That One Summer

Chapter 1

--

Maybe it's the heat that makes things happen the way they do, though Naruto wouldn't be comfortable looking for excuses and explanations. Things probably just happen because they have to, some time. If you keep filling a bucket with water in your living room, the room's going to flood. This summer will be just like that. What'll happen is an accumulation of feelings, actions, mistakes and good choices, and in any way, it's inevitable.

Naruto's seventeen, has just graduated, with difficulty. He was never a brainy type, or organised, so naturally, his academic life is a joke. To be honest, he doesn't know what they were fretting about in high school. It had already been decided he would not go to university, even if he had turned out to be the next Stephen Hawking, he didn't have the money. Still doesn't, but now the situation's different.

So Naruto has one entire summer of being on his own, before he will move out of his current apartment, and in with his fat uncle B. who owns a garage. Thing is, his uncle has thoroughly explained to him that he is no social worker, and that he really can't be bothered with taking care of his nephew, so he'll offer him the spare room, but Naruto has to pay for it. He charges him what he thinks is a friendly bargain. Now Naruto is stuck, forced to accept his offer (he has nowhere else to go) and all summer to come up with the money for the room.

Naruto supposes he should feel grateful. It's true that uncle B. is one of the least shady relatives he knows, and the only one who has even offered to help him. But he feels empty and hopeless, with the only prospect of becoming a mechanic in training next year. That or his uncle's poorly paid child labourer.

Anyway, Naruto doesn't like to beat around the bush, so here's what happens that summer.

He manages to find several jobs for the summer:

He works at a theme park every Friday and Saturday catching a ride from this boy who lives in the same apartment block as he. It's either costume work, (which he loves unlike everybody else in the park, so he gets a lot of time to spend in the huge, stuffy head of the park mascot, an orange duck) or hauling boxes from this side to that side of the park without actually knowing for what for, and having popcorn for lunch.

He also works Sunday mornings in a bakery with his best friend Sakura which meant getting up at five, pulling on some clothes in the dark, emptying a carton of chocolate milk and getting on his bike to ride the seven blocks that lay between his apartment and the bakery. He likes the way the streets are deserted in the early morning, and he witnesses a lot of misty, pale city sunrises.

Then, every school day he baby-sits his neighbour's hyperactive son called Konohamaru for the meagre cash, if any. Konohamaru's mother works two jobs and comes back after nine, so she likes him to cook for her little boy and help him with homework if he'd be so kind. That's OK. Naruto likes the kid well enough, and he would probably continue to baby-sit him for free, just because he knows what hard work is like and he respects Konohamaru's mother for her independence. She always gives him something, even if she doesn't have any money on her at the moment. She gives him left-over stew or soup, or sensible stuff he always forgets to buy like band aids and cough syrup.

Naruto suspects she feels sorry for him because he doesn't have a mother, or a father, but he also knows that she respects him in the same way that he does her, for his hard work and inability to give up, or go down. He's tough, like her.

That leaves Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday free for one more job, Naruto figures as he stands over his kitchen table, looking pensively at the mess that is his apartment. He remembers an ad in the supermarket, (one where he applied for a job he didn't get) that said: "looking for help in managing garden Monday, Tuesday and Thursday." Naruto likes working outdoors, prefers it to selling popcorn, or beeping products at the register in the supermarket. So he stands up and searched the pockets of his grubby orange coat for the telephone number he tore off the ad. He finds it and straightens out the wrinkly piece of paper, and goes looking for the phone.

When he finds it, he holds the cold plastic against his cheek and allows his eyes to slide over the interior of his tiny living room. Cream-coloured walls, corner kitchen, three tiny cupboards for keeping cups and plates. He doesn't have a couch, but he has a nice white carpet he keeps it as clean as he can. That's where he sits and reads his library books and comics and free newspapers because he has no TV, and isn't really aware of what he's missing. Then, to his left if he's standing with his back to the hallway, there is the door to the bedroom, except there's no door because he broke it when he smacked it to hard in an angry teenage fit, and he has no money to get it fixed. So now there's only a hole to the other room, which is alright with Naruto. He lives alone and doesn't really need a door.

Suddenly there's a dial tone and Naruto startled as he heard a woman's voice answer in a curt manner.

'Yes, who is this?'

'Hello. I'm calling for the ad. The gardening job?'

There's a silence for a little while, as if the woman has forgotten about putting up the ad in the first place, but then she draws a breath and says:

'O, of course. Yes, do you know the address?'

Naruto tells her that he doesn't and she tells him to get a piece of paper so he can write down what she's going to say. It's in an area outside of town, in the upper-class neighbourhood, where Naruto has never been before. He thinks about how long it's going to take him and if there's even a bus that goes there.

'Do you have any experience?' She asks him, suddenly.

He stammers and starts to tell her about the other jobs he took for the summer. She cuts short his monologue.

'Yes, well, it isn't a particularly difficult job, just things around the house, you know. Why don't you come over next Monday and I'll show you around.'

He thanks her politely and frowns a little at how easy it went. He couldn't have been the only one to call, right? He shrugs and drops down on his stomach on his carpet, cheek on the coarse fabric, eyes on the hole to his bedroom.

The bedroom is small and white, but it looks large because Naruto lives in his living room mainly, and hasn't really decorated his bedroom. He never really takes anybody, least of all to his bedroom. There's one window that allows in cold, golden light in the morning, but stays dark in the afternoon. He sleeps in the same low, metal frame bed that he has slept in since he was five. It's getting a little too small for him, but serves its purpose just as well, so there's no need replacing it.

Naruto has been poor all his life, although you'd never hear him say it like that. To him, poor is out on the street with nothing but the clothes on your back and your misery. He has a place he calls home, works his ass off every day to afford it, but at least he can go back there in the evenings and crash on his bed to sleep deep and peacefully.

Everything has been all right. But this year he'll turn eighteen, and he'll stop receiving money from the government. His parents died when he was very young, and he spent a lot of his time in foster care, or worse, orphanages. When he was sixteen, social services had never had any trouble with him and gave him the choice to live by himself in an apartment or keep living in foster care. Naruto chose the first option and, granted, he would have to keep his grades up and someone would check up on him occasionally, but he was more or less free. And freedom, is one of the things he regards as most valuable. If you live your life in a cage, you might as well be dead.

--

The next Monday, he's mapped out route the bus will take on an old map of the city he bought for almost nothing and he has brought it with him in his pocket, but as he sits in the bus, sweating in the leather seats, he doubts if it will come to any use. The high buildings and shops and trees that pass him are all the same, and everything is like a maze, twisting and winding endlessly. It's not clear and straight, and divided up into blocks like in the city. He gets off at one of the last stops. Forty-five minutes in the bus. There are a couple of other kids too. Two girls and a boy, dressed in the height of fashion, all beads and jewellery smelling like hair gel and eau de cologne.

He walks slow and allows them to overtake him so that he can lag behind. He doesn't really feel comfortable walking with them. Self-conscious of his own shabby appearance: cargo pants and a grey shirt, already wet with his sweat; It's hot, too hot for summer and horribly humid so that Naruto has trouble breathing.

He manages to navigate his way through the broad white streets, deserted but for the BMW or Mercedes that comes screeching by now and then. The houses on both sides seem to grow bigger and more extravagant as he climbs the hill. He's beginning to wonder was sort of house Mulberry drive 56 will look like, when he gets to the top of the hill and sees the real deal right in front of his eyes. Huge, pearly white in the blazing sunlight with the deep azure blue of the ocean behind it. The sort of house you would imagine to live in, if you just won the lottery, twice.

Naruto wipes his sweaty hands on his shirt and presses an insecure finger to the doorbell. He hears a little zoom and afterwards everything is quiet for so long that he thinks he has the wrong address. But the speakers come to life at last and he hears the same voice he heard on the telephone the other day.

'Yes?'

'Um, I'm here for the garden. Uh.. The job?' He stammers.

Like before, there is a long pause, and Naruto is beginning to think this woman must be doing it on purpose when the gate clicks open and he is allowed entry to paradise. He feels like something impure and sinful, entering this white and sparkling Eden.

The front door opens up and he sees what he supposes is the owner of that voice and the one who keeps abusing simple pauses. She is tall and thin, with a hard, white face and black eyes that fix you and hold you in your place. But there's was also something restless about her and as she approached her eyes wander this way and that and regard him with little interest. She doesn't shake his hand, but then again, he doesn't offer and they stand a little awkward opposite each other. Then, it seems, the woman remembers who she's talking to and introduces herself.

'My name is Mrs. Uchiha. If you will follow me please.'

She strides ahead of him, over the green lawn, not to the front door but to the side of the house. There is a path and it leads slightly down the grassy slope. Naruto looked around him in awe. The garden is huge, and behind the house it stretched a lot further, something like a golf course. There is a Japanese garden, a pond, several trees including apple trees and a palm tree and other fancy, imported ones that Naruto can't recognize. When he turns around he sees the house in front of him, all glass and designer architecture, looking out over the magnificent view of the bay and the ocean beyond that. In front of the house is a swimming pool, surrounded by warm, red stones.

Mrs. Uchiha sees him look.

'You will be expected to tend to the garden. I want you to cut the grass, at least for this week, clean the pool, trim the shrubs to your right, they are my roses so please be careful. You can also clean out the garden house, clean the windows and just sweep it out a bit. And the fence actually needs to be repainted, which will take up the most time. I think about three weeks will do, if you come and work about five hours. I would like you to come in the mornings. In the afternoon I like to entertain friends in the garden, and I don't want anyone walking in the way. Also, if you've been in the garden, don't go into the house in muddy shoes and all that.'

Naruto nods and tries not to feel belittled as she goes on.

'That's about it I guess. I think about six an hour will do, don't you think?' She's not really asking for his opinion and just continues her rant. 'You can start today. You'll find tools in the shed over there. If you have any questions, I'm in my office most of the time, but I don't like to be disturbed. So...well, I don't think there'll be any questions.'

Then she looks at him with a look that dares him to contradict her, just for the sake of argument, but he just nods and smiles a dumb little smile that he hopes will assure her of his quiet, stupid composure and capability in managing the grass.

She seems convinced and nods curtly. Then she turns around and disappears through the large, white double doors into the house and he's left alone in the heat and the light of the summer stinging his eyes. He sighs deeply and raises his eyebrows to his hairline. What a job he has managed to secure! Hard labour in the pressing heat, for money that he'd earn just as easily copying files in some office in the city.

He plucks at his shirt to allow some air between the fabric and his hot skin. He closed his eyes for a second, the world bright red behind his eyes lids, and enjoys the silence that is never there in the city. No cars, no stereo, no sirens. This place is a little paradise. Only he's not able to enjoy it, just manage it. Ah, well. He shrugs again and makes for the shed. Might as well make he best of it.

--

He decides to start on the lawn, because he finds the lawnmower rather quick, falls over it actually. The door falls closed behind him and he bumps his leg hard against the machine. He swears for a full minute, hopping around on his uninjured leg, before stumbling back and pushing the heavy wooden door open again. This time he inspects the room and tugs at the lawnmower to loosen it from the pile of junk that it seems to have melted into.

It's just a manual one, Naruto concludes after having looked at it in the daylight. Too bad. Although he has no garden of his own, he mowed the lawn often enough when he was in foster care. More often than he liked as to some of the families he was less of a son, and more of a slave.

The grassy slope is nice and smooth. The grass is too long, but there are no pebbles or branches in the way. He works undisturbed until eleven. That's when he straightens his back and hears the clicking sound his spine makes in protest. The sweat has dampened his hair and he wipes it out of his face, where it sticks on his head, as if he had just taken a shower.

He's at the right side of the house, looking down on the pool which is a great, shimmering, blue rectangle in its bed of warm, red tiles. Then the door slides open. Though it's made out of glass, Naruto couldn't have seen through it because of the reflection, and now he's startled. He quickly ducks and hides under the shadows of a nearby tree, lugging the awkward, heavy lawnmower behind him.

The figure is isn't wearing any shirt or shoes, is just dressed in shorts. He strides out of the doorway and leaves it open, making his way to the pool. There's something in the way he moves, languid and self-assured, but also angry. Naruto gawps. The boy has black hair, must be Mrs. Uchiha's son, though he's not sure because she didn't tell him anything about a son.

In front of the pool, Naruto can see only his back, muscled but sleek. Then the boy turns his head a fraction and looks out over the bay. The sun in his face. He looks angry. There's a scowl on his pale lips, something wistful in his face.

Suddenly, he tears away his gaze and jumps off (Naruto can't suppress a gasp) into the pool. He dives into the water with the effortlessness of someone who never feared water and probably learned to swim when he was five. He's graceful and athletic and he disappears under the water, to be only a dark shape in the blue, almost until he reaches the other side of the pool, where he resurfaces.

Naruto can't tear his eyes away and he's very hot, only he knows that has very little to do with the weather right now.

--

It's evening and he's been sweating all day. The temperature will keep getting higher. It's a genuine heat wave, they said on television. Sasuke doesn't know how lucky he is, on the top of a hill, overlooking the bay and enjoying the breeze that blows in from the sea. He never thinks about how hot it must be down there, in the pit, in the city, where everybody lives like ants, crawling over each other, cramming metros and buses. Sharing the heat.

He's home for the summer, forbidden to join his friends from school on their trip to Mexico because of the stupid row he had just before the year ended. He'd like to shoot himself for that now. He could be surrounded by people and lights and the warm dry heat of the Mexican evening, tossing back tequilas and getting gradually more and more wasted. Now, he's sullen, bitter, annoyed.

Sasuke wanders the house, lights are off, only the bright, blue light coming from the pool outside flows through the windows and bathes everything in a cold, galactic sort of atmosphere. He peeps his head round the door to his mother's study. Finds her asleep on her desk. He feels a sudden pang of rage and hate for her. She never denied him anything in the past, and now all of a sudden, she decides to give parenting another try and keeps him imprisoned here, in this infuriating place where everything is stale and lonely. Really there is only one good thing left here.

Anyway, his mother doesn't wake up from her stupor, and he suspects she's had help and his suspicions are confirmed when he quietly searches her desk drawers and finds a little, empty, orange bottle that used to house sleeping pills.

He stands, bottle in hand, and looks at his mother. He's faintly embarrassed, for the both of them. He rarely ever sees her like this, all defenceless and bare. She's wearing no make up and her skin is more wrinkly than he remembers. He looks like her, if he has to look like one of his parents. They've got the same long nose and pale mouth. The same black eyes.

He hesitates for a second, looks at the door. Itachi is completely his father, they're mirror images. Of course, Sasuke has never seen Itachi's mother, but he suspects that he's nothing like her. Though he can't be sure entirely.

He tears his eyes away from the helpless, drugged figure of the woman who brought him into this life and softly returns the bottle where he found it. Then he tiptoes out of the room, making sure to close the door behind him softly. He's sure his mother will not wake up for a very long time, but he does it anyway. He walks down the empty, lonesome corridor but doesn't climb the stairs to his own room, one the first floor (the one with a balcony). He crosses the living room, sees his ghostly shadow in the black screen of their plasma TV and continues.

He walks to the right wing, the pool house, crosses yet another dark, empty corridor and finds himself in front of the door to Itachi's study. There's a faint light coming from behind the closed door. The orange glow lights his face. He hears a creak inside, someone shifting their weight on a chair, and puts his ear to the door. He hears the steady hum of a computer, and the rustling of paper and what may be clothes. Then the sound of his beating heart deafens him and he can't hear anything anymore. He's so hot. He changed into a fresh t-shirt, and still he feels dirty and sweaty. He closes his eyes. His hand hovers over the doorknob. Go in? He can still leave…

Eventually the decision is made for him as the door swings open to the inside and Sasuke finds himself face to face with Itachi who is lit from behind, and wears a halo of golden light. He didn't hear him get up. He's too distracted, and yet, he's never felt more focused in his entire life. Itachi, his half-brother, looks like him, a little. Long straight nose, broad mouth. Eyes like dark chunks of charcoal, framed by long black lashes.

He flicks off the light behind him. He looks serious, he always does. But then the seriousness makes way for apathy. Sasuke has to bite his teeth. He hates this look. He wants emotion on that face, something to recognise, something to hold on to. Itachi is like a statue, frozen forever in that same immortally beautiful position. But Sasuke doesn't want the marble, he wants the flesh and bone and blood and all the nastiness underneath.

He tries to say something and fails. Instead, anchors his hands in Itachi's shirt. He wants to keep him here, regardless. Don't go just yet. In the dark everything in the house is different: unfamiliar, cold, anonymous.

Itachi doesn't move. He looks down on him, nothing in his eyes. He's not rigid though, that would indicate emotion. He just doesn't give, he never gives.

'What is it?' Itachi asks, the dark, hushed timbre of his voice fills the corridor and Sasuke's ears.

To him this is a jab under the belt. Itachi knows what Sasuke's here for. No, that sounds wrong. He knows that Sasuke can't talk about it. Doesn't want to. Don't make me. He's just teasing. He likes to play with people, like in a puppet show. He likes to humiliate people, bring them down, and them lift them back up again.

Sasuke's not in the mood for that today. Though he knows, he bloody well knows, he'll undergo it all the same. That's no question. But he looks up, sullen and angry and tries to be just a little bit seductive, like he's seen people do on TV, if only to cover up for the begging, the pleading. He grabs hold a little tighter.

Itachi does nothing for a long while. But then he raises one eyebrow and grabs him by the arms, either to hold close or keep away. His dark eyes grow even darker. Sasuke curses himself and takes the jump. It he were to wait for Itachi, he'd never get what he wants. He stands on his toes and presses one short kiss to the underside of Itachi's chin, and then, when he gets no response, another one, longer and wetter. Come on. Please. Bearing his soul, his most vulnerable self. Sasuke prays to the gods he won't have to go and heal the wounds to his heart and his pride alone, later this night.

Itachi suddenly grabs hold his arms more firmly and for a second, Sasuke can't breathe. Don't push me away. But the hands hold him close, and release his arms to trace upward over his shoulders, to his jaw and they comb long fingers through his hair in the way that makes Sasuke shiver. He can't suppress a smile creeping onto his lips. Two pairs of black eyes meet in the dark. Then Itachi softly closes the door behind him and walks to the pool house, where he sleeps on the large, white sofa-bed. Sasuke follows.

Sasuke feels the heavy beating of his heart and swallows. He's dizzy. Just for tonight, he thinks. Consequences will be there, in the morning, but not now. Now it's fine and sweet. Now they're free. He is.

--

He wakes to the golden light of the morning that breaks through the cracks in the curtains and itches his face. Itachi is gone, obviously, he never stays. Sasuke lies on his back, comfortably naked, his black hair spread on the white pillow. He has to bite his lip.

A look on the clock tells him it's around eleven. He's not hungry, or thirsty, he does have a headache the size of Antarctica which is strange because he didn't drink that much last night. Wouldn't. Everybody's gone, to Mexico, or to Europe. He's been left behind, marooned. Drinking alone is not nearly as fun as doing it together. Still, he thinks, maybe, if he is to survive this summer he may need to make a habit of it.

He scowls and refuses to wallow in self-pity because it doesn't look good on him. He gets up, swings his legs over the side of the bed and grabs a pair of shorts, not caring that they're not his. He moves his weight to his feet and enjoys the sensation.

Then he wants to walk to the kitchen , planning on a martini for breakfast, but he stops and makes for the door to the terrace and the swimming pool. He suddenly longs to be engulfed by water. He want's to be weightless, and he also wants to be clean again.

Outside the sun assails his senses, but he's to bent of having his way in the pool, than letting it scare him away. The red tiles are heaven under his feet, the rough surface more pleasurable than the five hundred dollar massage he gave his mother for her birthday. He stands at the side of the water. His toes curled over the edge in the way that he was taught to.

His eyes wander and look out over the brilliant, glittering bay. He used to swim, almost every day, and it was only a matter of time before he joined a club and started to bring home medals. Gold mostly, whenever he got silver or bronze he beat himself up over it. That wasn't good enough. This year he quit the swim team, the same year Itachi moved back in. He only now swims in his own pool, when no one's watching.

He rips his eyes back and focuses. He closes them and imagines he's jumping off for a contest. The whistle goes. He pushes off. Easy, slim, he glides through the air, and then the water. Under it, everything's quiet. This is the best part. Whenever you're under the water everything else fades away. Sounds are gone or muted. Colours change, you feel more, every bit of your skin is touching. He likes to swim under water and that set him apart in his club. He always stayed under the longest. He can keep his breath for a full two minutes and even that's too short.

When he feels he's reached the other side of the pool he blows the bubbles out his nose and resurfaces. Everything is bright now, and sounds come back to him. He's a new person, someone different. Every time he comes up again he can choose to be a someone new, anyone he wants to be.

Right now, he's not really Uchiha Sasuke, not his mother's son, not his father's son either. He's not Itachi's stepbrother, or even his lover. He's not a man. He's not rich. He's just a boy.

And that's when he looks toward the lawn on left and picks out the figure in the shrubs. Two blue eyes, fixed on him, unblinking. Caught.