The young man sat on the dark mahogany steps outside the front of his house. He had been out all day and had just arrived home. His neighbors didn't know what he did all day, but when he came home he waited on the dark brown steps.

The man had been living in the village for the past eight months, each day, doing the same thing.

He would get up at the crack of dawn, almost like a ninja would. He would perform morning stretches, and then jog out into the woods. He would stay out there all day, doing what, no one knew. At dusk the young man would return, each day looking a little better than the last. More refreshed, more relaxed.

Then he would wait.

The young man would occupy the steps at the front of his wooden house for the next four hours, simply waiting. No one knew what for, but everyday he would wait with a blank expression on his face, like he was trapped in a memory of yesterday past.

Today was no different. The young male had gone through his daily routine and come home, as usual. And as per usual, he sat down on his steps and waited.

And waited.

Nothing happened.

No one came.

Night had fallen long ago, and the young male, like every other night, was forced to give up on his daily routine of waiting due to lack of light, or sleep.

The same torn look graced the young man's beautiful features, as if it tore him apart, having to leave his game of waiting. Slowly the young male stood up and brushed himself off. Stepping inside his front door, he would close it and walk up to his bedroom, lying down onto the soft pillows to have another restless night of sleep.

His neighbors were worried. He did this every night, no matter what the weather. They didn't even know what he was waiting for. Whatever it was, it was killing him. Whatever he was waiting for… never came.

Eight months this young man had been wasting his life, eight long months.

But it never came, what he was waiting for, would never come.

Sasuke stood, feeling torn, like he was being ripped apart form the inside.

Eight months.

Eight months since they said they would come.

Sasuke knew they wouldn't forget him, so why weren't they coming? With a long, tired sigh Sasuke went inside to bed. He knew he was missing something, something important. Half the time he was waiting, he would be trying to figure out why they weren't coming.

They had promised.

Ten years later Sasuke was walking past a cemetery. He paused to look at two graves he had never seen before. He did the math. The two teens were only fifteen when they were murdered. He sighed sadly. The inscription on both said,

'Friends are lost,

But never forgotten.

Betrayed by them,

Only to find death.'

The names on the graves were Naruto Uzumaki and Sakura Haruno.

Sasuke had heard those names somewhere, though he couldn't place where. He had his own problems. He needed to get home, to wait for them. To see if they would finally come.

He didn't know why they hadn't come, but he would never stop waiting.

Sasuke kept waiting, wasting away his youth, locked away in a cycle that would never be completed.

Sasuke kept waiting.

Waiting on lost friends, on lost memories.

The same blank look on his face every night, trying desperately to remember a memory of past.

A memory of past that would never come.