The Decisions That He Made For Himself
Chapter 3
A Name and a Tipped Chair
For days his time was spent this way. He would awaken to be fed by the ever silent person. He would be watched by them and observed. He would beg them not to leave as they attempted to exit the room and he would fall asleep listening to either his own heart or the other's.
Only when he felt the urge to use the bathroom did he encounter a different person. This one was female. He did not ask for permission, he held everything in until she walked into the room and told him it was time.
He was given only liquid to eat and so it was only liquid that left his body. This woman knew it would be. She would help him stand up from his wooden chair without untying his hands. He did not stand straight. It was more of a backwards bend, his hips jutting out towards her like some awkward mannequin.
Next she would slowly and professionally pull his pants down and allow him to urinate into something metal. It was a strange feeling but he supposed it was something that he had to get used to. He was not self-conscious but he did not enjoy this either.
When he was finished she would tell him that it was time for her to leave and she replaced his pants onto his hips where they hung and she sat him back down on his chair.
She always made a point to announce that she was leaving the room. He knew that she knew that he would be able to tell when she did so. He was a strong and intelligent ninja, he knew how to sense things that some could not. She knew this and yet she still excused herself each time.
He thought maybe it was because she also knew that he did not like to be alone. She probably knew how he had asked the man not to leave him on several occasions.
He did not know her. He hadn't met her before. He decided that she was kind to him and that's all that mattered.
His daily routine had not been altered until today. It started out the same as any other and it was beginning to end like one as well until the silence became broken and splintered like glass around him.
The man had spoken and it had startled him. He did not anticipate it as he had done for the first few days and the surprise left him feeling vulnerable.
"Uchiha Sasuke," was all that was said. Then, "Sasuke," again.
He moved his head toward the voice and strained his ears to pay attention because his name had come out like a whisper at first.
He sat there, his mouth closed and his ears listening and waiting for any other possible input. Then it was enough of that. He could not resist. He had to hear the voice again. He had to try to place it or memorize it because it was very possible that the sound would not come again.
Perhaps this was the day they had decided to kill him. Perhaps he was going to be given his sentence. Perhaps they did not wish to interrogate him at all and this was all just an act to leave him unstable and weak in his last moments of life as further punishment. It wouldn't matter if this was the case he reminded himself. The man he had truly wanted to come had not and would not and besides, he was ready to die.
"Yes?" he inquired wanting anything to come from the man's mouth.
"Sasuke," it said again and then it was gone. It would not come again for a long time he knew. He realized perhaps the man was not allowed to talk to him at all because he could feel the confusion radiating from the man as he stood from his metal chair and left the room.
"Sasuke," he whispered to himself in the empty room.
"Sasuke," his own name suddenly fascinated him. It was an uncommon name and it was a noble name. A noble name for a noble clan. No not noble as in righteous and kind. Noble as in a lot of money and a pretty face.
Yes, his noble name was for this type of noble man. He laughed. It was hilarious. This wealthy handsome man who had power and immense strength stored in his small and muscled body was stuck in a wooden chair in the middle of an empty room awaiting another man to come visit him so that he could die in peace. This man had droplets of stale urine soaked through his trousers and his body smelled of old sweat and spilled soup. This man was forced to sit in silence almost every second of his existence in this place and he could feel his mind beginning to change. This man was afraid of the own thoughts in his head that were forming and this man had begged another to stay with him out of fear of the quiet.
This was hysterically funny and so he laughed. It was a mixed laugh of highs and lows and it was not his own. It came out mangled like something broken and twisted like a snake. The laughter coiled out of his mouth as he hung his head.
"Sasuke," he shouted it now. He could not hold in the emotion that begged to break him. It was not one single emotion, but a mixture of them flowing out of him all at once in the form of his own name.
Then he was suddenly angry. The man spoke and it was only his name. The man had kept him for days, maybe weeks already and still the only thing he had ever said was his name.
It was the man's fault that he was here because the other people didn't matter. Nothing mattered to him anymore but this man that had visited him and sat with him and fed him and cleaned his face. He was all that mattered and so everything and everyone else was forgotten.
The fact that the only verbal interaction he had received from this person was his name and just that, did not satisfy him.
"After all this time the only thing you can say is my fucking name? My fucking name?" it bellowed out of him like the hatred he had once felt for his brother but burned more like the hatred he had once tried to feel for the blue eyes.
It burned and it licked flames into the silence. He could see inside his mind his words as they flickered bright and scorched away the darkness he imagined had surrounded him.
Then the words smoldered and turned to ash as he pictured them falling to the floor. He decided he was suddenly very sad and very alone when he got no reply.
"Are you disgusted with me that you don't reply? Do you think I am not intelligent that you don't speak? What am I now when I can do nothing but rot here?" it had a sobered tone in his voice and it felt like ice on his tongue.
He had never before questioned his self-worth. Any actions he had done in the past were things that he had decided for himself whether they were the best choices or not. He had never looked back on himself and questioned why he had done things because he remembered each reason on the top of everything. He had never seen himself in a reflection and asked if he was good enough or strong enough or better than anyone else, he just was because he was. There was no questioning it as he was doing now.
He decided he wanted the man to like him so that he would speak to him. Since the man was quiet from outside of the room it must have surely meant that he in fact did not think much of him.
He let out a yell of no particular word, just a long silence piercing yell. His mouth opened wide and his deep voice came tumbling out. If this were any other time it would have sounded like he was beginning to sing.
He stopped and closed his mouth. He held his breath until he knew his face would be red and he waited for a reaction from the man who he knew was watching him from outside his little prison. He waited and he held the air. He waited and he felt his lungs contracting. He waited but nothing happened.
He couldn't hold it any longer and so he let go. He took in as much oxygen as his lungs could handle and he gasped it in like he wouldn't survive without it.
He laughed again. Of course he wouldn't survive without it, it was air. It was crucial.
He rocked his chair. The sound of the legs hitting the floor repeatedly echoed through the quiet and begged it to go away. He rocked it hard back and forth until he fell forward. His hands were bound and so he could not catch himself.
He fell on his face, the chair behind him and his knees pressed hard into the floor. He waited for someone to come in and fix him.
They did not come. No one came. No one cared he supposed. He lay there and laughed some more for good measure and allowed his mind to take him into a dream where he was training to walk up trees for the first time.