Crown & Anchor
by Nilladriel
A bit of a filler. But at least this chapter has Neji. I do love him.
This chapter also has a cliff-hanger of sort! Yay.
Chapter Three: Betting Change
"I can't believe I did that."
Naruto didn't know where they were, but Sakura did, apparently. A line of bikes blocked one sidewalk, and a family of strays strode past the car, one of them stopping for a few moments to critically study the front-right wheel.
"I should call him and apologize," Sakura added. Naruto wasn't sure who she was speaking to. The dogs, maybe.
Arm covering his face, Kiba snorted. He seemed to have been shocked into sobriety. "I'm never drinking with you again, you fuck," he mumbled into his forearm. Naruto ignored him, tugging his orange shirt down and brushing the dirt from the bright fabric. He'd scratched himself up a bit when he'd fallen, and he was pretty sure he'd have a bruise on his torso.
Well, at least he hadn't gotten stabbed.
"I'm calling Neji," Naruto said finally, hitting the familiar speed-dial number. He set his phone on speaker mode so he could thread his fingers through his hair and have a proper, quiet break-down.
"Naruto, it's nearly midnight," Sakura said. She put her hands on the steering wheel, a perfect ten-and-two, and slowly eased the car forward.
There was silence of a sort. The cell phone beeped, Kiba muttered into his arm and, shit, shit, shit, this was all Uchiha's fault. Although, okay, maybe he didn't deserve getting stabbed. Maybe.
"It was reflex," Sakura was saying, apparently set on convincing some invisible judge that it wasn't her fault. Maybe she was practicing for court. "I mean, he punched Naruto! ... Oh, but I didn't mean to stab him, I didn't think, really. Ino will be so mad that I dirtied her stuff. Do you think he'd accept my apology?"
Sakura stopped her monologue suddenly as a thought occurred. She glanced behind. "Shit, Naruto, what did you do?"
"He started it," Naruto muttered.
"Right," Sakura said, with all the scepticism of a teacher who has just been told that sorry, teach, I couldn't do my homework because the dog ate it.
"He did."
Sakura straightened. Naruto didn't see her expression, but her ears were going slowly red from anger. "Naruto, I'm going to rip your balls off," Sakura started.
"Should I hang up?" Neji's tinny voice reverberated.
"No!" Naruto said, relieved, as if Neji's voice was divine protection from Sakura's terrible wrath. "I just punched someone! And then Sakura stabbed him! And I think we might be in trouble," he added, thoughtfully.
"It was reflex!" Sakura snapped.
"You don't just stab Uchiha Sasuke on reflex!" Kiba suddenly roared. The car jerked. Naruto slammed against the car door. The phone fell to the cheap carpet below. Naruto lunged for it a second too late, thinking it had finally died after all these years, when Neji suddenly said, "Why don't you come over and we'll talk about it."
He sounded resigned. It was a normal enough tone, just like the way Sakura was often angry, Naruto was often obnoxious, and Kiba was often drunk.
Naruto snapped his phone shut, turning it in his palm and checking for damage. The stickers beamed up at him.
Man, Saturdays sucked. Except, Naruto noticed gloomily, it was Sunday now. Which just went to show: When Saturdays sucked, they sucked hard enough to turn the other days balls-blue, too. Fuck.
"I guess we're going to Neji's, then, huh," Sakura said. Her shoulders slumped.
The car didn't move.
"Um, Sakura?" Kiba finally ventured.
"Oh," Sakura said. "It's just--um--where are we?"
"You are shitting me," Naruto said, and leaned his forehead against the window.
Unlike Naruto, Neji lived in an actual house. It was one of a row of connected houses three stories proud. There was an overgrown pond in the back and overgrown garden everywhere else. The hedge had been waging war on enemy territory for some months now, and was finally winning. A line of stone statues solemnly guarded the front gate, glaring at any visitors, except for the one on the left, which seemed to be perpetually laughing instead. The statues always made Naruto feel somehow inadequate. He eased away from them.
Neji's gate was complicated. There was an art to opening it: Sakura carefully wiggled it, and then kicked until it finally swung open. Naruto and Kiba simply climbed over the low wall, shamelessly stepping onto the long grass, which brushed against their legs like overlong bristles. Kiba stumbled a bit, maybe still a little drunk.
Neji opened the door while Sakura battled her way through the path, which was less a path and more a line of stones hidden in a miniature savanna. He was half-dressed, and his hair was messy, so they'd probably woken him up.
"Sorry we're so late," Naruto said cheerfully. "We got lost."
"I see. There's tea in the kitchen," Neji said, expression and tone polite as always. He chose not to ask how they had gotten lost in a city they'd lived in for more than a decade. Instead, he turned and strode inside. They followed, three little ducklings.
The kitchen was long and narrow. There was a small television, which Neji never used, and a radio, which always was.
Neji's tea was as comforting and calming as always. Naruto secretly thought he drugged it. Drinking a cup was like taking a step on the eightfold path.
Neji sat down, settling his arms on the table and looking at them with an expression that was probably meant to be cool and serious. He just looked tired. "What happened?"
"Um..." Naruto fiddled with his cup. "Right, a few days ago--"
"Monday," Sakura interrupted. She was a woman concerned with details.
"--Right. Well, this guy, Uchiha Sasuke, showed up on my doorstep."
"They were childhood friends," Sakura said.
Naruto opened his mouth to deny it, remembered the photos Uchiha had sent, and frowned, pressing his lips into a thin line. "Yeah," he said, after a moment. He looked down at his cup. "Well, anyway, I basically told him to fuck off and introduced him to Sakura. Um, apparently they hit it off. Today we ran into each other, and--"
"At the Blue Butter," Sakura clarified.
"... At the Blue Butter, right. And he... pissed me off, so I punched him, and then we got the fuck out of there. Well, um, outside, he sort of punched me, and Sakura...."
"It was reflex," Sakura muttered. Neji poured her another cup, and then scooted his chair a few inches away from her.
"Uchiha Sasuke," he murmured to himself, eyebrows furrowing slightly. At least they weren't constantly at war, like Uchiha's. He and Kiba glanced at each other, perhaps communicating in some secret language. Kiba inclined his head slightly. Neji frowned. Kiba shook his head and looked up at the ceiling, a what-can-you-do expression.
Naruto and Sakura looked at each other, communicating in the not-so-secret language of those who are left out and not liking it.
"What, you know him?" Naruto finally said.
"The Uchiha are a well-known, successful family," Neji finally murmured.
"Basically, they're famous for being loaded," Kiba translated. "They own that one hotel, that huge one by the river.... What was it?"
"The Millennium," Neji said.
"Right," Kiba said, and then nodded. End of explanation, except--
"Wow, I don't know what that was, but that was bullshit," Sakura said. "There's something you're not saying."
"They might have a certain reputation," Neji finally admitted. "But there have only been rumours, and I'd prefer not tell you unsubstantiated information."
"So not only did I stab my date, I stabbed someone rich and powerful? From a possibly criminal family?" Sakura clarified. "Wow. I'm going to bed."
"You can have the spare bedroom," Neji told her retreating back.
"Hey! What about us?" Naruto said, squinting. "Don't we get beds?"
"Not me. I'm going home," Kiba said. "My place ain't too far from here, so...."
"You may have the couch," Neji told Naruto generously, and stood up as well.
"Your couch is like a century old. It's saggier than a dead grandmother," Naruto reminded him. "Where're you going, anyway?"
"Making sure Kiba actually gets home," Neji grunted. He didn't even bother going upstairs to get a shirt, just grabbed a coat from the coat-hanger. Apparently oblivious to the cold and completely unashamed of being out in only pyjama bottoms and a coat, he slipped out after Kiba. Naruto heard the whining of the metal gate, the sounds of Sakura settling down upstairs.
He was alone in Neji's kitchen. The silence yelled at him. He sighed and poured himself more tea, and then changed his mind, suddenly restless.
There was a toilet tucked under the stairs; he ran cold water over his knuckles, to take away some of the ache from punching Uchiha. Then he went to the living room, where the couch did, indeed, sag more than a dead grandmother under his weight, and, fuck, he was glad he only weighed around fifty-one; add another kilogram and he was sure his ass would touch the floor.
He fiddled with the remote for a bit, realized there was a good reason he didn't own a TV, turned it off, decided he couldn't stand the silence, and turned it on again. By the time Neji returned, Naruto was back on the couch, the TV was set to some late-night documentary about the production of paint, and he was finishing off the last of the tea. Maybe Neji really did drug it; he felt way exhausted.
Neji closed the door so the noise wouldn't wake Sakura up, which of course Naruto hadn't thought of. The blond made a face at Neji.
"There's more to this than what you told us," Neji said. It wasn't a question, more an observation that Naruto couldn't deny, so he hunched his shoulders and clutched his cup tighter.
"I might have lied a bit to Sakura about Uchiha," Naruto allowed.
Naruto glanced at the man on TV, who was red-faced and enthusiastic about the amazing, protective capabilities of automotive paint. His bowl-cut actually reminded Naruto of Lee, come to think it....
The next moment he was staring at Neji's flannel pyjama pants. Naruto frowned.
"I'm trying to look at the TV, not your crotch, you ass," he said.
Neji frowned slightly, looking affronted, but at least he sat down on the coffee table. He settled his hands on his lap and, perfectly calm and patient, looked at Naruto. His head was silhouetted against the TV, where a line of paint cans was apparently meant to impress viewers.
Neji waited.
It took Naruto exactly five seconds to break down. He lowered his voice and said, "I just don't know him, okay? He says we were childhood friends, and, fuck, maybe we were, but I don't remember any of it, okay? And when he showed up, he was asking me out on a date. But I can't exactly tell Sakura that, she really likes him, I didn't think...." He trailed off.
"Well, she did just... stab him," Neji offered.
"Yeah, you're right. Maybe I'll come clean tomorrow."
"You don't sound relieved," Neji said. "Is there something else bothering you?"
Naruto sighed. "I dunno," he said. "Just--he pisses me off, you know, but it's not like...." He hesitated. His voice, if possible, dropped even lower, a rumbling whisper set against the narrator's enthusiastic commentary on TV. "It's the same feeling I got with Gaara, sort of."
Neji's expression closed. He wasn't fond of Gaara.
Naruto sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I know, you think he's a murderous shit, like everyone else--"
"I don't," Neji said, coolly. "You believe he isn't a murderer, so I believe he isn't as well."
"... Just like that?" Naruto's facial muscles slackened.
"Yes. It's amazing what you can make people believe," Neji said, mouth twitching, and for a moment he looked off to the side, apparently enraptured by the framed mirror dwarfing one wall. Maybe the carved wooden fruits were just that fascinating. "But I still dislike him," Neji added.
"Ah," Naruto said, feeling slightly awkward and strangely--humbled, though he couldn't say why. "Well. You know. Uchiha's an asshole, and I want to punch him, but even if he is some sort of freak stalker I don't exactly want to run away screaming. I just want to, you know, punch him. And I might not feel as guilty about the, um, stabbing as I should."
Neji's expression went slightly blank as he processed Naruto's logic. After a few seconds, he nodded. "I understand."
"Yeah. That's it, though, I think," Naruto said, carefully not thinking about Sarutobi, about the photographs, about his Dad. Neji nodded, slowly, in a way that somehow communicated he wasn't fooled at all but was willing to let the matter rest. Neji had a way of communicating entire volumes of meaning with slight gestures.
"Then, I'm returning to bed," he said.
Naruto was momentarily guilty for not feeling guilty about interrupting Neji's sleep. "Night," he said.
"If you would like," Neji started, and then stopped. "I'll bring you bedding," he said, as if that was what he'd meant to say all along. "I'm aware that the couch isn't comfortable."
"Thanks, man," Naruto said, and flashed him a grin. Neji smiled back at him.
Ten minutes later, Naruto was curled up on the floor. The couch had been pushed against the wall, out of the way. Naruto rolled on his back, staring up at a ceiling he couldn't see.
There's no way I'm going to be able to sleep like this, he thought. Seconds later, he closed his eyes and dropped off.
The living room door slammed open. "I'm going to apologize," Sakura announced loudly.
"Mmmmrfgh," Naruto replied, and rolled over onto the TV remote. When the news anchor screamed at him at full volume a second later about how they'd just renamed a street and how this would affect maps, Naruto sat up and said, "WAIT A MINUTE."
"I didn't know you cared about street names," Sakura said doubtfully.
"NOT THAT," Naruto said. "WHY ARE YOU APOLOGIZING TO THAT BASTARD."
"SHODAI WAS A FAMOUS HISTORICAL FIGURE," the news anchor reproached him. Naruto turned, glared, and shut the TV off mid-reactions-about-the-renaming-are-mixed.
"Look, Naruto, you're my best friend," Sakura said. "But I'm not going to lose a potential husband--"
"HUSBAND?" Naruto sputtered.
"Stop yelling. You're so... reactionary," said Sakura, who had sunk a three-inch heel into her date's thigh last night.
"Right," Naruto said, slowly. He remembered Monday morning, and meeting Uchiha for the first time. He was sure it'd been less surreal than this.
Even his hair was obnoxious, grabbing at his fingers when he tried to comb it. "Sakura," he said, "there's something I should tell you about Uchiha."
Sakura frowned at him.
Naruto rubbed his eyes. "Sakura, I punched him last night because, um... because he was coming on to me," he said, and waited.
Sakura stared at him, hands on her hips. "Is that all?" she said.
Naruto stared. "What?" he said.
"Naruto, everyone hits on you," Sakura said. "Why do you think Kiba pays the tab all the time?"
"What?" Naruto repeated.
"And Hinata," Sakura added, rolling her eyes. "Have you noticed how much she blushes around you?"
"Wha--Kiba and Hinata are dating!" Naruto said, loudly.
"So?" Sakura said. "Even Neji was ogling you just last night--oh, hi, Neji," she said, turning to beam at him.
Neji's expression didn't change. He had a plate of bagels in his hand. "Good morning," he said, evenly. He looked at Naruto, and then, slowly, brought his gaze down.
Naruto, suddenly remembering he'd stripped down to his boxers, grabbed at the blanket to cover himself. Unfortunately, it was tangled up in his legs, so all he succeeded in doing was falling over.
Sakura laughed. "Oh, come on, he's just joking," she said.
"Am I?" Neji said, putting the bag down.
Sakura and Naruto gaped after him.
"He was joking then, too," Sakura said, only she sounded unsure.
"Shit, since when did Neji have a sense of humor?" Naruto grumbled. His neck and shoulders burned.
"Well, I'm going to call Sasuke, now," Sakura said. "Have fun with your bagels."
"Sakura--"
She was already gone. Naruto tugged at the blankets until they freed him, and then tripped over them on the way to the breakfast. At least he didn't have a hangover.
"Fuck," he said, and sighed.
As if in agreement, his phone beeped. He grabbed at it, clumsily flipping it open. A message from Uchiha. Shit.
Not in the mood, Naruto deleted it. When his phone rang a mere moment later, he snarled.
"What the fuck, you asshole. Would you stop bothering me, just for one day?"
"... Good morning, Naruto," Sarutobi said, and Naruto froze.
"Uh. Hey, old man. Sorry about... um."
Suddenly he wasn't hungry anymore. He walked around the pile of blankets and pillows on the floor and to the couch. If he was going to have a conversation with Sarutobi, he'd damn well do it sitting down.
"I'm calling about the photographs you mentioned the other day, Naruto."
Naruto couldn't help it. His breath caught. "A-are there more?" he said, voice dry.
"That is yet to be determined. I'm merely curious about what drove you to call and ask in the first place."
"I just wanted more, that's all," Naruto lied softly.
"Really? Or did something happen? Did you, perhaps, meet someone...?"
Naruto closed his eyes and thought, Fuck you. But this was also the man who'd sent him to school, provided him money for clothes, encouraged his dreams of teaching when everyone else around him was off running businesses or accepting high-paying jobs in reputable companies. "I told you, I just miss Dad," he said. It wasn't a lie, not really.
"I see," Sarutobi said. "Well. It's been good talking to you, Naruto. You really should call more often."
Naruto hesitated. "You know what?" he said. "Maybe I will, old man."
He snapped his phone shut before Sarutobi could say anything more.
He pulled open the curtains. The sun was shining, illuminating Neji's wild, overgrown garden. Even the statues by the gate looked cheerful. It was a good Sunday morning—or, well, afternoon, come to think it. A good Saturday afternoon. He could still salvage the day.
He stuffed a bagel into his mouth, but he still wasn't quite hungry, so he just held it between his teeth and wandered into the kitchen. He was in luck; Neji was just done making tea.
"Still not dressed, I see," Neji said.
"Fuff fou," Naruto said around a mouthful of bagel. He ripped off a generous chunk and sat down. "I don't fucking believe Sakura's going to apologize to him."
Neji simply shrugged. "You know, Sakura was right," he commented.
"About what?" Naruto said, and then: "Oh, fuck no, you guys make me sound like some kind of walking aphrodisiac."
Neji pressed a cup of tea into his hand. "Perhaps not," he said, "but you do attract people easily."
"Which explains why I go out on dates all the time," Naruto said solemnly. "It's amazing, it's like I'm getting laid every weekend. Except, oh, wait, no, I'm not."
Neji laughed, the kind of soft, low sound Naruto had enjoyed coaxing out of him, back when they'd been young high-schoolers. "Maybe," he said, "you're too kind to take advantage of people like that. Or too dense," he added thoughtfully.
"Fuck you," Naruto said again. Without the bagel in his mouth, he sounded more threatening. Unfortunately, Neji had always been taller, heavier, and more intimidating than him, so the older man just looked amused, saying, "There's butter in the fridge. Now, please excuse me, I have a phone call I'm expecting."
"I have a phone call I'm expecting," Naruto parroted, and rolled his eyes. "Show-off."
Neji just said, "I hope the tea helps you feel better." A moment later he'd pulled his phone out, the perfect image of the young businessman, even if his hair did look suspiciously unwashed and he was in jeans Naruto remembered him buying a decade ago.
Rolling his eyes at Neji's weird ability to judge his moods, Naruto got up to get at the butter. Breakfast, shower, shopping, home. That was all he'd fill the day with, if he could help it.
The first thing Naruto did when he got home was get his mail. Grocery bag in one hand, bills in the other, he juggled his keys between full hands. After a bit of practiced manoeuvring that probably bruised the apples, his door creaked open.
Whistling, Naruto dumped his bag on the table. He'd cook himself lunch while he waited for Sakura to call. Hopefully her apology wouldn't work and he could quit worrying about her and Uchiha.
Neji had mentioned he might call, as well, which was weird, because Neji wasn't the kind of man who liked having conversations over the phone. Well, what could you do.
Leaning his hip against his table, Naruto sorted through the envelopes. Bills, like he'd expected--oh, and a notice from the school--
And a prissy, white envelope, with his name written neatly on the front.
"Oh, fuck me," Naruto said.
Naruto put away the groceries first. The Sakura-like conscience in his head would yell at him, otherwise.
Then Naruto ripped the envelope open, sticking his thumb in to widen the tear he made with his teeth and ruining the envelope as much as possible. This time, there were no photographs--just folded pieces of printer paper.
The first page was a letter.
What caught Naruto's eye were the other pieces of paper, all photocopies. The first was one he recognized, a copy of one of the photos Uchiha had sent previously: The old house, familiar to his memory. The others were maps, each marked with a neat x. They were marking the location of the old house, Naruto realized.
When he unfolded the letter, something fluttered out--
A bus ticket.
"You're shitting me," Naruto said, and suddenly he could guess, clear as the pink in Sakura's hair, what Uchiha's damn letter was going to say.