She turned her fingers absentmindedly through the little tuft of beard Choji had been carefully cultivating since the last time they had met.
He sighed, tucking her closer into his side before continuing his hand's gentle caress of her shoulder.
"What are you thinking?" She heard his voice rumble through his chest where her cheek rested. It was the dry tenor she had heard cut through the battlefield several years ago. It had deepend perhaps, but still held an endearing boyish quality about it somehow.
“Have you ever watched the clouds in Kumo, Choji?”
His warm fingers moved over her back, tracing a scar before taking her hand in his free one. His eyes were still closed but she could sense the slight pause before he spoke.
“Is there something special about them?”
"I like to think so," she said, thinking of home and lacing their fingers together lazily. He took a slightly deeper breath and seemed to ease even further into the pillows beneath them. Content.
“When the conditions are just so, clouds will start to build in the lower atmosphere. You can climb to the top of the Raikage tower and watched them climb. They just keep piling up and up. Stratocumulous, Cumulus - the fluffy big ones that people picture when you think of clouds - just piling higher and higher, until you get Cumulonimbus - giant towering columns of clouds. They stretch high up into the troposphere, dense and dark....and charged."
A cute little crease briefly appeared inbetween Choji's eyebrows. "I see...what made you think of them?"
An image of a giant warrior in red flashed across Karui's mind's eye. Hundreds of feet tall, towering above the battle field, thunderous and deadly. She peeled open her eyes for a moment and watched Choji gently raise her hand to his lips. They were dry and soft and the little kisses he placed on each knuckle sent a small shock down her arm, straight to her chest.
"They tower above our village menacingly, threatening to unleash a storm. Until suddenly, they meet a different front, and dissipate into Cirrocumulus - tiny soft clouds that litter the sky like kisses".
She smiled and closed her eyes again.
#chokaruiweek25 Day (I've completely lost track now) prompt 'Head in the Clouds'.
