Knife Party

a NaruSaku fanfiction by Rot-chan.

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"They call it a chipie, a small habit. It feels so good, you start doing it on Tuesdays . .

. . then Thursdays . . . Then it's got you.

Every wise ass punk on the block says it won't happen to them, but it does."

-Jim from "The Basketball Diaries"

With Naruto, time is meaningless, and pointless.

We walk quickly through the halls, almost like we're the protagonists of an espionage film; I feel more than slightly ridiculous.

We stop at a corner. I look up; The ceiling shows my reflection. "Act natural," Naruto slouches slightly as he whispers in my ear; I feel his cool breath against my neck, on my cheek.

"I'm assuming you do this kind of thing, a lot." It's not a question, but a statement. I'm confident I'm right. When Naruto pauses and grins a slow smile, close enough for me to see his slightly chapped lips, I'm sure of it.

When I hesitate, because I am sure that I heard the slightly squelch and following tapping sound of the nurses clean white Keds hitting the tiled floors, Naruto takes my hand. In this moment, I am positive a current of electricity sparks from his finger tips, through my palm, and settles in my bones. My ears turn pink.

We walk towards a set of stairs. They are wide, and we walk side by side, quickly and quietly. Neither of us talk. I am sure it is because he doesn't want me to make any noise.

I have been in the center for only a few weeks now, but I recognize the white words written on the black slots in metal holders nailed to the wall; PATIENTS WING speaks clearly as we approach the third floor. Naruto softly turns the metal handle and holds the door open for me. I give him a weak smile and walk through.

Naruto's room. We're going to Naruto's room. I realize that we couldn't have stayed outside any longer without one of the workers, nurses or other staff asking us where we were supposed to be, or without someone taking me (or him) to the Keeper.

The Keeper, named Tsunade, is someone you never want to meet besides at your check-in and your check-out. She is stern, and strict, and other 's' words that sound rather intimidating (think serious, stringent). She is someone who has no problem giving you more monitored hours during the few you have to yourself on weekends and between activities.

She has been said to have sentenced a few "unruly" and rebellious patients to the Maximum Security room once in the past ten years. Some claim they never returned. (When I ask Naruto about the story later, he scoffs and says they were kicked out, and sent to somewhere worse than here.)

This is his plan, I'm certain. I remember once, for some reason, with a tingle of nostalgia, about a girl I used to know, who my mother would have called a 'baby prostitue in the making'.

Ino Yamanaka, who had no problems drinking beer with the boys or putting on mascara in Biology, truly was my only "real friend". She giggled to me one afternoon on the gym field where we were playing field hockey, that Shikamaru Nara had sneaked her to his room when she visited him at his boarding school. I didn't want to ask what happened.

Now, everything is happening too quickly at once.

Naruto starts jogging and I have to jog to catch up; I'm trying to formulate a plan to give to the nurses, to the tennis instructor who will undoubtedly tell Kakashi and maybe the Keeper, about why I never showed up.

I feel the walls slowly beginning to close in, and the same horrible need crawling up my spine, along with the distant memory of the medicine cabinet back home that could take away any problem big or small.

The halls of the rehab center hold too many memories. I can feel them radiating from the floors, where people have scratched at their own skin and bled, and in the air, where patients have been carried away, screaming mindless things about needing a hit and being let go.

My paranoia overcomes my will to breathe; I feel their breath, all around, crawling into my throat and up my nose and forever lightly scarring my lungs with tiny imprints of their initials. I can only picture A.H., K.L, D.E. branding my insides, without pain.

I feel the same feeling you get when submerged in water; the same feeling I have been getting ever since I awoke after a friendly introduction to a stomach pump: the feeling of desperately needing the surface, of missing the Earth. Water has a way of sucking you in, not only in body but in mind as well; it takes you places, and makes drowning painless. So does drugs.

Suddenly I have to breathe, because my lungs are screaming, not from the branding but from the lack of air.

I gulp in large breaths, and almost have stop running. I feel my knees buckle under my weight, and I stumble, but keep going. We have been lucky so far, because at this time of day most nurses gather in the cafeteria, outside on the grounds for activities, privately with patients or smoke in the staff rooms.

"You all right, Sakura?" Oh. It's Naruto's voice. I turn to stare at him. Weakly, I nod. I again notice as he stares at me his strange blue eyes, and I feel an overwhelming and childish desire to touch them.

A moment later, Naruto approaches room 107.

He quietly opens the door and my heart pounds; Ino, twirling her hair and biting her lip, a faint flush on her cheeks, is clear in my memory, making my head and my heart pound in unison -

"L-look, if you brought me here for sex, then . . ."

Naruto gives me the strangest, funniest look I have ever seen; it is so humorous because it is confused, blank, and says, 'what the hell do you mean by that?' all at once.

Then, he shuts the door, softly, and laughs.

When I hear his laugh, I instantly love it; it's rich and subtle, yet coarse from the slightly gravelly quality to his voice.

"Ah . . . sorry Sakura, but no, I didn't – (snicker) – bring you here – (chuckle) – for . . . s-sex . . ." (another fit of laughter).

Like a girl with her brother – though this situation is starting to shift, and feel different – I frown and lightly punch his arm, shoving my sharp knuckles into the soft skin of his bicep.

"Ow! Ow! Ok, ok, I'm sorry, I'll stop laughing. Geez."

Naruto walks over to his bed and sits down. He has a roommate because there is another bed beside his. I'm intrigued. I wonder about the person Naruto is forced to board with; if they're totally weird or just a little bit crazy from the need. My father hasn't visited yet, but he agrees to pay for a single room. In a way, I think, it's meant to justify his absence.

I look at a bulletin board nailed between the beds. The half on Naruto's side – the halves are clearly divided with a long strip of red tape – there is a few notes, but I don't feel I should read them.

There's an old card ragged around the edges that's orange and blue, 'I can hardly believe/ you, my son, are eighteen/ years of memories, watching you grow/ time passing, teaching lessons, learning some/ is long past'. The message is Hallmark-like. I don't want to read the inside.

"Who gave you the card?" I ask.

Naruto stares at the card and replies, "Oh, that. My mom did. It looks like a mom-card, doesn't it?" There is his smile again, and it's beginning to grow on me, like the laugh. "She doesn't live around here, but she sends cards a lot if she can't travel and all."

Oh. He has lost a parent. In a different way than I have, because his mother is alive, breathing and whole – but somehow the same.

Instead of asking questions, I sit beside him on the mattress, listening as it groans under our weight. I become acutely aware of my senses. We're closer than before. I can smell a light, musky, fresh scent on the pillows, like cold air and leaves in the forest, where the trees feel a thousand feet tall.

The sound of Naruto rooting in his drawer stirs me out of my thoughts. There is nothing between us. I am not Ino Yamanaka. I don't drink beer, and I only wear lip balm and powder on my face.

He smiles at me again, but it's softer, and almost given to make the mood lighter. I smile back, drum my fingers across my thigh. Outside, I can hear distant voices on the field where patients play tough mud-and-dirt sports like rugby and football.

"So - rummy or black jack?"

For a long time, the two of us play. We talk about mostly normal things, like school – he hates school too, was glad to "get out of that hellhole with a 2.5 GPA"- and birthdays – I talk about my 18th coming up soon, and he smiles and asks me if I want a huge party and all that, but I grin sheepishly and nod no.

There's only one question that seems to bother us both. I hate myself for asking it, but I want to finally say the words in my head aloud.

We're playing another round of blackjack – the tennis activity I was supposed to be doing will end in about twenty minutes, and afterwards I am expected to meet with Miss Yuhi – when Naruto says "Hit me", and I give him another card. He gets 23, and scowls playfully.

"You're unbeatable at this game Sakura. I'll have to teach you poker or somethin', and then we can get this whole game going with my roommate – his name's Kiba by the way, and maybe a few other guys too."

I giggle at the idea of me playing poker with a bunch of boys. In a way it seems like it can never happen, even though I'd have the perfect poker face; I wouldn't know what to say to the others.

I sigh and collect all the cards. Naruto lets me.

"Naruto . . . the thing is, I've been meaning to ask – let me start over."

For a moment I shift on the bed, then sit criss-crossed and try not to be distracted by Naruto's eyes. In the daylight, a ray of sun splashing across his face, they gleam.

"Don't be upset." This is the first thing I say. I mean it. I don't want him to be. Everything around us – the other bed, all sloppy and unmade, the old sheets, the dumb card and sticky notes . . . I can't explain it, but it makes me depressed the same way seeing my own room stabs at my heart. All your things, splayed out for the world to see. Your own sad corner of the universe, ragged and worn out.

"I won't be," Naruto says, suddenly serious. Why does this scare me?

I clear my throat. I am surprised at how much I sound like an adult when I say these words. How much I sound like my mother.

"Why . . . did you really do drugs?"

A low silence hangs between us. Naruto's gaze darkens a little, and he bites the nail on his thumb, but doesn't chew; rather, it's like an anchor that keeps him from speaking.

Before I can say his name, he talks.

"I don't really know . . . how it happened. Well, I mean, I do know. I was there for all of it. And got pretty mixed-up in it too - that whole heroin business. Just for a little while though."

That whole heroin business. It pulls at my heart.

"I dunno, really. I mean, we all have "the story", right?" When Naruto says this, he makes weak parenthesis with his hand, and doesn't look at me again.

"Mine is pretty pathetic. I hated school. Didn't have any friends. My other friend moved away. My mom moved away. My dad died. Nothin' else left. But I guess . . . I wanted to have something else. Sort of." His voice sounds strained.

"Who was your friend?" I ask, trying not to let my voice catch in my throat. His father was dead. Hearing it made memories flash through my mind – my mother, going out to visit my aunt Aoi, during winter . . . she was going to have a baby, she was her sister, how could she not go? It was snowy out, the cop said, burly with broad shoulders and a gun on his belt. Snowy, dark . . . these kind of things happen. My eyes feel hot.

Naruto smiles weakly. "Sasuke. His name's Sasuke. He went away with his brother. His brother skipped town and all, 'cuz he's a real big hot shot in his twenties and trying to write short stories and everything."

"Huh," I say quietly, trying to envision these people in my head; the image of Naruto, with his parents, with his friend. It's difficult to imagine.

After a long moment I say, "I'm sorry I asked. I'm sorry . . . sorry. Really." My voice is more sure than I really am. Naruto nods. But there is no rift between us. Instead, there's a sad, open space, of truth, and knowledge, and the pain of loss.

Important AN: This chapter was supposed to leave off where 2 ended. I know I've been delaying these fics, but I've had the death in the family ordeal going on, and school, and everything else, so I promise I'll work on some other stories along with this fiction gradually. Thanks to all readers, and reviewers - Goonielove, Vanderbilt, hatakevan, and oitotheworld. You're all great. I appreciate your support of KP.

- Shelby