EDIT: So I was asked by the wonderful Coco-Minu to put this up again, and I'm just too lazy to come up with a summary. So yeah, "Cycles" is a twoshot again. Please ignore the fact that this chapter is inferior to the other uu;;

Author's Note:I wrote this from Ino's perspective (first-person), and I guess it ended up being sort of a sequel. The irony is, there's about half as much writing here. Sorry it's so short, but tell me what you think all the same. (Also, there's a sort of sex scene in the bottom paragraph, but I'm sure you can handle it.) Please don't forget to review!

This is not an addiction. This is not my life. I can stop any time I want to.

Or at least, that's what I tell myself.

He doesn't need to know that I daydream at work, barely noticing the customers as they make their selections, my mind already at tonight on the couch in his living room or deep in the sheets of his bed. He doesn't need to know about the hours I spend at home, sitting, waiting, watching that stupid clock until the hands strike just the right time and release me from its gaze. He doesn't need to know that I'm not in control anymore, not the way I used to be. He doesn't need to know he's gotten to me, I want him, I need, I--

This is not an addiction.

I repeat this phrase to myself in my head every time I see his same wide, puppy dog eyes float like ghosts into my parents' store, his haunting gaze just inches from mine as he mentally screams, "I love you!" I don't move; I don't even dare to blink. I'm afraid that one of these days I might melt into that syrupy blue stare and never come up for air. Oh! That would be too wonderful for words.

At first I tried to keep him at bay, protecting him, protecting myself. The first time was a mistake; I shouldn't have run to him just because I was rejected. But I needed someone, and I knew, I knew he would be hurting just as much as I was. In a way, we were fixing each other, one hot, stifled moan at a time. I didn't tell him that the "experience" I flaunted publicly was merely a facade and he was my first. I wonder if things would have been easier if I had just told him to begin with. But things were complicated even before we even kissed.

Now, now he's nothing on the outside. But on the inside, inside of me, I can't exist without him. I can't live. I don't know if I could even call what I was doing "living" before that first night we slid onto the couch in his apartment and had sex for the very first time. How did I breathe before he covered my mouth with kisses? How did I speak before I felt his tongue in my mouth? How did I live? The answer is simple: I didn't. But I've never been a lover of simple answers.

I really should have never left that damn rose on his bed.

One red rose. It's supposed to mean "I love you," although it's cliched enough now to mean anything these days. But he knew. Always leaving one for me every day, always staring a little beyond me as he laid the stupid flower on the counter with a never-ceasing hope whispering in his eyes that one day, maybe one day... Ah, hope. What a fragile yet unwavering curse. I hate it because one day I did, I said it back.

"I love you, Naruto." I said it over and over, softly, loudly, and not once did I smile.

This is not an addiction.

It's a nightmare. It's a dream. It's life. It's death. It's sleeping and it's waking. It's everything and nothing. It's something I can stop. It's something that won't stop. It's something I won't stop.

This is not an addiction.

What if we have kids?

Sometimes I'm so scared of this I can't sleep at night. Not that I get much sleep to begin with, because normally I leave as early as possible from his place. But still. I used to think I would be so careful when I was younger, I promised my parents and I promised myself that this, exactly what's happened, would never come to be. Then again, I had everything figured out back then, didn't I? Oh, to be a child again.

But what if we have kids?

He never wore a condom. Not even the very first time because after the first one broke I, me, I decided to go on without it. But of course I take the pill like it's a damn religion because right now it's the only one I have. And yet... doesn't everyone slack a little on their religion once and a while? I know I don't know what to believe anymore, especially not after all this. Especially not after him.

Damnit, what if we have kids?

Can I be trusted to raise children? Would I make a good mother? Would he even be a good father? Would he leave me lying there without anyone to turn to, just like the one before him? Could I live without him? Could I live with him? Could he live with me? Could we trust each other? Could we get through just one day? What if we had to start a life together?

...would that really be so bad?

This is not an addiction.

Ironically it's more complicated than that. It's more like an obsession, several obsessions woven together and bonded tightly by delicate threads of fate. If I had never loved that man, if he had turned and come right back to my side instead of leaving me forsaken in the dust, if she had only kept the interest of the one I love now for a little longer, if I could have found comfort in the arms of someone else, if I had he had never decided to come after me, if I had never given in to his puppy dog eyes full of hope and his sighs full of love, if we had never met...

You know what? I'm sick of all these damn "ifs."

This is not an addiction.

Even when he opens the door and the first thing I do, without a word, right after I slip off my shoes, is to slip my tongue between his lips. Even when his mouth opens wider and I can't tell whose breath is in my lungs, his or mine. Even when the clothes are torn off-- tornoff, because I can get so messy and eager sometimes-- and his tongue is rolling down my jaw, my neck, and along my collarbone. Even when his mouth reaches one of my breasts, and my hand catches in his golden blonde hair and I moan out loud when he bites down hard. Even when his hand snakes down my hip, reaching the juncture of my thighs, and his fingers brush the moistness that already begins to run down my legs. Even when I push him back onto the bed, the couch, a table, whatever happens to be in the way as I lick every available sweat-coated crevice and his breath catches in the back of his throat. Even when he places me gently underneath him and pushes my knees apart and always, always gives me that last, uncertain gaze of concern as if he's asking for permission and apologizing all at once. Even when I close my eyes because the feeling is too much, he's too loud, he's too warm, he's inside of me and it feels so damn good that I cry out his name with abandon into the night. Even when I can feel us become an "I" and not a "we" and the lights go out even though it's already dark, and there are too many colors to name, and I float back down to a hot, sticky Earth without knowing which way is "up." Even when, barely able to move, he takes me in his arms and presses his nose to the back of my neck and breathes in my scent, holding me tightly as if I would slip away at any moment. Even when I do, always before he awakes, and the sunlight caresses his face and I smile softly. Even when I'm there the next night, caught up in the same passionate embrace as the last. Even when I say, "I love you" for the first time, out loud, no flowers attached, and he actually cries and I cry because he's crying, and there's no end to the tears in sight because we're both so damn happy.

Every night, every day, every breath, every thought, every moment we are together, even then I tell myself: This is not my life. I can stop any time I want to. This is not an addiction.

But I sure as hell wish it was.