Chapter 4: New Holly 29
The sun was sinking lethargically, fat and round and red. It hung low over rooftops in the distance. Sasuke watched it die from the little window in his tidy, though relatively empty, bedroom. It would be getting dark shortly, but Itachi still hadn't come home yet. This wasn't terribly surprising: the big publishing company he worked for was well-known for foisting overtime on its unsuspecting and underpaid employees. Sasuke supposed Itachi would be the last employee to complain-they could certainly use the extra money from the unexpected hours.
Sasuke exhaled lightly, fluttering some of the papers that had been scattered haphazardly across his lap. He made no move to pick them up; they were mostly completed anyway. Sasuke didn't mind homework nearly as much as he minded actually attending his classes. Sometimes, if he was in the right sort of mood, he even enjoyed busywork somewhat. Plus, homework-centered thoughts were safe thoughts. Sasuke touched his right ear absently.
The silence and stillness of the bedroom was interrupted by a tinny, unfamiliar melody—a telltale sign of the default ringtone on a cheap phone. It took Sasuke a moment to recognize it as his own. Though he had a cell, it was only for emergencies. Since no one but Itachi had his number, it pretty much never rang.
But it was ringing now. Sasuke fumbled through his backpack for it hastily, curiosity burning within him. What could Itachi be calling him for? Did something bad happen? Hand finding purchase at last, Sasuke pulled the phone out, glancing at its glowing screen.
Unknown number. So it wasn't Itachi? Then who...?
A thought flashed through Sasuke's mind, unbidden and unwelcome, but there. What if the gray-haired man somehow...?
Sasuke's breath hitched in his chest as his heart sped up. On the last ring, his hesitating finger hit the TALK button. "...hello?"
"Sasuke. I'm stuck at work."
Itachi's low monotone met his ears. All the tension drained out of Sasuke at once, leaving him feeling something like a rapidly deflated balloon. Of course Itachi would call from his desk phone to avoid using minutes. He closed his eyes in irritation at his own incredible foolishness before responding curtly. "I see."
"You must go to New Holly 29 and retrieve the rest of the green beans soon. Tonight's weather may grow cold enough to kill them." Itachi sounded even more robotic over the phone, but Sasuke knew he was right. According to the chart on the fridge, green beans should be harvested in September, and it was nearly October. The knowledge didn't make the task any less appealing. Sasuke couldn't stand gardening, but it was necessary.
Seattle was a big proponent of urban agriculture and local growing. The city government sponsored a popular program to help communities set up public gardens at little or no cost to citizens wishing to participate. Itachi and Sasuke were low-income enough to fall into the "no cost" category. As long as they put in the labor, they could take home whatever they managed to grow in their own little corner of the garden essentially for free, and sell whatever was leftover through a complimentary program. Sasuke knew the programs were too important to them for him to not do his part. Even if that part involved gardening...
"Okay," Sasuke answered simply. Itachi hung up without another word.
Sasuke walked swiftly through the fading golden light. It was a good thing the garden was only a few blocks away. He did not want to be stuck gardening after dark. Not just because it would be incredibly frustrating to have to root through damp soil by flashlight, but because the darkness itself bred bad thoughts. Phantoms from the past always look more real by the light of a blurry moon...
Sasuke turned the final corner and stilled, transfixed by the vision before him. The sky blazed fiercely, awash with the light of the sinking sun. It dyed the scenery orange and pink and deep purple, banishing the shadows of evening for the moment. The garden had a sort of ironic charm, surrounded as it was by crumbling houses and dilapidated buildings. An old railroad track rusted in the weeds nearby. A single, weathered wooden post stuck upright out of the earth, apparently long-abandoned by its scarecrow. Such a contrast from the surrounding urban decay, yet somehow not the least bit out of place here either, the life in New Holly 29 was abundant. Green leaves of late-summer vegetables burst through the black topsoil in row after crooked row. Colorful flowers bloomed everywhere, unaware of any boundary between loveliness and the unsightly, uncontained by the little wooden fence with the broken gate. Ancient and new, natural and artifical, ugly and beautiful: New Holly 29 was all of those.
Sasuke breathed the cool air again. It smelled of concrete and earth. He readjusted the pack of gardening tools slung across his shoulder and headed for the green beans in the northernmost part of their plot, nearly hidden between rows of ripening summer squash and tomatoes. He had never felt this at ease while walking across the soil of New Holly 29 before, nor in any other garden for that matter. Maybe it was because the cloudless sky was empty of crows this evening. Or maybe it was the way the garden looked in the sunset. Color filled his mind's eye, supersaturated his very thoughts and reshuffled priorities until there was nothing else to think about, nothing else worth noting. How could Sasuke's demons be banished by the awkward grace of the present so easily? Though dimly aware that this shift was only a passing phenomenon, Sasuke's cheek lifted slightly, the unfamiliar ghost of a smile creeping across his lips.
"My! How much better that looks than your typical face," spoke a disembodied voice.
He emerged casually from the tomatoes (as if such a thing were perfectly normal), seemingly born of nowhere, a sudden apparition. His characteristic book was still in hand, though closed for the moment. Bi-color black and green eyes sparked with liveliness at Sasuke, though the gray-haired stranger's countenance appeared stoic on the surface as usual.
"—what?" Sasuke heard a small voice break the heavy silence. His own voice. It felt creaky and bizarrely hoarse, as though from disuse. Stupid, given that he had just spoken to Itachi less than fifteen minutes ago.
"Ahah! I knew you had it in you." The man slouched forward, bending to pick up the tool pack Sasuke hadn't even realized he'd dropped. He held the strap out expectant.
"—what?" Sasuke repeated helplessly, frozen.
"Why, the capacity for simple human speech, of course." The man quirked a playful eyebrow, the corner of his mouth curling into a smirk. "You're a real conversationalist. Those one-liners are riveting."
His brain being temporarily disabled, Sasuke's hand eventually moved of its own volition to accept the proffered pack. In a stupor, he slung it over his shoulder again, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His right hand found his earrings and began fiddling. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it once more:
"...oh."
The smirk stretched slowly into a knowing grin. "Exactly."
Sasuke studied his feet, face feeling hot. The sun crept lower toward the horizon, reminding him of why he had come. He looked around aimlessly, somewhat disoriented. "I have to...our green beans—"
The man glanced at Sasuke's bag of tools. "Harvesting?"
Sasuke nodded mutely.
"I can help if you'd like. It'll be too dark to read my book once the sun sets anyway, right?" Another mischievous smirk.
"...bu—what?" A lie?
The man looked rather unimpressed by Sasuke's less-than-eloquent reply this time. "I said, it'll be too dark to read soon anyway, so I'm offering to—"
"I heard you," Sasuke blurted out, eyes narrowing. "I meant, you've read in the dark before. At the movies."
The man became quite inexplicably interested in his own fingernails. He examined them distractedly, remarking with badly-feigned surprise, "Why, you haven't been following me now, have you? Funny, you don't really seem like the stalker type."
Sasuke's jaw fell open. Now he was the stalker? This guy was something else. And what was with that bizarrely...pleased expression of his?
"Hey, fuck you, I'm not—" Sasuke huffed, only to be cut off by throaty laughter.
"I know, I know. You're easy. And I'm Kakashi."
A short pause. "...Sasuke."
"It's nice to finally meet you, Sasuke." Kakashi's green eye disappeared briefly in a saucy wink.
Sasuke grunted in response. Kakashi did not hold out his hand to shake, and that was just fine by Sasuke.
"So. Do you want some help or not?" Kakashi inquired once again.
Sasuke stared at the remains of the sunset, contemplating. The light was fading fast, the red-orange in the sky bleeding out rapidly, replaced by the shadowy blue-gray of approaching nightfall. The temperature was already starting to drop. And who knew how much more frequent Itachi's silences might become if he accidentally let the green beans freeze...
"...it's getting dark, so an extra pair of hands might be useful..." Sasuke trailed off. Kakashi, esoteric as he was, merely grinned in amusement at this—evidently sharing a private joke with himself—and said nothing.
And so Kakashi helped Sasuke work in the garden until well after the moon began its long journey arcing through the empty night sky, forgotten. A silent crow may have drifted across its pale face at one point, but Sasuke did not even notice.