Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Lines that run across

His skin. Her line it dances

a smile on her throat.

Chapter Three

He couldn't believe it. It was bizarre. Like something out of a movie, only this was not a movie. He blinked once, twice, three times, just to make sure he wasn't half-asleep. But there it was, scribbled at the top of the open page of his book, which had been left on the floor.

'Please stop unfolding the page corners. It means I have to find my place again, but if you insist, then at least have the decency buy me a bookmark.'

Itachi? No. It couldn't have been him. Itachi was not the type of person to sneak into another's bedroom in the dead of night just to read a book. If Itachi fancied reading one of Sasuke's books, he would just take the book without asking. Neither his mother nor his father were avid readers – he was known affectionately by his mother as the family bookwork. So then who had the audacity to write in his book?

And then there was that last line…

'If you insist, then at least have the decency to buy me a bookmark.'

Decency.

As if this person had every right to be rooting through his belongings. As if he was the one in the wrong here. He sneered at the words, dismissing them as nothing more than a prank on his brother's part. It was unlike Itachi, as he had already figured. But who else could it possibly be?

It's too early in the morning for something like this, he thought, shaking his head and sitting up. With a groan, he rubbed his eyes and tried to flatten his hair which was ruffled and disturbed from bed. His lips twitched. Itachi was quite the prankster. He would have to confront him about it later.

Naruto bounced on the balls of his feet as he banged several times on his new neighbour's door. This was it. He was going to find friends, close friends, enjoy what was left of his adolescence whilst getting a real education, and then when he landed himself a well-paying job, he would be unstoppable. The world hadn't exactly favoured him in the past, but everything had changed now. He could finally look forward and make the most of it. For the first time, he could live.

He heard some scuffles and a muffled grunt before the door cracked open to reveal a sleepy looking boy with what appeared to be a brown pineapple resting on his head.

No Naruto, he thought after a second glance, that's his hair.

"Huh?" The pineapple boy yawned, as he took in Naruto's toothy grin and third-hand sneakers. "What do you want?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Heh…Naruto Uzumaki! Nice to meet ya!"

Pineapple blinked, his face blank. Then he frowned slightly. "Shikamaru. And what the fuck are you doing at my door at eight in the morning on a Saturday?"

"I kinda wanted to meet my new neighbours, since ya know, we're all gonna have to get along somehow."

Naruto shivered under his brand new t-shirt that Jiraiya had bought him months back. In celebrating Naruto's acceptance into Konoha University, Jiraiya clapped Naruto on the shoulder and told him to pick any item of clothing he liked. The gesture had meant so much, that Naruto saved his new t-shirt for when he started at University.

Pineapple – now named Shikamaru – scowled, and Naruto braced himself for disappointment. But then the scowl broke into a tired smile, and Shikamaru opened his door fully for the other boy to step in.

"Troublesome" Naruto heard him mutter under his breath. But that didn't matter, because the word had been spoken with more amusement than hatred. And it filled Naruto head to toe with relief.

Things are going to be okay.

'Sasuke Dear, I was wondering if you could find it in you to help your poor mother, and find a space for this box in the attic whilst me and your father are busy at work. Thank you for being Mama's Sugar Pie xx'

Sasuke's eyes shifted from his mother's purple writing on floral memo paper, to the cardboard box on the kitchen worktop. Scrawled on the side in black marker pen, it was labelled as 'Christmas Decorations'.

He really didn't want to have to do it. Every inch of him protested against the idea of shuffling around in the attic with its dust and dead bluebottles. But the box simply stared at him, waiting. An image of his mother's dark eyes – his own eyes – hardening into steel, flashed in the back of his mind for no longer than a second. He shuddered

No. He had no choice. As much as he loved his mother, the woman was terrifying when she wanted to be, and like most Uchiha women, she had a nasty alter-ego. And sometimes, whenever he had done something that had upset her, he would find carefully placed long black hairs in his dinner. Hairs much too long to belong to him, his brother, or his father. Hairs that would never appear in anyone else's roast potatoes.

He had to admit, his mother could be crazy with her revenge at times – a trait that Itachi had no doubt inherited.

Within ten minutes time, he found himself on a ladder peering into the attic. The light switch on the wall did not work, and so he couldn't see a thing beyond where the light from below brushed the silhouettes of old lamps and boxes. Boxes. Boxes everywhere. Whichever direction he turned his head, more black squares appeared. Were all these boxes from his family? Sasuke didn't remember seeing quite this many boxes in the moving van.

He took a breath, but his chest heaved and spluttered. He felt thick dust clinging to the inside of his throat. As his eyes adjusted to the blackness, he saw the dust swirling, falling from the roof like ash. An unusual smell crept up into his nose; Damp, mould and a tinge of something indescribable. Something like perfume or fabric conditioner, but it was gone as quickly as he had sensed it. Sasuke decided, after wiping the dust from his lips, that from then on he would breathe through his mouth. If he tried hard enough, he could pretend not to feel the strain on his lungs.

He stepped, feet padding carefully as the floorboards creaked under his weight. His arms ached a little from the weight of the small box. He could only wonder what kind of Christmas decorations would weigh as much as a baby hippopotamus. However, the thought was dismissed when the hairs on the back of his neck rose. He searched for a space to dump the stupid box and go.

It was easy to ignore the thick air clogging his lungs, but it was getting increasingly more difficult to ignore the burn of invisible eyes on his back.

Ino leant her entire body weight against the door to her student accommodation building. After her second unsuccessful day of being new Ino, she'd considered giving herself a much needed makeover and hitting one of the inner-city clubs. But then memories of a certain person had melted the smile on her face. So she opted for the next best thing; a shopping spree. She'd grabbed her red polka dot wallet and her handbag, then hit the high street.

However, her shopping high came rushing straight back down when she realised that she'd left her car – a birthday present from her father – back at home, fifty miles south from Konoha University, and that she'd have to haul her winnings back to her dorm. But the door was as heavy as wet sandbags, and she couldn't open the damn thing with her hands full of shopping bags. It was difficult enough punching in the security code, but the door itself was a nightmare.

What the hell is this thing made of? Ino thought, pressing her shoulder into it and pushing as hard as she could. Reinforced steel and bulletproof glass?

"You look like you could use a hand with that door."

She jumped, almost dropping her bags. Behind her was a scrawny boy who beamed at her with eyes bluer than her own. With one hand, he scratched his mop of blonde hair which was in dire need of a good brush. Or a good yank, since it stuck up in tufts like it was trying to get as far as possible from his scalp. Beside him, another boy stood with his hands in his jacket pockets, watching her with clear disregard.

"I'm fine…really." She said to the blonde boy. He was smiling at her, unlike the other boy, and so she could only assume that it was he who spoke to her.

"Che. Clearly you're not." The rude one muttered.

Ino's eyes narrowed. She examined him piece by piece, from his ridiculous ponytail and his pierced ears, to the way his body slouched as if simply standing was too exhausting of a task. She tossed her fringe from her eyes and looked back to the blonde with a saccharine smile.

"Don't mind me. I'll be out of you way in just a second."

With more force than ever before, she continued to throw her side against the door, determined to prove the rude ponytail boy wrong. She was fine. She wouldn't bother these people. Old Ino would've given in easily, plastering on a flirty smile and some suggestive comments, but not now. Three tries, and the door finally caved, slowly opening under her weight.

There!

Her lips curved into a devious grin. Filled with the confidence of new Ino, she spun on her heel with a winning grin. Only she was thrown off by a whiff of sweat and cigarettes.

There he stood, close enough that she could feel his breath against the top of her ear. His lips tilted at one corner and his eyes amusedly stared into hers. He was holding the door open with one hand.

"I could've done that myself!"

He snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure. That's exactly why you've been so successful so far."

Ino's comeback froze on her tongue. She glowered, hating the way that he had raised one eyebrow at her. She hated his stupid hairstyle, his poor dress sense, and his cool attitude as if trying to earn a degree was nothing but child's play to him. She hated the way that he smelled like cheap fabric conditioner, sweat, and cigarettes. But most of all she hated the way that his eyes – a deep brown, almost black, in colour – searched hers with the smallest flicker of something close to kindness. No. He couldn't be kind. She didn't want him to be, because he was rude to her, and because she hated every part of him; Ino didn't like playing the villain.

"Hey! Let's be friends here, okay?"

Ino snapped out of her trance to see the blonde boy holding both of his hands up in surrender. His eyes darted to and fro between herself and the rude ponytail guy. She said nothing, but watched as the blonde boy glanced between the two of them. His smile was like the sun.

"Here, tell us what floor you're on and we'll help you carry those bags."

"How do I know you're not just a pair of creepy guys who want to know where I'm staying?"

The blonde's smile flickered like a candle on the verge of blowing out. He patched it up again before it became too obvious. But his efforts were in vain; she noticed it anyway. "I just want to make friends, ya know? I don't know anyone here except Shikamaru, and I only met the guy this morning.

"Ino's expression softened. Me too, she thought, I want some too… The words slipped past her lips before she could stop them. "Fourth floor, room B."

Behind her, the ponytail guy's expression changed. Whether it brightened or darkened, she couldn't understand. He was a book that couldn't be translated. However, the blonde's eyes scrunched up in delight and his smile grew so wide, Ino was afraid that his ears would disappear.

"Woop! You're on the same floor as us! What's your name? I'm Naruto Uzumaki, the one and only!"

"Ino Yamanaka." She answered, "and I'm going to take a leap and assume that that" she nodded her head at the ponytail guy "is Shikamaru?"

He rolled his eyes, fingers twitching toward a packet of cigarettes that peeked out of his jeans pocket. "Shikamaru Nara."

Cigarettes...disgusting habit, she scoffed before sliding into the entrance hall of the building. She hated his slouch and the way he looked at everything as though it were below him. But when Naruto insisted that they help with her bags and he muttered "troublesome woman…" under his breath, Ino kind of liked the way that his eyes betrayed his words.

Sasuke lay sprawled out on his bed. A strand of his hair had fallen into his eye and managed to tangle itself in his eyelashes. It blocked his vision and stung his eye. But he didn't bother to remove it. The effort of simply raising a hand…no, a finger, to brush it away was too strenuous on his muscles. When did he become so tired?

There was the sound of a dog yapping outside, mingled with the clatter of plates downstairs as somebody – either his mother or Itachi – was washing the dinner dishes. Dinner was an awkward affair. Since Sasuke had arrived home earliest, he took it upon himself to prepare dinner. His mother seemed grateful, although the meal was stunted as Itachi failed to acknowledge anybody. His attention was reserved solely for his food, and he did not speak a word.

Suddenly, something crashed into his window with a bang.

Sasuke sat up, his reverie broken and his heart pounding. He looked to the window, only there was nothing splattered against it. He'd been expecting blood and feathers from a dead bird, but the glass was spotless. The window was neither smashed nor cracked, but he slipped off the bed and went to inspect the damage anyway. Gazing out of the window, he was surprised to see nothing. Not a person or a footprint.

What the actual fuck? He thought, a frown marring his face. There isn't even a bird…

Downstairs, the sound of plates being washed continued. They hadn't heard it, Sasuke realised with disbelief. The noise had certainly been loud enough to echo past the floorboards and through the walls, so there was no way that his family hadn't heard it. He waited one minute, two minutes, three minutes, yet nobody came to investigate.

Stepping away from the window, he was willing to pass it off as nothing.

And then his steps wavered.

His eyes widened, and invisible spiders crawled along the palm of his left hand. There on his pillow, as if it had been there all along, sat a spiral bound notebook.

A strained chuckle forced its way out of his throat, as he stared in astonishment and terror at the bright purple cover. That wasn't his notebook. It was not his notebook. It most certainly wasn't Itachi's – and his brother would dropkick him for even so much as insinuating the idea that he would possess something so gaudy. And it couldn't possibly have been his mother's; she hated the colour purple with a passion.

But what horrified Sasuke the most was the fact that he had been lying with his head in that exact spot, and he was pretty sure that he didn't have anything tucked under his pillow. Where did it come from? Where could it have come from?

Nowhere...

She was crouched in the corner of the room, staring at him with desperation. She'd seen the look on his face when he first spotted the notebook. It was the same look that everyone had when she tried to reach out to them. The same horror, the same repulsion.

Mother was right; the world is filled with monsters, and I am one of them.

"Please" she whispered. Her voice was whipped away, as if it were nothing more than thread in a blizzard "please take it."

Of course, he couldn't hear her. Not right now. But when he had first entered the house, with his typical messed up family, she couldn't take her eyes off him. He was different. He had a certain energy that the previous owners before him had lacked.

She was drawn to him because he was a rag-doll. She'd had a rag doll many years ago, and although she couldn't remember exactly what it looked like, she remembered its seams falling apart time and time again, and pricking her fingers when she sewed them up. This boy was just like her rag doll – skin torn so many times that his stitches had formed scars. They were all over him like ivy. Ugly white scars, twisting and wrapping all over the planes his body.

She did not want him to run away like the others. No matter what, he had to stay.

"Please" she tried once more, as he took a hesitant step forward. Not toward the door, but to the bed, to his pillow, to her notebook. "Please."

His skin prickled as his feet inched toward the bed. He didn't know what he was doing. Surely logic would tell him to get the hell out of his bedroom, and he almost did. But then he heard it.

That small voice...No, not a voice. It was thin and wispy in the air, like a spiders thread. A spider's thread that almost resembled a word. Almost.

He was certain that he had lost his mind entirely as his shins hit his bed frame with a small creak. That thin thread had appeared again. A pearly spectre that was not at all ominous, but beautiful in an unearthly way. And he was drawn to it. Pulled like it was a marionette string.

You've lost yourself, a voice in his head whispered. You've completely lost it.

He thought of the white lines decorating the pale skin of his arms. I lost myself ages ago. It doesn't matter anymore.

He placed his fingers on the purple notebook. Holding his breath, he flipped the cover over. A shiver ran across his shoulders as words bled into the blank page.

Hello, Sasuke.

A/N: I would have uploaded this chapter much earlier, only I had some problems with lots of the files on my usb becoming corrupted for some reason. It took me a really long time to find another copy of the original fanfiction so that I could continue editing it. It's like the universe hates me.

There's also the fact that I have another story on the go as well, and it's difficult to write both because when I write, I tend to get sucked into whatever story I'm writing, like I'm living and breathing that story. It's difficult to go between this story and the other one because they're both so vastly different.

Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter. Let me know in the comments what you thought xx