Superstition

Word count: approx 2000

AU Sasuke/Naruto, no pairing

Today was out to get me. I really believe that days can do that to you, you know, either be totally in your favor or like today, just out to get you. Nothing can stop it, and only rarely can a day's course be altered once set. I don't know who sets the course or why or when, but this is what I believe.

Anyway, today. I overslept this morning, skipped breakfast in favor of a quick shower (I was too tired to heat a bath last night), and made it to class just before the teacher, only to realize I had forgotten to do my homework. I tried to take extra super notes to make up for it, but ran out of paper. A classmate lent me a spare sheet, and then my pencil broke. Furthermore, at lunch I realized I had forgotten my wallet, and had to borrow money from Sakura. Again. I'm very lucky that she's so nice to put up with a friend like me. (It's a good thing I always pay her back, or else I would be in a mountain of debt on top of everything else.) By the time I got to the cafeteria, they had sold out of all of my favorite things—I'm talking about the edible items on the menu—so I had to make due with a dessert pastry. When I got home, I knocked over the mini shrine by the gate and thought I had broken it, but it looks like the top was supposed to come off like that. The temple grounds are a mess, but again I was too tired to clean them and nearly too tired to cook, but then it turned out I didn't have to because I didn't go shopping so all we had was instant ramen. I still have a mountain of homework to do before tomorrow. Wish me luck.

^_^/

I woke up slowly, feeling disoriented, and glanced at my alarm clock. For a minute I thought I was dreaming, because I never, ever wake up before my alarm (and sometimes don't even wake up for my alarm) but according to the clock I had nearly an hour. Rather than feeling groggy, though, I was clearheaded and felt light and well rested. I turned off my alarm before I could forget and be reminded rudely and slipped out of bed, stretching as I walked through the house. I glanced at the yard as I passed it and did a double-take: I had left it messy last night, in dire need of being swept clean of leaves, but this morning it looked pristine. I noticed the broom leaning against the outer wall, and wondered who had put it there.

The house was similarly clean—not that it had been dirty, just a little dusty around the edges. But it had been vacuumed, and when I checked the rooms off the hardwood hall I saw that some of the older mats had been removed and replaced with fresh ones. My sliding paper doors had been oiled and shone slightly in the early morning light. As I neared the kitchen, I noticed the smell of some of my favorite breakfast foods wafting through the air.

I also noticed the silhouette of a person through the paper screen door. To the best of my knowledge, I lived alone, so this, on top of everything else, led me to a sense of concern. I slid the door open tentatively, hoping that if necessary I could escape from the intruder and call the police before anything horrible happened. The person didn't turn to look at me, as he seemed busy with the stove; after a moment of consideration, I cleared my throat lightly to get his attention. I had thought he seemed weird from behind, with his long braid, but that was nothing compared to his face.

He spun to look at me when I coughed, and I watched with mild interest as the smile he was wearing turned to a look of accusatory anger. His face was ridiculous: he had super pale skin and red eyes, completing the look I had begun to build for him in my head with my initial view of his long dark hair. I stared at him in mild confusion, letting random thoughts flow through my head like, "you must be dreaming" and "I wonder if he's ever been outside, look at that skin" and "man, that food smells good." I didn't say any of it out loud, though, instead opting to wait for him to make the first move. I knew how to be polite, and could give him the chance to explain his sudden appearance in my home. I'm sorry to say that his first words did not live up to my explanatory expectations.

I believe his exact words were, "Who are you supposed to be?" as though I was the intruder.

"Why don't you tell me what you're doing in my house first?" I responded. I'm not in the habit of letting anyone walk all over me (specific days of the week exempt, of course).

He frowned. "Your house? I thought this was a temple."

"It is. I live here. Priests come with temples sometimes, the same way temple maidens do."

"There aren't any women here."

I wondered how he knew that. Maybe he had checked all of the rooms last night. Maybe not, considering I didn't seem to be what he was expecting. "I said sometimes, not always."

He didn't seem convinced. On the contrary, he seemed even angrier, approaching furious. "What year is it?" he demanded suddenly.

"Three-thirty nineteen," I replied evenly, and at his confused look added, "HC."

"HC?"

"Haìn calendar?"

"I don't know what that is. The last day I remember was in forty-five ninety-two," he said.

I must have been giving him an odd look by this point. We had switched to the Haìn calendar from the old Shin-Rui one nearly five hundred years ago, in SR 4608. The first year of the new calendar was celebrated HC 33482, and we had been counting down since. When we got to zero, it was said, our world would be too hot to continue inhabiting, and we would all die. The purpose of switching the calendar was to make sure everyone knew exactly how much time we had left, and the switch was made shortly after the calculations of that future doomsday had been thoroughly checked and agreed upon.

Even though we had made a lot of progress, technologically speaking, we couldn't produce immortality. No one remembered being alive five hundred years ago. I wondered how it would come across if I tried to explain this to him.

"Listen," he started before I got the chance, "Just tell me where the head priest is, and I'll get out of your hair."

"You're looking at him," I said. He seemed angry at this statement.

"I'm looking for Head Priest Minato," he insisted.

"I don't know anyone of that name. I assure you I'm the only, and therefore the highest ranked, priest living on site."

We stood regarding each other for a moment as I let him process this. "Then," he began finally, "is it possible that you are the one who woke me…?" he let the question trail off, looking at me expectantly. If you're confused, try stepping into my shoes. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Apparently that confusion read on my face. My guest elaborated. "You know the small shrine at the front gate?" he prompted. I nodded an affirmative. "Did you… open it?"

I smiled. "I knocked it over accidentally last night, though I did make sure to pick it up and put it back the way it was, and offer prayers for forgiveness from the deities it pays homage to."

"So basically you know nothing about it, but you opened it anyway," he stated flatly.

"I said it was an accident." This guy was getting annoying. We bristled at each other.

"Do you have any idea what I am?" he hissed finally.

"A freak." That's what I wanted to say, but he was exuding major anger vibes again, so instead I said, "Not at all."

Then he disappeared.

No kidding. Split into thin air. Sideways between the particles. He seriously vanished without a trace. One second he was there and the next he very much was not. But he left what looked like a delicious breakfast behind him, so, with what little time I had left after our altercation, I enjoyed it. As I left home, somehow inexplicably early again, to walk (not run, for once) to school I thought to myself that today was going to be an awesome day.

^_^/

I had club activities after school that day, and it was getting on in autumn, so by the time I got home it was well past dark. When I walked in, the first thing I noticed was that my mysterious guest was back. I found him in the kitchen (and wondered fleetingly if I would ever see him in any other part of the house) and again allowed him the chance to speak first.

"Where did you go?" he asked after a moment of tense silence.

I raised my eyebrows for a moment. He was so quick with the questions, and so slow with the explanations. I still had no idea what he was doing in my house. After a moment of my frowning silence, he sighed and—I don't have a more accurate word for it—submitted. His shoulders slumped, his head bowed, and he knelt before me, beginning to murmur an apology. "I'm sorry, sir. I have acted rashly in confusion, but as your servant," yes, he said that, completely out of the blue, "I am obligated to concern myself with your welfare. Therefore, when you leave abruptly," he said that, too, regardless of his stunt that morning, "I am left with no recourse but to worry."

This, I felt, needed straightening out.

"I don't keep servants," I said, trying to think of a way to address the other issues of his impromptu speech. He seemed to sense my distress, because he popped out of view and reappeared just as suddenly with a chair, which he set down and guided me into.

"Sir, I am tied to the temple, and will serve the head of the temple or the one who wakes me—in this case that person appears to be the same—unconditionally."

"Can you be untied?" I asked dumbly. There were laws about human servitude, OK? Like, you had to have a license to keep a person in your service privately. To prevent slavery and prostitution and things like that. A license I didn't have. Though I was beginning to wonder if this guy really was human.

He looked a little consternated at the thought. Yeah. Consternated. "Sir," he began.

"I'm Naruto," I interrupted. "Who are you?"

"You may call me Uchiha," he said. "Head priest Naruto, you inherited this shrine from your ancestors." It was a question.

"Yes. It's been in the family for generations." Since long before the switch to the Haìn calendar.

"Head priest Naruto, those ancestors thought it wise to issue a containment seal for me. Rather than pine for freedom as others in my position have been known to do, I instead agree with their reasoning and willingly take up the cause of the protection of this shrine and the members of its founding family. Please allow me to continue to uphold my duties."

"What are you?" It seemed like a reasonable question, given the circumstances. You know, it had been a good day, and luck like that usually tends to hold all the way through. If it was a bad day, it would be bad all day, and if it was good, it was very difficult to destroy the goodness.

"I am what your people call Demon, Head priest Naruto," Uchiha responded.

It looked like it was the start of a new day.

A/N: Okay… well. Originally this was the result of random ideas streaming onto paper. Then it became an exercise in contained incidents, because I wanted to have an end that tied back to the beginning and made a complete drabble. It's difficult for me. (I didn't even stay below 2000 words… clearly I need more practice.)

Then I decided I wanted to share, but LJ makes me nervous so I decided to post it here, so I changed my characters names so that I could call it a Naruto ficlet. I toyed with the idea of making Naruto the demon for about five seconds, but I have a very strong feeling that I will end up writing more of this story, and Sasuke's personality just isn't suitable as my bubbly innocent priest.

Minato was a freebie. He's not in this story. And yes, Sasuke introduced himself as Uchiha on purpose. If I never write more of this, I'll come back and change it to Sasuke, but the chances of that are fairly slim. So be on the lookout for more.