1.
Naruto sleeps. He dreams. And come morning, he remembers--sometimes. Like chips and pieces of faded paint off a broken wall; Naruto tells himself that they're just dreams over and over. Especially when he wakes up entangled in his sheets on the floor with a monster headache that he knows wasn't the result of a landing head-first impact.
2.
A week later, Naruto does not question the fact that he is again, on the floor for the fourth time that week. That is, if he has been keeping count right. But instead of making corrections and trying to remember accurately, he only silently gets up and tears the blankets off his legs and waist. With that, Naruto has learned something important: Wood hurts. Naruto makes a mental note over breakfast to get carpet to cover the harsh floors and prays that tomorrow will mark the day these nightmares will end.
3.
Dreams are a figment of your imagination, Tsunade says. Naruto smiles even though he is not convinced; the dreams have not ended. He would tell her just how absolute they felt, but he just smiles and nods. The door shuts silently behind him after he whispers words of gratitude. He prays again and hopes his words reach the heaven he didn't yet know existed.
4.
Three days and several bruises later, Naruto found that the Gods did not favor the notion of letting him go so easily. Naruto knows he is not dreaming, not when he's wide awake. But he is. It's happening, he tells himself. Again. It's suffocating him, too vivid, too real. Naruto wishes he could try and stop the dream that really isn't a dream anymore. But he doesn't know how. That is until he tumbles out of bed. Again. This time, Naruto can't find the strength to get up.
Yet. He was just tired.
Tired from the lack of sleep, tired from the nightmares even though Naruto wouldn't call them nightmares anymore. They weren't really nightmares as much as they were unwanted memories. Over ramen, Naruto decides to never sleep again. Because dying from suffocating on blankets was too unheroic, he decided. A simple yet foolish way to avoid things, he already knows, but tries it anyways. Later, the promise is soon forgotten and come morning, he finds himself half-asleep on the couch.
Naruto forgets what happened next.
5.
Naruto gets up only to get knocked down again.
And he realizes that maybe...being down isn't so bad at all. At least he wouldn't be bothered by the dreams anymore, he remarks dryly in his head as he stares at the cream colored ceiling. Maybe the perspective from being on the ground wasn't so bad at all.
Either way, Naruto gets up. Not because he wants to, but because he has to.
6.
An hour later, and he finds his eyes blindfolded. Naruto wonders whether it's a prank or one of those dreams again. Even if he knows it's the latter, it's always the latter. It's just a dream, Naruto tells himself. The silence breaks as he hears footsteps. Even if they were soft and light, it doesn't go past his ears; even if, he wishes they had. Naruto flinches slightly as he feels something dropped into his hand that he didn't realize was open. Subconsciously, his fingers wrap around cool metal until he can hear the sounds of it breaking under his grip.
Naruto gazes up at what he thinks is the sky, and feels what he comes to believe is rain. Washing over him.
He forgets what happened next.
7.
Naruto sits on his bed and stares long and hard at the forehead protector infront of him and smiles wryly before skimming over the crooked metal. There is a distinctive tone of disapprovement when he goes back to his dream and thinks about it like he's touching the metal. You know who that was, you just want to pretend like you don't, like you forgot who he was to you--you always run away like a coward; Naruto doesn't flinch at the cold tone, not as much as he does when he hears the word 'was'. His fingers run over the fine cracks on the surface and there is an almost silent sound of more metal quietly breaking under the pressure of his touch. A sound that most would never hear; Naruto only knows it's there because he can detect it.
And with that, he wonders why he couldn't hear the cracks in his own friendship.