Opening: Hallo! Long time no update, eh? Well here's a little something. Don't worry it won't be depressing very long.
Warnings: Cursing/Yaoi: Eventual SasuNaru/Character death? Maybe?
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters. The plot be mine bishes. ):D
Summary: Naruto is fated to die by the same disease that his mother had. His world is jaded until he meets Sasuke, the first kid who didn't pity him or shun him. Just as soon as the fun starts, it ends when Naruto's guardian moves away with him and they never see each other again, until 10 years later in high school. Naruto starts avoiding Sasuke like the plague and Sasuke is determined to figure out why this kid who seems to hate his presence seems so familiar.
Incurable
Prologue: Jealousy
These…
"Hey, wait up!"
These people…
"'Kay! Hurry up then!"
These people are…
"Let's go!"
These people are so…
"Thanks for waiting."
Alive.
--
I watched as the two friends left, hand in hand. My eyes were clouded over with- with something that I couldn't put a name on. It made me feel longing and pain; so much loneliness. It hurt when I thought about my heart. It thumped sharply when I watched them walk away. An orange sun painted their backs as parents joined on either side of the two.
Why couldn't I have that? A friend to hold my hand? A parent to welcome me into their arms? I never had anything like that. At least, not in a long time.
What was this feeling that's eating me up inside?
--
I sat there in my second grade class and starred at the book in my face; not really reading it, but still being lost enough to lose myself in that other world. Incessant chatter droned on, and dulled into a small cacophony that I could barely notice.
That book I was reading was about a little girl who was similar to me in so many ways. The book was titled, 'The Days of our Deaths'. Her name was Grace and she was only ten years of age. At the beginning she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was going to die soon and was all alone in this world. Her father left the family when he heard the news and her mother was deteriorating right in front of her very eyes from the same disease that she too would fall victim to. She lived her life isolated from the rest of the world. Every time I got to chapter nine, I would start over. I didn't want to read anymore after that, because that's when I realized how similar we were and I knew how that story ended.
I laughed silently to myself when I thought about my life. Those children around me had no clue about my condition. The teachers tried to coddle me, pitying my very existence. Why did they act like I was already dead? That made me feel dead and dead hurt. Dead is empty, dead is alone, dead is invisible, dead is forgotten.
When I was four, my mother took me to the doctors because she was worried about my sudden shortness of breath. During preschool, I fainted from running and my mother came to get me. The doctor assured my mother that it was probably just asthma.
We came back 2 days later with the hopes of leaving with an inhaler and medication. He told us that what I had wasn't asthma, but anemia. The doctor told us that it wasn't an uncommon blood disease and is normally treated easily. He gave me some supplements and we were on our way home.
For a while they worked; I still tired easily, but I could maintain myself well. It only lasted a year before more symptoms started showing. My normally tanned skin was paling, my breathing became shorter, which tired me out more and it was all I could do to keep air in my lungs.
Some time between all of this, my father left us for the other world. He was killed in a car crash and my mother lost half of her liver, a small portion of her pancreas, a bit of her stomach and a foot of her large intestine. She was a mess and I was forced to look after myself during this time frame – a person from the hospital would check up on me weekly- and with my condition, it was very difficult. It was when I was visiting her in the hospital that a nurse commented on my condition and recommended that I go back to my doctor.
When she took me to see the doctor again, my blood pressure was drastically lower than before. He took another look at my blood and apparently he saw something that he didn't like. Examining the blood cells closer, he noticed that the red blood cell count was dangerously low. I was told on that day that I had a rare form of anemia in a category called Normocytic-normochromic anemia connected with a chronic disease that would eventually lead to terminal cancer.
It was found that nothing could be done except to give assistance to mask the symptoms. At that point I was taking ten pills a morning. Six months, later I added an eleventh when my mother died; an anti-depressant.
I was pulled out of my thoughts by a knock on the door of the classroom. I placed the book down on to my desk and gazed at the intruder. A small black haired boy stood at the door and was glaring at everyone around him.
The teacher, I couldn't very much care to remember her name, was encouraging him into the room with a wrinkled, old hand at his back. He stepped in reluctantly and scanned the place with the scrutiny of an experienced car buyer. His dark, nearly black eyes stopped at every round table in the room. There were seven in total and each had at least four kids at them except for mine. No one wanted to sit next to the kid who coughed up blood sometimes. I was scary to them.
All the kids in the class were waving at him, trying to get the new 'student' to sit with them. I couldn't really say that we were students, since we didn't really learn anything. We were still treated like kindergarteners even though we were in second grade. Anyway, so they were waving like idiots at the poor kid and it didn't show, but I thought it was making him uncomfortable. I didn't pity him, I was just noticing things. By then, I was a pretty apathetic person; kind of listless, you might say.
His eyes stopped at my table and I thought that they'd pass right over me but he stopped and stared. There was evident confusion on his face. He was probably wondering why I was all alone and then he'd assume there was a reason I was and find somewhere else to sit. Again, he surprised me by coming over with his little black book-bag and sitting down.
I probably looked just as shocked as everyone else did in class and the new kid smirked at me. "You looked lonely."
That made me angry – I was aware that he was only sitting there out of pity. So I stood up, my chair screeched and finally gave in to tip over and fall. The other kids were silent, even more surprised to see me react to something. I pulled my arm back and I saw his eyes widen, realizing what I was about to do. My fist careened forward and I hit him so hard that he fell out of his chair.
"Teme! I don't need your damn pity!"
Surprising me for what I hoped was the last time, he jumped onto his feet and hit me back; his fist to my chest. It knocked the wind out of me momentarily, but it lit a fire in me that I had never felt before. I was on him in seconds and we were rolling on the floor and taking swings at each other. The teacher seemed too stunned to do anything and the kids were whooping and cheering on the fight.
Eventually he got me pinned and glared down at me; my own furious glare met his.
"I don't pity you, moron!" He growled, "I wanna be your friend."
My glare and my arms dropped and my eyes went wide. Never had anyone told me that they wanted to be my friend.
I was about to respond when he was pulled off by the teacher and I was pulled to my feet as well.
"I am surprised at you both, especially you Naruto. You're such a sweet boy and you know you shouldn't fight like that with your condition." The way she said that made me scowl.
"I want you both to go down to the infirmary and then go straight to the principal's office." She pointed at the door and I headed out down the hallway, grabbing the new kid's hand on the way out.
We were walking in silence and I was still holding the kid's hand. I hated the silence.
"My name is Naruto Uzumaki. What's yours?" I asked quietly.
There was another long silence and I could see the infirmary sign up ahead. I figured he wasn't going to answer me until…
"Hn. I'm Sasuke Uchiha." His answer was almost as quiet as mine.
He cleared his throat like he was trying to cover up the awkward silence I thought it was cute that he was embarrassed about something like th-, "you hit like a girl."
…
"What was that, teme?!"
It was the start of a beautiful friendship… I didn't think about it then, but I knew, in the back of my mind, that this wouldn't last. It would be only a matter of time before I was gone. I couldn't let him know.
We had so much fun together in such a short amount of time. It was like we were destined to be best friends; we had a bond like no other.
But as fate would have it, I found out that I would be moving away at the end of the year… I didn't tell Sasuke that either.
TBC…
Stavi: I've had this on the back burner for a while and I figured I'd finish it sooner rather than later. So long as I feel like it, I'm going to try to finish the next chapter today. Huzzah!
If there's something about this that you don't like, let me know
Next chapter: The Good Ole' Tenth Year Reunion.
