He let his gentle fingers graze the skin of his sleeping friend. He found he was smiling in spite of himself. Why simile, why laugh? It was all out of character for him. He stroked the blond boy's cheek down to his chin and then back up to the hollow below the eye. The skin on Naruto's face was soft, free of the calluses and hard muscles that covered the rest of the young ninja's body. Sasuke could only be gentle like this with others when they were not awake, when they were conscious, and they could see him his guard went up automatically. It was not something he did on purpose, or was it? He could no longer remember when he had consciously begun to avoid relationships. What was the point in sharing feelings with people, when they just die or betray you in the end? He did not need attachments, or at least that was what he told himself, and yet he was here in Naruto's room. As if they were pulled to the surface by an invisible thread, the emotions he had thought were long since dead stirred deep in the pit of his stomach. No longer would he smile, never again. Nor would he feel or live or love. He slowly lowered his head and pressed his lips against the sleeping blonds' slightly open mouth. Then slowly he pulled away, and watched as in his sleep Naruto smiled, and his fingers twitched on the white sheets. Turning away slowly Sasuke crept silently to the window.
"You will have to do the smiling for me Naruto, because from now on I can't," his voice was no more then a whisper, lost in the light wind rattling the window frame.
With one last glance back at the messy, moonlit bedroom, Sasuke leapt out the open window into the night, and left to meet his fate.