A/N: Thank you everyone for reading, reviewing, following, and faving! I know I've been away. Life has been hectic and, well, I'm a little more tired than usual since I developed a chronic migraine recently (well, it turned chronic in May, so it's not that recent). I'm seeing doctors for it, but things are going really slowly. I hope I will be able to get back to writing more material soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this chapter.
Chapter 52: Lego House
Dinner was more complicated than Sasuke first thought, and it had less to do with the logistical nightmare that was catering to ten people and more to do with the people catered to. They seemed like a happy family at first glance - all love, laughter, and joy. Except they weren't. Far from it.
On the one side, Sasuke had the children - Akane, Ryo, and Ran - three of Sensei's students who lived permanently in the house. They sat in two rows facing each other supervised by Kasumi and Karin. While Ryo was captivated by Karin's many antics, Akane was far from riveted. She would occasionally get up and run to the other side of the rows where Naruto sat with Sensei and Saya, conversing shinobi business and worldly things coded in a way children wouldn't understand, not that Akane cared. All she wanted was Naruto's attention, which the blond eagerly gave much to Ran's displeasure. But the older girl didn't make a move that would suggest an outburst. She just kept on eating, glancing occasionally towards the blond to communicate hostility so clear that Juugo could sense it. Sasuke wondered what exactly Naruto had done to deserve her enmity, but he didn't think it was his place to ask, at least not now when they were still playing the family game.
"Naru-chan, would you like another bowl?" Kasumi asked. Her voice penetrating the boundary set in between the two circles. The blond nodded happily, handing his bowl over to Kasumi for more rice. "So, do you have any urgent plan after this?" the mistress asked as she packed rice onto the bowl. "It will be Obon pretty soon, you know. You should stay around for the festival."
Naruto blinked, looking suddenly uncomfortable with the invitation. "I'd love to, but I don't want to impose."
"You're not imposing. And the town is pretty busy before Obon. A hand or two won't go amiss," said the mistress. "Right, Saya-san?"
Now it was Saya's turn to look decidedly uncomfortable as all eyes turned to her. She chewed, swallowed, and said, "Obon is in a week. Taking a week break won't disrupt our plan all that much." At that, she looked at Sasuke, waiting for his input. Although, his first instinct was to catch up with Itachi, he thought a break was actually a reasonable suggestion. There was no reason to confront Itachi if they weren't going to be able to take him down, and a week wasn't a long time at all, just enough for them to plan and recoup. He nodded.
Naruto looked from him to Kasumi then back to Saya. On his face was a knowing smile. "Kasumi-san has already talked you into this, hasn't she?" Saya narrowed her eyes at him, exasperated.
Akane's voice chimed in right then. "So, Naru-nii will stay for Obon, right?"
She was already half off her seat before the blond smiled and said, "Of course." Sasuke could hear Ran groaned as the young girl, once again, ran over to Naruto and gave him a hug.
"Akane, do try to finish your meal," said Sensei, having seen this too many times already. The girl pouted, but she did let go and walked back to her seat as told. The old man sighed. "She missed you," he told Naruto.
Sasuke was sure Naruto knew this. It was not hard to see how attached she was to him. "I know," he said. "I wish I could stay longer."
The hostility in Ran's spiked right then. She basically slapped her chopstick onto the tray before turning to Naruto, but not before Kasumi's voice rang out from the other end of the rows, "Who wants dessert?" and any possible confrontation ground to a halt with her bright and happy energy. "Densuke just gave us some kuri kinton yesterday. He said one of his patients has had a good season with the chestnuts."
"Is that so?" Sensei replied, not missing a beat. "That would be lovely, Kasumi. I'd like some."
"What's a kuri kinton?" Akane asked. Juugo and Ryo were doing the same with their eyes.
"Oh, I haven't had one in a long time," Karin chimed in.
"I guess that's pretty much everyone," said Kasumi before she pointedly turned to Ran. "Ran-chan, would you mind helping me get the sweets?" Sasuke could see emotions flitted across the girl's face as the mistress waited for her answer. Then, she nodded and followed Kasumi out the door. Crisis averted.
And that was one thing Sasuke found uncanny about Kasumi. She seemed to know when to interfere and what to say to get what she wanted. And no one seemed immune to this, including Saya whom the raven was sure knew better. Maybe the more uncanny of Kasumi's abilities wasn't her adeptness in manipulation, but making the people not care that she did.
She would have made a terrifying kunoichi.
"Karin," Saya suddenly raised her voice and jolted Sasuke back to his surrounding, "is there anymore hot water over there?" She raised the teapot as if to clarify. The redhead peered over the many things Kasumi had had around her and shook her head.
"I'll get it," said Naruto, already pushing himself up when Sasuke budged in.
"No, I'll get it," said the raven, already reaching for the kettle in Saya's hand before the blond could. The jinchuuriki blinked at him, puzzled. "Your leg is still lame, moron."
"Hey!"
Sasuke shut the protest by patting on the said leg a few times. "Just sit still," he said. Sensei muttered something about language before the raven walked out the room and down the hall towards the kitchen.
Just as he was approaching the door, he heard Ran said, "You shouldn't have let him stay."
Kasumi's voice sounded calm as she answered, "They're in dire need, and Akane could spend a bit more time with Naru, you know."
"And then he'll leave again," the girl gritted out.
"You know why, Ran-chan."
"I do," she said. "Akane doesn't."
There was a stretch of silence, an acknowledgement almost, and Sasuke had to wonder how many time this had happened, how often did the girl had to be separated from someone who was clearly important to her. Did they ever know when the Scums was going to come back? He didn't think the nature of their work would allow for a regular visit. But did Naruto contact them at all? Wrote to them perhaps? Or was the girl left waiting day after day for his return?
The door slid open and the raven started when he suddenly was faced with two surprised faces staring back at him. He felt like an intruder then, although he didn't intend on eavesdropping the conversation. Without anything to say, he just stood there and lifted up the kettle.
Thankfully, Kasumi got it. "Oh, we're out of hot water? Here, let me." She placed the box on the stack of small plates Ran was carrying and took the kettle from the raven. "Ran-chan, can you take the sweets over? I'll be there in a second." The girl didn't look happy about it, but she nodded and walked on, eyeing Sasuke suspiciously. Kasumi, on the other hand, just took the kettle inside, filled it with water, and set it on a stove. "This actually is going to take a while," she said almost apologetically. "You can head back first if you want."
"It's alright," Sasuke said, stepping inside as he closed the door behind him. "I have to apologize. I didn't mean to listen in."
Kasumi didn't look bothered by that. "It's fine. That's no big deal," she said, settling down on a stool close to the stove as she waited for the water to boil. "It's not like what happens here are big shinobi secret, you know."
"Aside from the teacher being a Hyuuga," he said, only realizing a little later that he might be treading onto something he shouldn't.
But the mistress just smiled. "Well, that. As long as you don't tell Leaf, it'll be fine."
Sasuke lifted an eyebrow then. As far as he knew, the Byakugan was considered a precious bloodline, and Leaf, not just the Hyuuga, would fight to keep it within their control. They probably had people looking for Sensei right now.
"They think he's dead," said Kasumi as if reading his mind. "It's a bureaucratic mess-up, really. Easy to happen during the wartime when there are too many dead bodies in tattered pieces. Almost impossible to tell who's who." Although there was still a smile on her face, Sasuke could hear the edge in her voice. She was there.
"Which war?"
"The Second."
Sasuke ran a quick calculation in his head. That would have been about thirty years ago, long enough for Sensei to be forgotten. He was probably just another name on the memorial commemorating the many that had died for the sake of the village. It was also a long enough time for a man to be playing house out in the backwater of Grass Country, basically in the middle of nowhere. If he had wanted to leave, he would have. The raven could only surmised that he had wanted to stay, that he was happy here.
And who was Sasuke to change that.
"And how did he know Naruto?" he asked. It didn't seem like a smart choice for someone determined to be under the radar to be associating with a jinchuuriki.
Kasumi's smile turned warm at that. "Well, the only way I can put it is fate," she said. "We used to be a big family here after the Third Shinobi War with so many orphans - Grass Country being a major battlefield and all that. So we lived outside of town where we had land to grow food," she said. "There was a fire."
And Sasuke knew instantly where this was going, and suddenly Akane's scar made perfect sense. And the attachment. Of course, she would become attached if this was the man who saved her life.
"It was the height of the summer and the wind was strong that day. Once a grass fire started, it was impossible stop. Most of us were able to get out of the complex just fine, but some of the younger ones were trapped. We couldn't find them before parts of the house started to collapse." She turned away then, gathering herself. Sasuke wasn't surprised by the emotions in her voice. "The entire village was probably there but no one could do anything about it. Then this little sprite came out of nowhere, and he just ran right into the building." She sniggered. "Saya-san looked like she wanted to murder him, but he managed to get them out somehow, one by one. Akane was the last one. He took such a long time we thought they weren't going to make it." Then she shrugged. A smile graced her face. "But they made it. They were injured but they made it."
Talking about it now, probably years down the road, Kasumi still looked like she still couldn't believe it. Sasuke couldn't believe it, either, but for an entirely different reason. What kind of an idiot ran into a house on fire ready to collapse anyway? But then, this was Naruto they were talking about. Sasuke didn't really think he could name a man who had a larger hero complex and a faster knee-jerk reaction.
The kettle whistled then, startling them both. Kasumi blinked tears out of her eyes before she got up. "Okay, let's get back to dinner, shall we?"
/***/
As much as Saya loved being around Kasumi and the children, she was keenly aware of how disruptive the Scums' presences were. They were the others, the outsiders, the intruders - barging in on a family of civilians quietly living their lives. It had been easy to ignore before when there were many children in the orphanage and the Scums didn't seem to be more than spectators. Now with most of them either adopted or found apprenticeships where they could support themselves, the number of people were small, and the effect all the more pronounced.
Ran's reaction wasn't a surprise. She had always been looking out for others, making sure everyone was alright, long before she became the oldest child and taking on the responsibility of caring for other children. And maybe because of that, she had always been ambivalent about Naruto and most of all about Naruto's relationship with Akane.
Even as she handed out the plate of kuri kinton, the girl's eyes turned wary around the blond. Akane was now sitting on his lap after she was done with her meal and so had no reason to be back at her seat. The young girl didn't seem the recognize the tension between her two precious people as she picked one piece of the sweet for herself and another for Naruto. The blond thanked her but then told her to pick another one, too, "For Shizuka."
That prompted Sensei to give Saya a look. He had been doing that since the little exchange between Naruto and Sasuke just earlier. Naruto, on the other hand, took no notice of this as he thanked Ran. The girl huffed and moved on to the rest of the group as Akane fed the blond a kuri kinton.
"That Shizuka," Sensei began, as he carefully turned his piece of the well-made sweet in appreciation, "was he from Konoha?"
The blond coughed, nearly ejecting the sweet from his mouth. Akane quickly handed him water.
"I thought so," said the old man. "You are too familiar with him for him to be just a new teammate."
"I'm good friends with all my teammates," countered Naruto as the cough finally subsided. Sensei gave him a look.
"I don't contest that," said the Hyuuga. He finally took a small bite from the already small sweet, savouring the flavour. Naruto looked at him, confused, and Saya got a hint on where this was going. Nothing really happened, though, because Kasumi and Sasuke came back in with the hot water and so the old man backed down, giving a look that meant 'later' to the blond who still didn't know what was going on.
He didn't dwell on that confusion for long, not when Sasuke came over to fill up the teapot for them. She couldn't imagine Sensei missing how Naruto's face lit up as he picked up the small plate with the lone kuri kinton and handed it over to the raven. "Yours." Sasuke blinked back. "You took so long with the water the kids nearly ate your share, you know."
"It's delicious!" Akane said, smiling a toothy grin that wasn't quite wide enough because of the scar tissue. Still, she looked happy, much happier than Saya had seen many kids been.
The raven looked between them and took the plate. "Thanks," he said, rather shyly in fact, before he picked up the sweet. Like Sensei, he took a moment just looking at it before taking a small bite. Unlike with Sensei, though, Naruto watched him during all this, wanting to know what he thought. "It's good," Sasuke finally said, "not too sweet."
Instead of brightening up like fireworks, the blond's face softened. "Right? I thought you'd like it."
At that, Sensei gave her another look. Saya honestly didn't know what to say.
/***/
Obon Matsuri didn't really start when the main festival started, at least not in Grass Country. The prelude to the street festival started days prior with visits to the shrines and family graves, and the cleaning of the grave yard and house shrines. With the extra work came the extra need for labor, and the Scums were out taking small odd jobs the moment Sensei cleared their health. Well, more like the moment Suigetsu was given a clear bill of health since the swordsman arrived last and so the old man took the opportunity to make them rest longer, much to Naruto's displeasure.
The moment they got to work, though. They hardly got a chance to stop. Karin was cooped in the local clinic by Densuke, who needed an extra hand to prepare medicine for the small outbreak of cold prompted by frequent contact between people at this time. The rest of them were mostly just helping where they could. With the promise of the festival ahead, Suigetsu didn't even complain about the boring work.
During that time, the school was closed, allowing for the children to help with the preparation. Naruto was assigned to accompanying the kids on their grave visits. Ran wasn't too thrilled about it, but she didn't object. At the very least, he could carry Ryo when the small boy got tired from all the long walk and hard work. Ryo didn't have a family grave here, but he came anyway. It was probably for the better. Leaving him behind in the orphanage would only reminder that his parents were still alive, just not here.
Akane, on the other hand, was super-enthusiastic about coming to her parents' grave, not something one might envision a child to be. But then, she was still very young. For all she knew, her mother and father would be coming from the other world to visit during Obon, so she needed to prepare a good place for them to rest and offer them a good set of meals at the family shrine. Naruto watched as she and Ran pulled out the weeds from the gravels and scrubbed off the moss and mold from the headstone without as much as a grumble. By the end of it, the family name was clearly visible again, and little Akane was beaming with joy.
The elation didn't mean she wasn't tired. Ryo and Akane ended up swapping places, and the girl was asleep on Naruto's back by the time they were heading home.
Ran could probably use a piggy-back too after cleaning off both hers and Akane's family stones, but she was too proud to show any weakness or asked Naruto to help carry the supplies.
"Nice work today."
Ran looked up at him, a scowl on her face that said 'I don't need your praise.' "Says the person who did nothing," she gritted out.
Naruto shrugged. "Well, you don't want me to mess with your family's grave. And Akane takes pride in taking care of hers. I don't want to take that from her."
"If you know her so well, why don't you stop hurting her?"
The anger in her voice was like a knife to Naruto's chest because he knew he was. He knew it was selfish to come here only to leave again with no promise of ever being back. He knew every excuse he had made about keeping them safe didn't hold a candle to what he was tearing away from Akane every time he turned his back on her. He knew all too well that Ran had been the one to pick up the pieces after he had left. So Naruto let her rail and vent because he knew he deserved every lash from her.
"When are you going to stop living like a ghost?" the girl asked after a long silence. "What makes you so afraid of being alive?"
Naruto had to bite the inside of his cheek. Ran was getting sharper by the day, and he meant both her wit and tongue. She took after Sensei so closely she both frightened him and made him ridiculously proud. "You'll be a great teacher one day," he said. He knew she could see through him by the narrowing of her eyes.
/***/
The work seemed to multiply as Obon night crawled close. Sasuke had been spending a lot of time in the graveyard - cleaning up stones, raking leaves, and pulling weeds all day long.
The more he went to the graves, the less it smelt of death and more of the living. He had seen a family spending their day out there not only to clean but to spend time together having a picnic and watching the last of the leaves fell to the ground. He had seen children dutifully bringing water to wash the stone and new pebbles to replace the old gravel. He had watched people bring blessed items from the shrines to appease upset spirits and help them exist peacefully in the next world. All of the people seemed happy to be there, to care for their dead relatives, to see that all the needs of the souls were met.
Sasuke had never seen any of that in his youth. The Uchiha didn't have a graveyard. They preferred the fire to take them to the afterlife as they believed the flame brought them into this world. The mausoleum was no place for the living, just shelves and shelves of dusty urns stored in musty, dark rooms. He had last set foot in it with the urns of his clan were taken to their resting places, led by the urns of his mother and father. Even then, he didn't really know what he was doing. He was too young to understand the ritual, too distraught to truly be saying goodbye.
He wondered if people here ever said goodbye at all.
Sensei's house shrine was full of small plaques with names carved on them, people who had left their children here due to an untimely departure to the next life and the children who had left this world before their time. And there were so many names. As he helped cleaned the shrine, Kasumi would clean the plaques one by one and tell him stories about them. He didn't know why she felt compelled to say so much since Sasuke knew none of them. Maybe it was to fill the silence. Maybe it was an act of remembrance. Maybe that was just how Obon worked. He didn't know. Konoha didn't remember their dead in this way. They just buried them and moved on.
And for some reason, the raven felt more comfortable like this, just remembering. As he wiped the shelves he remembered how his mother's hand had looked resting on a folded cloth as she dragged it across the table. As he put the plaques back in place, he remembered the silhouette of his father against the window of his study putting the books back on the shelves one by one. When he put the vase of flowers by the side of the shrine, he remembered Shisui and his dog sitting with him in the meadow under the clear blue sky. And as he stood in front of the rows and rows of names he never knew, he suddenly thought that maybe there was no need for a goodbye, not when someone could still remember.
The door slid open and in came Sensei as he looked at the newly cleaned shrine. His eyes traced each plaque, and Sasuke knew that he, too, knew great many things about these people, that he had not yet said his farewells. "Nicely done," he said as he turned to them. His normal reservation gave way to a smile, and Kasumi beamed with joy. "You both must be tired. Let's eat out at the festival tonight."
Kasumi instantly straightened up. "That's expensive, Sensei."
But the old man just hummed. "Not when it's covered." The woman looked puzzled. "Naru and Saya offer to pay for everything."
Kasumi closed her eyes in exasperation, "Those two shouldn't be overreaching themselves."
"I am sure they're not," said Sensei, "although, I'm quite certain that Naru just wants to spoil the kids."
Sasuke snorted at that. "I'm sure he does," he said. He actually wouldn't be surprised if the blond would play pony and carry Akane around all night, buying her everything she wanted.
The mistress seemed to think the same thing as she sighed and got up. "I'm going to have a word with the children before we go out. And, Sasuke-kun, could you come join me in a bit?" The raven blinked at her in surprise, wondering for a second if she needed a hand with the kids, but Kasumi just smiled and said, "It's a surprise."
He didn't like the sound of it, but he went anyway.
/***/
End of Chapter 52
A/N: Although I lifted the name of festival and its spirit right out of the Japanese calendar, a lot of things I wrote comes more from Qingming, which is the Chinese festival of tomb sweeping that seems to work in the same way (except they don't have a night-time community dance fest like Obon and I consider that, as a part-chinese descent, a misoportunity).
Here are the replies to your lovely reviews.
Guest I'm glad to hear you enjoy the story. Yeah, they're idiots, aren't they? I mean, Naruto being the emotionally intelligent one of the two is kind of like Mac being better than PC. Sure, that's true, but that's not saying much.
No one Sorry for the long wait, but here is an update, with more SNS moments. XD
ichigotchi Thanks so much for reading and commenting! Yes, more moments for our boys are coming but also more angst, unfortunately (because these two are idiots and the ninja world suuuuuucks). Yes, this is probably the slowest slow burn to ever exist. XD That's why I have to warn everyone!
Brenda247 Thanks! I actually have more story about Sensei's past than what ended up here. It's just that the pace doesn't allow for an old man to reminisce about something that happens 30 years ago that he normally doesn't talk about. Let's just say, Sensei has a lucky break and since he doesn't want to be found, he never has been. (I can write them down on my tumblr, or wherever my blog ended up going, if that interests you.)
As for Saya, actually her name came up because I thought Sai was not going to be in the story (he is going to be now). Saya is the closest female name that I can think of. Also, as you rightly recognize, it has been used before. I use names from other Japanese stories and anime because then I know I'm not just making them up wrongly. I don't know Japanese, and I'm not going to pretend to.
HaruSutomutaiga9900 I'll try my best! Thank you for reading and commenting!
Guest It's a good thing Sasuke didn't yell at Akane in front of Ran because I don't think Ran's going to let him off on that. And yes, Sensei's taijutsu was the one that took down Sasuke last time. I'm glad you notice! I do have (quite a lot of) backstories for the OCs but unfortunately we are only going superficially into some of them because otherwise the story are going to get sidetracked. If you want, I can write them out on tumblr (or another platform since that place sucks right now), but it's going to come slowly. You're right; Konoha and Hyuuga wouldn't have let Sensei get away if they hadn't thought he was dead.
Invisibleninja12 Oh, don't worry. It's going to go waaaaaay beyond a kiss and you will probably hate me when it happen. (Soon.) The thing is, the part that I'm most interested in about their relationship is what they have to sacrifice and change to be together and stay together. They have to make space for each other in their lives and negotiate compromises, and I do think that's going to be difficult for both of them because neither of them has consciously made that concession before. But that's a long way yet because, honestly, Naruto needs a character development before that can happen.
(In the canon, I don't think they ever learn this. Even in gaiden they end up in relationships where their partners do all the sacrificing for them.)
To be honest with you, they'd probably kiss by chapter five if they weren't these two stubborn morons who have no idea how to deal with emotions. Most SNS AU's I can think off (I put them up on tumblr for adoption, if you're interested) can probably have their relationship resolved within the first ten easily. It's just their ninja selves that are just, URGH!
