Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto . . . Naruto is the owned by Kishimoto-sensei.

A/N: The hiate should actually be called Hitai-ate headband. Gomen. I had to dig out the first volumes from my stack and noticed it by chance. I am also not all that aware of what to call a ninja for Kumogakure or if Raikage is the right term for their leader. ^^; Feel free to correct me if you know the correct term and I will change it if it's not correct. Gomen again. ^~^;


Chapter 3

Sasuke walked into his small, dark, mostly empty apartment. He only had the necessities. A bed, a dresser, a nightstand with a lamp and a small table where he ate and wrote his scrolls. He had a pile of books and scrolls arranged in alphabetical order or by date neatly stacked on the floor at the foot of his bed. He had three rooms; the room he was standing in as he closed and locked the door behind him in the dark, a kitchenette; where he cooked his own meals, and a small bathroom fit for one person.

He knew that his table, working, eating area was exactly ten paces in front of him from the front door. His kitchenette was then twelve paces from the end of the table to the right. Five paces forward from the table and ten paces to the left was where the bathroom door was. If you stepped out of the bathroom the bed was ten paces to the left if you were facing the room. He walked over to his bathroom and opened the door then turned on the light.

The bathroom was all white, the shower curtains black, the only thing that gave away he was living there at all. Inside the drawer closest to the door was a brush, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a razor blade made for shaving. He hated the cheap razors because they left his face feeling itchy when he shaved.

Everything was always kept orderly and clean. He always left a black towel with a change of clothes sitting on the sink so that he could shower when he got home. He kept everything spotless and orderly because it kept his mind from wandering, and that was how his parents had kept everything. It was second nature for him to do so himself.

The light from the bathroom showed that he had faded, redish brown carpet and blank white walls. But the rest of the room was cut off as he closed the door behind him. He left his mind blank as he went through the routine of removing his clothes, setting the temperature to scroching hot, showering, brushing his hair, shaving, brushing his teeth, then dressing.

He always wore the same thing, he had countless outfits that were all exactly the same. He wore a loose, long sleeved, black shirt with a pair of baggy black pants that hung at his hips over a pair of black, cotton boxers. He finished up and numbly cleaned the bathroom before walking out and taking from his dresser another pair of clean clothes for tomorrow night and a towel from the second drawer.

He went through the same thing everyday, in the morning he would change into a black muscle shirt with white shorts, head to the training grounds of the village, train until noon, then go to the bookstore after stopping to eat at a ramen shop for a quick lunch. Then after working until ten at night when the bookstore closed, he would stop by Juugo's, have a cup of hot tea, then he would thank him and head to his apartment along the border of the village.

He would get home, shower, clean, organize everything in numerical order if it was alphabetical, then alphabetical if it was numerical, clean the rest of the apartment, read one of his books, always the first one, for an hour, then got to sleep.

Juugo always made him eat dinner and he would show up in the morning just to remind him to eat lunch. He would always show up just before he would leave to train. His bed was a twin bed laid down on the floor, his nightstand a previous footrest he'd painted black, his table was black and low to the ground. His sheets, pillows, and the blanket were a mixture of red and black silk. In his kitchen, the dishes were all a deep red. He had replaced the white fridge with a black one, as well as the stove.

He only kept the makings for breakfast, bacon, eggs, bread, butter, milk. He had nothing else in his fridge. Inside his pantry was stocked with endless ramen, he always made sure there was instant ramen. He would have a cup when he felt particularly stressed or depressed. It was a reminder of the one that was always on his mind. A reminder of why he still lived and allowed Juugo to look after him, of why he refused to become a Kumonin.

Once he had finished organizing everything out of routine he cleaned the already spotless apartment. He hadn't even noticed he'd removed his shoes at the door. He scrubbed down everything, washed every dish again, swept the white tiled floor of the kitchen and bathroom, mopped it, swept the carpet, then he cleaned the mop and bucket, put them back against the fridge and place the broom upside down on the wall next to the fridge to hang from two nails in the wall placed at the perfect height for the brooms handle to touch the ground and the broom to stand perfectly straight.

He then walked over to the stack of books after turning off the light for the kitchen, turning on his lamp, turning off the light for the main room, the light switch being to the right of the door when you walked into the apartment. He took the first book from the stack, something about the history of genjutsu.

He no longer read the book, he had it memorized by now, even though his eyes only scanned the words. He would just open the book to the first page and turn the page after one minute and fifteen seconds exactly. That was normally how long it took his to read something.

He'd let his hair grow to the middle of his back in the back and the bangs reached his collar bone now. He knew he needed to get a haircut, but didn't want to be bothered being around the general public long enough to do so. He thought he had despised socializing before, now he loathed it. Every time he heard a child laugh or shout excitedly he would think of him. Every time he saw someone with blond hair he would think that their hair wasn't bright enough, spiky enough, is wasn't like his hair. Every time he noticed someone had blue eyes he would think that their eyes weren't blue enough, there's wasn't enough of that obnoxious cheerfulness in them. When he saw someone in orange he would snap and tell them that they looked horrible in that color.

When he ate at the ramen shop for lunch, he couldn't sit there and eat the ramen because his mind would image him sitting there next to him slurping his ramen and trying to talk fast with ramen in his mouth. He hated smiles as well, because they just weren't anything like his, they weren't smiles that brightened a room or made you feel like you were looking at the sun.

So he resigned himself to avoid social situations whenever he could help it. He worked in a bookstore on the other side of the village because he knew no one really shopped there. That bookstore got the least business. He lived in an apartment near the borders of the village because he knew that there wasn't much there. He trained at the training grounds after eight because he knew no one would be there.

The war had ended and without that chaos keeping him focused on something, everything crashed in on him. With the revealed truth of his clan, the hidden scrolls he'd found of Kabuto's and the snake-nin, and then locating his brother's journals and Madara's after he'd killed him, he had felt as though life had been sucked right out of him.

He found out that Madara had every intention of continuing the legacy that his father had tried to go through with. But that wasn't really a shock, he'd been using Madara as well to seek revenge on Konoha in his rage. It was a misplaced rage, his anger belonged to the council, the elders, and the already dead hokage's before, with the exception of the Yondaime. There was no need to destroy the village and kill what innocents still existed there.

He closed his book and sighed as he got up from his place on his bed. He put the book back and knowing his mind was still racing through memories walked over to the black curtained window fifteen paces from the end of the table. He pulled the curtain back to look outside.

There were one story buildings stretching across the village. It wasn't as claustrophobic as the village of Konoha, but he could easily say that at least ten thousand or so people resided in the village. It wasn't mountainous or surrounded by a forest, rather it was flat land, plains. There was a river running across the front of the gates. A wooden bridge had been built across the river.

Towards the southeast, running along the ocean side was a large city. The lights from the city didn't break through to reach the village, thanks to the high altitude, the clouds really did hide Kumogakure well. All around the village was the ocean other than where the gate was. The main village, the one where the majority of the ninja lived, was at the closest part of Kumo no kuni. There was another village, much bigger deeper into the country. That village was where the Raikage resided, along with the beginning ninja and ranks below Jonin.

It was up to the more advanced ninja to ensure no enemies entered the country. Sasuke had tried to remain in the more hidden part of the village, but after he'd saved the village from an attack from Iwagakure's ninja the Raikage had him move to the village fit for the elite ninja.

Sasuke refused over and over again to join their ranks, but said nothing of why he refused. Only Konoha and it's leaders knew he was the reason Suna and Konoha had dominated and finally ended the war. They were still repairing the village and the scars left upon the family and friends of the enemy village's ninja were still raw, open wounds.

Sasuke remained in the village because he had been accepted, never questioned, and mostly left alone due to the Raikage's orders. He wished to return to his home land, but only because he knew Naruto was there. He didn't return because he truly did worry about shattering if he had to face the truth of why he'd suffered so much pain. Then he would come across memories that were fake, memories that involved people falsely loving him so that he never suspected that they meant to kill him. Then that the only one that had cared had mislead him purposely to save him from the pain of loosing the one person that had pure intentions the entire time.

It hurt every waking moment to think of his clan, of his brother, of his teammates, of Naruto . . . of the one who tested his patience, got under his skin in a way no one else ever could. The one that had saved him, that had brought life back into his life, the one he'd betrayed because he knew that he would forget all about killing Itachi at the time if he stayed. He knew he was already forgetting about his pain, that empty void in him was filling.

He let his eyesight fade and his eyes traveled down to look downcast at the street below, there were a few wanders, most likely calling it a night after visiting a bar or pub down the road. He noticed a block up, entering a small house, were two men, in their early twenties walking together. Well, they were staggering, the taller, brown haired one had an arm around the red haired, shorter one. They were only a inch or two apart in height.

Sasuke watched them, unable to pull his eyes away from the sight. They staggered to the door and he saw the red head lean against the door and pull the brown haired one into an embrace. Then the brown haired guy snaked his arms around the others waist and leaned in, kissing him square on the lips.

Sasuke felt a jolt run through him, they kissed sloppily and Sasuke closed his eyes, stepped away from his window, and he leaned back against the wall right beside it. He let himself slide down the wall to sit with his knees to his chest, his mind already running rampant. At that instant, he had envisioned the couple were him and Naruto. His heart ached in longing of how much he truly wished it would be.

He moved to hug his arms around his legs and rested his forehead on his arms. It hurt so much to be away from him knowing how he felt, knowing how much he longed to be near Naruto again, how he longed for his feelings to be return. They were emotions only Naruto could stir in him, even after so long of living in a fog, with pain ever present, not caring what the cost was to achieve his goals . . . the thought, just the thought of Naruto brought meaning and real, down into the depths of his soul, emotion, feeling, lust to him. He felt so alive when he was with Naruto and felt as though his heart was being ripped from his chest when he pointed out to himself that he wasn't there . . .

This was why he never broke his routine, why he always did the same tedious tasks everyday. He didn't want his mind to wander, his heart to awaken, not to feel the heartache of wanting something he could never have.

"Why?" Sasuke's rarely used and therefore scratchy, whisper of a voice asked to the empty room.

"Why do I have to feel this way? Why can't I just be an Avenger, why can't I hate him for making me feel? Why in the hell do I . . . why do I feel . . . tied down . . . unable to die . . . why . . . why him . . . Why?"