This was written shortly after reading that beach scene where Sasuke stares out over the ocean after learning the truth about his brother. Of course, we all know what happened afterwards, but at the time, I was expecting him to just go kill himself out of grief. Okay, maybe not, but it certainly got me into an angsty mood. Poem-thingy at the bottom was mine. Tell me how I did, since I know my poetry sucks.
Disclaimer: ...yeah.
Sasuke had always been a foolish child. It wasn't any defect on his part. It was just that he was too eager; too eager to believe, too eager to resent. His eyes were forever tinted rose by the mind he carried. His brother was a hero-turned-villain, his father was a god, and his mother was meddlesome. That was all he knew.
Fate enjoyed fucking with him; that, he knew for a fact. In his childhood, it was the massacre of his family by his own brother and in his adolescence, it was his stint in Sound under Orochimaru. Perhaps it was his fault that such tragedies would befall him, but he still liked to think that the force he once believed in was just a sadistic bitch with nothing better to do.
Closing his eyes to the sea before him, he remembered another time when he was foolish; another time when he was happy and blissfully idiotic. He was six, still an academy student struggling in the shadow of his hero and brother, when he approached his mother and asked if he could have a hug. She smiled and laughed amusedly.
"Sasuke-kun, it's 'may,' not 'can.' May I have a hug," she corrected with small chuckles falling from her lips like rain water. In his awkward and high-pitched voice, he repeated her words like a mindless parrot because not only was his attention span too small at the time to care what she was saying, being corrected like that had shocked and embarrassed him. His pride was too wounded by his mother's teasing smile and teasing words to care whether his grammar was correct or not after that, but years later, it was one of the most vivid memories he had of her.
A sigh escaped him and he breathed the salt air deeply into his lungs. The faint tinkle of her laugh still echoed in the recesses of his mind and the kindness of her smile still shined as bright as the day he first saw it. Tears began to prick his eyes and he furiously rubbed at his tears with his sleeve. Uchihas did not cry, but he couldn't give a damn about them anymore—not when he was suddenly faced with the idea that everything he had ever known about his family's prestigious clan was a lie.
His legs began to shake and soon, he found himself sunk in the sand staring blankly at the setting sun. He felt cold and couldn't stop shivering, even as the sun set its waning glow on him and the sand about him released their warmth into the air. What was more was how tired he felt. He felt exhausted and wanted nothing more but to crawl into a hole and die. How could he do that to him? How could Itachi do that to him? How could he do that to Itachi?
In his mind's eye, images of a different future flashed before him; a future where it was just him and his brother as the last of the Uchiha clan and where his malice for his brother was gone like dust on the wind. The images were bright and steeped in familial love, love he would've had if he hadn't been so foolish and he immediately began to tear the images down, focusing on his hate to rid him of his guilt because he was too afraid to face what he had done.
Slumping into the sand, he stared into the cool water lapping at his knees. In the shimmering water, he saw his mother; saw her kind smile and saw her love for him and immediately began weeping because he realized that in retrospect, though he had his brother and his father, his mother was the person who kept him steady and he had ignored her to chase the drifting shadows of his family. Eyes fixated on a point on the horizon, Sasuke cried softly to himself and began to chant to the ocean.
"Mother, may I speak to you,
You who whisper words I know are true
and mother, may I kiss you and hug you
to know that you are there?
Mother, may I lay my head
On your chest and hold you near
And tell you how I hold you dear?
My soul is weary and mine eyes are tired,
This child is no longer meek, nor mild.
My heart holds tears
and childish fears.
In dark hours, I curse your name
And selfish being, I want your love.
Mother, may I see your face
And hands small and full of grace.
May I hide from the sun
For fear of you gone
And may I leap into the sea
And steal your smile
If only not to feel pain,
If only for a little while."