waiting (rooms)
Naruto has never liked hospitals much.
Wait, no, that's an understatement actually, he detests them, and as of late the reasons for his distaste have only been increasing. And now, crossing these same doors is even less comforting, seeing as the hospital sustained some serious collateral damage after the attack, and the efforts of the renovation now coupled with all the affected patients feel like too much of a cataclysm.
The smell of pure alcohol and sterile utensils is almost a stench, invading his senses unpleasantly. The long hallway is a simple means to an end, a thoroughfare, but the trek along it is interminable. At least inside his mind it is. The despairingly blank walls are staring back at him, like they're daring him to go any further.
With each step forward the sense of dread swells like a surface wound, bruising underneath the pulsing tissue. He smothers it down.
(The cracks running like fractures along the tiled floor, they're not there. Not anymore. But the cracks he wears underneath his ribcage won't stitch themselves shut.)
For a moment, everything slows down. His breaths are muted, his footsteps muffled, echoes of voices (deafening screams), flashing lights (blinding darkness), split floors (tarnished in blood).
A pause, another step. The world starts back again.
Naruto breathes in, quashes out the memories.
It almost comes as a surprise when the three of them are standing outside the numbered hospital room. Sakura moves first, he follows after her.
"Look who's finally showed up to pay a call." It's the first thing Kakashi says once they step inside.
"You mean this is where you are staying, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura swivels back on her heels. "Oops, wrong room, boys."
Kakashi exhales noisily. "Har har, you know what? Go, get out of here and don't let me see your guileless faces again."
Naruto cracks a bit of a grin while Sakura cracks a laugh and assures him they'll take him up on his offer.
It's like a small reprieve from everything Naruto has been through up until now. As far as his loathing for hospitals goes, coming to visit Kakashi has never felt like an obligation. It's much easier too, since he has started looking healthier and more like himself with each passing day.
"Morning, Kakashi-sensei." Sakura and Naruto finally greet in unison, Sai giving a small nod of acknowledgement.
Sakura takes a seat at one of the uncomfortable but familiar chairs placed by his bed, Naruto follows her example, whilst Sai for some reason remains standing, as usual.
"To punctuate, it is closer to afternoon." Kakashi punctuates, which earns him two eyerolls. "But, glad you could make it. And here I thought you'd forgotten all about poor old me." The hint of a smile is concealed below his mask.
"As if, Kakashi-sensei. Shouldn't you know better than anyone the constant attention old men are in need of?" Naruto allows himself a bit of a shit-eating grin as he asks the mostly rhetorical question.
Kakashi's eyebrow ticks in annoyance while Sakura presses her lips together, holding back a grin of her own.
"...The nerve." Kakashi drawls, flat. "...the actual nerve." The lightness in his voice is obvious and relieving. "Kids these days, disrespectful bunch..." He mutters something else under his breath, drawing a quiet giggle out of Sakura and something akin to a snicker out of Naruto, who tries to lean back in his chair and find a somewhat comfortable position, even if it's no easy task when he feels like he's sitting on a concrete slab.
Naruto has learned to take in the details. (He doesn't know when it happened, exactly. Perhaps sometime around dipping his little toes in, skinning his bony knees after throwing himself into the wondrous world of what being a ninja means, and now.) It's like jotting down observations he makes, only the notes are stored in his head, stacked somewhere safe he can reach again and again when he needs the senseless repetition to numb him down.
For example; the window in this room has a blind on it, and a view of the roof of an adjoining building in the distance, further away there's sprawling open space. Another example; at first Kakashi's head used to be tilted down, hanging, the events were a lead weight showing like scattered injuries across his body and dragging him down with them. Now his head is held higher, but humbly so.
Naruto keeps taking in the new details. His teacher's face is still mostly bandaged, pale skin against pale whiteness, and the gauze on his left hand climbs up his forearm, hiding the minuscule tube and damage below. But the most noticeable injuries are perhaps the fading bruises, he should be dismissed in a few days.
If the Fifth had not, miraculously, gotten out of her comatose state, none of this would have been possible now.
(And, at times, when Naruto thinks of the worst, when he thinks about Tsunade, he swears he can feel his intestines tangle up in knots and his lungs shrivel up and shrink with the clash rousing inside of him, when he thinks of the pain and the gratitude he owes her.)
"I take it they're treating you pretty well, sensei?" Sakura asks next, busying herself with the task of peeling an apple from the bunch she brought.
Sakura's instincts—motherly instincts, especially—have only intensified since the raze, and if she can't make sure that every single person she cares about is at least okay-adjacent, she spirals into a frantic and restless panic. And as funny as her attempts at being a mother-hen can sometimes get, they all see she's trying her best, and the amusement clouds into sadness in the blink of an eye.
Naruto wishes he could help. He sometimes catches the terrified flicker of hope dimming in her eyes and it scares him to think she could lose it (like he's already lost his).
"As well as well can be." Kakashi answers easily enough for it to be an unquestionable truth, he leans back on the couple of plush looking pillows and his mask caves in the shape of a kind smile, which Sakura returns, and Naruto does too after a beat too long.
The focus of their every conversation at first was centered around Konoha's assault. And really, how do you waltz around it, how do you ignore the elephant sitting inside the room next to you? You don't. You can't. And linked to it was the resulting loss, the doubt, how much would it take to rebuild what went broken (could something too broken be rebuilt at all?). Which had soon after delved into economical and political talk that Naruto mostly didn't understand or even wanted to hear about. The tension had been at an all time high, breaching through like an electrified live wire regardless of how carefully the painful words had been whispered, managing to tear through their hastily put together walls with punches the size of hearts.
But, as the days lengthened into weeks, the heavy topics thankfully lost some of their punches and a little bit more lightheartedness managed to seep its way in. Until it came to a point where they went out of their way to avoid the more serious and morbid issues. Until when they left, their teacher had the imprint of a smile curving up his mask instead of the usual tipped down frown. Until his students began going home in the evenings and feeling lighter than when they'd woken up in the mornings (until Naruto pretended to do the same).
And this was something Naruto needed, and needed badly, to assure himself he could keep his sanity intact. (No, he didn't, not anymore.)
"If you must know," Kakashi levels them with an unwavering stare, continuing. "There is this one nurse who comes to see me everyday." He lowers his voice a bit, his next words sounding almost conspiratorial. "I don't want to make speculations, but I think I may just be her favorite patient here. She's always bringing in more pillows, without me even asking. And, I even caught her bending the straw in my glass the first few times."
"Kakashi-sensei, that...does not classify as special treatment. It is part of the job, taking care of patients." Sakura states in a flat tone.
Naruto hides a snort in the collar of his shirt. "Mah, Kakashi-sensei..." He shakes his head twice and lets the sentence hang in the air, even going as far as disdainfully crinkling his nose to add to the scene.
"I'm not being anything." Kakashi is soon to follow with, having perfectly read the meaning behind the unspoken words. "I am merely stating facts." He seems resolute to stand his ground. "She always looks so radiant whenever she steps foot in this room, and when she sees me her eyes light up...has me wondering if my stay here will end with a parting gift, a goodbye kiss, perhaps?" He looks almost dreamy as he thinks of the various scenarios that entail parting kisses, or more.
Sakura puts a hand over her heart, and pretending to gasp she turns to Naruto, stage-whispering. "Oh no, he's delusional too now. What should we do?"
Naruto lowers his voice a bit to match hers, chin grasped in hand in fake contemplation. "Makes you wonder, what would this 'parting gift' even be, five fingers to the face?"
"If that were to happen he'd give us an excuse, like 'having to help a pretty woman who was falling down the stairs and she accidentally hit him during the fall, only to cling onto him after for dear life'. We should probably just nod and pretend to believe him, to at least spare his wounded feelings and pride." Sakura continues in a low voice, but it's pretty clear everyone is meant to hear.
"Of course." Naruto nods in agreement with an almost torn expression. "Poor old man, can't imagine having to live with such poor flirting skills to boot."
Sakura's eyebrows pinch in mock-confusion. "Oh my god…do you think he actually rehearses his lines?"
Naruto pretends to think about it for a second, slowly nodding. "God, he must spend hours in front of the mirror, perfecting his 'technique' and thinking he's a genius for it. Who knows how many ladies have already laughed in his face?"
"Or maybe they were pitying him so much they even pretended to be impressed?"
As they keep making fun of him, in front of him, Kakashi looks utterly done with his students. "That's it. From now on you two are banned from this room." He orders, nodding towards the door for them to leave.
"Oh, wow, he thinks he has this kind of authority over us now." Naruto shakes his head, heaving a sigh. "Wow, his memory really isn't what it used to be, huh?"
"Just nod and pretend you're agreeing with everything he says." Sakura shakes her head in the same rueful way. "It might hurt less for such a poor man with such poor flirting skills."
"Maybe the nurse pities him too, isn't that why she has put up with him for so long?"
Sakura gasps, dramatically, hiding it behind her hand. "I think that might just be it!"
"Help." Kakashi drawls, raising his voice just a little for attention. "A very kind-hearted and very handsome patient is being harassed in his supposedly peaceful room."
A nurse actually ends up poking her head in the room, the one the teacher had been telling his students all about. She takes a moment to notice that Kakashi is, in fact, perfectly fine. Stepping inside, she zeroes in on him and on the clipboard she's holding she clicks her pretty nails in a perfectly rhythmic show of annoyance.
"What. Do. You. Need. Now." Her curt tone suggests this is quite the regular occurrence, drawing Naruto and Sakura's attention and making them lean in so they won't miss a word. Sai remains unfazed for his part.
This time it's Kakashi's turn to put a hand over his chest, only to let out a long and delighted sigh. "I just melt at the sight of you, my dearest."
The woman rolls her eyes, the exasperation across her face doesn't look new either. "Please 'melt' outside of my working hours, old geezer." And like that, she turns and walks out of the door with a disgruntled huff.
Kakashi is quick to face his students again with his usual, and seemingly never-ending, confidence. In a deadpan voice, he states. "See? Once we're in the same room she can't hold back her passion. Clearly, she's head over heels about me."
"...Uh-oh." Sakura and Naruto share a glance between their barely held back snorts.
"Maybe we should keep the old geezer in the hospital for a whole other reason–" And Naruto doesn't even finish his sentence that the two of them are already cracking up. Sakura's laughter is so infectious he can't help but let out his own.
"I don't expect the likes of you, brats, to understand the complexities in the display of a love so tender and pure." Kakashi mutters in distaste.
Sakura does then take notice of Sai scribbling down something. "What are you doing?"
The boy lifts his head up enough to answer. "I'm jotting down notes on the 'display of a love so tender and pure' Kakashi-sensei is broadcasting about." Sai answers, with the best intentions, probably. But the thing is, his tone sounds so dull and monotonous when he speaks the words, it seems like he's in cahoots with the two of them and is just looking for more ways to mock the man.
"Let me rephrase." Kakashi suddenly utters, the picture of unimpressed. "From now on the three of you are banned from stepping food inside this room ever again."
Sakura and Naruto are sent into a fit again and the more one laughs, the louder the other follows. Sai tilts his head to the side, mostly confused. There is no tension in the air, nor any pain that can dampen this quiet corner of peace.
Naruto rearranges his self and his thoughts, lets himself be pulled into the moment, leaving his mind now thankfully blank as his sole focus is right here, in a few of the people he cares about most in the world.
He doesn't know if time is stressing by in minutes or hours, doesn't keep count of it, the mindless and light chatter is enough to let everything else fall away. So it's almost unconscious, the way his eyes slowly shift to the side. The door to the room is propped open and people walk by, their shoes squeak on the pristine tiles.
One by one the walls built in his mind give in, falling away, crumbling.
And suddenly, in the hallway, he sees himself.
(Naruto is curled up on the floor, the cracks in the tiles run deep enough to scar through him whole, heart shattered, the world lying in glass pieces broken beneath his feet, he knows nothing but loss.
Fingers dig deep in his ribcage. The red blood has since dried over, staining his fingers in coal black clots, it's stale with death.)
You couldn't save him, the cacophony of voices say, so cruel and disfigured they might as well be his own. He's dead. He's dead. Deaddeaddead dead–)
"He seems to be doing well. That's a relief."
Naruto freezes.
His breath catches in his throat, his body locks in place and his hands tighten to fists by his side. His eyes make a slow ascend, and suddenly, someone else is standing in the previously vacant space.
Sasuke.
This seems to have become a routine of sorts, because when he least expects it is when he gets surprised the most, unpleasantly so.
And really, he shouldn't be taken off guard anymore, not after the shock of finding him there this morning. And the day before. And the day before that. But he still is.
Sasuke has Naruto stuck, and for the split of a second he feels his presence so strongly, so intensely , he thinks they might be the only two souls left inhabiting the universe while time is paralyzed.
(And suddenly, Sasuke is blocking the view he has of himself curled up on the floor, the cracks in the tiles run deep enough to scar through him whole, heart shattered, the world lying in glass pieces broken beneath his feet, he knows nothing but loss. And Naruto doesn't even know how that's supposed to make him feel.)
He digs his nails in the clothed flesh between his outer thigh and knee, and waits like an elastic band that if pulled too tight will end up snapping, waits in fear, in anticipation, in anger.
But nothing else happens, except for Sasuke's gaze leaving their teacher and migrating toward his own. There is a small smile hanging off his mouth, seemingly genuine enough in matching his words.
One thought pushes at the other and Naruto fails to disassemble and reassemble them in orderly fashion, when everything sounds like one bad option after another. The walls inside his mind rise higher, closing in, locking him out, and there is a bitterness to the inside of his mouth so distinct, he tastes iron and acid, it sours him from within and—
"Naruto?"
He abruptly breaks off their eye contact, his head whips around just a little too quickly. And he tries to cover it up with a smile that comes off stretched a little too widely to be sincere. "What?"
"Is something wrong?" Sakura asks cautiously. His teammates and teacher are now looking at him with a hint of curiosity, worry swimming just underneath.
How long has he been spacing out?
'...They can't see him.' Naruto whispers to himself, and the seconds are measured in the beats of his heart that only grow louder, and with the loud thump of them slamming repeatedly in his temples and the fact that Sasuke truly seems to be invisible to the others, the theory of a ghost doesn't sound as far-fetched now as it did in the shock of the morning.
But he can't let himself slip up. He can't let them know.
"No, I..." Naruto shifts in his chair, clears his throat even if the lump inside it feels the size of a rock, relaxes himself enough for his muscles not to be as stiff, and his body language not to give him away. "...I just thought I saw someone I recognized."
A plausible excuse since the door is still open and—maybe not so much of an excuse, after all. He's met with no further questioning and the conversation returns to its previous ease.
Naruto tries not to tense when, after a carefully awaited number of seconds, his gaze flickers back to the door and he finds Sasuke has yet to move an inch. There should be a whole lot of things bothering him, but what keeps nagging at him, in the back of his mind, is the expression Sasuke is showing. It's so ...he doesn't even know how to describe it.
He doesn't know. His words ring clear in Naruto's head, echoing through the back of his head, and the apparent genuineness to them has his chest feeling tight.
Sasuke, real or not real, the memory of his dream, Team Seven, being right here now, his words—Naruto can't help it when he asks himself...
...does Sasuke even care?
The weight in his chest almost threatens to suffocate him.
He tunes back in and avoids any distractions now. He doesn't space off, neither does he look towards the door anymore. He does nothing that could give him away.
Even so, he swears he feels Sasuke's eyes burn right through him.
"This is boring."
Naruto's head thumps against the wall, eyes stitched up to the dull yellowish white ceiling, and he sighs for what feels like the umpteenth time today.
The visit to their recovering teacher should have made him feel better. It should have. But as soon as he parted ways with Sakura and Sai, his forced smile dropped instantly. The last tendrils of energy burned out with each second that passed him by, each step that he took, leaving him to what had become his customary routine: being drained.
Unfortunately for him, this day has yet to end. In fact, one of the exciting activities scheduled for today just so happens to be his date with the therapist.
And, of course, Sasuke is...
Still here.
"You pointing that out thrice might have been a glaring giveaway, but please feel free to expand on that." Naruto finally mutters through gritted teeth.
"That is a fact. This is me reiterating a fact." Sasuke whispers back as if this should have been obvious to him, as if he's completely unaware of Naruto's aggravation rising with every word he utters. "Can't we just go somewhere else? I'm sure there are funnier ways to spend an afternoon than being cooped up inside four walls to talk."
Naruto wants to slam his head against one of the aforementioned four walls in sheer frustration. Seriously, like he doesn't know that.
"I told you already! I'm–" But he halts mid-sentence when he notices a man standing in the hallway, looking at him as if he's grown three heads in the last two seconds.
Naruto offers a bit of a nervous grin, that probably comes off as more of a grimace, and the man practically flees away in the blink of an eye, leaving him more than a little puzzled and—oh, right. Sasuke is invisible' to everyone else...why does he even keep forgetting about such an insignificant detail? Maybe because it's so ridiculous even Naruto is not sure what to believe in.
His head thumps against the wall. Again. And he sighs. Again.
Another unfortunate fact seems to be how there is no way of getting rid of him. What grates on his nerves even more is how Sasuke (well, this Sasuke...or was the old Sasuke the same way too?) has to have an opinion on everything, and, of course, he doesn't mind making his complaints known.
"Oh, c'mon, I'll croak out of boredom at this rate." Sasuke practically whines beside him.
Naruto turns sharp, glaring eyes in his direction. "You mean you can kick the bucket? Good. Maybe then you'll finally leave me alone." He snaps at him, though he doesn't have the slightest clue about how…'ghosts', or hallucinations, or whatever this guy is, even work.
Sasuke stares at him, blinking. "You're funny, you know." He says out of the blue, chuckling in the back of his throat like he just heard an amusing anecdote.
Naruto's expression spells for him, 'are you insane?', before deciding he has better things to do than waste his time with...this—whatever 'this' entails. What remains to point out is how those better things are now...no things. Because he has nothing to do except...waiting.
He grumbles to himself, turning the other way before he starts making a scene out of annoyance. Or boredom. Or a conglomeration of both.
In the room adjacent to the small waiting area he is in, Naruto can hear a kid crying. From the ajar door he can see two women inside the room with the kid, one is presumably the mother and the other should be the professional he's under the care of. Both are trying to calm him down because the child is thrashing on the ground. Naruto doesn't know what is going on, but it doesn't sound—it doesn't look simple. The little kid is wailing, voice raw and acute, and it would be more accurate to say those are screams instead of cries. The kid's voice breaks. He's in pain, Naruto realizes, he's in actual pain; Naruto only catches a fleeting glance of his small face, red, bloodied, lost, raw.
Naruto's hands are suddenly clenching so tightly he can feel nails biting into his skin—as if fresh marks of blood will be enough to keep in check the fresh wave of pain—his stomach caves in, and he feels it, something heavy and terrible settling in the middle of his chest and weighing him down until his breath sticks like glue inside his throat with no way to escape.
These here are real kids with real problems and…and apparently Naruto is one of them.
"Hey."
He's suddenly met with Sasuke's face, so close to his own it takes Naruto a full second to pull back, like he's just been scorched by unseen flames.
"What's with that frown?" Sasuke asks him. He sounds ridiculously worried for a reason Naruto is unable to comprehend or rationally explain.
Harsh sunlight filters through a window to their left, unforgivably enveloping everything it reaches in its burnt orange hue. Sasuke's skin looks lighter exposed to the rays, his eyes ablaze, and Naruto can almost read him in this quiet sliver of openness.
It's like a slap to the face. Like ice water poured over his searing hot skin, leaving the charred flesh to heal with the shock cold of searing relief.
The door closes. It puts a stop to the ear-splitting screams, as if they never existed in the first place, and Naruto blinks back in the present.
The question finally registers, and he's quick to peel his eyes away. "...Shut up. S'nothing." It's a quiet scoff, a rough murmur. Naruto doesn't know if he's trying to distract Sasuke or if he's just trying to distract himself, and he doesn't want to think about it a second longer.
Sasuke doesn't say anything else, but he can still feel his eyes on him. And it bothers him, it bothers him to no end.
With nothing better to do, he busies himself with having a look around the place—not like there is much to look at to begin with, he's cooped up inside a waiting room after all. Being here still feels strange and foreign, even if this isn't the first time.
The first time he was here he took in the clean floors, the cream colored walls, the two waiting areas and the narrow hallways. There are at least a dozen doors that he doesn't have the slightest idea on what goes on behind. If not for the few touches of life here and there, the place would have been completely barren. It feels impersonal, empty, a simple working space and nothing more.
But something he has noticed right away is, this place feels crowded in a silent sort of way. As if there is always something to do, somewhere to be, but it's quiet. The sort of quiet that gets on people's nerves and makes them fidget even if they don't want to, and even when they shouldn't, since the wait is only leading to something as simple as hearing their name getting called. And once he himself got the opportunity to be behind one of those closed doors, it was...well, he has to admit it was much less dramatic than he had initially thought it would be.
For starters, he would have expected to be lying on a comfortable dark leather sofa, like he's seen people in movies do, which did not happen. He also expected mahogany tables, dark floors and dark wood everywhere, along with bookshelves littered with books and books to no end, and just about anything and everything else that would make the room feel old, small, stuffy. Suffocating. But that had not been the case, either.
The office he's been accommodated into during his first session is medium sized at least, decorated with a few paintings. A large window opens on the side. The walls and floors are different shades of white and the sunlight streaming in gives the room a certain lightness. Along one of the walls there is a bookshelf that contains a great quantity of volumes, but it doesn't give the room the suffocating sense he had at first imagined, although some of the books are so thick he would never even think about looking their way, let alone read them in this lifetime.
To be fair, they are currently restoring the old building these meetings were supposed to take place in. So, once the new office is ready, Naruto is still expecting to lie down on a comfy couch and endlessly rant on about the woes in his life to a stranger who takes notes and pretends to care.
Naruto is snapped out of his reminiscing when he hears his name being called, signalling for him to go in. Wordlessly, he gets up and marches to the same room he had been welcomed in only a couple handfuls of days ago.
"This is so boring." And Sasuke complains. Again.
Naruto has just taken a seat in one of the two chairs in front of the desk. And of course Sasuke just had to take the other one.
He can't help but keep thinking how the day is taking more of a bizarre turn as it passes him by, not only because of Sasuke being here, but the way he's acting too. He is...so frustrating right now. And in a different scenario Naruto might even take a moment to laugh himself to death, but he currently feels so unnerved even the 'click' of a pen might just set him off.
"I never asked you to be here in the first place!" He hisses under his breath, vexed.
"Did you say something?" The woman looks up from whatever she had been writing—what would Naruto do to know what therapists write about their clients, this curiosity has taken the best of him since their first meeting, maybe even before then—with a slightly puzzled expression.
The therapist he has been assigned is a woman in her late thirties, probably, and although they had not spent that much time getting to know each other, he had immediately gotten this feeling that there was something immaculate about her. She seems composed, organized and prepared. And even if he is completely distrusting, because he won't kid himself enough to think she will be able to get inside his head and find a solution for him to fix all his problems with, he can at least wait and see what comes out of this.
"Nope, nothing at all." He quickly denies with a minuscule smile in her general direction.
Sasuke snickers and Naruto throws him a discreet glare, going back to giving the room another once over.
For some reason unknown to him he can't quite bring himself to look her in the eyes. It's...difficult, almost, in a way he had never thought about before. But since he doesn't have the obligation to keep the eye contact during their 'conversations', he simply doesn't.
"You look a bit tense." Sasuke quips beside him, so good-humored it's almost inappropriate given Naruto's current predicament.
And Naruto is about to go off on him, before remembering, again, just how crazy that would make him look. And if he can help it he certainly won't go out of his way to give more reasons to get himself locked up inside some mental facility.
The wait is unnerving, but it is short, and after a couple more moments the woman is apparently done with her task, regarding him with her full attention. Which makes Naruto feel more uncomfortable than anything, wishing she would go back to write whatever she was writing about until their time is up.
"How are you doing today, Naruto?" She finally asks, voice gentle but not quite. Professional.
And here comes the question. From what he has seen and heard, they all have a standard question they ask the first time, only to repeat it over and over again every time after. Like, 'How is it going?' or 'What's going on with you today?' or simply 'How do you feel?'
The first time he was here, a bit before his own meeting, he'd caught a glimpse of another one going on, a kid around his age was in a room with an old man, who had shockingly white hair and a big smile and a round belly. He'd asked the kid, 'What's going on inside that world of yours today?', and for a moment Naruto wished the old and smiling man was assigned to him instead, because there had just been something about him that transpired safety.
Not that he has anything against this therapist. He doesn't even know her, so how could he have already formed an opinion on the woman whose job is to form her own opinion of him and...well, put like that it sounds...weird. But he's at a point in his life where everything keeps sounding weird, and confusing, and unpleasant, so this is at least unsurprising.
As for his answer to the standard question, well...
'I feel like dying.'
Now, that's not something he can say, is it?
He also can't say, 'I feel like shit.'
"I'm fine." He goes with a standard answer too, because he thinks this is the only acceptable one anyway. It's almost funny how unfunny it actually is.
Beside him, Sasuke scoffs under his breath like this is the biggest bullshit he has ever had the displeasure to hear in his lifetime, and Naruto wants to roll his eyes at the sudden way his stomach churns and the frustration that furiously climbs all over him. But he also feels a prickling and suffocating sensation, that might as well be guilt, and it makes him want to build up higher walls and strengthen his defenses.
"Anything in particular you'd like to start with?"
He is caught a bit off guard by this next question and peels his eyes away from Sasuke to look at the real other person inside the room. He tenses slightly and clears his throat to cover up his bafflement. "Uh...what do you mean?"
The therapist doesn't falter as she repeats her question, elaborating in a kind tone. "New developments in your life that you would like to share?"
As if on cue, Naruto finds himself searching for Sasuke, who...is not sitting beside him anymore. Trying to be as discreet as he can, he casts a glance around himself, until his eyes wander up and... there he is.
Sasuke is actually sitting on top of the bookshelf, appearing as comfortable as ever while he scans the room with what seems to be a great deal of concentration. Until his gaze lands on him and he breaks out in a grin that borders on mischievous, waggling his fingers in some sort of mocking wave and kicking his legs back and forth like little kids usually do.
Naruto thinks he will have this image of Sasuke seared behind his eyelids, forever imprinted into his memory with absurd HD clarity.
'Yes, actually. Out of the blue I'm being haunted by my ex-teammate turned bitter nemesis turned a fucking ghost. How about you psychanalyse that!'
...yeah, that's definitely something he doesn't feel like sharing.
"Nope." Naruto blurts out, looking straight at Sasuke, before resolutely shaking his head and focusing back on the therapist, hoping the opposite is not written all over his face. "Not at all."
"Awh, I'm hurt." Sasuke pouts at him. Before snorting, because he apparently finds himself that funny.
"You–" Almost on autopilot Naruto is ready to rise to the bait, but refrains from doing so when he feels another pair of eyes trained on him. He falls back in his chair, wearing a smile that is supposed to show confidence, but comes out as more anxious. "...And what about you? Anything new to share?" He tries to salvage the situation, redirecting the question to her.
The woman's eyes crinkle a bit at the corners with her small smile. "It's thoughtful of you to ask. But we're here to talk about you, Naruto."
"...right." Naruto settles a bit more in his chair and looks down at his lap.
"Nice save." It's unclear if it's taunting on Sasuke's part, or if it isn't. And Naruto decides, for everyone involved, it's much better if he just ignores him.
…Well. As much as he can ignore a ghost perched on top of a bookshelf who might be mocking him, that is.
"You might wanna hone those lying skills." Sasuke comments, once they're walking out of the building. "Could come in handy."
Naruto didn't remember the sun shining so brightly when he first entered and is slightly disoriented when hit by its intense rays, but also somewhat relieved. And still very much confused.
This area is mostly calm, which is something he likes, and the quiet chatter of passersby is relaxing as opposed to the now annoyingly loud buzz that fills his ears in the open streets. It's quiet enough to be white noise starring in his thoughts, leaving the real issues to take the backseat.
He takes in the few trees, the small patches of green that managed to survive and they all add up to the tranquility. Fresh, crisp air fills his lungs inside out, leaving him almost light-headed for a second. But even this is not enough, a magical mood change is still wishful thinking.
"I'm not a liar." Naruto impulsively spills out, feeling the contradiction course through his veins and settle deep in his gut, because what he said now is not what he said before. Because his exact words to the therapist were 'I'm fine', when the real answer is...much more complicated.
But if Sasuke is aware of this particular truth, he doesn't mention it. "I wasn't implying you were. What I'm saying is, sometimes it could just work in your favor."
"Sounds like you're an expert in that field." It comes off as more of an exhausted deflection rather than a real attempt at accusation.
Sasuke doesn't call him out on it, but he gets a conceited smirk in turn. "Maybe so."
Naruto huffs quietly. He stares down, at the uneven road, in front of him, at the peaceful and surprisingly bleak surroundings, up, at the cloudlessly pale sky, and takes in bits of everything. Everything except for the one who is standing right next to him.
But it's so surprisingly hard, when Sasuke now seems to be the only center of his focus.
Naruto's eyes flit to his in clear consternation and suspicion.
Sasuke stares back, unfazed.
"He seems to be doing well. That's a relief."
Naruto's thoughts are unexpectedly thrown for a loop as the words resurface in his mind. Something sharp aches somewhere deep, and he casts his head down, doesn't dare raise his eyes from the ground now when the words tumble so lowly out of his mouth his voice might as well be a strangled sigh.
"...did you really mean it?"
The pause has him holding on his breath. It burns his lungs.
"Of course I did." Sasuke's casual smirk turns into a cautious line. When he does take a step towards him, it's when Naruto finally wills himself to look up at the unblinking stare directed at him, unwavering. There is no hesitation behind. "After all he was my teacher too, remember?"
Naruto sucks in a startled breath, moving back one step.
Teacher.
For a moment the word rings so loudly in his head he fears he will go deaf from it.
Sasuke seems to understand his shock, because he eases back, as if giving him a chance to breathe. Naruto doesn't know how to feel about this either.
"I want him to be okay." Sasuke adds in quiet earnestness.
"Do you?" Something raw and reproaching filters in his voice and he can't help but ask the question before his brain even has the chance to play catch-up with his mouth.
"Why wouldn't I?" But Sasuke's rhetorical question ends up being as innocuous and demure as almost everything about him seems to be these past couple of days. His lips quirk up. "You know, you shouldn't assume what people think without asking them first."
Naruto wants to bite back, but no more words come out of his mouth and the beginning of a headache is already settling in his temples. He decides to leave it be, before he says something he might come to later regret, though with everything that's happened already that sounds ridiculous too.
"Why didn't you tell Sakura that you hate it?" But it seems it now is Sasuke's turn to ask questions anyway when he changes the subject, nodding towards the building they just left.
Naruto starts walking again. He puts his hands in his pockets for the lack of anything better to do, but also to hide the small shaking that has recently taken over his limbs. "Hate what?" He asks dumbly, pretending not to know just what the other boy is talking about.
Sasuke has a bit of a smirk lifting his lips, like he knows. "The therapy sesh, what else."
Hearing him talking about Sakura, and Kakashi, so naturally, as if it's... normal for him...is weird. And disconcerting. Naruto feels disoriented all over again.
He thinks about making up an excuse on the spot, denying it, but somehow he has the distinct impression Sasuke would see through it right away.
And as previously stated before, he is not a liar. Even if honesty comes at a price he doesn't want to give in at times.
"...I didn't want to burden her." Naruto rushes to let out in a sincere breath.
Thinking he would get the opposite reaction, he is surprised when Sasuke smiles. It's not a mocking smile, not sneering or meant to make fun of him. It's genuine.
"That's just like you." Sasuke says.
Naruto blinks in a daze as this time he does stop in his tracks, studying the other boy as if he's seeing him for the first time. "What...what's that supposed to mean?"
Sasuke stops too, just a couple of steps ahead of him with his hands in his pockets and balancing on the balls of his feet, still smiling. "It means you still...even if you shouldn't." It's almost a whisper under his breath, like it's his own secret and not something he wants to share with him.
Naruto blinks, once, twice, three times. "...huh?"
"You're selfless." Sasuke simply adds in a louder voice and his smile simultaneously grows and dims, making Naruto feel dizzy. "You're way too selfless for your own good, don't you know that already?"
Strangely enough, the words make Naruto feel worse than if he had been subjected to a rasengan. Their impact leaving him wide-eyed and gaping. "I–...that's not true." He counters defensively, and a bit childishly.
Mischievousness flickers into Sasuke's expression. "It is."
"No, it's just–" He scoffs, averting his eyes. "Look–I...I'm not even the one footing the bill. The least I can do is go." Quieter, he adds, "...that's it."
But Sasuke practically waltzes in his line of vision, smirk plastered to his face. "Do you always do what you should?"
Naruto's eyes narrow in glaring irritation as he counters back. "Do you ever do what you should?"
Sasuke shrugs, grinning. "Touché."
Naruto has more to add, but ends up spectacularly interrupted when a shout of 'look out!' draws his attention away. And for good reason, because a rickety wheelbarrow is quickly emptying itself of its contents and even more quickly coming their way. Or Sasuke's way, to be more specific.
Naruto would usually be quick on his feet, which is no hardship considering he's a ninja, but for some reason his legs are stuck to the ground and his vocal chords are unwilling to cooperate with him, so when he opens his mouth to warn Sasuke, to tell him to move out of the way...nothing comes out. Instinctively, his arms raise up to his face as if to prevent him from seeing the disaster waiting to happen.
But as the wheelbarrow swiftly speeds down towards them in rocky motions, it ends up going...
Right. Through. Sasuke.
...and Naruto's jaw practically falls slack, not believing what he just witnessed with his own eyes.
Sasuke opens up his arms in a grand gesture, as if to say 'see?' , "I guess this actually proves your theory that I'm a ghost, huh?"
Naruto keeps staring, unblinking and unmoving and shell-shocked. The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is...
"...What the fuck?"
Sasuke's smirk only widens in amusement. "Starting today I feel like you'll keep saying that often."