Those Boys Are My Boys
heyo hey ho, thanks a bunch for reviews. im sure all fellow authors are familiar with the weird fuzzy feeling reviews give. thanks everyone, it's nice to know some people enjoy this story. this is gonna be short. only one more chapter to go. but thanks everyone for your junk.
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CHAPTER 3
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I'd had a lot of time to think over the past few days. The Grief seemed to have subsided, or at least taken a rest. I noticed everything now. So much had gone over my head in the past, it's unbelievable that I was so blinded by my misconceptions of Naruto and Sasuke just being friends that I never detected they did things friends didn't do. I took to comparing some of the ways they treated one another with the way I treated Ino, who was my closest friend after the boys.
I also made a list. I had a lot of time on my hands now that I had (unofficially) resigned from my friendship with the boys on "The Day I (Unofficially) Resigned From My Friendship With The Boys" – TDI(U)RFMFWTB for short.
Things The Boys Do:
1) Stare at each other.
Could I do this with Ino? Yes.
Could I do this with Ino for the prolonged lengths of time the boys do it? Perhaps, if we were having a moment, or a staring competition, or our eyelids had been wrenched back then stapled into our skulls.
Could I do this with Ino if I stared at her chest and butt like they do? Not without making us both very uncomfortable.
2) Watch chick flicks and television dramas.
Could I do this with Ino? Of course. It's our birth right as members of the fairer sex.
Could I do this with Ino in an alternate universe where we both have testosterone and chest hair, and not have our man cards revoked if we watched them as often as the boys do? Definitely not. I mean, one or two chick flicks is understandable. Sometimes there simply is nothing else on TV, or you get those really good dramas that everyone and their camel likes because it's fantastic regardless of how girly it is. There are some good ones out there – but they're aimed at a female audience. You'd get bored if you couldn't relate to them… And the reason I know the boys do watch chick flicks is because Naruto came into my office at the infirmary once on Valentine's Day with a basketful of lollipop hearts, while I was in a meeting with Hinata, Ino and Moegi, and said these exact words:
"Ino Yamanaka, two for you. Hinata Hyuga? Four for you, Hinata Hyuga! You go, Hinata Hyuga! And uh… "Mowgli"? Do we have a "Mowgli" here?"
"It's Moegi."
"Oh, Moegi, here you go, one for you… and none for Sakura Haruno bye."
He left and came back in instantly laughing and saying, "Jokes, totally joking," and handed me a lollipop heart with a tag attached. He signed it off with ex oh ex oh gossip sandwich smiley face.
And also, the boys had taken to writing short, humorous, and scarcely well written plays. I have no idea. Plays.
3) Write plays in spare time.
Could I do this with Ino? Sure… I guess.
Would I do this with Ino? Uh… no...
An example would be the most recent, entitled "What The Future Holds", apparently a parody on their first impressions of each other. The significance of Sasuke's character being played by a girl had never struck me until "The Armageddon". I still don't know why he was black. I think Naruto wrote that part. Actually I think Naruto wrote most of it. Sasuke and I were passed out piss drunk by then, but Naruto can hold his own for the whole night if you'd let him.
The list was short but eye-opening. I learned that the boys shopped, gossiped, cooked and fussed over their appearance far more than other guys did. Sasuke spent at least a half hour every morning on his hair – the spikes were natural, but he styled them backwards – and Naruto knew everything about everybody before they even knew it themselves. Maybe, I reasoned, they were just feminine young men. Maybe I shouldn't brand particular activities as feminine. Maybe there was no such thing as feminine, and maybe they were just catering to their own personal interests. It could be anything or absolutely nothing. That could just be them being them.
But kissing each other was definitely gay.
It's as if they had been trying to come out to me for months…
-x-
One time when we were all separated, the only means of communication was an online chat room. This was after the war, when we all took part in rebuilding villages and small towns that had been damaged by the battlefields. It sucked, because Sasuke hates the internet (he thinks it's bad for your brain cells) and only came on twice during the entire seven weeks we were apart, and the first time he came on he logged off after two sentences: "well this sucks" and "fuck it".
But he must have gotten bored of his mission out in the middle of nowhere at some point, being scorned at by people who didn't trust him and pushed around and being in chakra suppressive shackles, because once he did manage to maintain a conversation for longer than two sentences…
Except I wasn't online. And it was just the boys that night.
I woke up the next morning to a log of messages sent between them…
Naruto: Ugh, guys… someone come onnn…
Sasuke: Naruto.
Naruto: SASUKE? HELLO PLEASE DON'T LEAVE!
Naruto: I HAVE LOTS OF GREAT THINGS TO SHARE
Naruto: LIKE
Naruto: THERES A LOT OF GRASS OUTSIDE WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?
Sasuke: Dude I don't know
Sasuke: Your use of capslock is scaring me oh my god
Sasuke: stop yelling YOU'RE SO ANNOYING
Sasuke: NOW I'M YELLING
Naruto: OKAY I'LL STOP
Naruto: oh :)
Naruto: okay I'll stop sorry :)
Naruto: I'm so happy! You came online! :)
Sasuke: Stop fucking smiling at me good god.
Naruto: Cheerful as ever I see! :) :) :) :)
Sasuke: I'm leaving.
Naruto: No okay I'll stop, please just stay, I haven't spoken to you in weeks now! I miss you!
Naruto: Sasuke?
Naruto: Saaaasukeeeee…
Sasuke: Shut up. God.
Naruto: okay I'll stop sorry
Naruto: I never wanted to hurt nobody
Sasuke: I know. I understand. It's okay, I forgive you.
Naruto: …Jesus? Is that you?
Sasuke: No this is Sasuke, I fill in for Jesus on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Naruto: Hahaha, man I miss you sooo much!
Naruto: You miss me too, right?
Sasuke: Sure, whatever.
Naruto: Yay!
Naruto: Sasuke?
Naruto: Bastard! I can't believe you left!
Naruto: Whatever. I'm glad you miss me anyway :)
Naruto: Bye Sasukeh :) :) :)
I felt very left out, but I wasn't sure why. Maybe it's because neither of them had said they miss me the entire seven weeks, and when we finally reunited, they were so excited to see each other they didn't even notice me until I hugged Naruto from behind, and even then he seemed surprised and Sasuke looked guilty. Deep in my gut there was a churning that told me all was not well.
-x-
It wasn't until five whole days after "The Armageddon" that I began to learn. That day, I lay flat on my back, sifting through the ashes in my head. I replayed what I had seen in Naruto's office over and over. The look on Sasuke's face. Things were beginning to clear up. My mind had been rid of cobwebs, and I began to understand.
All those times I'd attempted to lend myself a more seductive tone, hoping that Sasuke might just look twice, had been useless. What a waste of expensive lipstick, pretty dresses, foreign and flowery perfume. I'd garnered the attention from plenty but the one I wanted.
All those times that Naruto and Sasuke were more than just close, when their eyes met, their arms brushed, their hairs rose and their stares lingered. They comprehended each other in ways nobody can express verbally. It left me winded, gasping for some sense of understanding, how deeply they loved without anybody noticing. They were just two boys infatuate with love, so engrossed in one another that I hadn't crossed their minds.
When Sasuke smiled at him secretively, something only those closest have seen, when Naruto did goofy things to impress him – not me, him – when they talked for hours on end without getting bored, Naruto stopped asking me on dates, the boys went on month-long missions together, just got closer and closer and closer, until they collided and merged and became one being. A whole, something that can't be torn apart without being damaged irrevocably. "The Armageddon" started, and their passion and love and perfection for one another was so strong it tore my heart and my world and my universe to pieces, unable to withstand the enormity of this love, this love that everyone dreams of. This thing called love that poets thrive on, literature has based one thousand plots, this love that's more than anything I ever saw between my parents or Ino and her boyfriend, or any romantic relationship. Because it was more than that. They weren't just lovers, they weren't just in love; Naruto and Sasuke were soul mates. One complete being. Two halves of one whole – two halves that fit so perfectly there's no room for anything else, it's not feasible for anything else to come between, it's impossible for me to be part of this love.
And that's when my heart broke.
I've heard people say something broke their heart before, but I had never experienced it myself until that day. I never knew how accurate the term was – my heart literally felt as if it were breaking. Only it was more ballistic, like the devil's talons had first twisted it and tortured it before stripping it apart slowly so I got to savour the pain. Like Cupid had taken to hammers rather than arrows and was having an existential crisis, smashing my poor helpless heart to pieces rather than bewitching it. Like thousands of coils of barbed wire were mangled around my chest and pulled until my heart was slashed to ribbons. Like Sasuke's very own hand was cutting through me, and all I could hear was the distant 'chi chi chi' of chidori, and all I could see was the horrible, beautiful, blissful expression on his face when Naruto touched him. All I could think was how I would never be the one to make Sasuke feel that way.
It was the first time I ever thought these words: Sasuke loves Naruto.
It was the first time I thought it was true.
-x-
"Sakura, you have to stop this."
"Hm? Lady Tsunade?"
"You have to give up on Sasuke."
"…What? N-no! How could you—"
"Listen to me. I know just what's going on here. What do you think it was like for me when Orochimaru defected from Konoha?"
"It's not the same."
"It's exactly the same."
"No it's not!"
"How? How is it different?"
"Because I… I love him! I love Sasuke more than you could ever know!"
.
.
.
"So, what? You're going to ignore what he's become, a criminal, a traitor, a murderer – you're going to ignore the fact that he tried to kill you, because you love him?"
"I…"
"Just because you ignore your problems… doesn't mean they'll go away."
That was the last thing Tsunade ever said to me.
-x-
Tsunade was right, of course. I felt like slapping her and screaming, "I know that already!"
However, it wasn't until recently I discovered how relevant that teaching was to me.
My whole life, I'd ignored my problems in an attempt to be freed of their burden. When Ino and I were still Genin, I ignored her because I didn't want to come to terms with the fact I'd lost my best friend over a mutual crush on a boy, and both of us were too prideful to apologise. I ignored the way Kakashi favoured Sasuke and taught me relatively nothing because I was sure I'd become a great shinobi anyway. When Sasuke first started changing – when he began acting colder, nastier, and was more irritable – I ignored it, because I thought that my love for him would overcome all obstacles and he would see I would remain true. When Naruto and I found that without Sasuke we had nothing in common, nothing to hold us together, no reason to still hang out other than to angst over Sasuke, I ignored the fact that the one person left I still considered a friend I had never actually tried to befriend in the first place and pretended like nothing was wrong when I heard nothing from him for almost three years.
I was doing it again, too.
I was ignoring the boys by (unofficially) resigning from our friendship. And what would that accomplish other than make us all miserable? The boys would still kiss, love and be; I'd still have a broken heart with nothing to fix it; the world would still be a lonely place where nobody loves me but a bowl-cut spandex-clad weirdo who I also ignored, and hurt. Ignoring my problems became my automatic response to anything that could potentially unravel the fabric of Sakura's Universe; but what good could ignoring do when the seams were already threadbare? Sakura's Universe was past the point of no return. I knew that from this point on, from the day "The Armageddon" began, everything in Sakura's Universe was to change.
Ignoring everything had turned my problems into a vicious cycle rather than eliminating them, and the only way this could be dealt with would be if I got out of bed, got dressed and faced the boys. What would I say? I didn't know. But saying something stupid was better than never saying anything ever again.
And if all else failed, well, there was always pulling a Sasuke and defecting from Konoha, right?
-x-
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