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23raccoons · 5 months ago

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let me bleed (you're losing me) Ao3

Fandom: Naruto (Anime & Manga) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura/Nara Shikamaru, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Yamanaka Ino Characters: Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Nara Shikamaru, Hatake Kakashi, Yamanaka Ino, Sai (Naruto), Karin (Naruto), Uchiha Madara Additional Tags: Dubious Consent, Blood and Violence, Unhealthy Relationships, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Dark Uchiha Sasuke, Dark Nara Shikamaru, Protective Hatake Kakashi, Rough Sex, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex, Self-Harm, Akatsuki (Naruto), War, Konoha 11 (Naruto), Everyone is Problematic ok?, Heavy Angst, Domestic Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fourth Shinobi War (Naruto), Memory Loss, PTSD, Manipulation, Bullying, Suicidal Thoughts, Degradation, Dacryphilia

Chapter 6 (chapter list)

Sasuke’s lying on the bedroll, tucked on his side, as he’s assessing his injuries from the fight. Wondering how long Karin will have to recover before he can bite down on her arm and get his broken ribs healed. Stuck in Madara’s cave of a hideout—nothing like the vast structures of Orochimaru’s lairs. Stuck, waiting to fight again. He’s been drifting in and out of consciousness since.

Tobi had brought him here, along with a Karin who is much less close to death than she had been when he stabbed through her to kill Danzo. She lays next to him. Alive. Saved by Sakura.

‘Kakashi-sensei?’ Like the echo of an echo. Sakura. Sasuke focuses on the genjutsu still running through Sakura, drifting back into what remains of it. Memories of Kakashi float by, whispier than before. Nothing solid enough for him to grip onto, but just enough to drag his fingers through.

His Sakura, who has been taken from him. By Kakashi. By Naruto. But they don’t know. Once he finds her, he will never lose her again.

‘Kakashi-sensei.’ They’re a little more solid now—the consistency of the globs of gelatin served with lunch at the academy. Still not enough to snatch onto. squeezing itself out of his grip.

The ‘Naruto?’ That bounces around is solid. Crystalline. He latches onto it with vigor—vivacity, a liveliness he has not felt in a long time—along with any of the other memories that have been stirred up of Naruto.

He seems to be in Sakura’s long-term memories, nearly at the funnel-like juncture of her short-term memories. The system that keeps her thoughts organized and in motion spider-webbing out from that focal point. Glossimer and glittery. Astronomical, seemingly endless. It goes on as far as his sharingan can see.

Memories twinkle like stars as they dance along the pulsing currents. Some of them are attached to lustrous metallic threads that move them along, some of them suspended in place. Occasionally one will pulse, glowing brighter. As if alerting the system to the memory’s location.

Galactic. Cosmic. Celestial.

Sakura.

Heaven .

A few of the strands run through the space he occupies, and when the twangs one, the sound is light. Crispy and airy, and a memory floats up the tread. Sasuke grabs it. It’s him, walking past her in a market of some nameless outpost. Her upset rises in him. Another twang. Another chime-like sound. Another memory. The night Sasuke threatened to leave her unconscious in the forest if she tried to follow him. She’s so sad. He can feel the ache in his own heart as he holds it. He frowns, taking this one too.

‘Where’s Naruto?’

The other string vibrates with a hum. A memory floating along. Sasuke reaches for it. It’s not Naruto, but Sakura, on her knees, weeping. He can feel this one too—the shattering heartbreak when she screams Naruto’s name, like he is some mythological god Sakura is praying too.

Sasuke’s fingers tighten around the memory before he throws it as hard as he can, putting his whole self into the motion. It shatters into a rain of shimmery space dust and crystal fragments on the boundaries of the genjutsu. Invisible, but solid. Immovable under his fingertips. The shards lose their shimmer as they fall, slipping through the genjutsu into the dark abyss below.

He laughs. Grabbing the next ‘Naruto’ as it bobs around. Shattering it also. He feels like a god.

Sakura’s god.

Sakura’s mind slips into darkness, the lights dimming down, the noise reduced to a low hum. Sasuke backs out of the genjutsu just a moment too soon to catch the ‘Alive’ that rings through her head. ‘Safe’.

Back on his bedroll, Sasuke smiles.

What could be better than being alone together than being always together? It’s the peak prize. The reward for all his actions. All his training and hard work. And after the fall of Konoha. After Naruto dies, once and for all. He will have her in his arms again.

Safe.

His .

It’s sometime before Sakura’s mind lights up again. Chimes and dings and hums as the thoughts pass by at a faster pace than before, when Sasuke sinks into it. Less peaceful than before, Sakura must be anxious, panicking, the way her thoughts have turned. No longer bobbing along loosely one or two at a time, but gathered together. Rushing through her mind like a river. Several of them. He can see them off in the distance, winding across her mind space like intergalactic snakes.

Whatever’s happening to her is glitching her processing systems. It’s harder for him to tell what is happening outside her head. Both the webbing and the memories themselves flicker. A high hum that peaks and falls in time with the outages.

A memory bobs down the line that feeds the Sasuke-memories. Substantial. Hefty, weighty in his hands. It’s Kakashi hurting Sakura. Sasuke can feel her pain radiating out of him. It’s excruciating. How dare he cause her distress? Anguish and grief. Agony.

He breaks off a piece of the memory, Sakura’s anger at Kakashi, placing it back on its line to whoosh it’s way out of his sight. Keeping the rest for himself.

Sasuke will not let Kakashi harm Sakura. There will be no need for Sakura to retaliate. He will deliver her vengeance for her. Punishment. Retribution. He will hunt down and butcher all of those involved. The ones who stood by and watched. The ones who held her down as she screamed and fought against them. Fucking Nara Shikamaru.

They will all die.

(He will grant one singular grace to Yamanaka Ino for being the only one to try to fight for Sakura. She may live. For now. As long as she stays out of his way.)

Hatake Kakashi has personally declared war on Sasuke. And what a magnificent war there will be.

Sasuke will burn the whole fucking world to ash to find Sakura again.

Weeks slip by with little from Sakura, her mind alternating between sleep and meditation. Healing chakra coats everything a majority of the time. The layer spread so thin Sasuke has to have his Sharingan on to see it—the slight opalescent color-shift it gives everything. Things start running better. Smoother. Faster. He gets better at determining what in her mind needs his attention and what does not. Big thoughts, loud ones with a lot of emotion, are catchable, but most of her day-to-day life is cloudy, like smoke. It curls around him when she’s conscious. Illuminating the webbing. Laser beam paths of interstellar travel. Memories that solar-flare off in the distance.

The one thing that makes him the most fucking annoyed, though, is that one strand, one line of the webbing, is far out of Sasuke’s reach, hums near constantly, like someone is always around. Nara Shikamaru.

More concerning than whatever has her attention, however, are the lightning storms that keep popping up in Sakura’s mindscape. Ethereal. Great puffs of dust and debris, small tornadoes that upheave neat stacks of memories, leaving them scattered about. The state of Sakura’s mind spends quite a while in limbo, days and weeks of constant healing chakra cycling through her brain. (Her physical brain, because the electricity flowing through her is real enough to zap at him if it comes too close.) Before she brings herself to a state of slightly positively charged homeostasis.

War preparations begin. Sasuke slaughters every Five Nations soldier he comes across. Anyone who stands in his way. On the hunt. On a mission. The first phase of the war, from their very first battle strategies, the Five Nations fell right into the Akatsuki’s trap. Hook. Line. Sinker.

Assuming the Akatsuki would split its forces when they attacked, the Five Nations prepared a two-prong defense plan. Leaked information misleading the allied forces to believe the higher ranking members of the Akatsuki would come from the area of Ame—the main base—their strongest fighters would be there, backed by a smaller Zetsu army. While the second prong from the other side of the continent dealt with a larger but less talented Zetsu army. Planning out battle strategies accordingly.

What no one in the Five Nations was expecting, however, was for Sasuke to turn up in Konoha. Alongside the long-thought-dead Uchiha Madara. There’s little defense. All their best ninja are off at war. Most of the civilians have joined the evacuated countries for shelter and food and protection. Two men manage to take the greatest ninja village in mere minutes.

Of course, it didn’t help them when they entered the near deserted encampment Nara Shikamaru had been waiting, ready and willing to turn traitor on Konoha. To arrange a nice little deal for himself, to remain guardian over his family’s lands, in exchange for whatever information Shikamaru has to offer, which is…a lot. (He’s been the personal assistant to Kakashi, who’s been playing the part of Shadow Hokage ever since Tsunade came into office.)

“Why bother if you already know the outcome will be a loss?” Shikamaru questions, both hands in the air to show his surrender. “There’s no sense in needless fighting. I’d rather live to see tomorrow.”

Hands in his pockets, Shikamaru leads them to the core of Danzo’s ROOT organization. The deep underground lair had survived Pein’s attack, sealed off by Shikamaru himself on Kakashi’s orders, as a good faith offering to Madara. Shikamaru is a good talker. He knows how to get people to like him. To think he’s witty and humorous. And it works. Shikamaru gets claim to his family’s land, under the rule of Uchiha Madara.

Sasuke lets him. If only because he knows Shikamaru could be the key to finding Sakura. Out in the shadows of the forest, there are plenty of hiding spots. She could be tucked away, right under his nose. It’s the closest he’s been to her since he began his bloody search.

The Five Nations troops are pushed back. Now on the defense, retreating and hiding. Resorting to guerrilla-style warfare. Months and months of hiding and fighting. It matters little. If any of the remaining Uchiha’s hit the battlefield, the opponents scramble. Tuck their tails and take off. Fleeing in hopes they will survive the carnage that is sure to follow.

The New Konoha becomes the Akatsuki’s second main base, after Ame, soldiers and civilians alike flock to the city in droves, working to construct buildings and houses. Shops and marketplaces. Neat rows and rows of tents.

Madara is a god of war. They say Sasuke’s retribution for the kill-on-sight order against him is to kill every ninja that crosses his path. (He does not always succeed. Every battle with Kakashi comes to a draw. The damaged battlefields the size of counties between them.) Tobi is unhittable, untouchable. Akatsuki members that have been reincarnated, back from the dead, legions known for being bloodthirsty and vicious. The ground soaked and soggy. Muddy with the spilt blood of the enemy.

Kabuto comes back to Konoha, working with Tobi and the Zetsu to develop better reincarnations, using the underground ROOT headquarters as his personal project playground. Ones that can think and fight for themselves, who will remain alive much longer than the others.

Sasuke waits, knowing Shikamaru is smart. That he has traps set. Sasuke spends his time pretending he does not know his Sakura is so close he can almost taste her.

He waits and waits and waits. A cobra coiled, ready to strike. Then one day, overcast and snowy, the strange chakra-infused deer that would warn of his approach are distracted, something on the far side of the property dragging their attention away from the main house. Shikamaru’s already in Konoha for a strategy meeting—one Sasuke is supposed to be attending. Giving him the chance to make his way onto the property. Right up to the house and on the veranda. Stopping outside a sliding door, sensing someone inside.

He smiles. Sakura. Just on the other side of the door.

Pushing it open, he steps through the threshold. Wearing his shoes on the tatami mats with little concern for damage. Closer than she’s been in months. Curled up under a pile of blankets.

“Sakura,” he calls to her, slipping enough into her mind to feel the vibration of his string calling for a memory. There are no more memories of him or Naruto for it to spit up, all hanging in the empty space of the genjutsu full of Sasuke’s stolen treasures. Glinting when she tries to retrieve them.

Sakura looks terrified at the sight of him, and it takes a beat or so to realize she doesn’t remember him at all. He pulls a stray ‘Sasuke’ and sends it up the line. And in real life, it falls from her lips like honey.

“Sasuke.”

He steals it back when it bounces by, watching the recognition fade from her eyes. He can sense the confusion in her mind. She’s frightened. Of him. Of every threat that comes along. He does not want Sakura to be scared of him. Sakura loves him. He has no weapons. He’s made no moves against her since he’s entered the room. He shows her she loves him. But as soon as the memory is back in his hands, her apprehension resurfaces.

She tries to rise. And he can really see how fragile her body is. Weak, she can hardly bring herself to stand. Sasuke panics. He was unprepared for her to be ill. Weakened. Sick. To not be in any state to be moved from her location. Sakura’s eyeing him, clearly unsure of what to do. Tightening the heavy quilt around her shoulders, thick enough it seems to weigh her down.

“Are you a Konoha Shinobi?” She questions, not being discreet when she looks over him. He’s a Shinobi. He is residing in Konoha. He nods. Turning to leave. To be gone before Shikamaru returns. Needing to assess the situation better before he makes any decisions.

“Excuse me, Shinobi-san,” she calls out to him, swallowing thickly. Nervously fidgeting with the fraying edge of her blanket. “I-uh, the fire, it's gone out. I can’t get it re-lit.”

He nods. Had Shikamaru left her out here in the cold—alone—with no way to warm herself?

The state of the kitchen mirrors that of her mind—chaotic. Matches, used and unused, scattered around the hearth. Burnt pieces of paper and ash and scorched kindling. All the metal fireplace tools spread around where she must have been sitting trying to light the fire, unable to do something so basic. He eyes the baggy sleeves that cover the chakra cuffs he knows she’s wearing.

Sasuke steps around where she has frozen just inside the doorway, dropping to his knees in front of the hearth. She watches anxiously as he tidies her mess. He pulls out of the genjutsu. The palpable taste of her fear of him—of being alone with a strange man— in there makes him want to gag. Using the ash broom to sweep the matches into a pile, pulling out the still usable ones, tucking them back into the matchbox. Pulling out the logs and kindling. Sweeping ash and the remnants of Sakura’s attempts to light the fire all into the soot bin. Hanging the tools back in their place.

He restacks the fire. Making a neat bundle of kindling. Lighting a match, and in moments the whole set up is ablaze. Warmth and light flickering across the room. Sasuke is smart. Skilled. A shinobi. He does not know how to care for someone who is ill.

“Thank you, Shinobi-san.” She bows to him politely, like he is every bit the stranger she thinks he is. But even if her mind does not know him, her body does. With the way tears flood down her cheeks, landing on the flooring below her. She doesn’t even seem to notice she is crying.

Sasuke flees with haste. Of course he cannot have Sakura yet. He has not completed his self-appointed mission yet. His promise to her.

Kakashi must die.

Dead-last Naruto must die.

Fucking Nara Shikamaru must die.

And then Sakura will be his reward.

(He steals the memory as it comes by his space in her mind. Shattering it against the invisible floor.)

Sakura is not afraid of Sasuke. Sakura loves Sasuke.

Right?

Sometimes...sometimes the memories are confusing. He had thought Sakura’s obsession aligned with his own. Something physical. An ownership per say. But the way she feels—the empathy, the heartache, the sorrow—is overpowering to Sasuke. Things he’s never felt. Things he has no desire to feel. The price he pays every time he picks up a memory to see himself from her point of view.

He’s a monster to her. He really is. Callus and harsh. Mean. Much too rough with her when he was fucking her. Bruises and scratches and bite marks she heals while she cries after he’s left her yet again. And all she does in return is care for him. Worry over him. Love him.

Sasuke would hate himself if he was her.

But Sakura doesn’t remember that Sasuke anymore. And she’ll never have to. He can start over. Start fresh. A second chance where he can always be certain that she loves him and only him.

Chapter 7

#sakura haruno #kakashi hatake #shikamaru nara #sasuke uchiha #dark sasuke #dark shikamaru #sasusaku #sasuke x sakura #shikasaku #shikamaru x sakura #let me bleed (you're losing me)#fanfic #naruto fanfiction

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mcki · 2 years ago

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hello! same anon that asked for sns fics<3 thank you so much for being so open!

i really have no preference for length but i think it looking for (heavy) angst…. i don’t mind crying!!!

i also don’t mind fics that don’t involve canon storylines so long as the characters are in character if that makes sense? unfortunately i can’t continue fics if the characters’ dialogue don’t sound like smth their canon characters would say😭

i hope this isn’t too picky! thank you so much again for your recs!!!<33

hey sorry it took me this long to get back to you. i started going through the fics, got distracted and compeltely forgot why i was even doing that in the first place.

but anyways! here's the list. (put under read more cause it's... well you'll see)

everything is tagged ao3 style so you know what you'll be getting into and i even added some personal comments at the bottom.

happy reading!

Long Lost by CanineKitten | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto, Brief Uzumaki Naruto/Hyuuga Hinata | Post-Canon, Canon Divergence | 90k

“Sasuke wanted Naruto to catch the drift for once and leave him alone, but instead he leaned closer. Maybe Sasuke should have caught on when he saw the determination in Naruto's eyes. Maybe he should have realized that Naruto was about to do something stupid. But he didn’t. So when Naruto kissed him, he was too shocked to even be indignant.”In which Naruto and Sasuke skirt around their feelings for each other until they run out of excuses.

Can't go wrong with a CanineKitten fic. You're gonna see a lot more of them in this list. This one's a perfect blend of angst, fluff and smut.

Unburied & Examined by furorem | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Post-Canon | 16k

"I asked you…" Sasuke muttered, quietly, his eyes averted as if to hide something. "I asked you, what I am to you. And you said a friend. Over and over…" Finally, his eyes snapped up to meet Naruto’s. He was devastating, all hard angles and splintered bones, sharp edges Naruto could and would cut himself on. He wanted him. He wanted him so fucking much it made his heart ache.Realising you’re irrevocably in love with your best friend is one thing, confessing your love is quite another.

Idiots in love. Idiots pining. Idiots learning how to communicate.

the sins you pay for by kayeeyooblue | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Post-Canon, Canon Divergence | +100k

the walls of sasuke uchiha's apartment are dripping with layers of paint. it seems the only colors he knows how to use are red and black. sometimes, naruto wonders if sasuke has ever known any other color, or if his life has only ever consisted of blood and death. but he can't ask, and there is no answer, so he sits and watches the paint dry and waits for sasuke to begin again.

ANGST. Goes into very heavy stuff (depression, bpd, suicidal thoughts etc). If you get uncomfortable with this kind of thing please don’t read it. But I hope you do cause oh my god this fic is so good. Cried a lot.

Kizuna Hikari by YoungAndOverIntelligent | M | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Post-Canon, Canon Divergence | +200k

The only reason Sasuke keeps coming back to Konoha is because of that mattress. The bed is his only respite. And perhaps the dumbass who owns said bed might be worth it, too.Or, another canon divergence 699 that showers Sasuke with too much (deserved) love and attention that we all need for these unprecedented times.

One of my all time favorite sns fics. A must read for everyone in the fandom.

should I tear my eyes out now? by weeb_grass | M | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | idek what this'd count as? post canon ig | +3k

The battle against the Elders is lost. Sasuke is locked away for life. After twelve years of fighting the system, Naruto frees the man he loves in the only way he knows how: "Just to reiterate: how long will it take for the cyanide to stop my heart?" Naruto keeps his face blank as he replies with: "Three minutes. Four at the most."

PURE ANGST. HURT/ NO FUCKING COMFORT. HEED THE TAGS.

Free Falling by CanineKitten | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Post-Canon, Canon Divergence | +45k

After being reinstated as a shinobi, Sasuke takes on what is supposed to be a standard mission together with Naruto. But the mission soon spirals out of control when they get involved in a conflict that isn't theirs. Eventually they end up in the wilderness, lost and without any other help but a strange map that lives its own life, and it only gets weirder from there on... At least they get to spend a lot of time together and learn to know each other better than they ever could have dreamed of.

Great plot. Great smut. Great characterization. Just great.

Soup's On by OfFansAndFlames | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto, Side Pairing: Suigetsu/Karin | Modern Setting | +350k

After a bloody altercation at school, the courts sentence Sasuke to one hundred hours of community service. Sasuke takes employment at Saint Magdalene's soup kitchen, where he meets a headstrong vagrant who will change the course of his life.

Another one of my favorites. This was reccomended to me by a friend a while ago and OH BOY. I don't ever really read Modern AUs but this fic DELIVERED. Angst, smut, fluff, crack, it literally has everything. 10/10 would reccomend.

If You Let Me by roguelovers | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Post-Canon, Canon Divergence | +11k

Naruto leaves with Sasuke after the war. There are knots to untangle.

Pretty much what the summary says. Sasuke's characterization is on point. Some angst.

Something To Remember Me By by heimai | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Modern Setting | +82k

Every summer, Naruto visits the sleepy beach town of Oceanview. Easily the best part of the trip is the carnival, set up for three days at the end of August. As summers pass, Naruto finds himself coming back again and again to see the boy at the end of the boardwalk. First, he wants to win the game the boy runs, but it turns into wanting to win Sasuke's heart instead. For some reason, Naruto just can't get him out of his head.

Really cute fic. But SAD. You've been warned.

A World of Truth by luchia | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito/Rin | Canon Divergence | 23k

The world is trapped in an illusion which removes anger, hate, and death. It's paradise, giving everyone everything they've ever wanted and reviving anyone they've ever lost. Nearly two years into the illusion, Sasuke snaps back to his senses and must decide whether to keep the world in false bliss, or return it to war-torn reality.

This one is a lot more AU than a regular canon divergence fic i'd say.

Restore My Faith by onepieceofharry | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Genin-Era, Canon Divergence | +100k and cont.

Sasuke was consumed with hatred because his family was killed. His entire family, not a single person left alive except him and their killer. It was enough to drive someone insane, or into the arms of the first maniac promising him enough power for revenge. Instead Sasuke finds a little baby Uchiha on a meaningless mission and leaves Konoha for a vastly different reason.

The plot is really interesting, very different than what you usually read. onepieceofharry is always so creative with their fics tho, so no surprises here. All in all great fic, can't wait to see where it goes.

btw since it's not an sns fic i didn't include it in the list but if you end up enjoying this, you have to read a theory of justice by the same author cause it's insanely good.

A Crown of Peonies and Primrose by shinigami714 | M | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Canon Divergence | 85k

Sasuke had never excelled when it came to handling his emotions. All his life he’d tried to push them aside. They made him weak, or so he thought. But all it took was one man to ignite such strange feelings within him, to force him to come to terms with them, accept them, and acknowledge that sometimes emotions weren’t a weakness at all, but rather one’s greatest strength. Sometimes the greatest happiness was found simply by following your heart.

Nice fic. Not much else to say about it. Classic SNS.

So I Can Stay With You by saucekays | M | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Canon Divergence | 67K

After the War, Sasuke is struggling: with the past, with Konoha, and with himself. He decides to go on a journey, one he hopes will bring him redemption and maybe some peace of mind.Naruto isn't willing to let him go so easily, so he does the obvious: invite himself along.While traveling across the lands, Naruto and Sasuke are forced to confront what lies between them. They make a lot of discoveries about themselves, their past, and their true feelings for each other.

Very slow burn but the wait is so worth it. The pining, the yearning... Love it.

Aftermath by CanineKitten | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Canon Divergence | +58k

Naruto is tired of seeing Sasuke leave again and again. This time he’s going with him.

Another travel fic! A very good one too.

+ The rest of the list is not angsty but i stil included them cause they're favorites and it's good to read some light crack after so much heavy stuff.

Collecting Memories by venussnow | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Boruto Era-ish | +180k and continuing

One minute Sasuke was sleeping outside and the next he's waking up in a comfortable bed in a world where there is no chakra. Only Naruto can help him find his way back home, but Naruto's convinced that a demon has possessed Sasuke's body. Meanwhile, another dimension's Sasuke woke up in a panic, without chakra, in a world where every nightmare he has ever had came to life and where everyone he loves is either dead, smelly, or downright terrifying. And don't even get him started on having a kid.

The Sasuke we know stuck in the modern world and ModernAu Sasuke is stuck in Konoha. Really funny and incredibly clever. I love this one a lot. No angst whatsoever (i mean there is drama but it's nothing compared to some of the fics in this list). I really hope you'll give this one a go cause, man, I had(still have) a blast reading this.

We Deserved A Better Ending, My Love by narutophobia | M | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Modern AU but not really, Reincarnation i guess? | +100k

Ever since Naruto was little, he has been plagued by memories from a life that was not his own.And then he sees Sasuke.

Kinda angsty, kinda fluffy. Again a really fun fic to read but a little more serious than the other 'fun' ones on the list.

Mirror, Mirror by sowell | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Canon Divergence | 16k

A jutsu gone wrong brings Sasuke home in a way Naruto never expected.

Really funny. Had a blast reading this. Kinda crack but not really? 'Crack treated seriously' i guess.

That's What Best Friends Are For by heimai | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Modern Setting | 26k

In the same way Icarus had flown too close to the sun and plummeted to his death, Sasuke Uchiha now had a vibrator stuck in his ass.

Might be the funniest shit i've ever read. But also really sexy? With fluff? Idk how the author managed to keep the boys so in character while writing about, you know, a vibrator getting stuck in one of them. 10/10.

No Different by Asuka Kureru (Askerian) | E | Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto | Canon Divergence | +2k

The boys compare the size of their curse seals. Amongst other things.

Pure smut. Enjoy.

#feel free to add to the list #long post #answered

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sonicunleash · 2 years ago

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14 15 16 for literally anything idgaf

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

hmmm this is tough for really any media because I don't really look through fics anymore, but I have to say one thing I remember seeing so fucking much in naruto fics is like. So many people write modern au's and like 99.999% of the time they always make sasuke and the uchihas all like fuck, rich business majors running some kind of big corporation and naruto some poor dude and it's fucking weird it makes no fucking sense to me. There's literally no point in the anime where the uchiha are really particularly rich, and sasuke himself is never any more well of than naruto is-- except for when his family was alive and caring for him I guess. It seems so mutually agreed on in the naruto fanfic base but if just baffles me as to why. Is it just. i dunno. cause he's... serious??? is it just for the yaoi power dynamics???? it's fucking weird and a lot of the time gets weirdly classist about it too.

15. that one thing you see in fanart all the time

oh god uhhh. hmmmmm. hmmmmmmmmmmm well every sonic artist and their mom loves drawing a dramatic imagined recreation of the sonic adventure ark scene where shadow's falling from space and sonics trying to catch him and all-- I don't actually dislike it or feel annoyed by it but its kinda funny how its like. a staple of any sonic artist that they Will draw that at least once. even though the specific scene itself doesn't really exist... maybe thats why honestly.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

MODERN AUS OR LIKE. SLICE OF LIFE-Y AUS. IDK it's like okay lets take this very wild and exciting media and just suck out everything characteristic to it and make them do. real lifey things. it never really works and proposes anything interesting. The only time i've ever liked the idea of a modern au though was only me and drift's hypothetical modern naruto au but the appeal of it was that things just remain just as batshit as they are in canon. madara is still some crazy old man who never dies who the whole uchiha family kinda hates who makes homemade experimental hashirama hormone burgers that he feeds to obito. that kind of batshit. honestly the main appeal was really just madara.

#ask game

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maliciouslycreative · 4 years ago

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How I played damage control to an anti in a small anime fandom and may have led to her ultimate downfall

I know I had a really nice write up of this at one point but oh well. I’ll spill more of the tea in this one because honestly the tea was so hot.

There are a few things that I have to give context to first. Gaia online was like THE mega forum of the 2000s, you made a little avatar and through posting and doing other activities on the forum you made money to buy clothes for your avatar. There were forums for everything but the fannish portions were really what drew in most of the people. The anime I was into was Beyblade. It was a shonen anime about fighting with tops that were possessed by the spirits of magical creatures. The story was honestly pretty average but the characters were fantastic and the fandom is to this day still one of my favourites. The series had a primarily male cast and didn’t even have a female lead until the second season. This led to the fanfic for the English fandom being about 70% canon/OC, 10 % canon m/f, and 20% slash. The most popular character in the English fandom was by far Kai Hiwatari, the loner badboy of the team.

Also before we get started I would like to add that one of my best friends was neck deep in this and the two of us were more or less fandom married. This is the same friend that I fake dated, had feelings for, and she nearly got me into kpop in 2011 so like if you haven’t read that story please read it too because it will give you a good idea of how stupid I am and how much of a fanfic I have truly lived.

To set the stage I was 16, soon to be 17 when I joined the fandom and it was 2004. In September of that year I wrote a humour longfic that became an absolute smash hit and I found myself somehow fandom famous. It was around this time that I joined Gaia online. I made my little avatar and immediately went looking for the beyblade thread so that I could make new friends. I found the main thread, made my little introduction and at the end of it mentioned that I was a slash writer but I supported all ships. This is where I met C. She had declared herself the authority on Beyblade in these parts and I had just committed the crime of mentioning slash which was very obviously not canon and we did not discuss in this thread because we only discussed canon things. I was like well that’s a bit severe but like sure whatever I just want to hang out and have fun.

Oh boy did I have no idea what I was in for.

C was a year older than me and unfortunately that made her older than the majority of the fans at the time. Her favourite character was Kai, and she was not shy about talking about this fact. She stanned Kai above all other characters, and often at their expense. She was also a fanfic writer of a popular canon/OC series. Actually, she was so full of herself that she didn’t even call herself a fanfic writer, no her stories were in fact novels and were apparently very good. I never read them. But more on that later.

Eventually the slash fans got tired of her being rude to us in the general thread so we made a Beyblade slash thread. There was a core of like 8 or so of us and we honestly had sooo much fun. When C would be too unbearable in the main thread the people from there used to come over to our thread and we’d chat with them about non slash stuff because we were honestly all multishippers and just wanted to have fun. We’d get comments like “wow, I’ve had more pleasant canon het ship discussions in the slash thread than the regular thread”. We never worried about C coming over and getting upset about comments like this because she refused to be associated with anything related with slash lmao.

I tried my best to keep the peace between C, myself, and the rest of the fandom because ultimately I hate being in fandom drama. I just want everyone to have a good time. I’m a people pleaser. Unfortunately my newfound fame put me in the awkward position of being the most fandom popular person in our small community aside from C. Virtually every fan that read fanfics that came into our thread knew one of us or the other by reputation and C HATED this. Especially because people would come in to the thread, recognise me and go “oh my goodness I love your fanfics!” and I’d be super sweet with them and it’d lead into “I can’t believe how nice you are, I love you” which would lead to us crying at each other. This was not the kind of fan interaction that C got, no her fans were more kind that were there to praise her and worship her like a deity that had blessed them with some gift. Rarely did they tell her how kind she was.

Back in the mid 2000s there were really commonly those commercials (usually by Christian organisations) asking people to sponsor say children in Africa or to help build schools or provide drinking water. You all probably know the ones; know the language that they used in those commercials. My fandom wife, who I suppose I shall call wifey because yes we were THAT couple back then, once said that C described her fics like those people described donating money to save the lives of Children in Africa. So we used to joke that her fics were so good they’d save lives in Africa. Looking back at it all, she almost had a very fundamentalist Christian approach to bringing people into her fanfics. She of course tried to get all the slash people into reading it. None of us read canon/oc fic mostly due to our poor treatment at the hands of their fans and creators. Getting fed up I one day told her that if she would read any one of my fanfics that I would read the entirety of her novels. Yes, I was willing to commit to read a couple 100k of canon/oc fanfic that I’d never touch normally if she would even read one of my 1k 1 shots. Heck, I had a fic even that shipped 2 minor characters so she didn’t even have to sully herself reading about one of the main characters. It was honestly a good deal in her favour. I kept this up until the day we all left the fandom. Sometimes I do wonder if her fics were even ¼ as good as she claimed, but I will never know because she refused to read my fics.

She wasn’t all bad and a tyrant all the time. As long as people kept the conversations on track and didn’t come in to the thread saying things like “KAI IS SO HOT ND T3H BEST N I AM GUN 2 MARRY HIM” she stayed mostly civil. It was always hilarious watching InuYahsa or Naruto fans try to come in and bad mouth Beyblade because they’d unleash the dragon and C was great at chasing off undesirables in the thread.

The real apex of goings on though on Gaia was the guild drama. So guilds were like exclusive themed mini forums within Gaia. Anyone could buy one and run it however they want, as long as it still adhered to Gaia’s ToS. C of course was the owner of the only Beyblade guild. The fandom wasn’t really big enough to support 2 guilds so we just kind of let it go. Technically she allowed people to post slash fanfics but like everything had to be explicitly tagged and there was absolutely no slash RP. Wifey and I controlled a handful of minor characters together in the forum RP and definitely used to try to push the boundaries a little bit. Some ambiguous flirting here, a stray comment there. It was such a fragile balance though because C was heavy on the ban button. The active portion of the guild was just people that were in the cult of C and worshipped her writing.

Understandably the other slash fans and myself were getting disheartened by this. So we pooled our funds together and decided that we’d open a second guild that though it was run by slash fans we would welcome anyone into our ranks. We just wanted to have a fun place for everyone to hang out, and to hopefully run a few events out of. In hindsight, we should have seen what would happen. When we opened the guild, with me as the guild leader, it was like somebody blew up the whole dam protecting the delicate ecosystem we had cultivated. Every single person in the Gaia fandom that was not a zealous follower of C applied to be in our guild and left her guild. We of course figured that we’d attract some of the gen population but we did not expect to accidentally poach all of it. All of the moderators were getting messages from people thanking us for giving them a place where they could say whatever they wanted without fear of getting their faces ripped off or banned.

C lost her shit. She was so mad that we went behind her back to ruin her guild. We literally had to show her posts in the very public slash thread that we had been planning this in public and that it was not to ruin her life. We just wanted a place where we could freely post slash. The two of us had some spicy comments back and forth and then she dropped an absolute bombshell on me. Since Gaia’s mail system is terrible I unfortunately no longer have exactly what she said but it was something along the lines of “Ok, you win. I’m going to close my guild.”. Us slash fans had never been doing this to win anything. We had never been competing. We just wanted a safe space to be ourselves.

C never joined our guild. The fandom slowly faded out within the next year anyway. We weren’t getting new content so naturally people just drifted into other fandoms. C kept up with the main Beyblade thread for a lot longer than most of us but eventually that eventually faded into obscurity too.

I learned a lot about fandom bullies from those days. But honestly the thing that stuck with me the most out of everything was that if you provide a positive safe space for people they will flock to it. It may seem like there are so many hostile people out there, but there really aren't. They're the minority but they just make sure that their voice is the loudest. The best way is to ignore them and just do your own thing. The bullies just want attention and if you don’t give it to them and prove to them that their opinion doesn’t matter to you then they’ll move in and find something else to yell at.

#malicious musings #stacey's adventures in fandom drama #lol #honestly it was such a fucking wild time #if i think of any other specific instances of drama i'll add them #god i wish i had screenshots of some of what went on #but sadly going through archived gaia posts is easier said than done

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entity9silvergen · 4 years ago

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Thought That Cupid Shot Me With Love But It Was Only An Aro (Naruto Fanfiction)

Summary: Soulmates were supposed to be the other half of your soul. Your one true love. Ino always dreamed of finding her soulmate. Sai never wanted one. Still, they cared for each other so they were going to make it work. Somehow.

Relationships: Sai & Ino, Sai/ Ino, Sai & Team Kakashi, Sai & Team Asuma, Sai & Shin, Referenced Naruto/ Hinata, Referenced Sasuke/ Sakura, Referenced Kakashi/ Guy, Referenced Shikamaru/ Temari, Referenced Choji/ Karui

Characters: Sai, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi, Shin, Kakashi

Warnings: Minor aphobia

Other: AroWriMo 2021, Soulmate AU, Aroace Sai, Aro/ Allo Relationship, Oneshot, Aromantic Writer, Queer Themes, QPRs

Word Count: 10K

Author’s Note: This story was written for Aromantic Writing Month 2021! I’ve been wanting to write an aromantic Soulmate AU for awhile and decided to finally write it when I realized Aro Writing Month was approaching. Prompt for week 1 was Romo/ Loveless & Future which kind of aligns with this fic.

The title comes from the song Not In Love by Natalia Kills.

This is my first time writing a soulmate AU and also my first time writing an aromantic character. I’d just like to say I don’t really like the idea of aromantic/ alloromantic soulmates because it implies they both have to compromise in some way but I’ve always wanted to see how that kind of relationship would be navigated so here we are.

Some characters are mildly aphobic but there’s nothing hateful or extreme. It’s mostly just people not understanding.

Also this fic skips around through time a bit and begins before Sai gets his name in canon but I am just going to call him Sai because it’s kind of awkward to avoid using it. A few minor deviations from canon are taken just for convenience.

___________

As long as Ino could remember, she’d had a massive, stark white tiger with jet black stripes wrapped around her arm.

She didn’t really question it’s presence. Everyone had marks on their bodies as far as she knew. Once she was old enough to really recognize what it was, however, she did find it a bit odd. Compared to the bright red bush clover on her mother’s upper arm and the aquamarine instrument on her father’s leg, a black and white tiger seemed strange. She tried asking about it but no one seemed to understand her confusion. They just saw it was any other soulmark with nothing out of the ordinary.

It wasn’t until she was a couple years into her training at the Academy that she really understood what the tiger on her skin meant.

She’d been sitting on the grassy hill where her Kunoichi classes were held with her friend Sakura. It was early spring and tiny flowers were beginning to sprout out of the ground. Idly, Ino plucked them out of the earth and slowly began tying their stems into a chain. What for, she did not know. She just needed something to occupy herself until the teacher arrived. She was running a bit late and once she arrived, Ino understood why.

“Hello class!” the teacher called once she reached the top of the hill, dropping a bag of books at her feet. They hit the grass with a loud thump. The bag was a lot heavier than it looked, no wonder it had slowed her down. “Sorry for the delay!”

“What are those books for?” Sakura called out, voicing the rest of the girl’s thoughts.

“Oh these?” the teacher said, picking up one of the books. “We’re going to use these books to help with the lesson. Today we’re going to talk about soulmarks.”

Soulmark. The word struck a chord in Ino’s mind. It sounded familiar yet she didn’t have the slightest idea what it meant. She sensed it was important though. Intrigued, she rested her arms on her knees and leaned forward a bit. She didn’t say anything, positive Sakura and all her newly discovered chattiness would do it for her. “What’s a soulmark?”

The teacher’s eyes glowed in a way Ino had never seen before as she sat down and threw herself into her explanation. “You see those designs on your bodies?”

Ino looked down at the tiger on her arm and felt a flash of excitement. Was she finally going to learn the meaning behind it?

“Those are soulmarks. You see, the universe is very wise and knows who we are destined to fall in love with,” the teacher told them, smiling at the wondrous expressions appearing on the girls’ faces. Ino tried to wipe the look off her own features but she couldn’t help it. This was nothing like flower arranging at all. That was fun but this was important. “That’s why we’re born with these marks. They give us hints about what our soulmates are like and tell us how to find them.”

A few girls squealed and made soft noises expressing their delight but Ino remained quiet, eyes wide as she ran her fingertips over the tiger’s curved stripes. She’d done so countless times before but now it felt different. Almost humbling. This mark told her who she was meant to fall in love with? That was amazing. Almost unbelievable.

“I read a story book about soulmates once,” declared a girl Ino couldn’t remember the name of. “It said soulmates are each other’s one true love and we’re all meant to find each other some day. Some people have to travel really far to find their soulmate!”

“That’s true,” the teacher said with a nod, “but usually our soulmates aren’t too far away. I knew my soulmate since we were kids but we didn’t realize until we were much older. Sometimes we need time to develop as people before our soulmarks make sense. We need time to grow into them.”

“I heard that Hyuga girl has a ramen bowl on her somewhere,” another girl spoke up. She made an over exaggerated face of disgust. “The only person who eats ramen enough for the universe is that dumb Uzumaki kid. I’d bet anything they’re soulmates.”

“Now, Yaka,” the teacher chided, “it’s not nice to make assumptions about other people’s soulmates, let alone talk about their soulmarks behind their backs. Soulmarks are a private thing.”

Ino noticed the teacher didn’t scold Yaka for the way she was talking about Naruto and Hinata. She didn’t know what that was about but she didn’t really like it. She didn’t have the faintest idea who her soulmate was but she hoped no one made fun of him for her soulmark, whatever it was. As troubling as her mark was, she loved it and knew she would one day love her soulmate as much as the tiger on her arm. And he was supposed to love her just as much, right? They were destined to be together after all. Each other’s true love.

“I hope mine is Sasuke,” Sakura sighed dreamily, clutching her hands together.

Ino snapped out of her romantic daydreams and blew air out through her mouth, making her blond bangs move out of her face, as she rolled her eyes. “We’re too young to really know, Sakura. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Color is the best indicator to go off of,” the teacher told them, eyes drifting to the mark on Sakura’s hand. “Red isn’t an uncommon color in the soulmarks of the Uchiha.”

Ino’s mouth twisted in annoyance. Their teacher was indulging her? Really? At least Sakura seemed happy about it. And Ino would be lying if she said she didn’t think Sakura’s mark may one day fit their classmate. The scarlet feather of a hawk covered the back of her hand, the middle bleeding into a pale purple that stretched the shaft into a long snake trailing up her arm. It was a pretty cool soulmark, Ino had to admit. Two animals in one mark? And so colorful. Maybe that meant Sakura’s soulmate had a lot of character to him. Or that he really liked animals. Did Sasuke like animals? But like the others, it made her uneasy about her own.

“What if your soulmark doesn’t have any colors?” Ino asked, raising her hand. When the teacher’s eyes flickered to her arm, Ino put her arm down and covered her mark with her hand. She tried her best not to look down in shame to no avail then immediately hated herself for it. Then she decided she hated her teacher for the look she was giving her. How dare she make Ino feel ashamed of her soulmark and, by extension, her soulmate?

The teacher’s judgemental look vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a cheery facade, and she handed Ino the book she was holding. “That’s a good question! Everyone, take a book and try to find any characteristics that might match your soulmark. You might be able to learn something about your soulmate!”

Ino wasn’t oblivious to the fact her question was ignored but Sakura was tugging at the book in her hands, excited to see what it’s contents could tell her. Ino shook her negativity away and laughed, scolding her friend into settling down and sharing the book.

They spent the whole afternoon flipping through the pages, gazing at the beautiful soulmarks within, and Ino found nothing about colorless soulmarks. Like many things regarding her soulmate, she didn’t know what to think of that.

___________

Sai thought he was markless until he was eight.

He knew what soulmarks were, of course. They were impossible to miss, especially since he lived in such close quarters with everyone he trained with. He’d just never seen one on his own body so he just figured he didn’t have one. And he was pretty okay with that.

This batch of ROOT recruits were being trained in a Hidden Mist style so they spent a fair amount of time on the water. The instructor had begun teaching the Water Natured recruits how to use Water Style: Liquid Bullets recently so today that part of the group was polishing their jutsu while the rest of the recruits practiced dodging on a moving surface of water. It was a good exercise for everyone.

The only problem was all the Water Style users kept nailing Sai with their jutsu.

Normally Sai wouldn’t mind. He was a fast ninja and he was pretty good at dodging. The only problem was that there were so many and a few were bound to hit now and again. It was just that it was more than a few. And he seemed to be the only one getting hit. It was enough that the instructor asked him to get off the water and practice his Earth Style on his own until they were done.

“Maybe we can ask the instructor if you can wear a shirt next time,” Shin said casually once the session was over and the group was heading back to base. “I mean, it’ll get all wet if you fall in but it’s better than getting hit with Liquid Bullets the whole time.”

“What?” Sai peered at his brother, confused. “Why would wearing a shirt change anything?”

“Um, because of your soulmark?”

“I have a soulmark?”

Shin’s hands dropped from their place folded behind his head as he came to a stop to gape at his brother. “You didn’t know you have a soulmark?”

“No. Should I have?”

“Yes!” Shin exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Soulmarks are important! They tell you who you’re going to fall in love with and- wait. If you didn’t know you had a soulmark, why did you think everyone kept shooting you with their jutsu?”

“I thought maybe it was some kind of strategy to pick off a weak link.”

“You’re not a weak link!” Shin exclaimed, louder this time. Sai didn’t really understand what he was getting upset over but he hoped he’d get over it soon. The instructors didn’t really like it when the students got worked up like this. “Your soulmark just makes a giant target on your back. It’s easy to aim for so everyone goes for it.”

“Oh.” That made sense, he supposed. “What is it? My soulmark, I mean.”

“It’s a flower. I don’t know what kind.”

“What does it mean to have a flower soulmark?”

Shin shrugged. “I have no idea. I think I heard flowers are kind of rare since all girls like flowers. Hey, maybe that means your soulmate is a boy. The universe might think boys liking flowers is weird enough to make it soulmark-worthy.”

“I don’t think it’s weird for boys to like flowers.”

“So you think your soulmate is a boy?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really care.”

“Come on,” Shin whined. “You’ve got to care a little bit!”

“Not really. I’ve never wanted a soulmate.”

“Really?” Shin sounded surprised, far more surprised than Sai thought he would. “Well, maybe that’s just because you didn’t think you had one. Maybe now it’ll change.”

Sai didn’t think so but he didn’t tell Shin. He didn’t think he’d understand.

________

Ino was nine when she felt a blinding pain shooting up from her soulmark.

It wasn’t sudden. In fact, it was very slow. A gentle static that turned into overwhelming agony. Ino had felt emotions through the soulbond before, however rare, but never to this degree. The initial surprise was faint, easily mistakable for her own feelings, but the adrenaline and fear that followed most certainly were not.

Iruka seemed to notice something was wrong because by the time the first wave of crippling despair hit, he’d already yelled for a student to take charge of the class and had ushered her out into the hallway. She was dimly aware of what was happening around her through it all. If she’d been more clear headed, she would’ve worried more about keeping it together in the presence of her classmates but right now she could only think about the hurt, fear, and grief rippling through her.

Her soulmark burned, sending bolts of emotion up her body, welling her throat shut and tightening her chest with raw, unfiltered emotion. It was like water boiling up in a kettle that exploded into a scalding ocean instead of steam. Like someone had injected lightning into her body and let it fry her heart. Like being surrounded by a heavy cloud of darkness that sucked any light out of her.

Never before had she felt such a thing and she didn’t know how to handle it. She didn’t understand where it was coming from or why this was happening to her. But then it just… stopped. Like nothing had happened.

She regained control of her breath as the sharp grip around her receded. She felt the sobs die in her throat and clean oxygen fill her lungs once again. She hadn’t even noticed she’d been crying until now. Tears stained her face and Iruka’s shoulder but there were fewer than before. It was now that she realized she had collapsed on the ground in the hallway, body pressed against the rough wood floor. The realization didn’t make her want to get up any more though. She could lie here for the rest of her life for all she cared. She kind of wanted to. Lying here in this sleepy, numb fog that clouded her mind sounded like a good idea.

“Are you alright?” Iruka asked, her sensei’s worried tone drawing her back to reality.

“What happened?” Ino groaned, sitting up to meet his gaze. The concern was evident on his face but he looked relieved to see that she was okay. She felt a prickle of guilt knowing she was responsible for his worry. What was that anyway? It just came out of nowhere then left just as fast. Absently, her hand drifted to her soulmark. Any echo of its earlier noise was long gone. It was as silent as the dead of night. “I feel…”

“I think something happened to your soulmate,” Iruka told her softly, helping her sit up against the wall. He shifted a bit so he sat across from her. For that, Ino was grateful. She didn’t think she could handle getting up right now.

“My soulmate?”

“You’ve felt things through your soulbond before, right?” Iruka asked. Ino nodded as she wiped her face free of any stray tears. “Well, sometimes when our soulmates are in a lot of pain or distress, we can feel it through the soulbond.”

“How come?” Ino asked, genuinely curious. The pain she felt was probably nothing compared to what he was feeling so she could stomach a bit of it for her soulmate’s sake but she didn’t understand why the universe would place that upon her or anyone else. That just seemed cruel.

“Well…” Iruka trailed off for a moment, hesitating, before the words came to him. “Soulmates are a big part of our lives. They’re the other half of our soul. Our bond doesn’t begin when we meet. We usually love our partners a long time before we meet them.”

Ino nodded, following along so far. Sure, she didn’t know a thing about her soulmate, save what her soulmark told her, but he had a special place in her heart that only grew with each spark she felt through the bond. He was one of the most important things to her in the whole world. It felt kind of strange to call it love but any other word felt short of capturing what she felt. He was essentially a stranger yet, at the same time, he was the furthest thing from it.

“Soulmates support each other throughout their whole lives,” Iruka explained. “When our soulmates feel pain, we can comfort them through our soulbonds.”

“How?” Ino asked, leaning forward a bit. She desperately wanted to. The hopelessness and agony that had rooted itself in her chest had faded but if her soulmate was still feeling anything close to it…

“Just think about how much you love them,” Iruka told her with a lopsided smile, “and how much you want to be there for him. Try to focus those feelings through your soulbond.”

Ino nodded and tried her hardest to do as her sensei instructed her. But how could she express feelings for someone she’d never met? She could imagine her soulmate and the future they’d have together but that wasn’t real. It was all in her head and all she had to go off of inspiration-wise were stories and dreams. She was still young enough to indulge in the occasional fantasy or day dream but she was also a ninja. Ninja were realists and realistically, she knew nothing about what he was like and she didn’t have a real reason to love him the way she did.

But that didn’t mean the love she had wasn’t real. It was ingrained deep into her being, as deep as the bond tying her to her partner. It was a love that made warmth hum in her chest and the corners of her mouth twitch into a smile at the mere thought of it. Love so powerful she couldn’t put it into words. She just didn’t have the vocabulary and she didn’t think the right words even existed.

It didn’t make sense but it was real. The universe, spirits, god, sages, whatever was up there- It had made a decision and it was a good one. There was no reason to believe it but Ino knew it like a universal truth. He was destined for her and she was more than happy to be destined for him. Ino loved her other half however little sense it made. She’d always wanted him to know that and maybe now she could tell him through the soulbond if she tried hard enough.

She didn’t know what he was feeling. She didn’t know what he could possibly be experiencing that would make him feel this way. She just hoped that maybe she could help, even if it was just a little bit.

“How will I know if he can feel it?” Ino asked after a while. She felt a lot better. Her breath had regulated, the dampness in her eyes had dried, and her body felt a lot less heavy than it had when she sat down.

“There’s not really any way to tell immediately,” Iruka told her, getting to his knees before standing up. He offered Ino a hand to pull her up. She accepted it and began following him back to the classroom. “Your soulmate is probably going through a lot right now and he might not know how to respond or feel ready to. But, I’ve heard that soulmates sometimes send their thanks a few weeks after something big happens and feelings start passing through the bond a bit more easily. I’m sure he’ll be sending you some happiness in no time.”

Iruka’s words were a comfort and Ino momentarily forgot her worries and skipped back to class. But weeks later when Iruka asked her if she and her soulmate were doing better, Ino couldn’t answer. There wasn’t a hint of emotion coming through the bond anymore.

_________

It was over seven years since Shin died before Sai was shirtless around anyone again.

It wasn’t really something he’d thought about. Who thought about that kind of thing? He had plenty of other things to think about. His missions, crossing faces out of his bingo books, his art… Being shirtless was such an insignificant thing in his life that he never spared it a second thought. His training had ended with his brother’s death and there wasn’t really a need for him to change clothes or go swimming with someone. And without Shin or anyone else looking at his back, he’d almost forgotten his soulmark. There were a few flashes of feeling through the bond now and again but Sai was usually too dull to notice and he usually dismissed them without question. The existence of his soulmark didn’t affect his life in the slightest.

Imagine his confusion when Naruto wouldn’t stop staring at him after Captain Yamato dumped the two of them in a hot spring together.

“Why do you keep looking at me, dickless?” Sai asked, smiling at how Naruto’s face soured at the nickname. He’d done well choosing it. “I was under the impression you were tired of being around me.”

“I am!” Naruto snapped indignantly. He crossed his arms and was silent for a moment. When Sai didn’t say anything, he caved and explained himself. “I… I was looking for your soulmark. Do you have one?”

Sai paused for a moment before nodding. “I do.”

Naruto’s gaze softened a bit and the hostility drained off his face. “It’s on your back, isn’t it? I didn’t see anything before you got in the water.”

“Why do you care?”

“I didn’t really think about it until you came in here and I didn’t see anything on you so I thought you might be markless. It’s… I dunno, it’s harder to stay mad at you knowing you’ve got a soulmate.”

“Why?

Naruto shrugged casually. “Knowing you love someone just makes you feel more human.”

If Sai were an expressive man, he would’ve made a face. One of anger or horror, he didn’t know. Angry Sai would’ve splashed Naruto in the face with a handful of water. Horrified Sai would’ve come up with a bad excuse and hurried out of the hot spring. But Sai wasn’t an expressive man so instead, he shut his mouth and sank into the water, trying not to think about the implication of his new teammate’s words. ___________

Ino met Sai at The Barbeque Place.

The Barbeque Place wasn’t actually called The Barbeque Place. They just called it that enough that it deserved to be called The Barbeque Place with the capitalization of the title and everything. It was actually called Yakiniku Q but no one cared. Team Asuma would convince everyone it was called The Barbeque Place until the owner changed the sign or they’d die trying.

Going to The Barbeque Place was the only way to properly celebrate anything Team Asuma style. Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru had only seen Naruto a couple of times since he returned to the village so when they saw him coming back from a mission, they knew they had to grab him then or they’d never get the chance to drag him to the restaurant and welcome their friend home.

The fact they had a new teammate with them was an added bonus.

Sai seemed nice. Kind of strange though. Ino didn’t know if it was just odd having someone new on Team 7 after so long or if it was just Sai’s general personality. She supposed she liked him but if it was anyone less good looking, Ino would definitely be upset Sasuke was getting replaced.

“So you’re ANBU, right?” Shikamaru asked the newcomer when the uncooked food had arrived and the early stages of conversation were over.

“How could you tell?”

“The uniform was a bit of a giveaway.”

“Noted.”

“ANBU?” Choji echoed, looking intrigued. His brief pause was long enough for Ino to take the opportunity to swipe a couple pieces of meat off the grill and shovel them onto Sai’s plate. Apparently pausing did not mean he was distracted though. “Ino!”

“Be nice! You don’t want to scare him off with your gross manners this early, do you?”

“I guess not…” Choji mumbled sullenly. His demeanor changed again in a heartbeat when a piece of perfectly cooked meat caught his eye. He plucked it up with his chopsticks and plopped it into his mouth, chewing the slices of beef happily, anger forgotten.

Shikamaru, always the sharp one, picked up where Choji left off before his distraction. “So what’s that like? ANBU, I mean.”

Sai smiled passively. “I don’t think it’s too different from what shinobi teams do, just more isolated and the training is more rigorous.”

“Really?” Sakura said, half distracted by trying to nab a piece of meat before Choji got his chopsticks on it. “I don’t know a lot about ANBU, even working so close with Lady Tsunade, but I’ve heard some bad rumors over the years.”

“Eh? Really? But Kakashi-sensei always seems happy wherever he talks about it,” Naruto replied. He swiped a piece of meat off Sai’s plate and popped it into his mouth before anyone could say anything. Ino would’ve scolded him but Sai didn’t seem to care. In fact, he seemed amused. It was hard believing someone as soft-spoken and gentle as Sai was a member of ANBU.

“Kakashi-sensei is Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura responded, brushing him off. “He doesn’t tell us anything and you never know if he’s actually happy or if he just hit a juicy part of those pervy books he’s always reading.”

“Eh, good point,” Naruto conceded through a full mouth, “but now we have Sai here to tell us stuff! I bet he’s a lot easier to talk to than Kakashi-sensei.”

Sai’s face remained passive but Choji and even Shikamaru seemed interested. Noticing, Sai sighed and gave in. “What do you want to know?”

“So you said ANBU was really lonely, right?” Shikamaru said, casually taking a piece of meat. Unsurprisingly, Choji let him and didn’t protest. “What about soulmates?”

“What about them?”

“I’ve heard they don’t let people search for their soulmates,” Sakura spoke up as she put a few vegetables on the grill. “They just have to live knowing their soulmate is out there wondering where they are and why they haven’t found them yet.”

“Well I heard they don’t let ANBU have soulmates at all,” Choji said, trying to wave Sakura’s chopsticks away from the grill. “Like they burn them off or make them stay covered all the time and that kind of thing.”

“I can confirm that isn’t true,” Sai said with a smile, sounding humored. “A lot of people have soulmates. Some of the best two-man teams and small units are made of soulmates, actually. We’re just not allowed to search outside of ANBU. My instructors always said it compromises our security.”

“That’s too bad,” Naruto commented and poked Sakura’s hand with his chopsticks. She yelped and pulled her hand away, allowing Choji to successfully steer the vegetables away from the grill and put down another couple pieces of beef. “But now that you’re out of ANBU, you can look for your soulmate, right?”

Sai said nothing and shrugged half-heartedly.

“You do want to find your soulmate, right?” Ino asked, putting down her chopsticks to look at him instead of swooping in to aid Sakura. Choji really had to eat his greens. Naruto too but it wasn’t every day her friends got a new teammate. Right now he was a bit more interesting than a poking war.

This time, Sai had a clear answer to the question. “Not particularly.”

“How?!” Ino’s plate clattered on the table slightly. She put a hand on it to stop it from falling but she could feel herself getting even more worked up. She sensed her friends giving her confused looks at her outburst. She tried her best to ignore them. “Your soulmate- Your soulmate is the other half of your soul! Without them, you’re incomplete. How could you not want to find them?”

Again, Sai shrugged.

“I’ve just never been interested in having a romantic relationship. Or any kind of relationship,” Sai said neutrally. He smiled and this time it was kind of infuriating instead of cute. “If it happens, it happens but I don’t particularly want to seek it out.”

“Isn’t it your destiny though?” Ino pressed. “To find your true love?”

“I thought you’d given up on that stuff,” Choji commented idly as he placed some new pieces of meat on the grill, “since you haven’t felt anything through your soulbond in years.”

Something inside Ino snapped. “Well, you’re just as far behind as me, fatso!”

In hindsight, that probably wasn’t the best move but getting the restaurant destroyed by Choji’s Human Boulder was worth it to escape that conversation. _________

It was well after the war had ended by the time the village’s Intelligence Division summoned Sai to lock up the members of the Seven Swordsmen that he’d sealed.

The village was recovering well but the months after the end of the war had been chaotic. There were far too many things more important to worry about than who’d sealed their enemies and where their bodies were so Fuguki Suikazan and Jinin Akebino’s scrolls just ended up sitting in Sai’s apartment. It was only when someone from the Third Division was retelling the war story that everyone remembered they hadn’t given the sealed bodies to the Intelligence Division. Sai hadn’t really thought it was important but apparently it was important enough for the Hokage to send Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji running to his apartment in the middle of the day to retrieve them.

“I can’t believe you had these things just lying around for a whole year. What a drag…” Shikamaru complained as the shinobi carried the two scrolls through the front doors of the Analysis Division’s building. Between the four of them, it was a bit awkward but they were managing. Sai was surprised he and Lee had been able to carry these things around on the battlefield. Right now, they seemed so heavy. “I wish I’d known Intel involved so much running around before I joined…”

“Aw, you like it,” Choji said cheerfully. It went unsaid that Ino and Shikamaru were working in the Intelligence Division because there was no one else to fill their fathers’ shoes but Sai heard it in his voice. “And all this running around gives us the chance to see our friends more often!”

“You don’t even work here. You can see our friends whenever you want!” Ino groaned as they began heading into the underground storage unit. “Slow down guys, I don’t really want to fall down the stairs in front of all these Jonin. But he’s right, Sai. It’s nice seeing you. It feels like it’s been forever.”

Sai hummed in agreement and tried his best to convey the joy he got from seeing his friends again. After seeing Shin again and mastering the Crouched Tiger Bullet, it came a lot easier to him but years of underusing his facial expressions made it less than natural. “Indeed. Where are we putting these?”

Everyone looked to Shikamaru. The boy didn’t seem fazed. “These guys are dead, right? We should transfer them to body scrolls. Easier for the Analysis Team to… analyze them or whatever whenever they decide to. You know how to use that kind of sealing, right Sai?”

Sai nodded as they reached the bottom of the stairwell. “I do.”

“Great,” Shikamaru grunted as the group reached the bottom of the stairs and dropped the heavy scrolls on the concrete floor. “Ugh, do they really need to be this big?”

“It’s a difficult sealing jutsu. It requires a lot of ink.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s start unrolling this thing. Sai, there are some body scrolls over by the storage unit. Go grab whatever one you think will work best.”

Sai nodded and did as he was told, drifting off to the edges of the basement in search of the right tools. He wasn’t terribly experienced in any kind of sealing jutsu other than his own and he took his time finding a compatible scroll but after a couple minutes, he realized Team Asuma’s usual bickering had died down and the three had fallen into an unusual silence. Concerned, he stuck his head out of the storage area to check on them. “Are you alright?”

“Sai… Come here please,” Ino said in an unusual tone. Sai frowned. Her pale green eyes were fixed on something on the ground. Was something wrong with his seal? Had one of the Swordsmen somehow escaped? They were dead so it wouldn’t be the end of the world but it would be kind of a hassle to track down the body.

He stepped into the entry area and saw nothing out of the ordinary. One of the scrolls, Fuguki’s scroll, was unraveled, exposing the seal work and the swordsman's trapped form. Shikamaru, Ino, and Choji were just… staring at it? Sai couldn’t fathom why. Maybe they thought this method of sealing was immoral? It really wasn’t different from any other kind of sealing. Was the sight of the body on the page unsettling them?

“Sai, what is this?” Choji said in an uncharacteristically empty voice.

Sai took a few steps to join them beside the scroll. He peered at it, trying to see anything that was out of place or didn’t belong. Fuguki was still there, held in by his sealing tiger’s sharp claws. Was his sword in there? No, no it wasn’t. They’d returned the Seven Swords to the Hidden Cloud a while ago. He remembered because that was when Choji had realized he and that girl Karui were soulmates. It’d been a whole thing. “I don’t see anything wrong.”

Ino held up her marked arm and Sai suddenly realized what was happening here.

“...Oh.”

“Oh? Oh?! That’s all you have to say?” Shikamaru practically shouted, taking an angry step toward him. “Ino- she- You saw her soulmark the day you met us. Why didn’t you say anything? Do you know how long she- Are you really that heartless?”

Sai flinched at his words. He didn’t mean to but he couldn’t help it. Regaining some level of emotion also meant losing some of his composure. He hoped the others hadn’t noticed but he wasn’t the hopeful type. “I…”

Choji put a hand on Shikamaru’s shoulder. He looked just as upset as his friend but Choji was too gentle and kind-hearted to take out his anger on anyone. And for that, Sai was eternally grateful. “Shikamaru, maybe we should go. Shouldn’t this kind of thing be between soulmates?”

Shikamaru looked like he wanted to argue but he shook himself and took a deep breath to calm down. Sai knew Shikamaru could get scary when he wanted to and hurting his friend definitely put Sai in danger of becoming a victim of his intellect. Thank the sages for Choji or Sai was fairly certain he’d have a Shadow Stitch aimed at his head right now.

“Just… Just talk to her, man,” Shikamaru sighed tiredly, sounding several times his age, and turned to head back up the stairs, Choji trailing behind him. Sai half expected him to turn around to give him some kind of warning or threat not to mess this up and hurt his teammate but he didn’t. He just kept walking until it was just him and Ino. Alone. In a basement. With a dead rogue-ninja and a tiger staring at them. Not really the best setting for a heart to heart.

The two didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just pale green eyes boring into inky black. What was there to say? What was someone supposed to say when they found their soulmate? What if it should have been obvious they were soulmates from the start and one hadn’t said anything? What was someone who never wanted a soulmate supposed to do when his soulmate so clearly longed for one? Sai had so many questions and the answers to none.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Ino asked, breaking the silence.

“I didn’t know.”

“Don’t give me that.”

It was true, in a sense. He really didn’t know. Sai had recognized the tiger when he saw it for the first time but only in the back of his mind. He was far from a master of emotions and farther from a master of his jutsu. Was the jutsu really even his then? It didn’t feel like it so maybe he didn’t recognize the mark on Ino’s arm as his own.

Still, it was his art style. He’d recognized it immediately and always would. His art was such a big part of him and he didn’t dream of denying it so that couldn’t have been it. And it couldn’t be his lack of emotions because he wasn’t really lacking them, they were just suppressed. As guilty as it made him feel, it was very possible the truth was just that he didn’t want a soulmate. That he didn’t want to know what the universe had planned for him when it came to love.

“It just never occurred to me.”

Sai wasn’t lying but Ino didn’t seem to believe him. No one ever believed him. Not when it came to soulmates. But he wanted Ino to understand so he tried again.

“Remember when we met? When I said I didn’t want to look for my soulmate?”

Ino snorted and put her hands on her hips. “You didn’t need to look. She was right in front of you.”

Okay, he walked right into that one. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I would’ve said that to anyone.”

“Why?” Ino asked, her voice cracking. Sai noticed for the first time that her eyes were glossy. He felt… something. He couldn’t quite identify what it was yet but he knew it was a bad feeling. He couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry though. “I’ve always wanted to meet my soulmate, even before I really understood what my mark meant. I can’t imagine not wanting to find the one person who’s meant to love you unconditionally.”

That made Sai hesitate. He’d never heard it phrased that way particularly. It was making him doubt himself. Why had she said that? She didn’t know how much Sai struggled when it came to maintaining friendships or how lonely he’d been all those years after Shin died. She had no idea how rocky his relationship with love was or how much he craved it. She couldn’t fathom how much it pained him knowing it was always out of reach. Or maybe she could, with the soulbond and all. He cleared his throat. “I’m glad I met you and if I have to have a soulmate, I’m glad it’s you.”

“If you have to have one? What, do you wish you didn’t have one?”

“Sometimes.” Ino’s face dropped but Sai recovered quickly. “I think soulmates are wonderful but I’ve just felt like they’re for me, I suppose.”

“Are you one of those people who believe we should shape our own destiny?”

“No. Yes. Maybe? I don’t know.”

Ino laughed a bit and it sounded fond rather than angry. It gave Sai a spike of confidence. He smiled bashfully.

“My apologies. I’m not very… articulate when it comes to how I feel. I’ve really only reconnected with my emotions since the war ended,” Sai admitted. Ino opened her mouth but Sai stopped her before she could say what he knew she was going to say. “And my emotional struggles have nothing to do with how I feel about having a soulmate. I think. I remember talking about it with my brother before…”

Something flashed in Ino’s eyes. “Your brother died when you were ten?”

Sai nodded. “You felt it through the soulbond?”

“And nothing after it,” Ino replied with a nod, “until the war. Probably when you saw him again.”

Sai looked down. “...I cried. I hadn’t cried since he died the first time.”

Ino made a sympathetic noise. Sai wasn’t really sure if it made him feel comforted or patronized. Ino seemed to sense he didn’t want to talk about it and that was probably for the better. “So you’ve talked about it with him? How you feel about soulmates?”

“Having a soulmate,” Sai corrected. How he felt about soulmates versus how he felt about having a soulmate were very different. “And yes. I didn’t know I had a soulmark until he told me. But… He never really understood. He was a romantic. I don’t think he really knew that some people just weren’t like that.”

“Like what?”

Sai’s face furrowed with frustration as he tried to find words. “I… I know love. I love my brother. I love Naruto. And Sakura. And maybe Sasuke. I love Kakashi-senpai and Captain Yamato. I love my art and my books. And I love… you. And I know what I feel is real. I think I’ve always felt it, even when I thought I didn’t have emotions and before I knew you were my soulmate. I like being with you but I don’t love you like Shikamaru loves Temari or like Sakura loves Sasuke. Is that okay?”

Sai hadn’t realized he was looking down until Ino took his hands, startling him into looking up at her. She looked a bit sad but not disappointed or angry. She offered him a gentle smile. “Yeah, it’s definitely okay, Sai. I mean, this isn’t really what I expected meeting my soulmate to be like but I’m glad it’s you. I don’t think I’ll mind missing out on some romantic fantasy if it means I get to be with you. If that’s what you want.”

Slowly, Sai nodded and curled his fingers around hers. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give you a romantic fantasy but I hope I can still make you happy. I want to see where this goes.”

_______________

Two years passed and Ino knew she and Sai weren’t really in a relationship.

They did couples things sometimes. They went out together fairly regularly. They ate at nice restaurants and went on quiet walks through the village. Sai sometimes slept over at her house and she sometimes slept at his apartment. Sai went with her to Naruto and Hinata’s wedding. And Shikamaru and Temari’s wedding. And Sasuke and Sakura’s. And Choji and Karui’s... There was a shocking number of weddings recently.

It was never romantic though. Their “dates” often had a few tag-alongs or didn’t seem all that different from what friends normally did. Sleeping together was never anything more than sleeping. She could count the number of times they’d just shared the bed on one hand. And they never slow danced at the weddings. Their friends didn’t even acknowledge they were together. Maybe they didn’t know. Or maybe they did and just thought they were just having fun with each other until they met their real soulmates. That was a depressing thought.

Ino tried not to let it bother her. She really liked Sai, that never changed, and she enjoyed all the things they did together. It was fun. Maybe even more fun than it would be with someone else since there weren’t any expectations and there weren’t dozens of eyes watching everything they did. Still, part of her longed to have the future she’d always expected. She tried to ignore the part of her before it became too much to keep inside.

But as a clan head, she couldn’t ignore it forever.

She was in some Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi Clan meeting when it came up. Normally these meetings were uneventful, just a bunch of clan elders hooting about babies and food or whatever, so Ino had been zoning out while they bickered and shuffled papers around the table. But with Shikamaru and Choji both married, she should have expected it.

“...so that brings us to the issue of heirs,” an elder said, snapping Ino’s attention back to the meeting.

All eyes in the room immediately fell on her. She sat up a bit straighter. “What?”

“The Nara Clan head and Akimichi Clan heir have already found their partners and are close to securing their clans’ futures,” the elder went on. Her name was… Ino wanted to say Chizo? Wait, no. That was an Akimichi name. Chizo was that one over there with her hand deep in a plate of cookies. This was a Yamanaka. What was her name? Ino couldn’t remember for the life of her. “The Yamanaka Clan on the other hand…”

“You think I can’t lead the clan on my own?”

Another elder made a noncomitmental noise. This one’s name was Ezume, Ino was pretty sure. Or maybe Ezuko? Either way, he was a Nara. She knew that much. By the sages, she really should know her own clan elders’ names. She’d known them all her life. How was she this bad with names? It was like she’d gotten worse over the years. “We know your capabilities, Ino, but every clan head must have a husband or wife to help shoulder the responsibilities of leading the clan and bring life to the next generation.”

Ino could practically feel Shikamaru and Choji making faces behind her. The elders were trying to be nice about it but they were basically telling them their wives only mattered to bear children for them and keep some stress off their shoulders. If the clans’ stability didn’t rely on the elders so much, Ino would’ve dragged Temari and Karui in here to speak their minds and slap some sense into them years ago.

The Yamanaka elder was speaking again. Ino wanted to say her name was Fumiko but she was pretty sure she was just thinking about her cousin Fū. They looked kind of similar. What ever happened to him? She hadn’t seen him in years. “You’ve had plenty of time to search for your soulmate. If you haven’t found him, we will choose-”

“Ino’s found her soulmate,” Shikamaru interrupted. His voice dull and bored but his eyes were sharp and telling. Ino wanted to punch him but he was out of reach and she didn’t think the elders would appreciate it much.

“Oh?” the elder, Chizo this time, said, looking interested.

“I’ve heard nothing of this,” another Yamanaka spoke up, sounding annoyed. This one was named Haneen, or at least Ino was pretty sure. Close enough. Ino would consider that a win if she wasn’t struggling to think of a response.

“Uh…”

The elders looked displeased. “Why have we heard nothing of this?”

“Um….

Ino looked to Shikamaru and Choji for help but they were already making a break for the door, the traitorous bastards. She turned back to the elders’ angry faces, swallowed away her uneasiness, and steeled herself for the inevitable discomfort that was coming her way. ___________________

Sai was coming back from a mission with Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi and Yamato when he saw Shikamaru and Choji barreling towards him with panic on their faces.

“We didn’t do it!” Naruto yelped immediately, practically springing away from them. “Tell Granny Tsunade it was just part of the mission!”

The two skidded to a stop and Naruto was met with confusion. “What?”

“...Are you not coming from the Hokage’s office?”

“...No? We were just at a clan meeting. What were you doing?”

“Nothing!”

Sasuke shook his head and sighed while Sakura pinched her brow in exasperation. Sai and Yamato glanced at Kakashi then shared a deadpan look. Naruto really was an idiot sometimes. The Sixth Hokage was standing right next to them. Tsunade was finding out no matter what Shikamaru and Choji heard from them.

Sakura, always the most polite of the bunch, offered Shikamaru and Choji a smile. “Ignore them. Did you need us for something? Do I need to be at the hospital? Or did Kakashi-sensei lose some important paperwork again?”

“If it was really important they wouldn’t let me lose it,” Kakashi piped up lazily.

“We actually came here for Sai,” Choji spoke up. For once, he didn’t have his trusty bag of potato chips in hand. And Ino wasn’t there. That was concerning.

“Is something wrong?”

“Kind of,” Shikamaru said, looking a bit guilty as he scratched the back of his head. “So… I may or may not have told our clan elders that you and Ino are soulmates and they may or may not start harassing you about marrying her.”

Shikamaru spoke quickly and quietly and it took Sai a moment to realize what he was saying. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, however, didn’t seem to have the same problem.

“You and Ino are soulmates?!” the three screeched in unison.

“I… Yes?” Sai’s head swiveled to look at them in surprise. “You didn’t know?”

“How would we know?” Sakura asked. “Neither of you ever told us!”

“You’ve seen both our soulmarks.”

“Soulmarks are confusing!” Naruto exclaimed and Sai realized he probably should’ve known better than to expect Naruto to connect the dots. He and Hinata practically had the same soulmark, just in different colors, and it’d still taken them years to figure it out.

“We went together to your weddings.”

“I thought you two were just going as friends,” Sasuke admitted and he wasn’t exactly wrong.

That made Sai hesitate. Were they friends? Or were they dating? How was he supposed to remember where they’d been in the relationship all that time ago?

“I’ve spent so much time with just the two of you,” Sakura said. “Are you saying I was third-wheeling on your dates?”

“I mean… No?”

“Wait, Ino’s soulmark is on her arm. Did you know since you met her after our first mission? Have you been dating since then?”

“No.” That was a question Sai could answer confidently. Kind of. Oh by the sages, he really didn’t know what he and Ino were doing, was he?

Sasuke opened his mouth to continue pressing him but Kakashi put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him before he could begin. “You five run along. I’d like to talk to Sai alone. Yamato, make sure they don’t destroy anything. Any more than it’s already been destroyed, at least.”

“No promises,” Yamato said drily and began ushering the younger ninja away from the former ANBU. “Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

“I want ramen!”

“I want barbecue!”

“Ramen!”

“Barbecue!”

“That’s literally all we eat! Can’t you two pick something else?”

Sai watched the group walk away, bickering until they were out of sight, before turning his attention back to Kakashi. The man was watching him with a peculiar look in his eye that Sai didn’t understand. He waited for him to say something but Kakashi remained silent and the seconds soon stretched into minutes.

“Let’s take a walk,” Kakashi said eventually and Body Flickered onto the rooftops. Sai followed him without missing a beat.

“Why did you want to talk to me, senpai?” Sai said once it became clear Kakashi wasn’t going to say something first.

“You looked stressed when Shikamaru said the clan might suggest you and Ino getting married. It takes a lot to get a reaction out of you,” Kakashi said nonchalantly. “I just want you to know you can talk to me if you need someone.”

“I don’t know if there’s really anything to say.” That wasn’t really true but after explaining himself to Shin, and his teammates, and Ino, and Ino’s teammates, Sai had accepted he didn’t really have the vocabulary to express how he felt. But it never stopped him from trying. “I’ve never wanted romance. I like what I have with Ino but it isn’t romance. Everyone expects us to… be like every other soulmate. Be in love, get married, have kids. I’m not really opposed to marrying her but I don’t really want to. The only reason we would is for clan politics. Marriage is supposed to be this ceremony of love and I just don’t… I don’t really feel what everyone else is feeling.”

“Because of your time in ROOT?”

That question was expected but Sai tried not to let it bother him. He was not successful. “I don’t know. Maybe but I don’t think so.”

“Is it a lack of attraction?”

“What?”

That was such a strange question but Kakashi didn’t really seem to understand Sai’s confusion. “Is it a lack of attraction?”

“I don’t… I suppose she’s attractive.” Sai never really thought about her that way but he knew other people thought she was. He’d been hearing it for so long that he believed it. But were those his own feelings or just the influence of others? He remembered wanting to call her ugly when they met but he thought everyone was ugly so he’d called her gorgeous because he thought she’d like it. And he just kept doing it. He’d done it so much that it’d just stuck with him and he’d forgotten the origin of the nickname. By the sages, was every compliment he’d given her the offspring of a lie?

Surprisingly, a look of understanding spread across Kakashi’s masked features. “So you aren’t attracted to her?”

“I just said she’s attractive.”

“That isn’t the same as being attracted to her.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A few years ago, Master Jiraiya gave me this book he’d written that was rejected by his publishers,” Kakashi began and Sai didn’t really know where he was going with this. “You know he writes romances, right? Well, he got this piece of criticism that said if you’re going to write about love and relationships, you need to understand that it’s not all romantic. Or sexual. You can imagine how confused Jiraiya was.”

Sai was kind of lost but he nodded along anyway.

“So he did some research. And not the kind of research he normally does. He actually talked to anthropologists and professors from different nations, I think. He wrote a character that didn’t experience romantic or sexual attraction. She still knew love and could appreciate a pretty face but she knew she wasn’t quite experiencing what everyone else was feeling.” Kakashi paused. “The word for not experiencing romantic attraction is aromantic. The word for not experiencing sexual attraction is asexual. They’re not really common words, it took Jiraiya a long time to come across them, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t heard them…”

Kakashi trailed off and Sai’s brain tried to catch up. Sexual attraction? Romantic attraction? They were different? Romantic feelings were supposed to be connected by some kind of desire? Desire to do what? That just sounded really weird. Sai had never heard someone phrase it that way yet it made sense in the most confusing way. “So… wanting to have a romantic relationship has to do with attraction?”

Kakashi shrugged. “Beats me. I’ve never felt that way. I didn’t actually know I’m asexual or aromantic until I read the book and I saw myself in that character.”

“You’re like me?” Sai said in surprise. Almost instantly, his world felt a bit brighter. Like everything was grey and he was seeing color for the first time.

Kakashi nodded. “You know Guy’s my soulmate?”

“Really?” That was actually really shocking but both men covered themselves at pretty much all times, leaving no room for a soulmark to peak out, so there was no way Sai ever would’ve seen either of their soulmarks. Maybe there was a reason for that. Probably not. “I thought you two were just friends.”

“We are, in a way, but we’re also more than that,” Kakashi said, slowing down a bit to try to find the right words. “Guy and I tried to have a relationship when we realized we’re soulmates but it didn’t really work. Guy prefers women and I’m not even sure if he likes men like that. We haven’t talked about it in awhile. And I never really liked anyone that way. But once I heard the words aromantic and asexual, I felt whole. Like I could explain my feelings and I wasn’t missing anything. I didn’t feel broken anymore. After I told him, it was like everything started making sense.”

“Are you two still together?”

Kakashi nodded. “Things got a lot easier when we gave up… The word Jiraiya used in his notes was amatonormativity. That’s kind of like, um, the belief that romantic and sexual relationships are the peak of human experience and everyone should prioritize those kinds of relationships over everything else. You and Ino don’t have to do what our society expects you to do. You can just do whatever feels right.”

Sai nodded slowly. Ino had mentioned once that it felt freeing to not necessarily follow the traditional route of dating but they’d still always felt that pressure to act like a couple. It felt like a huge weight being lifted off his chest to hear that it was okay to do just be. And the fact someone he knew and respected thought it was normal and even encouraged it was priceless.

He opened his mouth to thank the other man but his throat suddenly swelled shut and all that came out was a choking noise. It surprised him, he’d never felt enough emotion for him to be rendered unable to speak. Kakashi looked surprised as well but his eyes soon crinkled with fondness.

“Go to her, Sai.”

Sai was already moving.

____________________

Ino wasn’t expecting to find Sai waiting at her front door when she got home from getting drilled by her elders at the clan meeting.

It looked like he’d been there for awhile. He’d taken out a piece of charcoal and began doodling on her doorstep. It was rather beautiful but she knew she’d have to hose it off sooner or later unless she wanted dusty footprints tracked through her house. He seems pretty focused on his drawing but not enough that he didn’t jump up in surprise at the sound of his soulmate approaching.

“We don’t have to get married!” he blurted out upon her arrival. The piece of charcoal fell out of his hand and cracked on the cement.

“Um, okay,” Ino said slowly. “Really weird thing to say at the beginning of a conversation, Sai, but okay…”

Sai at least had the decency to look a bit embarrassed and hurried to explain himself. “Shikamaru and Choji told you about your meeting.”

“Oh.” Ino felt the muscles in her shoulders tense up. By the sages, that meeting really had been hell. “And…?”

“Apparently my teammates didn’t know we were soulmates. Sakura might be coming here to yell at you soon, by the way,” Sai told her and it took Ino a moment to fully process what he was saying. Had they really not known? Sakura was her best friend. Ino talked to her about Sai all the time. And Naruto had seemed pretty happy when they told him they were going to his wedding together. And Sasuke had a Sharingan for crying out loud! He really should’ve noticed. Sai didn’t really seem concerned about it though. “But that’s not important. I talked with Kakashi and…”

Sai cut himself off, his excitement fading as doubt overtook him. Ino took his hands, ignoring all the charcoal dust on them, and offered an encouraging smile. “And?”

“I think… I think I’m aromantic. And asexual,” Sai told her and he smiled. It wasn’t his usual awkward smile though. He looked genuinely relieved and maybe even a little bit happy. “Apparently some people don’t have romantic feelings at all. There’s a word for it. Aromantic. I think- I think that’s me. I still care about you and I like being with you but Kakashi told me being aromantic is normal and it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me or that the universe made a mistake making us soulmates. It just means we can- We can just be us. Sai and Ino. And Sai and Ino don’t have to listen to anything anyone tells us to do. And that means we don’t have to get married. Unless you want to…?”

Ino watched Sai’s face carefully as it flashed between excitement, awkwardness, nervousness, and joy. She’d never seen him express so many feelings, let alone all together in such a short period of time. It was cute. And endearing. Especially when he stumbled over his words like this. By the sages, she loved him. And now she knew he loved her, even if it wasn’t the way she loved him. She was okay with that though. She was definitely okay with that. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Screw tradition. Forget the clan,” Ino said, breaking into a smile as she put her arms around Sai’s shoulders so she could look up into his eyes. “I like what we have. I don’t care if it’s not what I thought I’d grow up to have or if it’s not what my family wants for me. I just want to be with you and it doesn’t matter if we’re friends, lovers, neither, or something between.”

Sai’s smile grew and he just looked so happy. “We’re soulmates.”

“Yeah. That’s what we are. We’re soulmates.”

More AroWriMo Fics By Me, Posted on Ao3, Posted on FFN

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cross-d-a · 4 years ago

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fic tag game

aaahhh @vishcount thank you for tagging me!!! These are so fun and I adored reading about your fic journey~! ೖ(⑅σ̑ᴗσ̑)ೖ ❤

OH as a note!! For the ppl I tag at the end I don’t expect you to read all of this bc it’s A Lot!!! but I figured you might want to do this game yourself? haha :)

Name: cross-d-a shortened version of my first ever username. unfortunately stuck with it now haha but i’m fond of it :p wish it was cuter tho!!

Posting the rest of this under the cut so it doesn’t eat up people’s dashes!!

(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Fandoms:

oKAY YIKES there are....honestly too many too name. I’ve got a short and obsessive attention span so it’s either all or nothing with me usually. When I can stay in a fandom for a long period of time it’s a miracle. I’ll name the bigger ones that I’ve all written fic for! Even if I’ve never posted them haha

Right now I’m very firmly into Daomu Biji (dmbj). It feels like it’s both got a crap ton of content and yet barely anything at all haha. Maybe because the English fandom is so small. But at least there are a bunch of dramas and books!!! I really, really, really adore dmbj so much!! And a large part of that is the fandom!!! It's been a really cool and unique experience! Everyone in it is truly so kind and wonderful, and I’ve made some really incredible friends because of it (looking at you vish!! ❤). I’ve got a bunch of wips, but I’ve only posted two fics for dmbj!

Before this I was very into Guardian and mdzs. MDZS was my first foray into cdramas and Guardian’s Zhu Yilong really suckered me into watching more haha I also have fics for both these fandoms!

My very first fandoms were Fullmetal Alchemist, D. Gray-Man and Naruto. My very old ffnet account has fics for these and I’ve got a bunch of newer wips on my tablet. Then Star Trek, Twilight, BBC Merlin, Sherlock, Death Note, Harry Potter, How to Train Your Dragon, Battlestar Galactica, Avatar the Last Airbender and Marvel were a few of my main ones in high school. Plus a bunch of anime (like Fruits Basket! and Kuroshitsuji and Natsume Yuujinchou).

Then college hit and I renewed my childhood love of Tolkien (mainly lotr and the Hobbit), and Star Wars. I also found Teen Wolf! Then after college it was Stranger Things.

I find myself in a cycle of mild fondness and complete obsession with these fandoms haha I go back to Star Wars at least once a year!! Then I’m in the gffa hole for a few months. Marvel also reoccurs, depending on how interested I am in new content! Star Trek I always always always go back to. TOS is my comfort show and it will never fade from my heart ❤

But for now I’m stuck in cdrama hell and I love it

Tropes:

Time travel, found family, whump+hurt/comfort, fairytale-like elements, resurrective immortality (thanks to a “Nine Lives” Hobbit fic), CROSSOVERS

I’m a slut for all these things so they often worm their way into my plots haha

I also just- love weird premises. I think that’s the anime influencing me haha

Fic I spent most time on:

My series he leaves sand and stardust in my wake (main fic is hurricane on the edge of oblivion), I have...spent five years on now. I have done so much research for this fic it’s insane.

The premise is force ghost!Obi-Wan getting shunted back into his tiny 10 year old self. I incorporate a shit ton of legends and I try to stay as canon as possible. I basically want this au to feel like it’s 1000% plausible while still getting all my gay shit. It’s chock full of whump, redemption, found family, minor characters turning into major characters, and I’ve got slavery uprising on the mind, too. It’s just- everything I could ever want to explore in the Star Wars universe basically.

It’s my first big project. I started doodling and scribbling ideas in the margins of my notebook in my Scottish History class. I adore it so so so much. But, because of my hyperfixation and fleeting intense obsession with things it makes it- really difficult to consistently update. I leave it for months at a time and I am constantly guilt-ridden about it. Because it’s my baby and I have a lot of wonderful readers. I fear I’ll never be able to finish it. Especially since I’ve written so much and I’m still only in the beginning of it. ( ; A ; )

Also, I’ve spent so much time with Xanatos, Feemor and Bruck that they just feel like mine now. I can’t read any fics that involve them, it’s too strange. Which is a damn shame because I love them so much haha OH ALSO!! I think it’s the first really big fic to include those three?? So I’m very proud about that haha (I’ve had so many ppl comment about how they actually Give A Shit about these three and are Invested bc of me haha)

Favorite fic(s) you’ve written:

hurricane on the edge of oblivion (with nowhere to go) (Star Wars)

My long-term passion project. My love-letter to Star Wars, I suppose. Reading it now I feel like a lot of it is clunky or long-winded, but I think it really shows the foundation of my writing today :) Main characters are Obi-Wan, Xanatos Du Crion, Qui-Gon Jinn, Bruck Chun and Feemor. Eventually we’ll get to Maul, Savage, Feral, Shmi Skywalker, (more!) Ahsoka, Anakin and a shit ton of clones ❤

things we hunger for (Guardian)

My Ye Zun self-indulgent fic. It’s a time travel amnesia Weilanzun! Honestly has some of my fav writing I’ve ever done. It’s so soft and really indulges in the hurt/comfort. It gives Ye Zun the friends and family I think he deserves. Also, he gets to grow into a (mostly!) functional person and I adore him.

the beast that slumbers within your soul (mdzs)

Jiang Cheng centric fic!! I feel like all my favourite fics I’ve written are love letters haha. This is one def my love letter to Jiang Cheng. This fic possessed me for two whole days. I wrote 16k in almost one sitting. I went to sleep at 6 in the morning bc I couldn’t stop writing. And when I drifted off I kept thinking of new ideas so I’d whip out my phone and write down lines and notes. I- have never ever ever felt that way about anything. It was- insane. It felt insane. It was so amazing. I’m still riding the memory of that high.

Basically Jiang Cheng actually finds Baoshan Sanren and it turns out she’s a fox demon and Jiang Cheng is descended from wolves. It’s- okay I said the fic above this had my favourite writing?? That was a lie. This has my favourite writing I’ve ever done. It’s unfinished bc I am in dmbj hell but I am still excited about the next chapter which features Wei Wuxian’s pov!!

the whispers of spirits (dmbj)

My current passion project. In a way it kinda feels similar to hurricane? Bc multiple povs, incorporating different aspects of canon (we’ll get there!! I promise!), shit ton of research, etc. etc. I really really really love it for so many reasons. I’m basically taking all the things I was unsatisfied with in Reboot and Sha Hai and running with it. Found family and whump galore! It’s also a love letter to the women of dmbj who really deserve so so so much better.

Honourable mention to:

One Day (you’ll have given more of yourself than is meant to be taken) (Marvel)

This fic also kinda possessed me. I just- couldn’t get rid of the idea of a trans!Thor. And I mean a mtf Thor! It’s just? So many people look at Thor and go “that’s a Real Man.” Full stop. They never think there could be anything more, and it really really really bothered me. So I wrote out my feelings. I’m not trans. I don’t have that experience at all. I’ve had issues and confusion about my gender but nothing like this. I just wanted to do justice to this idea of Thor in my head. And I still feel a bit nervous having posted it. But I've gotten so many comments from people who really connected with what I’ve written? So I’m very very thankful I wrote it and it has a very special place in my heart. It’s a very cathartic fic.

Fic I spent least time on:

Probably we rise (Star Wars) and I think it shows haha. I wrote it in response to Dave Filoni posting a drawing of Ahsoka and Gandalf telling her “People thought I was dead, too, and look how that turned out...” So I incorporated Ahsoka (and Din and Grogu and Ezra!!!) into the ending of Rise of Skywalker, kinda explaining how I think they could all still be alive. :)

Longest fic:

hurricane is my longest fic (159k) but I’m kinda worried whispers will eclipse that.....

Shortest fic:

Of my posted ones it’s The Five Moments it Took Tony and Scott to Admit They Were Best Friends (and the first time they ever did), currently clocks at 1.6k. It’s unfinished tho so maybe that doesn’t count.... otherwise it’s we rise which is completed and 2k.

Most hits/kudos/comments/bookmarks:

hurricane overall has the most of all these. Though I don’t think hits counts as much bc it’s multi-chapter. If you discount multi-chapter stuff, most hits goes to my obikin smutfic Homecoming, bc people are horny af haha

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on:

If I had energy I’d like to rewrite the beginning of hurricane bc it feels so so wordy. I’d want to expand on One Day bc I really would like to write a whole series with trans!Thor. And like- I’d really like the focus to finish any of my WIPs.

Share a bit of a WIP: I really wanna share my Guardian/dmbj crossover that I started back in August. Bc I adore the idea of wu xie&shen wei&ye zun triplets! Plus time travel!!! I dunno if I’ll ever finish it tho ( ; A ; ) It just feels like a lot to deal with right now.

This scene takes place during the Mountain Awl arc. Guardian crew and desperado fam run across each other at the village! Wu Xie has recently found out that he’s adopted and he’s searching for answers in the area Sanshu originally found amnesiac!toddler!Wu Xie in :) Gonna pull two snippets bc I’m v excited and this might be the only time anyone else sees this fic haha:

“Oh?” Pangzi focuses on Yunlan now, lips twisting. “You think I’ve ‘got the wrong guy,’ huh?” He laughs, but it’s not a nice sound. “That’s rich! Are you that cocky or are you just stupid?”

Bristling, Yunlan drops his hands and scowls. “Excuse me?”

“Sir,” Shen Wei tries. “I think—”

Pangzi’s eyes snap back to Shen Wei, sharp and blazing. “How dare you fucking steal his face!”

What?

Automatically, Zhao Yunlan turns to Shen Wei, but the professor looks just as shell-shocked as Zhao Yunlan feels which- is seriously something. Since everything about Shen Wei is so carefully controlled, kept to the minimum. Except for those delightful little smiles that bloom across his lovely face, or the startled little bursts of laughter that fall from his lips. Or even when anger and frustration spark across his features, cracking his calm veneer open enough that he can see a glimmer of what lies beneath, the fire in those eyes. Zhao Yunlan delights in those moments, makes a game of making Shen Wei’s control slip.

He tells himself it’s nothing more than a game. Nothing more than trying to find out what makes Shen Wei tick.

Zhao Yunlan’s always been very bad at lying to himself. Or very good. Depending on who you’re asking.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yunlan splutters.

But before anyone can say anything else, a very familiar voice calls:

“Pangzi? What’s wrong?”

Yunlan can feel Shen Wei stiffen, and Yunlan himself is pulled to that voice like a planet in orbit, like the inevitable plummet to the ground.

Another shadow wavers in the doorway before it steps out onto the dirt. Light illuminates shaggy hair, limning it gold, sharply casting everything else in shadow. But as the figure nears, the contrast softens until Yunlan can see the newcomer’s face properly and- and—

“Wu Xie!” Pangzi growls. “We’ve got ourselves an impostor!”

The man wearing Shen Wei’s face steps up to them, brows furrowed and mouth pulled down into a sharp frown. He glances between them, eyes landing on Shen Wei. His scowl deepens. He opens his mouth, but then—

“Wu Xie?” Shen Wei breathes, all trembly and lost and hopeless.

Heart in his throat, Yunlan turns to Shen Wei again. Turns and flinches at that stricken look upon Shen Wei’s pale pinched face.

“A-Xie?” Shen Wei chokes. “Didi?”

and

Pangzi snorts. “Professor?”

“I-it’s true!”

Startled Yunlan swings his attention over to Jiajia who clenches her backpack to her chest, face screwed up in admirable determination. “P-professor Shen took me and Xiao Quan on a field trip to investigate an archeological site around here!”

“Oh?” Wu Xie drawls all slow and amused. “Well, what a coincidence. We’re archeologists, too.”

“With guns?” Yunlan bites out.

Wu Xie raises a brow, grin full of teeth. “Well, you can never be too prepared.”

“Right,” Yunlan drawls right back. “Are you a professor, too, then? You come here with your students?”

Wu Xie outright grins. “You could say that, I suppose.”

Out of the corner of his eye, one of the men rolls his eyes. He’s the one with sharp features, glasses and looped earbuds. Does he think it’s appropriate to listen to music at a time like this? Yunlan admires the man’s gall.

aahhhh vish thanks so much again for tagging me!! This was so fun to relive my fic memories!! I’m gonna tag @alwaysaslutforshakespeare @jockvillagersonly @tehfanglyfish @lichelleme @undyingsunshine @humanlighthouse @thewindsofsong I’m curious about your guys’ writing and fandom journey!! As always, no pressure to actually complete this!! I just thought it was fun ❤

Wow if you read all of this I am very humbled and impressed, thank you!!

╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

#cross talks #my fic #fanfiction #uhhh what else do i tag this as i dunno #about me #cross posts #wip fic

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strangeinternetwasteland · 4 years ago

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The art of growing up

Authors Note: Follows the Naruto universe, some slight changes I tried, let me know if you hate it. Also italicized words indicate thought

Character: Obito Uchiha

Prompt: Canon compliant with I didn’t do it! or Angst with this why I fell in love with you. I chose both.

TRIGGER WARNING: Mention of suicide, death, some gore, and blood

Word Count: 1.5 K

Growing up in Konoha for Obito was arduous. He didn’t know who his parents were and was left in the care of his grandmother. Growing up he felt alone and unimportant. A burden to his clan and his grandmother. He wanted to become Hokage so that he would finally be acknowledged.

Obito was often seen as clumsy, bothersome, and unnecessary to his teammate Kakashi. Obito often was late for training and meetings, and this annoyed Kakashi immensely. He regularly liked to point it out to Obito. This caused a lot of contempt between the two.

Rin, however, was the glue of their team. She was always there to cheer Obito on and settled any flare-up between himself and Kakashi. Obito had known and grown up with Rin. They were best friends, and he liked to believe they were inseparable.

While waiting for their sensei to show up to the team meeting, Obito took this time to stare at Rin. Looking at her is like I am looking at an angel Obito thought. He couldn’t stop staring a the chestnut-haired girl. Kami, she is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Obito was unabashedly and absolutely in love with Rin Nohara. She was unquestionably perfect in his eyes. Her radiant smile lit up his whole world. The giggle of her laugh was music to his ears. The way her hair framed her magnificent face and the way her amber eyes lit up when she talked about the things that interested her was perfection to him. This is why I fell in love with you.

It was a shame to Obito that he had to share Rin with Kakashi. Even though he couldn’t currently bring himself to tell Rin, Obito knew he loved her. He loved her more than anything in the world. Unbeknownst, to him, was that Rin loved Kakashi. Why are all the girls in love with you? I bet you’re ugly underneath that mask. There is nothing special about him anyway.

“Obito, what are you thinking about in that head of yours?” Rin questioned him playfully.

“Yeah, Obito, you’ve got this stupid look on your face,” Kakashi remarked casually.

Seething, Obito bit his tongue knowing that if he said anything to rude back to Kakashi he would never hear the end of it from Rin. She’d go on and on about how they were teammates and were to act as one.

A blush coming over his face, Obito finally said. “I was just thinking.”

“Must be hard for you to do,” Kakashi stated flatly, clearly looking to get a rise out of Obito. Rin gave Obito an apologetic look as Obito stuck his tongue out at Kakashi.

“I am glad we’re all here” Minato- sensei said trying to break the tension.

“Obito was late, as usual,” Kakashi blatantly announced.

“Oi! I was helping an old woman with her groceries!” Obito yelled back.

Minato said while smiling, “ Well, our next mission will be to blow up the Kinnabi Bridge. This bridge is a major supply line for the Hidden Stone Village. With clear indication that there was no more to be said, they all left. Along the way, the team felt an uneasy presence as if they were being watched from the trees. A Hidden Stone ninja silently watched the team looking for an opening to attack. Kakashi thought this was a good time to try out his new technique, the Chidori despite Minato’s reluctance saying it could go awry with so little practice.

Kakashi hastily ran off to attack the enemy ninja. Okay, just go run off and be Mr. Perfect. Obito was distracted with his thoughts to notice that the Hidden Stone Ninja had used the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Kakashi had decided to focus on attacking the clones leaving Obito accessible to the enemy. The Hidden Stone ninja laughed at the look of dumb fright on Obito’s face and without delay, the clones descended upon Obito. While Kakashi was distracted with saving Obito, Kakashi felt a sharp stab of a katana into his right shoulder. At that exact moment, Minato tackled their opponent and attached his special tag to the ninja’s foot, and immediately transported Kakashi to Rin’s location. Instantaneously, Minato was gone.

Perfectly beautiful. Rin sat and worked on Kakashi’s wound taking gentle care not to hurt it or apply too much pressure. Kakashi didn’t seem to mind any and the pain didn’t seem to affect Kakashi at all. Instead, it seemed as if all the pain was redirected as animosity towards Obito.

“You’re a coward Uchiha!” Kakashi spat. Anger boiling deep inside and started to explode. “You hesitated on the battlefield! What an idiot!”

Blinking back tears Obito retorted, “At least, I didn’t rush out there blindly!” The boys were at one another’s throat. Rin just stood there nervously.

Minato’s voice boomed out, “Alright! Now that the threat is neutralized, for now, I think we should rest.” He is visibly upset by Kakashi’s biting behavior. Why did Kakashi act that way? Why does he act like he’s better than everyone?

After a while, feeling restless and unable to sleep, Obito got up to find Minato. After a bit, he found his sensei and sat down next to him asking, “Why did Kakashi act out like that?”

Minato took a deep breath and said, “Well, Kakashi’s father was the White Fang. Instead of finishing a mission, he decided to save his team. He was ridiculed and eventually killed himself.”

Obito sat and pondered Minato’s words and eventually drifted into a dreamless sleep. It wasn’t a surprise when the next day Minato disclosed to the group that Kakashi would be the leader for the next part of the mission.

“We will be separated at this point. You will be a team of three, with Kakashi as the leader.” Minato announced. Obito didn’t reject this decision. I hope this makes you proud of me, Rin. Rin was caught by surprise by Obito’s maturity, as much as Kakashi was. She looked at Obito with astonishment and curiosity. Am I better than Kakashi? Minato nodded and headed off alone.

Kakashi led the team farther into the enemy territory, where they were suddenly ambushed by two ninjas’ looking for their fallen comrade. They captured Rin before escaping.

NO! NOT RIN! Obito panicked without a second of hesitation, he told Kakashi plainly, “I’m going after her.” His heartbeat racing.

“I think that we should complete our mission.” Kakashi bit back.

With a huff, rage boiled inside of Obito, followed by a punch directly to Kakashi’s face. “Your father was a true hero when he saved his friends.” With that, Obito turned around and left to go save Rin on his own while Kakashi went the other way. Obito’s words weighed heavily upon Kakashi. Obito frantically searched for where Rin was being held captive. Where are you? Please be safe. If I ever- When I find them I will kill them for taking you away from us.

Obito came upon the hideout concealed deep in a cave where Rin was being kept. Okay, I need a plan. What is the best way to get Rin out of here? While Obito was planning Rin’s rescue, a Hidden Stone Ninja crept upon him. Using his camouflage technique to hide, the enemy ninja snuck closer to Obito. Just as the foe was ready to attack, Kakashi suddenly appeared.

“I don’t think that you could handle this all by yourself, idiot,” Kakashi said as he fought off the incoming attack, that would’ve maimed Obito. The consequence was the loss of Kakashi’s left eye. Oh, my kami. Oh no! What do I do? Panicking and afraid Obito began to cry when he saw Kakashi. I can’t- I can’t- I. NEED. TO. GET. TO. RIN!!!!

Refocusing his attention on the battle happening before him, Obito awakened his Sharingan. He was able to see the enemy, Obito quickly killed him. Kakashi looked at Obito with wide-eyed surprise, “Obito- You. Your- Sharingan.” With a quick shake of his head to acknowledge Kakashi’s stammering, he replied, “ Bandage yourself up and then let’s go get Rin.” Kakashi quickly bandaged himself up. The duo made their way to the cave where Rin was being held.

Wordlessly and effortlessly, the two entered to find Rin tied up and weak. Using their teamwork, Obito’s newly obtained Sharingan, and Kakashi’s skills, they fought off the last of the three Hidden Stone Ninjas that were following them in the forest. While battling inside the cave the walls had weakened significantly around the group. With all hope lost for the enemy, he made one last effort to defeat Obito and Kakashi which caused the cave to fall in on them. With all of the rocks collapsing around them, Obito noticed a rock plunging toward Kakashi. Leaping forward with extended arms, Obito threw Kakashi out of the way. The boulder landing on Obito and crushing the entire right side of his body. “Rin, take my Sharingan and transplant it in Kakashi’s eye. As a late gift for making Jounin.” Obito smiled weakly.

Rin and Kakashi were forced to leave Obito behind while the cave was crumbling around them. The last thing Obito saw before darkness took over was the tears in Kakashi’s eyes and the hopeless look of failure on Rin’s face. This can’t be the end. Shutting his eyes and surrendering to the void Obito’s final thought was ‘I didn’t do it! I didn’t get to tell you I’ll love you always and forever.’

#naruto #server collab #obito uchiha #canon mostly

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nonbinarysasukes · 5 years ago

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clan values

Summary: Sasuke has always respected his clan’s traditions. Listening to your older brother is one of them. Canon compliant. Rating: T. Lots of blood, death. Gen-fic. Category: Angst. So much angst. Characters: Sasuke, Itachi --

Listen to your brother.

This is the cardinal rule that you grow up with. Your brother is older and you are taught to respect your elders, so you respect him, too. He is powerful, wise and always, always right, solely because he is your brother and you must listen to him. It’s not that hard, either; he loves you, so you know he knows what’s good for you, even when he asks you to eat your vegetables. (You grumble, but you do it anyway because he is your older brother and you must listen.)

He comes home from a mission one day, and his face is all covered in blood. You tug at his shirt, whining, “What happened?”

“Don’t ask, Sasuke,” says your mother from the kitchen. You ignore her, too consumed by curiosity—not worry, because you know your brother is too good for that to be his own blood.

“What happened?” you ask again, grabbing his hand—also slick with crimson—and yanking downwards. “Nii-san!”

“You heard Okaa-san, Sasuke,” he says, and he sounds tired. “Please don’t ask.”

You shut up immediately. If he tells you not to ask, you won’t because you are a good boy and you listen to your older brother like good boys do. You watch with curious eyes as he goes and cleans himself up, but you say no more as Mother calls you for dinner. You eat silently, not knowing what else to talk about—Mother casts you a strange look, but you don’t meet her eye, choosing to focus on your rice and curry.

“What was that about, Sasuke?” Mother asks later when she is tucking you into bed. You look up at her in confusion, and she elaborates, “You were so silent at dinner.”

It’s more than obvious to you why you did it—you don’t understand why she’s asking, but you explain anyway.

“Nii-san told me not to ask. Good boys listen to their brothers, so I listened to him,” you say plainly. Your mother looks surprised for a second, but then her face shifts into a soft smile and she laughs, bright and airy.

“Of course. You’re a good boy, Sasuke.” she says, ruffling your hair and placing a kiss on your forehead. You bask in the affection, lingering just a second longer than a boy of your age should; when she leaves, your eyes flutter shut and you drift off in an instant, floating on Somnus’ boat down the river to the land of dreams.

⁠--

“Sasuke, don’t listen to your brother.” Your father’s voice is thin and strained as he hovers above you, almost invisible in the darkness of your bedroom. “Don’t listen to your brother, you hear me?”

“Yes, Otou-san,” you whisper; half-asleep, you don’t understand what he’s saying or why he’s saying it. Why wouldn’t you listen to nii-san? Isn’t that what good children do, and doesn’t your father want you to be a good boy?

You get it just as your eyelids slide shut. Of course. I must be dreaming. There’s no way Otou-san would ever say that to me.

When you wake up, the memory is gone like a leaf in the currents of the Naka Stream.

Your father tells you again (warns you again) a few weeks later when you master the Grand Fireball.

“Don’t be like Itachi,” he says softly. You tilt your head, confused, and start to ask why when he shakes his head.

“Just don’t.”

He walks off, and you stare at his retreating back, thinking, I’ll never be like Nii-san… I’ll never be as good or as kind as Nii-san… so why is Otou-san telling me this?

You run home, your feet slapping harshly against the pavement in your worry. You hate getting yelled at by your mother—oh, you shouldn’t have stayed late for training, but you couldn’t help wanting to throw just one more kunai, wanting to win one more fight.

That’s when your eyes fall upon the bodies.

There’s blood everywhere. It paints the walls of the Uchiha district, trickling down the fan symbols that decorate the roads. People are scattered across the place like rag dolls at such unnatural angles that no living being could possess.

It’s a massacre. I have to warn Okaa-san!

You start to run, almost flying along the streets. You take the familiar turns without even thinking, racing down the road to the main house and barely registering the dead bodies littered around the district like day-old garbage.

You skid to a halt in front of the screen door, your eyes widening as you spot the liquid flowing thickly down the bamboo slats. It can’t be… your breath catches in your chest as you slowly push it open.

Two familiar figures lie dead on the floor, and over them looms another one who you would recognise anywhere. But for the life of you, you don’t know him now.

Your brother stands tall and dark like every figure from your nightmares, his hands dripping with scarlet. You understand where that blood must have come from—Okaa-san, Otou-san—and you want to scream but you can’t because it’s all stuck in your throat—

It can’t be him. It can’t be him. He can’t have done it, he just can’t.

“Nii-san,” you plead softly, tears starting to roll down your cheeks. “What happened?”

He doesn’t answer, merely lifting his head, and his black eyes connect with yours—there’s not a hint of soul in them. He moves like lightning to pin you to the wall, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your neck. You gargle against his deathly touch that paints your skin crimson, but you go still as soon as he opens his mouth because you listen to your brother when he says something.

“Look into my eyes, Sasuke,” he whispers. You snap your gaze up to meet his immediately, a dozen questions in your head, Who did this? Why? How?, but they’re all swept away by the captivating red irises that have replaced his regular black. They aren’t normal Sharingan, you know; these have an inky shape in the middle, formed like a three-pointed shuriken, and as you look up into them you fall into a different world.

Nii-san putting a sword to Izumi-nee’s throat. Nii-san slicing off a baby’s head. Nii-san stabbing straight through the hearts of Shopkeeper Iwase and his wife, and brutally massacring hundreds of others.

Nii-san thrusting his blade into Otou-san. Nii-san barely blinking before shoving the sword into Okaa-san’s stomach.

Nii-san… murdering the clan!

Your eyes open of their own will; he looks shocked, but covers it up quickly. However, you’re too wildly stunned to register it—almost in tears again, you gurgle through his tight grip, “Nii-san! You—why would you—”

“I wanted power,” is all he says, letting you down. You gasp, massaging your throat as you fall to the ground—he casts you a cool glance before flying out the door.

You don’t think for a second before rage, pure like diamonds, shoots through you. You grab some dropped kunai and start to chase, intent on catching your brother and delivering justice. You see him fleeing, and toss your knives; he deflects them as easily as one would push away a baby’s hand, and laughs. The sound cuts through your skin as if it was the same blade that killed your parents.

“Why?!” you scream. “Why would you do this?!”

“I told you…” he says in a bored voice. “Power. I wanted to test my strength…”

You can’t hold back the wetness in your eyes this time. It starts flowing down your face like a river, and you whisper through it, “I’ll kill you.”

“You have the potential to,” he says carelessly. “Dedicate your life to revenge. Train and practice and pour your soul into killing me—awaken this Mangekyō Sharingan like me. Kill your best friend like I did to get this power.”

“Shisui-nii,” you breathe, unable to believe it. “That was you?”

He smirks. “Of course. Kill your closest friend like I killed mine… and then you might just be able to kill me.”

“As if I’ll listen to a traitor like you,” you hiss. He clicks his tongue, shaking his head mockingly.

“I thought you always listened to your brother.”

And then he disappears into the night like a shadow, leaving you to fall to your knees and scream because…

He’s right. I have to listen to my brother…

I’ll get strong enough to kill you, Nii-san… because I always listen to my brother.

Years later, when you’re forced to explain the bare bones of your clan’s massacre to Naruto, he asks you the stupidest question you’ve ever heard.

“The dude that killed your clan told you to come after him and dedicate yourself to revenge?” he says, tilting his head in confusion. “Sounds ridiculous. Why the hell would you do that?”

You laugh, bitter and biting.

“You idiot,” you say, almost fondly. “Don’t you know? In clans like mine, you have to respect your elders. And you have to listen to your elder sibling. That's how it is, and you won’t change my mind on it.”

Naruto shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “Ridiculous,” he says to himself. Your lips nearly twitch up into a smile—

Oh. you realise. He…

He’s my closest friend, isn’t he?

You shut your eyes and imagine it for a second. Putting your hand into Naruto’s chest, ripping out his heart—even the thought feels like you’re ripping out your own. But you have to. You have to, because your brother told you to…

And good boys always listen to their brothers, don’t they?

Sorry not sorry. Happy birthday Sasu-bae~

#sasuke #itachi #ceru writes #happy birthday bby #blood tw #death tw #angst #this hurt me and let it hurt you all too <3 #nrt

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fiercyy · 5 years ago

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Chapters: 14/? Fandom: Naruto Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Team 7 - Relationship, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi/Maito Gai | Might Guy Characters: Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi, Tsunade (Naruto), Orochimaru (Naruto) Additional Tags: AU, Post-Chuunin Exams, post chuunin exams attack, Minor Character Death, Trauma, Team 7 Family bonding, Genin Era, Everybody moves in with Sasuke, he's got room, semi-au, Plot Twists, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Roommates, Friends to Enemies, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto) Feels, BAMF Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto), Team as Family, Slow Burn, Post-Naruto Time Skip | Naruto Shippuden, Mutual Pining Series: Part 1 of Post-Chuunin Exam AU Summary:

Sakura always wished she could relate to her teammates better. She wishes she could take it back.

In which Sasuke acquires some unwanted roommates and a team becomes a family.

(Now at Shippuden Era)

a/n: Anyway, everyone’s bi now.

Chapter 14:

I am compromised.

Safe for now.

Don't think O knows.

Kakashi glances from one scroll to the other. Naruto is back in the village and Sakura is… at least willing to be in the same room as him. Sasuke is in danger. In two years, his family has been flung far and wide, but it seems that now they're destined to be reunited.

He should recall Sasuke. He should report his intel to Tsunade. He should go find Sakura and let her yell at him some more. What would do the most good? Probably the intel, even if seeking out Sakura would feed his masochism streak.

Taking on ANBU missions again has eroded his sense of reality. ANBU allows him to drift, rudderless in a stream that carries him down. He is goalless, living in an eternal period of waiting. Waiting for someone else's mission to end. Waiting for someone to come back. Waiting for someone to forgive him. He has no thought for a life put on pause. He'll continue to hold his breath until it's all over, but it probably won't ever be. So here he'll stay, shallow breath and panicked heart, prematurely gray and sick with grief.

When will it be enough? When will kids stop having to give up their lives in senseless, ceaseless war?

He thought that time was over. He thought that his generation would be the last. But then again, he supposes all generations fight to be the last. Everyone fights for their children to live better, don't they?

Kakashi doesn't have any children, but he has Team 7. A tragedy as old as the world, yet still in the making.

It's over. He's calling it. He'll go to Tsunade, give her the intel and demand they bring Sasuke home. It just isn't worth the risk to keep him in the field. Sure Sakura and Naruto will be a little confused when he tells them the truth, but they'll be happy in the end, won't they?

He slips his shoes on and is about the poof across town, when he's enveloped in someone else's smoke.

"Welcome back, Rival!" Gai exclaims with his usual excess of enthusiasm. "Got a minute?" he winks. Because of course he does. The man has no shame.

He sighs very deeply. Gai is yet another thing that he long ago tried to put on pause, but the man is by no means cooperative. "If I must."

Gai grins. "I insist."

There are days when focus is difficult, anxiety's high and Sakura has to run away from her own spiralling thoughts.

She goes to the hospital first, but Hatsune turns her away. "It's your day off." she says, "you deserve a break!" she exclaims. "Leave or I'll tell Tsunade," she threatens.

Fair enough.

Without permission, her feet carry her to the bridge where Team 7 used to meet. It doesn't matter how many years have passed, she can't forget it. Whenever she's lost in thought and wandering, she always finds herself here.

She hoists herself up on the bannister and twists so she's straddling it. Then she lays back and stares at the perfect, blue sky. Below, the stream rushes by. In the distance, birds chirp. A gentle breeze stirs her hair—it tickles her nose. Sakura can breathe here. And think.

She wonders what her parents would think of her life. The only thing they'd ever asked her for was her share of the chores and good grades. They never told her what future they wanted for her. Sometimes she wishes for a roadmap; she's not lost, but there's too many directions to choose from.

Would they understand her, as she is now? Is she doing enough to make them proud? Would her parents tell her to work things out with her team?

Mebuki made them change grocers once because Urashi-san gave her incorrect change and refused to correct the mistake. She never spoke to him again. She could be petty like that. She demanded her due and accepted no less. Sakura tries to take that lesson from her. When she's put on missions with sexist jerks or an older doctor doesn't listen to her because of her age, she fights back.

So she thinks Mebuki would understand why she's mad.

She thinks about them all the time; what they would say. She wishes they could have met her team, wonders why they never did.

Nothing to be done about it now.

Gai is a good listener, but the best thing about him is that he's perfectly able to fill a silence all on his own.

Kakashi pours tea and Gai talks.

"-It was an innocent misunderstanding. Everything could have been avoided if Neji hadn't skipped the sharing circle."

In the choice between snorting and rolling his eyes, Kakashi does both. "Sharing circle, huh?"

"It prevents all manner of misunderstandings!"

All teams have lots of those to go around.

"It's always best to know peoples intentions," Kakashi concedes. "Wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea."

Gai's foot, which has mysteriously found a resting place against Kakashi's ankle, jerks back. "No," he clears his throat. "I'd much rather know where I stand."

He avoids looking at Gai's face, though he knows he'll find no disappointment there. He stands up anyway, taking the still warm teacups and placing them delicately in the sink.

"I have to go." Which is the truth. "I owe Lady Hokage a debriefing."

Gai's empty hands fist against the table as he pulls them back. He awkwardly knocks on the wood and laughs to himself. "Of course. I won't keep you."

The purpose of not speaking to Gai was, in its own way, self-flagellation. When Sasuke's life was put on pause. Kakashi's was as well. Most waking moments, when not on a task, have been absorbed by worrying about his wayward student's wellbeing. It wouldn't be right or fair to anyone…

So they leave the apartment together and part at the foot of the stairs. He feels Gai's eyes on his back until he turns the corner.

Tsunade reads the scroll Kakashi has handed to her and bites her thumbnail while she thinks.

"He has not asked for an extraction."

Kakashi's eyes narrow. "I'm asking for one anyway."

"He clearly does not feel that it is appropriate at this time."

"He's a child!" he shouts, which takes her aback.

Tsunade rolls up the scroll and carefully places it on the corner of her desk. He's too close to this, she knows she must be delicate. "He's a leaf nin, same as you. He knew the risks." And worst of all. "You're in constant contact. If he feels he's in danger, he will let you know. In the meantime, I'm sending you and your team to follow up on his intel on Orochimaru's base in the Land of Waves."

He shuts that idea down too. "They're not ready. We haven't functioned as a team in two years, we're unfamiliar with each other's skillsets and we're a man down. I need more time."

"Kakashi," Tsunade sighs, "Make up your mind. Do you want to extract our operative in Sound or do you want to keep the rest of your team in the village forever? Because these are conflicting points."

"Godaime-"

"Shut up," she lazily waves him off. "You're like a protective mama bear. My word on this matter, is final."

But of course he doesn't shut up. Why would anyone around here make her job easy?

"Let me take my team on a retrieval mission to the Kusagakure base. Under the guise of recapturing a missing nin. This way we preserve his cover, but provide an escape route if necessary." He takes a deep breath, "And we can confirm that Sasuke's intel is good."

This gives her pause. "Is there reason to believe it isn't?"

He shakes his head, but now that the doubt is in her head, the suspicion won't leave. "Only that they might be feeding him false information as a test."

Sasuke has successfully passed along dozens of tips over the past year, all of them have been good. There's no reason to suspect that will change, but she doesn't say it. She weights her peace of mind against Kakashi's proposition. What could it hurt?

Sakura, for one.

"Fine," she agrees. She's so tired of this. "But an additional team member will be selected to fill out your ranks."

"Fine," he replies in that false cheery tone that she hates so much. Now that he's gotten his way, he wants to be downright delightful. Well, if she can't relax no one else is allowed to pretend. "Will that be all ma'am?"

"What will you tell them?" Sakura and Naruto think the brat's a traitor. How's he going to stop them from accidentally killing him? Then again, she's not sure either of them have that in them. Sakura doesn't talk about it much, but they must have loved the kid. He loved them a lot anyway, enough to fight that hard for a goodbye.

"That they're finally getting what they want."

"This isn't where I wanted to be either," Sakura growls, arms stiffly crossed in front of her chest. "Waiting around for Kakashi again… I could kill him."

"Ne Sakura, maybe calm down a little, uhn? Sensei's consistent at least. Consistently inconsiderate of other people's time is what he is!" He starts out trying to defend him but midway through, his own annoyance pushes forward.

She punches his arm, but it doesn't bruise so he knows it's a friendly jab. She's so different. He notices more and more, but at least she'll never stop hitting him. That's kind of comforting, right?

One of the first lessons Kakashi taught Team 7 was to expect the unexpected. The unexpected arrives with paintbrush in hand, insults on his tongue and blank, blank eyes.

Kakashi's arrival is overshadowed by the intense shouting match already taking place on the bridge. This day is turning out no better than yesterday, that's for sure.

"Children," he greets from his crouched position on the bridge railing. Sakura decides she's standing too close and takes three long steps to the left. This puts her within kicking range of the squabble between Naruto and a stranger.

Naruto's big toe nicks her ear, which zaps her of any patience she possessed. Sakura shrieks and punches the ground. Earth rockets up around her, like a meteor falling to earth. Naruto and the stranger fly apart, rolling into the river with a splash and a tree with a thud. Both boys seem stunned. He doesn't blame them, he's only ever seen Sakura's destructive potential once in person. That little girl is scary.

The stranger looks familiar, now that he can get a better look at him. Could be he's seen him around. Maybe ANBU? Or maybe just on the street. Kakashi's got good recall, but he's struggling to place him. Which is strange, because he's very distinctive looking. Pale as a blank page and just as unreadable, inky black hair and eyes and fashion choices that would make even Gai incredulous. Seems like no one follows regulation these days; everyone wants to show their midriff.

"I don't understand why you are so upset, Uzumaki." He doesn't ask why; he just expresses confusion with an eerie smile.

"Don't talk about my penis!" Naruto shrieks and cups his hands protectively in front of the appendage, like the other boy's going to lunge for it.

"Alright, I didn't mean to offend you, Dickless. I can do that."

Naruto groans and covers his ears. "Don't you see how that's worse?! Don't call me that!"

"But everything I've read about team building indicates that nicknames and jokes facilitate trust between teammates."

Ah. I see.

"Children," Kakashi tries again and three sets of eyes fly to him as they remember his existence. "I see you've already become acquainted." To the stranger in the crop top: "You must be the fourth member of our team."

He uses the tree to push himself to his feet and bows slightly at the hips. The back of his head is matted in blood but he doesn't so much as flinch. "I am Sai."

"Him?!" Naruto demands, running up the riverbank. Kakashi wonders if Jiraiya has robbed him of all critical thinking skills with his indolence. Genius and dissolution so often go hand in hand when it comes to great artists.

"Shouldn't you have figured that out by now?"

"Hello to you too," Naruto grumbles and wrings out his jacket.

Kakashi smiles beneath his mask, "It's good to see you Naruto." He reaches out to ruffle his hair and it strikes him that he's so much taller than he was when he left. He reaches his chin. Sasuke is a little taller and when they hugged, his hair tickled his nose. This is a thing he knows now and they do not.

The boy beams up at him and Kakashi feels a little less like a failure.

"If we're all going to be on this team, we need to learn to work together," Kakashi proclaims, "And what better way than a test?"

He produces two bells from the breast pocket of his jounin vest, makes eye contact with Sakura and smiles so big his eyes crinkle at the corners.

Turns out, Kakashi has not in fact seen the extent of Sakura's potential. And Team Kakashi is mission ready.

Gai's mind is still on his not-talk with Kakashi when he reports for duty alongside his team. He's unhappy and Gai understands this. If something bad were to happen to Lee or Tenten stopped speaking to him or Neji betrayed them all, he would be a wreck. He cannot blame Kakashi for his pain, but wishes that he would share it. A burden is lighter, carried by two. He supposes this liminal space is better than a definitive 'no'. They've spent so many years as rivals. When the possibility of more came into view, it was a wonderful surprise. Maybe is better.

"Sunagakure's emissary, Temari of the Sand requires an escort to return to her village," Lady Tsunade doesn't have a scroll to hand him. It's a simple mission, requiring no further details than the prescribed task. "You may remain a day before returning. When would you like to leave?" This, she directs at Temari.

The girl shrugs, "Now's good."

It's been a while since Gai has travelled to Suna. He likes the food, it's spicy enough that it helps with the heat. This will be fun!

"Maintain cover, expect us."

Generally, Sasuke and Kakashi communicate by written letters because it is the quickest and most accurate way to communicate information. It ensures that Pakkun does not remain in enemy territory overlong and his chakra isn't likely to be sensed. When he delivers messages by word of mouth is means that Kakashi was in a rush or he expected follow up questions.

Pakkun's face is always grim, but he has an air of resignation as he tells him that two years of work are crumbling.

"He's overruling me?"

Pakkun hesitates. "More like checking up on you. It's up to you how you receive them."

Sasuke understands, "So I have not been ordered to return."

"They're coming under the guise of a retrieval mission. You can use this as an opportunity to stage a capture or earn more trust by fighting back. In the meantime, try and find out who's discovered you."

Wait. Does this mean-? "A retrieval mission. So it's Team 7 coming."

He and Kakashi discussed them when they met covertly. Naruto hasn't been in the village for a while, but he was due back soon. And Sakura's doing well, according to their teacher. She's a chunin now.

"Yes."

Team 7 on a mission without him. To come get him.

"…Do the others know?"

Pakkun is not a very demonstrative dog. But he puts a paw on Sasuke's knee as he tells him, "No."

a/n: You may notice that I'm doing this thing where I skip over scenes from canon. This is because I don't want to rewrite scenes from canon, that's no fun to write or read. Instead, I'm letting you infer stuff, if it's confusing at any part, please let me know!

I've also moved around the Akatsuki stuff. It never made sense to me that they basically delayed their plans for 3 years for no reason? So I'm choosing to stretch out the Akatsuki arc so we can deal with Orochimaru properly first. This means that YES, we are headed to Suna for the Gaara/Akatsuki plotline, but other Akatsuki things are getting pushed back.

RE: KakaGai. Why? Dunno. My hand slipped and I love it./p

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thank you so much for sticking with me through this very weird journey. I love knowing what y'all think, don't be shy!

#sasusaku #naruto #team 7 #fanfiction #kakagai #if you can't hold on #iyc #my fic

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thanksjro · 5 years ago

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More Than Meets the Eye #12- Gay Rights: the Movie

Finally finished with our franchise obligations! Let’s get back to the main story.

Those are some ominous ellipses. Almost like something bad is going to happen!

Let’s take a look at Cover A for this issue.

When this was released to the general public, alongside the synopsis that stated the Lost Lighters were going to run into a group of Decepticons, a lot of people thought we’d be seeing them meet the Scavengers. This isn’t the case, and that’s not Fulcrum. It’s some other K-Con, one that has purple in his color scheme.

Our story opens up with a narrative framing device:

Welcome to “Before & After”, one of the more ambitious issues of MTMTE in terms of storytelling. Roberts really likes bouncing between scenes and POVs, and he’s really indulging that here.

Rodimus and crew have loaded up on one of the Lost Light’s scouting ships to check in on a planet called Temptoria. Whirl’s leading all the guys in the front in a war cry that wouldn’t be out of place in Hollywood’s version of the Vietnam war, while Brawn demonstrates how to not properly handle a gun. Rodimus tries to explain what exactly they’ll be doing, but no one’s listening, feeding off of the chaotic energy. The back seat isn’t quite as rowdy.

Oh, Ambulon’s here? That’s got to be awkward. And Perceptor’s looking mighty cross about having to pick up a gun again. Isn’t he supposed to be retired from being a science sniper?

Rodimus finally gets everyone to settle down long enough to explain the situation, though not without a little jargon mixup.

Basically, Ultra Magnus went down to Temptoria while the “Shadowplay” story was being told, and found out that the organic populace had been enslaved by a group of Decepticons, and, more importantly, the sovereign agreement that the planet had with Cybertron’s been violated. Also, these guys might have been the one’s who kidnapped the Circle of Light. You remember those guys, right? The guys who were supposed to be in the 2012 Annual, but they weren’t, and Drift got really mad about it.

Rodimus wraps up the briefing with a “’Til all are one!” And we cut over to see what Swerve and Tailgate are up to. Tailgate seems to be a little nervous, not the type to enjoy waiting, but Swerve seems to be doing just fine. Why is that, exactly?

Even if Rung’s still a steamed side dish of a vegetable, he’s still here, in a way. And good on Swerve for not assuming Tailgate can visualize in the same way he can. Aphantasia is more common than one might think.

Escapism is an interesting way of dealing with your problems, but I don’t know enough about wartime psychiatry to know if this is something that would actually be considered a viable solution or not.

Oh, now that I’ve said it, I’ve got the research itch.

Later, later.

Anyway, Tailgate gives it a spin, and his happy place is surprisingly domestic for such a seasoned professional.

Pipes, it’s a clear glass, it’s not hiding anything from you.

Speaking of Pipes, he’s seated next to Hound, as they discuss what happened to Red Alert. Or, rather, the cover story that’s been fed to the rest of the crew by Rodimus, which is that the engine room pretty much attacked him. This is how ghost stories get started.

Trailcutter’s gotten some guns installed in his legs, because he’s a hypocrite.

Over with Chromedome and Rewind, there’s trouble in paradise, as they’re having a lovers’ spat. Chromedome’s giving Rewind the silent treatment, and Rewind’s having none of it. What exactly are they fighting about? We don’t get to know about that yet, but it’s digging up other issues, like Chromedome going back on his promise to stop injecting. The only thing keeping this from becoming a total meltdown is Whirl can-canning through the door to kidnap Rewind, so he can film Whirl getting in the zone before the fight. Whirl’s having a great time. This is probably the first time they’ve gotten to fight something since the Lost Light took off, and he’s all about it.

Rewind’s dragged away, and Chromedome just lets it happen, because he’s feeling cross. It’s good to take a moment to cool off, but I’m not quite sure this was the best time or way for it to happen.

Meanwhile, on the Temptorian surface, Blip the Decepticon, who is likely the dirtiest son of a gun we’ve run into so far, is asked to take a look at the monitor by a guy who sounds exactly like Megatron. It doesn’t particularly matter which Megatron, because comics are not an audio-based medium, so you can pick whichever one you like best. What’s on the monitor does not please Blip in the slightest.

I feel like maybe having guys who don’t turn into flying machines jump out of the bottom of the shuttlecraft isn’t the greatest tactical thinking, but I’m sure everything will be okay. Brawn’s got a gun, maybe he’ll figure out how to rocket-jump before he hits terminal velocity.

Then the narrative jumps to after the fight, as the ship flies away from the scene, and Chromedome isn’t happy. It’s for a different reason than earlier, though.

Man, Pipes just can’t win, can he?

Ambulon remembers that he is, in fact, a medical professional, and starts working on Rewind, while Chromedome tries to ask Swerve just what the hell happened. Swerve’s having his own issues, however.

I’d nearly forgotten they had skeletons.

On the production side of this issue, we’ve got two artists: there’s our usual guy, Alex Milne on the “Before” sections, and Brandon Cahill on the “After”. Cahill’s other Transformers work includes The Transformers (2009) and the sister series to MTMTE, Robots in Disguise. Outside of the franchise, he’s worked on several Marvel pieces, including writing Sable & Fortune and Legion of Monsters. Unlike a lot of the alternate artists we’ve seen for the series, Cahill won’t be a one-and-done; we’ll see his art again in Dark Cybertron, Season 2 of MTMTE, and even Lost Light.

Getting back to the story, we’ve jumped back to the point in the battle where everyone’s hit the ground and are just wailing on each other. Tailgate and Swerve watch the chaos unfold, as Ultra Magnus more or less takes on a platoon of Decepticons.

Drift’s having a great time, as he Naruto runs through the enemy, slashing as he goes with a big ol’ smile on his face. He stabs a guy in the back of the head who was trying to grapple with Rodimus, thus interrupting the little dialogue they had going on. Rodimus is vaguely upset that his moment was cut short.

In the “After”, the shuttle’s landed back on the Lost Light, and Chromedome rushes out with Rewind in his arms to find First Aid with a motorized stretcher. He was hoping for Ratchet- he wants only the best for his shnookums. As they run Rewind down to the medibay, Chromedome starts listing off his allergies- which include ultraviolet light, something we know reveals mnemosurgery scars. This is a holdover from a dropped plot point I’ll cover at a later time; as it stands in the canon narrative, Rewind’s just got an allergy to the friggin’ sun.

Back at the shuttle, Tailgate starts dragging Cyclonus down the gangplank. Oh, hell. You know it’s a bad situation when the guy who literally couldn’t die for six million years is out of commission.

Spoke and Lockstock are a bit of a gag- they always manage to get their asses kicked, but everyone on the ship really likes them. They will never be seen on-panel, and have no character designs.

Over in the medibay, history is being made.

Esteemed members of the jury, I present to you: canon gay robots. The first in a long line of them. This is the starting point of the queer community being handed the Transformers franchise on a silver platter.

Up to this point, Roberts hadn’t gotten any further than implied attraction and affection between robots, in either his fanworks or professional credits. Pretty heavy-handed implication in some cases-

-but implication nonetheless. Here is the first, honest-to-god direct confirmation of two male-coded robots in love.

In love and space-married and recognized by the authority in power, in a comic written in 2012, as a part of a major franchise owned by a massive American company, three years before same-sex marriage would be legalized on a federal level.

As part of the story, it’s great. Within the context of the time during which it was published, it’s a whole other level. This wasn’t just good writing, it was important.

Let me part the kimono a little here, with some personal backstory- I grew up in Buttfuck Nowhere, NC, and went to a high school that was so homogeneous, they were threatening to bus students in after I graduated. I didn’t know what a gay person even was until I was 12. “Lesbian” was used as an insult, and it was one I was subjected to because I had cut my hair short in middle school and wore cargo shorts on occasion. It was something I really pushed against, because that’s how a lot of people react to being forcibly given a label.

Not the best environment for a little queer kid, clearly.

It wasn’t until well after I’d gone to college that I really started understanding who I was. Hell, I’m still figuring some things out, but at least I’m getting somewhere.

I remember reading this for the first time in 2015- yes, I got into the comics sort of late- and then having to reread it. I needed a moment just to process what had happened. As a person who had only recently come to terms with their sexuality at the time, it was kind of mind-blowing to have that sort of representation, especially since I was also watching Transformers Prime at around the same time. Talk about the duality of man, am I right?

These days, there’s a lot more representation in many different forms of media. Things are getting better. Which, y’know, yay! I’m glad. I just can’t help but wonder if things would have been a little different if this sort of representation had been available earlier on.

Anyway, so yes, Chromedome’s got a difficult choice to make for Rewind- either let his body try to sort itself out, or let First Aid break out the clamps and try to jumpstart him. Rewind’s got a relatively rare spark type, but luckily Chromedome’s the same type. Looks like everything’s coming up roses for our boys!

Tailgate and Cyclonus aren’t getting nearly as good a break.

My god, he’s filled with grape soda!

Back in the “Before”, things are getting a little silly.

Chromedome, what POSSIBLE tactical advantage could you be gaining from riding the giant, fire-breathing robot dinosaur? This is why they threw you in Kimia, isn’t it? Because you’re a dumbass.

While this bullshit is happening, Rewind and Tailgate are stacked on top of each other to look through a window, because I guess that’s just how things turn out when the resident couple on the ship is upset with one another. Rewind’s found something, but it isn’t the Circle of Light. Rather, it seems the Decepticons are dabbling in Pink Alchemy- a rather inefficient process that allows organic creatures to be turned into energon for consumption.

The good guy thing to do would be to save all the organics, but there’s a bit of a problem- the door is wired to a massive bomb. Good thing Tailgate was in Bomb Disposal, and is just generally an impressive and well-established dude. He gets to work.

Getting back to a point I made during Chaos Theory, Whirl can’t make a fist. Punching himself in the face is probably more akin to slashing it.

Tailgate’s got a weird approach to bombs, taking the time to teach Rewind how to do it, by way of student-led learning. They decide to poke a hole in the bottom of the bomb to drain all the explosive fluid out, which Tailgate does with little robot tears streaming down his face. Fear is a great motivator.

Oof, not a “Domey” in sight. That’s how you know things are rough.

Outside of this little scene, Whirl and Cyclonus are handling Decepticons. Whirl’s got a hold on that guy who’s voiced by Frank Welker, and we get a nice shot of his sad cat face before Whirl turns his head into a memory.

Swerve- who is also here- asks Whirl to loan him a gun.

GODDAMMIT SWERVE.

Not a single one of you bastards know proper gun safety! Between all the severe depression and reckless weapon-handling, I genuinely have no idea how the hell are any of you are still alive.

In the “After”, Chromedome’s just finished jumpstarting Rewind, and it’ll take a bit to see if it worked, so he’s left alone with his thoughts.

Just kidding, Tailgate’s come over to check in. Seems like Cyclonus is gonna pull through, something Chromedome’s not terribly thrilled about. Chromedome’s still miffed about the whole Kimia thing.

We finally learn why Chromedome and Rewind were fighting; it was because Rewind, as a walking historical database, has been deemed too important to die, and can opt out of any fight he choose to, but he doesn’t, thereby putting himself in harm’s way unnecessarily. Maybe he just worries about you when you go out there on the battlefield alone, Chromedome, you ever think of that? Maybe he doesn’t want to wonder when his husband will return home from the war.

Tailgate asks about all the little vials that are scattered around Rewind’s hospital bed, and we get a little Cybertronian tradition thrown at us.

The vials are filled with innermost energon, the stuff that surrounds the spark casing and never changes, no matter how much you modify or upgrade your body. Leaving a little of the stuff for someone in an offering signifies that you care very much for that person. Chromedome can’t give Rewind any, because he was “born dry”, but I think being space-married to the guy more than makes up for it.

Tailgate asks how the two of them met, and unlike in issue #6, Chromedome is feeling vulnerable enough to indulge the question this time.

But first we need to establish that Chromedome is insanely insecure.

So, Rewind is fucking old. He’s older than the Cybertronian civil war, he’s older than the calendar system, and he’s old enough to have been affected by Functionist society’s categorization system. Due to being a memory stick- something that there were millions of back in the day- Ratioism dictated that Rewind as an individual was worth very little, and made him and his like into slaves. Because he was a slave, he needed a master, and that master was none other than Dominus Ambus, also known as Cybertron’s Mech of the Year for 40,000 consecutive years.

Even on Cybertron, there’s a weird stigma about breastfeeding.

Rewind and Dominus quickly became friends, because that’s just the sort of guy Rewind is, and it made Dominus realize that maybe these slaves Cybertron had been working to death were sentient creatures worthy of respect too. He even developed a test to prove that all the slave classes were on the same level of functionality as everyone else.

On their quest to find a cure for the horrible disease Cybercrosis, Rewind and Dominus fucked off into space, on a wild goose chase to try and find Luna 1, the Cybertronian moon that just disappeared one day. Weird, that. They didn’t find it, and by the time they’d come back home, the war was well underway. They immediately became Autobots, and that was it for a while.

Then we move on to how Chromedome and Rewind met, and boy is it a doozy.

Chromedome had decided he wanted to kill himself, so he moseyed on over to the nearest relinquishment clinic- they did assisted suicides instead of body-swaps at this point- to do the deed. He was sitting in the waiting room, when he heard someone screaming. He wandered into the back to find Rewind weeping over a coffin, and he thought to himself “Maybe I don’t need to die after all” as he offered his future conjunx a shoulder to cry on.

What a fucking dark start to a relationship.

Rewind wasn’t upset about anyone who was dead though, but rather missing- Dominus had disappeared into thin air months ago, and Rewind was getting desperate to find him, looking in more and more awful places in the hope of recovering what he’d lost.

As it turns out, he’s still doing that. The reason the two of them are on the Lost Light is because Rewind needs to find Dominus- alive or dead, it doesn’t seem to particularly matter at this point. That’s why he buys snuff films in dark alleys.

See, Tailgate gets it.

Guys, bad news.

Chromedome’s spark is too weak to jumpstart Rewind. Unless they find another compatible donor, Rewind’s gonna be in big trouble. There’s nothing to do but wait.

Later, in their room, Chromedome is sitting on the floor and very much not following doctor’s orders to get some sleep. Someone on the opposite side of the door he’s leaning up against starts talking to him. Chromedome doesn’t seem to want to hear any of it, until he does.

Given who the basement dweller is, this probably won’t turn out so hot.

Chromedome gets a call from the medibay, and fortunately the universe has decided to play nice this go around, because someone came forward as a match.

But it’s not like Whirl cares about anyone, right? Not in the slightest, nuh-uh, not him!

While Chromedome gives Whirl what is probably an uncomfortably long hug, and they both most likely ignore the fact that Chromedome would be actively suicidal without Rewind, Tailgate’s off in the corner, having taken his hand off and begun pouring cartoon toxic waste into a vial. It’s actually his innermost energon. Boy’s making an offering, but it isn’t to Rewind.

It’s to this ungrateful fuck.

Cyclonus stalks away from Tailgate’s kindness, until he’s stopped by witnessing the power of love.

Everyone likes Rewind, and these displays of affection seems to have reminded Cyclonus that he’s horrifically lonely. Feeling some remorse over his actions- not that he’ll ever admit it out loud- he goes back to help Tailgate pick up the pieces of the vial he broke.

Wrapping up our story, we go back to the “Before”, right before the bomb is set to go off. Whirl and Cyclonus have more or less taken care of the Decepticons, Whirl suggests they set aside their differences and agree to stop trying to murder each other, in a surprising show of reason and, perhaps, self-preservation. Cyclonus doesn’t seem to agree with the idea.

I genuinely think that’s the most he’s said all series up to this point.

Rewind calls the two idiots over for help, because Tailgate’s about to pull a self-sacrifice to get this bomb emptied, and he just isn’t listening to reason. Cyclonus assists.

Once Tailgate’s been fastball-specialed out of the room, Whirl decides to get back to being a bastard, and locks Cyclonus and Rewind in with the bomb with 10 seconds left on the clock. Ah, so the donation was out of guilt, I see. Still a form of caring, in its own way.

With no way to escape, all Cyclonus can do is attempt to shield Rewind with his body as the bomb goes off.

That’s the end of the issue but it’s the middle of the story, and despite what Cyclonus says, dynamics are changing. Slowly, but surely, things are shifting. He’s headed for a lot of character development, and he’ll be kicking and screaming the whole way.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #issue 12 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #overthinking about robots #incoming analysis #comic script writing

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isolavirtuosa · 4 years ago

Text

U-Turn

[fanfiction] NaruSasu

Started out as a short story exploring Reason #837 why Naruto and Sasuke didn’t get together in canon, Naruto is STRAIGHT!, but then it became this.

U-Turn

Isola Virtuosa

- 10 -

I didn’t even know that they had reached a verdict in Sasuke’s trial when I opened my door to find him standing there.

“But… how…?” I trailed off, staring at what must have been a mirage.

“They released me,” he said with a shrug.

I felt my mouth fall open, but no words came out.

“Can I come in?” he asked irritably.

“I, uh, yeah, of course, of course,” I said, standing aside.

He pushed past me, kicking off his shoes and making a beeline for the living room. He closed the curtains with a harsh tug, his eyes stuck in a seemingly permanent squint. I had fought with Kakashi for hours over how keeping him blindfolded wasn’t right, because something about light deprivation that Sakura had painstakingly explained to me but I just couldn’t remember.

No one listened to me about anything.

I’d also been removed from the proceedings for being too ‘emotional’ and ‘disruptive’.

And now it was all over, and Sasuke was here.

He sat on the couch, an arm tossed over his eyes like it was still too bright for him here in the dark.

I felt myself drawn to him. I moved slowly, letting him feel me coming before I leaned over the back of the couch and wrapped both arms around him, stub and all.

He breathed out heavily.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said quietly, leaning in closer and pressing my cheek to his.

He swallowed. “I…” he started to say, and stopped, his arm dropping from his eyes as he leaned back into me.

I couldn’t help but grin, squeezing him tightly.

Sasuke’s eyes met mine and his cheeks flushed. “Enough,” he muttered.

I bumped my forehead to his, then backed away. “Do you need anything? Are you hungry? Oh, you know what, we should have a party! We could get everyone together and-”

“No.”

“Whaaaat?” I protested, climbing over the back of the couch and sitting next to him. “But you’ve been in prison for like months, and you’re finally free and you can do all the things that you missed out on!”

“I didn’t miss out on anything,” he said flatly.

“But everyone-”

“My head hurts and I just want to be here with you, okay?”

“I, uh, yeah, I mean… yeah, okay,” I said, not sure how to take that, but overall feeling happy. I just felt right when Sasuke was next to me.

We were both quiet, but it didn’t feel strained. Since the Valley of the End, our relationship had gotten easy. Late night talks in the hospital faded into daily visits to his holding cell. We’d probably spent more quality time together in the last year than we had in total the rest of our lives.

“You can finish that book,” he finally said, eyes closed and his head leaned back.

“Ah-HA, so you do like it,” I said, grinning. I had been reading Sasuke an assortment of books during his blind imprisonment, and the latest had been what I had assumed to be a cheesy teen romance recommended by Sakura, but had ended up being a really interesting mystery that also happened to have a surprisingly engaging romantic plot.

“It’s fine,” he said with a shrug, because Sasuke could never say anything nice about anything or anyone.

I bounded off to my room to pull the book from my ‘prison visit bag’ that I suddenly realized I wouldn’t need anymore. I grinned, coming back to flop on the couch and cracking the book open to start reading. I realized it was too dark to read, so I flipped on the table lamp.

Sasuke kept his eyes closed, but his posture seemed to relax the longer I read.

I found my eyes darting over the book to watch him, so close I could reach out and touch him if I wanted. Sasuke was really here, and I could feel myself smiling stupidly.

I tried to focus on reading, but I was starting to spend more time staring, and Sasuke finally caught on, eyes drifting open to meet mine.

Those eyes were mesmerizing.

“You stopped reading,” he observed drily.

“Nuh-uh,” I said.

His lips quirked into a crooked smile. “You definitely did.”

“You stopped reading!” I declared.

The smile evened out, soft and secretive. “Idiot. Pick up where you left off.”

“Who is the idiot here?” I grumbled. Then I startled as I felt a squeeze around my hand.

Sasuke’s eyes were closed again. “I like hearing your voice,” he said quietly, already reclaiming his hand like he hadn’t just reached out.

I swallowed. It was one thing to have the new-and-improved, vulnerable and now-fifty-percent-more-honest Sasuke in front of me but out of my reach due to a set of iron bars. It was quite another to have him sitting on my couch. I wanted to move heaven and earth for him, but I settled for reading him some fiction instead.

We finished the book.

Sasuke slowly unsank from the couch, eyes blinking open. “Thanks,” he said, standing up and stretching. His nub of a left arm barely reached over his head.

“Anything for my felon best friend,” I said, standing up, too, since that seemed to be what we were doing. “Are you hungry? You sure you don’t want to see anyone else?”

“God, no,” he said, which I assumed was his reply to the second question. He did look a little thin, though. “I just don’t want to think for a while, okay?”

“How does one not think?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I just watch you and do whatever you’re doing.”

“Jerk,” I said, giving him a playful shove.

He definitely looked like he wanted to shove me back, but he somehow restrained himself. “Naruto.”

“Yes?” I said, standing at attention.

“I know you said I could stay if I got out…”

“When you got out,” I corrected him.

He half-smiled at that. When had he started doing that? I hoped Sakura didn’t see because she claimed to be over him and didn’t need to be having any relapses. “Yes, well, here we are.”

“Here we are indeed,” I agreed.

“You don’t have to feel obligated.”

“I don’t.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“Naruto.”

“Sasuke.”

He looked at me.

“I want you here,” I said. “I need you here,” I correct myself.

“Lame,” he muttered, but there was that crooked half-smile again.

“Stay as long as you need,” I said firmly.

And he did.

- 9 -

Sasuke was simultaneously an amazing and terrible house guest.

He was always picking up after me, which made my apartment really clean, but also resulted in me never knowing where anything was.

He also cooked for me, which was delicious and nutritious, but the lack of cup noodles was a little depressing.

He was always there for me to come home to, but I knew he was there because he had nowhere else to go, and I knew he wasn’t happy here.

It had been almost five months now, and when I came clomping through the door, Sasuke already had dinner on the table.

“Hi, honey, I’m home!” I chirped, snagging a piece of fried chicken from the table and munching on it as I moved towards my room to dump my bag.

“Wash your hands,” Sasuke grumbled after me.

I was starting to think that living with Sasuke was probably what having a mother would be like, if said mother low-key couldn’t stand me.

“I don’t hear running water!” he yelled when I had dallied too long.

“Yeah, and I’m touching everything I possibly can!” I yelled back. We did enjoy pissing each other off.

Sasuke was scowling at his rice bowl when I came back.

“All nice and clean,” I said, waggling my fingers at him. The fingers of the prosthetic were a little stiff as I did so, but Tsunade said the arm would start to feel more natural eventually.

“You’re a pig,” he muttered, picking up the bowl and starting to eat.

“Yep” I agreed, picking up my own bowl and shoveling in as much food as could fit in my mouth.

He sneered at me.

I grinned.

There was the smallest uptick at the corner of his mouth.

I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore, so I focused on eating instead.

“I’ve got a place,” he said suddenly.

I opened my mouth to protest, but it was stuffed with food.

“Disgusting,” he growled at me.

I informed him that he shouldn’t just spring stuff on me while I was eating, but I don’t think he understood a word of it.

Or he was just pretending not to understand.

I swallowed the last of the food in my mouth as loudly and dramatically as possible. “I told you that you can just stay here.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because we’re best friends!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, seeming to actually be getting annoyed now.

“Uhhh, because best friends being roommates is awesome?” I said.

That seemed to irritate him even more. “I’m not really interested in being your live-in butler.”

“You’re not-” I started to say, but that was actually pretty accurate.

“Realized the truth, then?”

“It’s not like I asked you to do all this stuff for me!” I protested.

“It’s just that you’re a lazy, pathetic slob, and I have no choice as long as I’m here if I want to maintain my personal dignity?”

“You’re an asshole,” I complained.

“Naruto, really, really think hard about who the asshole is in this situation.”

I thought about it really, really hard. “Shit, is it me?”

Sasuke swallowed down a smile.

His eyes wouldn’t meet mine, so I leaned into his vision.

The whole smile came out, lighting up his face.

“Why are you so good-looking?” I complained.

He quickly looked away again. “Jealous?” he muttered.

“Yes!” I exclaimed.

“Good,” he grumbled.

“Sasuke, don’t go.”

“I already put down my first month’s rent.”

“Why would you go and do that?!” I cried.

“You’re a big boy, Naruto,” he said, looking down his nose at me. “I’m sure you can live by yourself.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to,” I said. “I like living with you, even if you’re a nag.”

‘A nag?’ he mouthed at me.

“I mean, you’re super uptight and obsessive combustive or whatever, but you’re pretty alright sometimes,” I said, trying to sound casual.

“You’re ridiculous,” he informed me, going back to eating like the conversation was over.

And it was.

He moved out the next day.

“This is dumb,” I told him as I dumped the one and only box of things he had from my apartment on the floor of his new place.

“You’re dumb,” he answered easily.

“You don’t even have any pots and pans!” I said, gesturing around. “How are you going to eat?”

“You have literally one pot, Uzumaki,” he said, shaking his head.

“I have TWO!” I yelled.

“I don’t count the rusty one.”

“Why not?”

“How have you survived this long living on your own?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Very well, thank you!” I snapped.

“Naruto,” he said, shaking his head harder.

It always gave me a strange thrill when he said my name.

Somehow we ended up getting take out, sitting on the floor of Sasuke’s semi-furnished apartment and passing a bottle of cheap wine between us that Kakashi had given Sasuke as a housewarming gift.

It got late and the bottle got empty, so I made myself at home on Sasuke’s futon.

“Why are we still living together?” he complained, nudging me with his foot to get me to slide over onto the second futon that he set out. “I specifically moved out so we wouldn’t be living together anymore.”

“I like living with you,” I whined, kicking my feet around to show my protest.

“You’re a child,” Sasuke said, throwing a blanket over me and getting into his own futon.

“Sasukeeee,” I complained, creeping over to him and snuggling in close.

��Knock it off,” he muttered, turning his face from me.

“Jerk,” I said, closing my eyes and starting to drift. It was possible that I was mildly intoxicated.

“Naruto, move,” Sasuke said, startling me awake as he pushed me away.

“Neveeeeeer,” I complained, attaching myself onto him tightly.

His face whipped around to glare at me, and then our faces were just right there in front of each other, millimeters apart. Whatever he was going to snap at me died on his lips.

I snorted at that. If he could only see his face. He looked so uncool at that moment, and it was a memory I wanted to treasure forever. I leaned in closer, feeling the heated skin of his forehead against mine.

Sasuke’s breath caught and his eyes locked onto mine. There was something… hopeful… in his eyes.

I could feel myself going soft, reaching out my hand to rest against his cheek.

Then he pressed his lips to mine, warm and gentle.

It was just a brief touch and then it was over.

I shook my head at him, smiling.

It was like a signal, and suddenly his lips were back and it was much more than a simple touch, it was full of need and want and other nameless things, and what had I just done?

“Sasuke,” I said gently.

His mouth paused against mine.

“Sas’, I’m not gay,” I said, stroking his cheek with my thumb.

He stared at me.

I stared back evenly, trying to convey with my eyes that I was unbothered by this turn of events and still loved him like a brother.

He seemed to get the message, and he seemed to not like it very much, shoving me away and moving to make a run for it.

“Sasuke,” I repeated, grabbing his arm.

He turned back to look at me.

“It’s not a big deal,” I told him.

Something broke behind his eyes.

I realized that that had been the completely wrong thing to say.

He snatched his arm out of my grip and stormed out of the room.

“Sas’, come on,” I called, chasing after him. “This is your house, where are you going anyway?”

“Away from you!” he snapped, finally speaking for the first time.

“Okay, but… this is your house?” I tried again.

“Just fuck off, Naruto,” he said, and I could hear all the cracks in his voice.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I was definitely awake and sober now. What had I done? What had I done? Oh shit.

“Go,” he said, his voice getting smaller and smaller. “Please just go.”

“Sasuke,” I tried one more time.

He was standing in front of the kitchen sink, his back to me, unmoving.

“This doesn’t change anything…” I tried, wondering if I was cutting him with every word. “You’re my best friend. I don’t care if-”

“Go,” he growled, strength returning to his voice even as his shoulders seemed to be shaking.

“I’m going,” I said, backing my way towards the door. “I’m going, okay? I just want it to be clear that I don’t actually want to go and am only doing so because you asked me to.”

He didn’t say anything else.

There was nothing for me to do but leave.

- 8 -

“Naruto, no,” Sakura said, shaking her head. “No, no, no, you did not leave him like that.”

“What else was I supposed to do?!” I cried, knocking my heels anxiously against the counter that I was sitting on.

“Anything!” she cried exasperatedly. “Just don’t leave!”

“Well I did leave, and that’s where I’m at, so can you please give me some advice?”

Sakura sighed loudly and dropped herself onto one of her kitchen chairs. “Naruto.”

“Yes?”

“Are you sure you’re not gay?”

I looked at her. I hesitated.

Her expression perked up at that.

“I’m not gay,” I said quickly before she could get too excited. “I definitely like girls.”

“Okay, but you could be bi,” she pointed out.

“I don’t like guys,” I said with a shrug.

“Okay, but you like Sasuke.”

I let her words sit between us for a moment. “I can’t say clearly that I… I don’t know. As you love to point out, I talk about Sasuke all the time, I think about him all the time-”

“He’s basically your reason for existence.”

“…that’s fair.”

She smiled at that.

“Like, I get all that,” I said. “I get that our relationship isn’t normal. But there’s no… spark?”

“You two literally set each other on fire,” Sakura said, not buying it.

“It’s hard to explain,” I said, shaking my head. “But when he kissed me, it was warm and it was nice and all, but there was no spark. It wasn’t… I don’t know. If I was in love with him, wouldn’t I have felt something… more?”

“So what you’re saying, if I am getting this correctly, is that the warm, nice feelings that Sasuke gives you are nothing compared to the cheap sparks you feel with all your floozies?” Sakura asked, giving me an unfriendly look.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” I grumbled, glaring at her.

“Interesting how you started going on all these dates after Sasuke came to live with you,” she commented.

“Interesting how?”

She shrugged.

“After the trial was finally over, maybe that was the first time in my life that I had time to put myself first,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and daring her to find fault with me just living my life for once.

“I…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “We all want you to be happy, Naruto. But really? Those underclassman girls? Couldn’t you find someone… better?”

“What’s wrong with them?!” I cried.

“They don’t have any… substance,” Sakura said. “They just like you because you’re the hero of Konoha; they don’t know anything about you.”

“That’s why we go on dates to get to know each other,” I explained to her.

“There are plenty of girls our age who like you, too, you know.”

“Yeah, but…” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to explain it without Sakura hitting me.

Her look turned suspicious.

“I just… need something different,” I said with a shrug. “I need… a break? I guess? Sometimes it’s nice to be around people who didn’t go through what we went through?”

Sakura was suddenly up on her feet and moving towards me.

I flinched.

“I’m not going to hit you, jerk,” she complained, punching me in the arm anyway.

I cringed, rubbing at the spot she’d hit.

“You want to be normal,” she said, her voice gentler now. “I get that. I do. Everything that’s happened the last few years… And then it seemed like things were finally going to get better and all that stuff with Sasuke being arrested happened…”

We were both quiet at that. Sasuke’s arrest and confinement had been a sobering reminder that things were not right with the village. When I thought about how Sasuke had been mistreated, tortured even, and had just endured it so he could stay…

Everything always came back to Sasuke.

“You really aren’t gay?” Sakura asked, sounding almost hopeful.

“I’m not gay,” I affirmed.

“What are you going to do?”

“I came here to ask you that!” I cried.

“You’re the Sasuke-whisperer,” she said, shaking her head. “All I ever seem to do is make him annoyed.”

“The Sasuke-whisperer?” I repeated incredulously.

“He listens to you, even if he belittles you the whole while,” she said with a smile. Then her face went serious. “He loves you.”

That was a heavy word to throw into the conversation.

I dropped my head in my hands and yelled my frustration, kicking my feet anxiously against the cabinets.

Sakura rested her hand on my head, calming and soothing.

“His face…” I mumbled.

“What are you going on about?” Sakura asked.

I finally sat up properly and looked at her. “His face when I rejected him… I hurt him. I really, really hurt him, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“He does have his pride.”

“Ughhh don’t remind me.”

“Just be your usual jackass self, and I’m sure things will go back to normal eventually,” she said, patting me on the head.

“You think so?”

“Yeah,” she said, climbing onto the counter and sitting next to me.

I leaned my head against hers, kicking my feet absently.

“It really doesn’t bother you, though?” she asked quietly.

“What?”

“That he likes you.”

“…no…?”

“It can be stressful on a friendship,” she said carefully.

“Are you trying to say something about my childish crush on you?”

“More about my childish crush on Sasuke, but that, too,” she agreed. “You could be so annoying, and it was uncomfortable.”

“Sorry,” I said, tapping her knee lightly. “I know. But it’s not like Sasuke’s anything like me, yeah? I mean, I act more like I have a crush on him than he acts like he has a crush on me.”

“That’s for sure,” Sakura snorted. “You really do. But I see it in him, you know? He’s just different with you. I think you don’t always notice, because how he acts when you’re around and how he acts when you’re not are completely different.”

“What, does he suddenly become a nice and charming guy?” I asked with my own snort.

She shook her head. “He’s… softer when he’s with you. He smiles more. His shoulders relax. When you two fight, he gets this wrinkle between his brows, and he finally looks young, he finally looks like the teenager he’s supposed to be. But when you’re not around, he’s just dark and… hard to approach. He has this impenetrable armor up that only comes down around you.”

I squinted at her. “And you don’t still have a crush on him, right?”

“What do you care?” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Well you just seem to have put a lot of time and effort into your observations…”

“Don’t you keep like a diary about your Sasuke observations…?”

“That was for the trial!” I cried.

Sakura laughed.

I tried to laugh, but I felt tired and defeated. “Did I lead him on?”

“Yes,” she said flatly.

“Crap.”

“It’ll work out,” she assured me.

It didn’t work out.

- 7 -

It felt like we were twelve again.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Sasuke scoffed at me as he easily dodged my attack.

“It’s not even half of what I’ve got!” I roared as I chased after him.

He stopped mid-step, spinning around effortlessly and putting his sword to my neck.

I jerked myself back, leaning away from the glittering steel.

“Pathetic.”

“Is it?” I asked, my clone suddenly attacking from above.

“Absolutely,” he affirmed, taking his sword from my neck to slice through my clone.

It gave me the time to dive-bomb his legs.

Sasuke let out a grunt as we hit the ground, then took advantage of our momentum to flip me onto my back.

I got a foot free and kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying backwards.

Unfortunately, he had a grip on my leg, and I went flying with him.

We were a mess of fists and kicks and pain and blood, and I wasn’t quite sure when this training session had turned into a street brawl.

“What is wrong with you two?!” Sakura asked exasperatedly as she patched us up at the clinic.

“We were training,” Sasuke said, a sullen look on his face as he held a cold compress to his black eye.

“Is that what you call it?” she muttered, slathering the antibacterial ointment on my gaping sword wound with a little more roughness than seemed necessary.

“Owwww…” I whined.

She smacked me upside the head.

“You’re the worst doctor ever!” I cried.

“And you two are the worst patients!” she snapped back. “Why are you wasting my time with this juvenile nonsense?”

“We were training!” I protested.

“This is not normal training!” she yelled, smacking me again.

I stuck out my lower lip at her, rubbing my head.

“And don’t think I only blame this on the dumb blond!” Sakura said, turning her fury on Sasuke. “What were you thinking, using your sword on his prosthetic?! There could be permanent damage!”

Sasuke glared at her but didn’t speak.

“You’re being a child,” Sakura said, eyes locking with his.

Sasuke’s expression immediately transformed into rage, and I took a step back.

Sakura just raised an eyebrow. She had really grown in the last year and a half, and I was very impressed by it, which was the reason I was letting her stand between Sasuke and I now.

It wasn’t because I was hiding.

“Naruto, just go,” Sakura said irritably, gesturing me towards the door.

I glanced at Sasuke, but his gaze was still fixed on Sakura. “Are you-?” I started to ask.

“Go!” they both snapped at me.

So I left.

Things between Sasuke and I hadn’t been right since the night he moved out. Since he… you know. And now he was saying that as soon as his probation was over, he was going to leave the village.

It was all so stupid. I didn’t understand why things couldn’t go back to how they were before. Well, I mean like how they were after the war, not to how things were when we couldn’t be honest with each other and just fought all the time instead, which was basically the same as things were now.

“What happened to you?!”

I slid into the booth across from my girlfriend Moe, grinning sheepishly. “Training.”

“I’ve never had a training session like that,” she said with a laugh. She laughed a lot, smiled easily, and was in general a pleasant, happy person to be around.

‘Easy to be happy when there’s nothing between the ears,’ Sakura had been known to say.

I mostly ignored her snide little comments.

“Oh, the stupidest thing happened on our mission today,” she said, still smiling.

I felt myself smiling for some reason. All the heaviness I’d been feeling all day suddenly seemed to drop away. I leaned in closer, and listened intently to her story.

- 6 -

“I don’t agree to this,” I grumbled, slumping into Sasuke’s couch.

“Good thing it has nothing to do with you, then,” he replied, putting down a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table.

I reached for it, stuffing the popcorn into my face as angrily as I could. “It has everything to do with me!” I yelled with a full mouth.

“You are disgusting,” he informed me, giving me a light shove. “Move over.”

“There’s plenty of room,” I complained, gesturing to the open space next to me.

“Why do you always have to sit in the middle?” he asked irritably. He gave me another shove. “Sit next to the armrest like a normal person.”

“Oh, I’m a normal person now?” I asked, feigning surprise. “Because you keep telling me how weird and crazy I am for not wanting you to leave.”

“Because you are weird and crazy,” he said, sitting as close to the armrest as he could, which subsequently meant he was sitting as far away from me as possible.

“In what way am I either of those things?!” I demanded.

“You know what the village did to me,” he said, his voice low and dark.

I stopped at that. We were being serious now, no more play-fighting. “I know.” “Nothing has changed, Naruto.”

“No,” I agreed quietly. “But I’m trying.”

“You’re one man.”

“Sometimes I’m a hundred men.”

He gave me a withering look.

I reached for him then, my hand resting on his shoulder as I sought out a physical connection. “Everything that’s happened… it’s never going to happen to anyone ever again.”

“Oh, really?” he asked, looking unimpressed.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice cracking.

Sasuke softened. “Don’t be like that.”

“Be like what?”

“You’re blaming yourself for something you fought tooth and nail against.”

“I couldn’t stop them.”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly what?” I asked, starting to feel blubbery. I always felt so frustrated and helpless thinking about what had happened to Sasuke and how I hadn’t been able to stop it.

“If you couldn’t stop them, then no one can,” he said. “Konoha won’t change, so give up and move on. Now can we watch this damn movie already?”

If I wanted to continue the tentative peace that we’d developed over the last couple of months, then I would back off and watch the movie.

“We have to be the ones who start the change,” I said, still holding onto his shoulder and staring him down. “I need you here with me, fighting the Council, fighting all the backwards-thinking clan leaders, fighting-”

“-the hokage?” Sasuke suggested, raising an eyebrow.

I took in a breath and let it out slowly. “Baa-chan is doing what she can-”

“She approved the terms of my surrender.”

“You approved the terms of your surrender.”

“Pretty sure I didn’t agree to abuse and torture.”

“She didn’t… know…”

“The beatings, sure, even you didn’t know, and you were there to see me every day,” he said, meeting my gaze calmly. “But the constant blindfolding and the binding… you fought about it with Kakashi. He had to be reporting to her.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, feeling my heart break all over again.

“All of that doesn’t matter,” he said, pushing me back into my seat. He stood up and pressed the tape into the VCR. “Ninety-eight more days and I get what I wanted.”

“…I wish you’d told me.”

“Because you were making so much headway on the blindfolding issue.”

“Yeah, but that guard…”

“And what did you do when I told you?”

I flushed. Maybe I had rushed off to the prison in a blind rage and had only come back to my senses when the guard was lying bleeding on the floor while a hysterical Sakura held me back.

“You can’t be so emotional, Naruto,” he chided me, adjusting the volume of the TV as the coming attractions played. “I was never in any danger-”

“He beat you for no reason-”

“He was scared of me,” Sasuke said with an easy shrug. “And for good reason. He could cover my eyes as much as he wanted; I could have broken out and broken him any time I wanted.”

“You didn’t have to endure all that.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did it for you, you dumbass,” he said, staring very pointedly at the TV.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, feeling weirdly happy while also simultaneously pissed off.

“You’re so ignorant,” he muttered.

“Use your words,” I complained, giving him a shove.

“Use your brain,” he shot back, giving me a return shove.

This was about to dissolve into more schoolyard brawling, which I thought we had moved past, but clearly we had not. “Just explain it to me,” I said, the grip I hadn’t even realized I had on his collar loosening. “Since I’m so dumb and all.”

“You are dumb,” he agreed, his own grip relaxing.

The movie started playing, but it was just background noise now.

“You can’t be associated with a missing nin,” he finally said.

“Why not?” I asked, leaning back against the couch.

He clearly wanted to say something cutting but swallowed it back down. “I’m not going to take your future away from you,” he said, the words straining to come out.

“How-?” I started to ask.

Sasuke made a very frustrated-sounding noise. “Stop asking questions. What are you not getting? You following a missing nin around like a lost fucking puppy does not exactly instill the Council with trust in your ability to lead. So I did my fucking best to be reinstated to this bullshit village that murdered my family just so you could stop fucking up your future, and then you fucking go and still fuck it up anyway by losing your shit on that guard. You’re right, me enduring all of that really was pointless and I should have just…” he trailed off, running out of steam.

“Wait, wait, you did all this just so I could be hokage?” I asked, scratching the back of my neck.

“Go die,” he muttered.

“You are the most awful human being I have ever met,” I informed him. “Sas’, I… I mean, I don’t get it. You have so much pride, and I can’t imagine you… He hit you! He left marks on you, and you’re saying that you just put up with it so I could hypothetically be the leader of the village you hate one day?”

“I need you to be the hokage,” he said, his voice so soft it was hard to hear.

“Why?” I asked, inching closer and trying to get him to meet my eyes.

“Can you just drop it?” he asked, skillfully avoiding my gaze.

“No.”

He took in a breath and let it out loudly,

I put my hand on his knee, fingers curling into the loose fabric of his pants. “Why do you need me to be the hokage, Sas’?” I pleaded.

His eyes slid shut, a worry line forming between them. “Why can’t you just let things go?”

“Because when you keep secrets from me, our relationship gets all messed up,” I said.

“It’s not a damn secret, you’re just incapable of connecting the dots.”

“Well if it’s something I’m apparently too dumb to understand without further explanation, then you are keeping it from me by not explaining.”

Air escaped from his nose in what was either a smothered laugh or an exasperated sigh.

“Naruto…”

My breath caught a little. Sasuke just had a way of saying my name.

“You’re the only one I trust, okay?” he said, eyes flicking to mine and then flicking away again. “You’re the only one who can fix everything.”

“…but you’re always telling me I can’t change anything…”

“You are very, very incompetent,” he agreed, that sideways half-smile making a reappearance on his lips. “But I… I told you. At the Valley of the End. It was my loss. I’ve thrown away my revenge to follow you.”

“You don’t… follow me in anything…” I said, not sure why my face was suddenly heating up.

“I’m not going to be one of your mindless sycophants and just agree with whatever you say and do,” he said. “And I don’t think you want me to. You know you only reach your highest potential when I’m challenging you on everything.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly, squeezing his knee. “So why are you leaving then?”

“It’s what’s best.”

“Well I don’t think it’s what’s best, so…”

“Naruto,” he said, eyes finally meeting mine without running away. “If you…” he paused, licking his lips like he was nervous. “If you really… if you ask me not to leave, then I won’t leave. I’ll listen to you and I’ll follow you, but… if you keep me here, I don’t think I can… I feel trapped, Naruto. It’s painful to be here.”

I could see the pain in his eyes, and it made my stomach knot up.

“I didn’t want to tell you all this because now you know how much power you have over me,” he said, his hand pushing against mine like he wanted me to move it, but then his fingers laced into mine. “I don’t show my weaknesses to anyone, and I feel… exposed. But I trust you with that. Do you understand me? I’m trusting you not to exploit this. I’m trusting you to do the right thing. Because if you don’t, then you’re just showing me that I was wrong and that you’re just like everyone else.”

Vulnerable Sasuke was the most cutting Sasuke. “Sneaky bastard,” I muttered, because how could I ever ask him to stay after he said all that.

“Do you understand everything now?” he asked, taking his hand back and looking away.

“No, not at all,” I said. “But I guess I get the important stuff.”

“Good. So what the hell has been happening in this movie?”

I laughed. “Rewind it.”

He got up and hit the rewind button.

“Sas’?”

“Yeah?” he asked, his back still to me as he crouched in front of the VCR.

“What if I don’t want to be hokage?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“What if I don’t want to be, and I want to go with you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” he repeated.

I sighed loudly. “Fine.”

The tape finished rewinding and Sasuke hit play, coming back to sit next to me. He rested his head against the back of the couch, then turned to look at me.

I turned to look at him, too.

He smiled at me, soft and sweet and a little sad.

My lips parted.

He sat back up straight, attention focusing on the TV.

We watched the movie.

- 5 -

Sasuke was annoyed.

Of course, he was always annoyed when he was in Konoha, and he had to check in every six months, which meant that twice a year, Sasuke was very annoyed.

He was annoyed a lot of other times throughout the year, too, but he was particularly annoyed now.

“If you want to go and breed with your female, then just go,” he grumbled at me.

“Did you really just say ‘breed’?” Ino repeated, cracking up.

“Don’t forget ‘your female’,” Sakura chimed in, and the two of them started laughing harder.

“Hey, nothing is more important than spending time with you,” I slurred, significantly inebriated.

Rino waved at us from across the bar where she was getting more alcohol to inebriate us farther. Her boobs jiggled in her low-cut top as she did so.

I smiled dreamily.

“At least she’s a chuunin this time,” Sakura muttered, losing her amusement at the sight of a young, attractive female.

I suddenly found myself being punched in the arm. “What the hell!”

Sakura glared at me.

“You said that out loud,” Sasuke whispered to me.

“Oh…” I said. “Oops.”

Sasuke smiled at that, making me feel warm and happy.

All I had to do was act like an idiot to make him smile that amazing smile.

He looked away, flushing.

“You said that out loud, too,” Ino said, laughing.

“Umm, maybe I’m too drunk for this bar…” I trailed off as Rino reappeared with our drinks. “Thanks, babe,” I said, taking a beer from her.

She grinned at me as she passed out the rest of the drinks.

“Maybe it’s time to head home,” Sakura suggested, having finished her entire drink in one go.

“Aw, what, no way…” I complained.

“Sasuke seems tired,” Ino said.

If I wasn’t mistaken, Sasuke was shooting her a grateful look. But that was ridiculous, because Sasuke only liked me.

“People are allowed to like more than one person,” Ino informed me. “And I am very likeable.”

“Not that much,” Sasuke said, taking a casual sip of his drink.

Ino’s mouth twisted into a snarl. “To think I was going to save you from-” she started to say, but stopped.

Sasuke and Ino seemed to be having a conversation with eyes and head tilts that was completely unreadable to me.

“What’s going on?” Rino whispered to me.

“I have no idea,” I whispered back, sliding an arm around her waist.

She smiled at that, pressing closer to me even though our chairs were already plenty close together.

All of the sudden the other three were standing up.

“Okay, we’ll see you later,” Sakura said, patting me on the arm.

“Bye, ‘kura,” I said. “Bye, Ino.”

Sasuke moved to walk past me.

I caught his arm.

He looked startled, which couldn’t possibly be, because Uchiha Sasuke was never startled.

“We’re training tomorrow, yeah?”

“If you can find your way to the training field,” he said with a shrug.

“Your ass is mine, Uchiha,” I said cheerfully.

Sasuke just frowned at that, shaking me off. “Tomorrow then.”

“Bye, Sasuke,” Rino said, waving to him with a friendly smile.

He inclined his head towards her and made his exit.

Rino giggled. “He lives up to all the rumors.”

“What kinda rumors?” I asked, trying to narrow my eyes but it felt more like I was going cross-eyed.

“That he’s mysterious and hot,” she said.

“Oh,” I said, relaxing. “Yeah, he is definitely those rumors.”

Rino laughed.

“Let’s get out of here,” I suggested, and she nodded happily, linking arms with me.

We stumbled along to my house, and I somehow managed to get the door open and get us inside.

“You’re drunk,” Rino teased.

“Drunk on you,” I said, leading her to my room.

It felt different than usual.

I couldn’t stop myself, pushing her onto her stomach and staring at the white skin of her back.

“Naruto!”

I was lost, moving like an animal.

“Naruto!”

“Sasuke!”

- 4 -

“So you’re definitely not gay?” Sakura asked.

“I’m not,” I confirmed, pacing around my kitchen.

“Okay, but you called out your male best friend’s name during sex, so…”

“I don’t know why that happened.”

“Well, I mean, you were having sex, and you were thinking about Sasuke while you were having sex, so…”

“I’m not gay,” I said flatly.

“How are you so sure?”

“Because I don’t like dicks,” I explained. “And I feel like liking dicks is a very important part of being gay.”

“I mean, it could be important, but I don’t think it’s the defining factor of whether or not a person is gay,” Sakura offered. “Do those cookies have peanut butter in them?”

“They do,” I confirmed, picking up the package from the shelf and handing it to her.

“How do you even know that you don’t like dicks?” Sakura continued. “Have you ever tried touching one that wasn’t your own?”

I wrinkled my nose at her. “No, thank you.”

“How do you know you don’t like it if you don’t try it?”

“Have you touched a dick that isn’t your own?” I shot back.

Sakura gave me a withering look.

“Well?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

“A lady doesn’t stroke and tell,” she said with an enigmatic shrug.

“Sakuraaaaaa,” I groaned. “This isn’t helping.”

“There’s no help for you if you insist on staying so deeply closeted,” she replied.

“How do you just decide a person’s sexuality for them when they’re clearly telling you that you’re wrong about it?” I asked irritably.

“You’re in love with a man,” she ground out, just as irritably. “That, by definition, makes you gay.”

“I love him,” I said, waving her off. “That’s not the same as being in love.”

“Okay, then stop calling his name out during sex and everything will be fine.”

“…I was thinking about him…” I whispered.

She looked at me, waiting.

“…I was imagining it was him in front of me, and it just…” I trailed off. “I was drunk, it didn’t mean anything!”

“We are venturing into TMI territory here, but Naruto, you need to explain this to me,” she said, nibbling on a cookie. “Why were you thinking about Sasuke and not about your girlfriend?”

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I really don’t. I mean, I really like Rino. She’s so nice and friendly, and she always smiles, and she’s really pretty…”

“Sounds like you’re describing me, but okay…”

“You in an alternative universe, maybe…”

“Do you want my help or not?”

“You’re very nice and friendly and pretty.”

“Thank you,” Sakura said, finishing off her cookie and pulling out another one. “I know you don’t want to hear this again-”

I groaned.

“-but you tend to date girls who don’t have a lot of substance,” she forged ahead. “And at first, it made sense because you were young and unattached…”

“I’m still both of those things…”

“Funny that you think so.”

“I am in the prime of my youth!”

“Uzumaki, you are twenty-five years old,” Sakura said, shaking her head. “Your dad was already the hokage and married with a baby on the way younger than that.”

“Like you’re dating anyone!” I cried. “I mean, who from our generation is even remotely on track to get married?!”

“And why is that?” Sakura asked, tilting her head to the side.

I looked at her.

She looked back at me.

Since the war, Sakura had been my best friend, despite me always giving the title to Sasuke. We told each other everything, whether it was easy to hear or not, and she had certainly dropped a lot of hard-to-hear truths on me over the years.

“Because we’re all traumatized from being child soldiers?” I asked.

She nodded at me.

“So I choose to date girls who I can’t form meaningful relationships with because I’m not ready to confront… something something,” I concluded.

“Close enough,” she said with a rueful smile. “I want you to be happy, you know.”

“I know,” I said, knowing better than to protest that I was happy. “I want you to be happy, too.”

“Maybe Sasuke isn’t so crazy…” she said quietly.

“Whaddya mean?”

“Maybe leaving the village…” she trailed off.

It wasn’t the first time we’d broached the topic, but we never saw it through.

“Baa-chan said the Council is thinking about making me hokage soon,” I said.

“She’s been saying that since the war ended,” Sakura said with a frown. She would always love Tsunade as much as I did, but we both knew that things weren’t right in the village. Kakashi tried to act as a go-between, but the more he asked us to compromise while literally nothing changed, the less we were inclined to.

We were both quiet.

“So your thing about dicks, is that because of the Kiba Incident?” Sakura finally asked.

“DON’T BRING THAT UP!” I shrieked.

“But I was thinking…”

“About Kiba’s dick?!”

“God, no,” Sakura said, making a face. “I was thinking about the time we were on a mission, and you were on watch while we were sleeping-”

“Sakura-chan, you stop right there.”

“-and you went to get Kiba for his watch, and he was in flagrante-”

“I told you to stop- wait, what is ‘foie gras day’?” I paused, scratching my head.

“Caught in the act, dick in hand-”

“OH MY GOD, SAKURA, STOP!” I cried, covering my eyes with my hands even though the vision was burned into my memory for the rest of time. “It was so red and angry…” I whispered.

Sakura made a face but laughed. “See, but what if it was Sasuke?”

“IT’S NO DIFFERENT!” I yelled.

“Really? ‘Cause I definitely don’t want to picture Kiba in your story, but if it were Sasuke-”

“Sakura-chan!” I cried, incensed. “Don’t sully our Sasuke like that.”

“He’s an emotionally stunted asshole, but he’s still eye candy,” Sakura said with a shrug.

“Okay, but you clearly like dicks,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

“‘Like’ is a strong word,” she said, shaking her head. “I tolerate them.”

“Gross,” I muttered, and then unbidden the image of Kiba in the tent reappeared in my mind, only with Sasuke’s face floating over Kiba’s. I gagged. “Nope, nope, nope.”

“I don’t understand you,” Sakura said, shaking her head. “So if Sasuke was like in between your legs right now going down on you, you’d be absolutely disgusted just because he’s a guy?”

Sakura certainly painted a picture, because now there Sasuke was between my legs, mouth full, eyes creased in concentration before suddenly darting up to meet my gaze. He smirked, and I felt my entire body shudder.

“You got turned on!” Sakura accused me, pointing her finger.

“I… did…” I trailed off, thoroughly confused.

Her expression softened. “I’m not trying to push you into something,” she said, patting my head. “I just... I look at you two, and I wish that someone would love me the way you two love each other.”

“Sakura,” I complained, shaking my head. “You know I love you.”

“You wanna marry me?”

“Definitely not.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to marry Sasuke either,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but you want him to blow you.”

“Oh my god, Sakura, never say that out loud again!”

She shrugged.

“Sakura-chaaaaaaan,” I whined.

“I won’t,” she said, serious again. She hopped onto the counter and put her arm around me. “I won’t bring any of this up again, okay? I promise. We’ll only talk about it if you bring it up.”

“Which I won’t,” I said, but I could feel her side-eyeing me. “Unless I picture him in fois gras day again.”

Sakura cracked up.

- 3 -

I woke up on Sasuke’s floor, a blanket tossed over me. I groaned, sitting up and stretching my aching back. “Sas’?” I called.

He didn’t answer me because he was an asshole, but I could hear water running in the kitchen.

I stumbled to my feet and took a quick stop at the restroom before stumbling the rest of the way to the kitchen. “Saaaasukeeeeee,” I whined, dropping onto one of his kitchen chairs. “What did you make me drink last night?”

“Don’t blame me for your bad decisions,” he said with a shrug.

I squinted at his shirtless back, watching as he moved around preparing breakfast. “Hey, you,” I said.

“Hey what?” he asked, cracking an egg over the frying pan with one hand.

“When’d you get all… manly?” I complained.

“This might surprise you, but I’ve always been a man.”

“No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head. “You were a boy before. You had some muscles and all, but not all this finely-chiseled definition. You look like a freaking statue that some old statue guy would make.”

“‘Old statue guy?’” he muttered incredulously, flipping the eggs.

“You know what I mean!” I said, flailing my arms around.

“No, not really.”

I sighed loudly. “I wish I looked like you.”

“Why?” he asked, genuinely perplexed.

“Your body is amazing.”

“Are you fishing for compliments or something?” he mumbled.

“Huh?”

He stayed silent, his back rigid.

I had as usual stumbled into the ‘danger zone’.

I found myself stumbling into it more and more since the whole Wrong Name Incident. It wasn’t like I was trying to flirt with Sasuke all the time. It happened by accident. I was really just trying to give the guy a compliment and express my jealousy over the fact that his body was a work of art.

...was that gay…?

I stared at those rippling back muscles, mesmerized.

Then I was having eggs slammed down in front of me.

Sasuke sat across from me, stabbing his food with what seemed to be much more force than necessary for something that was already dead. “You’ve grown up, too, you know,” he finally mumbled.

“I have?” I asked with a mouth full of food.

“Swallow.”

I swallowed.

“I take it back,” he said, not looking at me.

“No takesy-backsies.”

“This is how you convince me that you’ve grown up?”

“…yes…?”

There was that half-smile.

I grinned, shoveling my food in my mouth and feeling content.

- 2 -

Sakura came into the restaurant, looking around furtively before her eyes locked on mine. She made a beeline in our direction.

“Hey-” I tried to greet her.

“Sasuke is here.”

I blinked slowly, then broke out into a grin. “Really? He’s early!”

“He’s pissed,” she said, trying to drag down my good mood.

“About Tsunade trying to give him that mission?”

“He told her he doesn’t take orders from Konoha,” Sakura rushed on. “So she said, ‘then maybe you don’t need the immunity that your Konoha headband gives you,’ and then he did his sneer face, you know the one, and he said, ‘make Naruto hokage or I walk.’”

“Whaaaaat?” I cried.

“And Tsunade was playing it cool, like, ‘well, walk then,’ and Sasuke said, ‘I walk, he walks.’”

I stared at her. “…and then?”

“He stormed out of there without waiting for a reply in typical over-dramatic Sasuke fashion,” she concluded.

I groaned.

“Who’s Sasuke?” my girlfriend Naomi asked cheerfully.

We both looked at her.

“What do you mean, ‘who is Sasuke’?” Sakura finally asked incredulously.

“He’s my best friend…” I tried.

“Oh, the weird guy who’s never around?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sakura said, nodding her head and tugging on my arm.

“He’s not weird!” I cried, feeling offended.

“We need to mediate this before it turns into something bigger,” Sakura urged me.

“But I was-” I started to say, glancing over at Naomi. Then I realized that we were talking about Sasuke and felt myself rising out of the booth, date long forgotten.

Naomi looked at me, confused. “Naruto?”

“Rain check!” I called, already moving after Sakura.

She turned back after we got onto the street. “Where do you think he went?”

“Training grounds,” I said, nodding my head in their direction.

“Okay,” she said, taking to the rooftops.

Sasuke was there as expected, angrily setting things on fire with his katon.

“Are we talking him down or beating sense into him?” Sakura asked, cracking her knuckles.

“Oi, Sasuke!” I yelled.

Sasuke stopped setting things on fire.

Sakura shook her head.

He sat down on the grass, and we came over to sit on either side of him.

“I didn’t know you were here,” I said, nudging his side with my elbow.

“I had business with the hokage,” he replied with a shrug.

“Business,” Sakura grumbled.

“You know I’m right,” he grumbled right back at her.

“Of course I know!” she snapped. “But if what you’re saying to Tsunade-sama gets back to to the wrong person, you’re going straight back into the Bingo Book! And then what?!”

“I can take care of myself.”

“You know if you leave the village again that we’re going to follow you,” Sakura muttered.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at that. “Do I know that?”

“You know that Naruto will,” she said dismissively.

“I didn’t know that you would.”

Sakura shook her head. “Underestimating me like usual.”

“Underestimating that you wouldn’t be as dumb as Naruto?” Sasuke asked. “Yes.”

There was a pause, and then Sasuke grunted and I knew that Sakura had inflicted some kind of hurt on him.

“Sas’, it’s just reconnaissance,” I said, hoping to change the direction of the conversation.

The glare I received did not ease my mind.

“And what is the illustrious Council going to use that reconnaissance for?” he ground out. “Because you know they’re stirring up shit with Lightning again.”

“Sas’…”

“The whole point is that you become the hokage and stop all this nonsense,” Sasuke said. “It’s the whole point, and the Council knows, and they know that as long as they keep dangling the carrot and saying that they’ll make you hokage one day that I have to do whatever they tell me. They fucking own me, and I can’t… I can’t breathe, I can’t…”

I was at a loss.

Sakura put her arm around Sasuke, and he leaned into her, away from me.

This was all my fault. I had let this drag on, I had accepted all the soon’s and the be patient’s. I looked at my two best friends, both hurting, and I knew that I couldn’t keep on just going with the flow.

“I’ve got you,” I said, standing up.

“What does that mean…?” Sakura trailed off as I walked away.

“Naruto.”

I stopped and turned back to look at them.

“Don’t do something stupid,” Sasuke said, already on his feet.

“Just trust me,” I said. I grinned at him. “I’ve got this.”

- 1 -

Sasuke unzipped the flap of the tent, his toiletries tucked in a bag under his arm as he entered. “You’re not asleep?” he asked.

“You’d think I would be, with how friggin’ long you take to get ready for bed,” I complained.

“I was checking the perimeter, dumbass,” he replied, putting his things away in his pack.

“He’s over here calling me ‘dumbass’,” I muttered.

“He’s over there talking to himself,” came his easy reply.

“Okay, but would it kill you to show me like a modicum of respect?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“It would not!” I cried.

“Oh, but it would,” he said, getting into his sleeping bag. “Good night, Junior Hokage.”

“Okay, see, you’re still alive.”

Sasuke didn’t answer.

“Very alive and not dead.”

He still didn’t answer.

“Jackass,” I complained, throwing my pillow at him.

He caught it and threw it back at me, amusement twinkling in his eyes.

I melted a little.

“What’s that stupid look for?” Sasuke scoffed at me.

“What look? There’s no stupid look!” I protested

He rolled his eyes at me. “You have clearly never seen your own face.”

I gave him the most shocked and offended look I could muster up.

His haughtiness softened around the edges, the left corner of his mouth twitching upward. “Sorry, sir.”

I bit my lip a little too hard.

Sasuke looked pleased with himself as he settled more comfortably into his sleeping bag.

I tried to pull myself together, but being on a mission in close proximity to him was starting to become a mission in its own right. The Council had agreed to my three-year transition plan, and had begrudgingly accepted Sasuke as my ‘chief adviser’ or whatever they were calling his job to make an Uchiha in power sound more palatable.

What they didn’t get and never would get was that Sasuke was my partner.

“You lead and I’ll follow,” he’d told me the night it was decided that I was the hokage-elect.

“Like you’ve ever followed anyone a day in your life,” I’d scoffed.

Four months into the transition, and Sasuke had yet to just do something because I told him to. That wasn’t what he meant by following me. What he meant was that I could tell him to do something, and then he would give me ten reasons why he wasn’t going to do it.

And it was exactly what I needed. I felt re-energized. I felt hopeful. I felt like I was making a difference.

And I felt like I was probably most definitely in love with Sasuke.

“Are you going to sleep?” he asked.

My eyes flicked over to him nervously.

He gave me a strange look. “I’m sleeping,” he said, rolling so his back was to me.

“Don’t be boring,” I complained.

“You’re the one who dragged us out to this god-forsaken place to do charity work,” he grumbled at me.

We’d had this conversation a hundred times already, but with us, what was a hundred more? “You said that I need to change what it means to be the hokage,” I said.

“Okay, but you could change what it means to be hokage somewhere… better.”

“Somewhere better?” I asked with a snort. “Are the accommodations not to your liking?”

“I’m just saying that helping some podunk little village rebuild from flooding isn’t going to do anything for you politically,” he said, sitting up and running a hand through his hair.”

“Uh, duh,” I said.

He looked at me.

“That’s exactly the kind of hokage I want to be,” I said, smiling happily. “Someone who helps people for no reason or personal gain.”

“Stellar strategy, I’m sure the Council won’t find a way to back out of your agreement and make someone else hokage.”

“You know you support me one hundred percent,” I said with an easy shrug.

“Maybe one percent.”

“Ninety-nine percent.”

“Zero percent?”

“One hundred and fifty percent!”

Sasuke was shaking his head, but I could see his smile.

I lived for that smile. “Hey, Sas’?”

“What?”

I looked at him. I really looked at him. I wanted to tell him.

“Did your brain break?” he asked. He stifled a yawn.

“Probably,” I said.

That got a little laugh. “Go to bed, Naruto.”

“Yeah,” I said, settling into my sleeping bag. “Good night.”

Sasuke snapped off the light we had hanging in the tent.

I lay there, staring into the dark, and it was driving me crazy.

“Stop,” Sasuke finally grumbled.

“Stop what?” I whispered.

“Whatever you’re doing.”

“Breathing?”

“Yes, stop doing that.”

“Do you want me to die?!” I snipped.

“Why are you so damn loud in the middle of the night?” Sasuke sighed.

“You’re the one wishing death on me!”

“Just get it out, already,” Sasuke said irritably. “Obviously something is on your mind.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I protested.

“Then why are you all… frenetic?” he asked.

“Who’s frenetic, I’m not frenetic.”

“I can hear your leg bouncing,” he muttered.

I hadn’t realized I’d been doing that, and I quickly stilled my leg. Then I found that my fingers were tapping against the ground.

“It’s not like you,” Sasuke said quietly.

“Huh?”

“You don’t usually…” he trailed off, thinking over his words carefully. “You don’t usually keep things from me.”

Why did this man know me better than I knew myself? “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“I really don’t care. Just say it or go to sleep,” he said, but I had the feeling that he did actually care.

I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

“I’m going to sleep outside,” Sasuke growled.

“No, you’re not,” I said with a sigh. “I just… I’m not ready to say it.”

“Well get ready or figure out how to stop crawling out of your skin.”

I’d planned this. Not consciously, but now I could see how my sneaky subconscious had brought us to this point, alone on a mission just the two of us, sleeping in the same tent like we used to when we were twelve, with no one to interrupt us until the construction started in the morning. I wanted to tell him. I needed to tell him.

But should I tell him?

I thought back to the night that Sasuke moved into his own apartment, both of us a little drunk, the gentle touch of his lips to mine. Then the betrayal in his eyes when I told him that I wasn’t gay.

I wasn’t, but apparently it didn’t matter. I’d been too young and dumb at the time to realize it.

Sasuke was special.

Maybe I could just tell him that without getting into the whole calling his name while I was with women, and having almost daily sex dreams about him part.

I mean, he probably wouldn’t care, anyway. That kiss had been like ten years ago, and surely he had moved on since then. It wasn’t like he… stayed connected with a village he hated just because of me…

It wasn’t like he only smiled for me. I saw him almost smile at Sakura once. It was the smallest uptick. Nothing compared to the crooked smiles he showered me with, but…

“I’m going to slowly choke the life out of you,” Sasuke informed me, suddenly sitting on my chest with a hand wrapped around my throat.

“Uhhh…?” I said.

“You are so fucking annoying,” he ground out, applying light pressure. “What? What is it? Just say it.”

“Well, you’re kinda making it more awkward,” I squeaked out.

“Good,” he growled. “What did you do? What stupid thing did you do? Did you forget to do some important paperwork? Did you tell Sakura that her hospital clothes make her look like an middle-aged woman after I specifically told you not to? Did you piss off the Council and they decided to just cancel your whole hokage probation? Just tell me already.”

“Um, it wasn’t any of that,” I gasped.

Sasuke rolled his eyes, letting up on my throat and sitting back a little. “You’re still going to be the hokage in three years?”

“Duh.”

His expression relaxed and he gave me one of those smiles that, okay, were only for me.

I felt myself smiling back.

He pinched my cheek, then moved to go back to his sleeping bag.

I caught his hips, pulling him back.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at me. “You into being sat on?”

“Yes,” I replied without thinking.

“That’s an odd fetish,” he said, his eyes searching mine.

I should just say it. What could be a more perfect moment than this? I should definitely just say it.

“Naruto.”

I swallowed. “I’m.”

He waited.

I nodded my head.

His brow lifted.

“So,” I said.

He tilted his head to the side.

“Good,” I said.

“Did your brain break?” he finally asked.

“Yeah…” I said quietly. “Can you… come down here?”

Both of Sasuke’s eyebrows shot up. “Down where…?”

“Next to me,” I said, letting go of his hips.

He looked at me for a moment, then slid down beside me, propping his chin up on his hand as he lay on his side facing me.

I just had to get it out. I opened my mouth, and then remembered that I needed to get it out, but in a way that wasn’t going to piss Sasuke off. That’s what kept on silencing me. “I’ve been confused lately,” I said, deciding to be as honest as possible.

“How is that different from usual?” he asked.

“Are all the little zings really necessary?” I grumbled.

“The way you’ve been dragging this out, yes.”

“Okay, fine,” I said.

“Better be worth it,” he muttered.

“I love you!” I blurted out.

“Okay,” Sasuke said. “That’s not getting you out of telling me whatever horrible secret you’re hiding.”

“No, that’s the horrible secret,” I explained.

Sasuke let out a sudden bark of laughter. “What kind of secret is that?”

His sheer good-naturedness told me that he didn’t get what I was saying. “Sasuke, I’m in love with you,” I tried saying.

A little of the humor left his eyes. “What’s this about?”

“It’s about me being in love with you,” I said, feeling stupid and small.

“You’re not gay, Naruto,” he said flatly.

“No, I’m not,” I agreed.

Sasuke’s frown deepened. “I’m a man, Naruto.”

“I’m aware,” I said, trying to exude sincerity.

“Then do you see why what you’re saying is ridiculous?” he asked, sitting up. His arms crossed over his chest, a physical sign that he was starting to close himself off.

I sat up, too. “I know it doesn’t make sense, okay? I’m not gay, and you’re a man, but I love you so much it’s crazy.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“Yeah, it is, because I don’t get it, okay?” I said. “I don’t know why I feel this way about you, but I do. And I’ve asked you to do this huge thing and be my partner when I become hokage, but I can’t start off the new Konoha lying to you, yeah? I have to be honest or this is never going to work, and honestly I’m in love with you. So. Yeah.”

Sasuke was staring at me, and definitely not in a good way.

“Sas’…” I tried.

“I fucking hate you,” he whispered.

Oh, fuck.

“You piece of shit,” he said, his voice getting louder. “You fucking piece of shit. Don’t you ever fucking say another word about this to me ever again.”

I knew all along that he was going to react badly, but I didn’t really know why he would. If I asked him why, he was going to react even more badly, so I was kind of stuck just staring at him pathetically.

“Do you hear me?” he growled, grabbing me by my shirt and staring me down. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” “…no?” I said quietly.

He shook me, then dropped my shirt in disgust, standing up in a crouch in the low tent. “I need to go.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to get him to stay.

“Fuck your sorry!” Sasuke snapped at me. “And fuck you,” he added for good measure.

“Do you think I’m joking with you or something?” I asked, not used to being the target of Sasuke’s venom after so many years. “Do you think I’m not being sincere?”

“Of course you’re not being sincere!” he yelled. “What kind of straight man tells another man that he loves him?”

“What, just because I’m not gay, I can’t have feelings for you?!” I cried, standing up and crouching in front of him. A tent was a terrible place to have an argument.

“Yes, Naruto!” he said. “That’s exactly what it fucking means! Not being gay means that you are not attracted to men, you dumb shit!”

“Okay, but maybe consider that I’m Sasuke-sexual!” I snapped.

Sasuke opened his mouth but then immediately closed it. He sat down on his sleeping bag and stared up at me. “Sasuke… sexual…” he repeated, shaking his head.

“I am…” I tried to assert.

“There’s no such thing as Sasuke-sexual!” he yelled, but he wasn’t as mad anymore, and I felt some of the tension release from my shoulders.

I sat down across from him. “Well, that’s what Sakura said…”

“Sakura knows about this?”

“Well, I told her about all the sex stuff, so…”

“What. Sex. Stuff.”

I could feel my face burning. “Just sex stuff. About you. Um. Sexy dreams and uh… other stuff.”

“I don’t like it,” he said. “I don’t like it,” he repeated. “Naruto, don’t do this to me. Please.”

“I’m not doing anything to you,” I protested, feeling a little annoyed now. “I’m telling you how I feel. That’s more than you’ve ever done.”

He looked like I’d slapped him. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No, Sasuke, I’m not fucking kidding you,” I said irritably. “You kissed me, and then you ran away. You acted like it never happened. And maybe if you had used your goddamn words instead, we could have figured some of this shit out.”

“You told me you weren’t gay!” he yelled, getting mad again.

“Yeah, and it’s pretty fucking weird that a non-gay guy was so cool with his gay best friend kissing him, wasn’t it?!” I snapped.

“You told me you weren’t gay,” he repeated, his voice getting softer. “You humiliated me.”

I was gobsmacked. “I humiliated you?”

“I was so sure you felt the same way about me,” he said. “I was so sure, and then you pushed me away and said you weren’t gay, and I felt so… beneath you. Like you were looking down on the poor little queer, telling me that it didn’t matter and you would forgive me-”

“I never said that-”

“Oh, okay, then how am I supposed to interpret all your little good-guy speeches about how it wouldn’t affect our friendship, how you still looked at me the same, whatever bullshit you came out with that clearly said that I’d done something wrong, but you were such a great guy that you would just overlook it?”

“That’s not what I meant…” I mumbled feebly. “You just gave me this look like… I betrayed you, and I kept rambling, trying to make sure you wouldn’t just throw me away…”

“You threw me away,” he muttered.

“Sasuke…”

“So you suddenly want to fuck me now?”

“I…” I trailed off, feeling strange.

“No, really, tell me all about these sex dreams you’ve been having about me after telling me you weren’t gay.”

I was red again.

“Do you picture me with a pussy so you can stomach it?” he growled.

“No...” I said, cringing. “Sas’, it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?”

“Is that the most important thing to fixate on when I’m telling you that I love you?” I asked. This conversation was getting way off course.

“I just want to understand what a straight man sees in me,” he replied, eyes meeting mine in an unwavering stare.

“Oh, that’s easy,” I said, relaxing. “You’re strong, you’re smart, you’re nice when you want to be, you’re good at making ramen, you fight for the people you love, you always stand up for what’s right even if it’s hard…”

“…none of those sound like romantic attraction,” Sasuke muttered.

“What, do you want me to tell you how attractive I find you?”

“Honestly, I think you just want to be me and are confusing that with physical attraction,” Sasuke said with a shrug.

I gaped at him. “Jerk, who would want to be you?!” I snapped.

He smiled at that. “You.”

“Ohmigod, you are the most narcissistic asshole on the face of this earth!”

He shrugged again.

“Please explain to me how it makes more sense that I want to be you than I want to be in you,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

Sasuke startled at that.

I thought back over what I’d just said carefully. “Uhhh, I mean… be with you…?”

“Do you even know how gay sex works?” he asked, eyes very carefully not meeting mine.

“I researched it,” I said confidently.

“And you’re just fine with it?” he asked.

I swallowed. “I… don’t know if I’m ready for everything, but… I’m very interested in some of it.”

“You’re very interested in some of it?” Sasuke scoffed. “Which parts? Please do elaborate.”

I was red again. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“Most definitely.”

“I mean, how much detail…?”

“All the details.”

“All the details?”

“All the details.”

“I mean, do I start with you, um…”

“With me what?” Sasuke asked, clearly starting to feel back in control as he looked me in the eyes.

“Well I guess um… you know… with your mouth…”

“So you’d like to get blown,” Sasuke said, nodding his head.

“I mean… yes…?”

“Interesting, and were you planning on returning the favor?”

I looked at the ground. “If you wanted me to, I could… try.”

“So really you just want me to suck you off and then you give me a pat on the head for a job well done?”

“You asked me what I was interested in and I told you,” I growled, crossing my arms over my chest. “This is all new to me, I’m not a professional gay like you.”

Sasuke very slowly raised an eyebrow.

This was already a disaster, and I seemed to be adding more flames to the fire. “Forget it. Forget everything I said.”

“Oh, are we just going to pretend that this didn’t happen?” Sasuke asked in that jackass tone of voice of his.

“Yes,” I said. “We’re going to go to sleep and wake up tomorrow in a world where I never said anything, and then I’m going to tell you in a non-offensive way that I love you, and you will graciously listen to me and shake my hand at the end and agree that you don’t mind me having feelings for you and that you still want to work with me to build the new Konoha.”

He didn’t say anything at first, and I held my breath waiting.

Then I needed air and pulled it in with a loud gasp.

“Idiot,” he grumbled.

I gave him my biggest, roundest puppy dog eyes.

“You’re serious?” he asked, his voice taking on a vulnerable quality.

I nodded my head enthusiastically.

“Okay,” he said, getting back into his sleeping bag. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” I agreed, clamoring back into my own sleeping bag. “So…”

“So?”

“We’re… okay?”

“Well, we’re pretending nothing happened, so we can also pretend that we’re okay,” Sasuke reasoned.

“Saaaaasukeeeeeee,” I complained. “I’m sorry,” I added.

“Sorry for what?”

“For my behavior for the last… fifteen-ish years.”

“You’re going to need a lot more sorries than that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, as sincerely as I could.

“Weirdo.”

“I know.”

Sasuke sighed. Or maybe he was taking a breath. “Naruto?”

“Yeah?”

“Tomorrow…”

“Mm?”

“When you tell me whatever it has that you have to tell me…”

“Uh-huh?”

“What if I…” he trailed off and was silent.

“Tell me tomorrow,” I said.

“Okay.”

I slept fitfully, constantly waking up to every little noise. The ground was more uncomfortable than usual, and I found myself constantly shifting and readjusting.

It was barely what could be called morning when I opened my eyes and found Sasuke right in front of me.

“Tell me the thing,” he said quietly.

“I’m in love with you,” I said, still half-asleep but never surer of anything in my life.

“Not just as friends?”

“Definitely not just as friends,” I said, trying to blink my eyes awake.

“Promise?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

“Promise,” I said, looking back and smiling.

He took a breath and shifted closer, then stopped. His eyes kept staring into mine, asking a silent question.

I didn’t want to misread him, but it seemed like the longer I hesitated, the more anxious his expression got. I reached out, curling my fingers gently behind his neck and pulling him in until we were sharing air. “I promise,” I repeated.

“Okay,” he said, his voice soft.

We just breathed together, both of us about to have mutual nervous breakdowns.

“Naruto,” he said, and there were those eyes again.

All I had to do to answer the question…

It was the most tentative brush of lips in the history of brushing lips, but Sasuke endured it silently.

I looked at him.

He looked back at me.

I wanted him to talk to me. I wanted him to tell me exactly what he expected. What he wanted. But in this moment, I knew there was no way that he would expose himself like that. I had to be the one to take the risks. I had to be the one to be vulnerable. And it was scary. It was really scary, and my breathing was getting more and more erratic, but Sasuke was just looking back at me and waiting, so I knew what I had to do and I kissed him like I meant it.

It was sparks.

It was fireworks.

It was home.

- 0 -

Naruto was spread-eagled across our bed like the whole damn thing belonged to him.

I sighed, dropping my travel bag on the floor before giving him a light kick.

He grumbled and shifted over about an inch.

“Uzumaki, you need to move,” I growled, peeling my shirt over my head and tossing it into the hamper.

“But I’m comfy,” he mumbled, smacking his lips sleepily.

“Get comfy somewhere else,” I complained, adding my pants to the hamper and walking over to the dresser. The room was dark, so I felt along in the drawer with my hand until I found my nightclothes.

Naruto made some incoherent sound that probably meant he had gone back to sleep.

He worked hard every day, and I hated how tired he always was, but I had just traveled eighteen hours straight to get home, and he needed to move his ass over.

Dressed and ready for bed, I gave his bottom a much more significant kick that jarred him enough away from my side of the bed that I could squeeze in.

I don’t know why I bothered, because he immediately rolled right back over, wrapping himself around me.

“Hey,” he said, kissing my shoulder sleepily. “I missed you.”

I was ready to be annoyed, but our bed was comfortable, Naruto was warm, and it was nice to be home.

“How was your mission?” he hummed into my skin.

“The usual.”

“That’s a pretty crappy mission report.”

“Well, you’re a pretty crappy hokage.”

“What is wrong with you?” he snorted, nudging me until I turned on my side to face him. “Show your hokage-to-be some respect.”

“No,” I said, which only seemed to make him smile even wider.

Naruto didn’t mind my shit when he knew I didn’t mean it. He rested his hand against my cheek, grinning dopily.

“I missed you, too,” I finally acknowledged, giving him a chaste kiss at the corner of his mouth.

His face lit up and I found myself being aggressively cuddled.

Our breathing started to even out as we both drifted towards sleep.

In moments like this, our relationship was easy, but when we woke up in the morning, the world would come crashing back in and everything would be complicated again.

“It’s in less than a week,” Naruto said, breaking up the silence.

I breathed in sharply, coming fully awake again. “Yeah, it is,” I agreed.

“Will you stay home more?”

I couldn’t answer that.

Naruto sighed, kissing the top of my head. “I need you,” he said quietly. “I’m not… I can’t do this on my own, ya know?”

“I know,” I said. I was the one who’d put the responsibility of changing the entire ninja world on his shoulders. I just found it easier to support his ideals when I was as far away from Konoha as possible. “I’m here now.”

“…for how long?”

I took a breath, weighing my answer so it didn’t turn into a fight. “Until you send me on another mission.”

“Okay,” he said, rubbing his cheek against mine. “Sorry for keepin’ you up, I just… every time I start to fall asleep, my mind starts goin’ a million miles a minute…”

I took his hand that was resting on my hip and laced our fingers together.

Naruto relaxed, some of his nervous energy dissipating.

“You’ll be a great hokage,” I said quietly.

“If I make it to my inauguration without being assassinated…”

“That’s the spirit.”

“…is that why you rushed back here so quickly?” he asked.

“I didn’t rush,” I said, despite how obvious it was that I had.

“Aw, did you wanna proteeeeect me?” Naruto cooed.

“Idiot,” I muttered. Of course I wanted to protect him. He had almost as many enemies as I did now after all his campaigns for reform. He also had just as many loyal allies willing to lay down their lives for him, but try as I might I just couldn’t trust anyone else to watch his back. I had to be here, making sure that nothing happened to stop Naruto’s becoming the sixth hokage.

He was smiling at me dopily, reading my thoughts clearly. “Tomorrow morning, I’m gonna totally rock your world, okay?”

I rolled my eyes at that. “Okay, let me get out my day planner and pencil in a world rocking from 7:00 to 7:02.”

The look on his face was priceless.

“Saaaaasukeeeee,” he whined.

“Go to sleep, Naruto,” I said, squeezing his hand. I was always being meaner to him than necessary, but he understood.

“I’ll try,” he said, snuggling into me.

Fuck, he was adorable and more than I deserved.

I tended to be insecure about our relationship, and that led to me being an unnecessary asshole. Our sex life was especially complicated, and we still had to tread lightly sometimes. If I didn’t like something that we were doing and promptly informed Naruto, he would immediately stop, give me a kiss, and do something different. If Naruto informed me that he didn’t like something, I took it as a personal insult against myself and my lineage that needed to be avenged immediately.

Naruto dealt with the fact that he was a straight man in a gay relationship better than I did. ‘Heteroflexible’ he called it.

Not that Naruto was always perfect and kind and understanding. We fought at times, mostly about the village. He sometimes forgot to take off his rose-colored glasses and remember what had been done to him by the people claiming to have his best interests at heart. No matter how many times I tried to convince him that the Third Hokage had neglected him, he refused to hear it.

I wanted Naruto to recognize the wrongs done to him, but that was a losing battle.

Much faster to just remind him that the Third Hokage covered up the slaughter of my family.

Naruto always got pissed off on my behalf.

Maybe one day we’d work out all of our psychological issues, but until then I just wanted him to understand that condemning the atrocities of one’s followers while helping them to cover it all up did not a good leader make.

I don’t know why I worried. Naruto was already the best hokage Konoha had ever seen, and he hadn’t even officially taken the title yet. Because in the end, Naruto always did the right thing.

I held him close, listening to his obnoxious snoring. It lulled me into sleep, my eyes sliding shut.

We didn’t have it all figured it out yet, but we’d figure it out together.

Starting with a world rocking promptly at 7:00, apparently.

I stayed curled up in bed as Naruto shuffled around after, getting read for work.

“You sure you don’t want breakfast or anything?” he asked softly, the mattress dipping under his weight.

I mumbled something that probably resembled “no” and buried myself deeper in the blankets. I felt the warmth of his hand as he touched my cheek, my eyes staying firmly shut.

“Okay, I’m off to save the world now.”

A little smile twitched at my lips.

“Love you,” he said, leaning in and pressing his lips to my temple. “Come in before noon with your mission report, or you’re fired!”

My smile got a little wider. Naruto’s fake power trips were cute, mostly due to how obviously fake they were. “Like you would ever fire me,” I hummed.

“Try me,” he said, his voice teasing. He pat my head, fingers running through my hair lingeringly before disappearing. “See you at eleven fifty-nine.”

I scoffed, because I certainly hadn’t been planning to arrive exactly one minute before the deadline he gave me just to be contrary. “Bye.”

“Bye!” he called, his voice drifting in from the hallway.

I listened until his steps disappeared and the front door closed.

Naruto had seemed so lost and aimless after the war, never knowing which direction to go in. Ever since that day in the training field, though, when he forced the Council’s hand to name him officially as the sixth hokage... Ever since that day, it was like Naruto had finally gotten on the path he was always meant to be on. He moved with purpose again, his inner light filling him up after being dim for so long.

That light illuminated my own path.

I was still working on myself, trying to sort out the anger and the loss and the helplessness and the longing for revenge that never quite went away, but when I watched Naruto moving forward with no trace of doubt, it was like I could see my own path forward.

Naruto’s face was priceless as Shizune let me into the hokage’s office.

“You’re… early…” he said, glancing at the clock which read, ‘9:01’.

“I like to keep you on your toes,” I said, striding across the room and dumping my mission report on Naruto’s little desk that was pulled up next to Tsunade’s. I didn’t spare her a glance, because it had long since been established that I only answered to Naruto.

“Consider me toed,” he said, raising his leg over his desk and pointing his toes.

Everyone in the room stared at him.

Naruto laughed his stupid laugh, and I felt myself almost smiling.

This idiot was going to be the hokage in five days, and I would move heaven and earth to make sure he was the greatest hokage Konoha ever saw.

#narusasu #fanfiction #isola u-turn

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