Chapter Text
The bed was too big.
Too cold. Too quiet.
Sasuke lay in the hollowed-out space where Naruto should have been, curled on his side with one arm outstretched, hand pressed flat against the cold, empty sheets. The chill of it seeped into his skin, and he didn’t pull away. He let it settle into his bones, let it sit heavy in the space behind his ribs. It was a familiar ache now, dull and persistent. He’d stayed like that for hours, unmoving, eyes open and unfocused, staring through the ceiling as if it might give him something—answers, distraction, anything at all.
But the ceiling gave nothing back. Just the same blank white silence it had the morning before. And the one before that.
He wasn’t sure he’d slept. Maybe he had. Maybe he hadn’t. It didn’t matter. The difference had long since stopped feeling important. Rest was mechanical these days—a ghost of a need, just like eating, just like breathing. He did it out of habit. Survival. Nothing more.
The house was still dark. Outside, the faintest thread of dawn bled into the horizon, painting the world in shades of grey. Light filtered in softly through the paper-paneled windows, a fragile, wintery glow that failed to warm the room.
Inside, the air clung to the walls like fog. Still. Cold.
Naruto used to wake first.
The thought landed hard, sudden and leaden, like a rock thrown into still water. No ripples followed. Just the weight of it, dragging everything down.
Naruto would’ve already been up by now—stretching on the porch with a sleepy groan, rubbing the heel of his hand into his eye, hair sticking up in all directions. He would’ve yawned through a greeting, voice hoarse and soft with sleep, and Sasuke would have pretended to be annoyed by it. But he never was. Not really.
There would’ve been the sound of his bare feet slapping against the kitchen floor, the scratch of cabinet doors, the clatter of dishes as he fumbled around, humming some stupid melody that didn’t have a tune. Always off-key. Always too loud. Always… there.
Now, there was only silence. A silence so complete it rang in Sasuke’s ears, sharp and unforgiving. It wrapped around him like a second skin.
He exhaled, slow and shaky, and even that sounded too loud. The breath caught halfway through, snagging in his throat like it didn’t want to leave.
Eventually, he moved. Forced himself upright. His limbs protested the motion, stiff from lying in the same position for too long. The mattress creaked under him, the sound unnaturally loud in the stillness. He sat on the edge of the bed, hunched over with his elbows braced on his knees, head bowed, fingers tangled in his hair like he was trying to hold himself together. Like if he let go, he might come apart.
His hands drifted, almost without thinking, to the back of his neck. To the base of his skull.
His scent gland throbbed faintly beneath the skin—once a warm, anchoring presence. Naruto’s mark had been there. Had meant something. It used to ground him, tether him. Now, it just felt like scar tissue. Cold. Numb. Useless.
Like it belonged to someone else.
Thirty-nine days.
It had been thirty-nine days since Naruto left for the mission.
Thirty-nine mornings waking up to this same empty bed, to silence, to cold sheets and a hollow in the mattress that never lost his shape.
Thirty-nine nights without warmth beside him. Without that quiet, steady breathing. Without the way Naruto would shift in his sleep and reach for him unconsciously, like it was instinct. Like Sasuke was something worth holding onto.
He had stopped crossing off the days on the calendar. It felt pointless. Like waiting was some kind of act of faith, and faith had always come hard for Sasuke.
He didn’t know if Naruto would come back. Not really. Not this time.
But gods—he wanted him to.
❦❧ ❀ ❧❦
The sound of soft breathing echoed from the other room.
Sasuke held his own breath and listened to it—
really
listened. Arashi, asleep in her crib. Her tiny lungs filled and emptied the air in delicate, rhythmic sighs. Fragile. Inconveniently hopeful. A sound that whispered of life continuing even when the world felt like it had stopped.
It should have brought comfort.
Instead, it hollowed him out.
His other child wasn’t so quiet.
From somewhere down the hall came the muffled, restless thuds of footsteps.
Menma. Awake again. Pacing, probably. Kicking the walls. Sasuke didn’t move right away. He stared at the floor, watching how the morning light crept across the tatami in long, narrow lines—thin and ghostlike, like everything else in the house now.
His stomach clenched tight. A dull hunger gnawed at the edge of him, but it was hard to tell whether it was from not eating or something deeper—something darker. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. The thought of swallowing anything made his throat close up. Still, he knew he had to make something.
Because that’s what Naruto would’ve done.
That’s what Naruto would’ve said.
“They still need you, you know.”
The memory struck like a slap.
Naruto’s voice—so clear, so full of quiet insistence—echoed in his head without mercy. It came from a thousand moments ago, from a hundred quiet mornings and soft touches and lingering gazes. It came now as a ghost, uninvited and too real.
Sasuke rose stiffly. His feet hit the floor with a soft thud. Cold. Bare.
He pulled his robe tighter around himself and moved toward the kitchen, his body acting on muscle memory alone. Every movement was mechanical. Performed. Like playing a role he never auditioned for.
Kitchen.
Rice cooker.
Stove.
Miso paste. Fish. Tea.
He moved through it like a shadow of himself, slicing vegetables with empty precision. The blade whispered through the carrots. Steam curled from the pot. Everything smelled faintly of salt and bitterness.
His hands shook a little when he thought of Naruto again—bright-eyed, always barefoot in the kitchen, poking around with too much noise and not enough grace.
“You’re so serious in the mornings, Sasuke.”
That voice again.
Too real. Too loud in his head.
Sasuke’s grip faltered. The knife slipped. A flash of pain—then a bead of blood welled up on his finger, dark and round like an accusation.
He stared at it, disconnected. It didn’t even hurt, not really. Just another red thing in a world that kept bleeding.
Behind him, the door slammed.
Hard.
“I’m not eating this.”
Menma’s voice—sharp, hostile—knifed through the kitchen like a thrown kunai.
Sasuke’s eyes shut for a moment. His breath went still.
When he turned, Menma stood in the doorway, arms crossed tight, his whole posture screaming defiance. But Sasuke saw more than the anger—he saw the way his son’s jaw trembled. The way his fists curled too tightly. The thin sheen of tears that clung stubbornly to the corners of his eyes.
Naruto’s eyes.
Naruto’s stubborn scowl.
“If Dad was here,” Menma spat, voice cracking like a breaking bone, “things wouldn’t be this pathetic.”
Sasuke’s jaw tensed. He looked at his son and felt the weight of the words slam into him like a punch to the chest.
He didn’t argue. Didn’t defend himself.
He set the knife down carefully, slowly, like it might explode if he moved too fast. His fingers curled slightly against the counter.
“Sit down,” he said, his voice low and flat.
Menma didn’t move. His face twisted tighter. Anger or grief—Sasuke couldn’t tell anymore.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Eat anyway.”
“I said I’m not—”
“
Menma
.”
It came out sharper than he meant.
The silence that followed was instant and awful. Heavy. Shivering on the edge of something dangerous.
Menma flinched, barely.
His throat bobbed. His mouth opened like he might yell something else—but then he shut it again.
And turned on his heel.
The door slammed.
Louder this time. The walls shuddered with the force of it.
Sasuke didn’t move.
His shoulders dropped slowly, like something was draining out of him. He leaned one hand on the edge of the counter, the other pressed briefly to his forehead. His breath came shallow now, chest drawn tight like a vice.
He turned his gaze to the table. Two bowls sat untouched. Steam rising quietly from one, already beginning to fade.
If Naruto had been here—
If Naruto had said something,
been
something—
Maybe none of this would have—
No.
He pressed his fingers against his temple hard enough to ache.
No more
what ifs
.
No more ghosts.
This was his job now.
This was his life now.
Outside, the sun crawled higher over the rooftops of Konoha, stretching pale gold light across the village—so gentle, so indifferent.
Inside, Sasuke stood alone in the kitchen, unmoving.
His back to the door.
His eyes on the tea.
Growing colder by the second.
❦❧ ❀ ❧❦
The baby monitor crackled in the other room, a faint burst of static rising and falling like a second heartbeat in the quiet house. Then came a soft, hiccupped breath—Arashi turning in her sleep, the gentle sound barely loud enough to register, yet it landed in Sasuke’s chest like a pebble dropped into still water.
He didn’t move at first. Just stood there, eyes fixed on nothing in particular, his body still except for the slow clench of his jaw. Then, as if pulled by some invisible string, his hand drifted down to his stomach, slipping beneath the edge of his robe. His palm pressed flat against the skin, where heat and pain seemed to coil together in tight knots.
Another cramp gripped him—sharper this time. It twisted through his core, forcing the breath from his lungs in a quiet exhale. He closed his eyes for a second and forced the air out through his nose, steady, controlled.
Not now.
The thought had weight to it, iron-heavy. He couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not yet. Not while the baby still slept in the next room. Not while the house remained whole in its fragile stillness.
He moved to the kitchen window and rested his palms on the cold countertop, the chilled stone anchoring him as he stared out into the thinning fog of early morning. His reflection hovered on the glass—faint, fractured by condensation. His hair stuck up in uneven tufts, darker than the gray-pale light outside. His face had gone gaunt, the angles too sharp, the skin around his eyes a bruised sort of hollow. He looked less like a man and more like a memory of one.
Like a ghost,
he thought.
Like someone waiting to disappear.
He didn’t know how long he stood there. The light kept shifting, softening, bleaching the sky outside into something washed-out and empty. A breeze stirred through a crack in the window frame, brushing his wrist like a breath.
You’re not dead.
The words came up from somewhere deep, crawling up his throat, pushing between clenched teeth like a prayer, or maybe a plea.
You’re not dead, Naruto.
But the silence didn’t answer him. The kitchen walls held no comfort. The words dropped flat into the air like stones, heavy and untrue. He could still smell the faint trace of ramen broth clinging to a forgotten bowl in the sink. Could still feel the ghost of laughter in the corners of the room, echoes of a voice that used to fill this space like sunlight.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
He could not afford to fall apart.
Not now.
Not yet.
The walk to the Hokage’s tower felt longer today.
Or maybe Sasuke was just slower.
His sandals scraped softly against the stone streets of Konoha, each step a quiet betrayal of muscle memory. His body moved forward on autopilot, but his mind lagged somewhere far behind—caught in the haze of last week, or maybe the week before. Time blurred now, pulled thin and brittle at the edges.
The village bustled around him, unaware.
Unchanged.
Vendors lifted crate lids and arranged vegetables in neat rows. Colorful cloth banners flapped overhead in the breeze. Children shrieked laughter as they dashed through alleyways, their voices light and sharp like birdsong. Above him, shinobi patrols vaulted between rooftops, their movements precise, effortless.
The air smelled of fresh rice, wet grass, and the faint smoke of early cooking fires. Morning dew still clung to the stone underfoot.
It all felt... offensive.
That the village could look so normal. So alive.
While his world bled out quietly beneath his feet.
As he walked, Sasuke noticed the way people’s eyes flicked toward him—then quickly away.
Some gave polite, shallow nods.
Some looked through him like he wasn’t there.
A few whispered behind cupped hands, voices low but heavy with that sickening, syrupy pity. He didn’t need to hear the words to understand them.
That’s him.
Uchiha Sasuke.
The one left behind.
The whispers didn’t need volume anymore.
The silence was enough.
Sasuke kept his gaze forward, sharp and blank. His shoulders were squared, posture perfect—as if sheer discipline could hold the grief inside, keep it from leaking through his skin. His body had long since defaulted to a battle stance. Stoicism molded into armor, fused with bone.
But inside, he was unraveling.
His stomach twisted again. A low, sharp cramp that pulled deep into his abdomen, more persistent now. More telling.
He reached the Hokage’s tower and stood at the base of the stone steps for a moment. His eyes were half-lidded, expression unreadable, his pulse loud in his ears. The building loomed above him, casting long shadows across the courtyard. Once, the tower had meant something: structure, command, clarity.
Now, it looked like a tomb.
His hand hovered near his stomach, just for a second—fingers twitching toward the place where the pain bloomed. He caught himself, forced it down to his side again. His robe rustled faintly in the breeze.
He still hadn’t told anyone.
Not about the nausea.
Not about the soreness in his chest, or the strange, persistent fatigue that clung to him like a second skin.
Not about the subtle shifts in his chakra—too faint to define, but constant, like something beneath the surface had started moving without his permission.
He kept telling himself it was just stress.
Grief.
Sleep deprivation.
But deep down, something didn’t feel right.
And he didn’t know what scared him more—
That it might be nothing.
Or that it might be
something
.
He inhaled slowly, his throat tight.
Then he climbed the steps.
Inside, the tower was cooler. Still.
It smelled of old paper, fresh ink, and polish that couldn’t quite erase the scent of history. At the front desk, a grey-eyed shinobi looked up. Her hands were ink-stained. Her eyes were too tired to be surprised.
She didn’t ask his name.
She didn’t say
hello
.
She just gave a tight nod and flicked her gaze toward the office doors.
They all knew why he was here.
He didn’t need appointments anymore.
The waiting room was empty. It always was.
Sasuke moved to the third chair from the left—his chair. The one against the back wall, where nothing could sneak up behind him. He sat with precision: knees bent at exact angles, back straight, fingers laced tightly in his lap. His knuckles turned white from the pressure.
He stared at the floor and let the silence stretch around him.
Minutes passed. Or hours. Or maybe neither.
He measured the time by breath.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
Again.
And again.
His mind spun, caught in a spiral of thought he couldn’t silence.
It had been thirty-nine days.
Thirty-nine days since Naruto had left for the border mission.
Thirty-nine days since Sasuke had last felt the warmth of him in bed, the press of a kiss at the back of his neck, the sound of his laughter echoing off the kitchen tiles.
Thirty-nine days since Naruto had leaned over Arashi’s crib, brushed a kiss against her tiny forehead, and whispered:
"Be good for Papa. I’ll be back before you learn to walk."
Sasuke’s eyes squeezed shut.
His throat burned. His chest ached with a pressure that had nothing to do with his lungs. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, held it there, swallowed hard. No sound. Not here. Not now.
The door creaked open.
“Sasuke.”
Kakashi’s voice was low, but it struck like a kunai. Precise. Inevitable.
Sasuke rose, every movement sharp-edged and deliberate. He followed Kakashi without a word, his steps silent as they crossed the threshold into the Hokage’s office.
Inside, the light was worse.
Sunlight spilled through tall windows, warm and merciless, illuminating every detail. Scrolls scattered across the desk. A stack of untouched mission reports. A cooling cup of tea, forgotten. Sasuke’s eyes flicked once to the edge of the desk.
A death certificate form.
Blank, except for the red ink already bleeding across the top.
His stomach turned violently.
Kakashi gestured toward the chair in front of him. Sasuke didn’t sit.
“I’m here for an update,” he said flatly. His voice felt brittle in his throat, too thin, ready to shatter.
Kakashi exhaled slowly, rubbing the bridge of his nose under the mask. His single eye had softened with something like grief. Or guilt.
“Sasuke… there’s no new information.”
Silence hit like a slap.
Sasuke’s fingers curled at his sides. His shoulders twitched—barely.
“No new information?”
The question came out low. Controlled.
Too controlled.
“We’ve expanded the search grid. Border patrols have checked every known checkpoint, every unmarked trail. We’ve sent out chakra tracers, contacted every sensory unit from the Five Nations. There’s... nothing.”
Sasuke’s jaw locked so hard it made his temple pulse.
“There is something,” he muttered, more to himself than to Kakashi. “I can still feel him.”
Kakashi’s hands folded calmly in front of him.
“Sasuke—”
“I’m
bonded
to him.”
Now the sharpness came back. Steel in his voice.
“I would
know
if he were dead. He isn’t.”
Kakashi didn’t argue. His eye dropped slightly, gaze settling on the desk between them.
“I believe you,” he said, so softly it barely registered. “But it’s been—”
“Don’t say the number.”
Sasuke’s voice trembled, just once.
“Don’t reduce him to a
number
.”
The quiet that followed was a living thing.
It pressed in, heavy and suffocating.
Kakashi’s mask shifted with another sigh.
“You’re exhausted,” he murmured. “You’re raising two children alone. You’re not sleeping. And now…”
“Don’t.”
Sasuke’s tone cut clean through the sentence.
His hands trembled.
His stomach twisted sharply again, a deeper cramp this time. He masked it with a shift of weight, subtle and practiced. His face remained unreadable.
He would
not
break here.
Not in front of Kakashi.
Not in this place.
“We haven’t given up,” Kakashi said. “I swear it. We’re still looking.”
Sasuke stared at him, eyes burning dry.
He hadn’t cried.
He wouldn’t.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he said instead. The words felt splintered on his tongue.
Kakashi’s shoulders dropped.
“Sasuke…”
“I said I’ll come back tomorrow.”
He turned and left before Kakashi could say anything else.
The hallway stretched around him like a tunnel. His footsteps rang too loudly on the floorboards, like they didn’t belong to him. The air was too thick. The walls too close.
Halfway down the corridor, his stomach cramped again—sudden, sharp. He stumbled. One hand flew to his abdomen, pressing flat beneath his robe. His fingers were cold.
The medic-nin at the desk looked up, startled. Her mouth parted—about to speak.
She didn’t.
Sasuke didn’t stop.
❦❧ ❀ ❧❦
He walked out of the tower, eyes fixed on the horizon, his heart thudding in his chest.
The world outside was too bright.
Too normal.
Children’s laughter echoed from somewhere in the distance. The marketplace buzzed with chatter and the rustle of cloth as vendors adjusted banners in the summer breeze. Above, the banners flapped gently—carefree, like nothing was wrong.
The world kept turning.
Naruto was still gone.
By the time Sasuke made it back home, the sky had faded into a dull, gray haze—the kind Konoha wore like a second skin before the rain. His footsteps dragged up the front steps, slower than usual. His limbs felt heavy. Wrong. His body moved like it belonged to someone else.
A low pulse throbbed behind his eyes. His temples ached. There was a strange fog under his skin, thick and muffling, like he was trying to walk underwater.
When he stepped inside, the house met him with silence.
Menma was still gone for the day. Arashi was napping. The walls pressed in on him, too still, too clean, echoing with everything left unsaid.
He slid the door closed behind him. The soft click of it locking sounded louder than it should have.
He didn’t move for a moment. Just stood in the entryway, eyes unfocused, his sandals still on. A sharp wave of nausea curled up from his gut, but he swallowed it back, jaw tight.
His cloak slipped from his shoulders and pooled on the floor. His fingers moved stiffly, undoing the sash at his waist and hanging it on the hook by the door, like always. Like routine could save him.
His feet led him to the bathroom before he consciously made the choice.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Inside, dim light filtered through the high window, casting long shadows across the tile. Sasuke braced his hands against the sink, his fingers pale against the porcelain. He stared at his reflection.
He didn’t recognize it.
Dark circles painted the skin beneath his eyes. His face had grown sharper, almost hollow. His hair clung to his cheeks, unwashed, uneven. His lips were cracked, the corners raw from biting. Even his scent was off—stale, muted, like something wilting.
He blinked once.
Twice.
You look like a corpse.
The thought passed through him, cold and detached.
Then the cramp hit.
Sudden. Deep. Like a muscle pulled wrong—but worse. It twisted in his gut, sharp and nauseating. He doubled over before he could stop it. His knees struck the tile hard, pain radiating up his shins.
Then came the bile.
Hot. Bitter. Burning up his throat. His body convulsed once, then again. He gripped the cold tile floor, knuckles tight, stomach heaving until there was nothing left to bring up.
He stayed there for a while.
Kneeling. Trembling.
Forehead resting against the rim of the toilet.
His breath shallow. His chest shaking with the effort of holding himself together.
The air reeked of sickness.
His muscles refused to move. His hands felt distant, his pulse thudding through his palms as though his body no longer belonged to him.
Eventually, the nausea ebbed.
Sasuke leaned back against the wall. The tile was cold against his spine. He let his head fall back, eyes drifting shut. He exhaled slowly, jaw tight, throat raw.
His hand drifted down without thinking—fingers brushing lightly over his stomach.
There was a tightness there.
Not pain, exactly. Not a bruise. Just... off. A faint, unfamiliar pressure. His brows knit, his lips pressing into a thin, pale line. It hadn’t been there before—not like this.
He told himself it was stress.
Exhaustion.
Too many skipped meals. Too little sleep.
It had to be.
He’d been working himself to the bone, barely eating, barely resting. That had to explain the fatigue. The cramping. The nausea.
It wasn’t anything else. It couldn’t be.
He shook the thought away, angry at himself for even hesitating. His hand dropped back to his lap.
In the next room, Arashi’s soft breathing crackled through the baby monitor, steady and quiet.
Sasuke closed his eyes. His heart gave a painful twist.
He’d already failed today—burned breakfast, sent Menma off to school late, left the kitchen a mess, unable to look at the empty chair across from him without his throat closing up.
And now this.
Another weakness. Another reason his body felt wrong.
Another failure.
The corners of his vision dimmed slightly. The world tilted just enough to make him feel like he was falling, even while sitting still.
He hated this.
The not knowing. The silence.
The way his own body betrayed him while Naruto was still—
Still gone.
A quiet sound escaped his throat. Not a sob. Not quite.
Too fragile. Too sharp.
His eyes stung, but the tears didn’t come.
The clock ticked somewhere down the hallway.
Sasuke stayed curled against the wall until his legs went numb. The ache in his stomach pulsed again—low, steady, like something asking to be noticed.
But he refused to give it weight.
Refused to let his mind wander down that path.
Not now.
Not alone.
He swallowed hard. And then, barely louder than a breath, he whispered:
“Come home.”
But the silence was all that answered.