Naruto stood naked at his bedroom window, watching the first rays of sunlight slowly appear and begin to fight back the darkness. Glancing back at his phone, a large crack across the screen obscured his view but he could still make out the time. It was far too early to be getting up but Naruto couldn't sleep anymore. He was flying back to England today, too restless and nervous to return to his bed, even though it was beckoning him with it's warmth and comfort. Naruto needed to get up and do something. Staring around his room he looked for something to occupy himself. The room was surprisingly organised and tidy, especially to his standards, it was large and well lit with a large oak double bed and matching furniture. Naruto had spent most of the last few days packing and organising it. He was only taking clothes and a few essentials; like his laptop. Everything else was also sorted out and boxed up to keep it dust free. He was leaving a lot behind and was unsure what he would do with it if he decide to stay in England.
Normally on Fridays, his time would be spent at work, then to the bar for a few drinks or back home with a couple of beers and his PS4 for company. This PS4, still pristine, had been packed into its original box. Naruto stared at it considering unpacking it, as it was several hours before he would have to leave and didn't wish for his own thoughts as company. Naruto wouldn't be taking it to England, it would be easier to buy a new one, since he had some money saved from his signing bonus for agreeing to relocate to the UK.

Naruto couldn't believe he was going back to England, his birthplace. It was hard to think of it as his home, as he hadn't lived there for nearly 7 years. Now at the age of 25, after living in a high rise apartment just outside of New York, he was going back home. Standing stark-naked, he stared out of the window over the New York skyline. Man, was he going to miss this view. It was idyllic. It reached out across the Hudson river, the calm waters stretching across to the city skyline. The view was stunning at any time of the day. This morning, the sun was just beginning to rise. It crept up from behind the buildings with a fierce orange colour and a soft yellow glow trailing below, It fought back the darkness above it, pushing it away. Naruto was grateful that he had risen early enough to witness it.

"The neighbours will complain" scoffed a voice from behind him, Naruto glanced down at himself; tanned, strong and muscular. Turning his head he replied "I don't think complain is the right word, Sai". Sai, Naruto's roommate stood in the hall outside Naruto's room, gaving him a half smile he said, "maybe you will scare some poor old dear to death and they won't let you leave the country!?" Naruto laughed, a wonderful sound that filled the room. "HA! I'd be so lucky" Naruto replied without thinking, scooping up a pair of well worn navy blue sweat pants and putting them on. Sai raised an eyebrow, intrigued by Naruto's response, he asked, "You don't want to leave?" while he stepped into the room.

"Well you know it's complicated." Naruto replied as he raised a nervous hand to the back of his head.

"How so? - I thought you were excited for this job offer?"

"No it's not that and of course I'm excited, it's just with, ya know with… Sasuke and everything..." Even saying his name was difficult. Naruto swallowed awkwardly, watching Sai.

"Oh, of course." was all Sai responded with, raising his eyebrows, "Well I am sure you will figure it out. Anyway Naruto, I am going back to bed as I only got up to use the bathroom." Naruto nodded. He was sure that Sai was fed up talking about Sasuke, but couldn't figure out why.

Naruto grabbed a black towel that Sai had left for him, as all his were packed, and headed for the shower. He switched it on and waited a few moments for the water to heat up before getting in and closing the glass door behind him. Naruto let the warm water cascade down his body. He stood there, hands pressed on the tiles while he looked down watching the water slowly drain away.

Naruto was definitely excited about this new job offer, he had been working as a chef to several employers since he arrived in New York. It was only by luck that one evening at his current job, he went from washing dishes to helping the head chef; there had been a nasty bug going around and with several members of staff of ill, the restaurant was facing closing for a few days but the head chef had called in a favour with a fellow chef and had then recruited Naruto for food prep. It had been a crazy few days and Naruto always thrived under pressure. The hard work paid off, Naruto had clearly made a good impression with his head chef. He was moved permanently to food prep with his head chef praising his natural ability with food. Naruto was a natural with the preparation for fine dining and complex menus. Within a year, he was promoted to chef and was even able to give some creative input and ideas to the dishes on the menu. Naruto's head chef was blown away by his progress. He always marvelled at Naruto's sense of taste and how quickly he had taken to the job with no official training.

It was about 2 months ago that Naruto had been offered a job back in England for a new restaurant: The Snake and Fox. The owner and head chef was a man named Jiraiya. Naruto had only met him briefly, but with his head chef speaking so highly of him, and the added fact that he was born and bred British, was enough for Jiraiya to risk it and offer to fly him back to England for a 3 month trial. If he and Jiraiya were happy with his work then he could stay, or simply return to America if Naruto wished. Naruto loved it here in the 'States, but he had never planned to stay so long and did miss England and his old friends. It was one of these old friends that caused Naruto so much worry over the move. After he had already agreed to return to Englandm he had received a call from an old friend from school; Sakura. They kept in touch the whole time he had been out here, speaking at least once or twice a month through Skype. They usually chatted about work and the weather, however the last time Sakura had rang him, she had been distraught and in tears. She didn't often mention Sasuke to Naruto, Sakura of course had no idea what had happened between them and she had instinctively known not to ask, but this time it came out like a flood. Sasuke had lost his older brother, Itachi, in a car accident about 4 months ago. Naruto remembers feeling shock from hearing about this. He had wrangled for weeks about sending a card or even phoning Sasuke, but in the end he didn't. According to Sakura, Sasuke had been doing fine at the time of Itachi's death. He had grieved and been upset for while but he'd picked himself up and moved on with his life. However things soon changed. Through sobbing breaths, Sakura explained how Sasuke had seemed fine, but now he'd fallen into grieve and self loathing again. He was turning up for work late or not at all. Drinking and starting to smoke he was refusing to see anyone. Sakura had pleaded with Naruto to come home just to talk to him, she'd become rather hysterical on the phone and it took Naruto a long time to calm her down before he could talk to her. With barely hidden excitement, he told her he was coming home in two weeks and of course, the job offer. He hadn't mentioned anything earlier because he wanted to surprise her. Naruto rubbed his ear at the memory of Sakura almost screaming herself blue in the face for not telling her sooner, making her worry and putting her through this. But as quickly as her anger had appeared, it evaporated and she began talking excitedly about the prospect of him coming home. Sakura had even made Naruto swear on his green frog purse that he would talk some sense into Sasuke. The phone conversation finished with Sakura and Naruto in quite high spirits and it was only when she hung up that the unease settled in around Naruto like a clingy fog. He was going to have to face Sasuke some how. In the excitement, he hadn't really thought about what that kind of promise would entail. He had exposed his heart to that man 7 years ago, in every possible way, and he had never gotten it back. Naruto put his face in his hands while in the shower and ran them up through his wet hair. "Yeah right!" he said aloud to the shower, talk some sense into Sasuke. What the hell was he going to say? - Sasuke and Naruto hadn't spoke in years. Naruto had taken the opportunity to leave for America and they hadn't even exchanged goodbyes, it had been devastating. Naruto and Sasuke had been best of friends until that drunk night at the school graduations. Naruto felt awful just thinking about it, he shut of the shower quite suddenly and stepped out shaking the depressing thoughts from his felt the chill creep over him as he stepped out and quickly wrapped a towel around his waist and grabbed another for this blond hair. Naruto spent the next few hours trying to keep himself occupied, mostly by gaming on his PS4, but he was anxious and jittery, he couldn't settle into anything, he kept swapping games or browsing Youtube.

Around 10am, Sai got up to find Naruto aimlessly opening and closing cupboards in the kitchen.
"Lost something Naruto?" Sai asked with a smirk.
"Nahhhh" Naruto replied, without looking up. "I just don't know what to eat, feel kinda sick, ya know?"

"Just have some toast or something?"

"Yeah might do"

"Naruto?"

"Yeah?"

"So, are you nervous about the Job, or flying, or what?"

"No none of that." Naruto replied, stopping his hunt for food and looking up at Sai. "I think I'm worried about having to talk to Sasuke" That was a bit of an understatement for Naruto, talking to Sasuke was all that he had thought about for the last few days. How was he going to do it? How was Sasuke going to react? Would Sasuke even talk to him? Naruto was sure the engines of his plane could fail and he would still be worrying about talking to Sasuke. Although Naruto did wonder if he could maybe just get Sasuke really mad at him, that he might snap out of this emotional ravine, it always used to work when they were kids, after all. Then he wouldn't have to bridge the gap that Sasuke had made in their friendship, that Naruto only went and lengthened, by sticking the Atlantic ocean between them. Naruto threw his hands in the air and made a noise of frustration "Yes, I am definitely worried about to talking to Sasuke!"

"So don't"

"What?"

"Don't talk to Sasuke"

"What-No! I have to talk to him, I promised Sakura!" Naruto replied shaking his head.

Sai said nothing, simply shrugged and said, "you are oddly loyal sometimes Naruto. Its not like you owe her anything , you hardly speak."

"Hey!" Naruto interrupted "Sakura and I are good friends and we Skype at least once a month or every two months since I came out here."

"Yeah but…."

"What's your problem Sai?!" Naruto asked, beginning to shout. He wasn't sure why he was getting angry with Sai, but he also wasn't sure why he was having to defend his friendship with Sakura when his friendship with Sasuke was the problem... perhaps the stress was getting to him.

"I don't have a problem Naruto, I was simply asking" Sai replied with an air of sophisticated arrogance, "Obviously you can do what you want."

Naruto opened his mouth to speak although he wasn't sure it would be in protest or apology. However this time Sai cut him off.

"I take it you will be ready to leave for the airport in an hour? I'm going to have a shower" and with that, Sai spun on his heels and left the kitchen.

"Errr yeah" Naruto replied to the empty kitchen, he wasn't quite sure what had just happened.

Trying not to give Sai too much thought (not there was much room to do that) Naruto decided that he should eat something before he left, he cut up some slices from a cinnamon, raisin and walnut loaf and spread some Jam on it. Taking a messy bite he savoured the taste. Man, was he going to miss this bread, he supposed he could make it himself, but who had the time for that? The bread in question had come from the lovely elderly lady living above them. Naruto quite often carried her shopping up or changed a light bulb for her, simple jobs like that and she always loved to bake for him in return. The elderly neighbour had given him this loaf yesterday when he had popped in to say goodbye. He had mentioned to Sai about giving her a hand while he was in England, but he didn't expect Sai would. Sai had been a great housemate, but he wasn't up for any kind of helping hand or charity work. He worked as a well paid photographer and he had done some shots for Naruto's head chef, which is how they met. They started hanging out and one evening, had gone back to Naruto's place to finish off a few beers because it was closer to the bar. When Sai had seen that Naruto was living in an apartment that was practically a glorified hallway he suggested, no insisted that Naruto move in with him in his large, 3 bed apartment. Naruto had jumped at the chance. Sai's grandfather, who was some sort of important business man, had bought the apartment and allowed Sai to live there. Naruto had never actually met his Grandfather and Sai didn't really talk about him much, so Naruto had never asked about him. For the last few years, Naruto had lived quite happily with Sai. Sai was much tidier than Naruto but Naruto often cooked for the both of them, so they worked well. Sai was gay, like Naruto, however there had never been any real attraction between the two of them. Sai was usually seeing one guy or another, Naruto couldn't keep up and had once or twice insulted one of Sai's guests by getting them confused with someone else, but it was quite disconcerting finding a different naked guy in the apartment every other weekend.

It wasn't long before Naruto was standing outside the airport loading his luggage onto a trolley, he embraced Sai like a brother, and with mock seriousness he stared at Sai and said "I am going to miss you".

"Shut up idiot" Sai replied shoving him away "the only thing you will miss is me cleaning up after you."

Naruto grinned "Yeah, ya properly right!"

Sai rolled his eyes, shaking his head, "I'll see you around, Naruto" and with that, he headed straight for his car.

"BYE SAI!" Naruto yelled much more loudly than necessary. It was acknowledged with a single wave.

Naruto chuckling to himself headed into the busy airport, it was full of tourists, businessmen and family all heading their own way with their own goals in mind. Taking a deep breath, Naruto joined the masses and headed for check in, trying to feel ready to face his own goals.