Sasuke stirs once, twice, and the silence inside his head breaks. He can think again, not so clearly, but it is better than nothing. His eyebrows knit together and slowly lift, revealing black eyes that then swivel around the room. He's in a bed, a clean, white bed, and besides two chairs and a desk, the room is devoid of anything else.
The smell of disinfectant wrinkles his nose. He laughs to himself, momentarily wondering how much disenfectant Suigetsu was forced to use and how such a neat freak like himself could hate such a clean smell. Sasuke can only remember ever completely disinfecting a house once, and that was Naruto's.
Naruto. He looks at the chair at the side of the bed, half expecting to see Naruto and Sakura there for him, but he knows they're not. There are signs that his fellow Taka members were there, though. He starts to turn away, but a crumpled up piece of paper laying on the chair catches his eye. He twists over and reaches for it with the wrist that isn't broken.
The paper crinkles as he unwraps it. Something drops out of it and makes a noise as it hits the floor. Sasuke leans over to see it and smiles when he sees a piece of candy laying by the bed. He picks it up.
The memories it induces almost knock him backwards.
Itachi-
candy-
academy-
bag-
He vaguely remembers
eight years old- Itachi's bag of candy- falling on the pavement on the way to the academy- the same kind of candy that was left on the chair-
His eyes flutter and he takes a deep breath to shake off the memories. On the paper the candy was wrapped in, there's a note in badly scrawled handwriting.
Sasuke
I just thought you'd need a pick-me-up, so I bought you a bag. The rest is under the chair. We're out at the town buying supplies, be back in a few.
Suigetsu
Sasuke has to shake his head hard to dispel the memories still swirling inside his head. Itachi's dead, I can't think like that, he tells himself, I'll just make myself sad.
And now, as he unwraps the candy and pops it in his mouth, he wishes for the center to have a new beginning in it.