Title: Porcelain
Author: Your Existence
Fandom: Naruto
Date: 28/3/09 (Mar. 28, 2009)
Chapter: Thirteen
Pairings: SasuNaru (main)
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em…

Stew

To me, the air felt tense and an unknown pressure started to push out in all directions in my head as Shikamaru and I walked through the large house. The man from that night was leading us past the eating area into a well-lit hall. The hall walls had paintings of people and landscapes. The windows were evenly spaced and large. Despite the sunlight from the windows, the hall was steadily getting darker as we went on. Soon we came to the end of the hallway, where a large, dark-wooded door stood.

He knocked on the door once.

It was silent, then a voice shouted angrily from the other side. The man smirked and said something that sounded snide. The voice shouted a livid reply back.

"Ist er krank?" Shikamaru asked the man. The man nodded. "Er klingt furchtbar…"

I understood some of what they were saying. The person on the other side of the door is sick and something about something sounding awful. These words had been used many times the last time I was here, over a month ago. The man said something to the voice. The voice responded a minute later, a lot quieter than before. Then the man asked a question. The door suddenly opened. Somebody came out.

"Was? Gäste?" A pale face said as it looked around. Its dark, tired black eyes finally came to me. My heart jumped. The eyes narrowed, "Adrian!"

The man, Adrian, or Itachi as he will be called from now on, patted Sasuke on the shoulder. Sasuke slapped the hand away from him.

"Keep your infatuation company while I get our other guest the things he needs." Itachi said in Polish. Sasuke's fist curled up tightly. His eyes darted to Shikamaru. Shikamaru just stared back with that bored expression on his face. Sasuke had a look of disdain and was probably cursing under his breath as he went back into the dark room. Itachi started back down the hall. I looked to Shikamaru, who only gave me a reassuring look, then was gone down the hall, too.

Damn it.

I was all alone and it was horribly quiet. I eyed the door. It was still open, only slightly. I started to contemplate whether I should go in or not.

Sasuke didn't look so happy to see me here. I paced back and forth for a while until curiosity got the best of me and I poked my head through the crack in the door. It was dark, but a faint light coming from the farthest part of the room helped me see a little. I worked my body through the door and shut it as quietly as I could. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I noticed boxes and extra chairs and old toys and such cluttered the seemingly small room. I wondered what Sasuke could possibly be doing in a room like this as a carefully made my way towards the light.

"Sasuke?" I whispered as I approached another door. This door was a little smaller than the first door and was also open. The light, brighter than I thought it was, spilled out from it. "Saaaasuukee?" I heard an irritated sigh from within. A book, I believe, was slammed shut. So, Sasuke was reading back here?

The light blinded me as the door was opened completely. Squinting didn't help at all. I still couldn't see anything.

"Dobe," was all he said before I heard him walk away. I couldn't hear his footsteps, but the old wood flooring creaked, giving him away. I carefully followed in the direction of the creaking and stopped only when the creaking stopped.

"The light. It's dimmer right here than by the door, right?" I stammered. I didn't want to open my eyes if the light was still going to be that bright. My eyes just couldn't take bright lights.

A growl. "Just open your eyes, moron." And I did what I was told. I was afraid that the light was still going to be there in my face and that I was going to go blind, but my fears were to be seen as nonsensical when I saw that the room was moderately lit. I felt my nerves unwind from its tight bundle and my chest open up more. I didn't realize I was breathing so hard. As my breathing slowed, I looked about the room.

It was fairly big. Different colored carpets covered the creaky wooden floor. They all seemed to match and go along with each other nicely. Paintings and drawings that were done on large pieces of paper littered the walls. In the back of the room, a wooden thing with a big white thing on it was set up. Paints and colors and brushes were on the side of it on a dark dirty old stool. And in the middle of the room, Sasuke was lying on his back on the floor with a thick book, just as I had guessed.

"You paint back here?" I asked, my voice in a half whisper. "And read?" I looked at Sasuke intently, waiting for his reply. But he didn't reply. He didn't even look in my direction. It's like he didn't even hear me.

What a bastard.

I started to walk around, wanting to go look at the paintings, but when I heard the floor whine under my weight, I stopped in my tracks. I looked back at him. He was still in the same position, engrossed in his book. I didn't want to bother him any more than I had to. Taking a deep breath, I quickly scuttled across the room, finally stopping when I reached the farthest wall where the weird wooden and white thing was. I looked back at Sasuke and smiled to myself in relief. Same as when I last looked at him. It felt like I accomplished something of great importance.

"Don't run in the house, dobe, because if you fall and hurt yourself I will not help you."

I didn't feel so accomplished anymore, but when a certain painting caught my attention out the corner of my eye, I quickly pushed that feeling aside.

The painting wasn't anything awe inducing, but I found myself pulled into it. It was just something about it. I found the colour choices of the piece interesting. Deep, sad blue and bright, lively orange swirls danced around each other, seeming to compliment each other, both in colour and placement. When an orange swirl seemed to be reckless, a blue swirl would come and smooth things out. A gentle blue curve against a sharp orange angle.

Then I noticed something in the painting. There seemed to be two vaguely drawn people within the blue and orange swirls. Their facial features weren't really pronounced, but I could tell that they were sad. I then wondered what the meaning behind this painting was. Who did the two people and the colours represent, if anyone at all?

I was so deep in thought that I didn't notice that someone was standing next to me, so when that someone tapped my shoulder, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"Naruto? Didn't you hear me calling you?" It was Shikamaru. "I have everything we need, so let's get going."

"Oh, yeah, right…" I looked back at the painting one last time before following after Shikamaru. Itachi was at the door, waiting for us. A low rumble sounded as Shikamaru went through the door.

I laughed, "You sound awfully hungry, Shika." Shikamaru poked his head back through.

"You should be hungry, too." And my stomach protested, just like Shikamaru's had done.

"Oh…" I hadn't really noticed that dreaded empty feeling before. My mind had been too preoccupied to think about food. I rubbed my belly and said, "I guess we'll have to get something to eat when we get back."

"You should eat something here." Itachi spoke up. "It'll be more filling than what you probably have back there." Itachi walked over to me then, lifting my arm and rolling up my sleeve to the shoulder. He had this bored-like expression on his face as he spoke, "Both of you are looking thinner than healthy."

Sasuke looked up from his book then, eyeing me. He didn't look concerned or interested. I wasn't sure what Sasuke felt or was thinking. He didn't give any hints; not in body language, or in facial expressions.

"Sasuke," Itachi started as he let go of my arm. I rolled the sleeve back down. "Come down with us. You need something to eat, also. I know you haven't eaten all day."

A frown and sigh.

We were all sitting at the large dining room table, waiting for the food to be done. The smells of cooking meat traveled out of the kitchen and into the dining room, making my stomach whine. I felt my face getting hot and red from embarrassment when it practically screamed. I swear it said, 'Fooooooooood! Gimme foooooooooooood!' Sasuke looked at me, clearly annoyed, from the corner of his eye. I rested my head on the edge of the table.

"I never knew how hungry I really was…" I moaned. Then I shot up and looked to Shikamaru. "Shikamaru! What about the others? We can't eat good food like this. The others are eating practically trash!"

"Oh, yeah. You're right." He scratched the back of his head. "I was so intent on eating that I really just forgot about them…" He sighed then. "How troublesome…"

"You're a bad person, Shikamaru." I joked. "Thinking of only yourself in times like this." I laughed only for a moment.

"Itachi…" Shikamaru started as he stood up. But Itachi cut him off before Shikamaru could go on.

"Don't be sorry. And I've already got you covered, so sit back down."

"It smells soooo good!" I exclaimed as the cooks packed containers of food into a backpack I had on my back.

"Thank you, Itachi. You've helped me out once again. Haha." Shikamaru rubbed the of back of his head and adjusted his backpack on his shoulder. Itachi just waved his hand at him impassively.

The cooks gave me a chocolate and patted me on my head as we left for the front door. After a few steps, I noticed that I was falling backwards a little. I stopped walking, but it didn't help. I couldn't carry the backpack properly and I was starting to fall over. A hand caught the back of my head, balancing me.

"Give it here, dobe." Sasuke said to me as he took the backpack off my back. I looked up at Sasuke and met his dark eyes for a brief second before he turned away and started after Shikamaru. There was something there in his eyes. Some kind of emotion. It made his face look softer when that something was in his eyes. Usually his face was sharp and had a scowl of some sort on it…

It was quiet on the way back. Sasuke didn't say anything. Shikamaru didn't say anything. And I didn't say anything just because they weren't saying anything. It kind of bothered me. I liked talking.

So instead, since I didn't have to carry anything, I walked ahead of Sasuke and Shikamaru, humming a soundtrack of melodies and made up tunes as I thought of them. I skipped and ran and did cartwheels up and down the empty streets. I even rolled down a slight hill in the middle of the street over the trolley tracks without harm.

I would have never been able to do this before the Jackboots came.

We finally came to the wrought iron gate we came through earlier. I immediately slipped through the bars. Sasuke's expression was genuinely sad, and it tugged at my chest where my internal wound, the void, resided. Shikamaru took off his bag and worked himself through the bars as well, then had Sasuke carefully climb up the iron bars a bit and hand the bags over one by one. They couldn't fit through the bars.

Sasuke dropped back to the ground with a light thud and kicked at the ground lightly, and then looked up at Shikamaru and I. His attention wasn't focused on neither of us, however.

He said something to Shikamaru in German, his voice sounding so dismal. Shikamaru replied, shaking his head to whatever Sasuke had said. Sasuke didn't say anything for a long while, and then asked (mumbled really) a question, looked past us at the enclosure. I turned slightly to look behind myself; there were a few people walking about and they looked as though they were lost. They walked aimlessly around the enclosure. There was nothing to do, nothing to say, while in the enclosure.

Shikamaru had shaken his head again. I caught the words "Tag" and "jetzt", which I knew to be "day" and "now", but I couldn't have known what they were talking about from just these two words.

"Okay." And like that, he was gone. I watched Sasuke until I couldn't see him anymore.

"Why is he sad?" I asked Shikamaru finally. Shikamaru came up next to me, staring in the direction Sasuke went. It was quiet between the two of us. Not even the wind made a sound as it blew gently against our faces.

"I'm not too sure, Naruto." he sighed and walked over to the bags and picked up the bag Sasuke had been carrying. "Come on. We need to get these to the others before they get too cold." I nodded and picked up the other bag and started towards our building.

Some how, the food Itachi packed was still as hot as it had been when we left. Everyone was overly joyous about finally being able to eat something hot after so long.

We didn't tell them where we got the hot stew. No one besides Shino knew about Itachi and Sasuke and the many times they have helped us. I didn't know why we didn't tell the boys about them, but it had seemed important that we kept quiet about it.

Shikamaru and Gaara tended to Rock Lee's wound with the ointment and bandages Itachi provided before distributing the stew to everybody. The stew had been very savory and warmed everyone up from the inside out.