Study of the Heart
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Chapter 7
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Sai looked at his notes and frowned. He had been rather interested to contrast the way Neji felt about Gaara, another male, to the way Shikamaru felt about Ino, or the way Kiba felt about Hinata, but he had spoiled it with his first question. Sakura had explained why it had been embarrassing to him later, but she had seemed much less upset about this slip up than she had about his mistake with Hinata and Kiba. He had already issued apologies to both of them, and Kiba had acted like he didn't know what Sai was talking about, while Hinata had flushed and said that he had really not done anything wrong, which Sai personally felt was at least partially true, but he could understand what had been wrong about it from Ino's explanation, and he had wanted to make amends. He thoroughly enjoyed life outside of Root, and one of the greatest joys in his new life were emotions and friends, and he didn't want to lose either any time soon.
He had pages of notes on heterosexual love, thanks to his observations of Shikamaru and Ino, as well as his information from Kiba, Hinata, and Sakura. He had learned about unrequited love and heartbreak, and he had also learned about the growth of love when it is returned, as Shikamaru and Ino seemed to grow closer with each passing day. He still seemed aloof and lazy with most things, and she still seemed brash and overbearing, but somehow, when they were together, everything seemed to smooth over, and they seemed to work so well. He wondered if all couples were like that, but he hadn't really had the chance to observe others. And there would be no chance to watch Neji and Gaara now that he had offended the Hyuuga. If only he knew…
Suddenly Sai stashed his notepad and climbed out his window smoothly, hopping over rooftops and feeling supremely foolish for having missed such an obvious opportunity to gather data. He landed outside Naruto's apartment door and knocked on it, excited to have found a new avenue of research.
"Hey, Sai, haven't seen you around lately," Naruto's easy grin widened and he let his teammate in without hesitation. "What's going on?"
"I've been studying, and I need your assistance." Sai cut straight to the chase. "You see, since the night that Sakura and I found out about Sasuke and you, I have decided that it is time for me to learn about love. I feel that this is necessary, especially so that I can be more sensitive to my friends. For instance, if I had known all about love before then, I would have never caused undue distress to you or to Sakura that evening, which was never my desire. I plan to learn as much as possible about love, and then if I can, love someone so that I can understand it better. I may even have my heart broken, which would be best."
"Sai…you are…unique." Naruto rubbed the back of his neck in slight confusion. "You know, most people try really hard to not have their heart broken, right?"
"Yes, Sakura told me that is why Kiba never told Hinata he was in love with her." Sai nodded sharply. "Unfortunately, I did not realize it was a secret, and I may have forced them into a very bad position by bringing it to light."
"Hinata knows?" Naruto looked oddly relieved. "Finally. I've been telling Kiba for ages just to say something to her. A lot of people try to hide their feelings, but that's stupid. We're ninja, and we're young. We could die on our next mission, and what good would it do you to throw away every chance you have then?"
"Ah," Sai frowned slightly. "But Ino and Sakura told me what I did was wrong, because Hinata is…in love with someone else." He did not say who, as he wasn't sure if that was a secret as well.
"You mean me?" Naruto raised an eyebrow. "You know, everyone thinks I'm so stupid, but if there's one thing I can understand, it's feelings. It's kinda like we're opposites that way, huh, Sai? You know almost everything about facts and techniques and how this and that work, but you have a really hard time getting feelings, and that's the one thing I always knew. Maybe because I wanted people to like me so bad when I was a kid, I always know when they do and they don't."
"So…you know Hinata is in love with you?" Sai was perplexed. Sakura and Ino had been very sure that Naruto knew nothing about it, but it seems their information was faulty.
"Well, I mean, she was." Naruto shrugged and went in the kitchen. "You want some tea or something? Sasuke's coming over in a while and he always likes a hot cup."
"That would be nice, thank you," Sai followed Naruto, feeling more confused than ever. "You say she was in love with you? What happened?"
"I mean, at first, I thought she would just grow out of it, because I didn't really want to hurt her feelings. Hinata's really sensitive, you know, and she's a really good friend of mine. So I didn't say anything." Naruto shuffled through the cupboards and pulled out a tin. "Is sencha okay? It's all he drinks." Sai nodded and Naruto set the tin down while waiting for the kettle to boil. "And then, after a while, I could see that she wasn't getting discouraged that I wasn't, you know, returning her feelings or anything, and even seeing me chase after Sakura all the time didn't seem to make her feel differently. And I started to think…if only I could love her back, then everyone would be happy. I'd finally have someone who loved me, and she'd be able to be with me after all that time. I'd leave Sakura alone, and she wouldn't have to feel guilty that she was ignoring me and staying with Sasuke, and then eventually they'd get together, and they'd have a bunch of kids and the Uchiha clan could be restored, so the Council would be happy, too."
"That is a very good idea." Sai nodded, seeing at once the logic behind this. "But it seems not to have turned out that way."
"Yeah…well, I think Sasuke gets personally offended at the idea of everyone's lives being easy, and does anything he can to fuck up our plans." Naruto smiled so that Sai would see he was at least partially joking. "Anyway, I learned something important. You can't force your feelings to change. I told Sasuke that I was going to finally start dating Hinata before I could go tell her, you know, because he's my best friend, and I wanted to know what he thought. I told him that I wanted him and Sakura to be happy together, because they were really my best friends, and he told me that I was an idiot. He said he couldn't love her, because he was already in love with someone else." Naruto paused, turning to lift the kettle off his stove and turn the burner off. He opened the teapot and put a few scoops of the tea in a mesh wire ball before filling it the rest of the way with steaming water and putting the lid back on.
"He was in love with you," Sai prompted. "Right?"
"Yeah, well, it turns out that the love I felt for him, the love he felt for me…well, it's not really like brothers. I mean, how was I supposed to know the difference? I've never had a brother, but I loved him so much…to think of him hurting, to think of never seeing him again, to think of giving up on him, it hurt so bad I thought I'd die. That's what kept me going when we kept trying to get him back. I thought, 'this love is way stronger than what I feel about Kiba or Neji or Shikamaru or any of my other friends, it's deeper than what I feel for Sakura, even.' I thought it was what family felt like. Because, you know, everyone says how family, no matter what, you always love them. Sasuke even said that he hated Itachi, but the funny thing is, you could kind of see that he could have never hated anyone that much who he had never loved, who he still didn't love, just a little bit. After he killed Itachi, do you remember he cried? Sakura thought it was because he was so happy, but I could feel him hurting, really hurting. I knew that a part of him that had been buried under all that anger and hate still loved Itachi and just wanted him to go back to the way things had once been. I saw the way loving your brother could hurt so much, and could almost destroy you, and I thought it was the closest thing I knew to what I felt for Sasuke." Naruto pulled the tea ball out of the pot and emptied it in his garbage, taking it to the sink to rinse. "I should have seen that loving someone like that wasn't a family thing at all. I mean, do you think about kissing your brother? Do you think about how soft their skin looks, and how you want to touch it? Do you think of them when you're…well, never mind." Naruto flushed and shook his head, placing the clean ball in his drainer to dry and leaning back against the counter.
"How did you realize that you loved him…like that?" Sai wanted to know.
"He told me he loved someone, and I asked him who, and he kissed me." Naruto shrugged. "I was confused at first, I always liked how girls look and everything, so I never thought it was weird that I'd sometimes kind of stare at guys, because I was definitely straight. I never thought about how sometimes, there are people who like both girls and guys. But when Sasuke kissed me, it felt like…I just knew. It was like my whole life was a puzzle, and when I felt him, when I realized he loved me like that, when I started to realize that I liked it, that I wanted him to do it again, that I wanted to…it was like the whole puzzle was finally just solved. Everything suddenly made sense. That's not to say it wasn't scary, to realize that there was one more thing about me that would make at least some people think I was a freak. And Sakura…I kept thinking of how everyone could be happier if I ignored how I felt about Sasuke, and how he felt about me. I thought he'd learn to love her, and I'd learn to love Hinata, and everything would still be great. I realized that if I was with Sasuke, I would break her heart, and I'd have to break Hinata's heart, too. The Council would be pissed, and I had no idea how my friends would react. I could lose everything I spent all those years gaining. I'd be alone again, and everyone would turn away from me. But then I realized that I wouldn't be alone. I'd be with Sasuke, and even if everyone else turned away from us, he'd be by my side, and I knew…I knew I'd be happier with him then I could be with anyone else. And I realized it was probably the same for him. Everyone wouldn't be happy if I went with Hinata. He wouldn't be happy, and I wouldn't be happy. I could have just done it if it was only my feelings, but Sasuke…it hurts just to think of him hurting, and I knew that even if I broke Sakura's heart, even if I hurt Hinata, and drove away all my friends, and lost all my hope of being Hokage because the Council was annoyed they weren't getting any Uchihas out of him, I couldn't make any other choice. So that's how we got together."
"What about Hinata?" Sai asked.
"I basically told her around that time that I knew how she felt about me, and that I wished that I could return her feelings, but that I loved someone else, and it wouldn't be fair to her for me to pretend." Naruto sighed and poured a hot cup of tea for Sai, handing it over. "That was months ago, and I know she'll probably always have feelings for me, but she told me later that she was glad I was honest with her, so she can have the chance to move on. I've been waiting for her to see that Kiba's in love with her ever since then."
"How is it that no one knew you talked to her?" Sai wanted to know, and Naruto shrugged again.
"It wasn't their business, really. I mean, I told Sasuke about it because of course; he got all suspicious about why I was visiting her in private. He knew she'd been in love with me forever, so he didn't like the idea very much. He can be jealous sometimes." Naruto flushed slightly. "I don't see why. Honestly, other than Hinata, no one ever really paid attention to me at all before. He was the one with a hundred girls hounding him, and I don't get upset whenever he wants to talk to someone."
"Shikamaru becomes jealous in regards to Ino," Sai considered. "I've reached the conclusion that he finds her to be much more attractive than him, and believes that she will realize this and leave him for another man."
"That's stupid," Naruto chuckled slightly and shook his head. "There's no way I'm even close to as attractive as Sasuke. I don't think that has much to do with it, though, because it isn't like I just love him for being pretty. I think that when you love someone, you love who they are, rather than what they look like. And when you love them, they're attractive to you, more attractive than anyone else. Like Ino, she had a crush on Sasuke because of his looks, but she loves Shikamaru because of who he is. I realize now that I do really love Sakura, and that I do really find her attractive, but that it's like…she's my friend, and while I might have been happy with her if she had wanted me, now that I know what it's like to really find someone you love like this…it's just like waking up and realizing that the whole rest of your life was like a dream. This is real. What I feel for Sakura's real, too, but it will never be as strong as how I feel about Sasuke."
"So," Sai looked up from his notes, "do you believe that it is possible to love more than one person?"
"That's a tricky question," Naruto considered, his face twisting in contemplation. "I mean, right now, I feel like there's really one person out there for everyone, and I really hope that I wasn't the person for Hinata, and that Sasuke wasn't the person for Sakura. I think it's like how I used to be in love with Sakura. I love her just as much as I ever did, but I didn't realize that what I feel for her is really the love that's more like family than anything. I didn't see that until I could really step back and see how I love her more than I love a lot of my friends, but I love Sasuke even more than that, and that I want to live with him, that I want to always be with him and always have him at my side. When you love someone, you want so badly for them to love you back, but you also really want them to be happy. I want all my friends to be happy, and in that way, I really love all of them. I love you and Kiba and Ino and Neji and everyone that's helped me out through the years, but it's different for everyone. My relationship with you isn't anything like my relationship with Shikamaru. Does that make sense?"
"I think so." Sai nodded slightly. "For instance, I can say some things to you that I couldn't say to Sakura, and I can say some things to her that I couldn't say to you. Is that what you mean?"
"Sort of." Naruto nodded. "But that has more to do with how everyone has a different personality and different interests, and you know, if you told me that you thought pink was ugly, I wouldn't really care, but Sakura would get really annoyed and probably hit you."
"Yes, I see," Sai frowned slightly. "I'll have to think over this 'different types of love' concept before I really grasp it, I think. I may need to do some more observation, but I have an idea of what you mean."
"So, did you want to ask me anything else?" Naruto asked, but before Sai could answer, Sasuke strolled into the kitchen as calmly as if it was his own apartment.
"What's he doing here?" Sasuke scowled at Sai, and he had a sudden sense of déjà vu, though Sasuke looked nothing like Shikamaru.
"Good afternoon, Sasuke-kun." Sai had never dropped the name ending with his teammate. He had never really understood the other man, and he had never really warmed to him in particular. He found it rather hard to trust someone who had once betrayed Konoha and joined Orochimaru, no matter the reasoning behind his defection. For his part, Sasuke seemed to be perpetually irritated that his temporary replacement was now his permanent teammate.
"Just visiting," Naruto poured some tea and brought it over to the frowning man. "You know, I do have a door. You could try using it."
"If you don't want me coming in your window, close it." Sasuke answered, still staring disconsolately at Sai. "Is he leaving? I didn't come over here to spend time with him."
"Why are you always such a grouch?" Naruto rolled his eyes. "He's here for a good reason. He's trying to learn about love, so he was asking me a lot of questions about us and my feelings and stuff. You should help him, too."
"He was asking you about love?" Sasuke's glare redoubled in strength and his knuckles whitened on the cup so that Sai began to wonder if he would smash it on accident. "Why was he asking you?"
"Because I love you," Naruto answered in a slightly irate tone. "So I should know about it, shouldn't I?"
This seemed to calm Sasuke down a bit, and his grip loosened on the cup as he glanced down at his lover, whose face suddenly melted into a smile Sasuke couldn't resist returning with the barest tilt of his own lips.
"You don't have to be upset or worried," Sai assured Sasuke, "I'm not gay like you, so I have no interest in coming between you and Naruto."
"Sai…you can really kill a nice mood, you know that?" Naruto turned with a long-suffering sigh to his teammate, who smiled warmly.
"Thank you for all of your information, Naruto." Sai closed his notepad. "I think I will go now, as I had no intention to intrude upon your privacy."
"No, it's fine!" Naruto raised his hands up, oblivious to the glare Sasuke had once again focused on Sai to make sure he knew how unwelcome he was. "Sasuke, why don't you tell him some things about love? I think it would be good for him to hear it from your perspective, too, since we're a lot different."
"I am not talking to him about my private life." Sasuke refused in a flat tone. "It's none of his business."
"Come on, Sasuke!" Naruto needled the other man, but it was clear just from the look on Sasuke's face that he was never going to give in. "Okay, fine. Sorry, Sai! But Sasuke's a really private kind of person, so I guess he doesn't want to help anyone, even a friend."
"He isn't my friend." Sasuke answered in an irate tone and Naruto sighed in annoyance and turned on him.
"Sasuke! How can you say something like that!" his brow furrowed as he pointed at the other man. "Sai's still right here, you know!"
"Oh, I don't mind," Sai waved his hand in a careless gesture and smiled at them both. "I like Sasuke-kun just as little as he likes me."
"You bastard…" Sasuke growled at his pale teammate.
"Okay, seriously, you two!" Naruto raised his hands in a gesture of peace making. "Sai, maybe you should go now."
"Yes, I think I will." Sai turned to leave. "Thank you again for all your help, Naruto."
"You're welcome," Naruto smiled back at him. "You know, if you wanted to talk to someone else, you could visit Iruka-sensei. He's always given me really good advice."
"Thank you, I may do that." Sai waved at them from the door and left. He returned home, the whole way thinking over Naruto's impassioned words, and considering how it could possibly be that someone as cold and remote as Sasuke could possibly inspire so much love in such a warm and open person as Naruto. If even Sasuke could be loved, then it must truly mean that someone was out there for everyone.
Sai wondered if that was true even for himself, and if so, how he would be able to recognize that person when the time came.
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To be continued…
