Chapter Text
‘Dude, we totally ended that Valley’, Naruto marveled as he was getting his bento box out from Hinata’s folded scarf. ‘Ya think I should have it rebuilt with them both holding hands?’
‘You should concentrate on rebuilding Konoha’s shit system first’, Sasuke replied, getting a slightly stale onigiri from his own pocket.
His blond friend didn’t even comment on this, sending him a wary look instead. Sasuke nibbled at his meal, checking it was still edible, which it fortunately was.
‘What’s wrong?’ Naruto asked. ‘You’re always complaining about Konoha, yet you barely come back anyways.’
‘Why would I come back if it’s as shitty as always?’
‘Oi!’ Naruto growled, giving him an annoyed nudge. ‘It’s my village you're talking about!’
‘My bad, did I forget to mention the Hokage of your village does a shit job?’
Naruto tried to hit him but Sasuke had already jumped away, readying his cape to leave.
‘You’re not bailing on me, you ass!’ the blond ninja said, approaching to grab his arm. ‘What’s wrong with the way I do my job? Do you know how hard it is to fill all that paperwork?’
‘Plus, you’ve always been dramatically bad at it, dead last.’
Naruto gritted his teeth. ‘I’m doing my best, and if you were home more often, you would see it.’
‘You’re doing what you’re told, exactly like the Third.’
The Hokage let him go, a shocked, almost hurt expression on his face. ‘You think I would fuck Konoha up like he did?’
‘I think you already are, moron.’
Sasuke gave a look to his dry onigiri, then decided to forget about it and threw it away. He’d cook some more on the way. ‘If you don’t change whatever laws Danzo used to destroy my clan, if you don’t actually look into creating a better care system and even reform our government so it can benefit everyone and not only the strongest nins, what are you but a giant, Naruto-shaped, Hokage stamp?’
Hurting. That look on his friend’s face was definitely hurting.
‘The state Konoha is in, another Uchiha massacre could happen. Hyuga from the secondary branch are still enslaved to serve your wife. We have one orphanage, big deal! Kids are still sitting alone by the lake, wondering what’s that hole in their chest.’
He tightened his lips, hating that he had to talk so much for the other to notice such obvious issues. ‘Why do you think I wanted to become Hokage, idiot? To play God with your previous friends? When I came back to Konoha, I came back for you, because you’d never leave me be if not.’
Though that statement was a bit unfair.
He hated to rant but Naruto was listening, which was rare enough he made the effort to go on. ‘When I took your hand, I gained a friend, and gave up on hope. I didn’t know it back then, I thought that, if someone could change Konoha, you could. But you didn’t. So I don’t have any hope left.’
Naruto’s eyes were usually blue, but not that watery. Sasuke looked away. ‘Stop trying to fix my mood with ramen. I don’t want a moron pet, I want a competent Hokage fixing shit up.’
He made his move to leave but fell back straight in the grass, Naruto over him, angry tears falling from his eyes. ‘Is that what you really think of me?’
‘I think you’re still that scaredy-cat I met years ago, who was so fucking afraid of what people thought of him he would go out of his way to please them.’
Naruto punched him. Punched the grass next to his head, actually. ‘I— am NOT— afraid.’
‘You’re terrified they’ll turn their back on you again, and you’re right to be. They like you now because you saved Konoha a bunch of times, and because they can’t beat you up. But you’re still Kurama’s bearer. You’re still strong, and scary, and foreign. What would happen if you didn’t come up to work smiling for once, and nodding your head, signing whatever paper they put in front of you on the table?’
Naruto sat back, kneeling, and wiped his tears with a hand. ‘You’re a jerk.’
‘I don’t think you’re the one to talk, Mockage.’
But Naruto crying was an unsettling sight, even for Sasuke. He’d thought his friend would get angry and punch him, as he always did to put an end to an argument he couldn’t win.
‘I am not afraid’ Naruto repeated, softly.
Sasuke hated himself, because he’d already given up on his clan so many times. When he’d taken Naruto’s hand, when he’d killed his brother… when they’d died. He’d given his family an heir, and that wasn’t enough, but he couldn’t bear staying in that place, that village that still the same, unchanged from the night it had ordered his family’s destruction. Yet he was willing to let go of them yet again, for that moron. For that one, unique friend who was stupid enough to believe his being Hokage had changed anything. He sighed. He was the stupid one.
He sat up, and slid his arm over Naruto’s shoulders to ease his crying. He felt warm and pure against him, even though he was also harmful and insensitive.
‘Why do you have to be suck a jackass?’ Naruto sniffed, wiping his face. He lifted his head, grinning through the pain, probably storing that uncomfortable conversation away to never be thought of again. ‘You don’t have anything left to eat, right?’
Sasuke didn’t answer, stroking gently Naruto’s back. He’d die the last Uchiha, and Konoha would remain. Konoha had won.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Yeah, right!’ Naruto scoffed. He went to fetch his bento, then came back to sit next to Sasuke, a bit too close to his liking. He opened the box and, suddenly grinning with mischief, grabbed a ball of rice with chopsticks. ‘Hey, remember our entry test with Kakashi? Say aaaaaah.’
Sasuke scolded and pushed his laughing head away, smiling slightly despite himself.
Sometimes, his heart ached when he saw Naruto’s smile, and it was enough to erase everything.
Sometimes, he wished he’d never taken that friendly hand and had died instead.