Title: Why Me?
Pairing: SasuNaru
Rating: PG-16
Summary: Uzumaki Naruto had never asked the question 'why me', ever. He wasn't to know why fate has thrown so many major road blocks in his life. He just wants some answers.
Warning: Angst. Mentions of contemplated suicide and cutting. This is not a yaoi story. The actions in this fic are just platonic and result of brotherhood, camaraderie, and deep friendship. It's short, I know but sometimes us artistic types have to get some vitriol out before we can move on.
The shattered splinters of glass fell to the floor.
Naruto stared into his distorted reflection in the broken mirror. His clenched fist dripping with blood, his blue eyes streaked with red from crying; his cheeks marred with the tracks of tears he would never allow anybody else to see, dripping down to the faint, brown streaks on his face which reminded him of what he was and what he could never escape.
He was a jinkurichii.
His dull eyes hardened, clenched his fist and struck the glass again. A single blood stained shard rebounded and stuck him in the face, adding another cut that the damn being in him would heal in seconds. Kyuubi.
'Why the hell was I the one chosen to bear this curse.' He cried mentally, systematically striking at his refection.
His room looked like a tornado has just gone through it. Clothes and weapons strewed about on the floor, bed cloths ripped and torn from the nightmares that were coming more frequently than ever. The meditation and calming techniques Iruka taught him years ago were becoming less and less fruitful. Kyubbi, it seemed, took vicious delight tormenting him in his sleep; flashing pictures and cruel memories of his parents' deaths. A tangible recollection of his mother's screams when she threw herself in front and blocked his crib from the attack that caused her life.
'Why wasn't it anybody else?' he cursed blindly. 'Damn you Minato!'
Every bleak, miserable day of his existence, Naruto felt like he was constantly under water, struggling to get air but receiving none. All his life, from birth to the academy to his present chunin level, he had to put on a mask. A mask; a poker face, a façade, an identity that displayed blind, faithful optimism without showing the jagged scars and twisting hurt beneath. A mask that was currently melting at the core.
'What the hell was I in my previous life to deserve this?'
Mocked, tormented and abandoned as a child he had played the position of a prankster to get attention; and attention did come...the negative, debilitating type. Labelled as the scourge of the town; slandered and scorned as the walking evidence of the havoc that devastated Kohona nineteen years ago. His birthday was an annual day of grief and torment.
Slipping down to his knees, Naruto observed the splinters of the shattered glass strewed across the carpet in his room.
'Just like my fucking life.' He thought mentally sighing.
A large shard of the mirror was staring him in the face. He sighed outwardly, knowing that it was daring him to cut himself as he had done many times before, but to no end, Kyuubi always sealed the self-inflicted injuries in minutes.
Grabbing his lower belly, where the seal was there, faint, but still there, he hunched over and grunted. The mental pain was rising; building in his gut, climbing up his throat like acid, level by level until he finally gave in and screamed. The cry was heart wrenching. The echo bounced off the roof tops and resounded in the hollow, bare space of his apartment. His soul was aching, crying, screaming for reprieve.
'Monster,' 'abomination', 'freak', 'hybrid', devil', 'loser', 'dunce', 'hopeless', 'outcast', 'idiot', 'moron', 'troublemaker', 'failure', 'ignorant', 'demon'. All the horrible names he was called the entirety of his life, and for the first time he started to believe them.Desperatelyhis injured hands grabbed his neon blond hair and started to pull. His sobs rent him in two, hopelessness like a snake, wrapped around his heart and crushed him.
'Why was he so freaking different?'
Not traditional Japanese, he was a toxic mix of European blood and Japanese lineage. His tan skin itself spoke volumes of his foreign identity. He remembered some time ago, when he was fifteen, frustrated with all the teasing, he started to take a foreign drug named 'arsenic' hoping it would make his skin lighter and pale. It only made him vomit for hours and sick for days. Kyuubi, apparently, didn't want any of that in his carrier.
Leaning back he stared at the ceiling, breathing hard. The only one person he knew who could even understand or imagine his pain was the Sabaku; and Gaara was thousands of miles away in Suna. A small, caustic smile flittered across his face when he recalled all the times he had personally dragged Gaara, a walking time bomb, back from his own self-inflicted demise. It wasn't easy but his managed to do it, even when his own spirit was taunting him to do the same.
'What happened to the other people he could have chosen?'
Naruto sighed, banging his head back unto the bare, plain, concrete wall behind him. The pain ricocheted though his soul.
'Why was I the only one?'
A small creak indicated the door to his apartment was being opened. Naruto didn't even look up because he knew who was entering. The only one other person who had a spare key to his home was his long-time 'friend', teammate, and eternal rival Uchiha Sasuke.
"Usurotankachi?(1)" was quietly, cautiously called out.
Sasuke knew that the only way he could come to Naruto's apartment and not find blaring and obnoxious music assaulting his ear drums was because Naruto was either absent, sick or dead. The quiet, almost silent footsteps slowly approached his bedroom door. The doorknob was turned and Sasuke stepped in.
A moment.
From the doorway he quietly surveyed the destruction in the room, noting the frayed and ripped bed sheets, the glass on the floor, the blood stained carpet, the empty packs of ramen, the pile of dirty laundry heaped up in a corner, the smell of sake, the dirt and grime stains on the hardwood floor and lastly the hunched up, orange clad, tear stained, dull eyed figure, crunched up by the bedside.
Sasuke slipped his hands into his pockets and calmly, stepping over the debris, crossed over to the small table in the corner, the only place that wasn't littered with detritus, where Naruto usually had a heap of ramen and sweets. He was silent until Naruto couldn't take it anymore and listlessly asked;
"Nan desu ka?" Naruto barely asked him, face down, his tired eyes closed.
"Nothing." Sasuke replied, still regarding the room and his teammate, "Just that you haven't asked me why I was here."
A sardonic chuckle while unconcernedly pulling down the sleeves of his shirt; Sasuke already knew of the faint golden scars that were in the underside of his arms because the Uchiha had some of them himself. "Why are you here, teme?"
"You haven't shown up for training for three days." Sasuke said quietly, "Hatake was concerned."
A scoff, "Why would Kakashi-sensei be concerned? I'm not in his team anymore." Naruto said apathetically.
Sasuke flipped his bangs, "No, but he was one of the only people who ever gave a damn about you."
"And clearly you don't." Naruto retorted, bringing his hand to his face and watching a small flickers of blood red chakra flitting over his knuckles wounds expelling the tiny glass splinters and subsequently healing all the abrasions.
"I never said that," Sasuke returned slowly, "Uzumaki, even if you don't like it, you do have a team to lead. You just can't disappear for three days without notice."
"Yeah, right." Naruto scoffed, glancing up under his unkempt hair, "I'm not the genius in this team...you are... According to everyone I'm just the idiotic muscle."
"No, you're certainly not the brains of the operation." Sasuke agreed while crossing the floor and sitting on his haunches beside the downtrodden Uzumaki and stared into his face, "But when I was going to defect with Itachi, it was you who stopped me. When Gaara was going to destroy himself and us, you talked him down. When Tsunade left, you were the one who got her back into Kohona. When Hinata was going to kill herself you were the one who changed her mind, now she's the next leader of the clan.(2)"
"Yeah, so?" Naruto said his voice hollow.
"I'm saying, dobe." Sasuke said, sitting down beside Naruto. "You may not be the brightest among us, but you're not unappreciated...and you're not just muscle."
"I don't believe you." He contested.
Sasuke paused thinking, and then finally said. "You don't have to." his black eyes gazing at the ceiling; "Have you taken a look at all the people you have influenced. Konohamaru, Hinata, Rock Lee, Sakura, Kiba," a pause, "...me."
"Wha'?" a cock of the head, "What did I do to you?"
A scoff, "You are really asking me that question, dobe?"
A tentative smile, "Tell me."
Sasuke arched an eyebrow, "Hn." and then started:
"Okay...From the academy, the first time I saw you in the horrible orange jump suit, which was scorching my retinas, might I add, I declared you as an idiot like everyone else, not knowing what you would mature into. Being placed in a team with you was my worst nightmare. You've annoyed me to my last nerve, you've pushed me to insanity and back, there were days when you've nearly made me even think of following Itachi's footsteps." Sasuke said smirking, then slowly and seriously;
"And there were days when you've protected me, you've kicked me in the ass to stop being so heartless, you've made me see something in me that I didn't know was there, you've carried me when I was exhausted, you've took my worst and, how in hell I have no idea, you turned it into something good, you've been an itch in my back that I couldn't scratch out. You've been my sanity, my conscience..." Sasuke paused smirking, "...and my eternal nuisance."
"All that huh?" Naruto said, slowly, smiling at the end of the sentence.
Sasuke smirked, "Hai, all that."
Naruto quirked a golden brown brow, his blue eyes slowly getting that mischievous glint. "Tell me Sasuke, what's your angle here?"
"To get you out of this hell hole you've apparently dug yourself into." He said, his midnight eyes clearly scorning the messy room.
"Yeah, yeah." Naruto asked, slipping his head unto Sasuke's shoulder.
Minutes passed, then;
"Sasuke...have you ever asked yourself 'why' your life is like it is." Naruto asked, "Why fate, or whatever, chose you to fuck up your life? Why you were the one left when Itachi did that to the whole clan...Why he left you alone? Why you had to be the best at everything?"
Sasuke reeled back at all the questions he was asked. He had no idea that seemingly 'empty-headed' Naruto was contemplating issues like this. He took some time to muse over the questions.
"No. I don't." he answered honestly.
"Why?"
"Because, I'm not in charge of my destiny." Sasuke replied succinctly.
"Then who is?" Naruto asked.
"When I know I'll be sure to tell you." Sasuke said, staring into Naruto's depthless eyes.
Naruto searched his eyes for a minute and just accepted the statement with a single determined nod. Sasuke paused, seeing something in Naruto he had never seen before and he had an urge he honestly couldn't say he'd ever had.
Leaning close to the Uzumaki's face he paused again, reaching out a hand he grasped the back of Naruto's head, leaned into the tear stained face, pressed his pale forehead and obsidian eyes to the tan forehead in front of him and stared into the cobalt eyes before him... and stared and stared some more. His black eyes boring into Naruto's own with a level and steady gaze; communicating a message of determination through the one inch space between them, saying through the stare 'hang on', and 'you're not alone'. Naruto's eyes matched his gaze with equal fervour.
Time slipped away.
A small smile then crossed the Uchiha's face; he shifted up and pressed a small, closed mouth kiss to the Uzumaki's forehead. Obsidian eyes bored into sapphire ones again.
"Let's go, dobe... before all that thinking actually hurts you."
Naruto rolled his eyes, "Bastard."
*Owari.*
A/N: I'm working off an idea that when they reach chunin level they should be able to choose their own leader, so that genin thing is obsolete. (1) 'usurotankachi' means 'idiot' and (2) Yeah I know, Hinata didn't try to kill herself (but personally for all the criticism she went through I thought it was tangible); it just for the story.