Chapter Text

prologue

The autumn weather had been so pleasantly crisp that morning. Tsunade was taking tea alone outside in one of the decorative gardens near the Hokage Tower when her Anbu captain materialized directly in front of her, leaned in, and informed her that Uchiha Sasuke stood several inches from the border of Fire Country. Tsunade confirmed the name, and there was a brief pause during which Tsunade shut her eyes. Then she leapt up.

It was the northern border with Whirlpool where the air was rich with pine and a calm stream demarcated the land. And it was true. On the final plank of a little, red bridge, his pale face flushed under the sun, there was Sasuke.

Whatever else she may have thought was overridden by diplomatic sense: capture the criminal, cuff him, and put him into underground confinement before his chakra was detected by those closest to him. She interrogated him on the same day. Then she sent Shikamaru, and waited.

Deep in the musty halls of the prison, Shikamaru was last of a line of Anbu guards to exit the final security checkpoint. Flickering firelight gouged the lines deeper under his eyes, though his expression, as always, was carefully neutral.

Tsunade said, “Do I need to go in there again?”

“I don’t think so,” said Shikamaru.

“So he disgorged to you everything I need to know to avoid an execution?”

Distantly, another door closed: the Anbu guards leaving. The torches crackled with fire.

“He didn’t really say much,” said Shikamaru.

“I see.”

“He said he wants to come back.”

“And?”

“He said—”

“Oh, no,” Tsunade said with a breath of amusement. “He got to you.”

Shikamaru lowered his gaze. “It’s just a suggestion, but if you really want something else out of him, perhaps Ibiki-sensei is worth a shot.”

“I sent you in there because the information I want won’t come through anyone else. Now, you’re not a cherry-cheeked genin straight from the academy. I expected it would be you to make Sasuke swoon, or at the very least his patience would come up short against yours. But this is so unlike you. What on earth did he tell you?”

Shikamaru bore the scolding professionally. With a straightening of his shoulders, he seemed to recover from whatever sentiment had possessed him. “He said there was no particular reason for coming back when he did, but that he was getting hungry, and tired of walking, and he heard someone speaking with a Konoha accent, and since the border was so close, he just… decided it was time.”

“That’s what persuaded you.”

“There were other things.” Under the influence of a bewildered stare, Shikamaru continued. “It’s hard to explain.”

Tsunade passed a hand over her forehead. For a few moments, she stood motionless, staring at the stone walls.

Shikamaru said, “He was calm, but…”

“Fidgety?”

“I was going to say honest.”

“No,” said Tsunade, with force. “What you saw was a well-rehearsed piece of exquisite acting.”

“I’m not sure. But there were times when I saw his eyes clear, like he had suddenly became aware of his surroundings, and then he just shut down completely. I’ve never known him to do that. I feel like he might not know what he’s doing either, or he’s made a tough choice he doesn’t know if he can follow through with.”

Tsunade stared at Shikamaru, at his smooth face as yet unmarred by age or experience. She had known there would be a danger in doing this with someone so young. “What were you talking about?”

“At the time I’m thinking of?” Shikamaru looked away. “Naruto.”

“And who brought up Naruto?”

“I did,” said Shikamaru, steadily.

“I see.”

“I told him how Naruto was and what he was doing. He asked where Naruto was. I told him he was out on a mission somewhere.”

“And that’s what caused him to wallow in thought?” Tsunade laughed. “It was an act! Do you really think he didn’t plan this whole thing out? Sasuke is no fool. It doesn’t take much to clasp your hands together, stare into space, and spear half a dozen of the most carefully chosen words at the heart.”

“I guess I just got a different impression of him.”

“You guess.”

“I just…” Shikarmaru frowned.

“I avoided mentioning you-know-who with the blonde hair and blue eyes on purpose. I wanted to see if he would broach the topic first. He didn’t. And I could see him getting irritated when he realised none of his needling little tricks were going to work. Makes you wonder if his act hinged on a name that’s so often associated with benevolence.”

Shikamaru stared at the ground in silence.

“Come on.” Tsunade’s shoes clacked out a staccato rhythm on the stone. “We’ve used up more time on this than I have to use. The council needs an answer. Well, I need to tell the council first, and then I need to give them an answer.”

Exiting the facility, the sun blazed high in the full blue sky. Closing the door, Tsunade crouched and flicked her fingers through signs. A slippery black seal burst across the metal like barbed spider legs, the force of it sending birds screeching from the trees as her robe billowed out behind her.

“What if he’s telling the truth?” said Shikamaru.

Tsunade stood. “He may well have been hungry, and tired, and overheard a Konoha accent. But it’s only one tiny sliver of the real truth he keeps locked behind his pearly-white teeth.”

“Taka checks out.”

“Of course Taka checks out. Taka at the very least needed to check out.”

“I think,” said Shikamaru, carefully, “he’s telling the truth.”

Tsunade regarded Shikamaru for a long moment. The wind turned his ponytail to feathers, his head politely bowed. “The only thing stopping Uchiha Sasuke’s return from blowing up into an S-rank ordeal is his mouth and he knows it. I want to believe him too. But he’s not talking to us. He’s talking to the people we can talk to.”

“He did come back on his own,” said Shikamaru. “Voluntarily.”

“There were Anbu guards all along the border. He just had the spine to put a foot back into Fire Country.”

“As peacefully as anyone could ask. Unarmed. He didn’t resist.”

Tsunade's sigh contained the full weight of her position. “There’s something else. I know there is. And I need to get it out of him, but I don’t know how.”

“He was never one to trust authority.”

“There are other means.”

Tsunade saw the slight shift in Shikamaru’s expression. Not anywhere near as much as others, as was his reticent nature, but enough for her to read his alarm.

Tsuande said, “It’s not as simple as walking back into a country you have threatened to destroy and just… carrying on with life.”

“Do you mind if I ask what you plan to do?”

“Call Naruto back from his mission, first of all. Then I’m going to spend the rest of the morning locked up in the Hokage Tower, and when I’ve sobered up,” said Tsunade, “I’m going to talk to him. One last time. And then I’m going to have to bend the law so that I don’t have two deaths on my hands. Or more.”

Shikamaru closed his eyes in relief. Tsunade flinched at a prick to her chest the likes of which she had not felt with Sasuke. So that was what Shikamaru feared, though she held back from trusting his reaction. He was still green, and hardly impartial, and only minutes distanced him from everything he had heard and seen. She distrusted her own reaction to Shikamaru, too, which had come to her through Sasuke.

“Damn that Uchiha spawn,” she muttered. Shikamaru looked at her quizzically.

They began along the path back to Konoha, freckled by moving shapes of sunshine and shadow. Above, the tree leaves hissed. Tsunade looked up at a wall of dark clouds laden with rain, just starting to push in from the east.

“I mean no disrespect saying this,” said Shikamaru, “but I think you’ve made the right decision.”

“I haven’t made any decision yet.”

Shikamaru nodded, walking quietly at her side.

“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we,” said Tsunade, “because this could be my legacy.”

Main Characters:

Minor Characters:

(images may be down when I need to update the image host)

Naruto icon – goosygirl_icons @ LJ
Sasuke icon – sometime_usagi @ LJ
Sakura icon – xiicons @ LJ
Sai icon – tenicons @ LJ
Tsunade icon – lunargullicons @ LJ
Kakashi icon – stacylilly @ LJ

Chapter Text

one

One Day

Naruto burst into the Hokage office, clad in the dark and dripping raingear of a travelling ninja. Sakura’s presence he found an oddity, but he ignited the attention of everyone in the room by hollering, “Is Iruka-sensei okay? No one ever gets recalled to hear good news.”

Tsunade said, “Sasuke came back.”

Naruto stopped. The lash of the rain faded, and his breaths halved, and his heart started to pound, and his mind blanked as profoundly as a blackout erases light.

Tsunade smoothed a sheet of paper against her desk. She pursed her lips as though unsure how to phrase her next words. “He needs someone to take care of him. I have a mission statement here. Stamp your fingerprints if you wish to accept and we can start going through the details.”

“Sasuke came back?” said Naruto.

“Yes. He did.”

It was hard to hear Tsunade’s answer. He felt Sakura grasp his hand.

“He showed up a few hours ago, alone, looking a bit distressed but otherwise well.” Tsunade ran her eyes over the document. “He separated with his Taka teammates on friendly terms. They went to Sound while Sasuke came here, where he has been confined, and will continue to be until I deem fit.” Tsunade looked up. “So,” she said. “What will it be?”

“What do you mean he came back?” said Naruto.

“He came back.” Tsunade turned her palm open. “He’s here.”

“In Konoha?”

“Yes.”

“In Konoha.”

Tsunade smiled. “I was so sure you’d be bouncing off the walls. Aren’t you happy?”

“—We are!” Sakura caught herself. Her next words were softer. “It’s so great that he’s back. It’s just—” A look came over her face.

We’re too guarded from past disappointments, thought Naruto. “Why did he come back?”

“That,” said Tsunade, “he was rather tight-lipped about.”

“You didn’t ask him?”

“That’s not what I said. It would’ve been easier to pluck a star out of the sky than get an answer out of him. I had to interrogate him. Twice. An experience I hope never to repeat. But I did manage to get enough out of him.”

Enough for what? But Tsunade drew their attention to the mission statement with the tap of her finger.

“So? If you want him, you can have him. You can go ask him yourself if you want.”

Sasuke was back. Each time Naruto thought it, tingles flooded his body. He felt Sakura staring. His throat was hot.

“Of course—” said Sakura. “Of course we’ll take care of him.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Tsunade pushed forward a cushion of ink. “Fingerprints, please.”

Sakura stepped forward. She touched the ink, and her fingertips came away stained a thick red like the color of blood. “There’s no mission rating.”

“That’s correct. This mission is unlisted,” said Tsunade. Sakura pressed her fingers to the paper as Naruto reached for the ink. “You will report directly to me. I’ll have a few Anbu watching over him as well but you’ll be largely responsible for bringing about a successful conclusion by yourselves. Try not to let your neighbours find out they’re living next door to an international criminal. It’s bad for housing value.”

“Neighbors?” said Naruto.

“Yes. You’ll be living with him for the duration of his recovery. I found an apartment not far from the main downtown area. He’s under house arrest, and one of you must be there at all times, but apart from that, you’re free to come and go as you please.”

Naruto looked sharply at Sakura. “We’re living with him.”

“Yeah…” said Sakura.

When Naruto finished, Tsunade studied the marks. She took the paper, waved it in the air to dry it, and snapped closed the lid of the ink cushion. “I thought it a little impertinent to offer compensation should the mission end successfully, but the village will at least pay all your expenses until that time. Food, electricity, whatever else you need. Don’t go overboard, though. And don’t break anything you aren’t willing to fix.”

“What will happen,” said Sakura, “if we… if the mission fails?”

Tsunade took in their faces in turn. Her hard stare and pinched lips, the deliberate rise and fall of a single breath, brought Naruto’s pulse to a crescendo.

“Sasuke,” said Tsunade, “has made some very bad choices in life that have caused him to do some very bad things. He is simultaneously wanted and unwanted everywhere. You two are the only reason he’s alive right now, and even then it’s only because his death would have gained little and lost too much. My first priority is to the village. I am not doing you a favor. Do you understand?”

Naruto nodded, though he couldn’t fathom it. In another timeline, he might have prostrated himself on the floor in front of Tsunade, fought and begged and bargained for Sasuke’s life, and still lost. A future without Sasuke while he remained. But Tsunade had made it easy.

“I need to talk to Sai now,” said Tsunade. “Then I’ll send a jounin to show you to your new apartment.”

Then that was it.

And Sasuke was home.

Sasuke was home and it was effortless.

You came back.

Naruto remembered only glimpses of the walk to the apartment. Leaving the Hokage tower, it felt like the whole village had morphed into a different shape. He had caught flashes of a few things, a few seconds when the thoughts in his head outgrew their confines and he had to return to the present. He remembered looking at the brown ponytail of the jounin in front of him, swinging like a metronome, and realising, You’re not carrying a weapon.

“Nearly there.” The jounin pointed. “See that gray building? That’s where we’re going.”

The path was framed by the short, stone walls of surrounding houses. A few scrawny trees cast out spindly branches that were reflected in puddles. And beyond that, less than a hundred steps away, was their apartment.

The apartment was six floors of concrete. There was evidence of modernity that his old apartment lacked: here, the roof slats were whole and came to an orderly finish at the edges. Hallways roped around the outside of the building, though years of rain had stained the area dark under the glass windows.

“How many rooms are there?” said Sai.

“Four,” said the jounin.

“Amenities?”

“One bathroom. No laundry facilities. You’ll have to use the communal laundry on the ground floor.”

“Sounds like a jail.”

“Sai,” Naruto hissed. Had Sakura not been between them, he may have compromised Sai’s shoulder with a set of knuckles. “How would you even know?”

“I grew up in a jail.”

“It’s a regular family apartment,” the jounin clarified. “It’s cozy. You’re on the third floor. Faces the coast so you should get a nice breeze. You’ll see.”

The jounin bounded up a short flight of stone steps leading to the entrance. To one side was a small pagoda where a congregation of elderly gentlemen sat, watching their approach. One man tapped the top of his walking stick and leant over to the rest, his mouth moving.

Try not to let your neighbours find out they’re living next door to an international criminal, while a uniformed jounin escorted three prime, solid, anxious-looking youths into the heavy air of the stairwell. Naruto put a hand to the banister’s flaking paint, and ascended.

It was a short walk from the third floor landing, along a corridor, to a nondescript, grey steel door. Reaching into her vest pocket, the jounin retrieved a key and fit it into the lock.

“This is it,” said the jounin. Heartbeats flooded Naruto’s ears. “Welcome home.”

In some fantasy world created of Naruto’s imagination, air crammed inside his lungs as the door opened, and Sasuke was on the other side, and he was tired but alive, and warm, and whole, and real, and there, and he smiled, the kind of smile Naruto had seldom seen but which never failed to bask the world around them in silence.

The jounin held the door open. There was no Sasuke. Instead there were the tiled cream walls of the kitchen and another jounin leaning against the speckled countertop.

“Howdy,” said the other jounin. “Excuse the intrusion.”

Naruto stepped inside. He scanned the vicinity. His first impression was that it fit a lot for its size: the kitchen flowed into a living room, and between the two was a sturdy wooden table heaped with grocery bags. The apartment was light and clean and the air smelt like fresh wallpaper and musty wood. Sasuke was nowhere to be seen.

The jounin gave the key to Sakura and pointed down the hallway.

“Uchiha Sasuke-san’s room,” she said, “is that one. At the end on the right.”

The hallway was dark. All the doors were closed. Naruto experienced a moment of surreal understanding. It had been a long time since he and Sasuke had been this close in peaceful settings, and though he heard it, still it didn’t feel real: that at any moment he liked, he might open Sasuke’s door, and Sasuke would be there.

The two jounin imparted farewells. The door closed. The mission started. And they were alone.

“So,” said Sakura. “What’s the plan?”

They decided on rooms. Naruto walked to the end of the hallway and turned left.

It was a blown-up version of the miniature bedrooms in dollhouses that very young boys and girls played with: a bed bathed in a sunny yellow duvet, a desk in front of the window, which was curtained by white lace, and a wardrobe more than spacious enough to contain the few clothes he owned.

Naruto dropped his bag on the floor and lay on the bed. He took a deep breath of cool afternoon air, new sheets, and second-hand furniture. Tiny footsteps thudded above, chased by a parent’s muffled scolding. Naruto tapped on the wall: it sounded hollow, like plaster.

Like a magnet, his gaze fell on the door across the hall. Every tiny sound made his chest spasm. It had remained shut during the fuss, but it had the potential to open at any moment.

Naruto banged on the wall. “I can hear you masturbating, Sai. God, what are you, a dog marking your territory? Show some restraint. You neighbour a gentleman!”

”Dogs urinate to mark territory,” said Sai, standing at the door. Naruto jolted. “Also, TV.”

“TV what?”

“We don’t have one and Sakura said you do. Can you bring it over later?”

“Sure, I can do that.” Naruto complemented his tone with a withering look. “I’ll balance it on my third hand while the first two are busy carting over every single possession I own.”

“Thanks. By the way, have you…” Sai motioned over his shoulder.

“Not yet.”

“I thought you’d be all over him.”

“Keep your voice down,” Naruto hissed. “I just want to give him some time, okay?”

“I’m going to go say hi.” Sai pushed off from the doorframe.

Naruto launched from the bed like an arrow shot from a bow. He yanked Sai by the collar, swung him around, and stuffed him back into the bedroom, slamming the door closed.

“What’s wrong with you? You can’t just go and say hi to him.”

Sai wore a perplexed expression, rubbing his neck. “But that’s good manners. He’s a stranger to me. We live together now.”

“I grew up with him. Trust me. I know him and he definitely won’t want anyone going and saying hi to him.”

It pleased Naruto to see Sai digest the information seriously. It was a moment before Sai spoke again. “I’m going to go ask Sakura what she thinks.”

“Bet you she’ll say the same thing,” Naruto called to Sai’s departing back.

It was later in the night when the irresistible aroma of frying pork drew Naruto from his room. Sakura had tied an apron neatly around her waist. At such a display of domesticity—from anyone—Naruto found his voice suddenly vacated.

Sakura spun at the sound of footsteps. Her expression changed, and she gave Naruto a sheepish smile.

“I wanted to make a special meal on our first night,” Sakura explained.

“It looks good.” Naruto stared over her shoulder at the sizzling meat alongside onion, mushrooms, and pumpkin. A little noise made him twist around, but it was just Sai. Naruto said, quietly, “Do you really think he’s here?”

“Yes. I really think he’s here.” Sakura spoke with steady confidence. “Just give him some time. He might not be hungry. Or maybe he wants to come out later.” Sakura laughed. “Maybe he’s just as nervous as we are. That’s kind of cute when you think about it, isn’t it?”

Naruto scoffed. He fussed with cutlery, arranging four sets on the table.

The table was laid out with shallow dishes of fresh and cooked vegetables surrounding a large plate of bite-sized slices of meat. Hot out of the frypan, the pork pieces were crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. Bundling it up with rice and salty miso paste in a sesame leaf and inhaling it through his mouth became, for the span of minutes, the peak drive of Naruto’s appetite.

Sai said, “Do you want me to go get him?”

Naruto felt Sakura’s attention settle on him like a too cool draught. She didn’t speak.

“Just leave him,” said Naruto. “He’ll come out if he’s hungry. And if he doesn’t, it just means there’s more for me.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” said Naruto. “We’re not children anymore. We don’t throw tantrums just because we don’t get what we want.”

“I could really just go and get him,” said Sai, “if you’re too scared or something.”

“Don’t.”

“Or even just check if he’s still here.”

Sai was all of a hundred and twenty pounds, and he was distracted, and one of his hands was occupied with chopsticks. Naruto felt the muscles in his back clench and bunch. Sakura shifted in her chair.

Sai said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if this was just a genjutsu and he was never here at all.”

Sakura put her hand on Naruto’s arm and applied pressure. “It actually wouldn’t be very funny. Please don’t say things like that.”

Sai considered Sakura’s advice. “I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

“I know.”

“I want to get to know him,” said Sai. “You talked about him so much, I kind of feel like I do know him.”

“We’re all eager to see him,” said Sakura, gently. “Maybe it won’t be today. But we’ll see him eventually. He can’t stay in his room forever.”

Sakura’s grip lightened, and Naruto, who stood, squashed another stick of cucumber in his mouth, thanked Sakura for the food, and announced his intentions to bathe. He wanted to throw the blame for what he felt on Sai, but Naruto knew if he couldn’t take quips like this now, he would never be able to do so in the future. Aggravating though he was, from Sai, it came from a kind heart.

Naruto sat on the ground in the shower cubicle, head bowed, as the rose blasted hot water over his neck and shoulders.

Two Days

Sakura, while tiptoeing into Naruto’s room the next morning, closed the door as softly as she could and turned on Naruto with eyes as bright as emeralds. “I think Sasuke-kun came out of his room last night.”

Naruto flung his comic book down and sat up in bed. “How do you know?”

“The food I left in the fridge is gone.”

Naruto relaxed and propped his comic book back up. “Oh, that. I ate that.”

“What? But it had his name on it!”

“Yeah. But it was five in the morning and I was bored and hungry.”

Sakura let out a long sigh. “Well, it’s gone now. No use harping at you about it. Why don’t you hurry up and bring your TV over if you’re so bored?”

“I’ll get it later.”

“Good. Because in the meantime, can we talk about what we’re going to do?”

The question hit Naruto in the chest like a punch meant to disorientate. He stared at the comic book, which he not been following attentively. He searched the panels.

“I’m going to make breakfast,” said Sakura. “Could you take it to him?”

“How about I make him breakfast,” said Naruto, “and you take it to him?”

Sakura didn’t answer. Naruto didn’t look at her.

“It’s not like you to avoid him,” she said.

Naruto gave a funny smile. “I’m avoiding him, am I?”

Sakura stared out the window. “It’s not right. He’s not moving at all. It’s weird. Surely he has to go to the bathroom. How come we’ve never heard him?” Sakura paused. She was not forthcoming with her next words, and even when she did speak, it was prefaced by a short burst of incredulous laughter. “What if it really is a genjutsu?”

“He must have loads of chakra now to make it last this long.”

“Can you please just go in there and check on him?”

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

The silence stretched out. Naruto heard the shuffle of clothes as Sakura crossed her arms and then her tired, fretted exhalation. Just as she was about to speak again, Naruto threw back the covers and jumped out of bed, his face a soldier’s mask, opened the door, and went to Sasuke’s room.

Except he didn’t, and the front door clicked closed instead.

Naruto reached around the back of the television, feeling for the sockets. He plugged the cords in.

“Still nothing,” said Sai. Naruto pulled the cords out and tried again. “We’ve got a picture now, but it’s all in black and white.”

“It’s a black and white TV.” Naruto came around the front and fiddled with the knobs. The television hissed with static between channels. Settling on a daytime drama, Naruto stood back and put his hands on his hips. “Don’t have to worry about cabin fever now!”

“What’s that?”

“It’s—” Under Sai’s curious gaze, Naruto experienced a total blockage of thought. Sai waited, his expression perfectly serene. Naruto blurted out, “So did Sasuke say anything?”

“No. I just put the tray on his desk and left.”

“But he was there?”

“Yes. He was there.”

Relief saturated his body like sunlight on the first warm day in spring. “You didn’t annoy him, did you? If he runs off again because of your pestering, believe me, you will face the fox and it’ll tear your stupid face off.”

“I only said what you told me to say. I brought you some food. Do I pester and annoy people?”

“No,” said Naruto, and it came out sounding more honest than he was expecting.

Three Days

On the third evening, on the way to his room after showering, Naruto tiptoed down the hall and stopped outside Sasuke’s room. The door was a warm orange wood with dark whorls and a silver knob. He stared, and held his breath, and leaned in, and listened.

Nothing.

He could be reading, though there was no light under the door, or sleeping, though he heard none of the usual sounds associated with sleep.

It’s been three days. He must come out sometimes. And with an odd echo of worry, How come we’ve never heard him?

Just go in there— to a swift, choking gasp of his heart.

What’s he gonna do? Run away again?

And if he did.

An inconsistency existed between what Naruto imagined and what reality delivered. In his imagination, he had entertained himself with all kinds of idealistic things Team 7 would do once reunited and peaceful and happy. They’d sit around and reminisce about the good days or plot cheeky ways to get under Kakashi’s mask or whinge at each other over some trivial thing that didn’t really matter. He’d talk to Sasuke and Sasuke would ignore him for only so long and everything fall back into place, into what he knew, back into something they once were.

In that moment, staring at the lines of the wood and the gloss of the varnish, Naruto realised that while he had countless elaborate schemes to get Sasuke back, he had never thought to seriously plan what he would do when Sasuke actually came home.

How long until I get to see you again?—

A noise made him jump. Sakura opened her door. She motioned him closer with a vigorous flap of her fingers.

”What are you doing?” she whispered harshly, drawing Naruto into her room and closing the door.

“Talking to you naked in a towel, if that’s what you’re into.”

“I meant—” Exasperated, she gestured at the wall.

“Just checking for signs of life.”

“Did you go in there?” asked Sakura. Naruto shook his head. “You should go in there.”

“No.”

“Why not?” Sakura drew out the final vowel.

“Because,” said Naruto. He wandered over to Sakura’s window. A vertical drop plunged his gaze through the steel security bars into a decorative border of evergreen trees and shrubs, a row of old bicycles of various sizes, and two children feeding a stray cat. “I don’t want to piss him off. Have you heard of that thing that’s like, when you first go to a new place, everything’s all cool and interesting. Then you stay for a while and it’s not as great as you thought, and you hike it on the next road out of there?”

“Pretty sure Sasuke-kun already knows what you’re like.”

Naruto looked back. “What am I like?”

“Charming,” said Sakura. “Look, this isn’t working. We can’t just do nothing. If he won’t come out and see us, we’ll just have to go in and see him.”

“Lead the way.”

“You’re his best friend,” said Sakura. “But anyone looking at us would think it was Sai. Don’t you miss him?” There was silence. Naruto returned Sakura’s stare steadily. “He’s not going to run away. I don’t think he cares that much. He came back of his own free will, remember?”

“Yeah, he probably doesn’t care, hey.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Sakura set her jaw. “If I had known you would be so stubborn about this…”

Sakura approached, and Naruto watched a gentle hand reach out and grasp the hem of his towel. He swooped onto the fragile knot that held it to his hips. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you some motivation.”

An unexpected blush inflamed Naruto’s cheeks. “What kind of motivation?”

“The sooner you get out of here, the sooner you get in there. I’ll grill some fish. You get dressed.”

Sakura, alarmingly, gave the towel an experimental tug, and Naruto jittered like he had stood on hot coals. Her second tug was markedly more forceful.

Naruto hollered, “Do you think I’m joking? I’m really not wearing anything underneath!”

“Then get out!” cried Sakura.

And Naruto did. In the gap before his door closed, he heard Sakura’s final threat. “And just so you know, I can pick a lock.”

There were fifteen—fourteen—definitely fifteen sesame seeds floating on the surface of Sasuke’s soup. Naruto counted them, thought about how delicious the fish next to it looked and how fluffy the rice had turned out. He didn’t like barley tea but maybe Sasuke did. As long as he concentrated on the meal just long enough to distract him, he had the strength and the blindness to open the door.

The room was dark and smelt of stale air. Sasuke was lying on his bed, surrounded by a nest of dishevelled sheets. He faced the window, whose curtains, also dark in colour, were drawn.

“Hey,” said Naruto. “Food’s here.”

Don’t get up—

How can you just return so suddenly?

I will give you the kick in the face you deserve if you get up.

“Just so you know, we’re all in bed by midnight. Don’t hold that shit in. Not good for your bowels.”

And exited. Naruto didn’t even hate that those were the first words he’d spoken to Sasuke in peaceful settings since their time as genin.

The realisation wasn’t nice, that Sasuke had changed and they were the ones who had to adjust. After five years of broken promises and bitter detachment and all things unspoken, Sasuke just wasn’t the same. They wanted to remember Sasuke as he had been before he had run away, often broody, sometimes smiling, always there with them. What they got—was silence.

Arguments had once patch-filled the gaps well enough to hold them together. Somehow in the all too short a time their team had been complete, they hadn’t learned how to be comfortable together in silence. Naruto would hit on Sakura, Sakura would fangirl over Sasuke, and Sasuke didn’t say much but when he did, he was mean. Naruto would announce his dreams to become Hokage all the time, Sakura would squeal cheers for their successes, and Sasuke would grunt as he carved holes through enemies. Through friends.

In silence, they were lost. Sasuke was back and he wasn’t the same.

One Week

Sai handed in the first of the weekly reports. There had been no change in Sasuke’s condition.

When Naruto had first moved in—when he started living with other people for the first time—sometimes his predictions came true and sometimes good things just happened. He had predicted it would take just one person to turn the apartment messy. Neither Sakura nor Sai had said anything to him yet but Naruto noticed the long stares given to the growing patches of dirtiness and he wasn’t going to be the first to suggest a cleaning roster.

On the first night and every night since, Naruto could surround himself in the company of people who had not been there to share a meal with him when he was young. Dinnertime was real. It felt the way coming home was supposed to feel, standing beside Sakura who gave him playful glares whenever he tried to tell her the right way to cook ramen, chopping vegetables and splashing hot liquid onto his hands when he didn’t add them to the broth carefully enough, and sitting down with two other living, breathing human beings and burning his tongue on noodles he was too impatient to blow on.

Sakura took Sasuke’s food to him this time. She wasn’t going to be left behind.

“You know,” said Sakura, “I feel kind of weird saying this, but Sasuke-kun’s gotten so hot!”

Naruto coughed his noodles back up and then ate them again. Sakura laughed at the curious-then-disgusted face Sai made watching one of the many unpleasant scenes she’d grown up with.

“It’s probably not appropriate to say but whatever. I kind of can’t wait until he’s better, you know? So I can go out with him and watch all the other girls gawk. Be so funny!”

After peeling off the paperback romance, Naruto noticed she talked about Sasuke getting better like it was a given. People got sick and then they got better. “These noodles taste really good.”

“Naruto, come on. Our situation’s not going to be changing any time soon, you know. I want—I need to talk about this. With you guys.”

Naruto didn’t like her unguarded affectation and the small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Her words were going to cut.

“You can still like Sasuke-kun even if you think he did the wrong thing.”

Naruto stared back at Sai when Sakura reached out and held his hand, daring him to remark on it. Sai said nothing, offered no distraction, kept eating and Naruto sighed when he was forced to fill the silence. “I want to punch him in the mouth, just like back at the Valley of the End. And he still didn’t get it. You should have seen his eyes boggle!”

“Don’t,” she warned and Naruto scoffed and said he was only joking. “If he wants to leave, he’ll leave whether we or a hundred other ANBU are here or not.”

“Yeah, I know…”

But he didn’t really and nor did Sakura, not completely. They didn’t really know what it would mean for them if Sasuke ran away, again, because neither of them wanted to think about it. So they didn’t, didn’t think about failing again where they should have succeeded.

Sakura asked him too quietly—“Are you sad?”—and Naruto said he would rather have Sasuke with them and miserable than missing like before—that part he knew. Sakura still stared at him with those faraway eyes.

“I haven’t cried yet either,” she said. Naruto’s jaw tensed hearing the words. “Let’s cut up a bag of onions tomorrow and bawl ourselves a flood, hey?”

“I’ve heard it’s more effective if you breathe through your nose,” Sai offered helpfully.

Sakura thanked him for the advice. Naruto might have cracked the start of a real smile.

One Week, Four Days

Naruto couldn’t always heighten his senses to the broad space inside their apartment but it was true that some nights he woke to footsteps that led to and from Sasuke’s room. Naruto couldn’t sleep until he heard the feet return and the sweat crawled all over his neck when he thought the interval was too long.

Sakura was able to think once the initial rush of anxiety had settled. She didn’t ignore Sasuke’s refusal to move but she could clear her head just enough to allow the sensible thoughts to rise—the ones that let her plan what they were supposed to do. Separated as they were, Sasuke would not heal. She pulled Naruto into her room unwillingly but—that he had allowed her to lead him at all was a good sign. She sat on the ground cross-legged and tried to look cute with pillows heaped into a cotton hug.

“Sasuke-kun’s going to be okay, you know,” she said, and then decided to try a different tactic when Naruto looked at her sceptically. “I mean, don’t go hauling this around all by yourself—hey I’ve seen you these past couple of days and you look like a bunshin.”

“What are you saying about my bunshin?”

“You’ve got to remember that Sasuke-kun’s back, oh my god, he’s back. Okay? We already did our mental torture thing when he left and we didn’t know where he was or what he was doing.”

“But we still don’t know what he did.” Naruto was sitting on her bed, using her small desk fan to blow his hair in all manner of distracting directions around his face. “All he did was get more stamina and chakra and grow too tall and never cut his hair and change his clothes a hundred times—and each one of them sucked too.”

“Naruto.”

“What?”

“We do know some things.” Sakura tried to catch Naruto’s evasive gaze. “We know that hurting and having him back is so much better than hurting and not having him back. No listen, Naruto,” holding his attention with a smile. “Sasuke-kun’s not missing anymore. We know where he is—he’s down the hall and in his bedroom. And that’s a really good thing.”

But Naruto still looked unsure. It was hard to convince him when she didn’t quite believe her own words.

I know. Really good was when we first found out he was back in Konoha.

Now it just kind of stings.

“Don’t ask for too much too soon. Give him some time to get over stuff and realize what an idiot he’s being when he’s got awesome friends like us waiting for him. How does that sound?”

“Hm. Okay I guess.” A relenting sigh. “How long do you reckon that’s going to take?”

“Dunno. Probably about three or four months—”

“Four months?”

“But it’s Sasuke-kun, you know, so give it around eight—”

“What—you’ve got to be joking me.” Naruto slumped back on the bed and breathed out like a growl. “That’s like a whole ‘nother year!”

Sakura said nothing of Naruto’s wayward calculations when it was more important he knew of her plan. While she didn’t know Sasuke’s exact ailments, didn’t know what it was in Sasuke’s mind that kept him in his bed behind closed doors when the Sasuke she remembered never stopped training and fighting and wanting to surpass everyone—

“Do you think—maybe Sasuke-kun’s back because he’s tired? Does that sound silly?”

Naruto was busy now picking his teeth with dirty fingernails and Sakura decided he was making every effort not to listen again. Maybe, she hoped, maybe the reason Sasuke was still there in Konoha was because he had realized how little he had gained and how much he had lost by running away. But—the equation felt unbalanced: Sasuke was tired, therefore he returned to Konoha? Did it matter? He was back—and she so much wanted to know why.

If she just gave Sasuke time to sort out some of the things plaguing his mind and kept Naruto from doing more harm than good with his pestering, maybe he would get up and get better and go out with them. To festivals, to the mountains, to the valleys for a swim—wherever. Then once he seemed okay, once he had settled into some kind of routine that made him feel normal, maybe then she could start asking the harder questions. Maybe even Naruto could say just the right thing that would turn Sasuke’s eyes clear enough to see the real issues. Little at a time, for now. Until eight months was up and they could see how far they’d come.

When Sakura and Sai retired to their bedrooms for the night, Naruto stayed up with the television volume down low. No one believed him when he said he was interested in the show and he didn’t know for how long afterwards he remained there. The breeze through the window was cool and he sat with toes going quietly cold, a flickering TV, and thoughts elsewhere.

Sakura-chan’s the only other one who’d understand. I feel kind of sorry for Sai.

Like Sakura and unlike Sai, when he thought about the time during which Sasuke had been away, the whole time they had looked for him and his eventual, surprising return, his heart beat unbearably tight. The memories were hard to keep. For five years they had chased Sasuke just out of reach, always a step ahead and sending back disappointments and false hope in his wake. For Naruto and Sakura who could only watch him from afar, it was a helpless, quiet feeling only the two of them could understand.

Naruto didn’t mean to fall asleep but when he opened his eyes to the sound of the television shutting off, Sasuke stared back at him.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

six

Three Months, Six Days

Naruto hated it when it was his turn to do Sasuke’s washing. He put it off by kicking the washing basket around the apartment, watching television, fossicking for something that wasn’t rotten or expired in the fridge, looking at books but not having the patience to read them, wandering into Sai’s room to see what weird things he kept, lying on the carpet in his room and lamenting having to do anything for that bastard that wasn’t a good kick in the teeth.

But having to do Sasuke’s washing turned out to be the best excuse he had ever had to break down his door and legitimately piss the shit out of him. As long as Sasuke’s mood wasn’t—

Sasuke was still sleeping. Naruto didn’t care or consider why since it was less work for him if he couldn’t wash the bedsheets. He surveyed the room for dropped items of clothing and found, in his search, that everything, or what little of everything Sasuke owned, was already dusted and ordered and infuriatingly perfect.

You’re the kind of person who can’t draw lines without a ruler—touching and turning and moving around everything on Sasuke’s desk—who only uses one side of an eraser—and not trying to be sneaky or quiet about it—has to have every pencil facing the same way—just to cause some disorganisation. But Sasuke wasn’t waking up and Naruto—was just—too curious and too blind and too stupid—

Sasuke was still asleep. Maybe. Probably not after all the noise he had caused but he wasn’t stirring at least. When Naruto moved closer he thought—Sasuke still looked a little bit peaceful, on his side curled into the blankets—

“—the hell are you looking at?”

Naruto could hate himself a little for starting, not jumping but for not being able to hide the instinctive jolt when Sasuke’s eyes snapped open at him. The once calm slumber on his face—deepened into something too pleased at having caught Naruto red-handed.

No games today, huh.

“Well?” said Sasuke.

“Doing your washing,” said Naruto.

“So what’s that got to do with you touching all my stuff? Were you looking for something?”

Sasuke’s reaction to him just looking around his room made Naruto so suspicious that he threatened to do a more thorough job the next time—but that smile of Sasuke’s didn’t shift when he thought it should have. Sasuke was thinking, thinking and smiling.

I don’t like it when you smile.

“Washing, huh,” said Sasuke.

“That’s what I said.”

“Where are Sakura and Sai?”

Naruto didn’t answer. The smile remained, and Naruto knew something was up when all the cunning in the world flooded into Sasuke’s face, into his body, into his movements as he slid out of bed. He watched Sasuke on the other side, looked away when he was shirtless and stretching and smiling and thinking.

You already knew they weren’t home.

I should leave.

“I guess you need these sheets then,” said Sasuke.

But I miss you and we never talk anymore.

Sasuke was helping him. He was helping him pull off the linen and Naruto couldn’t remember the last time they had ever done anything cooperatively together. Just changing the sheets without speaking, without fighting like they always did and should have been doing. Naruto stared at Sasuke in his underwear, still wary and watching him and keeping his guard up, waiting for the inevitable fight that meant they weren’t so far apart anymore.

I want this memory of us helping each other. Even if we end up fighting. Is that a good enough excuse to stay?

Sasuke pushed the sheets, blankets, bedspread covering, pillowcases into a pile with his feet. Naruto bent to scoop them up and shook Sasuke’s hand off his arm when he grabbed it mistaking it for bedding.

“Let go, would you?” said Naruto. “That’s my arm.”

“I know,” said Sasuke.

Snapping his head up—“Huh?—”

The hard jerk Sasuke gave his arm had Naruto stumbling for balance, the sheets catching in and between his feet and causing him to flail when gravity had its way—and when Sasuke had him pinned to the ground with a hand to his throat and his legs were forced apart—

God, you don’t muck around, do you.

Fuck.

Naruto didn’t know what to do. He still didn’t know what to do. The last time had started out stupid and nostalgic, fighting the way he knew and was used to with Sasuke, but there was never a time when Naruto remembered Sasuke ever being so brazen and determined to turn it into something more. That wasn’t like the Sasuke he remembered. Sasuke was—different.

I knew this was going to happen.

I knew and I still didn’t think about what I was going to do.

Naruto wasn’t going to look, wasn’t going to touch Sasuke, hands on the carpet at his sides and his face angled at the bed base. Sasuke’s eyes never left him.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to fight me?”

Naruto didn’t like what he was feeling between his legs. He really wanted to get the fuck out of the room now but Sasuke was just so warm and real and there with him and no stolen shirt was ever going to compare with the smell of the original.

I wish you wouldn’t do this. You know I can’t fight you.

Naruto wouldn’t look at Sasuke to see if he was still smiling when he dragged the neckline of Naruto’s shirt down and lowered his head. Sasuke’s hair brushed along his jaw when his face got too close. He clenched his fingers into fists to endure the heat of the breath on his neck, trapped the air in his lungs when he felt Sasuke’s teeth take in too much of his skin, his tongue—

“Get off.”

“No.”

It doesn’t matter. This won’t hurt us. We’ve done this before and nothing really changed.

It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.

Naruto could be more stubborn than Sasuke. He already knew what it felt like to have Sasuke dip his hips and rub warmly against him. He had endured it once before and he would endure the sound of his best friend’s voice sighing into his ear, biting his ear—

I should kick you off.

I want you to come home so bad.

Naruto took the chance while Sasuke was distracted and unguarded to ram his fist into his gut. Twice. He knew he had only a heartbeat’s space of time to make a move and he did, struggling to get up and push Sasuke—away from him, under him, anywhere—inverting their positions with Sasuke’s fingers still embedded in his shirt. Fine. Naruto didn’t need the shirt, let Sasuke pull it off him—still too slow to stand with Sasuke’s legs around him, pulling Naruto to his hips, and all Sasuke had to do was lunge at Naruto’s neck to drag him back into the embrace.

Naruto readied his fist for another blow. This time it would be at Sasuke’s face with that clever mouth—but he only had fear to comfort him when he painfully couldn’t, seeing Sasuke stare at him very close, half-lidded and seductive.

“Why are you doing this?” said Naruto. The question wasn’t loud or angry, just wholly confused.

Naruto’s skin prickled when Sasuke’s hands slid over his back, when fingers dug into his shoulder blades and pressed, only lightly, not enough to force him closer but enough that Naruto knew Sasuke wanted him to be.

“I’m just bored,” said Sasuke.

“Bored?”

Sasuke wasn’t smiling anymore. He was beautiful and beneath him.

“Bored? When you’re bored you—read a book or watch TV or fuck knows—you don’t—”

Naruto would blame Sasuke for not letting him finish, fist in his hair and yanking him down. It wasn’t because he didn’t know what to call this, whatever this was that they were or weren’t doing. Giving it a name meant that was exactly what they were doing and Naruto wasn’t sure he wanted to know or limit whatever he expected or hoped would happen—

Wrong. It’s wrong, that’s what it is. We shouldn’t be—

“Just do your fucking job, Naruto. Take care of me. If I say I want something, you have to give it to me.”

You want—

Sasuke was still every bit as arrogant and confident as Naruto remembered. He still found a way to get whatever he wanted like it was his right. And worst of all, he still looked like the best friend Naruto remembered, just a little older, with the same dark eyes and pale skin and black, black hair and heart. Naruto hated to see it, hated seeing the old Sasuke in what they were doing.

I can’t fight you. And if this is what you want—

One of Sasuke’s hands still in his hair, the other slowly skimming down his stomach to his pants. Naruto didn’t know where to look or what to do. He let Sasuke undo the button and pull down the zipper.

It’s too late now.

Too late when Naruto started feeling the air curl over places that weren’t usually exposed, because if that was what Sasuke wanted—if that had to be what he wanted—is this what Sakura-chan is giving you too?—if that was what it took to make Sasuke come home—

This won’t hurt us. This isn’t real. If this is what you want then—

It had to be about the outside, the physical. It couldn’t be about emotion. It didn’t matter that they had a history, a friendship and a rivalry in the hazy past. It didn’t matter what they had seen together, shared together, suffered together. Whatever happened in the future didn’t matter either, not now anyway, not when they dissolved into nothing more than two bodies seeking a reprieve from the monotony, because that was what it was, that was what Sasuke—Sasuke who had angled his legs high enough to pull his underwear out of the way—said it was, said he wanted.

It doesn’t matter. It’ll be okay.

We just won’t talk about it afterwards like all the rest of the things we refuse to talk about.

Sasuke’s hands clawed his back when Naruto thought he was getting it right—arching and sliding when it was almost—

Sasuke stilled. “—wait, what the fuck are you doing—?”

Was that a joke?

“—get off me!”

Naruto hadn’t been holding onto anything. He landed hard and stunned and his ego was just starting to bruise in time with his skin.

I don’t—but you said you wanted—

“You can’t just put it in!” said Sasuke. “You’ve got to—do you even know what you’ve got to do?” Sasuke’s voice was distant, muddy, taunting and laughing. “Oh, you’re not—holy fucking shit—are you? You mean—you and Sakura never—?”

Naruto had a lot of things he wanted to scream back at him, all of which included a hard, skull-shattering, mind-splattering blow to that fucker’s face but he knew Sasuke would catch it somehow, doubled over laughing, holding his sides, with his underwear still around his thighs. He had to be satisfied with smashing the door within an inch of its fibres on his way out.

Naruto punched his fist through the wall on the way to his room. He’d fix it later, along with everything else.

Merciful Sakura was wise enough not to ask too many questions about the hole. She could gather enough about Naruto’s black mood and the creative, profane way in which he described Sasuke that a particularly serious fight had prevented him from doing the washing she had asked him to do.

“You know, if you two just tried to spend some time together—” said Sakura.

Naruto snorted. “That piece of rat shit can go fuck himself for all I care.”

She rolled her eyes, forgave him because she knew it would all blow over after a few days, and did the washing for him. If Sakura were being honest with herself, it was an almost sinister comfort to see them fighting. As much as she hated it and as deadly as the atmosphere in the apartment became, at least they were interacting. It had worked out when they were genin. It would work out now. Maybe.

Three Months, One Week, One Day

Naruto fought with a little more vigour against Kakashi and Yamato. He didn’t win or lose any more often than normal but he felt like he put more into the fight when it was quicker for him to win and longer for him to lose. Kakashi was too knowledgeable or just plain too uninterested in the well-worn dynamics between Naruto and Sasuke to need to ask the reason for the particularly sudden burst of energy. He watched Naruto with that one lazy eye and if Naruto wouldn’t say anything first then he didn’t really care to start it.

“Kakashi-sensei!”

Sometimes he really hated his name.

“Can you get me some more alcohol?”

Kakashi watched Naruto’s face. He had asked without a smile, without joy. Naruto wasn’t planning a party like he had the last time he had asked for a favour—he had bounced around and described the gathering that Kakashi wasn’t even invited to but this time—this request was made out of desperation.

“I need a lot,” said Naruto. “I think the fox has a really high tolerance.”

You’re not a very good liar, Naruto.

“No,” said Kakashi.

Three Months, One Week, Three Days

Against her better judgment, Sakura put Naruto in charge of the groceries. Someone with so much experience living alone had to be trustworthy with a shopping list. She handed him the piece of paper and pleaded with him, emphatically, to buy exactly what she had written down and only what she had written down.

Anything to get me out of here.

“I will shred through this list like the approaching storm, don’t you worry,” Naruto promised, shooting her a thumbs-up and a cheeky poke of his tongue to make her smile.

Once outside under dark cloud-cover, Naruto tried affecting the performance again. He checked his reflection in passing windows, holding his thumb up and poking his tongue out again.

Hmm. I look weird when I overdo it.

Colourful rows of tents came into view. Naruto smelt the drying seafood before anything else. He reached into his pocket for the list—cringing and clenching his eyes shut, sighing when only fluff filled his fingers.

Well. Guess I’ll be making the decisions about what we eat this week.

Crowds of people fed Naruto’s extroversion and put him in a better mood after deep enough lungfuls of open air. The markets hummed with conversations about the harvests, the kindness of the rains that year, the upcoming holidays, the health of their inlaws. Somewhere, someone was cooking beef or pork—and either one would do. Naruto let his nose lead him to a barbeque and a plate of free samples.

“Naruto, hold on and I’ll be right with you,” the butcher said.

Four children were hanging around in front of the stall. Three of them he instantly knew were related: two were twins and the older one bore such an unfathomable resemblance, there was no doubt he was their brother. The last, a girl, was the tallest, yet she kept referring to her friends as older brother.

“Off you kids go now. Go burn off some of that energy I’ve just given you. And make sure you tell your parents to come here.”

The children pushed off on scooters, already squealing and racing each other, and Naruto stepped in closer to look at the samples. The meat melted on his tongue, like it always did.

“What’s this?”

“Wagyu beef.”

Naruto couldn’t afford regular beef let alone that. He stepped into the shop and channelled his best assessment of the meats inside the display. “Could I get some pork belly?”

“Sure. How much do you want?”

The butcher weighed the meat and calculated the price. Naruto put on a charming smile that had the butcher looking bored, stealing the words from Naruto’s tongue before he had even inhaled the breath to speak them.

“I’ve never given you a discount before and I won’t be starting today.”

“Eyy, but I come here all the time and you know I only eat the best. Come on. Just this once. Just a little discount. Yeah?”

“I’m not giving you a discount on already discounted meat.”

“Just this once,” Naruto leaned on the glass display and adorned his best suave. “I know a lot of people who know a lot of people. I could make your shop a household name.”

“Look, I can’t even give myself a discount when I have a kid over in the Land of Rivers trying to learn the secrets of their curry. Do you know how much an apprentice chef earns? Not nearly enough is how much.”

“I would really hate to take my business elsewhere.”

“Good luck. This is as cheap as you’re going to find anyway.”

Naruto sniffed and pushed away. He wandered to another butcher whose prices shook in him both horror and jealousy. Some people on the right side of fortune were paying way too much for delicious, local product.

“When can we go home?” a passing child complained to their father. Naruto glanced towards the family out of curiosity. “My feet hurt.”

The child was bored and tired. Their older sibling looked about the same but had accumulated enough in age to understand that the outing was a necessary burden.

“Do you want another tangerine?”

“I want to go home,” the child sulked crankily.

Tangerines sound great right about now.

Naruto found his feet tracing a path to a fruit and vegetable seller. Tangerines were cheap and he could exchange a little bit of cash for a lot of them. He opened his frog-shaped coin purse. Sundried persimmons were another delicacy he couldn’t afford but the cherry tomatoes next to them, much like the tangerines, were plentiful and inexpensive. He knew Sasuke liked tomatoes. Or he had liked tomatoes when they were still young enough to speak to each other.

I’ll treat you when you stop acting like a shit.

He bought the tangerines along with a bouquet of green onions. Another shop had fresh, warm squares of tofu. In between trades, he discovered a second and third butchery selling pork at prices higher than he was willing to pay. Damn that butcher was right and he knew it.

Naruto sat on an old tree stump away from the main bustle and threw tangerine peel in the gardens behind him. He assured himself that he had the restraint not to accidentally eat the whole bag while zoning out, watching the foot traffic pass by.

An elderly woman and her husband were sharing a tray of rice cakes. The man held the tray in one hand and the woman held his other arm. She was having trouble walking but the support of her husband and their slow stroll down the street looked to put them into their own little world.

Wonder who my grandparents were. Hell, you could be my grandparents for all I know.

Yelling from the opposite direction had Naruto’s attention diverted to a middle-aged woman. The old couple turned around and the woman and her children walked quickly to catch up with them. They were happy to be among family.

Naruto turned his stare on a pair of boys, civilians around his age who looked to be students if the proper way they dressed was any indication. They crossed the street and walked into a teahouse, greeting more friends who were already gathered.

How do people do it? It’s hard enough keeping one friendship together let alone—

The glass windows blocked their chatter from Naruto’s ears but their laughter spilled out the door and onto the streets every time someone entered or exited the shop. They were having a good time, giggling and play-fighting over jokes and stories.

Naruto smiled when one of them slipped off the edge of a chair. Instead of surging into a rage, the boy just lay on the ground with his head thrown back, cackling at the situation. The friend who had nudged him too hard looked mortified and apologetic, holding a hand out to help him up that he accepted gratefully, still smiling and brushing the accident off.

Must be nice.

“You.”

Naruto jerked his head at an old lady whose sour repulsion, spread into every corner of her face, told him all he needed to know about her fossilized memory of what he was and not who he was.

“I know you. You’re that demon fox kid, aren’t you.”

“Ah, no. That’s my cousin.” Naruto stretched his cheeks apart as wide as he could and squinted his eyes into the smile and dug his hands into the straps of his backpack. “Sorry to run but I’m late for, uh—something.”

“Do you know what the worst pain in the world is?” he heard her ask to his retreating back. She spoke low and too calmly, like a conversation, and those ones were the worst. “Outliving all three of your children.”

It had been a long time since he had felt such tremendous jitters in his fingers. Luckily there had been no one else close enough to get curious and question why, no parents around to suddenly have forced upon them the innocent stares of their sons and daughters and a talk they had never, ever asked to happen in public.

Naruto slipped into a busier teahouse just in time, looking back to make sure the lady hadn’t followed. An immediate and beautiful wall of aroma and the raucous din of full tables and life-long friendships made it hard to hear the thoughts in his head. The patrons were young and he was years beyond caring that he had to check. A waitress approached him and Naruto sent her off with an order of citron tea.

Waitresses? This is a fancy place.

Well I was never going to buy those tomatoes anyway.

“No, I swear you paid last time!”

“I still need to pay you back for buying me eggrolls last week. Remember?”

“I’m not going to ask you to pay me back for that when you’re too busy to buy lunch for yourself.”

“Then let me pay as my way of saying thank you.”

The first girl gave in, smiling warmly at her friend. Naruto turned away to look out the window, which was starting to dot and streak with raindrops, and then over at a scroll hanging on the wall. What providence our meeting was, it read.

The tea came to him served in a ceramic cup with a saucer, spoon, and two tiny honey cookies. Naruto sipped the tea. It was hot and full of flavor.

Definitely a fancy place. I’ll have no choice but to go back to that butcher at this rate.

Tea this expensive couldn’t be taken by the mouthful. Naruto made sure to memorise everything about it until the very last drop so that when the waitress took his payment and asked him how it was, he was able to tell her honestly:

“It was the best thing about my day.”

The air outside the teahouse had changed its smell. Fat raindrops and a stronger breeze had him hurrying back to the butcher. He shook his hair before re-entering and the butcher only had a smug smile for him when the exchange was made in silence.

Naruto stuffed the meat into his bag and ran out the door, zipping the bag back up at the same time as his feet pounded the footpath. The wind was blowing in fast and the raindrops were coming down hard enough to drown out the voices of people nearby. He didn’t have enough time to be stalling but—

Standing at the crossroads at the center of the marketplace and turning, stopping, hesitating again—fuck it, I’m already wet anyway—growled out a sigh and ran—

“Just one tomato. How much is that?”

“Two for the whole basket.”

“How about just one?”

“Just one?” The farmer looked up at him from her stool under the cover of the tent, pushing back her wide-brimmed hat to bare the suntanned face of a skilled negotiator. “What do you suppose I do with the rest?”

“You can’t sell me just one? I only have…” Naruto looked at the single coin left in his purse. “Just this.”

The farmer smiled politely, kind refusal. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s for my best friend. He really loves tomatoes.”

“That’s nice.”

“He’s sick. And I think a tomato would really lift his spirits.”

“I hope he gets better soon.”

Drops of rainwater from the hairs at the back of his neck were starting to run down the line of his spine and the weather was only getting worse. Naruto decided to make a cut and bowed out of the barter.

Running through every shortcut he knew until the muted white walls of their apartment came into view through sheets of pouring rain.

I really liked these shoes, too.

Disorientated by the sudden storm and out of breath from the sprint across town, it was lucky Sakura had the sense to confine him to the kitchen. The puddle blooming at his feet was at least contained to one area now.

“You didn’t see Sai?”

“Sai?” Naruto slipped the bag off his shoulders.

“I sent him out to look for you with an umbrella.”

“When?”

“When it started spitting. The storm looked pretty black out there.”

Naruto muttered something in gratitude, turning around to pay attention to his damp backpack that was starting to smell like all the earth it had ever witnessed, and pulled out its contents.

I avoided asking him to come out with me so you wouldn’t be alone. And now you’re telling me you willingly threw him out under such a weak pretext anyway?

“What’s this?” Sakura picked up a clear bag of pulverised jelly.

“Ah, don’t worry about that. It all tastes the same in soup anyway.”

“Yeah but… what is it?”

“Tofu.”

Sakura made a critical sweep of the remains like she didn’t believe him. “But I didn’t ask you to buy any tofu.”

“Yeah… I left the list at home by accident.”

Sakura stared. “So why didn’t you come back for it then?”

“I’ll go out again tomorrow.”

“Do you have the money to?”

Naruto was wet and cold and tired and drained. He tried to look sheepish but it didn’t seem to be forgivable enough to have Sakura smiling back at him. “I’ll make soup.”

“Out of what, green onions and tangerines? Half of which I see you’ve already eaten. What else did you buy?” Sakura sorted through the bags. No comment at the end was her verdict, taking the groceries and opening the fridge.

Naruto watched, standing and staring, worried enough to ask without asking. “Did anything happen while I was away?”

“No? What do you mean?”

“You just look really pretty, like something good happened.”

Sakura might have intended to look annoyed but the sweet blush to her cheeks leaked her true opinions. “Nice try but that doesn’t work on me anymore. Go have a shower before you come down with something.”

“Yeah?” Naruto pressed once more. “You sure?”

“You’re just lucky I’m not sick of your bachelor chow yet,” she teased, avoiding an answer again. “Only you could come up with a recipe that involves more time ignoring the food while it boils than actually cooking it.”

Naruto knew that to ask again would be suspicious. And Sakura looked okay and she wasn’t angry and she was joking with him. He asked her for a fresh set of dry clothes and headed into the bathroom, ran warm water over his skin and stared at the wall.

Anything to get me out of here.

Three Months, One Week, Six Days

Naruto kept tabs on Sai for a few days. He always left, at random times, without telling anyone where he was going. When Naruto confronted him about it, he said he went to the municipal library.

“They have comfortable chairs there and I can pick a new book out straight away if I don’t like the one I’m reading.”

“You should try reading at home.” Naruto didn’t have to be subtle around Sai. Sai took everything he said at face value. “So I can have someone to hang out with if I get bored.”

Sai borrowed out books and brought them back to the apartment. Naruto skimmed his eyes over the spines, reading the titles.

“You like romance, huh. Hope you aren’t trying to learn about relationships from them.”

“Some things are worthwhile learning. It’s not like there’s zero truth to them. But I know what you mean.”

Sasuke walked past the door at that moment, glancing inside. Sasuke was gone by the time Naruto reached the door but it was no less gratifying to slam it shut.

“Are you okay?” asked Sai.

“Sorry. Don’t know my own strength.” Naruto pulled the first book off the pile, turning it over to read the blurb. “I don’t know. I don’t really get the appeal.”

“I don’t know about other people but I like them because everything always works out in the end. It’s a really strange feeling, you know? Knowing that no matter what goes wrong in the story, things eventually turn out okay.”

Things are going to turn out okay—Naruto wanted to argue even though no one was asking—you just have to ignore it for long enough and then you forget.

“It kind of makes me want to change how I view problems in my normal life,” Sai continued. “I should try believing that everything is going to turn out alright instead of always planning for bad outcomes.”

“Don’t do that. People get killed when you do that.”

“Yeah. I guess they do.”

Three Months, Two Weeks, One Day

Enough time had passed that Naruto was able to manage the angry feeling in his head as soon as he woke up. He had blanked the thoughts for long enough and the distance time put between what had almost happened then and what he felt now made everything feel more surreal. Like it hadn’t happened or it had happened to someone else, like it was just one big, bad, blurry misunderstanding.

Naruto checked in with Sai’s plans and then he walked until he didn’t know how he got there, to a valley on the outskirts of the village where he could busy himself skimming pebbles along the surface of the stream. When the sun’s heat grew too much, he stripped off and waded into the water, trying to catch fish with a sharpened stick.

Why can’t I catch anything? Is it the wrong season? I used to be so good at this.

Naruto gave up and plunged the stick into the water in frustration—and skewered a fish.

While waiting for the fish to cook, slowly and absently flipping it over a small fire, he found his gaze settled on the cloud-capped mountains in the distance and entertained wandering thoughts that asked him how it had gone so far that Sasuke had taken off his clothes.

Naruto checked the fish. Parts of it at the tail end still looked too flimsy. Maybe another few minutes closer to the fire, which wasn’t crackling loud enough to block out the sound of that laugh—

That was enough. Whether or not it was the right time to be thinking about it, Naruto had blocked it out long enough that it was almost safe to touch. How come—

How come you get to laugh when you’re the one who wanted—

Frowning, the corners of his mouth dragged down, staring at the embers flickering around the flames. Would there ever be a right time to wonder why Sasuke had relaxed enough to allow another person into his space, to let Naruto in so close they had almost—

You were lying. You were lying, weren’t you.

His sigh let out the first of many, heavy wedges of confusion that had spent days seething in his head, and then suddenly, easily, like it was the right time to realise it: it all made sense. It was never going to happen, never had a chance of happening, because it was all just a game.

You planned to laugh at me from the start.

And it’s fine. You’ve done worse and I forgave you for those things too.

There was no one around this time to tell him the stupid, soothing words he needed to hear but the sun was warm on his back and he was used to Sasuke teasing him and taunting him and mocking him and hurting him. As long as it was him.

Because what if you’re playing these games with Sakura-chan too?

Naruto had no idea what was spoken before and after the silences whenever he entered the room but he prayed that Sasuke not hurt her. Sakura was so sweet and gentle and open and affectionate and he needed her to stay that way. If Sakura drowned too and Naruto had to make a choice about who to save—

Sakura was supposed to be good at reading people. She knew that Sasuke was still too sick to know what to do with peace when it was given to him because she had dragged Naruto into her room and told him so.

So did you forget? Or are you still too in love with him to see it anymore?

Before Sakura could crack in a way that Naruto would not, he had to protect her. The best possible outcome was that it all amounted to nothing, Sasuke got better, and they lived happily ever after.

Naruto pulled the fish close and assessed it, put it down on a rock and halved it, discarding the bones running through the centre. The flesh was soft and salty but it was hardly a meal and it filled up just enough of his stomach until he made it back to the apartment. Robust faith had blocked out the real issues, like it always did, and gave Naruto renewed strength to keep along the path that he had chosen to an indistinct horizon.

I’ll save you, Sasuke. Because I’m the only one who can.

Sakura was sitting at her desk working amongst a spread of papers. Naruto tapped out a quiet knock on her door so as not to startle her. “Have you had lunch yet?”

She turned around. “No, I haven’t actually. Are you making?”

“Only if you don’t mind fried rice and zucchini pancakes. Where’s Sai by the way?”

“Not sure. He went out somewhere earlier. Hey, you don’t think Sai has a secret girlfriend, do you?” Sakura smiled, little giggles. “I only lent him those romance novels of mine because he saw them on the shelf and asked about them. I didn’t mean to get him addicted.”

“He’s probably just bored like we all are.”

Naruto pushed away from Sakura’s door then and began exercising his wrists over a chopping board and a knife. While the pancakes fried in one pan and the rice mixture in another, he tried to think of another way to ask without asking. He worried about Sakura, about the time, about the things he had seen, about the things he hadn’t seen. But nothing inspired came to mind this time and he had to settle for watching her bright eyes dazzle at him when he brought the meal to her.

“Did you make some for Sasuke-kun too?” asked Sakura.

Naruto scoffed. “Nope.”

So she divided hers. Cut it in half. Took it to Sasuke’s room and stayed in there longer than she should have and supplemented the rest with snacks and tea. Naruto had never felt so tight and aware.

Three Months, Two Weeks, Four Days

Sakura thought it was a bit silly that Naruto and Sasuke were still doing their very best to avoid having to interact in any way. She’d seen more mature behaviour from children half their age. While it worried her that Naruto had taken to leaving the apartment for extended periods of time, as it wasn’t yet causing an inconvenience for either her or Sai and both boys were still eating and sleeping, she didn’t see a need to get involved. They’d do the cold shoulder thing for a while and like magic, without any particular catalyst, they’d be at each other’s throats again. She’d figured out soon after being placed in a team with them that that was just their unique way of not killing each other.

The only thing she asked of Naruto was that he fixed the hole in the wall before their inspection.

Three Months, Three Weeks

Naruto grappled his toes on the door handle, hands occupied by chopsticks and a styrofoam container, and kicked the door open to a face who looked appropriately impressed by the welcome. He slurped the rest of the noodles into his mouth and took his foot off the door, dipping his head slightly into a courteous bow.

“Is this honestly how you answer the door?” said Tsunade.

“Only on Sundays. What are you doing here?”

Tsunade closed the door behind her. “Can’t I come see you?”

“Not really. It’s always business.”

A quick glance at the surroundings gave her a good summary of the past months. She asked for a pair of indoor slippers and Naruto unbelievably kicked off the ones he was wearing. “I’m here first of all to check on you three and then Uchiha. I thought it was time I paid you a visit. The apartment looks… lived in.”

“It’s clean.”

“Yes, I’ve heard stories about your last place. I’m sure this is a showroom in comparison.” Tsunade eyed the piling trash next to the door, which had at least been sorted for recycling. “You know it only takes one person to make it messy.”

“We clean once a week. You just came on a bad day. You know, the polite thing to do would have been to warn us.”

“I did, and I see this is the best you can give me. Try to clean as you go. It will make your life a lot easier.”

Naruto wandered away from her reproaches and busied himself taking the kettle to the sink. “Do you want some tea?”

“Green, if you have it. So how has it been?”

“Good.”

“You want to elaborate a little more? And where are Sakura and Sai?”

Drips down the side sizzled and popped under the metal as the hotplate started to heat up. Naruto seemed to know what he was doing with teacups and a strainer put aside. Tsunade couldn’t say this side of him didn’t endear him to her. “Probably in their rooms. Sakura-chan might be napping. She usually does. I don’t know what she gets tired from though.”

Tsunade could guess.. “And how have you been?”

“Good.”

“I know you said good.” Tsunade took up a chair at the table. “I was hoping for more than that, or am I left to assume that you won’t talk about Sasuke because it’s not actually good at all?”

Naruto would not show himself.

Am I just that see-through or are you just that smart? I guess there’s a reason why you’re the Hokage.

Still, a little too close to the truth—

“He gets up. Does stuff. Shits me off. The usual.”

Tsunade knew that was probably all she could expect to get out of him. She wondered if it was cause for worry. Her own experiences as a genin rose in memory, Jiraiya and Orochimaru bickering like the children they were. But they were much younger then, like Naruto and Sasuke had been had been, before Sasuke defected. But they were older now.

Naruto said, “I don’t know, we don’t really do much. I think Sakura-chan wants to start a book club with Sai. I said they should start with cookbooks but she didn’t seem to like that suggestion. I wasn’t having a go at her food. It’s more for Sai’s benefit. Sakura-chan gets all her recipes from her mom so her food is always really good.”

Tsunade hummed politely.

“Yeah. Oh and also, I keep falling asleep in front of the TV so the power bill could be kind of high this month. And I left the bathroom light on overnight a couple of times. And my desk light.”

“So you’ll be going on a couple of D-rank missions free of charge to make up for it, is that what you’re saying?”

Naruto decided he was done with talking too much and digging traps for himself, especially in front of a much more experienced opponent. “I thought you said we couldn’t do missions.”

“If I can break the rules for Sasuke, I can certainly do it for you.”

Naruto kept quiet after that. He handed her the mug when he was done preparing the tea.

“Where’s Sasuke’s room?” asked Tsunade.

“That one.”

Tsunade wasn’t surprised when Naruto then disappeared into his own room rather than trying to hang about and eavesdrop on the details. She knocked quietly and opened the door. Sasuke glanced at her and dipped his head to show the minimum level of respect he owed her for not killing him on sight, sitting straight and tall and wary. Tsunade closed the door behind her.

Three Months, Three Weeks, Three Days

Naruto was a sucker, he knew that. It didn’t seem to matter what else was going on in his life. He always found himself back in his room, sitting on the ground, holding Sasuke’s shirt in his hands and breathing in.

Everything else he could ignore except that laugh. Just the sound of it coming from his best friend’s mouth made his teeth hurt, clenched together too tight. It made him open his eyes to escape it. It got into his head and pierced his heart until it ached and no amount of shaking it off seemed to make it shed.

But every time he heard Sasuke’s name, he still felt the same. He missed the friend he used to have. He wished he didn’t want to be friends or wished they could have been better friends or friends who treated each other with at least the bare amount of human consideration, or something. Because it felt like he was losing his family the more he tried to hold onto them.

Just—just why did you have to laugh? Anything else but that.

Naruto hid the shirt back under a folded pile of winter sweaters. He closed the drawer, stared unfocused, and turned around to see Sasuke open the door and walk into his room.

Naruto felt his whole being disappear like it was made of less substance than steam.

“What the fuck do you want?” he screeched.

“What are you doing?” said Sasuke.

“Nothing!”

“Are you busy?”

“Do I look like I’m busy?”

Sasuke closed the door. And locked it. For a moment, the flick of the latch stole away Naruto’s alarm in place of confusion. They had stubbornly avoided each other for the past two weeks and now Sasuke, who hadn’t set foot in his room even once since moving in, was standing there with a cup of tea like he was just after a chat.

“What do you want?” Naruto asked again, more sceptical than angry this time.

Sasuke truly believed he was doing nothing wrong: an arrogance so strong it was child-like in its innocence. Naruto had a hideous view of it on his face when Sasuke crouched down in front of him and rested the cup on the floor. There wasn’t any tea; there was—cooking oil?

Sasuke said, “We’re going to get it right this time.”

Sasuke leaned forward. Naruto watched him do it, felt his eyebrows bunch, as he angled his body away instinctively. Sasuke was close now, unusually close, and he was smiling in that disquieting way he sometimes did. Black eyes ran the length of Naruto’s body and back up; a survey.

Naruto sent out a succession of punches that all met their end in the grasp of Sasuke’s palms—how the fuck are you still so good when I’m the only one who does any training?—

“Stop it—just get out—” said Naruto.

“No,” said Sasuke.

The first of his fists deflected by Sasuke’s free arm, the second too, but Naruto got a hit through on the third to Sasuke’s unguarded gut that had the air blow out his lungs.

Sasuke recovered fast. “Settle down. I didn’t come here to fight you.”

Naruto went for Sasuke’s face again. A hit to his jaw, skimmed off when Sasuke turned his face just in time, turned his dark eyes greedy. Naruto grunted in surprise when Sasuke’s free hand mashed hard against his head, trapping Naruto to the wardrobe behind.

“Settle down, Naruto.”

“Fucking let go of my face—”

“Listen. It’s not you. Don’t make this personal.”

Sasuke grabbed Naruto’s cheeks and turned his head so that Naruto could see—

Sasuke said, “I don’t care about you. I’m not asking you to do anything. You just have to be alive.”

—just how intense and destructive and faithless he could be. Sasuke was scanning his face, looking for the anger and disgust that should have been there and Naruto saw the obsession in Sasuke’s eyes as it burned because where there wasn’t any of those things, there was only—

You know just how to hurt me.

“I don’t want to fight this time,” said Sasuke. “Just stay still and let me fuck you.”

—and you hurt me so much.

Sasuke was in Naruto’s face, watching him with eyes wide and feral-black when his hand slid under his shirt. Naruto pushed it away and Sasuke stared right into the weakness inside him and put the hand back on Naruto’s stomach, trailing low and uncomfortable over Naruto’s navel.

“Stop it—”

Fight you. I have to fight you. You’re not stopping and I have to—I should—

Sasuke leaned in further, holding Naruto back. Naruto turned his face away, a not quite flinch against the hand that pushed his other leg far enough out of the way that Sasuke could fit into the gap, close enough that Naruto knew Sasuke was already erect.

Naruto didn’t know if Sasuke was wholly to blame for what was happening or if it was his own fault for doing nothing while things had spiralled so out of hand. It had been one thing to roll around on the couch but when it got worse on the floor of Sasuke’s room and he still ignored it, still did nothing and still refused to think about it—

But it was too late now. Sasuke had already pinned him down and put his mouth too close to his throat again, held his arm around Naruto’s waist and pulled him into his chest. Sasuke’s teeth were on his skin again, breathing and not quite biting.

No it’s not too late—Fight back, fight—Stop lying and fight back—

Naruto knew there was no such thing as too late now. He couldn’t let Sasuke do this, if that was really his intention. He had to fight back, push him away and get him out because it didn’t make any sense to let Sasuke do what he was going to do. But acknowledging that he still had time to fight back and he wasn’t meant something more terrifying than anything else that was going on—

So Naruto shoved him.

“Get off me!”

And Sasuke drew back and retaliated with a lightning fist to his face so hard, the disorientation and wayward inertia knocked Naruto to the floor, drowning in the bright sunlight with the same hand that Sasuke had hit him with squashing his cheek into the carpet, legs still tangled on either side of Sasuke’s hips and twisted at his torso.

“Don’t be like this,” Sasuke drawled. “You don’t strike me as the type to like it rough but I can be if you keep this up.”

It wasn’t the threat that made Naruto lie still while Sasuke pushed his shirt up and out of the way, although Naruto could tell by way that Sasuke’s weight softened on his face that Sasuke had read it as submission.

That’s not it. Not even close.

Naruto had tried resisting. He had tried fighting. It wasn’t his fault what happened now. He’d already done all that he could.

That’s not it either. Not even close.

Naruto knew why. He knew why he had let Sasuke get away with grinding against him not just once but twice. He knew why he was letting Sasuke get away with it for a third time, why he was lying there on the ground, set stare on the gap under the door when the ANBU were just a shout in reach. He knew why and it sliced across his consciousness, the inconsistency that he had never had a good enough reason to face up to before and still didn’t want to, even now.

It was too much to say he was only there because that was what Sasuke wanted, the mantra and the pretence he had held onto so that he didn’t have to think about the inconsistency. Naruto didn’t mind fighting Sasuke, didn’t mind being the scapegoat that copped Sasuke’s ridicule and contempt but this—this was a little too selfless.

Naruto couldn’t say what it was—lying again—that made their friendship so unlike anyone else’s, so inconsistent. Naruto was sure normal friends never found themselves together like this on the floor, warm and rough hands on his hips to steady the rocking. Sasuke was too close and his clothes weren’t letting the air in. The room was getting hot.

Naruto knew normal friends didn’t chase for five years. That was why the people he told had been so surprised when they found out how long Naruto had been running for. They weren’t surprised by his unbreakable commitment or his smile in the face of failure: what they were surprised by was his firm assertion that Sasuke was his best friend—

Lies—

Sasuke’s fingers wandered too close onto the waistband of his pants, the elastic yielding, twice, snapping under the strength in Sasuke’s arms and shredded cotton the rest of the way. Cool air touched Naruto’s skin. Sasuke turned away to seek the mug.

I’m going to let you. You, the Sasuke who I remember.

Whoever that person was. Maybe Naruto would find out what they were to each other if they weren’t best friends if everything somehow managed to turn out okay after this, after they’d finished hurting each other, using each other and hopefully if they stopped just shy of actual destruction of each other, maybe then they could—

I’m going to let you. It’s going to happen. And I know why—

Naruto knew normal friends didn’t have the history they had. Normal friends didn’t do this. Normal friends never wanted—normal friends never wanted—

Even if those feelings scared him to the core, even if there was still a chance that Sasuke was too cold and distant and cruel to follow through—even if it wasn’t then, even if it happened later, again—staring at a fixed place on the wall when he felt Sasuke’s hand slick between his legs and into—

I know why—

Sasuke’s breath puffed above him; he could have been laughing, the strain in Naruto’s jaw when he couldn’t speak or swallow and felt with humiliating clarity—not just Sasuke’s fingers in and—

I know why and all I do is lie about it—

Naruto knew like he had known for years—and ignoring it never made it go away—that Sasuke wasn’t his best friend and hadn’t been for a long time and the reason he—followed him and thought of him and believed in him and let him and couldn’t hate him and didn’t want to move was because—Sasuke wasn’t his fucking best friend at all because—

He was more.

I hate this.

Sasuke was different.

I hate that I can’t fight you.

Sasuke was special.

I hate how much you hurt me.

Sasuke was Naruto’s strength and his weakness.

I hate how I lie even to myself—your recognition and approval and all the rest of that bullshit—

Sasuke pulled his hand free and Naruto winced, not with pain, not that kind of pain. Sasuke pulled his own pants down far enough that he could rub himself over with the remaining oil on his hand—

I don’t want any of that—recognition, approval, I don’t want it, it’s all lies—lies lies lies—

What I want—

“Thanks, by the way. In case I forget to say it later.”

What I want—

Sasuke was pulling at his legs and pushing him into something hard on the wardrobe but it didn’t matter, that uncomfortable angle in his shoulder didn’t matter. The bruises all over his dignity weren’t so bad when Naruto tensed and held his teeth together—

What I want is you.

—as Sasuke pressed into him and he wondered if this was too much to give up to Sasuke but not to give up on him, whether the unnatural, stretching pain when Sasuke grunted and pushed forward again would be worth it in the end just to be close to him.

Sasuke was breathing hot all over him, bending over Naruto’s chest, paused to shift and adjust the position when he couldn’t get in deep enough. Naruto held his breath in and held his eyes closed and held his hands down, at his sides on the floor and parted his mouth without a sound when Sasuke kept hurting, kept pushing, harder—

They’d find a way, somehow, to forgive each other for the things they were doing, for the things they had never said when they should have, things that could have prevented Sasuke from using Naruto and Naruto from looking to Sasuke for things that weren’t inside.

“God, you feel good,” groaned Sasuke. “Why did we wait so long to do this?”

Fuck you, Sasuke, just—fuck you.

It hurt—everything hurt—it hurt so much he thought his heart couldn’t take it, not like this all at once, the awkward feeling of Sasuke inside him, moving in and out of him and how it meant nothing, that it wasn’t personal and Sasuke didn’t care and Naruto just had to be alive—

Sasuke crouched over him, leaned down, head dropped and put his hands under Naruto’s hips for leverage. Naruto couldn’t hide how quickly he had inhaled—panicked—thought it was a fluke, flushed, thought—until Sasuke did it again and it wasn’t—

Fuck you, Sasuke, just—

Fuck—you—

Fuck—

Fuck—

Sasuke was moving in a way Naruto had never seen him do before, making sounds he didn’t think he was capable of making, not Sasuke—not cold, proud Sasuke, snapping his hips and taking him fast and groaning and each time the heat shot through him, he read into it things that didn’t exist between them. Things that, maybe, if they had been better friends and talked about shit every once in a while—things that they could have fixed properly instead of covering up the gaping holes in their friendship for a few minutes in his room.

I want you to come home and maybe that’s too much for you to give up to me.

We’re both—completely—

Because he’d done nothing, Naruto knew he was going to—and worried that it wasn’t right, to give in to Sasuke who was shaking and anxious and pouring into his ears a voice louder than his own, to give in to his body because of something so hot and wrong and painfully unreciprocated—

Because of Sasuke—his former comrade and rival and fuckhead best friend who, in his haze and idealism, could almost make him believe it was personal, that it was more than just being alive if Sasuke could make him feel so good—

At the pulse of his release, Naruto knew. He knew like he’d known for a long time. Sasuke was different. He was special. And warm. And whole. And real. And there. And that was enough. That was more than he probably had the right to ask for in return. Naruto closed his eyes, breathed under Sasuke and waited out the unsteady jerking until the callous laughter in his head was smothered by a better sound when Sasuke—when Uchiha Sasuke—

So did you get what you wanted?

Shit happens.

Sasuke dragged the last of his out and sat back, letting go, breathing and recovering, lifted his head and opened his eyes and stared at Naruto with a distant awe. Naruto put the heels of his feet back on the ground. It was over.

But Sasuke, somehow, still wasn’t finished. Naruto was so on-edge to the way Sasuke crawled over him that he held his breath in case he needed to react—but Sasuke just grabbed his hair and used it to pull his head away so that he could lick the saltiness from Naruto’s cheek up to his ear where in nothing above a whisper, he said:

“I knew you’d let me.”

and sometimes Naruto just couldn’t believe Sasuke’s fucking audacity.

Sasuke laughed softly in the winded silence, mouth and voice still close and hot and arrogant. “Don’t worry. They wouldn’t have heard.”

“Naruto?”—killed himself against the knocking at his door—“Are you in there?”

“—ghuh?”

“Is Sasuke-kun in there with you too? Because his door is open and he’s not there or anywhere else in the apartment…”

“I’m here. We’re just hanging out.”

Naruto only thought it because he was so distressed and angry—that Sakura must have been the stupidest person in the world to have ever believed such impossible fucking bullshit.

“Oh, no that’s cool. Well Naruto, when you have time, come to my room because I’ve got some really good news to tell you!”

Sasuke couldn’t discard him quick enough. Naruto stared tight-lipped at the ceiling and when Sasuke told him he was sorry for ripping his clothes, Naruto answered with a finger where his mouth wouldn’t move.

Fuck everything.

Sasuke fell onto his bed, crawled into the pillows and held them to his chest, curled deeper into them and stared at the wall and out the window. He calculated the speed of the clouds across the sky, picked out random shapes and watched the birds flit between trees and distracted himself just enough that he didn’t burst apart laughing—

I fucked you—I fucked you, you stupid dobe, I did and you let me—

He had walked from Naruto’s room with his pants mostly decent, drawstring still untied and shirt sticky and soiled and knowing he had all the power in the world, that no one was going to catch him—not now not ever—not in the short space across the hall between his room and Naruto’s. Sasuke clutched more securely at the pillows, shaking with contained hysterics and grasping the blanket at his fingertips and panting through delirium so potent—

How much, huh? How much can you take—where’s your limit—I’ll find it, Naruto, I will and then you’ll have to hate me—

It fluttered in his stomach, the knowledge, bubbled in his chest along with a deeper, more frenzied, more manic feeling that he had to suffocate and put aside for later—I can be patient, I can, I’ll wait—and it was enough for the moment just to grin and smile, wide and wild and bitter and broken—

Ignoring you didn’t work and threatening you didn’t work and teasing you and fighting you and beating you and hurting you didn’t work—

Sasuke steadied himself, relaxed his grip just a little. It wouldn’t do to get too excited. He had to be careful and he couldn’t be careful when his mind was racing with one all-consuming idea about how to—

Break you—I’ll break you, Naruto, I’ll fucking break you—

I’ll fuck you again—you know I will, stupid dobe, and you know you can’t say no—I’m the only one who can—I’ll break you get you hurt you fight you crush you break you and I’m the only one who can because—

you’re mine—

“Hey, you said you had some good news?”

Sakura swivelled around on her chair and beckoned Naruto into her room, giddy and happy and he was thankful when it permeated through his skin, through to his heart that needed it in excess. He wandered around her room, disturbing and fiddling with everything that crossed paths with his gaze so she wouldn’t have a chance to see the mask over his face.

“Oh yeah, you bet! It’s the best!” She giggled behind her hand when her glee was making her embarrassed. “I was talking to Shishou today and she said Sasuke-kun might be allowed to go outside sometime—but only if he keeps getting better and definitely not right now. But one day!”

Naruto flinched—Tsunade-baachan thinks Sasuke’s getting better?

“Can you imagine it though? I might get my wish to go with him to festivals after all!”

And turned to her when the shock had been swallowed whole—

You’re so happy right now. I’d do it again—

So who’s more messed up now: me or him?

“That’s great.”

Maybe he was doing something right. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad, if he just gave in to Sasuke sometimes. It wasn’t affecting Sakura like it was affecting him—am I making it out to be more than it is?—if Sakura could sometimes smile despite what Sasuke did with her, if she were telling herself Sasuke needed her like this so much she made herself believe it—if giving up to Sasuke meant he could see her smile again after so long—

“Hey, it’s good that you and Sasuke-kun aren’t fighting anymore. It’s kind of awkward for me too, you know? Because I want to hang out with the both of you but not if you’re just going to yell at each other.”

Naruto laughed, uneasily, at the floor.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. Sasuke’s a dick sometimes.”

It didn’t matter if Sakura told him words like that were exactly the reason they fought. Because it wasn’t.

Chapter Text

seven

Three Months, Three Weeks, Four Days

I can’t sleep.

Naruto slipped into limbo only to be dragged back into the conscious world by a head that wouldn’t rest and a heart that reacted to his memory’s cinema. Every angle of his body on the mattress was uncomfortable, his shirt was in the way, the pillow made his ears ring—but there was one way he knew to force himself to sleep.

Midnight air blew ripples through the training fields. Naruto breathed it, held it in his lungs, and expelled the coolness up through the centre of his chest and out through his nose. He brought his fingers together, and with a puff of smoke, a band of bunshin erupted in front of him.

“You’ve got five minutes to assemble as many targets as you can. Loser gets dispelled.”

In the end, one poor chakra mould with his face didn’t look pleased by its fate.

Naruto accidentally punched his fist through the first log dummy. The wood wasn’t as strong as he had given it credit for. If he wanted to have any success at endurance, he was going to have to learn how to make the wood rattle but not forfeit its shape. It took five more dummies to get it right and then Naruto was able to zone out to the repetitive smacking of his knuckles against the timber.

In one space, he tallied the hits to a thousand. In the other, he gave in to his thoughts if only to get rid of them.

We had sex and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it.

The rough logs grazed his skin, faint and fine enough that the fox took care of the sutures before the next round. Apart from the sigh of the breeze through the tree leaves, only the bunshin beside him mimicking his training with a rhythmic thud-thud disturbed the silence.

I have no idea why I let you but I know exactly why I let you.

Did I do the wrong thing? Did I do something bad?

These were the spun-circle of thoughts that had prevented Naruto from doing more than dozing. Sometimes he wanted to cancel them out, stop giving them attention, because thinking them wasn’t going to change the past anyway. Sometimes he allowed them because after long enough he was bound to feel too nauseous to bother with them.

Both ended at the same conclusion, to confess, but sometimes in the weaker moments of his wonderings, Naruto wasn’t sure if anyone would believe him even if he told them. If anyone would believe that he had just lain there and let it happen, with no evidence of the act except for his word and a dark stain in his carpet to remind him that three times wasn’t an accident anymore, with Uchiha Sasuke of all people.

But that’s what you wanted. That’s what you said.

Still kind of feels like a part of it was my own fault though.

Numbed hands put through a final strike that broke the wood apart. The bunshin followed his lead to a flurried crack of chips and splinters, and Naruto stared into the black backdrop of mountains in the distance while waiting for the next idea to arrive.

“I’ll race you,” one of the bunshin suggested. Another sprinted off, needing to hear no more than the gentle chime of a challenge, and the rest chased after it to a holler of get back here! cheater! gonna catch you and kick your ass! Naruto followed, gouging dirt and grass at the take-off, and pounded out a familiar perimeter around the field in pursuit of the mob.

I got off on it. That’s the problem.

Complicated.

So what has Sakura-chan been doing?

If there was something going on, Naruto hoped it was different, even if he didn’t feel good or right about it. Because if Sasuke cared about her, if there was something personal between them—even if he didn’t feel good or right about letting her be with someone who was so unstable, Naruto would keep the secret to the last exhalation of his life if it meant Sasuke stayed and got better.

I have no idea why you thought that doing that with me was the best thing to do. But then again I have no idea what you’re thinking anyway.

All we want is for you to be safe and happy and here.

The bunshin were really grinding all the stamina their legs had to offer. If Naruto wasn’t leaking a constant stream of toxins into his blood from the force of his exertions, he had no hope of matching them, let alone outrunning them.

Through the wind-cut streaks of tears pulled from his eyes and the heaves of his lungs for breath that he wouldn’t yet grant, Naruto thought the only thing that really mattered. Not the worry that he had done something he wasn’t supposed to do, not the regret that he had made the wrong choice under such confronting circumstances, and not the shame that some of it had felt, for better or worse, undeniably good. What he needed to know was what he was going to do when it happened again.

Naruto stopped running. He couldn’t tell where on his body it hurt the most anymore. He keeled and curled over on the grass beside the track and dispelled the bunshin, and immediately the muscle fatigue, the overthinking, and the weight of exhaustion hit at once.

Perfect.

He rested for a few minutes and then dragged aching bones home to soothe under a hot shower. The warm water and washed tension pulled his eyelids shut, making it so that his head couldn’t hold together a long enough string of thought to stop him from yielding to sleep the second he was horizontal on his bed.

Rain pitter-patters, ticking clocks and light drum beats. That was what Naruto would remember of his dreams before the colors faded and the voices stirred, blurred, and disappeared, and he woke to curtains bordered by light. He had slept until morning.

The tapping continued. Naruto turned and kicked at the curtains, focusing enough through sleep-heavy eyes to make out the dark mask and familiar crouch of his teacher.

“Kakashi-sensei?” Naruto turned away from the brightness as Kakashi pulled the screen back and sat on his windowsill. “What time is it?”

“Time for you to go on a mission!” Kakashi said merrily. “Tsunade-sama sent me. She thinks you’re avoiding her because of the damage you did to the city’s water supply.”

“I thought she said it was electricity.”

“Oh, so you do remember what you’re in trouble for.”

Naruto pressed his pillow to his face. Maybe he was outwitted by the fuzz in his brain, maybe he would have fallen for it anyway. “Alright. I get it. I’ll go see Baachan later.”

“Weeds thrive after rain. I don’t know if you know that. And the Hokage Tower has a lot of gardens.” Kakashi was gratingly happy to explain. “Unless you still want to be pulling them at this time tomorrow, I suggest you get up and get started.”

Naruto sighed, the starfished outline of his body visible through the sheets. Kakashi watched the pillow jiggle on Naruto’s face when he mumbled his acquiescence.

“Alright. I’ll get up.”

“Naruto,” Sai’s voice pulled him from sleep this time. “Kakashi-senpai is here. He said he has a duty to make sure you go do your mission.”

Naruto rolled himself out of bed this time. A crease-resistant shirt and a brush through his hair made him presentable enough to be seen in public. He splashed his face with cold water to clear out the last of the fog in his head and tried not to look so haggardly bored at the thought of work before he had even started.

“Do you remember what I said to you this morning?”

“Yeah. Uh…”

“You’ll be cleaning up the gardens around the Hokage Tower,” Kakashi said, and then glanced at Sai. “And you might want to bring a friend otherwise you’ll be there all day.”

Naruto glanced at Sai too, who would have said yes had he asked.

“It’s okay. I should take responsibility for my mistakes. Can you stay here and make lunch and dinner instead?”

Sai had no issues with that. Naruto watched him carefully and tried to silently will this kid to read between the lines for once in his life. His last instructions before he followed Kakashi out the door were to send Sakura to find him when the food was ready.

Naruto realized too late that in the wintertime there were no weeds to pull and no leaves to clear. He tasked his frozen, gloved fingers to picking up fallen twigs, bark, and other things the wind had invited overnight, and kept surveillance on the only other gardener who worked the opposite lawns. Too far away for conversation.

Clearer in the daytime on half a night’s rest, Naruto decided.

It was a stupid thing to do.

Eyelids tried to squeeze the regret out in unguarded moments, long sighs pushed forward by the weight of a memory that was a burden to carry. Under pressure from embarrassment, Naruto wanted to find an excuse for his mistake, because that was what it was. A mistake. A lapse in judgment that he wasn’t known for anyway. A slip-up that was forgivable only once.

It hurt to think about. Weaknesses he thought resided only in his heart apparently lived in every cell of his body. A culmination of nostalgic feelings and a case of very bad timing.

You were inside me.

Sigh fogging the air in front of him.

Complicated.

Sakura never showed up. Naruto walked home with his back to the afternoon sun to find Sai lying flat on his stomach on the carpet in the lounge room reading a book and nothing on the stove. He stood in the light of the window, darkening the pages of Sai’s book with his shadow, and Sai turned to stare up at him in sickly, doe-eyed innocence.

“How come you haven’t started lunch yet?”

“I did but I burnt the noodles. Sakura went out to buy more.”

Naruto’s brows crinkled in distrust of his ears. “You burnt the noodles?”

Sai hummed confirmation in the wrong tone, and when asked exactly how he managed to burn noodles, he just shrugged, which did nothing to fill Naruto’s stomach.

“Well okay, so you burnt the noodles. What about the rest of lunch?”

“That was lunch.”

“Are you kidding me?” Naruto caught himself. “Nevermind. I’ll just see what leftovers we have until Sakura-chan gets back.”

Naruto walked into the kitchen. There was just enough rice still warming in the cooker to put into a bowl and stir through a couple of drops of sesame oil. He put the first spoonful in his mouth to the sound of clambered footsteps up the stairs. Sakura opened the door, panting.

“Naruto! There you are! I was looking for you. I thought you were supposed to be at the Hokage Tower.”

“I got hungry.”

“Yeah, sorry about that!” Sakura flicked off her shoes with practiced ease and scuttled across the kitchen with a bag of groceries. “I ran into Ino at the fish market. That girl does not stop talking. Hey, don’t eat too much. I’ll be done in a moment.”

Much to Naruto’s relief, Sakura stirred together a quick-and-dirty soup to go with the noodles and grilled fish. But the smell of cooking pulled Sasuke out of his room too, and the only time Naruto made eye contact with him, he just looked so goddamn satisfied—

It didn’t matter. It was only the next day. The hot and awkward feeling that sent his stomach into a somersault was expected. Appropriate. And only transitory. One day they were going to look back as old men and laugh about it anyway—remember what we used to do? yeah, that was a crazy time—because Sasuke was getting better and it couldn’t go on forever, had to stop somewhere.

Just need to give it a little more time.

This doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.

Four Months

Naruto was determined to be stronger when Sasuke came to him again, house empty and alone against the black eyes that filled his vision. His fist tightened under his pillow, the line of his mouth flattening and thinning and if Sasuke didn’t back off, wouldn’t stop pushing him down, pinning him down and squashing his cheek into the bed—

“I said fuck off!”

Sasuke’s hair was in his grip, pulled it as hard as he could and expected the blow of Sasuke’s fist to his chest when it was the only way to make him let go, black strands affixed to his sweaty palms and Sasuke was still expectant, still hovering all over him.

“What’s wrong with you today?”

“With me?” Naruto dared not try to kick him this time but he sat up and Sasuke moved back. “You are so fucked up.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

Naruto couldn’t tell how distant Sasuke meant by his deliberately ambiguous leave, the room or the apartment or completely out of Naruto’s life—don’t you even tease me—and the expression on Sasuke’s face was oh so divine like it were the most natural thing in the world, to alleviate boredom with sex—

“I don’t care where you go!” said Naruto.

I don’t mean that.

“You don’t mean that,” said Sasuke.

Naruto breathed and left his gaze on the ground. Five years apart and Sasuke still read him so easily, could see it in his face that he didn’t mean it and never would, never had, that Sasuke could do almost anything, including sex, and Naruto would still be content with the knowledge that Sasuke was there when he woke up in the morning.

“You’re too tense. What’s your problem? It doesn’t mean anything.”

To you, maybe.

“You know what?” Naruto snapped back. “I still believe in you but this… shell that just looks like you isn’t what I fought for.”

Naruto wouldn’t look at him anymore. He didn’t know how Sasuke was reacting when he wasn’t saying anything. Not even his hands were moving and Naruto couldn’t hear him laughing or growling or living. Sasuke was just standing at his bedside and all Naruto could do when he couldn’t fix the problems was brace himself for the conceited, hurtful reply—

“I don’t need you to tell me what kind of horrible person I am.”

in a voice low and pure and incredibly far away.

“You think I planned life to be this way?”

Sasuke—!

“You say it like you think I don’t already know.”

Naruto looked up and Sasuke grabbed his shirt, threw him into the wall and held him there with both hands. Sasuke wasn’t scowling. He was real again and twelve again and Naruto knew that face, that look—of being hesitant and affected and trapped by the silence that the words inside wouldn’t break. Naruto saw—he saw Sasuke—the old one he thought had long ago died before he could save him. And then there it was:

“I hate myself for what I’ve done.”

But you don’t have to do this—

I can fix you, I know I can! Just give me a chance to—

“Is that what you want to hear?”

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed with an unholy smile the old Sasuke never had, watching in Naruto’s face for the sweet moment when he realized he had peaked his hope too soon, the nightmare that came with wanting to believe in something so much that the simple sigh to complement the cracking inside was far more destructive than any physical pain Sasuke could inflict.

—you’re breaking, Naruto, you’re breaking and it’s all my fault—

Four Months, Three Days

The longer Naruto waited, the harder the words were to say, the more he wondered whether he even had to say something at all, the easier it became to convince himself that if he just waited a little bit longer, things would start to sort themselves out on their own.

Even if the weight in my chest won’t seem to go away.

I need to get out, get some fresh air.

The smell of soy sauce and beef broth wafted out from under the Ichiraku shop curtains, luring anyone with a weak will and an empty stomach into the promise of a good meal. Naruto walked with a smile and single-minded purpose until he was seated and grinning at the gentle face of the shop’s owner.

“Naruto! To what do I owe this pleasure? I was starting to wonder where you went.”

“My diet these days has been severely lacking in ramen.”

Teuchi already knew this by the amount of time Naruto’s stare spent nailed to the menu board. “Hold on and I’ll be with you in a moment. The usual?”

“With extra pork—”

“And both egg halves. I know. Hang on.”

Naruto felt a burst of good anticipation in his chest. Teuchi seemed to be busy with the orders of the other customers: two merchants whose attire made them stand out as visitors to Konoha. Their discussion was too quiet for Naruto to overhear but from their walled and stoic expressions, he guessed it was either business or death.

After Teuchi set bowls in front of the merchants and started on his order, Naruto tracked the chef’s movements with fine-honed focus until his attention was hooked into conversation.

“Did you get sent on a long mission? I haven’t seen you for a while.”

Naruto supposed it was a kind of a mission. Missions were expected to have a successful outcome. Team 7 was involved. Even if he didn’t go into details, even if he said the mission was based in Konoha—even if he said he was taking care of an orphan, which wasn’t a lie, or guarding a criminal, which would imply enough non-disclosure to kill the conversation and Teuchi would understand—

Avoiding things hasn’t been going so great for me but—

would it be so bad if I just didn’t talk about you for a day?

Naruto smiled looking down, embarrassed, like a child. This much he could pretend, passing it off as generally being busy, and the lightness of relief when Teuchi didn’t press him further made him feel accomplished.

“Well, absence does make the food taste better… or something like that,” Teuchi offered amicably. “I heard there are fireworks tonight. Are you going to go watch them?”

“There are fireworks tonight?”

“Yeah, some little thing going on over near the Yamanaka Florist, I heard, a scholar’s circle celebrating something or other. You live on the western side don’t you?”

For all his prowess on the field, there was a reason the tactician’s work was left up to people like Shikamaru. Naruto stared a little confused, because he didn’t live there anymore, and almost pulled the thread that would have unravelled a tale of things he didn’t want to discuss, in the middle of the day, with people who couldn’t help him anyway. Instead he caught himself just in time with only a heartbeat’s pause of hesitation, confirming the assumption with a nod.

“You should be able to see them quite clearly then.”

Naruto’s gaze wandered. “I’ll watch out for them.”

That makes sense. That must be what those merchants are doing here then.

When the chef placed the bowl in front of him, Naruto carefully extracted the yoke out of one of the egg halves and ate it. Then he used the empty dome of the leftover eggwhite as a makeshift spoon and took his first, delicious mouthful, better than anything his imagination could taste.

The food was exactly what he need. There was no possibility of any other conclusion. It fed memories. It gave him strength.

Four Months, Six Days

If their walls were thin between rooms, they were just as thin between apartments. Sakura put up with the buzz of the television because if Naruto weren’t in front of it, he would be in front of her, pestering her and preventing her from doing any work. The noise was distracting sometimes but at least she made progress, in the daylight when he mind was most active.

But after dark, late at night, when Sakura was tired, when the heavy footfall of the adults in the apartment above ceased and the galloping of their children across the ceiling silenced, the volume from the television started to border on being too loud for neighbourly tolerance.

The light from the television screen revealed her entrance into the living room. Naruto glanced up at her, lying outstretched on the couch, and turned the volume down before she even had to say anything.

“I’m surprised you’re not asleep,” Sakura commented, moving further into the room to sit on one of the armrests. Naruto looked too comfortable on his back for her to want to disturb him and tell him to move over.

“Yeah, well…” yawning, “gardening sucks so…”

“What are we watching?”

“Just some local broadcast, I think. Did you know there was a festival the other day?”

“Yeah. I heard about it from Ino.”

“Looked pretty nice on tv.”

Sakura watched him. Naruto had his arms crossed over his chest, for warmth, maybe, or maybe he was getting into position for sleep. His eyelids certainly seemed to be demanding it.

“You know, you should ask Sasuke-kun to hang out with you and Sai more. I think he’d like that.”

Naruto snorted air through his nose on first reaction, crinkling his nose afterwards, but the unconvinced and wiry smile remained. “Does he even know who Sai is?”

“That’s what I mean. I think they need someone in the middle until they get to know each other.”

“You’re in the middle too.”

But not in the way that you are, she wanted to tell him. Naruto’s blue irises were barely visible under his dark and heavy lids. Sakura knew nothing she said to him now was even going to be remembered the next day, let alone taken in and given serious consideration.

Sometimes I think you’ve actually matured because I don’t really see you two fight that much anymore, but then I remember I’m wrong.

You still fight, just not like children.

Four Months, One Week

If Naruto thought the scrawlings born from Sai’s paintbrush in the blitz of battle were impressive, he had never seen what Sai could do with a blank page and a calligraphy pen when at peace. Sai pulled a sketchbook down from the shelf above his desk and put it in Naruto’s hands. For such humble casings, the works inside were far too—too—

“Wow. These are really… detailed,” Naruto breathed to the black lines depicting five children screaming.

Sai smiled. “Thanks. I don’t show this sketchbook to people often.”

Art, Sai said, had been his way of dealing with the emotions that he had been ordered to eliminate, because it was never truly possible to destroy something instinctual, even in children. Naruto listened. He found it odd that while Sai spoke, his expression was one of joy.

“They took away our reasons for happiness first. Then they blamed us for our sadness. That was how they got us to hide it. We believed it was our fault.”

Ah, Naruto realised. That was why he felt uncomfortable when he looked at Sai’s art. Sai had drawn his emotions. When Naruto looked at the drawings, he was looking at Sai’s soul.

“When did you draw these?”

“Years ago now. Maybe when I was twelve or thirteen? I should have dated the pictures but I didn’t expect to hold onto them.”

A few more pages in and Naruto could barely stand it. He looked over at the art supplies tidied neatly in jars. All of his paints and pens were black. A magnifying glass stuck out as the only anomaly. “What do you draw now?”

Sai smiled at a secret joke and reached under his bed for another sketchbook. Naruto opened the cover to pictures that were no less radiant and consuming, though easier to look at. The style was different, naturally: like jutsu, this too was a skill that refined with time.

“Isn’t it terrifying,” Sai said brightly, “to think that I’ve actually gotten worse over time? That the more I practice, the more practiced the drawings look.”

“If you want to see bad, let me at it,” said Naruto.

“I’ll probably never draw anything like what was in the first sketchbook again. Which is good in a way because it means I’m happy now.”

“You’re happy now?”

“Yeah.” Sai laughed. “But happiness won’t make great art.” Naruto tried to refute but Sai had already decided Naruto was wrong. “Have you ever awakened the fox because you were happy? Anger and sadness is what makes great things happen.”

“That’s shit.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make great art ever again. It just means it’ll be great in a way that it couldn’t have been when I was sad,” said Sai, and then he looked struck by a thought. Sai ducked and pawed through another stack of sketchbooks under his bed. His black hair shimmered under the light and he moved his fingers carefully through the covers. His skin seemed suddenly, strikingly pale. “I thought it was here but can’t find it.”

“You need to learn how to organise your shit better,” said Naruto.

It was as if Sai didn’t hear him. Sai’s dark, round eyes leapt alight with excitement. He pounced at his desk and rifled through the papers.

“You know,” said Naruto, “you’re actually kind of not bad looking when you smile for real.”

“This is not a real smile,” said Sai. “But I’m glad to hear you think it is. I’ve been practicing my whole life.”

Naruto grimaced. “You ruined it by speaking,” he said. “Did they pick you to be in our team because you looked the most like Sasuke?”

Sai gave the question consideration. “I don’t believe so. I think if that had been their goal, they would have ordered I cut my hair in Sasuke’s style.”

An image flashed in Naruto’s head that caused a sharp intake of stifled breath.

Sai found what he was looking for and Naruto watched as Sai spoke, alight, in gushes of excitement, feigned or real, Naruto couldn’t tell tell and didn’t care. Sai really did look a lot like Sasuke. He looked a lot like every other typical Japanese teenager that Naruto had ever see on the street. But those superficial similarities put no feelings inside of Naruto. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be about appearance. No matter how hard Naruto tried, nothing jumped. His heart was stagnant. It was just Sasuke.

That’s not good.

Four Months, One Week, Two Days

The tight, uneasy feeling in his stomach made his muscles weak and hard to move. Naruto had to fight between what he wanted and what he promised and what he feared.

It’s like a mask. Just because I ignore it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I want—

When Naruto left the apartment, the knowledge stopped. Outside held romance, nostalgia, there were things he knew and recognized. But his bones disconnected and fell apart when he returned and no one said anything, when the house was quiet, when he couldn’t hear the secrets.

Until one day when he did hear them. When he heard Sakura say the thing he feared.

“No, I think I might stay home and try to nap. I didn’t get a very good night’s sleep last night.”

He had asked her to come out with him and she had declined again, but this time she seemed genuinely tired. Blankets piled up to her shoulders in the dark room meant he couldn’t see her face clearly. She could have been crying and Naruto would never have known.

“Anything the matter?”

If she were guarding a secret as close to her heart as the one Naruto was, he doubted if even he would be able to tell truth from fallacy. Maybe it was worse for her since she still loved Sasuke and everyone knew about it. Maybe she even knew Sasuke was using her and was too ashamed to tell anyone that she actually didn’t care as long as he was back.

But if he could drag just a little more conversation out of her—just enough to hear if there were quivers in her voice—

“No. I think it’s just the changing of the seasons. I always have trouble sleeping at this time of year.”

Naruto hadn’t picked up on anything suspicious or alarming but—

Don’t read too much into it. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. The seasons really are changing after all.

But what if you are lying to me? What if something is the matter and I’ve already missed my last chance to fix it?

Four Months, One Week, Four Days

Another four days had gone by when neither he nor Sasuke had spoken to each other, although Sasuke kept looking at him, looking at Sakura, and now Sakura was being weird and saying weird things and growing faint.

Naruto stared at the flickering images on the television until his gaze drifted and he washed back into his thoughts. What if, after a day spent blindly looking the other way, he came home and Sakura wasn’t the same? Naruto didn’t ever want to carry that burden, to know that he had known what was going on, what Sasuke wanted, and that he had still done nothing to protect her. That he had avoided Sasuke and Sasuke had given up and gone for an easier target.

Or maybe Sasuke had been fooling her all this time with lies the colour of the sun and Sakura had only just realised the pretence, and now that she was a used toy and she knew it, her feelings played with and tossed out—

Am I really seeing reality or am I just kidding myself?

Come on, let’s not do this again.

Sighing, rubbing his fingers along his face.

Two weeks had passed since the thing on his bedroom floor. The flashes of memory weren’t as cunning and rampant as the first few days afterwards and nor were they as bright. Memories rewritten by shock meant that, although Naruto was sure it had hurt, he only knew because he remembered thinking it. The actual memory of pain—was more translucent than the memory of its opposite.

Curiosity. He had asked Sai before he had properly considered the backlash if Sai confronted him about its origins.

“Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to do it with another guy?”

Sai honestly thought about it, which calmed Naruto in ways he hadn’t expected. “Can’t say I have. Not until now.”

Sai didn’t return the question and Naruto had let the conversation end on its own.

What was going on? If his mind could be bought and won over so cheaply, didn’t that mean—

And Sasuke and his calculating intelligence should have had more than enough time to work out if it was worth the trouble. But whether that meant it would be okay for Naruto to let him get back into his space if another opportunity were to arise—even if it’s not right, even if there’s something wrong—if it could just be okay, for the moment, because Sasuke was special and Naruto kind of—

It’s there. I just have to think it once and then it’s real.

If—

If he—

Naruto turned off the television and slid down the back of the couch, slumped at an awkward angle with his feet hanging off the side and his nose experiencing the scents of all the people who had ever been there before him and in that moment, he knew. Instantly, easily.

Even though he knew he shouldn’t.

Don’t.

Really shouldn’t.

The first thing Sakura’s sights fell on when she opened the door was the construction site of dishes in the sink, and then, when she turned, Naruto in the lounge room, lying lopsided on the couch with a faraway look on his face.

“Naruto,” she called in a particular voice. “Those dishes were there this morning when I told you to do them.”

“Yeah. They’re soaking.”

An excuse Sakura was learning not to trust.

“I touched the water,” she continued. “It’s not warm anymore.”

“Well what did you make it cold for then?”

Oh, so Naruto was going to be a pain again today. Sakura dropped her bag into one of the dining room chairs and came closer so that he could more clearly see her desire not to have to continuously pick up the pieces and teach him how to be responsible.

“Can I just ask how you got by when you lived alone?”

“My mom did everything for me.”

Sakura didn’t know what kind of joke Naruto was playing at but she wasn’t about to remind him that he didn’t have a mom.

“What?” Naruto countered the suspicion in Sakura’s face with carefully assembled innocence. “Didn’t your mom do everything for you?”

Let him win, she convinced herself. He’s not really arguing with you. He’s just in a mood for god knows whatever reason.

Four Months, One Week, Six Days

When Sasuke crawled onto the couch one day and put his head on Naruto’s legs, stretching out, Naruto couldn’t ignore him any longer. Blocked in a space with no feasible retreat, he held the words in his lungs and watched Sasuke roll away from the television so that the light flickers weren’t disturbing his calm under closed eyelids, pretending that:

“I’m tired. Put me to sleep.”

When Sasuke wanted attention, he knew how to get it. On edge and careful, Naruto dampened the tension with humor.

“I will fart up your nostrils if you don’t get off.”

“Take care of me.”

This was not going to go to a good place but the Sasuke who fell asleep in his lap while Naruto combed his hair with his fingers was the Sasuke he missed. Twelve years old again and partially assembled, bolted together with insecurity and multiple coats of pride. So soft.

Really, really shouldn’t but—

Just this once. It’s not often that you’re this peaceful.

Outside the moment, calm and reflective, Naruto knew with the precision of a fact exactly why it was a really bad idea to give in to Sasuke, even for things like this. Especially for things like this. Teetered on a very vague sense of duty, Naruto also knew exactly why he wasn’t saying no and exactly why he didn’t really want to anyway.

He looked down. Sasuke was heavy at rest.

Thoughts like this only led to trouble.

Four Months, Two Weeks, One Day

Naruto wasn’t sure how it happened or how he knew, but he stopped scrubbing the shower tiles long enough to realise someone was standing behind him. He whipped his head around and glared. Sasuke was tall above him, dressed in all black, and calm except for his unbrushed hair. He was holding a white mug with red embossed designs.

“Get out,” Naruto snapped.

“What are you doing?” Sasuke asked. “Are you busy?”

A feeling struck Naruto in the chest and cleansed his throat of air. Sasuke crouched to eye level. The cup touched the floor with a delicate clink.

“Naruto,” said Sasuke, softly, “do you want to do it again?”

He was kind enough to ask.

Sasuke continued. “I got carried away last time.”

‘Carried away’? Is that what you’re going to call it?

“Have you been thinking about it as much as I have?”

Would navigate any combination of words to get what he wanted.

“I can make it better this time.”

Naruto’s heart beat so loudly, it hurt his ears. What was he supposed to say? What had he decided? Naruto knew as objectively as a judge submitting a verdict, as a god casting fortunes and tragedies. Sasuke reached out, and Naruto felt the warm touch of Sasuke’s hand on his back.

Naruto said, “I don’t think we should.”

“Yeah, we probably shouldn’t,” said Sasuke. “But do you want to do it anyway?”

Fingers moved, finding the hem of Naruto's shirt, then slowly, gently, like Sasuke was nervous about his request and then eventually, when it wasn’t flight that Naruto felt but flashing heat as Sasuke’s hand skimmed along his skin—

“Gimme a fucking moment to think about it, would you?” Naruto grabbed one of Sasuke’s hands to stall it. The air smelled richly like his best friend. “How much better?”

“Unforgettable.”

Sasuke hadn’t needed to promise that much to a ship that was already sinking, and Naruto wasn’t sure what the word implied. But the answer hadn’t mattered. Sasuke could have said just about anything that had a remotely positive connotation and Naruto still wouldn’t have resisted the fingers that were pushing under the waistband of his sweats, Sasuke’s hand inside, lower, dragging over the material of his underwear—

Swift, unexpected heat burst into his face, flushing brighter than anything he could put a word on.

Ah, just—

Sasuke was touching him, which was already more than anything he had done the last time. Naruto was aware that his determination had been cracked from the start but now he knew it infallibly.

Just—just once more—much belated compromises—and then I’ll know, then we’ll stop.

“Take off your pants,” said Sasuke.

Naruto hesitated. Behind him, Sasuke pushed his own down, leaving the material bunched under his knees and softer on the tiles. With a sigh for his clenched eyes, Naruto put his thumbs under the elastic and, clumsily and a world away, he kicked his feet out of the clothing so that Sasuke could coax his legs further apart and kneel between them.

It was definitely going to happen again. Anticipation jumped in his stomach. Probably less than half a minute until—

Sasuke reached for the cup and coated his fingers with the oil. Awkward still, unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Naruto didn’t open his eyes again until Sasuke took his hand away and the focus switched from preparation to alignment.

This was it. His head swam with intense curiosity. A different kind of pressure sat intimately between his legs as Sasuke’s hands searched for grooves in his hips, pulling back to a push forward that had Sasuke’s low groan empty the silence and Naruto’s breath bathe across the tiles and then—just like that—

Ah, we’re doing it again.

Sasuke was slow, and careful, and the friction slide let Naruto know that he was getting deeper each time. Little flinches of tight pain started to fall away in favor of a much louder, higher feeling.

“Is this better?” said Sasuke. “How does it feel?”

Sensation blew through Naruto’s chest to the back of his scalp. He braced a hand to the shower wall, bent over on the floor, balancing the impacts that made muscle and fat and sinew tremble. Then the gentleness gave way to more concentrated and impatient snaps of Sasuke’s hips until there didn’t seem to be a reason not let go and lose himself in the act.

It was better this time. The thrill of it fizzed alight under Naruto’s skin and shredded his ability to think. Not nearly as much pain, more than double the gratification. ‘Unforgettable’ like Sasuke had promised and so much harder to say no to.

He was going to come. The feeling had passed a threshold and now he wanted it more than any warning in his head could dissuade. Where Sasuke’s release was sweet through his teeth, Naruto made sure to mute the sound in his throat. And then—

Regret.

Sakura saw a lot of things Naruto and Sasuke probably didn’t realise she saw, too consumed by their rivalry to think of anyone but themselves. She had one on each side of her: Naruto was picking at his food and being loud about eating it and doing everything he could to avoid looking at Sasuke; Sasuke was eating his food slowly and methodically, side dishes first and then the fish and then the rice mixed in with the soup, always in that order and always watching Naruto.

Sakura said, “Thanks for cleaning the bathroom, Naruto.”

“Mm.”

It had been the opposite once upon a time and Sakura wasn’t sure when it had switched or why it had switched. She wondered if she should warn Naruto or say something, or ask him if he noticed or cared.

Sasuke always glared at her but he stared at Naruto.

Four Months, Two Weeks, Four Days

By chance, Naruto ran into Ino at a roadside stall at the central markets when he had been ravenous for sustenance. She was eating a snack of steamed sweet potatoes. Naruto ordered fishcakes for himself and chomped through them heartily, but insatiately. With the leftover skewer through which his fishcakes had been pierced, he casually drove the pointy end into one of Ino's sweet potatoes and filched it from her plate, into his mouth.

“Can I have it?” Naruto had the gall to ask after he had already committed the robbery. Ino looked provoked and ready to hiss but she only watched him as he slowly put it to his mouth and made it disappear.

Ino leaned against the stall bench and fluttered her eyelashes, exaggerated, suddenly quiet and unexpectedly cute like the smile on her lips.

“Now that I’ve given you something, you have to give me something.”

Ino thought she had him trapped. Naruto saw an opening. She beckoned her hands like she was asking for something and she was: the only thing she could possibly want from him, the only bargaining tool he had to offer.

“Gossip.”

I knew it.

Naruto threw bait. “Sasuke comes out of his room nowadays.”

“I know that!” Ino huffed and dropped the playfulness. “Sakura does tell me some stuff. She said he likes watching those silly afternoon dramas on tv. Is that true?”

“I have no idea.”

“What do you mean you have no idea? Don’t you live with him?”

“Yeah but I don’t watch tv with him.”

“Well can you start? I need something to break the ice with him once he’s allowed outside. Oh hey, listen. I have to get back to the shop now. Come with me if you’re free?”

Naruto had no plans except for the one that was building now, staring at Ino’s candlelit eyes that would trade almost anything to sate her desire for intelligence on Sasuke. He followed. It was interesting then to notice that while people stared at him because of the past, they stared at Ino because of the present.

“What’s Sasuke-kun’s favourite flower?”

“I don’t even know what my favorite flower is.”

“Hmm. I bet he would like something big like a sunflower.”

Either Ino was projecting, or she knew a Sasuke different from the one that he knew.

“Give him a cactus. You know, really prickly, only blooms in the dark.”

“Oh my god, that’s the best idea!” Ino clapped her hands and then, when her excitement couldn’t be contained in the bubbles of her giggles, she grabbed Naruto’s arm and shook it through him. “That’s perfect. Oh my god, I can’t believe how perfect that is.”

Naruto readjusted his hoodie after she was done apprehending him and told her to do whatever she wanted.

“What’s Sasuke-kun’s favourite color?”

“I have no idea.”

“What’s Sasuke-kun’s favourite snack?”

“I have no idea.”

“What’s Sasuke-kun’s favourite animal?”

“I have no idea.”

“Come on, Naruto, give me something to work with, would you?”

“Alright,” Naruto tucked his successful attempt at scheming behind make-believe ignorance. If he couldn’t get anything out of Sakura, he would get it out of her closest girl friend, though he had to be careful, because if Ino didn’t know anything either and Sakura realised Naruto were the one she had found out from—“Tell me what Sakura-chan has already told you and I’ll fill in the gaps.”

“I heard,” Ino said, twirling the words through carefully constructed craftiness, “that his hair is getting really long these days and he parts it on the right side.”

Sakura had told her that? Naruto was struggling to believe how such a useless observation could make the topic of conversation when Ino, mistaking his frown for reflection, continued.

“And that he likes his riceballs covered in sesame seeds. And that he likes barley tea more than ginseng tea.”

“Who likes ginseng tea anyway, like, at all?”

“Does he really rearrange the order of his scrolls every day?”

Naruto snorted. “Probably. There’s not much else to do.”

“And I also heard that he really likes playing card games. And that he likes grilled fish more than sashimi.”

“Grilled is the only way we ever have it anyway. None of us know how to properly slice it raw.”

“And that he once told Sakura she was as pretty as the flowers she was named after.”

Such a simple statement had Naruto quickly clearing out the nausea. He paused, not wanting to give away too much, and as soon as practiced apathy felt natural on his face, he turned his head a little to glance at her. Ino smiled.

“So he did, did he?”

Naruto said, “I’m just saying it’s not impossible.”

Ino clasped her hands dramatically, dancing whimsical circles along the path. “To think that my rival in love was the one to get the dream boy after all. Ah, I suppose I’ll have to be the bigger woman and go congratulate her.”

“I guess.”

“What a story they’ll have. Friends since childhood, teammates since the academy, how she saved him during his darkest days…”

“I guess.”

“Sakura and her soft pink, Sasuke-kun and his midnight blue… Well they do say opposites attract, right?”

“I guess.”

“What a cute couple they’d make! Don’t you think?”

“I guess.”

“Hey, speaking of, is it true that Sasuke-kun’s clothes are all black? Even his underwear?”

“I guess.”

“Do you think you could steal me a pair?”

Naruto stuttered, abruptly flustered, which finally made Ino crack and break into laughter.

“Did I go too far? Sorry, I’m just kidding. I made everything up. Sakura won’t tell me anything.”

Naruto was not about to present a bouquet of flowers to Sasuke, even if he was just the messenger on behalf of Ino, but Ino had taken such great care in choosing, cutting and wrapping the flowers that it would have been a waste to just discard them in the river or a line of vegetation bordering the road, in plain view of pedestrians.

Sakura turned at the sound when he opened the door, looking down at the flowers curiously.

“For you,” Naruto bowed gracefully and held them out to her.

Sakura asked him what they were for, but she didn’t accept the “just because” that Naruto delivered.

“Did you do something wrong?”

“No,” he said calmly, standing up straight and still holding the flowers out in front of him. “Not this time,” with a wink.

“You can tell me if you did something wrong.”

“Really,” Naruto assured with an open smile. “You pick up a lot of my slack. Sorry about that, and thank you.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.” Sakura displayed her hands then and the sticky pieces of rice attached. “I’m in the middle of making lunch. Can you put them somewhere for me? I think there should be an old glass pitcher in the cupboard next to the sink.”

Naruto filled the pitcher and swirled bleach through the water to help the flowers last, so Sakura said. She was making sushi rolls with her bare hands, which was supposed to enhance the flavour. Naruto had no palate; they were going to taste the same no matter how she prepared them. But he watched her anyway.

“Go sit down. I can’t concentrate with you looming over me.”

“Okay.” But Naruto didn’t move.

After spreading out the rice over the seaweed sheets, she prepared the fillings. Naruto compared the width of the carrots and cucumber slices with the slices for other rolls, the selection of particular strips of radish, the amount of egg she chose to add, how well she chopped the spinach, right down to the small and insignificant differences between the sprinklings of ground beef and the gentler way she seemed to assemble the whole meal. One set was different. One set was fatter, filled to the brim with more consideration.

“Here.”

Naruto stared at the plate, a little affronted. “Is this Sasuke’s?”

“No? That’s yours.”

Naruto accepted the plate, still staring. “How come mine are… bigger?”

Which made Sakura scoff. “I know your stomach. I don’t want you coming back in an hour’s time whinging that you’re hungry again. Although you probably will anyway.” She finished with another plate and handed it to him. “Can you take this one, too? It’s Sai’s.”

Naruto turned with the plates. Today was a day that he could put up with Sasuke, even if it made his head flood with thoughts, because as long as Sai was there, he could trick him into talking excessively with just the right question or comment and lay the perfect foundations for a conversation he didn’t have to be in complete attendance for.

“Been working on any new art lately?”

Sai dived right in.

Four Months, Two Weeks, Five Days

The flowers were gone in the morning. Naruto asked Sakura what happened to them.

“The smell kept making me sneeze.”

Naruto stared, but Sakura fidgeted uncomfortably and he swallowed the words sitting on his tongue. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were so sensitive to pollen. Where are they then?”

“I put them outside.”

“Where outside?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to go get them and put them in my room. If that’s okay with you.”

Naruto found the flowers leaning against a utility pole, the paper wrapping only a little crumpled.

Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days

Somehow, a lifetime defined by one too many rough experiences had brought Naruto to his current circumstances. Had it started the first time he had given in to Sasuke on the couch? Or was it when he had been standing in front of Tsunade and agreeing to live with him? Had it started before then, parting ways to go train with Jiraiya or the moment they had been put on the same team? Careless things that Naruto either had no control over or didn’t want to take the blame for.

Naruto got up. He changed into clothes that let his arms and legs move about more freely so that when Sai got home, he could go out and train to get the heat out of his fists. Until then—

“Play five-in-a-row with me.” Sasuke was getting too used to getting everything he wanted.

“Uh. Okay.” Naruto waited for the trick to creep into his dull, black eyes but Sasuke just kept staring at the television. “But I don’t think we have any of the equipment.”

“Then draw it, usuratonkachi.”

Sasuke didn’t seem to be in a good mood but it wasn’t a catastrophically bad one either. Unsure though Naruto was, this was also one of the longest stretches of spoken tranquillity between them since Sasuke’s return. He sat on the floor and ruled up a gameboard.

“That’s not what it looks like.”

“You do it then.” Naruto pushed the pen and paper at Sasuke, who shuffled up against the back of the couch to make space where he could properly render a gameboard. Naruto made no comment about how it looked exactly like what he had drawn, or about how Sasuke still seemed to talk like a child.

“I want to go first.”

While Sasuke took his time deciding where he would draw his first circle, Naruto found his focus drawn to the sound of the television and the blinking pictures when he wasn’t watching Sasuke tap the pen against his lips. Sasuke colored a circle in and passed the paper to him.

Naruto drew a quick circle and passed the paper back. When for several turns the game unfolded like that in strange, distracting silence, he wondered if he should risk pissing the studious calm out of Sasuke’s face by attempting more conversation and gave in to the desire, easily, like hesitation given to an addiction.

“What kinds of snacks do you like?”

Sasuke didn’t look at him and Naruto waited. He waited.

And then he stared at his hands, the ground, and the television.

“I like crispy rice crust,” said Sasuke.

It was sick, and Naruto knew it, the way crumbs could feed his greedy, lifting heart. “That,” he breathed in, and held it, and let it out, “is really gross.”

Rice crust, huh? Gonna have to start cooking rice on the stove.

Sasuke dropped the paper on the floor. Naruto calculated his next move, drew a circle, and passed it back. He slouched and slid down until it was just his head propped against the base of the couch and stared at the daytime drama, interrupted only when Sasuke finished his turn and he had to make a move.

So Sasuke liked board games? Or maybe he just liked strategy games, or maybe he just liked anything that gave his brain something to do. Later he would have to ask Sakura if her parents had any spare board games that they could borrow. Even if he didn’t know the rules, if Sasuke liked it and it made him better, brought him back to life, distracted him from—

“I’ve already had at least five chances to win this game.”

“Oh really?” Naruto recoiled with the stricken need to rationalise his incompetency. “Well I didn’t really play this game much as a kid.”

“It’s okay,” Sasuke said, but the look on his face when Naruto turned towards him told him that it wasn’t. “So what do I get for winning?”

Naruto stared, and then he sunk, and then he pleaded for lenience. Before Sasuke could sit up and decrease anymore of the distance between them, he had to cancel it out. “I don’t think we should.”

“I know we shouldn’t,” Sasuke was quick to rebut. “But while we’re both getting something out of it, I don’t see why we should stop.”

But still Naruto leaned away from it. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”

Sasuke just scoffed. “Was it not good enough last time? Your standards are pretty high for someone with zero experience.”

The path that this was taking was starting to make Naruto feel uncomfortable. He knew that this too was distraction. Manipulation. Because while it had felt good, had absolutely felt so much better than the first time and while even now, over a week later, he still sometimes caught himself in reflections—still a very urgent part of his brain ate at him to accept that it probably hadn’t been as great as his sated libido would have him believe. Because if Sasuke had really wanted to make it better, why had he chosen the bathroom? Why hadn’t Sasuke touched him properly? Why had it been so—quick?

Do I really need to wonder?

Then again, you didn’t promise ‘better’. You promised ‘unforgettable’. And it was.

Naruto didn’t move and Sasuke’s sigh appeared as pain on his face, squinting his eyes and then rubbing it off with his hand. “Look, can you just—save the coy act for someone else? I really couldn’t give a shit how easy you are. Take off your pants. I’ll be back.”

Sasuke got up. He went to the kitchen and Naruto sat alone with quakes tinkling the bells in his head. Probably shouldn’t. Really, really shouldn’t, not like this. But that was still Sasuke and everything he felt for him standing over him again with a cup in his hand and the most serene smile Naruto had ever seen.

“Your pants are still on,” Sasuke said with a budding giddiness. “Do you want to fight? That might be fun.”

“What?”

“Oil yourself up. Let’s see how long it takes me to rip your clothes off and pin you down.”

Naruto had options. He could beat the shit out of Sasuke for ever giving voice to such a suggestion.

But he didn’t, and he wouldn’t—because I’m an idiot who still believes in you, even now—and yielded instead. He snatched the cup out of Sasuke’s hand, took off his pants and did what he thought he was supposed to do with the oil. Sasuke dropped to his knees between his legs and shucked his pants down far enough that he could anoint himself with oil and then—

Pushing Naruto down on his back and bracing over him. Sasuke, who had made no promises this time, settled a moment, and then Naruto felt it pressing firm and wide and as soon as he was in, Sasuke went at it.

For Sasuke, it seemed to be a race to the bottom, because while he could be calculating and conservative when he wanted to be, it was when commitments were low and he was left alone, unsupervised, in the middle of the day, on the floor of the lounge room, that his greed demanded he steal as much as possible, as fast as possible. Naruto put his hands on Sasuke’s shoulders for stability, curved close, and a mouth not nearly far enough away from his face erased the thoughts in his head, replaced by short, insistent noises in Sasuke’s throat leading up to a final groan dug up from the depths of his lungs.

Sasuke shuddered and flinched in Naruto’s arms but Naruto was quick to release him when he rolled onto the floor. Sasuke had the decency at least to hitch his pants back up, and then he lay a little on his side with one hand over his chest and the other stretched out away from them, gurgling the last remnants of bliss and looking entirely too sweetened.

Sasuke had no more biting words to part with but Naruto swiped at something on his neck and he realised that shithead had gone and fucking drooled on him.

Five Months

The ANBU guards in Tsunade’s office were all wearing different masks. Naruto studied each of the animals to replace the boredom of the formality and to give his head a break. It kept happening, and where weeks had once separated the instances, it was now filing down to days. Naruto set sail his hope with the increasing frequency, praying that it meant Sakura wasn’t being exposed to any of the bad parts. Because it kept happening and he kept getting off on it, kept finding excuses not to stop.

Naruto knew it wasn’t ideal but it wouldn’t go on forever. It wasn’t going to go on forever. It was going to stop one day. One day would be the last day and then Sasuke would just… stop. He would just not come for it and Naruto would just not give in to it and then they could reassemble the leftover pieces and learn how to coexist again.

Temporary. It’s just temporary. It’s not like it’s going to go on for years. I could even fix you with this—flick of his eyes away—somehow. Just a little bit longer and then I’ll work it out and then—

“This it?”

“What? Oh. Yeah.”

Tsunade pulled more pages out from somewhere on her desk. “Compared with the reports from the beginning and what I saw last month, Uchiha seems to be improving. Would you agree?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

So she does think Sasuke’s getting better.

Then why the—

Tsunade was staring at him and there was something not quite right about it. Too… informed. Maybe he should have said more: saying too little might have seemed like he was hiding information—but saying too much might have looked like he was trying to cover something up because her eyes were just a little too narrow, hands folded under her chin just a little too tight.

“Naruto…”

He hated his name in that tone and took to staring coolly out the window.

“Anything you want to tell me?”

She knew. Naruto knew she knew. How did she know? No one was supposed to know—she had to be digging. Naruto willed himself not to overreact because Tsunade saw through glass-coated lies and he had only one chance to get it right.

“No? I don’t think so?” said Naruto.

Tsunade drew her lips into a thin line, picking up another report, and to Naruto’s ears the pages flicked unbearably loud. “I don’t trust you three to give me all the details. This is the ANBU report. Tell me what you think this sounds like. Day one hundred and sixteen. 1:38pm to 1:40pm. Uzumaki Naruto’s room. Groaning noises. Day one hundred and thirty-seven. 4:11pm to 4:12pm. Bathroom. Groaning noises. Day one hundred and forty-six. 12:10pm to 12:11pm. Lounge room. Groaning noises. Day one hundred and forty-eight. 2:29pm to 2:31pm. Lounge room. Groaning noises. I’m sure I don’t have to go on.”

There it was. The story of their fucked up friendship in ten seconds flat.

There was no limit to how small and weak and hot and raw everyone wanted to make him feel. Naruto couldn’t even do his normal routine like laugh it off because—of course there were ANBU, he’d seen them and now she knew, the ANBU knew—she was looking at him for answers now and Naruto didn’t know—standing at the centre of her office alone under the weight of the world and everyone knew.

“Still don’t want to tell me anything?” said Tsunade.

Naruto wasn’t looking and breathed in slowly, in and out just once and thought about not saying anything at all—or maybe she didn’t get it because she had to ask—calm calm calm fuck I don’t know—she had to ask so maybe she didn’t realize—oh let’s just cut the bullshit—of course she realised—she’s the goddamn Hokage.

“Sasuke gets bored,” said Naruto.

“So give him a book.”

Naruto felt the sting of her verbal slap and silently thanked her for such great fucking insight.

Tsunade’s chair creaked rocking back and her sigh released all the unspoken reprimands she couldn’t bear to say.

“I won’t even begin to imagine what you two are thinking but I’m not stupid. What, one, two minutes and it’s over? I don’t think you’re even once in a bed—and frankly it’s probably none of my business but this is a little different. Sasuke’s changed—he isn’t the same Sasuke you remember.”

Like I need anyone to tell me that—like I would ever need to hear that—I see a different Sasuke all fucking day long.

“I’m just so… annoyed,” words chosen for their exceptional delicacy, “that you didn’t report it—even if you didn’t report it, that you didn’t tell me. I think this is something I should know about—for your sake, Naruto, not his. You’re the only reason that stupid Uchiha brat isn’t locked up in jail indefinitely.”

“I don’t… I don’t mind.”

“What?”

“I don’t mind.” A little louder, clearer, equal amounts of false confidence. “It doesn’t bother me.”

He could feel Tsunade’s hard stare flush every part of his face and the window was still the most interesting thing in the room.

“And it annoys me when you lie but—god, I’m going to regret saying this—I’m still going to trust your judgment. You know Uchiha better than I do so who knows? Maybe it’ll work. The house is still standing and Uchiha’s doing something, even if it’s you. Unless his condition—or yours—deteriorates, do whatever you think is right. I won’t interfere until I have to and I’m sure you can hear the warning bells in your own head so listen to them. Can you do that?”

“I can do that.”

I can do that.

I can hide it, lie about it, keep it inside, keep it away from you, keep it away from everyone if it’s really so—so—if you don’t want to see it then I’ll never let it show.

I can do that.

Naruto’s room complemented Sasuke’s in all the other ways they made half of each other’s lives a whole. It made Sasuke stressed just standing in the doorway, eyeing those fucking half-dead flowers next to the alarm clock on his desk thirty-eight minutes behind and still ticking. He pushed clothes and books and weaponry with his feet, dividing them to his target on the other side.

Sasuke leant over him where the familiar smell was the strongest, mouth parting just enough for a smile when Naruto wouldn’t take his eyes off the cracks and chips in the wall.

You make me want to laugh, you stupid dobe—you think I’ll leave just because you won’t see me? You were always so stupid, Naruto.

“You were gone a while and then I thought Sakura and Sai were never going to leave.”

Naruto was in a perfect enough position this time, on his bed and on his side. If Sasuke could just turn him over a little more with the press of his hand to Naruto’s back—

“Sasuke, why do you do this?”

Sasuke danced in the exhilaration of his name on Naruto’s tongue, his eyes and smile growing wider and wilder. So they were going to do it like that, were they? Because Naruto’s fight was never one with Sasuke, only with himself, and the look on his face when he gave in and hated it was what Sasuke longed to see.

Always, always a stupid dobe. You were always weak and you can’t—don’t—won’t change it.

Sasuke’s knee was on the bed now, pressing a little harder but not enough to force the movement. It was always better if Naruto resisted so he had to fight.

Entertain me.

“I told you, I’m bored. Now roll over.”

“No.”

Sasuke stopped and ran his nose along the sleeve of Naruto’s shirt.

“Roll.”

“Fuck off.”

All anger and shock and amusement and thrill and Naruto was still counting the tiny impurities in the paintwork—stupid words, always a stupid dobe and stupid, useless, worthless words—sweet as rain was Sasuke’s breath preceding his voice in Naruto’s ear when:

“I have to wonder what she said to you to make you grow some balls.”

Naruto’s face jumped, lips curled back and eyes flared through the slit of his lids and Sasuke’s grin was smug, so smug. He had shot him point blank with the right words. So that Hokage-hag knows, does she?—and that wasn’t nearly the best of it—she wasn’t doing anything and Sasuke wouldn’t care even if she did because that was Naruto’s issue to deal with. Sasuke never had to stare anyone down and beat an excuse out of his pride because that was Naruto’s issue to deal with and he’d just take the pleasure when she wasn’t doing anything and wouldn’t stop him—

“Unbelievable.”

“Stop it!” Naruto threw the hand back out from under his shirt. It was coming, a fight, a heated scramble of bodies and clothes. Sasuke could feel his fingers itch with the chakra he couldn’t and didn’t need to use, nose-to-nose when he wouldn’t back away from Naruto’s quiet seething and the twists in his head. “Why do you do this? Go read a fucking book if you’re so bored!”

Go on, I dare you, give me something to do and start the fight you want me to finish—

“You’re not the only one in his house,” Sasuke teased. “Are you telling me to go to Sai next time, hmm? How about Sakura?”

Sasuke looked down at Naruto’s mouth and he knew what it looked like—Naruto thought he might—stupid dobe, you only wish I’d—and Sasuke could just hear the lightness in Naruto’s heart over his own internal laughter, the confusion—the jealousy? oh now that’s just precious—in his face providing just enough time to throw him down—

and push you down and pin you down and don’t you dare look so surprised—

You want this, Naruto, I know you do—you’re the one who always wants to chase me find me hold me fight me hate me—well if you want me that much then I’ll scar you so bad you’ll never forget me and then—

I’ll always be with you—

“How about Sakura?”

Sasuke couldn’t have meant it. He was lying. Lying like he always lied, lied by accident and lied without knowing he was lying. He had planned it that way, to throw Naruto off or to get him to move under him and nothing Sasuke said anymore was mistaken or honest.

You lied. I know you did because you’ve got nothing else to do but screw with my head. It can’t—be true—

But Naruto couldn’t argue with the report Tsunade had read. There was no Sakura. There wasn’t enough time for Sakura. It was all Naruto, Naruto, Naruto and Sasuke and no Sakura because—

It doesn’t make sense. I knew you and Sakura-chan didn’t make sense. Why would you? Why wouldn’t you?

Because he couldn’t tell himself it’s only me. All that time wasted awake and distracted and hurting and grieving and worrying and hoarding evidence—

What evidence? I don’t actually know anything!

Sleep was on the other side of the room dancing far out of reach and now Naruto had to face up to the reality that Sasuke was using only him.

Chapter Text

eight

Five Months, Three Days

Naruto held a smile on his face, hands tucked behind his back and spun a warm curiosity through his movements, because on the rare occasions when his heart felt brittle enough to admit that—I’m not sure—he first needed to convince Sakura to go out with him.

“Where are you going? Can I come too?”

Sakura had no room to complain of fatigue when she was packing her bag with a lunchbox getting ready to go out, and Sai wasn’t close enough to be distracting and Sasuke was too far away in his room for her to want to impress him so—so maybe—

“Hm? Oh just, you know, here and there. I think I’ll go out by myself this time.”

At least make it a decent lie if you’re going to lie at all.

Naruto didn’t like the unsettled feeling in his head. If Sasuke and Sakura weren’t sleeping with each other and Sakura still wouldn’t accept his company when Sasuke was nowhere in earshot, Naruto wondered just what was going on between them. Because there had to be something. Because it couldn’t just be that Sakura was pushing him away because—because—

Just let me ask you about it. Just let me tell you.

“You’re not even doing anything special. Let me come with you.”

It was too late to take the words back when she levelled a glare at him. Naruto thought he felt a twinge of remorse until Sakura snapped right back: “No. I don’t want to. I want to go out by myself for once.”

But Naruto couldn’t let it go and the crankier he made her, the more he thought he just had to push until she gave in to him. Sakura had always relented in the past and he didn’t know how else to word his plea, what else to say to make her give in, even just for half an hour it’d be enough, he promised—

“Didn’t you hear what I first said? I want to go out by myself. I’m always with you or Sai these days.”

Not your not, you’re never with me. I—can’t even remember the last time we went out together.

“Just—”

“You can go out if you want but not with me. I’ll be back later.”

Naruto didn’t fight anymore, didn’t follow. Instead he just watched her back as it gusted out the door and out of his control, out of sight and the sludge that was thickening in his head. He scuffed the ground and looked around and he was sure it had never felt this bad whenever she had gone out without him in the past.

You’re so sensitive to other people’s feelings. How come you can’t see mine?

You don’t want to see mine, do you. As long as Sasuke gets better—I don’t matter.

Five Months, Five Days

Naruto woke to a strange and unfamiliar pressure touched between his legs, and then Sasuke’s hand smacked over his mouth to muffle a groan to an intrusion every bit as dominating.

It might have been the first time Naruto resisted with any degree of vigor and anger because he fought without thought, too disorientated by sleep to do anything more than rely on a decade of bred reflexes. He managed to catch Sasuke’s chin with the heel of his palm and a vicious clack of his teeth, and Sasuke rewarded his boldness with a punch so hard, Naruto thought he might just slice his fist through his chest a second time.

“Let me—”

Get off get off get off get off get off—

Sasuke could see better in the dim flickers the television outlined and the more Naruto tried to scratch and grab and struggle, burdened on his back, the further Sasuke leaned just out of reach and showed Naruto what he was capable of when a movement too fast in the dark had Naruto’s nose brush in touch with Sasuke’s knuckles.

“Give up. I’m already inside you. And next time I’ll really hit you.”

Naruto stalled. He stilled. He had already lost. He had lost from the start and anything more was just going to turn into wasted time and energy. He breathed to settle his heart, the air exhaled and retrieved through his mouth dusting the underside of Sasuke’s thumb where his fist still sat in his face, and tried to think over the loud and pressurized sound in his ears.

As calmly as he could, he tried to speak some sense into Sasuke’s head. “I’m going to let you anyway. Just wake me up at least.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Naruto let out a disgusted breath and turned his head away.

He has an answer to everything because he already knows what you’re thinking.

Just keep it in. Don’t bother with words. Just get it over with.

Sasuke withdrew his arm to wipe at his nose, sniffling and sounding wet, and Naruto felt somewhat light and sinisterly brightened to realize he had managed to bloody Sasuke’s nose at some point in the fray.

“Fight me,” Sasuke carried on.

“You just said you’d hit me if I didn’t give up.”

“Yeah, I know. So fight me.”

The pitch in Sasuke’s voice was too high, like the possibility of fighting and fucking excited him so much, he could barely contain it. Naruto wasn’t going to fight him anyway, except now he didn’t trust the consequences if he couldn’t find a way to get out of it soon.

Sasuke rubbed his nose again and wiped it on Naruto’s shirt, and that sent a fresh wave of bottled fury to his skull.

“Look. I’m tired. Just get over with it so I can go back to sleep.”

Sasuke snickered softly but he didn’t say anything. Maybe it pleased him how fast he had made Naruto submit and that had calmed the giddy energy because he didn’t try to coerce anymore fight out of him. Instead he just lowered his head and dug a hand around one of Naruto’s legs, the other pressed to the armrest behind Naruto’s head, and Naruto closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath of air that smelled exactly like his best friend.

“Fight me next time, okay?”

Naruto didn’t want to give an answer—but Sasuke was asking so quietly and earnestly that the whiplash of his mood swings made him grunt at least an affirmation.

Sasuke seemed placated, for now. He moved slowly and he didn’t say anything when Naruto pulled Sasuke’s shirt up so that this time at least, his hands were touching skin. The gradual progression of Naruto’s breath growing deeper and rougher to match Sasuke’s movements meant that, somehow, strangely, frighteningly—somehow it felt almost acceptable.

Sasuke left immediately afterwards, like he usually did, and Naruto would have preferred more time to lie still and peel apart the jumble of things in his head but he needed to go to the bathroom to clean up. He pushed open the door and turned on the light, staring at his reflection in the mirror.

For a moment, that was all Naruto did. He stepped closer. He inclined his neck to where Sasuke had pressed his face and pulled his shirt to his eyes looking for proof.

I thought you were bleeding.

Naruto stretched his neck again. It felt like there was something there. Even if he couldn’t see it, he could feel it.

…did you drool on me again?

No, I punched you in the nose and you were bleeding. I mean—

Sasuke had been rubbing his nose. He had been sniffling. Hadn’t Naruto punched him in the nose? It had all happened so fast, he couldn’t really remember each individual impact of his fists and had just struck out wildly but—where was the blood?

While Naruto was inspecting his reflection, a passing thought wondering what else could it be if it isn’t either? made it stone-sharp and howlingly clear what it was.

Were you—

The force of the realization made Naruto forget everything for the suddenly sick and winded, quiet knowledge, not just because Sasuke had continued while another substance had been falling out of his eyes but because Naruto hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t noticed. And he knew there had been a lot more pressing things bloating his attention and Sasuke would never be upfront about that kind of thing but—

but—

but in the end all it amounted to was an uncomfortable reminder that Sasuke had not a marble heart but an eggshell shield. That Naruto still had a promise to bring back and bring out the person Sasuke used to be. Because if he didn’t save him, Sasuke had nothing and no one.

At least you came to me when you couldn’t take it anymore, I guess.

I don’t know.

Five Months, Six Days

Naruto felt like eating his rasengan instead of fighting Kakashi. Aimless, poorly-calculated punches and the only reason he could dodge half of what he did was due to knowing his teacher’s fighting style and sheer instincts. When Kakashi bowled him over coughing with an easy jab to the gut, Naruto wasn’t sure if Kakashi had just been lucky or if he had let that one through so he could stop and feel a different kind of pain for once instead of the pain caused by the white-noise clouds in his head.

“I think we should stop now,” looking at the sky when Naruto feebly disagreed: typical Naruto to want to train until he died. “Your game’s off today. Let’s continue tomorrow.”

“It’s okay. I still want to fight—I have to keep fighting. I just… I don’t know! Didn’t get a very good night’s sleep or something.”

Kakashi stood back with his hands deep in his pockets and decided that Naruto knew very well when he didn’t get a good night’s sleep. Naruto, who as a genin only woke up as their training was supposed to start and who could camp out under the stars on the hard earth and still wake up fresh in the morning, knew very well when he didn’t get a good night’s sleep. So was he lying or telling the truth? Because whatever it was seemed to be plaguing him enough that he couldn’t fight.

Kakashi had three ideas about what it could be and each corresponded with a separate person from the original Team 7.

“Anything you want to talk about?”

That was all he could give. If Naruto shook his head, he didn’t care. It wasn’t about being an unsympathetic and helpless teacher. It was about the issue being too great for Naruto to tell him because he had already decided that there was nothing Kakashi could do about it.

Kakashi turned his gaze upwards again. Teenage angst was going to have a death toll but god it was interesting to watch.

Five Months, One Week, One Day

The hallway was too narrow. That was what Naruto learned when routine bickering over cleaning or cooking or whatever other hell they could stir with words turned the first shove from Sasuke into a brawl on the floor. Naruto hit back to counter Sasuke striking out, walls too close putting thuds of soft sound into the air to complement the background soundtrack of Sasuke shrieking in his ears over the same juvenile and pedantic shit he always slung around and rampaged about.

“I can’t wear it! Wash it again now!”

Naruto said, “I just told you I can’t leave you alone in the apartment—”

“Can’t or don’t want to,” Sasuke teased with a shriller edge. He clocked Naruto in the cheek with fresh fingernail scratches a perfect parallel match to his scars. “You know as well as I do that no one’s going to do shit if you leave for a few minutes. Now go wash my shirt.”

Naruto snapped his teeth in the direction of the fingers, too nimble to be caught but the warning sufficiently issued.

Why do you always push the boundaries? I’m tired of breaking the rules for you.

“Can’t wear it or don’t want to wear it,” Naruto shot back. “Go wash it in the bathroom yourself if you want it that much.”

Sasuke’s reflexes were as tight as ever. Naruto had only a heartbeat’s space to recover and plan his next movement after kicking Sasuke away only to watch him rotate his palms on the floor and spring back, fiercer and more demanding than before.

“If you won’t do it then give me yours,” said Sasuke. “I want yours. Give me yours. Give it.”

“No—god, just go put on some other fucking shirt—”

Everything Naruto did, fighting, close and gritty, put nowhere as much distance between their bodies as he would have liked for not nearly as long as he would have hoped.

Naruto’s back thudded against the wall again. So far all of the plaster remained intact.

Sasuke twisted out of the knee Naruto wedged into his stomach, and with agility that Naruto both envied and despaired, an outstretched hand caught a decent fistful of the old shirt Naruto was wearing. Its faded fabric, now comfortable and nostalgically thin after years of use, tore easily when Sasuke clawed his fingers further up the neckline seeking to ravage what he couldn’t possess.

Seriously, if you’re so unhappy about all the destruction that follows you everywhere, maybe you should take a look around and see if you’re the one causing it—

“Are you happy now?” It was loud in Sasuke’s face as Naruto tried to unwind clasping hands. “Now neither of us can wear it—”

Sasuke didn’t say anything and pulled harder, tearing more. Even though the shirt was ruined, he wasn’t stopping, because this fight, like all their fights now, had never been about the tiny splashes of washing powder residue like Sasuke had claimed and complained about. All their fights now were only ever about finding a means to an end.

Sasuke pulled at both sides of the armscye and tore half the sleeve off.

“Can’t you just say it?” said Naruto.

Sasuke wound down the blind fervour that had dominated much of his mindless tearing. Although Sasuke didn’t relax his grip, he stilled, curious, and stared expectantly at Naruto like Naruto had said something interesting.

“Say what?” said Sasuke.

“Just say what you really want!”

Sasuke smiled. “I want a lot of things.”

Be careful. It feels like a trap. He could be leading you somewhere.

Sasuke wriggled on the floor. He pushed one foot a little on the wall behind him, and quicker and closer than Naruto was anticipating, Naruto was able to see in Sasuke’s eyes where the pupils ended and the irises began.

One look like this washes everything away, huh.

And too much of it was going to corrupt his will. Naruto reached up to smack the ball of his palm on Sasuke’s nose, even though Naruto knew he wouldn’t get anywhere near it before the humor faded and Sasuke jumped back into the fight.

“God, just say what you want!” said Naruto. “I’m tired of this fighting.”

“Tired?” Sasuke’s voice was shrill with disbelief. “You’ve barely done anything!”

There may have been some truth to Sasuke’s argument because Naruto had definitely fought battles longer than this, but the knowledge alone was still not enough to stir Naruto back into action. The time, energy and constant surveillance it took to make sure they had not been bested by the other was filling a smaller and smaller glass each time Naruto reached for it.

Exhausting.

This was definitely not how I imagined living together would be like.

Fatigued and dispirited, Naruto blocked only the minimum number of hits to the softer parts of his stomach to guarantee a swift recovery after it was all over, and let the rest through.

“Come on, you can do better than this,” goaded Sasuke.

You could hit harder too but you’re not.

Naruto took the jab to his ribs with a wince in the direction of the ceiling anyway.

Sasuke said, “Pathetic.”

Still can’t make me fight you.

Sasuke heaved an irritated sigh. He contemplated Naruto’s position for a moment, and then slid into his arms like Naruto was waiting for him to do.

Why Sasuke thought he still needed the pretext of a fight was out of the realm of Naruto’s intelligence and interests but he was glad when it was over. Maybe Sasuke had got out of it everything he wanted after all anyway because he curled in close over Naruto’s chest and slowly, smoothly, in a familiar, rocking rhythm—

Sasuke hadn’t been wearing a shirt from the start and half of Naruto’s was hanging down one side of his arm. Sweaty skin heated by the rolling exertions that Sasuke put into his hips, and all sliding warmly within reach of Naruto’s fingertips—

Things Naruto shouldn’t have let his mind indulge had the burst-burn of sensation swarming through his chest, buzzing just under his skin, but he needn’t have worried about wandering touches when Sasuke was the first—

Naruto didn’t know what to think, his head racing through justifications, because Sasuke—are you—are you touching me?—

Bright with the feeling of embarrassment when Naruto realised that no, Sasuke wasn’t actually touching him at all, at least not on purpose. Sasuke was threading the hanging strips of Naruto’s shirt through his fingers because he sat back suddenly, stopping all other movements to stare at the ribbons of debris in his hands.

And then Sasuke really did touch Naruto, who could only cautiously watch in Sasuke’s face for hints at an explanation, because after pushing the shredded material carefully out of the way, Sasuke’s stare seemed way too enamored with the broadening expanse of Naruto’s shoulders it revealed.

Something’s different. Why do you keep looking at me like that?

There was an awe in Sasuke’s face that Naruto wasn’t quite sure how to deal with, because while a parted mouth usually meant Sasuke was going to bite him, this time Naruto couldn’t any teeth. Instead Sasuke was staring at Naruto’s skin like it was the first time he was really seeing it.

“I’m going to fuck you.”

Nope. Just kidding. Straight to it like always.

Sasuke sat up straighter. He dug his hands into the waistband of his pants and pushed them to his knees, fumbling like he was inconsolably hurried and desperate.

“I’m gonna do it, Naruto,” Sasuke breathed. “I’m gonna do it.”

“Just shut up and do it then.”

“Try to stop me,” Sasuke rambled on with a sudden and insensible urgency that Naruto should have paid more attention to. “Did you hear me? Are you listening? Are you?”

“Just shut up. Like I could block out your stupid voice even if I tried.”

Sasuke pushed Naruto onto his side, carefully, still dazed and still muttering, quieter.

“I’m really going to do it and you’d better stop me because god I want to fuck you up so bad right now.”

It was going to be rough. All these words about power and control weren’t for Naruto. Inside, anger spiked, although Naruto tried to ignore it, simmering and mixing in to complicate the heat of arousal. These words were for Sasuke, who just wanted to hear the words in his own voice as he wrenched Naruto’s pants down as far as one pull would take them—

“Hey, Naruto.” Naruto piqued at Sasuke’s call, friendly in his ear. “Remember that time you tried to fuck me dry?”

Sasuke was pressing his weight into his hands pitched between Naruto’s shoulder blades, one closer to the column of his neck.

“Do you remember? Do you?”

Sasuke dropped his weight a little more, a little harder, so that Naruto’s arm, the one pinned between the floor and his chest, rendering its power useless and out of commission, flashed a warning of discomfort.

“Just go get the damn oil,” said Naruto. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Weren’t you listening?” said Sasuke. “I want to fuck you right now.”

Sasuke’s throat vibrated with quiet delight, leaning forward. Naruto felt it press between his legs and nudging shallowly.

“Stop it.”

“Stop me,” said Sasuke.

It wasn’t enough to set the anxiety in Naruto’s head ringing any louder but—Sasuke was watching him with wide and prying eyes and he was waiting for something that Naruto was pretty sure he wasn’t going to want. Then Sasuke did it again, harder, and Naruto got a sense.

“Sasuke—”

Naruto only let Sasuke do it twice more before he knew he was absolutely going to have to fight, surging with a jolt that knocked Sasuke far enough off balance to render his intentions impossible, for the moment, but not far enough away that Sasuke couldn’t still lash out and pin Naruto down again, a new angle but double the force—

Naruto used the pain to fuel his resistance, sat up and dived his hand between his legs to make a grab at Sasuke. Sasuke jerked out of the way just in time and launched at Naruto’s throat, bending down—

“Stop—”

“Come on, Naruto, you’re making it way too easy.”

Naruto was sure now that Sasuke meant to do what he said he was going to do. But unlike Sasuke who was used to eradicating his conscience in order to deal the most harm possible, Naruto just—

I know I’m weak but just—

“Sasuke—!”

What happened to you that would make you want to do this?

When Sasuke poured his concentration into aiming correctly, lapsing on the restraints that kept his prey subdued so that he could gouge, all the thoughts in Naruto’s head siphoned into sole survival instinct. Naruto snapped, immediately and unthinkingly, and smashed his fist with whatever propulsion he could manage square in Sasuke’s face.

It was enough to disorientate Sasuke, momentarily unable to focus, and that was space enough for Naruto to heave Sasuke off and belt him with his fist again, sending Sasuke skidding on his back out of the hallway and into the dining room.

Naruto gaped and caught his breath. Sasuke was groaning or gurgling or mumbling something but at least he wasn’t moving from the limp heap his limbs had fallen into.

But then Sasuke was moving, sitting up to showcase a nose that had started to spill blood, which his tongue licked at involuntarily as it ran onto his lips and he realized what it was. Sasuke wiped it on his arm, unfazed, and dabbed gentle presses to his cheek where most of the second blow had been collected. Sasuke winced, and then he lifted his eyes to stare at Naruto.

“Not bad,” was Sasuke’s assessment through red-stained top-row teeth. “But I know you can do better.”

Sasuke pulled himself to his feet. He readjusted his pants and took his time doing so, more concerned with watching the building tension in Naruto’s face when Naruto tried to stand and do the same.

And just like that, Sasuke was back in Naruto face again, ripping more pieces of the shirt in his frantic attempt to gain leverage and keep it. Naruto fought. With each punch and kick and twist and bend of Naruto’s joints in ways he couldn’t have imagined possible, he found himself disconnecting further from reality.

How do I—how do I get out of this? How am I going to get out of this?

I just want this to stop—please just—

Like the opponents of the past who Naruto had staked his life upon, he wasn’t sure how he was going to win or if he even stood a chance at winning at all. But Naruto knew he had to win. Absolutely had to win. Naruto knew for his future that he had to win, whatever end that lay waiting for them. And so Naruto forgot: who they were, what they were fighting over, the damage he was doing and whether or not it was recoverable.

Red, viscous chakra pricked at Naruto’s fingertips. Sasuke used his mouth as another weapon when his teeth weren’t buried in skin.

“God, you always rely on that fucking fox—”

Before Sasuke could shove it back with a whirl of his sharingan, Naruto snatched the aiding chakra up. He jumped on his hands, pivoting. Caught Sasuke’s neck between his ankles and flung him at the wall so hard it crushed the plaster and left a smeared imprint of blood to verify his attendance. Twisting. Locked crosshairs on Sasuke’s chest while he was pulling his skull out of the wall and dropped a palm strike to his solar plexus that sent Sasuke cartwheeling back into the dining room, more than hard enough to disable him.

Naruto stood and stepped back, stumbling. He watched Sasuke’s lungs heave for breath, too paralysed to do anything else but curl inward and perform the basic functions that kept him alive.

It’s over. Isn’t it?

Please let it be over.

Naruto walked closer, warily staring down at Sasuke’s gasping carcass and his eyes clenched in pain. Even though Sasuke couldn’t react, he must have known that Naruto was there.

Sasuke put his thumb up. He was giving Naruto a thumbs up, who wasn’t sure if that meant he was okay or—

“Better,” Sasuke rasped, and then his hand fell away.

“Better?”

“Wild.”

Naruto stared.

Sasuke’s eyes waded open, wheezing still but smiling with a mouth full of teeth outlined in red. He lay in silence, smiling and staring unfocused until he had recovered enough to form a sentence.

“I wasn’t really going to do it,” said Sasuke. He breathed in deeply again. “But your—” coughing, “your face—”

Sasuke laughed. On the ground with his face a mess of scratches, choking on blood when his lungs spasmed too quickly and he drank his own bodily fluids instead of the oxygen they were seeking and still he laughed through the convulsions.

Naruto stared.

I don’t believe you.

“You promised you’d fight me,” said Sasuke.

Naruto stared. His heart hurt.

I don’t trust you.

“Why would I anyway?” said Sasuke. “Need to keep you keen for a little longer at least.”

“You are actually crazy, aren’t you,” said Naruto.

“Crazy?” Sasuke spat, offended. He burst another laugh. “Come on, it was just a bit of fun.”

“That was for fun?”

“Believe me, if I really wanted to, I could.”

Naruto stared. His heart hurt and something was coming up his throat greater than he knew how to handle. Then Sasuke’s mouth slipped into a smile so calm and confident that Naruto would rattle the bones in his fist again just to wipe it off Sasuke’s face.

That was what Sai walked into the apartment to see Naruto doing. To his credit, Naruto felt the shame of his actions immediately and acutely enough that he jolted a step back, stuttering on his feet and stumbling through the shock.

Sai looked unperturbed by the scene he had walked into. He said, “I bet it’s about washing.”

“Huh?”

“The fight.” Sai motioned between casual steps. “I bet it’s about washing.”

Already jittery, Naruto could do nothing more than deflect the question of how he knew back onto Sai.

“You always fight about washing. Last time was about washing too.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yeah,” said Sai. “Maybe you should stop doing Sasuke’s washing if it upsets you that much.”

Naruto stared. Sai was only trying to help and he knew that. But the way Sai could sew the enormity of what had just happened into a tiny, blithe mouthful of understanding was going to be Naruto’s downfall if he didn’t blow Sai off as quickly as possible.

“Yeah,” said Naruto. “Maybe I should just—”

Sakura came to him later, as Naruto expected she might, because the hole in the wall was five times bigger than the last and streaked with evidence he hadn’t been able to scrub off completely. She closed his bedroom door and Naruto pointed his face in her direction and heard her reprimands.

But she didn’t reprimand him. She only asked:

“What happened?”

Naruto had been lectured by well-meaning people more than enough times in his life to know how to deal with the fallout. All they wanted was for their concerns to be heard. They wanted to feel like they were bending crooked people back into place. Even if they did drivel on too long trying to get their message across, a bowed head and a mumbled “I’m sorry” was usually adequate at placating their morality and goodwill.

But to the why and what happened questions, Naruto was unsure what the best practices were. Especially since he had been too disorientated to come up with an excuse yet and Sasuke’s blood was still flaking off his knuckles.

What do I say? Should I tell the truth? Should I lie?

Come on come on come on just—go with the status quo if you can’t think of anything—

“We were just playing around and things got a bit rough.”

If he didn’t meet Sakura’s stare, she wasn’t going to believe him.

“Really?” Nothing about her expression seemed appeased. “Because that’s what Sasuke-kun said too.”

And that made Naruto’s eyes flick away. Because what was more novel: that she had already talked to Sasuke before coming to see him or that Sasuke had miraculously bullshitted the same lie that he had?

No. I’m sure there was no miracle involved at all.

I’m sure you already knew I’d lie for you, and what I’d lie about.

But she believed him. Sort of. Or she was inclined to believe him and all Naruto had to do was stitch up the remaining doubt that had made her come to him and ask the same question again.

“Ha, really?” Naruto broke his features down into a smug grin. “You know, I was sure he’d say something else. I can’t believe he admitted to it seeing as how he lost.”

Sakura put on a polite smile.

“I healed him.”

“Okay.”

“Unfortunately I can’t work the same magic on the wall.”

“Yeah well you know there’s always bound to be a little bit of collateral,” laughing. Sakura did not. “I’ll fix it.”

Sakura didn’t say anything and stood up. The trickling relief at not being more thoroughly interviewed and castigated lasted until she left the room and Naruto had to sit in silence with his thoughts. With one thought.

I hit you while you were down.

Five Months, One Week, Four Days

Even Naruto knew enough to know that was a bad sign. Uncharacteristic. It shook him to think that such violence resided inside of him.

His first instinct against an attack, even one from himself, was to defend. Without even meaning to, he found his thoughts trying to aim the blame in another direction. It wasn’t his fault. How was he supposed to remain in control when he had been so sure that Sasuke—

Doesn’t matter. I still hit you when you couldn’t defend yourself.

It weighed on his mind, that last blow. Because even though he was a skilled ninja, the academy hadn’t managed to catch him before kindness had walked in and made a home in his heart. Because although he could try to rationalize that Sasuke had probably deserved it, still—he wasn’t totally convinced of that either. Because he was afraid that if he could rationalise this then he could rationalize anything.

Naruto stood up.

“Do you want anything from the kitchen?” he asked. He wasn’t facing Sai but he was asking.

“No, I’m good.”

Sai watched when Naruto turned and walked out of the lounge room and avoided the kitchen altogether. Instead he went into the hallway. Weird. But that was all it was. Just weird. He turned back to the television.

Naruto let his feet lead because if he thought about it, he wasn’t going to make it. Already the daze was in his head but he walked as far as he needed to, closed the door and sat on Sakura’s bed.

She greeted him. His heart was pounding.

“Sakura-chan.”

Naruto breathed in. He swallowed.

“Let’s go out.”

She wasn’t saying anything when he needed her to. He stared at the floor.

“I need to tell you something.”

“What’s up?”

“I don’t want to say it here.”

“It’s okay. You can talk to me.”

No. It’s not okay. Because you room is right next to his and these walls are as thin as paper.

Naruto tilted his chin and cast a glance at her. She was—blushing? He stared a long moment longer.

“Let’s go out, just you and me, just this once.”

“But it’s raining. I don’t want to go out when it’s raining.”

“We’ll take an umbrella.”

“No~ I don’t want to~” in a sing-song tune like she was trying to be cute. Rejection when she didn’t want to reject him with full force.

But Naruto kept at it until he wore her down. “I’ll buy you a hot chocolate. A really nice one made with real chocolate.”

“I’m tired~”

“Just for a little while. Five minutes.”

“Hot chocolate takes longer than five minutes, you know.”

“Then come out for however long it takes to get hot chocolate. I’ll tell you on the way.”

“What if we just buy some powder and make it at home?”

Naruto’s heart started to beat not with nervousness but with the heat of annoyance. She was doing her very best to get out of going out with him and he had no idea why she was being coy like this, now of all times.

Don’t get angry. It’s not her fault. Just keep at it until she runs out of excuses.

“Sure. Okay. Let’s go out and buy some powder.”

“Can’t you go get it?” she whinged again, sweetly.

“It’s more fun when you’re there.”

“I don’t wanna~”

“Listen, Sakura-chan,” the abrupt seriousness in his tone doing exactly what he needed it to and holding her attention to his clear eyes set on a starless face. “I don’t care what we do but I have something I want to tell you and I need you to come out with me.”

The playfulness dropped out of her expression. At least she seemed to understand that there was something different about the way he was asking. She was quiet, carefully considering what she was going to say.

“I can’t go out with you,” she said, gently.

“Why not?”

“I just can’t.”

“Okay well if you think I’m going to accept that as an excuse then—” cutting off when she put her eyes back on him too quickly. “How come you can’t?”

“I just can’t.”

“Please.”

Sakura sat a moment, thinking. Naruto caught the huff in his throat before it could vibrate and vocalise. She was either conjuring up more excuses or finding other suggestions or anything that wasn’t the truth.

“What about Sai?”

Seriously?

“If I wanted to go out with Sai, I would have asked him.”

“You should ask him.”

“But I’m asking you.”

Sakura looked at the ground and shuffled her toes. She didn’t say anything.

“Why can’t you go out with me?”

Come on, I thought this was what I was supposed to do—

Sakura took a breath and poured the exhale out slowly through her nose. “To be honest, I think I already know what you’re going to say.”

Naruto started, startled, sat up straighter—a wave of cold, flushing dread beginning just behind his sternum ran down his chest before he realised that—

You don’t. Impossible. You can’t.

Naruto didn’t believe her. He couldn’t believe her. There was no way she could know what he was going to say. If she knew—she didn’t. She didn’t. She couldn’t. Couldn’t. Because if she knew and she still had the cruelty to turn him down and let him deal with it on his own—

“And I’m sorry but no matter how much I try, I just can’t like you that way.”

“What?”

Sakura was blushing and staring at her toes wriggling along the lines of wood.

“Sakura-chan—I’m not asking you out like that.”

Her eyes, still resolutely fixed on her feet, were drawn too far down for her to see the unfathomable disbelief in his.

“Come on, you know that’s not what I’m asking.”

Sakura wouldn’t open her mouth.

“You’re lying to me.”

“If that’s what you want to believe.”

“What?”

“Just go out with Sai. Why does it need to be me?”

Naruto had no intention of telling Sai, ever, and not just because he thought Sai was second as a friend to Sakura. He had spent the last two years talking up his bond with Sasuke in front of Sai’s eyes and he now was just too proud and too stubborn and too ashamed and too unprepared to admit that it might not be as glorious as he had made it seem.

There’s still a chance that things could change if you just—

“Look at me,” Naruto pleaded, and in her eyes as well painful secrets were held hostage, “I want to tell you something. But not here. Please come out with me. Please.”

“You should stay here.”

“Sakura-chan—”

“What about Sasuke-kun?”

“Who cares? Let Sai deal with him.”

“You should stay here for Sasuke-kun.”

It was when Sakura stretched her excuses as far as Sasuke that Naruto knew, as long as he kept talking like that, kept giving answers to her excuses instead of ruthlessly pursuing his demands, that she was never going to relent. He stared, at fingers he didn’t know he had so tightly wound around the edge of the bed. Things were getting a little too beyond the reach of his control, if he even had any control at all. Because what if the only way they were going to get back some semblance of the old Sasuke was for Naruto to keep giving up to him every time he came for it?

Impossible. It sounds stupid even to my ears. There has to be another way—

“This is so fucking stupid.”

“Huh?”

“What’s wrong with you? Since when did I ever have to fight this hard to make you go out with me?”

“It’s not all about you—”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Sasuke-kun needs to know you’re here—”

“That fuckface doesn’t need to know shit—”

“You’re scaring me—”

Naruto caught himself again, stopping when Sakura almost started—almost—thank god, just in time, softening his face to say sorry, he didn’t mean what he said, not really, he just got carried away in his anger and said stupid shit like he always did.

Sakura heard his apologies, looking down to fiddle with some button on her cardigan: a distraction and a comfort.

“Let’s all go out together when Sasuke-kun’s allowed outside.”

What else could he do but agree?

Five Months, One Week, Six Days

Naruto considered dashing his dreams of becoming Hokage in favor of becoming the best goddamn farmer the history books had ever recorded. He’d grow the shit out of corn and pears and cabbages and live in sweet bliss from all the world’s problems with a nice wife and two and a half children.

“Do you know these people?” Sai asked and Naruto shook his head. “Then how come we’re walking around their rice paddies?”

Naruto ignored the second question and focused on his feet, heading towards a small resting pagoda at the far end of the field. He might not have known these people but they would have known the demon fox boy and he wasn’t in the mood to tell Sai the whole sob story of a childhood spent being blanked by the world.

“Stop asking questions and just follow.”

Both of their shoes were caked in mud and the hems of their pants were dirty and the rain was just starting to drizzle by the time they made it to the structure. Naruto sat against a beam, watching the strikes of lightning in the distance and listening to the thunder boom. Sai sat with him in delightful silence and Naruto found no reason to start a conversation: where Naruto and Sasuke had functioned better in argument, Naruto and Sai seemed better in silence.

I really wish you hadn’t pointed out how I compare you with him.

Sai unfolded a scroll and started painting the scenery. He was good at it and Naruto was content to alternate between watching him and closing his eyes against the deafening rain all around, erasing his mind like he had traipsed all the way out there and waited for it to do. He might have napped and it was the most peace he’d felt in a long time.

“You know, we used to get caught in storms a lot like this when we were genin, before we learned how to properly predict the weather.” Naruto stretched a hand out past the roof’s protection and collected water in his palm, light laughter on his tongue. “Our clothes were soaked and we were cold but no one wanted to get undressed so we just sat and got sick.”

“I never saw rain until I left ROOT. We were kept inside.”

“Oh.”

Five Months, Two Weeks, One Day

Catching Sasuke one afternoon sleeping on the dining room floor in front of the window was unnerving. Strange. And after the surprise at finding him there curled with his hands between his thighs for warmth and his dark hair splattered across the floorboards, Naruto thought, if he forgot, for a moment—if he just looked at Sasuke for what he was—because skin as white as his reflected the light of the streaming sun poured all over him and he honestly looked—

Human.

You always make it so hard for me to fight you. But one day it’s just going to be all of this, all the time.

Isn’t it?

Peace. I can dream.

Five Months, Two Weeks, Two Days

The stolen shirt at the back of his wardrobe was starting to smell more like Naruto and less like Sasuke so when he found the opportunity to do so, Naruto was quick to find a suitable replacement.

After everything that’s happened, I can’t believe I’m still doing this.

Naruto didn’t think too hard about it. He thought only enough that he admitted he wanted a new one but any deeper and he knew he would find things that he wanted to remain untouched. Nibbles like fish at a bait, he could feel the questions sending out smoky wisps, luring him down, asking him why he was still doing this if he thought he hated Sasuke so much and it was obvious enough that he didn’t, never had, and whatever mess of a friendship he and Sasuke had was just different and unhateable and if he had to direct his hatred at something, it was that he brutally couldn’t hate him.

Naruto could fire the blame at particular aspects of his life: that most of it had been composed of so few meaningful relationships and even fewer friends. It meant he pursued the friends he did make to the extreme, held onto them beyond normal expectations, defined himself by them, raised them up and made them something ethereal that they shouldn’t have been—but sometimes people just connect that intensely with another person, right?—and he could make excuses for anything in existence but—his mind screamed at him, asking him just what he was supposed to do if that was just how he was—thinking about the future and worrying he’d either drown in his obsessions or never recover from the severance if Sasuke wouldn’t recognise him, if not accepted him.

So all things considered, a stolen shirt was manageable.

Five Months, Two Weeks, Three Days

Three days since the ANBU made another note in their report.

“Sai!”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck me, are your ears just there for decoration?”

Sai thought about it and came to the conclusion that: “Are you making a joke? Usually if people don’t get it, it means it’s not funny.”

Naruto first had to recover from the punch of frustration to the front of his head. He scrunched his eyes shut as hard as he could and absorbed the rest of his supreme irritation into his jaw and his fists. Sai watched him, or turned his attention on the fish jumping in the lake when that was a more interesting utilization of his time.

“How did you ever make it as a ninja?”

“They beat it into us. We didn’t have a choice. I probably would have been a painter had—”

“Just shut up—god, I’m not asking for an actual answer. Look, if I have to turn my head to see you, it means you’ve wandered off too far, okay? Stay where I can see you. Right in front.”

“Okay.”

Sai walked away to scavenge the ground again for pebbles while Naruto took his face out of the sun and found a cool, soothing shadow to lie in. As the tempo of his heartbeats slowed, he dusted the rocks they had already collected and let in the pangs of guilt.

“Here’s another.” Sai dropped the pebble into the pile.

“The hell is this? What is this?—wood?”

“It’s the shape you said you wanted.”

Naruto spread his thumb and fingers out across his brow, rubbing and squinting out the pain. “Pebble. Tell me what this word means to you.”

Sai, rather blandly, simply answered, “I have no feelings either way for that word.”

“Clearly. What, were you educated in the dark?”

“Sometimes.”

“Sai. Shut up.”

“You keep telling me to do that but then you keep asking me questions. I really don’t know what you expect from me.”

Naruto laughed, because it was funny, the way that Sai took things so literally that he ended up saying more about the state of human communication than anyone was ever expecting. He turned into the shade again and listened to Sai’s footsteps around the banks and his pleasant humming while doing so.

Fifty-five days since we started fucking everything up.

Naruto roused from daydreams he didn’t know had overtaken him as scuffs on the soil wandered back into proximity.

“Do we have enough pebbles yet?”

Naruto inspected the current quantity. “I guess. Here’s your amazing wood-pebble.”

“Do I have to throw it away? I want to keep it as a souvenir.”

Naruto scoffed, but then the sincere look on Sai’s face made him ask, “Of what?”

“Today.”

Now Naruto really wanted to ask, but then he also wanted to save it for another day when he really needed a laugh.

Approaching the water’s edge and demonstrating to Sai the proper technique, Naruto unleashed a pebble whizzing and skipping across the shimmering liquid until it sunk through, bubbled and disappeared. Sai was delighted by the magic.

“No magic about it. Even you could do it.”

Sai lobbed—lobbed—lobbed his pebble at the water, hitting the surface with a throaty plop, and turned to Naruto with an over-abused smile.

“How was that?”

Naruto had just as much fun assembling an assessment as he did reciting it. “That—would inspire in warriors the kind of passion that could start a war.”

And Sai, honing in on the word passion apparently and forgetting to piece it in with the rest, responded exactly as Naruto was waiting for him to do. “Thanks,” with a big, stupid grin to top it all off.

While Naruto sought peace again and rested back against the bark of the tree, watching Sai do whatever he thought he was doing, the guilt climbed back into his head. Because to taunt Sai and laugh in his face was a terrible thing to do for a moment of enjoyment that would soon be deleted from his memory’s history—and ordinarily he wouldn’t have, except the problem was that every time Naruto tried to engross his imagination with a different occupation, it always returned to the same thing.

One hundred and seventy-eight days since you came back and we still don’t know why.

“We’re out of pebbles.”

Naruto opened his eyes. Sai wasn’t lying. “But there were so many. How did you get through them so fast?”

“Oh, I threw them all in at once.”

“And why would you do that?”

“It was going to take too long to throw them one by one.”

Sai was nothing if not efficient.

“But that’s the point. The point is to throw them one by one and watch them.”

“Well, they were going to end up in the water anyway.”

That Sai was a results-oriented thinker didn’t surprise Naruto, though now he had nothing left to suck Sai’s attention into while he dozed. If he let this kid stick around like this, curiosity and expectation almost as familiar on his face as his practiced smiles, Naruto was only going to feel more of his annoying quips and questions funnel into his eardrums.

“Cloud watch.”

“Watch the clouds?”

“A genius among mortals,” Naruto mused. Sai beamed. “Though you might not be very good at it because of the whole underground childhood thing. Do your best. I believe in you.”

“Thanks. I will.”

Naruto would apologise, later, with silent actions if his mouth couldn’t unhinge to form the words, for teasing Sai beyond the boundaries of innocent humouring. It was just that, right now, where his mood had started out bitter and chaotic and larger than the size of its container, it was now as flat and cool and calm as the lake water in front of them. Strange how all the snapped words, the jagged tone and the unfriendly profanity faded away so easily when smothered by the soft walls of Sai’s ignorance.

Sixty-five days remaining until Sakura-chan said you’d be better.

“What do you see?”

“Clouds.”

Naruto smiled. “Anything else?”

“Atmosphere.”

“Okay well when you cloud watch, you’re supposed to—ah, nevermind.” Naruto inhaled, dizzy with lungs stretched full of forest air. “This is nice.”

“Yeah. It is, isn’t it?”

What had started out as a terrible day reminded upon reanimation into the world by something as stupid as an offhand thought like—today? tomorrow?—was now just: gone. Forgotten to the intermediating tranquillity nestled in the knowledge that there was someone there for him if he called out their name.

But who’s counting?

“Sai?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re alright.”

Five Months, Two Weeks, Four Days

Sakura flitting about his bedroom doorway, dancing from foot to foot and looking far too cunning, made Naruto immediately suspicious. She was never the one to come find him like this anymore, never this happy to see him lying about his bed re-reading sun-bleached, frayed-edged comic books with the crumbs of rice crackers dusting his shirt. He had done something wrong, put a carton of milk with only two drops remaining back in the fridge or—forgotten to take out the laundry after its cycle had finished or—hadn’t changed the toilet roll when it was almost done—

“So~” Sakura quipped sweetly. “Anything you want to tell me?”

Naruto stalled. He looked at her carefully and raced to catch up with her thinking. There was too much light and alive energy in her face for her to be asking what had the blood in his veins suddenly seize, too unguarded was her expression to be trying to tease out of him such solemn, sobering knowledge.

But still, those words had come from another mouth once, and Naruto was nothing but wary.

“What do you mean?”

“I knew it.” Sakura’s jittering stopped, and the huff from her lips was as tight and contained as the arms that folded across her chest. “Do you know what day it is today?”

Day? A day? What day is it today?

“It’s… your birthday?”

“Well at least you guessed correctly.”

Like cool, cascading water onto his shoulders, Naruto felt the weight release. He shouldn’t have been so happy at forgetting something like his best friend’s birthday but a small smile that belied only a fraction of the heady relief he felt still sat at the corners of his mouth. Of course. She had been too carelessly open and vulnerable to risk unraveling that kind of destruction in the middle his doorway.

Am I getting too paranoid about this? I should really tell someone. Tell you. Tell anyone.

But today is just not a day when I feel like talking about it.

“I thought you were planning something since you’ve been hanging out with Sai so much lately but I guess not.”

“Yeah, uh… sorry about that. I’ve just been busy with, um…”

“It’s okay,” Sakura waved off before he could start naming invisible excuses. “You still have time to make it up to me so can you go find Sai and Sasuke-kun and plan something special for tonight?”

A sour look flattened Naruto’s face before he could puppet his features into anything else that Sakura wouldn’t read as unwillingness.

“I’ll do it,” Naruto agreed before she could comment on it. “Where’s Sai?”

“And Sasuke-kun.”

“Yeah, him too, whatever.”

“Naruto.”

Naruto sighed. “Fine, I’ll talk to him.”

“I want,” leaning on the doorframe, the impatience in her voice deflected by Naruto’s cheek when he rolled his eyes away blankly to look at something that wasn’t her frown, “a present from all my friends. Including Sasuke-kun. Can you please talk to him and decide something together?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll go talk to him.”

“Make sure you do.” But there must have been something Sakura saw that had the leftover skepticism biting at her tongue. “Are you going to go talk to him?”

“I said I would.”

“I’ll ask and if he says you didn’t talk to him—”

“I’ll talk to him. I said I’d talk to him.”

“It’s just that…” Sakura looked behind her and then crept further into his room, pushing the door until it almost closed. She put her hand to her mouth to bend her voice away from assassin ears and said in a voice dropped low, “I really think it would be good for him if we all did something together. But you know Sasuke-kun. He won’t just cooperate. So use my birthday as an excuse and find something for us to all do. Okay?”

Sakura was doing silly things like putting all her hopes and dreams in his care again. Naruto hadn’t been able to say no to her before and he still couldn’t, even now, even though he wanted to. All he could do was push the pain out of his face, snap his comic book closed and drag his limbs out of bed.

Sakura, satisfied now, straightened her posture with the intention to leave.

“You know, you really take this rivalry thing with him way too seriously.”

“Probably.”

Sakura watched him amble to his feet but her humored stare contained none of the concern that Naruto really wanted to see.

“Be nice, okay? I’m going out now. I’ll leave you to talk in peace.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out with friends who actually remembered my birthday,” she teased again, opening the door. “So if you need anything, either you or Sai will have to go get it.”

Naruto followed her far enough into the hallway to hear one more final reminder and see the pointed, praying look she really didn’t need to give him before the door closed with a click on her way out.

Naruto twisted his feet around, making for Sasuke’s room. If he didn’t get the worst out of the way early, it was going to spend all day swelling in his head. He walked until he was standing in front of Sasuke’s door with his fist raised to the polished wood.

“Hey,” hollered through the barrier after banging out a succession of knocks. “It’s Sakura-chan’s birthday today. Got any ideas?”

There was no response and Naruto wasn’t waiting for one.

“No? Well at least make sure you say something to her.”

We talked. That was talk. I talked.

But Naruto still had to decide something for Sakura’s birthday and Sai’s room was sky-bright with open curtains and warm with the late morning sun. He peered over Sai’s shoulder, who was perfectly perched at the very edge of his chair sitting straight with an arm out to one side moving in short flexes of muscles. The sunshine set the white paper too brightly aglow to make out much more than what looked to be the pencil sketchings of a forest.

Sai finished the temple bell he was concentrating on and turned to acknowledge his guest.

“What are you drawing?”

Sai’s bed looked inviting. Naruto crawled onto it and stretched out on his stomach, wrapping his arms around Sai’s pillow and pulling it to his nose. It smelled like their shared shampoo. Sai must have washed his hair recently.

“It’s a commissioned piece for the academy.”

“They always want the most boring things—not that what you’ve drawn is boring,” Naruto backtracked, though he wasn’t sure if Sai had really understood that he had been potentially insulted because he smiled all the same. “They should put up paintings that kids want to look at, not the officials who visit once a year.”

Sai posed an interesting question: “Why wouldn’t kids want to look at a painting of a forest?” Naruto felt his stomach quiver in silent laughter.

“Anyway, Sakura-chan wants us to do something for her birthday. Ideas?”

Sai slung an ankle over the other knee and dismantled his spine into a slouch with one elbow propped on the back of the chair: a conversational pose that looked too out of place on Sai to be anything but learned and practiced, but which put Naruto at ease all the same.

“We could make a cake?”

“Yeah but we don’t have an oven,” Naruto shot down. “Next.”

“How about a sleepover?”

“We already live in the same house.”

“I mean, we could drag a couple of mattresses into the lounge room, eat snacks and play games together.”

Just the thought of it. “You’ve been watching too many dramas.”

“Yeah, well… it’s not like we had birthday parties—”

“In ROOT. Yeah, I know, you had a terrible time there. Next.”

Sasuke appeared at the door, pulling Naruto’s attention away from Sai, looking ruffled and puffy like all the thumping at his door had roused him from sleep. He didn’t enter, though his gaze drifted over the room assessingly and settled on Naruto, who decided there were more intriguing things in the lines of his hands.

“The sleepover idea sounds good.”

No one asked for your opinion.

Sai looked at Naruto, because that was where Sasuke was looking, but Naruto kept playing with the hard calluses decorating the bonier parts of his hands until enough time passed by that Sai decided to take the lead.

Sai reiterated Naruto’s worries. “But we already live in the same house.”

And Sasuke repeated Sai’s suggestion. “We could drag a couple of mattresses into the lounge room, eat snacks and play games together.”

God, these walls are thin. No secrets here.

Sai was looking at Naruto for direction again.

“Sounds like a good idea?” Sai offered.

“It’s really not. Next.”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Sasuke asked.

Naruto wasn’t going to be lectured about good ideas by a person who had so far dedicated his life to making mistakes. “What else did those dramas teach you, Sai?”

“Sometimes the rich women go to spas, spread mud on their faces and lie under heat lamps.”

“No. Impractical. And expensive. Next.”

“I still think a sleepover is the best idea. Everything we need is already here.”

Sai looked over at Sasuke again, but Sasuke was still looking at Naruto and everything Sai knew about social interaction told him Naruto should have been the one to answer. But Naruto, now turned away from his hands, was studying the thread composition of the bedspread and picking out bits of fluff to be disposed with a flick of his fingers onto the ground.

“How about a sleepover?” Sai asked again.

“I already said no.”

“Why?” This time it was Sasuke.

“What about you draw her something, Sai?”

“She wants something from all of us.” Sasuke just would not shut up.

“Sai?”

“Naruto.”

“You got any money? I’ll just go out and buy her some, I don’t know… jewellery or something.”

“Just have the fucking sleepover.”

Naruto knew it was childish but he wouldn’t talk to Sasuke. He wouldn’t. He would just ignore him until he went away. He would talk through Sai and let Sai talk to Sasuke until Sasuke gave up and went back to his room to sleep or brood or plot the next way to get under Naruto’s skin. But Naruto wouldn’t talk to him. He didn’t want to and no one was going to make him.

“What if we just make dinner for her?” Naruto tossed into the air. “Anyone know Sakura-chan’s favorite food?”

“How is that any different from what you do any other night?”

Sasuke was really fighting hard for this sleepover.

“What if we take a photo and put it in a nice frame?”

“Do you want the memory of us right now?”

This time Naruto looked at Sasuke, and it wasn’t the comment really or even the succeeding silence that bothered him. It was that amused kind of smile softening the edges of Sasuke’s mouth like he knew just what to do to erupt scalding anger to the peaks of Naruto’s cheeks.

God, why do you keep going after me? What exactly did I ever do to you for you to be so—

But he still wouldn’t give in to Sasuke’s provocations, even though it would have been fucking incredible to pin him down with a solid shatter to his ribcage and demand to hear answers. Until Sasuke was allowed outside, Naruto had a feeling that the best he could do was continue to put up a steadfast shield of brick-walled blindness and ignore Sasuke’s attempts to spurn a reaction out of him.

This is turning out to be just too much trouble.

“I’d rather just get yelled at,” Naruto mused out loud.

“I think Sakura would really like cake and a sleepover.”

Naruto sighed, closing his eyes. Sai had no loyalties.

“Then it’s settled. Me and Sai can set up the mattresses. Go out and buy a cake.”

“Sai, I’m going to take a nap on your bed.”

“Get up and go buy a cake.”

Naruto didn’t move.

“I can go out and buy it—”

“Stay here,” Naruto said, quiet enough to be commanding. “I like the sound of your pencil. Puts me to sleep.”

“You know, we could probably even make a cake at home.”

Naruto opened his eyes for this, curious, confused and suspicious, staring at Sai.

“Couldn’t we just use your rasengan and your fire jutsu,” staring at Naruto and Sasuke in turn. “to make a cake? As long as we have all the ingredients, you could just spin the cake like a rasengan while Sasuke cooks it.”

It sounded logical enough. Even to Sasuke’s ears, it seemed like it made sense, because unlike the uncertainty in Naruto’s face, Sasuke seemed calm and self-assured.

“Sasuke’s not supposed to be using chakra, remember?”

“They’ll let me. Just explain it’s for Sakura’s birthday.”

“I’ll just buy a cake later. No need to risk burning the apartment down on Sakura-chan’s birthday.”

“What, don’t tell me you still haven’t properly learned how to control your chakra?”

When Sasuke starting digging for childish blows and weak barbs that could easily be ignored, Naruto knew he had run out of inspiration. He rolled over, closed his eyes, and waited until he heard Sasuke finally fuck off somewhere else. The door of the fridge opened, some cupboards, and afterwards a clattering of utensils against metal pans put to in Naruto’s imagination a clear enough picture of what Sasuke was now up to. But he didn’t stir, and neither did Sai.

Do whatever you want. I don’t care.

Sai turned back to his art, untroubled by the exchange. His only conclusion was:

“You and Sasuke are really strange best friends.”

So even Sai was aware enough to know that.

“Probably.”

It took another forty minutes after Naruto roused from his nap to actually wake up, although by that time Sai had moved on from sketching to painting. Despite being canvassed entirely in black, the forest scene was looking rather radiating.

“Color is nice. But just because there’s a lot of color doesn’t mean it’s more complex. Monochrome can be just as revealing.”

Naruto still had too many clouds in his head to be appraising art techniques. “I’m gonna go buy a cake.”

“I think Sasuke has already mixed together all of the ingredients.”

“That’s nice.”

Naruto saw Sasuke in his peripheral vision sitting in the lounge room. He also saw a theatre of packets and cooking utensils on the kitchen counter but Naruto had no idea how to make a cake and he similarly doubted that Sasuke had ever had time in his life to learn either.

Let’s not tempt fate.

The sleepover was the worst idea. It was also their only idea. Organizing the mattresses with Sai while Sasuke supervised from the couch, Naruto scrolled through all the different possible combinations of ways that they could be arranged.

“Me.” Naruto pointed to one end. “Sakura-chan. You. Sasuke.”

And then he dumped the cake batter and cleaned up all evidence of its creation.

Sakura bobbed her head through the door first, looking over the apartment for signs of activity. Naruto turned from where he was at the stove, stirring miso paste through the bubbling broth and greeted her happily.

“Something smells good.”

“Just pork cutlets. Nothing special.”

Sakura opened the door a little more and wriggled through, skipping over to look at the meal and then twirled her way to the lounge room. When she asked about the mattresses, Sasuke explained.

“We decided to give you a sleepover. Like old times when we used to camp out together. Turn off the light.”

Sakura turned off the light to the smooth shine of glow-in-the-dark stars affixed to the ceiling.

“Naruto’s idea.”

So delighted was Sakura by their minimalist preparations that even Naruto had to smile despite himself at the height of her squeals.

Sai helpfully mentioned the cake idea in front of Sakura.

“You’re going to make a cake for me?”

Naruto hated to suppress her excitement but if he didn’t get that idea out of her head, no one else was going to do it for him.

“Were. Until we realized it would never work.”

“I told you to spin it with your rasengan while Sasuke cooks it using his fire jutsu.”

Fucking hell, Sai.

“And I told you that Sasuke isn’t supposed to be using chakra.”

Thankfully Sakura came to his rescue carrying logic. “It does seem like a pretty bad idea to light a fire inside.”

She turned to Naruto and propped her chin in her hands, charming him with wide, green eyes, pleading, and he was going to have to knock that back too.

“We bought a cake for you instead.”

Sakura eased up and smiled. “Thanks. But it’d be really awesome to get a cake made by my best friends one day.”

“Next year,” Naruto promised into the empty air.

Nobody was going to oppose Sakura first choice at picking a teammate on her birthday. She sat close by Sasuke and giggled at his comments and the glitter of a real smile somehow caught the edges of Sasuke’s mouth. Naruto flipped over the timer.

“Thing that cans are made of.”

“Aluminium.”

“Oh, uh—the other thing that cans can be made of.”

“Tin?”

“Yup. Next, the long, metal string that you use in fights.”

“Wire.”

“Yup. Ice water falling from the sky.”

“Snow.”

“Oh, I mean snow and rain together.”

“Sleet?”

“Yup.”

From an objective standpoint, their team was good. Much better than his partnership with Sai. Naruto continued to gaze at the plastic universe on the ceiling.

Sasuke hadn’t started out smiling. Sakura had to bribe it out of him with lyrical words and fairy-light compliments and she had to do it alone and all she got out of it was one tiny, unintentional smile. Then Sasuke went back to not looking like anything at all.

Anything to make him forget that all the battles he has fought and the death he has seen and the pain he has suffered has amounted to a silly board game.

“When you want a lot of stuff.”

“Rich.”

“No. You want it but you don’t need it.”

“Fashionable.”

“No. It’s one of the six sins.”

“Aren’t there seven?”

“Whatever, just answer.”

“Avarice?”

“Yeah but an easier word than that.”

“Greed.”

“Thank god for that.” Naruto flicked the card away like a ninja star and picked up the next one. “Opposite of harder.”

“Softer.”

“No—okay, the other opposite of harder.”

“Simpler.”

Naruto had a look for Sai. “An easier w—fuck I said it!”

“But I thought that was cheating.”

“Sorry,” Sakura hedged. “Time’s up.”

By the end of the first round, Sakura had still not been able to determine if anyone was having a good time but no one was leaving at least, even if Naruto did seem to be taking the hit to his pride at losing more personally than he should have.

“This is a stupid game. Let’s play again.”

Sakura glanced at Sasuke and Sai to gauge their willingness to participate in a second round and there was nothing about their appearance that made them look open to the suggestion. She tried to explain to Naruto that, firstly it was just a game and it didn’t matter who won—

“—I’ll be on that usuratonkachi’s team this time.”

Sakura tried not to show her surprise but whatever was on her face couldn’t compare with Naruto’s blatant expression, twisting his head around too fast and too stunned—

“Okay!” before Naruto could get over his shock in time to disrupt the brief and tranquil transition. “Me and Sai against you two. Sounds good. You still want to start?”

“I’ll read,” Sasuke announced, picking up the first card. “Don’t suck.”

“Just read the card.”

Sakura turned over the timer.

“The birds my clan used to raise.”

“Hawks.”

“Round, red vegetable that I like.”

“Tomato.”

“I thought tomatoes were a fruit,” Sakura said.

“Yeah but Naruto doesn’t know that.”

“What?”

“Next, our team number.”

“Seven.”

“The reptile that I can summon.”

“Snake.”

“Another word for snakes.”

“…Serpent?”

“Colour of my old forearm protectors.”

“White.”

“Thing you gave me for my birthday.”

“…Are you really reading the cards?”

“Yes, now hurry up and answer it before the time runs out.”

“…A sunrise,” still sceptical.

Sasuke puffed a laugh. “What it’s called when someone runs away from a village.”

“Now I know you’re not really reading the cards.”

Sasuke flicked the ‘defection’ card at Naruto.

“The thing that has information about black-listed ninja like me.”

“Bingo book.”

“When people do this” curling his hands on either side of his face and rubbing back and forth, pulling his eyes large and wide open, “what are they trying to do?”

“Look cute?”

“I look cute, do I?” Sasuke pulled back and smiled. “Thanks.”

Apart from the ‘defection’ card, Sasuke hadn’t read any of the cards correctly. Naruto wondered why he hadn’t taken the game seriously and that was the only thing he allowed himself to wonder, because even though the clutter of heavy thoughts wading at the surface made him feel out of sorts, he wouldn’t think them, give them time.

Everything you do is just to tease me. I don’t know why I haven’t learnt this yet or why it still surprises me.

I guess I still believe in you. I still—

Naruto went to his bedroom for a little while to rest and get his groove back. In the meantime Sakura went ahead and decided the sleeping arrangements.

“It’s your birthday. You should have one of us on each side of you at least.”

“I told you that my birthday is just an excuse. Please?”

Naruto stared straight ahead with the entirety of the conflict in his head shown on his face. “Please no.”

“Please? I don’t want to have to guilt you into it by actually pulling the birthday card.”

Naruto groaned.

Just one night. He wouldn’t dare try anything.

Would he?

“Hey, why don’t you think he played the game properly?” Naruto asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe Sasuke-kun just wanted to ask you questions he was sure you would know.”

I know, right. And I did know them. All of them. I still know so much about him.

“Yeah.”

“So?” Sakura urged. “Can you please sleep next to him?”

Naruto didn’t fight it anymore. Sakura saw victory.

She thanked him.

Naruto thought a lot about the kind of pain he would inflict if Sasuke had the boldness to travel over to his side at any time during the night. Luckily, though, Sasuke kept to himself. He stayed away. In fact, he leaned more into Sakura’s side, and then it was a different kind of uneasiness that made it impossible for Naruto to sleep. He sat up and rested his head atop his knees, rubbed the lines out of his forehead and busied his tired brain with—

Useless, useless thoughts. It’s just sleeping. There’s not a person in the world who can control where they roll in their sleep.

I knew this was a terrible idea, all of it. Stupid.

Naruto turned around and picked up his pillow.

“Where are you going?”

—and changed tactics. He couldn’t tell Sasuke where he was going because if Sasuke followed—

“Nowhere. Where are you going?” while arranging his pillow at the other end of the mattress and lying back down.

I hate this. Confusion.

Five Months, Two Weeks, Five Days

Naruto woke up the next morning earlier than anyone else. He opened his eyes. Sasuke’s feet were in front of him and—stupidly, stupidly—because he was just such a hopeless sucker that he had actually wished—stupidly, stupidly—that Sasuke had done the same and turned his pillow around, whispered “good morning” to him as sarcastically as he liked just so Naruto could say something to him for once, twist and rescrew the facts together until he had convinced himself that this was what it felt like to wake up beside each other again.

But nothing had changed.

And you’re just not the same.




Come back.
I miss you so much.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

ten

Six Months, Two Weeks

Sakura’s room was cleaned out and emptied. She said she was moving back to her parent’s place for a while. When Sai asked why, it wasn’t hard for Naruto to explain. Sakura just needed a break. She was tired. She needed to go away and come back refreshed and energized. Naruto told Sai he was sorry they wouldn’t be able to go out and get drunk together again because he’d kind of liked it, drinking and getting drunk, without purpose, outside, in the middle of the day, with a friend. But it would be okay, and Sakura would be okay, and they just had to wait.

Naruto turned from Sai’s room and crept back into his own, hiding under the covers. He stared. The clock moved faster than he expected, slower than he wanted.

I’m still not fixing it. I just lied to Sai.

I’m making it worse.

He had all the right thoughts and yet he didn’t feel bad about it. Naruto was seventeen and raw and numb. He was numb. He felt nothing. He stared at the ceiling lying on his bed and wondered why he wasn’t feeling happy or sad and all he had in its place was a gaping emptiness. He couldn’t feel angry for what he had caused to happen, or at Sasuke for always wanting it, or at Sakura for not trying to understand him better and go out with him when he had tried to open up to her. He couldn’t feel. He wandered, floated, content just to exist. He passed the time just staring, just waiting for the feelings to come back.

I don’t know what to do.

Naruto spoke the bare minimum to be polite to Sai. Sai didn’t realise there was a problem: in ROOT, Naruto’s condition was the norm.

I couldn’t fix it. I can’t do anything.

Naruto stopped wanting to talk. Naruto didn’t talk. He shut up and shut down. Inside him, there was a—silence. Big and wide and ugly and empty. He didn’t talk about his feelings anyway but he had always known someone was

Six Months, Two Weeks, One Day

there if he wanted to. And then. There wasn’t. There was Naruto, staring, sitting and waiting and watching from where he had crawled and cried into himself, saying nothing. He couldn’t hurt or be hurt in there. He could pour himself into his obsessions in a secret, private place where he didn’t have to hurt.

Naruto cried a lot, quietly, so neither Sai nor Sasuke interrupted him. He cried at lot, at night before he fell asleep, closing his eyes on the exhaustion. He cried a lot, when he woke up in the morning and realized he had to live through the same day again. He cried in the shower to pretend he wasn’t. He cried before eating, while cooking, while watching television which was supposed to be distracting. He dared not touch the shirt when just the thought of it—

You hurt me all the time and I can’t let go.

Sasuke was a good person who had made a lot of bad choices.

I can’t let go—I have to save you.

Naruto didn’t hate Sasuke for running away. There was no resentment. If there had been, it was just a cover. There were no bad feelings at all. Maybe there would have been if Sasuke had done something truly abhorrent, but not running away. Running away didn’t deserve hate. Running away when Naruto knew why didn’t deserve hate.

When Sasuke had walked away into the darkness, Naruto had started to chase. He ran with no goal in mind other than getting Sasuke back. He trained and fought and hid everything for three

Six Months, Two Weeks, Two Days

years and it didn’t matter—even if it hurt more. It didn’t matter even if it was worse when he couldn’t stop liking Sasuke who couldn’t stand the sight of him. Naruto just wanted to be near him even if he couldn’t be next to him. He just wanted to know that Sasuke was safe and happy and there.

I believe in you.

Naruto genuinely believed that the first time he saw Sasuke after his defection would be the day he brought him back. He didn’t think to doubt it. On that day all his promises and dreams would be fulfilled and the world would once again become natural amidst the chaos. He truly, arrogantly, selfishly believed his will was all that was needed.

It wasn’t. In the end he got nothing. Sasuke was there and nothing was fixed and everything between them was still the same—and Naruto had known. There. There was that special friend who didn’t want come home, who was just as hard to see as not to see—and it wasn’t enough. There was that special friend he had looked for all over and then just seeing him wasn’t enough. Seeing him wasn’t enough and just knowing he was okay wasn’t enough and knowing that he was still worth fighting for and that every moment was still worth fighting for wasn’t enough. Sasuke was there and it wasn’t enough in a very different way.

I was wrong.

When Sasuke had stood at Orochimaru’s side and evaporated in a blaze of fire, Naruto realised the depth to which his hope had been ignited. He crumbled when he failed, when he couldn’t save

Six Months, Two Weeks, Three Days

Sasuke as he had thought he would. Head to the dirt, arms around his soul and Naruto had thought it so strange, this feeling. How powerful it must have been to crush him just by seeing. This one person could do that. Sasuke did that to him.

When all Naruto had thought was I want to see you, what was that feeling that brought him to his knees?

It’s not a choice.

They told him to stop. She told him lies to make him stop.

Naruto knew he didn’t need Sasuke to survive. He could breathe on his own, pump blood on his own, use his own hands to eat and wash and move and function. He could survive with the fading memories of Sasuke knowing they’d never completely disappear, that he’d never completely forget him. He could but he didn’t want to.

Naruto didn’t ask for a lot. If he wanted something, no one else was going to give it to him. He had to go after it himself and what he wanted—

I want you. I want you back. I want you next to me, with me. I want you to come home.

He didn’t need to see Sasuke again to confirm what he’d known all along. He’d known it when they were a team and he’d known it when he’d seen him at Sound and he’d known it when he finally came back. There were things Naruto wanted that he didn’t need in order to survive and Sasuke was one of them and—it didn’t bother him. That was just how he was. Naruto was just Naruto and maybe it didn’t bother him that he liked Sasuke more than he probably should have. Then Sasuke came back and they were further apart the closer they were.

Now I’m in darkness and you’re not chasing me.

I hate that I—

tell myself I hate.

Naruto knew he would do anything for Sasuke and it was okay if Sasuke didn’t do anything for him. He was okay with that. So it was unreciprocated. Big deal. Naruto knew what he wanted and it wasn’t so bad. If he lived his life and didn’t expect great things, he was okay with that. If he lived his

Six Months, Two Weeks, Four Days

life and expected nothing, he was okay with that. As long as Sasuke was there. When Sasuke had been put on his team and they kissed and screamed and fought and argued and paired up and tolerated and begrudged and didn’t always look at each other with a scowl, with a smile sometimes—

But that’s not enough for you. We’re not the same.

Sasuke had history in ways that Naruto did not and maybe if Naruto had had a brother who massacred his family then maybe he’d want to run away too and obtain strength by any means too and plough his hand through his best friend’s chest too. But Naruto was too different. He had the beast that killed his family inside him and that made him too different.

So tell me what to do. Tell me what you want, whatever you want.

What mattered to Sasuke mattered to Naruto and if Sasuke wanted revenge, if he wanted justice, if he wanted power, pride, retribution. If he wanted help. If killing Itachi was what he wanted then Naruto would have helped. He would have given up his dreams even if it meant dying. Even if it meant Sasuke had to kill him completely.

You didn’t have to run away.

You could have told me.

Even though I’d never have listened. Even though I’d never have understood.

Naruto didn’t understand why Sasuke would want to sleep with him but if Sasuke thought he needed it, Naruto would give it to him. There was nothing else to it. It was

Six Months, Two Weeks, Five Days

that simple. He didn’t have a choice, not when it was Sasuke. But sleeping with him had not made him better. It didn’t work because it wasn’t right, it wasn’t the same. Sasuke used sex to manipulate and Naruto did not.

You try denying you anything when you’re me.

You try fighting this feeling.

It wasn’t making him better. It hadn’t made him better. Naruto should have stopped it long ago. Naruto shouldn’t have started it and found another way. Sasuke was in an older body but he was still young inside. He hadn’t worked out that maybe just maybe talking about his problems with Naruto might have worked. But in time, he’d learn, because after talking, time always worked. Especially with Sasuke because he’d needed five years of time to work out that he was back where he started, in the village he had deserted, with the best friend he still hated.

I’ll follow you.

I’ll do whatever you want me to do.

He saw Sasuke once, while he wasn’t crying. Sasuke thought he was still upset about Sakura leaving, teased him about it, got in his face about it and filled his head with insults that were

Six Months, Two Weeks, Six Days

already there. Naruto wouldn’t beg to be left alone. He couldn’t run away from Sasuke like Sasuke had been able to run away from him. All he could do was cry and be angry and ashamed and secretive about it.

I miss you. I miss us—me, you, Sakura-chan—the way we used to be.

It was the first time he kissed Sasuke on purpose. It was the first time Naruto really knew what he had to do when Sasuke rammed his fist into his face and threatened him with all kinds of rehashed things. It was the end. Sasuke still hated him.

Think logically this time.

Sasuke had killed him at the Valley of the End more than once. Sakura had her faith destroyed. He couldn’t keep his promises. Everyone was sick and as long as he blamed someone else, he wouldn’t have to see: that at the heart of it there was always Naruto.

Logical hurt. Logical cut.

I still want to be with you.

Naruto thought he couldn’t let go. He thought he wanted to be with Sasuke even if it meant so much pain and imperfection because the alternative—of being without Sasuke—was more than he thought he could bear. He feared the separation, he feared the loss, and most of all he feared

the failure.

His first true friendship and he couldn’t hold it together.

Six Months, Three Weeks

It’s all my fault.
I couldn’t be anything you needed.

I couldn’t fix it
and this time I really fucked up.

You don’t want me.
I’m not enough and it’s okay
because I know what to do to make you better.

I know what to do.
I’ve known what to do all along.
I was just—
too scared to see.

I don’t have to give up on you,
or give up to you.
I just have to




give up.

Six Months, Three Weeks, Two Days

Sasuke was bored and irritable and frustrated with himself for having stayed awake so long waiting for Naruto to come back. He didn’t wait for anyone. He never waited for Naruto. Naruto was supposed to always be there for him because that was what he did.

Sasuke looked out the window from Naruto’s bedroom. He liked the view better from that side. He could see the front of the apartment, the road, the stalls of the street vendors packed away and waiting until morning to be reopened. The stars looked brighter through his screen. He would have liked the view better if Naruto had been in it, walking his sorry ass home.

Did I break you? Can we fight yet? Is it time for this to end?

Six Months, Three Weeks, Five Days

As soon as Sakura entered the apartment, the quietness of the space settled uncomfortably in her stomach. There were no sounds. She walked through the silent space, clean kitchen with no dishes on the dining room table, through to the hallway and into Sai’s room where he spoke chilling words that confirmed the imbalance.

“Naruto? I don’t know. He’s been gone a while. Was he supposed to meet you here?”

“No, nothing like that—just—” with the guilt of her reprimands stirring eerie circles in her head. “How long has he been gone for?”

“A few days, I guess.”

“A few days, huh.”

“Yup.”

She tried to see through Sai’s unnerving smile, tried to discern whether it was there to empathize with her or to mock her. “Maybe he’ll come back in the next couple of days. He could be camping or something.”

“I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess,” and still unsure what was really going on. “I’ll come back later or something.”

“Okay.”

Seven Months, Three Days

Sai was too quiet. He was too studious. He didn’t make enough noise or commotion or interest. He just sat and painted or read or watched television. Sasuke wasn’t keeping tabs on him but he was bored and Sai was the only other thing in the apartment that moved.

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know anything about you except that you’re my replacement.

You don’t threaten me. You can’t take them away from me.

Sai didn’t cook for him like Sakura and Naruto had. Sasuke had to make his own meals from whatever he found in the fridge. He knew whose food he was stealing when he took it and there was no one around to yell at him for using chidori. He cooked ramen on the stovetop, salty and nostalgic.

Naruto’s room had nothing of interest to him in it. He had checked. Kunai and simple scrolls were on his desk next to the dirty dishes that still hadn’t been cleaned. Sasuke got fed up with the alarm clock and reset the time. There were comic books under his bed and more clothes on the ground than in his wardrobe.

What’s—so that’s where it got to. What’s it doing in here?

Sasuke pulled out a shirt he had noticed was missing—probably got mixed up in the wash—unravelled it and from somewhere in the folds a headband fell to the ground. The gashed metal plate glinted up at him and he stood there, staring at it. In all his life, he had never picked up an object with such wonder and sorrow and regret.

Seven Months, One Week, Two Days

“I guess Naruto really has run away,” Sai said.

Sakura stared. The sounds around her disappeared. “What do you mean he ran away? How can he—he can’t just leave.”

“I’m not sure where he’s gone but he did mention to me that he wanted to ‘run away’. I do believe those were his exact words.”

“Oh my god—”

Two weeks had passed and Naruto still hadn’t come back. Sakura’s head spun, her bones swimming in liquid, sitting on Sai’s bed trying to recall just what she had said to Naruto in her anger. She had been too harsh—said something to him that made him stop believing or—said something that had crushed his spirit or—said the thing that made him shatter completely and driven him to desertion.

And I couldn’t stop you either.

Sai was still smiling. Sakura wouldn’t look at it.

The last time Naruto had left, he hadn’t returned for almost three years while training with Jiraiya. Now he was gone and she didn’t know where to or who with and she had no way to find him and she couldn’t bear it if another of her best friends just—left.

I couldn’t stop Sasuke-kun when he left and I couldn’t stop you either.

I’m just this powerless.

“Sai—” stomach tight and heart pounding to an unwelcome beat, “if you hear anything about Naruto, let me know straight away, okay?”

“Sure.”

I’m just this powerless.

Sakura wandered out and found her way to the door in a daze. This time was infinitely worse: Naruto had slipped away without saying a word and there was still Sasuke to look after and Sai couldn’t do it alone. She couldn’t do it alone. She needed Naruto and he wasn’t there for her—

But—I was never there for you either.

Is this how you felt, Naruto?

Naruto, who absolutely knew what it was like to wake up feeling alone, found friends and made a family and lived with them and then—she got it wrong. She had sequenced her priorities backwards, broke the proximity, and turned him away. Betrayed him. Over and over. And realized her mistake all too late.

I can’t—we’re breaking.

If I had just—if we had just—

From the very beginning, the only thing the four of them had needed to do was sit down together and speak of their expectations, their wants, their fears and dreams and promises and feelings, no matter how rough. Because for two boys who never said shit about the things inside—especially, stubbornly, painfully in front of each other—they would have fought it and she would have found a way to weaken their prides, to crumble their inhibitions. It would have worked for no other reason than they needed it to work because they needed each other.

It’s because we’re all too young to see what’s truly necessary.

Is there still time?

She couldn’t say she wasn’t angry with Naruto—she was and she still disapproved of his choices but—she had gone about dealing with it in entirely the wrong way. Maybe talking now wasn’t going to fix things but—it was better than the silence and the distance. Separated as they were, nothing could mend. It was her turn to save Naruto who had lost the will to fight.

I’ll think of something, I promise!

Just please, please don’t you leave me too.

Seven Months, Two Weeks

Sai was in the kitchen washing dishes when Naruto walked in through the door. It was a strange sight to see that annoying, smiling boy with anything in his hands but a scroll and a brush. He had pink rubber gloves on.

“Naruto.”

“Yo~”

Sai didn’t register that Naruto wasn’t wearing the casual clothes he’d taken to wearing in the apartment, that he had dressed himself in clothes more suitable for walking, hiking. Travelling far away.

“Oh, I was just reading about this the other day. What do they call it? Fate? I wanted to know what I should say to you when you came back. It’s been a long time!”

“Not that long, only a couple of days or… three weeks,” Naruto laughed and then urked. “Been bored? Has Sakura-chan come back?”

“A few times but she didn’t stay. I think she wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh.” Naruto tried to smile around it. “But she hasn’t moved back, huh. That’s a shame, since it means you can’t go out. Want me to ask Tsunade-baachan to get you out of here for a little while?”

Sai was quiet for a moment while he calculated. “Does that mean you won’t be staying?”

“Nah, I won’t. I just came back to grab some stuff and then I’ll be leaving again. I met these people who are heading west. No idea where in the west but I was going to go with them for a little while, maybe go see his Lordship the Kazekage.” Naruto laughed again. It all sounded the same to Sai. He couldn’t tell that it had once been forced and now it was real. “I’ll make sure to say goodbye this time when I leave.”

The hallway was dark. All except Sai’s door was closed and Naruto quickly walked the distance to his room, stuffy inside like it hadn’t been opened or aired out in a while. There were a lot of memories trapped in the small space, of fights and arguments and a whole lot of things that should not have been. He tried to organize a backpack as quickly as he could locate the items he needed. Now he knew why he never liked owning so much stuff: it all turned to clutter and it all took far too long.

“Naruto.” Sai was standing in his doorway. “Sakura is here to see you.”

That shocked him as much as it terrified him. Her words were still clear in his mind. Not enough time had passed for him to forget the guilt and he didn’t want to see her, hadn’t thought of what to say to her. The whole atmosphere of the apartment was strangling him faster than he had expected, the bad feelings—

“Hey, Naruto!”

Whoa.

“Oh, Sakura-chan, hey…”

She giggled and Naruto felt off-balance. She was supposed to be angry with him. Sakura said, “What’s that face for?”

“You’re not wearing very much.” Tactless, but she had a nice body and she was frolicking around in a sarong and a bikini. “What’s going on?”

“I just wondered… I thought you might like to come with me to one of the valleys near the village. I haven’t been there in ages!”

“Yeah, me neither…”

This is so weird.

Travelling with randoms or seeing Sakura-chan in few enough clothes that I can picture her naked…

“Okay. Just let me put on some swimmers.”

Naruto closed the door and held the knob. Something had just happened and he didn’t know what to do. Sakura had smiled and giggled and she wasn’t angry and as much as Naruto wanted to, he couldn’t mistake it for forgiveness. This time he didn’t want to pretend that nothing had happened—but Sakura had been so happy—

He knew he could either stand there in wonder or tag along with her. Maybe it was Sakura’s way of cleverly breaking the ice. Maybe she didn’t like the apartment either and maybe he couldn’t say no to her when she smiled like that.

Naruto couldn’t think of words to say. He was nervous watching Sakura as she walked a few paces ahead of him, staring at the sky and all the colourful, living scenery around them. She seemed okay. Not spiteful or begrudged. It was a nice day and warm enough for swimming. Maybe it was lucky that Sakura had caught him when she did.

“Hey, Naruto.” Sakura turned and Naruto smiled at her smile. “I just want you to know, I’m still angry. But I’ve been thinking a lot since I’ve been away, about you and Sasuke-kun and me. I kind of just want to have some fun first and then have a better talk. Is that okay? Sorry if I’m being confusing. I just… didn’t know how to say it, and with Sai there…”

Sakura-chan, you know me too well.

Thank you.

Naruto understood. He finally felt free to grin the way his heart exploded.

Sakura inhaled excitedly. “Wow! It’s bigger than I remember it.”

“Sakura-chan, you flatter me, but thank you.” Naruto bore her pouty face and the slap to his shoulder. Sakura was so free and happy and beautiful at that moment and it was too easy to forget that there had ever been heartache between them. He missed her. He could feel that he missed her.

She sat on a rock and dipped her toes in, marvelling at the cool water. Naruto watched her from the corner of his eye when she took off the sarong and it was like watching a step-sister undress: too familiar to get away with gawking but not related by blood.

These are not the kind of thoughts I should be having around you.

“Hey Naruto, did you want to play around in the water first?”

But I’m sure you wouldn’t sound this suggestive if you had more clothes on.

Naruto averted his eyes before she finished turning towards him, removing his shirt to give the deeper part of his embarrassment time to wear off. She looked at him curiously all the way up until he threw her into the water. Then bomb-dived right beside her as she surfaced.

“Naruto! God, you’re so immature sometimes. Aren’t you ever going to grow up?”

“If you want to play around first, make it worthwhile!” Naruto laughed and pushed a wave of water at her.

I missed this.

Even if the world still wasn’t right, even if Sakura had only been away for a few weeks and Naruto fewer still, he felt good. If he blocked it out, didn’t think too hard about the past months, if he went back further and further and further until they were a young Team 7 in one of a handful of instances when they’d had time off, when they weren’t fighting, when they could be children instead of warriors, maybe it had been something peaceful like this.

Sakura was still his best friend.

You’re stronger than me.

She wasn’t saying that he was wrong, that she was right. There was nothing to gain if he were, if she were. She was with him because she knew when a friendship was real enough and worth enough that she had to put aside her anger and confront the problems. Naruto had run from them. For that, she was stronger.

Thanks for making us a team, Iruka-sensei.

Sakura wanted to explore. Naruto followed her and the light she emitted.

Perhaps it was due to a childhood of few rules, of nonexistence curfews, of being free to run and jump and prank when he felt like it. Naruto knew a lot of things. He showed her, like Sai, how to skim rocks. He laughed at her when the rocks sunk into the water with a plop, taught her his special technique for choosing the best, flattest stones and the way he held them to throw. When she got the hang of it, which took far less time and effort and huffing than it had with Sai, they made a competition out of it: who could skim it the most times. Sometimes Naruto won and sometimes he pretended to let her win when she started getting good.

Only half of our team is here.

Next time—even if I have to wait until I’m Hokage—

She wanted to climb to the top of a rocky hill. Naruto had a pleasant view of her backside all the way up and he was sure she couldn’t have been oblivious. She reached the top and spread her arms out as far as she could and smiled as wide and bright as the sun. Naruto watched her. Like she were the stars and the hopes and the dreams. She glowed, from the inside.

“Hey, let’s bring Sasuke next time,” said Naruto.

Sakura turned and looked at him, withdrawing her arms.

“I don’t mean like—I don’t know what I don’t mean but just…”

She giggled at his embarrassment and tried to hide it behind a hand, coy and cute. “It’s okay. You can say it. I don’t mind.”

“I want both of my best friends here,” staring at the water below and feeling sheepish, “so that we can all be happy again. We haven’t even been out here long enough to get sunburnt but I already know—this is a place to come back to. With all of us together.”

Sakura understood but she didn’t smile like Naruto did. They didn’t know when Sasuke would be allowed outside, if there would ever be such a time. If he wasn’t in the apartment, he would be in jail. Or dead. They could dream and Naruto dreamt the grandest of all.

“Hey look!” Sakura thrust a finger at the sky. “Those clouds look like Rock Lee!”

Naruto looked up. Some of the clouds were overlapping each other. Two such clouds next to each other reminded him off his fuzzy eyebrows and he laughed. Sakura wasn’t so pure and sweet after all.

They climbed back down and walked around, thoughts to themselves or pointing out places that reminded them of the old days with Kakashi as Team 7. It was at once enjoyable and heartbreaking: those times were stuck in the past. While every other team from the Rookie 9 had held together through the years, theirs was the only one to break apart. They couldn’t reminisce about their genin years freely with anyone but themselves. Everyone else was too afraid, considered Sasuke a topic of taboo. Like they thought if they mentioned him, either or both of them would break down and realize their failures when in reality talking about him kept him alive.

When Sakura sat down on a warm rock and gazed at the glistening mirror of water in contemplative silence, Naruto knew he should start.

“I’ve been thinking since we’ve been walking. You and Sasuke are my best friends so ask me anything and I’ll tell you. One of my biggest fears is that I’ll lose you too. I can’t lose you.”

Sakura sighed softly and in a voice just as quiet, she said, “I shouldn’t have left you. I promise I’ll stay this time.”

Naruto smiled sadly, looking down. “That’s… not what I mean. What I’m saying is, if you leave, I can’t go after you.” Naruto didn’t look at Sakura to see how the admission had hurt. “In fact, I didn’t go after you, after you left. I know you want to know why I started sleeping with Sasuke and I want to try to tell you why so you don’t walk away not knowing this time but—”

Sakura looked up. Naruto was wiping his face with the back of his hand—“Hey, what’s wrong?”

He made a little laugh when she passed him her sarong to dry his eyes. He looked like he was controlling it for a moment, and then some painful thought must have taken over his consciousness to have made the tears fall so far.

“It’s okay. I was pretty sure this was going to happen.” Naruto stared the dark blots on the rock. “I’ve honestly lost count of how many times I’ve cried over this.”

“Is it that bad? Does Sasuke-kun hurt you?”

Sakura knew just the right questions to spear his heart. Naruto looked towards the sky but even that was a wasted venture, teeth held together and more tears washing down his face, down his neck.

“I hurt myself.”

Naruto tried to explain. He had said he would. He had said he wanted her to have answers and he’d been fighting for a chance for weeks, months to be alone with her to tell her exactly that. He was going to get it out and if this were his only chance, he would fight through anything.

Naruto said, “Of all people, why did it have to be him? I just don’t get it sometimes. Him, that stupid, stupid—I wish I knew what it was or when it started or what he did. I can’t go after you, Sakura-chan, because he’s in the way.”

“You sound like—do you hate Sasuke-kun?”

“Hate? Fuck, I wish—”

“Then…”

“I should hate him. I really should. He hates me.”

“You don’t know that.”

Naruto scoffed. “Nah, it’s okay, Sakura-chan. I’m pretty sure he does. I mean, why would anyone kill another person more than once if they didn’t hate them? And yet I’m still here, still living with that loser, still hurting myself. But I was always an idiot, right? I did say I’d rather live as a fool…”

When she didn’t speak, he glanced at her and the sadness was unmistakable. Naruto choked up again, felt his throat close in. He was still doing more harm than good. He was saying too much and there was nothing she could do to heal the hurt, selfishly telling her of fears she was unable to cure.

“I’m sorry, Sakura-chan. I’m sorry for everything.”

Sakura breathed.

“Don’t be sorry.”

She had something important to say. She had already decided she had to say it to him. That was why she insisted that they enjoyed their time together first because Naruto didn’t know if either of them would be able to afterwards.

Sakura said, “While I was back at my parent’s place, I had a lot of time to think. You know, I’ve always watched you and Sasuke-kun from a distance. There are things that I can see that you can’t. Maybe you’re blinded by the rivalry, I don’t know…”

Her explanation was simple in theory. Like so many others, they were too different, too alike, and their lives too bound to each other.

Sasuke grew up differently. Where Naruto was free, Sasuke was trapped by his clan. Sasuke wouldn’t have known it, though: what a child grows up with is what they consider normal. To Sasuke, it had been normal to seek the recognition of his brother and his father. It had been normal for the elders to expect great things of the children when they grew up. There were expectations and pressures and that was normal. That was aristocracy. That was lineage. That was privilege and heritage and social class. All of that was Sasuke’s birthright. That was the world one born into the Uchiha clan lived and breathed and it was normal and Sasuke had everything Naruto never did.

Naruto never had a family. Sakura conceded and included Iruka, but Iruka didn’t go home with Naruto every night. Naruto never knew Iruka was only a few rooms down the hall if he ever a scary dream. Iruka wasn’t in the kitchen where the bandaids were kept when Naruto grazed his knee. Naruto might have run crying to Iruka when the villagers said mean things but he never ran to Iruka with a report card to boast about. And most of all, Naruto never had a brother to admire, to aspire to, to look up to, to adore, to envy, to love.

Sasuke loved his brother. Naruto already knew this.

Naruto knew this but he couldn’t understand it. It was just knowledge in his head, just a fact, like one and one was two, Sasuke and Itachi was love. There was no thought, no meaning beyond it and Sakura shook her head. Maybe this was something Naruto wouldn’t ever be able to understand.

Sasuke’s childhood was full of bliss. It was effortless. He woke up to it every morning. He knew no other way to live. There was nothing black in his heart beyond the furious desire to prove himself to his brother, to impress his father and the clan. That was minimal compared with the dark and poisoned revulsion the village forced upon Naruto as a child. Sakura acknowledged this.

Naruto couldn’t understand what it felt like to lose everything overnight. Naruto had no memories of a time when he’d had anything more than nothing at all.

But Sasuke did.

“What do you think Sasuke-kun did when he woke up the next morning and it wasn’t a bad dream?”

When there was no mother to run to, no father to impress, no brother to adore? When the streets smelled of blood and death and he heard the screams with his eyes open? When breakfast wasn’t on the table, when he still had to put his clothes on and pack his bag and walk past corpses on his way to school?

He was just seven years of age.

He lost his life overnight. He lost the life he was meant to have, at the hands of the brother he couldn’t hate, who he still loved.

Life as Sasuke understood it was obliterated. At seven years of age.

What was a seven-year-old kid to do when they couldn’t put the shattered pieces back together—when they couldn’t even find all the pieces? Sasuke forever after had a botched-up, patchwork existence. He had nothing when he should have had everything.

Somehow, and Sakura had no idea how, Sasuke survived until he became a part of Team 7.

Sasuke knew he was dark. He knew he was holding onto the past. There wasn’t enough jet-black paint in the world to smother all that he had seen. But what reason did Sasuke have to move on? There wasn’t any. He had no reason to move on: the Uchiha massacre defined him. He was after all the Last Remaining Uchiha. Everyone knew about it, everyone talked about it in whispers behind his back. Sasuke could never hide all his secrets inside because everyone knew. It was too close for comfort and too close for peace and too close to let the memories fade so they weren’t so sharp and stark and vivid and absolute.

“Then there was me and you. Especially you.”

Naruto was the only other child who had nothing. They got there at different times but they shared something. Sasuke was from a noble family, Naruto was an Uzu-whatever, and they had that kind of unique, implicit connection. Even if they never spoke of it to each other, Sasuke knew, and maybe he was jealous and outraged that Naruto had the gall to smile afterwards.

Of course Naruto and Sasuke never hit it off very well. The accidental kiss had nothing to do with it.

“Do you remember Sasuke-kun in the beginning? I do. He never smiled.”

Sasuke had ratbag Naruto on one shoulder and infatuated Sakura on the other. There was no room for the bad feelings with those mischievous, distracting comrades. Sasuke didn’t have time to think about the memories while trying not to fuck up every mission. There was a certain kind of comfort in that, a certain kind of blindness that he appreciated. For once in his life he didn’t think about the past, when his present consumed him enough that he could forget, for a little while. For a little while, Sasuke was a child and Sasuke lived.

Team 7 was family.

In the moments when the memories rushed back, however, Sasuke felt the depth of the scars. He had loved his family completely and limitlessly and then they were gone. Even if Sasuke wanted to, he couldn’t allow himself to become attached to anyone again. He was too afraid. For all the misery and despair he suffered, he got out of it the fear of having his happiness contingent on another human being.

“I used to think it was so strange how he totally rejected all the girls. Guys would kill for that stuff, right?”

But when Sasuke spent every moment with the same three people, something was bound to form. Even if he didn’t want it, even if he rejected it, denied it, fought it, hated it, he couldn’t stop it. Because Kakashi was always watching and Sakura was sweet and Naruto was too rambunctious and intimate and passionate to be avoided.

Naruto had a roaring inferno inside him. This poor, cursed orphan, with no clan or name to boast of, thought he could be Hokage.

Sasuke probably looked to Naruto for direction. Sasuke had grown up knowing he was going to be brilliant but Naruto was the opposite: Naruto was expected to fail and when he didn’t, that was when people took notice. When Sasuke took notice.

Naruto claimed that Sasuke had always hated him but that made no sense. From the moment Team 7 departed the village on their first mission, Sasuke was drawn to Naruto. Sakura could never forget the night in the Land of Waves when they had walked into Tazuna’s house together, holding each other up. They were not enemies.

Sasuke didn’t hate Naruto. Sasuke hated that Naruto could ever be a worthy opponent for an Uchiha. Sasuke especially hated it when Naruto got stronger, hated it more when Naruto got stronger and he didn’t notice until he had already been surpassed because Naruto was supposed to be a nothing child.

“Sasuke-kun was always the top of his class. You were just a drop-out—”

“Hey!”

“But it’s true, Naruto. So when you started winning and beating the enemies that Sasuke-kun couldn’t—when Sasuke-kun was depending on being the strongest because he had to be if he ever wanted to kill his brother—how do you think Sasuke-kun felt?”

Sasuke’s goal in life at that time was revenge. If Naruto were stronger, Sasuke’s life and what little of anything he had left was worthless.

Naruto was the person Sasuke turned to when he wanted a decent opponent. He could have tried to hate him but Naruto was twelve and silly and interpreted death glares as challenges. To Naruto, Sasuke did everything mean and unnecessary to wind him up, like a toy, like a game. Not to make enemies, not to tear bonds. And if Naruto were that close every day and treating him like both a physical and verbal sparring partner, Sasuke wasn’t getting angry at Naruto—he was angry at himself.

He needed time to focus, time without frivolous distractions. Kakashi took Sasuke away and Naruto went with Jiraiya. Sasuke thought it was his chance to soar, to shine, to outstrip his peers and live up to everything he was destined to be. Silly children like Naruto didn’t get anywhere in the end. Sasuke trained and trained and trained and—

Never was too soon. Itachi came back.

“I think that was it,” Sakura sighed, saying little else. “I think Sasuke-kun broke that day.”

Sitting in the hospital at Sasuke’s bedside, peeling apples and nattering away, she knew there was something wrong long before Sasuke smacked the tray out of her hands. Everything collapsed after that. Everything went wrong.

Naruto wasn’t old enough to see the real danger. Sakura reminded him that it wasn’t his fault, that no one blamed him. She knew Sasuke had manipulated him into a fight with just the right words, made him think he had an opportunity to receive Sasuke’s longed-for recognition if only he fought against him. Naruto had laughed and teased and accepted the challenge like any other.

“But Naruto, it wasn’t a game to Sasuke-kun.”

Sasuke thought he had it—

Sasuke didn’t imagine anything but victory—

And when he wasn’t victorious—when he failed after everything he had seen and suffered and sacrificed—when this was the reason for his existence—when the hole behind Naruto’s water tank was the final, fatal crack—

Sasuke needed power. The village wasn’t giving it to him fast enough. It wasn’t a choice: he couldn’t stay. He had all the knowledge about how to get more power and how to get it quickly. Orochimaru had shown him only fragments of what he could give and Sasuke was blind and greedy and obsessed and nobody was going to stop him. Not even Naruto, his best friend, his best friend that Itachi had told him to kill—

“—Stop.”

Naruto had his face in his hands.

“I know. I know the rest.”

Sasuke had to choose between me and his brother and I wasn’t enough.

“I know it all.”

Sakura watched him cry. She didn’t know what to do. Naruto was breaking down all over again when the memories hadn’t softened over time, when he still saw the fight he couldn’t win in agonizing clarity years after the fact. Naruto and Sasuke were the same. They couldn’t forget. They wouldn’t allow themselves to forget.

“I think Sasuke-kun is lucky you’re alive. You’re alive, Naruto.”

Maybe it was a perverse thing to say, that Sasuke was lucky Naruto didn’t die each time he killed him.

“I’m sure Sasuke-kun knows he’s done nothing to deserve such luck. I’m sure he knows there’s no one else in the world as lucky as he is, to have a best friend like you who, in spite of everything he’s done, never stops believing in him.”

Wasn’t it so curious that Naruto was the only person who Sasuke couldn’t severe ties with, the only person who would not die when Sasuke killed him, the only person who could use Sasuke to help him control the nine-tailed demon fox with his sharingan, the only person who could set the fire inside Sasuke alight with his wind-tipped fingers—

It was so curious.

Of all the people, out of everyone in the world—

“Can you even imagine what must have been done to bring you two together time after time, no matter what you did? No one else makes sense like you and Sasuke-kun do.”

Sasuke must have realised it too. He must have. He was thrown into Naruto’s path too many times for it to keep being an accident, a coincidence, to be sheer and hard luck. Even without Naruto there, Sasuke was always reminded of what he had left behind.

“What if he just didn’t know how to come back?”

Sasuke would never allow Naruto to drag him back. His pride was just that stupid and inflated.

“What if he was afraid you would tease him about it?”

Tease? Tease? Out of everything, after all the destruction and betrayal he had committed, that was his fear?

Sasuke knew his deepest fear. He knew himself and he knew his fear and he couldn’t stop it. What if the one person left who still believed in him teased him? How could he fight a feeling so powerful, so restrictive, and so controlling? Fear had stopped Sasuke from developing any sort of competent social skills—something so trivial, so natural. If Sasuke couldn’t even smile to show appreciation, how was he supposed to return to the village?

Sasuke had been so young when he left. He didn’t want to defect—if there had been any other way—

How could he just go back? When he realised there was nothing left for him to do, how could he just go back to the one person who still gave a damn whether he lived or died?

He was an S-rank criminal. He thought he would have died, walking into Konoha’s borders with emptiness in his eyes. Maybe he thought he wasn’t worthy. Maybe he thought he didn’t deserve to live after everything he’d done in life and maybe he was so ashamed he didn’t have the guts to kill himself. Maybe he needed someone to do it for him and maybe, like his brother, if he caused the one person he couldn’t kill to hate him enough—

Maybe he wanted just one more chance. Maybe he realized that killing and running and drowning in power was no life at all and maybe he wondered what really mattered in life when he still wasn’t happy or whole at the end of it all. Maybe he realised that to achieve the happiness and wholeness and peace that had been stolen from him at seven years of age meant he had to go back to the beginning because he knew the only thing for him in life was—

“You.”

in a voice so soft the emotion behind the words was the loudest of all.

Naruto said, “That’s not true.”

“What else would he be staying for?”

And Naruto didn’t have an answer.

He said, “But he treats me like—out of everyone, I can’t think of a person he would hate more.”

“What—! Have you even been listening to me?” Sakura’s voice jumped and screeched. “I just told you what I think of Sasuke-kun’s life and you still—!”

“I know. I’m sorry, Sakura-chan. I know. But you don’t know what he does.” Naruto glanced at her and sighed when her anger blurred and faded. “I don’t know what you think it is we do—sometimes I’m not even sure. We never kiss and then I just wanted to try it once and he told me he’d kill me. It’s not… romantic, if that’s what you think it is. He’s completely selfish.”

“So why would you keep sleeping with him? That’s what I don’t get. If you knew—”

“Why?” Naruto laughed and took a breath. “Why do I do anything for that bastard? I mean, look at what I’ve done: I’ve just spent the last five years hauling my ass around the country chasing him and now I’m living and sleeping with him. Why do you think I do anything for him, like what do you really, really think? Because I’m pretty sure that’s all there is to it, and because of it, if I have to sleep with him just to make him stay with me, then I guess that’s just what I’ve got to do.”

“I don’t… understand.”

But Naruto could tell she most certainly and unwillingly did understand.

“It’s okay,” said Naruto. “You can believe it even if it doesn’t seem like you can. God knows I’m trying to.”

“I still don’t understand. What are you saying?”

“Sakura-chan,” with a crooked smile and a scoff, “I am not saying that shit out loud to you. What, you think it makes it more real or something if I do? I can’t explain all the ways Sasuke devastates me.”

Naruto knew even that was saying too much. The look on Sakura’s face—

He said, “I think I might go away for a little while.”

Her breath rushed out—

“I can’t stay here. It hurts too much. I don’t care if he hates me but sometimes I think he feels nothing and that more than anything—I just can’t take it anymore. I’ll go away for a while and be alone and train and when I’m stronger, I’ll come back and make everything right. I won’t fuck up again.”

“But you can’t leave him—”

“I can, actually,” said Naruto, calmly. Sakura looked scared to the core. “He’ll be alright. He has you and Sai and everyone else—”

“But he needs you most of all!”

“No.”

Sakura’s face distorted.

“He doesn’t need me.”

“You didn’t listen to a thing I just said!”

“I listened. I know what you said,” said Naruto. “But I just can’t take it anymore. It’s too much. I don’t want to be his entertainment—I want to be his equal. I’ve made up my mind—”

“No!”




“No—Naruto, no—”




“No—no, you can’t leave. Just listen to me—I know what you must feel. I’ve seen the way that Sasuke-kun treats you and it’s disgusting but—”




Sakura wasn’t trying to make excuses for Sasuke.
Sasuke was dark and broody and vengeful and manipulative and emotionally detached from everyone,
but she thought Naruto must have lacked some fundamental spark of empathy—

because if he had even a basic grasp of human psychology,
or even one iota of compassion

then he could have at least understood and sympathised with what caused Sasuke’s behavior,
even if he didn’t condone it.

Naruto was far away.
And Sakura cried.

At home, Sasuke felt disappointed. Naruto had been too distracted by boobs to realize Sasuke had henge’d as Sakura.

Chapter Text

eleven

Naruto pulled the apartment door closed and kicked off his shoes. It was dark and quiet. He turned a light on and wandered through the kitchen, into the hall, stopped at Sai’s door and tapped out a knock with a grin.

Sai looked up from the spread of paper across his floor, his calligraphy brush suspended in the air. His expression was predictable, though Naruto found he wasn’t so averse to Sai’s over-exercised smiles anymore. He had grown used to them since spending so much time with Sai. They were a part of Sai’s face, a part of Sai who Naruto thought of as a friend.

“I’m going to be staying here tonight,” said Naruto. “So if you wanted to go out, I’m just letting you know you can. So… go find some girls and have a good time.”

“I thought you said you were leaving.”

“Yeah, about that…” Naruto poked at a mark on Sai’s door. “I forgot to tell Baachan. Should probably do that so I’m not marked as a missing-nin.” Laughing. “Could turn out badly if I were—look what happened to the last one.”

It wasn’t that funny anymore when Naruto was the only one who got the joke. His laughter went soft and Sai stared at him still waiting for the punchline.

“So… I’m going to go see her tomorrow morning.”

Sai nodded but said nothing more, smiled at Naruto who smiled back. He wasn’t sure whose was more pretend.

Naruto didn’t undress. He walked into his room and lay down on his bed, pulled the covers over his legs.

Fuck. That’s all I’ve got. Just… fuck.

He had told Sakura a lot of things. More than he had ever known he would. He felt a knot of guilt in his stomach for it and began to wonder if that had been the right thing to do. Sakura had always been easy to confide in, but this time he was sure he had said too much. It was a relief at the time to talk, but Sakura couldn’t do anything with the knowledge and she had begged him to stay.

Sakura was smart. She saw things in Sasuke that Naruto didn’t think to look for. She was too smart to have been the kind of person Naruto could open up to.

I don’t know.

But I get it.

If Sakura were right, then the more Sasuke hurt someone, the more they meant to him. Naruto could not have been anything less than Sasuke’s best and closest friend by such a measure and he didn’t know if that was a good thing.

If Sakura were right and Sasuke was so scared he might have felt something for someone that wasn’t hate or indifference or tolerance—so scared that he intentionally hurt the very people he cared about—but for Naruto, whose feelings and attachments came naturally and immediately and unconditionally, it was almost too hard to understand such a fear—

A fear so strong it made Sasuke cruel.

If Sakura were right and such a fear did exist in Sasuke’s mind, it should have been impossible. Sasuke should not have formed any bonds at all. How—despite how much Naruto wanted to accept the conclusion—how could Sasuke have allowed anyone to mean so much to him when he was just—so—scared—they could be taken away again?

If Sakura were right, then that was why Sasuke treated him so brutally. If the bond Sasuke felt for him was too strong for Sasuke to break himself, then he would inflict upon Naruto the worst pain he would ever know until Naruto had to break it.

But what if Sakura were wrong? What if Sasuke really was just that heartless?

Seven Months, Two Weeks, One Day

At the top of the staircase stood the heavy, dark wooden door of the Hokage office. On either side, alert and unmoving, two Anbu watched Naruto.

“I’m here to see the Hokage,” said Naruto.

One of the Anbu knocked on the door. There was a faint call on the other side, and the Anbu gestured for Naruto to approach. Naruto set his hand on the door, and pushed. As he entered, a cloud of air hit him, stained with the scent of paper and ink. He marched forward and stopped at the centre of the room. He noticed that, unlike last time, there were no guards inside the room.

There were no guards because there was no space for them to stand. White document boxes filled the perimeter, some stacked taller than Naruto himself, some open, some spilled across Tsunade’s desk. What should have been an elegant room in which to receive noble guests was claustrophobic, the clutter closing in. It had not been like this last time.

Tsunade said, “You look like you have something you want to tell me.”

Naruto could bet every letter of his torment was printed on his face. If she didn’t let him go—if she couldn’t afford to let him go—he would have to talk fast on the spot. He was good at talking. Sometimes. He would have to be good now.

Naruto took a breath. On the exhale, he said, “I think… I want to leave for a little while.”

Tsunade flicked her eyes on him. She put down her pen.

“That’s a shame.” She laced her fingers over her stomach. “What am I going to do now? I was going to grant Uchiha access outside, but if you’re not going to be here, I can’t trust him to stay either. He’s just as likely to run off after you.”

Naruto laughed, politely.

“Well,” said Tsunade, “he’s survived this many months so far. Another couple indoors won’t hurt him. I’m sure you two had enough fun gallivanting around the valleys yesterday to last him until you get back anyhow.”

There was a brief lull in conversation.

”I went with Sakura-chan,” said Naruto.

Tsunade began to smile. It seemed to be a mixture of pride at her own cleverness and the reaction that her words provoked: the slackening of Naruto’s mouth, the further deepening of Naruto’s brows.

“Oh, Naruto, you didn’t really think a simple henge technique would throw the Anbu off, did you? They’re elite ninja. I think I speak on behalf of them when I say I’m offended you would underestimate their skills so much.”

Naruto stared. His heart hammered. Tsunade gleamed in a way that his mind could not rationalize. She was—saying something strange—something that wasn’t supposed to be confusing but—it must have been because—if it meant what it sounded like—

“What’s wrong? Of course I would have preferred you had told me, but since Uchiha didn’t cause a scene or run away, I guess I can let you off the hook. Just don’t do it again without my permission.”

“Yesterday.” Naruto felt a hand shaking along his face, over his mouth and the staggered breath that came out. “That was Sakura-chan.”

Naruto watched Tsunade’s smile fade and fall flat. Two thoughts he held separate in his mind: the one that recalled the events of the previous day, and the one that showed him the face of the person he had been talking to. Then a nauseating sensation weighed Naruto’s gaze to the ground, and blood pounded in his ears, and heat washed all through his face—

“Are you saying you didn’t know it was Sasuke?—Naruto—!”

Where his legs folded, his mouth gaped. Naruto squatted on the floor with his head in his hands and sickness in his stomach and eyes unfocused to the wood and there was no strength in his muscles and everything was hot and weak and stinging and shrill and blurred and shivering and unbelievable—

Naruto said, “I don’t believe you—”

“One of my biggest fears is that I’ll lose you too. I can’t lose you.”

“I shouldn’t have left you. I promise I’ll stay this time.”

Naruto, who had skin worshipped by the sun, was pale-sick and whiter than—

“Naruto, what’s wrong? Tell me!”

“I should hate him. I really should. He hates me.”

“You don’t know that.”

Tsunade was at Naruto’s side with her hand on his back and Naruto was going to faint—he had to faint—he wanted nothing else but to faint and then wake up and maturely and sequentially deal with the shit he had just—

“I think I just—”

“He knew the only thing for him in life was you. What else would he be staying for?”

Naruto grasped at Tsunade. “Are you sure it was Sasuke? It couldn’t have been. I would’ve noticed. I know Sasuke—I would have noticed!” Looking at Tsunade and pleading that she changed her mind about what she had told him. “You’re wrong. You made a mistake. It’s got to be—”

“No one else makes sense like you and Sasuke-kun do.”

Tsunade said, “Sasuke may have suppressed his chakra signal, but the Anbu weren’t mistaken.”

“Then how do you know it was Sasuke!”

Tsunade’s pitying gaze was the worst thing Naruto had ever seen. “It was just a simple henge. Nothing elaborate. I thought you had planned it.”

“But you can’t leave him—he needs you most of all—!”

“I don’t understand why you’re reacting like this,” said Tsunade. “What could possibly have happened at the valley to have made you so scared?”

“I—I told Sakura—Sasuke—I told him everything—all of it, I mean—oh god, I told him—oh god—oh shit—oh fuck—”

“I can’t explain all the ways Sasuke devastates me.”

The stairs to the apartment seemed longer and taller and harder to climb than normal with his feet full of lead. He faced the apartment door, a slab of grey steel installed between grayer, poorly-painted concrete, and smacked his forehead against the wall. His legs, which had felt the whole way as if they were shaking, would have to cross this threshold. He began to panic.

It explained why Sakura had seemed to understand so much about Sasuke’s life—

Because I was talking to fucking Sasuke.

Naruto’s head swam. His muscles felt weak and sick and shivery. He thought about the mission. He thought about the consequences of failure. He thought about what he had to do to realize success. He wondered why his feet had brought him back to the apartment. He thought, again, about running away.

I told you—

Everything.

Naruto reached into his pocket for his key. He would open the door, walk inside, and, like normal, he would go to his room. If the gods were kind, he would not pass Sasuke on the way there.

Naruto wondered how much hate a god could harbour for a single person, whether Sasuke was watching television, and whether he would see Sasuke as soon as he entered.

But you told me everything first. You told me your whole life first.

It wouldn’t matter what Sasuke had told him if—

You’re going to kill me.

You’re going to kill me and you won’t even need to touch me.

Months ago, during their first fight, Sasuke had mashed Naruto’s head between his foot and the kitchen floor, and Naruto had experienced a moment of ache. Weeks later, when Naruto took his frustration out on a wall, his fist had stung for a second. Years of training had taught him how to cope with physical pain. It was familiar. It recovered with time. Sex had been a new level of hurt, but Naruto had found ways to manage that too, kind of.

Naruto put his hand to the doorknob. His heart clattered anew. Physical pain healed. It was nowhere near as intimate and destructive as everything inside. If Sasuke were so determined to kill him—then he had just given Sasuke all the ammunition he would ever need.

Naruto fit the key in the lock. The forces created when rasengan and chidori met—perhaps that was something like the pressure inside his chest.

I basically told you I—

“—Fuck—!”

Holding the door open, Sasuke said, “What are you doing out here?”

Snapped back against the stairwell railing, Naruto felt no pain over the strangling stampede of his heartbeat. Sasuke’s eyes raked up Naruto’s tangle of limbs. He stepped out onto the concrete.

“Hey, you’re not allowed outside!—I mean—you are?”

“What are you squealing about?” said Sasuke.

“Baachan said you can go outside.”

Sasuke adopted an insouciant lean against the door and crossed his arms. He wore the same black trousers and black, short-sleeved shirt he always did. Light from the kitchen window caught stray strands of Sasuke’s hair, disheveled, as always, by restless sleep.

“Okay,” said Sasuke. “But that doesn’t explain what you were doing out here for so long.”

“Can’t I get some fresh air?”

Sasuke stared.

Naruto tightened his grip on the railing. “Where were you going?”

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” said Sasuke. “I was just wondering what you were doing out here for so long since your chakra signal’s so big and you’re too stupid to hide it.”

Naruto shuddered an exhalation.

Sasuke tipped his head against the door. “Didn’t you sense me coming? Or don’t you sense chakra signals outside of a fight?”

“I—wasn’t—”

“You don’t? That’s kind of dangerous.”

Naruto clawed his fingers around the metal and forced his face to show nothing. Something loud inside his head was snapping off every tendril of thought as he realised, with horrifying clarity, that the conversation he never, ever wanted to happen was unfurling in the doorway of their apartment.

“It’s weird that you knew I wouldn’t sense you,” said Naruto.

“Not really.”

“So you knew I wouldn’t sense you?”

There was a slight, involuntary change in Sasuke’s expression.

“I know a lot more about you than you think I do. You know what else I know? I know,” said Sasuke, “that you went to the Hokage to ask her for permission to leave. Do you want to ask me about that next? You wear your emotions on your face, that’s how I know. Even when you try to hide something, it’s as clear as day. One of these days you’re going to mistake an enemy for a friend and you’re going to trust them and it’s going to get you killed.”

You’re telling me all your tricks! You want me to confront you and you’re going to make me do it—

Fuck, you’re going to kill me right now if I—if I don’t—

It couldn’t. It wouldn’t end like this. He had to expose Sasuke first. That was his only option. Admission. No, more than that. He would not dangle at Sasuke’s tongue-tip like a candy to be sweetly sucked before being crushed between vicious teeth. But in order to do that, for the second time in his life, Naruto had to say the words he had said to Sakura’s fabricated face, and then three more. Naruto knew the exposure would distort his personality, but the alternative was unimaginable. Then he would flee.

His time was up. Naruto felt the savagery of it, that it had come to this.

He stared at Sasuke, who stared back.

Several moments of silence passed.

Then a thought occurred that, once done, would not be undone.

What if you don’t want to kill me?

The feeling was like the last piece of a puzzle, set quietly in its place.

Sasuke was not going to kill him. Sasuke had never had any intention of killing him. It was not his style, this overlong overture to death. Then, with that realisation, the immense scale of the reverberations began to hit Naruto.

If Sasuke had not lied, if he too had spoken the truth, then all this talk around chakra signals and things known and things hidden was so that Sasuke could discern how much the Hokage had told Naruto, so that Sasuke could discern Naruto’s reaction to it, and, if the reaction were unfavourable, how much Sasuke now needed to protect himself. Because Sasuke was burning his stare into Naruto’s face as though trying gauge whether Naruto knew of the henge or not, to determine if—




Everything I feel for you is what you feel for me.




“Are you done lecturing me?” said Naruto, shakily. “You talk a lot of shit for someone who’s grounded.”

“I thought you said I could go outside now.”

“Who cares!”

Naruto pushed Sasuke out of the way. He stormed into the lounge room and threw himself on the couch. Sasuke followed and sat beside him, which made sense, because Sasuke needed to keep an eye on him for a little while. Some old movie was playing that Naruto didn’t recognize, that wasn’t interesting in the slightest, that didn’t take his mind far enough away from reality to stop him from realising—that more than Sasuke trying to kill him, he was afraid that—that maybe Sasuke wasn’t—

Why would you ever—fuck, you played around and giggled and flirted with me—the Anbu could have exposed you as soon as—

Why would you ever—

The fear. That intense, debilitating fear. Under no other circumstances would Sasuke ever hint that he might not completely dislike anyone, that he might not completely dislike Naruto. Sasuke would never, to Naruto’s very face, tell Naruto that he might just mean more than a rival or a comrade or a friend or a best friend, to ask Naruto to understand all the flaws and faults that made him human, to beg Naruto to stay with him.

Sasuke had needed to hide behind the mask of Sakura, and the worst thing Naruto could do was let Sasuke know he knew.

You’re fucked up. You’re fucked up—god, I can’t believe you had to hurt me so much just to—how did you even know I was—

Their paper-thin walls would not have muffled a word of his conversation with Sai. But so little time had passed between him coming home to tell Sai he was leaving and Sasuke appearing in Sakura’s body at his doorway. How did Sasuke decide in those fleeting moments that reliving the pain of his life—that being so open and emotional in front of him—Sasuke had cried in front of him—

Naruto didn’t have to think anymore. He knew. He knew everything about Sasuke. And Sasuke knew everything about him. And before they fucked up what had taken so long to get right, he had to—

“Hey.”

Sasuke managed a grunt.

“I don’t know where you got that stupid idea that I’m leaving the village from,” said Naruto. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Sasuke said nothing.

Seven Months, Two Weeks, Two Days

Naruto woke as black night was beginning to yield to blonde dawn. Hazy greys coated the rooftops, while the horizon was thin, auburn line. He let the curtain fall back, and then he lay on his bed with an arm on his forehead, watching the soft undulations of lace in the early summer breeze.

Outside his room, there was housework to catch up on. Sai had not done laundry. Sai had not done anything. He was not entirely to blame, though Naruto now had a new appreciation for the persistence with which Sakura had tried to maintain order.

Naruto dragged a shirt over his head. The work would tire his body while the thinking would tire his head, and then he would sleep, and when he awoke again, he would… figure out what to do. In the meantime, he would avoid Sasuke as much as possible.

Naruto opened his bedroom door to Sasuke standing outside it. Sasuke smiled in that quiet way he sometimes did.

“You’re learning,” said Sasuke.

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you sense me?”

“You’ve already tried that bait.”

That he had said something for which Sasuke had no prescribed reaction was apparent. Naruto strode past Sasuke. He heard Sasuke following, who said, “I’m hungry. Where are you going?”

“Didn’t you see my face? I thought it told you everything. Track my enormous, unsuppressed chakra signal if you want to know. I’ll make you some cup ramen.”

“No,” said Sasuke, over-loudly. “Cup ramen is all Sai knows how to make.”

“Did you miss my cooking?”

By the time Naruto turned, Sasuke had only a cool, blank countenance to offer.

“What do you want then?” said Naruto.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Naruto echoed. “Well, I’m going to the markets. I’ll pick up some ingredients for chicken porridge. That’ll help you sleep.” Naruto looked pointedly from Sasuke’s dark eyes to the shadowed half-moons below. “Go to bed. I’ll be back soon.”

The sun was a blistering yoke above the horizon when Naruto entered the markets. Wagon wheels trundled through narrow streets as farmers stripped back the last of their canvas covers. Dawn was a good time to shop, while the crowds were scarce, before the produce began to wilt in the heat. Everywhere was the smell of seafood except for a few small pockets where barrels of chestnuts were being roasted. Naruto bought some in lieu of his own breakfast, and began his search for groceries.

There were more people than Naruto expected, though not all were customers. Some were darting messengers, dressed in green vests and carrying poles on the ends of which were cylinders for scrolls. A group of teenage chuunin passed through on their way to a patrol. Some were farmers, or the children of farmers, hauling boxes on their backs. A sheen of sweat covered their arms and necks.

“Naruto.”

Naruto turned, and the sounds blurred to a background hum. He saw a girl about his age in a pink sundress. Her shoulder-length hair was caught up in a ribbon of emerald and polka-dotted yellow. A shopping bag was slung over her shoulder, as yet flat and empty.

Sakura said, “What are you doing here?”

Naruto forced himself to smile. “Just buying chicken.”

“No, I mean—” She stood only a few paces away. “I thought you’d left. I mean—you aren’t going to, are you?”

Naruto thought about his reply.

“That came out so wrong,” said Sakura. “I don’t want you to leave. I was so scared that you had. But I can’t blame you for wanting to. I mean”—Sakura bowed her head at the sandy streets—“I did, after all.”

Naruto stared at her. The movements of the people around them continued. He found he had difficulty receiving eye contact.

“I’m not leaving,” said Naruto.

“You’re not?”

He began, with a strange sense of irony, “If you’re not busy, do you want to go hang out at the valleys?” Sakura gave him a strange look, but he continued. “I know you’re still angry, and I know why you’re angry. But I’ve been thinking a lot since you moved out, about you and Sasuke and me. I just thought it’d be better to have some fun first before we talk about the real stuff.”

“That seems… actually like a good idea,” said Sakura, cautiously. “Did someone tell you to suggest that?”

“No. God. Sometimes I can just have good ideas.” Naruto took Sakura by the hand. “Come on.”

From a reclined position on the grass, Naruto watched Sakura balance her white sandals on a rock and wade out into a slow-moving stream. They had taken a long, scenic route, following no path in particular but the one set by their desires. Now, lazy clouds slunk across the sky overhead. Naruto closed his eyes against the speckling sun, listening to a soundtrack of twittering birds, trickles of water, and splashes of footsteps.

A shock of cold water to his face wrenched Naruto to his feet. Sakura ran squealing back into the water. “You said you wanted to have some fun first!”

”Get back here!” Naruto caught her, held her in a disabling grip, and carried her to the stream. He was not about to throw her into the water, though the threat of it was causing Sakura to promise him marvellous things in exchange for clemency. He put her down.

Sakura crumpled into a yielding heap on the bank, giggling.

Naruto sat down. He checked her chakra signal. “I went and saw Baachan yesterday. She said Sasuke can go outside now.”

Sakura sat up. “Really? That’s great news. I guess he flourished under Sai’s care.”

Naruto scoffed. “I don’t think Sai has ever settled down anywhere before. He can barely take care of himself. But you’re right. He’s a good guy.”

Naruto pulled at a piece of grass. Leaves shifted gently in the breeze, their sound not unlike rain. “Do you want to talk about it now?”

Sakura let out a soft breath through her nose. She nodded, though it was up to Naruto to begin.

So he told her. He told her that he knew things shouldn’t have happened the way they did, and that it was partly his fault that they had. He told her all the things he hadn’t been able to tell her before: how it started; why he thought it would help; how often. Sakura asked him why he hadn’t stopped when his mood had started sinking, and he tried to answer. She asked him how he felt about sleeping with Sasuke, and he inarticulately tried to answer that, too. He answered all her questions in as much detail as she wanted. He could tell that Sakura was making an effort to appreciate his honesty.

“I thought you liked him,” said Sakura. “I guess I still don’t really understand why you took advantage of him like that.”

Naruto felt jolted. “I wasn’t the one who approached him.”

Sakura looked at him, sharply. “That’s not what Shishou told me.”

“I don’t think she knows the full story. She only knows what she hears from the Anbu. I didn’t tell her anything.”

“But if Sasuke-kun approached you, why didn’t you say no?” Green eyes attached to his. Naruto watched the full scope of understanding sweep her face. “Oh.”

”No,” said Naruto. “We’ve stopped. I’m not sleeping with him anymore.”

“Okay?”

“I’m not going to do anything that would hurt you. I know I made mistakes. But I miss you. I want you to come home. I want both of my best friends by my side again.”

“Do you want to sleep with me?”

“Of course not,” he said, instinctively. He tried to rectify his bluntness. “I didn’t mean it like that. I know you’re still angry at me. And I know why you’re angry at me. But I’m going to try my hardest not to be that person anymore.”

“But you want to sleep with Sasuke-kun.”

“But I’m not going to. I don’t want to be who I used to be. I’ll work something out.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen how that goes.” Sakura made no attempt to conceal her sarcasm. “I had never thought of you as a rival, you know. I think that was where most of my anger stemmed from. Still stems from. It’s weird. I think I hated myself a little too. It felt like I knew nothing about you.” She was staring at the stream, partially aware as though caught by her thoughts. “I doubt I’ll ever understand how you two work. But I want you to talk to me. I can’t help you if you don’t.”

Naruto heard her words clearly, though he would not be the one to speak. Life had taught him that he dared not hope for anything, though the urge strained inside him.

“Even I want to sleep with him sometimes,” said Sakura, laughing. “It’s natural. Look at him. His personality really dampens the appeal, though. It took me a long time to realise that.”

“He’s a bit shit but I like him.”

Sakura pinned Naruto with another knowing look.

“I like you, too,” said Naruto. “I like you both. I keep saying the wrong things. It’s not that I like him more than I like you. You’ll always be my best friend.”

“You should, you know. Like him more than me.”

Naruto stilled, felt magnified.

“I think we both made a lot of mistakes,” said Sakura. “So let’s start to fix things. I don’t want any of us to hurt each other. I’ll listen if you ever want to talk to me. I should have done that in the beginning. I’m really sorry.” He saw Sakura force herself to face him. “I’m really, really sorry. You guys are my whole world. I want our Team 7 family to get along. I can’t stand it when you two fight. So if you do sleep with Sasuke-kun again—” pointing an accusing finger at Naruto’s nose, playful glare on her face “—you have to promise you like him more than me. Do you?”

Naruto hastily checked her chakra again. “I could just tell you what you want to hear, you know.”

“You can say whatever you want but I’ll know the truth anyway if you start being mopey at home again.”

Sakura stood and stretched, and when Naruto looked at her, her smile was real and free. In his ears he heard her ask if it would be okay for her to move back in—if it were really as okay as he was making it seem and despite the yelling and the fighting and the constant need to be at each other’s throats, she still missed them so much. Naruto had never been able to deny either of his best friends anything that would make them as happy as she was.

“Of course you can,” he said. “Come home where we are.”

Naruto pulled the apartment door closed with a soft click. He spied a gap on the countertop between piled dishes and strewn bowls to put the groceries down on. He had to circumnavigate Sasuke to get to it. “You don’t look like you’ve slept.”

“You said you’d be back soon,” said Sasuke. “How did it take two hours to buy chicken? Did they make you kill it yourself?”

Facing Sasuke, Naruto regarded him fully. Sasuke, his posture slouched and his fists clenched and trembling, was a study in the debilitating effects of exhaustion on the mind.

Naruto discarded his instinctual retorts. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I ran into Sakura-chan. We had a big talk. I told her everything. She knows what we’ve been doing.”

“I thought you’d told her everything already.”

“The shock seems to have affected her memory,” said Naruto, calmly. “I think anyone would be shocked to find out two of your closest friends, who you live with, have been getting up to what we’ve been getting up to. Go lie down. I’ll make some food and call you when it’s done.”

“Why wait another hour when I could just relax after a few minutes with you?”

Naruto stymied any attempt from his body to betray reactions. “No.”

“She castrated you, is that it?”

“No. She said she doesn’t mind as long as we aren’t hurting each other. I forget what her exact words were.”

“You’re teasing me.” Sasuke's voice shook. “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you. I know what you were doing. You were gathering supplies so you could run away again. You’re going to run away with her. Just try it. I’ll chase you. I’ll hunt you down like the animal I am.”

“Calm down,” said Naruto, gently. “None of that’s true. You’re tired. Let me take care of you.”

A flicker of anger flared and snuffed. Sasuke stood two paces away. His eyes were thinned, and his chest, which had expanded and deflated in rapid succession, had stabilized for the most part.

“Sakura-chan’s moving back in,” said Naruto.

The news stirred no response from Sasuke.

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“You’ll fight me whether you like it or not,” said Sasuke. “Lucky for you, what little energy I had has been sapped by your bullshit. Bring me the food when it’s done.”

As Sasuke disappeared into the hallway, Naruto waited for the splintering crack of plaster, the slam of a door. But there was nothing, which provided momentary relief, but which may have been worse in the long run.

This can’t go on.

Seven Months, Three Weeks

Sakura’s childhood home was the kind Naruto had always envisioned in storybooks. It was a two-storey feature of squat proportions with a garden of red, pink, and white cosmos flowers bordering the inside walls. While piling boxes into a cart, Naruto learnt that Sakura took after her father in looks and her mother in temperament.

Midday heat took its toll on Sakura last. Naruto watched her collapse beside him on shaded stepping stones and poured her a cup of lemon water from a glass pitcher. Then another. He passed her a wet towel to hang around her neck.

Sakura asked the one thing Naruto knew she would and hoped she wouldn’t.

He said, “The house is clean.”

“I’m not sure that’s what I asked.”

“It isn’t, but it should tell you a lot about how Sasuke is anyway.”

“Better?”

“Hardly.” Naruto scoffed. “Though at least the messiness isn’t stressing him out anymore.”

They finished loading the boxes into the cart, which trundled precariously through potholed road. Arriving, Naruto sprouted bunshin to carry the boxes up the stairs to their apartment, and afterwards, he crammed them all into the shower to soak under cool water. Nevertheless, the moment he dispelled them, the accumulated energy drain crushed his shoulders.

Naruto showered, dried off, and exited the bathroom. He stuffed his feet into his shoes.

Sakura was indelicately sprawled on the couch, cooling herself with a paper fan. “I envy your chakra so much.”

“If I had a yen for every time someone talked about my chakra…”

“I can’t hear you when you mumble.”

“I said I’m just going to the library.”

“Oh, good idea. Wait for me.”

Sakura readied herself to get up. Naruto panicked.

You cannot come with me. Not for this.

Naruto’s head buzzed. “You actually believe I’m going to the library?”

Sakura stared at him in a way that showed she had not truly contemplated what a sentence with the words Naruto and library sounded like.

Naruto bolted out the door before Sakura asked where he was really going and he wasn’t able to recite a believable enough lie—

Why did I even say ‘library’ in the first place? I am terrible at this subtlety thing.

The library smelled like new wood under the immediate blanket of paper pages.Only a few other patrons perused the bookcases, and the staff, professionally dressed, were shelving books that had come through during the day. Having never been a bookish child, the aisles were as unfamiliar to Naruto as the streets in far away countries.

Naruto pulled a book out at random—hold up—this is the fiction section?

Naruto bounded up the stairs to the second level. Numbers instead of letters set the books in sequence here.

He started at one end until he had convinced himself that the books he wanted were at the other end and then started backwards from there. They’re definitely in the middle—vague and desperate heartbeats of worry between reading titles and glancing nervously at the clock. The library would be closing soon and he still had immense amounts of theory to cram.

No one else is doing what I’m doing. There has to be an easier way.

Not looking at the books and staring at the other patrons in the library made Naruto conscious of the passing time but he watched as they either approached a staff member or consulted a list posted on the ends of the shelves. Naruto backtracked and stared at the categories on the map and tried to think up ways to ask without asking.

Yeah well this is what you get when kids spend all their time learning how to fight.

“Excuse me,” said Naruto, his expression held in exemplary tranquility. “Could you help me? I’m looking for some books.”

The elderly staff member cleared his throat and lead Naruto to the books he sought with courtesy. Naruto stared. His entire future, captured in print inside the covers of half a shelf of books.

Seven Months, Three Weeks, One Day

Naruto read. He read and read and read. He moved chairs with the sunstream and showed the curiosity, the realization, the surprise on his face when he learned something he had gone his whole life unaware of. A full stomach after lunch put him to sleep for a while and gave him strength to continue into the night.

Seven Months, Three Weeks, Four Days

The kindly face of a older woman approached him. A library badge, pinned to her dress, proclaimed her name and position. After apologies, she said, “I see you here every day lately reading the same books. I wanted you to know I have a close acquaintance who I think might be able to help you. I’ve told him about you already. He’s very lovely.”

Naruto sat up properly. “Who is he?”

“A family friend who I think went through a similar thing to you. There’s plenty out there for boys and girls, but not much for boys and boys, is there?”

“I don’t know. I just started. I’m not much of a scholar anyway.”

“It’s sweet that you’re trying. You must care a lot for your partner. The friend I know, he’s helped out a couple of other young men in the past. Would you like me to introduce you?”

He agreed. A few hours later, after the woman had finished her shift, he followed her to the garden of a nursing home where an assembly of elderly men sat around a table confettied with books and teacups. The men greeted the woman delightedly and shuffled their chairs, and one raised his hand and asked a carer on duty to bring out a couple more.

What Naruto experienced with the family friend, and the family friend’s friends, and the carers on duty, and the library woman, he could not have imagined. They talked, and debated, and advised him. When eventually he left, he felt as a plant nurtured by the food of the sun and soil.

He sat that night under the light of a lamppost staring at the moths and bugs circumnavigating the globe, and thought and thought and thought.

Seven Months, Three Weeks, Five Days

Sasuke held his hair back with one hand as he ate. He seemed to have positioned his beef bowl directly below his mouth so he wouldn’t have to look at anyone. Naruto quelled the urge to tell him he looked ridiculous. Sasuke slurped the side soup, then licked the residue off his lips. If he knew he was being watched, he made no move to censure the attention.

Sasuke scraped the last grains of rice from the bowl and rose from his chair. “Thank you for the food, Sakura.”

Sakura said, “Oh, it wasn’t me. Naruto made it.”

Sasuke looked at him for the first time in six days.

“Sasuke,” said Naruto. “Will you go out with me?”

Sakura coughed. Sai looked up, chewing his food, glancing mildly from one person to the next.

“Okay.” Sasuke gave Naruto a long, unbroken stare.

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” said Naruto. “Yes,” he said again. “Yes.”

Seven Months, Three Weeks, Six Days

Standing a short distance away on the other side of the training field, Naruto dragged a grin over Sasuke from sandal sole to the bored look in his black eyes. He congratulated himself on his own deviousness: nothing less than a fight was going make Sasuke go out anywhere with him and he knew it.

You said yes to going out with me. And I’m really happy you pretended I was just talking about the fight. But I’m still gonna kick your ass.

Jounin ninja, distinguished by their uniforms, and younger-faced Chuunin dotted the field perimeter. Unmasked Anbu stood in the dark dapples of tree shadows. Naruto smiled, flexing his hands. He would not to screw up in front of shinobi or civilian villagers. He would not screw up in front of Sakura, Sai, Kakashi, Yamato, or his classmates from the genin days. A lot of people, it seemed, wanted to see the two most temperamental ninja in the village beat the shit out of each other.

“Don’t kill each other,” Tsunade had said first, as if that were most important restriction. “Taijutsu only. Stay within the boundary lines.” She pressed on each of them a marked Hokage stare. “Why do you look like you have a question, Naruto?”

“What happens if we break the rules?”

“The less you know about what I’ll do to you, the better you’ll sleep.”

Across the field, Sasuke was stretching his legs. He looked relaxed, almost distracted. Under the high, mid-morning sun, his skin shone as white as ivory, and atop his dark head, the band of shine looked not unlike a halo. As Sasuke’s eyes rose and met his, Naruto felt—

Idiot! That’s exactly what he wants you to feel.

Be smart and don’t be dumb. This is Sasuke, after all.

Naruto grinned and crouched into position in time with Sasuke and then—

—launched at Sasuke with a force that sang in his ears—fist to his face, blow to his stomach—

When the dust finally cleared, Naruto could see the ground chewed up all the way to where Sasuke had crashed—

Wow. That was kind of—quick.

“What the fuck was that for?” Sasuke dragged himself to his feet. “I haven’t trained in over seven months, you moron! You want to go a little easy on me, huh?”

“Huh?” Naruto held his defensive pose, his fists clasped tight. Sasuke brushed dirt from his clothes and then turned on Naruto with a critical glare. “What’s wrong with you? We’re supposed to be fighting—”

Sasuke was in his face so fast, Naruto couldn’t breathe. He smacked the ground, Sasuke’s hand ramming his head into the dirt, his mouth to Naruto’s ear before Naruto could think to block.

“You think I’m going to fight for real with everyone here?” Sasuke whispered. “You’re so stupid. This is a kind of probation and if they realize how brilliant I am and how useless you are…”

Sasuke sat back with a knowing smile. He punched Naruto hard in the chest.

Naruto gasped. ““Fuck—get off!—that hurt, you bastard—”

It was too easy to roll and kick Sasuke away. Sasuke skidded along the grass on his back and jumped up.

So what—you’re not going to fight back, is that what you’re saying?

He gazed across the field at Sasuke’s posture. His legs were braced, and his arms were drawn up in preparation to defend. Not attack.

Naruto’s first punch cracked through the weak block that Sasuke threw up. His knuckles met flesh, lips, and teeth, hard enough to wrench a grunt out of Sasuke. He did not give Sasuke time to recover.

Naruto landed, spun, and walloped the other side of Sasuke’s face with the blade of his foot. A second punch sent Sasuke careening back across the field, gouging another neat line of churned grass and raising a gasp from the crowd.

Naruto waited for Sasuke to get up. He did not.

“Fuck you, Naruto,” said Sasuke when Naruto’s shadow cast over him. “Didn’t you understand what I said? Stop hitting me so hard.”

Naruto nudged Sasuke’s stomach with his sandal so that Sasuke, obligingly, rolled onto his back. Naruto stared down into dark, incensed eyes. A cut on the bone above Sasuke’s temple was smudged with blood and dirt, and his arms were lightly lined with pink scratches.

“Get up,” said Naruto. “You know why I’m doing this.”

“Because you’ll never get another chance to beat me. Because you’re a coward. Because you’d never win against me in a fair fight and you know it.”

“Because you deserve it.”

Into the long silence that stretched out, Naruto ordered again, “Get up.”

“I’m warning you. You can hurt me, but I’ll get you back for this later.”

“I can’t talk to you,” said Naruto, and pushed back the sleeves of his jacket.

The kick was not forceful, but it was correctly aimed. Sasuke choked, his hands instinctively moving to protect the soft flesh of his gut.

He was going to beat Sasuke. He was not going to use violence to do it. He was going to hurt him, kick him, punch him, make him taste the metallic tang of the earth, make him feel what it was like to exist in a body that ached. He would take back some of what he was owed.

The fight began anew, with Naruto dominating. Every attack he threw obliterated Sasuke’s defences.

Sasuke began to learn that simple blocking was not going to be effective.

Sasuke did not fight for real, though Naruto recognised familiar forms as he grappled against Sasuke’s counters and manoeuvres. But where Naruto landed hit after hit, Sasuke was sluggish, and he had uncannily poor aim.

Naruto did not take his eyes off Sasuke. Neither did Sasuke him.

Sasuke evaded Naruto’s fists and feet by hairwidths. His body was completely in tune to the shifts of air and the invisible movements of chakra. He fought with his mind, under whose control his limbs responded. There was artistry to his technique, to the way he still managed to have a hand in orchestrating the progression of the fight despite his handicap. Sasuke was a very skilled shinobi, one of the best of his generation.

And he was not allowed to demonstrate it. Before the assembly of spectators, who had not seen him for more than half a decade, who had heard stories, gossip, rumours, fables, and myths of his intelligence and prowess, he had to pretend that he was as threatening as a kitten.

Blow after blow after blow, until Sasuke was pink with tenderness, until Naruto was pressing on wounds.

Sasuke crouched, breathing hard, and Naruto saw in Sasuke’s eyes, in the arrangement of his arms and legs, shiny with sweat, trembling with restraint, the heroic force it took Sasuke to hold the position, to resist attack.

It was time to end the match.

Sasuke put his arm up to block, which Naruto grabbed. He used it to pull Sasuke in while bending low for a hook to Sasuke’s back in the vicinity of his kidneys.

Sasuke collapsed. He did not try to dramatise his pain, though he could not help the low grunts that textured his breathing, curling inward, his head bowed, one hand fisted in the grass, the other pressed to his stomach.

“That should be enough,” said Naruto. “I’m bored now. Let’s go home.”

“You haven’t beaten me,” Sasuke growled.

“This isn’t about winning or losing. I should hit you again just for that.”

“Then do it.”

“I’m satisfied with just having you kneeling at my feet,” said Naruto. Sasuke made to interrupt. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“I get it.” Sasuke’s fingers dug into the grass. “I let you hit me, didn’t I? Are you done now? Because I want fight you,” said Sasuke. “And I want to win.”

Naruto had been standing. He remembered staring down at Sasuke. He remembered dark eyes rising to meet his. He remembered realising that Sasuke was not in pain. He remembered realising that Sasuke had never been in pain.

He had just shown Sasuke all of his moves, while Sasuke had shown none of his.

Naruto had no memory of what happened after that, but his back seared with the pain of collision, and the sun was suddenly, blindingly above him.

Naruto put his hands up, into sweaty hair. There was tight weight around his chest, on his stomach and pelvis, and between his legs.

Sasuke was above him, staring down. His gaze was indecipherable.

The first slow grind against his groin brought a sound to Naruto’s lips. Then reality lurched into focus.

Naruto pulled Sasuke’s ear to his mouth, as a second grind shot up his spine. “Get off me.”

“Still don't care about winning now?”

“You can’t win like this.”

“I think I can.”

Naruto struggled for leverage. He found none. He moved, and Sasuke moved with him. Hair tickled his neck, as Sasuke dragged his tongue hot and wet across his skin, to bite, and then to suck. Naruto felt like a wick near flame, felt as if he had only moments before he would be set alight.

Several critical weak points were available to him: the nose, the eyes, the throat. Naruto raised his fist, and it shook, the urge to hit Sasuke screaming for completion—but Naruto instead yanked a handful of Sasuke’s hair as hard as he could, forcing Sasuke to roll.

Sasuke landed, slightly mussed, and his body went pliant, as if yielding. He was still panting a little from earlier exertions, and he was warm, almost hot, with exercise.

A strange feeling pushed at Naruto’s chest.

“This is different,” said Sasuke. Naruto watched his mouth move. “Try it.”

“Try what?”

Sasuke lifted his hips and tossed his head back on the grass. It ended before Naruto could properly process what his eyes had seen.

Naruto pressed hard against him. Everything was fake, calculated, and theatrical, from the tightening of Sasuke’s grip on his arms to the slight arc of Sasuke’s chest. He did it a third time and more, in quick succession. Sasuke was slightly less prepared, and his reaction was closer to what his true nature might have been.

”It’s over,” said Sasuke, who thrust his hand under the band of Naruto’s trousers and grabbed the victory.

From the sidelines, Kakashi watched his former students with folded arms. He turned his attention to the crowd, delighted to see that everyone seemed to be responding to events in a similarly appropriate manner.

He glanced to his side, wondering how enjoyable he could possibly make Sakura and Sai’s discomfort if he said, “You didn’t tell me that Naruto and Sasuke were sleeping with each other.”

Sakura flinched to complement the betrayal of her eyes. Kakashi was thankful for the mask covering his amusement.

Sai looked over, smiling. “Are Naruto and Sasuke sleeping with each other?”

Under that much attention, Sakura’s face exploded with flustered color. “They might be…”

“Wait a while before you go back to the apartment,” said Kakashi. “Sai, take Sakura out somewhere nice for lunch.”

“Why?”

Kakashi didn’t answer. When Sakura looked back, he was already gone.

“Why, Sakura?”

It had taken at least twice as long to walk back from the field. Naruto chose a route through the backstreets, the Hokage monument in front of them reaching into the sky. They were largely undisturbed except for the odd villager who thought nothing of teenagers covered in dirt and scrapes, or one with a tattoo of dried blood soaking into his hairline. Sasuke averted his head.

Though Sasuke’s expression was void of discomfort, he walked slowly, and he was stiff, ascending the stairs. Naruto keyed open the apartment door and entered first. He was as aware of Sasuke behind him as one is of a panther.

Their home had not changed. Naruto saw all their things in their place, the kitchen filtered yellow with sunlight, the table properly arranged with chairs, the floor swept. But his heart was pounding as though he was about to enter a place he had never been to before, as though all of this was new to him.

“Well,” said Sasuke. The door clicked closed. “I won.”

Naruto turned. The stood several paces from one another. Sasuke was leaning against the door, smiling in that quiet, unnerving way he sometimes did.

“There were no winners,” said Naruto.

“Says the loser.”

“No one wins when we fight,” said Naruto. ”If there’s something you want, tell me what it is. I’d give you whatever you wanted without a fight. I’ve never pretended to be any different.”

“Saying it would ruin it, don’t you think?” Sasuke pushed off the door and stopped in front of Naruto. Sasuke tapped his mouth, as if considering.

“You want me to kiss you, is that what you’re getting at?” Not a cell in Naruto’s body believed it. “Last time I did that, you hit me. I didn’t enjoy it.”

“You just surprised me, that’s all.”

After a moment, Naruto said, “I’m not going to kiss you.”

Sasuke’s hand grazed over his shoulder and settled on his neck. The touch shot a burst of heat into his face.

Sasuke came forward, as if in a dream.

“Naruto,” Sasuke whispered, and warm air dizzied over his mouth. “Do I devastate you?”

Sasuke was still smiling in that quiet, unnerving way he sometimes did. Naruto heard the words at first with a strange sense of disassociation, like his imagination had conjured them up as some kind of foul, untimely joke.

“I,” said Sasuke, “wondered for the longest time why you just kept letting me fuck you.”

A chill shook Naruto from somewhere so deep in his chest, his vision blurred with it. He jerked back.

Sasuke said, with all the calmness of a week spent rehearsing it, “At first I thought you were just an idiot, or you didn’t get it. But then—” he said, “I realised—”

“I don’t hate you.”

“that you—”

“You can’t make me hate you with this.” Naruto raised his voice over Sasuke’s. “You just can’t. You can’t make me hate you.”

“I’m an Uchiha. I can do anything I want. I can make you do anything I want.”

“No, you can’t. Not anymore. I’m not going to let you trick me anymore.”

“Did you think that I would stay if you let me fuck you? Did you really believe I was staying for you?” Sasuke gave a short breath of laughter. “Your ego is the worst thing about you. You’re not even that good a fuck.”

“I’m not going to do this with you.”

“I can leave any time I like. The village won’t go after me. They don’t even want me. They would open the gates for me on my way out.”

Sasuke took a step forward. A muscle moved in Naruto’s jaw.

“You know what the funniest thing of all was? Giving you a scrap of hope and watching you fall for it.”

“Sasuke.” The word had a bruise. “I don’t want to do this with you.”

“Fight me.”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“Fight me, like you were so eager to on the field.”

“I’m not going to fight you.”

“You will. Don’t say you won’t. You have no idea what you’re capable of. You have already done unimaginable things.”

Sasuke moved uncomfortably close. Naruto stepped back.

“Listen to me,” said Sasuke. “This started a long time ago. We’re already at the end. There’s nothing that can be done about it. You can fight me now or later, but we will fight. It will just hurt to draw it out.”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“But I do.” Sasuke enunciated each word clearly. “I can make you fight.”

“No, you can’t.”

“You’re not listening to me.” Sasuke launched at him, the power of it gouging his lower back against the kitchen counter. Sasuke grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, and said, “I know you’re not as smart as the rest so let me tell you what happened. I told you nothing consequential while you told me everything I needed to know to break you apart. And I will do it. I’ve been waiting to do it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“The future Hokage. Which part of that dream requires you to spread for the enemy? Which part of that dream made you bend over for me on the bathroom floor?”

“I spread for you, not an enemy.”

“Is this what your parents sacrificed themselves for? I would love to see you explain to them why you did nothing but soil their legacy.”

His head was ringing. He felt Sasuke’s hands shaking against his chest, the pressure of Sasuke’s grip, like the jaws of a fox trap. In the air between them, he smelled dirt clinging to his skin, mixed with a layer of stress and blood.

Sasuke murmured, “What if…” He flattened a hand to Naruto’s stomach, fingers turning down. “I wanted to fuck you one last time? Would you resist me?”

Sasuke skimmed his hand down his abdomen, then slower, the tips of Sasuke’s fingers pressing under the waistband.

With gentle care, Naruto took Sasuke by the wrist and separated Sasuke’s hand from his skin. Naruto held on, though not with the stranglehold force of someone trying to tame a wild animal. The fever in Sasuke’s eyes faded. Sasuke watched, like he was tempted by what Naruto meant to do, like he was allowing this diversion of his own curious whim.

“I didn't think you had it in you,” said Sasuke. “But if I can’t fuck you, I’ll put my fist through you.”

Naruto slipped two of his fingers into two of Sasuke’s. Sasuke ripped his hand away.

“Get on your knees,” said Sasuke.

“No.”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t want to,” cried Sasuke.

“I’m not.” Naruto’s whole body reformed around Sasuke’s fist. He took each hit as if schooled by patience and bowed his head into Sasuke’s shoulder. He said, “That’s why I asked you out, isn’t it? So we could do those kinds of things together.”

“I hate you,” Sasuke lurched back. “I hate everything about you.” He shook his head. “No. I don’t hate you. I don’t feel anything for you at all. I feel nothing for you. You were just a hole I felt like jamming my dick in for a little while.”

“That’s not true.”

“End this.” A grunt tore from Sasuke’s mouth as he shoved. Naruto banged against the kitchen cupboards. “I lied to you. I lied about everything. I had to make you stay. So what if I had to rehash my past? It worked, didn’t it? You’re here, aren’t you? I tricked you. I told you exactly what you needed to hear to bring you back. You’re fucking stupid, Naruto, you’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met. You don’t mean anything to me.”

“None of that is true.”

“I don’t have time for your idiocy!” Sasuke staggered back. His eyes were wide. “I’m going to slaughter everyone in this village, starting with you. And you’re going to let me, like you always do.”

Sasuke moved his fingers through signs. Naruto recognised the sequence. He was summoning basic chidori. Sasuke’s blackened stare lowered to his chest.

Naruto thought of Sakura and all that he had promised her. He thought of the things he had said to the forgery that looked like her, the things he had thought in the interim. He thought of the last time this had happened, and the crunching sound his bones had made, like the bite out of an apple.

Naruto kept his hands, wrung dry, hanging at his sides.

“Fight me!”

Shrieking electricity exploded into his ears. Sasuke stretched his arm back. His fingers came together like a spear.

Then Sasuke was upon him. For the second of life that the attack lasted, Naruto registered three things.

Before impact, the static line of blue light peeled back from Sasuke’s fingertips, over his knuckles, and up his wrist, until all chakra encasing his fist had vanished.

Sasuke closed his eyes.

Like thin metal pushed against stone, Sasuke’s fingers curled into Naruto's chest, and the rest of Sasuke, under the influence of inertia, crumpled against Naruto, who caught him.

Natural light soaked the room. The fizz of electricity evaporated from the air.

Sasuke was in his arms.

Sasuke pushed back. His lungs heaved as they might after intense exercise or crying.

“What’s wrong with you?” said Sasuke. “I could have killed you.”

A colossal shove hurled Sasuke against the door, the latches smashing their locks. A second time, when Naruto slammed against him. Naruto put a hard hand to Sasuke’s jaw to restrain him. The skin gouged white.

Naruto said, “You need to settle down right now and listen to me.”

“Usura—”

“Shut the fuck up and listen to me,” Naruto said, loud enough to rattle Sasuke’s bones. “I’m so sick of your constant bullshit. We’re not doing this again.”

Sasuke ground the ball of his palm into the crotch of Naruto’s pants.

Naruto snatched the front of Sasuke’s shirt and threw him to the floor. The impact choked a gasp from Sasuke.

“You’ve never said you want to kill me. You didn’t even turn your sharingan on.” Naruto jammed his knee to Sasuke’s stomach and maintained a steady press of his hands to Sasuke’s arm and collarbone. Sasuke did not move. “I knew you were a mess, but I don’t think you have any idea what you’re even doing. You’ve used your life within an inch of destroying it and now I can’t trust you with it. Give it to me.”

“What are you talking about—”

“Give me your life. I’ll take care of you. I’ll give you another chance. And if you screw it up, I’ll give you another one. And if you screw that up too, I’ll just give you another one! But trust me. Listen to me. Do what I say from now on. Let go and let me heal you.”

Veins strained in Sasuke’s neck. Sasuke shoved against Naruto’s hands. Naruto bore his weight down harder to keep him pinned.

With the effort of obstructed breath, Sasuke said, “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Naruto guffawed. “And you do?”

“You’ll regret it. I’ll make you regret it.”

“No, you won’t.”

It doesn’t work like that. I’m too far gone. You can’t fix me.”

“You’re not broken, you stupid piece of shit.” Naruto grabbed Sasuke’s cheeks and forced Sasuke’s eyes to his own. “You’re perfect.” Sasuke screwed his eyes shut. “You were perfect before. You’re still perfect now. And you’ll be okay with me. So let go, and give in. I’ll do everything. Okay?”

“No.” Sasuke thrashed against the hold. “No, you’re trying to trick me. You’re supposed to kill me. I’m not going to change. You can’t change me.”

“I don’t want you to change. Man, you’re dumb. I like you just the way you are. Besides, hate to break it to you but your shitty personality was set in stone the moment you were born. Not even the gods can change you now.”

Naruto watched Sasuke react to those words. He dodged an attack, narrowly: a slice of Sasuke’s fist, whizzing by his ear.

The second landed. Pain erupted through Naruto’s jaw. He experienced a moment of black disorientation, and then he was violently winded.

Naruto staggered upright on his haunches. Instincts skirted the blade of Sasuke’s foot.

But he was losing leverage. By now, Sasuke had his hands planted on the floor behind him, and he was rising. A second opportunity would not come again easily.

At the next attack, Naruto smacked Sasuke’s foot to the side, which shifted Sasuke’s centre of balance. Sasuke countered instinctively, but Naruto dived on him, and Sasuke went down on his back, his movements hindered by the weight on top of him.

Teeth snapped close to Naruto’s cheeks. He didn’t register the hands under his shirt until bright lines of pain raked down his back.

He did not have enough hands to deal with everything. He chose selectively, as best he could, his mind split between tasks. He pushed Sasuke’s face away. He shoved his own vulnerable eyes in the folds of Sasuke’s shirt where he inhaled sweat and crushed grass. Fingernails scratched at his ribs this time, which Naruto endured, as his free hand reached underneath and wrenched Sasuke’s pants halfway down his thighs.

The effect was instantaneous. Sasuke stopped as abruptly as if he had hit the surface of the earth.

I’ve thought about this.

He was going to do this. Naruto pulled his own pants down, threw Sasuke’s to the side. He fumbled at the cupboards. One-handed, oil spilled between his fingers. He put his hand between Sasuke’s legs.

I know what to do.

Sasuke’s hands slid off Naruto’s back to the floor, his legs dropped lax against Naruto’s own. Over his rough breathing, Sasuke hadn’t made a sound, even at the breach.

Naruto watched. He felt the first stirrings of doubt colour an expanding nervousness.

He pushed it aside. Sasuke’s eyes were glazed, disconnected. His blinks were deliberate, timed by interval and duration, as if he were anchoring himself to this one, small action.

“I didn’t want to do it like this, you know,” said Naruto. His jaw throbbed as he spoke. “But you always resort to this. Why is this the only thing you listen to?”

Sasuke said, “Shut up and fuck me.”

So this was how it would be: rough, over a distance that made Naruto feel removed, when all he wanted to do was take Sasuke to bed and do to him even a fraction of what he saw in glimpses of couples on the street. He wanted the kind of softness he knew neither of them were ready for, and still longed for it anyway.

He understood it might not happen how he wanted, how he imagined. He had planned for it.

Naruto pressed his fingers in a different way, and Sasuke’s chest suspended; he blinked longer.

Then Naruto watched as something in Sasuke’s mind superseded control, and Sasuke was once again as blank and unresponsive as carved stone.

His jaw ached. He relaxed it. His heart pounded in his chest. The thought took on a new shape, became real: he was going to fuck Sasuke, and he had to do it fast. Naruto ran a hand over himself, aligned himself with the place where they were meant to join. Sasuke’s throat bobbed. A muscle moved in his jaw, clenching.

Naruto said it at the only moment he knew Sasuke would not respond. “You think I’m going to do to you what you did to me.” He felt it, and pushed through. “Why should I?”

Naruto gave in to the various, little alerts waiting to splinter his head then: the heat; the slide of oil; the pressure; the simultaneous shift and response from Sasuke; the cycle of clarity and suppression.

Naruto curled over. Knees planted and his hands weaving under Sasuke to hold him, the movements felt more fluid. Naruto moved with short, shallow thrusts. Flashes of sudden fever began to blind him, and he pushed until there was no further to go, even though he tried, pulling out and pushing in, slowly, just to feel it, again, and again.

Sasuke’s hands were warm on Naruto’s arms, and his grip tightened as the pace quickened, harder and more determined. Naruto tried to maintain some level of focus through the gasping, panting, pounding that blurred it.

Sasuke flung his face to the side. His lips parted, and a punctured hiss propelled his head again, back this time. Naruto pressed his mouth to the space it left. He felt the vibrations of his own voice.

Sasuke’s breaths were fast and shallow. He held onto fistfuls of Naruto’s shirt to keep steady while the rest of his body surpassed his control and his chest curved into Naruto’s.

The sensation of being inside Sasuke when he hit his release was too much. Naruto pulled out. He shredded himself down his fist and came on the floor between them.

Naruto shook to clear the daze out of his eyes. Sasuke was a flare of soundless limbs in front of him, heaving, tense like he was trying to stifle it.

Naruto swallowed. He conducted a quick scan of Sasuke’s form. He said between breaths, “Can we talk now?”

Sasuke moved then. He pulled up his pants and dragged back, approaching upright.

“Just couldn’t help yourself, could you.” Sasuke cleared his throat. “You’ve been waiting to fuck me. Everyone wants to. You’re not new. You’re not even special. You’re not even surprising.” Sasuke looked up when Naruto didn’t speak. His cheeks were branded. “You should have done it sooner.” He fluttered his eyelashes at some averted place. “You should—” Sasuke frowned. “Now that you—got what you wanted—”

Naruto stood and pulled his pants up.

“Where are you going?” said Sasuke.

“To shower.”

Sasuke bolted to his feet and juggled his footing. “Why do you get to go first?”

“When I get out, we can—”

The soft stick of a single footstep was all the warning he got. Naruto collected the majority of the strike against his forearm, twisting, and pushed Sasuke backwards over the kitchen countertop.

Sasuke lay with his legs dangling. Naruto dragged him far enough off the bench to ensure Sasuke’s shinobi mind preoccupied with grapples for balance, and applied to Sasuke’s absent lips, for a second that Naruto cauterized to memory, one part of the kind of kiss he really wanted to give him. He felt warm lips against his own, hot skin cradled between his hands. He got greedy. He wanted more. He offered his tongue.

A hammered kick to the plane of Naruto’s chest sent him crashing through the dining room table, cracking in half at the centre like a twig underfoot.

Sasuke slapped the oil streaking his cheek. “Disgusting.”

Naruto floundered, surrounded by wreckage. “We just broke the table.”

“You just broke the table.”

The bathroom door gusted shut. Naruto sat in the quiet. Soon after, water rushed through the pipes. He looked at the table, tried to fix it, but his earnest attempts resulted in an assault of chipboard splinters across the floor each time the two halves fell. He could neither mask nor hide this.

While he worked, he thought. But the table just would not mend.

Naruto retreated to one of the chairs. His palm caught his forehead, eyes closed, and sighed hard out his mouth. In a parallel dimension, he might be dead. He thought. He tried to put together the present and formulate even the skeleton outline of a strategy.

The water shut off. Sasuke exited the bathroom. His gaze pitched straight ahead.

“Are you going to help me with this?” Naruto gestured at the broken wood.

Sasuke walked down the hall to his room. Naruto tilted his head curiously and stared into the dark space, dust particles sparkling in the light.

And wondered, if it were honestly possible.

Naruto got up. He traced, unmasked footsteps meant to be heard.

He walked in through Sasuke’s open door.

Sasuke was still in a towel, lying on his bed on his side facing the window when Naruto walked in. He didn’t move or say anything. Naruto sat on the edge of the bed, giving Sasuke time to decide whether he still liked the intrusion or not, but now that he was closer, he realised why Sasuke was lying like that.

“Does it hurt?”

”Does what hurt?” Sasuke turned and glared. Naruto stared at his back, bright with the scrapes of the earth and the friction of the kitchen floor. “It’ll heal.”

“I’ll go get some ointment and bandages.”

Naruto found the medical supplies. After dabbing the ointment on Sasuke’s skin, which Sasuke tolerated quietly, he let Sasuke sit up and wind the bandages to a comfortable pressure around his chest. Sasuke then took to his arms and legs with the ointment and bandages, and Naruto helped with the scratches on his face.

Naruto’s touches were impersonal. He applied the first bandaid strip and then a second and a third—and a fourth and a fifth—and a sixth and seventh and—

“Do I really need this many?”

“Yeah. Your face is pretty banged up.” Naruto sealed Sasuke’s mouth closed with one across his lips. Sasuke ripped it off.

“I knew it. You’re so full of shit.”

“Don’t take all of them off. You actually need some of them.”

Sasuke pulled all the bandaids off and leaned over the bed, flicking them in the wastepaper basket.

“Are you done? Because if you are, the door’s right there.” Sasuke’s glare lasted until he turned away again, lying on his side. Naruto stayed. Sasuke had many ways to make him leave and that was the weakest.

“What do you want to do now?” asked Naruto.

“What does it look like?”

Sasuke whipped his face around the second his skin came in contact with Naruto, who was getting comfortable in the sheets beside him.

“I meant I’m going to sleep—!”

“Great. So am I.”

Sasuke twisted his whole body to face him, flared and agitated, and Naruto grabbed the half-hearted hand aimed at his chest intending to push him off the bed and used it as leverage to smack his mouth on Sasuke’s, just once, with enough pressure that Sasuke knew he was serious.

“Don’t tell me to leave.”

Sasuke glared. Then he huffed, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes. Naruto had a little smile to give his antics because for all the feigned anger in his face, Sasuke still kind of looked like he was pleased that he had stayed. Naruto relaxed against the pillow they shared.

Naruto fell asleep first. Sasuke eventually stopped staring long enough to follow.

Sasuke woke with clarity later in the afternoon. In the warm moments when his brain was still coming back to him, when the tree leaves danced to the beat of the breeze outside his window and his alarm clock diligently counted the seconds, he realised that waking up next to Naruto like this was something he had almost never allowed himself to think about even in daydreams.

Unbidden, it rose. You promised to take care of me.

Sasuke jolted into consciousness. Naruto stirred, sighing heavily, and deliberated whether to wake up or go back to sleep had the light in the room not kept him from further rest. Sasuke watched Naruto’s eyes slide open, giving him a drowsy, just-woken look, staring until his vision focused, and then closed his eyes again. That was the face of someone who had kissed him before he fell asleep.

“What time is it?” Naruto murmured. Sasuke didn’t answer. Naruto’s eyes opened again, yawning and breathing out, and then rolled over to check the clock. “Only half an hour? Argh. I wanted to sleep longer.”

Naruto rolled back and Sasuke, startled, stared at Naruto staring back at him. His face betrayed the sweetest pink, this kind of intimacy unfamiliar and beyond his ability to regulate, like when Naruto tested the limits of his patience by brushing his arm maybe accidentally, touching his shoulder, his neck, his jaw, using the opportunity while his hand was already there to lean forward and kiss him again.

Sasuke closed his eyes, which was about the worst thing he could do because now Naruto wouldn’t stop at just once like he had before.

“What do you want to do now?” asked Naruto.

Sasuke waited a long time not answering.

“I know a game we could play,” said Naruto.

“A game?”

“Yeah. Hold out your hand.”

“What’s the game?” Sasuke slit his eyes suspiciously.

“Just hold out your hand.”

“No.”

“Come on, just hold out your hand, would you?”

“Why?”

“It’s just how you play the game.”

“You’re going to do something to it.”

“I’m not.”

“I already know you will.”

“Look, I can’t even do anything to your hand. See? I don’t have anything.”

Sasuke was not convinced but he was persuaded. “Fine. But I’m turning my sharingan on.”

“Ah, forget it. I’m over it. Play with yourself.”

Naruto rolled off the bed, which triggered a wave of panic in Sasuke and made him sit up, tentative, holding out his hand, which Naruto only stared at unfazed. Sasuke held his hand out further to demonstrate his willingness to play—

“Rock, scissors, paper.”

—and looked down astounded at the game he had just lost. Naruto turned his scissors around and held his fingers up to his face in victory.

“Cool. Looks like I’m on top again.”

“What—”

Naruto needed to apply only a little force to Sasuke’s chest to make him lie back down.

“Do you want to do it again?” said Naruto.

“Can you even do it again?”

Sasuke had only meant to tease but Naruto told him more than he probably needed to know.

“I have a fox inside me. You know how fast I recover after a fight? Basically that.”

Naruto was looking at him in a way that Sasuke had never seen him do before—but then Naruto looked down and Sasuke did too, at Naruto’s hands on his knees, curiously, which then ran up the inside of his thighs where the skin got softer and parted Sasuke’s legs—

Sasuke didn’t know how his lips had stayed together long enough to contain the wholly potent feeling that rushed up the centre of his chest. Naruto pocketed the shock and lay down in between, heavy on Sasuke’s stomach, and kissed him on the mouth again—and Sasuke realized, maybe naively late, that this was starting to feel very different.

Sasuke had never concerned himself about Naruto’s clothes. As long as they weren’t in the way, they were as good as gone. He had no idea, when Naruto dropped his clothes on the floor and a warm hand reached under Sasuke and pulled the towel off as well, what it felt like to be completely naked under another person.

Naruto started down a line of kisses from his throat, and Sasuke knew exactly what Naruto was planning to do the second he felt Naruto’s mouth on his stomach.

“Hey, Sasuke,” Naruto murmured to his skin. “Can I try using my mouth?”

Sasuke was both horrified and exhilarated at the thought of coming in Naruto’s mouth but—

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Nope.”

—he hadn’t begun to think about whether he was ready to accept something so selfless that it would mean he could never, ever again pretend there was any way to go back. “Hang on, just—”

Naruto paused and looked up. Sasuke stopped his head from spinning for just a moment to really consider what he was saying when immediate regret flooded his bloodstream. He glared at Naruto when his chest felt too thin and anxious to do anything else and Naruto shot the heat right back at him.

“You said ‘hang on’ so I’m hanging on. Be kind of a shitty thing to do if I didn’t, don’t you think?”

That was all for him. Sasuke pointed his face at the ceiling. Naruto, rightfully, could have said a lot worse and, kindly, had not, but now the mood had shattered and Naruto was working his way back up his chest—until Sasuke put his hands out to block his path and pushed Naruto’s face back down between his legs.

It was true: Naruto didn’t know what he was doing, but when Sasuke wouldn’t look, his other senses magnified to fill in the effects of what warm hands and a wet mouth were doing to him. At some point, Naruto stopped to reach for the baby oil in the medical supplies box. Whereas the first time, Sasuke had only been hot all over, this time when Naruto used his mouth and his fingers and the oil, his consciousness outgrew the confines of his body.

Sasuke held it. He breathed deeper to slow it, inaudibly, so that Naruto wouldn’t get curious and open his eyes to see the conflict roulette between—

What do you want me to do?—Do you want me to?—I don’t know what to do but I don’t want to tell you to stop just—

“How was that?”

Sasuke used the fleeting few moments just before the silence took over to strip the gratification out of his voice.

“Terrible,” said Sasuke.

Naruto hummed, unaffected. “Guess I need more practice. Can I do it again later?”

Naruto had the gall to lick his lips. He stared down with a knowing smile when Sasuke wouldn’t look at him.

Sasuke was not yet ready to reciprocate. Naruto knew that too. He didn’t ask questions or say anything else and instead just rolled Sasuke on his side. Sasuke had almost been too nervous the last time to really remember what it had felt like, and after Naruto pulled one of his legs up to his chest and moved in close, he was absolutely determined—this moment—jaw dropping and giving in—

Sasuke felt his waist bend, accommodating, giving Naruto enough space to lean down and make him feel full and stretched and aware and watched.

Naruto watched the blood rise in Sasuke’s cheeks. He watched Sasuke’s eyes flutter closed on their own, and Sasuke’s mouth when it didn’t stay shut. He watched the shifts of muscles in Sasuke’s shoulders when Sasuke turned from the scrutiny and into the pillow, changing the angle, which allowed Naruto to get that much—

Sasuke put his teeth down on a sound that almost vibrated from a breath to something else, masking the rest of it in the pillow, but the pillow was quick to disappear with a sudden wrench out from under him, tossed across to the other side of the room.

This—

This was starting to feel a lot different. There was nowhere else to hide now, no distractions, and the reverberations all through his groin each time Naruto’s hips came down on his were starting to convince Sasuke he might not be able to endure it that much longer. Then one of Naruto’s warm hands reached down to wrap around him and Sasuke lost all space to be rational. He was going to lose it.

This is so much—

Except Naruto slowed down unexpectedly. Sasuke was a wreck. He could feel his orgasm just out of reach and waning, controlled under Naruto who was deliberately moving too slow, like far too slow, like so slow it pulled Sasuke out of his haze and taught him how to use his mouth again.

“Would you stop fucking around?” Sasuke snapped.

“I’m not. I’m trying to beat your record. I think it was forty seconds.”

“I swear to god you have no idea what you’re even doing—” the end reworded as a gasp when Naruto put in distinctly more force. Sasuke needed reminding that he was in no position to be acting so insolent.

“I know what I’m doing.”

Sasuke scrambled to gather together enough sensation to end it but he just couldn’t.

“Hurry up—”

“Sasuke.” Naruto’s warning was low and bold. Sasuke shut up after that, his own arguments meant Naruto now knew what the sound of his name on Naruto’s tongue did to him. Sasuke closed his eyes and tried very hard to concentrate and compensate by shutting down every other reaction. “Sasuke.”

“Stop that—”

Sasuke’s twisting disrupted the rhythm. Naruto found that the only way to keep him pinned was to press all of his weight on Sasuke’s shoulders and sink him into the mattress, trapping at least one of Sasuke’s arms under him and taking all of his power away—

Sasuke’s face went bright with the feeling he had just realized something he wasn’t yet ready to know. This position put Naruto’s mouth right behind his ear, and slowly, steadily, when Naruto’s hips and thighs started to flex over him a little harder, all of the warm and satisfied sighs Sasuke couldn’t hear before made him tremble with an urge he couldn’t alleviate.

Sasuke breathed in helplessly, in and out, clenched his fists and tried to hold it. His expression blurred between uneasiness and unbearable relief as his muscles fluttered and the warmth just didn’t go away. Naruto wasn’t holding back anymore, pounding their hips together until it was only lust and single-minded determination that remained, all of the sounds that meant this felt as good to Naruto as it did to him—

Sasuke’s whole body seized at once. His voice spilled across the bed as his muscles spasmed and the heat rushed through his face, unravelling under Naruto’s weight. The clamping inside must have been driving Naruto crazy because leaned in and groaned, long and loud, sucking his breath through his teeth, slowing down to draw it out but still going deep, which made the waves keep coming. Sasuke was a mess. But then the high started to come down and he stopped flinching so much, and Naruto pulled out, came on the bed, and let Sasuke fold into the sheets.

Sasuke stared at the wall.

What the fuck was that?

Something, somewhere was still trembling lightly. A hand nudged Sasuke’s shoulder, meaning to soothe, and spread down over the fine hairs on his back to settle near his tailbone. Naruto sighed behind him, content and sated, and Sasuke closed his eyes and counted down his heartbeats and tried not to think too hard about how—

This is so much better—

This was what happened if he listened to Naruto. Exposure deep enough to erase him. If Naruto were to roll over and put his face anywhere near Sasuke’s, he was going to see something that Sasuke wouldn’t be able to hide.

“I have to take another shower now because of you,” Sasuke said, grittily.

“Hmm? Did some get on you? Just use a tissue.”

Sasuke sat up and reached over the side of the bed to pick up his towel. He chanced a glance back at Naruto to see whether he would notice how shaky he was but Naruto was just scratching his chest absently with his eyes still closed. Sasuke stood up.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. Just use a tissue.”

“And what, use it to wipe your stench off?” said Sasuke. “You didn’t even have a shower.”

“I guess not.”

Sasuke disengaged from the conversation and left the room.

“Hey, Sasuke.” Naruto sat up. “So can I come with you? Since I need a shower.” Silence. “Sasuke?” A little louder, more silence.

Naruto wondered how many minutes he should wait before he traced a path to the bathroom. The bandages were hanging over the stall door, whose hinges yielded to the pressure of his finger. It was unlocked.

Naruto had taken the hint pretty fast. It wasn’t that Sasuke was having reservations or didn’t want him there, just that he wasn’t sure if he had processed enough of whatever had just happened to acknowledge the face of the person who had liquefied his bones. Naruto couldn’t seem to find any one place to focus on either, starting down at Sasuke sitting on the shower floor, totally soaking wet.

“Can I help you?” said Sasuke.

“You said I needed a shower.”

“I never said that.”

“Well I still need a shower.”

“Okay.” Sasuke surveyed the landscape. “And where exactly are you planning to do that?”

In all of Sasuke’s speaking, he hadn’t said no. Naruto stepped inside and turned Sasuke’s expression carefully walled and bright and darting, sitting in front of him to pull Sasuke’s legs over his own, in a space wasn’t designed to fit two teenage ninja.

“How’s this?”

Sasuke tempered his mouth flat against Naruto’s keen smile full of glimmers. “It’s fine.”

“Why are we sitting on the floor anyway?”

“I like to sit on the floor sometimes.”

Naruto looked up at the showerhead, angled at the wall in a way that made sure it hit neither of their faces but still kept the tiles warm and the steam rising. Sasuke followed the mist that had started to bead and run down Naruto’s neck and chest.

“Do you want to play a game?” said Naruto.

“Can you just have a shower?”

“Loser has to wash me,” Naruto challenged without a hint of innocence. “Hold out your hand.”

Sasuke held out his hand—“rock, scissors, paper”—changed his throw to scissors at the last moment because he wasn’t that stupid—and still lost, staring at Naruto’s closed fist.

“No. What the fuck?”

“See what happens when you only go to school to study?” Naruto took the bar of soap down from the dish and fit it into Sasuke’s fingers. “Ask me where it’s okay to touch.”

Warm tingles of awareness filled Sasuke’s cheeks. “Where can I touch you?”

“Everywhere.”

Sasuke didn’t have a lot of time to think because Naruto’s hands were getting restless, and Sasuke knew if he didn’t distract Naruto—anything would do, taking the soap and putting his hands on Naruto’s nipples to see what that did to him. Naruto reacted better to slow, smooth circles, pressed palms from his navel to his neck and down his arms, down his back that meant Sasuke had to lean forward and put their mouths close enough that the exhalations hit him in the face.

You get off on softness. But I already knew that.

Naruto leaned forward, giving into the touches, until his forehead was resting on the opposite wall, and since Sasuke was there already, warm and wet, it wasn’t long before temptation won out and Naruto’s voice was in his ear, asking, “Can I touch you too?”

“Where?” said Sasuke.

“Just your face. And maybe your neck. Chest.”

“Okay.”

“With my mouth.”

Sasuke would have laughed if he weren’t so winded. Just the thought of being pressed against the wall while Naruto—this asshole wants to lick my face—

“Fine,” spoken too low against Naruto’s ear. “But if you start sucking on the skin—”

“I won’t.”

Naruto’s nose brushed against Sasuke’s cheek. Although the thought of Naruto salivating all over his face wasn’t erotic at all, the build-up—caught between the pressure of Naruto palm on one side, his lips pressed and opening on the other, and the rest of him hard between Sasuke’s thighs—

Warmth dragged along Sasuke’s jaw, where either thrill or embarrassment made his face flare hot. Naruto descended on his neck, and lower. He drew lines from the base of Sasuke’s breastbone, deviating at angles across his chest until finally he licked across Sasuke’s nipple like he had wanted to do from the beginning.

Sasuke flinched and pushed Naruto’s face away, crushing the residual responses and tightening the features of his face. But Naruto was not dissuaded. He smiled, leaning in again, and licked at the corner of Sasuke’s mouth.

If Sasuke got too distracted, Naruto was going to do something unnecessary with his tongue. Sasuke parted his teeth to exhale, consciously soft, as Naruto crept further along and slower each time, until the feeling of their lips touching and no one moving was impossible to contain and Sasuke had to end it. He turned his head the degree necessary to initiate a kiss for the first time.

Naruto responded exactly as Sasuke knew he would. Unhurried, with his mouth open. Sasuke held Naruto’s face to maintain a minimum of control, should he need it, while Naruto ran his hands down the line of Sasuke’s back and pulled Sasuke against his erection. Sasuke, noticeably, wasn’t hard again yet, but he was ready for whatever Naruto wanted to do with their mouths and the suds between them until he was.

Naruto, uselessly, hadn’t learned anything at all. He had no guard up and he barely had his eyes open. Sasuke had to be careful where his head was taking him. His fingers kept lingering on Naruto’s face, pulling back, around his mouth, dragging back and forth over the lips he had just kissed, his chin and his jaw, back to his mouth. Naruto opened his eyes and tried to work out what Sasuke thought he was going to do with the nail of his thumb pushed between his teeth.

“Do you want me to get some more practice?” said Naruto.

“What?”

“Practice,” Naruto repeated, leaning back to encourage Sasuke to rise on his knees and put Naruto’s mouth directly in line with—and Sasuke broke from the mood completely and realised with startling understanding exactly how very vulnerable a position Naruto was suggesting he put him in.

Are you actually an idiot? Do you even know what you’re doing—Do you even know what you’re saying—

Sasuke calmed down, realising what Naruto meant wasn’t what his greedy libido was telling him. But Naruto wasn’t looking at him like he was making a mistake.

“What do you want me to do?” Sasuke had to ask.

“Put it in my mouth.”

What is up with you? Are you out of your mind? Was this what you were planning?

“Who are you even learning this stuff from?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. It was just an idea.”

How can you just ignore everything I’ve done to you and ask me to—

“I mean, this is only the second time I’ve ever done this so I still don’t really know what I’m doing,” Naruto reasoned, seeing Sasuke’s expression sink from suspended apprehension into paralysing disbelief. “But if you just, you know, go slow and be careful, I know you won’t hurt me.”

Sasuke flinched. That was a striking way of phrasing it.

No. You do know. You’re completely aware of what it’s going to mean for me to do what you’re asking me to do.

Naruto was giving him a chance he absolutely didn’t deserve. Sasuke knew that. Sasuke also knew what would happen if he screwed it up. It was in his best interests, while Naruto was giving him permission of his own volition, to keep his fingers under control if he ever wanted to feel the same sense of intense power howl through him when he rose back up on his knees and tilted Naruto’s chin up, held himself in one hand and gently persuaded Naruto’s mouth to open.

Sasuke liked this angle. Naruto had his hands on Sasuke’s hips but it was Sasuke who had to lean in, looking down, at Naruto’s tongue that covered his bottom teeth allowing for a smooth glide into—

Chaos hit his brain. Sasuke held Naruto’s face between his fingers and carefully flexed his hips, shallow and slow, looking down and losing his breath, watching himself disappear into Naruto’s mouth. Then when Naruto’s head touched the opposite wall and there was nowhere else for him to go—

Sasuke fluttered his eyelashes. Delirium was starting to bubble and corrupt his lungs. There were restrictions. He went slow, a little further. A little further. A little further. A little—

How come you aren’t stopping me? You can’t just let me do whatever I want—

The back of Naruto’s throat was just there and Sasuke had total, unrestrained, undeserved control—and doubted it immediately. Naruto couldn’t be that fucking insane, but still something thick and intoxicatingly curious wanted to test it just to be rid of it. Sasuke shuffled his knees closer and very, very slowly, so that Naruto knew what was happening and had time to adjust, pulled his head down—

Fuck, I can’t do it.

Sasuke had no idea where Naruto’s limit was but he was going to make sure he never got anywhere near it. Sasuke pushed Naruto’s head back, finding contentment in running over his tongue, and knowing that was the right decision when the burden lifted. He was over trying to extract every last drop of reckless excess before someone else could get there first, and this time what Sasuke began to realize he wanted to do was to start along the path to proving that he was capable of not being a monster.

Naruto rewarded his restraint, smoothing up the outerside of Sasuke’s thighs and slipping his fingers in where residual oil still remained. Sasuke sighed and let his eyes rest, indulging the swelling and tightness that let him know he was getting close. So this was all he needed. He only needed as much as he was allowed, as much as Naruto was willing to give him, because the rush he got from knowing that what they were doing—that it was permitted and reciprocated and wanted—

Naruto pushed back on Sasuke’s hips. There was a moment of washed euphoria, settling back on his heels, surviving, but then Naruto had to stare at him like the sight of Sasuke rough and turned on was the most incredible thing ever to appear in front of his face.

“Close your eyes,” said Sasuke.

Naruto closed his eyes. Sasuke dropped his head, intending to recover, but his gaze fell stuck between Naruto’s legs and a different idea took over his consciousness with a prickle of heat to his palms.

Carefully, letting Naruto’s hands wander onto his waist and pull him in, Sasuke sat in Naruto’s lap and brought their hips close together. Sasuke stared down, the anticipation rippling, and wrapped his hand around the both of them. The first thing out of Naruto’s stupid mouth and into his ears was his name.

You’re doing a lot of damage with that tongue of yours today.

“Stop talking.”

Naruto said blissful nothing while Sasuke experimented. Sasuke watched in Naruto’s face for reactions, stills and flinches and sighs, and then Sasuke closed his eyes when he found something that seemed to work for the both of them.

Naruto was the only one who came. The good feeling was there but Sasuke was going to need either more time or more stimulation or both. Sasuke stopped and looked down at Naruto. Bowed into Sasuke’s chest, Sasuke saw only the edges of a smile that he had not inspired in Naruto in a very long time.

“Get out so I can have a shower,” said Sasuke.

Naruto pulled back. He might have been trying to look annoyed. “Do you want me to—”

“I want you to get out.”

“Can’t I just sit here with you for a—”

“Get out.”

“Whatever, fine,” Naruto huffed, reluctant obedience, but he still had the temerity to smile a little on his way out.

All evidence of their sex had been cleaned up from the kitchen floor. Sasuke ignored the lightness in his chest growing with each step towards his bedroom to find exactly what he had expected, breaking apart the anxiety and filling him with equal amounts of exasperation and awe. Not only was Naruto there on his bed but not a single one of the clothes he had collected on his way had been put back on his body. Naruto wasn’t even trying to pretend anymore. He had just sat there, waiting.

Sasuke said, “Don’t you ever get tired?”

“Tired of you?”

Sasuke gave Naruto a careful look.

“Come here.” Naruto beckoned. “I’ll dress your back again.”

Naruto patted the bed, which Sasuke stared at. The first aid kit was open behind Naruto and the bottle of ointment was already in his hand. What Naruto appeared to be suggesting he do was sit down and allow Naruto to put his hands on him again.

“Enough,” said Sasuke.

“Fine with me.”

He didn’t like that. “You’ve made your point.”

“What was my point?” The question was stripped of humour. When Sasuke failed to respond, Naruto said, “I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to do. I’m offering to dress your back because infections suck.”

“You have no clothes on,” said Sasuke. “I’m not wearing anything under this towel. You want to fuck me again.”

Naruto put down the bottle and turned his full attention on Sasuke. “Yeah, I do. I don’t want to stop. You know why? Because it feels great. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to another person in my whole life and that other person is you. But you’re confusing two totally different things. I want to take care of you, and that means making sure you don’t die from sepsis or something. But you’re talking about self-control, which, thanks for asking, I have more than enough to share if you’re lacking. Sit down.”

Sasuke set his jaw. But he did as he was told.

He smelled the ointment first, and then the warmth of Naruto’s hands touched his skin. Naruto spread the liquid thinly and evenly over his back and gently massaged the area until Sasuke felt very little residue remaining on the surface. Naruto helped him with the bandages, and Sasuke sealed the end with a clasp.

Sasuke turned. He had not thought about what he would do if all they did was stare at each other.

“So,” said Naruto.

“So,” said Sasuke.

“Do you want to do rock-scissors-paper again or do you want to talk about it like real people?” said Naruto.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course you do.”

“What if I want to be on top?”

Naruto smiled, gently, forgivably, for whatever reason, even though he had no right to.

“Sure,” said Naruto.

For some reason, a bolt of fear struck Sasuke’s chest.

Naruto smacked the ball of his palm directly on Sasuke’s sternum and knocked the startled breath out of him. Sasuke clawed out of the shock with a retaliating swipe too late, pushed down onto his back, and Naruto teased him about whether he was actually a ninja.

“You of all people—”

Naruto’s skin smelled clean and his lips tasted like water. Sasuke gave in until he realised he was being distracted and robbed.

“Get off. You said I could be on top this time.”

“You are. Kind of.”

Sasuke stopped resisting for a moment to check how much of the light and alive resolution affected in Naruto’s expression was real, because Naruto was sitting on top of him with another idea and unless their positions were going to flip—

Oh you’re not—smile falling for the first and only thing he could imagine, putting flutters of anticipation into his stomach at the same time as the thought of it knocked his heart out of control—no way, you wouldn’t, you’re not going to—

“Okay?”

Naruto was asking, and Sasuke answered as agreeably as he could manage.

“Whatever.”

Naruto stared a moment longer, and then he shuffled back, dipped down, and put his tongue warm to Sasuke’s skin.

Though Sasuke’s reactions still refused to bind and be asphyxiated, this time Sasuke didn’t push Naruto away. Instead Sasuke focused his hands to the bed and adjusted the position of his legs that Naruto had gotten between again, efficiently, because unlike Sasuke who tried to find a balance between settled and spiralling, Naruto was keen and calm and centered.

Inexperience made Naruto’s behavior erratic and hard to predict. Sasuke timed his breathing. He resurrected his focus every time it fell out. He lay on his back and tried to relax again after each flinch but he needed an outlet and fast for the feelings that freezing his limbs wasn’t granting because if he gave nothing else, his tongue was only going to be a single whim away from asking for it—

Gloriously before he could, Naruto started to shift and go lower. Sasuke’s delight dived from patience to impending explosion—but Naruto asking for condoms pulled him back.

“Huh?”

“They’re next to you, beside the pillow.”

Sasuke scuffed his hands around his head. He caught as much as a glance afforded and passed the items over.

“I think it’d be a good idea to start using these. Sorry I didn’t bring them out before. They were in my room.” Sasuke wouldn’t ask why there were two, so Naruto told him. “One for me and one for you,” he explained, tearing the first open for himself. “Easier clean-up.”

Kisses in places too close to intimacy prevented Sasuke from making a response. Naruto didn’t wait for one. He put his mouth on the inside of Sasuke’s thighs. Through tufts of blonde hair, Sasuke watched Naruto’s mouth open, descending.

“Why do you keep putting it in your mouth?”

Sasuke flushed hard under Naruto’s gaze. Naruto noticed that was all Sasuke did. “Why?” echoed Naruto. “Because I want to. I thought that was kind of obvious.” A pause. “Did you change your mind?”

Sasuke opened his mouth to form a single, irresponsible syllable. “No.”

“Then don’t worry about it. Just lie back and enjoy it.”

Sasuke jerked at little at the first touch of Naruto’s tongue. If he settled his head and focused, felt it, the rhythmic slide of air traded for warmth—though he couldn’t quite relax his fingers from their position anchored in the sheets, he could allow the small privilege of his lungs unhinged. Just light sound, loud enough to be taken as a warning.

Naruto stopped. He opened the condom, rolled it on, and climbed over Sasuke’s stomach.

Naruto reached back.

Sasuke’s fingers snapped onto Naruto’s legs. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I told you,” said Naruto. There was a touch. “Just lie back and enjoy it.”

Sasuke made peace with the ceiling, scattered, and held onto Naruto’s thighs. Sasuke parted his lips fast, intending to ask, when Naruto balanced and pushed down, and, inhaling—

It’s going in—

Sasuke groaned and pinched his eyes closed as Naruto slid, fit, and got comfortable in his lap. Sasuke had been tricked again. The time Naruto spent waiting in his room hadn’t been wasted at all.

Naruto took time to learn what to do. He was careful. For over a decade, Sasuke’s survival had hinged on suppression and immaculate sobriety, an unspoken heart and rigid surveillance but this—as Naruto rode him, slowly, so that they could both feel what it was like—this made the blush scorch the skin down to his chest, his face brighter against the white sheets when Naruto began to appreciate what momentum did to him.

Sasuke knew why Naruto had suggested they do it like this, unfathomable though it was to him to imagine they would ever end up in this position. All he needed to do was lie back and learn that he could do it and Naruto would enjoy it, or, if Sasuke liked, put hands further up Naruto’s thighs while the ripples of stars burned under his skin, or, if Sasuke dared, put cracks in his eyelids wide enough to see the determination spread across Naruto’s flushed face—

“Naruto—”

Sasuke’s hands grappled higher at Naruto’s hips, uselessly, because they only seemed to want to pull him down harder. Sasuke reached forward and tried to render the same desperation, but Naruto, offended by the disruption, snatched Sasuke’s wrists and stapled them forward on the bed.

Naruto stared down at Sasuke staring up at him. Attempts to moderate everything meant Sasuke had no control over anything. Sasuke opened his mouth. His voice hit Naruto in the face.

“Naruto, slow down.” Anxious, unanswered pleas while his legs widened. “Slow down. Naruto, you need to slow down—Naruto—”

Naruto watched with fascination the way Sasuke’s neck exposed itself, arching back. He slowed and felt the faint shudder of Sasuke’s release, stilled to let him buck it out, and watched the high undo him.

Blissful sweetness kept Sasuke’s eyelids closed. He didn’t look like he would be moving for a while. Naruto got up. And moved back.

Sasuke cleared through his sedated daze and pulled his eyes open to stare at Naruto when he picked up his jellied legs, hoisting them up to the right height, and Sasuke parted his mouth without a sound when Naruto leaned in and stared him down and blurred the boundary between their bodies again.

One of Sasuke’s arms struck the headboard above to stop himself from sliding up the bed. Now that all the strength had fallen out of Sasuke’s muscles, Naruto worked out that he could do exactly as he pleased. He took him as hard and fast as he liked with growled out groans on the inward thrust—and Sasuke almost wished this was what had made him come because Naruto losing himself in front of his eyes—

Naruto was scrabbling for his arms, pulling at them and dragging his wrists down. If Sasuke didn’t make up for the loss of stability by clamping his legs as hard as he could at Naruto’s sides, he was never going to be distracted long enough for Naruto to slide his fingers between the gaps in his and pin their hands to the bed.

This was getting to be almost too much, happening too close to Sasuke’s face where he experienced the world. Naruto’s mouth pressed to his neck was starting to signal the sounds of his descent. It was going to be over soon, Sasuke knew, when Naruto pounded all the power he had in his thighs until the last—until Naruto stalled and his release broke. Sound vibrated from Naruto’s chest through Sasuke’s, short, steady jerks of his hips like he was either trying to drag it out or had forgotten he was supposed to stop.

Sasuke relaxed his hold and let his feet drop a little, like a hint. But Naruto didn’t reciprocate with any movement that showed he was ready to separate.

The weight on his hands softened. Naruto let go, and Sasuke’s eyes, still closed, didn’t see those hands move to hold his cheeks in the palm of his hands. Naruto kissed him only a few times, and then he skimmed his hands back along Sasuke’s forearms that he still didn’t put far enough out of reach for Naruto to braid their fingers again, squeezing once, before letting go and sitting back. Sasuke rolled over as soon as he was able to. Whatever Naruto had seen already, he wasn’t allowed to see more of it.

It’s just going to be all of this, all the time, isn’t it?

Naruto sat up. Tissues pulled and the rustle of the used condom hit the plastic lining of Sasuke’s wastepaper basket. Sasuke wouldn’t look, but the light sighs while Naruto caught the last of his breath told him Naruto was turned towards him.

“I’m going to go get some water. I’ll bring you a glass.”

The mattress dipped and sprung. Only after Naruto left did Sasuke venture to look.

His bed was a mess of wrinkled sheets and kicked blankets, even if the rest of his room was untouched save for his pillow lying next to his desk, behind his chair. Sasuke carefully took off the condom and discarded it.

Naruto came back. One look at his saturating confidence depleted Sasuke of his. Sasuke accepted the cup and drank from it.

Naruto put it on the bedside table when he had finished and lay back down, taking Sasuke with him and pushing a contented sigh into the back of his head. Naruto had either immense luck or he simply didn’t care that he was lying on the dirtiest part of the sheets, and by the time Sasuke realised the light waves of his breathing had fallen deep and even, it was too late to tell him to leave.

Finally quiet, Sasuke sighed and closed his eyes.

Usuratonkachi—

Well. Naruto had taken away his libido, if that had been his goal. It had sunk somewhere between uninspiring and off-putting and Sasuke’s imagination, when he did care to turn it on, shuddered and fell over quickly. The worst was when his daydreams conspired with his mind in unguarded moments, sliding back and reliving the things they had done together. Sasuke opened his eyes to escape it.

“Lift your head.”

Naruto was speaking. Sasuke lifted his head, and Naruto eased his arm under his neck, folding it across his chest, and pressed as much of his body as he could along the curve of Sasuke’s back and in the bend of his knees.

This idiot—!

“—You’re hard again.”

“Yeah.” Naruto laughed, too cheekily to be genuinely embarrassed and not enough to shy away. “Sorry. Is it uncomfortable? It’ll go away soon.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“I know. I just want to lie here with you.”

Naruto had a need for closeness that proximity alone couldn’t satisfy, and Sasuke, too tired to avoid things his insecurities wouldn’t have allowed had he been more alert against an opponent who had already proven the bottomless capacity of their stamina, decided, wisely, to settle and lay still while the long strands of hair on his neck rustled and gave way under Naruto’s warm and quiet exhalations.

Sasuke relaxed. Adrenaline still drumming too thick in his veins kept true rest out of reach, but he was able, for a little while, to soften his muscles and let the time wander by unnoticed under closed eyelids.

“Hey, Sasuke,” calm, murmured vibrations on his skin. “We don’t have to have do anything but would it be okay if I just put it in and stayed like that?”

Sasuke had no chance of rest now. He lost a few moments of memory to the breathlessness in his chest.

“Just for a little while.”

How the fuck do you keep coming up with—

“I promise that’s all I’ll do.”

And then what are we going to do? Just lie there like that? No way. Don’t you know there’s a word for it, when you and I—

Sasuke didn’t say anything but his imagination turned back on and his libido started to ignite. Just the thought of it put shallow breaths on his knuckles, hand at his teeth. He knew every reason it could turn out to be the worst decision he had ever made but—

he was just so ungodly curious.

“Are you going let me do it to you later?”

“Sure.”

Sasuke pretended the answer even mattered. “Fine.”

As soon as permission departed his mouth, Sasuke was alert. He pulled one leg up out of the way when Naruto’s hand ran over his hip and reached down. Sasuke felt the red in his cheeks mar even more of his face when he realized, not only was the skin there sensitive from so much friction in such a short period of time, but that he knew by the way that Naruto’s fingers weren’t bound by resistance just how wet and pliant he was from their activities before.

Fuck.

It doesn’t matter. It’s not like you’re any different. If anything, you’re way worse. I was just happy to lie by your side but clearly you can’t deal with the separation for even a second unless you’re actually inside me—

Relocating the blame to Naruto entirely was a comforting guard. It meant Sasuke could lower his anxiety long enough after Naruto had spread more oil between them to feel the little sigh fan over his neck when the pressure from Naruto became too much and his body gave in.

Naruto kept going, repositioning, until he was satisfied that there was no possible way that he could fit any more, any further in. Sasuke thought that would be the worst of it over but then he realized, when no one was moving, that if he could feel the way Naruto was reacting—

Sasuke tried to regulate his breathing and get his thoughts under control.

Don’t think about anything. This wasn’t my idea. Why I agreed to this—I want you more than I know how to say—probably some spur-of-the-moment impulsiveness brought on by the one sliver of lust you haven’t managed to fuck out of me yet—

“Ah, let’s see. What have we got in the fridge for lunch?”

Sasuke snapped out of it. Seconds away from self-destruction and Naruto was thinking about his goddamn stomach—

“Hmm. I think I remember seeing some eggs. Eggs and rice. I could probably make omurice. Best part is drawing faces with the ketchup.”

You are so fucking full of shit. Why do I—

“I don’t know what we have to drink though. Maybe just water. And tea. Does that go well? What goes well with omurice? Sakura-chan’s been buying oolong tea lately. It’s alright.”

Of all times and your first stupid thought—

“I’ll tell you what tea I do like and that’s roasted rice tea. I love the real stuff, though, especially if it still has lots of rice in the bottom. I know some people don’t like the thought of soggy rice but it reminds me of Ero-sennin.”

What are you even going on about?

“You know he always used to fill his rice bowl with hot water after a meal and drink it like that. Said it helped with digestion or something.”

“I was wondering why you did that.”

“Yeah. Not all the time, but sometimes.”

Oh. That was our first real conversation.

This is the worst. I can’t deal with this after all. Because every time I think there could be nothing stupider than the last thing, you always find a way to outdo yourself. But fuck it. This is the worst. I can’t—can’t deal with this—I can’t breathe—I can’t—

Half the diameter of an atom too late to tell Naruto to quit when Naruto moved his arm and stuffed Sasuke’s eyes into the curve of his palm.

“Just trust me, would you? Anyway, now that you’re allowed out of the house, we should probably go get you an actual haircut.”

What are you—

“Time for me to get another one too, I think. Sakura-chan said she would hold me upside down and mop the floors if she wasn’t worried that my hair would just make them dirtier.”

What—

“I can’t believe she insulted me twice in the same sentence. I’m gonna steal it and tell it to Sai.”

Fucking hell, with all your yabbering, I can’t even hear myself think—huh?

For a little while, Sasuke was able to focus on the strange and consistent way that Naruto seemed to know just what to do to calm his head. Not all of the tension dissolved but he let Naruto hold his face down and stopped trying to flog his body for the things his mind did.

Sasuke did what he had been too wound up to do at the start: just lay there, for a while, with Naruto, listening to Naruto’s chatter that kept the bad thoughts at bay. The chatter gradually interspersed with longer silences and then it was gone altogether.

It was still unfamiliar and at times Sasuke still felt teetered on blade-point edge but—he started off by admitting, light and careful, that it felt good. It felt good to have someone else’s body heat so close, to be made to feel safe and whole while pushed outside of his comfort zone. Admission wasn’t as difficult as he had thought it would be. It was just Naruto, after all, who wasn’t doing anything else like he had promised, and Naruto always kept his promises.

Sasuke breathed. He started with breathing. As long as he kept breathing.

“Your hair is really black,” Naruto started up again. “Did you know your crown goes clockwise?”

Little pieces of information like this made Sasuke forget to care about reflexes outside his influence. Not that Naruto had needed an excuse to run his hands through his hair.

“It smells really good, too.” Naruto ran his nose down Sasuke’s nape.

Sasuke moved his hand between his legs and put it to use because that was as subtle as he knew how to be. The muscles in his arm tensed and flexed under the skin. Naruto noticed.

“I thought you didn’t want to do anything.”

“I changed my mind.”

Naruto hesitated.

And then he said, “Do you want me to do something too?”

“Probably wouldn’t be the worst decision you’ve ever made,” said Sasuke.

As Naruto released him from the embrace and pulled his arm out, Sasuke’s head worked to calculate how exactly Naruto planned to take him. He rolled onto his stomach, heavy under Naruto’s weight, and lost himself to the bubbling thrill in his chest when Naruto spread his knees further apart and sat between his legs.

Naruto pulled his hips up, and Sasuke held the position.

Sasuke was being remarkably tame. Naruto dared to stare at Sasuke, his hands clasped in the sheets.

Calm down.

Naruto narrowed and fixed his focus over the indents of Sasuke’s hips. He experimented a few times to get a feel for what to do, watching as even the lightest impacts put ripples on the surface. Curiosity beckoned. He stared, pulling all the way out just to watch Sasuke take him all the way in.

Whoa okay just—calm down. This is all in my head. Don’t do anything stupid.

Naruto closed his eyes to get away from it. A part of this had to be from the fox’s likely greed and giddy jubilation at having an Uchiha as close to its total mercy as it was ever going to get. He leaned down to kiss the dips in Sasuke’s spine, ran his hands up his chest and dragged back over Sasuke’s stomach to rest on his thighs—and another idea, also the fox’s fault, put quakes in his fingers as he reached up, dangerously close and barred by nothing, and held Sasuke in both hands.

For the span of countless seconds, the intensity of his actions shook him—even though Sasuke clenched like crazy and Naruto forgot how to breathe—this was the singlemost exhilarating thing he had ever done.

Calm down. This is crazy. I’ll never have a chance to do this again in my life.

Sasuke was hard, though not heavy or full. Naruto couldn’t fathom what excuses Sasuke was telling himself to keep him there but he was silent and compliant and patient while Naruto’s fingers wandered carefully over lines and ridges. The skin was unbelievably smooth in places, and unbelievably wet in others.

How come you aren’t stopping me? You can’t just let me do whatever I want—

Naruto might have mistaken Sasuke’s quietness for dismissal but the reactions from his body whenever Naruto touched somewhere new or held him firm suggested he was aware, capable of processing whether he liked it or not, wanted it to continue or not—whether he cared that Naruto had the freedom to learn what made him bend and soften.

Naruto pushed Sasuke’s chest flat to the bed, making Sasuke turn his head. He had his eyes closed when Naruto pushed the hair out of his face and scalded his skin with his stare.

“This is the last time, okay?”

Sasuke nodded. He reached down and put a hand around himself.

With steadily increasing force and frequency, Naruto set a pace at the edge of his sanity. He’d used too much oil in the end. Greedy thoughts of Sasuke putting up—no resistance—balanced the lack of friction, going hard while Sasuke wore the effect. It was with inexplicable dissatisfaction that pulled out, tempered only by warmth of Sasuke’s body transferred to his as slick strokes and enveloping heat.

Naruto closed his eyes. His senses dulled as the feeling compounded.

“Come inside me.”

“What?” Naruto heaved a fretted sigh. “Please don’t tell me to do stuff like that when I’m so close.”

“I want you to do it.”

Naruto groaned, losing determination that was already fractured. He opened his eyes, staring down and leaning in, over Sasuke’s back. A fraction of hesitation was all that separated consideration and unimaginable impulse as he opened his mouth and ran his tongue along the folds of skin over Sasuke’s spine. He bared his teeth and made Sasuke jolt underneath him with the bite to his neck.

That noise in his throat was too good to be trapped behind his teeth. Naruto got his fingers inside Sasuke’s mouth where he knew Sasuke wouldn’t bite him out and made him vocalise everything he felt.

A last, low groan, filtered through Naruto’s fingers, signalled his drop into bliss. Sasuke was spent. He felt nothing come out. Naruto had by now started to develop a little bit of knowledge about his role and decided to endure through the tremors, slow and punctuated and accurately aimed to make Sasuke shake. Naruto came inside him, softening his teeth to sigh Sasuke’s name down over his neck.

Sasuke’s eyes were bright red when he opened them. He looked struck and out of focus, not yet recovered, but he seemed to have the awareness to put his attention on Naruto when Naruto turned him over on his back and went down on him.

Sasuke flinched at the sensitivity, but Naruto wasn’t trying to get him off and Sasuke didn’t try to push him away. He just lay there, with his head angled a little to the side, and put up with the licks between his legs and along his sex until they went away.

Naruto put a measured kiss to his cheek, and Sasuke opened his eyes again.

Naruto said, “I love you, you know.”

Sasuke’s eyes shot back to black, and then Sasuke just stared at the pointed finger Naruto shoved in his face.

“Next time,” Naruto growled out to make sure Sasuke understood the seriousness of his demand, “you are going to make me feel exactly like you’re feeling right now, or I’m going to turn you down until you do. Got it?”

Sasuke looked like he brushed it off on first instincts but Naruto glared at him longer than necessary and understanding faltered in his expression. Then Naruto got up, announced his intentions to wash, and left Sasuke to his thoughts.

Clean, composed, sensible, and dressed, Sasuke unfurled a scroll and sought comfort in his normal routine. He leaned over the desk, balanced with his hand held over his mouth, and studied the characters.

Well that was a stupid thing to do five times.

Sasuke knew it wasn’t going to pan out well if he started thinking about it but irritably he couldn’t knock the wonderings down enough times to stop them from chasing their way back to the surface twice as fast. It might have had something to do with how, although his body still felt rough and stiff from the fight, apart from that, there was only calm. Heavy, heady peace. He felt his weight, drained and still a little bewildered. But he didn’t feel bad. He felt like he had lungfuls of air.

It’s just—just a good feeling. From—Why did you have to go and do it so many times anyway? You know what I’m capable of and you still let me fuck your face into a wall.

Sasuke groaned and rubbed his face, staggered up from his desk and looked around the room for anything that would captivate his imagination better than the writings in front of him. Naruto had come back to his bed and he was still lying there, polluting the linen with his body odour while his ribcage rose and settled in the serenity of sleep.

You definitely found out that was me. I know you know. Even though you aren’t saying anything. You can’t not know and do all of that.

How can you just forgive me without a word?

Just the thought of it brought cold tremors to his chest. If Sasuke thought anymore about what it meant for Naruto to still hurl the entire volume of his trust at him after all he had done to him—

Reading wasn’t going to cut it. He wandered out into the hallway, the lounge room, and made sure to whirl the television sound right up if he wanted to have any hope of making the game show swallow his attention. One of the contestants was comically losing. It was entertaining.

Especially that last one. That was a mess.

Sasuke closed his eyes and took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly through his mouth.

Remember that first flush of heat when you got in.

Remember the glide of your tongue across my skin.

Remember how I moaned in your face.

Remember the end when you held me until I came.

Remember how good it felt. The weight, the strength, the submission, the release—

The door clicked. Sasuke had never felt such weightless elation in a single moment as when Sai and Sakura came into the apartment, except Sakura took one look at the broken table, staring dumbly at it for a moment, and then turned to look at him.

“Should I ask why the table’s broken?”

“Naruto fell on it.”

Sakura looked at the table again. Sai had a go at fixing it but it just fell down and splintered even more.

“How did he manage that?”

“I think he tripped.”

Sakura wasn’t confident enough to press for more. She set off down the hall in search of the other side of the story and Sasuke realized—wait—he’s naked—did I even close the door?—when her footsteps stopped at the end and came back straight away—no, it’s okay, I did, I remember the creak—that he had wasted those moments not thinking of a better answer when she said:

“Where is he? Did he go out?”

“No.” Sasuke paused, helpless. “He’s sleeping. In my room.”

Sakura almost blurted out why?—almost, the breath already inhaled—but something about the pained way Sasuke covered half his face, leaning against the armrest, told her that her guess was probably correct.

I will never understand how you two work but it needs to be less destructive.

Naruto came back to himself in stages, his senses slowly unfurling as he came out of sleep, the last of the orange afternoon sunshine rousing him, the desk, the pillow tossed aside, the sheets and blankets pushed into a puddle beside the bed. All the muscles in his body felt heavy and warm, drained and replenished at the same time. He looked. Sasuke was not there.

He rolled and stretched. The smell of the bedding, when he turned, was so unlike his own that for minutes, Naruto wanted to do little more than lay in a contented, lethargic daze. He thought about Sasuke’s sharingan.

Voices disturbed him, hushed as though distant, and then louder. Footsteps approach the door, too quick to be Sasuke’s, and Naruto became aware of his nudity with a jolt in the direction of the sheets. But the door was closed. As the footsteps retreated, Naruto got up, redressed, and left.

His first thoughts flew to Sasuke. An image of Sasuke lounging on the sofa, offering a shy flick of his eyes, crumbled before it could be enjoyed. It would not be that easy. The best he could hope for was that Sasuke had slept—had just woken, even, so that he could catch Sasuke before he had had time to talk himself into or out of anything. The worst—

Naruto stepped out into the hallway to Sasuke walking into it. Sasuke winced as though pained, his lips souring into a flat line as he moved to one side.

When they were close, Naruto threw his arm against the wall. Sasuke baulked, stopping. Behind him, Sakura followed.

“There you are,” said Sakura. Her frown dissolved into something unusual as she looked from Naruto to Sasuke and back. “The table’s broken. Sai’s trying to fix it.” Then, after a moment in which the frown reappeared, she said, “Aren’t those Sasuke-kun’s clothes?”

“Are you alright?” said Naruto.

“Yes.” Sasuke's voice was steady. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Where are you going?”

Sasuke had a look of intense concentration, which he directed at the wall. “Nowhere.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

Sasuke moved. Naruto cupped his neck and pulled him back.

“You don’t look like you’ve slept. Do you need me to help you?”

“Huh?”

Naruto shifted his fingers over warm skin, changing his grip. “Let me take care of you.”

Sasuke did not flinch at the touch, nor did he pull away when it lingered, though Naruto could see from the subtle changes in his face that he was at a loss how to respond. Across Sasuke’s cheeks, a new, deeper redness was spreading. It was difficult to look at him like this, startle-eyed and stiff, and recall the things he had said with that mouth.

Sasuke said, “I just want to go to my room.”

“Yours is a mess. Go to mine. I’ll make you some tea.” Naruto looked over the scratches on Sasuke’s face with dismay, then the darkness ringing his eyes. What little damage Naruto had sustained from the fight had healed already, whereas Sasuke was a portrait of everything he had experienced. “Sakura-chan.”

“Huh?”

“Sorry about the table. I tripped and fell on it.”

“Oh,” said Sakura. “Okay.” Then she looked at Sasuke.

Naruto said, “Maybe go see if Sai needs a hand.”

Naruto slid his arm around Sasuke’s shoulders and pulled Sasuke into place at his side. Sasuke walked with the grace of an injured soldier, lagging but acquiescing. Approaching the doorway, Naruto nudged Sasuke inside and turned back towards the kitchen.

A cup of steaming tea in his hand, Naruto closed his bedroom door. The only light then came from the sliver between his curtains, though it was enough to show him where his desk was. He set the cup down close enough that Sasuke, sitting on the edge of his bed, would be able to reach it.

Sasuke, Naruto noticed, was not ready for sleep, or even preparing himself for it. He faced Naruto, his shoulders bunched with tension, his expression grainy and shadowed by the poor light.

Naruto pulled his chair in close and held his ground against Sasuke’s stare.

Naruto said, “Let’s hear it.”

“Don’t do this,” said Sasuke. “You’re making a mistake.”

“You would know about mistakes.”

There was a pause.

Sasuke looked away. “Are you going to wash the sheets?”

“I might.”

Sharply, “Would you?”

“Yeah. When I feel like it.”

“Then where am I supposed to—” Sasuke stopped. He breathed out deliberately. “The only reason I came here was because Sakura was watching us. Why is your voice so loud? Do you want—” He stopped again. Naruto waited. Fingers bit the mattress. When Sasuke spoke again, it was about something else. “I know what you want to do. I know what you imagine. But it’s nothing like that. It can’t be. It can never be. That’s just not what my life is made up of.” Sasuke’s breath ribboned. “You have no idea what you’re doing, I’m sure of it—”

“Sasuke.”

Sasuke squeezed his eyes.

“It’s too soon. You need time to get better. I promise we’ll talk about it later but right now I just want to hold you in my arms.”

Sasuke’s muscles locked with so much tension, it froze him. Naruto pushed the teacup into Sasuke's hands.

“Listen to me,” said Naruto, gently. “Do what I say. That’s your only task right now. I’m going to take care of you. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Sasuke didn’t like it. He wouldn’t look. For a long while, long enough for the steam rising from his cup to thin and disappear, Sasuke wouldn’t drink the tea. He held the glossy ceramic in his hands and stared at nothing, or closed his eyes, while his brows furrowed and his breathing shallowed and levelled in cycles.

“You don’t get it,” said Sasuke, eventually. “You’ve never had family. You don’t know what it’s like to lose them. But I,” said Sasuke, “have lost everyone I’ve ever cared about.” He looked at Naruto. “Except one.”

They gazed at each other. Warm night air furled and unfurled the curtain. Naruto felt a depth of yearning to reach, a tangible ache in his chest, though some rational sense held him back, and he let Sasuke experience this small moment of vulnerability without interference.

“If you know that,“ said Naruto, “then protect him with your life. He’s not that smart. He needs you to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. If you do that, you’ll never lose him. He’ll always be with you.“ Naruto jutted his chin at the cup. “That’s enough for one night. Finish the tea. Then we can lie down and just be with each other until we fall asleep.”

When he finished, Naruto put the cups aside and took his place on the bed. He applied a fist to the front of Sasuke’s shirt, and pulled.

Sasuke planted his palms.

“Don’t do this,” said Sasuke. “Don’t—” Sasuke shuddered, “let me do this.”

“Later,” said Naruto. “You’re tired. I’ve seen what you can talk yourself into when you’re tired. Come here.”

Sasuke’s face crumbled. Naruto pulled at the shirt until he feared it would tear. Sasuke still didn’t go cooperatively. But he did go. Into the open arch of Naruto’s arm, Sasuke came, slowly, at once as stiff as stone and limp and weak and dazed, and when he was there, Naruto held on.

Sasuke was there, the fine ends of his hair brushing Naruto’s jaw. Naruto patted the hair down, just once. Familiar smell rose out of it, and its smoothness was a marvel he wanted to experience again. So he did. And again. Carefully, and with a distant awareness for Sasuke’s face against where his heartbeat was strongest, Naruto placed the tips of his fingers at Sasuke’s hairline and pushed lines across his scalp.

The third time, half a sigh escaped Sasuke’s mouth before he cut it off.

A new pressure began to push against Naruto’s chest, and he fought to subdue it, the rushing water well of feeling that spilled between his fingers. He looked down at black hair, at tight shoulders curled inward. He drew a line down Sasuke’s back, and gave in to the impulse while his hand was there to turn Sasuke in a little closer.

I am

such

a fool.

Eight Months

Naruto woke, sleep-blurred, to a bizarre sound he could not place and a feeling like the earth was slipping out from underneath him. Reaching out, he felt Sasuke, who was sat up, mumbling and jostling beside him.

“What’s going on?” said Naruto. “What time is it?”

He disturbed Sasuke’s shirt, from which the sharp smell of sweat emanated. He touched more, feeling Sasuke’s back, which was flushed hot and greasy all over, and then he heard Sasuke sob. All the haze in Naruto’s head vanished.

Naruto sat up. “Are you alright?”

He could not understand what Sasuke was saying beyond a few words, which didn’t make any sense. Sasuke fidgeted ceaselessly. The whites of his eyes were visible in the dark, open, staring blankly, his dilated pupils like two drops of ink reflecting a sliver of silver light each. For a second, he thought Sasuke was possessed by a jutsu.

“Sasuke,” Naruto said, gently. “Sasuke.”

Sasuke gasped, “Someone needs me.”

“It’s just me. I’m okay. You’re having a bad dream.”

“Who are you?”

“Uzumaki Naruto. Who are you?”

Sasuke said, “I don’t know.”

“Silly,” said Naruto. “You’re Sasuke. You’re my favorite person in the world.”

He passed his hand over Sasuke’s forehead and carried the touch down to his neck. “You’re sweating a lot.” He ran his hand up Sasuke’s side, under his shirt. “Like, a lot.”

Naruto tugged Sasuke’s shirt off, wiped him down with it, and foraged another out of his wardrobe. Sasuke lay down before he could put it on, and his breathing started to wind down and compose as he returned to normal sleep.

Naruto sat on the edge of the bed looking down at him in the dark. The stillness amplified his pounding heartbeats.

He left and came back with a damp cloth.

“What are you doing?” said Sasuke, in his usual voice, as Naruto wiped his neck.

“You were having a bad dream. I think you sweated through to the mattress. Do you have them often?” asked Naruto. Sasuke was not punctual in his reply, so that when eventually he did give it, Naruto did not trust it. “Is this why you can’t sleep well at night?”

Sasuke redressed. His silence felt intentional, as if his steel grip of control over his mouth made up for his complete lack of it elsewhere.

“I wish I had known sooner,” said Naruto.

Sasuke surveyed the room. He slid his feet over the side of the bed.

“Where are you going?”

“Bathroom.”

Naruto changed the sheets, the old ones balled up and thrown against the door so that when Sasuke came back, he had to push the door a little harder to get around it.

Naruto ordered him to bed, and he went, facing the wall.

The sweet smell of soap rose to Naruto’s nose. He ruffled the hair at Sasuke’s nape, a touch damp at the root.

“Are you going to sleep?” Naruto murmured. He did not receive an answer. “What are you thinking about?”

The silence stretched.

“The last eight months never happened,” said Sasuke, quietly. “It’s October tenth again and I’m standing on the final plank of a little, red bridge at the border of Whirlpool and Fire. In just a few short months, I’ve managed to lay waste to the entire Uchiha clan legacy with nothing to show for it and now I have nowhere else to go. The Hokage is there and so is a company of Anbu. I’m scared they’re going to destroy me and not tell you. They don’t. They take me to an underground prison. I’m scared they’ll leave me there to rot while you search for me above ground forever. They don’t. Six hours after I first set foot in Fire, they deliver you to me. The Hokage tells me she’s not doing me a favour, that this is how she protects the village.” He paused. “Sometimes I dream I’m back there on that bridge. And I try to make myself accept another fate,” he rubbed his eyes, “but I just can’t.”

Naruto knew no adequate words of comfort, so he pressed his palm flat between Sasuke’s shoulders and said, “I’m here.”

When eventually his wrist tired of the position, he dropped his hand.

Sasuke turned.

“Wake me whenever you need me,” said Naruto.

Grey light sluiced across the plane of Sasuke’s forehead and the arc of his cheekbone, a shade of lighter than the rest. Naruto stared across two handspans of pillow for as long as his eyes would allow.

Some mornings, Naruto fried tomato halves. When the afternoons were hot, he sliced watermelon. Dessert after dinner was frozen melon skewered on a chopstick because, “real ice cream is too sweet, right?”

Curtains undulated in soothing waves to welcome the incoming heat. Sasuke lay on top of the sheets with his sleeveless shirt rucked up and Naruto’s fan pointed at his stomach to combat the windless still of sticky air. Naruto, in the kitchen, was making something for lunch.

The results of ten minutes of cooking was the most spectacularly minimalistic cold noodle dish whose flavors were not very complex or elaborate, like all Naruto’s food, but was refreshing to eat. Naruto’s food was simple and made from good ingredients. Eating it every day did not make Sasuke feel sick. It made him feel very good.

“The broth tastes like soymilk.”

“That’s because it is.”

Fat udon noodles spun in a ball, poured over with cold soymilk and topped with half a boiled egg. The side dishes consisted of raw cucumber and carrot slices. Sasuke ate it all and got back under the covers, turning into the darkest corner. When Naruto left, he closed the curtains.

“I haven’t really seen Sasuke-kun in a while.” Sakura dried the dishes beside Naruto who washed them. “Kind of seems like the beginning all over again.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Naruto reassured her. “You’ve never been smacked into the dirt a hundred times by Uzumaki Naruto. He’s still recovering. He’ll come out when he’s ready.”

Sakura saw Sasuke by chance one evening, going to have a shower. She offered to heal him and though he thanked her for her concern, he declined the favor.

Welcoming though the peace was that Naruto brought at night, more often than not Sasuke woke not because of bad dreams but because it was just too hot to lie beside him. Sasuke took his pillow and gouged it between their bodies, and Naruto, awake, or woken by the movement, took the pillow and threw it back over Sasuke’s side.

“I’m hot.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Sasuke turned and looked over his shoulder. Naruto was getting up. He came back from the kitchen and sat on the edge of the bed. He repositioned the trajectory of the fan and told Sasuke to roll over.

“If you spread water over your skin and let the fan dry it, you’ll cool down pretty quickly.”

Naruto dipped his fingers into the cup and rubbed water over Sasuke’s legs. He pushed Sasuke’s shirt out of the way and spread it over his back and arms. The technique seemed most effective applied to the bottom of his feet and the palms of his hands. Like Naruto had said, he cooled down and was soon comfortable enough to sleep.

“Where did you learn this?” Sasuke asked.

“I don’t know. Necessity? I’ve always done it. My apartment growing up never got any wind.”

“Hmm. Mine did.”

Curiosity weaker than his want to sleep, Sasuke relaxed, and dozed, and slept through the rest of the night.

Naruto hummed the opening tunes to a daytime drama while folding washing. Sasuke slept behind him on the couch. While Sakura understood it, still there was something that made her anxiously wait for the right time to ask about it. She had to ask, just in case. She wanted to talk about it.

“Many hands make light work, don’t they?” Sakura smiled into Naruto’s gratitude and sat down next to him. “Whose shirt is this?”

Naruto squinted and drew it closer under inspection. “I don’t know. Is it Sai’s? I know he went and bought a heap of black shirts recently. Now I can’t tell them apart. Hang on, maybe it’s Sasuke’s. Yeah, I think it’s Sasuke’s. It’s too worn to be new.”

Sakura put the shirt in Sasuke’s pile and then hesitated. She turned a tentative glance back at Sasuke just to be sure he was absent, and then: “He sure sleeps a lot these days.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Either Naruto was oblivious to the hint or he didn’t want to reveal too much. Sakura dawdled on another shirt, pushing its creases to the edge.

“Does he get enough sleep at night?”

“Not really.”

She stared at her fingers while her suspicions read into Naruto’s short, offhand reply. He seemed to have confident knowledge of this fact and she hardly ever saw Sasuke’s bedroom door closed these days.

“Don’t worry about it. He’s still recovering. Just let him do what he wants.”

Sakura needed time to settle the information in her head. She still wasn’t quite sure he knew what he was talking about—because your fight with him was weeks ago, he’s already—

“Hey, if you want to see him move…” Naruto ducked over and whispered an idea. Sakura pulled away with scepticism in her stare but Naruto was sly and assured. He leaned in again and whispered something else.

Naruto looked back. He pressed his hand to Sasuke’s shoulder, and when that didn’t work, he put his fingers to Sasuke’s forehead and drew slow lines with his thumb from Sasuke’s eyebrows to his hairline until he woke. His eyes didn’t open but he hummed, burrowing down.

“You should go have a shower. And wash your hair. You smell like last night’s barbecue.”

Sasuke hummed again. “Two minutes.”

Naruto wasn’t falling for that trick again. Two minutes on the border of dreams was all Sasuke needed to fall back asleep. Naruto motioned at Sakura, who touched her fingertips to Sasuke’s brow—snapping back as soon as Sasuke opened his eyes.

Sakura tittered a nervous laugh in Naruto’s direction.

“You can keep doing it,” Sasuke said. “I just didn’t know you were there.”

After another moment of hesitation and under Naruto’s watch, Sakura reached out again. Sasuke looked calm under closed eyelids while Sakura mimicked what Naruto had done, stroking his forehead just a few times.

Naruto handed off Sakura’s clothes to take to her room. Sakura was quick to read the signals. She was being dismissed. She politely cooperated.

The walls were thin. Murmurs from the television were almost understandable. Someone said:

“That was nice of you. You did a good thing. I’ll reward you after you have a shower.”

Yet another morning, Sasuke woke to an empty bed. He opened his eyes.

Naruto was sitting at his desk reading comics, as usual. He had waited to make breakfast until Sasuke woke, as usual, and Sasuke dozed a little more until the smell of freshly cooked rice was in the room, followed by miso, followed by Naruto coming back, as usual. He sat down beside Sasuke on the bed and smiled at everything below Sasuke’s eyes huddled under sheets.

“Were you cold last night?”

“No,” mumbled Sasuke’s voice, muted through cloth, “it was warm until you left.”

Sasuke was having trouble finding his way out of dreams. He stumbled through the hallway and sat down beside Sai, whose assessing and sceptical visage said what he for once had the forethought not to voice aloud.

“Sakura-chan’s out doing some stuff at the hospital,” Naruto explained her absence at the table, placing plates in front of each of them.

“I heard her leave,” Sasuke answered.

“You did? That was early.”

“Yeah.”

Apart from that, Naruto didn’t bother him with talk. Sasuke ate his meal listening to Sai and Naruto’s chatter. Naruto asked Sai to pick up more comic books from the library since he was going there anyway, and Sasuke wondered warily if this too was another excuse.

“Let’s go out tonight.”

Sasuke looked at Naruto, who had made the suggestion.

“I want to sit on the roof and stargaze,” he continued.

The roof wasn’t nearly as far as Sasuke had expected he would have to take his face so soon. He settled, picking at his food.

The ANBU were watching. Their chakra signals were dull, but present, as Naruto pointed out patterns in the stars taught to him by teachers of the past.

Maybe Naruto sensed them too—though I really doubt it—because Sasuke wanted to fault an exterior threat for his cascading irritability. Together, under the glory of the heavens, Sasuke paid very little attention to the information Naruto expelled and dedicated it all to the organs that moved, emitting the greatest light.

“Usuratonkachi.”

“What?”

Naruto turned from the sky and stared.

“You really are the stupidest person I’ve ever met.”

They brawled until tenants yelled at them to stop. Sasuke fell off the roof. Naruto dived after him and soared right past Sasuke hanging to the eaves underneath, who disconnected the chakra and pounced straight down.

But thank god I met you.

Sasuke was tossing again, and his face was taut. He muttered things sometimes, most of which Naruto could not understand, if they were intelligible things at all and not just whimpers. Naruto watched Sasuke whine again; their expressions mirrored.

Reaching out a hand, Naruto took Sasuke’s arm and shook him gently. “Sasuke. Wake up. It’s just a dream.”

The shifting stopped. Sasuke’s eyes opened. He stared, and then they closed again. His throat undulated.

Naruto said, “Do you want some water?”

“Yeah.”

Sasuke sat up to drink from the glass. When it was empty, Naruto poured more water and Sasuke drank again.

When Sasuke finished, Naruto took Sasuke’s face in his hands.

Sasuke twisted, but Naruto held on. “Stop it. I know what I look like.”

“Reminds me of dew on grass.” Naruto swiped a tear from the hollow under Sasuke’s eye and put his finger to his mouth. The contortion was immediate. “That was not the taste I expected.”

“What did you taste it for then?”

“Just curious.”

Sasuke wiped his other eye. His reaction was more controlled. “It’s salty.”

“Like the ocean.”

Naruto lay down, and Sasuke pressed his nose into the collar of the shirt Naruto wore. There were areas of skin on Naruto’s back that were cool. Sasuke rolled his shoulders forward, pressed his arms against the back of Naruto’s. For a little while, until it got too hot.

Sasuke could not remember what he had been dreaming, but while his mind had let go, his heart had not. He breathed in deeper the mixed scent. He kept his eyes closed, like Naruto had told him, and softened his jaw from a clamp to a hinge, and dropped his shoulders.

Naruto’s body was the first to fall, his arms heavy when Sasuke moved his away. Eventually, he slept.

Even with a hot cup of coffee between his fingers, Sasuke was slouched over his knees, dozing. He relied on Naruto’s shoulder to keep him somewhat upright. At whatever hour Sasuke hadn’t had time to check, Naruto had hauled his limbs out of the house and now they were sitting on the roof again.

“Watch watch watch watch watch!”

Nudged into action, Sasuke raised his head and opened his bleary eyes.

The light on the horizon cracked with the rippling orange glow of the dawn sun. Naruto leant over and whispered, “Congratulations. For a whole day, you can do whatever you want.”

“Can we go back to bed now?”

“In a minute.”

When the sun peaked over clouds and became too bright to stare at directly, Naruto took the half empty, lukewarm cup out of Sasuke’s hands and put him back to bed.

Air from Naruto’s fan waved over Sasuke’s face. It was cool, refreshing, and it made his eyes tired. He slept on the couch with Naruto in front, in reach, and the television sound tiptoed around and faded to background noise.

When he woke, it was to a sheet over him and everything else exactly as he left it. Sasuke stretched and Naruto turned around.

“Sakura-chan bought some apricots. Do you want one?”

But so much sleeping had made Sasuke hungrier than fruit would sate. “Want to go out and have ramen instead?”

Naruto was all for this idea, as Sasuke knew he would be. He went to his room to change. Sasuke waited by the door, darting his eyes at small movements and fidgeting his fingers.

On busier streets, people stared, but not in the way Sasuke feared. They stared at Naruto, gave a cursory glance out of curiosity at his company, and stared at Naruto again. Sasuke started to feel unsure whether Konoha’s citizens even recognised him.

All that worry for—

Hot ramen and heavy air made Sasuke sweat, though not as much as Naruto. Bands of warmth radiated off him. A passing comment from Teuchi about swimming off the last of the heat wasn’t a bad one. On the way home, Sasuke suggested going to the lake.

They walked the lake perimeter under the shade of trees during the afternoon, and then, later, they sat on the dock. When Sasuke had been younger, his feet had never been able to reach the water. Now he sat comfortably on the edge, ankle deep, with Naruto, watching as the sun started to set.

Sasuke had observed enough cats in his life to know that if he just pawed Naruto’s comic book to the floor and lay on it that Naruto would give him attention.

It didn’t work. Naruto shoved him off and rolled on his back, kicking out with his foot to turn the television on and holding the comic book in the air. “Oh, look. It’s that show you love.”

“It’s the news.”

“Whoa, what timing! Just when I was up to the most amazing part in my book.”

Sasuke stared at the anchorwoman, forecasting the effects of autumn vacations in snow somewhere in another land. Schoolchildren were jumping off play equipment, diving and disappearing into piles of it with a fluff of flurries. He was entertained for about half of the entire thirty seconds of broadcast.

“I’m bored again.” Sasuke weaved his face into the pages but Naruto just palmed him out of the way and rolled over to another side.

“Just hang on, would you. You do not know how intense this is right now.”

“Everyone lives happily ever after,” Sasuke reminded him. Naruto’s stories were all of a single type.

“Yeah I know but—how? I need to know how.”

Sasuke dragged a laboured sigh and starfished on the ground. He looked over, rolled over, and fit the curve of Naruto’s back with enough room to stare over his shoulder at the pages.

“What’s going on?”

“Three friends got lost on a journey and now they’re just about to find each other.”

Typical teenage literature. Sasuke was hooked on the premise alone.

Sakura watched Sasuke out of the corner of her eye, glaring at Naruto as he taught Sai the joys of blowing bubbles through his nose in the water. She looked down at her feet and wriggled her toes and smiled at how his fingers scratched along the rock into a fist. Maybe everything was okay even if Sasuke and Naruto stubbornly never spoke or ever acted the way she really wanted to see them act. If Sasuke didn’t realise what he looked like, it just meant his head was too full of his thoughts about one person to notice or control his reactions.

“Sakura.”

Sasuke lowered his voice when he realized it had made her jump.

“You shouldn’t have listened to me when I told you to stay away from Naruto.”

She watched her hands, tightening on her knees. Naruto was still blowing bubbles, pretending to be a shark and Sai his prey. Sai, who had only ever seen sharks in books, thought Naruto looked stupid and he told him so. Sasuke exhaled his annoyance, watching the commotion that Naruto stirred up that he for once wasn’t a part of and wanted to be.

“I know it hurt you. I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t a nice thing to do.”

I get it. I know this is your way of saying sorry.

“I’m going to stay here—to make sure he doesn’t screw everything up.”

But I still can’t believe you were so afraid you might lose him to me. You’ve always been—

Sakura smiled, relaxed, and told him there was nothing for her to forgive, that it was okay, and there was nothing better than when he looked over at her and—

“Thank you.”

—quietly, sincerely, and this time they were in a better place, at the valley, in the sun, with those they cared about and blissfully warm all over.

“Gah—hey!” Naruto was waving his hands around to get their attention and Sakura turned to him with a smile that didn’t show anywhere near the gratitude she owed him. “We’re going to take a group photo! Come down here!”

When Naruto balanced the camera on a rock just carefully enough that it didn’t fall into the water, when Sasuke still didn’t smile for the photo and Naruto hassled him about it, when Sai stood next to her and told her he finally understood what they had fought for all those years, when she had a new photo to put on her desk right beside the old one and no one was left out and Naruto had done everything he had promised he would do five years before—she hugged her family to her heart and never let them go.

These comics were going to be the end of him. They were the first thing Sasuke read in the morning and the last thing he read at night, until the lines on the page were blurry and he couldn’t comprehend the dialog. Naruto was happy to read the series again.

“Oh man, I remember this part! She’s about to—”

“Stop it! God. What do you want now?”

In the beginning, the first time, Sasuke had challenged Naruto’s threat to reveal spoilers. It ended as tragically as he had envisioned but never thought realistically possible. One of the main characters was, indeed, a home-grown citizen born to foreign parents, and that told Sasuke a whole lot of story he didn’t want to know so early in his reading. It was either he gave in to Naruto’s demands or risked an even greater reveal.

Naruto turned, propped his head against his hand. That mischievous smile—

“I want to see your eye color.”

A little worse than the last time when Naruto had made him massage his shoulders, but better than the time before that when he had to feed Naruto cherries he had cunningly bought especially for it. They had stained his lips and tongue a dark, delicious red.

Sasuke rolled over. His irritation lasted until Naruto leaned in close. He held still while Naruto stared at his eyes.

Naruto stared longer than he needed to. Sasuke watched his face go through a spectrum of expressions: at the start, curiosity; towards the middle, appreciation. At the end, Naruto was definitely not staring at his eye color. Sasuke knew this because he was now too close to focus.

“Black as coal,” was his quiet assessment. The puffs of breath touched Sasuke’s mouth. “How about mine?”

Exceedingly, “Blue.”

Naruto sat back to an acute sense of loss through Sasuke’s chest. At that level of intimacy, he had expected—hoped even, maybe—

When Naruto’s hands got tired holding the comic book open, Sasuke took over. He could hardly contain the throttling desire to read ahead whenever Naruto had to break to make meals.

Naruto did not ask Sasuke to help, although it would have made the process faster. For all his wit, it took Sasuke more than a few days to realise this. He moved, and approached, and offered to slice the fruit and pour the drinks.

One day, Sakura tapped on Naruto’s open door. She asked them what they were doing.

“Reading comics. Want to join?”

Naruto was always keen for companionship. Sakura looked at Sasuke, who pushed Naruto against the wall and shuffled over to give her space. It was the worst mistake the three of them could have ever made because as soon as Sakura fell for addiction, they had to wait for her while at work.

Sasuke was going to erupt if he didn’t find something to do. He was not going to beg for the books until he had exhausted all distractions.

Outside held only so much of his interest. The rest of the time was spent too close, but even then, it took a week of hesitation for the physical ache to weigh down the minimums set by dignity. Sasuke stared at Naruto until thoughts consumed him. He rolled into proximity, saying, “Let’s fuck.”

“No.”

Sasuke shifted, edging closer, but the intensity of Naruto’s refusal betrayed the weakness of Sasuke’s bones. He stifled the urge to snap, calmed the irritation out of his face, and said, “You don’t want to?”

“I love you, you know,” said Naruto.

Sasuke clenched his eyes against a memory. He blinked to fan out the vestiges of sight and sound.

“What do you want me to do?” said Sasuke.

Naruto opened his legs. His arms went behind his head, high enough to hold Sasuke’s gaze when it returned to his face. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Sasuke took a careful motion forward and let his hand come to rest on Naruto’s leg. Naruto shifted. He took Sasuke’s hand and encouraged him to work his way up. Sasuke’s touches lingered, on Naruto’s stomach, and chest, over the column of Naruto’s neck and further to Naruto’s face. Sasuke watched his hand move. He activated his sharingan.

“Fill the room with bunshin,” said Sasuke. “Make them,” a single breath out, “watch me.”

Naruto brought his fingers between them. After the smoke cleared, twenty pairs of eyes looked on as Sasuke leant down from above, cupped his hands around Naruto’s whiskered cheeks, and lowered his eyes to Naruto’s mouth.

Sasuke kissed Naruto once, slowly, with his eyes open. He tracked Naruto’s chin tilting up to meet him all the sooner, his breath warm on Sasuke’s lips just before contact. Naruto started out with his mouth open so he could take the time to drag his lips over Sasuke’s and draw out the kiss.

Naruto exhaled with a smile. He opened his eyes to stare at Sasuke expectantly.

So Sasuke did it again, lingering a little longer that made the separation no less dissatisfying. Naruto raised his head to delay Sasuke’s retreat.

Sasuke didn’t want to let go this time. He stilled his movements and applied to Naruto’s mouth the same pressure that Naruto’s hands pressed along his back.

“Ask me,” said Naruto.

“Do you want to—?” The next words caught in Sasuke’s throat.

“Yes,” said Naruto. He was smiling. “Definitely.”

Naruto stared, his smile now washed, wavering, and then his glitter-blue eyes lifted as he arched and pulled Sasuke closer, and twenty pairs of eyes watched Sasuke do something to Naruto he hadn’t been able to name.

“Naruto.”

Naruto kept his gaze on the television and raced through his inventory of household tasks. Sakura reserved that tone for times when had forgotten to do something.

“Take Sai out,” said Sakura. “I’m getting tired of trying to explain to him why he shouldn’t go check on you when you’re ‘fighting’ with Sasuke-kun. It’s time you dealt with it.”

Naruto bit the inside of his lip and still failed to suppress a smile off his mouth that bought him no leniencies. “Sorry. I’ll tell Sasuke to keep it down next time.”

“The walls shake.”

“Sorry. I’ll tell the walls to keep it down next time.”

“Naruto,” Sakura huffed. Her cherry-pink hair marginally outshone her blush. She stepped into the lounge room and turned off the television. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m really happy for you. But we all have to live here.”

“Can’t you just leave for a little while?”

“And just where am I supposed to go at three o’clock in the morning?”

The comfort of the couch felt suddenly like a cage. Naruto twisted in his seat, flickering his eyelashes while his mind turned. “He usually cries because of bad dreams, you know?” said Naruto. “But once,” leaning against the arm rest, “he didn’t,” lowering his gaze a little, “and I made him cry anyway.”

Whatever retort Sakura had been prepared to use, it disappeared with a flinch. She had never seen Sasuke cry because he was hurt, and she knew they weren’t hurting each other. “I didn’t know that.”

“I’ll talk to Sai,” Naruto promised.

“Baachan, where are all your guards?” said Naruto. He held the door open, and Sasuke came through behind him.

“Guards?” said Tsunade. She capped her pen and looked up. “Why would I need guards when the three strongest ninja in Konoha are in this very room? They’re out protecting the village while I deal with you two.”

Naruto laughed until he looked over at Sasuke, who was not. Sasuke was alert enough to be a little more anxious about why they had been summoned. Together.

The last time Sasuke had been in this room, with its wide windows overseeing the village, it had been mid-afternoon, and the sun had been almost too bright from where he was forced to kneel, so that when Tsunade told him he wasn’t going to be executed, he had been squinting, and he couldn’t tell if her voice had been real.

“Uchiha.” The taste of the name made Tsunade’s lips press flat in a sour scowl. “You’re lucky you have idiot friends who value your life so much. I hope you realize they’re the only reason you’re not dead right now.”

Sasuke lowered his head. With his hair shielding his face, Tsunade wasn’t able to get a definitive read on his thoughts. Naruto, staring at him, had all the emotions she needed to see shown on his face.

“In light of Uchiha Sasuke’s recent improvements, I’ve decided to remove the Anbu guards.”

“All of them?” said Naruto.

“Yes. All of them,” said Tsunade. “Unless you think Uchiha Sasuke is a danger to the village?”

Tsunade alternated her gaze between the two boys in front of her. Neither spoke. Sasuke kept his eyes pointed at the ground, while Naruto hovered just out of reach, staring, a grin barely contained.

Tsunade tapped the desk once more. “Sasuke,” she said, and then, with a sigh that made them both take notice, “do you remember what you said to me in the beginning?”

Sasuke didn’t answer, but his breath caught and his shoulders tensed, for a moment.

“I guess you do,” said Tsunade. “Did you end up telling him?”

Still Sasuke was silent.

Then he said, “I did.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” A crack in Tsunade’s stoicism shone. “You’ve done nothing to warrant having your life taken from you. You are lucky, and worthy, and you deserve to live. Don’t forget it. So now that you have a third chance, how about you make something of it this time and protect your future Hokage next to you?—”

“—Huh?”

“Don’t you want to be Hokage, Naruto?” said Tsunade, sweetly.

“Yeah, but—”

“As for the second thing—”

“Wait—”

“As for the second thing,” Tsunade nailed Naruto with a glare and Naruto found the strength to keep his mouth closed. “I’ll be moving you out of that apartment. You two will be going into a place of your own far, far away.”

Sasuke twisted his head and shot a glare at Naruto when he started whining about losing Sakura and Sai as housemates—shut up, you stupid usuratonkachi, she’s telling you to live with me and only me—

“Usually I don’t care what you lot do. This is exactly why I tried to leave you to your own devices while taking care of Uchiha because it works—and god only knows how it works but it does—the problem with your method of making it work is that I get ANBU reports like this.” Tsunade picked up and unfolded a document. “Day two hundred and thirty-nine. 12:11pm to 12:16pm. Kitchen. Groaning noises. 1:35pm to 1:50pm. Uchiha Sasuke’s room. Groaning noises. 2:15pm to 2:20pm. Bathroom. Groaning noises. 2:49pm to 3:15pm. Uchiha Sasuke’s room. Groaning noises. 3:38pm to 3:47pm. Uchiha Sasuke’s room. Groaning noises. 4:08pm to 4:17pm. Uchiha Sasuke’s room. Groaning noises.” Tsunade stopped. She said, “What were you doing?”

Naruto had a sly look aimed at Sasuke, whose fair skin boasted the extent of his opinions on the matter.

“Fighting,” said Naruto.

“You seem to fight a lot these days.” Tsunade closed the document. “Though miraculously I don’t see any bruising. I guess I have to conclude that everything’s okay between you pair then.” Tsunade flicked her wrist, and the document smacked the far end of her desk. “Thank god for that. Unfortunately, your teammates don’t seem to share my sentiments, and they are tired of listening to your fighting, so I’ve been forced to find you a very nice cottage on the outskirts of the village where you can fight as much as you like without disturbing anyone.” Tsunade looked between them, pausing on their faces. “Do I get a thank you?”

Tsunade dangled the key to the cottage and Naruto snatched it up, bursting with gratitude that made up for Sasuke’s respectful dip of his head and, afterwards, his small, moderated smile.

“Let’s go check it out!”

Too much excitement, too close made Sasuke recoil a step—though, Tsunade noted, the smile came back when Naruto allocated responsibility for the key to Sasuke and placed it in his hands. Sasuke followed Naruto, departing. He put his hand on the door and turned, dipping his head once again.

“Thank you,” said Sasuke.

“I know.”

The door clicked closed. Tsunade slid an irritated frown over at the document. She had to file that thing.

I thought you were supposed to train him to be a ninja, Jiraiya.

Naruto made up any excuse to be near Sasuke. When he had to pack up his room, it involved three boxes and a lot of mess but afterwards it meant he had a legitimate excuse to hang around Sasuke and gloat that he had won a competition Sasuke wasn’t aware he had entered. Naruto watched, glared, offered unsolicited advice at Sasuke from the doorway, who was organising what little he owned neatly into boxes. Sasuke ignored all of Naruto’s observations but when he opened the last drawer and metal happened to reflect light into Naruto’s eyes—

“Hey, what’s that? How’d you get that?” Naruto walked to Sasuke when he ignored him and took the hitai-ate back out of the box—only to have Sasuke snatch it from him. “What?”

“What?” Sasuke retorted and put it back with his things. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s mine—”

“Naruto,” in that condescending tone, “yours doesn’t have a big gash on it. This is mine.”

“No it’s not! You threw it away after the fight—!” But Sasuke still wouldn’t let him have it when he tried to grab it, holding it his hand this time and pushing Naruto back.

“I didn’t throw it away—it fell off. It’s still mine. Aren’t I Uchiha Sasuke of the Leaf Village?”

Naruto stared at him. And then he grinned.

Yeah. You are.

Welcome home.

At Naruto’s insistence, Sasuke’s covered Naruto’s eyes leading up the path to their new home.

“What does it look like?” said Naruto

“It looks nice,” said Sasuke. Naruto made a noise.

“Is it big?”

“It’s okay.”

Naruto made a louder noise. “I really didn’t think it was possible, but you are making this less exciting.”

Sasuke smiled. “It has a veranda.” That drove Naruto into a frenzy of exclamations. “A small one,” Sasuke revised. “It’s on the second floor.”

“There are two floors?”

Naruto jittered at the squeak of the gate’s hinges, the softness of the grass that tickled the sides of their sandaled feet. Sasuke guided Naruto up a short flight of wooden steps. He put the key into the lock and opened the door.

The smell of fresh timber hit Sasuke first. Shadowed by the house and the trees surrounding it, the walk up had been cool, but the space inside was warmed by sunlight on the yellow wood, and it was quiet, almost peaceful with the chirp of birds. There was furniture, covered by calico sheets to shield from dust.

Sasuke said, “You’re not going to open your eyes yet?”

“Hang on.” Naruto navigated the doorway blindly. He reached out, and Sasuke took his hand. Naruto sought out Sasuke’s shoulders and manhandled Sasuke to stand in front of him. When he opened his eyes, already smiling.

“I’m home,” he said.

Afterwards, Naruto ran outside. He said he wanted to see what his eyes had missed. Sasuke took off his shoes and walked around inside. There was a kitchen, a dining room, a great room with sofas, and a laundry on the first floor. Upstairs Sasuke found a small room that could function as a study or a guest room, a bathroom—

He stopped in the doorway to the last room. Naruto, who had completed his circuit in a fraction of the time, was bounding up the stairs. His footsteps stamped on the wooden floorboards and stopped behind Sasuke.

“Is this our bedroom?” said Naruto, as if this conversation was not one that required all the oxygen in the world to sustain. “Look at the size of that futon!” He jumped onto it, and the duvet fluffed with air. “I won’t even be able to find you in all of this.”

Sasuke caught one of pillows thrown at his face. He used it to knock aside the other.

Naruto said, “So which side do you want?”

“I guess,” said Sasuke. He pushed the words out. “The one that’s next to you.”

Life took on routine quickly, his days mostly spent following Naruto around, who followed Tsunade around, his great voice bellowing through the Hokage Tower whenever Tsunade told him to do something menial and repetitive, like filing documents or retrieving scrolls or reading itineraries to trips Tsunade would take that he wasn’t invited to. Naruto would complain, and Tsunade would listen, and after a while—never immediately, but sometimes she would simply be too busy or too stressed to indulge the parental role—she would turn her faultless customer-service smile on him, Sasuke, who would then murmur something to Naruto, redirecting Naruto’s diatribe onto himself while leading Naruto in the direction of his next task.

Naruto talked to Sasuke. He complained to Sasuke. At night, he recalled his day to Sasuke although Sasuke had spent every moment of it with him. He talked not exactly because he wanted to be heard—though often he did, and Sasuke listened, and sometimes he talked back—but because he liked company, he liked knowing he had company.

“I’m tired now,” said Sasuke one night that was so far into night that it was closer to day. “I think I can sleep now.”

“Does my voice put you to sleep?” said Naruto, and Sasuke imagined his grin in the dark.

“Yes,” Sasuke had replied, his tone like that of a compliment, for although he had not felt it, he must have been putting more effort into concentrating on Naruto’s talk than he realised. Seconds later, he was asleep.

During one weekend, they began plans to make a garden of some sort, and the following weekend they harvested a dead tree for timber and chopped it as best they could with the jutsu they knew into long, uneven planks, setting them up in a sunny area behind the house, and filling the interior with dark soil borrowed from their nearest neighbor’s rice field.

While Sasuke was crafting trellises, which required the kind of patience and finesse that Naruto did not exult in, Naruto went into the house and brought back a hessian shopping bag and two glasses of water, handing one to Sasuke. Sasuke was surprised at first to find slices of ginger and the pulp of yuzu amongst the ice cubes, and then strangely humbled by the inadequacy of his vocabulary to express what he felt.

From the bag, Naruto produced several small, brown paper bags labelled with interesting names like fruit tomatoes, gold tomatoes, ameera rubbins, nitakikoma tomatoes, piccola rouge, aiko tomatoes, campari tomatoes, strawberry tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes.

Sasuke picked up one of the packets, the seeds inside scuttling into a corner. Then he looked at the one three-sided, single-storey trellis that he had so far managed to put together and then up at Naruto. “How are we supposed to plant all of these?”

“With our hands,” said Naruto, with a look.

That night, Naruto massaged Sasuke’s hands, his fingers, his wrists, his forearm. Naruto was fine, of course. They spoke nothing, and the world around them was so quiet it was baffling, and his limbs were so heavy with contentment, he felt drugged. Then he had looked at Naruto until it pained him, and he had closed his eyes and not opened them again.

He woke after dawn. Much after dawn. When he sat up and looked out the window, the sunlight was piercing. Beside him, Naruto sat up on one elbow, his lean body stretched out under the blankets, and put his book down on his hip; he was now reading about the history, albeit a condensed one, of the Land of Fire from its formation more than a thousand years ago. Outside, a gust of wind blew sharply, and a shower of yellow leaves fluttered to the ground like butterflies.

“What time is it?” said Sasuke.

“You mean what day is it,” answered Naruto.

“It’s your birthday,” said Sasuke. There was something about the expectancy in Naruto’s face that cued him on to it.

“It is,” said Naruto, who took Sasuke’s hand in his, both as equally warm as the other, and brought it absently to his lips, also warm, which he often did with any part of Sasuke’s body that Sasuke either offered him or was simply within reach. “Last year you gave yourself to me,” he began, “in a way. I’d be happy with the same thing again this year, in any way of your choice.”

Sasuke watched his wrist turn in Naruto’s hand, chalk white against sandy brown, watched the ease with which these mannerisms came to Naruto, as though innate, as though he never questioned them, as though he never had to think about them. Once again, his skin touched Naruto’s skin, and the shock it sent through him made him wrench his hand away.

Naruto looked at him with surprise that quickly faded, replaced not with rebuke but patience.

“You’re an idiot,” said Sasuke.

“No, I’m not,” said Naruto, without inflection.

“You are,” Sasuke said again.

“I’m not.”

He looked very hard at Naruto, at his eyes as blue as the sky that did not budge. It seemed impossible that Naruto would disagree with him. “You’re such an idiot, you don’t even know how much of an idiot you are.”

“Lie down with me,” said Naruto.

“No.” Sasuke threw the word as if it disgusted him. “Why are you even here?” His gaze made a quick scan of the bedroom. “Why am I even here? I need to leave. This is ridiculous.” He turned at Naruto. “You’re straight. You should be with a girl. I never gave myself to you; I forced myself on you. You let me stay because you’re deluded, like you’re brain-damaged.”

Naruto sat up and extended his hands, wiping Sasuke’s eyes with his thumbs, who let him. “You’ve got to stop doing this.”

He had a sudden urge to run that was so strong, it engulfed the room. But then logic reasserted itself and he remembered, as he did whenever he had these thoughts, that he would always return to Naruto, and so the entire endeavour would amount to nothing more than wasted time and energy and hurt, which he couldn’t inflict again. “You need to leave me,” he heard himself say.

“I don’t want to.”

“Because you’re an idiot!”

“Stop calling me an idiot,” said Naruto, whose hands still held Sasuke’s face with so much tenderness. “You’ve been doing so well lately. What’s made you say all this? Didn’t you sleep well last night?”

“How do you not realize how ridiculous this is?”

“It’s not ridiculous.”

“It is!” said Sasuke. He tried to say more but his throat had grown hot and tight. He clenched his teeth.

“Talk to me,” said Naruto.

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me,” said Naruto, “what you like about me.”

This made his breath catch, and a space widened around their conversation. Then his thoughts filtered back slowly, and he considered the question, whose answer seemed somehow so plainly obvious, he couldn’t imagine why Naruto had wanted to ask. “You know what.”

“Maybe I do,” said Naruto. “But I want to hear you say it.”

“What is this, some kind of test?” Sasuke hissed.

“Watch,” said Naruto. “I like you,” and though he wouldn’t meet Naruto’s eyes, Naruto continued, “I like your face. I like your eyes.” Naruto ran his thumbs softly over the lids. “I like your nose. I like your cheeks. I like your forehead. I like your mouth. I like your jaw.” He touched each of these places as he spoke. “I like your neck. I like your shoulders. I like your arms. I like your hands. I like your mind,” he said. “I like how you think. I like how you help me. I like how skilled you are. I like,” he said, after a short pause, “that there have been some bad spots in your life, because there were some bad spots in mine, and I feel like that helps us understand each other.

“Did that feel like a test?” asked Naruto. “Do you think I passed? Tell me what you like about me.”

“It won’t change anything.”

“I like your stubbornness, too.”

“Is there anything you don’t like?”

“No.”

They were silent. Sasuke tried to take his hands away, but Naruto held fast, and that made Sasuke grimace, hot with anger.

“I’m ruining your birthday,” said Sasuke. “What do you want? Do you want me? You want me. You just told me how much you love my body.” He closed the gap between their mouths with a lurch and applied enough pressure to make Naruto fall back, except Naruto did not, and he was not responding at all, and Sasuke tore from him as though slapped. “You’re making a fool out of me.”

“I think you’re trying to get out of talking.”

Sasuke’s cheeks stung. “If you think I have something to say, tell me what it is.”

“Tell me why you think I’m an idiot and why you think this is ridiculous.”

An awful twist in his stomach left Sasuke momentarily insensate. “How could you not know?”

“You’ve got to tell me.” Naruto squeezed his fingers tightly. “You can’t keep doing this. You’re moody all the time. I never know what makes you happy and unhappy from one moment to the next. You were happy yesterday, weren’t you? And last night. And when you woke up. And I don’t get it but it seems like you don’t like me touching you sometimes, but I can’t work out when. Is it me? Do you want me to stop?”

“No.” He tried to say more.

“You need to get past this,” said Naruto. “You need to talk to me. You need to tell me. And then you’ll feel better. And then you won’t have to destroy yourself over it.”

“You don’t understand,” said Sasuke. “You don’t have any idea what I’ve done.”

“I understand,” said Naruto.

“Then why don’t you make me do something about it? Why don’t you demand anything from me?”

“Demand what? What is it? Tell me.” Naruto pushed Sasuke’s head up, and Sasuke felt the painful knock of his heart. “I’m not going to let you go. I’m not going to let you get out of this. I’m not smart like you; if you don’t tell me, I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this.” Sasuke’s hands started to shake. “I’ll still protect you if you became Hokage and decide to be with someone else. You don’t know you don’t want to be with someone else.” Naruto’s chest puffed up, and Sasuke waited for him to speak but he didn’t. “I took that away from you. If I hadn’t come back, you would’ve settled down with Sakura or some other girl. I should’ve just—I should just—you could have a girlfriend or wife and I could just be like, a—a person you fuck when you’re bored or something, but—I need you to tell me to leave. I can’t leave on my own—”

It was quiet, and when his eyes came back into focus, he saw the shiny white satin cover, the white cotton sheets, their white futon, all of their bedding in domestic disarray, the polished wood floors, the walls splashed with fat squares of sunlight, his books, Naruto’s books, lined up neatly in the bookcase, the sliding door leading out onto the veranda where their washing hung though he couldn’t see it; his black shirts and Naruto’s colourful ones would be flapping gently in the fresh autumn breeze. He reminded himself that a year ago, he had been standing on a bridge somewhere on the border when he had had none of this, when he would not have had the imagination to even conjure this, and Tsunade had glared at him, and he had been scared, and she had said to him, in her typical, brusque way, “Come on. We’ll take you back.” We. How had she known?

He looked at Naruto. “I’m not going to do that,” said Naruto. “I want to stay with you forever. I love you more than I’ve loved anyone—”

Sasuke erupted, violently. He shoved Naruto away and Naruto beetled on his back. “What the fuck are you talking about?” He felt gutted and hollow, and words crammed his mouth. “Don’t say that. You’re barely eighteen. You have no idea what love is. You’re sick. You’re deluded. You’re damaged. I broke you, I turned you into this. It’s my fault.” Naruto was standing and coming for him and Sasuke bared his teeth. “You can’t,” he said, as Naruto’s shadow covered him and Naruto descended.

Finally, he thought, as Naruto threw him to the floor, even as some indomitable instinct caused him to fight back. Naruto rolled him on his side and jammed his knee on Sasuke’s arm, painfully, caught the other flailing hand. Naruto straddled his chest. “Just fuck me, just get rid of me,” he said. Naruto trapped him in a headlock; he felt the wispy warmth of Naruto’s breath pour into the shell of his ear, the movements of his lips. “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“You don’t.” He could hardly hear himself above Naruto’s chanting. “You can’t.” He was not in a good offensive position, though he tried; he could activate a jutsu and blow the house apart in an instant. “You can’t.”

“You can’t.”

“You can’t.”

“You can’t. I don’t deserve it.”

“I’m horrible.”

“I’m disgusting.”

“I hurt Sakura, I hurt Sai, I hurt everyone I cared about, I ruined everything I cared about.”

“I hurt you, so many times, in unforgivable ways.”

“Stop.”

“Stop.”

“Stop.”

“Stop.”

“Stop.”

“I don’t have anything left to give you.”

“I’m sorry—”

“I know you are,” said Naruto.

Sasuke wasn’t trapped anymore. He was allowed outside whenever he wanted and he never travelled too far from home, which was Naruto.

He was free.

Naruto was already waiting at the door, dressed in clothes that hadn’t been ironed and scratching at hair that hadn’t been brushed. Sasuke stared at him while Naruto’s attention was elsewhere and avoided him when Naruto turned to look at him.

“Hey—Naruto,” staring fixedly at the ground and, with arrogance shed and all the stagnated innocence and vulnerability of a seven-year-old: “I love you so much, I love myself.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Sasuke waited and then glanced at Naruto.

Naruto had heard him.

“Okay,” said Naruto

Naruto knew he had to keep his smile calm, knew he had to say very little in response. He turned from the house to leave and stopped, looked down at his hand and the other hand in it.