The Subway Diaries ( 1/? )
By; Owai
Summary; The city is cold and empty, and the subway runs through it. In a world where the city lights blind you to everything real, Uchiha Sasuke tries to impress an empire, and meets a boy running from his own. AU.
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The rain was streaking his hair when he finally diverged from it and into the noisy underground, soaked shoes slipping slightly on tile. The storm had hit suddenly, warning not evident to Sasuke's preoccupied mind even in clouds and lightning that had streaked the dark sky shades of bruised purple and blue. He irritably shook his dark coat, lifting it from his shoulders and sending splatters of rain to the ground and side wall as he descended the several flights of stairs that led to the city subway, packed to the brim with salarymen and students alike. They seemed to scatter under his gaze, each face turning away under the bright lighting that gave everything a slightly blue tinge, throwing shadows and creases where there should be none.
He hated the subway.
It seemed to rule life here in the city, however. Each stop planned on a map somewhere, implanted in conductor's minds, drawn on every corner of the subway walls. And even those stops were contracted to a perfect science, not a second wasted on latecomers or mistake, doors shutting as if the train itself had been programmed to close up, barring late-bloomers and second sons from ever reaching their destination.
With a forced sigh, Sasuke slid into the ticket queue behind an elderly woman and her young companion, each lost in a world all their own. Gloved hand clutching their railway passes, the woman stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on a point in the distance that Sasuke was sure she wasn't really seeing. Similarly, the boy beside her was lost in the digital fantasy land of a red game boy, his feet shuffling forward only after the woman gave him a tug closer and closer to the machine that had been positioned to serve as a partitioner between the platform and the train. Sasuke watched dully as the tickets slipped in and under the silver metal plates only to be pushed up once again, as if rejected.
When he had passed through that barrier himself and come out, free on the other side, Sasuke found himself standing idly in wait for the train as he always did, each second dragging him pointlessly from one realm of thought to another. Bumped and jostled by travelers from every side, each in more of a hurry than the last, Sasuke put a hand to the bridge of his nose and squeezed, eyes closing only to open a second later when a rumbling sound announced the arrival of his train.
There was a mad dash for the doors that Sasuke forced himself not to become a part of as passengers boarded and unloaded as if mice rushing from the threat of water. With seconds to spare before the doors closed behind him, Sasuke found himself a pole near the back of the train and settled in, dropping his shoulders and pushing a hand into his pocket.
"Hey kid," a voice cracked somewhere to Sasuke's right--a voice which he ignored until it spoke up again, a moment later, "kid."
"What do you want, Oji-san?" Sasuke asked, his voice succinct as he turned his eyes to the old man that was pressed against the window, his breath making foggy shapes on the glass. The man's attire was ragged: brown coat faded to grey from cigarette ash and overuse, feet (half-curled beneath him) clad in ragged shoes that had seen better days. Sasuke almost knew what the man was going to ask even before he voiced it.
"Gotta light?"
Sasuke let out an irritated groan, eyes flickering to the no smoking sign placed just above the man's head. With no further preamble, he turned away, shoulders hunched forward as he turned toward the front of the car just as it slid to a halt at the next stop.
The platform was nearly empty here, a stop that Sasuke recognized immediately but didn't care to place in his mind as his eyes shifted out one of the windows to the "crowd" that waited on the platform. Two figures, each with umbrellas and one with a hat waited patiently until the passengers had cleared before boarding. As they came into the light of the car, Sasuke's eyes moved to digest and dismiss them, first landing on the elderly of the two--filing away his dark grey hat and moustache into some facet of memory--and then to the younger, clearly not a companion.
It wasn't the boy's face that stayed Sasuke's eyes (for of that there was no glimpse), but his mannerisms that were strangely apparent and quite different from the rest of those in the car. Shoulders back and proud despite the modest dress, though the dark head was bent slightly toward the floor, as if hiding or...Sasuke smirked to himself. No. He was reading a book. Reading and looking nowhere else, not even to find a seat or a handhold as the train lurched forward once more, sending long, dark hair wavering from side to side. The telltale swing of a white cord gave away the presence of earpieces, and further, clipped to a belt loop, an iPod.
Letting out a soft snort of amusement (though unsure of why), Sasuke turned his attention to the hand he had wrapped around the supporting pole, gaze drifting down in empty thought for a moment before his eyes once again pursued their mark in the reading young man. Quite opposite from the bent head that had become strangely embedded in his mind, Sasuke was instead met head on with an even stare, as if the other had sensed his invasive scrutiny and set a defense.
Sasuke's gaze did not divert, instead stayed unwavering a moment longer on the eyes that met his own. A shade strangely light for one of obviously Asian descent--almost too light, though Sasuke was certain that the pale, hueless glow was no result of blindness. And then interlocked eyes disengaged, Sasuke's dark ones sweeping across pale, handsome features and memorizing them, for what end he was uncertain. They traveled down the slender neck and narrow frame, took in the outline of a body well-encased by clothing that tried too hard to look inexpensive, and then once again ascended. He was met by a blank expression, empty as if perfectly crafted from marble. And then it changed, slowly blossoming into amusement as one slender eyebrow lifted.
Touché , Sasuke thought, taking a step forward as the train once again jerked, losing acceleration.
The object of his attention lowered his eyes, dark lashes nearly brushing white skin before Sasuke realized what he was doing, why he was moving forward in pursuit of a whim. And suddenly all at once it seemed as if a bookmark had shifted against pristine white pages and a crowd had gathered, blocking the boy from view. The throng of passengers quickly dispersed as the doors retracted into the wall, leaving only an empty space where the other had been. Before he knew it, Sasuke's feet were carrying him down the train car, sending him bursting onto the platform, eyes searching.
Crowds parted and surged, but there was no glimpse of the figure he had seen on the train.
Breathing heavily from anticipation, Sasuke realized with a curse that he was going to be late.
---
"I dunno, he's kinda weird. Don't you think that's kinda weird?"
"What's weird?" The sound of liquid splashing nearby turned the table of heads, each set of eyes taking in the scene with varying degrees of interest. There was a moment's pause as a large-breasted woman stalked out of the club, discarding her empty shot glass on her way past the bar, wet companion fuming after her. Eyes slowly returned to their original resting place, a blond in loud colors that was gesticulating wildly with a beer bottle.
"Just showing up like that! Just moving in and sleeping for days, not saying a word on where he's from or...you know, anything. Plus, the bandages." Uzumaki Naruto's eyes squinted suspiciously, more than part of him convinced that the boy who had shown up on his doorstep four days before was either some kind of mental case–or a leper.
"Bandages?" The only girl in the circle asked, sipping at a drink as pink as her hair through a straw a shade darker. "Maybe he's sick."
Haruno Sakura worked as a receptionist at a doctor's office. Naruto had the distinct impression that she knew what she was talking about.
"Sick?" Her blond companion returned, looking around the circle of faces before bearing down on one in particular. "Ne, ne, Kiba--what would a guy wear bandages around his forehead for?"
"I dunno." Kiba said, shrugging his shoulders half-drunkenly. "Maybe he got the shit kicked out of him." The Inuzuka was currently draped halfway over the table next to his sleeping companion, Nara Shikamaru. He looked about ready to pass out, but Kiba always got a second wind.
Naruto sighed. "He doesn't look like that kind of guy, yanno?"
"What kind of guy?" Sakura piped in again, "Look, why don't you just invite him out with us next week, and you can ask him about the bandages."
Naruto began to nod slowly, his agreement gaining momentum. Sakura looked pleased with herself, and went back to drinking. She would be totally smashed by the end of the glass and probably on the dance floor moments later. Naruto stopped shaking his head abruptly.
"He doesn't look like that kind of guy." He repeated, drawing groans from around the table–even from the sleeping Shikamaru.
"Dude, have you even talked to him?" Kiba asked, looking as if raising his head were too much of an effort. Naruto knew that Kiba would also be on the dance floor, fully energized, in a quarter hour.
"Hey, where's Ino?" Sakura interrupted, pink head swiveling from side to side.
"Hey, where's Sasuke-bastard!?" Naruto yelled with much more enthusiasm, jumping up from his seat and wobbling precariously.
"Right behind you, moron." A helping hand gave a push and Naruto ended up with his face planted in the middle of the table. "Tch. It's barely past seven and you're already smashed?" So Naruto'd had a few beers. A few over five. He'd make a New Year's resolution to drink less. It wasn't like he could help it. Turning twenty had opened multitudes of possibilities for him–alcohol was the least of it. Play hard and die exhausted, right?
Pulling himself off of the table (with a good shove in the right direction from Kiba), Naruto rounded on Sasuke and poked a finger meant for the other boy's chest, just over Sasuke's right shoulder.
"Hey. You're...late." Naruto efforted.
"Che." Sasuke responded, crossing his arms over his chest. He was...what was he? Wet? Naruto squinted, trying to think through the noise of the background music and the crowd below, on the dance floor. "The train was late."
"What!" Naruto yelped, the fact that Sasuke had a reasonable excuse somehow vexing him, "Why're you all wet?!"
"Naruto! Stop giving Sasuke-kun the third-degree." Sakura said from the table, pink brows creased in irritation that always seemed to manifest in these situation. In any situation involving the three of them, really.
"It's called a rain, dumbass. Go outside lately?" Sasuke answered anyway, giving Naruto the vague notion that he should just jump on the bastard and shut him up for good. That thought went swiftly out the window, however, as his eyes trailed over the bar and down to the dance floor.
Who was that?
"We'll finish this later, bastard." Another attempted jab at the taller boy's chest, and Naruto pushed past him clumsily and contemplated how to effort the stairs down to the floor.
The rest of the table slowly began to clear, leaving Sasuke still standing in the same position, eyes directed toward the surging crowd below. Shikamaru had raised his head, finished off Naruto's discarded beer, and stood to stretch. Without looking at the latecomer, he simply walked past him, arms behind his head as if too lazy to slip out of the relaxed position.
"Train's never late." He observed, walking past.
Sasuke said nothing.
---
Ino, as it had turned out, was stashed in a corner, arms curled around some man that looked like he could have belonged to a grid iron gang or the farmer's union. Naruto knew this because he'd bumped into her on his second trip around the dance floor–the slap she'd landed was still screaming infidelities against his cheek when he finally let himself into his apartment more than five hours later.
As he felt around for the light switch, fingers tracing everything from air to wood to the ripped leather of his hand-me-down couch, Naruto kept his eyes on the curious glow that came from beneath the his new roommate's closed door. When his fingers finally hit something solid and properly light switch shaped, his world was filled with illumination.
It hurt. And it was messy.
"Augh!" Naruto promptly tripped over the shirt he'd discarded that morning, his face meeting the floor for what wasn't the first time that night. The two of them were getting very acquainted–Naruto and the floor. Lifting his head painfully, Naruto let out a groan and tried to replenish the air that he'd so suddenly lost from his lungs. Perhaps he should clean up a bit; he wasn't living alone anymore and...quite frankly, it was somewhat embarrassing to realize that your dirty underwear was hanging from one of the lampshades in the living room. He wondered if the guy had even noticed though, after the (albeit very short) interview, Naruto hadn't seen the other man emerge from his room for days.
He hoped he wasn't dead or anything. Sniffing the air, however, only established that he'd forgotten to take the trash out again and (this one was a bit harder) that there was a bowl of half-eaten ramen sitting on the kitchen counter.
Yeah, he really needed to clean up a bit.
Instead of moving to do so, however, Naruto slowly pulled himself to his feet again and kicked the shirt that had been his downfall across the room. It hooked artfully on the doorknob of his own bedroom and stayed there, proving that, even while drunk, he was still awesome in ways that didn't matter.
Walking now seemed to take less effort than it had hours before, though the pounding in Naruto's head appeared to be getting worse with every step taken. It didn't help that the entire room was filled with rogue items inclined against him and ready to take him out at any misstep, so when Naruto finally made it to his roommate's door, he felt rather proud of himself.
He knocked for ceremony and pushed the door open.
"Hey– Hey you got stuff!" Naruto felt his eyes widen. When he'd shown up to claim what he had signed the papers for, Neji had had with him a single messenger bag and nothing else. No futon, no clothing save for what was on his back, and certainly none of this. The room was now furnished and decorated sparsely, each living necessity painstakingly organized in a way that part of Naruto was just itching to tear apart.
"Did you need something." Neji's voice said, drawing Naruto's eyes away from a shelf of CDs.
He was sitting at a low table with a silver laptop and a cup of tea. His long, dark hair was tied neatly into a high ponytail, and it looked as if he'd begun to wind-down for the night–early morning. Not that Naruto was under any sort of impression that Neji could wind down. He'd looked oddly flighty on their first meeting, drawn and stretched taut as if he'd seen one too many Starbucks lines. Now, while seemingly much more in his element, the other boy still seemed severe. Not someone Naruto would have chosen for a roommate.
But Neji had produced the money that had been needed to cover rent, where Naruto was severely lacking. Produced it from a giant wad of cash that, as far as Naruto was concerned, fell into the same category of weird as the fact that the light-skinned boy had bandages tied around his forehead. Maybe it was some kind of bizarre fashion statement, though Neji didn't really look much like he cared about fashion. Part of Naruto hoped it had something to do with an underground drug ring, but Neji didn't look like that kind of fellow, either.
"Oh. Uh...yeah. I kinda need to unwind–" Sober up, "you wanna get some coffee or something?" Naruto replied eventually, wondering distractedly how Neji managed to look so inhumanly clean.
"It's two in the morning." Neji stated, his calm voice somehow offending Naruto's sensibilities. Or lack thereof.
"Well...yeah." Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head to grin widely at the other, who peered at him through a strangely blank gaze. The first time he'd seen that look, it had unsettled him. This was the second time, and it still did.
"...All right."
He didn't expect that.
Naruto's grin widened impossibly. "Really?!" The half-jump that seemed to come naturally almost sent him to the floor and left Neji staring at him in no impressed fashion. "Great! I know a place. It's just around the corner and they sell great ramen."
"I thought you said you wanted coffee," Neji muttered, presumably to himself before he rose to his feet so seamlessly that Naruto wondered if someone had slipped something into his drink again. A blink later the illusion of perfection was gone as Neji pulled on a dark coat.
"Yeah. Ramen's the side dish." Naruto explained as if it were something Neji should already know. The dark haired boy, however, said nothing, simply raised an eyebrow and slipped out of the room.
After wrestling with his shoes for what seemed like an eternity, Naruto led Neji into the dark, damp night and haphazardly down the sidewalk, finding himself slightly more directionally challenged than what was natural. Despite several dangerous dips into the road and almost falling twice into his companion, Naruto seemed to get a grip on sobriety just in time to point out the small diner that he had all but led Neji into.
"This is it!" He said to the waitress as she waved them toward a seat, catching Neji's look of mild discontent only as he slipped into the seat across from Naruto, once again caught in a nameless grace that the blonde was certain had to be drug-induced. Immediately flipping up the menu, Naruto went about noisily discussing his options as Neji's eyes wandered around the small establishment like a lost child looking for its mother.
It was a nice place, one that Naruto had memorized from frequency; homey with the baking-pie smell that stayed with you hours after you left. The waitress was short and squat, her chest sitting like a shelf on her belly as she poured rich, dark coffee into cream-colored mugs that never broke (no matter how many times Naruto dropped them). It was the only place that served coffee hot and strong enough for Naruto–the only place nearby that was laid back enough to allow him in for a second visit.
"You a little hung over, honey?" She asked, filling up Naruto's cup and then Neji's, her eyes fixed on the bandage bound boy's clear, white continence as if he were a statue that would neither mind nor notice her staring.
"Trying to catch it before it hits me, 'Ba-san."
"Who's your friend?"
"He's Neji," Naruto said as Neji studiously ignored the woman's gaze. "Can I get some ramen?"
"It's instant this late." The waitress replied, and, at Naruto's shrug, finally disappeared behind the counter. Naruto turned his eyes to Neji in time to see the him delicately lifting the coffee cup to lips already growing red under the unaccustomed heat.
"So, Neji..." Naruto said, watching the other boy quickly turn his attention to the dark street outside the window, apparently disinterested in talking. Naruto, though, had neither been very good at reading or understanding the fine print, and continued blindly forward, softening his words a bit. "Don't say much, do ya?"
Neji said nothing, an answer in itself.
"Heh," Naruto's nervous laugh was forced as he watched Neji watch nothing. There was something so strangely off about this guy that Naruto couldn't even begin to place it, but wanted to. Or at least, the alcohol still tumbling around his blood stream wanted to. He took a sip of coffee and felt it course its burning path through his throat violently, almost wincing at the taste. Naruto imagined the caffeine in the stuff going straight to his head to counteract the headache that was manifesting there. He wondered what Neji was thinking.
"So where'd you come from?" He finally asked, his coffee cup somehow making a much larger clanking noise on the table than Neji's had.
"What?"
"Geez, man. You're somewhere deep. I said, 'where'd you come from?'" Naruto was well aware that he made some people uncomfortable. Neji just looked downright on edge. "You okay?"
"I'm fine." Neji responded, once again taking his mug into his hands.
"Well?" The blonde prompted once more, wondering if Neji was trying to evade the question. He was pleased when the other's mouth opened after a long pause which involved a lot of blank staring and a strange sense of condescension.
"I've spent my whole life at sea. Shipwrecked on the coast about a month ago; it took me that long to get here. Hitchhiked the whole way." Neji breathed quietly, sipping once again at his coffee as he watched Naruto with no expression at all. The delivery was seamless. The words, entirely unbelievable.
Naruto's gaze wavered as he uttered a soft noise of awe.
"A-and the bandages?" He said thickly, hands spread wide on the table, vision darkening with each rapid succession of blinks.
"They keep my brain from leaking." Neji responded patiently.
"Wh–you lying bastard!" Naruto yelled, realizing that his gullibility had been once again taken for granted. Jumping up from the table, his face soured in righteous anger, only knocked down a notch by the headache that throbbed in his temples. He quickly found his seat again and sighed, leaning against the table as he put a finger in his coffee, elation and anger fully shut down at Neji's bored expression and his own body's inhibitions. "Bastard." He repeated.
"Did you expect an honest answer." The boy across from Naruto said, voice serene, gaze half-lidded. Naruto blinked.
"Uh, yeah." His knuckles knocked against the table, eyes narrowing in suspicion as Neji's eyebrows rose.
"Really. After I'd shown up to your apartment without any possessions and a wad of cash bigger than your fist." There seemed to be no questioning in his voice, only the sheer innocence of a cat playing with a mouse. "Even after I'd slept for almost three days straight. Such strange behavior...It seems a little odd to me that you would ask–and expect something honest after all that."
Naruto blinked again, more painfully this time. Neji was practically admitting that there was something strange about him and–who did that? Not like Naruto i hadn't /I noticed the oddness, but this wasn't how the story went. The victim did not out the detective.
"Mind your own business." These words were icy, deadly like a cobra strike where the others had been only mildly insulting. As if to say, Yes, I have a secret. You'd best not try and uncover it.
They seemed to fit Neji much more properly than the sarcastic tones that the dark haired boy seemed to have been experimenting with moments earlier. And when Naruto looked into Neji's eyes, he found them oddly blank. It forced a shiver up his spine; a cold warning.
His ramen arrived. It steamed before him for a long moment before he nodded, watching his reflection in identical icy pools across the table.
Naruto suddenly found himself quite sober.
---
Sunlight raked across Neji's vision, loud and infringing like the distant hum of a car motor outside his window. Rolling over on his futon, he reached for the sleek alarm clock that he'd boughten the day before and stared blearily at the time–it was barely past eleven. Without stretching, he sat up and pushed a hand through sleep-mussed hair, breathing out in past-due irritation at the hour.
He could hear Naruto making some kind of disaster in the kitchen, and dressed and groomed to the harmonious sounds of pots and pans clanking with the additional high-pitched yelp filtering through his closed bedroom door.
Neji had arrived in this part of the city nearly two weeks earlier. Stop after stop, and finally the subway had led him into a different world–the same city, but with a different culture. Konoha was large and old, but this part of the city was new and thriving; easy to get lost in, an easy place to have no name.
He didn't trust it, though. Despite the miles he'd put between himself and the home he had left behind, Neji had no love for any place with so many people. He'd spent two weeks alone–a different hotel every night, a different name every day. Testing, trying. Attempting to see if this would be it, if this part of the city would hold him. So far, it had proven its worth. Even the blonde in the kitchen had surrendered to Neji's icy glare of anonymity, and that was the largest hurdle. If he could live with this boy and maintain his life apart...
A heavy shudder thrummed through the apartment.
Neji slipped a hair tie around his wrist and opened his door, eyes flickering about the living in a crude assessment before he stepped across the threshold. It appeared that Naruto had at least attempted to clean up his world of filth–either that, or was transferring it into the kitchen.
"What are you doing." Neji asked, leaning against an outcropping of wall as Naruto balanced precariously on a stool that had clearly seen one too many falls.
"Breakfast!" The blonde exclaimed, as if that answered anything. Neji raised an eyebrow and looked around the room, which appeared to be splattered with a mixture of inedible resources–raw eggs, uncooked pancake batter, uncooked pancake mix...
Definitely not worth waiting to poison himself.
"Hey–hey, you want some?"
"No." Neji said, turning and taking his jacket from where he'd left it after their ramen escapade the night before. Something clattered behind him and he heard Naruto jump off the stool.
"Where're you gonna go?"
As he moved to the door, Neji didn't bother answering. Teaching children was very much like this. They didn't often understand a lesson until it was put into practice. Minding one's own business, then, was not innate. It was learned.
Neji reached for the door and found the handle already turning in his hand. It opened before he even had a chance to pull, and instead of being faced with a sunny day, he was faced with dark eyes set in a pale face that Neji couldn't place, but which was not entirely foreign. He didn't know anyone here.
The eyes widened slightly before narrowing in obvious recognition.
Shit, Neji thought.
Checkmate already.
---