I do not own Naruto.
Magic
Hemoglobin and morphine
With eyes closed
I see mountains lift and move
When Naruto opens his eyes and looks at the sun,
sparkling irises spread out like explosions. Strings of light emerge from the center and flows out the edges. They're like living things, like roaring snowstorms - trapped behind cracked glass.
They're too much. Like the contrast of night to day next to his tanned skin. People always stare right into them. They seem to get lost until Naruto flickers his gaze at the ground. No one really ever sees him; they just see the bizarre, the extraterrestrial.
He likes to have them roll back in his head, enjoys how all his bones melt when he shoots something up his arm. He's always had an urge to feel his blood rushing, to run across fields in the rain. He does that every night now, while in a fetal position on top of stale sheets.
The world becomes what you make it, after all. Naruto chose to embrace the world in his head so that it would become the only one he knew.
Everything was easy for him - when he could see everything, be anything.
Why would the worlds in your dreams not be real when you can see them? You spend time awake thinking dreams are just illusions, then spend nights in dreams thinking you're awake.
Naruto tried, every day, to burn out the consciousness and earthly thoughts by shooting heroin into the blood circulating in his veins.
Maybe he was trying to forget how both of his parents had died, in a car crash a year ago. There had been something special about them. When he was young he always cried on his way to kinder garden, always wished to stay home.
Sometimes when Naruto's not dreaming - he sees crimson rushing down his mother's face, blood and tears streaming to paint his handprint on the windshields.
Naruto closes his eyes again. Green spots appear like small, ugly stars. When he's high he always finds it beautiful, now it makes him anxious. The imprint of a sun – huge and inescapable.
He's out of money, out of drugs. There are no other worlds to escape to, just him and his itchy mind. Just him and his bizarre eyes. Everything he is, painted with blood, chasing and waiting, chasing and waiting.
He has to get a job, someone had told him.
'You can do it. I know you can ... you need to get out. You need to get out of yourself.'
But he has gotten out of himself. He couldn't get farther away.
Five hours later he's no longer alone in the room. There's a man, an old man, right in the corner next to the bookshelf. He isn't really doing anything, just staring at different things. Eyes flickering at the ceiling, the curtains, Naruto's face.
Naruto is terrified. He's coated in sweat and it's running off his body like blood, he has already thrown up three times. While he heaved into the toilet, he could feel his eyes detaching from their sockets. He felt the strings pop, one after another until he had to hold them back into his head so they wouldn't fall out.
The man won't stop staring at him. Naruto shuts his eyes but it doesn't make any difference, and it doesn't make any sense. He begins to shake, his bones feels like glass and the man keeps getting closer. He screams but he can't move, his arms would break off if he tried to lift them.
He leans in closer until he can feel him breathing on his skin.
"Hello," The man says. He speaks in a thousand different voices. He's speaking calmly but it's loud. So loud it rings in Naruto's ears. "You're up side down."
Something in his mind clicks, and he suddenly realizes that he is. Like it has been true this whole time but now he can finally see it. His mouth begins to salivate. Nausea rocks his body until he starts shaking. Gravity pulls him to the ceiling, but his back is still pressed against the bed. The room begins to spin, round and round like he's in a washing machine.
A few minutes later the man carves his heart out of his chest, split Naruto's skin open with a screwdriver, and stiches his organ in next to Naruto's. He smiles fondly afterwards, wipes his tears away. Naruto tries to bite him but his teeth are unfastening from his gums. He throws up bile until he goes unconscious.
Naruto wakes with a start. Something is tightening around his arm. He sits up, eyes snapping open in terror. But then, everything suddenly washes out in the sand. An enormous wave of pleasure hits him and goes straight through him. It's so relieving, so freeing and beautiful that he moans. He falls back into the bed and it's like he is falling from the sky onto a pile of millions of feathers.
He smiles, in control finally. There's the sound of blood rushing and someone making strange noises by his bed, and he knows it should make him anxious. The sobbing and sniffing beside him should make him worried. But he's not scared. Nothing will reach him, nothing will hurt.
Fifteen minutes later, he creaks an eye open and see Sakura sitting by his bed. She's quiet now. There's black eyeliner smudged around her eyes, turning them ridiculously green. The oily substance has trickled down her cheeks. She looks up at him then, eyes sad and intense. Naruto thinks of the rainforest, he can almost hear birds singing.
Her pink hair is wet. It looks heavy, disheveled in ropy wisps. There's something beautiful about her, he wish he could stare for eternities. She looks feral; alive in a way Naruto hasn't seen himself for months. She begins to whisper, eyes still boring straight into his soul.
"Are you trying to push me away?"
Naruto doesn't say anything, focused on the flecks in her eyes rather than her words.
"You should have called. I would have helped."
Something changes; the electricity seems to go out. The intensity fades, leaving only sadness. He winces slightly, it had been so nice to look at. He whispers back in a broken voice,
"I'm sorry."
There's a sad smile on her face before she looks away. She takes his hand, hold it tight.
"Your neighbor called. I got here as fast as I could … I got you more heroin."
Naruto doesn't know what to say, missing the fire she had in her eyes before. Maybe he should be thankful.
"Thanks."
She doesn't smile, doesn't say he's welcome. She looks back at his face, something determined over her features.
"You're going to have to pay me back."
"Of course."
Naruto smiles, but nothing changes. She frowns, lets go of his hand.
"Yeah … so I got you a job."