"...put a price on emotion, I'm looking for something to buy."
[Prequel to: All I See Is What Is Left Of Your Ghost]
Full Summary:⇩
"...I've always liked kids like you so much. Kids with walls up so high they've buried themselves inside."
{alternatively: what happens when two perceptive kids are playing pretend with everyone else while buried deep inside their walls, but try to tear apart each other's barricades once they find this same curious pattern in one another; in the meantime striving to keep up their own pretences as their game begins to unfold… what the hell might possibly go wrong?}
(...and what could possibly go right?)
I close my eyes and the flashbacks start...
.
.
present day
.
The fold of the night is an infinite vastness falling over itself, swirling around the windswept smattering of stars as they blend into the limitless curtain of the rolling darkness and midnight clouds.
Winter infuses the air, smelling crisp, smoldering, the moreish aroma of roasting chestnuts brings a flimsy sense of heat springing from the cold.
Naruto is sitting with legs loosely crossed over the frosted, vacant gravel of a flat roof. He's nursing an half empty can, a hot drink that Sasuke bought for him a while ago. Sasuke used to do this from time to time when they were younger, Naruto muses.
"Did you bring me here so you'd have no witnesses to the killing?" He mumbles airily. A little fraught, a little apathetic.
Sasuke is lying down a couple of feet away from him, with his head cushioned below the cross of his arms while he watches the unfolding darkness, as if looking for a concealed pattern of mapped out constellations only he can see the overlapping streaks of.
"Ah, you and your mordant sense of humor." Sasuke sighs with lilting, dramatic fashion, exhaling loudly around the edges of his grin. "It's one of the reasons why I like you though."
He says it so easily, says things like this with such effortlessness, as if the drag of months was meant to dull the surprise of it. As if Naruto should be used to his openness by now.
Time is an elusive thief, that way.
For a moment Naruto is wrenched back, brightly, desperately thinking of his teacher, and it lights up the edges of the night in a flashing carousel of glowing memories playing around the ring of his mind. Before inexorably dying, too.
He should go shattering like stained glass, like the warmth of that childish ride going round and round inside a globe sprinkled with feathery snowflakes and leftover wonder. But there's not much of him left to break.
Time draws on like the notes to a swan song, the slow cadence of a hushed tune, a unheard melody setting golden and alight a safe byway in the dark.
"You want to know a secret?" Sasuke's murmur seems in accord to the inaudible lullaby permeating the open space. "...I've always liked kids like you so much. Kids with walls on all sides."
His whisper is sucked right out of the dark blue. He's uttering with such unguarded ease a liability that should have never been acknowledged over the bruise of knuckles and knees skinned bloody.
"With walls up so high they've buried themselves inside." The quietness cracks over the glasslike wonder, fading beneath his heavy lids and his own snow globe of stained memories. "People like that have always seemed so strong to me."
This is… possibly the loneliest Sasuke might have ever sounded, Naruto thinks vaguely desolated.
His softened gaze is slow to fall on him. But when it does, it's a stitched gash opened anew, a gaping wound staring at him as he stares back through his own, bleeding still.
And Sasuke smiles, repentant, gentle, around the broken stitches of it, with the smear of a wet shadow gathering lonely at the corners of his eyes.
"Have I ever told you? You look so damn strong buried behind your high walls."
Naruto is left frozen, scorched and freezing, mouth opening a sliver but he's sitting speechless into his wide eyed surprise, stewing inside the nooks of it.
...How can Sasuke say this while not knowing, while not having a single clue this was why he started liking him so much in the first place, that Naruto was first drawn to him due to this exact same reason.
"But, you understand, I can't let you keep doing that." Sasuke draws himself to sitting up, too, his usual liveliness slipping back on and energizing him. "So I'm going to tear them down." He keeps on whispering, as if not daring to disrupt the silent nighttime mantle they're enshrouded beneath, but this time doing so around childlike glee, around a promise. "One by one."
His smile stretches wider with sincerity, dripping with the softness of lacquered arrogance, a myriad of emotions through a kaleidoscope of gleaming colors.
"...Until there's nothing left."
Naruto feels as though he's seeing him splittingly clear through the crystallized hurt sporadically beating under the thinness of his pulse. Through the singeing heat of tears glazing his vision over the boldness of the seeping cold.
He realizes, with the same clear cut clarity of breaking through the still ice of an unmeasurable ocean, in the given moment he is scared. Paralyzed by this centerpiece fear around which he revolves.
Around the edges of an incredulous smile, Naruto huffs out a disbelieving, quietened laugh as he breaks off their ongoing stare. With the back of his hand that's freezing, he roughly wipes beneath the gauzy skin of his eyelids, exhaling something stuttered and breathy.
No. No. Naruto won't let him- Naruto can't ever let him do that. It won't end well, for the both of them.
And Sasuke should know this just as much as he does.
Since they have already tried…once.
.
.
five years back
.
"Hey, c'mon! Wait for me!"
A twelve year old Naruto is trudging behind his teacher and his other two teammates with a scowl plastered across his face (that is truthfully more of a pout). The rational complaints (annoyed whines) on the tip of his tongue are interrupted here and there by the occasional yawn.
He's tired. No, actually, scratch that, it's an understatement. He is exhausted, so much that he has trouble keeping his eyes open. His usually endless reserve of liveliness and energy is replaced by a wave of lethargic drowsiness that takes over him step after step, making him feel somewhat of a zombie.
Team 7 spent the last three days on a D-rank mission that was supposed to be a walk in the park- they had to return a cat to a nearby village. That was it. Naruto had even whined about the unchallenging mission - 'I'm gonna die of boredom like this!'- which was answered with, - 'No one has ever died of boredom before,'- to which Naruto had countered with - 'But Kakashi-senseeeei! I'm gonna be the exception here!'
But of course the mission did not go as planned, with their team this was quickly becoming a routine of sorts, so it was almost unsurprising that after a day and a half they were ambushed in the middle of the trek.
Naruto had not recognized where the enemies were from, Kakashi had definitely mentioned it but he would be the first to admit he wasn't paying much attention to begin with. As much as he loved the thrill of fighting against skilled ninjas, this quickly turned into more of a challenge than he could have initially anticipated.
Which is how, after finding himself outnumbered and backed into a corner with the bad guys having the upper hand, he… didn't really remember much about what happened next.
Well, except for the chakra filling up his body all at once, it seized the energy inside of him and released it in a burst so powerful he thought for a moment he had been thrown out of his body. When he had come to, they had apparently managed to fight off the ninjas, and Sakura was looking at him with a sort of wonder mixed with concern, Sasuke with questioning eyes, and Kakashi, for a change, was way too serious. But, just like the mission they completed, this too is a bit of a blur.
What is crystal clear, however, is the exhaustion now hanging over him like a heavy cloud. He feels as if someone took a straw and sucked the last tendrils of his stamina, draining him. Given that they are still getting used to the workload and carrying out missions as a team, Naruto wonders if this sense of fatigue is common after such a fight and if it is something every other ninja experiences.
"Kakashi-sensei! Sakura-chan!" The boy calls again, completely aware it's a useless attempt at getting their attention since Kakashi is already way ahead, having said he wanted to drop off the mission's report to the Hokage as soon as possible, and Sakura is right behind their teacher since she wanted to head home sooner because of some errands she had to take care of.
And that would be fine, really… if Sasuke wasn't the one he has been left with.
They have practically arrived now, with Sasuke waiting near the gates of Konoha and looking positively bored (if boredom was a person it would totally have Sasuke's face, Naruto is certain of that). It's as if waiting for him is somehow a favor that Naruto owes him, the bastard.
"Teme! What are you looking at?!" He yells at him from a few feet away, already unnerved even if his teammate hasn't quite done anything to spite him – yet.
Sasuke barely scoffs in reply. "Hn."
Naruto grits his teeth, doing his best to hold back from picking a fight ('throwing a tantrum' is what Kakashi would call it).
Sasuke gets on his nerves. This is undoubtedly an unmistakable truth. What with that brooding attitude he possesses. And his arrogance, thinking that by merely existing he is already better than anyone else. The idiosyncrasies that make him up should be classified as an unending record, with each and every one of them pushing at Naruto's buttons in predictable yet unexpected ways. There are many, many ways in which Sasuke can be infuriating. But the apparently insignificant and undetectable details, those stick to him like glue.
A few examples include: how Sasuke never wants to be with others, he would rather choose to sulk in his own company than bask in everyone else's. He is always training on his own, Naruto has caught him once or twice doing so well into the night, and he acts as if that is reason enough to be held to a greater standard than the rest of them. He has this way of talking, always curt and too blunt, disrespectful and straight to the point, he is never interested in troubling himself with putting careful thought behind what spews out of his mouth. Whenever he makes the effort to acknowledge that other people exist beside him, it is simply as a way for him to criticise and deprecate anyone who is not on his level (Naruto has been on this end more often than he wants to admit). And except for reaching his goals he doesn't seem to care about much of anything, absolutely nothing.
But even if Naruto finds him this unlikable and unapproachable, and even if Sasuke simply talking to him the wrong way is enough to instigate him, he can't help but… wanting to befriend him (only occasionally).
With the passing of time, however, he has started thinking that Sasuke might just end up being… unreachable.
Day by day, he can see him getting stronger. Truthfully, they all are. It's an undeniable fact. And Naruto won't certainly let himself be surpassed so easily, he knows that. But when he gets in over his head, when it sinks in and he has enough time to think about it, he sometimes fears that the slight gap between them since the academy days will sooner or later threaten to become an abyss… and one day he might be left behind.
One day, when he'll raise his head to look forward, he won't find Sasuke in front of him anymore, just out of his reach. He will be left seeing his fading shadow, because Sasuke has moved too fast and too far ahead for him to follow.
He doesn't want to admit this and tries his hardest to convince himself of the opposite, but it might just be one of his biggest fears. And even so…
...Sasuke is now waiting for him at the entrance of the village.
Naruto stops a dozen feet away from him, almost unconsciously, keeping his distance.
"You're slowing us down." Sasuke utters, although without any bite to his words.
They both know this is not true since their teacher and teammate are long gone by now, but neither comments on it. Instead Sasuke's eyes are fixed on him, as if looking for a reaction.
Naruto doesn't move.
Sasuke doesn't, either.
He stands where he is, as if he has all the time in the world. As if he has nowhere to be once they go their separate ways. As if he would just keep waiting, if only Naruto asked him to.
Which is not true because Sasuke never does what Naruto tells him to, unsurprisingly.
But he also never turns out to be the way Naruto imagines him to be, surprisingly.
Sasuke is… unexpected, to say the least.
And that is infuriating in its own regard, because he can't seem to decipher him. He can't tell what goes on through his mind. He can't predict what his next move will be. He can't anticipate when Sasuke will end up being a huge pain in the neck or the rare, rare occasion when he… won't.
No matter how much he tries, and he tries so hard, it seems like Naruto can never get to know who Sasuke is. And that grates on his nerves all the more.
Sasuke is just so guarded, constantly rising his defenses all at once as if he doesn't even know how to be open, always wearing this 'perfect' mask that Naruto can't seem to break. Sometimes it almost feels like Sasuke is standing on the other side of a locked door that Naruto can't seem to find the key to.
But at the same time he thinks Sasuke is perfectly aware of it, almost as if he wants to hide away.
The fact that he can't seem to figure him out makes Naruto want to scream in frustration, sometimes, and it also makes him want to punch him in his perpetually scowling face, if only to get the answers he so desperately wants to know.
But, there is no way he will give up! Oh no, he has never been one to leave once the game gets tough and he definitely doesn't plan on starting anytime soon.
Ultimately, Naruto has sworn to himself that he will find out just who the real Sasuke is. No matter what.
…and maybe this is one of the reasons why he ended up getting so attached to Sasuke.
Considering what happened in the aftermath, he really shouldn't have.
. . .
a/n:
[Just like in the other story, there's going to be possible hints of Sasuke/Naruto in this. Only hints however that you can choose to interpret through your own lens, because the focus of this is the friendship, bonding, angst and the grief they grow up with, and around of.]
I've decided to collect all the flashbacks into an 'orderly fashion' and... put them all here. Basically. That's it.
You don't need to read the work 'attached' to this (the only other story I have written for Naruto), but please know that there's definitely an explanation as to why Sasuke's personality is so different at the beginning of this chapter. I didn't just mess around with it and landed ten miles away from the character, I promise there's a reason! I would say it makes more sense if you read the main story... but actually no, it doesn't. At least for now.
I've just had my own headcanons of how Naruto lived through his childhood for so long and... I'm finally putting it all in one place. This feels strangely fulfilling for some reason?