Disclaimer: Naruto, his friends and the world he lives in don't belong to me but to Masashi Kishimoto. I write this story only for my pleasure and I don't make any money with it.
Chapter Eighteen: Looking Back
When Sasuke returned from the ophthalmologist Juugo was not with him: He had again met some kids to play with. So he and Naruto had lunch by themselves at the restaurant: silently, as Naruto was still in thoughts about the letter he had got from Sakura, which he did not want to mention to Sasuke, while Sasuke on his turn did not tell him about his visit to the ophthalmologist. Only when they had some dessert afterwards Naruto was no longer able to hide his curiosity:
"So how did it go?" he asked. "Are you going to get these contacts?"
He hoped so – if he did, he'd have to stay for longer.
"The doctor was able to measure my eyes", Sasuke said. "But having something put into my eyes was just impossible. He suggested that tomorrow you come with me again."
"Yeah, sure I will", Naruto answered, trying to sound casual, but inwardly he was delighted: Being near Sasuke, being allowed – even asked! - to help and support him.
With the years, the dream of finding Sasuke and taking him back to Konoha had become more and more abstract. He had wanted to save Sasuke from being with people who were evil, and thus becoming evil himself, and take him back to Konoha where he could be good again, as a true Shinobi of the Leaf. But he had not known about how they would be friends again: They could not simply take up where they had left at the age of twelve: He, Naruto, had changed since then, and Sasuke had changed too – something he had avoided to admit to himself while he had still been hunting for Sasuke, but now he was ready to acknowledge it, and find out how Sasuke had changed and how they could be friends again – he was looking forward to it.
"We can visit the botanical garden this afternoon", he suggested to him. "One of my colleagues told me that it is very beautiful and that we simply have to see it."
Sasuke had never heard of such a thing as a botanical garden, so Naruto explained to him what little he had understood of his colleague's explanations: "Plants from all over the world."
To his surprise Sasuke agreed, and so they explored the botanical garden. Naruto got bored pretty quickly, but Sasuke insisted on looking at the tropical greenhouses, admiring the banana trees and the living stones. To Naruto it seemed as if he could not get enough.
"The world is so big, and I know so little", he said, and Naruto wanted to answer that it was his own fault, having spent so many years in Orochimaru's lair, but then he remembered that most of what he knew about the world he had learnt during his journeys with Jiraiya, and that their former classmates back in Konoha knew very little too.
Later they had picnic on the lawn. Again there were awkward silences in their conversation when they were in danger of talking of subjects both of them tried to avoid, but if they managed to stick to what was at hand, Naruto felt pretty comfortable, all the more as Sasuke too was making an effort to keep the conversation going, until he suddenly stopped both talking and listening: Finally he had discovered a gay couple. They were having picnic too, at some distance from them, one of them sitting on the blanket they had brought with them, the other was lying with his head in his lover's lap. There was nothing obscene, not even erotic about them, Sasuke told himself, they were not even kissing, just caressing each other's faces and arms and chests (with clothes on), and the two men, both around thirty, were not particularly good-looking either, and still it were such tender gestures and such a beautiful sight that Sasuke just could not turn his eyes.
It took Naruto a while until he had figured out the cause of Sasuke's sudden silence. He too was moved by the two lovers' gentleness, it hurt his heart, and he looked away.
"I told you, you've got to get used to it", he said to Sasuke. "Besides, it's considered impolite to stare."
Indeed the men had grown uneasy, sensing that they were being watched. They sat up and looked back at Sasuke, grinning at him and challenging him.
"Let's leave, or they'll ask you to join", Naruto said.
Next to the botanical garden there was the museum for Natural History, which turned out to be much more interesting. They spent some time looking at the gigantic mammals of the ice age, mammoths, cave bears and sabre tooth tigres, but the dinosaur skeletons gave Naruto the creeps, reminding him how he had turned into the kyuubi. Sasuke felt uncomfortable too.
It was fun to have him with him again, Naruto decided when they had returned to his place. Even work was easier when Sasuke was present, sitting in some corner by himself, browsing the newspapers for articles on Konoha. When he had dreamt of bringing Sasuke back to Konoha he had imagined the triumph, now he felt the happiness.
The next morning was spent in company again; Naruto accompanied Sasuke to the ophthalmologist. Sasuke managed to survive having the lenses put onto his eyes without panicking; only Naruto had to look away, he could not bear watching how something was put onto Sasuke's eyes.
Everything was going according to plan, the doctor declared when they had finished. The lenses fitted, the irritations were within the limits of what was normal when one was wearing them for the first time, and he should return the next day for wearing them a bit longer. Also, he should begin to learn putting them in and taking them out as soon as possible, as this would probably be easier than having someone else do it.
"We have to order them", the doctor said. "We'll wait for tomorrow, until we are confident that your eyes tolerate them. But from tomorrow, it will be only some ten days until they arrive. If by then you are already able to put them in and take them out yourself, you can just pick them up and continue your journey."
Naruto swallowed – he had hoped for a longer extension of Sasuke's and his team's stay at his place. The doctor had painfully reminded him that the delay was only for a short time.
On their way back they picked up the glasses from the optician's store. Naruto insisted on Sasuke putting them on immediately, and not waiting until they were back home, which Sasuke would have preferred. It was a weird feeling – they were heavy on his nose, tight behind his ears, they restricted his field of vision and made everything seem smaller. Also, he kept imagining that everyone was looking at him, thinking him really weird. He was glad that he had Naruto at his side, less glad however he was about the fact that Naruto bought some (rather unhealthy) food at one of the food booths in town, to eat it on one of the benches in Heroes' Park, forcing him to present himself to all the world with glasses, instead of hiding in Naruto's dark apartment.
Annoyed as he was at him, Naruto's presence was a comfort and let him feel less insecure in this strange place, with his new face (with glasses), with his new status (as a person with glasses) and also not being able to fight (as he did not want to break his glasses.) Naruto behaved as if everything was perfectly normal, and slowly Sasuke gained confidence, stopped focussing on his food and began to look around – the lawn was full of people, most of them enjoying their lunch break, sitting around in large groups, eating and drinking, but there were also couples making out – he even managed to spot some gay couples, and again he could not hide his fascination, so that they got aware of him and looked back. He felt embarrassed, both for being caught looking and for his glasses, so he took off his glasses to look around again, but this didn't work either – he did not see clearly without glasses, and he felt more in control when he could see who was looking at him.
Naruto felt irritated. He only saw that Sasuke was absent-minded and nervous, taking off his glasses and putting them on again. It took him some time to notice that people were looking at them, mostly gay couples, though also, to his great relief, some girls, mostly from all-female groups. On any other day he would have been jealous, annoyed that it was Sasuke again who managed to attract all kinds of admiring looks, but not today when Sasuke was wearing glasses for the first time.
"You see, I kept my promise", he said. "Girls and gay men alike are looking at you, admiring your cuteness."
Sasuke took off his glasses and looked again at the food. He did not think that he was being admired, he knew all too well that the men looked at him because he had looked at them first. Also, he felt uncomfortable under Naruto's looks.
"You are cute when you are embarrassed, even without glasses", Naruto said.
Sasuke shook his head. He liked being complimented by Naruto, but he still was not sure whether he liked being cute. He definitely cared about how he looked (much more than Naruto, he thought, who still believed that orange suited him), yet he certainly did not want to look cute, but cool, most of all when he would fight that Danzou.
Still Naruto's words brought him in touch with a side of himself he had forgotten a long time ago. Seeking for words, he tried to explain it to Naruto:
"I used to be very cute when I was still a kid", he began. "A small kid, I mean, Before my family was murdered. I was just as cute and happy and innocent as any other child whose parents are still alive."
Naruto had few memories of what Sasuke had been like before the Uchiha massacre, and besides, being a small child himself, he had not noticed that other children (or he himself) were cute and innocent. For him Sasuke had been the boy who already knew everything they were supposed to learn during their first year, frustrating everyone else, and who therefore was allowed to keep to himself and practise what he thought necessary to practise. Never would he just relax and play as the other boys did when the teacher had told them that they had succeeded and might do what they wanted.
"I have a picture in my backpack", Sasuke said. "Back at your place. I can show you when we are back."
"I can imagine", Naruto answered, anxious about what might follow, but also eager to listen.
"Back in Konoha I often looked at it. It shows the whole family, so I took it with me when I left." The other photos are now lost in the debris of Konoha, he thought. "I always focussed on my parents. I hated looking at my brother, and would have loved to delete him from the picture, or at myself. I hated myself for having been too weak to protect them."
"But that's ridiculous", Naruto interrupted him. "You were just six or seven years old then. What could you have done?"
"Yeah, sure, now I know. Back in Konoha I didn't. Then I just hated myself for being weak. Weak and naive and helpless. I swore to myself never to be like this again – I wanted to be like my brother, cool and invincible."
"And cruel and merciless", Naruto said. "You really wanted to become like him?"
One day I will have to tell him that it was all a misunderstanding, Sasuke thought.
"Now I wish that I might have remained cute and naive for longer", he continued without answering to Naruto.
"I told you, you are still cute", Naruto said. Not cute but beautiful in his sadness he thought, much softer and gentler than he had been at the age of twelve. He wondered what had caused these changes – killing his brother and completing his revenge, probably. Again, Itachi's warning that Sasuke might attack Konoha appeared in his mind: If Sasuke had changed, as he obviously had, there might also be some changes he could not approve of. They were still far from having renewed their friendship.
"People liked me back then", Sasuke continued his tale. "They did not admire and secretly hate me. Itachi was the genius then, I was the cute little child, funny in his attempts to draw level with his brother, but spoilt by everyone. I did not exploit this, though, mostly because I did not care about being cute and spoilt; I wanted to be strong."
His father had been the only exception, he remembered. Buried in his thoughts of how to protect the clan he had only seen Itachi's strength, but not Sasuke's hopeless efforts to become strong. But he had loved him too, he had learnt, in his own way, even though he had not been good at showing his affection.
"My brother made fun of me because of my ambition, and my mother told me not to overstrain myself, but they'd also help me become strong. There was nothing wrong with being cute and weak and small then."
Naruto listened and tried to understand – he had no idea what to say. Sasuke did not seem to mind, he just kept talking. Suddenly however he interrupted himself.
"I am sorry. I did not want to hurt you."
Naruto was surprised. He had listened, and tried to share Sasuke's sorrow, but he had not been hurt.
"I forgot that my stories surely must hurt you. I am sorry."
"No, it's okay, they're sad, but I can bear it." Naruto's confusion grew.
Sasuke shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I mean, I have at least these memories of my early happy years. You don't even have them."
Now he had managed to hurt Naruto.
"Yes. Sure. I cannot understand. I've never had anyone, and so I am not able to understand your feelings."
"What makes you think so?" Sasuke asked, taken back by Naruto's sudden bitterness.
"You said so yourself. When we fought in the Valley of the End."
"Did I?" He dimly remembered. He had been crazy with Naruto's attempts to take him back to Konoha, with Naruto's failure to understand his need for revenge, his need to gain power and focus on his most important goal instead of just playing around.
"I was angry then and wanted to get rid of you. You did not take my words seriously, did you?"
If he only knew what exactly he had said then. Something about bonds, that much he remembered now.
"I did. I wondered whether I would ever be able to persuade you to return to Konoha. I thought I had been able to create a bond with you, but in your eyes it did not count. I was still a monster who had never known true bonds, and never would know them, and who would never understand the suffering that is the consequence of losing true bonds."
"I did not mean it", Sasuke said, who finally remembered his exact words and felt ashamed. "That was never what I thought. I always pitied you. I always thought that your sufferings were worse than mine. I, at least, had my memories."
Three years, almost four, Sasuke's words had haunted him. Three years, almost four, he'd wondered whether he'd ever be able to understand Sasuke and connect to him.
"I was talking rubbish in the Valley of the End. I wanted you to let me go. Maybe I even purposely hurt you. But I did not think you a monster, incapable of forming bonds."
He saw that Naruto was shaken. He reached out to touch and comfort him in his turn and was glad when Naruto did not withdraw, but he did not respond to the touch either, he just stayed motionless. "I am sorry. I did not intend you to worry about my words for years."
"No, certainly not", Naruto replied. "You were intending to kill me."
Sasuke withdrew – now Naruto had managed to hurt him. It served him right, Naruto thought. Three years, almost four, torturing himself for his incapacity to understand his friend. A tiny part of him had even rejoiced within his despair over Jiraiya's death that now, finally, he would be able to relate to Sasuke, his sorrow and his desire for revenge, and now it had all been for nothing.
"I am sorry", Sasuke repeated. "For hurting you with words and deeds."
"It's okay", Naruto answered. "Let's go home."
He began to pack the leftovers of their food, still feeling all odd and wobbly from the reversal of all he had thought that Sasuke thought about him. Had he really just been too foolish to realize that Sasuke had not meant his words in earnest? Was it that simple, or was there not more truth in Sasuke's words than Sasuke would admit at the moment? He would not have pondered them in his heart for several years if they really had just been rubbish.
"You may tell me", he said. "So that I will better be able to understand you."
"I will", Sasuke answered. "Not now, however."