328 spoilers. Don't own naruto.

Smoke

She looked so frail. Too frail to be Yuhi Kurenai.

That's what Ino had told her that day when she had come over, and Kurenai had to agree. She's spent the last few days crying over that damn bastard Asuma, that courageous stupid sonuvabitch that she had loved so much. Her hair, though it had always been in a state of slightly curly organized chaos, fell limp at her sides. Lifeless, she thought. As lifeless as….

She dared not end that thought, for fear she'd open up another dam of unspent tears. She'd always been a bit serious and reserved, but her loneliness seemed to be eating her up from the inside now, an all consuming void in the pit of her stomach.

Asuma, you jerk.

Asuma, you…I loved you.

She hadn't been sure before, but now that she was gone, she knew.

I'm always too late, she thought bitterly, unknowingly borrowing her loves' last words.

She lay on the roof of her home now, letting the rain fall on her exposed skin, trying to wash away the shame and the guilt she felt. Trying to let the cold drive away the darkness, trying to let the wet drive away the pain, trying to let the steady pitter patter of rain drops on her face steady in turn her slowly beating heart.

He'd told her he loved her. Many times. She'd kind of avoided that subject when she could, enjoying his company and his stupid jokes, the musty smell of his cologne and sweat mixed with his ashy cigarette smoke. But she'd never answered.

She just hadn't been sure. He was such a good friend, and she hadn't wanted to loose that. But in trying to preserve that, she'd lost something much more precious, and now she feared that there was no way of making that right.

I love you, Yuhi Kurenai, came Asuma's ghostly voice among the whisper of the rain.

I love you, she had sobbed through her tears when she'd learned of his death. I loved you too, she whispered without tears, her own cried dry, while the heavens cried for her.

Then she smelled it. At first she thought maybe it was her grief stricken imagination, but then she was sure ; cigarette smoke.

Asuma's smoke. The musty ashen scent that covered him like a shroud; it was nearby. Asuma was nearby. He had to be.

She raised herself up and jumped from her rooftop to rooftop, searching vehemently for that smell. That smell that always signaled his approach. Oh the times she'd taken it for granted. How it lingered on her clothing even after he'd long gone. How she'd spent the last few days digging through her old clothes just to find that one shirt where his scent had stayed…and buried her self in it the way she would have buried herself in him.

And there he was. Standing, the smoke shrouding his face but his vest and stance and smell, so recognizable, she knew…it was a second chance…it had to be.

Or a mirage. Either way, she was going to grab on and never let go, and hope and pray she never woke up.

She grabbed that beautiful illusion, Asuma! She said, I love you I always did never leave me again…

Only to find a shocked Shikamaru staring down at her, the cigarette in his mouth noe lay extinguished on the wet ground.

What are you doing? They both asked at the same time.

But in a second they embraced, not out of newfound love or something as corny and unlikely as that, but as two people who had lost someone they loved, and sought comfort in his scent.

They had both felt that somehow, as long as that cigarette still burned, Asuma was still there.

They sobbed into eachother's clothes, smelling the sickly sweet ashes, and thinking of the dead.