A/N: A moderate rewrite of my previous story 'Bulldoze.'
Fifteen Ways to Dissolve a Memory
You'll have me back but it's gonna take a week
I.
There are a number of things Naruto thinks about when Sasuke gets like this--throwing dishes and scrolls and ramen everywhere in celebration of a destruction that only will only lead to a five hour clean-up of shattered china.
Sasuke will bulldoze everything. Then he will kneel next to the overturned coffee table and breathe a deep sigh--a relieved sigh. A quiet will settle over the broken furniture and Naruto will walk to Sasuke who will run his hands over Naruto's hips and force him to sit. They will kiss. Fabric will tear; seams will fray. Then they will know the war is over.
But Sasuke is only on the first cupboard right now, and there is only a moderate pile of rubble on the kitchen floor. He has not typhooned through the rest of the house yet. It will take a long time for Sasuke to do that.
II.
Naruto was leaving his apartment to meet Neji six hours ago at the crust of the village where they would then pummel each other into bloody pulps. Naruto liked it that way. He liked to feel the bones of his hand trembling like they were about to sublimate into a mess of fractures. He liked to see Neji's face swollen and purpled with a rage. Naruto liked pushing Neji to the edge; and when Neji fell over said edge.
Naruto would help Neji up afterward and watch, fascinated, as dignity returned to Neji's veins. Neji would stand tall and long and look at Naruto like it was all just a complex mistake. There were no hard feelings with mistakes. Naruto liked that too.
The only thing Naruto didn't like was going home and finding a lack of souvenirs blistering over his face--but there was no helping that.
It was such a cloudy day. The birds were swinging low. The villagers had umbrellas tucked beneath their arms. It was hard to breathe. There was too much water everywhere. Even the horizon looked like it had been blotted with a dripping brush, like everything was all just a grand misunderstanding.
III.
Naruto was explaining to Kakashi how he couldn't remember how he was raised--how he went from being born to being six.
Naruto wanted to tell Kakashi about the haze of hands he couldn't be sure he had imagined, those memories...false ones?...of being held. He was afraid to know if they were all dreams of a yearning youth. He was worried they were all some illusion looming over his head giving him strange comfort at night.
Naruto asked: who were my parents?
Kakashi said nothing; he let the crescent of his eye say everything that needed to be said.
IV.
Sasuke is throwing dishes. Naruto thinks they should only use paper ones from now on because it is getting expensive to replace all the china Sasuke breaks. Paper plates also don't hurt as much when they hit Naruto in the head. Naruto is still digging out shards from the last time Sasuke rampaged. There was one lodged in his eye. Sakura said it was a miracle he didn't go blind.
Naruto ducks. Close call. He runs his hand through his hair and shakes out the debris.
V.
Sasuke kissed Naruto for the first time one sweltering, mid-August day. Well, technically it wasn't a kiss, it was mouth-to-mouth necessitation--but Sasuke could have gotten Sakura to do it--well, maybe he couldn't--Sakura had just realized her aversion toward men at that point.
Naruto had plunged a good mile off a waterfall in an attempt to perform the greatest splash-by-cannonball in ninja history. He could not say he failed despite almost dying in the act. Naruto showed very little remorse after being revived, which was why Sasuke punched him hard enough to make him drink miso soup through a straw for a week afterward. Naruto remembered more of that than the kiss itself.
It was all just a blur--but it had to have been a kiss, why else would his mouth tingle when he thinks about it--a cough, a snarky remark, and a bruising punch that nearly knocked him out again.
At least he wasn't drowning that time.
VI.
Neji was beating the shit out of Naruto five hours ago, but Naruto barely felt the pain. Ouch; except for then--foot to ribs. The best thing about adrenaline was how it dissolved everything from battle except for the glory of winning and the shame of losing. Everything else was inconsequential, a dream, tangents that blurred in and out of reality like ghosts seen only in the corners of eyes.
Naruto liked the dissociation of it all. He liked being a part of something without actually being in it.
Right fist to Neji's jaw. The impact sent Naruto reeling back a couple of steps. He knew it would hurt, but he didn't feel pain. All he felt was the smug satisfaction of seeing Neji stumble from the shock of something touching his fine, porcelain face.
VII.
Naruto once dreamt he was having tea with the his father--not the Fourth Hokage--just his father. His father was pouring tea slowly and deliberately into Naruto's teacup, which never seemed to fill. The tea just kept pouring and the teacup just kept devouring. Naruto stared at the teacup in amazement.
He barely noticed his father until his father was fading. Naruto looked to his father to ask a question, but found only two pits as empty and black as the teacup where his father's eyes were supposed to be. Naruto saw nothing in those hollows--no past, no present, no future--they were empty of everything, and especially empty of purpose.
VIII.
Sasuke always manages to keep some things intact. He usually forgets to break the clock sitting over the dining table, though he did accidentally knock it down with a flying vase once. The clock was set back in its place promptly and there were no hard feelings between the clock and its owners. It seems to understand its importance in its owners' hearts.
It counts away the seconds before the end with great patience.
IX.
There was one trick that was too dirty to pull in combat with Neji, and that was talking about what had happened the last time Sasuke had left the village.
Neji had been in the hospital a good five times since Sasuke left; Naruto tended to be inconsiderate when he was angry. Tsunade finally had to tell Neji not to engage Naruto in combat for the next two months if he wanted to keep his left arm. Neji complied for the sake of his arm. It was a pity, violence had always been their means of communication.
The only thing left for them to do was drink.
Naruto and Neji visited a total of sixteen bars within the first week of Neji's probation. It was difficult for them to revisit bars since they would usually start drunken brawls in which someone important got hurt. Politicians were always a pain in the ass to deal with. Naruto and Neji have to travel to Sand Country to buy pints these days. It is the nearest country they are allowed to drink in.
It was the third week of their bar crawl, and they had already been exiled to the outskirts of Konoha. Naruto was pounding back sake because there was nothing better to pound; Neji followed in close, competitive suit. It was a good way for both of them to get too smashed to walk.
But they didn't just slump into a heap on the bar floor that night.
Naruto isn't sure about the details, but he knows it involved liberal terrorizing of villagers, property damage, and cross-dressing--not necessarily in that order. It also involved waking up with a hammering headache as the sun yawned over the horizon, naked, with Neji, who seemed to also be naked. What happened after that was an awkward silence that was later remedied by alcohol and the lucidity to ask for separate rooms from then on out.
Technically speaking, Sasuke does have something to worry about when he thinks Naruto is cheating with Neji. But these are mere technicalities.
X.
Naruto used to buy dishes from a quaint little china shop on the other side of Konoha. It was a nice store with unquestioning, elderly clerks who were just grateful for Naruto's business--never mind how often Naruto visited to buy new plates and bowls. It was to Naruto's great horror when he discovered the friendly, decrepit cashier he was so used to seeing was actually Tenten's newly-deceased grandfather.
Tenten asked why Naruto needed so many plates, when Naruto unwittingly approached the cash register with an armload of orange-glazed salad dishes. Naruto subsequently dropped all 40,000 yen's worth of earthenware and told Tenten it was for Gaara's wedding--despite the well-known fact that Gaara was happily involved with a young, male Sand shinobi and was still pushing to get a gay marriage bill passed with the Sand Senate.
Naruto took to mail ordering china from Sand Country after that; a treasonous activity that was later discovered by Tsunade who thought it was a brilliant way to strengthen Fire-Sand relations. She then ordered all shinobi to follow in Naruto's example which resulted in a Konoha Potter's Guild riot that autumn.
The uprising resulted in Gaara receiving a black eye in the marketplace; the rioters were crushed by visiting Sand shinobi.
Vandalism of Uzumaki-Uchiha property has increased by 200 since last autumn.
XI.
Sasuke has already upset the dining table and chairs. He is now busy with the living room. Naruto hopes Sasuke will not shred the sofa cushions with a kunai. Sofas hardly fit the household budget.
XII.
Naruto wonders if Sakura and Ino have the same problem. He wonders if it is Sakura or Ino who causes the property damage, or maybe both. Women can be very volatile sometimes. Naruto prefers to believe Sakura deals the damage in the relationship--that way he can justify Sasuke's behavior as a Team 7 phenomenon. If would be a shame if all of Konoha suffered from righteous, jealous rage.
But somehow Naruto knows Sakura and Ino don't have the same problem.
XIII.
Naruto and Neji were eating ramen noodles three hours ago. Neji was bleeding and bruised. Naruto was itching all over--enhanced healing abilities did that to people. He could feel his skin peeling over the places Neji had ripped. Relics of the past were dissolving, evaporating, so all that remained was the lonely, autonomous present.
Really, Naruto and Neji were just eating ramen. Nothing else happened--not even words.
XIV.
It scares Naruto to know Neji knows more about what had happened that drunken night than he did. The unambiguous truth exists somewhere--and that threatens Naruto. The fact that Naruto cannot find comfort in the hazy line of memory and the shelter of ignorance worries him to no end.
Naruto hopes Neji never tells him what had happened. He doesn't want any relics from the past.
XV.
Naruto came home to Sasuke glowering at him with eyes the color of rage. Sasuke had already destroyed the bedroom. Note: new sheets needed. As well as the bathroom. Note: purchase shampoo tomorrow. And was, at that point, tearing at his own hands in frustration. Sasuke glared at Naruto before proceeding to the kitchen.
Naruto sighs as he hears the last of the furniture break from what used to be the dining room. He sees Sasuke fall into a heap of broken anger. He sees Sasuke's eyes blacken with fatigue. Naruto walks to Sasuke and sits in front of him. He takes his hands and places them on Sasuke's shoulders. He wills Sasuke to look at him.
"I love you," he says in quiet insistence.
Sasuke nods as if he understands this time, as if there won't be a next time. Sasuke presses his palms to both of Naruto's cheeks and brings his lips to fall light and soft on Naruto's--dry and crisp as snow.
Naruto accepts Sasuke's apology of motions and begins thinking about how he will set out to erase everything but this moment, this present, from his history.