[Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. It's their way of falling. –Andre Gide]

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There are a lot of things in life that Sasuke does not understand. However, unlike Naruto (who is always demanding an explanation) or Sakura (who thinks she already has all the answers), he accepts that he doesn't know. After all, the things he needs in order to accomplish his goals are few, he already understands them, and now it's only a matter of time.

When he was five and his goldfish died, it's slimy body bloated and discolored, he had not really understood. He had been upset, because it wouldn't move, and his mother found it after a few days and asked Sasuke in a concerned tone how long it had been dead. He understood what dead was, of course, but he was more worried about his mother being angry, and sad, because it had been a gift from Itachi.

When he was eight and he awoke in the hospital, limbs and thoughts numb, and men came with paperwork for him to sign, he had done so because they asked. There was some explanation- legal procedures, but even then he hadn't cared to understand. They were not important to him (had not known, then, however, who was anymore, the memories had yet to resurface). And when he returned home to find it empty of people, furniture, weapons, valued possessions, it was explained to him that his families property was repossessed, distributed throughout the village. He had thought then- good because they ought to know that all those things were cursed.

When he was twelve and Naruto followed him everywhere with threats and challenges and tentative overtures of friendship, he had not really understood. At first he hadn't cared enough to realize that the idiot was anymore the one of the many idiots who hated or loved him for one reason or another- then he hadn't cared enough to realize that the idiot was perhaps the only one to ever really care for him in a way that mattered. Something desperate and new and uncertain, a love that at once was more intense than any familial thing and more important, perhaps, than any revenge. Sasuke only saw the overall rivalry. So if he caught a brief glimpse of Naruto, an expression of painful longing, a lingering stare that was the result of years of brooding, well, it was just a glimpse. The overall picture was much easier to accept, to understand and deal with, and the last thing that Sasuke needed was to be burdened by one more bond.

When he was thirteen and Sakura gave him a goldfish (had shoved it into his arms, the thin plastic bag it was in bulging cold with silvery clear water, the fish darting about in confusion) he had tried to give it back, but she had insisted, laughing, blushing, and avoided him thereafter. He'd considered leaving it for someone else to find, but imagined that no one took it, and it died of starvation, or suffocated in that bag (was that even possible?), and although he didn't give a shit about some stupid little fish. He couldn't just leave it. And he figured he might as well take it home, it wasn't like it would kill him.

He found the same bowl he had used as a kid, poured the fish into, and gone to bed. The next day he didn't name it, didn't decorate its bowl, simply fed it, glancing at it occasionally with no real interest. If anything it irritated him, reminding him of her and them and a time when he had another fish. And when it died two weeks later, its tiny body bloated and discolored, he stared at it for a long time. Then he left. He went about his life with team seven for as long as he could without thinking about it. A thick rot colored grime built up on the waters surface, the fish became covered with layers of transparent algae, the water level dropped a little, and it began to smell like decaying flowers.

Then Orochimaru had him. Before he left Konoha he didn't do anything to preserve his house. He didn't even turn of the bathroom light. He didn't empty the fishbowl, because in all honesty he couldn't bury the stupid thing, and flushing was too disgusting (at that point if the water in it was even disturbed a smell so putrid would emerge that it made him sick to think about it.) And when he was in a dark little chamber attached to Orochimaru's compound he wondered if the Anbu who searched his apartment would do anything about it. Then he walked over to the corner where his new bed met the wall, slumped down to the floor, pressed his face into his knees and cried.

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