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I never loved you... But I wanted to.
I wish I had felt something besides homesickness and lust. I should have taken more quality time and not only in bed or fighting. I wish I had been the man for you that my brother didn’t have the chance to be. But I wasn’t, I didn’t love you, unlike him.
I think about that as I watch she cleaning Itachi’s headstone, decorating it with carnations and red and white chrysanthemums, and lighting incense. She did it every day, on six headstones, the same ritual, sometimes with her old team, sometimes alone, but we never went together, like most things, we did it separately, which couldn’t be natural, but it was, for both of us it was.
It was natural for me to came back to the village and go straight to her address, but at the flower shop, I preferred to stay away from the Yamanaka complex. It was natural for both of us to be quite silent, or for me asking her to see the moments she had with Itachi, she censored a lot of things, of course, which was none of my business and I didn’t want to witness it. She was reluctant to show me, I just wanted to get closer to my brother, to know what he was really like, in his heart, and she only cared about me out of fear that I would try to “escape from reality”. And that’s what it brought me, a reality punch, an eternal reminder of what I’ve done, who I’ve become, and who I’d be if everything were different. Whenever we fought I remembered I was alive, the hate in her eyes as well as the possessiveness in mine was genuine, all the violence, it was the moment I could scream without worrying, I could feel her woman’s fury and that’s how I liked it, it was what I needed, it was horny, it was natural.
I strode over to the headstone where she knelt, I carried a small vase of violets in my remaining hand. There was no point in hiding me, she was a sensor, she always knew when I watched her.
I said nothing as I approached, she looked at me with her turquoise immensity, smiling and standing up as she brushed the dust off her long purple skirt with a side slit. She hugged me sideways, not romantic at all, it was like hugging a lonely child, and that’s how I felt when I allowed her this kind of physicality with me.
– Are you here to stay? – she questions me as we watch the incense burn slowly. I shake my head in the negative. “Does Sakura know you’re here?” – I repeat the negative and she takes a deep breath and we feel the strangling silence.
– Your chakra will run out. – She says a while later as she pointed to my eye, which was once my brother’s.
– It always activates around you, I thought it was a natural reaction of my body to a possible threat – I let out a nasal pout, she would never be a threat to me, I should have understood at first what it was about, but I wasn’t open to believing in this kind of feeling.
–It was scary on Itachi eyes – she turns to face me covering my eye, with the Rinnegan, her hand not actually touching my face, unlike when we made “love”, in these moments she touched my face with a certain vehemently and used to whisper that she loved me, I knew it wasn’t for me, but I replied that I loved her back, the lie became a necessary sin for both of us – But on you, it’s familiar, cozy, nostalgic, I love this one eye – She opened her wide and characteristic smile, whenever she tried to hide a tear.
– Have you finished? – I asked giving her my small vase then holding her hand that blocked my vision.
- No, Inosuke is missing, I always leave him last.
Oh, the little headstone to represent my unborn nephew. It would be a boy, he would have his father’s hair, his mother’s eyes, he left almost with my brother, and it’s almost impossible not to think that I have a bunch of guilt in that, after all, even though she knew about Itachi’s end, she wasn’t prepared to lose him.
– Forgive me? I whispered low only to myself, as if I wanted to purge the feeling, but she heard it, and she let a tear slide freely down her cheek.
– I wish I had really loved you. – she braided our fingers – I wish I had done what he asked, I wanted my love to be yours and not his, I wish I had never told the people that I fell in love with you to hide the shame of loving Itachi. God knows how I apologize for loving him, and for ashamed myself after he showed me the truth.
– We loved each other Ino – I touched her knuckles gently with my lips – it just wasn’t the right love at the right time. You wouldn’t give me my heirs and I wouldn’t give you the affection and presence you deserve. I loved you while you were with me, you know, I loved you so hard, but one time is over. – it was a lie, it ended because she didn’t want to have Uchiha children, she needed Yamanaka children, I was possessive, we got to be violent, she broke up with me because she knew we were doomed to failure, besides me, who wanted to insist on the mistake.
She release my hand as she watches my former sensei and my current wife approach and call us warmly. Sakura was carrying my baby just as my sensei was carrying his and Ino’s. I smirked at realizing that their child was a copy of the mother, just as mine was a copy of mine. They accompanied her to her morning routine apparently splitting up, I guess, as Ino never paid honors to Obito’s grave, differently of my sensei and Sakura who harbored strong sympathies for him.
She kisses him over the mask caressing his face and then takes her baby from Kakashi’s lap. He greets me friendly and places a shuriken on my brother’s headstone, it was his way of paying his honors. I take my violets from Ino’s hand and place them beside the shuriken, turn to my wife and kiss her on the forehead. She smiles and her cheeks redden at the exact moment, then starts telling me some story about how amazing our girl is, I give Sakura a smile and watch Ino follow with Kakashi and her child to Inosuke’s headstone.
I’ve never loved Ino, just as she’s never loved me, but whenever she gets close my eye turns red, and soon I feel an uniqueness nostalgia for a love I never had, a love that isn’t mine. I wanted to love you, but we’re better this way. And with each contact me and yours, we exorcise a different ghost.
I take my girl from Sakura’s lap and watch Kakashi take Ino on his lap who is still cuddling with her baby. I look at Sakura who smiles radiant, optimistic, and soft, she was always like that with me, she really loved me. I try to smile back without much success, she knows how hard I try and how much she deserves me to try.