WIP
For my 24hour_themes challenge. Yay, only twenty left. Am very very happy with these. I don't think I'll post them to a comm yet, though, until I finish the whole set. Actually, maybe I will. It would be nice to get some form of feedback... IDK. Anyway, having it here will save me in case my hard drive decides to die on me, so it is a good thing. =D Am thinking that it will finish at about 30,000 words, and that it will be a set of connected ficlets. =DDDD
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Twenty Four Confrontations
The things that need to be said the most are always the most difficult to say. But they still need to be said, because they’re meaningless, useless, unless they’re spoken. Even if for Naruto and Sasuke, it takes a lifetime to say them.
CONFRONTATION #1: 2:00AM
The knocking is tentative, at first. Quiet, and light, and awkward; so light that if Sasuke weren’t such a light sleeper, he wouldn’t have heard it.
Wouldn’t have woken up. Wouldn’t have rolled over, exhausted from the previous night’s training, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes to see the red 2:00 AM glowing by his bedside.
Uchiha Sasuke would not be as annoyed as he is now.
But woken up and armed and ready to poke whoever is responsible for his early-morning disturbance with his freshly sharpened kunai he is. Ready to stab their eyes out and ready to -
He opens the door to reveal Naruto, resplendent in his nightcap, standing sheepishly on his doorstep. Sasuke notes somewhere in the back of his mind that he doesn’t appear to have a single weapon on his person - one which he can see, anyway - and decides that if he attacks him now, the probability of being injured is very low.
But that really wouldn’t be fair, and he really does want to fight Naruto on an even standing and all that, and so Sasuke doesn’t slash at Naruto’s throat with the kunai and simply stands there with his best murderous expression on his face, waiting for him to speak.
He watches as Naruto gulps, watches as he shifts nervously from foot to foot with none of his typically brash impatience and finally, he can’t be bothered watching anymore, and so he turns back around and slams the door in Naruto’s face.
But the door doesn’t quite close and suddenly Naruto is standing there again, red-faced, and irritated and homicidal Sasuke watches as Naruto blurts out all in one breath, so fast that Sasuke can barely understand it -
“I think we should try to rid our relationship of negativity.”
Sasuke blinks, and debates on the many and various ways he could respond to this. He could be icy and mocking and true to form, and say, “Since when did we have a relationship?” Or perhaps he could be cutting and sarcastic and say, “Yes, waking people up at 2AM is a fantastic way to rid relationships of negativity, well done, a thousand ryou prize for you,” or perhaps he could simply glare at him with murderous intent and slam the door in his face satisfyingly.
But the entire situation is so bizarre, and Naruto looks so - so very Naruto that Sasuke doesn’t do any of these things. Later, he will blame it on being woken up at inhumane hours in the morning, and being half-asleep and therefore not responsible for any of his actions. He will blame it on insanity and not enough sleep.
But before he can blame himself for anything, he has to do something he will regret, and that is why he blinks again and says, “Come in.”
Naruto sits awkwardly on the only chair in Sasuke’s apartment. Sasuke stands against the wall, and it seems strange to Naruto how out of place Sasuke manages to look, even in his own house; Sasuke, dark against the clinical white wall.
Naruto looks out of place to Sasuke too. But everything about their partnership or rivalry or friendship or relationship or whatever the hell it is between them seems out of place to Sasuke; Sasuke who has never known what to make of him. Naruto, he thinks, can’t be categorized into a tidy little box with a white label on it. Not like Sakura, or Lee, or Kiba or even Neji. Not like anyone he has ever known. Maybe this is why things are so - so awkward between them. They don’t know what to make of the other. They don’t know what they want from the other.
They don’t know the other.
The ticking of the clock is loud in the hostile silence. It isn’t comfortable, and how Naruto wishes that he hadn’t come here.
Maybe, somewhere in his subconscious, he had hoped that something clichéd could have happened. In this scenario, Sasuke draws his kunai and holds it to Naruto’s throat. He threatens that he will stab him and cut him into a million tiny pieces if he doesn’t immediately state his purpose, whereupon he will say something harsh and comic and abrasive, something like, “You fucking bastard, how dare you,” and draw his kunai. And they will both have their kunais drawn and be glaring at each other and then suddenly the atmosphere will change and he will laugh and stop and Sasuke will say, “Why’d you have to wake me up, huh, teme?” And then he will look sheepish and instead of saying, “I think we should try to rid our relationship of negativity,” he will say, “Well, Sakura thought that we were screwing up the team dynamic and thought that we should try to rid our relationship of negativity so that we can work better as a team,” and Sasuke will look incredulously at him and he will say in an annoyed tone, “Not my fault, Sakura sent me here,” and then they will go and spill their lives’ stories and sit on Sasuke’s doorstep and bond and become best friends for life.
But damn, life doesn’t work that way. You don’t spill your life story to someone you hate. Friends aren’t made that easily, and the scenarios that you make up in your head never come true.
But Naruto can’t stand silence, and he can’t stand awkwardness and he is ill-equipped to deal with either. Part of Naruto still lives in an ideal world, because reality has not been kind to him and part of him…
Part of him believes in make believe even as it knows it is make believe.
It is because of this that Naruto says suddenly, irrationally and stupidly, “Why do you hate me so much?”
Sasuke tears his eyes away from the clock, a rush of annoyance running through him as he contemplates the question, and he answers in an even tone, “Because you’re the kind of person who asks that kind of question.”
Naruto flinches. He would have liked to think that he flinched as though Sasuke had hit him, and that it had felt worse than that time Sasuke had woken him up when he’d fallen asleep next to him by kicking him repeatedly in the head, but really it feels like something he’s felt a hundred times before, something that to Naruto is a known pain, but one that seems to be a constantly reopened wound like a scar that he can’t help but to scratch at and bleeds and heals, but always heals darker and deeper than the last time.
It feels like a crowd of people all pointing and whispering at a boy with the shadow of a monster yawning behind him. It feels like rejection, and loneliness, and why does he keep trying?
Because, something whispers in his mind, he is the kind of person who asks people that kind of question.
And before Sasuke can make the decision not to say one of the hundred things that floods into his mind after he has said what he has said - things like ”I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry, I don’t hate you, I want to try and rid our relationship of negativity too -” - and wished an eternity too late that he wasn’t as sharp as he was -
Naruto stands up abruptly, pushes the table away from him, mutters, “I’m sorry for waking you up, it was stupid of me,” and leaves, and doesn’t slam the door, and somehow the quiet click the door makes as it shuts is so much louder in the silent apartment than it would have been if he’d slammed the door.
Sasuke isn’t standing against the wall anymore. He has moved, as quickly as he would in battle, and even now he is standing behind the now-closed door with his hand on the door handle, his hand poised to throw the door open and his mind forming the words he will yell out into the darkness.
But his hand drops and he moves away from the door and Naruto has left, and the conversation, the repairing for both of them, doesn’t happen.
Sasuke tells himself that what has just happened is a good thing. He has given Naruto a piece of his mind, sent him away, and now he can sleep again.
But he knows that the piece of his mind he has given Naruto isn’t the piece that he wants to give him, and that he wanted him to stay and that he will sit on his bed for the rest of the night, watching glowing red numbers change and avoiding the photo that is by his bed, because part of it is a ghost of what has just left him, and maybe if he doesn’t admit to himself that he has left he will come back, loud and obnoxious and boisterous and alive.
CONFRONTATION #2: 4:00PM
The only thing that is as regular as the sun rising and setting is Naruto’s regular patronage of Ichiraku at 4PM every day. The whole village knows this.
Sasuke stands outside the ramen shop, his hands in his pockets, and the final edition of a well-rehearsed speech on his tongue.
“I didn’t mean what I said this morning,” he will say. “I was tired. …I’ll buy you ramen.”
He won’t apologise, because apologies taste odd and not quite right on his tongue, and he figures that backing down is strange and humbling enough.
But Naruto isn’t here, and the scenario he had pictured briefly in his head - of Naruto rolling his eyes and calling him a bastard and saying something like, “Don’t think buying me ramen will make me forget what you said this morning, but I feel sorry for you so you can buy me ramen anyway,”, of things going back to the way they were, of their whatever-the-hell-it-was returning to normal, of them fighting, maybe, and of an early morning being locked away into a tidy labelled box and never mentioned again - isn’t going to happen, because Naruto hasn’t kept the schedule he usually sticks to so rigorously.
And irrationally, this grates at Sasuke. He doesn’t know what it is. Maybe it is the sleepless night. Maybe it is the mental energy he has expended in humbling himself to the point of almost apologizing. Maybe it is just the utter humiliation of it all, because in Sasuke’s sleep-deprived, emotionally exhausted mind, he has basically been stood up, and so Sasuke marches off to find the annoying perpetrator of his mental breakdown.
Naruto answers the door bleary-eyed, wearing exactly what he had been wearing at 2AM that morning. Upon seeing Sasuke, his eyes widen and then narrow, and then widen again.
Because Sasuke is ranting as he has never seen him rant before; Sasuke is yelling in a heated, unreasonable way that is so very startling and so different from his usual cold, controlled anger; Sasuke is saying, “You BASTARD, how DARE you not eat ramen at 4PM today?”, and “I’m going to KILL you, you asshole, I spent the last FOURTEEN HOURS rehearsing and driving my mind to the brink of insanity and I was even going to buy you RAMEN, but NO, you didn’t show up and IF YOU HADN’T WOKEN ME UP THIS MORNING THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED and -”
The sheer absurdity of what Sasuke is saying snaps Naruto out of his brief moment of shock, and he cuts Sasuke off mid-rant, and he demands, “What were you rehearsing?”
Sasuke freezes, and it occurs to him that if he wasn’t so very against running away, he could be five blocks away right now. But he is, and he isn’t, and Naruto is demanding again to know just what Sasuke was rehearsing, and why he was going to buy him ramen not that he shouldn’t and what was this about spending fourteen hours driving his mind to the brink of insanity, and damn he’s completely forgotten what he was going to say to Naruto despite the fourteen hours of thinking the damn script up and rehearsing it, and -
Oh yes. He remembers now.
“I didn’t mean what I said this morning, I was tired, I’ll buy you ramen,” Sasuke blurts out, and Naruto’s eyes widen impossibly again, and is Sasuke red?
Sasuke can feel a flush rising and spreading over his face. This is - this is embarrassing, humiliating,, and he can’t remember the last time he’d felt embarrassed and it’s so terribly awkward, standing on Naruto’s doorstep like this and uttering half incoherent sentences and he can see an evil smirk on Naruto’s lips as he realizes what is going on and oh god this is too embarrassing and he’s going to go now that he’s said what he had been going to say -
“Wait here,” Naruto says, “I’ll be right back.”
And Sasuke is left standing shocked, wondering what the hell is going on and is Naruto going to come back with something sharp and pointy to poke him with, because if so he’d better -
But Naruto is suddenly there again, dressed in his orange jumpsuit, locking the door behind him, and he isn’t jumping at his throat like some frenzied maniac with a kunai and - and why is he looking at him expectantly?
Naruto rolls his eyes, and says in an exasperated voice, “Hey, bastard, weren’t you going to buy me ramen?”
Naruto has upset his plans once today, what with his refusing to be at the ramen stand at 4PM so that he could offer to buy him ramen. Sasuke doesn’t know how to react. Isn’t Naruto supposed to yell at him? Tell him how much of a bastard he is, tell him how buying ramen won’t make him forget what he’d said? Maybe tell him that he hates him?
“Hey…” Sasuke says unsteadily, “Aren’t you annoyed at me? Wanting to stab me? Why aren’t you trying to punch me?”
Naruto’s smile slips briefly, and he looks confused for a second. “Huh? Why would I do that?”
Now Sasuke’s expression is not so much confused as annoyed. “Have you forgotten that you stormed out of my apartment this morning, presumably extremely? Shouldn’t you be rejecting my apolo - statement? Kicking me, at the very least?”
Naruto’s smile appears again, lighting up his face and making him look about five years younger. “Hey, you apologised, right? You said that you didn’t mean what you said this morning, blah blah blah, you were tired, you’re going to buy me ramen to say sorry. Right? So it’s all good. I forgive you. Now buy me ramen.”
Sasuke doesn’t quite understand how Naruto can forgive so easily, how he can be so willing to forgive. He doesn’t quite get Naruto. Not yet.
But as he watches him gulp down his fifth bowl of ramen, he thinks that maybe he understands him a bit more than he did at 2AM that morning. That maybe, maybe, he doesn’t hate him as much as he thinks.
He watches him as Ayame collects the bowls beside him, watches as she asks why he was late today -
And watches as Naruto replies easily, the words sliding off his tongue making Sasuke’s face instantly go hot -
“I was with a friend.”
And Sasuke is, for a second, before denial sets in, so glad that Naruto didn’t stick to his schedule, and that the scenario in his head that he had planned out didn’t happen.
He is glad he was impulsive, and this in itself is amazing.
CONFRONTATION #3: 6:00AM
It is 6:00 AM.
They are waiting for Kakashi-sensei. Again.
It is still dark, and it is cold, and yet Naruto is still effortlessly cheerful. Annoyed, granted; but cheerful nonetheless.
And determined to bring up a morning Sasuke would rather forget.
“So, Sasuke,” he says casually, “have you thought any more about what I said the other morning?”
Sasuke decides that evasiveness is the best way to go, because his behavior around Naruto in the last two days, in retrospect, is quite frankly embarrassing, and also he doubts that Naruto will bring up the issue of them ridding their whatever-it-is of negativity in front of Sakura. At least, he hopes so.
So Sasuke answers just as casually, “No, sorry, what was it you said?”
And he laughs inwardly as Naruto glares at him.
That day, Naruto asks Sasuke thirty-three times, in various forms that he evidently considers to be quite subtle, whether he has thought more about their little 2AM chat.
Strangely enough, Sasuke thinks to himself, even as he smirks at Naruto and affects a vaguely innocent expression and says, “No, I don’t, could you remind me what it was?”, he has thought about it.
He has thought about it more than he is comfortable with. Thought about what it would be like if they did make an effort not to constantly gripe at and annoy the other; because that’s what Naruto means by negativity, right?
And he isn’t too sure he likes the thought of it. He is quite sure, actually, that he despises the thought of it. He enjoys the bantering contests. He thrives on the competition and the constant thrill he gets when he beats him in something, and he knows that he is more motivated to train because of this thrill, and also because if he doesn’t then Naruto will beat him, and laugh at him.
He… loves the staggering home at 3AM. The training until neither of them can walk in a straight line without support. Loves the insulting and the insults that they throw at each other when they are both too tired to throw shuriken. Loves how they both desperately want to better themselves. Loves… how they motivate each other to do it.
Is this what Naruto means by negativity? The insults? The fights? The constant competition? Maybe.
Sasuke has thought about it. But he doesn’t see anything negative in their… relationship?
CONFRONTATION #4: 2PM
Sasuke jumps. Throws all eight shuriken. Watches as all of them hit, points quivering into eight red circles.
Watches as another eight shuriken fly into the space that his had been in only seconds ago.
“You’re too slow,” he drawls lazily.
Naruto emerges, flushed, from behind a tree. “Yeah, well, hitting moving shuriken is harder than it looks, okay?”
“Fine,” Sasuke says, “let’s swap.”
Naruto flushes again. “Fine.”
They swap. None of Naruto’s shuriken reach their mark.
Naruto curses. Sasuke smirks.
“Not fast enough, dobe. Don’t aim for eight yet. Try two. It might suit your capabilities more.”
There is no real mockery in Sasuke’s voice, and the glare Naruto shoots at him is more habitual than annoyed. Sasuke is happy, of course, that he is better than Naruto; but both of them know that he will stay there until Naruto, too, has improved, and that despite Naruto’s apparent annoyance he will listen to Sasuke.
Sasuke watches Naruto as he throws the shuriken. Watches as he misses, swears, draws another two shuriken from his hip pocket. Watches a constant stream of missing, cussing, and throwing.
And he wants to know what drives him. He knows what drives everyone else. Sakura doesn’t want to be useless anymore. Lee wants to prove to himself that he can become a great ninja with only taijutsu. Hinata wants to prove to herself that she is worthy; wants to show Naruto that she is more than a quiet, shy hindrance. Neji wants to prove that he is better than the head family; TenTen that one day, she will be able to defeat even Neji’s ultimate defense, and that one day, she will be recognized as the Fire Country’s most skilled weapons mistress. He knows why everyone pushes themselves.
But he wants to know why Naruto pushes himself the hardest.
Is it just because he wants to become Hokage? Maybe. That is, after all, what Naruto always says when pressed for an answer.
But Sasuke thinks that it’s more than that. He can’t know for sure; not unless he asks, and maybe he will someday. But not today.
Naruto’s dream; his goal; his ambition, is to become Hokage; and Sasuke understands that. After all, Sasuke has a dream, a goal, an ambition, too, doesn’t he? Naruto doesn’t want to die until he becomes Hokage.
Sasuke doesn’t want to die until he kills Itachi.
And this is the root of why he thinks that Naruto wants something more than becoming Hokage; something that maybe through becoming Hokage he can attain; because really he wants something more than killing Itachi. He wants to kill Itachi because he wants revenge.
And maybe, Sasuke thinks, Naruto wants to become Hokage because he wants to be accepted and respected and loved.
He watches Naruto’s face contort in concentration. Watches the two shuriken fly out of his hand; watches as they both miss by millimeters.
They will stay there until dusk comes, and the shadows lengthen and the sun falls, and only when Naruto can throw two, four, six, eight shuriken successfully, only when they both can barely lift their arms, only when it hurts to move any more than an inch, will they decide to leave. But the night is warm, and the moon is high, and the grass in the clearing is soft, and Naruto is lying on his back, panting, and watching the sky and the clouds drifting across the moon and Sasuke drops with a groan and joins him.
They have no illusions about what may or may not happen. They have both had pictures; images of what they would like to happen before, and they know that what you think will work out never does. But they had not planned to be here tonight; and they are both glad for this.
They will lie there. They will not notice when their eyelids begin to drift closed, will not notice when Sasuke’s head falls onto Naruto’s shoulder, will not notice when Naruto turns into the touch. They will not notice any of this.
They will not notice when Jiraiya comes across them when the sky begins to lighten, returning from one of his obscure missions. Will not notice the softening of his features as he remembers another place and time, another two boys who had been much the same.
They are oddly touching, Jiraiya thinks. Black hair splayed out over a dark, sun-browned neck, blond hair falling over pale, pale skin; the two clash, really - but in their sleep, their expressions are innocent, and the way they are is intimate, whether in a sexual way or not, and the way they are arranged is almost as though someone had put them there, moving an arm, a leg, here and there, until it meets their standard of perfection, and the whole arrangement is very much symmetrical in feeling, if not form. But these thoughts hurt, because Jiraiya once had something like this and lost it.
They will not notice until they wake how close they are. Will not know until they wake, and spring apart instantly, embarrassed and awkward, flushed and red-faced, and unaware of so much, and not knowing how two boys long ago hadn’t know what they’d had either until they’d lost it.
They will go on a mission tomorrow. And they will both remember another mission, a past mission, one fought on a bridge with eddies of mist and a house of ice, with needles and confessions and pain; pain from giving up dreams to save those important, pain from bloodied wounds and frenzied attacks; and maybe, maybe they will think about what they have and how lucky they are to have it.
~~
Twenty Four Confrontations
The things that need to be said the most are always the most difficult to say. But they still need to be said, because they’re meaningless, useless, unless they’re spoken. Even if for Naruto and Sasuke, it takes a lifetime to say them.
CONFRONTATION #1: 2:00AM
The knocking is tentative, at first. Quiet, and light, and awkward; so light that if Sasuke weren’t such a light sleeper, he wouldn’t have heard it.
Wouldn’t have woken up. Wouldn’t have rolled over, exhausted from the previous night’s training, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes to see the red 2:00 AM glowing by his bedside.
Uchiha Sasuke would not be as annoyed as he is now.
But woken up and armed and ready to poke whoever is responsible for his early-morning disturbance with his freshly sharpened kunai he is. Ready to stab their eyes out and ready to -
He opens the door to reveal Naruto, resplendent in his nightcap, standing sheepishly on his doorstep. Sasuke notes somewhere in the back of his mind that he doesn’t appear to have a single weapon on his person - one which he can see, anyway - and decides that if he attacks him now, the probability of being injured is very low.
But that really wouldn’t be fair, and he really does want to fight Naruto on an even standing and all that, and so Sasuke doesn’t slash at Naruto’s throat with the kunai and simply stands there with his best murderous expression on his face, waiting for him to speak.
He watches as Naruto gulps, watches as he shifts nervously from foot to foot with none of his typically brash impatience and finally, he can’t be bothered watching anymore, and so he turns back around and slams the door in Naruto’s face.
But the door doesn’t quite close and suddenly Naruto is standing there again, red-faced, and irritated and homicidal Sasuke watches as Naruto blurts out all in one breath, so fast that Sasuke can barely understand it -
“I think we should try to rid our relationship of negativity.”
Sasuke blinks, and debates on the many and various ways he could respond to this. He could be icy and mocking and true to form, and say, “Since when did we have a relationship?” Or perhaps he could be cutting and sarcastic and say, “Yes, waking people up at 2AM is a fantastic way to rid relationships of negativity, well done, a thousand ryou prize for you,” or perhaps he could simply glare at him with murderous intent and slam the door in his face satisfyingly.
But the entire situation is so bizarre, and Naruto looks so - so very Naruto that Sasuke doesn’t do any of these things. Later, he will blame it on being woken up at inhumane hours in the morning, and being half-asleep and therefore not responsible for any of his actions. He will blame it on insanity and not enough sleep.
But before he can blame himself for anything, he has to do something he will regret, and that is why he blinks again and says, “Come in.”
Naruto sits awkwardly on the only chair in Sasuke’s apartment. Sasuke stands against the wall, and it seems strange to Naruto how out of place Sasuke manages to look, even in his own house; Sasuke, dark against the clinical white wall.
Naruto looks out of place to Sasuke too. But everything about their partnership or rivalry or friendship or relationship or whatever the hell it is between them seems out of place to Sasuke; Sasuke who has never known what to make of him. Naruto, he thinks, can’t be categorized into a tidy little box with a white label on it. Not like Sakura, or Lee, or Kiba or even Neji. Not like anyone he has ever known. Maybe this is why things are so - so awkward between them. They don’t know what to make of the other. They don’t know what they want from the other.
They don’t know the other.
The ticking of the clock is loud in the hostile silence. It isn’t comfortable, and how Naruto wishes that he hadn’t come here.
Maybe, somewhere in his subconscious, he had hoped that something clichéd could have happened. In this scenario, Sasuke draws his kunai and holds it to Naruto’s throat. He threatens that he will stab him and cut him into a million tiny pieces if he doesn’t immediately state his purpose, whereupon he will say something harsh and comic and abrasive, something like, “You fucking bastard, how dare you,” and draw his kunai. And they will both have their kunais drawn and be glaring at each other and then suddenly the atmosphere will change and he will laugh and stop and Sasuke will say, “Why’d you have to wake me up, huh, teme?” And then he will look sheepish and instead of saying, “I think we should try to rid our relationship of negativity,” he will say, “Well, Sakura thought that we were screwing up the team dynamic and thought that we should try to rid our relationship of negativity so that we can work better as a team,” and Sasuke will look incredulously at him and he will say in an annoyed tone, “Not my fault, Sakura sent me here,” and then they will go and spill their lives’ stories and sit on Sasuke’s doorstep and bond and become best friends for life.
But damn, life doesn’t work that way. You don’t spill your life story to someone you hate. Friends aren’t made that easily, and the scenarios that you make up in your head never come true.
But Naruto can’t stand silence, and he can’t stand awkwardness and he is ill-equipped to deal with either. Part of Naruto still lives in an ideal world, because reality has not been kind to him and part of him…
Part of him believes in make believe even as it knows it is make believe.
It is because of this that Naruto says suddenly, irrationally and stupidly, “Why do you hate me so much?”
Sasuke tears his eyes away from the clock, a rush of annoyance running through him as he contemplates the question, and he answers in an even tone, “Because you’re the kind of person who asks that kind of question.”
Naruto flinches. He would have liked to think that he flinched as though Sasuke had hit him, and that it had felt worse than that time Sasuke had woken him up when he’d fallen asleep next to him by kicking him repeatedly in the head, but really it feels like something he’s felt a hundred times before, something that to Naruto is a known pain, but one that seems to be a constantly reopened wound like a scar that he can’t help but to scratch at and bleeds and heals, but always heals darker and deeper than the last time.
It feels like a crowd of people all pointing and whispering at a boy with the shadow of a monster yawning behind him. It feels like rejection, and loneliness, and why does he keep trying?
Because, something whispers in his mind, he is the kind of person who asks people that kind of question.
And before Sasuke can make the decision not to say one of the hundred things that floods into his mind after he has said what he has said - things like ”I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry, I don’t hate you, I want to try and rid our relationship of negativity too -” - and wished an eternity too late that he wasn’t as sharp as he was -
Naruto stands up abruptly, pushes the table away from him, mutters, “I’m sorry for waking you up, it was stupid of me,” and leaves, and doesn’t slam the door, and somehow the quiet click the door makes as it shuts is so much louder in the silent apartment than it would have been if he’d slammed the door.
Sasuke isn’t standing against the wall anymore. He has moved, as quickly as he would in battle, and even now he is standing behind the now-closed door with his hand on the door handle, his hand poised to throw the door open and his mind forming the words he will yell out into the darkness.
But his hand drops and he moves away from the door and Naruto has left, and the conversation, the repairing for both of them, doesn’t happen.
Sasuke tells himself that what has just happened is a good thing. He has given Naruto a piece of his mind, sent him away, and now he can sleep again.
But he knows that the piece of his mind he has given Naruto isn’t the piece that he wants to give him, and that he wanted him to stay and that he will sit on his bed for the rest of the night, watching glowing red numbers change and avoiding the photo that is by his bed, because part of it is a ghost of what has just left him, and maybe if he doesn’t admit to himself that he has left he will come back, loud and obnoxious and boisterous and alive.
CONFRONTATION #2: 4:00PM
The only thing that is as regular as the sun rising and setting is Naruto’s regular patronage of Ichiraku at 4PM every day. The whole village knows this.
Sasuke stands outside the ramen shop, his hands in his pockets, and the final edition of a well-rehearsed speech on his tongue.
“I didn’t mean what I said this morning,” he will say. “I was tired. …I’ll buy you ramen.”
He won’t apologise, because apologies taste odd and not quite right on his tongue, and he figures that backing down is strange and humbling enough.
But Naruto isn’t here, and the scenario he had pictured briefly in his head - of Naruto rolling his eyes and calling him a bastard and saying something like, “Don’t think buying me ramen will make me forget what you said this morning, but I feel sorry for you so you can buy me ramen anyway,”, of things going back to the way they were, of their whatever-the-hell-it-was returning to normal, of them fighting, maybe, and of an early morning being locked away into a tidy labelled box and never mentioned again - isn’t going to happen, because Naruto hasn’t kept the schedule he usually sticks to so rigorously.
And irrationally, this grates at Sasuke. He doesn’t know what it is. Maybe it is the sleepless night. Maybe it is the mental energy he has expended in humbling himself to the point of almost apologizing. Maybe it is just the utter humiliation of it all, because in Sasuke’s sleep-deprived, emotionally exhausted mind, he has basically been stood up, and so Sasuke marches off to find the annoying perpetrator of his mental breakdown.
Naruto answers the door bleary-eyed, wearing exactly what he had been wearing at 2AM that morning. Upon seeing Sasuke, his eyes widen and then narrow, and then widen again.
Because Sasuke is ranting as he has never seen him rant before; Sasuke is yelling in a heated, unreasonable way that is so very startling and so different from his usual cold, controlled anger; Sasuke is saying, “You BASTARD, how DARE you not eat ramen at 4PM today?”, and “I’m going to KILL you, you asshole, I spent the last FOURTEEN HOURS rehearsing and driving my mind to the brink of insanity and I was even going to buy you RAMEN, but NO, you didn’t show up and IF YOU HADN’T WOKEN ME UP THIS MORNING THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED and -”
The sheer absurdity of what Sasuke is saying snaps Naruto out of his brief moment of shock, and he cuts Sasuke off mid-rant, and he demands, “What were you rehearsing?”
Sasuke freezes, and it occurs to him that if he wasn’t so very against running away, he could be five blocks away right now. But he is, and he isn’t, and Naruto is demanding again to know just what Sasuke was rehearsing, and why he was going to buy him ramen not that he shouldn’t and what was this about spending fourteen hours driving his mind to the brink of insanity, and damn he’s completely forgotten what he was going to say to Naruto despite the fourteen hours of thinking the damn script up and rehearsing it, and -
Oh yes. He remembers now.
“I didn’t mean what I said this morning, I was tired, I’ll buy you ramen,” Sasuke blurts out, and Naruto’s eyes widen impossibly again, and is Sasuke red?
Sasuke can feel a flush rising and spreading over his face. This is - this is embarrassing, humiliating,, and he can’t remember the last time he’d felt embarrassed and it’s so terribly awkward, standing on Naruto’s doorstep like this and uttering half incoherent sentences and he can see an evil smirk on Naruto’s lips as he realizes what is going on and oh god this is too embarrassing and he’s going to go now that he’s said what he had been going to say -
“Wait here,” Naruto says, “I’ll be right back.”
And Sasuke is left standing shocked, wondering what the hell is going on and is Naruto going to come back with something sharp and pointy to poke him with, because if so he’d better -
But Naruto is suddenly there again, dressed in his orange jumpsuit, locking the door behind him, and he isn’t jumping at his throat like some frenzied maniac with a kunai and - and why is he looking at him expectantly?
Naruto rolls his eyes, and says in an exasperated voice, “Hey, bastard, weren’t you going to buy me ramen?”
Naruto has upset his plans once today, what with his refusing to be at the ramen stand at 4PM so that he could offer to buy him ramen. Sasuke doesn’t know how to react. Isn’t Naruto supposed to yell at him? Tell him how much of a bastard he is, tell him how buying ramen won’t make him forget what he’d said? Maybe tell him that he hates him?
“Hey…” Sasuke says unsteadily, “Aren’t you annoyed at me? Wanting to stab me? Why aren’t you trying to punch me?”
Naruto’s smile slips briefly, and he looks confused for a second. “Huh? Why would I do that?”
Now Sasuke’s expression is not so much confused as annoyed. “Have you forgotten that you stormed out of my apartment this morning, presumably extremely? Shouldn’t you be rejecting my apolo - statement? Kicking me, at the very least?”
Naruto’s smile appears again, lighting up his face and making him look about five years younger. “Hey, you apologised, right? You said that you didn’t mean what you said this morning, blah blah blah, you were tired, you’re going to buy me ramen to say sorry. Right? So it’s all good. I forgive you. Now buy me ramen.”
Sasuke doesn’t quite understand how Naruto can forgive so easily, how he can be so willing to forgive. He doesn’t quite get Naruto. Not yet.
But as he watches him gulp down his fifth bowl of ramen, he thinks that maybe he understands him a bit more than he did at 2AM that morning. That maybe, maybe, he doesn’t hate him as much as he thinks.
He watches him as Ayame collects the bowls beside him, watches as she asks why he was late today -
And watches as Naruto replies easily, the words sliding off his tongue making Sasuke’s face instantly go hot -
“I was with a friend.”
And Sasuke is, for a second, before denial sets in, so glad that Naruto didn’t stick to his schedule, and that the scenario in his head that he had planned out didn’t happen.
He is glad he was impulsive, and this in itself is amazing.
CONFRONTATION #3: 6:00AM
It is 6:00 AM.
They are waiting for Kakashi-sensei. Again.
It is still dark, and it is cold, and yet Naruto is still effortlessly cheerful. Annoyed, granted; but cheerful nonetheless.
And determined to bring up a morning Sasuke would rather forget.
“So, Sasuke,” he says casually, “have you thought any more about what I said the other morning?”
Sasuke decides that evasiveness is the best way to go, because his behavior around Naruto in the last two days, in retrospect, is quite frankly embarrassing, and also he doubts that Naruto will bring up the issue of them ridding their whatever-it-is of negativity in front of Sakura. At least, he hopes so.
So Sasuke answers just as casually, “No, sorry, what was it you said?”
And he laughs inwardly as Naruto glares at him.
That day, Naruto asks Sasuke thirty-three times, in various forms that he evidently considers to be quite subtle, whether he has thought more about their little 2AM chat.
Strangely enough, Sasuke thinks to himself, even as he smirks at Naruto and affects a vaguely innocent expression and says, “No, I don’t, could you remind me what it was?”, he has thought about it.
He has thought about it more than he is comfortable with. Thought about what it would be like if they did make an effort not to constantly gripe at and annoy the other; because that’s what Naruto means by negativity, right?
And he isn’t too sure he likes the thought of it. He is quite sure, actually, that he despises the thought of it. He enjoys the bantering contests. He thrives on the competition and the constant thrill he gets when he beats him in something, and he knows that he is more motivated to train because of this thrill, and also because if he doesn’t then Naruto will beat him, and laugh at him.
He… loves the staggering home at 3AM. The training until neither of them can walk in a straight line without support. Loves the insulting and the insults that they throw at each other when they are both too tired to throw shuriken. Loves how they both desperately want to better themselves. Loves… how they motivate each other to do it.
Is this what Naruto means by negativity? The insults? The fights? The constant competition? Maybe.
Sasuke has thought about it. But he doesn’t see anything negative in their… relationship?
CONFRONTATION #4: 2PM
Sasuke jumps. Throws all eight shuriken. Watches as all of them hit, points quivering into eight red circles.
Watches as another eight shuriken fly into the space that his had been in only seconds ago.
“You’re too slow,” he drawls lazily.
Naruto emerges, flushed, from behind a tree. “Yeah, well, hitting moving shuriken is harder than it looks, okay?”
“Fine,” Sasuke says, “let’s swap.”
Naruto flushes again. “Fine.”
They swap. None of Naruto’s shuriken reach their mark.
Naruto curses. Sasuke smirks.
“Not fast enough, dobe. Don’t aim for eight yet. Try two. It might suit your capabilities more.”
There is no real mockery in Sasuke’s voice, and the glare Naruto shoots at him is more habitual than annoyed. Sasuke is happy, of course, that he is better than Naruto; but both of them know that he will stay there until Naruto, too, has improved, and that despite Naruto’s apparent annoyance he will listen to Sasuke.
Sasuke watches Naruto as he throws the shuriken. Watches as he misses, swears, draws another two shuriken from his hip pocket. Watches a constant stream of missing, cussing, and throwing.
And he wants to know what drives him. He knows what drives everyone else. Sakura doesn’t want to be useless anymore. Lee wants to prove to himself that he can become a great ninja with only taijutsu. Hinata wants to prove to herself that she is worthy; wants to show Naruto that she is more than a quiet, shy hindrance. Neji wants to prove that he is better than the head family; TenTen that one day, she will be able to defeat even Neji’s ultimate defense, and that one day, she will be recognized as the Fire Country’s most skilled weapons mistress. He knows why everyone pushes themselves.
But he wants to know why Naruto pushes himself the hardest.
Is it just because he wants to become Hokage? Maybe. That is, after all, what Naruto always says when pressed for an answer.
But Sasuke thinks that it’s more than that. He can’t know for sure; not unless he asks, and maybe he will someday. But not today.
Naruto’s dream; his goal; his ambition, is to become Hokage; and Sasuke understands that. After all, Sasuke has a dream, a goal, an ambition, too, doesn’t he? Naruto doesn’t want to die until he becomes Hokage.
Sasuke doesn’t want to die until he kills Itachi.
And this is the root of why he thinks that Naruto wants something more than becoming Hokage; something that maybe through becoming Hokage he can attain; because really he wants something more than killing Itachi. He wants to kill Itachi because he wants revenge.
And maybe, Sasuke thinks, Naruto wants to become Hokage because he wants to be accepted and respected and loved.
He watches Naruto’s face contort in concentration. Watches the two shuriken fly out of his hand; watches as they both miss by millimeters.
They will stay there until dusk comes, and the shadows lengthen and the sun falls, and only when Naruto can throw two, four, six, eight shuriken successfully, only when they both can barely lift their arms, only when it hurts to move any more than an inch, will they decide to leave. But the night is warm, and the moon is high, and the grass in the clearing is soft, and Naruto is lying on his back, panting, and watching the sky and the clouds drifting across the moon and Sasuke drops with a groan and joins him.
They have no illusions about what may or may not happen. They have both had pictures; images of what they would like to happen before, and they know that what you think will work out never does. But they had not planned to be here tonight; and they are both glad for this.
They will lie there. They will not notice when their eyelids begin to drift closed, will not notice when Sasuke’s head falls onto Naruto’s shoulder, will not notice when Naruto turns into the touch. They will not notice any of this.
They will not notice when Jiraiya comes across them when the sky begins to lighten, returning from one of his obscure missions. Will not notice the softening of his features as he remembers another place and time, another two boys who had been much the same.
They are oddly touching, Jiraiya thinks. Black hair splayed out over a dark, sun-browned neck, blond hair falling over pale, pale skin; the two clash, really - but in their sleep, their expressions are innocent, and the way they are is intimate, whether in a sexual way or not, and the way they are arranged is almost as though someone had put them there, moving an arm, a leg, here and there, until it meets their standard of perfection, and the whole arrangement is very much symmetrical in feeling, if not form. But these thoughts hurt, because Jiraiya once had something like this and lost it.
They will not notice until they wake how close they are. Will not know until they wake, and spring apart instantly, embarrassed and awkward, flushed and red-faced, and unaware of so much, and not knowing how two boys long ago hadn’t know what they’d had either until they’d lost it.
They will go on a mission tomorrow. And they will both remember another mission, a past mission, one fought on a bridge with eddies of mist and a house of ice, with needles and confessions and pain; pain from giving up dreams to save those important, pain from bloodied wounds and frenzied attacks; and maybe, maybe they will think about what they have and how lucky they are to have it.