i am slightly ashamed that this took forever. though i should mention that I hauled the whole story into a major edit some weeks ago, so now I feel as though it reads a lot smoother. this thing is just...very near and dear to my heart tbh. ;-;

also, I would like to thank every single last one of you who has commented or simply favorited the story. it means the world.

all beta credit goes to "Vivian" on ao3.

oOo

Rush of sound, skid of skin on wood, and Naruto has rammed his way across the room, reaching for the hairpin. Sasuke holds it high, dangled glow above his head, grinning.

"On your toes, then?"

He laughs, flagrant and delighted. Naruto reaches one more time, full aware now of the color that has risen to his face. For it is no secret in the candlelight this way, that Sasuke is taller, broader, that Sasuke knows this. Naruto's teeth grit. Pride keeps him from jumping, from begging. It mocks him, the pin's glint just an inch from his reach. His fingers graze the metal. Their chests meet. Sasuke simply reaches higher, watching Naruto closely.

"Give it back," is all Naruto says. He swallows, as if to keep his voice quiet. "It's not yours."

The softening ebb in his tone is distinct, and it brings forth a shame that spreads across Naruto's chest like a torch.

"And what if I made it? More mine than yours?" Sasuke fleers, beginning to bend the pin in his fist. "What if I snapped it in two?"

He starts to, and all Naruto knows is that he's somehow shoved Sasuke back with both hands, crashing him hard against an old wooden dresser. A painting drops from its hinge from the impact, a glass filled with water slips from the desk. It shatters, and after, the hairpin falls to the floor.

Naruto sinks to his knees—to find it, to find it— but Sasuke claws him upwards by the root of his hair, toeing the hairpin away before swapping their positions. The back of Naruto's head slams with the dresser. The room blurs. He writhes, warm breath mixed with his, Sasuke's dark eyes agleam and invasive.

"Did I sever a nerve?" sneers Sasuke. "That I've figured you gutless, houseless, readily tucked beneath my mother's skirts?" He presses closer. Whispers, "Or is it Sakura's you want to see a little more?" He bucks in. Their cocks touch. "Perhaps I could bring her here and I could show you—"

Bile bristles, so foul that Naruto cannot keep his fist from stamping Sasuke's mouth. He hears only the stiff snap of teeth being hit, and then of Sasuke stumbling backwards, chuckling lowly. A reddening wound there, sickled with blood. Naruto's eyes widen, but not by much, by the time the blow is returned and a split pain jolts through his jaw. His fingers go to it, to succor the swelling, but Sasuke is on him like a beast in an instant. Naruto's thrown at the wall. Sasuke's thrown, too. They meet in the middle and Sasuke's fist pummels Naruto's side while Naruto's elbow meets again with Sasuke's bruised mouth, smearing it bloody.

The impact is crude. It leaves Sasuke staggered. A curl to his lip, seeming amused with the amount of blood he is shedding. Naruto rams him, this time with the blunt of his shoulder, and Sasuke falls to the floor. He doesn't get up, but instead tongues the rindle of blood from his mouth.

Naruto stands there, fists clenched, his breath feeling heavy. His jaw hurts. His eye stings from the offshoot of pain in his rib. He steps forward. Rain slaps on the glass of the lucarne. No place to go. Realization sinks in.

"I—" He swallows. Guilt clogs his throat. He thinks of Sakura, the look on her face if she'd stood there, Mikoto. "I'm sorry—"

Sasuke says nothing. Just stays where he is, braced on both elbows, his naked chest rising and falling.

It's quiet, if not for their breaths. The candlelight dwindles, the room dims. The wood creaks with each step that Naruto takes. He feels Sasuke's stare upon him, the length of him milk-white in the pall. Naruto offers his hand. Sasuke's eyes linger to it, back up, and in one single movement, he yanks Naruto down to the floor. It isn't violent, but it is starkingly frank, and by the time Naruto has found sense enough to tussle against it, he finds that Sasuke is already mounted upon him, grinding down with his hips.

Back and forward. The traction flowers quickly into a hardening bliss. Naruto's body pistons for more on its own, fevered with instinct. Sasuke presses down harder, tighter. It fattens Naruto's cock, wires his heart, refusal fusing with what is left of adrenaline. Naruto squirms from it, tries to slide from it, but Sasuke leans in, pinning Naruto's wrists to the floor. This close, blood stipples Sasuke's face like a painting, his lips red and bowed like a girl's. Delicate visage, silently panting, warm.

Naruto looks from him, jilts from him, but the friction beneath persists in sweltering waves. Naruto's vision suffuses. He opens his mouth, wanting to argue, to beg, but a groan rills out, instead. Thrill laves, like sparks in his pelvis. Full of heat, kneading gently. He can feel Sasuke, too, rocklike near his stomach, can hear—can feel—the way his every breath is hitching. The candle snuffs, like a secret, and Naruto feels his eyes begin to roll. He closes them, feeling it, and feeling it—

Sasuke hunches in, their faces all too close. His brows knit, his lips part. Then a softening whimper oils from Sasuke's wet mouth. Naruto comes. The flutter so frenzied within him that he cannot help but open his eyes so that he may watch Sasuke's expression. His half-lidded gaze, the jet black silk of his hair—

Then, the faint creak of steps from the stairs.

The high peaks and recedes in an instant. Sticky heat slicks Naruto's thigh, plastering there. Sasuke stops, winded and flushed to the neck. He looks away, as if to listen more closely. The world spins to focus. The door isn't closed.

Naruto swallows, unable to move. He thinks he can feel his heart in his throat, panic inflaming.

Sasuke gets to his feet, wiping his mouth with his wrist. He simpers, stares, then slips like a wisp from the room.

oOo

Daybreak.

Pink light blooms on the floorboards. Jays sing outside the window, gladdening the sog left behind by the storm. Naruto lies there, curled on the divan. No blanket, so deep in sleep that the taste of hot babka feels as real as the buttermilk custard sweetening his mouth.

Knocks. Faint, then loud enough to have him bumbling off of the divan and towards the source of the noise. He's half asleep when he opens the door. He rubs his eyes. It doesn't quite work.

"Good morning," Sakura greets him.

Naruto's mind revs back alive, as does his vision. She stands there, dressed in green tussore, silk gigot sleeves, the hem of her gown frilled to fall an inch from her feet. Heat swathes his heart. He can't keep from staring.

"Good morning, um, ma'am."

Nothing at first, then she sidesteps and sighs, sliding into the room on her own.

"I told you," she teases. "Ma'am makes me sound like I'm already marrie—"

He can't hear her. The stench of him on her, all of him on her, on her and on her. Suddenly, all of last night comes cudgeling down.

"Naruto?"

Weight in his chest, a repulsion so potent that Naruto can't keep his balance. Sick flips his stomach. He keens, hand shooting up to cover his mouth.

"Naru—"

He gags, clenching his eyes while forcing it down. Sakura rushes to him, her hand on his back, the other palming his forehead for fever.

"Are you alright?" She rakes his hair to the side with her fingers. "Your jaw. It's a bit…" She presses gently on it. "Swollen." Her tone shifts, "What—"

"I fell," he manages.

"You didn't." She states it with anger. "I know something happened." She looks behind her, the desk, the floor, determined to prove it. "Sasuke, he was here. With you, at night, wasn't he?" Her voice breaks to whispers. "Naruto, please—"

"I fell."

Naruto nudges from her, realizing he's all but snarled at her. Her arms flag back beside her, her chin raising high though the tears she holds back glint to betray her.

"I'll wait outside." Her tone is ice "I've given Lady Mikoto her medicine. We'll get what we need from the market and return to make dinner."

He can't respond. She doesn't spare him a glance. She leaves, shoving his arm to the side with her shoulder.

oOo

A cab waits outside. They take the back grove towards Little Syria, arriving at the district's outdoor market. It bustles near the shoreline, organized by local farmers. It's cost-effective, and far more friendly. At least, that's what Sakura tells him.

They make their way, down a gravel road and towards the merchant posts. They don't talk. The sky is glum, gravid with the upshot of last day's deluge. Even so, children sit upon the seaside, giggling, some with baby siblings swaddled to their backs. They dig for seashells, some build mounds with sand.

"Sweet, isn't it?" Sakura says at last.

Naruto turns to look at her. A softness in her eyes, as if nothing had happened between them. He nods. She smiles, shifting her step so that she may walk nearer.

"Do you still remember? When you were little?"

He remembers most of it.

"No," he says.

She nods. There is only the distant bickering of vendors, the muffled crunching of her heels upon the shingle.

"I do," she says. "Tugging on my grandmother's dress, begging for sweets, or for her to teach me something other than the craft of holding dinner spoons correctly." She sighs. "There were two of us then. I think she liked my cousin best. Red hair, a man. Taught him all she knew of art, ventriloquism."

Naruto wants to ask what that is, who her cousin is. Why holding a spoon was more important. Instead, he looks away, saying nothing.

She sighs again.

"I...I shouldn't have done that," she tells him. "It was wrong of me, to have even pushed into your room like that." She looks at him. "And anyway, people fall sometimes." She buttons and unbuttons her glove. "And you're a bit clumsy. Aren't you?"

It's more a whisper. A final bid for him to tell her. Here, where no one will hear them. To tell her because it hurts her that he doesn't, to tell her because he wants her to see it, the lie built upon her—her feelings—to tell her because he…

Naruto swallows, looks down.

"Sakura, I—"

Wind stirs the tide. It balms the air all around them. It heavies Naruto's heart, twists through his gut. It feels like duplicity. Like he can think of nothing but the scent of Sasuke's soft hair, the breeze of the coast in his breath, his skin, the fragile secret in the dark made between them—

"Naruto?"

"I…" He clears his throat. "I am. Kind of clumsy."

She smiles at him.

They walk the rest of the way amid quiet.

oOo

After the fruit stands (plum and fresh shallot), Sakura haggles the butchery post.

Naruto watches. The line is long. One look behind them, and the butcher agrees to Sakura's deal. She pays. The butcher counts up the change, bundles their cut, then shoos them away. Lamb, as Mikoto instructed.

"It's so crowded today," Sakura says.

Naruto looks at her, careful not to crush the bag of meat against him.

"Does it bother you?"

She chuckles. "No, actually. Does it bother you?"

He shakes his head. She grins. It's playful. Naruto stares, feeling his lip begin to tug on its own.

"It's different, I think," she says. "Here than in town."

He nods, has noticed it, too, the ongoing babel of all sorts of languages.

Drizzle lands on his nose. He looks up. It must be the initials of noon, yet the grey in the sky hasn't brightened. They're halfway back to the cab by the time a group of children dash by, sprinting barefoot towards the shoreline. In the distance, an old man with an ice cart.

Sakura pauses. "Would you like some?"

"What is it?"

"Sweet ice. Maybe sorbet."

"It isn't summer," Naruto says.

"So what?" She glides up in front of him. "It'll sell if we don't hurry."

Naruto glances at the shore, at the expensive silkwork of her dress.

"But what if—"

She laughs, thrilled in a way he has not heard it.

"A race, then?"

She tightens the ribbon in her hair and runs ahead without him. Her gown dirties in the sand. Grime amasses on her shoes. She lets it. A frolic to her step, appended by the lazy mouthing of the ocean.

"Come on, then!"

She waves him over.

Naruto swallows, smiles, and hurries onto the bank to join her.

oOo

She chooses sweet plum, and he chooses cherry.

They walk back, their steps stamping in the sand. Gulls spiral in the sky. Gust tangles in their hair, the noises of the market muted now by the distance that they've made. And for a moment, Naruto feels as though he may not wish their return to the mansion.

"You know," Sakura says. "My grandmother used to do this. For Sasori and I. When we were kids."

Naruto looks at her, her lips crimsoned by the ice treat.

"Your cousin?"

"Yes." She smiles at him. "As for tonight..." She clears her throat. "Be nice, alright? But not too nice. My grandmother hates that."

Naruto nods, swilling a mouthful of the ice and its syrup.

"Do you have cousins?" she asks.

He thinks for a moment. "I'm not sure."

She tucks a ringlet of hair to the back of her ear.

"What about...your parents?"

The question is hesitant. It hangs in the air for a moment. Naruto's gaze drops.

"I'm sorry," she stammers, "that was careless—"

"My father was drafted," he says, not letting her finish. "We left, and my mom got sick on the ship to the island." He swallows, words slipping from his mouth before he can stop them. "They said it was contagious, so she couldn't land." His throat hardens, his mouth dries. "She died."

Silence. Slowly, Sakura comes closer, her shoulder touching his arm as they walk.

"Isn't it scary? All by yourself?"

He shakes his head. "Not really."

"I would be scared."

"Why?"

"Alone. In a strange place…"

"I don't think it's strange," he says.

She looks at him. "You think?"

"Do you?"

She chuckles. "You do that a lot."

"Do what?"

"Ask things. Ask back. Whenever we talk..."

She slows down. He slows down with her. They're nearing the end of the shoreline. No one's around. Sakura reaches then, no warning, wiping a sweet-stain from the edge of his mouth with her thumb. It lingers. Her eyes are green, her glove is warm. An urge, a hot guilt, the utter need to touch her—

She steps back, her gaze towards the floor.

"Come on," she murmurs. "We should head home."

oOo

The cab drops them off near the garden's footpath. The walk to the door is quick. The manor stands tall. Its shadow spans, lengthened now by the dying of the daylight.

"We're late," whispers Sakura. She culls the key from her basquine. "I didn't think so much time would have passed."

Before he can answer, Sakura unlocks the door. The hinge scratches open. A waft of air drifts from the estate, and Naruto feels it is colder than the breeze from outdoors. They step in. The door stutters shut, echoing sharp through the foyer. Immediately, Sakura stiffens beside him.

"My...my lady," she starts, "you're not in bed—"

Naruto follows Sakura's gaze. She's right. Mikoto stands, fingers lacing through the wilted orchids of a porcelain jardiniere. She turns towards them, no expression, and begins to come closer. Her hair banners inklike with her movement, the blood-red of her gown made lucent beneath the offshoot of the chandelier.

Naruto straightens, expecting that she will want to examine the food from the market. She doesn't. Instead, Mikoto pauses, pale and inscrutable before him. She smiles, not once glancing Sakura's way.

"Perhaps my oldest may accompany you for the next time," she says.

It's toneless. She reaches, cupping Naruto's cheek. A gentle shiver laps through his spine, warm, then scathing, the moment his gaze drifts towards the right.

Sasuke.

There, lax by the staircase. His chin lifted high, a knowing sneer to his lip as he watches.

Instantly, Naruto feels nausea fill in his gut. It stretches his skin, throttles his heart. It hurts. He blinks, a ring like a second pulse in his eardrums—

"Did you slip, Naruto?" queries Mikoto. "Your clothes."

Naruto swallows. He shakes his head several times. "No, ma'am."

"Traffic, was it?"

"No, ma'am."

She takes her hand from his face, smiles again. Slowly, Naruto begins to comprehend his mistake.

"Sakura," Mikoto announces. "Give him the fruit. Lady Chiyo may fluster knowing our home holds no proper understanding of conjugal dinners."

Sakura gives him the fruit. And the moment she does, Naruto notices the fault in her eyes, the stilted way in which she refuses to look at him. Mikoto steps to the side, allowing his path towards the kitchen.

Hesitant, Naruto lowers his head. He excuses himself, leaving behind the muffled resound of Sasuke's amusement.

oOo

He enters the scullery to rinse off the shallots and plums. He washes his hands, then carefully fastens the faucet. He stares at the drain. His fingers are shaking.

It's so quiet he can hear the wild flounce of his heartbeat. He swallows, closes his eyes, but cannot make out what is being said in the foyer. Going back enters his mind. Tarrying someplace close to the hall, or feigning some urgent rush to the restroom—

It is his own fault.

The look on Sakura's face, the ridicule Sasuke had prized seeing her in. Naruto's fists clench. He turns on his heel, determined, but stills the moment a noise is struck in the silence.

Clapped, akin to a slap. Then nothing.

oOo

This night, Sakura does not come down to help him.

Naruto busies himself in the kitchen, forcing his mind not to think. The slicings of lamb hiss on the stove, the sernik takes shape in the oven. He flowers the plums as best as he can with a peeling knife, and finds a fresh pouch of parboiled rice which he then gently pours inside of a stockpot, drizzling slivers of shallot along with flakings of provolone cheese.

He allows it to steam, listening to his own starving stomach. And when at last all is ready, he lines out the platters, distributing portions so that only a few trips back and forth might be made.

It works. He circles the dining room table, arranging flatware in front of each chair. He steadies the candles Mikoto had wanted, stepping back to make sure that they stay. They do. The sernik rests in the middle, sweetening the room. Smooth, warm, and smelling like home. Latticed on top, like his mother had taught him.

Soon, knocks on the door.

Naruto backs from the table. He sees Itachi stride down the staircase, donning a high-collar dress shirt upon a form-fitting vest. He tightens the tie on his neck. A few steps behind him, Sakura starts to descend.

Downcast, a flashy gown squeezing her waist. She folds her hands neatly in front of her, the ribbon gone from her hair.

Naruto's brow knits. He looks away, gathers the salvers, and takes his place back to the kitchen.

oOo

The hour strikes eight. An usher of voices, chairs being moved. Then, the onset of conversations he cannot discern.

It's evening, yet drab light clings to the clouds. Naruto sits by the stove, pulling loose strings from his sleeve. The wind keens through the windows, stirring all the slag left behind in the chimney. He shivers. It's cold, now that the stove has been divested of heat. He leans his head on it. His breath chalks the air. He can't stop from thinking.

The blow he had heard, Sasuke's poisonous grin. Sakura's thumb near his lip, the gnawing thrill it had seeded. A thrill taught, a craving, borne hot beneath the hex of Sasuke's soft hips.

Shame, like a shiv to his rib.

Naruto tears out the thread, loosening his sweater. His eyes clench. Disgust, the claw of contrition. He could have stopped it, he could have scorned him, he could have gone back and told Mikoto the truth, he could have—

"My mother wants for your company."

Naruto looks up.

Itachi.

Naruto springs to his feet, quickly wiping the dam from his eyes.

"And for the wine," adds Itachi. He steps forward, culling a flask of Malvasia clean from the wine rack. "You shall pour it," he says. "Then take your seat to my right."

He offers the flask. Naruto nods, bringing the bottle close to his chest. Still, Itachi remains, gaze trenchant as he quietly stares.

"Go, then," he says.

It's faint.

Naruto goes, asking no questions.

oOo

feedback is the light to my wick tbh.