Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen:
Soft sunlight filters in through the open window, illuminating Tazuna's small kitchen in a warm, golden glow. It's the day after the fight with Zabuza and Naruto stares at the breakfast laid out before him on an old, rickety table. There's a simple broth accompanied by fried mackerel and some plain, white rice.
Beside him, Sakura stifles a yawn behind her bandaged hand, wincing momentarily after. Her pink hair is messy, sticking around her head in awkward angles and she looks exhausted, trying to blink away the sleep from her eyes.
Opposite the two, Sasuke tiredly leans his cheek into the palm of his hand. He looks rumpled, blinking soft and slow, as if he's in a daze. There's a smudge of dirt just above his left brow. Naruto wants to reach over and wipe it away, but he doesn't.
Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter, peers at them in concern from where she's standing near the kitchen counter. She asks, “did you three not get enough sleep last night?’’
Sakura makes a weak noise. “We took turns taking care of Kakashi-sensei,” she explains quietly, looking down at the bowl of rice in front of her with a frown, “and we had to keep patrolling the village throughout the night, just in case…’’
Naruto presses the line of his thigh against the girls, he isn't sure why, and Sakura furrows her thin, pink brows. “Are my eyebags okay?” She asks, glancing at him with dull green eyes. “I was too scared to look into the mirror this morning.”
Naruto doesn't know how to answer her question without inflicting wrath upon himself and with the way Sasuke is avoiding making eye contact, he doesn't either.
They're, thankfully, saved by Tsunami. “Well, I know it isn't much,” she says, wiping down the kitchen counter with a rag, “but some breakfast will replenish your energy. Please, eat.”
Naruto doesn't dare reach for the utensils he can see are innocently placed on the edge of the table. When he was younger, around five years old, he accepted some packaged food that was left in front of his door. Thinking it was given to him by the Hokage or one of the ANBU always loitering around his territory, he ate the food without much thought. He was starving on a day to day basis and had just been relieved to fill his stomach with something warm and filling. It turned out the food was left there by one of the villagers and it was poisoned.
If Kurama hadn't used his chakra to weave the poison from within Naruto’s system that day, he would have surely died.
“No, thank you,” Naruto says, refusing to eat Tsunami’s food. He'd honestly rather starve than be potentially poisoned. He stands from his seat and slides the wooden chair back beneath the old, rickety table. He gives Tsunami a polite smile, ignoring the confused expression on her face.
“It's my turn for the perimeter check,” Naruto moves around the table and past Tsunami, towards the genkan at the side. He slips into his sandals and pauses, wondering if he should take his orange jacket from the coat hook. He doesn't, opting to stay in his nondescript black shirt and simple orange pants.
Sasuke, scowling and suspiciously eyeing Naruto, follows after him, slipping into his sandals too. When Naruto tilts his head in question at him, Sasuke doesn't bother to grace him with an answer.
Weighing out his options, Naruto wonders if Kakashi will be okay with only Sakura left to take care of him. The kunoichi is, after all, injured herself. As if sensing his thoughts, Sasuke nudges the back of his hand against Naruto's. He says, “she'll be fine,” and slips out the door, holding it open for Naruto.
“Right,” the blonde boy mumbles. “We're heading out,” he says, just loud enough for Sakura and Tsunami to hear him from the kitchen.
“Be careful!” Sakura calls out, just as Naruto brushes past Sasuke, stepping outside. It's sunny and warm, and not the blistering kind that usually assaults Konoha either, but the soft kind ━ the kind that usually settles over Konoha during spring and autumn. Naruto breathes in the fresh air and exhales it softly, tilting his head back to soak in the soft sunshine.
He rolls his shoulders and starts patrolling, walking down the slim roads of the village. He's dimly aware of Sasuke following behind him, his steps quiet and soft, but Naruto concentrates on his surroundings. The Land of Waves is a poor country and Naruto can see it in the structure of the old, wooden houses and the bare streets, void of any shops and kiosks.
Slowly, Naruto leaves the shabby village in favour of the forest. The greenery is nice and rich and the grassy ground is untouched by a human made path. Naruto pauses in his steps when he hears Sasuke awkwardly clear his throat behind him.
“Dobe,” Sasuke mutters, tucking his hands into the pockets of his white shorts. He slows to a stop beside Naruto and his face does something complicated.
Naruto blinks, accessing the other boy. He scents the air, but all he gets is the Uchiha's usual tangerine like scent, citrusy and sweet.
Sasuke grimaces. “Nevermind,” he backtracks on whatever he was originally going to say. “Where are we going?’’
“I think it's best if we split up here━”
“━No.”
Naruto stares at Sasuke, a little caught off guard by his odd behaviour.
Sasuke stares back, undeterred.
“To cover more ground━”
“━I said no.”
Naruto feels an oncoming headache. This is the first time Sasuke has openly refused to listen to him. He doesn't know what to do.
“Alright,” the blonde boy concedes, although reluctantly, “I'll bite. What do you want?’’
“What do I want?’’ Sasuke's mouth twitches before it turns downwards into his usual scowl. His onyx eyes narrow dangerously. “The seal,” he says, “I want it back.”
“No,” is Naruto's immediate reply. “I told you, the seal was━”
“━temporary. Yes, I'm aware.”
There it is. Naruto's headache, pulsing at his temples. He raises his hand and rubs the pads of his thumb over his eyebrow to ease the growing, bubbling annoyance that's simmering to life in the pit of his stomach.
Why was Sasuke being so adamant about the seal? It was temporary for a reason. The seal was a replica of the flying raijin. It was meant for inanimate objects, not humans, and thus it was unsafe and unstable.
Iruka-sensei had said to keep team seven safe and that was what Naruto was doing. Couldn't his teammate see that?
“Make it permanent,” Sasuke demands, stepping forward, crowding into Naruto's space. His scent sours slightly, becoming more acidic.
Overhead a bird flaps its wings and soars across the blue sky and a gentle breeze ruffles the grass and trees around them.
Naruto drops his hand to his side. Baffled, he asks, “why?”
For a long moment, Sasuke stays quiet, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He tears his gaze away from Naruto's and glares off to the side. “...Because you always have this━”
The Uchiha grits his teeth and his lips curl back, showing off a pair of growing fangs. “There's a wall between you and the rest of us,” he ends up saying, looking downright frustrated. He smells like it too, the sweet undertone of his scent turning burnt.
Naruto tilts his head. Is Sasuke… upset with him? He doesn't understand.
“Don't look at me like that,” Sasuke says, an animalistic growl, still soft and childish, reverberating underneath his words. His hand snaps out, curling into the front of Naruto's black shirt. He says, “the seal made me understand. It made me know what you were doing, what you were feeling. Without it…”
Sasuke's grip tightens, until his knuckles turn pale. His onyx gaze returns to Naruto's blue one, narrowed and pissed off, like it usually is when the two of them are at each other's throats. “Without it, I don't know what you're thinking.”
Silence looms over their heads as Naruto digests the Uchiha's words. The seal, which is supposed to be unsafe and unstable on humans, made Sasuke feel connected to Naruto?
Fuck.
“You don't need to know what I'm thinking,” Naruto says, forcing Sasuke's hand away from his shirt. He takes a step back, creating space between the two of them. Naruto feels… he doesn't know what he's feeling.
Feelings have always been, and will probably always be, difficult for him to understand.
“Yes,” Sasuke huffs, instead wrapping his hand around Naruto's wrist like an iron band, squeezing, “I do.”
“No,” Naruto might as well be talking to a brick wall.
“Give the seal back.”
“No━"
“Naruto,” Sasuke insists, stepping forward once more. His face does that weird, complicated thing again, where his brows furrow and his eyes widen and oh, oh, Naruto knows what he's seeing now.
He's reminded of the old poster of emotions that sits innocently on his wall back in his territory. Here, Naruto is faced with Sasuke's wounded, vulnerable face and thinks, fuck, what do I do?
His confusion must be palpable and evident in the air, because Sasuke curses, “shit, okay, calm down.” He tugs on Naruto's hand and guides it towards his neck and presses it along his nape.
“It wasn't,” Sasuke struggles with his words again, tripping over them and fumbling, “it wasn't anything bad, it just━”
Naruto’s palm curves over the back of Sasuke's neck. Whatever instincts have cornered him into confusion, they settle and soothe, making his fingers twitch. Sasuke is warm and Naruto squeezes the back of his neck, effectively making the Uchiha quiet down.
“It wasn't anything bad?” Naruto scoffs. He's an empty husk of a person, unable to understand feelings. Sure, he can feel a few, like anger and annoyance, but other emotions evade him. Surely the only thing Sasuke felt was a cold, daunting emptiness and nothing else?
“I find that hard to believe,” Naruto murmurs. He pulls his hand away from Sasuke's neck, slow and cautious, wondering if whatever connection the seal made between them is still somewhat working, if only at a weaker degree.
He says, “this is where we split up.”
Sasuke opens his mouth to argue and Naruto clicks his tongue, narrowing his blue eyes dangerously. “Don't argue with me,” he warns.
The Uchiha frowns and closes his mouth with an audible click. The sour note in his scent intensifies and Naruto scrunches up his nose. The whole point of patrolling is to make sure the area is safe and secure to stay in. The sooner they get the job done, the sooner they can return to their team.
Naruto doesn't bother telling that to Sasuke though, he merely turns around and uses the flying raijin to teleport away.