#floranai

@floranai​         roared: Being in charge of a bunch of teenagers is both exactly what Kurenai had expected and absolutely nothing she could have possibly prepared herself for. There are questions, always questions (so many questions), and sometimes- she can't help but bring them up to the other sensei, curious if they've been asked the same, if their answers are different from the ones she gives her team."Gai, would you still love me if I was a worm?" Sorry if this makes ninja happy hour weird but she just spent a whole afternoon reassuring her team that yes, yes she would.

﹟  missing scene﹕ a  ‘missing  scene’  between  sender  &  receiver .

@floranai

yoshino sighs, as she watches mirai run around the room on chubby, slightly unstable little legs. “can’t stop her, that one,” she shakes her head with a small smile. she hadn’t realized how silent the compound had been without the voices of others, especially of children.

the house doesn’t feel the same and so does yoshino. the war ended and life kept running its course, but she has been stuck here, unable to move along. grief is an isolating experience. not necessarily by choice, yoshino has found. people don’t tend to like seeing it, witnessing it. it is scary and vulnerable.

she can’t complain, though, because it is easier that way for her. she doesn’t need to pretend to be okay if the world would rather she stays out of sight. but shikamaru had started to get worried and gently pushed her out of her comfort zone. and apparently, forgetting to tell kurenai and mirai he would not be home for another hour, forcing her to wait around with yoshino, was the only way he had come up with.

( Send in 💗 for me to use a love meter to check the compatibility of our muses )

“Walk with me?” Asks @floranai​ ‘s Kurenai to Hinata.  Selected from random starter prompts .  Accepting!

                 “Mmm, of course.” Hinata accepts the invitation breezily, not at all worried about running out of things to say or things getting awkward with her former sensei turned mother. 

     Mirai was joining them, too.  The chunky toddler was strapped to Kurenai’s chest, kicking wildly with red eyes— Her mother’s eyes— absorbing everything around them.  For the moment, the small child was quiet. Hinata hums at her excitement to take take in the world. The teen imagines the little girl is always like this. 

                 “She’s so cute.” Hinata starts up again as they begin their trek.  “Always so excited to take everything in. . “  Her smile turns sympathetic. “It— It must get exhausting at times.  She’s always going.”

     There’s a moment of silence between the two women as Hinata stores through her thoughts. Hinata knows that she’s no mother and has no experience with children, really— Hanabi had been raised by house staff.  But she cared for the woman that had given her more love and attention than any family member ever had and she wanted to help however she could.

The truth won’t come out of her mouth--that she doesn’t want to be alone right now. Her state of vulnerability is hard to swallow, and she can’t manage to come to terms with her current state of limitations before the previous stage ends and the next one begins, and she has more to get over. More to accept as to what her body cannot do right now, what she has to ask for help with, and more to worry about.

She can’t defend herself like this. Her life is no longer just her own (one could make an argument that through her marriage she had given up her life just being her own); now she bears the full burden of responsibility for the life growing inside her. Shikamaru cannot help, as much as he tries to. He also fails most of the time at making her feel better, no matter how hard he tries. She suspects the latter had built up enough to be the reason for him asking for a short mission out of the village today--so he could feel something besides useless.

Temari usually has a lot of empathy to give for her loved ones, but as her pregnancy progresses, it is all she can do to give it all to herself.

She huffs in response, shouldering past Kurenai into the older woman’s kitchen in a good imitation of the way she can usually be expected to act. At twenty-two weeks, her bump is sizable and no longer concealed under loose clothing. Soon, Temari will have to go maternity shopping, and it feels like there’s nothing she’s ever dreaded more in her life.

Kurenai cuts up fruit, for some reason, and equally as strangely, Temari finds herself watching the movements of Kurenai’s hands closely. It’s a strange combination of disturbing and soothing, watching the hands of a killer cut up an apple. The feeling remains as Kurenai leaves some to the side of her daughter. Will she--Temari--be like that? Will her hands be occupied preparing snacks for her child in a few years?

 “I think we had a class on dealing with grief. How to complete the mission if someone you loved dies on it with you. Not sure that’s helping me right now.” But maybe Shikamaru needed such a class, because there was a possibility that the labor could kill her.

She rubs her bump with her left hand, fondly but forlornly--she doesn’t want him to grow up without a mother, but she feels like it’s completely out of her hands. For a person who is usually so powerful, so in control of a situation, who is listened to when they speak and feared when they attack, powerlessness is draining.

and also

random starters // accepting!

     She’s curled up on the couch next to him when the words leave her lips, and he feels it like a kick to the stomach. 

     Maybe it’s the light rain, the low rumble of thunder, the way the steam from his tea rises and dissolves. Maybe it’s the muggy mid-June air enveloping them from the cracked window across the room. Maybe it’s the way her hair brushes against his arm as it rests across the back of the sofa, or the flutter of her eyelashes as she lowers her head. 

     Whatever it is, he’s warm. Unbelievably warm. And he seems to have lost all coherent thought because, try as he might, he can’t get any words out. Not that anything he’d say could properly convey his feelings– but the silence sinking in the air is almost too much. 

     His flak jacket hanging on the rack next to the front door is a reminder of the context of her statement. Tomorrow is another A-Rank for him– investigation based, probably– and Kurenai leaves for a recon with her team in the next few days. They never talk about the subject because, hell, if you’re dumb enough to want something like consistency as a Shinobi….

     Fingers twitch for a smoke, but he ignores the itch and runs a hand through her hair instead, dips his head low, and his presses his lips to her temple. Maybe if he holds her tighter, time will slow down. 

the risk of what? loving someone who could die? giving your heart away to someone who will protect it with their life, but then if they die, you never get it back? does kurenai ever visit her heart, buried under the dirt where asuma's hands used to be?

and how did she end up here, having run out of a restaurant after enduring a mortifying scene which far too many people had seen, near tears out of pure frustration, hyperventilating against the sdie of a building? and how had kurenai just happened to find her? how did she decide to take a walk at this exact time, at the exact pace needed to see temari like this--in a fancy dress she didn't know how to wear, with her head between her knees, and her lack of ability to breathe spelled out over every inch of her skin?

(lately, she’s been demanding to know how a lot of things are possible.)

she looks up at the other as she speaks, desperately trying to cloak the vulnerable emotions in her eyes with glittering distrust. kurenai's a sensor, maybe if she makes something else interesting enough, she won't see what she's trying to hide. but words fail her, and she does nothing but stare, open and weak.

"what if he dies?"