The Meaning of That Day
"My entire flowerbed is ruined!" A woman yelled, holding bright red, crushed roses.
"And all the clothes I hung up to dry were pulled off my rack!" A man complained, showing his torn clothes.
"I have to go to work in a couple hours and I couldn't even sleep with all the ruckus that little demon was making!"
A group of mostly middle aged villagers crowed around an elderly old man wearing a white cloak with a matching red and white cap.
"Hokage-sama, I will NOT stand for this any longer. Now, you promised us that once the fox boy became a professional ninja, all of his evil nonsense would cease!"
The man rubbed his forehead wearily.
"Honestly, I don't know what could be going through his head today. But he's had a full nine month streak of good behavior, ever since the Academy passed him, so, please, forgive him this one time."
The villagers murmured amongst each other, looking down at their ruined belongings or rubbing their aged, tired eyes, and reluctantly complied.
"But if he messes up even ONE more time..." The villager who complained of sleep deprivation began to threaten. "He has got to go."
The other villagers, most likely sensing the helplessness in the old Hokage, quickly nodded along with him.
"Yeah, either him or us." Said a younger female.
"All I want to know is... Exactly what were you thinking when you gave such an unstable beast to a worthless little orphan boy like him?!"
"Right! This shouldn't even have happened if you'd have just been more careful and-"
"Excuse me." The Third Hokage spoke up.
Their eyes which had been flicking amongst each other, encouraged by the understanding and agreement they found there, slowly moved to his.
"...I'm sorry but... I didn't realize you all disagreed so deeply with my decisions as Hokage of this village."
It wasn't his tone which quieted them, or his body language, or even the rhythmic cadence with which he spoke. But his eyes...looked upon them so coldly.
"We weren't saying that much, just..."
"Then trust my instincts as your leader and refrain from questioning that boy or putting your frustrations on him again." He said to them. "He's currently very lost, confused and vulnerable. However..."
Then he turned, hiking his arms up and interlocking them behind his back.
"That doesn't make me lose hope in him in the slightest." He said, suddenly seeming very cheerful as his dark eyes touched the sky. "It's natural for him to act out, not simply because of the hardships of being alone in the world and everyone seeing you as a demon but also..."
He smiled at them.
"...Adolescence is a very cajoling time in a man's life. Wouldn't you agree?" He asked them.
They all stared at him, blinking back silently.
"Good day." He granted them, continuing on the path he had been before they interrupted his morning stroll with their complaints.
They watched him walk off until he was nothing but a spec in the distance.
"Who even elected that guy anyway?" One of the younger ones dared to ask.
Everyone's eyes shifted to him and then they all quietly turned, making their way back to their homes and refraining from putting their frustrations anywhere else but inside themselves.
"Ughhh, how long are we going to have to wait?!" A girl exclaimed.
Three people collected around a bench near the outskirts of the Village Hidden in the Leaves waiting for a chapter in book that seemed like it would never get the chance to be written. A chapter called Naruto.
The first person was the girl sitting on the bench and yelling irritably. Her vibrant pink hair, which had once upon a time cascaded down her back in luxurious waves, barely met her shoulders and stuck out at odds and ends. She was called Sakura Haruno.
The second person was a man with short gray hair leaning against a fence behind the bench, silently turning the pages in a book propped in front of his face with his ears certainly dead to the world and especially dead to the pink-haired girl next to him. He was called Kakashi Hatake.
The last person was a boy of average height with oddly styled black hair that looked as if he cut it himself and dark eyes. He sat on the ground with his back against the lamp post and stared at the ground blankly. On closer inspection, his gaze could even seem empty, void of any kind of life. They called this boy Sasuke Uchiha.
"He was supposed to be here like two hours ago!" Sakura continued to scream.
"Contrary to popular belief, Sakura, complaining won't bring him here any faster."
All of their eyes flicked up, landing on an old man walking toward them wearing a white robe and a red and white cap.
"Third Hokage-sama?" Sakura asked.
"Yes, ma'am."
"What brings you so far away from the Hokage Manor?" Kakashi asked, leaning up off the gate. "Is it something with the Chunin Exams?"
"Oh, no. The planning for the final round is coming along exceptionally smoothly." He said. "I'm on the same trek as you all are. I'm searching for Naruto."
Sakura huffed.
"He's probably dead asleep in his house." She patted her bicep. "I'll go smack some sense into him."
"Actually, it seems he's had a pretty busy morning. I'd expect the last thing he'd be doing is sleeping."
"Busy?" Kakashi asked, then he closed his book. "Oh... I see. He's been misbehaving?"
"Quite badly, I must admit." The Hokage said.
Kakashi cocked his head, seeming to be thinking over it.
"That's strange."
"I'm sure you're rather busy today, but as his Jonin Leader, I believe you should find him and sort him out."
He nodded. "Alright, I'll go tell Iruka about it. I think he'll be able to calm him down better than I can."
He turned to the young adolescents behind him.
"As for you guys, our Surprise Outing for Naruto's thirteenth Birthday is cancelled." Kakashi told them. "Sakura, you're off for the day. And Sasuke, I'll see you in a couple of hours to resume your training for the Final Round."
Sakura frowned.
"That guy... I bet if we'd told him we would be celebrating his birthday, he would've been on time."
Kakashi Sensei backed away from them, disappearing into a cloud of smoke and Third Hokage turned around, continuing his slow paced walk back up the path to the Hokage Manor far in the distance.
"Well, then..." Sakura turned, resting her wide smile upon Sasuke as he got to his feet. "...Sasuke-kun, are you busy?"
Slowly, as he brushed the dirt from his white shorts, he shook his head.
"Great!" She said. "Then...do you maybe...want to..."
She blushed.
"Go get lunch?"
He turned away from her, beginning to walk further down the path.
"I'm not hungry." He replied.
She hurriedly caught up to him and fell into step with him.
"Then what do you want to do?" She asked him.
He moved his hand through his hair, pulling the bright royal blue headband from his head. Sakura's eyebrows rose, glazing over slightly as she watched his dark hair spill softly over his forehead. He tucked his headband into his pocket along with his hands.
"I'm not sure."
And even though she would've been perfectly content watching him flick his hair out of his beautifully dark eyes, something about his tone finally struck her as odd. She knew Sasuke wasn't a very buoyant boy, in fact, he was the exact opposite. So, it shouldn't have bothered her that he was answering everything in negatives. He always did. But there was something about his responses... Something that was very much off from his usual responsive tactics.
"Are you feeling alright, Sasuke-kun?" She asked him.
He blinked, eyes shimmering with the beaming blue sky before his eyes and responded to her as though he didn't even hear her question.
"Do you know a place close by to collect flowers?" He abruptly asked her.
She cocked her head.
"...Flowers?"
He paused, waiting for her answer.
"Well... I know a lot about flowers. When I was little, Ino taught me... I mean... I could've learned by myself but, uh..."
She looked at his blank stare and sighed.
"Uh, I mean... If you're looking for flowers, I'm definitely the one to talk to." She said, beginning to smile again. "First off, there's one shop right near the plaza and another one over by-"
"I'd like natural ones, if possible." He interrupted.
She paused, staring at him as if he'd, at some point, sprouted webbed fingers and toes, but slowly, she went on.
"Right. Well... There are lots of flower meadows around Konoha. But the biggest one is all the way near the South entrance to the village, where the old Uchiha clan district used to be." She paused, watching him closely. "That one has a really nice bed of pink tulips."
"Tulips..." He repeated, then he nodded. "Thank you."
He turned, beginning to make his way toward the South Entrance but Sakura grabbed his shoulder.
"Why do you want flowers, Sasuke-kun?" She asked.
He paused, more so because he was forced to than because he was actually listening to the words coming from her mouth.
"Not to pry into your business or anything but... I guess... It's so out of character for you to want to do something like this. I'm just really curious to know..." Her grip on his shoulder solidified. "Are they...for a girl?"
He turned, empty gaze reaching her eyes. And then, something about that gaze, distant, cold and something else...broken, even, reached her. And she let go abruptly and rubbed her eyes, as if someone had blown sand dust into them, and when she opened them, he was gone.
Many hours earlier, the sun had barely mustered the energy to look up over the horizon as a boy in an orange jumpsuit interlocked his hands behind his head, following jubilantly behind a man with a scar across his nose.
"Thanks a million for the Ramen, Iruka Sensei!" He said.
Even though the boy had a rather dumbfounded aroma around him, it was accompanied, very subtly, by a pure, innocent sense of trust and kindness. He was truly the type of person that believed everyone had good intentions unless he was proven wrong. His name was Naruto Uzumaki.
"No problem, Naruto." Iruka replied. "Thirteen is a very important year, you know. Lots of things start to change."
"Like what?" Naruto asked.
"Oh, well... You know... Like..." Iruka stammered, sheepish grin cutting across his face. "Girls, maybe."
"Ohhh!" He replied. "I thought you were talking about something I didn't already know about."
"You're already interested in girls?" Iruka asked, eyebrows raising.
Naruto nodded and then grinned hard.
"You remember Sakura-chan, right? Don't you, don't you, don't you?"
Iruka cocked his head, seeming to think back.
"Oh, yeah... You did seem to have a sort of stalker crush with her."
"STALKER CRUSH?!" Naruto exclaimed.
Iruka laughed, playful squeezing his shoulders.
"Don't worry, it's not a secret." He said, laughing harder.
Naruto sighed, eyes lifting to the rising sun.
"Well... It doesn't really have to be a secret or anything." He said. "She doesn't really like me very much anyway."
"Why is that?"
Naruto shrugged and scratched his hair. But as Iruka gazed down at the boy, he realized that there seemed to be something he was holding back.
They continued walking on the cobblestone towards the Southern forested side of the village which was higher than the rest and contained the largest gravesite.
Naruto worked on licking a smudge of sticky beef ramen off of his upper lip as they entered the gravesite and Iruka reached out and touched one of the first headstones there, fingers grazing over the name etched into it.
"You can trust me if you really want to say what's on your mind." Iruka said slowly. "But if not, that's alright, too."
He finally settled for just wiping the smudge off with his sleeve and looked down at the grass, shuffling his feet slightly.
"She likes Sasuke." Naruto finally told him.
Iruka nodded.
"He does seem to be pretty popular with the girls."
Naruto flopped down into the grass, seating himself to watch the sunrise.
"She thinks I'm annoying when he's way more annoying than I ever could be. And she probably hates my hair and my face and my voice and... And..." He lowered his head. "She probably thinks I'm stupid and ugly and worthless."
Iruka raised his eyebrows.
"She said that?"
"No..." He muttered. "But that's what everyone thinks, so..."
And then it occurred it Iruka that perhaps the things he was saying was less so things he had heard and more so his own thoughts and it surprised him that the happy-go-lucky, bubbly boy that he'd shared so many meals with could have such a low self esteem.
"You're making friends, right?" Iruka asked.
He shrugged.
"Kinda. I mostly just see Sakura and Sasuke and Kakashi." He said. "Now, I get to see more of the guys from the other teams."
"They're not your friends?"
"They like Sasuke more."
Iruka grinned.
"Everything's about Sasuke with you, isn't it?" He asked.
Naruto turned, giving him an acutely dead-pan expression.
"No." He said immediately. "I don't care about that bastard..."
Iruka raised his hands in surrender.
"Alright, alright... Well, what about Sasuke? What does he think?"
He poked the grass, grinding the dirt between his fingers.
"How am I supposed to know?" He finally said.
Iruka shrugged.
"I guess you're right... Well, there's good news."
Naruto raised his head.
"What?"
Iruka pointed then, over all the headstones towards the gap in the trees where the houses in the district Naruto lived in could be seen clearly.
"There's lots more people in the village you could make friends with." Iruka said. "And when it comes to Sakura, there's a million possibilities. Usually, the first person you meet isn't who end up truly loving. Actually... It could be the person you least expect. But first, you have to keep your options open."
"But how?" Naruto asked.
"Well, first you have to make an initiative. All the birthdays you've had so far, you've been alone, right?" Iruka said. "That's because you were busy waiting for someone to bring you a present instead of taking the present to them."
"...Taking the present to them?"
"Sure." Iruka said. "Even if it is a really special and happy occasion for you, for many people it might be the exact opposite..."
His eyes drifted down towards the stone behind him.
"For others...it might be the worst day of their lives."
Naruto considered this, and then his characteristically wide grin crossed his face again.
"Okay! I think I get it!" He exclaimed.
"Really?"
"Yeah! I'll go take presents to people in the village!" He said cheerfully. "Then they'll accept them and like me more!"
"Well... I didn't necessarily mean-"
"This was a great idea, Iruka Sensei! Now, I'm gonna get a million friends!"
"Er... Naruto, the idea was more so a-"
"See you later!"
Then, so quickly Iruka could do nothing except watch with his mouth slightly ajar, Naruto darted away heading straight for the flower meadow he knew well from many afternoons as a child following Sakura and Ino there and watching the girls name them.
He picked as many as he could in a bundle and rounded the village, picking out a random cluster of houses near his own apartment to 'bring the present' to.
The hollow sound echoed loudly as his knuckles rapped on the door. It wasn't long until a girl who looked to be about three or four years older than him answered it.
"Hi." He said, feeling a sense of shyness he couldn't understand. "I... I have... Uh... I-It's my birthday, s-so..."
She had been distracted by the flowers in his hands and smiled widely, but once her eyes lifted to his face and made eye contact with him, that smile shriveled, that open, inviting expression disappeared and she reversed.
"What did you do, poison them or something?" She asked, glaring at him.
He felt his lips moving but no sound was coming out.
"Get out of here, fox freak." She muttered, slamming the door in his face.
His spirit wasn't crushed immediately though. He kept in mind the expression of happiness one person's face would make and the peace he would feel inside when someone, anyone, would take the flowers.
However, he approached the second door as a young boy came outside holding a bento box and was met by the same reaction.
"Oh yeah, thanks..." He said, mock cheerfully, then he gripped some of the flowers and threw them to the ground, stomping on them. "Yeah, right... Get off my doorstep."
And then there was the third house...
"You have A LOT of nerve coming here today, idiot boy!"
And the fourth...
"Why don't you go take those flowers and shove them where sun don't shine, moron!"
And the fifth...
"I'd beat the shit of you where you stand if I didn't have to touch you to do it."
By that time, the sun was high in the sky. The flowers were gone from his hands, as they hadn't been doing anything but wilting anyway and the pep in his step had become nonexistent. So did his smile. So did his previous laughter from morning breakfast with Iruka Sensei.
For a while, he sat on one of the highest perches of the village, feeling the calm dew of morning soothe him and his hands pressed to the sides of his head, covering his ears as the words everyone said to them circled in his head again and again and again but it was only for a small amount of time.
After that, something spoke. It was low and it was rather quiet but that did not make it hard at all to understand the voice.
Make them pay.
He moved then, mindlessly targeting anything vulnerable, anything pleasant, anything peaceful, anything that represented his own weakness.
Make them hurt.
The focus of his rage included tearing up the roses in some poor woman's flowerbed and dragging his kunai knife through some man's clean laundry and littering the side of sleeping woman's house with a round of shuriken.
Make them know for certain... The pain you feel inside.
Of course, these were all the houses of the people who had shut him out. However, revenge and destruction did the opposite of what he expected. Instead of making him feel full, all it did was make him feel empty. In fact, as he trudged on, completely forgetting that there was a mission Kakashi had asked him to meet the team to complete, he began to feel that he really was a monster. And the nicknames the villagers so unceremoniously gave him did not help in the slightest.
Fox Freak.
Demon Child.
Idiot Boy.
Long after the sun had gotten to its highest point, he found himself near the Southern Entrance to the village, a place so far from his apartment, he rarely made the trip there. He simply went because he knew it was filled with flowers. And he had a grudge toward them at that point. And so, he stomped on them, and tore them apart, and ripped them to shreds. The pink petals floated around him, fluttering in the wind, taking flight, moving lightly and settling, only to have him kick and stomp and grind them out of their pretty pale pinkness into a dead dark brown stale state.
He knew that the violence didn't help in the long run, however, in short bursts, it was rather exciting to destroy, somewhat appeasing to snap and crush and stomp. So, it wasn't until an unsuspected voice cut through the air that he became externally aware of what he was doing.
"Usuratonkachi."
Naruto's head snapped up and his eyes widened as a dark haired boy who had been standing at the edge of the shallow forest outlining the flower meadow walked toward the small bed of tulips that he'd smashed.
"Sasuke? ...W-What are you doing here?"
Sasuke came upon the flowerbed, slowly lowering and grabbing one flower, another and another, turning them over, searching for even one useful one, but in the end, nothing met his finger tips except death and destruction.
"Sasuke...?"
Slowly, Sasuke rose back into a standing position and said nothing. And maybe it was his silence that made Naruto feel as guilty as he did. Even though, on a regular basis, he'd be happy to ruin Sasuke's day. In fact, he often went out of his way to do it. Now, on a day he did it by mistake, it didn't feel the same...
"What the hell are you messing up all the flowers for, idiot?" Sasuke asked him.
Then, very abruptly, all of that guilt was thrown out of the window and Naruto frowned.
"That's none of your business!" He shouted. "I can do whatever I want."
"Not when it gets in my way." Sasuke muttered. "You're just creating more work for me."
"Oh, little bitty baby Sasuke sad that he has to walk to another garden?" Naruto asked mockingly. "What do you want flowers for anyway?"
"None of your business..." He muttered, turning away.
The fact that he was departing so quickly surprised Naruto. Normally when he insulted him that terribly, he'd at least spend thirty minutes arguing with him about it. However, that day...
So, feeling neglected, Naruto picked up one of the broken flowers and threw it at the back of Sasuke's head.
"Hey, baka-suke." He said. "I know where there's a garden close to here."
That caught his attention, and so he turned and looked at him.
"Tell me where it is."
Naruto grinned, happy he'd found something to hold over him.
"Okay, I'll tell you if we make a deal." He said, walking up to him.
"No. Just tell me."
"Hey, I'm the one making the rules!"
"I don't care about what you're talking about." He told him. "I'll go just go ask Sakura again if you won't tell me."
And at the mention of the name Sakura, Naruto paused in his antics.
"You talked to Sakura today?" He asked.
"Obviously. We were all waiting for you at that bridge so we could take you out for your stupid birthday." Sasuke replied. "But you were too busy harassing the villagers, you didn't show up."
"Take me out...?" Naruto asked. "You and Kakashi and Sakura...? Really?"
He looked down, feeling the onset of guilt return.
"That's..."
"Pointless, I know..." Sasuke interrupted.
Naruto's head snapped up then.
"Pointless...? No... It's... It's nice." He said. "It's really nice."
Then he glared at him.
"But I guess someone like you wouldn't know the definition of nice, would you?"
"What?"
"All you care about is yourself." Naruto muttered.
"That coming from the guy that just ruined some old lady's flowerbed."
"But I wouldn't have done it if she didn't do something mean to me first!" Naruto protested. "Iruka Sensei told me that if you be nice to people, people will be nice to you back... But..."
He shook his head.
"That doesn't make sense at all. I tried to give everyone flowers instead of expecting them to give me presents, and they just yelled at me."
The edge of his shoe poked at a couple of the tattered tulips as he spoke.
"But, with you it's always different. You're never nice to anyone. And you always expect everything from everyone. And they all... Even Sakura-chan. They all like you. It's... It's not fair at all!"
"So what's your point?"
"My point is how come you don't care?" He yelled at him. "You could have all the friends you ever wanted but all you do is walk around alone and demand things from people and call everyone names!"
Sasuke stared at him blankly as he made these accusations.
"You're all...backwards."
"Why should I care what villagers think?" He asked. "If I don't have a reason to care about someone, I can't understand why they'd have a reason to care about me. I don't care if they want to waste their time liking me despite any common logic. It's plain and simple."
Naruto closed his eyes.
"I hate you..." He growled, fists balling. "I really, really hate you..."
Make him pay.
"All I want to do..."
Make him hurt.
"Is just grab that stupid face of yours and make it so that I never have to look at it ever again."
Make him know for certain... The pain you feel inside.
"Then do it... If that's what you want."
Naruto sprinted for him then, grabbing the wide collar of his royal blue t-shirt and slamming him down into the Earth. He raised his hand then, ready to punch him but something, perhaps the solid-core emptiness in his eyes made him hesitate.
"What's wrong with you?" Naruto asked him. "Why aren't you stopping me?"
And that was a very accurate question as normally, when Naruto rushed at Sasuke in anger, he'd be on his back with Sasuke's foot in his mouth literally less than five seconds in. However, this day...
"Because you're being stupid." Sasuke said. "What's the point of trying to beat someone up for having something that you don't have?"
Naruto shook his head, feeling a very immediate urge to either cover Sasuke's mouth to force him to stop talking or cover his own ears so that he couldn't hear.
"...That's childish."
"Just shut-up!" He shouted.
Then, he wanted to grab Sasuke's neck and press hard, dig his fingers into the veins there, cut off the circulation of his breathing with all the strength in his body but his fingers didn't move. Neither did his hands, which remained in the grass on either side of Sasuke's head, or his body, which continued to straddle him.
"Just..." He whispered, lips wobbling. "Shut up..."
He bit his lip, then, blinking rapidly and gripping the earth to stop what they both could tell was oncoming. But it didn't work as a single tear dropped, hitting Sasuke's cheek.
"You're acting even more like a child now..." Sasuke mumbled.
Naruto rose his arm and tried to wipe his face hard with his blazing orange shirt sleeve.
"Your logic is stupid."
And then, Naruto's eyebrows rose slightly, surprised that Sasuke was still speaking but his tears were ever-present so he continued to wipe them.
"Going on about being ignored by people you don't even know." He said. "When there are people that you do know that care about you now and will always care..."
In Naruto's mind, the faces that appeared to him were those of Ero-Senin, of whom he'd just recently met, Kakashi Sensei, Iruka Sensei, Lord Third, and Sakura... People he knew cared about him at least slightly. But there was also one other person...
He slowly lowered his sleeve and made eye contact with Sasuke.
"Then... Are you saying that... You care about me, Sasuke?"
What he expected was an outright denial. For him to push him away, and leave, or say something irrevocably insulting to him and rub it in or something to negate his pure inquisition. Instead, because of that day no doubt, there was...
"...Who else do I have to care about?"
They watched each other. Naruto's eyes wide with this revelation and Sasuke's eyes losing a bit of their emptiness in his emotionally vibrant blue eyed void.
Naruto ducked his head then, feeling momentarily bashful as an idea occurred to him. He wondered if maybe he'd gotten what Iruka Sensei said wrong. And decided to try again, but in a different way.
"Can you wait here?" He asked Sasuke. "I'll bring you something if you can just wait a few seconds."
"Why would I want anything that you're bringing?" He wanted to know.
Naruto got up off of him and helped him to his feet.
"Just do it." He said, rolling his eyes. "You bastard."
He darted away then, bounding into the trees, past the nestling chicks in the makeshift homes high above his head as he ran ten minutes towards the setting sun, eyes lowering on what he knew to be there as he got closer.
It was a secret flowerbed. One only Ino and her clan knew about that they pulled the most precious flowers from. The ones they pulled were incredibly rare to that area, so, it was a definite mark of true friendship when Ino showed it to Sakura, not knowing Naruto was following them close behind.
Naruto dipped down, carefully picking the prettiest looking flowers and compressing them into one handful.
It wasn't long until he finished and made his way all the way back to the meadow where he had left Sasuke. He jumped over the bushes and ducked underneath the branches of a low tree, grinning as he held them out, but... The dark haired, pale skinned boy was gone.
He looked around, left and right, up and down, but there was no one standing in the meadow. His smile was completely washed away then, and he wondered if he'd have to become accustomed to that feeling forever. The feeling of abandonment.
"Usuratonkachi."
Startled, he whirled around, eyebrows popping up as he came face to face with Sasuke who had come up behind him.
"What did you get?"
With the flowers held steadily behind his back, he felt that shyness coming back to him. His eyes lowered to the ground.
"It's... Uhm... Well..."
He pulled the flowers from behind his back and held them out to him.
"Y-You wanted these... Right?"
Sasuke looked at them for a long time and then nodded, slowly raising his hands and splitting the flowers, taking the half of them that were a lavender color.
"I think they're Primroses... Or, erhmm... Maybe daffodils? Oh, wait, not that, uhm..."
"Violets." Sasuke stated.
He knelt, gripping one with a vibrant light purple shade at the stem.
"And these others are lilacs." He said, sliding his fingers up the petals of a white one.
"What'd you want them for anyway?" Naruto asked. "Is it for a girl?"
"I guess you could say that."
Naruto frowned momentarily, feeling that sense of abandonment coming back. He wanted to ask what girl he was trying to impress but Sasuke beat him to it, beginning to walk away.
"W-Wait... What are you-"
"I'll show you."
Naruto looked down at the white flowers in his hands and the boy walking off and then sprinted for him.
"Hey, wait up!"
It didn't take too long for them to reach what Sasuke was going for, as it was just across the field and over to a clearing under a place where the leaves all curved in toward each other creating about a hundred sparkling, shimmering dots of sunlight that escaped the canopies, raining down on them like snowflakes. In the center of the clearing, under the cool, comfort of the trees sat more than four dozen headstones.
Naruto marveled at the enormity of them as Sasuke's feet crunched over the dead leaves settling on the headstones here and there and snapped some of the branches growing irregularly and overshadowing some of the names of the headstones.
He wondered then, as Sasuke made quick janitorial work, why these headstones were separate from the ones where Iruka Sensei took him in the morning. Why were they hidden all the way in the forest in the shade?
Sasuke polished the last bit of dirt off of a particular headstone which was all the way towards the front with only one other headstone next to it and gently slid his fingers across the name.
"This is Oka-san."
Then he motioned to the sole headstone next to it, bending slightly to rub the dirt off of that one, too.
"And that's Otou-san."
Naruto's eyes lowered to the stones in front of him as Sasuke placed his lavender flowers in front of his mother's grave carefully, making sure that it lined up perfectly in every aspect.
"My Mother liked violets." He said. "They were her favorite flowers."
Feeling sort of useless with the lilacs in his hands, he bent down, putting the white flowers on Sasuke's father's grave.
They were quiet for a while, with Sasuke having sat himself down in front of one headstone and Naruto having sat down in front of the other.
"Iruka Sensei said a good day for one person can be a bad day for another person." Naruto suddenly spoke up. "...Was today a bad day for your parents?"
Sasuke shook his head.
"Not really..."
"Then why today?"
He was quiet for a while, flicking the dirt in front of him and then he leaned his head back, looking up at the orange and pink changing sky above hin.
"Because every year, on this day, my mom and I would leave the village for vacation and collect her favorite flowers." Sasuke said to him, twisting the stem of one flower in his fingers. "It was something we did together since I was a baby, so... It became more important to me than even her birthday. It's just... Something I can't forget."
Little did the boys know, the reason Mikoto loved to collect flowers that day was not a whim and was more so a force of habit. Something she had been doing with an old friend of hers since she herself was a child... An old friend of hers who was actually a lady. A lady named Kushina. But the woman died a premature death, and so to fill that empty void, she took her youngest son on these journeys instead. Collecting a mixture of roses and violets to mark a special kind of relationship that was lost for the remainder of the year until that day.
"That's weird for you..." Naruto said, giving him a suspicious look. "...Doing something nice."
"'Tch. Do I really seem that awful to you?"
Naruto nodded hard.
"Yeah, you're terrible."
And then they both smiled. But their smiles didn't meet each other, with Sasuke still looking towards the sky and Naruto's eyes grazing the ground.
But as time went on, those smiles washed away again. And the cool, dusky breeze chilled their warm gazes.
"You know how you said earlier that life isn't fair...?" Naruto asked him.
He nodded, still watching the sky as the stars began to peek out through the pinkish orange sunset.
"You ever imagine something different?" He asked. "Like... A life that is fair."
He was quiet so long, Naruto worried he had asked a dumb question and then tried to move to correct himself until Sasuke finally spoke up.
"All the time."
Naruto's eyes widened at this prospect. He was surprised that there was something that they did that matched... As Naruto consistently covered his ears and shut his eyes and pretended to be somewhere else as a way to manage all of the pain of loneliness.
"What do you see?" He asked him.
He sighed, cocking his head.
"Usually, the same thing..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah?" Naruto asked excitedly.
Sasuke rolled his eyes, sighing exasperatedly.
"What, you want me to tell it to you?"
"Why'd you think I'd ask if I didn't want to hear it?"
He sighed again, lips teetering on a demeaning phrase, but something...perhaps the hope in Naruto's eyes... Or maybe it was the warmth of Naruto's proximity to his body caused him to stay quiet.
"You have to close your eyes if you can't remember it." Naruto suggested.
And Sasuke closed them.
"Now, imagine it." He told him.
It took a second... But he began to visualize it. And his mouth opened so that he could describe to Naruto this world he had fabricated and himself inside of.
The imagined world was in the future, not the past, and it began with something similar to...
A clear vase stood in the center of a kitchen table with a sticker showing the Uchiha Crest symbol on it tacked to the side. The bright lavender violets in the vase swayed with the wind coming by as two young adult boys opened the back door and walked into the room.
"...As if that's as bad as the time you lied to the Hokage and said you couldn't go on a mission because you caught my cold." One boy said, as he walked into the room.
"You lying to your best friend all month about his birthday present is much worse than that." The older boy replied.
"It's for a good reason! If I told him I was getting him something, I'd never hear the end of it. Unlike you..." He smirked at him. "You just lie for the sake of it."
A woman walked in after them, carrying a wooden basket filled to the brim with apples and set it down on the kitchen table just as the younger boy plopped down into a chair.
"Boys, careful on the floor." She warned. "I just mopped earlier. And Sasuke, you still need to finish your soup to help your cold."
"But, Mom, isn't Itachi a compulsive liar?" The blue-black haired boy asked her, grinning impishly at his older brother as he grabbed an apple.
His mother turned, smiling at her older son fondly as she pulled a bowl out of a cabinet.
"Well, you do tell a lot of lies, Itachi." She told him, then she turned her head back to her other son. "But that doesn't mean you're a saint either, Sasuke. Whatever happened to that nice girl you were dating? I'm sure you just up and forgot about her..."
Itachi grinned, just as their father walked into the room, silently appraising all of them as he navigated around the crowded kitchen and opened a cabinet above Itachi's head.
"Most likely." Itachi agreed. "And that was his seventh one this month."
Sasuke rolled his eyes, as he plunged his spoon into a bowl of soup that his Mother set down in front of him.
"You're talking about Sakura, right?" He asked. "I didn't forget about her. She's...around."
"Sakura?" His mother asked. "Wasn't this girl named Himiko or Hetalia or something?"
"Hinata?" Sasuke asked, mouth opening slightly in awe. "I dated her like four girls ago."
"I rest my case." Itachi said.
Sasuke sighed.
"I'm not even paying attention to girls, right now." Sasuke muttered.
His father, who had found the snack box he was looking for, closed the cabinet and nodded at his younger son.
"Sasuke's right. Girls should be the last thing on a man's mind." He said, nodding. "Especially a man that's just become the head of the Uchiha Police Force."
He reached down, ruffling Sasuke's hair as the boy ducked and grinned.
"That's not what you told me, Dad." Itachi replied, chucking.
"That's because you need to settle down." He replied sternly. "Never once heard of a man who is on his way to becoming the first Uchiha Hokage and hasn't even brought one woman home yet."
But before their father turned and left the room, he allowed them a slight smile. A silent nod toward a more playful side of him.
"Oh, Fugaku-san!" Their mother said pleasantly. "He's just a late bloomer."
Itachi crossed his arm in a mock-hurt way.
"Would you rather I have a new girlfriend every week like your dear son Sasuke?"
"No one should go that far." His father muttered.
Sasuke leaned back in his chair pointing at his older brother and laughing ferociously.
"Isn't it about time for you to leave for that long-term mission you were talking about?" Itachi said, interrupting his laughing. "That's why we came home early in the first place."
Sasuke sighed, drinking the last bit of soup in his bowl and made his way to the front of the house. Their mother and Itachi slowly made their way after him.
"Sasuke." Itachi said.
He looked up as Itachi tossed him a chunin vest, which Sasuke immediately shrugged on over the bright white zip up t-shirt he wore with the Uchiha crest in red on the shoulders.
"Remember the genjutsu training we went through."
Sasuke nodded at him and their playful sibling attitude dissipated momentarily as Itachi grabbed the back of Sasuke's head and touched foreheads with him.
"Stay sharp." He told him.
"So, you're leaving now?" Another voice said.
Sasuke turned around to see his father standing near the office room, observing him.
"Yes sir."
Suddenly, his father pulled something from behind his back and tossed it at him. Sasuke raised his right hand, catching it firmly in his fist. He looked down, turning the long, black sheath over in his hands. His eyebrows rose as the sunlight streaming in through the door his mother had opened hit the place on the sheath with the engraving.
"We Are Ninja Because We Endure." Sasuke read.
The smile on his face couldn't have stretched out wider as he used the tweed rope tie to fasten the sword over his shoulder and on his back.
"Thank You." He told him.
His father nodded at him and disappeared back into his office.
"Is everything in your bag, Sasuke?"
"Yes, Mom."
"Your food pills? Your weapons pouch? Everything?"
"Yes. Mom..." Sasuke said, giving her a knowing look. "I'm 20, remember?"
"I know, I know..." She leaned close to him, giving him a close hug.
Her cheek brushed up against his softly, savoring the feeling of her son's warm body against her in the chance that his vessel came home cold.
"Alright..." Sasuke said tugging away from her. "I'll see you in however many months."
"Don't over-exert yourself." His mother warned.
"With that super-awesome sword, how could he not!?" A voice said.
Sasuke and his mother turned their head left where, through an open window, a young adult boy with bright blonde hair stuck his head in.
"Yo!" He declared.
Sasuke's mother smiled fondly as Naruto rolled into the house from the open window, straightened his backpack and walked over to them.
"Naruto! What a wonderful surprise!"
"He's here every day, Mom." Sasuke pointed out. "Not to mention, he's scheduled to come on this mission along with me."
"That doesn't make it any less of a surprise."
They walked toward the front door where Sasuke's traveling bag leaned against the banister and he leaned down, scooping his bag up.
"Be safe, boys."
"We always are." Sasuke replied.
"Heh! Don't worry, Mikoto-san! I'll take extra care of baby Sasuke-kun." Naruto said, pinching his cheek.
"Just make sure he takes his medicine!"
"Mother..." Sasuke said, sighing and averting his eyes left.
But as the sun rays beat down on their physically fit bodies amped for their first long-term mission ever, there really wasn't any other way that it couldn't be real life. The way his mother's jaw set, clearly worried about his cold and if he'd remember to take his medicine but also happy to see him going on an important job with a close comrade... The way his brother leaned against the siding of the house, eating his apple and watching him closely, as though he wished he could come along and protect him but knowing his younger brother was far past that point. The way his father, looking through the blinds of a window, watched simply for reassurance, proud of his coming of age son.
But oftentimes, the dreams ones wish are the realest and never want to wake up from end too soon.
"That's..." Naruto began. "Really nice."
"It's just a dream."
"That doesn't mean it isn't nice." Naruto protested.
Sasuke said nothing, eyes traveling to the headstone behind him which read: Mikoto Uchiha in large engraved letters and over to the other stones with the mossy, grass vines traveling across and over them, obscuring some names and having completely weathered down others from unkempt care.
"Everything's nice is in the past." Sasuke said pessimistically.
"What about the present?" Naruto pressed him.
He became silent again, being sure not to look anywhere near him.
While telling Naruto what he spent his time thinking about, he made sure to smartly leave out the bit about Naruto coming to visit, and being his best friend even in a world where his parents lived until he was twenty. Perhaps, that was why his words, though pessimistic, sounded unsure. Deep inside, he wasn't completely sure he and Naruto would be enemies forever... In fact... He hoped for the exact opposite.
"Sometimes I wish I could dream of having a family." Naruto said. "But I don't know what my parents looked like so it never really works..."
And very uncharacteristically, Sasuke felt at odds about that. How unfortunate it must be to be unable to escape completely, even when you want to.
"What do you imagine then?" He asked him.
Naruto grinned.
"Really crazy worlds where fish fly and birds swim and trees grow into apples instead of the way it's supposed to be." He told him, becoming excited. "Last night, you and I went on this crazy, gigantic hot fudge ice-cream slide and we rode bananas all the way to the bottom."
"...I was there?" Sasuke asked quietly.
Naruto paused then, scratching his head sheepishly.
"Well, uh... You might've been. I don't really remember completely, actually."
He couldn't bring himself to tell him the truth, that he'd imagined many places he'd rather be than inside his own skin. Worlds where he dressed like a bear and roamed around forests playing with friendly ghosts and forest animals or lived in a tree-house fit with exciting things like scarves that turned into snakes and paper angels that flew around like real ones and even places where the sun never set and he spent all day hoping from cloud to cloud and soaring through the stars and galaxy... And in every single one of these elaborate schemes nothing was constant, not one thing, except the black haired boy who always stood by him.
Sasuke's eyes lifted once more to the darkening sky and then he stood up from the ground before the grave, brushing the dirt off of his shorts.
"It's getting late..." He said.
Naruto slowly got to his feet, too.
"Yeah..."
With his hands in his pockets, gazing at his father's grave with the white flowers in front of it, something occurred to him.
"Why did you get them for me instead of just telling me where they were?"
Naruto rose his head.
"Huh?"
"The flowers." He clarified.
"Oh! Well... Iruka Sensei said on your birthday, you have to take initiative. Sometimes, it's not about what people give you, it's about what you give to them." He explained. "So, then I went trying to give the villagers stuff but it didn't work because... I think... You have to already have something with someone for it to work."
"Being nice to people who don't know you is pointless..." Sasuke reiterated.
"Right... So... I thought, if I gave you something I'd work." He said, feeling oddly flustered and avoiding his friend's eyes. "I don't really know if it did... Or..."
"Now, I see." Sasuke said, giving him a dull look. "You're expecting me to give you some kind of present aren't you?"
He smirked, normal arrogant attitude coming back to him.
"You can kiss my ass, dobe."
"WHAT?!" Naruto exclaimed. "Who'd want a present from you anyway, you bastard?!"
"Obviously, the guy crying all day about villagers not giving a crap about his flowers."
Naruto's face turned a shade of angry, hot red as he began to dig deep inside himself for the most vile, insulting thing he could think of to retort back to him but Sasuke spoke again, cutting him off.
"What would you want anyway?" He asked, avoiding his gaze. "For a stupid birthday present..."
"Huh?" Naruto said, blinking, caught off guard by his sudden change of tone.
"Your birthday... What the hell do you even want?"
Naruto paused, grinning mischievously at how he could mess with him by giving him some ridiculously false answer. But to fabricate a lie, one must know the truth first. And as Naruto considered playing a joke on him, he realized he had no idea what he truly wanted at all.
He frowned, then, mulling over what he wanted most in the world and as time passed, he realized it had nothing to do with anything material. It was something emotional. Something he could take with him everywhere without taking anything at all. But it was embarrassing, to say something like that to his rival... So he turned around and shrugged, forgetting all about making a joke out of it.
"Nothing." He ended up saying. "It's just a day... That's all."
"You're a shitty liar."
"So what?"
"So... Tell the damn truth. Why are you being such a child about it?"
And irked by being called childish yet again, he went for the bait.
"It's stupid, anyway..."
"That's not new. Everything with you is stupid."
Naruto frowned, cheeks reddening as he pushed himself to say what Sasuke wanted him to.
"Well... I-It's just that... When I was a kid and I saw other kids get stuff on their birthdays, everyone would always give them something along with their presents... A-And... W-Well, I..."
"Just say it."
"It's just..." He took a slow breath. "They always get hugs."
"Hugs?" Sasuke repeated, almost as if he had to jog his memory on exactly what he was talking about.
Naruto looked down.
"It's... It's not like I want you to give me one or anything." He said quickly. "It's just... I've... I've never really gotten one before, so... So, I..."
He trailed off, babbling with timid obscurities until Sasuke sighed, looking comparable to an animal who had literally been bored to death.
"Why don't you just get it over with, then?" He told him.
Naruto looked up, wind blowing slightly, leaves dislodging themselves behind him and crossing his view.
"...What?"
"What's the point of wanting something you're never going to try to get?" Sasuke clarified, shoving his hands in his pockets. "If you want something... You should just do it."
"You mean...?"
"Just do it." Sasuke repeated.
Naruto paused for a moment, wondering if the entirety of it all was just some joke he was suddenly playing on him but Sasuke didn't move. He stood there, sparing him a few expectant glances until there was really nothing else left for him to except edge towards him, feeling incredibly awkward in his movements but the closer he got to him, the more his internal impulses just took over. The implications of 'just doing it' fell short and he reached out, grabbing Sasuke and pulling him into his chest.
His cheek pressed firmly against Sasuke's and he revealed in the warmness of it all. His mind blanked, taking him back to all of the times he had just wanted something soft and warm on a cold night and all he was met with was silence, emptiness, the frigid loneliness of it all.
Sasuke had been stiff but as Naruto buried his face into his neck, he softened up, lifting his own arms and hugging him back, moving his hands through his spiky blonde hair, nuzzling it, allowing himself to notice the way Naruto's heart beat was speeding up and the natural, earthy scent he had on his skin.
He pulled his head back and away, gazing as Naruto slowly lifted his eyes to him and smiled.
"I kinda get why people do that now..." Naruto said quietly. "That was..."
"Nice?"
And Naruto grinned.
"Yeah."
But as Sasuke began to take a step back, Naruto's grip tightened, keeping him in place as he started to blush fiercely with the next idea that came to mind.
"Wait... Just...one last thing..."
And to appease Sasuke's confused expression, Naruto leaned forward and cocked his head slightly, pressing his face against his. Their lips met. Naruto could feel a slight shudder going through Sasuke's body but he didn't pull away, it was almost like he was holding Naruto closer to him. Naruto's hand slid up Sasuke's back resting on the back of his neck as he considered what Iruka had said to him previously.
Something about the first person you like not being the person you truly love... Oftentimes, it'll be the last one you'd expect it to be.
Something like kissing had nothing to do with birthdays or flowers or loneliness or grave stones. But with Sasuke's body so close to his, Naruto honestly couldn't help but to get the deep seated urge to try it.
And as Sasuke's lips finally pulled back from his and his own eyes dropped to the forest floor, he couldn't help but think it had something to do with the age thirteen. Adolescence. Perhaps, the nature of it just made people do things they normally wouldn't. However, that didn't mean he regretted it.
Sasuke turned from him then, shoes crunching along as he departed from the hidden graveyard and Naruto couldn't help but worry that what he'd done would permanently and irrevocably change things between them. His brain whirled, trying to grab at something, anything, to repair what he had most likely, again, destroyed but then, at the edge of the forest Sasuke paused.
"Oh... That's right."
And he turned, looking back at him.
"Happy Birthday, Usuratonkachi."
Naruto's eyes flicked back up to his, filling with surprise and he could barely stop the rapid fire of his heart beating in his chest, but he pushed to ignore it, rolling his eyes and interlocking his hands behind his head.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever..."
"Are you just gonna stand there with that dumb look on your face all day, or what?"
"Shut up." Naruto complained.
But he sped up, reaching the edge of the forest and falling into step with him before he allowed himself to speak, eyes shifting steadily to the right as a slight blush met his cheeks for a final time.
"Thanks, Baka-suke."
THE END
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