Part Eight of Eight

A warm, August morning, where fresh leaves began to decorate the streets of Vancouver, BC, was when Sasuke Uchiha paid a visit to his best friend's house. The boy had lived in a simple, one-story house for the past eighteen years of his life, and just until recently, the bright red letters spelling the word 'SOLD' across the hanging sign of the lawn, had become a sight to see every time the Uchiha walked up the grey, single-car driveway. Today, in that driveway, held the recycling bin that Naruto liked to call his car. The hood of the trunk was left open, while the suitcases beneath stayed secure with some bright fluorescent string. Sasuke didn't pay another fraction of his mind, walking up the three wooden steps of the country-style, wrap-around porch of the horizontal-planked home.

Blond-haired, blue-eyed, five-foot-seven, cut off jeans and nubby orange sweater-clad, Naruto answered the door. "Sasuke," he greeted with mild surprise.

"I'd like to talk. Can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure!"

Naruto let go of the door to push it out of Sasuke's way. Once inside, Naruto turned the brass bolt shut, looked at his visitor for a split second before leading him into his bedroom. Sasuke stood in the middle of the room, while the other closed the door behind them.

Sasuke surveyed the space. Half of everything was in boxes; books, clothes, junk. The off-white, peach colour of the walls was visible, the posters and stickers having been removed and leaving adhesive residue and patches, where old paint should have been, in random outlines. Sasuke slowly nodded at his friend's packing progress. The room was like a heat map, the bed and its surroundings being the hot spots where most of it remained unchanged and undisturbed. Things further away were what was different, ultimately bare and in the boxes adorning the floor. Sasuke side stepped the ones in front of the bed, sitting at the foot of it, across from where Naruto had taken his own seat beside the pillowcase-less pillows. He looked around, somewhat awkwardly with his hands still stuffed in his own dark-wash jeans. There was a lot of silence for a while, the only sound drowning out the particles in their brains, being Naruto's neighbour, some hundred and fifty yards away, being a pretentious middle-aged man and using a leaf blower.

"Naru—."

"Sasu—."

They laughed, and it eased the passing of the stale silence quite a bit, that Sasuke felt it in him to work right off it.

"How long have we been friends?"

Naruto rested his chin on his knees and stared up at the plastered ceiling. "…Eight years?"

"Sixth grade?"

"Yeah, yeah! That was when you stopped pushing me over when I came to sit beside you at recess."

"Oh, right. I wanted to read about the war of 1812 and you kept poking me, asking me if I wanted a hug," Sasuke mused with a smile. "You did that every day for a month, before you started reading what I brought out that day."

"You pushed me over every time I got too close," Naruto laughed. "said I kept breathing my lunch down your neck." They both chuckled at the memories, each one leading to the next, further back into their past. "Oh, but we actually met way before that."

"We did?"

"Yeah, I remember. Third grade. I sat beside you in the beginning of the year cuz of our last names," he waved his index finger at the eighteen-year-old version of the Sasuke in his memory. "My crayon was flat and I didn't know you could rip the paper off, so I asked if I could borrow your green." Sasuke stayed quiet for Naruto to continue, and the blond smirked as he did. "So you bit me."

"I what?" Sasuke yelled, disbelievingly.

"You, Sasuke Uchiha, gave me that famous death-glare, which definitely got better over the years, not so pudgy, grabbed my arm and bit me." Naruto smiled. "I cried for the rest of the day."

"I don't remember that..." Sasuke said, honestly.

"You never got in trouble for it." Naruto shrugged. "You would have at least remembered it if I had told the teacher."

"You didn't even tell on me? And this was third grade?"

Naruto's smile remained.

"Wow." Sasuke nodded. And then he decided to re-summarize. "So we've known each other for...twelve years. We've been friends for eight of those years." Now came the time when they both smiled tightly and nodded. The pleasantries were getting old. Sasuke let out a small sigh. "It's been… months."

"Four months."

"Four-four months..."

End


Hello, my readers. Yes, it is done.

I do have another little piece written kind of like the scene in between or after when credits would roll.
If you'd like to read it, just let me know, Leave me a lil reviewtoo please :]
Thank you thank you, everybody!

YHS
xDelfin