Hello again.
Been a long, long time, huh? It's really late now. Now. I have a few clarifications to make:
1. The first two chaps were the general layout of Sasuke's broken innocence. His tragedy. They were build in a unique format to sharpen the notion of the confusion and ignorance, how badly he'd been going in a wrong path.
2. This is a redemption story. It's about mending broken souls. The Manga's original story was cast in this AU but THAT's not what the story's about.
3. I am extremely sorry for taking so fucking long.
Disclaimer: Do not own anything except this original plot.
Enjoy, and please review.
They were awkward in the beginning. After the short, but rather embarrassing (on his part, he notes shamefully) exchange of misunderstandings and ambiguous answers enough to have him sufficiently interested and disconcerted at the same time, he somewhat sobered up.
That iridescent, ethereal feel of waking up in a picture-taken pier right to the sunrise faded solemnly, leaving a sort of suspicious nervousness in its wake. He felt his quiet, distant, constantly lonely side taking over the storm of feelings, numbing it to an unsettling whisper in the depths of his inner and most secretive self. He was suddenly left aware that he was on a deserted pier at sunrise with not a clue where he was and what day it was.
It left him very, very rattled. Before he could panic, however, he decided the boy was the most reasonable (and available) turn-to person, and turned to him, sizing him up.
The boy was wet and had a wild, unreachable, uncontainable aura to him that left Sasuke somewhat silent and contemplative for a while. And adding this short period of silence on his part to the rather considerably longer period of time he had to put his wishes to words, which were quite many (where are we, what time is it, am I dead, who are you, what place am I going to go to from here?) they were surrounded with a painful, adolescent, nervous silence Sasuke felt was grinding against his nerves and even furthermore shutting him the fuck up, refusing to let him speak.
The boy spoke first. "Where are you?" Only about six meters were separating them, so Sasuke saved both the trouble and went to the boy instead. "What's your name," the boy had asked once he came closer.
"Sasuke," he said, and the boy curved his mouth slightly in a quite odd gesture that resembled both a smile and a frown at the same time. "That's Japanese, right?"
Sasuke nodded, before realizing how stupid it was and answered a vague agreement.
"Naruto," the boy had retorted. Sasuke stared. "Naruto..?"
The boy snickered. "That's my name." Sasuke was guiltily grateful for the boy's blind-state as he blushed, mollified. He said an awkward 'oh' and they yet again relapsed into a deafening, socially-retarded silence.
Sasuke was home-schooled. Correspondence with other young people his age was an acquired skill, a skill Sasuke never invested time in acquiring since he was practically destined to be molded into a cold, obtuse business man. He didn't know how to react to people he didn't know since they didn't know exactly what he was feeling and thinking, like obviously this person didn't.
Sasuke was a quiet person, withdrawn to a by-stander since he was only closely acquainted to his family. He knew no-one else. "So…" the boy, Naruto, began, and stopped, shuffling his feet, looking embarrassed. His eyes were not wandering in a manner Sasuke would have expected. In fact, his eyes were stationary, seeming to stare endlessly into the same spot in space, as if boring into another dimension.
"What are you doing here," they both blurted out, Sasuke averting his eyes and Naruto kicking his feet again, his face set downward. Naruto answered first.
"Just…didn't feel like being home." This early, his parents don't mind? He toyed with the option of asking or staying silent. Sasuke felt quite nonplused. He had never attended an occasion where the person in front of him could not see from his body-language what he felt or thought. In fact, it occurred to him, that he hadn't attended an occasion where the person in front of him couldn't see. Full stop.
He must speak in order to express himself, not trust the other's sight alone as a hint of his thoughts direction. He was completely alienated to the experience. A human being simply seeing you was a fact so taken for granted in his life, that this sudden lack of this basic communication tool left him at loss. "Wouldn't your parents mind you're out so early?"
The boy didn't precisely flinch, but his sort of relaxed disposition tensed up, and as response, so did Sasuke's.
A slight twinge of panic shot to his heart. As though he did, or said, or both, something wrong. He refused to sound it, huffing instead, waiting. It took Naruto a decidedly longer that normal period to answer.
"I suppose parents would do that, huh," he said eventually, quietly, looking half sad half sheepish. Scratched his neck.
"Don't have any." Kicked his feet against an invisible pebble. Sasuke's eyes, as an instinct, shot to the unseeing blue stare, weighing him up. Trying to figure out if he's kidding, though could find no healthy reason why a person would lie about something like that.
"Don't have them, either," he blurts quickly, throat constricting painfully around the words. It's Naruto's turn to be surprised, looking through him with those electric eyes, face twisting through various versions of surprise, then; slowly ripening into something he warily identifies as... relief. He noted to himself that he actually felt relieved too.
"So... what are you doing here?" Naruto asked with a strange smile on his face. Sasuke could, for the life him, not remember how he got here, or if he's the one who got here, since he could have been brought here, but then again; why on earth would a person bring him to a deserted old pier?
"I don't know," is what he says in the end.
"Well... then, where are you going now?" Sasuke felt a compelling urge to... something. To do. To act. Never felt that before around strangers. It's odd, winding around his windpipe, fluttering about his stomach. Fickle, never constant, like a cut off current of energy. "I don't know."
Now Naruto huffed through his nose, a little exasperated. "You got anywhere to go, at all?"
It was like trying to head-butt a truck. Realization was. He killed his brother. The only living Uchiha left, excluding himself. He is a criminal. There are probably pictures of him all over the Wanted posts. Interpol interventions. Newspapers. He has no home now. Nowhere to go. No one to trust. No one.
He is alone. Alone again. Alone for real. This truth had no escape-route, it Kamikaze-ed itself into his conscious and subconscious mind, was swift and cruel and absolute. This lone, lonely truth. Only person he's got is this blond, blind, blue-eyed kid that he didn't even know. "I... "
His voice drifted, torn and bleeding. Both hands clenching silently in emotional rejection. He was as ready as ever to just turn around and run when Naruto's voice shattered his concentration. "If… if you'd like, you could… come with me. I mean, my house is very small, I guess, me being the only one living there and all, but, you know… you can… come. If you want."
At first Naruto sounded unsure, insecure even, and in the end he was frowning, as if he didn't expect to speak that much. But he didn't back down, standing stiff and slightly embarrassed as the suggestion hung heavy in the air. At first Sasuke was suspicious. It was all very ambiguous, ominous even, a boy he didn't know who might and might not know about the whole affair of his recently acquired criminality asking him to randomly come live with him as a refugee. He calmed after a rather one-sided argument with himself.
Not much a threat could come from a blind boy, especially one with around the same body build as height as him. Besides, he was, again, blind. Not exactly Sasuke's definition of dangerous. And, strangely enough, the boys company did not ache. It wasn't exactly welcome, either, but the fact this boy had nearly no option of harming him was actually quite… soothing. And since, due to him being a murderer, he didn't really have any place to go, he found himself inclined to agree.
"Alright," he consented, feeling slightly out of his element.
Naruto gave a large, lively grin, and took a step forward, toward him. He fought against the sudden tense feeling accompanying any human proximity, when Naruto suddenly reached out and took his hand, still smiling. "Follow me."
-oOo-
He woke up without realizing he fell asleep in the first place. He started, springing into sitting position. He was on an old, clean futon, a thin cotton blanket and feather pillow using him as sleeping instruments. He was at an average sized house(compared to the Uchiha mansion, it seemed like a tiny pimple), lots of windows, low ceilings; soft, mellow, yellow colored walls.
He was alone. The floor was wooden, in desperate need of cleaning. The entire place was slightly dusty, causing his nose to twitch irritably. He swung the blanked off his body and padded on bare feet (though he has no recollection of removing his shoes) around, nosing his way through the house. It was consisted basically of one large room—the living room—a separate kitchen, a bathroom and a toilet. No television set. No computers. Only one picture, a big one in the middle of the living room.
It was an orange, hostile looking fox, with abnormally large ears and (oddly enough) nine tails swishing, thick and bushy behind it. It was crouched; ears flattened against its head and sharp, pointy teeth peeking in a deep, annoyed snarl. Its eyes were a bloody red, angry and blazing, pupils almost invisible slits. Sasuke examined it with mild interest, noting the amount of attention given into details, how the fur seemed to stand on end in hostility and how the muscles seemed to be tensed, the look in the beast' eye hungry and blood-thirsty. He was impressed and lingered on the disturbing image a while, wondering why would a blind person hang such a frightening, large picture in the middle of his living room.
When he entered the kitchen, he saw there was a glass door leading outside. He stepped closer, slightly curious, and looked through. He then stood still, surprised and dazzled. The first thing he thought was; 'where the hell am I?' He then thought; 'how the hell did I get here?' and finally; 'is that a person sitting there?'
The house was in the middle of a... valley, it would seem. His mind repeated it was completely preposterous, he was just in a goddamned pier, yet here it was. There was a small lake nearby, The water glittering in the flaming light of the sunset. He then understood there was something very wrong with that sight.
Sunset. When the earth makes a circle around itself. Twelve or more hours later than sunrise. When he woke up.
There was a person walking toward the house. A boy. Naruto, he remembered suddenly. This is his home. His bright yellow hair was wet, and hung limp and dripping around his face, reaching all the way to his shoulder-blades. It would seem, from their short acquaintance, that Naruto was wet most of the time. "Sasuke," he then said, smiling crookedly. "Finally woke up."
"Where are we?"
"My house, of course," said Naruto, carrying in his hand a large, yellow-ish grapefruit. He reached Sasuke, his hand hesitant, searching his. Sasuke took his hand and led him in, a bit uncomfortable. "I meant where this house is," he half states, half commands an answer. Naruto snickers, in an apparently much better mood, squeezing his hand.
"Wanna eat?" he asks in a loud voice, tossing the grapefruit into his hand, still staring vaguely at an unseen point. When food is mentioned, Sasuke's stomach cramps audibly, and he flinches, slightly embarrassed. Naruto snickers again, walking past him self-assuredly into the kitchen and retrieves from a random cupboard a jar of sugar and two wrapped teapots, opens the jar and smells, smiles, puts it on the counter. Opens the drawer beneath the sink and takes two tea-spoons and a knife. Two plates and two mugs.
"Can you boil the kettle for me, please?" It's then he realizes with a start that there are no lights in this place. No wonder, he thinks, since lights don't really make a difference. Naruto takes a metal kettle with a plastic handle and an odd device, setting it in the sink.
"This thing," he holds the device, "is for camping, when people don't have gas linked to a cooker. It's like a mobile stove. This," he lifts an oval shaped container, "has the gas in it, and the other thing is just like a stove to put all sorts of stuff you wanna cook on. Just twist it on the gas thing like a screw, and push the button. Light it with a match. Got some next to the window."
Sasuke assembles the mobile stove as instructed, gets the matches and lights it up. A gas-like noise blares airily as the fire bursts to life, blue and much stronger than in actual stoves. Sasuke feels a small, modest sense of accomplishment. "Good job," Naruto praises, smiling. "Now turn it off and get some water."
Sasuke looks at him strangely. "There's a sink right here," he notes incredulously.
"It's empty," Naruto says, turning on the water to verify that indeed, the tap isn't linked to anything. "Just go to the fridge and get mineral water."
The fridge is decidedly more empty than full, which was expected. He pours the mineral water from the bottle and lights the cooker again, and sets it, like Naruto, inside the sink. Naruto already cut the grapefruit in half, poured on his a generous amount of sugar, but left Sasuke's as is. "Didn't know if you liked sugar on yours. Want some?"
"Yes, please." He says, uncomfortable. Naruto takes the tea-spoon and pours two spoonfuls. Hands him the plate soundlessly. "Let's eat on the bed?" He suggests, already starting to walk toward the living room. Sasuke follows, listening to the high, yet still quiet whistle of the kettle.
Naruto settles on the futon, chewing slowly. "Sasuke," he suddenly says, breaking a so far peaceful silence. Sasuke looks up. "What?"
Now Naruto gets stuck. He stops chewing, the hand with the spoon lowering. "You probably wanna ask me some stuff, I guess?"
He takes Sasuke's silence as a 'yes'. "I'm gonna answer to all the things you want to know, but first," here he smiles, a mischievous little smile, his eyes narrowing slightly, deluding Sasuke for a short moment that Naruto's lying, that he can see him. "I got some questions on my own. So let's do this. You ask a question, then me. And we have to promise we don't lie."
He raises his hand, reaching for a pact-shake. Sasuke considers this for a while, when eventually the small amount of curiosity and general incredulousness of the whole situation wins out the rather stupid option of staying silent in a completely isolated house with no clue where he is. "Fine."
They shake hands firmly once, twice, and Naruto lets go, returning to his grapefruit. "So, what I wanted to ask from the beginning—"
The kettle boils, the whistle loud and discordant. Naruto frowns and gets up, but Sasuke pulls him down, getting up himself. "I'll get it," he says, surprised with himself as much as Naruto is surprised with him. The light, in the midst of their bonding (the word tastes weird in his figurative mouth) has dimmed significantly, darker streaks of color starting to loom over the sky. He opens the teapots, and then realizes he has not an idea where's the trash bin. "Where do I throw the teapots?" He asks loudly.
"What?" Naruto shouts.
"Where is the trash bin?" He asks, louder this time.
"Oh. Outside, can't miss it." Sasuke looks out the glass door, a bit skittish about going outside, and opened it. A soft, demure breeze greeted him, and he notes to himself that this is the most unbelievingly clean air he'd ever had the simple pleasure of inhaling. He breathes in deeply, amazed how this natural, basic gesture can calm him so greatly, before stepping outside.
Despite it being autumn, the temperature was quite warm, even though the cooler undercurrent signaling the night's upcoming chill was noticeable. The ground isn't soft at all. Rocks and rough grass irked his feet as he tip-toed to the trash-bin, which was indeed unnecessarily large, and tossed the two teapots before running lightly on his toes back to the house, rubbing his feet once on the entrance rug.
He poured the hot water to the mugs, mixed the teapots, waiting for it to brew. He turned off the mini-cooker (that's how he decided to call it) and returned. It was almost completely dark and he had trouble seeing. "Hey," he said when he reached Naruto.
"You got some candles?" Naruto considered, looking a bit weirded out. "No." He says finally. "But I think I have a lantern somewhere. Wait here."
When he comes back, he's carrying a large, ancient looking lantern, already lit, looking very pleased with himself. It's a vast improvement. The words 'thank you' are out of his mouth without his permission, but Naruto doesn't seem the least bit surprised, smiling and nodding.
They sit again. Naruto picks his tea with a mumbled thank you and blows on it, then puts it back down, on the floor. "I forgot what I wanted to ask. You go first."
He wants to ask where they are, but what he says instead is, "what where you doing, at the pier, before?"
Naruto obviously wasn't expecting that. He started eating when Sasuke was considering, and now pauses. "I never expected that someone would be there."
Still not answering the question. Sasuke waits. "I mean. I usually go there to... um. There's a... an engraved saying. In a rock. Under the pier. Exactly where you were standing, actually. I go there once a year. Like an anniversary."
"So... "
"Ah-ah! Now it's my turn." Naruto smiles. "Why did you think I was trying to die?"
Again, the question is unexpected, forces Sasuke to think. "I guess... you just... "
He frowns. Tries again. "You weren't floating. You looked like you were about to sink and you were smiling. You had your eyes closed, and the splash you made was loud, like you fell on accident." He notices mildly that this is the longest he'd said since he last saw Itachi. The thought was like a bullet. He had numbed his feelings, locked them down so far away, denied himself access to them.
He was afraid if he'd flood himself with it, he'd overflow and fall apart. Lose balance. Go insane. Something. Never be able to find his way out ever again. Naruto touched him. It's brief and unsure. He flinches and pulls back, only then realizing Naruto's been calling him. "You alright?"
Sasuke shakes himself. "Yeah." Naruto doesn't say anything for a long time. "It's your question."
"Oh." He thinks about it. Well, first and foremost, now that he got the first curiosity out of the way: "how did we get here in one day?"
Naruto then gives a strange look, like he's grown a fever or said something ridiculous. "We... uh, didn't. We took a train. You had loads of cash on you when we met, you got us the train tickets. The first day—"
"What do you mean, 'first day'? How many days since we met have passed?" Naruto's stare gets pointed, as if admonishing of Sasuke's break of the rules, but is considerate enough of Sasuke's apparent amnesia. "A week. No, wait. Eight days."
Sasuke nearly spits out his tea, finished with his grapefruit. "Eight days?"
"Yeah, well. Took us about three days to get here. Then when we came, you dropped face-first in the bed and slept like the dead for five days straight. Was half worried you died." It's quite a bit to take, and it takes him a while to sort his thoughts. "Where's... how much money did I have?"
"Er. Got no idea. Don't know the bills value, is what I mean. Lots of bunches, though. Neat and tidy. Put then in the closet for you." He points at a very large wooden closet, slightly uncomfortable. "Okay. Now it's my turn. How did your parents die?"
Silence. Sasuke is tense and dark; hunched and curled into himself. He gave his promise and as an Uchiha, he never breaks his promise. All of the Uchiha's, the remaining heirs, are dead. He's the only one left. The heavy weight of duty settles on his shoulders. Swears to himself he would keep the ancient tradition. Become the Itachi Itachi should have been. "They were murdered."
The sentence lacks force or venom. Quiet and sad, slightly repressed. Naruto isn't shocked, like he half hopes half dreads he would be. He as if matches Sasuke's quiet gloominess with his own. He's sympathetic but not pitying. He doesn't say anything, waiting for Sasuke to recover from a short, aggressive turmoil this statement caused. Sasuke's question now. "How did your parents die?"
Naruto's head raises slowly, his eyes glowing oddly, cast downward, half-mast. "Mom killed herself. My father died from a snake-bite."
He didn't look quite as sad as Sasuke. Perhaps since both deaths were a while back. In fact, more than anything, Naruto looked... lonely, when he said that. Overwhelmingly lonely. He recovered much faster, his face snapping into reality. "When did they die?"
"Seven years ago. When did yours?"
"Mom died six years ago. Dad a year after her." Naruto pauses. So does Sasuke. "Why did you come here with me?" Finally he asks. He looks almost afraid to know, face set strong in preparation of the answer.
"... Because I killed the person who killed them."
Naruto looks concentrated, intrigued. Not at all disgusted. He looks almost ridiculously curious, obviously wanting to hear more. But it's Sasuke's question now. "Why did you take me in?"
Naruto isn't surprised. His eyebrows shoot up to his forehead as if it is obvious, and the first time since Sasuke saw him, he laughs. It's loud and boisterous, making him cringe a little in surprise, but so rich and genuine and infectious. It's a bitter exercise in futility not to smile in return, as Sasuke isn't immune to the effect true laughter had on people.
"I don't know," he manages when he stopped laughing. "It can, I guess, get so lonely here sometimes. Look around you, man. And before... and you were... you looked like you were as lonely as I am. I don't know." He scratches his neck, a nervous gesture of him, Sasuke notes. He's half disturbed, half bedazzled at Naruto's unique way of seeing things. So accurate, so simple, it's actually quite unnerving. It's a surprisingly private observation, he ponders at Naruto's words; as if they're both marked with a sign invisible to anyone but those who wear it.
A sign of innocence stolen.