The boy was hungry, and everyone who knew him knew he was rarely hungry.
So this was somthing he was not used to feeling. It was, though, not somthing he wanted too.
Thats probably the reason you could count all of his ribs through his shirt. He said he didn't need food or help. He could do it on his own.
Even if he needed help. Not to say though, that he wanted it.
"Kid, take care of yourself. And please, for the love of god, eat somthing."
Once he moved out of Kakashi's, he ate probably a couple meals a week, and much to his friend's unknowing, he had no money to buy any. But if your going to die anyway, who needs food for hell?
"Good-bye, Kakashi..." Sasuke said as he reached his hand tentitivly to his face and wiped his eye. Weather it was a tear, witch he severly doubted it was; he hadn't cried in fifteen years, or from the bitting cold, he would never know.
"Are you crying, Koiishi?"
"No!"
The masked man winked, and put the hood on his convertable.
"It's gunna rain, Sasuke!" The masked man yelled as he revved the engine. "Find Iruka's soon!"
"Okay. Bye." Sasuke's voice died down as he yelled out to Kakashi. Damn. He wished he had brought somthing-anything- more than a t-shirt and shorts. It was after all, November nearing December.
He could feel his stomach growling for food. Iruka. The name rang in his ears.
"It's been ten years and I can still picture your face. But Barely..." But he was sure he didn't look like that anymore. Nobody stayed suck in time for years. Nobody but him anyways.
Was Iruka still peppy and a little annoying?
Was he still over protective of his friends and a bit of a hardass?
Did he still remember Sasuke?
What did he look like? Was he now shorter than Sasuke?
Well, one thing was pretty much for sure, he was taller than Sasuke. Iruka had always been short, even back then, and even if Sasuke was full grown now, he probably wasn't as tall as Iruka.
Sasuke, a spindly man, stood shorter than mostly all of the people he had known in his life. Kakashi teased him for that. Damn, Kakashi.
Somtimes he hated that silver-haired bastard. But now was not one of those times.
Sauske Uchiha looked up at the sky, the exact color of Kakashi Hatake's hair. Anyone who passed him on the street could tell by his expression that he was missing somone.
Sasuke stuffed his reddened hands into his pockets and watched the clouds of his hot breath escape from his partly opened mouth. Iruka, Iruka...Iru...ka...a couple blocks down...damn, why wouldn't Kakashi just drop him off there? He answered his own question.
'Because I have things to do' Like what? Sleep and read porn until it was late enough to hit the clubs?
Sasuke sighed, slipping his hand out of his warm pockets reluctantly to read the note in Kakashi's scrawled font.
What the hell dose this say?
Maby if I turn it sideways?
If I look from an angle? Kakashi has the worst handwritting!
Upsidedown...Yes!
He could make it out, but barley, and he squinted his ebony, almond-shaped eyes. There. A couple of streets down. Just a couple. Then Sasuke'd be out of this fucking cold once and for all.
There was a man who parked his car on the side walk of Sekio Lane.
His presence was unnerving; his eyes would freeze your blood.
There was only one other one the street, a man with a breifcase standing and checking his watch. The tall, raven-haired man smirked, stepped out of his car and walked up to him.
"Excuse me...sir...can you tell me where Unoichi Street is?"
The man rolled his eyes. Sigh.
"Sure, I guess. It's right past.." He thought for a moment. "It's right past Seiko Drive."
The buisness man looked back at the raven haired, but was shocked, if only for a moment, that the man had vanished.
A few streets down on a street called Unoichi, in a small modest apartment complex, stood a man.
Umino Iruka stood hovering above a stove, making a pot of ramen dangerously close to expiring. Well, there was no point in wasting it all, right?
After all, once Sasuke, the boy he has known from long ago arrived, he would be hungry. He knew the from his closest friend Kakashi Hitake that he ate very little, slept very little, and was always ready to fight.
"Just another one, I guess..." He sighed, thinking of Naruto. Tearing open the dotted mark on the ramen box and pouring the dry meso powder and hard noodles into a pot of bubbling water on the range, he knew that the blonde-haired young man would be here as soon as he smelt steeping ramen. Iruka took out another bowl and another half-box of ramen to pour into the pot. Damn, the kid could eat his share of Ramen.
But he loved Naruto, although the blonde was a bit annoying and pushy, like a son. He loved Kakashi, even if the silvery-haired man was kind of a pervert, as his best friend. And hopefully, when he got to reknindle memories with a cirtain raven-haired boy with plenty of his own issues, he would love him too.
"All the people in my life..." Iruka sat down in the light wooden chair and let the sunlight dace around his fetures.
He fiddled with his ponytail, undid it a few times, and then ran his finger over the thick scar around his nose.
He would never forget how he got that.
Not ever.
Neither would Kakashi.
He heard a timer go off and he stood to drain the noodles, slippinng on oven mits to not scald himself.
But he stopped cold.
He had woken up alone.
He had wondered into the kitchen in an empty apartment.
He was making ramen all by himself. But not anymore.
There was a presence that hovered around him, somwhat menecing.
"Leave."
He rid his hands of the oven mits and didn't bother to lift the pot off the burner.
"I said leave." Iruka clentched his fists until his knuckles brimmed white and he whirled around, face contorted in a snarl,only to be met with a gloved fist.
"The Uchiha's not here and neither is it..." Trailed one voice coming from his bedroom. Iruka felt a stab of pain trickle up his spine as blood gushed out from his mouth and nose. He lifted himslef off the cold tile floor, looking back at the spot inwhere his back had come incontact with the white cabinet.
"Where is he? Answer me, you fucking..." A older, more muscular man grasped Iruka Umino by the colar of his army jaket and made the younger man wince and lick the blood off his jawline.
"I don't know! He's not here..." Iruka stuttered. Why the hell were these people after him? And Sasuke?
Sasuke...
Iruka's side met the sharp edge of a kunai blade and he coughed up blood allover the clean white tile he had scrubbed this morning for when Sasuke arrived at aproximatly 9:30 that night.
But Sasuke never came. At least not in time.
Iruka Umino felt himself slipping in and out of consiousness from the lack of bloodloss..
"No...leave the boy alone..."
"Iruka Sensei!" Chimed a voice. The black-clad warriors perked up and signaled to eachother.
"Out. Now. We'll come back for Uchiha Sasuke. But grab him." He notioned to Iruka.
"No! Iruka! A blonde-haired boy wearing an orange jaket came just in time to see the last glance of his sensei being taken by strange men into the cold, dark, night.
A tear slid down his face and he knelt in a puddle of his best friend's freshly spilt blood.
Sasuke Uchiha had been wandering for about an hour.
And kami, this was getting annoying. All these twists and turns and aly ways...it was all so confusing to the navy-and-beige-clad man.
His stomach growled on it's own account. Could this day get any worse?
He's past a Seiko Street.
Seiko Bulevard.
Seiko Avenue...
Seiko lane...
Sasuke's head was spinning.
"Hello, sir? Can you tell me where 556 Unoichi Street is?
The man pushed up his glasses and looked up for a moment before answering:
"Right past Seiko Drive. Your the second person to ask me that. To the left, just take a turn and your there." Sasuke's right eye brow twitched.
"Fuck you!" Sauske growled, storming off in a huff, leaving a very confused buisnessman staring behind him.
The founders of this small city Iruka lived in cirtainly weren't the most creative with names..
It was getting so cold Sasuke was shivering where he stood. He couldn't wait to get up to Iruka's nice, heated apartment. The frozen Uchiha, whose legs were aching by this point and was cursing about Kakashi's stupidity.
The rain. It was coming, blanketing Sasuke like a force to dark to be snow.
It always made Sasuke so sad, so hopless.
As he turned a left corner on Seiko Drive and came onto the first house on Unoichi Street, what he wanted would be the exact opposite of what he was going to receive. It was 9:40. He was now, officially, late. And he hated being late.
Finally, Sasuke saw it, and it was like a beam of light at 10:05.
556 Unoichi street, apartment complex.
He searched the pockets of his shorts-smart day to wear shorts-for the key to the building Kakashi had given him.
Not there. Sweatdrop...
He checked his jaket pockets. Sweatdrop...
No key. Damn. No apartment. Shit. And No warmth.
"DAMN IT!"
Naruto Uzimaki wiped a single tear off his cheek. He was about to shed some more, but he found no point in crying.
He stood up, in a dream like state, and took a mop out of the cabinet to clean up the blood when he started to sob uncontrolably.
"What the hell do you meen your going back!" Naruto hissed, glancing at the wall. "It's only been half and hour!"
The stubby police man shook his head. Another shot Naruto a sympathetic look. He shifted unconfortably/
"This is the best we can do, kid." He said, going over his notes for about the billionth time that night. "There is barely any evidence." His tone changed, as if scolding Naruto for trying to mop up the blood. "Anyway, we have to get back to the station and process this data. We promise we'll call you if anything happens." Naruto nodded and jotted down his cell phone number.
As the men in the uniforms left, before he could cry some more, he heard a ear-splitting cry pierce the air.
"Who the hell are you?" Uzimaki grimmanced. Sasuke whirled around, with a snarl on his face. He stood up.
"I'm going to have to ask you the same question." Then somthing clicked in his mind.
"Iruka?" He hadn't seen Iruka in seven years, but it could be him...even if he looked alot like...Naruto...
"No, Stupid." The blonde haired boy's heart quickened as he spoke: "Do you know what happened to Iruka?"
"Tell me your name first, dobe." Why had he said dobe? Kami, this couldn't be him? Didn't he die?
"Sasuke?" The raven haired man blinked and cocked his head. "Naruto?"
"I thought you were dead..." Both boys said to the other at the same time. "But your here..." Naruto remebered Iruka's voice on the receiver: Naruto, I'm waiting for Kakashi's kid to get here. Needs a place to stay...
"Were you supose to stay with Iruka?" Naruto questioned as Sasuke nodded. "What happened to him?"
"Come upstairs and see for yourself."