A/N: Once again, I stared at this chapter for far too long and rewrote and rewrote and REWROTE the shit out of it. Finally I'm fairly satisfied. Yeehaw.

I'd like to thank a couple people who have loyally reviewed this story from the beginning: Czar Ryno and Tony Blu.
It's been a long time since I've written for this site, and your words have been super encouraging. So just in case anyone actually reads author's notes (unlikely, based off my own tendencies), now y'all know who the good ones are. Thanks a lot, guys. :]

On a completely separate note: there's a decent chance the next chapter could be pretty...graphic. I do not intend for this story to become *smutty* per se; I value the storyline above all else. But, it's rated M for a reason, so...Fair warning.

Enjoy.

Morbid Original

The patio – if you could call it that – was a lightless enclosure of bare cement and bars, a couple stand ashtrays the only furnishings to speak of. Extending from the basement, the small space stood about a floor below ground-level with one set of stairs leading up to a locked gate, beyond that the street. This, Sakura supposed, was where they brought in the inventory for the basement bar – and likely the most popular entrance for underage punks who couldn't make it past the bartender.

All this she registered in the back of her mind as the door crashed open, a guiltless casualty of her pent up aggression, and she posted herself against the nearest wall, fumbling in her purse for her cigarettes.

"Are you okay?"

She started slightly, surprised to see Naruto already in the doorway. He must have stayed hot on her heels as she briskly navigated the packed room, burst through the poor patio door. She nodded dumbly, knowing it was no use to lie to him but starting to anyway.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just…" She extracted the pack of cigarettes. "…I just can't deal with him right now," she admitted, bitter smile flitting over her face. "I'm sorry, I can't."

"Don't apologize," he said, repeating her recent reproach. In the dark, his eyes gleamed with concern as she furiously packed the cigarettes against the heel of her hand, each sharp rap echoing of her agitation.

She lit up with a trembling hand, exhaled an immense billow of smoke, watched it float from her lips and disperse. Similarly did her bile abate with each dizzying inhale of night air, its every caress on her damp skin, her burning forehead. She closed her eyes for a moment, sighed.

"I'm fine," she said slowly, raising to him a small but reassuring smile. "I promise." She offered him the pack of cigarettes, and he took one.

"I didn't know you smoke," he said, producing his own lighter from his pocket and striking it. For a split second the flames danced around his face, reminiscent of the Kyuubi's ethereal aura.

"Only on special occasions," she replied.

"You thought the gig was a 'special occasion'? I'm flattered," he teased, smoke emanating from his trademark grin.

"Yep, and I almost managed to have fun…"

She shouldn't have said it, she knew, but it was too late. The grin had faltered, and he looked at her with such sadness she could sense it even in the dark.

"It's really messing with you, isn't it? Him being back," he said softly, eyes averting to the cigarette between his fingers.

Sakura said nothing, unwilling to voice her thoughts aloud lest they evolve into fact, an admission irrevocably imparted by her own tongue. But her silence was as much an answer in itself.

"I just…really thought…things would make sense again, if he came back," she said slowly, carefully. "…But…everything's just more confusing than ever."

When he didn't respond she looked up, saw him considering her in silence, and she realized he was prepared to just listen as she let everything out, ran the whole goddamn gamut of her stupid emotional turmoil until she was done, depleted, and maybe slightly exorcized of the anguish that ailed her. He would let her literally talk him to death if she chose to, if that's what it took, but she had no intention of doing that. Not tonight. Not to the friend she had so neglected of late that his reciprocal kindness nearly brought tears to her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to just bitch and moan all over the place on your big night," she said, crushing her cigarette out on the nearby ashtray as if to extinguish the preceding conversation.

"No, it's okay. I mean," he flicked the filter with his thumb, peppering the ground with ash; "I feel like an asshole saying this, but…it's kind of nice to know I'm not the only one."

Sakura's heart stopped. Ached, suddenly, as if she'd been hit dead in the chest by a roundhouse kick. She couldn't speak, and when Naruto didn't look up she realized he didn't expect her to. Her selfishness, her narcissism, didn't surprise him, and neither did her successive guilt.

As she stared on in shameful silence the image of the boy she'd seen on stage – the controlled fury of his words, his conspicuously contrary composure – merged with that of the comrade she now regarded. Finally the two halves seemed to fit together. It was no wonder that his lyrics spoke of such pain and conflict – and that they had so touched her. He needed little imagination to summon these ideas to the surface, and the discord he drew upon in his songs was exactly what she suffered. The same confusion, the same inner turmoil. From the same source.

"Wow," Sakura choked, shaking her head at her own idiocy. "I must be the dumbest person alive. I'm so sorry."

"Sakura-chan –"

"No, don't negate it – I owe you an apology and you're getting one!" He cracked a smile despite the gravity of her tone. "Fuck," she sighed, retrieving the pack of cigarettes once again. "I'm so fucking sorry. I've been the shittiest friend in the world."

Before she could search for her own, he produced his lighter, lit her cigarette.

"Don't worry about it." As if she could resist. "I'm like you: I don't like to talk about it." He accepted another cigarette, and in its meager light his smile looked stronger than he probably felt.

She fought – for the sake of her stupid mission, her flippant goal to 'have fun' – to hold back tears, but the wind revealed that she'd failed; in its gentle sweep her cheeks stung cold along two wet lines.

"I'm still sorry," she said, her voice a feeble whisper. "It must be just as hard on you."

He tapped the ash from his cigarette, sighing.

"I mean, it's complicated." He leaned against the wall beside her, facing the blackness of the cement enclosure. "Like…It's great he's back and everything, but…" He exhaled a puff of smoke, looked down at the cigarette, seemed to search for the words he wanted in its pitiful beacon.

"But what?" she pried. He shook his head through another cloud of haze, seeming to have abandoned his thought. With a light but insistent kick to the shin, she asked again. "What?"

He glanced at her, eyes flashing, but perhaps it was just the reflection of the cherry. With another sigh, this one louder, exasperated, he continued.

"I don't know, it's stupid, but…I guess I'm just pissed I didn't get to keep my promise to you."

Silence fell with all the force of a blow to the head, and Sakura felt just as woozy. Her knees buckled, legs went weak; were it not for the wall she leaned against she thought she might have collapsed. For a prolonged moment all she could do was stare at the silhouette sharply carved out of the blackness beside her, the stiffened shoulders, the lowered gaze. Her tears had stopped, choked off by a sudden tightening in her chest. Her pulse had been jumpstarted, it seemed, and now followed the impassioned beat of a heart running over with pity and guilt.

How could she have forgotten? That stupid promise, born out of the loneliness and desperation of a sad young boy who had just wanted to make her happy. Who still strove undyingly toward this end all these years later, even if his childish crush had abated. If it had…

She shivered, shaken out of her daze just in time to feel the ember of her own forgotten cigarette encroach close to her knuckles, scalding her briefly before she tossed it to the ground.

"Maybe that's my problem too," she finally uttered, making him turn to her in surprise. "I never got to prove myself…never got to show him I'm not just some weak little girl anymore." She sighed raggedly, wiping the traces of tears from her face. "He got off so easy. Just waltzing his ass back to Konoha on his own free will, expecting everyone to just accept it."

To her surprise Naruto chuckled, faintly but genuinely.

"At least you abandoned him with Ino," he joked. "That's pretty much a fate worse than death."

She couldn't help but snicker at the idea. Ino annoyed Sasuke at the best of times, and she wasn't exactly showcasing her shining charisma to its full potential that night.

"Yeah, serves him right."

In the ensuing pause she noted her racing heart with some disinterest. It still beat furiously, pumping her full of a mélange of feelings spanning the entire capacity of human sentiment; but the heaviness had subsided. Despite the weight of the topic at hand she felt remarkably light, relieved of some of the proverbial baggage her teammate had taken off her hands – or agreed to carry with her, at least. She opened her mouth to thank him – for the talk, his persistent dedication, his friendship – but his words came quicker. And somehow they managed to shock her again.

"I thought you'd be thrilled," he mumbled. Eyes down, lips twitched into a half-hearted smile. "To have him back."

It was not so much the words themselves but the way he said them that pierced her to the core, made the knot in her stomach hitch. Her heart beat in the back of her eyeballs by the time she managed to answer him.

"So did I."

The admission was difficult, but honest. And when his widened eyes snapped to her she was smiling.

An odd sensation began to fill her, flood her tangled insides, as she met his gaze, steady, unwavering despite the flashes of moonlight that caught therein. She felt weak in the knees again, almost faint. Probably from the nicotine, she reasoned. Dehydration. Exhaustion.

"I think I'm gonna get out of here," she said, cautiously pushing off the wall to stand upright. "I need a walk or something."

He straightened beside her, taking the terminal drag of his cigarette.

"Are you okay to go alone? You've been drinking," he ventured, perhaps noticing the strange imbalance that had seized her.

She shook her head vehemently. "It's cool, I'm basically sober now. I sweat all the alcohol out." She smirked, cocked one pink brow over the other. "Besides: I'm a ninja, remember?"

He laughed, grin turning mischievous as he returned, "Oh, really? I thought you were a groupie."

Before her arm could even reel back for a blow, he had darted up the stairs, jumped the locked gate. He stared down at her through the bars, bizarrely backlit by the streetlights.

"See, a ninja would've smacked the shit out of me for that," he taunted. Then, flicking the dying butt of his cigarette to the ground before her, "I'll go with you."

Relaxing her hands from their reflexive fists, Sakura mounted the stairs, eyes narrowed at her cocky counterpart. "I don't wanna drag you away from your following or anything."

"It's alright, my true fans will understand." He grinned through the bars, face to face with her now as she reached the top of the stairs. "Besides, I could use a walk myself."

"Aw, but I didn't bring a leash," she returned, paired with a sardonic pout.

"Okay, you're lucky this gate is here, or I –"

She vaulted over their meager divider, landing directly behind him poised in fighting stance. He chuckled, turning slowly to face her.

"'Or I would sic my fans on you,' I was gonna say," he offered, and in her apparent disbelief added, "I swear!"

She dropped the offensive stance, the potency of her warning glare significantly weakened by the smile that accompanied. With a resigned sigh she started off, no destination in mind, no hurry to decide upon one. She simply walked, let the sensations of night fill her, clear her hazy head. It worked to some degree, and she soon felt her strength return, her balance restored despite the lingering pit in her stomach, pulsating curiously from time to time when her cohort would speak, draw her from whatever lazy reverie would beset her.

What had caused her brief upset on the patio she couldn't quite grasp. Chalked it up to the heat of the moment – of the topic, rather; the excessive smoking; the confusing release she had felt finding kin in her troubles. Whatever it was it had ebbed greatly, cleared away by the crisp air of twilight, the laughter that rumbled from her at her friend's every jest. It didn't matter now. Curious as it was, it was over. That mysterious wooziness…

Catching herself in the midst of another pointless and futile attempt to understand her every bout of psyche, she shook her head, banishing the unwanted thoughts in favor of experiencing the present. But where she found herself when she emerged from this daze perplexed her more than all topics hitherto discussed.

In her fatigued aimlessness she had terminated their stroll in front of his apartment – not the building, but his door – and with this realization came the resurgence of her raging pulse, the chilly perspiration, the weakened knees and swimming head. She couldn't still be drunk, she thought vaguely, nor subject to her long diminished adrenaline from the show. It simply wasn't physically possible.

But as her friend mumbled some cliché line about how the guy was supposed to walk the girl home, it clicked. Somewhere in the back of her busy mind, barely audible above her thunderous pulse, she grasped it – the cause of her behavior, the strange symptoms that assailed her.

She was swooning. That was all.

Or maybe it was the alcohol. The nicotine. Maybe she had been drugged, or maybe it was just her exhaustion; her recent lack of sleep; her constant struggle for composure amidst her unshakable confusion. Her guilt. Her empathy. Or, just maybe, she really had managed to let go, totally and finally.

Maybe too much.

Whatever the reason, it fled far beyond the reaches of her conscious mind in that moment, in that second that seemed like eternity.

Whatever the reason, when Naruto extended his arms to hug her, to wish her goodnight and peacefully take his leave, she kissed him.