The following morning, I turned off the alarm clock without looking at it. Despite how groggy I felt, I was conscious enough to notice this was odd. I'd struggled with it the previous morning, and the clock itself had a complex array of switches on the back that normally tripped me up just setting it.

As I swung my feet over the side of the bed, it felt as though the whole world had spun with me. I clenched my eyes shut and hunched over, a sense of vertigo attacking my senses. Nausea rose in me. It felt like an inner-ear imbalance; being unable to place where I was positioned in space.

Am I ill?

I let my eyes creak open and slowly slid from the bed to rest on my knees. I curled and uncurled my fists. my vision was doing something strange; not so much double-vision, as what appeared to be after-images of my movements trailing behind. I felt my lips part as I stared transfixed at the visual trailing before my nausea redoubled. I let myself fall to the ground, my sense of self still reeling somewhere behind me.

I'm not a doctor, I thought, but I diagnose this as 'Bad.'

I reached sluggishly to rub at my forehead and felt something dry and flaky on my skin. I cracked my eyes back open, trying to bring my hand into focus. Was that… dried blood?

I upgrade this diagnosis to 'Very Bad.'

I let myself continue as a pathetic ball on the floor for several minutes; eventually, the nausea faded. I began to have a better sense of where I was in space. I took a deep breath and pushed myself up. The visual trailing was gone.

"I just can't catch a break," I mumbled to myself. My voice sounded strangely high in my ears. I stood carefully and tottered over to the floor-length mirror in my room. I looked… strange. And it wasn't just the dried blood on my head, which was disturbing in its own right.

Somehow, the person in the mirror looked both more familiar than ever and less. For a moment, the image of myself seemed to waver, like I was staring at dozens of copies of myself. I scrunched my eyes shut and shook my head gently, and when I looked again, it was just me.

Okay, Sakarin, don't panic, I thought. This might well be a normal thing that happens when people get too little sleep or something. Unlikely, but possible. I knew it was possible to suffer from visual hallucinations and dizziness with too little sleep or food. That would explain the nausea as well. Maybe my chakra was still recovering, and it was taking more energy to do so than normal.

"This is fine," I murmured, gathering my clothes up and taking them into the washroom. I began wiping the dried, flaking blood from my head. "Totally normal. And maybe seals are like… wounds. Or fresh tattoos. The bleeding is probably normal."

I stared at my forehead in the mirror. There were light pink marks around the edges of the seal, but no visible wound.

"Everything is fine," I told my reflection. I didn't think she was buying it.

After I composed myself (or at least, my appearance), I went back to my room to inspect my pillowcase. Fortunately, there was very little blood on it. I swiftly changed the cover with one I found in the closet and rinsed the stain as well as I could in the bathroom sink before tossing it in with my laundry. I was more grateful than ever that Mebuki let me care for my own things.

I packed my satchel with a few of my new weapons and went downstairs into the kitchen, where Kizashi was already sitting and finishing his breakfast.

"Good morning, Saku– what happened to your head?" he asked.

Right. The pink marks.

I shrugged. "Probably some side-effect from the medical seal. I have a check-up today at the hospital, so I'll ask them about it later. It's probably nothing."

He frowned. "Ask if there's anything else you need to look out for while you're there," he said. "If there were any side-effects, they should have told you before you left in the first place." I raised my eyebrows. I'd never heard him use such a serious tone. That was until he went on: "After all, forewarned is forearmed. Or forehead, in this case!" he chuckled.

I groaned. "Yeah, okay, thank you."

"By the way, your boyfriend is waiting for you outside. Didn't want to come in. Weird kid."

"Oh?" I threw a few pieces of fruit into my satchel. "Well, better not leave him waiting, I guess?" He was clearly teasing, so there was no need to attempt to correct him. It would probably only end in more terrible dad-jokes.

I was more than a little surprised when I walked out the front door. I had been expecting Naruto or possibly even Lee, but it was Sasuke who was waiting outside.

"Uh," I said eloquently, closing the door behind me. "Is everything okay?"

He thrust out an arm toward me; he was holding a coffee thermos. He had another thermos in his other hand; it had his name engraved on it. Which was slightly hilarious, but still not quite as strange as Sasuke appearing on my doorstep, to begin with.

I reached out wordlessly and took the thermos, studying him carefully. He had dark rings under his eyes. "Did you sleep?"

He grunted, turning to walk down the front steps. I followed behind him, cracking open the thermos and sniffing curiously. Coffee. Hot coffee.

I took a small sip and quickened my footsteps to match pace with him. "Thank you. Also, what's going on?"

His eyes flicked over to me, looking dull and glassy. "Got back from our mission late."

Ah. In hindsight, Gai-sensei did seem like more of a taskmaster than Kakashi. "How'd it go?"

His eyes rolled back so far I was almost afraid they'd get stuck inside his skull. "Don't ask. Ever."

"Uh, got it." We walked silently for a block before I continued. "Also, where are we going?"

He took a swig from his own coffee. "Did you change your mind about inspecting my house?"

"Oh! No, I did not."

He grunted.

"… So why are you walking with me? I know I didn't get a chance to make you show me where it was last night, but I could have figured it out."

He cast me a gimlet eye. "I'm walking with you because you keep getting attacked."

"Oh. Um." First Naruto, now Sasuke? I was beginning to wonder if I had gotten their personalities entirely wrong. "Uh, look, it's not that I don't appreciate, uh, you guys being weirdly overprotective," That had sounded a lot better in my head. "But I don't think it's necessary? I mean, if someone was breaking into Konoha just to attack me, I'm probably already in trouble."

He grunted.

What a meaningful conversation. If there was one thing I'd gotten right about his and Naruto's personalities, at least, it was that they were opposites in terms of conversational partners.

I chattered on, unable to stop myself without opposing input. "Like the thing happened out on the road, and it's probably fine here in Konoha, and I mean it already happened in Konoha anyway but like both times I was with you guys and Sensei so I don't think–"

He stopped and turned to face me. "I slept four hours last night. Please stop or I'm going straight to training instead, without you."

"Right. Okay. Fair. Shutting up." I raised my hands apologetically. "Sorry."

"I didn't mean it like– ugh," he sighed. "I don't know how you both are so energetic in the morning..."

He calls this energetic? "How long have you been awake?"

"An hour."

"And you're still tired?" I was grumpy first thing in the morning too, but I was usually awake after twenty minutes or so.

He grunted.

"Right. Not much sleep. Got it. Letting you wake up. Drink some coffee. Coffee's great." I took another small sip from the thermos he'd given me. It did taste quite nice if a little strong. I turned my focus toward trying to memorise our route as he led me further toward the edge of town; an area I'd not visited before.

Some minutes later, he stopped in front of a high arch. "Through here," he muttered.

We walked into a ghost town. There was no other way I could describe it. Small shops lined the streets, closed and empty. The place had an abandoned feel, though nothing was boarded up and the place seemed in good condition. The patches of grass and flowers lining the pathway looked tended to. The place just… lacked people.

"What is this place?" I asked, voice soft. It seemed wrong somehow to speak at a normal volume.

"Uchiha Compound," was his laconic reply.

My head swivelled around the barren streets, the empty homes without light. "Your family lives here?"

"No. Nobody lives here." He paused a beat. "Just me."

"Why?" I breathed. It was not a specific question; it was all-encompassing.

We stopped in front of one of the houses. Sasuke stilled for a moment before continuing to stride normally up to the front door. "They're dead. Come on."

With a detached feeling, I followed him through the door. I slid off my shoes next to his as he guided me further into the house, into a small kitchen and eating area.

"Sit down," he ordered. As I complied, he took the coffee thermos from me and refilled it from a pot on the counter. He refilled his own and sat across from me. He wouldn't meet my eyes; he looked straight past me to the wall. Still looking so tired.

I sat quietly, sipping the coffee, looking at the sparse furnishings around me. Everything looked… hollow. There was little for decoration. Nothing set out on the kitchen counters apart from the coffee pot. It looked new.

He sighed. "They were killed. All of them. This place was filled with people, before."

My hand froze in mid-air as I'd been about to set down the coffee thermos. "What?"

His gaze finally met mine. "I told you, I'm an avenger." He rubbed tiredly at one eye. "My brother… killed them all."

'Shorter hair makes me look like my brother. I hate him.'

'There is a man I want to kill.'

'I'm… an avenger.'

"No," I breathed. I couldn't even imagine it. The fencing surrounding this compound ran for so far… How many people? Hundreds? And his family? His brother killed them all?

And I'd mocked him.

"I'm so sorry," I said. "I'm so, so sorry." His brother. What must have that been like? How old had he been? How would I feel, if it had been my elder sister? Had he had other siblings? Why did this happen?

He huffed out a sigh. "I don't need your pity."

"No, I mean… I'm sorry for teasing you. When we met." I swallowed thickly. "I didn't know you. I didn't understand." If someone I loved and trusted had killed my family… "I'm beginning to, just a little now. Probably not properly," I said. "I won't make the mistake of assuming like that again, but–"

"Stop, it's fine." He slumped forward, one hand resting on his chin. "I don't care. It's too early. Look around or whatever you came to do, and then we'll leave for training."

"Oh, right." It had fallen so far into the back of my mind, it fell on my priority scale somewhere around the level of a mote of dust on my shoulder.

I stood up shakily and walked over to the refrigerator, creaking it open. It was… empty. And unplugged.

I stared blankly at it for a moment, before turning to a cupboard. One plate, one cup. Another cupboard: empty. Another: empty.

"They're in that one," he said, waving vaguely at the cupboard directly behind him.

"What are?" I murmured. I walked over behind him and opened the cupboard. It was stacked with dozens of plain, identical boxes. I frowned and leaned closer to read the text: NINJA RATION BARS (40) COUNT.

"Holy shit," I breathed in English. Unsurprisingly, he did not react.

Was this all he had been eating? For how long?

Had it been only a few days ago that I'd thought Naruto was going to be the least capable of caring for himself? Not for the first time, it struck me what complete opposites these boys were. And how very, very little I'd understood about them.

"Sasuke," I said, voice cracking. "Please tell me you have real food in the house somewhere. Or that you just don't know how to cook so you eat out all the time. Please tell me you eat food other than ration bars."

He leaned back in his chair and turned to look at me. "They're nutritionally complete. Why bother?"

My fragile composure finally broke.

I grabbed him by the shoulders. "Sasuke! What the hell? This is so unhealthy! You only eat ration bars? You live in an empty house? Was this your family's old house? You live in the compound where your entire extended family were killed? Who was taking care of you?!"

He had frozen in place and was staring at me with wide eyes. "The… The Hokage tower sent someone once a week for the first few years. I filed for emancipation when I was ten."

Guiltily, I loosened my grip on his shoulders lightly. "How old were you when it happened? Have you seen a psychologist? Why didn't they place you in a different house?"

He blinked. "I didn't want to leave the compound. And how would any other house be better? They all have someone who died in them." He gently batted my hands away. "I stopped going to the psychologists when I was ten. They said… since I wasn't at risk of hurting myself or anyone else," his lips twitched. "I didn't have to keep going."

I slumped. "Right. Shinobi village. Having a vendetta is a completely normal and healthy way of coping with trauma, so long as it's not against anyone we like." I rubbed at my temples. "How silly of me."

Sasuke sighed. "You're going to keep going about this, aren't you?"

I cracked one eye open. "How angry will you be if I suggest Naruto comes to live with you?"

He stared at me flatly. "Naruto."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "I visited his house. He's way healthier than you are. He decorates, cooks his own food, puts motivational posters around his house-" Well, maybe I shouldn't tell him about the rude Sasuke-drawing he had made. "He even has houseplants."

"You want Naruto to move in with me… because he has houseplants?"

"Sasuke, I don't know how to explain this to you… But people who have more than one healthy houseplant have their lives on lock."

"I think you have pretty low standards." His lips twitched up in a smirk.

I was not amused. "If I do, that should tell you a hell of a lot about how well you're doing for yourself."

The smirk vanished to be replaced with his earlier exhausted expression. "Is there anything else I can do that will make you… Stop being like this?"

I frowned. "Like what?"

"Like I'm some sort of abandoned cat in a gutter."

My eyes widened. "Yes," I breathed. The memory of thinking of the very same idea not so long ago flooded back in, and I couldn't believe how long it took me to reconsider it in this new light.

"What?" he asked warily.

"I'm getting you a pet cat."

Note: I've started adding extra things to the tumblr. (Also under LeeDesFleurs). Like chapter outtakes, rough sketches... I might link my Writing Playlist if anyone is curious about it. (I doubt it?)

PS: No, I did not expect Sakarin to do that either.