Hoshigaki

Blind

He'd always been told to look at things from a different perspective.

To try and understand what you don't, said his father after he'd come to him with a question about being the head of a clan.

To make the best decision, chided his second year teacher after he'd gotten a hypothetical question wrong on one of his tests.

To know who's lying this time, growled Kiba as they trudged towards the destination of another one of the Third's senseless missions.

To make sure you survive, cautioned Sakura after she'd taken the executioner's blade.

All of it. It was all of those things. And yet what it took for him to finally get it was a couple fingers slick against his conjunctiva and half the world torn to red, then black.

The adrenaline and paranoia of the day before had abated in his sleep, Shino noticed as he propped himself up in the team's assigned room. They'd strung all three cots together in the corner and slept as they always did—too tired to remember their rifts and thrumming numb from mostly healed injuries.

He glanced to the left at the spot closest to the door. Sakura was gone. To the right. Akamaru nestled into a torn-up gray jacket while Kiba laid one arm on a pillow with his functioning arm thrown across his face.

It wasn't until dawn peaked over the horizon that the sheets shifted. Shino counted one thousand seven hundred twenty-two breaths since he'd woken for Kiba to groggily sit up with a stifled yawn. His fangs glinted in the dim morning light, and he was careful not to jostle his bandaged arm.

"Damn, still sore," he mumbled, swinging his head to the side. Shino was quiet and pale and his socket was unsettlingly gaping, and the last bed was empty. "Where'd she go?"

"The roof again, I imagine." Shino's voice scratched against his throat and he reached for one of the water bottles the medic left for them sometime in the night. His hand dove too far to the left and he hit the side of the bottle instead of grasping it. The hand clenched into a fist. "Why? There's little else to do but plan and wait, and the fact that she spent some hours there last night suggest that it might be a place she'll frequent until the next part of the exam begins."

"... Yeah, I guess."

Shino set his glasses on his face, the fuzziness melding together into a sharp picture. He'd gotten a stronger prescription not too long ago and the world was all that much clearer, but... now it was tilted. Half gone. It didn't matter how well he saw because it would never be whole—

He drew in a deep breath as his heart beat slowly rose. "You two should speak."

Kiba blinked and rubbed some of the crust from his eyes. "Huh?"

"You and Sakura." He turned in time to see his friend's mouth flatten. "It's obvious that your animosity was short lived. Why? If yesterday's events were an indication of anything, then this is a discussion you need to have."

Shino received as much of an answer as he was going to get when Kiba quietly slipped out of bed with a grim look of acceptance. He tugged on a pair of pants and a fishnet shirt—his back to Shino, he didn't notice his fingers itching to claw at what was left of his eye—and ambled towards the door.

"I'll... I'll find her," sighed Kiba. "Roof, right?" Casting a look over his shoulder, his brows crinkled at the sight of Shino staring at the wall ahead of him, unmoving. "Hey, you good? The medic's only—"

"I'm fine. Go find Sakura."

Kiba opened his mouth as if to protest but thought against it, his teeth clacking together when he abruptly shut his mouth. "I'll be back soon," he promised firmly. "Seriously. And if you're still not feelin' great I'll get the medic too."