Chapter Text
Sasuke trailed the skinny, acne-ridden waiter to a small booth in the corner of the restaurant, leaving a following distance of a meter to keep as much space as possible between his nose and the sour, sweaty, alcoholic smell wafting off the man. The spot he was led to was backed by a brick wall, giving a wide view of the rest of the space, perfect for paranoid shinobi.
Sasuke sat down and slid to the back. The faux leather seat was dingy and torn at places, but it was comfortable, sinking pleasantly under his weight. He kept his eyes staidly fixed on the teenage waiter, who was pouring him a glass of water.
“I’m waiting for one other person,” Sasuke told the waiter, who set the glass of water down in front of Sasuke.
The waiter nodded with understanding, a forced, servile smile on his chapped lips. “I’ll bring another menu. Can I get you anything while you wait, sir?” he asked.
Sasuke considered it. It was 18:40, 10 minutes after the time he and Kakashi had arranged to meet, but he knew Kakashi would be around 20–30 minutes late, as he always was on their weekly get-togethers. But that was a measly amount of time compared to his usual rate of 3 or 4 hours, indicating he must have somewhat valued Sasuke’s time, so Sasuke had gotten used to it. There were some things you grudgingly grew to tolerate about your friends.
Cutting short the pause, Sasuke made a noise of confirmation.
His whole body ached from exertion, muscles tense, and there was a nasty bruise on his abdomen, rapidly darkening into a cloud of purples and blues, spreading to the bottom of his rib cage. He had just returned from a three and a half week long ANBU mission and had hastily written a report as fast as he could in order to make it in time for the meetup. He had sent his hawk to Kakashi from the top of the Hokage Tower with the a slip of paper bearing the name of this restaurant; usually, they went to a tiny, near-abandoned, run down bar deeper into the seedy side of town, one not frequented by many shinobi—or anyone at all, frankly—but he had felt starved from the lack of soft, flavorful, and warm food the last near-month, the nasty ration bars quickly acquiring the taste of ash in his mouth, and he had decided to give up the peace and anonymity of their usual spot for someplace that had actual quality food to eat instead of just the cherries the bartenders put in cocktails.
Thus, this restaurant. It was another small place, unpopular and badly funded, but it had a bar attached and would suit their purpose while filling Sasuke’s stomach. It was, unfortunately, busier than their usual spot, so Sasuke had henge-ed himself into a nondescript, brown haired man who looked like a retired Jonin to avoid being recognized. The arm missing was the perfect touch to the impromptu fake identity, a crippling combat wound that would have ended most shinobis' careers and which, all around, added credibility to his tale. Other shinobi would be able to tell this wasn’t Sasuke’s actual appearance, but henges weren’t uncommon in Konoha, for a multiplicity of different reasons, and, this way, no one would bother him or harangue him, something he wanted to prevent at all costs.
After all, even over a decade later, civilians were still scared of him, unable to forget what he had done as a teenager, and shinobi either hero-worshipped him or despised him. Mostly the latter. The Will of Fire was a very popular credo, and those who violated it by committing treason and killing fellow Konoha shinobi, no matter what depraved acts those they murdered had done, were not particularly popular, to say the least.
In any case, Sasuke especially hated being interrupted during his weekly gatherings with Kakashi, forced to grind out platitudes to strangers. The sentiment was only strengthened on this particular day because he’d missed the last three Fridays’ bar appointments with Kakashi due to his latest ANBU mission. Usually he only missed one or two in a row, taking shorter missions for, admittedly, this particular reason. Kakashi was the only person in his life right now whose presence was always a soothing balm rather than a stressor, and he looked forward to his advice and company all the other days of the week.
His temper was short, and when one of the few activities he enjoyed was interrupted, he wasn’t inclined to restrain it. Several months ago, after getting drinks, while they were walking together on the street, some random Chunin had accosted him and started interrogating him about Itachi, and he’d had to smother his urge to walk the interlocutor into an alley way and Chidori him.Kakashi’s grip on his bicep had helped. Sasuke’s KI hadn’t been particularly subtle.
“I’ll have a whiskey on the rocks,” Sasuke decided. Alcohol was just the thing to relax the tension in his taut muscles and forcibly unwind. Though the temperature of the air was quite hot, his entire body felt cold, like there was frost in his joints. Hopefully the liquor would help warm his body.
He would wait to order a meal until Kakashi arrived. The food here was excellent, despite the unimpressive appearance of the storefront and interior, and that was the main reason, besides its obscurity, he had chosen it. The hamburgers were the perfect texture, firm but juicy, and the fries were crunchy, salty, and not too greasy. His mouth watered as he imagined eating, taste buds famished.
“Yes, sir.” The waiter walked back towards the bar, moving in an odd, duck-footed frolic.
Sasuke opened the paper napkin on the table in front of him and began to fold it slowly, precisely, into a crane. The dexterity exercise came easily to him, despite the absence of a second hand, from years of experience and practice doing things one-handed and performing one-handed seals. He held the result on the palm of his hand and examined it, running his eyes over the white contours of its wings. Somehow, it made him think of Kakashi. It must have been the color. Or perhaps the sharp angles.
The sentimental comparison made him angry.
The waiter placed a glass of amber liquid down in front of Sasuke with an obsequious smile, the ice cubes clinking, and then left to go deal with the (two) other customers, both of which were up front at the bar for the alcohol, not at any of the tables for food.
Sasuke ran his chakra through the whiskey and sniffed it, checking for poison or any extra ingredients, but it was clean. He took a deep sip, feeling the burning liquid sliding down his throat, and exhaled a soft breath of relief, mood immediately improved. He hadn’t had time to shower between arriving at the Hokage tower to give his mission brief to Naruto and coming to the restaurant, and he could feel grime clinging to his body, blood in every crevice.
Retrospectively, it was foolish—Sasuke knew Kakashi was always late. He had been excited to see him and somehow it had slipped his mind, and now he was here sitting and waiting in a restaurant with stale air and unpleasant company for that tardy bastard. But it was too late for regrets now. At least Sasuke was certain he didn’t smell awful—he had bathed in a cold stream the day before. But Kakashi had an exemplary sense of smell, so he would definitely smell something—probably just the coppery scent of blood, which was so overwhelming that it masked everything else.
Sasuke felt slightly regretful at the thought. He didn’t want it to be the first thing Kakashi noticed when they met.
He took another sip of his whiskey, neck feeling less tight with the alcohol loosening his body, and thought of what Naruto had said as Sasuke had made his way out the window of the Hokage’s office: “Say hi to Sakura for me!” There had been a simple, assured expectancy to the words. Sasuke and Sakura were a couple, after all, and it made perfect sense for the first thing Sasuke did, after arriving back in Konoha following a lengthy mission, to be to visit his girlfriend. He had nodded and agreed like it was that straightforward. Naruto was the last person he would have unloaded his domestic difficulties on.
But, in truth, Sasuke hadn’t even notified Sakura yet that he was back. Even the thought gave him a vague apprehension. He was hoping to put it off at least until after he got a good night’s sleep.
He knew that wasn’t normal. Nothing was normal about their relationship. They had been officially dating for seven years now—or was it eight? She would know; she kept track of the anniversary and hinted at it to him every year as it came closer—and despite Naruto’s successful example, he felt no more eager to marry her, much less have children with her.
Sasuke recalled with bitter humor his childhood goal of restoring his clan. He had thought it would be so simple then; when he was older, after killing Itachi, he would marry a woman and have some children with her. Begin the journey to repopulating the village with Uchihas. Well, now he had the means—Sakura gave increasingly blatant hints about her willingness to start a family—but not the will. He was the last Uchiha, for real now, except for those few Uchiha bastards that probably existed in other villages, (and there was probably some half-grown clone of him in an abandoned Sound base somewhere), but the thought was more ambivalent than it had ever been. Perhaps he should be the last. Perhaps the clan’s cursed legacy was meant to end with him. The same cycle always repeated, and it would be hubris to assume he would become the exception.
He thought of Sakura’s warm smile and soft, affectionate gaze on him, the careful, snug way she hugged him around the waist from behind as he cooked them dinner; how she scanned his body for wounds after every mission and tutted and healed him if she found one last hidden scratch. The memories were tart and painful, and he felt guiltier than ever. She deserved someone better. Someone who returned her feelings, who would remember anniversaries, who enjoyed kissing her and initiated contact. She had made it seem so effortless in the beginning. It had been very easy to fall into the relationship, to bring her joy as he finally accepted her advances. It had felt, somehow, inevitable and right. Everyone had expected it, and he had thought it would be the correct thing to do to fulfill those expectations.
But his feelings toward her hadn’t changed. He hadn’t started looking at her with love struck eyes, hadn’t felt more than a preliminary interest in her carnally. He had thought that would change with time, but it hadn’t, and recently he had started questioning things afresh, asking himself if it was even right—to Sakura—to keep doing this. He respected her and her skill and strength, and he cared for her, but did he didn’t want to marry her, didn’t even want to live with her. He couldn’t muster up the nerve to do anything about it, though. He kept thinking of everyone’s disappointment, Sakura’s heartbreak, the mess it would cause in his relationships with all the people he knew.
Yet, he couldn’t keep dithering without making a decision. Soon, the taut line would snap, and he would have to either capitulate and keep pretending till death, or end it all.
He buried his head in his arms and exhaled shakily. He thought of Naruto’s inevitable disappointment in him, Kakashi’s disapproval, Tsunade’s fury.
It would be so much easier to do nothing.
Sasuke wondered if Naruto’s love for Hinata was this complicated, but the answer was immediately obvious; of course not. It was simple for them. Simple, but perfect. There was a soppy, overwhelmingly tender look upon Naruto’s face whenever she was mentioned, and the way he went on about her, you’d have thought they never fought. On all fronts, they had complete and total marital bliss; Naruto’s only other favorite topics were of Himawari and Boruto, whose photos were pasted all over his desk. Sasuke didn’t talk to Hinata, but he was sure this went both ways, from the way he remembered the girl staring at Naruto back in their Genin days. “Himawari this—” “Boruto this—” “Hinata this—” It was Naruto he went on about these days. He’d turned into a total family man, and he was more distant and hard to relate with than he had ever been before to Sasuke. No, Naruto didn’t have to question his love for his wife; it was self-evident, obvious, and a constant. Sasuke, however—
If anything, Sasuke was the one who changed the subject whenever Sakura was brought up. He didn’t gush over her, and he didn’t carry any pictures of her. The only picture he had of her was his copy of their Team 7 photo, and the photos Sakura had taken with him and plied on him had all been lost over time, for he’d been too careless to keep track of them. His attitude towards Sakura was the total antithesis of Naruto’s towards Hinata. How pathetic and cruel.
He drained his glass of whiskey and felt the effects of it start to work on his mind. He knew a medical chakra technique that flushed alcohol from the body, taught to him by Sakura who had learned it from Tsunade, but he didn’t use it. He wasn’t intoxicated enough that he wouldn’t be able to defend himself, and, anyway, even if he were blackout drunk, there were few shinobi in the village who would be able to fight him at an equal level. Those who could wouldn’t attack him in the first place. Not lethally, at least.
Sasuke rested his cheek on his palm and stared through the empty air. He felt like lingering upon his dark mood, and the alcohol helped. He’d never been a happy drunk. When his inhibitions were pried from him, all he could seem to linger upon were the bad things. Naruto was the complete opposite; he got uproariously cheerful and started talking about how much he loved everyone. Sakura…She got violent, rowdy, and competitive, reminiscent of her mentor. And the drunk version of Kakashi was touchy and fond, all-around lazier than usual—not surprising.
Bitter, Sasuke realized that the miasma swirling in his stomach was nostalgic—it brought him back to the very beginning, when he had still been reeling from the massacre. He hadn’t yet felt hatred or an obsessive drive for revenge; instead, there had only been despair, a black pit of it weighing down his gut. The weight was different now, but it was similar.
Masochistically, Sasuke reveled in the feeling, letting it submerge him, replaying in his mind the graphic, violent memories from the last week, captured in high definition by his Sharingan. When he envisioned himself, all he could focus on was the blood in his hair and on his clothes and the dirty blisters on his fingers. Behind the white mask, his eyes were empty and reflectionless, like dark stones.
He wondered if Naruto would have time to talk to Sakura before tomorrow. Probably not, he concluded, the thought bringing slight relief. Sakura was undoubtedly busy at work in the hospital, and, as Hokage, Naruto had little room for downtime, either. Sasuke had at least this evening, then, before he had to see her, talk to her, kiss her, do whatever she wanted.
He called the waiter up for a refill.
“She stood you up?” the waiter asked with sympathy. Sasuke scowled without answering, leaked a smidgen of killing intent, and caused the waiter to pale and leave.
His thoughts returned undisturbed to their former topic.
Yes, Sasuke had this evening. Some of the apprehension left him; that anxiety was for tomorrow. The despair—he would keep the despair, but the anxiety could leave. Soon, he would be across from Kakashi, from the warm, familiar man who seemed to always silently understand Sasuke’s frame of mind. They would talk with ease and comfort about things of little importance, or maybe Sasuke would decide to bring up Sakura and the bloody mission—either way, just his presence would make Sasuke feel better. Routinely, he would try to use his Sharingan to see Kakashi lower his mask to eat and drink, even though he’d long ago seen his face uncovered.
It would all be comforting and habitual, and the bitter exhaustion would recede. Things would appear lighthearted and worth it again, all the desperation and over-exaggerated gloom on his own part washed away, just embellishment and melancholia caused by the fresh blood on his hands.
He took another deep sip. The whiskey no longer burned. Instead, his stomach felt warm and bubbly, and his extremities had finally stopped going through the sensations of rigor mortis.
Time passed him by quickly, and it wasn’t long before Sasuke had had another two drinks, stomach empty and queasy. He usually only had one or two cups when he was with Kakashi, and halfway through he would flush the alcohol out, so his tolerance wasn’t comparable to Sakura’s, who, with Tsunade as a teacher, had naturally gotten considerable drinking practice. The ice cubes in his cup had melted and disappeared, and the whiskey was no longer diluted, the alcohol content greater.
Sasuke’s entire face was hot and flushed, and the room wobbled before his eyes. The table and his seat were, thank Hashirama, incredibly solid, landmarks he could hold onto, but his body felt snake-like, like if he let go, he would slide off the seat onto a pile on the floor.
He set the side of his head down on the table, his burning cheek meeting the cool, lacquered table and feeling refreshingly chilled by it. He kept his henge up, supplying fresh strings of chakra to the illusion, but he was beginning to forget why it was important he do so. With an unsteady, grasping hand, he reached for the crane he had folded and picked it up, supplying it with chakra and letting it stick upside down to his hand. He let the chakra narrow and thin into a single thread which stretched out further, and the crane swung in the air like a yo-yo attached by an invisible cord. Itachi had done this for him, as a child, entertaining him before he went to bed with silly tricks.
He dropped it and washed down the wave of immense sorrow with another drink from his glass.
Where’s Kakashi? Sasuke mused moodily. Kakashi was later than was standard for their meetings, and the observation was strangely hurtful to his sensitive, drunken mind. He knew he wouldn’t have felt even a pang of upset if he were sober—he would have just brushed it off as the man’s usual irresponsibility. What an asshole.
The train of thought must have summoned the man, for Sasuke hadn’t done more than blink a few times before he felt a familiar chakra signature nearby, approaching at what seemed a very quick pace but probably wasn’t. He recognized it as safe, so he didn’t move his head, blinking slowly, eyes staying closed for longer increments, and then there were familiar legs in his frame of view, connected to an unfamiliar face that faintly vibrated in his consciousness with the chakra of a henge.
Sasuke slowly lifted his head—it felt heavier than a bag of bricks—and met incredulous but amused eyes.
“What’s this, Sasuke?” Kakashi asked, smiling with (not) his entire face. “You’ve had fun without me.”
Sasuke leaned his head back against the padded booth and squinted up at him. He fumbled around inside one of his countless pockets and pulled out a paper seal, slamming it down on the table and shoving chakra into it. It was a privacy seal, one in the score he had prepared for get-togethers with Kakashi. It would divert attention from the area and muffle their words. Typically, these seals were made for sensitive missions or hiding from enemies who were way above your level, but those above Sasuke’s level he could count using the fingers on his one hand, and he would still have fingers left, so this usage was more suitable. And, anyway, Sasuke disliked not being able to speak with Kakashi’s actual face—the mask hid enough on its own—and he was also getting annoyed at having to maintain his own henge.
“There. Now take that—stupid face off,” he slurred.
Kakashi laughed and sat down. “How many drinks have you had? And all without your poor old sensei.”
Sasuke watched with satisfaction as the henge popped away, revealing the familiar lean, masked face and gravity defying silver hair. He dispersed his own disguise and leaned forward to rest his chin on his hands. It took a couple of tries to do so successfully. He kept missing.
“Four…or five,” Sasuke mumbled. He frowned. “You were late.”
“Aren’t I always?” asked Kakashi easily.
“Later than usual. It’s…normally 20 minutes, for these meetups, but you weren’t here for…” He paused, honestly unable to calculate how much time had passed in the haze. “A while,” he finished, indignantly. Kakashi had broken their unspoken pact, ruined their routine. All Sasuke could focus on was the unfairness of it all—and the misery, which the whiskey magnified to macroscopic proportions.
“I’ve never seen you this drunk,” Kakashi muttered with wonder.
“I’m not…I’m not drunk,” Sasuke denied. Certainly, he would admit he was a little under the influence, but it was nothing a walk in the fresh breeze wouldn’t fix, and he could control his movements fine. He threw his napkin crane at Kakashi, aiming for his forehead. It hit the man on his shoulder.
Alright, maybe he couldn’t control his movements so well, but even so, he wasn’t that drunk.
Kakashi caught the crane as it fell from his shoulder and looked at it with bewilderment. “A crane?”
“I folded it from the napkin,” Sasuke muttered. He gestured at the untouched napkin on Kakashi’s spot.
“Well, thank you for the gift.” Kakashi smiled and carefully flattened it, folding its wings up, then placed it into one of the pockets of his green Jonin vest.
“Makes me think of you…dunno why,” Sasuke admitted woozily.
Kakashi’s eye widened in delight. “I’m going to tease you about this when you’re sober, you know,” he said, chuckling.
“Shaddup.”
“Why does it remind you of me?” Kakashi inquired, tilting his head.
“Color,” Sasuke said simply, not expanding on the rest. It would take too much effort to speak the words coherently, and he had the impression he shouldn’t be completely honest about it.
Kakashi snorted.
Sasuke furrowed his brow. “Why’re…Why were you late?”
“Sasuke…I’m sorry, I got held up—”
“Don’t give me the shit about the kittens or the grandmas,” Sasuke interrupted sourly. “Just tell me you don’t value my time.” The honest words spilled off his tongue before he could analyze them or ask himself whether he wanted to speak them aloud.
Kakashi’s smile disappeared, and the joviality drained from him, for he seemed to notice Sasuke’s words weren’t said with the usual resigned ire but instead drunken dejection.
“I’m sorry.” He spoke with a serious tone, the tone he had used as Hokage, and back when he had been Sasuke’s teacher giving sensitive orders during missions. “I do value seeing you, Sasuke. Pakkun has a cold. Honestly. I was force-feeding him some medicine—those pill-pocket dog treats. He kept spitting the pills out and eating the pockets.” He looked into Sasuke’s scrunched-up eyes earnestly. “I thought you wouldn’t mind, since I’m always so late.”
Sasuke wanted to be upset longer, but he couldn’t in the face of Kakashi’s sincerity. Never mind whether he was telling the truth—it didn’t matter. He would forgive him even if it was a lie.
“It’s fine,” he muttered. He didn’t like fighting with Kakashi, even on minor things. It reminded him of the days when he had foolishly tried to kill him.
He reached for his half-empty glass of whiskey, but before he could pick it up, Kakashi whisked it off the table.
“I’ll take that,” he said, wiggling his index finger prohibitively. “I think you’ve had enough.” Sasuke blinked heavily, and when his eyes opened again, the glass was empty and Kakashi was setting it down onto the table again, audibly smacking his lips.
“This stuff isn’t half bad,” he said with surprise, looking assessingly back at the bar.
The force of gravity was unusually hard on Sasuke, and he felt himself sinking back down onto the table, resting his head on his arms. He thought of Sakura again and groaned aloud. “She’s gonna…she’s gonna go on about marriage again,” he mumbled.
“Hm?” Kakashi intoned, looking slightly worried.
“Sakura…” Sasuke clarified, rubbing at his eyes and almost poking them out in the process.
“Trouble in paradise?”
“There’s always trouble.” Sasuke adjusted the position of his head to get a better angle of vision at Kakashi’s face. He swallowed thickly, trying to shove down the nausea, and changed the topic, instinctually leery of discussing it, especially with a shared friend. “I’m hungry.”
“Ah, I can tell you just got back from your mission. I can smell it.” Kakashi tapped his masked nose and winked exaggeratedly. Well, Sasuke thought, it could also have been a blink. He had no way of knowing, with the other eye covered by the forehead protector.
He felt a wave of embarrassment. Since Kakashi had been so late, he should have just left to go take a quick shower at his apartment. It was probably disgusting, sitting across from him. He thought of Itachi’s blood soaked ANBU uniform and winced. “I’m sorry,” he said morosely. “I know you don’t like the scent of blood.”
“Ah, no, no—it’s fine, Sasuke. Really.” Kakashi waved his hands frantically. “I was much worse back in my days in the squad.”
Sasuke smiled faintly. “Right. I remember…You said you once went to the convenience store with your uniform on, still covered head to toe in blood. The shop lady screamed and threw a tin of mints at you.”
“I shouldn’t have told you that. You’ll get bad ideas,” Kakashi lamented. “Have you eaten anything besides those awful ration bars lately?”
Sasuke shook his head.
“Okay, well, why don’t you—actually, I’ll call the waiter up. Let’s put our henges back up, and I’ll take this for now,” Kakashi said, unpeeling the seal from the table. He waved a couple of times and, when that didn’t warrant any attention from the staff, lifted his forehead protector and sent a genjutsu over. The waiter approached quickly, then, somehow feeling it was an urgent matter that he come to the table.
“My companion and I will both have a burger and fries,” Kakashi said, “cooked well done, with two bacon beef patties each. And I’ll have a glass of red wine.” The waiter nodded fervently and jogged away, eyes foggy. “Um…maybe I overdid it.” He slapped the seal back onto the table and straightened in his seat. “So…What gives? Why the, uh, four glasses of whiskey?”
“Just…” Sasuke slurred. “Sakura. Do you think Sakura and I are good together?” He gave up on avoiding the topic. It was inevitable he share it with someone. Kakashi was a better bet than anyone else. Who else did Sasuke have, anyway? Naruto was out of the question, and Sakura was the object of discussion. There was no one else.
Kakashi tilted his head. “You two seem to get along well. I never hear about any conflicts, you’re both dedicated to your jobs, and she talks about you all the time. Maybe it’s not on the level of Naruto and Hinata-chan, but they’re a statistical improbability.”
Statistical improbability, Sasuke mouthed confusedly. He doubted he would have been able to say that aloud right now—it would have come out as something like, “statistatical improvabavility”.
“I don’t talk about her, though,” Sasuke said slowly, careful to enunciate his words properly. “Right?”
“That’s true,” confirmed Kakashi. “Did you have an argument with her today?”
“I haven’t seen her yet,” Sasuke confessed tiredly, sloppily brushing a curtain of hair off his eyes. “I didn’t wanna…ruin the evening.” He had been anticipating this evening since the start of the mission. There must have been something defective about his psychology, if he was looking forward to seeing his male friend to drink alcohol more than to see his loving girlfriend who probably wanted to engage in adult acts after his long absence.
“Oh.” Kakashi’s expression was unreadable. “Did you fight before you left?”
“No. I…” He bit the inside of his cheek. “I don’t think I like her the way she does me,” Sasuke forced the words out of himself, with he same sense of violent discharge as when cutting himself to let poisoned blood.
He had needed to tell someone. He needed to be able to explain things to anyone other than the voice in his own head. Again, Naruto wasn’t the right person, and he certainly wasn’t prepared to tell Sakura. He didn’t want to start a fight where she would inevitably concede and things would return to regularity immediately after.
“This isn’t just the alcohol speaking?” Kakashi asked quietly.
Sasuke shook his head and, with a wave of effort, flushed the alcohol from his blood, feeling sweat bead on his forehead and all over his body. It was like his head had been splashed with cold water, and clarity washed over him, dizziness gone, the sound of the lights no longer ringing in his ears. He groaned and wiped his forehead with the empty shirt sleeve hanging on his left side. He couldn’t believe he’d gotten so drunk in front of Kakashi—before the man had even arrived! That was seriously pathetic.
“I…I’ve been thinking about it a lot, recently.” He suddenly remembered the napkin crane and stopped himself from covering his face from embarrassment. Stupid. “She wants to get married and have kids. I don’t want any of that. I don’t even want to move in with her. I like having my own space. And…” He picked some blood from under his index finger’s nail with his thumb. “I don’t..” In the end, he couldn’t say the words—it was too mortifying. “I don’t know.”
“I’m not a good person to ask about relationships, Sasuke.” Kakashi sighed quietly. “I’m sure you know that. But, as a friend, I think this is something you should discuss with her. Not everyone has a picture-perfect relationship like Naruto and Hinata-chan. But if you’re not getting any happiness from the relationship anymore, then, it’s not good to string it along.” He steepled his fingers together thoughtfully. “When did this start?”
Sasuke met his gaze then quickly looked away. He asked himself whether he should be honest. This is Kakashi. The answer was yes. He knew Kakashi wouldn’t share things he’d told him in confidence with Sakura, and vice-versa.
“Years ago.” He smiled sourly.
“Years?” Kakashi repeated in shock, eyebrow raised. “How many years, exactly?”
Sasuke raked a hand over his face. “From the beginning,” he said in a muffled voice. “I didn’t even really know if I wanted to do it, but then, I thought, ‘Why not. She’s the only one insane enough to still be interested in you after all you’ve done, and you’ll probably start to like it after a while. It’ll make her happy at least.’ And I thought maybe it was normal not to feel any different, to not look at her like that, for the…’” He gritted his teeth and spat the words out, still covering his face. “’…contact to be uncomfortable.”
“Sasuke…” Kakashi said softly.
“I know,” Sasuke said harshly. “I know I’ve been cruel and unfair to her. It’s tearing me up, and she’s starting to notice I don’t want any of the things she wants. I have to make a decision soon. I think she’s going to confront me. I can’t—I can’t do it. I don’t want to make a child with her. I don’t know if I ever want to have a child.” He looked up at Kakashi, suddenly, face dark and troubled. “You remember our introductions from the first time we all met?”
Kakashi nodded, his voice tinged with memories. “Yes, of course.”
“I wanted to restore my clan and kill Itachi.” Sasuke managed not to falter over the word, even though, even after all this time, just the thought of his older brother made him want to curl up in a dark corner somewhere and cry. “I’ve done one of those things. The other…It’s so ironic. Sometimes I think it would be better for me to be the last Uchiha. But I feel so responsible for carrying the legacy—it doesn’t feel like my choice to make. But I know I couldn’t do it with her. It would be unjust.” He sighed. “I should have discarded both those goals from the beginning. I was so stupid.”
He exhaled sharply and stopped speaking there, bracing himself for admonishments but wanting it, deserving it.
After a moment, Kakashi said, slowly, “That was a lot more than I thought it was going to be.” He shook his head. “I don’t think you should be so hard on yourself, Sasuke. You’re still young. You’re still figuring things out.” I’m 26, Sasuke thought. Not so young when you know the average Jonin lifespan. “But, if that’s all true…I agree that you should speak to her and end it. Not only for her sake but your own. You’re clearly suffering here.” He reached across the table to clasp Sasuke’s shoulder gently. “You could have told me, sooner. I’m always here for you.”
Kakashi’s gloved hand was warm on Sasuke’s shoulder. He still wasn’t good at this sort of thing—accepting friendship. He nodded sharply. “Thanks…” he muttered. He looked at Kakashi’s open face, the features carved into Sasuke’s soul, the sharp curve of his jaw undisguised by his mask, his lanky frame and rolled up sleeves. He saw these things, but at the same time, he wasn’t seeing them at all, but looking through them, at something else, something he couldn’t identify and wasn’t sure he wanted to. The words exited his mouth with strain. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”
Kakashi’s hand dropped. “No. Of course not.”
Sasuke clenched his jaw. He wanted Kakashi’s honesty, not his courtesy. “But—Sakura. She’s pretty, right? She’s intelligent, she’s driven, she’s strong, she…loves me. Any normal man would care for her back. But I can’t.”
Maybe I’m broken beyond repair, he thought but didn’t say, the words too melodramatic for him to comfortably speak them out loud, as much as he believed them in his heart. Maybe Itachi broke something inside me that day, and it will never be fixed.
“Sasuke, sometimes people just don’t work together. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.” Kakashi pointed at himself. “I mean, look at me. I’m an old bachelor.” He was only a decade older than Sasuke. “I’ll be one to the end of my days. Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”
Sasuke mutely shook his head. But he knew it was different. Kakashi was always reading those pornographic books by Jiraiya—perhaps he would never be in a serious relationship, but he still seemed to have those thoughts and feelings towards women. Sasuke—he shuddered to think about it. He and Sakura had a very “spiritual” relationship. They kissed, but sleeping together…He tried to limit the amount of times he had to do it to a couple of times per month, citing busyness, exhaustion, all kinds of excuses to avoid it. He’d even started taking more and more long ANBU missions back to back, despite Naruto’s worried inquiries, to flee from her. As long as he thought of an indistinct, vague, shadowy figure as his partner during the act, rather than a solid, flesh and blood woman, it worked—but it was difficult. He, a shinobi of kage-level physical prowess, couldn’t seem to do anything but hide from his girlfriend.
He suddenly noticed their waiter wandering around their area with confusion, a tray of food in his spindly fingers. The waiter gazed around like a headless chicken, searching for their booth intently but unable to find it.
“Oh. I’ll get that,” Sasuke mumbled. Kakashi’s let out a cut-off exhale, like he had been about to say something again.
Sasuke stood up, redid his earlier henge, and walked out from the bubble of the privacy seal to take the tray. The waiter looked at him with extreme confusion, like he’d appeared out of thin air, but smiled automatically.
“Thank you,” Sasuke said dully.
Sasuke sat back down on the table, released the henge, and distributed the food. One burger and bag of fries for him, one for Kakashi. He passed the goblet of red wine over to Kakashi as well, the simple motions distracting him from the topic they had just been discussing. Or, rather, trying and failing to distract him.
Sasuke took a long drink from his untouched cup of water and started eating, abruptly realizing how famished he was. With the alcohol gone from his body, his stomach was completely empty and un-cushioned by liquid, all that lined the contents being dry rations bars and chakra pills from hours and hours ago. He made a noise of appreciation—the burger was as excellent as he had remembered.
He felt a bit better now that he’d unloaded it all on Kakashi—again, it was like letting poisoned blood. The poison was still in his system, but his body was lighter, a little more clean.
He looked up and met the gaze of Kakashi, who was sipping his wine, mask pulled down to his chin. Sasuke blinked with surprise, jolted out of his ruminations.
It was unusual, but he supposed they had the privacy seal on, and Sasuke was a trusted comrade. They had just talked about a personal subject, and Sasuke had spilled his guts, so…He mentally shrugged. He was never entirely certain how Kakashi’s mind worked, even though they had the most similar personalities of everyone who’d been on Team 7.
Kakashi didn’t look away or cover his face, so Sasuke took the opportunity to examine it. Even those few times he’d seen it, he hadn’t had time to peer very closely. There had usually been a lot of blood, grime, and life-threatening injuries involved.
Kakashi’s face was lean and defined, his nose and chin both coming to sharp points. He had fine cheekbones and thin, pale lips, his jaw lined with bleached stubble. There was a single mole below his lips on his chin, drawing attention naturally to the area. His face was handsome and kind, skin ash-toned, far less intimidating than it seemed to be when the mask was hiding all but his sharp, dark eyes. It was strange to see. Sasuke was older now than Kakashi had been when he had first started teaching Team 7, and Kakashi had appeared so old, experienced, back then. Now, Sasuke knew he must have been young and soft-faced under the mask.
Kakashi’s gaze abruptly flickered away, and Sasuke’s stopped staring. He swallowed his food. “Sorry. I’ve been talking a lot about myself. How are you?”
Kakashi accepted the change of conversation easily, perhaps as eager to return to a light topic as Sasuke.
“Oh, same as always. Naruto’s having me decrypt some old ciphers from another one of Orochimaru’s unearthed labs.” Kakashi shrugged and ran a hand across his jaw. “I’ve been working on a new technique—another advanced form of raikiri.”
“Workaholic,” Sasuke scoffed, though his tone was still a little off.
Kakashi smiled, and Sasuke watched the sight closely—he’d never seen it before on the man’s bare face.
“Did you know that Himawari-chan learned how to write her name this last week? Naruto won’t shut up about it.” Despite his harsh words, Kakashi’s voice was warm and fond.
“How old is she, again?” Sasuke asked, eyebrows drawn together. It was like each time he turned around for one moment, Naruto’s kids got six months older. He kept forgetting they could both even talk, much less write.
“Mmm…four years old. I think her birthday was recently.”
“Is that a normal age for that?” Sasuke could hardly remember such details, and he wasn’t good with kids, so it wasn’t knowledge that he would have sought out, unlike Sakura.
“More or less.” Kakashi scratched his head. “I, of course, was at a different stage in my life at that age, but—the good thing about peace is that children don’t need to grow up so quickly.”
It hadn’t just been the war—Kakashi was a prodigy and, war or no, Sasuke knew he wouldn’t have been a normal child, naively playing “ninja” and misspelling his own name. He was like Itachi in that way; war or peace, his talent would have been taken notice of by the village and used accordingly.
“Hn.”
Sasuke’s own views on the topic of the current supposed peace were rather conflicted. They certainly had “peace”, but that didn’t stop Konoha from necessarily running ANBU, and he’d spent the last week on an undercover mission that had ended in the slaughter of a whole household and several groups of missing nin.
There was peace, yes, but peace didn’t mean the absence of violence, and today’s children would still grow up to become murderers—just a bit later than earlier generations.
But he knew Kakashi knew that better than perhaps even Sasuke did, so he didn’t say anything.
It was too depressing a topic, and Sasuke didn’t like dwelling on Konoha’s current system. For all the changes in administration had transformed things for the better, at its core it was the same village, the same system that ground out loyal soldiers that would obediently kill their families for an insubstantial, ephemeral ideal. And Sasuke was part of the machine, just another one of the cogs keeping the engine running.
Sometimes he wanted to leave it all behind, go traveling outside the village on an indefinite mission—and then he thought of Kakashi and their weekly drinks and the easy warmth and comfort of it all, and he couldn’t bear to give it up. As much as he wanted to get away and take a breather, get the village out of his sight and Sakura out of his mind, some things were worth staying for.
“Oh, now that you’re sober: Thanks again for the crane, Sasuke-kun,” Kakashi crooned teasingly. “I’ll treasure it. It reminds you of me, you say?”
Sasuke made an inarticulate sound. “Yeah, whatever.”
Kakashi laughed. “Okay, I’ll stop. But it’s cute.” Sasuke clenched his hand under the table, heart jolting momentarily for no discernible reason. “I’ll keep it by Mr. Ukki.”
“That dried up old plant is still alive?” Sasuke asked incredulously.
“Eh…If I’m honest, every once in a while I have Tenzo come over to give it another lease on life.” Kakashi sipped from his drink. “But I treat him very well, if you must know! He has a more regular feeding schedule than I do.”
“That’s not something to be proud about,” Sasuke scoffed.
“Okay, okay, don’t bully me, Sasuke,” Kakashi whined.
“I’m not bullying you,” Sasuke protested with a frown. He ate the last of his French fries, thoughtfully. “How are the treatments going?” he asked, finally remembering the relevant topic.
Six months ago, Kakashi had started undergoing experimental treatments done by Sakura for the deteriorating vision in his Sharingan, and Sakura had been very optimistic about the success rate; she’d been studying and working like a woman possessed, a fervent gleam in her eyes. Sasuke remembered she’d been spending more and more time at the hospital, and even when they had hung out together, she’d started carting along large tomes or scrolls, examining the contents meticulously for anything—even the slightest detail—that might be of use. He knew she’d also been looking at some of Orochimaru’s old research, though she found it distasteful.
“It’s working, as far as I can tell,” Kakashi admitted, sounding surprised himself. “My long distance vision is getting a lot better—things are less foggy. Sakura says it won’t ever be finished, though. She can heal the damage as it comes, but if I keep using it, it’ll keep getting damaged—which, considering it doesn’t ever shut off, I have to.”
“Makes sense,” Sasuke said. He didn’t think that was a bad thing, though—that it was even possible for the damage to be healed without Kakashi having to rip his eyeball out and replace it with someone else’s was enough for him. He would have found it difficult to force the words from his lips, but he found himself being very pleased about the whole situation for Kakashi. As powerful as Kakashi was, and as much as he didn’t rely overmuch on his Sharingan, Sasuke knew his vision must have started to decline ages ago. That this could be fixed—that Sakura had endeavored to do so—well, it made Sasuke feel a lot better and a lot less worried about the man. “I’m glad,” he said quietly.
Kakashi rubbed self consciously at the back of his head. “It’s coming along, but she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to return it to the level my other eye is at…But yes, it’s certainly better than nothing. I have a treatment tomorrow.” He gulped down some more wine. “By the way,” he said and tilted his head to the side, looking like one of his own dogs, “how was your mission? Within the grounds of confidentiality, of course.” He winked obnoxiously. He knew there were few secrets in the village that he didn’t have the clearance level to know, as a former Hokage, and if there were any—Naruto wouldn’t mind at all if Kakashi was let in the know, even semi-retired as Kakashi was.
Sasuke sighed and ate another French fry, thinking of the slaughter gloomily. Was he really so different from the hated figure Itachi had been in his childhood? He, too, had killed, with no provocation save orders, entire families, except he hadn’t left survivors behind. Yet he didn’t feel a tinge of conscience—it was more the philosophical comparison that left him reeling, the guilt at the lack of shame.
“You know how it is,” he mumbled. “Just, bloodier than usual.”
“More than usual? Must have been pretty bloody,” Kakashi remarked jocularly in a fit of morbid humor common to all shinobi (except maybe Naruto and Rock Lee).
“Yeah. It... I don’t really want to talk about it.” Sasuke rubbed at the spot between his brows, wondering if there would soon be a permanent stress line there. “Do you want to play cards?” He pulled a worn deck out from his pocket—the same one they’d used to play together for years.
“Sure.”
This was one of the many things Sasuke liked about Kakashi. Unlike Naruto, he didn’t push, didn’t shove to be let in and force Sasuke to share his secrets. He would easily move onto a separate topic if it was indicated it was preferred, allowing Sasuke to prevaricate and hide. And unlike Sakura, he knew when to be carefree, could understand Sasuke’s mentality, and wouldn’t earnestly, solemnly ask him whether he was okay, whether it had been hard, whether he wanted to speak with a mind healer. On this topic, unlike earlier, the concern would have been grating.
Sasuke deftly opened the package and handed the stack of cards over to Kakashi to shuffle. He could have done it himself, but, without a second hand, it was a much less smooth process and relied a lot more on chakra. Besides, it was a tradition; Sasuke supplied the cards, Kakashi shuffled and dealt.
“Gin Rummy?” Kakashi asked, neatly shuffling the cards rhythmically.
“Hn,” Sasuke confirmed.
Kakashi threw the cards up above his head, making a fan midair, and let them fall back into his hands in two perfect stacks, all while maintaining eye contact and smiling satisfactorily, then continued to riffle shuffle, the soft cards with worn edges sliding easily between his slender, long fingers.
“Show off.”
Kakashi’s smile widened. “Just trying to give you a pretty spectacle.” Sasuke made a derisive noise. Why did Kakashi have to make everything sound so ambiguous?
Kakashi dealt the cards, and the two played several hours’ worth rounds of Gin Rummy together, the time passing quickly, easily, the games competitive but lighthearted. Sasuke felt himself unwinding, the drunken confessions of earlier almost all but forgotten. It didn’t feel so important anymore that he’d killed dozens of people these last three and a half weeks, some innocent. All that mattered was getting one over the bastard in the next round of Gin Rummy. Eventually they started blatantly using their Sharingan to bolster their playing.
In the end, Sasuke went out first during all but one of the rounds, but Kakashi always earned more points, and by the time they stopped playing, he had an enormous lead. This pretty much accurately reflected the usual outcome of their games together; Sasuke went for the fast, flashy win that didn’t mean much in the long term, while Kakashi calculatedly aimed for the less immediate but more judicious, accumulative success. Sasuke didn’t drink anything else the entire time except for his water, having exhausted his alcohol quota for the fortnight and embarrassed himself in front of his friend too much to take even a sip of the man’s drink when offered it, but Kakashi had a second cup of wine.
After paying their bills—split fairly based on what they’d each consumed—the two headed out the door together into the narrow alleyway outside the entrance. It smelled of urine, and at the limit of the dead-end was a large, overflowing dumpster from which came rustling noises, its shell marked by graffiti, a voluptuous, neon green caricature of Tsunade in the central spot. The alley was cramped enough that, walking side by side through it, their shoulders kept brushing, though neither capitulated and let the other go ahead.
Up above, the sky was black and twinkled with a generous spattering of white stars, the waning gibbous moon’s luminous rays lighting up the streets and keeping visibility from being too poor. Distantly, Sasuke could hear the faint noises of people and music, but most of the civilians were settling down for the night, unless they were out bar hopping, and the shinobi flying across the rooftops passed silently.
They exited the alleyway—Sasuke thought he detected relief from Kakashi, who surely had been trying not to breathe through his nose the entire time—and walked leisurely along the street, directionless. Kakashi was on Sasuke’s left side, where he always seemed to gravitate, instinctually guarding his vulnerable half, even though it was no longer vulnerable, and even though Sasuke had more tricks to combat the deficiency than on the other side.
The darkness seemed to grant anonymity to their shadowed figures, and the silent, humid night produced an atmosphere that made the sharing of secrets less painful. Sasuke wanted, all at once, to return to the topic of Sakura now that it no longer felt so dire, now that the time spent playing games with Kakashi and chatting blithely had composed him.
“Kakashi,” he began lowly.
“Mhm.” Kakashi’s hands rested carelessly in the pockets of his pants, his back was slightly slouched in relaxation, and his gaze was tilted up towards the sky, appreciatively admiring the stars.
They took a turn and walked past a bar playing deafening disco music. The noise slowly receded, and Sasuke, bracing himself, started speaking again.
“About Sakura.” He swallowed, throat dry. “What do you think I should do?” He reiterated his earlier question, even more seriously now, but probably with less hysteria. He trusted Kakashi’s advice, even though he hadn’t been trusted with all the details and didn’t understand the situation as well as Sasuke.
Kakashi turned to look slightly down at Sasuke. “Do you want my permission?” he asked, seriously. The rest of the sentence was obvious, though unspoken: to break up with her.
Sasuke didn’t answer, too flustered. It sounded odd when put like that.
“I think I’ve made my judgement clear,” Kakashi said, more blithely, face gentling. “Talk to her, be honest, and…Yes, if you don’t enjoy the relationship and never valued or wanted it, it would be better for both of you for it to end.”
“Right,” Sasuke said, trying to gather strength from Kakashi’s words.
In a way, he had wanted permission from Kakashi, for some twisted reason. Kakashi’s advice was different to Sasuke than advice from other people. Not only in form and content but in how Sasuke received it. He’d always been prone to brushing off people’s opinions—what did they know, anyway? —but Kakashi, besides being a close friend who hadn’t abandoned him when he’d committed great sins, was someone Sasuke respected. Even when they disagreed, he held him in high regard and could generally understand where he was coming from. If Kakashi had soberly advised Sasuke to marry Sakura, he might not have done it, but he would have considered it seriously, and it would have been enough to keep him from breaking up with her anytime soon. That Kakashi agreed he should end it was like being absolved after years of bitter wretchedness and indecision.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean you should be unnecessarily cruel about it. As Sakura’s friend, I will be having a little…talk…” Kakashi said the word in such a way that it connoted creative, unimaginable violence. “…with you if you aren’t considerate to her. I know you’re not great with discussing your feelings, but you can afford to be sensitive this one time.”
“Hn,” Sasuke agreed. He looked away, up at the sky. What Kakashi had said was true. He hadn’t gotten much better at speaking about extremely personal things with others, and he could already tell the conversation was going to be distressing and painful, for both of them.
Fuck.
…Was he already planning on doing it? Breaking up with her? The thought was frightening, but he didn’t change his mind. It’s the right thing to do. Just…get it over with. He would need to plan it out in advance. Otherwise, he knew it would come out terribly.
He tried to envision how Sakura would react. Would she cry, or would she hit him? He thought that maybe she would be expecting it, that it wouldn’t come as a surprise. The contents of their big fights were almost always the same, after all. “You can be so cold, Sasuke,” “You never initiate sex,” “Sometimes I feel like I repulse you,” “Why can’t you reschedule drinks with Kakashi—which you do every week—so we can have a date on Friday night?” “It’s been years—I can’t believe you still haven’t ever said, ‘I love you,’” “I know your work is important—mine is to me, too—but it’s like ANBU is your girlfriend, not me,” “At this point you spend less time with me than you do Kakashi,” “Why can’t you act less like my friend and more like my boyfriend?” And so on. Especially as of late.
[Note to readers: If your boyfriend treats you like this, break up with him, lmaooo.]
“Next time I see her…Do you think I should do it then?” Sasuke muttered. Next time he saw her would probably be tomorrow, once she heard he was back. If she didn’t seek him out, he would have to—she would be upset if she knew he had waited more than 24 hours to find her.
That was…frighteningly soon.
“Rip off the band-aid, I say,” Kakashi said, shrugging. “The longer you prolong the lie, the worse it gets. Eight years is already a while, Sasuke.”
Sasuke cringed. “But what if things change and I fall in love with her?” he asked gloomily, knowing the impossibility of the words even as he said them.
“Do you think that will happen?” Kakashi raised his eyebrow. They’d wandered away from the grimier area of the village and were surrounded by large apartment buildings and offices.
“No.” The answer was immediate. Sasuke knew he was incapable of it—it would have happened already if it was possible. He had actively tried to force himself into loving her that way for years, with no results.
“There’s your answer.” Kakashi waved his hand limply. “Why did you wait so long, anyway?” he asked curiously, with very little judgement in his voice.
“I thought I would feel different eventually. And then I thought there was something wrong with me but no one would ever know if I pretended everything was normal.” He deliberated about it for a second, trying to recall the next excuse he had formulated for himself. “Later, it had been so long I felt it would have been stupid and unfair to Sakura to give up. I thought it was easier for things not to change.” He grimaced. “But that isn’t really working anymore, especially since everyone in Konoha 9 is married and has children now. That’s what she wants, too.” Sasuke swallowed. “I didn’t want to upset the status quo. Or you or Naruto. You both were so excited.”
And Sasuke had surely done enough of disappointing them.
“I assure you, I wouldn’t have been excited if I knew you were miserable. And you shouldn’t be in a relationship because of others’ expectations.”
“I know that now,” Sasuke growled sullenly. He rubbed his face. “Shit, what am I going to say to her? ‘I was faking it this whole time?’”
Kakashi laughed. Sasuke was glad someone found the situation funny. “I don’t imagine anyone would take that well.”
Yes, and he valued the integrity of the bones in his body. He would need to think about it.
Sasuke yawned. He felt the past week’s physical exhaustion finally getting to him and thought wistfully of the comfortable, uninterrupted sleep he was going to get at his apartment tonight. Not on a thin bed roll on a rough tree branch or on the damp forest floor—but on a soft futon, with the air conditioning running, in an environment he could let his guard down in. No mosquitoes, and no snores of grumpy squad mates. No constant, underlying thrumming of adrenaline, no sleeping in shifts, no charged, barbed comments about his loyalty.
“Someone’s up past their bedtime,” Kakashi said fondly. “Maybe we should wrap this up. Your place is nearby, right?”
Sasuke studied their surroundings and nodded with slight surprise. Their wanderings had taken them exceptionally close to where he lived—he could see the building down the street and could probably be to his window in less than 20 seconds. Several other Jonin he knew lived in the same apartment complex. His window was the eighth one up, and he usually entered from there instead of the door—not uncommon for shinobi.
“Okay. Goodnight,” Sasuke said. They stopped walking, halting side by side. He felt awkward, his limbs dangling loosely. There was an aborted motion his body wanted to do, but his mind lagged behind—he didn’t know what it was.
“Goodnight, Sasuke.” The reflection of the silver moon shone in Kakashi’s eye. It was a strangely fitting sight, and the color closely matched his hair.
In the end, Sasuke didn’t do anything. He and Kakashi, as a rule, weren’t touchy-feely friends. Only when one of them was on the edge of death were they tactile.
He began to walk away, then stopped suddenly. Kakashi was where he had left him, watching him leave, just a slender black silhouette.
Nearly inaudibly, Sasuke said to him, “Thanks.”
“Of course.”
They both knew Sasuke wasn’t talking about the “goodnight”.
Sasuke walked away without looking back.
He leapt onto a nearby rooftop and ran towards his apartment, feet hitting the tiles soundlessly. When he reached the building, he jumped onto the side of the pale yellow, peeling wall and walked vertically up to his window, making wide berths around the others—he knew he wasn’t the only one with explosive protective seals. He crouched down, hand outstretched, and the seals on his window thrummed under his fingers. They were invisible to the plain eye but pasted all over the glass, a variety of violent deterrents for intruders. They recognized his chakra and stayed dormant, instead of discharging increasingly lethal attacks at him, and he made his way inside easily, the rusted window mechanism making a loud creaking noise as he yanked it open.
After sliding it shut behind him and hopping down onto the tatami, Sasuke looked around at the dark, empty space. He’d been living here ever since the end of the war, but it looked no different from when he had first started renting it. It was extremely neat but impersonal, with no decorations and no excessive accoutrements. Everything he owned was kept away in the drawers, cabinets, and the closets, except for his weapons, which were hidden all over the place, in the couch cushions, the refrigerator, and under the carpet, but it didn’t look lived in. It had the dusty smell of an old hotel, and he didn’t feel that rush of familiarity and comfort he remembered having coming home from the Academy as a child, before the massacre.
But this was his place, and at least he could let his guard down, knowing it was protected from infiltrators. It didn’t look so foreign, anymore. At least he had gotten used to it.
Sasuke took his sandals off and set them underneath the window, neatly parallel to a row of other similar looking shoes. Though he could navigate the space in the dark, he switched on one lamp shade, instead of turning the overhead lights on—the lampshade’s warm-toned, dim light was enough—and walked over to his bedroom. There, he began to undress, taking off weapons and miscellaneous items and setting them on the desk. He was still wearing his ANBU uniform, minus the mask. It was similar enough to the standard Jonin uniform that it was acceptable to wear it out and about, and, anyway, most shinobi knew he was part of ANBU, just like they had known Kakashi was. Some people went into ANBU and became part of an indistinguishable mass of silent killers, while others were made to stand out to make a message to other villages.
Sasuke finally dropped the last of his shuriken onto the wood with a clang, and he moved onto his under layers, where there were a number of hidden senbon. After peeling off the last sweaty, bloody piece of clothing with an exhale of relief, he walked into the bathroom, used the toilet, and then turned the shower on without closing the door—this way, the noises from the other rooms wouldn’t be blocked from his ears. He didn’t bother waiting for the water to warm and instead stepped under the spray immediately. The icy torrent was a shock to his system, but it already felt good—the water was turning pink beneath his feet, the copious amount of blood in his hair slowly washing out. It had been cloaked by the dark shade of the strands it clung to. There was a lot more than he had realized.
It felt like a baptism. And when the water finally warmed up, Sasuke could only wonder if there were any pleasures greater than a warm shower after nearly a month of bathing in cold streams. He started scrubbing his body with a soapy sponge, using chakra strings to get the spots on his arm he couldn’t reach, and as the grime left his body, it was as if he was cleaner inside, too, his soul less polluted. There was no flowery scent—his shampoo and soap were both scentless, the same types kept in the ANBU locker rooms—but he didn’t like strong smells, and he felt the cleanest when his body had an absence of them.
Sasuke felt his limbs growing heavier and heavier, eyelids dropping, and lifting his arm took a great amount of effort. He finished scrubbing his feet and let all the soap on his body be rinsed off, then stepped out of the shower hastily, drying himself sloppily with a towel. The bruise on his stomach was an ugly mixture of green, purple, and blue now. After turning off the lamp, he walked quickly back to his bedroom and pulled on boxers and a black T-shirt—they may have been on backwards, but if they were, he didn’t care—then dropped onto his futon heavily with a muffled groan, eyes already sliding shut.
He pulled the thick comforter over his shoulders, wrapping himself in a cocoon of warmth, and turned onto his side, curling inwards. Surprisingly, he didn’t think about Sakura, the mission, or the village before falling asleep. His exhaustion weighed on him too immensely, and already he was having those strange, half-awake dreams that are one-part introspection, one-part memory.
The last thing he coherently thought about before falling into deep sleep was Kakashi’s unmasked, smiling face, open and frank. It kept away any bad dreams for the first half of the night.