It was the anual Autumn Festival. The main street of Konoha Village was packed with wooden booths, stalls, and people. The air was alive with music, voices shouting across the way, and tantalizing smells of all the different foods. Above the din of the moving crowd, vendors called out to potential customers to try their wares or games. Teenagers flocked in groups from booth to booth, parents bought candy and snacks for their children, and couples strolled casually along arm in arm through the lantern-illuminated streets. The city was alive again, their last celebration being six months previous--the Spring Festival. They had all been looking forward to this.
Somehow, Naruto had convinced Sasuke into being dragged along. Now he watched with a casual eye as the blond man peered excitedly from booth to booth, latched onto his arm and happily oblivious. He considdered slipping away once or twice, but he knew he would find a pouting Naruto at home later on, and he couldn't stand that sad face. So, he stayed.
"Remind me why I'm here," he spoke his feelings aloud when he narrowly avoided being flattened by a group of giggling teenagers running from their desperate parents.
Naruto gave him a side-glance: "Because I asked you to come. No one goes out to a festival by themselves!"
"Fine," he rolled his eyes. "Why are we here?"
"Because," the blond rolled his eyes right back, "it's the only festival for half a year. Now come on! Enjoy yourself!"
Sasuke refrained from stating that he simply did not just 'enjoy himself'. There had to be damn good reason behind his amusement, and wandering through a noisy street packed with throngs of people did not fit his 'enjoyable' description. Naruto, however, seemed to be having fun without him. He watched the children playing games and the older couples sitting off to the side on the cool grass and simply enjoying each other's company at the celebration. He even stopped at one of the more popular booths and bought a stick of blue rock candy. He was eating it, and successfully getting it all over his cheeks and chin, when he pasued and sniffed the air. Sasuke inhaled as well. The sharp sting of incense smoke burned his nose and he looked around for it. They were nearing the edge of the festival, where the people stood in scattered collections and the stalls became smaller and darker. There was a slight tap on their left.
"You."
The two men turned to the voice. An old woman dressed in dark green and gold, her white hair tied back with a flourish, sat behind a large clear sphere mounted on a short brass stand. Gems, jewels, and orbs hung suspended over her head, twirling slowly and glittering in the faded lamp light from the heart of the street. She was pointing at Naruto.
"Me?" he pointed at himself, the rock candy still hanging from his mouth.
"Yes you, fox spirit," she smiled. Naruto's mouth fell open and the candy hit the dirt floor. Sasuke stood back, tense and alert, but he did not flinch.
"Shh!" the blond hissed at her.
"Why did you call him that, old woman?" his companion asked quietly, his mouth barely moving with his words.
"I read his soul," she chuckled. "Honestly, it wasn't hard. It's so loud, it's practically visible to the naked eye!"
Naruto looked down at himself and crossed his arms over his chest self consciously. "You read my soul?"
"It's not like I have x-ray vision, child!" she laughed. "When you passed my crystal ball, you reflected your aura into it." She gestured to the orb in front of her. "Your aura, or chakra in ninja-speak, is a certain color which is dfferent for everyone, and likewise, a different animal shows up for everyone as well. You, young sir, have an orange chakra, and the animal of your soul is a fox."
"And that's why you called me 'fox spirit'?" he blinked and she nodded. "No way!"
"Way," she grinned at him. "It's all in the crystal."
"And my chakra color is orange?" he asked her excitedly.
She nodded again. "The color of fire and sunset. The orange chakra represents wild, untameable passion and determination. It also symbolizes tranquility and inner beauty."
"Wow..." Naruto blinked, obviously impressed. "I'm so cool!"
"It's all just an old wive's tale they use in order for you to pay them," Sasuke said bluntly, totally unconvinced. Naruto pouted at him and the woman frowned slightly.
"You don't believe in fortune telling?" she asked.
"No, I do not," he answered. "It's nothing but trickery and fraud to capture the stupid and gullible."
"Sasuke!" Naruto gaped at him.
The woman shrugged dismissively: "Very well. Since you don't believe in any of this, then you wouldn't object to taking a simple test."
"No," came the curt reply.
"Oh, come on!" Naruto hollered at him. "You've given this lady enough crap!" He whirled on the woman in the booth. "What does he have to do?"
"It's simple, really," she pointed above her head, to where the pendants and jewelry hung, quietly spinning and glittering. "All he has to do is choose the pendant that appeals most to him."
"See! That's nothing!" Naruto turned back to Sasuke. "Come on! It won't hurt to try it!"
He opened his mouth to retort but saw Naruto giving him the pouty face, so he sucked in a breath and huffed in agitation. Then he looked up at the dangling items and studied them one by one. Each one looked different from the other, even in the slightest details. They looked specially-crafted, by hand and with a care that was uncommon in such a "profession". Deliberately taking his time, Sasuke moved his dark eyes back and forth over the rows of trinkets. In truth, he had already seen the one on his first look-about--it was silver and so finely crafted, the chain itself looked like woven water. A simple blue orb was somehow looped into the silver braiding; it looked complex but its appearance was nothing but simple. Finally, he pointed at it. The woman grinned at him as if she had known what his choice was going to be, and took it down from the roof of her stall. Naruto gasped when he saw it.
"It's so beautiful!"
"I don't even need my crystal ball for this," she handed the necklace to Sasuke. He took it, slightly shocked. "You are the blue dragon. Your aura is the sky and the water; you go with the flow of events and time, laid back but always alert and ready to change at the slightest stir. You are silent and deeply introverted, but not to the point of fault. This is where your animal takes over: dragons are proud, stubborn, and cold creatures by nature and because of this, they rarely get along with other animals, even their own kind. They have a secret arrogance, and hold almost no respect for elders or authority." Naruto suddenly burst out laughing. Sasuke shot him a glare. "Your chakra tells me that you prefer doing things on your own, and you push yourself to the brink of exhaustion or even death to obtain the perfection that you strive for all your life."
There was a heavy silence that followed. And of course, Naruto broke it with another loud laugh.
"Man, Sasuke! She nailed you on the head!" he giggled. "You can't tell me you don't believe in fortune telling after that!" Sasuke abruptly tossed the silver necklace at Naruto, turned, and walked into the darkness slowly overcoming the main street. "H-Hey!"
"Let him go, dear," the woman stood and Naruto looked at her.
"I wonder why he's so upset..." he frowned.
"It's another trait of blue dragons," she smiled helplessly. "They hate being proven wrong." Naruto made a face and held out the silver necklace. She shook her head and picked up the crystal ball. "No, that's alright. Give it to your companion. He'll miss it terribly if I take it back."
"How do you really know all this stuff?" Naruto looked up at the other pendants.
"In all honestly," she chuckled, "he's like an open book. You just have to learn how to read people, little fox."
"Nah, that's okay," he smiled back. "I can read him just fine."
The fortune teller laughed out loud and reached up, detaching something else from the stall's roof and tossing it to him.
"Then you can fix things tonight."
"I thought I'd find you here."
Sasuke didn't flinch; he kept his eyes to the slow-moving water of the river. Naruto plopped down beside him and held out one hand in front of the other's face. The silver and blue necklace dangled from his fingers. He hesitated, then took the pendant and glanced over at the blond.
"How much did you have to pay?"
"Actually," he beamed, "she gave it to me. And this one too." He held up the golden chain she had tossed him. The fiercely-carved linked chain pooled in his palm like jagged pieces of glass, but when Sasuke lifted it to inspect it more closely, it spilled into place and created a simple, unbroken chain of sparkling links. The brightness of it nearly made him squint. Sasuke dropped it back into Naruto's open hand. "You know, Sasuke," Naruto continued at the black-haired man's silence, "she really did have you figured. I'm not trying to make fun of you, but really, that's just the way you are. You always have been like that. And honestly, I wouldn't want you any other way." The dark man looked up at his words. "Life would be boring if the two of us were all happy and bubbly, huh?"
"I didn't want to go to that festival," Sasuke spoke up bitterly.
"...do you actually know the true story behind the festival?" Naruto asked him. He glanced over and shook his head.
"No, do you?"
"Yes, I do."
Sasuke waited expectantly.
Naruto slowly began to slip the golden chain from one hand to the other, looking out at the dark river. "There were two animals at the beginning of time--a fox and a dragon."
"Ironic."
"Together, the two of them had to create existance by sharing the Throne of Season, located on top of the world," Naruto continued as if he hadn't interrupted. "The fox loved the sunshine and he wanted everything to flourish and bloom and be beautiful. The dragon liked the cold, the darkness. He wanted snow and rain and night to dominate the land. They couldn't come to a compromise because they were so totally different." Sasuke was listening with secretive interest. "So, finally, they agreed that they should make years, and split the years into halves--half the year would be sunny and warm, and the other hald would be cold and dark. So they went their seperate ways and the fox created the beautiful Spring and the bright Summer, while the dragon created the cold Autumn and the dark Winter." Naruto suddenly looked at Sasuke and smiled, placing a hand on one of his own. "But, no matter how much they disagreed, the fox and the dragon could not forget one another. So, in the dragon's memory, the fox made half of his beautiful days into nights, and the dragon did the exact opposite--he made half of his endless nights into day to help him remember the fox."
"And what does all of this have to do with the festival?" Sasuke asked, unable to hide the curiosity from his voice.
"The Spring and Autumn Festivals commemorate the only two days out of the year when the fox and the dragon met to pass off the Throne of Season," Naruto finished. They looked at each other, Naruto smiling and Sasuke frowning. The blond reached up and looped the golden necklace carefully around Sasuke's thin neck. "This is my sunlight to you, Sasuke. Even when I'm not beside you, I'm always with you."
Sasuke touched the necklace around his neck. He thought it would clash harshly with his complexion or perhaps be entirely too big for him to wear. But it was perfect. He nodded and reached out as well, clasping the silver and blue pendant around Naruto's own neck.
"This is my night that I give to you, Naruto," he whispered gently. "When I am not beside you, know that I'm always with you."
He slipped his arms around Naruto and held him close, feeling the warmth of his body radiate into him. He wondered why the dragon hadn't just given up and let the fox do what he wanted. And then he looked down at the blond in his arms.
"Thank you for coming with me to the festival, Sasuke," he said softly.
"Thank you for inviting me," the other replied and held him tight.