Warning: Made this an hour ago and it's pretty crappy and just sad- maybe because I'm nervous for my exams after not reviewing for a single subject and just writing fan fiction?

"Fleeting Magic"

"How wonderful it would be if gravity didn't exist

Then we can fly and reach out to heaven without the fear of falling."

Sasuke could clearly feel the tension in the room. Sakura's head was pressed against the worn-out couch, her body curled, looking much smaller with her shoulders quivering violently. He knew there was something wrong within the four worn out walls of this particular room - the way the air feels so constricting against his lungs, the musky thickness of burnt ashes infiltrating his nostrils- it all felt so familiar.

He scans the messy apartment and his heart mourns, unknowingly, in his chest, but his lips remain hard-pressed and silent because he doesn't know what's wrong, just that something is, and Sasuke has always been the kind of man to learn before speaking. He feels unbearably tired as if he had just climbed the steepest mountain and was then forced to run back down. His lungs and arms ache for reasons unknown and pulling himself onto the sofa takes almost every ounce of energy he has left. It's when his head falls back against the cushions that he hears Kiba outside the room; screaming, crying, punching the walls- and yes, there must be a reason, he tells himself, that everything feels ruined.

He racks his brain, long and hard. Because isn't that what Uchiha's are for? For thinking, and smirking, and being all high and mighty- a jerk. A teme.

Something flashes against his core but it vanishes immediately. His mind feels empty again.

When he looks at Sakura, trembling and whimpering and trying her best not to cry, the image drowned over by Kiba's shrieking presence just beyond that door, he feels like he should know what it is that's eluding him this very moment.

He should, but he doesn't.

Sasuke denies the feeling and turns to the window, throat drying forebodingly when Sai enters the room. His pallid eyes were puffy, red and tormented. Completely perplexed, Sasuke finally allows himself to ask what's wrong.

And Sasuke is surprised once more when Sai simply stares back with hurt-filled shock, not a single trace of that fake smile he's accustomed to wear.

Sakura renews her ritual weeping.

"There is so much stubborn hope in the human heart."

They all feel different.

Four days after Sasuke came back from his mission, and everything was still nothing but an array of varying degrees of sadness. Tsunade refused to treat his wounds- every time she starts, she stops and stares at the little flecks on Sasuke's skin, and cries. It doesn't matter how hard Sasuke tries to scrub them off, because even if he can't see them, Tsunade can, and they afflict her.

Taking off his forehead protector to relieve a little of his building headache, Sasuke throws his head back and groans to the heavens.

"Everyone's been an emotional mess lately!"

He throws a halfhearted glare when he hears Naruto chuckling beside him before turning back to the calm water beneath their personal bridge. "And I thought I was the emotionally constipated one. I don't get it."

Naruto shrugs casually at his words, because whatever it is that's distressing his friends, the blonde seems unaffected. "Maybe they lost the game," he says cryptically– or, at least, cryptically for Sasuke – and grins like a Cheshire cat.

"The game? What game?" Sasuke prods.

"You know, the game," Naruto continues, his face twitching in slight amusement at his own joke. "Think of it and you lose – Kiba lost the other day and started a chain reaction. Everyone flipped."

Sasuke considers Naruto's answer seriously for a moment before he catches the idiot trying to stifle his laughter. He proceeds to hit Naruto squarely on the head. "I'm serious," he snaps, though he contemplates silently if Naruto's head had gotten sturdy. This was the part where he's supposed to complain that it hurt, Sasuke thinks. Everyone's changing too quickly and it makes Sasuke a little nostalgic, a little too full of weak sentimentality.

Naruto shrugs again, averts his eyes, and Sasuke knows that look all too well.

"You know, don't you?" he suggests, voice suddenly accusatory. "You know, and you won't tell me!"

When the other keeps his mouth annoyingly shut, Sasuke throws a menacing glare in the Naruto's direction.

"I swear on the grave of my ancestors that you'll open your eyes one day living up to the nickname Sai gave you if you don't tell me."

The young Uchiha's left eye twitches when he only gets a mirthful snort in reply.

"Come on, you violent jerk. Let's spar."

Sasuke begrudgingly complies; he can't refuse that face- and Naruto hides another secretive smile.

"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation.

It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."

Breakfast at Ichiraku is eaten in mutual silence.

Sasuke glares at Kakashi pointedly – his look conveying something along the lines of 'tell me tell me tell me or I'll fucking kill you tell me tell me tell me,' – while stabbing a noodle with his chopsticks and stirring the contents of the Ramen impatiently. The members are quiet as they chew, and Sasuke wonders where the morning chatter has gone; just briefly, before he notices Naruto is not eating.

Naruto is pouting down at his placement, walking his fingers like two legs over the counter top. Sasuke realizes he wasn't even given a bowl; and so he turns to send them all a displeased look before he shoves a healthy amount of Ramen into his mouth, drops his chopsticks, and pushes his bowl straight in front of Naruto. Everyone turns at his actions, clearly disturbed.

"What?" Sasuke asks, raising a single eyebrow irately. "He can't spar with me on an empty stomach, can he?"

Sakura abruptly excuses herself from the stall.

"I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only.

I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary."

Two days later and Sasuke finally realizes what's going on – they were blatantly ignoring Naruto, and Naruto, while noticeably peeved, seems to have accepted it. They didn't talk to him – didn't even mention his name – and went so far as to leave him during ANBU duties. Sasuke can't comprehend what the kyuubi vessel could have done to deserve such harsh treatment, but he's sure that, whatever it is, they're simply taking things too far. He thinks that whatever it is involves Naruto's apartment, as every one of their peers tended to avoid it like the plague, and Jiraiya had even placed a lock on the door while Naruto primly told him that he's going to live in the Uchiha compound for a while because he was "worried" about Sasuke. The Uchiha had simply scoffed at his flimsy excuses.

It didn't matter what it was – it's been over a week and no one had even suggested the idea that maybe they had a fifth person practicing on the training grounds with them (his name was unanimously tabooed) and Sasuke didn't think it was right. Even if he had outright denied it from the very start- after all, they were a family, they were a team, they were a community – they weren't kids anymore. A dispute amongst communities could be settled, should be settled, and Sasuke was going to settle it.

So when Naruto asks Neji about the new jutsu he's been working on and the pale-eyed Hyuuga very coldly ignores him, Sasuke roughly catches Neji by the arm and says, "Hey! Can you stop pretending Naruto doesn't exist? I expected better from you!"

Unexpectedly, Neji breaks into tears.

"I think to feel this happy is to be miserable, to feel this much satisfaction is to burn."

Just as Sasuke turned to interrogate Naruto, Sakura announces that Kakashi is here. Surprised that for once, Kakashi was early, Sasuke follows the other three members and gathers with them at the middle of the wooden bridge. Kakashi turns to look at them with forged professionalism, and he has to remind himself that this is just a job, just work, because-

"There really isn't much hope for the team," he says, his single visible eye closing, and the members pretend along with him that they were surprised. All except for Sasuke.

"What?" he snaps, jerking forward. Sakura clasps a hand around his wrist, forcing Sasuke to retreat and calm down, but Sasuke struggles until he's released and rears like a mad bull at Kakashi. "Why? Do we get to know why?"

Sai buries his face into his hands, shoulders trembling. Kakashi sighs, "Without Naruto"-

Sasuke cuts his eyes to the blonde, glaring. "What do you mean, without Naruto- we're not breaking up! We're Team Seven! We're- we're family! We're"- his voice trails off into desperate pleading. "We're a team."

"We're not," Sakura says suddenly, as Sai glares at nothing in particular while gripping his brush on one hand and Sasuke feels like he is being attacked. They all seemed to have made the decision on their own – without him. And without him, they were not a Team, because their Team was five, not four, and their Team could not have made a decision about the Team without him, because their Team was five, and-

"We can't keep this on without Naruto- we can't be who we were without him."

Sasuke looks back at Naruto, and realizes suddenly why the members have been so perturbed with him.

He was leaving them.

"Naruto," he croaks, eyes watering for the first time in a long time. Sakura succeeds in restraining him, preventing him from lunging at the blonde.

Naruto looks at Sasuke with apologetic eyes, reaches out to touch him, but Sasuke simply shakes his head and covers his face with his quivering, sweaty palms; because he refuses to believe that this is the end for them. But the look that Naruto's giving him now is like a passage from the scriptures – something prophesied and unstoppable. Kakashi speaks over him while patting his back and everyone listens. Directions – a plan to execute, how they were going to do a formal request, how to handle the papers…

And when Kakashi finally leaves and Sasuke looks to his left, Naruto is no longer there.

"I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell;

I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth.

I would know him in death, at the end of the world."

"All right everyone, let's go."

Sasuke stares at Kakashi, curious as to how the silver-haired man could talk so calmly about this mission. They weren't on a rush, neither were they loaded with gears that could help them finish this one with a flourish. Sakura was even dressed quite formally, her usual clothes for battle now changed to something a tad bit too long and a little less colorful. The same goes for Kakashi and he was clearly very disturbed about wearing something other than his green vest. What were they thinking? Were they going to a party to celebrate Naruto leaving? It was ridiculous, Sasuke thought, as he rebelliously insisted to stay in his regular outfit, ready to restrain the stupid idiot if any struggles would occur.

They were on a mission to stop Naruto from running away as a missing nin after all, just like what they'd all done for Sasuke. Naruto was exceedingly stupid in thinking that he could leave like this- leave the village, leave his teammates, leave his friends… leave him.

"What are you thinking about Sasuke?"

He hears the soft yet firm whisper, and turns around to find Gaara waiting patiently at the doorway. Somehow, in his seething internal monologues, Kakashi and Sakura had left the room before him. To his irritation, he sees that Gaara is dressed in those all too uncomfortable clothes not fit for battle as well.

"Thinking about the best way to beat the crap out of Naruto when I see him."

Gaara seems taken aback for a moment, raising both non-existent eyebrows at his venomous tone. "So… it's true," he mutters.

"What? What's true!?"

Fathomless eyes searches his and Sasuke finds himself regretting that it isn't the shade of blue he's looking for. Neither did he like the pity he saw in them. "Then what are you thinking about?" he throws the question irately back at Gaara, looking elsewhere, reflexively searching the room for another pair of eyes he knew he wouldn't find there.

"About… "

And suddenly his eyes land on the door, as if something was pulling his attention. There he finds Naruto, beside Gaara, looking sadly back at him.

Confusion mixes with a feeling of desolation, longing, desperation- Why? Why?- it strikes him in a whirlwind of emotions and before he knew what was happening-

"-what color of flowers would go well with yellow."

-Naruto was gone again.

Sasuke is startled to feel tears running down his face.

"Love is a sacred madness."

Sasuke ran. His breathing ragged, his face furious and determined.

"Naruto, Naruto…"

Does he think this is a game?

"The way you say my name is as pretty as a song, Sasuke…"

First he disappears for days, then he appears again? Why? Just to taunt him?

"Naruto, please Naruto, no-"

His lungs felt close to exploding. His perception was blurred, his mind was blank. His eyes were fierce and his mind was screaming.

"Sweeter than any song…"

Everyone yelled for him to come back.

"The medics will come soon, just- just stop talking, you're making it worse!"

Sakura screamed the loudest.

"Why does it sound sweeter to me now?"

He ran until he couldn't hear them anymore.

"Please, don't- don't close your eyes Naruto."

Sasuke looked up to see a display of shimmering blue.

"Is it raining Sasuke?"

Everything was silent for a while, and Sasuke thought that he'd lost them somewhere in the thick array of trees. He dragged his feet across the clear waters of a valley he knew all too well and searched for one mop of blonde head he yearns to see, ignoring the mocking message Naruto was giving him in parting at the very same place where he failed to make Sasuke stay.

"I'll get you home, you hear? We're closer to Konoha now. Tsunade's going to-"

His frantic eyes finally land on a floating box in the middle of the haunting calmness. The ninjas of Konoha and the rest of their friends waited at the edges of the valley, watching him in somber silence.

"Talk some more Sasuke. Because I… c-can't see you… anymore…"

"Sasuke… I'm so sorry."

"Help! Somebody…! Anybody-! Help us!"

Was it Sakura? Kakashi? Sai? Tsunade? He didn't hear clearly.

His hands trembled as it reached out to touch that little white case that felt uncannily familiar- so familiar it hurt.

"Sasuke… it's so dark."

And when Sasuke gripped the coffin, tears falling, face contorted in remembered grief,

He forces himself at last to accept that this was not about Naruto leaving.

"…aruto..?"

It was his funeral.

"…NARUTO-!?"

.

.

.

"Life has to end.

Love doesn't."

fin

/

hahAHAHA your tears are my sustenance-

uh I mean, c&c peace I'm out