As always, thank you for reading and thank you to SasukeUchihasGuardian, zakunai, force majeur, Izolda, ursancanine, and Sour Queen for reviewing.
...
Chapter Eight
The absence of arm guards made Sasuke's skin itch, like the tightness of the thick material pulled over his palm and taut in between his thumb and index finger. The strap of his bag dragged over his arm, down the sleeve of his shirt as Sasuke began to remove the bag from his back. He set it on the ground, at the foot of the tree that would serve as the base for his makeshift camp.
It was already dusk. Night was creeping forward, stalled by remnants of light still flittering through the canopy of the forest, and Sasuke let his body fall against the tree, slowly sliding down the length of the trunk. He was making good time. He was less than half a day away from Konoha and could make it home well before dawn, probably by midnight if he pushed himself to maintain the pace he'd been going. He wasn't going to stay long. At most, he'd give himself a couple of hours to rest. He'd been careless, depriving himself of sleep the night before because he'd been too engrossed in a book he hadn't been able to finish, but the stress of the last week had finally caught up with him.
Stretching out his legs, Sasuke wriggled his toes, scrunching his nose at the feel of dirt between them.
His stay in Kusagakure hadn't been counterproductive but neither had the opportunity given him better access to information about the scroll as he'd hoped it would.
It'd only taken a little under three days to reach the village. The first two days Sasuke spent travelling against a monotonous backdrop, manoeuvring his way through the continuous line of trees that receded in his peripheral. The region hadn't changed much from what he could remember. But as Sasuke came closer to Kusagakure, the nondescript display of scenery gradually gave way to a stream that had hit Sasuke with a haunting familiarity.
There was nothing about the stream that had made it appear unusual. It'd been unimpressive, a narrow channel of murky water with an intermittent flow struggling against the debris it could no longer carry. The stream was a glorified trickle of mud and a shadow of the erosive force needed to create the ravine it had formed.
Small clusters of trees were on either side of the stream, noticeably larger than the ones Sasuke had passed. The trees were broad masses that towered over him, rooted in rich soil and surrounded by bright foliage scattered among the grass. Their bare branches extended over the width of the stream, alluding to the thick trunks hunched forward without bowing to the influence of the sloped ground.
The sight had reminded Sasuke of a place he could envision with such a sharp and sudden clarity, somewhere that shouldn't have existed outside of the story woven by the lines and curves drawn by his own hand. Nothing short of overwhelming, the awareness had made him feel frighteningly young, triggering a recognition he couldn't explain, it was almost as if he'd fallen into the vestiges of a world inspired by what Setsu had imagined through his grandmother's tales.
For a brief moment, Sasuke had even toyed with the notion that he would have been able to see his reflection in water once upon a time. He'd stared at the muddied stream, eerily soothed by the sound of water splashing against the smooth surface of the small pebbles trailing the bank of the stream, but quickly stepped away when he'd heard someone advancing toward him.
It was a young girl dressed in white shorts and a white long-sleeved shirt. She was wearing a forehead protector with a stylised grass emblem scribed on the metal plate. Her hair was tied in a messy bun, with strands as dark as Sasuke's that matched her large eyes. Notably pale, her face was round but plain, and the top of her head barely reached his shoulder. She looked as though she couldn't have been more than thirteen, although she hadn't given Sasuke the chance to misjudge her by appearance.
Despite her height, she'd carried herself tall, guarded but not wary of approaching him. Hand hovering over the kunai resting by her hip, she'd demanded Sasuke state his name and purpose. Her tone was curt and deceptively low, far from the high-pitched voice Sasuke had been expecting, but he didn't hesitate to respond in kind. Deliberately withholding his name, he'd introduced himself as a delegate of Konohagakure and handed her the sealed envelope Tsunade had given him.
She'd examined the envelope with a narrowed gaze, glancing over the characters on the front. She turned it over to study the red seal on the back but didn't break it. Still mindful of Sasuke, she demanded again that Sasuke state his purpose, and Sasuke had relented under the threat of being apprehended as a trespasser. His answer was clipped, divulging no more than his task to deliver of scroll of Kusagakure formerly in the possession of Konohagakure, but she'd accepted with a small nod.
Eyes crinkled with cautious amusement, she'd given the envelope back to Sasuke and addressed him by his full name.
Sasuke had been careful not to show his unease. A slight shift in his stance was the only sign he'd acknowledged the mention of his name. He'd only been told Kusagakure would be expecting a representative from Konoha to deliver the scroll. His apparel hadn't suggested anything else. As far as he was aware, Kusagakure hadn't known to expect him specifically, and he wasn't convinced his face preceded the reputation of his name. Sasuke wasn't sure what connotations her prior knowledge of him held and had been apprehensive of how it would affect carrying out his mission as well as his ability to obtain information about the scroll.
He'd anticipated hostility, for both his name and as an envoy of Konoha. However, despite the strained relationship between their villages, his association with Konoha had been something she hadn't called attention to, and his name had meant no more to her than hers did to him. Seiko, she'd told him to call her, refraining from disclosing a family name. She was an intermediary sent ahead to intercept him and would be an armed chaperone of sorts, which placed Sasuke under her responsibility for the duration of his visit.
Not one to prolong the lack of conversation, Seiko made a swift motion with two fingers, in the direction east of where she had come from. She gestured for Sasuke to follow her and took off without warning.
Seiko was fast. Being agile himself, Sasuke didn't have trouble keeping up with her but grew irritated trying to navigate the confined path she'd chosen to take. They made the rest of the way to Kusagakure on the ground, running through a long and tapering tunnel of bamboo that appeared too thin and brittle to retain their contours. Less light had begun to penetrate the further they went along and dimmed Sasuke's ability to see. The ground became uneven, plagued by holes disguised by soft mounds of dirt and littered with jagged little rocks that had almost caused Sasuke to lose his footing.
Nearing the end of the tunnel, they were met with a deep valley shrouded in fog. Seiko came to a halt, and Sasuke stood beside her, inhaling at the view before him. The fog had generated a palpable moisture, tinting the wide range of mountains in the far distance. In the foreground was an open plain. Grass squelched beneath Sasuke's sandals, blades damp and too green for the time of year. At the fringes of the plain, the grass was growing at a steep incline that levelled out into a meadow, above which, sitting on top of a hill on the other side of the valley, Sasuke could see the raised gates of Kusagakure.
Seiko gave Sasuke a quick glance and ran toward the meadow at the bottom, not looking back to see if Sasuke was following her.
At first glance, Kusagakure had been noticeably smaller than Konoha. Although neither as industrialised nor as densely populated, it had a comparatively higher ratio of ninja to civilians, an area where Konoha had been faltering recently. Its habitants kept mostly to themselves, with a few people poking their heads out of buildings to glimpse at Seiko guiding Sasuke through the otherwise barren streets.
The scars from the invasion by Iwagakure still lingered. Due to Kusagakure's location, it easily served as a front between Konoha and its enemies and could provide a strategic advantage for anyone who gained a foothold. Kusagakure's alliance with Konoha had caused its people to suffer heavy causalities, and they'd taken the brunt of the Konoha's fight against Iwagakure.
Recuperating from an attack that nearly destroyed them, the people of Kusagakure had rebuilt themselves as a neutral society. Two decades later, they continued working to live in relative seclusion. As a result, their relations with Konoha bordered on nonexistent.
They preferred to steer clear from the large scaled affairs of the shinobi world. When Orochimaru was reported to have a hideout in their land, they'd staged little resistance, yet neither did they interfere with Konoha's attempt to capture him. It'd been indicative of their current diplomatic policies, mainly consisting of self-imposed isolation, hence why even something as seemingly inconsequential as Sasuke delivering the scroll had the potential for Konoha to reaffirm ties with them. But there was an unrest growing among many of more influential ninja villages, a tacit battle for power not even Kusagakure could escape, and a partnership could tilt the scales in Konoha's favour in the preparation for the possibility of an oncoming war.
It was what Sasuke believed when he'd accepted the mission. Kusagakure welcoming someone from Konoha into their village held some kind of significance, of that much he was certain. At any rate, Sasuke hadn't been eager to place any more importance on returning a relic that rightfully belonged to Kusagakure. Now he couldn't help but feel the mission was a ruse to ridicule him and underline just how far he'd fallen.
But aside from Seiko, Sasuke hadn't actually interacted with anyone in the village. She'd taken an active interest in staring at him. Since there hadn't been any physical attraction on her part, from what he could tell, or any attempts at small talk, it hadn't bothered him per se, but her constant attentiveness had been grating. He hadn't expected less from someone assigned to follow his every move, yet there'd been something about the way Seiko looked at him, something almost ubiquitous about the faint smile in her eyes that never reached her mouth.
It'd been frustrating, but what made it particularly unnerving was the disinterest shared by the rest of village, which had seemingly chosen to disregard him completely. Sasuke wouldn't pride himself on his social skills, in contrast to his desire not to better them, but his presence had virtually been ignored while Seiko carted him along like some kid who couldn't be trusted not to wander off.
Sasuke walked beside Seiko without complaint, complying because he hadn't been in a position to protest, but he'd been annoyed at having to slow his steps to keep up with her less than brisk pace, and it'd taken a little over twenty minutes to go from one side of the village to the other. Eventually, she led Sasuke to a seemingly vacant inn, where he'd been told to wait until an official came by to collect the scroll. She wasn't generous in relaying when the official would come but suggested that Sasuke get a room in the meantime if he planned on staying the night.
It was an odd way of doing things, maybe even a little drastic for something like passing along a scroll if bringing Sasuke to the inn was an attempt to cut him off from the rest of the Kusagakure. Sasuke knew better than to openly question the unorthodox methods, although it would have been more pragmatic to wait for an official somewhere closer to the entrance. But considering Seiko had already walked Sasuke through the village, he doubted segregating him had been the case.
After paying for a room, Sasuke waited with Seiko at a table in the empty bar. The wait hadn't been long, but when the official came, the exchange had been brief. The official wasn't an imposing character, a man dressed in drab attire with a bunched frame that belittled a more impressive height. He hadn't bothered to introduce himself and refused to make eye contact with Sasuke. If he was being snubbed, Sasuke didn't know, but Seiko had told him to be silent beforehand, and Sasuke straightened in his chair while she spoke on his behalf.
The conversation lasted a few minutes, but they'd spoken over him, remembering Sasuke only when Seiko insisted Sasuke get the scroll out of his bag. He handed her the scroll, and she gave it to the official, who in turn produced an untitled book that had immediately caught Sasuke's attention.
With a slight nod of her head, Seiko thanked Sasuke for bringing the scroll and placed the book in front of him. As a token of Kusagakure's gratitude, the book was Sasuke's to do with as he pleased. It was an old book, thin and stab bound with the cover veiled in a fine layer of dust that had yet to be disturbed.
When Sasuke asked what it was, Seiko had only informed him that she would escort him out of the village in the morning and then followed the official out of the inn.
Three hours later found Sasuke huddled next to a candle. The flickering light kept him awake while he took occasional sips from a bowl of cold soup, an assortment of mushrooms floating in a clear broth and part of the meal one of the inn's attendees had brought to his room. He'd been hesitant at first, anxious about the book with no title. Seiko had given it to him. Not to Konoha, she'd presented the book to Sasuke. She'd emphasised his name, and there'd been a morbid curiosity at the distinction. It was tangled with a sense of dread, avid and hurried, that made Sasuke throw precaution out the window.
He opened the book to the first page, bare and discoloured. Carefully, he began to turn to the next one. He was almost afraid of tearing it, of tugging harshly at the tattered edges, but his hand trembled at the thought of what was written on the pages hiding behind it.
Sasuke hadn't wanted to believe it, but it was there. Impossible but still there, what he'd already committed to memory, the unfinished tale of the boy who chased fireflies, the story trapped in the notebook he'd left at home with Naruto because Sasuke didn't want to think about how Naruto knowing what was in the scroll had chipped away at Sasuke's feigned indifference about Hotaru's disappearance.
Negating the stipulations of his mission, Sasuke had thought of the scroll as his. More importantly, it was something that didn't have to pertain to Naruto. He'd been at odds with himself, wanting to discuss the scroll that heavily involved Naruto and not wanting Naruto to know about Hotaru's correlation with Setsu's story. Sasuke hadn't had much of a choice, but there'd been a bracing satisfaction in simply knowing some semblance of one was there.
Scrutinising the scroll had driven Sasuke from a single-minded determination to the verge of obsession. It tinged his thoughts, impaired his sensibility, searching for anything that would explain why he found it so increasingly easy to believe unravelling the scroll had somehow caused Hotaru to appear. It was the one connection he had with Hotaru that Naruto didn't have. It was Sasuke's alone and one of the few aspects of his life not dominated by Naruto because even Hotaru, Hotaru who had sought out Sasuke, Hotaru who Sasuke had become impossibly close to in the span of a few days, smiled like Naruto, laughed like Naruto, dressed like Naruto—was so damn much like Naruto—and the reminder had been a constant bitterness that continued to twist the knots in Sasuke's stomach because it was just another thing Naruto couldn't let him have.
Every crack and crevice in his life, it was only a matter of time before Naruto seeped into them all, but the book suddenly heavy Sasuke's lap, although he came to Kusagakure to learn more about the scroll, this book shouldn't have been there. The recalled childhood of Setsu's grandmother, the fabricated history of demons and humans, Setsu's meeting with Sankoku, the fable Sasuke had come to know almost verbatim in someone else's handwriting, none of it should have been there. Yet Sasuke traced the faded characters on the page, the slight rise of the dark ink reading Setsu's name, and it felt all too real beneath his fingertips.
Compared to characters on the scroll, the book was written in a contemporary dialect. And, unlike what Sasuke had been able to translate, this version was a more detailed narrative. There were portions of Setsu's journey new to Sasuke, extending beyond the scroll's four day account of Setsu's time in the forest, and he'd been gripped by an insatiable need to find the answers he'd been denied.
There wasn't much variation between Sasuke's translation and the book on Setsu's first day in the forest. The second day, however, began a series of Setsu's encounters with four demons that had been banished to the forest from Setsu's village.
They were described as sprites, impish little creatures said to resemble the animal best suited to their nature. A snake, a frog, a turtle, and a pig, each one made consecutive appearances until the sixth day. They promised to guide Setsu home in exchange for the jar Setsu was using to catch the fireflies that guaranteed him safe passage through the forest. But Setsu had resisted the offers of the demons that had followed him. He continued to catch a firefly to place in the jar each night and wandered through the forest with a growing collection of their bodies in the jar during the day.
And, on the end of the sixth day, deep within the glades of the forest, Setsu met Sankoku again.
But the Sankoku depicted in the book was a far cry from the Sankoku portrayed in the scroll. He observed Setsu with curious features that turned pleasant when he took notice of the jar of dead fireflies and the gauntness beginning to show on Setsu's face.
In the scroll, Sasuke had picked out the allusions to Setsu running out of food, but the depth the book went into describing Setsu's pangs had been wrenching, almost as chilling as the upturn of Sankoku's lips as he told Setsu he'd come to collect his favour.
The slow upturn of Sankoku's lips, Sankoku running a long nail down Setsu's chest and tearing through clothes that were already ragged, the blood splattered over Sankoku's face, the shattered glass planted into the ground, Setsu's choked garbles and wasted pleas—Sasuke saw it when he thought of the thin book in his bag, remembered the single page he hadn't read.
He could still see it when he closed his eyes. Far away from Kusagakure and so close to being home, so close to the place where he met Hotaru, Sasuke couldn't get rid of the image of Setsu slumping on top of a small patch of yellow moss. The scene was cut off midsentence. The beginning of Sankoku's withering smile stopped at the margin near the bottom left hand corner and continued on the last page, but Sasuke hadn't turned it because he didn't want to read it. He closed the book because he couldn't read it.
And because he already had his ending, Sasuke didn't need to read it.
...
A week had gone by since Hotaru disappeared. A week's worth of Naruto waking up in the middle of the night; a week's worth of expecting the pull of Hotaru tugging on his shirt so Naruto could walk him to the bathroom; a week's worth of feeling the outline of chubby fingers roaming across his cheek; a week's worth of waiting for a small arm to wrap around his neck; a week's worth of waking up to see no one beside him.
Night after night and Naruto still didn't have anything to show for it.
There was this unyielding sense of disappointment, this sense that he hadn't done enough—wasn't doing enough—and it had only continued to build as the days dragged on. He wouldn't say he'd given up, not really, but Naruto couldn't escape the prevailing feeling that Sasuke was right. This was something Naruto couldn't fix. This was something Naruto couldn't change. No matter how hard he had tried and how much he wanted to, this was something Naruto wouldn't be able to make right, and he felt like he'd failed because of it.
To fail was incredibly finite. Failing signified an oversight. Being a failure was Naruto assuming responsibility, and asserting that he failed was Naruto admitting he'd been wrong. No matter how he chose to phrase it, this feeling that went beyond the scope of disappointment, it was amazing how easy it was. Too easy to come up with different ways to express the same word that sounded so damning in his head, but Naruto didn't want to know what it was to say it out loud. Because to accept Hotaru truly wasn't coming back meant that Naruto had to accept he didn't get a chance to say goodbye.
A week ago, the last thing Naruto had been worried about was Hotaru being left alone with him. Or rather, Naruto had been worried about being left alone with Hotaru. His experience with kids Hotaru's age was limited if not nonexistent, and although Hotaru had started to cling to Naruto by that point, the thought of taking care of someone so small, someone who'd essentially become dependent on him, especially without Sasuke there, had been scary.
It was more intimidating than Sasuke's aggravated scowls the last time he reminded Naruto he wasn't exactly giving Naruto a choice. If Naruto didn't have anything else constructive to do while Sasuke was away, in particular the plethora of missions he hadn't been assigned, Naruto could look after Hotaru. It wasn't the most outright show of confidence, yet Naruto had taken assurance from the sarcasm all the same because it was Sasuke trying not to say he was relying on Naruto to take care of Hotaru. It was Sasuke being clumsy because he wasn't good at that sort of thing. He wasn't straightforward with what he wanted to say like Naruto, but Sasuke stumbling over his words meant more than Sasuke trying to be the kind of person he wasn't.
However, when Naruto woke up this morning, that assurance had all but waned. The same understated confidence he'd taken from Sasuke, Naruto had fed into that assurance to make a promise he'd made prematurely. He didn't want to think that Sasuke had given up on Hotaru and had focused his energy on proving Sasuke wrong. Naruto proving himself right was the same as finding Hotaru, and when Sasuke came back, Naruto wanted to make Sasuke see there had in fact been time to make a difference, and things weren't as hopeless as Sasuke had made them out to be.
But it was Thursday. Tomorrow was the day Sasuke was coming back, and today Naruto found himself wandering aimlessly through the streets of Konoha. He'd followed the dirt path from the house and just started walking. He still had another hour until he was supposed to meet with Tsunade and was using the time to clear his head, going anywhere, nowhere. He wasn't ready to face her yet. He was too busy trying to decide what he was going to say to Sasuke and knew any questions he had for Tsunade would fall apart before he could ask them.
The unforgiving sense of disappointment he'd associated with failure, if this was a consequence of wanting to bring Hotaru back, then Naruto was the self-fulfilling ass Sasuke had accused him of being.
A week hadn't been enough.
After Sasuke left, Naruto spent the majority of the day unconscious thanks to Sakura, who had been convinced she needed to intervene on Naruto's behalf. She'd moved Naruto to his room and left the house before Naruto opened his eyes in his bed a few hours later. Stomach growling, Naruto fought the grogginess that followed waking up and made his way to the kitchen. He hadn't been in the mood to fix anything, although after nearly inhaling two bowls of stale rice topped with a few cold strips of beef, Naruto realised he hadn't eaten anything solid in two days. Full but surprisingly still tired, he hauled himself to the bathroom for a quick shower, grabbed a shirt and a pair of boxers to put on after drying off, and plopped himself on the bed. He immediately fell back to sleep, holding a half-hearted grudge against Sakura for knocking him out that was forgotten by the time he saw her again the next morning.
A little before six, Sakura did something she hadn't done since Naruto and Sasuke first moved into the house. She rang the doorbell. The fact someone had even used the doorbell was enough to throw Naruto off until he heard the more familiar banging on the door following the unusual show of courtesy. The knocks, though loud, were overpowered by Sakura telling Naruto to come out ready to leave because she'd given him ample time to get his act together.
Naruto had been up since five and was on his way out of the house when she came. He'd wanted to get an early start continuing his search for Hotaru and told her the day before he'd planned as much. If Sakura had come to pick up where their conversation about Hotaru left off, there wasn't anything she could have said to talk Naruto out of going. However, he'd opened the door to see not only Sakura but Shikamaru, Ino, and Kiba, who'd brought Akamaru with him. Naruto met their faces with confusion, taking in their attire and the bags slung over their shoulders with the tilt of his head.
Understanding didn't come until Sakura mentioned the note she'd left that Naruto had overlooked, the note on the kitchen counter reminding Naruto he had friends who weren't letting him go out there to look for Hotaru alone.
One day had been good. They had their own lives, their own responsibilities. Although Naruto hadn't insisted they'd put those aside for his own sake, there had been an earnest sort of comfort in seeing them, in knowing why they were there.
But despite their combined effort, a week still hadn't been enough.
The second attempt had been more organised, though, less rushed on Naruto's part. They'd planned ahead to avoid the frantic mess the original search had turned into when Naruto found Sasuke in the forest again, hours after he'd found Sasuke earlier that morning. Naruto had been antsy, snapping at anyone who asked him if he was all right. He hadn't been all right and ended up making everyone uncomfortable around him because of it.
But Naruto couldn't shake the sight of Sasuke unconscious, what it felt to see Sasuke so still. He couldn't stop seeing it, even when Sasuke joined the search. His concentration had been divided between looking out for signs of Hotaru and periodically checking on Sasuke to make sure he was breathing and that Sasuke was really beside him. Naruto knew he hadn't been in the most sensible state of mind, but there had been an irrational compulsion to make sure that Sasuke was there.
He'd needed Sakura's intervention more than he cared to admit.
Following Sasuke's departure, they'd lost a day with Naruto grounded. Shikamaru had been blunt in telling Naruto the odds of finding Hotaru were stacked against them. A day was a considerable amount of time they couldn't reclaim but more so because they didn't have anything about Hotaru to go on.
So they began with what little they did know. They'd gone back to recreating what happened the morning Hotaru disappeared. The only information they really had to go on was that Naruto had found Sasuke in a not far from the house, presumably where Sasuke had last seen Hotaru, but Sasuke still hadn't been able to fill the blanks in his memory. Although Naruto had prodded Sasuke to remember, the more he pushed, the more agitated Sasuke had become, and Naruto quit in fear of increasing the distance already growing between them.
Kiba had pointed out that an attack on Sasuke was unlikely. None of the seals around Naruto and Sasuke's house had been breached, which meant Sasuke had to have left on his own. The seals were the reason why so few people knew where he and Sasuke lived. They were a precaution, forming a barrier that also served as illusion to ensure their house was hidden and nearly impenetrable from anyone who wasn't allowed access inside by either Naruto or Sasuke.
How Hotaru had gotten through it, Naruto couldn't even begin to guess, but Ino had said it increased the likelihood of Sasuke having been provoked to leave the house, probably by Hotaru, who, with no evidence to prove otherwise, was the only person unaccounted for. If Hotaru had purposely led Sasuke outside, it was reasonable to think Sasuke would have followed him. Sasuke passed out alone and in the middle of the forest with no traces of Hotaru, she'd thought it was too suspicious not to take notice of Hotaru's culpability completely. Naruto had wanted to say Hotaru wouldn't do what Ino was implying, not with the way he'd acted towards Sasuke, but he didn't want to acknowledge he honestly didn't know enough about Hotaru to disagree.
The rest of the conversation brought them back to where they started, with nothing, and by dawn they'd shifted their location from the house to the village. Naruto had originally intended on going back to the forest to continue his search, but Sakura proposed asking around again before they left in case anyone had seen Hotaru within the last two days. She'd asked if Hotaru had the chance to use his camera, suggesting Hotaru would be easier to identify with pictures, and Naruto had never been so grateful for Sasuke and Hotaru making him go to the store that night.
Naruto had dropped off the film to get developed right after he walked Sasuke to the main gate and right before he'd run into Sakura on his way home. When he picked it up, he'd given out photos of Hotaru to take, and the five of them had split up to cover more ground. The plan was to regroup at Naruto's house no later than noon and then extend the search to the outer edge of Fire Country for the next three days.
They'd retraced Hotaru's steps in Konoha. Ransacked everywhere Naruto and Sasuke had taken Hotaru, places they hadn't, weaving in and out of stores and sweeping through any space small enough for Hotaru to squeeze in, nearly turning the village upside in the process of questioning anyone they bumped into, but nobody could recall seeing a blond kid with blue eyes and the prominent marks on his cheeks so reminiscent of Naruto.
It shouldn't have been hard to find someone who'd remembered Hotaru. When Naruto and Sasuke had taken Hotaru shopping, it hadn't bothered Naruto then, aside from bringing more attention than he was used to getting, but the stares they'd been on the receiving end of weren't something they could avoid. He couldn't deny how much the three of them had stood out. But of all the people he, Sakura, Kiba, Shikamaru, and Ino had come across, some of them they had questioned a second time, no one had remembered Hotaru.
Not even the stingy bakery owner who had personally given Hotaru a free sample recognised him in the picture Naruto had shown her. It'd been less than two weeks, so how could she have no problem remembering Naruto and Sasuke coming in that day but not Hotaru? Or, if she couldn't place seeing Hotaru with them, how could she not remember giving away a slice of cake when she rarely if ever gave away her any of her food?
Naruto had known he wasn't going crazy. There were at least four people who could attest his sanity. Unless they had all gone crazy, too, which Naruto thought highly unlikely since Sakura, Kiba, Shikamaru, and Ino were just as confused as he was, either everyone they questioned had been lying or Hotaru had somehow become a figment of their imaginations. But it wasn't like the villagers had any reason not to be honest, none that Naruto could think of.
Although yesterday, going crazy had become an alternative Naruto would have been more than willing to take. On their way back to Konoha, still no luck with finding Hotaru after their short stint in the forest, Ino had asked to look at the photo she'd seen Naruto carrying. It was different from one of the prints he'd given to Ino or had allowed anyone else to see. The photo was something he'd kept for himself, and Naruto had been hesitant to share it.
Instead of Ino's photo of Hotaru standing alone, squinting at camera and getting ready for the flash, it showed Hotaru looking down at Sasuke. Hotaru was sulking, his mouth set in a frown, and Sasuke was fighting not to smile. One of the last pictures they took from that night, Naruto had taken it right after Hotaru, in his attempt to escape Naruto, had tackled Sasuke on the bed and told Sasuke he didn't want to be tickled by Naruto anymore.
Opening his hand, Naruto stopped, and the rest of the group followed suit. When he let Ino see the photo, she didn't say anything about the nature of it, which he appreciated, but she did admit Hotaru looked strange with blond hair. Though, she'd also admitted she had trouble picturing Hotaru with black hair, too. Shikamaru, motivated by Ino's observations to closely re-examine his own photo, then confessed that with no active regard for the features Hotaru shared with Naruto and Sasuke, it was difficult for him to recognise Hotaru.
Shikamaru also admitted he was confused by his own explanation. Ino claimed Shikamaru had put into words how she felt but then said she didn't understand it, either. If Hotaru looked so much like Naruto and Sasuke, why was the image, or maybe the idea, Shikamaru later suggested, of Hotaru so hard to take in?
Naruto had asked whether or not they remembered preparing for Hotaru's spur-of-the-moment surprise party. While Ino and Shikamaru both remembered buying supplies and decorating Naruto and Sasuke's living room, they fumbled trying to consciously connect their actions with the fact that they'd been doing it for Hotaru.
Nervous, Naruto had looked to Kiba and Sakura to ask if either of them was experiencing the same phenomenon. Kiba shook his head and said no, adding that he clearly remembered the face of the kid who kicked him in the shin. Sakura narrowed her eyes and asked to look at the photo Ino had wanted to see. Naruto didn't know what to make of tightness around her mouth when he handed it to her. She'd said nothing appeared unfamiliar about Hotaru, but Naruto thought it looked more like Sakura had been embedding the picture in her mind, outwardly passing it off as a simple glance. As she gave the photo back to Naruto, she urged the group to keep going.
They continued walking without looking at one another, too unsettled to say anything, but it hadn't taken long for Naruto to get tired of the oppressive silence even he didn't want to break. He placed himself ahead of the group and spent the rest of the way home trying to rack up an answer, anything he could think of to keep his mind from how the photo of Sasuke and Hotaru crumpled in his hand.
It was only a matter of time before what was happening to Shikamaru and Ino, what had happened to most of the people who'd come in contact with Hotaru, would happen to Kiba and Sakura, too. But these weren't random cases of selective amnesia. This was something beyond Naruto's power of comprehension. Other than things like clothes and toys, confirming Hotaru had been living with Naruto and Sasuke, the developing pattern of simultaneous memory loss suggested Hotaru had never existed.
The more Naruto looked into the incident surrounding Hotaru, the less he seemed to understand and the further away he was taken from the possibility of finding any answers. Of course, Naruto had already established there was a relationship between Hotaru and the scroll Sasuke was given. That was his best bet. It was his only bet. But, not being able to make out what part Sasuke played in all of this, there wasn't much Naruto could do aside from grasping at his own conclusions.
As much as he didn't want to think about it, Naruto had to consider being affected by Hotaru's disappearance. Notwithstanding Hotaru's things at home, how long would it take for him to start forgetting? And if Sasuke had an idea of what was recently brought to Naruto's attention, which Naruto assumed he did, was Sasuke counting down to when he would start forgetting, too?
Or had Sasuke already started to forget and had simply chosen not to tell Naruto?
"Naruto-kun!"
Naruto stopped and turned at the voice, a readily forced smile on his face when he saw it was Lee approaching him. "Hey, I didn't know you were coming back today, Fuzzy-brows."
Lee nodded and broke out into a grin at the nickname Naruto hadn't abandoned. "I returned with Aritomo-san and Saigo-san last night. I wanted to visit you then, but it was already too late. I did not wish to disturb you considering you had just returned to Konoha, as well."
Naruto made a dismissive wave with his hand. "You wouldn't have bothered me."
"Yes, but I spoke with Sakura-san this morning, and she said you had been tired all week—yesterday, especially," Lee said. "I had intended to see you afterward. However, when Sakura-san accompanied me to your house, we discovered you were not home. I was concerned, I admit, because of what Sakura-san told me earlier. She did assure me you were all right, although I am glad to have run into you."
"You talked to Sakura-chan, huh," Naruto said softly, almost to himself. Licking his lips, he raised his voice and asked, "Did she tell you about…?"
All traces of excitement fell from Lee's face. He looked at Naruto with uncertainty, tentatively reaching for a response. "I was looking forward to finally meeting Hotaru-san. Sakura-san told me you and Sasuke-san seemed so happy, and I wanted to congratulate the two of you on your newly found relationship with Hotaru-san, but…"
Naruto placed his thumbs in the front pockets of his pants and rocked back on his heels. Lee loved kids, and he would have loved Hotaru. Naruto could imagine Hotaru going cross-eyed and saying something inappropriate about Lee's eyebrows, something Naruto would have said or probably did say when he was younger, but Naruto stopped himself when the thought reinforced the reality that Hotaru wasn't there.
"It's okay."
Lee shook his head and clapped Naruto on the shoulder. "I am not sure what happened, barring what I have learned through Sakura-san. But if there is anything I can do, for either you or Sasuke-san, please do not hesitate to let me know."
"I…"
It was such a natural gesture, so honestly Lee that Naruto felt guilty because he'd been so ready to feed into the idea of Lee reacting any other way.
Between trying to find Hotaru and worrying about Sasuke, the last few days had taken its toll on Naruto. There was that tug again, that unwelcome pull urging Naruto toward the choice he refused to make. As long as he was waiting for Sasuke, he was looking for Hotaru, but despite Naruto's attempts to keep how torn he was feeling to himself, his resolve not to talk about it had revealed more than he wanted to tell.
It shouldn't have been an option. It wasn't an option. But the division between Sasuke and Hotaru was there. It was in the back of his mind, and Naruto was straining with a decision no one else could respond to. For all Naruto knew, with the way things were going, maybe they weren't able to, but the thought of completely forgetting Hotaru, carrying on like Hotaru had never been there—Naruto didn't want it to come to that. He didn't want those memories he'd made with Sasuke to mean nothing.
It'd been difficult to listen to Kiba's hasty apologies. They didn't do anything to ease the prickling in Naruto's chest, but short of managing to find Hotaru, there wasn't much else Kiba could do. At the very least, Shikamaru and Ino had talked around the subject of Hotaru. They were both conscious of how neither of them being able to remember Hotaru had affected Naruto.
Sakura had tried to sympathise with Naruto, tried to help him make the best of the situation. And while Naruto didn't think it was unintentional, she'd come across as detached. Iruka had seemed caught between giving Naruto what comfort he could and more or less hinting it was something that couldn't be helped. Kakashi, although he'd been more attentive of Sasuke than usual last week, had only said he trusted Naruto and Sasuke would find a way to make things work out. But Naruto wasn't sure how to interpret it because Kakashi had said the same thing that day when he and Iruka came over to see Hotaru.
And Tsunade…
Naruto was hoping to find out what she had to say about it soon enough.
Reasonably, Naruto wanted to think, he'd been upset at first. Then again, he didn't fault them for their reactions. They all understood the concept of loss. In this case, though, there was also a certain disconnect because their memories of Hotaru were admittedly vague. They preferred to skirt the issue altogether, and it was hard for Naruto to say what he would have done if he was put in the same position. But he had their unconditional support. That was the most they could give. That was the most Naruto could ask for.
And from someone like Lee, who hadn't even been here, the look in his eyes was so sincere it hurt. If Lee could remember Hotaru, was still able to feel something for this person he'd never met but everyone else was gradually forgetting, then Naruto could be greedy and hold on to this obscure piece of hope that meant he and Sasuke didn't have to forget Hotaru, either.
"Thank you for that. Really." Naruto gave Lee a small but genuine smile, the most he'd been able to dredge up all week. "You're a good friend, Lee. And I—I don't think that's something I say as much as I should."
Lee removed his hand from Naruto's shoulder but kept his gaze firm. "If there is anything either of you need, I mean it."
Looking away briefly, Naruto covered his mouth and cleared his throat. "So, um, how'd your mission go?"
"Not so well, I am afraid." Lee frowned. "The long journey home was fortunately uneventful, but we did not have the most welcoming news to give Hokage-sama during our mission debriefing. The treaty with Iwagakure is not proceeding as well as we had initially anticipated. Perhaps it is due to the current negotiations with Kusagakure, but if we are not able to secure a presence in Earth Country within the next year or so…"
Naruto scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, that kind of news is becoming the standard these days, isn't it? I try not to think about it all the time, though. I don't want to get stuck wondering if it's only going to get worse, you know."
Seeing Lee's expression growing pensive, Naruto said firmly, "But you did what you could. That's all you can do. More importantly, it's really good to have you back. It was getting too quiet without you around," he joked.
"Likewise, the quiet becomes stifling when I am not home." Another smile slowly crept back onto Lee's face. "But I am filled with a relief I have not experienced in a long time, Naruto-kun. A very long time."
"It's been what? Almost six months since you've been gone?"
"Nearly half a year."
"If I'd known you were coming back today, I would have thrown a party to celebrate."
"Actually, I am on my way to meet Gai-sensei. He generously offered to treat me to lunch, but if you would like to come…?"
"Not trying to be rude or turn you down, but do you mind if we finish catching up tomorrow? I need to run a couple of errands before Sasuke gets back."
"According to Sakura-san, Sasuke-san should be returning tomorrow, right? I am looking forward to seeing him again, as well."
"He'll probably show up sometime in the morning, I bet."
"Is that not…?"
"No, no—it's just that I waited until the last minute to do what I'm supposed to do, and I'm trying to hurry and make sure I get everything done around the house before Sasuke comes back. You know how he gets."
"Yes, I do understand how...animated Sasuke-san becomes on occasion. Is there anything I can help with?"
"Nah. Go ahead and relax while you can before someone decides to send you back out again."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure." Naruto gave a wryly smile. "I just have a few loose ends to tie up."
...
Sasuke crouched on a branch of the tree directly above his temporary resting site. Berating himself for reaching to unsheathe the sword he didn't have, he quickly drew one of the kunai from the holster strapped to his thigh and raised it level with his neck.
Since the sun had already set, Sasuke could take advantage of the lack of light. Until he could determine the source of the sudden spike in chakra, the best course of action would be to lie in wait. This was the first person he'd come across outside of boundaries of Kusagakure in the six days he'd been travelling. The most he could expect was that whoever it was would pass without knowing he was there. Throughout the course of the mission, he'd been averse to initiating any unnecessary encounters and wasn't in a rush to do otherwise.
He'd long ago made it a habit to mask his chakra and did it subconsciously, the meagre amount he did have access to. He'd been taking the most indirect route between Konoha and Kusagakure, and although weren't many people who regularly made trips between the two villages, it didn't mean Sasuke wanted to entertain the risk of alerting anyone to his whereabouts. He'd been moving quickly, staying no longer than a couple of hours in one location the few times he stopped to take a break. He hadn't even bothered with making fires. The weather was somewhat warm during the day despite the cooler nights, and the sleeping bag he brought did more than enough to suffice.
Whoever it was trying to follow him was only minutes away. The chakra signature wasn't one Sasuke immediately recognised, but it wasn't faint, either, meaning it was someone not bothering to hide where they were. As brash as it was to travel so openly, practically demanding to be found, it raised the question of why this person was doing it. Yet, taking into account the source was coming from the direction of Konoha, Sasuke couldn't find it in himself to believe the reveal wasn't a deliberate attempt to catch his attention.
There was a flicker of movement, preceding the rustling of leaves and branches in a tree no less than thirty metres from him. It seemed like the person knew Sasuke was in the general vicinity, if not exactly where; however, he wasn't willing to give away his position so soon. But making that much noise with no visible intent to suppress it, even if he was being sought out, Sasuke frowned when he recognised who had caused it.
It was Kakashi—or at least the silhouette looked like Kakashi. But Sasuke maintained his defensive stance and tightened his grip on the handle of his kunai, opting to err on the side of caution.
Of course, presuming it was Kakashi, that meant the Council had most likely insisted on sending someone to follow him. It defeated the purpose of the mission, which, Sasuke had been told by the Council at the time he accepted, was to assess his loyalty to the village, but Sasuke couldn't say he was surprised. Therein laid the issue of trust, or lack thereof placed in him, that continued to push Sasuke past the point of caring. In regards to their collective opinion of him, the handful of elders consisting of the Council made Sasuke's relationship with Tsunade actually look amicable.
He just didn't expect Kakashi to be the one the Council obliged to do it.
But, if those were the circumstances, why hadn't Sasuke run into Kakashi before? And why would the Council send Kakashi out of his way to meet him now when Sasuke was less than a day away from Konoha?
Sasuke stilled when Kakashi jumped to the tree across from him. After a pause, Kakashi stood slowly with one hand placed on the trunk, leaning the majority of his weight against it. The red in his left eye was visible even in the dark and vanished when Kakashi pulled his forehead protector over it.
Gritting his teeth, Sasuke stood and withdrew his kunai, slipping it back into the holster.
Kakashi gave a half-hearted salute. "Yo."
Apparently, Kakashi left behind the more solemn attitude Sasuke had last seen him with and reverted to the usual personality Sasuke wasn't fond of.
"Did someone send you to follow me all the way to Kusagakure or are you just imposing to make sure I come back?"
"What about neither—is that an acceptable answer for you?"
It wasn't. That was a given they both knew and Sasuke didn't need to say.
Kakashi making another jump to land beside him, Sasuke fought hard against the inclination to strike. He wasn't prepared for this, had in fact been avoiding it, and was more than appreciative Kakashi hadn't tried to corner him when Hotaru disappeared. It never failed to irk him. With any opportunity, Kakashi instigated pointless discussions to push Sasuke toward the kind of contemplation he had no desire to indulge in.
And damn it if Sasuke didn't fall for it every time.
Kakashi raised his gaze towards Sasuke. He stared at Sasuke's profile, watching Sasuke almost as closely as Naruto did during those odd spells when Naruto lost his typical flamboyance and made Sasuke feel unduly exposed at the sight of his reflection in Naruto's eyes. But, unlike Naruto, Kakashi wasn't devoted to learning every facet of Sasuke's character.
Since Sasuke's return to Konoha, a delicate ambience had developed between them. It was a mutual understanding that presented Kakashi with a knack for getting under Sasuke's skin and Sasuke with a hindering tolerance for Kakashi's antagonistic behaviour.
Although he thought them to be flawed, Sasuke could accept the intentions weren't bad on Kakashi's part. Most of Sasuke's initial frustration with Kakashi was due to reluctance and quickly curtailed to annoyance. Lately, however, Kakashi's light prodding had taken a more discriminating turn. What began as minor annoyance became genuine anger that hadn't readily subsided, and it didn't take much for Sasuke to figure out what the catalyst was.
Kakashi lowered himself to sit on the branch while Sasuke still stood. "I'm assuming that means no."
Kakashi had yet to look away, but Sasuke remained tight-lipped and continued to face forward. Irritated with himself, Sasuke knew Kakashi probably picked up on his show of discomfort—like Kakashi did the day he came to the house to meet Hotaru for the first time. But without Naruto and Iruka acting as buffers, Kakashi's calculating expression was more blatant, more aggressive. It was as if Kakashi was waiting for Sasuke to crack beneath Kakashi's veneer of concern, in the meantime trying to project onto Sasuke his expectations of how much Hotaru's disappearance had affected Sasuke. What those expectations were, Sasuke could hazard a guess.
It was safer for Kakashi to believe the worst of Sasuke, to consider the possibility of Sasuke defecting from Konoha when he'd done it before. Considering the general mentality of the village had yet again played a pivotal role in ostracising him, in light of his own liability, Sasuke didn't blame Kakashi. With his history, it really wasn't much of a stretch to assume Sasuke didn't have the emotional capacity to handle something as unexpected as Hotaru.
Hotaru was abruptly thrown into Sasuke and Naruto's lives, just as quickly taken away, but Sasuke had already given up too much of his life wallowing in an anger that had ultimately worked against him. And although it hadn't been his original intention to ever return to Konoha after leaving, much less alive, he'd continued to stay on his own volition and wasn't going to incriminate himself for other people's satisfaction. His humiliation at being treated like a pawn, wrestling against the people in the village who knowingly held power over him, it was a gamble Sasuke couldn't win. And despite how easily the contours of Hotaru's face kept slipping from his memory, Sasuke continued to scrape at the images of home that lessened the ambiguity of Hotaru's existence and made it something concrete.
The invisible stars and moon Sasuke could map out in his head, the simple pictures drawn with black marker that Naruto and Hotaru scrubbed from the wall in the foyer; Hotaru's green toothbrush, sharing the holder with Sasuke and Naruto's blue and yellow ones; the plastic turtle Sakura gave Hotaru, sitting on the edge of the bathroom sink, right next to the blue soap that once took the shape of a flower; the small, brightly coloured pyjamas already wrinkled, squished in Naruto's underwear drawer where Hotaru had put them—because he could preserve those images, constantly replay in his mind those snippets representing a time seemingly so long ago, it was enough to sustain Sasuke until tomorrow, until he was home.
It was enough that Sasuke wouldn't forget.
"Unless I'm being detained and you're being held accountable for me," Sasuke said, narrowing his eyes at Kakashi, "there's no reason for you to be here."
"I'm offering my company."
"I don't want your company."
"Oh." Kakashi's mouth was drawn into a contrived smile that soon slipped from the mask hiding his face. "That's a shame."
"Why were you looking for me, Kakashi?"
"I wanted to."
Scoffing, Sasuke sat on the branch. Positioning his back against the trunk of the tree, he let one leg hang freely and brought the other close to his chest, wrapping an arm around his knee. "You're avoiding the question."
"I gave you an answer. Just not the one you wanted to hear."
"You find a justification for everything, don't you?"
Raising his head, Kakashi gave a wistful sigh, and Sasuke closed his eyes, feigning not to hear the softly spoken not always from Kakashi. "Amazing how you can still see even when everything's so much darker with an empty sky. It's interesting, don't you think?"
Sasuke shrugged, finding nothing appealing about pointing out the obvious.
"Ever heard of that old saying," Kakashi asked, "the one about the stars?"
"If it's something you made up, probably not, but…" Sasuke began, carefully choosing his next words, "people say a lot of things about stars."
Kakashi shifted next to him, moving close enough that Sasuke could feel the warmth from Kakashi's body. A slight breeze made the leaves above them shudder, but Sasuke failed to suppress an involuntarily shiver when the cool air hit his skin, and his mind wandered to the sleeping bag tucked inside of his bag.
"Specifically, I'm referring to the saying my grandmother once told me," Kakashi said. "Will that make a difference?"
"It doesn't matter to me."
"You say that now."
"I'll say it later, too."
"You may. You may not. I'd argue the uncertainty of knowing the future, although I suppose that's a moot point with you. Either way, do know this, Sasuke. Even if you can't see the stars tonight, it doesn't mean they were never there."
Not trusting himself to speak, Sasuke swallowed, trying to keep at bay the burning sensation rising in the back of his throat.
The seconds passed slowly, encroaching upon the silence like minutes until Kakashi spoke again. "I think the saying goes along the lines of something like that," he said absently. "You should give it some thought when you wake up."
Startled, Sasuke opened his eyes. He was on the ground again, propped by the tree he'd fallen asleep against. Ignoring the slight pain in his lower back, Sasuke blindly reached for his bag, not waiting for his pupils to adjust to the dark. He took out his sleeping bag and spread it on the ground, settling himself inside and shutting his eyes as he tried to stifle the all too real impression of his conversation with Kakashi.
...
It wouldn't take much for Naruto to confess he'd been putting off this confrontation. He'd hid behind excuse after excuse, telling himself waiting until the end of the week wouldn't hurt in spite of feeling the opposite. It was only because he'd run out of excuses that Naruto was able to step foot in Tsunade's office again.
His last visit began with a one-sided conversation that consisted of Tsunade threatening to suspend him from future missions if he stepped outside of Konoha that day and ended with her subsequently throwing Naruto out in the hall. It wasn't the first time she'd threatened Naruto and kicked him out of her office, but she hadn't done it recently. Not within the last three or four years and not unless she'd lost her composure, which was rare considering Tsunade was a relatively collected person who liked to be in control of how people saw her.
She'd been as anxious to speak to Naruto as she was to get him out, cagey in a way that had definitely grabbed his attention and Sasuke's, too. But Naruto still couldn't wrap his head around why Tsunade had been so set on him not leaving the village until the day after Sasuke left. She couldn't have been worried about Naruto burning out, not when she gave Sasuke the okay after Sasuke had spent a considerable chunk of the day before unconscious. So what difference would it have made if Naruto had left?
He knew he should have asked then, should have gone back to Tsunade's office after he'd seen Sasuke off when every single one of Tsunade's actions had pointed to something being wrong. Instead, Naruto had gone home. Too tired to be productive, too alert to fall asleep, Naruto had mulled over Tsunade's final words to dissuade Naruto from looking for Hotaru. Even if Konoha had the resources to exhaust, she wouldn't have wasted them helping Naruto pursue a hapless cause. It was true Konoha wasn't the formidable force it used to be, but the exaggerated reminder didn't take away from Naruto's anger at what Tsunade had said. He'd let himself stew in it. Her careless attitude had done more than rile him. Until he'd been able to get a handle of the situation, Naruto had been hesitant to approach her again.
He'd tried talking to Kakashi about it, what about Hotaru that Tsunade wasn't telling Naruto. Since Kakashi had given the scroll to Sasuke, it seemed likely he knew something. At any rate, Kakashi probably knew more than Naruto and at least as much as Sasuke, if not more. Naruto hadn't been able to get anything out of him, though. Kakashi had ignored any attempts Naruto made to introduce the subject of the scroll or the lack of recognition where Hotaru was concerned. Kakashi had always been an elusive person, but dealing with such frank disregard had put Sasuke's recent complaints about Kakashi into perspective.
To Naruto's surprise, Iruka had been the same, apparently aware of what was happening but not willing to let on how much he knew. It gave Naruto second thoughts about Iruka's strained interest that night they'd met in the park. Naruto had assumed it was because of his relationship with Sasuke that made Iruka less receptive toward Hotaru, but Iruka had worn the same resigned expression evading Naruto's questions like he did while he sat next to Naruto on the swings.
Even Sakura, who'd made a house call the day after Hotaru appeared on Naruto and Sasuke's doorstep, didn't have anything to add. When Naruto asked, she'd claimed she was sent by Tsunade to check on a child Naruto and Sasuke were taking care of, and that was the extent of what she knew.
Hand tense, Naruto knocked on the door to Tsunade's office. He announced himself and waited for permission to go in. She wasn't a last resort, but this encounter was inevitable if he ever hoped to gain any kind of understanding.
"And here I was hoping to avoid seeing your mug until tomorrow." Placing the pen in her hand on her desk, Tsunade looked up as Naruto entered. "Is there something I can do for you?"
Naruto stopped in front of her desk but didn't take a seat in the chair behind him. "That depends on what you tell me."
"Which would depend on what you want to know."
Naruto quirked his lips. Tsunade wasn't going to volunteer any information, and Naruto wouldn't get her to budge unless he approached this head first. "You know I came here about Hotaru. And yeah, it's on me for not coming to you sooner, but there's a lot you haven't been saying, either. Since me and Sasuke came with Hotaru that day, you knew. About where Hotaru came from and why he was here, you knew."
"If I didn't know about the kid the first time you asked me, what makes now any different?"
"His name," Naruto said, "is Hotaru."
"Fine, Hotaru," Tsunade said. She shuffled the papers scattered across her desk, putting them all into one pile. "Again, why would I know?"
"Because this is bigger than some kid who happened to look exactly like me finding his way to Sasuke. And you're not exactly the kind of person to let something like that go under your watch."
"Well, suffice to say, I can't explain how the kid found Uchiha."
"Then explain why people are acting like Hotaru never existed, why no one could make the connection with me and Sasuke when I showed them this." Naruto took the photo of Sasuke and Hotaru out of his pocket. He smoothed out the edges and held it up for Tsunade to see. "Why they had to struggle to see something that should have been obvious."
Tsunade sat up in her chair. She reached for the photo and held it between her fingers, bringing it closer to her face when Naruto let go.
"You can't tell me Hotaru wasn't real," Naruto said, "so explain to me why almost everyone I showed his picture to looked at me like he wasn't."
"You still think I know?"
Naruto shook his head. "I don't think. I know you have some kind of idea about what's going on. Nobody wants to say anything, but if I find out you had something to do with this, I'll—"
"And if I did, you'll do what?" Tsunade's voice was condescending, paired with a shrewd smile. "Don't overstep your boundaries, Naruto."
Naruto stepped away from the desk. It'd initially been an offhand comment he'd made to Sasuke, saying Tsunade had something to do with Hotaru appearing on their doorstep. Now Naruto was convinced he hadn't been too far from the mark, but the outright accusation he'd made was dangerous. The beginnings of a threat that followed made it worse, and Naruto was lucky Tsunade knew him well enough not to take his venting too seriously.
"Look, you're the only person I can turn to right now. I came to you for answers. Is that too much to ask?"
"What was it that you once told me?" Tsunade said. "That these things happen and sometimes you can only accept it and move on?"
Naruto curled his hands into fists. "You can't throw my words back at me at a time like this."
"Oh, so I can only do it when it's convenient for you?"
"That's not what I said."
"Then say what you mean, Naruto, because I don't know what to tell you if you don't."
"All right." Naruto sniffed and rolled his shoulders. "Tell me you didn't have anything to do with Hotaru. Tell me you don't have a clue about where Hotaru came from or why he's gone."
Tsunade laid the photo of Sasuke and Hotaru on her desk. She mumbled about needing a drink and opened a drawer, neatly placing the stack of papers she'd arranged inside.
"I already know that scroll Sasuke took to Kusagakure has something to do with it," Naruto said, eyes narrowing when he caught the slight pause of Tsunade's hands. "It wasn't that hard to put together."
"Did you read the scroll?"
"...what would happen if I did?"
Naruto wasn't so thoughtless to confess he'd read a translation of the scroll. He wasn't going to compromise Sasuke's standing because of what he personally saw as a technicality, but he still wanted to gauge Tsunade's reaction, why she'd hesitated when he mentioned the scroll.
He couldn't be sure that Tsunade would agree with his logic, not in her official capacity as Hokage, but Naruto stood by what he'd said to Sasuke. Reading the notes Sasuke had written about the scroll wasn't the same as reading the scroll itself. And despite how Sasuke reacted when he found Naruto with the notebook, it wasn't much of a leap for Naruto to think Sasuke had actually wanted him to read it. Any other time, Sasuke was careful to put away whatever he didn't want Naruto to find, and Naruto respected there were some parts of Sasuke's life he wasn't going to know about until Sasuke was ready to tell him.
Granted, there were exceptions to certain, more personal things Naruto wouldn't have been able to find anyway, but it usually wasn't a big deal if Naruto peeked at some of Sasuke's lessons plans or any of the work Sasuke brought home that he kept in plain sight. Notwithstanding Sasuke using a rolled up stack of papers to hit Naruto on the back of the head for his troubles too many of the times Naruto didn't ask beforehand, the fact that Sasuke left the notebook on the desk, clear for even Hotaru to see, had to mean Sasuke had given Naruto an open invitation. Of course Naruto had taken it. The importance of Sasuke's mission, despite the implications that the scroll could be a key in rebuilding the alliance between Konoha and Kusagakure, had been heavily understated, and Naruto had needed to know what in that scroll had been the cause of so much secrecy and why Sasuke had been thrown in the middle of it.
"Nothing would happen." With the bottom of her sandal, Tsunade slammed the drawer shut. "Because you didn't read the scroll."
Slowly, Naruto nodded. Although Tsunade was clearly giving him an out, he held no desire to persuade her into believing otherwise. He was being truthful in agreeing that he hadn't read the scroll. He couldn't. His inability to read it hadn't been for lack of trying, but going over Sasuke's notes had still provided Naruto with insight to establish something a little more solid in pinpointing how the scroll concerned Hotaru.
The connection went beyond Hotaru showing up the day after Sasuke received the scroll and Hotaru vanishing the day before Sasuke took the scroll to Kusagakure. The fable in the scroll had only confirmed Naruto's suspicions. At first, the similarities between Hotaru and Setsu's story seemed more coincidental than apparent. It'd been strange to find any similarities at all, but the more time Naruto took to re-evaluate each moment with Hotaru, the easier it became to draw parallels between the fable and what he'd observed of Hotaru, mainly how Hotaru had interacted with Sasuke.
The most obvious of the similarities was the significance behind Hotaru's name. Naruto had thought it was funny then, Hotaru being afraid of the fireflies he shared his name with, but the knowledge of Setsu's story had marred the memory of that night.
It was jarring. Something as innocent as catching fireflies with Hotaru, the allusions to Setsu attempting to do the same in order to find his way home were uncanny. Other than coincidence, Naruto didn't know what else to call it. But, the undertones of his conversation with Hotaru aside, it couldn't have just been coincidence. And if he factored in Hotaru's nervousness to separate himself from Sasuke, the strange longing in Hotaru's eyes when he'd look at Sasuke that Naruto hadn't been able to place, like Hotaru had been trying to make sure Sasuke wouldn't disappear—it was on the tip of his tongue, the link Naruto was missing.
As abrupt as the transition had been, undeniably, Naruto had grown close to Hotaru. He'd gone from panicking at the sight of his miniature doppelganger to genuinely deciding with Sasuke to bring Hotaru into their lives, but with Sasuke's relationship with Hotaru, the connection had been instantaneous. The sheer normality of watching them together had unnerved Naruto when he walked in on Sasuke giving Hotaru a bath. It unnerved him now, despite his feelings toward Hotaru, to think how quickly Sasuke had allowed himself to latch on to someone who, albeit a kid, had been a stranger. Not to say that Naruto was simply someone Hotaru had tolerated, but with Sasuke there was something more.
Hotaru may have resembled Naruto, yet it was almost as if he was an extension of Sasuke and not the imbalanced mesh of Naruto and Sasuke's personalities Sasuke once described Hotaru as. Naruto took note that Hotaru had been unusually perceptive for a kid his age, conscious of what Sasuke was doing or where Sasuke was. He also noticed the same could have been said of Sasuke. Hotaru wouldn't stray too far from Sasuke, and Sasuke would instinctively go out of his way to make himself available to Hotaru.
It went deeper than Sasuke's experience at the Academy. He knew Sasuke was relaxed around kids in Hotaru's age group, but if Naruto added the element of Sasuke's relationship with him, the forced and almost sole dependence on Naruto as a result of Sasuke's reintegration into Konoha, if that was the link Naruto was searching for—two of the most prominent aspects of Sasuke's life, and if the scroll was somehow used as a means of bringing them together...
"See, I knew there was something off about Hotaru going straight to Sasuke." Naruto frowned. "I mean, other than not knowing where Hotaru came from, but then there was something about Sasuke being so comfortable with Hotaru that fast. You saw how Sasuke almost didn't let you hold Hotaru when the three of us came to you that day.
"I knew Hotaru looking like me had to do with it. I just couldn't figure out how much that had to do with it since Hotaru didn't recognise me when we first met, which was strange, you know, because at first I thought Hotaru looked more like me than Sasuke. But all Hotaru saw was Sasuke.
"Then again, if Hotaru didn't look like me, Sasuke probably wouldn't have acted the way he did. I'm not saying Sasuke would have closed the door on Hotaru. He'd never do that because he really likes working with little kids. Even if he didn't, Sasuke has more than enough decency not to turn away a kid. But Hotaru was different. And for Hotaru to be different, to realise how much of an effect he would have on someone like Sasuke, you'd have to know about Sasuke's relationship with me, and there—"
"Naruto—"
"—aren't many people who really know about me and Sasuke. As far as most of Konoha's concerned, I'm just Sasuke's watchdog to make sure he doesn't screw up again. So tell me, giving Sasuke that mission," Naruto said, "was that a cover-up for some kind of test?"
An assessment of his loyalty, Sasuke had called it, when Naruto first asked him about the low-ranked mission Sasuke had been all too eager to accept, but to go this far, to put together something like this—after five years of having an entire village walk over him, what else did Sasuke have to do to prove himself?
Tsunade began to open her mouth but withheld from saying anything.
"I almost want to say sending Sasuke to Kusagakure was to distract him, but Sasuke wouldn't fall for something like that." Naruto clenched his teeth. Although Sasuke hadn't been able to put it into words, he'd been convinced from the start that they'd never see Hotaru again, and Naruto had done his best to refute it. "Taking Hotaru away was the real test, though, wasn't it? To see what Sasuke would do. I just got caught in the crossfire."
"...if you're asking if I knew that the situation would present itself as it did…" Sighing, Tsunade glanced out the window. "Then, no. No, I didn't."
"And that's why you told me not to leave. You knew it wouldn't change anything because Hotaru wasn't coming back."
"I did."
"But if you already knew Hotaru wasn't coming back, then why didn't you...?"
Naruto understood enough about the politics in Konoha to figure out what happened. He didn't like it or agree with the decision making that took place behind closed doors supposedly for the greater good. However, Naruto also had to take into account that the majority of the village was still wary of Sasuke, which was understandable. The stigma from Sasuke's betrayal and the criminal status he'd warranted from that period hadn't faded away. Even with the seal that regulated Sasuke's abilities and range of techniques, Naruto was fully aware far too many people would have preferred Sasuke in a state where he wouldn't be able to use them at all.
At the same time, though, Naruto couldn't accept that Tsunade would have gone along with something like this. It rattled him. While she didn't share Naruto's sentiment about Sasuke, nonetheless, Tsunade was on Sasuke's side. She was one of the few people who had supported Sasuke when Naruto dragged him back and helped make the case to spare Sasuke's life in front of the Council. After the completion of Sasuke's house arrest, she'd vouched for Sasuke during his yearlong appeal to reinstate his standing as a ninja. A lot of her influence had been due to Naruto's insistence, some of it probably because Tsunade had felt sorry for Sasuke, but whatever it was that had swayed her, there was no doubt in Naruto's mind that Tsunade cared about Sasuke.
Facing Naruto again, Tsunade said, "Is that all?"
"Is that...?"
"Your hour's almost up, and I have more important things to do with my time than cater to you all day."
"Don't worry. I'll be leaving soon enough." Naruto shook his head and scoffed. "Hear me out on this, though. No matter how I felt about it in the beginning, regardless of where Hotaru came from or what he really was, the day Hotaru found Sasuke is the day he became ours. The only thing we knew about Hotaru was that he didn't have anywhere else to go. We weren't going to just dump him wherever, not when Hotaru was the spit and image of me and especially not when Hotaru was already so emotionally attached to Sasuke. But you were counting on that. And we took Hotaru in like we were supposed to, didn't we? I admit I didn't think having Hotaru would make the impact that it did, but when it started to feel like the three of us were a...a—"
Taking a deep breath, Naruto ran his fingers through his hair. "When it starts to turn into more than just me and Sasuke, Hotaru disappears, and suddenly it's like Hotaru was never there. A week might not seem like a long time to get close to someone, but even if there's no real reason for why we invested so much of ourselves in Hotaru, the point is that we did. That's not something we can walk away from. You can't expect us to move on like nothing happened, and Sasuke—"
"Will deal with it."
Naruto blinked. The words were unsympathetic, even by Tsunade's standards, but he wasn't sure if she truly meant it or purposely said it to be snide.
"And what about me?" Naruto asked. "Are you expecting me to deal with it, too?"
"Honestly, I'm not expecting you to do anything."
"That's it? That's all you have to say about it?"
"If it's any consolation, I..." Tsunade picked up the photo lying on her desk and gave it back to Naruto. "No, I guess anything along those lines won't matter much to you. To either of you."
It was the closest thing to an apology Tsunade would give, but Naruto wasn't looking for some shallow rationale. He knew this was something out of her hands. He'd figured at least that much and couldn't direct all of his anger at her. Still, whatever the extent of her participation in Hotaru's existence, however she wanted to defend it, Naruto didn't want to know. In the grand scheme of things, maybe she hadn't been in a position to stop it. With her reluctance to acknowledge what she'd done, maybe her involvement was as much as a burden for her as Naruto wanted to think, but Tsunade wasn't the one suffering the consequences for it.
"Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It won't. Not much matters after the fact. I couldn't care less what the intentions were or what you told yourself to free your conscience, and I—"
"Watch yourself, Naruto."
Naruto rubbed the bottom of his palm against his temple. "Okay, just...just, were me and Sasuke—were we the only ones who didn't know?"
Because if Sakura knew, if Iruka and Kakashi knew...
It would explain why Tsunade had sent Sakura over so quickly, why Iruka had been seemed conflicted about Naruto and Sasuke's relationship with Hotaru, and why Kakashi had been watching Sasuke more carefully. Hotaru had seemingly been taken in stride, but Naruto wasn't sure if it even stopped with them. If they did know, there then there was no telling who was actually involved, where it began and where it ended.
The whole thing was starting to feel like some kind of inside joke with Naruto and Sasuke inadvertently delivering the punch line.
Tsunade tapped her fingers on the desk. The sound of her nails clicking on the wood came in succession of threes. "Maybe it's better this way."
Naruto stilled. "Better?"
It was the umpteenth time he'd heard it since Sasuke left, but that seemed to be the general consensus. Naruto wanted to agree. He wanted to say it would have been better if Hotaru never came into their lives, easier if he could somehow push the time he'd spent with Hotaru behind him, forget about those ridiculously short five days that weren't supposed to mean as much as they did. Except he couldn't. Naruto couldn't let it go, and trying to find a silver lining wasn't going to make everything okay.
He didn't know if things were ever going to be okay again.
"Don't misunderstand me, though," Tsunade said. "I won't say I hadn't considered the ramifications of putting the two of you in this situation. But the problem isn't whether or not I had anything to do with it, Naruto. You can read in between the lines all you want. In the end, it doesn't matter who knew whatever you're assuming I know."
Naruto eyed her cautiously. "What are you saying?"
"The real question is..." Tsunade leaned forward, crossing her arms and placing them on the desk. "…are you going to tell Uchiha about what you think I just told you?"