Title: Scatter
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Lyric paraphrased from VAST song "I'm Dying"
Pairings: SasuNaru, ItaNaru, others
Prologue
In the light of day, Naruto's knuckles are red, red and slightly chapped. Today, the world feels slanted and sad, and at the moment, it's as if he feels no great need to stretch his lips into a wide--too wide--smile. It seems as if there is no longer a need to reassure anyone.
Older now, he's gotten older. Naruto splays his fingers, and his hand, bony the way boys' hands can be, is black against the harsh, cold winter sky. His eyes flicker over the red transparency, the in-betweens at the base of his fingers. If only everything was so plain to see.
For a while, the tears refuse to come, no matter what, as if he's dried up completely. He glares, squints at the sun, and for a moment, it looks as if they just could fall.
They don't.
"Who among us is perfect, Naruto?"
Sakura holds the cup of tea like she would a baby bird. She sighs, and the steam rises in waves, soft, pale ghosts.
Naruto sits across from her with his knees to his chin.
When he smiles, Sakura worries.
At night, he is someone different. He finds himself taking a cab to Sasuke's house every night, as if possessed.
When Sasuke takes Naruto into his arms, it almost feels like the first time.
Naruto's fingers always find their way into the wrinkles of Sasuke's black dress shirts, tracing paths up Sasuke's broad back.
He realizes he craves him, and smiles, leaning in against Sasuke, and at night, Sasuke is all he sees and knows.
Everything else just fades.
Sasuke contemplates the importance of roses in his relationship with Naruto. He wonders if little gifts, as ephemeral as flowers would be of importance to the boy--man?--if it would could make, whatever it was that they had between them, more concrete.
He leans back in his swivel chair. He stretches his legs, and moves to stand, the chair creeking as he leaves it, and he walks until he reaches the panoramic windows that overlook the Tokyo skyline.
In his breast pocket are a pack of Lucky Strikes, just in case. He lights one, and glares at his reflection in the window, washed out in the light of day.
'Tokyo?'
He's holding a business card, flicking it around in his gloved fingers. 'Yes. I'm going to look over the family business and after that...'
Naruto can't fight his frown any longer. Itachi just smiles.
'Call me if you,' he closes his hand, with card, in Naruto's, 'need me.' Naruto shivers, feeling the back of his eyes sting; he looks away.
Itachi brushes his fingers against the angle of Naruto's jaw, and as if he pressed a button in just the right way, Naruto turns and stares at him. Itachi leans in, and slowly, kisses him.
''Bye...'
Sasuke first noticed Naruto during the last weeks in their senior year of high school. Sasuke had long since ripped off every single button on his jacket, as to prevent girls from snatching them. Just outside of class 1C, he saw that the blond, Uzumaki Naruto, notorious for reasons unknown to the general population of the school, had come upon a slightly different solution.
Sasuke watched silently as Naruto dropped every single one of the gold buttons into an envelope, and sealed it. Straining his eyes, Sasuke noticed that the envelope had already been labeled, all in crisp katakana.
'...I...ta...?'
The last line in the address has already disappeared from his line of vision, and he quickly looked away, embarrassed, but saw that Naruto was already walking away.
She doesn't remember when Naruto became so cold. Maybe it was a gradual change, as most things are.
She remembers his sudden eagerness to take the entrance exams for all the big universities in Tokyo, and her questions.
'What's wrong with going to a technical college in Konoha? It's not so bad...'
'I don't want to go to a technical college. I want to go to a university... A technical college is the worst possible place I could go.'
'A year ago, you didn't care at all. Why?'
'I have to follow my heart.'
'Where is your heart?'
For a second, she sees his resolve falter.
'If I stay here, I'll die.'
Naruto always had been surprisingly dedicated when he wanted to be. When he was accepted to Tokyo University, she followed him.
'Because,' Sakura justified, 'he would have done the same.'
She refuses to consider the possibility that he wouldn't have.
Naruto has never been good when it came to talking over the phone.
'When did you become like this?'
'Like what?'
'I miss the old Naruto...'
'I'm still here, Iruka--'
'I really miss him.'
He pauses, his hand is shaking. Sighing, he picks up the phone, and dials the number he's always remembered. The one Iruka told him to remember ever since he was a little boy.
"Hello?" Hearing the voice on the other line, Naruto hesitates.
"Iruka, it's me," he smiles when he says this; it almost feels like it used to.
"Naruto! How are you?"
"I'm great. How is work?"
"It's fine."
The room is too dark, and Naruto suddenly feels the weight of loneliness and cold against his shoulders. 'I miss you, too, Iruka...' He can't say it. He can't bring himself to say it.
"Naruto?"
"Yeah, I'm here." He tries to force the smile on his face again, but he can't. He only clutches the phone more tightly.
As if on cue, the phone crackles, "...I have to go soon... You caught me at a bad time. Call me another time, alright? Or I'll call you... whichever is better," Naruto can almost feel the well-practiced, yet nervous smile on Iruka's face, as if it could gloss over everything and make it all presentable to the world again.
"Okay."
"Take care." Naruto all but slams the phone back down on the receiver, and he feels the bite of regret, of so many things that went unsaid.
He allows himself a tiny smile, remembering that he didn't give Iruka a definite answer before he hung up; the man would panic and call him back almost immediately.
3.
2.
1...
Naruto picks up the phone almost before it rings, breathless, "Iruka?"
"Naruto-kun, were you expecting someone else?"
His hands are shaking again. "Itachi..."
The line is beeping, protesting; Iruka is probably on the other line. Naruto has never been good when it came to talking over the phone.
Being with Sasuke is like a dream. As he walks close to him, their hands brush against each other for a split second, and Naruto flushes at the contact. Suddenly, Sasuke is leaning down, and Naruto can still feel the texture of the man's teeth against his tongue, the press of his smile against the corner of his lips. Guilt rises in his stomach as he thinks of Itachi, his phone call, and his mouth.
'Come live with me.'
'Why are you saying this all of a sudden?'
'You belong to me. Live with me, Naruto.'
Naruto wants to look past the veil of blond lashes obscuring his vision, but the blur of Sasuke's dark suit, the surreal whiteness of the sky, and everything around him is too bright and beautiful. He presses the back of his hand against his eyes, and smiles, uneasiness pooling and clouding throughout him, and he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.
'Not a day goes by when I don't feel like I'm dying.'
TBC...
A/N: The prologue is very nonlinear (as is the rest of the fic) and confusing, but I promise things start to make some more sense later on :D