Hello to all my peeps and peepetts. How are yooouu? I'm okay, other than the fact that I was grounded since august and the fact that I managed to update at all is a fabulous mystery to me. I truly hope you will like this and forgive me for doing this to poor Naruto. I know. I love our Blondie too. I wish it wasn't necessary for the plot. I am so sorry!
'If Today was Your Last Day' by Nickleback (-I'm now dedicating songs to each chapter!)
Four hours before the happenings of the previous chapter:
Naruto walked down the hallway, frowning, unease stirring in the pit of his stomach. He was just walking, probably going to wind up over at Sasuke's dorm, knocking on the door and finally confirming whether or not he was right.
'Sasuke does hate you, you know. He says it all the time behind your back.'
'We despise you.'
'Jesus, you little fucker, just get lost!'
'You're nothing but a huge burden, you fucking demon!'
He blinked hard, hoping they were wrong. At first, he'd firmly refused to believe them, but now that it'd simmered in him for awhile, he felt his mind betraying him.
Suddenly, overwhelmed with a need to be reassured, on the verge of throwing up, Naruto began to run full throttle up the hall, towards the raven's room.
Whispers grew in his heart, heavy and weighing him down with hatred.
'We all wish you'd just go away and die!'
'Demon bastard!'
'Damn fox!'
He sucked in a shuddering breath, and rounded the last corner, turning into Sasuke's hall.
He slammed into a solid back, and sent both him and the other person flying into the open laundry room door.
"Damn it, Naruto!" Onyx eyes glared up at him, slitted and angry.
His face was covered in the raven's dark navy blue boxers, various tufts of his golden hair pushing their way clear of the leg holes, standing obstinately into the air.
"What the hell?" The Uchiha teen growled, shoving the blonde off of him, into the laundry room, sending him to roll and slam against the washer, boxers flying off his head and into the air.
Sasuke gathered the rest of his clothes, tightfisted with irritation, and then turned, still glaring at the boy in front of him.
"Sorry Sasuke," Naruto mumbled, and he sat up, bracing himself, then stood, grabbing the dark boxers from the floor. He brushed them off, then turning to look back at the other.
"God, I wish you'd just get lost! I don't have time for this shit!" Sasuke growled, thinking of the projects he had due the next day, and not noticing the widening of Naruto's sapphire blue eyes, bewildered and hurt, horror-confirmed.
"I said I was sorry," the blonde replied with a weak whisper, fidgeting with the soft fabric in his hands.
His heart was beating harshly against the ribcage, and his mind was racing, hoping that Sasuke didn't really hate him, as the dark-haired boy growled again, slamming his fist into the dryer, sending it back into the wall, and shouted, "God, just get lost, Uzumaki!"
The blonde snapped his head up, tears beginning to form in his eyes as he took another shuddery breath, gasping.
"Get lost, moron!" Sasuke finally yelled, exasperated, thinking that the blonde would just yell back as normal.
More tears stared to burn and Naruto's face heated.
The raven didn't expect for the other to suddenly have tears streaming down his face, eyes growing wider, throwing his boxers at him and pushing past, running away down the hall.
The glare dropped from his face, and he stared after the blonde, his mouth slightly agape.
"What the fuck," he murmured, looking back with a frown at his blue boxers, his own unease growing slowly.
He wasn't sure what'd just happened, only that the small seventeen-year-old had to be put off until he got some work done.
Feeling guilty, he put the underwear shorts on the top of his pile, heading back to his dorm, still frowning.
'Get lost, moron!' rang in his ears, taunting him, as the blonde fled, sprinting down the hallway, farther and farther away from his best friend, his heart aching. Fury pulsed faintly beneath the surface of his skin, mingling with the overwhelming sense of hurt, making the tears that slid down his face all the hotter.
He tasted salt, and turned the corner.
Plowing through a small group of people, he didn't register the yell of anger over his intrusion. He couldn't even hear them over the pounding of his pulse in his head, dizzying and agonizing.
As he neared the elevator, he blindly switched routes, going towards the massive staircase that wound up the centre of the boys dorm building.
'Get lost, moron!'
Slamming the door open, he began to sprint up the steps, stomach churning with nausea.
He knew that one sentence shouldn't affect him so deeply, that he'd survived too much to let this hurt him so much, that it didn't matter, and that he'd expected it. But 'it' was all lies, and that pained him the most.
Finally caving in, Naruto gave his thumping heart over to his mind, letting the years of hatred slam down onto it.
'We all hate you!'
'He hates you too, you know!'
'Get lost, moron!'
He was only a burden.
An unwanted pest.
His racking sobs shook his small body, echoing faintly along with that phrase that he couldn't bear to hear anymore. He couldn't see past his tear, and the roaring in his ears blocked all sound, but he kept running. Kept going up.
When he ran out of 'up', he pawed his way over to the roof door, grabbing around blindly for the handle.
He slid it open, and stepped out into the wind, his golden-topped head standing firmly out against the black top of the roof.
The blonde raised his face to the angry grey clouds above, and let his tears fall freely, rain drops starting to sprinkle.
"It's not fair," he sobbed, putting his face in his hands, falling to his knees and then completely sitting down, thinking about all the times he'd been pranked, beaten, cursed, spit on, and rejected from restaurants just because of who he was.
'Why is it just me?' he asked himself, just like so many times before.
Before what?
Before him. Before one year ago, when he was getting kicked around like a soccer ball by three guys, and another shadow then appeared in the alleyway. He'd nearly been unconscious again, screaming for them to please stop. For them to have mercy.
Sasuke had showed up, putting all of his tormentors out of service, helping him up, and asking him if he'd be alright.
'He didn't have to do that,' Naruto thought, trying to reason with himself, 'maybe he was just upset or something.'
Then he recalled the look in the other's eyes.
More tears shook his body continuously, and he let the grief wash over him, repeating to himself, "Idiotidoitidoitidoit! I can't believe I let someone in that deep!" He choked out these words, trying to keep breathing.
Then, something inside his heart turned to ash, and he rubbed his eyes, standing roughly up.
He looked over at the roof ledge, thinking slowly.
Then, he started to walk.
Sasuke flipped over onto his stomach, wincing as it rumbled, empty. He could smell pasta through the dorm vents, ramen and spaghetti drifting down to torture him.
Then he remembered Naruto again, and groaned.
"Damn," he muttered, fisting his pale fingers his raven hair, tugging until the pain in his gut went away, relocating to his head.
'Why was he crying?' he wondered for the umpteenth time, staring up at the ceiling, fists still on his scalp, locked around patches of his dark hair, and kept tugging, his head starting to ache. He moaned again, thinking of his blonde friend.
The dimly lit room echoed of Naruto's scent, and of his 'not-there-ness'.
Lately, the blonde had even taken to putting a few shirts in Sasuke's drawers, sleeping on the black leather couch that was in the corner, curled up with one of Sasuke's blue pillows, a sheet thrown over him by the raven after he fell asleep doing study work.
The dark haired teen sat up and growled, then stood and walked around, beginning to pace. He stopped himself.
'Why am I so damn worried?' he thought, irritated. He hadn't paced in over eight months.
Then, still agitated, he wondered if maybe Naruto had had a fight and needed some comfort….no. The blonde knew he wasn't that kind of guy…
Sasuke winced, recalling several times when he had been that 'kind-of-guy', when the blonde had really needed him to be.
Finally, snarling silently to himself, the raven stormed out of his room, grabbing his keys and locking the door.
He headed past the laundry room, in the direction of the commons, grey socked feet pounding harshly on the beige carpet that covered the hallway floors.
The teen slumped against the store wall, tears running silently down his face.
Fat drops of rain really began to come down, as Naruto kept moving, pushing gently away from the support of the bricks. He whimpered, and stood straight, his heart weighty and his feet like clay.
'I don't have anything left to take,' he thought wearily, his blue eyes clouded to a dull grey, sad and distant.
"I never should've let someone in that deep," he whispered, a sob cracking, as he went stumbling over a stray brick, and braced himself with his hand against the next building, blinking when it leaned.
Naruto stepped back, careful to avoid the brick this time, and looked up groggily, more tears streaking nakedly down his face.
He'd pressed against a small shack that was leaning out into the street, sagging against a few nails and swaying slightly in the wind.
Naruto blinked again, drunken on the salt from his crying.
'Never should've let him get so close to me. Never should've…' his thoughts trailed off, registering the shack, and searched tiredly for some sort of entry point.
A small opening, supposedly a window in a past life, was gaping at the blonde through a few rotted boards, like a blind eye searching for light and color.
Thunder boomed overhead, and the boy flinched, heading slowly and carefully to the window, looking inside as he neared it.
There wasn't anything but dust and a jar inside as far as he could tell, empty and forgotten.
He shambled up closer to the opening, poking his head through the middle boards. A dirty sheet was hanging from a nail in the wall.
The floor had a hole in it, but was otherwise dry. He tried twice to summon enough energy, then, on the third time, climbed gently into the shack.
The blonde sagged against the far wall, and sighed, trying to get a hold on his still streaming tears, sniffling.
'Never…never...' he began again, his eyes drooping, finally closing, a few last tears running down.
The raven began to truly panic around nine thirty, pacing his room yet again.
"Where the hell could he freakin' be?"Sasuke muttered darkly to himself, still walking a trail in his room.
He slammed his fist against the bookcase, and stomped over to the bathroom that was part of his room. Sitting down on the lid of the toilet, he yanked on his shoes, and grabbed his jacket angrily from the door hook, cursing as he looked in the wide mirror.
He looked like a ghost. A very worried, frantic ghost.
Glaring at himself, he growled, and snatched his keys from the counter next to the spare, which he looked at for a long moment, remembering the day he'd gotten that made.
He and Naruto had decided that the blonde could be trusted with a key and that he might need to escape sometime, so they both traipsed down to the office and filed for another one, Naruto joking the whole time down, laughing at Sasuke's glares and evil stares, so much that he even got the raven to smile once.
'Why do I only smile around him?' Sasuke wondered, tearing his gaze away and opening the door.
His sneakers made a loud exit down the hallway, as he locked his door, going to find his friend.
He'd find Naruto.
Somehow.
Naruto groaned, shoving himself away from the filthy rag of a sheet that he had put on his lower half, nose not withstanding. Then, re-settling his tired body, he paused, listening to the thunder that rang out high above the shack where he rested.
"I wonder if anyone even knows I'm gone," he whispered, thinking of Iruka and Kakashi.
Then, remembering Tsunade, he almost felt bad for leaving without a word. Sooner or later they'd find out he'd left.
A part of him hoped they'd think of him soon, but he also knew that the old blonde woman had more important things to think about than him.
He sniffed, determined not to break down again, thinking about how he'd probably never see any of them again. He didn't want to think about it, so he just listened, glancing out the broken window, up to the clouds.
Lightning had it's bright fingers curled happily around the black sky, flashing it's might through them and squeezing harshly, illuminating the shack for a brief moment.
'I wonder if even God despises me,' he thought, turning back to the small room, and resting his cheek against the cool wood again, as he heard yet more thunder blast around like a pin-pong ball over head, a baseball in a lightning arena, the bats shining and sparking with hot electricity.
"Probably," he murmured, and closed his eyes for a moment.
He replayed the evening with a heavy heart, finally acknowledging that he just didn't have the emotional and mental strength to go back to that life, this time without anyone beside him to protect and help him along.
Suddenly, he wished he'd brought Sasuke's spare key, if only to have a piece of the raven with him always, as a reminder of what he thought was real. If only to have a fragment of his imaginary friend.
Then, with a start, Naruto recalled that this wasn't the safest place to be falling asleep, having already ventured far past any decent place in town, out towards the druggy part, where the bad dealers and users got caught in their own webs, trapped without an income and forced to hole up in shacks like this one.
'In shacks like this one,' he realized with another jolt, and sat upright quickly, his weary muscles protesting silently, aching from his long run and from his emotional breakdown.
He took out his phone, flipping it open and saw what time it was.
Ten fifty.
He sighed in relief. If anyone 'lived' here, they most likely would've been in it by now, waking him up or kicking him out.
The blonde moaned, standing, as he yawned, wondering where he should go now that he'd officially left.
"It's legal for me to get a job, if I keep my identity a secret from my boss, I guess," he muttered, hands on his hips and face twisted in thought. He knew that he'd have to leave town. Deep down, where his heart wasn't happy anymore, he knew that if he saw Sasuke around town, he wouldn't be able to hold if together.
He knew he had to run now, because him running full tilt away from his job later wouldn't be explainable.
As the thunder overhead roared again, the golden haired boy walked over to a boarded up door, and tried to kick it down, only succeeding partially. The bottom half came off and he ducked out into the rain, become soaked almost instantly. He washed his mouth out, and swallowed a little water, before looking around through the downpour, fog not yet risen, the ground still clearly visible, not yet flooded.
While he listened and looked, Naruto sensed someone watching him. He felt a cold chill go up his spine, as he turned and met hard green eyes, as they looked away, towards a different pair, which were also looking at him.
He shivered, and glanced away, beginning to edge away, slowly down the street.
'Who are they? What do they want? Nobody down here knows I'm the Kyuubi, right? So what?' he asked himself a little scared, trying to seem calm, old tears melting off his cheeks, salt washed away by the rain.
Lightning flashed above, and illuminated his face for a moment, reflecting the fear there. He heard a low chuckle, and walked faster.
Then, without warning, he began to sprint away, trying to escape the man he knew was behind the huge building behind him.
"Where do you think you're going?" Growled a deep voice, as a hand snatched his shirt at the back, lifting him and tossing him across the street, screeching when his head landed harshly against the sidewalk that was crumbling and falling apart.
"Get up, you monster!" the other man yelled, his voice barely audible over the pang of thunder that was let loose.
Naruto grunted slowly, trying to feel if anything was broken. In the back of his pained mind, he knew he had to get away as quickly as possible.
"I said get up!" The man shouted again, coming closer, grinning as the blonde scrambled away, fearful.
"W-what do y-you want?" Naruto asked quietly, and shuddered when the men cracked their knuckles, still grinning eerily.
"To kill the Kyuubi, you damn bastard fox!" He got closer yet, beckoning to the man with the green eyes to come too.
"Come on Hitai, Seri. Let's get it!"
The poor blonde backed up hastily, as the other two men approached, smiling down at him with their cruel faces.
"Please, don't do this," he begged, his back bumping into a wall, he shifted, and stumbled, going downhill, into an alleyway. He gulped, turning his head. There was a dead end.
"Please," he pleaded again, and kept going down, rain running rivulets between his feet, and streaming down his face, mingling with fresh tears, these fearing and sad, hopeless.
"I'm gonna enjoy this!" one of the men growled, walking down after him, motioning for the others to follow. They did, grinning maniacally by now, chuckling, their voices drowned out by the rain and thunder, lightning dancing ballet across the skies above.
"Please, don't," he asked again, his voice cracking.
The tears overwhelmed his bravery, little as time had whittled it down to.
They ran freely down his face.
"Aww, look! The monster's crying," the man called Seri called, laughing at Naruto, elbowing his friend,
"Yeah, come on beastie, bawl!" Hitai cackled, nodding and laughing along with his pal.
"Help," the blonde murmured, more to himself than anyone, flinching visibly when he remembered that no one was ever going to help him again. Then, his back bumping into the alley wall,
"Please," he choked on tears, "Please help me. Someone."
The men closed in and the first one, name still unknown, grabbed the small teen's shoulder, thrusting him back, hard against the brick.
Naruto grunted, and tried to get free, but the hand clenched painfully, and he cried out, his head slammed into the wall again.
"Please!" he yelled out, the last of his voice before he was thrown into another of the men, who slammed their fists both into his sides, and a sickening crack was smothered by the next boom of thunder.
Naruto's scream, however, rang out clearly, echoing down the boulevards and up other alleyways, scaring a stray dog who was nosing around under a porch.
The other men grinning, and chuckled again, demanding a turn with the 'monster'.
The blonde yelled over and over, each wail shorter and shallower than the last, each with a shred of his willpower fading into the ashes that was his heart, broken by too many harsh words and glares.
Soon he was silent, only giving an occasional grunt and whoosh of breath, no longer resisting.
(Okay. I've revised it. It was bothering me, this part. So I've decided to edit it out. If you have a rape fetish, your sick. Anyone who loves Naru-chan should be glad, and you don't have to know what he went through. From the above sentencce to when Sasuke got there will now be referred to as the unspeakable hour.)
The raven had his socks and shoes sopping wet, and he looked like a very wet, very worried, very mad ghost, pale face melting the rain drops around him into steam, burning through the murk to look at the empty street.
His umbrella had been forsaken when the lightning struck a nearby building.
He'd immediately decided that staying dry was not a concern.
So, he'd dropped his -metal- shield and kept going, soaked within mere moments.
"Damn it," he whispered, rain drowning his voice.
'Where is he? He couldn't have gone that far.'
He'd searched the entire dorm building, gone over to the other university buildings, searched them, and still found nothing. Then, asking around, he found that the blonde had been seen leaving the campus at eight forty, walking into town.
So then, just as determined, a new fire in his eyes, Sasuke had gone there, umbrella still with him.
And then, finding nothing still, he'd asked around again, and heard that a person fitting the description headed out into the hardly used parts of the city.
'What was he thinking? Does he have a fucking death wish?' The raven ranted to himself in his mind.
Then, seeing a light on down the road, Sasuke began to walk again, over that way now.
"Hello?" He called lightly over the rain, and then stopped, listening. He could barely hear voices talking inside. He crept up to the open door, light spilling out.
"Yeah, I heard that the damned Kyuubi wandered through here a little while back, stumblin' around, lookin' like 'e was cryin'," a deep voice growled over the low din of rain.
"Heard that he went down into the slums, just walkin' around. Damned monster," growled another, and Sasuke seethed silently, restraining himself because he needed to hear more.
"Oh, that guy? Yeah, I heard him mumblin' somethin'. I wasn't eight feet from the guy. He was whimperin' an' cryin', sayin', 'Of course it was fake,' and then, 'Of course I wasn't his friend.' I just ignored 'im, an' came ov'r to get a beer," a different person piped up, and the raven outside stiffened, and his chest tightened.
"Friend? Things like that think they've got friends?" the first man cackled and the dark-haired teen outside growled lowly, and the talk inside quieted, a man murmuring something to the other.
Sasuke waited for them, bracing himself. When the first one leapt through the open window, the raven's pale fingers wrapped tightly around his fat neck, and drove him to the ground, growling again as the man grunted and wriggled in his firm grasp.
Then, the others emerging from the hanging door, he turned his back to the old wall and held the man up, putting a semi-sharp fingernail up to his eye, threatening.
The man gulped, and wriggled more for a moment, before he lay limp, rapped on the head by a stick, awaiting his imminent doom from the young teen that release him, prepared to wait until the others backed off.
"Where did you say he went," Sasuke breathed into the man's ear, his air nearly cut off by the tightening of his heart in his chest.
'Wasn't Naruto's friend? Why would he…' realization struck the raven like a hammer in the stomach, knocking him breathless. He gasped, and his fists loosened with the sudden shock.
He'd yelled at the blonde. He had told the blonde to get lost. Called him stupid. A moron. Sasuke felt all his worry wither into poison in his gut, and he felt his eyes swimming with tears, ready to cry.
It was his fault Naruto was out here.
Wasn't it?
He growled and slammed the man against the building, yelling when the other two men snuck up on him and grabbed him from behind, crashing their fists into his sides.
Pain screamed through him, and he thought he heard a very faint snap, as his vision went white for a moment.
Sasuke remembered the kitsune's face when he'd yelled at him, and a choked sob escaped his throat, despair welling up in his stomach.
He knew that he had to find his friend.
He had to help him.
Had to keep his promise.
"Where. Is. Naruto." He got up, punctuating each word with a fist, rammed into a different man's gut each time.
He kept hitting, jamming his fingers into one man's eye sockets, blood flowing down his fingers as his nails dug in purposefully, scratching and making the other wail in agony.
"Who's Nar—Uhnn!"A sharp blow to the ribs cut him off, sending him to the ground, splashing into one of the deeper puddles, sputtering as Sasuke yanked him back up to meet his onyx black eyes, cold and hard as tears spilled from them, loss and worry streaming down his face.
"The blonde. Where is he? Which way?" He sucked in a shuddering breath, and cast his gaze around, thinking maybe the others would fess up.
Nope.
He rammed the man into the soaked gravel, flakes of mud and sand clinging to him as he came up, coughing.
"Please! Wait!" Sasuke glared expectantly, waiting, one fist poised directly in front of his face. The man spewed blood and bile from his throat, ribs broken and a leg twisted at an unnatural angle.
The raven scowled deeper, shaking him to speak, relentless and fretting on the inside for his best friend, scared he was too late.
Sasuke Uchiha hadn't been so terrified since the day his parents died, ten or eleven years ago. He swallowed mouthful of fresh rain and listened carefully to the man hanging by his hair.
"He went off into the slum part of town. The north corner. That way," he pointed and coughed more blood up, as he was tossed to the side.
Sasuke bent down face to face and murmured over the rain, "You had better be telling my the truth, you worthless piece of scum-talking shit!"
Having retrieved te information, the raven stood an looked up at the endless black sky, beginning towards the bad 'slump' part of town, heaving his sides as he ran, ignoring the minor bruises and cuts from the skirmish. He coughed, spitting out the red liquid with distaste, and kept running.
'I've got to reach him in time,' was his only thought as his feet slammed against the soaked concrete, the sound echoing dimly under the rain's roaring.