Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto because all the pieces of K. Masashi's soul were bought off of Amazon by the time I got around to wanting one. ::pouts::
Warning: This fic contains BL / Yaoi / Shounen-ai / Slash. Don't like, don't read. Please click the button coloured the most beautiful shade of lime green to return to your home planet, where the environment is much more comfortable for you. Flames for the boyxboy content will be cheerfully put aside to rot in a secluded corner. People with a healthy obsession with boys may continue without any mental or bodily harm!
Author's note: Hi, everyone! This is my first Naruto chapter fic. This takes place back during World War II. Anyone who sees any mistakes in the facts, or discovers tidbits of information that have been left out is welcome to help me out in this long and tedious journey of fanfiction. ::bows clumsily::
If you can help me out in any way, or if you just have a comment, please leave a review about what you thought and whatnot. ::looks down at feet:: That would be great, thank you!
A big thank you to FastForward for taking the time out of her busy life to BETA this for me::glomp::
The title means something like 'this kiss makes me long for it' in Japanese.
Enjoy!
Tsukiso Saru Kono Kissu
by kloseddoor
"We have waited for hours upon hours
Holding our breath
I have a feeling that we affect the bullets
Our time for war has come."
- Back After Dawn"Dragging Dead Weight"
Chapter 1:
Tanforan Internment Camp
California
May 20, 1942
Cerulean eyes watched as family after family and person after person filed into the confinement they would call home for years. They were hard to tell apart from one another. Most were short, had black hair, and had thick accented English. A particular few stood out with their height or coloured hair, or nearly flawless English. He observed as each of them were handed tags and branded by a long number rather than a name. It was all very wickedly satisfying.
After all, they were the ones that bombed Pearl Harbor back in April. America was being avenged.
Private Naruto Uzumaki yawned, stretching his arms. The afternoon heat coming through the guard tower's open window was making him sleepy. Watching all the Japanese fill the camp was about as exciting as watching corn grow in the abandoned field nearby. Cradling his gun in his lap, he cupped his chin in his hand and eyed each and every prisoner suspiciously as they got past security. A large man, possibly a former sumo wrestler, plundered across the dirt, raising dust behind him. A small woman trailed after him, holding a baby to her breast, looked lost and anguished. They would be neighbors.
There was a small child pulling grass from the cracked, dry ground in front of a horse stall apartment to hand to his mother as a green bouquet of flowers. She accepted it gratefully, smiling and pulling the boy gently into their dirty, smelly residence. Flowers didn't grow in camps like this. The entire ground had been hastily tarred over before the arrival of the interns. Not even one petal or leaf floated about in the still air. For a vague second, Naruto felt bad for the whole lot of them. Then, he didn't feel anything at all.
About a thousand meters across the camp was another gray brick tower, currently being occupied by Kiba and Shino. Both of them were quick to anger, but Shino didn't show it as much as Kiba did. Naruto was sure they were either brimming with hatred or completely bored, like he was right now. He thought about ditching his current job to go visit them.
His walkie-talkie crackled as General Jiraiya Sannin on ground level muttered a word of advice: "Don't do anything stupid, kid."
"Yes sir." Sticking out his tongue to no one in particular, Naruto sighed. His General was always two steps ahead of him, even with his back turned and punching holes in tag board tickets. It was a little unsettling to know someone knew his every move.
The wooden door to the staircase creaked open. Startled, Naruto spun around, aiming his gun with frightening accuracy toward the intruder's heart with his finger clasped on the trigger. The rifle tip poked the green padding of a vest. A bag of chips fell to the floor with a plastic crinkling sound.
"Don't shoot! I'm innocent." That particular voice could only belong to Chouji Akimichi. With his red hair and big-boned structure, he was one of the nicest, most forgiving soldiers in the whole army. Not to mention one of the biggest and the scariest when he was angry. With his beefy arms raised high in the air, his small eyes were opened to their widest extent in his fear.
"Sorry, man." Chortling, Naruto lowered his weapon.
He grabbed Chouji's chips from the floor, handing the fallen bag to his friend. Chouji took it back, stuffing another handful into his face as a reward for not shitting his pants when Naruto aimed the gun at his heart. Pulling up a chair from a dark corner of the small room, the blonde soldier invited him to sit. The red-haired man gladly accepted the offer, the chair squeaking in slight protest as he sat down.
Naruto did not fill up the seat next to Chouji. Instead, he went and sat on the sill of the window, the cold brick touching his back. Glancing down at the procession of hung heads, he considered how many of them he would have to shoot, and how many of them would actually make it over the camp's barbed wire gates.
"Chouji, do you think I'll actually ever kill any of them?" Naruto asked, turning his head back around.
"Not if they don't get further than the line they're instructed to stay behind." Chouji replied between crunches, shrugging, and digging further into the bag of chips. Weary of the plain reply, Naruto looked back upon the dry ground.
The long line that had appeared in front of the camp gates at dawn was considerably shorter now that noon was approaching. General Jiraiya wrote off one more tag before excusing himself from the table to go take a lunch break. The lieutenant next to him nodded, picking up his pen to start on another ticket. Naruto caught his General's beckoning glance.
"I'm going to get lunch now. Mind the tower while I'm gone!" Jumping off the window, Naruto dropped the rifle on the chair next to Chouji. Chouji muttered a retort of compliance with his mouth full of chewed chips that Naruto chose to ignore for the sake of his appetite.
He made to sure throw on his heavy army jacket while running down the stairs. Sprinting out the door at the bottom of the staircase like a hyperactive animal, Naruto let the metal door slam shut with a deafening bang behind him as he ran over to his elder. He saluted Jiraiya with a firm hello, who saluted back. But the formality between the two quickly shattered when the powerful Sannin chuckled and rubbed the golden mop of hair roughly.
"How was guard tower duty? Exciting?"
"You know that corn field over there by the river? They grew an entire two millimeters while I was up there." Naruto cheered with fake enthusiasm.
"I told you that you needed good entertainment, but you still didn't ask for a copy of Icha Icha, so I brought one along with me! Here ya go! Don't forget to thank me!" Jiraiya pulled the proud orange book from his pocket and held it out for Naruto to take, who looked more than repulsed by just the cover. Frowning confusedly, Jiraiya looked at it to make sure nothing was horribly wrong with it. "What? Does a man chasing after his true love disgust you?"
It wasn't that. Naruto was petrified of the perverse contents inside.
His former squadron leader, the infamous White Fang's son, had been a huge fan of the series, and continually read it without fail, on or off the battlefield. The commands during combat sounded perverted: "Harder…at eleven o'clock" or "Big enemy with machine gun at the top of the mountain!" Ceasefire calls were more like squeals of joy as the main character deflowered the girl he had the hots for in complete graphic detail.
"Still not interested. Keep it." Naruto shook his head, pushing it back into Jiraiya's possession. "I'm sure Kakashi would accept your gift with more unbounded love than I would ever give you in my life."
"Hatake's not here. I sent him overseas a while ago to Europe. The Nazis are completely out of control there, especially in France." A more serious expression clouded Jiraiya's face. Naruto shook his head sadly in agreement. The blonde himself was Jewish and was, quite frankly, completely terrified of Hitler's supporters and the rest of the Triumvirate countries. He wondered if any of the Japanese surrounding him would attempt to kill him.
Naruto sure hoped not.
"Can we go get something to eat now? I really want ramen!" Blue eyes lit up at the thought of his favourite food.
"Being a soldier is much tougher than not getting ramen, so don't give me that look when I say no." Jiraiya prodded Naruto's tanned forehead with a disapproving look. Sighing, Naruto immediately forced a happier mask onto his face.
"Better?"
"If you can keep it."
Pouting, the blonde followed the seasoned veteran into the mess hall, where a cook was stirring gruel. The tannish, lumpy mixture looked like an inedible version of rotting barley and vomit all thrown together in a bubbling mess. Naruto could feel his stomach growing queasy. Jiraiya next to him was turning a shade that matched his army jacket, but swallowed hard to keep his breakfast down.
"On second thought…we could always turn back and pretend we were never here." Naruto commented, jerking his head back towards the door they came in through.
Before Jiraiya could reply, there was a great BOOM as said door was blown down in a gargantuan puff of smoke. Fully suited up in skintight green latex was the leader of squadron five, the feared Maito Gai!
"All entities of divine youth!!! Let us feast upon what the gods have decided to bless us with!!! What is in that pot?!" The green beast struck a pose, grinning blindingly, motioning towards the black cauldron.
"I believe it is a mixture of rotting goods and spoiled oatmeal!!" Gai's favourite pupil and most faithful underling, Rock Lee, appeared in a puff of smoke next to him. With his bowl cut and caterpillar eyebrows glued to his head, Lee struck the same horrifying pose as his teacher.
Naruto stared at them dumbfounded. While there was nothing written on his face except for speechlessness, the little voice in the back of his head began to wail like a banshee. The same thing was happening to Jiraiya, who stood with a cocked eyebrow as his shoulder angels began to hit decibels too high to be humane.
Oh hellno.
With every step, a little brown cloud appeared behind the heel from his boot. With every breath, he became thirstier. With every blink of an eye, he felt like he was going to topple over and die right there from dehydration.
Rubbing his temples with his one free hand, Uchiha Sasuke trudged through the secluded, grimy camp of Tanforan, which used to serve as stalls for racehorses before the war started. This was no place for anything to prosper besides plague-carrying field mice and bubbling tar pits. The humid heat was making the overstuffed duffel bag he was carrying weigh at least twice the actual weight. His arm ached.
Pulling on the tag around his neck, Sasuke looked down at the inked scrawl for his apartment number. Underneath his birth date, 'Barrack 16, Apartment 30' sat, innocently staring back at him with an evil smirk. He would be staying in the sixteenth barrack, thirtieth goddamned horse stall for the next decade.
The future looks impossibly bright, he thought sarcastically.
Barrack 16 wasn't even a barrack. It was in the back of the camp, secluded from the rest, and obviously had been hastily built with whatever wood could be scoured in the general vicinity. Sasuke glared at the building, scanning the doors for his own apartment.
Reaching his destination and loathing every aspect of the decomposing wood constructing the building, Sasuke shouldered the door. If he kicked it, it was almost certain to fall off its hinges.
The sanctuary of the uninviting home hardly was any different from walking outside. The heat was even more unbearable inside because of the stench of horse muck. The muck was supposedly already cleaned out but from the smell, Sasuke was skeptical about it being gone. Sunlight and grass snuck their way through the cracks of the planks. Stepping on the weeds, Sasuke dropped his bag on the floor, absently going over the list of things he had packed.
Had a bed been on the list? Because there wasn't a damned speck of anything in the whole room. Reluctantly, Sasuke sat down on the hot wood and unzipped his duffel bag to empty its seemingly rich contents.
Toiletries…clothes…food…pictures… Obsidian eyes regarded the black and white photos of his family with a dull air before returning them to their original places. He could reminisce later.
Right now, he had to figure out what he was going to sleep on. Nearly completely buried in his luggage, Sasuke finally pulled his head out after five minutes under and gave up. There was no way an Uchiha with an IQ of 140 could forget to pack something to sleep on, but he had.
Delightful. The army had forgotten to place a cot in his horse stall.Now he would have to sleep on the burning firewood and suffer from severe joint and back pain. His optimism for life in Tanforan was ever growing.
Outside, little children were laughing, playing tag in the dead plateau. Women chatted over sewing or folding clothes while the men sat around, complaining about the current political structures over a game of cards. Sasuke wondered in which group he would belong. There didn't seem to be many people his age in the camp. He could imagine that he would have to brood in the darkest corner of the room for the next few years and mutter about the poor social organization of the world.
The air was filled faintly with the sound of laughter and small talk. Sasuke didn't mind it too much. It sort of reminded him of how the big city always was. There was always noise, day or night, and people always seemed to know each other on the streets. In the parks, the children always laughed like this, their mirth scattering through the heavy air like silver bells.
A sudden shout broke the calm mood.
"Naruto!! Get back here right now!! Dammit!!" Sasuke recognized the voice a bit. It was the General who had written out his dog tag at the gate. With his large tail of white hair and a fair share of warts on his nose, the man had reminded him of evil wizards portrayed in fairytale books.
A piercing shriek blew through the atmosphere afterwards.
Did one of the soldiers go mad? Oddly curious, Sasuke stepped through the open door to speculate with the rest of the Japanese population as to what was happening. There were murmurs of disappointment. Many of the mothers were holding their hands up to their lips, whispering and shaking their heads.
A golden blur whipped past Sasuke's shoulder.
"Wh…?"
"Shhhhh."
There was blonde boy, no older than fifteen by the looks of it, cowering behind the rotting wood wall. Putting a finger to his full pink lips, the boy motioned for Sasuke to keep quiet. Retreating back into his musty apartment, Sasuke sighed, shutting the door and rejoining his duffel bag on the floor. He glanced over his shoulder. The boy was still there, peeking through a rather large split in the wooden planks of his wall.
Feeling a gaze boring through his back, the blonde soldier turned and caught Sasuke's dark gaze. Smiling awkwardly, he went back to his lookout before turning around in a few minutes, slumping to the floor with a sigh of relief. Black met blue again.
"I'm Naruto! Sorry for barging in but the cafeteria grub was really making me dizzy so I just had to get out of there!" The blonde scratched the back of his head, laughing. Sasuke dropped his stare back to the floor, his fingers folding the peeling corner of a wrinkled old photograph back and forth monotonously. Confused with the silence he was greeted with, Naruto laughed again. "So what's your name?"
Sasuke looked up suspiciously. "Why? So if there's any trouble, you'll have my name in mind?"
To be honest, Naruto hadn't expected a reply other than a confused look, but he got one. And in English too! This guy must've been one of those rich, uptight business people!
"Your English is perfect! That's awesome!" When all Naruto got in reply was a cold glare, he stood up, muttering audibly with a frown. "Jeez, what crawled up your ass? Haven't you ever heard of proper introductions? God, what'd I do?"
"You locked me in here. Give me one reason I shouldn't kick you outside right now, you stupid republican…" Sasuke's voice trailed off when he felt a warm presence behind him.
Pointing at the picture in the Uchiha's hand, Naruto's face split into a big grin: "Is that your family? You all look alike, tall, dark, and stern. Well, except for your mother but…hey! Is that your brother? He looks like your twin, but much older. And what's with the lines under his eyes?"
Sasuke held up the black and white snapshot to eye-level. "Do I really look that much like him?" Naruto nodded vigorously. An angry expression was suddenly stamped into the raven-haired man's pale skin. He gripped the paper tighter in his hand, clenching his jaw, and ripped the entire thing into a four halves, letting them flutter to the floor.
The soldier's blue eyes bugged out. "What are you doing?! You shouldn't tear something precious like that so easily! Isn't your family important to you?"
"If they were all here, they'd all be locked up like me anyway." Sasuke snapped, shooting Naruto the ugliest expression his face could make, but even Sasuke's trademark glare couldn't wipe Naruto's opinion clear.
"That's not my fault! I'm just saying that your family is important and you shouldn't treat it like a bunch of scraps." Naruto touched the feathery edges of the torn pieces. "Look, these edges aren't sharp. We could put it back together if we got some tape. Don't be so rash all the time. It'll cost you later."
Sasuke picked the pieces up from the floor and gazed at them with an unexplainable expression in his eyes. It was blended between sorrow and fury. For a moment, Naruto let a small smile grace his lips, thinking that the Japanese boy was taking his advice, but he was sadly mistaken. With another smirk shadowing his face, Sasuke ripped the remains into tiny bits, watching them flutter irrevocably into the cracks of the rotting wood boards.
"Don't act like you know everything. I don't care about them." Glowering at the intruder, Sasuke hoped that he would get the message and get the hell out.
Naruto closed his mouth as quickly as he opened it, pausing for a moment. "That's sort of a cruel statement, don't you think? I told you not to be so rash. It really is going to cost you soon." Sitting down heavily on the squeaking floor, the blonde kicked his legs out in front of him, resting his weight on the palm of his hands. "Didn't you ever get excited when you ran home after school to eat those cookies your mom prepared especially for you? Or when your dad taught you how to ride a bike? You weren't one of those abused kids, were you? I sure hope not. Your parents looked really nice. Your brother did too, in a weird sort of creepy way."
"It's none of your business." Absently tugging at the fabric of his sleeve, Sasuke grimaced. His family was one of those sore sports; a touchy subject. Not that he was abused by his parents or anything. Definitely not.
Naruto went silent when there was some more shouting outside. He turned back and gave Sasuke the brightest beam the Uchiha had seen in his entire life. Somehow, it made Sasuke feel like laughing, but he hid it behind the dark shadows cast on his pale skin. Eyeing the spilled contents of the duffel bag, Naruto stared confusedly at Sasuke's pile of stuff on the floor. There were so many items missing that should've been there.
"Looks like we forgot to put a cot in your room." Pointing out the obvious, all Naruto got in reply was another death glare.
"Thanks for stating the obvious, moron."
Feeling a little bit hurt at the name, Naruto chewed on his chapped lips and continued prodding at the new subject. "I could get my hands on an extra sleeping bag, if you'd like. They really over-exaggerated about the size of this place so we over-packed a bit. There are probably a million unused sleeping bags lying around."
"I told you to leave me alone!" Sasuke roared, his eyes flashing with hatred. Naruto immediately shut up at the sudden outburst, wondering what he had done wrong.
Warm breath made the musty smell of the room even damper and staler. The thought of mold growing between the cracks of the wood crossed both of their minds as they sat in silence, staring nervously at each other. Sasuke's gaze remained unchanged, stone cold, while Naruto fidgeted with the fraying hem of his jacket.
"Naruto!!"
Naruto's head shot up. That was Chouji's voice.. If Chouji was up and about looking for him, then the entire squad must be worried sick about him. Through the thin walls, Sasuke's neighbors were chattering, gossiping no doubt, about what was going on. After all, a soldier was expected to be of high class, not spastic and prone to acting in the heat of the moment.
"Uzumaki!!"
"Privaaaaaaaaaaaaaate!!"
Dark eyes widened with shock. "Uzumaki? That's Japanese…"
"Your eyes went big! Is that your shocked expression? I knew you had some muscles in your face." Naruto laughed, completely ignoring Sasuke's new realization.
"Private!! Naruto!! Uzumaki!! Get out here right now!! This is not respectable behavior!!"
"Narutoooo!! General's gonna have your ass on a dinner plate!!"
Chuckling, the blonde stood up, rearranging his clothes, and headed for the door. Before leaving, he turned around, giving Sasuke one more of those irritating flashy smiles. "I'm really in for it this time. Thanks for your hospitality, mister! I'll see you around. Oh! And I'll see that you get something to sleep on. Hard wood is bad for your back, and you don't want to hobble around like an old grandpa when you're only twenty."
"I'm eighteen."
"Only two years difference." The blue-eyed soldier shrugged, pushing open the creaking door. At once, there were whispers, followed by a loud smacking sound as Naruto was physically punished by his friends. Sasuke stood behind the door, watching the scene play out.
"You moron!"
"We ran around for an hour looking for you!"
"There are duties to be done, people to be watched over. You can't just run off when you feel like it!"
An apologetic chuckle came from Naruto. "I'm sorry, guys. It's just that Maito Gai was making the whole cafeteria scene indigestible and I had to get out of there before I lost it."
"Naruto."
A tall, broad man wearing the same uniform as the rest of the soldiers approached the blonde. Instantly, everyone stopped arguing and straightened up their posture, saluting the man with the mane of white hair and the red star upon his chest. This had to be the famous military General, Jiraiya Sannin. Naruto visibly flinched, turning his head to look back at Sasuke's horse stall apartment. The door completely shut.
"Yessir!" Saluting his General, Naruto made sure to throw back his shoulders and tilt his chin upwards.
"Soldiers cannot cause havoc in camps. Neither can you intrude upon an intern's living quarters for no reason or without permission. What will the other citizens living here think of us? You are a part of our reputation." A disappointed look was etched upon General Jiraiya's face. "Your actions cannot and will not be tolerated. There better not be a next time for this, because then I'll have to take severe actions. Naruto, I expected better of you. "
"Sorry, General." Naruto's head hung low with shame.
"On a brighter note, let's return to the cafeteria!" Jiraiya patted Naruto's back, smiling and leading him in the direction of the mess hall. "Spoiled vomit sounds great for dinner, don't you think?"
"General! Don't ruin it for everyone!" Kiba moaned, slapping his forehead in distress.
"We need to eat to get the strength to fight when we're needed on the field nonetheless." Jiraiya shrugged. He motioned towards a reluctant Kiba and Chouji to join him and Naruto for dinner. With a cynical frown, the two followed. There were sounds of protest as Chouji protected his chips from the greedy hands of Kiba, and Naruto couldn't help but laugh at their immaturity. It was so funny seeing two grown-up men fight over chips.
"What's so funny, Naruto?"
Naruto looked up at Jiraiya's puzzled black eyes, laughing again. After a minute of persistent prodding from his curious elder, the blonde gave in and smiled widely with a strange request on the tip of his tongue. "Is there an extra sleeping bag anywhere? I tend to get cold at night."
Inside his new, smelly, humid residence, Sasuke was desperately pulling bits of gray paper out from between the rotting wood boards.
Thank you for making it all the way here! Liked it? Good? Bad? Please review! Reviews make my soul feel happy and more motivated to write. Next chapter has some SasuNaru fluff.
If I get good feedback for this chapter, I'll continue to write this. If not, I might drop it.
Thanks for reading!