Milk and Red Chapter 1: Part I: Suspension, a naruto fanfic

Milk and Red

Disclaimer: Naruto is Kishimoto's property. I'm not making any money from this story.

Warning: Violence, Sex, and Language. Reader Discretion is advised.

AN: Written in the vein of works like Carmilla and Blue, the story offers me a chance to shake off my abnormal habit to stop writing for months on end.

Part I: Suspension

# # # # # #

Roots ran deep, caused the forest to stand tall, breast storm. Man fell. Trees stood. Holy as Time: roots made the difference, made men.

The sword stuck between the jaws, teeth locating grip, chinked like old keys in the pocket . . . a mouth the fat priest could not close. When the good end stuck out the back, it was red everywhere, a hue he was as familiar as a babe was with milk; but he had not tasted milk in years . . .

His garments, bedecked with shiny religious accoutrements, could not conceal the belly's distension; and in agony, on the knees without a prayer in mouth, he thrust it forward, still trying his hardest to make the teeth meet, eyes rotating about extremities, limbs tightening in convulsions; and he perished, mouth wide as hooked fish's . . . even after he had pulled the sword out.

This was it. This was done. A blot on the picture ended what was real . . . to the holy man. Yet the tongue tingled, a mark he wished he could chop off, cast from himself—forget. Up above, a blackness had come; and bedevilled by a willful night, stilly as morning beasts whilst shades drew on, he dreamt . . . little—too little. There was milk and there was red . . . one long drop, shiny about the brother's mouth, that went drip drip drip, pink after a lost red.

Hallowed eyes, haunted vision—dressed with consummate grace, his night had fallen to a disquieting despair, into leaves by the forest's feet, mellow fruits on boughs bountiful that trembled against summer's beat. Leaf . . .

Yet he saw . . . a nacreous visage against a morn's fervour.

I miss . . . thee, darling brother . . .

# # # # # #

Night grew grey towards dawn and danger had begun. In tow at the end of leash, nerves burnt a white hot flame. You could never say no. Leaf was all—fire, a primordial call. A mere glimpse of it could send their emotions into overdrive.

A misstep would only take a little boy so far . . . a gush of anger was to be banked up against resolve; roots stayed under; and often strangled by its own solemnity, they burnt out. Graves (of boys) stood like many teeth, constrained into a forest of stone . . . deep in leaves, gone . . .

The festival was kept up, lively splurge of reds. Rosed with passion's caress, women ran about, wearing their hair twisted up into pin-decorated whorls on either side of their heads. Mellowing loins that oozed, yet he had come for another sign . . .

Another man had strayed far from fire; and into the shadow was his end. He lay enveloped in the skin of a girl . . . one by his feet, bodies glistening against fires; the sheer garments they wore left them as good as naked. He was swift, brain flashing into a white-out with each stroke; three throats, a lot of red, deeper than the jovial nature of merry-making—not within, but without. He left as a silent man, no more noisy than before. Now, a tangerine ray of sunlight illuminated the scroll and ink-soaked brush, a shadow of the bird's cage against it. It was empty . . . he played the ball of his thumb across the rice-paper, a careful task which involved turning the scroll into itself.

One soft summer twilight, just fifteen and only lost . . . spring streamlets sailed in milk . . .

It was a long morn, brother . . . do you remember it the way I do? Speak . . .

# # # # # #

As time passed faster than seasons did about all, men's hearts were to be revitalised toward Leaf. The ones that did not assimilate the love were left without its colour's grace, for into the shadow lay trouble. A fire's spilling within the dark no one saw. How sad to be so . . . lonely?

Yet Leaf's forgetfulness was easy; a cherished ardour, transfiguration of spirit, secured inside a bird's cage that rested on his table. Light ran about, its imitations a dark grey upon the wall, climbing up and up that his room was bedecked with a prisoner's anguish—no tears this time. What was the difference . . . ? He had no answer . . .

In the morning when the sun was up and sky too blue, he had reasoned with the freedom seeker, a large bearded man who specialised in procuring bodies for the medic division—a ghoulish task that lent him an air of untimely mystery.

Persistent, he fired back in a loud retort, jabbed him in the ribs, expressed his loathing for Leaf's dastardly mechanisms. The noise from his cracked lips, hemmed in by a patchy beard that was curly and richly red, drew an instant revulsion from him, a reaction he had not anticipated.

The hand that held the sword moved outwards with a twitch; and in a moment as short as lightning's arrival, the man's throat was cut into perfect two, stopping his inevitable words before they could form. He fell back, eyes wider than they were in anger, blood going from him in long robust arcs, vanishing.

The gorge rosed whilst he witnessed the man writhe, a struggle that was inutile . . . meant for little; and there was nothing more humorous than a fat man rolling in mud . . . after some moments, he was no more than tight pumpkin cheeks, besmeared with red and brown, and contorted limbs in the forest's noise . . .

A night was upon him, a summer that could not leave; and he sat by the table, the cage wavering upon the wall, fire dancing.

Summers that dripped from thy eyes, lips rubicund, traces in honeyed . . . white. A little of you was in the eyes, more of you in the dream's skies.

Brother . . . O', brother . . . where are we now?

# # # # # #

There was something of a forest about him, an odour of summer he spread far and wide. Befouled by tears, men broke to pieces; so from roots' keep, he never strayed far. His spirit entire, a calm that sat upon his face.

When dusk arrived and a quick sheen from the brightest waters vanished, he created curved forms from scrolls that he was meant to send back to Leaf; but the nights were lonely, stains that grew on walls without a passion rubescent and sharp.

The spirit that slept stayed slumbering, in its place the flesh awakening. An infuriate impulse, like a tide, setting in from a place that was sweeter than Leaf's aroma; and it bore down every reason before it . . . and images would cross his eyes . . . a youthful shape compressed in a rich Kimono, bosom bountiful, as the bursting leaves contain spring's blossoming buds.

Leaf's Shinobi, he inspired sanguinary, blood on one side; but this was the meal he had not learnt to taste. His room, frowsty, stuffed with sighs, hand going to squeeze the object that ached and oozed signs thick as sugary syrups. Soon, his palm was slick and slimy, grip spiraling up and down the organ engorged with blood, inmost regions between the thighs clammy.

The state would not pass; and how he wished to slip the excited organ into a tight place, expel the fluids in a fever haste . . . right between the lips whose rim was red as rivers choked up with war's passing; and then it was done, a fervour that from him was on a run, hand coated with long strips of mellow whites.

And when he looked about, the room was emptier than before . . .

You'd shed deciduous teeth some years back, yet I see blood in your mouth! The milk is pink, but you're young, with cheeks pinker than the drink. Brother, tell me what you see . . . I will listen . . .

# # # # # #

Sitting before the sunken fireplace, face enveloped by a tangerine glow, he heard rain fall. Was it summer already? A whole year had gone by whilst he passed from one domain to the next, death in his wake. He left their crooked bodies behind, faces warped in pain. Soon, he would forget who they were, their features hidden behind the black smudge on the pictures—a law he was meant to follow.

The window was closed; light, trapped on the other side, unleashed a darkness that still existed as easily as ink within; and, without, wind pressed against the wooden portal and it creaked, a noise that did not interrupt the memory which was brighter than lightning's sincerity.

So he crossed the legs, took the brush into his hand, which was sure as a mother's, began to paint. Ink moved and flowed and splurged across the scroll that was porous and new; and from the strict movements of black, a face emerged, with eyes half-closed, lashes looking down, a smile dimpling the whole face.

And he had not added a colour to liven the countenance painted in black and white, upon which a diaphanous veil of melancholy fluttered; and hair, silver gossamer against morn's promise, framed that which was meant to show . . . more—the spirit entire like a mountain's face enveloped in mist.

He placed the dripping brush down on the wooden floor and held up the picture and brought it closer to the fire . . . to see! Yet orange increased behind the paper, its teeth circular and black; and soon, he could see the brother's face no longer . . . hear a shaky sign from his lips, feel lashes carrying old burdens . . .

"You woke early," he said, eyes deeper than nights in summer's lights, a glass filled with milk in his hand.

"I'm drawing a picture for you. It's not done yet. You'd have to wait a little more!" I said, an excitement in the voice I can't forget; and he smiled, eyes half-closed, lashes looking down, a smile dimpling the whole face . . .

# # # # # #

With summer set on leaving, there was a staying clam in the air, a fragrance that was of things bygone . . . lost. Leaf's forests began to sleep with an abandon under the stars and their winks that heralded autumn; yet they stayed blinking, shiny fish in the ocean black as ink . . . up above him . . .

Sky was no longer fire's timid imitation at day break, a brittle breast cut open, a vulgarity blue came forth and concealed with livelier hues. Now, a stern red, of passions greater, launched an assault on night's raiment—a red that pressed down upon the horizon's white crescent.

The boy was birthed at a time when the Uchiha sun was dipping—its moon, waning; and together, they turned into his fate, a night when shadow was disrupted with aggression. Alas, children, flowers Leaf wantoned. What a time to be alive . . . ? He did not think much on it. What was there to think? He was meant to carve out the necks, clean his own, leave before light danced delirious with the morn's coming joy . . . day in, day out—day in, day out—day in, day out!

Ah, summer's smile, this boy he was meant to find; so he looked for the last Uchiha Leaf had nurtured to a sapling, a mere boy of fifteen—neither youth nor child, an uncertain time in his short life; and he had chosen to hide away amongst the serpent's coils, an embrace that was as deadly as it was delicious; he that his master had fed on milk had chosen to strike at his hand. Treachery was in a snake's nature, and poisoned, the boy was meant to wither away beyond Leaf's will.

What flower he would have transmuted into? Summer's radiance, red in the eyes, heat in the heart—a child that Leaf would only see but once! How . . . sad? Yet there was no time to slit, no tears to sell, no lies to see; he was to end the boy, gift him red before he wailed in the new cradle he had found with a hopefulness only children possessed. End him—end it all!

"When they give you the rank, we'd have no time to see each other like this," he said, smiling, radiating against a kind sun.

"I'll always come and see you!" I said, my smile a lesser imitation . . .

# # # # # #

To find the boy was a task most easy: he set out to locate the serpent, with whom the boy lived his days and nights. His own company was of a boisterous boy with hair sunny; a girl that stayed in dreamy spring; a man who appeared . . . peculiar. He could tell that he was not to be trusted.

Out there, rivers moved behind the pall of black clouds. Was it time for northern storms to create trouble already? How time passed him by, a winter whose whisper was but an echo the land had begun to listen; and, soon, the forest would cherish a death with a sweetness he, too, was intimate with.

They all passed by willowy lands that slept—touched by a prosaic calm evermore, they yawned till night was entire. Then a music was born that disturbed his sleep, his dreams more. What was he looking for? He could not say; he had never been the type to dream . . . to dream more than that single memory. Now, he searched for a boy he had not seen. Strange . . .

The ghost came to scratch at his love, flare it up, turn it into a rash that burnt redder. It would not leave here, his spirit, and he could not cure the affliction with a medic-made balm—it was common, though his condition was not. How he was hurting, a dark running about when morning died, bleeding out across the horizon in richer arcs. If only the night could hear the echo in his breast, too; and he lay down on his back, looking straight up, whilst rain fell from broken clouds.

The dream could not affright his heart—no, it haunted his spirit to search for the acme of his anguish. He, too, was a boy, albeit he had never quite lived to be one . . . what was it like to be a . . . boy? And he looked upon the stars, and they blinked back . . . unanswering . . .

"Really?" he said, his smile pinker than spring's love. "I'd wait for you every night by the stream. We can catch fish!"

"Maybe I can draw you by night, brother!" I said, looking upon the hair whose grey was accumulating the morn with a hunger I'd never seen . . .

# # # # # #

Spirit, unprotected from the depredations of memory, stayed in unease. Nights came; nights went—morn was sullied by autumn's challenge; sky, a jittering maiden, turned grey, swooned when storm's wrath descended. The rains would not stop . . .

The vertiginous valleys stayed cloaked in mist whilst he followed the snake and his sure apprentice. Find the boy—kill him! the words would come, each a stab, each a song, each a breath. Had he not done that . . . a thousand times before? Yet a blur was the memory of it all; he, Leaf's thrall. What passion to draw it all out—one stroke at a time? The mark itched upon his tongue.

From Konoha's keep, the boy had run far; now, he called unto him, a seduction he felt in the air, dancing about. The serpent, teasing his tongue, taunting his eyes, temping his mien, told him of the boy he thought to be his King! You became a king when you fell away from Leaf's shade? What a strange thing to say? And at that moment, a little flutter invaded his heart, but his spirit looked away in a shame that it loved . . .

Birds flew from his scroll, their wings watery, black, solid—a trick he had learnt from someone whose face he had all but forgotten. Is that not all what a life was, a scroll upon which shades were meant to fade . . . ? He had not known it to be any less true; so he drew, and he drew furiously, and he drew happily of a boy that was a lost, a smile days had condemned, a red that was jovial still . . .

By night, Leaf was etiolated; his mind, strongest; and then he would dream of the boy he had loved ever since he learnt to hold the brush in his fingers with more bravery than he had ever learnt to hold the sword. The mark itched and it itched some more till his spirit was tender as a wound.

At last, he stood before a great snake sleeping as stone; and a diaphanous mist that stood between the boy and him; and his eyes made him feel bare . . .

"Brother!" I said, watching a succulent red paint the lips as delicately as flowers; and just a bit of it trickled down into the milk, and it turned into spring . . .

# # # # # #

I drew the spirals—I drew them over and over again. Black against white till the latter's pristine nature had all but vanished behind the strokes that were short and jittery about my brother's face . . . it was as though evil existed in light's shadow. I didn't know what to make of it . . .

They took him away—took him from me; and here I sat by the sea, away from home where my heart was; and when my eyes lit upon the stars, I saw night framed in a delicate filigree of storm—bright light that tore open the sky with a savagery that I'd never seen; and blood flowed out as beautifully as whites from the divine.

In the painting that lay in my lap, sun wound through white hair as easily as gold. The smile on my brother's lips felt more like a dream. When did I see him last? . . . was it truly so long ago? In my dreams, blood had turned so vivid that I couldn't tell shadow from murder. When it spilt, it was . . . ordinary, almost mundane, like a thing meant to be forgotten.

The spring that fell from my brother's lips . . . I couldn't forget; every drop, a memory, a blade in my heart. Is that what they called love . . . ? Then it gentled my heart, that knife, slow and hurting till I felt it come from my eyes . . . how I wanted to not forget—to never forget—your spring, oh, brother . . . where are you now when I'm lost without you . . . ?

# # # # # #

This heart had learnt to let go, but spirit fought on, his brother in arms. An armistice, a silent acceptance. He had made peace with his better half that he would always be restless . . .

Here, flora deodorised the air, made it passionate. Erewhile, children passed by when sun was gaining a livelier colour; they had come to pluck herbs from the shrubbery that grew untamed about the graveyard. Standing here now, he did not know why he had come by . . .

He stood at a juncture between Leaf and brother; but where to go—whom to seek when he, without Leaf's summer, was but vile? What a thought that could germinate and grow into . . . love?

He sat down, back against tree and Leaf, and gazed upon the old grave of his brother, thinking, remembering, nurturing a thought that took form inside a diaphanous spectre that smiled more beautifully than spring . . .

"Brother!" I shouted, looked intently at the droplets that turned the milk pinker, a disbelief assailing me as easily as spirits.

He only looked back, bleeding from the little mouth, straining to smile. He had been ill, but it was never this severe!

"Let me take you to the medic—come with me!" I shouted again, an urgency overwhelming my typically drab tone of voice; he hesitated, but went along . . .

Then night passed into day and day into night, and . . . I never saw him again . . . they told me that the wound I had inflicted on his body gave him an infection that slowly consumed him from the inside . . . and he perished in his sleep when I was away from home. No farewells—no goodbyes . . . it ended before I had a chance to tell him that I loved him . . . that I was capable of the love he spoke of . . .

. . . how unfair to remember but not live in the past? A burden most tantalising . . .

"Brother, I . . . " he paused, throat burning with the fire of passion, " . . . I . . . I love you. Would you forgive me?" And Sai looked upon the stone that stayed quiet as ghosts, forgotten, unable to break the silence that pooled into the valley. The dead were too quiet to bear . . .

Moon, in ghostly shimmers, danced along the stones that stood tall and quiet at night, flora swaying in the breeze. Perhaps it was a better place to rest—bereft of burden; and Sai smiled, got his feet, laid down a white flower on the stone. "I'd come by soon and show you what I've made. You'd see, wouldn't you?" he said and listened to his voice disappear slowly into the air that was smooth and mellow. "Rest, brother. We'd meet again . . . "

Then he turned and walked away, a smell of flowers in his head . . .

# # # # # #