When the world begins anew

When the stars reclaim the empty sky

When the flowers break free of their earthen prisons...

Remember me

Because I will always remember you.

• • •

I remember when we first met. I was drowning and you were my lifeline. As soon as I looked at you, I felt like I could breathe again. The feel of the oxygen rushing back into my system was intoxicating, the air heady and sharp in my lungs. It was your eyes that rescued me, like the night; a dark, abysmal blue filled with stars of refracted light.

"I'm sorry," you said.

"Don't say that."

I had heard those words too many times. I hated them. I simply didn't understand why people felt obliged to take the blame for events that weren't their fault. The words were slivers of obligatory lies that even I could see through, naïve as I was.

"I don't know what else to say."

"I don't think you can."

I didn't know you but I knew I was fortunate to even lay eyes on you. Our parents were friends from far back, having discovered a mutual interest in alchemy when they were still studying in Konoha. And when my parents moved, the bonds of friendship still remained. Every month, we would receive some written correspondence and each word practically throbbed with the affection stored therein.

I always wanted to meet you, the talented Uchiha heir whom I had heard so much about.

"I'm Sasuke."

I nodded, fully aware of your name.

"Hi," you added, as though uncertain, however your voice betrayed you were nothing of the sort.

I smiled thinly.

"Naruto? I'm sorry,"

I averted my eyes to the floor, "I said..."

"I'm not sorry for what happened to your mum and dad. I'm sorry for you. I don't know how it feels to have the people you love most in the world taken from you, but I know it's horrible. It must feel like... I don't know… a knife right in your heart. And I'm sorry that you have to go through that pain. But I swear, I'll try and heal that pain for you."

I looked up, noticing that your hair was most likely uncared for, despite its deceptively neat front. If I had hair like yours, like a crow's wings, I would certainly have put in a little more effort maintaining that lustre.

"... Thank you, Sasuke."

We glanced over at your parents, still talking to the courier from my hometown. I'd known Jiraiya from birth. He was my tutor, a wizened old sage who was somehow connected to my parents. Over glistening night-cast plains and bottles of fine wine, he and my dad used to reminisce about the old times, back in Konoha. Mum would offer up a coveted memory when the conversation stilled, and they would laugh and be happy. Jiraiya was an incredible man, perfectly balancing his intelligence and joviality, and had a reputation with women that I wouldn't understand until I was a lot older.

"Thank you, Sir Jiraiya," your dad said, with an incline of his head It was almost as if he was thanking him for everything he had ever done, but your dad simply didn't understand the extent of his kindness.

Jiraiya walked my way, his robes trailing from extended arms. He leant down to embrace me, and I was swallowed by waves of silk. I didn't mind that my breathing was constricted. Clutching onto his portly figure and drinking in his scent, that all too familiar scent of ambrosial liquor and bitter cologne, I knew I would miss him. My last friend was no longer mine. My eyes stung. I don't think it was from the cologne.

"I'll be back soon, Naruto."

"Please..." I whispered.

I was too young.

He gently caressed my untamed hair, letting me hold him, letting me carry myself back to when I was five, when tailed beasts still lurked beneath my bed and my single protector was a battered, dog-eared fox. I realised now that there were still beasts in this world, and their names were loneliness, despair and death.

I disentangled myself from the confines of the cloth, looking up at him with something akin to desperation in my eyes, "Please..."

Jiraiya bent down further, so that our eyes were almost level. He took my hands in his calloused mitts and pressed something into my palm. It was cold and smooth and innocuously breakable beneath my fingers.

He smiled, and drew his hands away. A porcelain frog was gazing up at me, plump with pride. There was a piece of Jiraiya in every facet of that face- the burning intelligence in the eyes, the misshapen nose, the creased neckline.

"His name is Icha. He will watch over you while I'm gone and listen to everything you have to say. Until I come back, you have him. He'll be your friend when I can't possibly hope to me."

That stinging in my eyes had restarted, and this time, I couldn't deny it came from the impending tears. I flung my arms around Jiraiya once more, and we embraced for a few more precious seconds.

"I'll miss you, Naruto."

"Please… don't leave me," and my voice was glass, the tremors that shook it transparent and fragile.

"I don't want to go. Not yet."

But his life was calling, and he had to answer.

I watched him as he drove away.

A minute of heartbreak passed before you stepped over to me, a hand extensed to supply some much-needed comfort. I didn't even glance at you and grasped the porcelain frog tight, as if it was a buoy and I was sinking

"Careful," you murmured, "You'll break it."

I would break it and watch it crumble into a galaxy of clay shards to be passed over and forgotten.

"I won't. It's not as if someone can just forget things, Sasuke."