A/N: This is for you, January Marlinquin, because writing to you reminded me of this. Thank you.

September 6, 2012

it is not selfish

by Hic Iacet Mori

Why didn't you tell me? he asks, his voice in a pitch you're unfamiliar with. It's too low for him, you think, as if his words are heavy—so heavy that his voice could feel their taxing weight, the pitch hanging so low you move from your trance and step closer to hear his words. You ignore that you can hear an enemy's breathing miles away, you ignore your issues with distance and boundaries. You take a step back, two. Three just because.

(hearing him just breathe is such a precious, precious thing)

Why? he asks again, and this time you turn around. His clothes are torn, his right eye swollen, and he is bleeding in various places where he shouldn't be. You see the grotesque angle of his broken left arm, the favoring of his right leg because of an obvious limp, the wide gash on his side where his blood clotted dark, and you look up to his eyes not because you can't bear to see them but because he is looking at you and you always look back.

(you know he won't be here if he suffers too much anyway, so you won't insult him by offering to clean and dress his wounds—he's a proud warrior, like you, and you bear your scars with pride the way he would have if he can retain them at all)

Why? he asks a third time, and his eyes are so eloquent you are drowning in their words. He speaks with his eyes so much better than with his mouth, reminding you of the conclusion you drew one golden afternoon: he will always be heard even if he doesn't speak, if not through his eyes then through the gold of the sunlight. But he still speaks, albeit not as much, and you don't really mind because his voice is the music that you'll never tire to hear.

(and you pause to wonder if you should strike that from your mind, but you realize it's only you and him in this dying afternoon and perhaps one slip won't be noticed at all)

Underneath the ignored pain he is tired, you can see, so you sit on the grass so he can sit down too. He doesn't seem to notice, too intent on your unvoiced answer, so you grab his hand and force him to sit down with you.

(less roughly, almost gently, even if you don't know how it's done, because you've hurt him too many times to count and you don't want to do it again—)

You ignore his yelp even as they pierce through your chest.

(—because you don't want to hurt him anymore)

Wh—he starts, and you cut him off with a hand.

What do you think? you ask, and he's clearly unhappy, annoyed that you interrupted to throw a question back. You point to the distance so he won't take it wrongly, and he follows your finger because he will follow you to the end.

(and he's gone to hell and deeper to prove that to you)

You point to the west where the sun is setting.

What do you think? you repeat, and there is no change in your tone—still even, still detached, still that shadow in its shadow and that darkness in its darkness. But he hears something else because he knows you're insisting, because you dislike repeating yourself and only do so when you need to. And it's a need, right now, this need for him to understand—it's a need so dire it catches your breath a second shy.

And his features relax, in those years with him you call moment, and you nod to yourself half those years later because he's getting the idea and everything will be easier from there.

(talking and explaining are not really your strongest suits)

I think it's awesome, he says, so honestly you don't grudge him the simplicity of his words.

Those? you point again, and this time you point to the east. There are dandelions over there, in that verdant little patch, remnant of a paradise your mind cannot grasp. With every breeze you do as it tumbles past to you, bearing with it the seeds of soft downy white. There are more, on that patch, a wide square of dreams, borne from those plants you called weeds like the rest do.

(from where you sit those seeds look like fireflies against the light)

You needn't see his eyes to know he never called them that.

Cool.

You raise your hand and point to the rising moon. To the stars, each one as they appear, brighter than the other, bigger even, sometimes. To the trees, with their branches, leaves. To the grasses where you sit. To the village in the distance, once upon a time called home in your heart.

What do you think? you ask a third, your voice even lower. A bald whisper in the dark, a quiet shout in the night.

Would you like to have these things?

He nods, hesitant, lacking the obstinacy that for so long defined him. Confusion makes his eyes softer, like how you imagine candleshine would make it, and it amazes you how a fighter of his caliber can appear so soft in a second.

(you pocket your hands because they want to confirm how soft he can be)

But will you really want to possess them? you ask and you look into the soft depths. He pauses, thinks. He slowly shakes his head.

And then his eyes widen until he stops moving entirely.

(like the world, you think faintly, and it doesn't make sense and it does)

Yes, you murmur, because something is catching in your throat, and it can't be your heart because you've lost it a long time ago, you can't possess these things, just like no one else can.

And he looks at you, eyes even softer than they were before. You think of clouds and you understand how people can watch them forever.

Yeah.

(they're too beautiful to possess, you almost say, but that sounds too much so you keep your mouth shut)

He understands, is all you think, and it's all that matters—even if understanding doesn't make acceptance any easier. You suspect it never will but you can live with it. You have learned to live with loss a lifetime ago.

(it's not loss when it's never yours, and it's a truth you always know)

Because you have to share the sunset and the flowers, the moon and the stars, the trees and the grasses and everything in this world with others—they are not yours to claim and never yours to own. No one can possess the rain the day you walked away. No one can possess the wind that carried him on its back. No one can possess the rainbow painted across the sky, when you fought back to back and stood side by side, when you saved a village you turned your back on after it turned its back on yours. No one can possess that perfect April morning shower, no one can possess that smile full of tears, no one can possess that laugh of wet relief.

(no one can and you don't lose them at all, because they aren't yours and not anyone else's—but you will always own them in your memories and in this they'll last forever)

And you think it's enough that you are around to see them.

But they always have to come back from where they came from, don't they? he asks. His eyes are so bright you see them despite the dark. You see the fire, the light, and they're shining just for you. They have to come home, don't they?

His words strike you and take your breath away. You can't speak, you're afraid to.

(hope is a faithless thing but he's faithful and you're scared)

Your famed fearlessness has deserted you.

The sun chooses to set on its own time, he continues, and every word he speaks hammers inside you—chisels and carves a new heart to replace the one you threw away. The moon chooses to rise on its own. The flowers grow and bloom in their own time, and so do the trees and the grasses. The stars appear when they want to. We can't own them, yeah, but they do what they want to in the end, or when they're not needed anymore. Don't they?

Logic has no place in this revealing conversation. You don't care and he most probably never will anyway.

(it's hard to care when you're trying to do the right thing)

Then he gazes into your eyes and you think it's true—eyes can gaze into souls because his gaze into yours could. And you wish, as you look back, that your eyes can do the same, because his eyes on your soul makes you feel alive.

(but is it the right thing that's making you come alive?)

Even before you came up with this shit, you asshole, I've already decided where I'll be, he says, in a tone so matter-of-fact your chest tightens around itself. As if he just came to tell you he likes miso pork ramen, that his cape has red flames and that he sings under the rain. I just wish I'd known sooner, he adds, with an almost rueful look.

You shrug, nonchalant. You want to cry. Laugh, too.

(you just stand in front of him because you've wanted to for so long)

Besides—

And this time he smiles, and it's so brilliant and blinding that you forget to ask who told him (you've hidden it so well, you think, and you attempt to be indignant about it)—forget you're exiled for a total of ten years (seven years remaining before you can return), that your chakra is sealed (but you can still fight anyway), that you live on the border so you can still protect him (brutally, if needed, to increase the deathly fear from the other side), that you live in a hut (built by your enterprising hands), that this is the first time you've seen each other in three (long and lonely) years, that you have a heart again and its leaping in your chest because it recognizes its owner and it wants to come home too.

—at the end of everything, they all know I won't be with them forever.

When he stands in front of you, it's easy to forget how beautiful the world can be.

(when he stands in front of you and tells you where he belongs—bleeding, breaking, breathing, being—it's easy to forget that you can't possess the wind)

Hear that, Sasuke-yarou? It's my choice!

You tell yourself you'll wait because he deserves to come home like you did.

(and because, deep down, you think you deserve the wind too)

Hn. Naruto-baka.