❛... how long have you been standing there? ❜
a meme of which i forgot the source but im inspired now ig @murasakiirohana
yoshino doesn't answer.
the sky has changed colors outside her window. it's now closer to the dark purple of night. she hasn't really noticed, her eyes frozen on the small altar she, shikamaru and ino had put together for the wake.
it ended a few hours ago, probably. she noticed the background noise of voices coming from the other room thinning out, little by little. the last one to go had been a gruff, low, steady sound – chouza's voice.
but yoshino hadn't moved. after spending most of the "private" – nothing was private anymore once you were one of konoha's heroes – gathering, away from the crowds and from the elders, she had snuck back in and stood there, fixated on the pictures of both her husband and her best friend that she had lost in what she could only describe as a flash.
so yoshino doesn't answer, because she doesn't know how long she's been here. she just knows she cannot look away, because looking away means putting an end to the last bit of remembrance the village will offer to two of the most important people in her life. because looking away means moving past the ceremonies, past the officiality of death, past the smokescreen that it provided her to avoid the harsh truth of it all.
her bed will be empty tonight.