Title: Night and Day
Pairing: Sasuke/Naruto
Rating: PG
Spoilers: This takes place during the timeskip, so if you haven't read up to the timeskip, don't read this.
Warnings: Shounen-ai. Slight angst.
Word Count: 760
Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. Don't sue.
Author's Notes: Un-beta'ed. I haven't written a SasuNaru fic in a while, so I decided to write one. It's only a very short flash fic though.
Night and Day
Sasuke rarely goes out in the daytime anymore. He once went out in the afternoon some time in his first week in Sound, only to find that he could not bear the rays of the sun. They had burned his eyes by being so bright and warm and... happy. Just like Naruto, he thinks to himself, but he is unable to admit that he's scared of the sun because it reminds him of Naruto. He doesn't want to admit that he misses Naruto. When he looked at the sun that time, he saw messy blond hair and grinning blue eyes, and the biggest, most carefree smile in the world. And then he saw himself kissing that ball of energy, and it was a wild kiss, and he felt alive. But he is Uchiha Sasuke, and he isn't allowed to feel alive. He only lives because he has to seek revenge.
So he sleeps in late, very late. When he wakes up, it is time for lunch, and he takes his meal quietly in a dark corner of his room. In the afternoon, he spends his time training, sometimes on his own, sometimes with Orochimaru or Kabuto.
After dinner, he stays in his room and writes in his diary. He never used to keep a diary before, but he has taken up this habit ever since he left Konoha and started his new life. There isn't ever something interesting to write about; his life is wasted away in exactly the same routine every single day. But he still writes at least a paragraph each day, and from doing this, he finds he can keep track of his emotions more easily.
He has said so once in a diary entry, "I regret leaving Konoha." This is a sentence in one of the earlier entries, written during the first few weeks of living with Orochimaru. It has been more than a year since he wrote down those words, but at times, he can't help but think that he still feels no different.
When the night settles down on the land fully, Sasuke finally goes out. He wanders around under the moonlight, winding his way through trees, and scraping his hand against the rough bark until it bleeds. And then he stares at the crimson liquid trickling down, and he sees the kyuubi's eyes in them, red and unforgiving. Sasuke wonders vaguely if Naruto's eyes would look that way when he finds him.
When Sasuke has stopped wondering and snaps out of his mesmerization, his gaze turns to the thick trunks and branches, and recalls how he had practised concentrating his chakra at his feet to walk up trees with Naruto.
Everywhere he looks, he sees the boy, but at least those images aren't as strong as when he looked at the sun.
---
Naruto bounces about and lives his life as normal every day. He trains with Jiraiya, and he takes peeks at the writer's novel-in-progress. He eats lots of ramen, and he sends letters to Sakura. He tries to keep his money away from Jiraiya, but the sennin takes them all the same, and spends them on things Naruto would never spend them on.
But at night, the bright, happy boy is crippled by fear and sorrow. He always has to have the lights on when he goes to bed. It doesn't matter if they are so dazzling that he cannot go to sleep. Without those lights, he feels vulnerable and alone in the apartment where he lives all by himself. He has never felt so lonely before.
He once tried to switch the lights off as he headed to his bed, but the darkness gripped his heart. The moonlight shining in through the window cast a ghostly shadow of him on the floor. He almost thought he saw another shadow just beside him, but it was only his imagination. The moon was full that night. White and round, it hung in the night sky amongst glittering stars.
It frighteningly reminded Naruto of Sasuke. Pale and cold and distant. Naruto pushed the image of him out of his mind, but it was hard, and all he managed to do was see himself clinging onto the memory of his lost teammate more and more, and he even thought he glimpsed himself kissing the other boy desperately. His insides froze, and he felt stone cold. He immediately drew the curtains instead to hide the moon. And then he ran to turn on the lights.
He wasn't a coward. He just missed that bastard terribly.
The End