At three in the morning, Boruto slips through the window, landing soundlessly at his father’s bedside. Naruto lies half-buried under reports and scrolls, a blanket draped carelessly over his shoulders. Even in sleep, his brow is furrowed—eyelids fluttering like moonlight trembling on water.
Boruto takes his father’s remaining hand (the one still flesh and blood) and presses his fingers to the pulse point. He remembers his mother’s habit of doing this daily—sometimes smiling in relief, sometimes murmuring, “You’ve lost weight again.”
Tonight, Boruto wants to kiss the exhaustion from Naruto’s face.
He strips off his jacket and slides into bed behind his father, arms circling that narrow waist. Naruto’s skin is warm against his own, still chilled from the night air. It feels like sinking back into the womb—safe, inevitable.
But Naruto’s chakra flickers weakly in his grasp, a spring on the verge of drying up.
He’s dying.
No one says it aloud—not Hinata, not Shikamaru, not even Sasuke. But Boruto knows. The man who burned like a sun for Konoha is now little more than embers.
“Dad.”
No response. Not that Boruto expected one. The last time he’d kissed Naruto (thinking him asleep), his father avoided home for a week, blaming paperwork. A man raised on conventional morality must assume this is some teenage aberration, that time will set things right.
How wrong he is.
Boruto tightens his hold. Naruto’s scent, his heat, the gravitational pull of his presence—it all coils low in Boruto’s gut, electric and shameful.
Love him, his blood whispers. What are you afraid of?
Boruto wonders about many things.
For example, Hinata’s thoughts. She knew of Naruto’s illness before anyone. When Shikamaru came to say “The Hokage will be working late,” she simply nodded—no “Tell him to rest,” no packed bento. Her hand on Boruto’s hair was tender, unreadable.
And Sasuke’s lies. That night Naruto collapsed, Boruto saw it—the way Sasuke’s hair hid his face, the way his Sharingan glowed too brightly in the dark. People say the Uchiha wanders free of attachments, but Boruto knows better. If Sasuke had truly renounced love, he wouldn’t keep meeting Naruto in the dead of night, pretending he never returned.
Sometimes, Boruto wishes Sasuke’s feelings were unrequited.
It would hurt less.
“There’s no other way.”
“I’ll break the seal.”
“This is an exchange—one life for another.”
Voices drift from the Hokage’s office. On the roof, Boruto listens to the adults argue until the stars blur. Later, he intercepts Sasuke on the road, just like their first meeting—back when he still believed his teacher was invincible.
“Take me with you.”
“You know already.”
“I won’t tell Mom.”
“That’s not the point.”
Sasuke tries to pass him. Boruto grabs his cloak.
“What’s different this time?!”
“I might not come back.”
The wind lifts Sasuke’s bangs, revealing the Rinnegan’s eerie glow.
“At least… he’ll still have you.”
“Liar.”
Sasuke smiles then—a thing so soft it cracks Boruto’s ribs open.
“If I were lying, I wouldn’t have left him to Konoha in the first place.”
“Has Dad ever loved anyone besides Mom?”
Boruto asks the empty air. Naruto lies unconscious again, sweat-drenched after another attack. Boruto cleans him up before Hinata and Himawari return, wiping down the body that haunts his dreams.
His hands shake.
This is the flesh that made him—his hair, his eyes, his thundering heart. And now, shamefully, it arouses him.
“I’m the worst, huh?” He presses Naruto’s palm to his wet cheek. “I dream about you. About us. It feels so good I could die.”
A tear soaks into Naruto’s lifeline.
“I love you more than anyone.”
The night Naruto recovers, strange fireworks burst over Konoha. Boruto finds Sasuke at the crater’s edge—bloodied, dust-choked, leaning on his sword.
“Don’t worry.” Sasuke’s voice is gravel. “He’ll live.”
Boruto wants to scream. How can you act so calm? Will he even understand what you’ve done?
“Even if he gives me nothing in return,” Sasuke says, answering the unspoken question.
And Boruto realizes—
They’re the same.
His father. His teacher. Two extremes of the same soul, forever orbiting each other.
//End.