Crucial: The Power of a Propaganda Love
In The Memory of an Exceptional Generation
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Chapter two: Cigarette Stubs
Uchiha Sasuke
The new guy at work was having a trouble with something so I offered to help, during the break we talked a little; turns out he was from our neighborhood. He was 2 years my junior, the kid was obviously not used to physical work, though he was strong, in order to be a miner you need a different type of strength. You need to know how to replenish your energy faster, how to wait for the second breath and make it last. It all needs not just a muscle, but a simmering drive to survive.
I pitied the guy, I knew he wouldn't stay here for long, and god knows there are not too many options these days.
The next day we talked again. The guy, the boy, was obviously exhausted and was pathetically trying to hide it. We spoke about a little more personal stuff this time; I was beginning to like him.
I asked him if there was anyone waiting for him at home, he answered that indeed his mother would meet him at the station. When he asked me the same thing I told him that I have Sakura; that she'd be waiting for me at home. He frowned at that.
"Are you okay 'bout leavin' her all alone? I mean… my mother stays with her sister's family while I'm away," He tries to delicately address the matter. Honestly, it doesn't really bother me.
"She's not alone." I don't explain that I also have Naruto, and I don't explain that even if Naruto was not there to support Sakura, she would never put herself in harm's way, if anything Sakura was the one taking care of the Uzumaki.
She was my solidest bone.
I did not explain any of it, because it's unnecessary.
I love Sakura. And contrary to popular belief it's not hard to admit it out loud.
I don't know how long I have loved her, probably always. I don't even remember myself without her. I measure time by the events concerning her.
She's finishing collage this year and I started working on the north after her second year (two years), she bought that yellow lamp two months ago - the same day I got a haircut (need to get another in a month), she was mad at me the last time I was home and stayed at her place, something she almost never does these days, she did not speak to me or let me touch her, until I climbed through her balcony (four days ago). She was dusting the shelves, the sketches of some wine package branding project on her table spread out under that yellow lamp. I surprise her with my arms suddenly winding around her waist from behind (four days ago).
"Hey, blackbird" I whispered in her ear. And she yelps.
She wrestles her way out of my arms and starts shouting at me for doing something stupid. As she rambles on, she shifts to other subjects, about how I never consider how she can be tired too and how I leave dirty shirts laying on the floor, which adds up to her housework, and she doesn't have time for that (four days ago).
"My hands are already full with Naruto and his disgusting habits!"
I don't tell her that my place is never disorganized and she could do a better job with Naruto, maybe wash his dishes sometimes. I don't say it, because it's unnecessary.
I know that Haruno Sakura is busy; she is trying to finish collage, create a decent portfolio to maybe start working on bigger projects. She's creative, she has a strong, feminine and effortless sense of humor and she always knows what her work is worth.
Never settles for a smaller price.
I know somewhere on the way from a child that stole my collection of stickers to an efficient woman who knows a girl is privileged to not sweat it, she became someone a cruder guy, like Naruto, would call an Ace.
We make up after I apologize and tell her she is right about everything. Because, that is what a man must do.
She's sittin' here waitin' for you, four days a week. The least you can do is let her win every argument wordlessly.
I remember how the tension in her shoulders dissipated.
"Mebuki will be back in an hour"
"My train is at eleven."
"So, we have an hour."
It was four days ago
My time of reminiscing is over. I notice I'm out of cigarettes and jingle the change in my pocket. Sakura got me hooked on her slims and its low nicotine so I smoke more. It's enough for a pack, but I know I'll need to save it to eat something on my way home.
"Dunhill slims; White." There goes my dinner.
"It's 13.79"
I head back and find the new guy waiting for me. And it's that moment I suddenly am annoyed by his presence.
We go back to work without losing any more time.
The next day I go back home on an early morning train as usual and the guy sticks with me. When we get to our station, there is no sign of his mother, he asks me to wait for a little while as he makes a call. I would normally be annoyed by something like this. But I suddenly am reminded of Haruno Mebuki, Uzumaki Kushina and Uchiha Mikoto. His mother was supposed to meet him at the station and did not show up; apparently she did not let him know about the change of plans beforehand either.
The guy comes back and explains that his mother is feeling ill today, nothing serious though. I offer to drop him off; Naruto is picking me up with his truck.
The boy agrees and thanks me, keeping that eerie smile on his face. I don't know why, but I don't want him anywhere near the Dobe.
That is the main reason why after Uzumaki finally arrives, I tell him to sit in the cargo, although there is enough space for him inside.
Naruto grins at him and they shake hands.
The guy lives two blocks away from ours. And, as I comprehend our close quarters, Sakura's face floats up in my mind.
I don't like him.
And as we watch the boy cross the street to disappear in a crowd of people surrounding his building, I feel the unease clutching my stomach slowly releases.
"Damn, he looks like you."
I nod at Naruto absentmindedly. He does look a bit like me. Only younger.
"Happier though."
I nod again.
That's exactly what bothers me.
As we enter Naruto's apartment Sakura greets me with a tired smile in the doorway. She must have heard the Dobe's old truck drive up.
"Hey, blackbird." I smirk down at her. I'm about six inches taller than her and I'm kinda proud after I overheard her once gushing to Ino about our prefect height difference.
She stands on her tiptoes and places a loud kiss on my mouth. I respond automatically and wind my arms around her; kissing her lips, nose, the apple of her cheek and her hairline.
I slightly lift her up in my arms as I sneakily grope her behind.
She releases her breathy, loud laugh, which Naruto describes as unattractive, manly and scary; but I find it endearing.
She smirks back at me after I place her down.
"Hey, charming."
Jesus, I could fuck that smirk out of her.
"Hey, kids! Move to the kitchen! Come on! Don't crowd the hallway!"
Naruto practically pushes us towards the kitchen with his belly.
"Whatever, fatso." I grumble as I take 'my' seat at the small table next to the window, and flick the pack of Sakura's cigarettes lying on the table to fish one out with my teeth. Sakura whines loudly at my habit of stealing from her, and I silence the Haruno by pulling her by the wrist into my lap.
"Sak, I met Teme's coworker today."
Naruto starts as he takes off the lid of the pan to check something Sakura has made. The smell hits me too, as I can tell there are lots of spices in her cooking and it's something with tomatoes.
"I'll have a bowl too."
Sakura gets up and pushes Naruto out of the way to avoid the Dobe splashing food everywhere.
As we start to eat Naruto continues, completely disregarding Sakura barking at him, "Shut your mouth while you're chewing!"
"The guy looked like Sasuke a lot. Though I guess he was younger, rei't?"
I just nod and lift two fingers quickly to show how many years of difference there was.
"Right."
Sakura didn't hide how uninterested she was with the subject and proceeded to tell me all about the project she made.
"-so they are paying me hourly."
I nod and lift a brow in question.
"It's 8 dollars for'em?"
She blows on her soup to help it cool while watching for my reaction.
I nod in approval. She's a newbie, and although talented there are other graphic designers out there with fatter portfolios, not to mention, though almost done, she's still in school. I'd say 8 dollars is already pushing their limits, but Sakura never lowers a price.
"It jeopardizes the value of the product if you play with the market prices too often."
I know that it's something she picked up from Itachi.
Itachi.
The new guy, boy, doesn't look like me.
He looks like Itachi.
The realization makes me uncomfortable.
That night as Sakura sleeps soundly in my room, I sit on the balcony.
I don't notice how she wakes up. She watches me wordlessly for some time and pulls on the hem of my shirt softly with her delicate fingers, signaling me to go back to bed. I nod at her and catch her hand before she leaves squeezing softly, mutely letting her know I'll be back in a minute.
The cigarette stubs in the ashtray bother me.
They're overflowing.
Haruno Sakura
Funny how you can't tell how you are growing up, can't tell your bones are growing, you don't notice how you are losing the baby fat on your face, can't see how your old shoes don't fit anymore, even how your hair got slightly longer in a year, but you feel aging that is so much slower.
I'm 21 now and I feel how I'm getting old.
"Did Itachi ever feel old?"
Sometimes Uzumaki Naruto while doing something idiotic, like eating pesto sauce straight from the box not minding how it's been expired for two days, drops a question that reminds you he knows more than you think.
"Y'know he was way too old for his age, not necessarily 'cause of the things he had to endure, all of us went through tough shit, doesn't mean we all ended up like him."
Itachi was too old for his age. That was a fact. Which normal kid would start what he had started at the age of twelve? Uchiha Itachi destroyed every expectation coming his way. He was impossible to predict. Uchihas should have noticed earlier that Itachi was different. They should have known he kept all these secrets that would lead to the end of the family. And that he would take those secrets to the grave along with every other person knowing it.
Itachi Uchiha was not tortured by the unfortunate events surrounding his life; he was the cause of most of them. Tortured soul was Sasuke. Itachi was the old one.
And here I thought Naruto's small brain would never comprehend a word like endure.
We were sitting in his small kitchen. The air-conditioner all the way in his bedroom was too small to help fight off the unbearable summer heat here. Sure, we could wait for Sasuke in the living room, but Naruto's mom never allowed us to smoke there. And even though the guy is completely disgusting and keeps his place up to it, that was one rule set by late Uzumaki Kushina he could not disregard.
"Well he was older than us. And, yeah, he probably did…" I let the tang of the cigarette smoke make a circle in my lungs, "feel old I mean."
I and my boys lived in the same block so we shared most of our childhood memories.
It's silly calling them boys now that we are adults. But it does feel right.
Sasuke lives on the 4th floor and Naruto on the third both in a D flat, while we, the Harunos, live on the first floor of the B building.
As a child I used to irrationally fear that the sixteen storeys scarily situated above our apartment was too heavy and would eventually crush our home. And I bitterly thought that my boys live too far to make it in time to save me.
But, there was someone who kept all fears away, not just mine, but boys' too. Because there was nothing impossible for this person (nowadays I understand that this idea came from a simple notion of not knowing what was possible for this person. Not knowing him, period).
Itachi is indeed a very important part of our lives.
Even now.
So I do understand why Naruto sometimes asked questions about him out of the blue.
Because we were constantly thinking about Itachi.
Even when we were not aware of it.
Especially sweet, kind, caring Uzumaki Naruto.
Naruto was an idiot as a kid. He reacted to everything in the same way, never ever changed his mind about anything, he was sloppy and he had a foul language. His predictable nature and secure familiarity was the inviting thing about him.
Maybe his talent of effortless communication is what lies behind his success (if you can call her that) in what he does.
By now Naruto speaks six different languages fluently. Translating legal (and, I doubt, illegal) contracts, documents, sometimes some articles.
Though the concept of his line of work is simple, it's something you tiptoe around; since it could be lethal if used in favor of some political forces. And in this family it was all about politics.
Uzumaki Kushina Used to say Naruto's like his dad.
Namikaze Minato died when his son was 4 years old. He came back to his family only once a year. The rest he spent in the coal mines.
Naruto's dad was an engineer just like Sasuke's. He was the one who discovered the coal fields in North and started the mines.
Namikaze Minato was deemed a traitor and a spy and was sentenced with death.
Uzumaki Kushina told my mom about the period of his trial, how she used to go to jail every two days, how they never let her see her husband.
"I used to bring him clean clothes and pick up the dirty ones. At first they had just blood on it. After three weeks I noticed the yellow spots on his dirty laundry. That's how I knew his wounds were infected." And she was right. Namikaze Minato was tortured for days before he died of sepsis probably, because, he refused to sign the admittance testimony of betraying his country by spying and providing the enemy with highly important information. His death was slow and horrifying.
Uzumaki Kushina was proud and devastated.
Ten years later after her husband's untimely death, she was taken for interrogation to reinvestigate, which is an excuse so ridiculous, it just indicates how much the bureau doesn't give a fuck if we actually know the motives behind their actions are fake. After the interrogation, she is sentenced to be forcefully relocated, repressed, all the way to the North borders. Naruto was to be legally bound to Jiraya, his godfather, and remain under his care until he turned of age.
However, Uzumaki Kushina never made it to north. After receiving the news of her family's fate she had a stroke. Uchiha Itachi was the one who found her in her own living room when he returned with fourteen year old Naruto.
Naruto says Itachi did not let him inside so he didn't see her. He also says he couldn't look at her lying in an open coffin during the funerals.
Uzumaki Naruto when asked to kiss his deceased mother's forehead to say goodbye, did it with his eyes closed. He once secretly told Sasuke that for a while after that, every time he closed his eyes he would feel the dead coolness of her skin on his lips.
Uchihas were always on Minato's side; though never displaying it publicly, of course. They always knew that Minato was neutralized by the government for his loud mouth. The Namikaze wanted to quit collaborating with the transporting companies to stop delivering coal that was the best energetic source available back then.
Minato used to say that while the north provides energy, it's also up to north to decide where it must be distributed.
You see, coal was transported to South which was later to become a conflict zone. South, had its own resources of power on the market and it was enough to support the local consumers. So why would they risk jeopardizing their own products, if the consumer's quantity did not suddenly triple? The fact is they wouldn't. They needed extra coal stocks to power something else. Something their producers could not cover.
Maybe, they even were secretly supporting the manufacturers of weapons?
Maybe, Namikaze Minato should have never started the mines.
Maybe, Itachi really did see the full picture.
"Teme's gonna be pissed." Naruto interrupted my train of thoughts.
"Aa..." I mumbled absentmindedly, while I stare at the mess in the sink. A mountain of dishes lay there untouched.
Sasuke was different than Naruto in the past. He was like this major sweetheart. Even as a child he spoke to be understood, not applauded, he would nod through silence and that spoke of his attentive nature, which was never openly demonstrated, but nevertheless still present.
All in all, Uchiha Sasuke was a sweet boy.
He was raised to treat ladies with respect, so he actually apologized to me after he stuck the gum in my hair, and said I was pretty and offered to marry me because I was still crying.
So I agreed. And here I am fifteen years later with my boys, as one is slowly eating his way to obesity, and the other is developing a nasty habit of stealing my cigarettes to work. We are still bound together. No geography could tear us apart.
Not even when Sasuke is working shift after shift as a coal miner in the North. Not even when he has to take an early morning train with other workers to make it home before noon; Only to lay a kiss on my shoulder and pass out from exhaustion right after. No matter what, I will still religiously repeat my cycle while he's gone. Project; get groceries for Mebuki, maybe stay the night, check Naruto's breakfast, maybe clean up a bit in his dingy apartment, Uzumaki regularly drives me to collage for my classes, on a way back home we buy groceries and prepare a dinner at his place, preferably enough to last for two days, go back to Sasuke's apartment, which is practically mine when he's away, dust the surfaces, sweep the floors do the laundry, study, maybe give him a call later that night, might as well go out with girls, or have them over, none of this matters.
Since on the fifth day I'm at Naruto's waiting for his arrival. Sometimes the dummy is waiting with me, sometimes he's picking Sasuke up from the station himself.
As I start arguing with Naruto about keeping expired food, clearly out of boredom and annoyance about Sasuke running late (god knows the Uzumaki wouldn't throw out the food till it has fully rotten), the front door is opened.
"-It will ruin your teeth too!"
"Sak-"
"Don't even start!"
"What's goin' on 'ere."
I feel Sasuke's strong large hand grasp my hipbone from behind. His thumb circling over the dimples in my lower back. The calm baritone of his voice washes over my tense shoulders, soothing, relaxing.
Before I can turn to greet him, he spins me around and tickles a spot under my rib, my knees buckle from shock, and an unexpected breath of laughter leaves my throat. He almost drops me to the ground, but firmly holds me between his knees.
" 'ey blackbird." He smirks down at me placing a sweet kiss under my bottom lip. And suddenly, all the sorrow of the day shifts back to make room for Uchiha Sasuke.
"Why you so late?" I ask after catching my breath a hand resting behind his neck.
"You missed a whole lot," Naruto inserts as he casually fishes a cigarette pack out of Sasuke's pocket while he's busy holding me. "Your girlfriend decided that it's okay to flirt with the postman."
"I thought that's something old wives do." For once Sasuke stays tranquil and is not annoyed by Naruto digging in his pockets, though I notice he avoids looking at the pile of dishes in the sink. He knows pestering is Uzumaki's way of saying 'I missed you. You are late.'
"Which I've become with your absence; if you were late for another hour I'd be on my way to marrying him"
"Does he know you die your hair pink?"
Naruto laughs in the background.
"Okay, kids! Let's go out." He was surely planning to drag us to the Ichiraku's.
"Just get the food; I wanna stay in, Dobe."
"It's my place, my rules."
"Naruto, just go, we're hungry." I decide to interrupt.
Naruto begrudgingly leaves us and I turn around to face Sasuke.
"Hey."
"Hey, Blackbird" He repeats.
He sits in the chair and takes me with him, as I land on his lap he presses the side of his head on my collarbone. Suddenly, the unbearable heat is okay. I caress his hair and we stay like that for a while.
Just when I thought Sasuke had passed out on me, he spoke up.
"Something happened at work today…"
"Hm?"
"The new guy I told you about?"
"Yeah?"
"He was askin' some questions."
I feel the unease slowly creeping up on me.
"What questions"
Uchiha Sasuke just shakes his head, placing soft kisses on my fingers.
When I was about to repeat my question he says.
"It's nothing."
His hand slides up my inner thigh and I'm reminded that it has been too long since I last saw him.
My frantic thoughts are discarded when he lays a wet, sweet and long kiss on my mouth.
Later that evening he declares that he's going to work an extra day at the mines next time.
The guy he mentioned earlier apparently asked about Itachi.
Naruto frowned when Sasuke said that.
We had an inkling something was going to drop. Me and Naruto I mean.
And as the three of us spend the rest of the evening watching reruns of the old TV show, I sit next to Sasuke my legs thrown across his lap, I notice something is off.
Because Uchiha Sasuke is clutching my knees like an angry boy he once was, and Naruto is not eating anything.
As I stare at the cigarette stubs in the ashtray in front of us. I know that something is very wrong because we never smoke in Uzumaki Naruto's living room.
Maybe Namikaze Minato should have never discovered the fucking coal field.
"So."
Me and Naruto look expectantly at Sasuke.
"I thought it was just me who flirted with postmen"
And just like that everything goes back to normal.
Later that night I remember Naruto mentioning that the new guy from Sasuke's work, who apparently was asking questions about Itachi, lived two blocks away from ours.
"I was chewing a gum real loud. Could tell it sorta annoyed Itachi. He got off the bus two blocks from ours and I thought it was because of my gum"
"Now that I think about It, It's a shortcut to the bureau."
My stomach tightened in fear.
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In The Memory of an Exceptional Generation
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