a/n: 2020 shouldn't even be considered an official year with the streak of tragedies it keeps carrying in. Just putting this out there.
. . .
...you see me standing but i'm dyin' on the floor (II)
Summary of the chapter:
Naruto was never a liar.
And yet, he keeps tacking on lie after lie.
. . .
Naruto doesn't go out of his way to eat anymore. Not eating is not a wholly conscious choice, but hunger is not a primary need either. Not anymore, at least, his body has squashed down the pangs of hunger so thoroughly he barely feels them anymore, even his need for water is slowly dwindling since drinking is starting to feel like a drag too. And sometimes he doesn't even bother, just waits until the thirst and nauseating hunger pass on their own.
Which is why ninety-eight percent of his diet lately consists of what Sakura feeds him. Like this evening, when she has once again taken it upon herself to do the grocery shopping for him. Naruto doesn't know if she knows exactly, but he's had his suspicions that she has her own suspicions- and yes, she definitely suspects his intake of food has gone downsloping.
Naruto feels guilty over it, he doesn't want her to waste her hard earned money on him, doesn't deserve it, but every time he even tries to pay her back or outright refuse it's one hell to go through, because when Sakura puts her mind to something, nothing can stop her. And he simultaneously adores and fears her stubbornness (and shares it, too).
Sakura is now standing by the door of his room, surveying the disarrayed state it's in, with hands on her hips and a doting smile on her face. "Well. This room is a mess."
Naruto pouts. Just a bit. "No, it's not." Yes, yes it is.
"It's okay." A light chuckle fills her voice warmly. "It's a mess that can be fixed."
She starts by collecting the trash on the floor and Naruto sighs, but it's mostly for show as he gets to work too.
Sakura however looks almost alarmed at the effort on his part. "Oh no, Naruto, you don't need to–"
"Sakura-chan, we've barely completed a mission today." He states a little curtly, because it's more than just a little absurd to let her keep his space clean, the space he is constantly messing up. People cleaning up other people's messes has never and will never sit well with him...but the particular thought has his mood suddenly darkening. "I'm not tired." He presses a little quieter, but reassuring.
Sakura wilts a bit, not entirely inclined on his words. But the smile is still gracing her face. "Okay."
It's when the floor is almost cleaned spotless and they move towards the furniture next, that an abrupt thought downs on him, strikes him like thunder.
His closet. It's where he hid the scroll. In a half-assed attempt to keep it 'out of sight, out of mind' Naruto had the mind to hide it beneath layers of clothing and gear. If she happens to see it now...
And it's almost in slow motion as he stands there, the way he takes in how she walks up in its immediate vicinity, mindless of its contents and dallying by it.
Naruto stops too, his heart kicks up in his chest with the pressure of the realization, the wreck that would break out on them if she knew about the looming fate awaiting Sasuke.
She opens the closet, hanging one of his clean shirts inside with practiced ease. Not a single line of apprehension creases her face, while it's all Naruto feels.
The pressure grips him in all its rigidity, limbs going numb from the strain of keeping himself locked in place, and for a moment, for a single-handedly stifling, terrible moment, Naruto wishes for her to find out about it.
But against luck of the draw and against his better judgement, she doesn't.
"Dinner?" Sakura is soon asking, completely oblivious to the turmoil set in motion inside of him that is latterly bordering on unending.
Naruto breathes out in barely concealed exertion, a bead of sweat dragging chilling goosebumps down his nape.
"Dinner." He agrees after a slow beat.
He doesn't know if he should feel relieved or disappointed. But he feels neither, except for a whit of consternation creeping in, sinking in edges into him.
While stepping into the kitchen he absent-mindedly wonders how he'll be able to stomach another meal when it's only been seven hours since his last. The sight of his fridge is no encouragement either, pathetically empty if not for a lopsided stick of negi and a bruised tomato wasting away inside it.
But Sakura is already taking out the groceries and washing something by the sink. "You might want to lend a hand if you want our dinner to taste good, though."
"Since when do you need my help?" Naruto asks a bit dumbfounded.
Because Sakura has always had a certain system around it, a structure and order in which she does things, and cooking is definitely one of them. She's also much better at it when she has no one buzzing around and distracting her.
"I like what you make." He adds the compliment, but it's true.
Her cooking is not stellar (and she's definitely nowhere near Kiba's level, the boy's got a mean hand in the kitchen, innate talent seriously, no matter how much Naruto pretends he's the better 'chef' of the two), but he actually, actually likes it. Apart from her 'pills', she can manage to put something together on the spot and do a good enough job at it, plus different flavors often mean surprising combinations and Sakura is quite good with improvisation.
Sharing a meal with someone instead of eating alone is probably another reason why the food ends up tasting so great to him.
She cranes her head back with the beginnings of a not-exactly-pretend pout. "Try telling that to Sai." And her emerald eyes narrow in not-exactly-feigned irritation, too. "He had no qualms about telling me that my cooking sucks."
Naruto clicks his tongue. "Oh c'mon, don't listen to that douchebag." He walks up to her and draws her close in one of their familiar one armed half hugs. "You know half the time he's talking shit, and the other half he's talking out his ass."
"That's not very nice." Sakura returns, her pouting scowl morphing into a grin as she dries her hands on the nearest towel and also returns the hug, both arms wrapping around his torso.
He pretends to let out a heavy sigh at that. "It's not like we aren't all doing it, so it technically doesn't count as an insult."
She chuckles and he shows a little smile, and they sway a bit in place as Naruto places his head on top of hers. This kind of hugging is one of his favorites in the whole wide world, there is just that special kind of comfortable that always keeps him warm and at ease.
Sakura hums after almost a minute of the gentle swaying. "By the way, tonight's menu includes vegetables, just letting you know."
Naruto almost breaks their swaying hug, protesting with a very light, whiny quality to his voice. "Sakura-chan, no."
"Sakura-chan, yes." She is clearly not taking no for an answer either. "If I didn't buy them you wouldn't even know what vegetables look like."...And, well, that's mostly the truth actually? This time she's the one clicking her tongue. "You know you're lucky you're cute because my patience isn't endless. Ask Ino."
Naruto snorts. "You're lucky you're cute." He returns, gently pinching her cheek.
She smiles at him with a glimpse of her teeth showing and a small dimple making itself known against his thumb. "I won't just force you to eat something you don't like, don't worry, I'll make it really spicy, just for you."
Naruto grumbles a bit, but he's clearly pleased at the new information. "...Okay, yeah, fine. I'm eating the damn vegetables." Yes, he loves spicy stuff, so what, sue him. And he'll be damned if he doesn't force himself to stomach another meal today.
The meal prep goes rather smoothly too, except for one mishap here and another there—'...uh, what's that?', 'it's eggplant', 'yeah, no', 'oh come on, don't give me that look, it's tasty', 'sure, as tasty as Sai's compliments' which startled quite a laugh out of Sakura and almost ruined their dinner in the process. But they manage, anyway.
So now he's setting up the table while she's plating up their dinner and it's not long at all until they are both sitting down to eat, on opposite ends. But since his table is fairly small, and fairly square, they are fairly close too.
The mindless chatter and dancing around the subjects is less upsetting right now, somehow. The disconnection he felt earlier with Iruka is not here with Sakura, and is not there with Kiba, or with Gaara, and it's definitely not there with Hinata either. With others, however...
Speaking of, someone he actually wants to stop having any sort of connection towards—be it mysterious, 'ghostly', unwittingly emotional, or otherwise—decides this is the perfect moment to intrude.
Sasuke is now sitting backwards on one of the chairs, elbows crossed over the back of it, exactly in the middle between them and, ironically enough, Naruto is reminded of the first few months in Team Seven, when he thought Sasuke would only be a thorn in his and Sakura's side.
Well, talk about being a thorn now...rather than a thorn he is more of a knife, actually. And, very generally, just a pain in the ass.
"Oh, so you go from apparent fasting to eating twice a day?" His taunting is palpable. "Good to know. I'd call it progress, really, though we both know you're forcing yourself not to choke right now. But, hey, at least you look a little less sick than this morning."
Naruto would like to crumple up this morning and preferably erase it from his memory at once, but of course the sole witness to the whole 'sinking down the wall and curling up in my bathroom floor' jiff has to bring it up and remind him of it.
The hold on his chopsticks grows tighter and déjà vu is hitting him all over again. Today Sasuke is even more insufferable than usual. And maybe there is something bugging him, but that doesn't give him any sort of right whatsoever to bug Naruto about it right back.
After a second too long he's pushing away the plate, suddenly having lost all the willpower to pretend his appetite still exists somewhere in the depths of his stomach.
"Full already?" Sakura asks a little agitated, though not disappointed since he managed to eat half of his share.
"Yeah." He simply mutters.
"That's okay." She whispers, understanding.
His hand is lying idly by the smooth wood of the table, and in a split second decision he reaches across to hold hers, wanting warmth.
She reaches back, automatically so with how often they do this as of late, tenderly brushing her thumb against his whiting knuckles in an almost rhythmical pattern to sooth him.
"It's okay." She says once more, gently, meaning it in an altogether different way now.
"Is it really?" Sasuke cuts in with a sneering little rise in the corner of his mouth directed his way. "Why don't you tell her that nothing's wrong, like you told me? Why don't you tell her that you're just fine?"
Naruto barely holds onto his breath, onto his increasing frustration. Seriously? He's pushing this issue now?
But Sasuke keeps his unwavering eyes on him, challenging.
"Why won't you tell her?"
And Naruto instantly knows what he is talking about, and maybe the ominous scroll hasn't just been sitting in the back of his mind all these days.
"Naruto?" Sakura's expression is the complete opposite of Sasuke's, and side by side the comparison is almost funny in its contrast. Her eyes soften. "Is something wrong?"
And maybe, maybe the reason why he wants her to know about the scroll so badly is to see the weight of such news unravel in front of his eyes. See the raw tenderness of it written across her face in stark clarity.
...Because maybe then it would make sense for him too.
Maybe the frightening danger Sasuke is in would finally dawn on him.
And then, maybe then, he wouldn't feel so...desensitized towards it, towards this whole ordeal concerning Sasuke.
But...
"Nothing." He blurts out, finally.
...But he can't do this to Sakura. He can't do something this cruel to her, to one of his closest friends, to one of the dearest people in his life.
He can't open up a wound inside of her and watch it bleed just hoping his own painless scarred tissue will make sense.
"All these secrets, Naruto." Sasuke leans away, the edge of his smirk only deepening. "I never thought you'd be such a good keeper. Maybe you should be entrusted with more confidential matters, don't you think?" And the edge to his voice turns sharp, dangerous almost. "...Your ability to keep everything to yourself is admirable, as always."
The frustration is sinking into exasperation, into bitterness, simmering under his skin. His attitude, his choice of words, it's all successfully getting to him. And he can't allow that.
"Naruto?"
Naruto's focus snaps back like an elastic band pulled too tight, but not broken yet. Uneasy, his posture draws slightly inward, hesitation almost pouring out of him.
"...It's nothing." He says again in a harder voice, but quieter. He doesn't know if he is dismissing Sasuke's laid out claims, or if he is repeating the evasive answer to Sakura.
Because, the thing is, this is simply not the truth.
Naruto was never a liar.
And yet, he keeps tacking on lie after lie. And they keep piling up and up, and on top of each other, clumping together into a spiteful tangle he might eventually be forced to unravel.
Dinner and the clean up end up rather peacefully, due to Sasuke deciding to keep to himself all of a sudden. His mood shifts are almost giving Naruto whiplash, it's ridiculous.
At one point he sees Sakura eyeing the clock by the side of the wall. "You need to go home?"
"I have a shift at the hospital." She answers, apologetic.
He's already in search of his jacket. "S'fine, I'll walk you there."
"You don't need to–"
But again, Naruto doesn't let her stop him. "I'm not letting you go there on your own in the middle of the night."
And it's quite clear that Sakura is doing her best to keep an eye roll to herself. "It's not that far, and it's not even midnight yet."
Naruto can't do much but shrug at the facts. "Yeah, well. It'll be in a couple of hours."
Sakura lets out a weary little sigh, but smiles nonetheless. "Okay, then. Let's go."
Sakura might have taken her protectiveness up to a new, almost belligerent notch, but his protective streak has doubled just as much, and tripled too over time. He can't help it, he feels better knowing his friends are safe, and that he is somehow doing everything he can to ensure their safety, no matter if they actually need it or not.
Sasuke doesn't follow them, Naruto notices, and he is entirely fine with this circumstance. He needs to put distance between them and walk off his infuriating words, still hanging about in his head and threatening to wreak havoc.
When he gets back it's almost an hour later. It's quite the haul making it to his lit up kitchen, until he finally slouches down in his chair, leaning back and staring unfixed at his empty table.
To his left Sasuke is still in the same position he left him in, although the arrogance is now more polished around the edges, subdued. Simply put, he looks tired. As worn out as Naruto feels. And he can almost hear the whir of his thoughts, wondering what the other boy might be thinking of right now.
"Why didn't you tell her?" Sasuke finally breathes out, his voice carries over in a whisper, engulfing the space between them in a silent wave of words.
Naruto doesn't make the effort to look him in the eyes, he is not met halfway either. "...she'll find out eventually."
"And what will you do if that happens?"
He lifts his head, raises his eyes high enough to see him, watches the way the light from the overhead lamp casts long shadows down his face. And for a moment it depicts him older than he really is, picturing him underneath an overcast of exhaustion that knows no physical bounds.
It almost hurts, for a lonely moment. Naruto looks away.
Whatever he answers right now would sound like an excuse to his own ears as well, so he doesn't answer at all.
