Chapter Text
“Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
W.B Yeats
Salvation did not come easy to the damned. Damnation was isolation. It was going down a path of no return. It was solitude and darkness, it was your fingers threading through the vestiges of all the hope that was ripped away from you, it was a heart that hardened under the weight of all it lost until it forgot, one day, that it was meant to feel at all. It did not matter if you were damned from the start, or if you damned yourself, the one truth remained this; once you were damned, the light of salvation shone on a different path than the one you trod.
Salvation was not supposed to find Sasuke. Oftentimes, Sasuke found himself wishing it hadn’t.
And yet it always waited; in the form of a boy with a gentle heart and desperate words. In a boy who waited for him around every corner, every bend in the road, in every crevice. Even in the unwanted sanctuary of his dreams.
Salvation found Sasuke the same way sleep did; in an unrelenting chase that ended in a gentle embrace. It waited until Sasuke’s damned heart managed to grow feeling again. It waited until it heaved and buckled against misery and loss. It waited and still continued waiting.
Sasuke thought he was ready—for a brief moment, he really believed he was ready. He stood in the valley where it all began and where it all ended and he prepared to end but found himself beginning instead. He stood there and he held out a hand—the one he had left—and joined it with someone he didn’t deserve. And for a brief moment he allowed himself to wonder if one day he could allow himself to earn if he didn’t deserve.
But now?
Now he didn’t know anymore.
“You’re restless.”
Sasuke was sitting in the woods. There was dirt and grass dirtying his pants, and cuts from training dirtying his knuckles—no, knuckle. Singular, he reminded himself.
Itachi was seated across from him, leaned languidly against a tree.
He appeared to him younger. He always did. He was thirteen maybe, the age he was before it all fell apart. But even at that age; even four years younger than what Sasuke was now, he was without a doubt his older brother.
“I once saw a bird fly free from a broken cage,” He continued when Sasuke didn’t answer. “There was a little boy, and the cage he held fell and the lid popped open; the lock broke. I saw as the bird flew across the sky, until it settled in a nest one day. Right above our house. Everyday I saw it and everyday I caught when it looked back and it felt like it was looking in the direction of the cage, wings poised still, as if to return. I remember thinking it was restless.”
Sasuke rubbed his thumb along a cut on his knuckle. It didn’t sting. Itachi was silent now, and as much as Sasuke tried, he never quite learned how to be quiet when he had his brother’s attention on him. He never learned not to bask in it, even when he thought he hated him.
“You didn’t see that.” He answered after a moment. He remembered the bird. It had a purple beak. It’s what made Sasuke notice it in their courtyard, tucked into the branch of a tree. He looked up, finally meeting eyes with his brother. “I can imagine you, but I can’t remember your memories for you. Everything you talk about is what I saw.”
“All the better,” Itachi replied. “That means you understand.”
Sasuke tugged on blades of grass until they broke free from the soil. He clenched his hands around them. “Understand what?” He said, notes of bitterness entering his voice. “That I’m the bird? That I don’t belong here?”
Itachi hummed thoughtfully. “Did the bird belong in the cage then?”
“Maybe it did,” Sasuke answered. “It broke, didn’t it?”
“Is a broken cage not still a cage?”
“No. What kind of cage has an opening? It is nothing more than a house with a door.”
“A house, perhaps.” Itachi said. “But not a home.”
Sasuke grit his teeth, moving to lift his left hand to his face before he stilled—with a little frustration, he let go of the grass and moved to press his right hand over his face. This was one thing they did not tell you about losing an arm; one hand was not enough to cover your face. Not enough pressure to put on the sockets of your eyes to ward away an oncoming headache.
“What do you want me to say?” Sasuke replied finally, frustrated. “That there is no home for me here either?”
Itachi just looked at him for a long moment. His brother’s gaze was always heavy. Always far wizened beyond his age. It had Sasuke holding his breath now just as it had nearly ten years ago. But Itachi should know—Itachi of all people should know. Their home burned to the ground ten years ago. Only its wreckage remained now, haunting the winds of Konoha.
“Then why don’t you leave?” Itachi asked. “If there is no home for you here then why are you restless?”
Sasuke swallowed, unable to reply. How could he explain that he had tried? He had tried many times. He’d packed his things in a bag and thought of an excuse—he had the world to see. He had new things to understand. He had to repent. Anything he said, he was sure they would understand. Understanding was a sharp undercurrent that lulled through every interaction he had with the people remaining in this world who spoke of caring and him in the same sentence.
But the bag remained, stashed in his wardrobe.
“I don’t have a reason.” He settled on.
Itachi tilted his head, thoughtful, and blatantly seeing right through him. His gaze drifted somewhere behind Sasuke, eyes settling on something.
“Then what is he?”
And then there was a hand on Sasuke’s shoulder and there he was, because of course. Of course he was there. He was always there.
Sasuke did not need to turn—frankly he did not want to turn. Didn’t want to meet the anxiousness that settled inside those blue eyes like a phantom these days. The eyes that paused on him for a moment too long like he might disappear.
He didn’t want to turn, but it wasn’t a simple matter of want, but a matter of gravity when Naruto was involved.
At the first glimpse of yellow however, Sasuke raised his right hand and dug it in his own shoulder, squeezing his eyes as he dug harder and harder until he was jerking awake in his room with a thin trail of blood leaking through from his shoulder.
He breathed hard, blinking away images of yellow and blue. Blinking away the feeling of the warmth of a hand.
It was cowardly—he knew that. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t meet Naruto’s eyes in his dreams as well as in wakefulness. He couldn’t handle the suffocating pressure weighing against his ribs, heavy and unmoving.
Slivers of moonlight cascaded through the curtains and onto the bed where he lay in his room from when he was thirteen. Different now after the village was rebuilt. A room that remained a remnant of what it once was, trying desperately to become what it wasn’t.
Like Sasuke. Unfamiliar in a familiar place.
The slivers lighted upon the lump where Sasuke’s left arm would’ve been.
He raised his right hand to his face again and lamented over the way the pressure against his sockets would never be enough.
Sasuke scraped the edge of his spoon against the inside of his ramen bowl.
He didn’t know what he was doing here. The smells from the cooking ramen and meat were too strong, the noise of the night too loud, Sakura was to his one side, Ino next to her, and Naruto was on the other, Shikamaru and Choji farther beside him.
They were all talking, their overlapping voices loud. Sasuke couldn’t focus long enough to make out about what.
It had been a few minutes since Naruto had tried to include him in the conversation with a “Sasuke would hate that, wouldn’t you?” and Sasuke had promptly brought the mood down with a half hearted and delayed, “I guess.” Obvious as day that he hadn’t been listening, and evidently not convincing by the awkward expression that flitted through Choji’s face. Until Ino spoke over him loudly enough to subvert the mood once again.
He had looked away from Naruto’s lingering gaze then and hadn’t been able to look back since.
He opted instead to turn to Sakura and Ino. They were entrenched in a conversation of their own now. Sakura was grinning and Ino rolling her eyes at something she said, her hand reaching out absently to tuck a lock of Sakura’s hair behind her ear. Sasuke noticed how Sakura stilled for a breath.
Ino looked up then, suddenly. Her eyes on a clock inside the shop. “Oh god, it’s already nine!” She exclaimed, loudly enough to catch everyone’s attention as she got to her feet. “I have to go.”
Sakura blinked, a little dazed as she looked up at her. “Where?”
“Ino’s got a date with Sai.” Choji chimed in from the other side and Ino flushed a dark red.
“I do not!” She argued. At the same time Naruto exclaimed: “With Sai?”
Ino batted them all away. “We’re going on a mission together soon, so we’re just going to discuss that.”
“Sure,” Choji snickered. “Like you didn’t pester him for this date or anything.”
Ino glared at Choji walking over to him just to smack him in the back of his head. “He asked me. And just for that you’re paying for my half of dinner.”
Choji gaped at her as she walked away. Shikamaru just shrugged when he turned a complaining gaze at him. “Don’t look at me. You brought this upon yourself, man.”
Naruto exhaled. “Wow,” He said, a little dazed. “Ino and Sai, huh? I didn’t know those two were like that.”
But Sasuke was still looking at Sakura, and the way she’d remained silent. Her gaze was shuttered. Before he could think to say anything—if he would even say anything at all, Naruto was turning to her with a: “Did you know, Sakura-chan?”
Sakura’s face cleared up in the space of a second, fast enough for Sasuke to blink in surprise. She rolled her eyes lightheartedly at Naruto. “Some of us aren’t blind, Naruto.”
Naruto pursed his lips thoughtfully, looking as if he was going to say something, but then the conversation topic petered out when Shikamaru said something and Naruto’s attention turned back to him.
“He’s so dense, sometimes,” Sakura said then, lightly enough that Sasuke jolted a little when he realized she was addressing him. She had to be, he was the only one within hearing range. “Isn’t he?”
Sasuke swallowed, following Sakura’s fond gaze to where Naruto was grinning at something Shikamaru said. The little light hanging overhead in the shop glinted off of his headband, obscuring the color of his eyes in its glare.
Dense was not a way he could bring himself to describe Naruto. He felt—too seen. Too noticed. Like he had to look away from the sincerity in his eyes to hide what he was thinking, but even then Naruto managed to somehow know.
“Right,” He said, clearing his throat instead, because he couldn’t say any of that.
There was a brief silence between them then. A silence that had become common in most of Sasuke’s conversations in Konoha ever since he’d returned. A silence where no one knew what to say because how did you speak to someone who doesn’t belong? He couldn’t figure out if this entire thing was just a welcome he was overstaying—and he felt as if no one else could figure it out either. Both sides waiting—dreading—for when the other moved.
“Hey, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura began then, hesitantly. She was looking at him with worry—another expression that was common in relation to him now, at least with the three people within team seven. He couldn’t remember the last time they didn’t look at him with barely concealed worry. With care and understanding.
Sasuke didn’t know how they could begin to understand him when he didn’t understand himself. It made his insides feel as if they were squirming; like Orochimaru’s snakes had festered inside him and replaced his organs.
“You—” She hesitated again, and Sasuke already knew he wouldn’t like what she would say. “Have you been sleeping?”
Sasuke blinked, taken a little aback. The same words from a different time played in his head, words spoken with more disdain than warmth.
“It’s just that, you look—” Sakura continued, biting her lip. “You look really tired these days. There’s dark circles under your eyes—”
“I’m fine.” Sasuke answered, cutting her off and immediately regretting it when her mouth snapped shut. He didn’t mean for it to come out like a reprimand. But he didn’t know how to take it back.
He never did. So he just let himself drift into silence. If he didn’t say anything maybe he wouldn’t say the wrong thing.
“Right! Yeah, I know that.” Sakura said hurriedly, falsely bright now, and Sasuke felt a pang in his chest that he didn’t know what to do with. “I just mean insomnia isn’t unusual, if you want I can give you a sleeping pill, or something to help.”
And with those words Sasuke was truly thirteen again, with pills being held out to him in a scaly hand as he eventually reached out and took them. He was fourteen, and fifteen, and sixteen and he was reaching beside him every night to shake out a new pill before swallowing it dry. Shaking them out every night until eventually they stopped working and the images of a kind boy and a place he could once call home began haunting him anew.
“No,” He managed. “I don’t need them.”
Sakura looked away. “Right. No pressure.”
A blessing came to Sasuke then as he debated on how to take his leave and retreat to the unfamiliar familiarity of his room when Shikamaru yawned loudly. “It’s getting late.” He said, bringing up a hand to cover his mouth halfway. “I have a long day tomorrow so I’ll head back now.”
Naruto shuffled to his feet easily. “Yeah, sure, I’m pretty tired now too. Let’s call it a night then.”
They all got up, settling their bills and Naruto calling out a goodbye to the old man at Ichirakus before they headed out in the directions of their houses.
Naruto, Sasuke, and Choji walked in the same direction for a bit, Shikamaru and Sakura going the other way, Sakura placing a gentle hand on Sasuke’s back with a ‘Good night, Sasuke-kun.’
Sasuke walked in silence, trailing his eyes along the well worn path and side stepping villagers as Naruto and Choji talked until Choji’s path diverged and he left with a wave and a goodbye.
And then it was just Naruto and Sasuke.
“You’re not getting sick of Ichiraku right?” Naruto asked after a moment of companionable silence—because it was only ever companionable with Naruto no matter how heavy the unsaid words in Sasuke’s mouth felt. “You were pushing your food around a lot instead of eating.”
“No,” Sasuke replied, unsurprised that Naruto had noticed. “It’s good.”
“Good,” Naruto replied easily, smiling at him and Sasuke found he couldn’t look away even though he wanted to. “Because I’m gonna drag you there for the rest of our lives so you don’t really have a choice.”
Sasuke tried not to feel like the words were as freeing as they felt like they were suffocating him. Damnation and Salvation, he thought, then immediately felt guilty. He opted not to say anything at all. He didn’t have to, anyway, Naruto always managed to fill in the space enough for the two of them.
“Kakashi-sensei’s sending me, Sakura-chan and Yamato-sensei on this mission in a few days,” Naruto was saying. “It’s to Kumogakure, so I'm excited to meet Octopops again, it’s been a while. And maybe even the old man Raikage, I guess, Octopops always says he’s not that bad once you get to know him but I’m not fully convinced just yet. And you know, Kurama will get to meet Gyuki again too, so that’s great.” He paused then, frowning at the sky. “Kurama just told me to shut up.”
Sasuke tried not to feel like his skin was itching. It wasn’t the first time Sakura and Naruto had been sent on a mission. It had been nearly five months since the war ended, even Sasuke had been sent out on a mission or two though they were far more nondescript and far closer to Konoha.
But regardless, it always had Sasuke feeling a little on edge. Added to the fact of how long this mission seemed to be.
He didn’t know what to do with himself in this situation.
“When—” He managed, and Naruto immediately stopped speaking, giving him his full attention. Sasuke swallowed. “When are you leaving?”
“Oh, er, 2 days I think.” Naruto answered. “I think we’ll be back in around 2 weeks.”
“Right.” Sasuke said, voice heavy.
Naruto was silent for a moment. Then: “I still think it’s bullshit that Kakashi-sensei can’t send the three of us out on a mission together.”
Sasuke closed his eyes. Naruto could really always see through him.
“It’s smart.” He said instead. “It doesn’t send a positive message if they send three powerful shinobis on one mission if not as a threat. It could threaten peace. Especially so close after the war.”
“Well, just because he has a point doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Naruto pouted petulantly. He pushed Sasuke’s shoulder with his own. Mirroring images of arms that ended above their chests and dangling sleeves. “Why’d you have to go and get so strong anyway, I was so looking forward to it just being us team seven again just like the good old days.”
Good old days, Sasuke thought briefly. His gaze settled upon where Naruto’s arm used to be, looking away before he noticed.
“Maybe if you didn’t get stronger we could’ve gone.” He argued back instead.
“I was born strong so think about that.”
“Right.” Sasuke scoffed. “That’s why you failed the academy graduation test thrice.”
Both of them blatantly ignored the elephant in the room. Their reasons for strength. That if either of them weren’t exactly the people they’d become now they wouldn’t even be standing here.
That Sasuke wouldn’t have returned and Naruto would be dead.
Sasuke allowed himself just this one moment to bicker, and to pretend like they weren’t who they were. That there was a world out there where anything they said could’ve been. Just one moment.
And then they were at Sasuke’s apartment and his house was looming over them and they were both standing there, staring at the door as if it were haunted as reality came back to them ebbing in slow tides.
The silence was getting heavier the longer it went.
“Right, I’ll—”
“Are you—”
Sasuke and Naruto both went quiet at the same time, half their sentences stated into the silent night. A pair of siblings ran by them then, hurrying up the stairs rushing to get home as they brushed past Naruto’s legs with a loud ‘Sorry!’. The older girl had the younger boy’s hand in hers and her hair was slipping free from her ponytail, frazzled. The boy just held up his free hand to his face, dried out tear tracks tracing down his cheeks. Sasuke wondered if their parents were worried.
“You go first.” Naruto said then.
Sasuke looked back at him when the kids faded out from view of the staircase and regretted doing so immediately. There was that look in his eyes again. That phantom. Like Sasuke was going to disappear before his eyes.
“I was just saying I’m heading in.” He said. Swallowed. Naruto nodded, and Sasuke lost the will. He didn’t ask Naruto the same, didn’t ask him to continue what he was saying when they interrupted one another because it was getting all too much now. He had to get away from that look. “Right. Well,” He said, turning away and heading to the staircase. “Night.”
Naruto’s small, “I’ll see you.” Followed him in as he hurried to head into his house before Naruto could stop him.
That night Sasuke lay in bed and saw Naruto far sooner than Naruto had intended; just as he did every night. He shook himself awake once again and lamented over the pills he told Sakura not to give him.
Sasuke was seated on a stretch of land where the Uchiha clan used to exist when one of Kakashi’s dogs found him.
The land before him was crumbling and left to ruins after the encounter with Pain when all of Konoha was destroyed. Never repurposed, untouched. The streets where Sasuke used to walk, where his family used to walk, where the people he loved used to walk, sitting beneath rubble as if people were too hesitant to touch it. Like their ghosts still lived here and they’d depart if they moved things around too much.
But their souls had long since departed. Sasuke of all people knew that.
“The Hokage’s calling you, boy.” The dog said when he found Sasuke. If he had anything to say about Sasuke seated in the wreckage of the place that was once his home he didn’t show it. Sasuke simply got to his feet, blinking slowly as he let his eyes drift away from the ruins.
“In his office?” He asked and the dog simply nodded, regarding him for a heavy moment before he finally disappeared in a puff of smoke.
As Sasuke walked back from the ruins to the main part of the village, he noticed the sun was near setting in the sky. He’d been in the district for nearly the entire day since Naruto and Sakura left in the morning and he began feeling restless within his childhood bedroom once more.
He hoped that perhaps Kakashi was calling him to assign a mission. That maybe he’d be told to leave the grounds of the village—let him leave without accusing him of having left. Maybe that would be easier.
Though he couldn’t blame him for the lack of missions his way either. He wouldn’t trust a defector either. Wouldn’t trust an outsider.
Someone was leaving Kakashi’s office when he was getting there. Sasuke paused where he stood, waiting them out so he wouldn’t have to make whoever it was suffer through an awkward encounter once they noticed him.
The coast now clear he made his way there, walking into the room with a knock.
“Ah, Sasuke. There you are.” Kakashi said once he saw him from where he sat behind the desk. “Bisuke’s been looking for you for a while.”
It took Sasuke a moment to realize that was the name of the dog who came to find him.
Kakashi waved him over, beckoning him closer. “I have a job for you,” He said, but before Sasuke could wonder if he’d be sent out, he held out a stack of papers to him. “Shikamaru’s out on a mission at the moment and I don’t trust anyone else’s eyes on this. No one said being Hokage would swamp me so much. Look over these documents from Kirigakure for me, would you?”
Sasuke stilled in where his outstretched hands were already brushing the edges of the stack.
“They’re a proposal on a new legislation the Mizukage wants the 5 kages to pass, so look for its feasibility. Actually you’ll know what to look for. I went over it once but I want more opinions on it.”
He looked up then, when he realized Sasuke still hadn’t taken the papers from him.
“What is it?” Kakashi asked, shaking the papers once. “Were you busy or something?”
Sasuke finally pulled himself together enough to swallow thickly. He held the papers more reflexively than anything but now that he actually had them in his hands he blinked down at them, taken aback.
“Aren’t these confidential?” He asked haltingly.
Kakashi raised an eyebrow, genuinely a little confused now, and that was what rattled Sasuke more than anything. Even more so when he said. “I did say that right now, yes.” And yet he made no move to take them back.
Sasuke didn’t want to spell it out. But he had to. This—this was. It wasn’t supposed to be in his hands. “And you want—me, to look over them?”
“Yeah?” Kakashi still seemed confused. “You are the smartest of the Jonin level shinobis from Konoha that I trust, after Shikamaru obviously.”
Sasuke blinked. Once. Twice.
“Right.” He said, looking away as fast as he could, nearly fast enough to give him whiplash. He cleared his throat.
“Right,” Kakashi said at length, peering at him still. “Go ahead and sit down on that couch over there. I’ll apologize in advance, it’s gonna take a while.”
It took Sasuke ten minutes of staring at the papers before he actually began registering anything that was written, but his mind wouldn’t stop spinning.
Kakashi hadn’t let him on any important missions ever since he’d returned and he’d thought—rightfully—it was because of trust. He was once a threat. He was once going to destroy Konoha. And Kakashi knew that. But these papers seemed to say otherwise and that didn’t make any sense to Sasuke.
‘Jonin level Konoha shinobi' he said. Like the Konoha headband absent from Sasuke’s forehead wasn’t burning a hole in his pocket. Like it was that simple.
Like Sasuke belonged.
Sasuke blinked rapidly, trying his hardest to dispel that thought before it could take root, managing this time to finally focus on the papers.
A few people came and went in the time he was there, reporting to the Hokage or answering a summons. Sasuke didn’t turn to look—he didn’t know what would meet him. Did they do a double take when they noticed Sasuke there? Or did they not even bat an eye?
Sasuke wasn’t sure what answer he’d prefer—not anymore.
Somewhere between the pages Sasuke had taken a couple papers and a pen from where they lay on a table in front of the couch and began making a report on pointers. He didn’t know how late at night it had gotten until Kakashi got up from his seat behind the main desk, stretching out and settling in on the couch across from Sasuke.
Sasuke looked up then, noticing the clock reading 1 am while Kakashi kicked back and settled his feet on the table with more papers in his hand. Looking up, he followed Sasuke’s gaze to the clock, craning his head behind him to see.
He whistled, low. “Told you it’d take time.” He said. “How far did you make it?”
Sasuke shuffled through the stacks of papers, putting aside the stack of books he’d gotten after getting Kakashi to get someone to bring them in. “I have a few pages left."
“What do you think about it by now?”
Sasuke frowned down at the papers, before flipping through until he reached one and angling it towards Kakashi. Kakashi peered closer, attentive as Sasuke began going over the concerns he noticed.
Kakashi hummed thoughtfully as he explained, nodding along and adding in wherever he disagreed or thought similarly.
It took a good hour for them to finish discussing the details, and then eventually they settled back into the rhythm of continuing with their work, leaning back into their respective places in companionable silence.
Sasuke hadn’t had silence be anything but heavy with anyone but Naruto since he’d returned.
By 3 am Sasuke’s eyes began growing heavy. He’d peered up then. Kakashi was still powering through, scribbling thoughtfully on a paper across from him, and not looking tired at all, so Sasuke couldn’t bring himself to leave without being finished. Not when he’d somehow managed to have been assigned this.
It felt somehow like giving up. It felt like he had something to prove.
It took another hour before Sasuke eventually succumbed and sleep took him in its embrace.
When he woke once again, jerking himself awake as he always did, sunlight was filtering in through the windows of the hokage’s office and a warm blanket was tucked gently around his sleeping figure.
Kakashi was asleep across from him, face tucked into a corner of the couch, and blanketless.
Sasuke finished up his work and returned to his house before he awoke.
They fell into a habit since then.
Kakashi would call Sasuke in and hand him paperwork as he settled into the couch to begin working, until it was once again late into the night.
Shikamaru joined them once he returned. Sasuke had thought Kakashi would stop calling him in once Shikamaru returned from his mission, having enough hands on deck, but for some reason he kept calling him in—perhaps because they got through the work faster, or maybe because he pitied Sasuke. Sasuke never quite had the courage to ask—besides neither Kakashi nor Shikamaru ever bat an eye at his presence in the hokage’s office, beginning to expect him instead.
Sasuke would be lying if he said it didn’t feel good.
Many things from that first night had become a habit, but sleeping there hadn’t become part of the habit, however.
Most times Sasuke returned to his apartment when his eyes grew heavy. Other times the work finished before night fell too deeply and they all managed to leave the office.
Sometimes he slept.
Every time he jerked awake from his dreams.
Every time Kakashi was there when he awoke.
Sasuke shuffled through a stack of papers, handing a few to Shikamaru absently. Shikamaru took them without looking, eyes still on the ones in his hands. He took a moment before his eyes detached from his own work to look at the papers Sasuke handed them, roving over them.
“Why’d you reject this proposal?” Shikamaru asked, pointing at a line Sasuke had underlined.
“Weight it out against the fourth clause. Both at the same time will be too packed.”
Shikamaru hummed, mulling over his words. He scratched the back of a pen against his head. “Right. But what if we restructured the schedule?”
Sasuke frowned, peering at the papers as Shikamaru did. It made sense. “That could work." He mused. “If we change the—”
The door to the hokage’s office burst open, Sasuke’s sentence petering off where he’d been speaking it. All three of the occupants of the room turned to the door at the same time as a woman walked in—she looked familiar to Sasuke. He struggled to place her in his mind, like her name lay just at his fingertips, when Shikamaru spoke up: “Temari?”
Ah, Sasuke realized, the Kazekage’s sister. He remembered her vaguely from the chuunin exams. He looked away before she set her eyes on him.
“Ah, Temari-san,” Kakashi said pleasantly. “How’s your work for this year's chuunin exams going?”
Temari walked in easily, waving his words off. “We’re done with it. Me and Kankuro will be heading back to Suna early tomorrow morning.”
“Already?” Kakashi answered. “Shikamaru will give you a missive to take to the kazekage with you then.”
“Alright.” She said, slanting a glance to Shikamaru then. “Speaking of Shikamaru, I’ll be borrowing your advisor for a bit.”
Kakashi looked amused. Shikamaru put his papers down on the table, confused. Sasuke raised an eyebrow, looking between the three of them.
“For what?” Shikamaru asked.
Temari raised an eyebrow at him. “To feed your malnourished ass.”
“By all means,” Kakashi replied as Shikamaru sputtered. “Go on then, Shikamaru.” And then quieter: “It'll give me a chance to go bother Gai for a minute too.”
“You need to finish your work today.” Shikamaru shot back at him sternly and Kakashi wilted, sighing.
“Get up,” She said, gesturing to Shikamaru. “Kankuro’s already waiting.”
Shikamaru sighed in defeat, rising to his feet. Concluding that the conversation was over, Sasuke turned back to his work, letting his mind drift back to schedules and restructuring.
He didn’t manage to get too far in his thought process because Temari’s voice caught his attention.
“What?” She said, “Your boyfriend’s not coming?”
Sasuke looked up in surprise at the words, wondering who she was referring to, only to find that Temari was looking at him, an eyebrow raised.
Before he could say anything Shikamaru spoke up first: “He’s not my boyfriend,” Shikamaru rolled his eyes, and while he was right, obviously, Sasuke narrowed his eyes at him, sure the emphasis was in all the wrong places in his rebuttal.
Shikamaru turned to him then. “You coming?”
And Sasuke—Sasuke felt slightly at a loss. He couldn’t figure out if it was a genuine invitation or an obligatory one borne out of situational proximity. Neither Temari nor Shikamaru looked particularly enthused. The safest course of action just seemed to reject them.
“I’m—”
“God, enough.” Temari said, walking forward and, to Sasuke’s shock, pulling him up by the arm. Her grip was harsh, and he was surprised enough that he didn’t fight against it. “I can’t deal with your will-they-won’t-they flirting right now, I’m hungry. Get up.”
She let go once he was on his feet and turned to leave, fully expecting both Shikamaru and Sasuke to follow. Shikamaru just sighed again, shrugging at Sasuke before he began walking. Sasuke blinked at their retreating backs, frozen for a moment. And then—for some reason he glanced at Kakashi.
Kakashi was looking at him already. He had his chin settled on his clasped hands, but noticing his gaze he raised his eyebrows, raising both his hands and gesturing to him to leave.
Sasuke swallowed thickly, before walking out the door.
The walk there wasn’t heavy or even silent—though most of the conversations remained between Shikamaru and Temari; largely due to Sasuke just opting not to talk instead of any fault of the two who left enough space in their topics of conversation for Sasuke to pitch in whenever he wanted. Sasuke took the moment to observe them instead.
He remembered Shikamaru from when they were young, of course, he was always there on the outskirts—in the academy, or as genin. And working with him the past two weeks Sasuke found he hadn’t changed much from the lazy easy-going guy he’d seen when they’d been kids.
But seeing him now with Temari, he found he had changed. He wasn’t sure if Shikamaru even noticed but the line of his shoulders was straighter, and his voice clearer when he talked to her. Twice, he caught his gaze softening, much like it did when he saw him with his team members.
Temari, on the other hand, wasn’t someone Sasuke remembered particularly well. He couldn’t quite place her. She seemed vaguely disinterested in everything from the tone of her voice, but one glance at her eyes and it seemed as if she was observing more than she let on.
“You took your time!” A guy called out from the shop they walked towards, seated on a table. Sasuke only vaguely recognized him too, but it was easy enough to place him as Kankuro, the third of the sand siblings if only by context.
Temari gestured behind her with a thumb as she walked ahead towards him. “It’s always difficult getting workaholics to leave their habitat.”
Kankuro’s eyes flitted behind Temari, landing on Shikamaru first, before they slid to Sasuke. He noticed, very briefly, that his eyes widened, before they returned back to normal—too practiced of an expression. Sasuke wondered if he should’ve just rejected their offer after all.
But Kankuro just slid on the bench he sat on, making space for Sasuke beside him as Temari and Shikamaru sat on the bench across. Sasuke hesitated a beat before sitting down.
“Hey,” Kankuro said in greeting, easily. “Nee-san managed to drag you in, too?”
Sasuke shrugged in answer because he didn’t know what he could possibly say to that.
“Did you order?” Temari asked Kankuro.
Kankuro shrugged. “Some,” he said. “You go ahead and get the rest.”
Temari waved a server over, listing off things from the menu and asking each of them at intervals if they had anything to add.
After the server went away Sasuke expected the three of them to fall into conversation; surely having a long-time camaraderie between them if their comfort around one another was anything to go by. Sasuke himself hadn’t been out without Naruto and Sakura since he’d returned, and even then it was easy to lose threads of conversation. It wasn’t their fault—it was his. Three years was a long time. Soon enough he stopped trying.
But Temari just leaned her cheek in her hand languidly and looked directly at him. “So, how is it like then, being back and all?”
It took Sasuke a moment to register the words but even when he did he blinked at her, taken aback. Temari continued to look at him expectantly. Kankuro turned to him as well. “It’s been what? Three years?” He asked, curious. Shikamaru, on the other hand, just had his head leaned back, peering up lazily at the sky above like he didn’t particularly find himself extremely invested in the conversation.
Instinctively Sasuke considered lying. Considered appeasing them and saying it was alright. No one had asked him this in the past five months without barely concealed concern and a layer of awkwardness.
But maybe it was because it was them. It was the genuine curiosity in Kankuro’s words, the lack of expectation in Temari’s, and the lack of worry in Shikamaru. It was just an honest question; no underlying currents of tension, no searching for the meaning behind whatever words he would say.
And maybe that’s why he let himself be honest when he said: “It feels—unfamiliar.”
He swallowed thickly after saying it, like it was a secret admission but Temari just nodded easily. “Makes sense,” She said. “It has been a while.”
“There was also the whole thing with Konoha being rebuilt after the pain attack.” Kankuro added. The server brought a couple dishes onto the table, and Kankuro waited until he was done before picking up a spring roll. “Things must have changed drastically after that. It feels different even to me and I rarely ever come here.”
“They tried to keep most of the architecture the same,” Shikamaru added, picking up one of the plates in front of them and tipping its items into his own. “During rebuilding, I mean. But everyone wanted improvements when they got the chance, you know, and things spiralled from there.”
Sasuke pursed his lips, thinking of the street they sat in now. He knew what Shikamaru meant. Some of the alleys even here were replaced by entirely new shops, old shops taken down. But it was more than just rebuilding. It would be easy, he thought, if it was as simple as that.
“It’s all—different.” And Sasuke wasn’t entirely sure why he said those words aloud. He knew he had a complicated expression on his face, knew he was only going to bring the mood down, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. “Everything’s changed.” He said.
Everyone’s changed, He didn’t say.
Shikamaru hummed and Sasuke didn’t know what he was expecting but it certainly wasn’t the words that left him then: “Unfamiliar in a familiar place.” Shikamaru said. “Right?”
Sasuke’s gaze jumped to him, taken aback. Shikamaru had seemed to say the words offhandedly, but Sasuke felt like he might as well have shouted them. Words taken straight from his mind, straight from his head. He couldn’t count the amount of times he’d thought that exact sentence, couldn’t remember saying them aloud ever , not even when he was alone, let alone to Shikamaru.
Noticing Sasuke’s expression, Shikamaru raised his eyebrows.
“I wouldn’t know, of course,” He clarified, shaking his head. “I’ve been here my whole life. Barely stepped foot outside for longer than a few months on mission.” He gestured vaguely. “That’s something Naruto said once when he returned from his three year training with Jiraiya-sama. It kind of stuck with me.”
Sasuke froze, entirely taken aback now.
He shouldn’t be surprised, not really, not anymore—but Naruto always managed somehow still to creep in the moment his defenses were lowered.
No one seemed to notice his reaction. Sasuke shook his head, returning his attention to the table when Temari just spoke around the food she was eating. “That sounds about right.” She said, reaching out with her chopsticks across the table. “Because when you return, after a while, to somewhere you’ve lived your whole life it’s like—” She waved one hand vaguely. “It’s not only the place that has changed, but it’s also you. It would be difficult trying to fit yourself into the same place you left once you’ve outgrown it.”
At her words Sasuke swallowed thickly. Because that was exactly it. Like he’d outgrown his place, like he was being forcefully fitted into a puzzle despite being the wrong piece just because he fit once long ago.
But if he didn’t belong where he once did, if he couldn’t find a place to belong even outside of it, where did he go? Even his cage was too broken beyond repair now, he didn’t think he’d recognize it even if he tried to find it.
“But the place has changed too,” Kankuro added, then, thoughtful. His voice was softer than Temari’s, Sasuke realized, like where Temari felt the need to get straight to the point Kankuro approached it slowly; almost gently. He looked at him then and smiled lopsidedly. “It’s not only you, you know. The place was growing too, and now it has all these new spaces, new moulds, and if you can’t find your old place then I’m sure it’s just a matter of finding a new one.”
And maybe it was precisely because of the words he said that the words slipped out from Sasuke. Even though he knew he shouldn’t. Even if Temari and Kankuro didn’t care—Shikamaru was still there. He hadn’t looked too deeply into anything Sasuke said up till now, but that could change any moment. Whatever he said could get back to Naruto and Sakura, and then how would he explain himself? How would he deal with the disappointment in their eyes? But Temari and Kankuro were talking about these—these heavy feelings that weighed down on his chest day by day like they knew.
“And what if there’s no place?” He heard himself saying, and he heard rather than felt his voice waver a little. He resolutely stared down at the food in front of him, not meeting anyone’s eyes this time. “What if you can’t find it?”
There was a moment of silence.
And when an answer came, it came from Shikamaru.
“Well then,” He began, and there was something in his voice—something steady and certain that had Sasuke reluctantly looking up at him. Shikamaru stared back at him, calmly. No concern, no pity. “This hypothetical someone would have to ask themselves: Have they even tried to look?”
Sasuke swallowed, turning the words over in his head. A beat passed. And then two.
“You know,” Temari said eventually, peering at him. “You’re pretty cute.”
Like a sudden spell broken, the three of them around the table whipped around to look at her in surprise at that. Shikamaru more shocked at the abrupt change in conversation than anyone.
“You—” He started, and Temari slanted him a look. He sighed. “Right, of course you think that.”
A barely there smile played at Temari’s lips. “I mean, he reminds me of my brother.”
Sasuke blinked in surprise again, too caught off guard by the words to even notice Shikamaru’s reaction. Kankuro made a noise of understanding beside him then. “I was wondering where you were going with that, but now that you mention it, you’re right!” He turned to Sasuke. “You are pretty similar to Gaara.”
“How so?” Shikamaru asked, clearing his throat when no one moved to explain and Sasuke didn’t move to ask. He didn’t know how to take that. The Gaara he remembered was volatile from when they were young—even he himself had said he and Sasuke were alike back then. But he didn’t know the Gaara of now, not really, and he didn’t know how his siblings knew him.
“This and that,” Temari said vaguely. Kankuro nodded understandingly as if anything she had said made sense.
“Gaara has changed so much too since we were kids,” He said a little reminiscently. Folding his arms and looking up at the sky. And perhaps it hadn’t truly settled in Sasuke’s mind before then, but in that moment it felt obvious that the sand siblings were truly siblings. Kankuro spoke of Gaara with blatant pride. It reminded him; unconsciously, of the weight of a finger poking his forehead. “A blink of the eye and suddenly he’s Kazekage.”
“Right,” Temari said, her voice gaining a softer tone to it. Far softer than anything Sasuke had heard from her by now. Her voice was heavy when she said: “The Chuunin Exam season always reminds me of him.” She said, before shaking her head. “I’ll always be thankful to Naruto for that.”
Sasuke noticed a fond expression flit through Shikamaru’s face at the mention too. “Well, you know him.” He said, shaking his head. “He’s always had a knack for saving people.”
“You too, huh?” Temari grinned at Shikamaru and Shikamaru huffed out a small laugh.
Sitting there, around three people he barely knew, talking about Naruto with such blatant fondness, Sasuke had the fleeting thought pass through his mind that Naruto was more than just his salvation.
He felt a little—fond at the thought, to see what he had become, but overwhelmingly so he also felt. Lonely. He didn’t have the right to be proud of what he wasn’t there to witness. He swallowed thickly.
“You know,” Kankuro said then, as if noticing his silence. Sasuke slanted a look at him to find Kankuro was already peering at him. He felt as if he’d seen through him somehow, but right in that moment he couldn’t bring himself to feel caught out. He was obvious sometimes and he knew that. Four years of pretending his heart didn’t stutter at the mere whisper of Naruto’s name and he never quite managed; at some point he’d had to learn to give up.
“Eleven years.” Kankuro said then, and although he smiled his voice was heavy with emotion. “That’s how much of Gaara’s life we missed.” Temari reached out a hand to Kankuro, covering his hand with hers. He looked at her with a complicated expression, squeezing the hand she held.
“But everything that happened afterwards, everything he became we were there to witness. Now I can proudly say Gaara became the person he is today, because I saw him work through it. I was there.”
He glanced at Sasuke then, and there was something fierce in his eyes that had Sasuke’s breath catching in his throat. There was pride there, of course there was, but above it all, obvious even to him, there was love.
It seemed to pour out of him as he said:
“And I’ll be damned if I miss any more. I’ll never let my brother become unfamiliar to me ever again.”
“You’re here.”
Sasuke let the air brush against his cheeks, looking before him to the wreckage of the Uchiha district. He knew that in his dreams he could have it repaired; he could find it full of life, or he could find it abandoned but still intact like in his memories.
The wreckage remained unchanged in front of him.
“I’m here.” Dream Naruto said. Sasuke heard his footsteps crunch against the gravel, until his weight settled on the ground beside him. “It’s been a while.”
Sasuke hummed in answer.
“You’re not gonna wake yourself up this time?”
Sasuke turned his head slightly, just enough to see Naruto’s profile as he continued looking out into the wreckage like Sasuke was a moment ago. He looked the same as he always did—Sasuke could’ve memorized the contours of Naruto’s face, described the way he looked from memory alone. But seeing him still took his breath away; even more so after two weeks without him; both in his dreams and in his waking moments. After a beat Sasuke looked away.
“No,” he answered. “I won’t.”
“Wanted to see me?” Naruto asked.
If this wasn’t a dream he would’ve been teasing. Sasuke could imagine the lilt of his voice shaping around the words in his mind. He smiled a little at the thought.
But because this was a dream, maybe that was the only reason he answered truthfully.
“I always do.”
Naruto hummed in response, but otherwise said nothing.
“Have you been here before?” Sasuke asked then, apropos of nothing. “In the Uchiha district, I mean. The wreckage—or back when we were young.”
Naruto leaned back until he was lying on his back, arm tucked behind his head. “I can’t answer that.”
Sasuke glanced at him then back again. “Right,” he said. “Because you’re not him. Not really.”
Naruto didn’t say anything, closing his eyes instead.
After a moment, Sasuke reached out to shake him. Naruto cracked an eye open and pulled himself back up to a sitting position. Sasuke pointed to an area to the right. It was mostly rubble, everywhere was, but Sasuke could make it out still.
“That’s the path I used to take to the academy everyday,” He traced the rubble with his finger. “See that? There used to be a bend in the road there, it led to an empty shed out back near the forest. I used to go there to secretly practice shuriken throwing so I could show off to my brother in the rare moments he agreed to train with me.”
Dream Naruto stared at him for a long moment, gaze heavy where Sasuke refused to meet it, before he finally nodded, following his fingers with his eyes. Something loosened in Sasuke’s chest.
“And there,” Sasuke pointed to the left. “There used to be a little shop there, a candy shop. My mother used to take me there the day before my birthday. On my eighth I told her I was too old for it, but she took me anyway, laughing—” His voice cracked a little. “ —laughing and saying ‘you’ll never be too old for candy’.”
“And then over there. That’s the house of my father’s best friend. He used to go there a lot when he was frustrated. Some days he’d come late at night, light on his feet as my mother tutted him and helped him in. I don’t think they ever noticed I was there. I wasn’t supposed to be awake, you see.”
Thinking back, now, he realized his father would come back drunk. That was the only time he’d see his father smile so much. His mother always sounded so fond as she ushered him in, his arm slung around her shoulder.
“And then—” He forced himself to continue, blinking away the memory as his voice wavered. “That’s where auntie and uncle—our neighbours—would sneak me food sometimes after I’d come back from the academy. They said they did that with Itachi too, but I couldn’t imagine nii-san sneaking in candy bars into his room no matter how hard I tried.”
Sasuke laughed a little at that. It was a broken sound even to his ears.
“Sasuke.” Naruto said.
Sasuke still didn’t turn to look at him. “I still can’t. Just the image is disconcerting. Did he have a stash in his room?”
“Sasuke.”
“And there’s that one river where my brother and Shisui-nii-san—”
Naruto’s hand clamped down on Sasuke’s where he was using it to point. “Sasuke.” He said again and Sasuke swallowed thickly, unmoving now.
Naruto’s voice was soft when he spoke and Sasuke suppressed a shiver. “Why are you telling me this?”
Sasuke laughed. It came out short and bitter as he wrenched his hand out of Naruto’s. “Why?” He asked. “You don’t care?”
“You know he does.” Naruto said and Sasuke’s mouth immediately snapped shut. “But there’s no point if you tell me and not him.”
And this was the first time his dreams had made a clear distinction between the Naruto he conjured up in his dreams, and the Naruto that existed in wakefulness. Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut.
“I can’t.” He said finally, and his heart twisted in his chest. The wind against his face felt cold now. The place where Naruto held his hand a moment ago was colder still.
“Why?”
Sasuke scoffed. Another bitter little thing. “You know why.”
“Tell me.” Naruto said, voice insistent. Sasuke bit his lip, heart twisting again. “Why?”
Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut. “No, Naruto.”
Naruto’s hand came down on Sasuke’s shoulder, but instead of a gentle touch he shoved him and Sasuke stumbled to his side. The gravel dug into his back. Naruto stumbled with his own motion, leaned over him now.
“Tell me.” His voice was harder now.
“Get off me,” Sasuke snarled, shoving at Naruto’s own shoulder, trying and failing to push him off but Naruto just dug harder into his shoulder, unmoving. He looked at him, mouth turned down before he spoke again.
His voice was soft as he looked down at him unwaveringly: “Sasuke.”
“What do you want me to say?” Sasuke said finally, voice breaking as he shoved him again this time, harder still as Naruto remained. His rage was a feeble thing; flickering and fading within him as misery took over. It reflected in his voice now, through the frustration that cracked his words clean from the middle as he spoke them:
“That I can’t look at you—at him some days because all I see is my home—my broken, wrecked, ruined home, all these streets I’ll never get to walk down again, all these people who only live on in my heart. In my memories.” He used his hand to gesture beside him expansively at the wreckage even as he continued just looking at Naruto.
“Or that I’m scared?” He laughed miserably. “I’m scared of how much I want to see him even when he’s around because if there’s no place I belong then I know there’s one place I could belong but trying feels like I’m betraying them. Trying feels like I’m forgetting them when I’m the only one who remembers anymore.”
He blinked through the sting in his eyes. Dream Naruto was still looking back at him and his gaze was always kind—so kind. But even with this version in front of him—this Naruto that hovered over him and forced words out of his throat that scraped against the skin on the inside of his throat leaving it raw as they left him, this Naruto who listened—Sasuke found himself longing for the real one. Greedy even when he received. When he didn’t deserve.
“That you’ve changed and I’ve changed and I’m afraid to see if we’re just broken puzzle pieces trying to slot together. That I want to be there to see you change more now, but I’m scared of all that I missed. That I feel like I’ve spent half my life missing you, and I’m too familiar with the feeling now, so I can’t ever catch you even if I try.”
Sasuke breathed hard, struggling to catch his breath against all the words in his chest. That left his mouth but only in a dream so they continued to live on in his chest anyway. Weighing down his heart, sitting on his lungs.
“That I’m afraid. I’m so afraid, because I lo—” He swallowed, throat spasming around the words. He gave up midway, squeezing his eyes shut so hard they hurt. “And I wish I knew how to stop but we both know I’ve spent four years trying and four years failing, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m chaining you down.”
Silence lived on in the space between them. Even the wind seemed to settle down, a breeze against Sasuke’s ears.
“Say something,” Sasuke said, and although it was supposed to be a demand it came out like a plea. Broken, and small.
But Dream Naruto didn’t say anything. He just looked at him. Looked at him until eventually Sasuke awoke for the first time in ages with a full night’s sleep, and tears wetting the pillow under his head.
Naruto and Sakura returned on a Wednesday.
Sasuke sat in Kakashi’s office, Shikamaru leaning over the back of the couch, pointing something out to him and slipping his kunai belt on in a hurry so he could set off. Kakashi was seated across from them on the couch, reading a novel instead of his usual papers, in a not-so-rare moment of break.
Sasuke heard their bickering before the door even opened, his ear pricking at the sound of Sakura’s long suffering sigh, followed by muffled sounds of whatever Naruto was saying.
Shikamaru and Kakashi seemed to notice at the same time as him, gazing at the closed door.
“They finally return.” Kakashi smiled.
“It’s gonna get noisy again,” Shikamaru said, though the fondness in his voice was palpable.
Sasuke however just continued to look at the closed door, heart in his throat, waiting—waiting for it to open.
He didn’t realize how much he missed them until they came in and the specific shades of pink and yellow of their hair felt a little like a word Sasuke couldn’t let himself think—not now.
But maybe one day.
“Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura complained as soon as the door opened. “Tell Naruto to shut up! I’ve had enough of this— Oh! Hi Sasuke-kun!” Her tired eyes lit up the instant they settled on Sasuke and Sasuke felt a wave of fondness travel through him.
Naruto walked in after her. “Sasuke’s in there?” He asked, peering around her until his eyes landed on him too. Sasuke’s heart felt stuck in his throat again. “Hey! We’re back Sasuke! Sensei!” He looked around the room. “Oh! Hey Shikamaru’s here too!”
Shikamaru huffed out a small fond laugh. “Not for any longer I’m not.”
“Already sick of his face?” Sakura asked, gesturing to Naruto. “Imagine what I went through.” Naruto squawked in offense. Kakashi laughed lightly. Even Sasuke felt the barest of smiles pull his lips up.
Shikamaru just shook his head. “Gotta catch Choji and get him a message before he sets out on his mission.” He explained. He walked ahead, placing a hand on Naruto’s shoulder as he went. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to be back!” Naruto grinned, calling out behind him as he walked out.
And then it was the four of them as Sakura easily walked ahead and settled on the couch somewhere between Kakashi and Sasuke. She leaned her head towards Sasuke, peering at his work and Sasuke wondered if she’d question what he was doing here, just as he did two weeks ago. But because she was Sakura and she was never anything but kind to him she just hummed. “What are you guys working on?”
“Nothing much,” Kakashi replied easily.
Sakura squinted at him and leaned forward to pluck the novel from his hands fast enough that he couldn't stop her. “You're not doing anything except rereading those icha icha books.”
Kakashi raised his eyebrows innocently. “What? Can't a guy rest around here?”
“Not when you're making your student do all your work.”
“That’s—well—” Kakashi said, hurrying to change the topic. He looked around. “Where’s Yamato?”
Sakura squinted at him for a moment longer before just taking the bait and launching into an answer but Sasuke grew distracted when Naruto came around on Sasuke’s other side.
Sasuke looked up at him through his eyelashes. His heart felt like it was going to permanently lodge in his throat at this rate. He swallowed, hoping it’d help. Naruto was looking down at his papers in his hand like Sakura had on his other side as he settled on the couch next to him. Sakura was leaning on her shoulder now, hair tickling Sasuke’s arm. Naruto on one side, Sakura on the other, close enough he could feel both their warmth through the air between them. Sasuke found he didn’t want to move away.
“Hey,” Sasuke said finally to Naruto, and hoped it didn’t come out breathless.
Naruto looked up from the papers and his gaze finally settled on Sasuke. His eyes were open and depthless.
There was still that concern—always that concern, but overlaid with something else.
“You’re back.” Sasuke said, as if it wasn’t obvious. As if he had to just say anything. Because he’d been waiting for Naruto to return and Naruto was finally here and this wasn’t a dream. And the last dream he’d had still had him feeling like his heart was raw. Because he’d said everything, but to the wrong person.
Naruto looked at him for a beat too long, silent.
Say something, Sasuke thought. Even in his mind it came through like a plea.
And because this wasn’t a dream, he did.
Naruto grinned, a little crookedly. “I am.” And there was that teasing lilt to his voice as he said: “Did you miss me?”
I always do, Sasuke thought.
Sasuke was still looking at him, his eyes unwilling to detach from the contours of his face. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t do much to hide his smile even as he answered with a: “No.” Much too soft to be anything but a lie.
Something in Naruto’s eyes immediately warmed over despite his words.
“Really?” He asked, just as soft. “Not even a little?”
“Not at all.” Sasuke replied, looking away and biting his lips now to stop the smile. “Without you around I finally got to sleep.”
And if no one but Sasuke knew how contradictory those two sentences were then that was enough.