A/N: Sasuke and Naruto interlude.
"I still can't trust her," Sasuke thought out loud into the stillness of his bedroom.
Near him, Naruto groaned. "I thought you were finally getting to sleep, Teme."
"Not while I'm thinking like this," he retorted.
There was some muffled grumbling before the blond finally sighed and turned over in the next bed to face him. He could almost see his tired friend's cerulean eyes blinking at him in the dark.
"It's too hard to," he continued.
Naruto yawned and scratched his belly. "Just give it a try, Sasuke," he encouraged quietly. "It'll bring you closer, y'know. She's kind. I highly doubt you'd offend her."
"That's not the whole problem," Sasuke argued. "What if she decides she can't be here anymore? I'm… I'm so broken, Naruto. I can't open up. I can't risk her leaving me."
At this, Naruto paused. He got up from bed, swinging his legs over the side and walking over to Sasuke's. His face was soft with compassion as he leaned over, hugging his best friend tight.
"Sasuke," he quietly replied, "trust me when I say she would never, ever do that. Even I can see how fond she is of you."
Sasuke hid his face away in the pillow, taking in Naruto's evanescent scent of sandalwood and the salty ocean breeze. He spent a quiet moment in contemplation before quietly admitting, "Itachi would have liked her."
Naruto said nothing in reply. There was nothing he could say, not when Sasuke was finally opening up like this. It felt akin to ripping off a band-aid from what was a nasty, festering sore.
"I… I should hate him," he continued with a troubled voice. "I should despise him for what he did. I hate him. I hate Itachi."
The blond's hand squeezed his shoulder. "But you don't," he gently pointed out.
"I… I don't," he weakly agreed with a shaky sigh. "I miss him. More than anything, I wish Itachi were here. He'd know what to do."
He continued to speak as Naruto's hand moved to his soft black hair. "I wish things hadn't happened the way they did. I wish my parents weren't changing into people I can't recognize anymore. I wish the townspeople didn't look at me with disgust and fear. I…"
He sighed, moving so that he could look up at his best friend. His face was exhausted, sad, resigned. "I wish things would change for the better, Naruto. I wish we could go back to the way things were."
"Me too, man," Naruto finally spoke again, quiet and reflective. "Me too."
A/N: Please tell me what you think!
