Spring

Asuma scratched a cheek idly as he puffed on his cigarette. The grey, toxic cloud steamed out of his mouth and disappeared into the spring air. Taking a deep breath, Asuma felt guilty for polluting the fresh environment, but his body lifted the cigarette to his mouth for another drag.

And what a drag it was. He couldn’t even enjoy the simple pleasure of life without ruining it somehow.

Asuma had no connections with spring. His physical attributes certainly weren’t described as ‘beautiful’, ‘fresh’, ‘young’, or ‘smooth’. They were more subtle, rugged, and lined with age and experience, just like autumn. His attitude would probably be more like the lazy summer heat, just puffing by with no care. And his fighting skills; Jesus, when he was mad, he fought. And he fought like a winter storm, howling up its rage.

Spring? Nothing.

But somehow he felt more at home with it than any other season.

It’s that new beginning, the feeling you get after a spring shower. It’s like the world’s a whole new place, ready for you to start painting over – except without all of the original flaws.

And flaws there were. Asuma’s relationship with the Sandaime, his father, was rocky, and that was the kindest term he could use. They didn’t exactly get along; in fact, Asuma sometimes even forgot that the Sandaime was his father. They had put too much distance between them.

Shikamaru, Chouji, and Ino. The pride of his life. Yet he suffered so much when they went through the chuunin exams, his heart beating painfully against his ribcage every time the other person managed to land a blow on them. And after, when retrieving Sasuke, Shikamaru and Chouji had gone. Asuma broke into a cold sweat just thinking about it.

They might’ve never had come back, never had returned.

And all of the other small things in life, the one that make living so important, always irked him in some way or another. A cigarette would be soggy, Gai would molest him, Sakura would taunt Ino with Sasuke, Kurenai would look at him like he was an idiot, and the coffee had gone cold…

Ah, but sweet, sweet, blissful spring.

Here, Asuma could relive again, with more experience than the last scarred, torn year, and start fresh with a clean, flawless canvas.

Flopping onto the ground, he stared up at the clouds, much like Shikamaru did, and watched the puffy, white fluff-balls drift from one end of the sky to the other.

Savouring the last few moments of that fresh, clean feeling of spring, Asuma watched the light blue spring sky darken into a hazy, truer blue sky of summer.