THE BEACH
Prologue: Running
by eggadshorace
» Fandom: Naruto
» Rating: M
» On Going(WIP)/One-off/Series: WIP
» Classification(s): Romance, Mystery, Action/Adventure
» Warnings: Violence, Language, Sexual Situations
» Pairing(s): Naruto/Sasuke

--o--

Prologue: Running

--o--

"Ban-ZAAIIIII!"

Someone's shout echoed the peel of the dismissal bell, and someone else laughed, but the sounds were soon lost in the rising buzz and chatter of a school let out for summer vacation. Chairs scraped the floor and a girl near the front did a quick shimmy before linking arms with another and making a beeline for the door.

As the classroom emptied out, Sasuke stacked his books neatly, from largest to smallest, and arranged them just so in his bag. He checked for loose paper, clips, pencils, cleaning and sorting the flotsam that a school life created. He finally stood, pushed in his chair, and made a point of tugging his uniform into proper order, tie flat, collar tugged up. The bag went over his shoulder and he nodded politely to the sensei as he walked slowly past him to enter the chaotic halls; the last to leave the room, but his head was already miles away.

Outside the door, the corridor was packed end-to-end with students, a sea of voices blending seamlessly into a dull, indecipherable roar. He was stopped twice on his way to the shoe room, and when he finally made it there it was crowded and noisy. Promises and declarations and plans swirled around him unnoticed as he changed into his street sneakers and placed his school shoes in his bag, and he was so deep in thought he jumped when his cell phone vibrated on his hip. He managed to wriggle out through the bottlenecked doorway as he dug in his pocket for it, and paused in front of the school. The sun slanted into his eyes; he squinted as a warm summer breeze caressed his face and brought the receiver to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Otouto-san."

The day dimmed, a little. He felt a brief sensation in his chest, as though he'd swallowed ice. "Onii-sama."

"How was your last day?"

"It was very nice," Sasuke said carefully as his classmates streamed around him, excitement and childish bliss in their pace, their movements, their voices. "I am glad to be finished with the second year."

"You should enjoy your school, otouto-san. You, after all, are the one who insisted on that particular campus." The voice in his ear was mild, but Sasuke cringed. Unconsciously, his body bent protectively, his free hand coming up to cup the phone as well.

"I very much enjoy my school, onii-sama. I owe you a great deal for allowing me to attend it. I… meant only that I also enjoy the summer weather." And it might have even been true, if Sasuke had not been student council president, vice captain of the kendo club and the number one ranked student in all the previous two year's exams.

Someone spoke to Itachi on the other end, low and female. He ignored them. "I trust you'll be home around the usual time, then?"

"I will be attending a meeting to set the summer schedule," Lie. "And then practice." Another lie. "After that, I will be going to the main house with Hozuki-san for the week, as we arranged."

Itachi made a sound, noncommittal and irritated at once. Sasuke, no matter how hard he tried to still himself, began to shiver under the warm sunlight lancing through the oaks that lined to school's front walk. His stomach twisted, and his hands gripped the phone so hard it creaked.

"Is such a length really necessary? Is it impossible to stay for only the weekend?"

"The main house is very far north, onii-san. It would be impractical."

"What would be most practical, otouto-san, is for Hozuki-san to visit us."

Please, please. "It was very kind for his family to invite me, and we have refused their invitation twice before. It would be unforgivably rude to bow out again."

"Do not presume to lecture me."

Sasuke's breath froze in his chest. "Never, onii-sama."

There was silence on the other end of the line, and a cold sweat broke out over Sasuke's face as he waited for his brother's next words.

"You may go."

Sasuke didn't move.

"I only object because there will be no way to contact you there. It is traditional, as a main house should be, but they might have had at the very least a phone line for emergencies. The complex is so remote, and it is certainly allowed —"

Sasuke wouldn't know . The Uchiha main house and all who lived there had burnt to the ground when he was a child, leaving his brother and himself as the last surviving members of the family. Whether the deceased had died before or in the flames was never determined, but Uchiha Itachi had emerged from the incident as one of the youngest multi-millionaires in the world.

The yard had grown quiet and empty while they spoke, and now Sasuke could see Suigetsu through the open doors of the entrance, talking and waving his arms animatedly while his audience giggled and cried out how much they'd miss him.

Sasuke closed his eyes. "I wish to go… 'Tachi-nii."

There was a pause. "Do not address me so informally." Itachi's tone was severe, but it held a note of pleasure Sasuke could count on whenever he used the childish title.

"Hai, onii-sama."

Itachi sighed. "I will miss you, otouto-san."

"I will miss you as well, onii-sama."

"You must be careful, then. You have your things?"

"Yes."

"A towel? A toothbrush?"

"Onii-sama, yes."

"I am only concerned for you. I need to look after you so our parents will rest easy."

A series of blistering images flashed through his mind, but he held his tongue. He was so, so close…

He waited.

Finally, "Goodbye, otouto-san."

"Goodbye, onii-sama."

The phone clicked in his ear, and Sasuke brought the phone away from his ear to stare at it.

Phase one, complete.

He then tottered over to a tree and leaned weakly against it, arm over his eyes as he waited for Suigetsu to find him.

A few minutes later, a shadow fell across his face and Sasuke looked up. "That was my brother," he said by way of greeting, referring to the phone still clutched in his hand. His tone was matter-of-fact. His voice didn't shake. His hands were steady.

The other boy groaned. "What did he say?"

Sasuke gave a small smile. "What do you think he said?"

Hozuki Suigetsu cursed and kicked at the grass, hands threaded through his hair. "So, what? This is the last I'll see you for the next two months? Is he going to take away your cell again? Last year I thought you'd died!"

Sasuke laughed, softly, and stood, clasping Suigetsu's shoulder as they began to walk, slowly, toward the open gate. "It wasn't that bad. By the end, I even had a ten o'clock curfew."

"Only with Itachi-bastard would that be a victory. Seriously, you'll write or something, won't you?"

"Sure," said Sasuke as they began the descent toward the city and the train station.

"Sure," mimicked Suigetsu morbidly. "From Sasuke's Room, Day 47. 'Dear 'Getsu-chan, the gruel is especially good today. It has been some time now since I have seen the sun—'"

"Shut up." You don't know the half of it, 'Getsu-chan.

At the station, the students mingled and were lost in the crowds of people thronging close to the tracks, waiting for the commuter trains to take them. Sasuke took the train north. Suigetsu took it south. Between platforms, the two paused, and endured a self-conscious moment of silence.

Suigetsu abruptly turned to face him, said, "OK, before this gets any worse," and gave him a short, awkward hug. He drew back with a scowl and added, "And I want to hear about that gruel, you hear? I'll sic Greenpeace or something on him if he doesn't feed you."

Sasuke, feeling more moved than he was strictly comfortable with, mumbled, "I'm not an endangered species, I doubt they'll care."

"But I—" Suigetsu stopped himself. They both knew he cared. Saying so out loud, however, was out of the question. "I—I'll… see you, sooner or later. Right?" he finished, lamely.

"Yeah." Sasuke hitched up his bag, and, before he could betray himself and tell his best friend everything, turned and walked away.

Behind him, Suigetsu cursed under his breath again; but his tone was now more weary than anything else. "See you," he whispered, to Sasuke's retreating back.

--o--

The train was crowded, as usual. The smells and sounds of humanity echoed and wafted around Sasuke surreally. Usually, this train ride was met with a deepening sense of fear and even panic, as it brought him closer and closer to the place he couldn't call home but nonetheless was where he lived, where the hallways were haunted by his dead parents and where the only real monster called him otou-san, lovingly, with a voice like bloody razor-blades.

The train pulled up to his stop. It was only a forty-minute ride or so; not really enough time to fall completely apart.

The train pulled away from his stop.

And Sasuke began to breathe again.

--o--

The rest of the plan was a bit more complicated, and at the same time more simple.

Sasuke got off the train in the city, skyscrapers reflecting waning afternoon sunlight and dirty grey streets in equal measure. He waited on a corner for fifteen minutes, got on a bus, and rode it for another thirty.

He stepped off in a neighborhood of close little houses and bricked-up windows, making his way around piles of garbage in a stinking alley to a small, moldy gym. There, he paid a fat man more interested in his newspaper than Sasuke's money and went into the deserted locker room. He unlocked locker C145 and pulled out a bag that holding some water, clothes, and several million yen. He shucked off his uniform and shoved it in a garbage can, dressing himself in nondescript khaki and a print tee from the bag. After some thought, he shoved his school bag into the trash as well. He slammed the locker shut, left the lock on the fat man's desk, and began the ten-block trek to the third-closest bus station.

From there, he bought a ticket (cash) to another train station. While waiting to board, he crushed his cell into the tiniest pieces he could manage, then divided them between the three dumpsters that particular station boasted.

The train took him to another bus station.

By now, night had leapt onto the unsuspecting summer day. Sasuke, gritty-eyed and achy, stepped off the train into a hard urban nightscape, yellow street lamps clashing with neon bar signs and glaring headlights against the comfortless darkness. The traffic was a constant rush against his abraded senses, the people around him staring straight ahead and moving at a clipped, merciless pace that drew him along until he collapsed, exhausted, against a vending machine in the bus depot.

It took him a few tries, but he managed to coax a few candy bars out of it and ate ravenously, chewing huge mouthfuls with a kind of grateful desperation.

He spent the night like that, too cold and terrified to sleep, seeing Itachi in every face and every shadow, every car and every storefront.

In the morning, dawn cracking like an egg in the powder sky, the 5:15am bus found him hollow-eyed and shaky. He spent the next few hours letting his head bounce off the window while the tiny woman next to him read out loud to her friend particularly interesting passages in her mystery novel.

It was midday when he found himself alone again, at a truck stop with no further public transportation forthcoming. Determined, and perhaps hallucinating slightly from lack of sleep, Sasuke began to walk toward his final destination. It remained, according to the map in his bag, some one hundred and sixty-odd kilometers away.

Five minutes down the road, a sedan pulled over to the roadside in front of him. A window rolled down, and a nice, pretty-looking woman stuck her head out. "E-excuse me. Would you like a r-ride?"

He stared at her for a minute longer than necessary, and her smile faltered a bit. An equally nice-looking man with an identical nervous smile was at the wheel.

"That's kind of you," Sasuke murmured. His voice felt rusty, like he hadn't spoken in ages. "I'd like to go to Rikumura, if you're headed that way."

"We ain't," came a harsh cackle from the backseat of the car. "But we'll take you as far as we can."

The woman's smile was really more of a grimace now. "Of course, Obaa-san," she demurred politely. "Please, let yourself in," she added to Sasuke with a kind of resigned anxiety. After a second, he did.

The next hour was interesting. The young woman and her husband (he presumed) attempted stilted conversation for his benefit while their Obaa-san sat silent next to him, she being the owner of the cackle and a grand total of perhaps three teeth. Her eyes were blind with cataracts and rolled like milky marbles as she stared at him, at the scenery, at her knitting. As soon as the car returned to the road, she had turned to him and pronounced, "You're not head to Rikamura, foolish boy. You," and here she prodded him, hard enough that he winced, "are going to Konoha."

"Is… there any such place?" Sasuke said, after a moment.

The younger woman gave an edgy little titter and said, "Oh, if Obaa-san says so, it's so!"

"And I do," nodded the old woman, pinning him suddenly with those blind eyes. "So we'll take you as far as Sandou. Do you hear me, lazy son-in-law?" She poked the driver with her long, bony finger. He hunched forward slightly and said, "Hai, Obaa-san. Sandou is where we're going."

"And when we get there, don't start walking again, you foolish boy." She poked him with the same finger, right in the sternum again. "Wait for a few minutes, and someone with an already heavy load will come to take your burden."

"Is that so?" Sasuke asked slowly, tired mind trying to make some sense out of it.

"It's so. You'll go to Konoha, where they say a god sleeps, and you'll find a place you've known. A person you've never known. And that's all I'll say."

And that was all she said.

--o--

Late afternoon sun was in his eyes again as the sedan pulled up to an abandoned petrol station. The cracked pavement had grass and tiny white-belled flowers growing up through it and over it, softening its jagged breaks. The tin-roofed shack was bleached the color of bone in the hazy light, cracked windows glinting back at him.

Obaa-san tapped a finger to the glass as the car rolled away from him, going, he thought guiltily, back the way they'd come. How far out of their way had one crazy old lady's whim taken them?

Best to start walking.

But somehow, he didn't. Where the hell would he go, anyway?

The road here was just as cracked and uneven as the rest of the concrete slab the station rested on, weeds and flowers mute testament to the fact that this path was certainly one of the ones less traveled. What had possessed him to let that woman drop him off here, in the middle of nowhere? Konoha? He'd never heard of it. Hadn't seen it on the map. Didn't see it on the map, he corrected himself as he scanned the page more and more frantically. He was having trouble thinking clearly, his head at once full and completely empty, with just one question echoing inside it. Now what?

Now what, otouto-san? Itachi murmured somewhere in his subconscious.

As if in answer, the sound of an engine became audible in the still afternoon.

Sasuke watched, eyes wide and lips parted, as a pick-up with a wooden-sided bed pulled up to the front of the station. Two men, one of whom might have been his own age, leaned over to look at him with identical, put-out scowls.

Their bed was full to bursting. With huge, glistening, gorgeously striped… watermelons.

Sasuke swallowed a hysterical laugh and heard himself say, "I'm looking to get to Konoha from here. Are you by any chance headed in that direction?"

They stared at him, something close to shock on their faces. It was replaced in a moment by wariness, and a certain suspicion on the part of the elder.

"An'... why might you want to go there, if you don't mind me asking?" the man said, carefully.

Sasuke smiled. "An old blind obaa-san told me told me to. She said, if I waited here, that someone would take me there."

The man glowered. "Hmph."

"Che, troublesome," commented the younger. He didn't look wary. He looked bored.

Finally, the older man seemed to relent. "Store's in Konoha," he grunted. "'S no room in the cab. You're welcome to make yourself as comfortable s'y'can in the bed with the melons."

"Thank you," Sasuke said, and had no more put his foot on the tailgate then the dynamic duo had started moving again, bumping and swaying along the more-hole-than-road. Sasuke was sent headfirst into the hard, firmly packed cargo, and it was ten minutes before he had righted himself and lay in a somewhat comfortable position, staring up at the sky while lying flat on his back on what must have been half a ton of lumpy watermelon.

"Y'alright there?" came a question.

"Fine. Great," Sasuke called back, with possibly the last bit of energy he had.

The rocking, after a few miles, was now almost soothing—rhythmic, lulling, and Sasuke felt himself slipping away from reality. He'd been traveling for twenty-four hours straight, without sleep, and this road, those crickets, these watermelons, and even the obnoxious strains of local radio station that the two in the cab were arguing over, wasn't enough to keep him focused and afraid a minute longer.

Sasuke slept.

--o--