Disclaimer: I'm too poor to own Naruto.
Author's Note: It's my shortest fic yet and took me only 30 minutes (spread over a few months, of course). Quite a feat for me, really. I guess I'm just magical like that... or something. It came out of nowhere too, just something I kind of pieced together from other failed attempts at writing. Good thing I kept those failures saved in the deep, dark recesses of my hard drive.
His smile's too large, Sasuke remembers thinking. Too strained and harsh. He remembers wondering if his face would crack under the stress, if little needle-thin fissures would appear across his flesh and then bit by bit, piece by excruciatingly small piece that grin would fall away. Like the pieces of a mask, he remembers thinking. Porcelain and perfect in its crisp, cutting edges and slick, velvet contours. But masks can crack; they can break and shatter into a million, tiny pieces of a puzzle that would never be put back together again. He remembers wondering idly if what was left would be worth putting back together.
Sasuke's never been very good at puzzles.
--
Naruto remembers days spent in the grass, with fingers entwined and secrets exchanged and that achingly fleeting sensation of belonging. He remembers the beauty of not speaking and yet knowing all he wanted to say in just one blue glance. He remembers kisses shared, like sunlight behind his eyelids, burning red and yet so predictably familiar it nearly makes him sick with nostalgia.
But most of all, Naruto remembers thinking it would always stay the same, and it's this thought, out of all the others, that leaves him wondering how he could ever have been so young.
--
Sakura remembers dark eyes, brooding and the thought that maybe, just maybe, if she could get him to notice her, she could be the one to change him, to heal whatever was hurting him inside. Because isn't that why all the girls want the dark, mysterious boys? To change them?
It wasn't until much later that Sakura realised there was nothing much left to change.
--
Kakashi remembers everything, from every insult and hurt and heartache to the smallest of smiles hidden behind shirt collars and turned backs. He remembers watching the three of them – black for heartache; pink for those little smiles; and yellow… well he's not quite certain of what yellow represents. There's too much memory there, too many conflicting images. Like faces upon faces upon even more, and when he does think of yellow it's with a confusing mixture of hate and affection and wistful longing.
He remembers thinking they would never get anywhere, that they would fail and go traipsing back to their classroom, hungrily waiting for the next year when they could try again. He'd never taken a team before and he wasn't planning on it anytime soon.
Kakashi had briefly forgotten that things in the ninja world rarely, if ever, go according to plan.