A.N.: Chapter 3 is here! Hope you like it.
Disclaimer: Don't own it, never will… Life's so cruel… T.T
Everything the Crimson Tears Took Away
By Yoru no Tsuyu
Chapter III: With an Open Heart
"Are you going to stand there all night, dobe?" A familiar baritone said behind him.
Naruto thought his heart had stopped beating. Since when—? How—? The blond boy hastily turned around, facing the possible enemy (best friend, rival, most important person), his hand already down on his weapon pouch. Not mattering what, his heart wouldn't stop feeling that thrill for seeing him…
"Sasuke…" Naruto couldn't see clearly that figure standing high upon a near-by tree, but he wouldn't mistake that arrogant pose, that arrogant deep baritone voice with anyone else. The moonlight passed through the canopies of the tree, some making it to the boy, illuminating part of him; mostly his lower parts. And wasn't…the teme's clothes tattered and…stained?
"Aren't you going to say anything, for once?" the smug—oh yes, wasn't it smug—voice mocked-asked him.
And…he didn't know what to answer back, really. For the first time in a long while, he didn't know what to say. It was… It was as if… He felt, somehow, while thrilled, detached from himself, as strange as that sounded.
Maybe exasperated by that silence, that pregnant silence, and by those questioning bluest of eyes, the raven-haired nuke-nin leapt off the shadows and landed smoothly on the ground in front of the other, a good five meters away.
"…re…ou…………ll..is…me?"
"I beg your pardon? It seems like you can't speak properly, dobe." The Uchiha purred the name, smugly.
"Where have you been all this time, bastard!?" he all but yelled. Yelled his heart out, his insecurities, his—
"Che. I don't think that's none of your business, dobe." And the other deliberately purred that –what was it?—name calling. Their usual name calling, that evoked oh so many memories—
"Why, you—" and then, their eyes locked. There were some many things that swirled through his head when seeing him, that person, in front of him… —and especially after looking into his eyes; Sharingan eyes—but he didn't know what exactly make of them. And when things got like that, when he got all confused like that, when he didn't know what to do—he let his instincts do the talking.
Or violence, rather.
For he attacked. "Don't you know what—" Naruto muttered as his punch was easily deflected by the Uchiha, but he didn't stop at that. He let his violent actions speak for himself, what he wanted to say but he himself didn't know exactly what. And so, he continued with his attacks; punches, kicks, a furious display of emotions. "Why the hell don't you answer me, bastard!?" and the blond was growing more and more frustrated as each second passed, as each punch and kick was deflected as if it was nothing.
"What the fuck do you want to know, idiot!? What the hell do you want me to answer!?" Sasuke answered his own frustration, his own set of attacks being started, aiming a full blow on the blond's face, which the latter shielded with his forearms on the last minute. But the blow was rather strong, which resulted in making Naruto to be pushed several meters away from the other. And when Naruto looked into those eyes, those crimson Sharingan eyes that were too much like his older brother—he felt his blood boil deep within him.
"What the hell happened to you—were where you these past months, bastard!? After seeing that Snake dead, we've all thought—"
"Thought what!?" Sasuke cruelly interrupted. "That after killing Orochimaru, I would just come back this village, as if nothing had ever happened!?" the battle was once again resumed, and this battle didn't use any type of ninjutsu; nor even weapons.
It didn't even cross their heads to do otherwise.
"It isn't 'this village' as you call it, bastard! It has a name, the Hidden Village of the Leaf—the place where we all've been born, home—"
"Home!? Don't make me laugh, idiot! This place had stopped to be my home a long time ago!" and why that statement hurt so much, for the both of them, for the blond shinobi—
And that made said blond shinobi all the madder.
"How the hell can you say that, bastard!? How the hell—" the whiskered boy snarled in the pale boy's face, gripping the other by the collar of that damn outfit that made him look so much like—
And Naruto kept the other like that, banging him roughly against a tree's trunk, eyes ardently locking, trying to understand what the hell made the bastard say that, and truly looking for something into those eyes, anything, but he couldn't for the damned Sharingan didn't let no emotions pour from them—
Seeing the blond's guard down, the Sharingan user seized the opportunity to drive a kick to the other, successfully driving the other away. Panting, the brunet locked at the boy, at the boy that, some way or the other, crept into his being, into his skin, stealing his nights of sleep—
"Just think about it—idiot. Just think that—even if I go back there, things wouldn't be the same, and the past isn't something you can just erase. And even if—even if I come back…they wouldn't allow me from fulfilling my dream—to avenge my clan. And more importantly, you wouldn't." what was making him say all those things, anyway? He was saying too much, he was showing too much, opening too much—
"Of course I wouldn't!" Naruto said heatedly, unable to go to where the bastard was and knock some sense onto him—literally. There was something there that stopped him from doing so, and the bastard felt so close, closer as he never got in the last three years—yet, at the same time, he felt so far away…
…there was something there that—
Sasuke snorted. "…Of course you wouldn't." he said, almost regretfully. "But you're allowed to fulfill yours, to become the Hokage, while I—"
"While you what, you bastard!? You what!? Your dream is selfish, it had—"
"And yours aren't, huh, dobe!? Just because I left the village to search power somewhere else to fulfill mine, I'm the bad guy here, and suddenly, I have to be stopped from doing so. You are so hypocritical, Na-ru-to."
What the fuck is this all that about—"How the heck can you say that, bastard!? Can't you see that that—that—that dream as you call it, is only going to make your life more miserable!? Can't you see that that ambition is gonna kill you in the end!? Sasuke!?"
"Che. Like you would understand…"
"What?" the other almost snarled. Dare to repeat that again, teme.
"How can it be possible for you to understand, when you've never had a family!? How can you possibly understand when you never felt the pain of betrayal from the person who you regarded the most, rip away from the persons who you loved the most!? How the hell can you possibly know!?" and old wounds were being opened, as they did years ago in that sinister battle.
"Of course I know! Even when I've never had a family, a real family for which to mourn properly, I've felt that pain! I've felt that pain when you had betrayed us all, hurting us all" –almost killing me— "that day, in that place!" –The battle in the Valley of the End.
"You should have known better than to stop trying to stop me there. I told you to leave, yet you didn't."
"How the hell could I leave, when I saw the path you were taking!? Even then, even then, I… When I finally thought I reached you, when I believed that I finally was on equal terms with you, you had to leave— when you finally got to see me, to acknowledge me, you, you—"
"I always acknowledged you—I always saw you."
"…What?" Naruto finally whipped his head up, surprised, (which in some part of his confession, his expression were covered with his blond bangs) and looked at the other in front of him, who this time, had his expression covered by his ebony bangs. He couldn't believe what he had just—
"I always saw you, even then. I remember that, even then, you were always alone. You used to smile, as if it didn't matter that you were alone, but I saw that you were…lonely. But at that time, when I still had them, I didn't think much of it.
"Then…after that…I still saw you, and I wondered how the heck could you just smile like that, even in that situation. I even envied you. Then I saw you as an annoyance, because you were nothing but a deterrence to my path of vengeance, as my role of an avenger. But as our time together as team-mates passed, I began to see you as someone close. As someone I could call my friend, my brother."
"…And then you left. You left, after telling me that I was the closest person to you, your best friend, your brother. You left, and I—"
"Do you think it was easy for me to do so!? To leave everything I knew, everything I was, to give them up—I had to do it!"
And Naruto took a moment too see that, despite how strong Sasuke seemed to be, he was human as well, he was fragile— Despite the fact that Sasuke wanted to appear being strong, that he was unbreakable—it was just a mask. And maybe, deep down inside him, he already knew that, but he didn't want to acknowledge that, because if he did… because if did, that would mean that he would have to drop off his mask, too. And to do that…would mean to let his heart vulnerable.
And he didn't know if he was ready to do that.
"And you…did it indeed." He said in an almost too low voice for the other to hear. But…as the pregnant silence issued, the other did, as if it was yelled.
"Yes…I did." The dark-haired nin said, almost dejectedly, almost regretfully. And when the brunet raised his eyes, uncovered from his long black bangs, the blond was left mesmerized, was left captivated—and there were so many emotions in them—anger—anguish—sadness—betrayal—loneliness—
And he was scared, he was scared because he had never seen Sasuke like that—he had never seen the other show so many emotions (he was forever emotionless, more so after he left for Orochimaru)—and it was as if Sasuke was baring his soul for him to see-
And that concept was scary, really scary—and he didn't know what to do, how to act, to react—and that was not all those eyes showed. Those black pools, those endless pools Sharingan-less eyes, which were able to show what those red-blood pools couldn't, and he was trapped by them. Along with all those other emotions, along the anger, the anguish, along the sadness, the betrayal, the loneliness—along with all that, there was some…there was rejection. There was was caring. There was friendship. There was hurt. There was guilt. There was…surrender.
And along that…along that, the thing that made his heart skip a beat…
There was love.
続く・・・
To Be Continued…
Vocabulary
Dobe: Something like 'total moron'
A.N.: How did you like it? It's like midnight, and I'm tired and hell and sleepy…so please just tell me if there was still any kind of misspellings…
Comments, questions, constructive criticism are always welcomed.
So, until next up-date +which is gonna be soon+
Ja na!
.: Tsuyu :.