Butterfly Knot
Postlude
Kimi No Vanilla
A 'butterfly
knot' - chou-musubi - is what the Japanese call a bow. I
suppose the
reasoning behind the name is obvious.
Years
later, they are buried together in Suna, as they would have
wanted
to be.
The Naras arrange at first to buy a bit of
land as
close to the Sabaku family's plot as they can manage, but
Gaara
insists they bury Shikamaru in his family's compound. There
is
already a place for his urn in the mausoleum. His name has
been
engraved to the left of Temari's, the opposite side of the
spot
where Kankurou's sits.
There they will stay, sharing
her
between the two of them until the inorexable desert at last
beats
down the old graveyard, and everything is reduced to sand
and dust
and patchwork memories.
The spot Gaara chose for
himself, if
he should die - if he can die - is on the shelf
below. Close
enough to watch, if not to be truly near them. Far enough
to give
them their space.
Gaara has learned this from
watching his
brother, you see: That to truly love something is to know
when to
let it go.
As a child, he wondered what it was like
to be
human.
But he has discovered somewhere along the way
that he
already knows.
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