzu said, he keeps his promise.

He remains beside her, sharing his warmth. He lets her coldness sink into him. He lets her rest at the crook of his arm as a ticklish feeling washes over her, like she has come home. It all feels very strange, but she doesn't dislike it. If anything, there is nothing about Kakuzu she could ever dislike.

In this room filled with darkness, he is the only thing that could ever make her feel safe.

Everything else... is just nothing.

Her fingers, so very small, begin to trace the angles of his face, reaching out to the unfamiliar stitches wounded on the sides of his mouth. Then, to his forehead and the creases and the frown lines—as if retracing her steps, recollecting the pieces.

She raises her gaze, and then their eyes meet.

They are greener than she remembers, she realizes. Or perhaps, it's just that her memory has gotten foggy from the time he wasn't with her, like a part of her has begun to erase memories of people in an attempt to isolate her from everything she knew.

Whether Kakuzu regretted leaving her in Suna or not, it doesn't matter now. But still, she can't help but think that if he had left her longer than he did, would she have forgotten him?

Little by little... until she slowly starts to forget all the good things... until there is only the dark and the lonely.

She has been there before. It has already taken from her. But at the same time, she cannot remember it as she should have.

All of this, it all amounts to a terrible headache.

She is starting to understand it now. But the more she does, the worse the headaches are—until she's only left confused, lost, and empty. A hollow that is unexplainable and heavy.

Kakuzu's hair falls, brushing just softly over his brow and she tries to smile. Yet somehow, he sees pain in her eyes. He daren't question it, all he can offer her now is his patience as her cold hand reaches to the loose strands of hair framing his face.

It's the first time he has left them astray in front of her. To anybody, really. He looks so different, less uptight and rigid. She tries to memorize him.

"You have dark hair..." she says.

"Like yours," he tells her softly.

"Like mine," she repeats, her eyes soft and gleaming. "Like mine."

She's sitting up now, looking downcast at him with his hair in her small hands. There is something pleading in her gaze, and yet at the same time does attempt to be so greedy.

What are you so afraid of?

Lying down, Kakuzu reaches out his hand and brushes her hair away from her pale face. Then, he sits up from the sheets, pulling her to him as she grabs his hair like reigns. The next thing she knows, she's in his arms way up above his head as he carries her off from the floor.