A/N:
Can you believe it's 3 a.m. and I'm hearing "Why'd you only call me when you're high"? Nope, can't sleep, I get all kinds of fucked-up nightmares at night when I don't take my happy pills. So I'm basically turning into a vampire this week. Can you notice how happy I am that my shrink is out on a congress?
Yup.
And here is a public interest message: being in the closet fucks people up like nobody's business, and that is why homophobia is BAD, everyone. There is no such thing as gay cooties, so hug a queer person and tell them you accept them as they are, if you can.
To Korregidora: Sasuke as a monk came to mind when I saw the adult!Sasuke sketches by Kishimoto. He wears prayer beads on them, and I'm betting oatmeal-raisin cookies on tumblr he will be a monk in training in The Last. I had predicted a month and a half ago that the manga would end on chapter 700 and it will, so... grandma knows she got game.
Ty all for reading and please lemme know what you think, special thanks go to fangirlandiknowit and uchihanochidori for their love and support.
And now let's get this show on the road, shall we?
Naruto woke up and tiredly opened his bleary eyes. Like he did every morning since coming back to Konoha, he sighed and carefully folded Sasuke's torn shimenawa before hiding it inside his pillowcase.
He had found it in the water when he had gone to wash his face after waking from the genjutsu, sticking to some weeds, and had quickly secreted it under his clothes before Kakashi and Sakura noticed it.
That had been three months ago, and since then, the only actual sleep Naruto got happened when he held on to it.
He knew he'd be neck deep in shit if anyone knew he had kept it, but he felt entitled to hang on to that little piece of happiness.
He had relinquished all else, hadn't he?
He got up and shuffled his way to the tiny bathroom.
Naruto had been offered a huge, lavish place right next to the Hokage tower to replace his previous shoddy apartment, which had been torn down in the Pain battle, right after the Konoha forces had returned.
He had politely refused it. It's not as if he would even know how to live in such a large space anyway, let alone need it. He had grown up in a teeny tiny studio that was more than enough for his bachelor's needs, and there would be no reason for him to take up so much room, it wasn't as if there weren't large families still homeless that would make better use of it.
Naruto had rented (after arguing five exhausting hours with old man Teuchi, who had refused to accept payment until Naruto threatened to go live under a bridge otherwise) a tiny studio on top of Ichiraku's new premises.
Old man Teuchi adamantly refused to let Naruto pay for ramen, though, to which Naruto grudgingly accepted, but only under the condition that Ichiraku let him send a clone to help them with work whenever the old man or Ayame needed.
Which was often, since the place had become highly popular for being Naruto's favorite restaurant.
Naruto washed his face, brushed his teeth and began his morning smiling ritual in front of the mirror.
He had never needed it before, but since Sasuke's confession and him having realized his own hypocrisy he had found it impossible to keep his legendary cheerful disposition.
So he faked it, and he faked it like a pro. Not even Sai could differentiate fake happy Naruto from the real thing.
The irony in all was that the thing that should have made Naruto truly happy was the reason for his depression.
Sasuke loved him. He loved Sasuke back. That would have been perfect, if not for the fact both of them were male and that Naruto couldn't give up on all the other bonds he had worked so hard to grow in his life. And he damn well knew all he had to do to become an outcast and be hated for the rest of his miserable life, regardless of whatever good he had ever done, was to let anyone know that he wasn't the flawless beneficent saint everyone thought he was.
Even as careful as he was to look completely normal and harmless to society, he knew there were people who still avoided him in principle because of the tailed beasts.
"Don't you even try blaming us for your fragile social life, brat" Kurama rumbled. "We've all been quiet and will be quiet as long as nobody tries to fuck with us."
"Yeah, right. Like that helps" Naruto mumbled, while covering the crescent moon tattoo-like symbols that covered his right arm with bandages. He had picked up that habit after Kakashi and Tsunade had pointed out the markings might be seen as threatening by people who knew that Indra's moon symbol was connected to the Uchiha fan, and that leaving the marks visible could raise inopportune questions.
It didn't help the markings resisted any kind of henge attempt, too. They remained even when he did the Sexy Jutsu – what's worse, the only time he had used that jutsu after the war, in one of his and Konohamaru's private challenges, his female form had not only her right arm covered in crescent moons, but there had been a huge-ass one smack over his groin. He had been so fucking terrified, it had taken Konohamaru ten minutes of promising never to tell anyone for him to come out of his panic attack.
He had never attempted the Sexy Jutsu again. Nor the Reverse Harem Jutsu. Especially after people speculated why he hadn't put Sasuke in it, even if Sasuke had been the sexier boy in Konoha. There was NO way he could answer that one, not without blowing his carefully constructed image.
He also had never dared to make a clone henge into Sasuke's image again, which was pretty much the entire origin of the Reverse Harem technique.
At first, he had been bored with only having his clones as companions, so some of them had henged to look like his friends when he summoned them to play cards, talk, or otherwise hang out with.
Then one day, when he missed Sasuke's company exceptionally more, one of his clones had decided to henge into the Uchiha, and having even a fake Sasuke to hang out with had been one of Naruto's most cherished secret pleasures.
He had never tried anything sexual with the clone, mostly because he had been so deeply repressed it had never crossed his mind, but also because when he had tried kissing a Sakura-henged clone it had been so anticlimactic compared to his twelve year-old dreams, it made the whole idea of clones lose any erotic appeal whatsoever.
And since he had accidentally kissed Sakura thinking she was Sasuke, the entire idea of sex scared the bejesus out of him. So much so, he avoided jerking off as if his dick would fall off when he touched it.
Especially because, now that he had been forced out of his inner closet by the damn bastard, Naruto couldn't avoid getting horny over males anymore.
That's right, males plural. He had gone once to the onsen after the war, never to return, because as soon as Sai's pale ass came into his field of vision he had gotten a raging hard-on, and his face had gone purple with embarrassment.
He had quickly dismissed it as just having been reminded of Sasuke's body because Sai looked like the bastard, but then they were joined by Shikamaru, Chouji and Rock Lee and Naruto's hopes that this deviant side of his sexuality existed only because he was in love with Sasuke came crashing down as he caught himself trying to discreetly ogle Lee's backside.
Fucking Rock Lee's backside, gods damn it all to hell. It was enough to make him consider drowning himself in the toilet out of shame.
It didn't help any that Sasuke's damn presence took permanent residence as a small itch at the back of his brain, either. Now he was not only in constant shameful guilt of being horny for males, but he was in constant guilty fear that somehow his fucking connection to the man he was in love with made him aware of every time Naruto felt horny after looking at anybody else, even if it had nothing to do with why he discovered himself heads over heels in love with Sasuke in the first place.
Gods damn that Uchiha asshole for eternity. On second thought, scratch that, the word asshole was a very dangerous one to associate with that particular Uchiha. Gods damn that Uchiha prick…
Oh crap.
Naruto sighed and turned the shower on the coldest setting he had.
And then there was the matter of Sakura giving him the eternal cold shoulder from hell.
The first time the two of them had been alone for longer than a minute after the war, Sakura had stood in front of him with her arms crossed and a challenging look on her face.
"What did Sasuke-kun and you do in your genjutsu, Naruto?" she asked in a cold voice, scowling at him.
Naruto paled, then blushed, then paled again. He had been afraid this moment would come ever seeing the look on her face when he woke up from the genjutsu on that fateful day.
"Nothing" he mumbled. "We talked."
"Oh, you "talked"?" Sakura said in a mocking tone, making quote marks with her fingers.
"Yes, Sakura-chan." He said quietly and lowered his head.
Sakura snorted. "Do you know what Sasuke-kun did to me in the genjutsu he put me in, Na-ru-to?"
Naruto flinched at the tone, and shook his head quietly.
"He killed me. With a chidori through the heart. And he never looked at my face or said one fucking wordwhile he did it. He just ripped my damned heart out, pulled his hand from my chest and walked off without looking back. Over. And over. And over. And over. Like it was the easiest thing, like he was stepping on a fucking cockroach, Naruto."
She let out a bitter laugh.
"You know what the worst part of it was, though? Even through that I still loved him. I still wanted him. I couldn't release myself from that cursed genjutsu because even though it was the most horrible thing anyone ever did to me, he at least touched me willingly in it. And I thought that maybe because he touched my heart, he didn't really hate me so much, or feel nothing for me. That maybe even though he had chosen to rip my fucking heart out in that genjutsu, it was some kind of love message for me. Some twisted way of his to tell me he loved me back, that he wanted me." She wiped an angry tear off her face.
"And then all of a sudden I was out of the genjutsu. Kakashi and I ran like hell after you, and you know what, Naruto? I wanted him to have won."
Naruto raised his eyes to her with a fearful expression.
"I wanted Sasuke to have killed you, because if he had, then it meant that I was more important than you in his heart. That he didn't kill me so I would have been alive to be by his side. I knew that I could change him. I could make him give his plans up, because I loved him and we were destined to be together." She huffed and shook her head.
"But then you were there and he was nowhere to be found, and when I reached you and saw that you were still alive, I had to save you from whatever he had done to you, because Sasuke-kun would never forgive me if I didn't, no matter how badly he had injured you."
"Sakura-chan…" Naruto started.
"Don't you EVER fucking Sakura-chan me again, you cheating son of a bitch!" She screamed at him. "Kakashi told me what Sasuke-kun said about me after he put me into that damned genjutsu and that you didn't worry or even ask Sasuke-kun what he did to me in it! You just pranced away after him and spent the rest of the fucking day without sparing a thought about what was happening to me!"
"What the fuck would you have me do instead? If I had taken you off the genjutsu you'd have gone after us and he would have really killed you, gods damn it!" Naruto screamed back at her.
"You could have knocked him out! Broken his legs! His arms! Immobilized him in some other way earlier! Do you think I'm so stupid I couldn't tell both of you held back? He put you on a fucking genjutsu and ran away without leaving a blood trail! If the statues weren't damaged nobody could even tell you had a fight there!" she snarled at him.
"Damn it Sakura, Sasuke is my friend! Of course I held back, I didn't want to kill him!" Naruto said in an anguished voice.
"Of course you didn't want to kill him, you wanted to kiss him, you damned fag!" she hissed.
"What did you do all that time, talk about your feelings for each other? Did you make out after confessing your deviant lust, while planning for Sasuke-kun's escape? Did you promise to meet him after the dust settled? Or did you promise he could just waltz back into Konoha like nothing happened as soon as you were named Hokage? Huh, Naruto? Do you think the Daimyo will ever appoint someone like you to be Hokage, Na-ru-to?" she continued, and spit on his blushing face.
"I was such an idiot, I should have noticed years ago! No wonder Sasuke-kun never accepted my advances! All my life I kept myself untouched, pure, waiting for him! And you even had the nerve to try to trick your own father into thinking I was your girlfriend! All while the both of you were planning to get into each other's pants behind my back!" she hollered.
"Are you fucking insane? That's not what happened at all! Stop twisting the facts, damn it!" Naruto yelled at her.
Sakura slapped him.
"You were kissing him! Don't you even DARE denying that!" she growled. "You think I'm fucking insane? How else do you want me to interpret that?"
"I did not know he was in love with me until he confessed to me! And I thought what I felt for him was just friendship because I thought what you felt for him was real love, and I never felt that way!" Naruto said in a venomous tone, and a tear ran down his face. "I only realized I really loved him more than just as a friend when I realized my love for him was exactly the same as Hinata's love for me, that's when I saw that what you felt for him was really a damn childish romantic fantasy and not real, just like he said after he put you under that genjutsu."
Sakura slapped him on the other cheek.
"How DARE you belittle my feelings for Sasuke-kun? How DARE you say I don't love him?" she screamed.
"When did you ever care about what he wanted? About his feelings? When did you ever choose his happiness over yours, Sakura?" Naruto said in a low voice.
Sakura's jaw dropped.
"When Hinata confessed to me she never expected me to love her back. She never pushed herself on to me. Whenever we talked about our dreams, she never thought hers were more important than mine. Her love for me is real and yours for Sasuke isn't because she always valued my freedom over her wish to be with me. You never even considered that Sasuke could NOT be in love with you no matter how many times he stated otherwise. You never ever talked about anything but YOUR feelings for him. You never wanted him back in Konoha so he could go back to healing from his suffering like he was when we were all on team seven, you only wanted him back so you could have him, regardless of what he felt or wanted. You offered to go with him when he went to Orochimaru even though you knew all that would be left of him if Orochimaru got what he wanted was his body. You didn't even give a shit about what would happen to his soul, Sakura." He spat at her.
"And when the others caught on to your selfishness, you decided to kill him to save face. You even offered yourself to me without even thinking about my opinion, as if because I thought I loved you I turned into your fucking lapdog to mindlessly do your bidding, and my own feelings for Sasuke weren't even worthy of your recognition." He continued.
"You wanna know what Sasuke did to me in that genjutsu, besides tell me he was in love with me? He made me see the fucking truth I hid from myself all my damn life because I've grown up so terrified of being rejected to even consider questioning what other people told me was socially proper to address my feelings as. He made me see that the example of romantic love I based my views on was wrong, that I had another example, a true example of real love right under my nose and that I didn't ever allow myself to think about it because I knew the moment I paid attention to it I'd compare it to what I felt for Sasuke and realize that my love for him was the same. And the only reason I kept asking you on dates and running after you like an idiot was because you taught me that wanting to get the pretty girl as a popularity trophy was being in true love with her. I love you as my friend with all my heart, Sakura, the same way I love Ino, Hinata, Shizune, Shikamaru, Chouji, Rock Lee and all the others. The same way I loved Neji. But yes, I did flaunt you as my girlfriend in front of my father only because I wanted him to be proud of me, to think I had gotten a good girl like my mom just like she had asked me to."
Naruto took a long breath.
"I was living in such denial and ignorance of my own feelings that I always found some stupid excuse for loving Sasuke over everyone else. I said he was my brother, but you know what? Konohamaru is my brother. He and Iruka are my family in my heart, as much as my father and my mother are. I don't know what I would do if either of them had died in the war. Ero-sennin was my father as much as the Fourthwas, and I thought I'd never get over his death. But I love Sasuke more. If Sasuke had died I would have killed myself to be with him in the afterlife in a heartbeat. Wouldn't even blink before ripping my own heart out, I love that arrogant, stupid, insufferable bastard so much. I couldn't bring myself to kill him just as he couldn't do it, and for the same reason. There is no winner in our fight and there never will be, because we love each other above anything that has ever existed or could ever be. And yes, I do realize I want to get into his pants. But I don't want to do it because he's sexy; I want to do it because I want to give him pleasure. I want to make him happy in every way I fucking can, because I love him. I don't give a shit about what he looks like or what gender he is. If Sasuke looked like Gamakitchi I would still be attracted to him, and I'll let you know that frogs don't have neither dicks NOR pussies. And yes, I can be physically attracted to other people, but that is completely beside the point, because I'm sexually attracted to Sasuke's PERSON. It's sexual because sex is one of the things that make our love so much more complete than anything either of us ever felt for anyone else, and probably than whatever we'll ever feel for anyone else as long as we live." He completed, before turning away and leaving without looking back.
Ever since that day, Sakura had avoided him like he had the plague. She hadn't told anyone else about what she knew, though. He was grateful for that.
He finished his freezing cold shower, dried quickly and got dressed in his new, even more conservative (but still very orange) outfit, and took a last look in the mirror after tying up his hitai-ate and leaving to see what Kakashi wanted him to do today.
He decided to get a shorter, more conservative haircut on the way to the Hokage tower.
One could never be too careful nowadays.
A/N: Remember Sasuke's weird purple obi? There is a reason for that look, it's actually a shimenawa, not a regular obi. In Shinto the shimenawa is a symbol of power, and great sumo champions wear it to show off their special status. Cool, right?
