A/N: I can't even remember exactly when I wrote this…about 2 years ago amidst my Naruto-obsession (or Sasuke-obsession, rather)? Anyway, re-discovered it, polished it somewhat, and here goes.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
x
Take this sinking boat and point it home. We've still got time.
You have suffered enough and warred with yourself. It's time that you won.
--Glen Hansard
x
x
x
Sitting rigid in chair, Sasuke could feel everything this house had felt. Empty was what it was now and he could feel it like a chill.
He stared at the ceiling for a little too long, feeling his eyes start to burn.
Sometimes it was hard to imagine that this had once been his home, that he had grown up here, that food had been cooked here, that a family had once lived here, that his first friend and enemy was born here, that love had been made here, that seeds of hatred had been sown here, that blood had been shed here, that his own life had been created and virtually shattered here…
The lack of people had stopped bothering him after a while.
Occasionally, the ghosts would whisper but he had grown accustomed to them well enough to sleep through the voices on the nights he slept at all. Sometimes, those whispers would keep him going when nothing else would and those were the times he wanted to forget Itachi altogether, banish him from memory, and think only of training bright and early with his lazy sensei, the idiot boy who had somehow become his best friend, and the pink-haired girl who was for some reason in love with him.
Somehow, that safety and comfort were becoming a threat. An avenger could not live with the luxury of forgetting his sole purpose in life. And sometimes, he would fear that he would lose his purpose in life if he let himself stay here and if—heaven forbid—someone else were to hold the katana piercing his brother's heart.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the Uchiha ghosts had made sure that would not be the case.
x
The last thing he thought upon his last glace at the village was that he had already wasted too much time.
x
Once he had wanted to die just to make a point. This was when he had finally come back to Konoha, drenched in his brother's blood.
He had nearly collapsed at the doorstep of the boy who had caught him in time.
"Now I can die in peace," he had managed, barely coherent.
"No, teme Now you can live."
So now, sometimes, he thought of going on with life. Just to make a point. And so he had started living a half sort of life.
The house did not seem so empty sometimes, not when Naruto was around or when Sakura cooked them meals.
And when they would leave, he would close his eyes and think of them, of how his body would relax at the smell of cooked ramen, how Naruto could still laugh like nothing had changed, how his mother's kimonos fit Sakura well—and to think that the woman had wanted them saved for Itachi's wife. To think, they believed someone like Itachi ever had it in him to love. But maybe, that was unfair.
He never thought he had it in himself either.
x
On most days, it was an empty house.
He needed them to make it a home.
x
x
x
end