Archive of Our Own ^beta

Rows of colourful laundry hanging from bamboo poles blocked out the sun in the narrow alleyway. A breeze rustled through the fabric, stirring up the scent of many different detergents. At the very end, scowling at the rickety fence, stood a man dressed head-to-toe in so many different layers of black he looked very much like disgruntled moth. In the years since Uchiha Sasuke been away, Konohagakure had become an unrecognisable creature, and he could no longer find his way around unaided.

Behold, a post-war economic miracle! This starved and impoverished community had somehow picked themselves up by the bootstraps and built a city out of scraps. On the main street, the buildings had recently been raised another floor to account for a booming population, the inconsistent additions proving the spontaneity of their construction: yellow walls on white brick, tile on steel postings. Should the windows have slats or grills? Did we like balconies? Should we go with gabled roofs? No, hipped roofs! But think again—no roof, just grass. Heck, did it even matter? Just do them all!

The result was a mishmash of architectural convention and creative innovation that should have been an eyesore but was instead charming, Konoha trying to find her own flavour after being razed to the ground, to nothing. 

Naruto’s house should not be this hard to find, he thought despairingly. Naruto can sense chakra. He should have known he was at the gates and come running to meet him. But since the city had defeated him yet again, something that he assumed made her very happy, then there was only one place to go. He didn’t even have to try and look for it; the Hokage building still loomed in the distance, round and squat and bright red. The only thing in the city built to the same specifications she had been before she was so abruptly demolished. 

He stalked down the main street, conspicuous in his swathes of black. The citizens of Konoha wore a variety of different colours and styles, some very modern, some more traditional, but orange seemed to be a favourite, he noted dryly. Sasuke did not know and did not care to know what the people thought of him—war hero, terrorist, cursed scion of the Uchiha clan—but barely anyone paid him any attention. The Uchiha were old, forgotten pain, hardly worth remembering as they hurtled into a bright, shiny new future. 

Children ran along the roadside, not pickpockets or troublemakers but playing games with each other. One was round and pudgy, his hair cut like a bowl, and the only stains on his white clothes were grass and dirt. He reached out to tap the back of another kid, then turned tail and legged it in the opposite direction. He was surprisingly quick for his stature and his friend howled as he struggled to keep up. 

Shopkeepers and street vendors called for his attention as he walked past them, hawking food and handmade wares. Mothers were stopped with their unwilling and bored children to gossip by fence posts and electric street lamps. An emotion welled up inside him—like he was marvelling. The Konoha of today was so vastly different from how he remembered her that, had it not been for the constant and surprisingly reassuring presence of the Hokage building, he would think himself in the wrong place altogether. 

The clerk manning the reception squeaked when he walked in through the double doors, the first person to acknowledge and remember him altogether. He was almost gratified at the shock on her face, it brought that old sense of normalcy which he had been craving. 

The startled expression on her face only lasted for a few seconds. Remarkably fast, she schooled her emotions and greeted politely, “Uchiha-san.” The honorific grated on his name. The Hokage building seemed to resent the way it echoed inside its walls. “How can I help you?” 

Sasuke ignored the little voice inside him that convinced him he was hunted wherever he went. He asked, primly and properly, “where can I find Naruto?” 

The receptionist had anticipated this question. Sasuke wondered if all the receptionists that worked here were trained in the art of handling him. If Uchiha Sasuke shows up at the door, he’s here for two things. War, or Naruto. Most likely Naruto, but you can never rule out war. She smiled apologetically and it seemed sincere. “Naruto-sama isn’t available at the moment. Would you like to speak to the Hokage instead?” 

Ugh, Sasuke thought. The Hokage. 

“I’m sure he already knows I’m here,” he said. Anbu had been tailing him since the moment he’d shown up within a ten kilometre radius of the city’s new boundaries, but he had been too polite to call them out on it. All the best Anbu had died during the War, after all. 

An answering, familiar laugh. “He does,” said Hatake Kakashi from the doorway. “Sasuke. You’re back.” 

Sasuke noted, pointedly, that he hadn’t said the words welcome home. He found he rather appreciated it. 

“Hokage-sama.” He bowed his head slightly. 

An expression crossed Kakashi’s face. Sasuke couldn’t identify it, but it settled in his eyes, heavy and warm. “Let’s talk in my office,” he jerked his head to the left. His hair, greyer than before, fell over his eyes. 

Sasuke nodded and followed him down the halls, looking with wonder at how small everything seemed. Even Kakashi seemed to not take up as much space as he had in his memories, the ones of him towering over him, enveloping him in his bulk. 

This was the first time that Sasuke had ever been in Kakashi’s office. It was decorated identically to Tsunade’s, though he had considerably more paperwork scattered about, a feat he didn’t think possible. His mind automatically submitted an image of an older Naruto sitting at the desk for review; he looked up tired from behind a tall stack of white sheets, but his eyes brightened upon seeing him. 

He shelved the image for the future. Instead, he stood in front of Kakashi as he surveyed him, trying to parse out what the past eight years had done to him, how he had changed. Despite his realisation about Kakashi’s sudden smallness, he felt very much like a genin again. He tried not to start shuffling his feet. 

After a moment’s poignant silence, no doubt designed to make him sweat, Kakashi asked, “so what brings you back?”

“No particular reason. I was in the area,” replied Sasuke. His body begged him to release the tension in his shoulders. He could not. 

Kakashi smiled, as though he understood everything Sasuke wasn’t saying. “Did you get a good look at the city?”

“Got lost.”

“It has changed a lot. Do you like it?” 

“Can tell. Don’t know.” 

They stared at each other for another moment. Sasuke ripped the bandaid off. “So where’s Naruto run off to now?”

Kakashi’s smile grew wider. Opening his desk drawer, he tossed out a bunch of papers before finding what he was looking for. He slid a coloured picture across the table to Sasuke. “He’s here, helping out with the rice harvest.” 

The big sign in the picture read Rice Village in faded letters. Behind the gathered people was a long gate of bamboo and further on, scattered minka—old, rural-style houses with thatched, gabled roofs. Naruto stood out, front and centre, in bright orange and a huge grin. His hair was slightly longer but his face was still boyish, he couldn’t have been more than eighteen. 

“Naruto’s a rice farmer ?” Sasuke said incredulously, picking up the picture to study it in more detail. The villagers surrounded him tightly, hands reaching out to hold him in some way. They were smiling as wide as he was. 

“We needed to get our agriculture industry up and running as soon as possible. Naruto went to help out with numbers, but they took a real shine to each other, so now he goes back every year. I couldn’t stop him even if I wanted to,” Kakashi said with a laugh. 

Naruto’s blue eyes were vibrant and just as kind as Sasuke remembered. “How long will he be there?” 

“Another month or so?” Kakashi sounded uncertain. Sasuke couldn’t decide if it was on purpose, for dramatic reasons, or because he genuinely didn’t know. “He comes back when he wants to, really.” 

Sasuke’s mouth curled down at the corners. A month. In Konoha. Without Naruto. He’d rather die, honestly. 

Never let it be said that Kakashi did not take every opportunity presented to him. “Do you want to stay here?” 

Sasuke shook his head. “No,” he replied curtly. Kakashi didn’t seem to take any offence. “Can you tell me where I can find Sakura?”

“I’ll get you a ninken. Easier that way.”

They nodded at each other. Sasuke fought the urge to ask him if he was doing well, he clearly was. On his left hand, on his ring finger, a shiny silver band glinted in the afternoon sun. “I never said—congratulations.” 

“I sent an invite,” Kakashi said mildly. 

“I’m sorry,” said Sasuke. He’s surprised to discover that he meant it. He’s even more surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth. “I didn’t receive it until the date had passed. Not on your ninken’s lack of trying. He was a good dog.” 

Kakashi cracked a smile. “It’s okay,” he reassured. Sasuke hadn’t been looking for reassurance, least of all from Kakashi, but he felt relieved to hear it all the same. Though he’d tried not to dwell on matters of Konoha and those from it while he was away, missing Kakashi’s wedding had made him feel rather ill. Something about the unstoppable march of life and time. Something about the fact that he’d been invited at all.

“Go see Sakura,” Kakashi urged. “It’s a big city, and she’s a busy woman.” 

Sasuke needed no telling twice. He bowed his head slightly, then turned and left the office. The ninken that greeted him at the door to the Hokage building was the same one that had bravely attempted to deliver the wedding invite, Guruko. He nodded once at Sasuke in acknowledgement and then set off at an easy trot. 

Guruko took him back through the main streets, then started to veer right. Occasionally they passed by ramshackle buildings marked with a shiny gold plaque, these were the structures that had survived Pain’s attack on Konoha and stood as monuments to their past. They were usually nothing more than a few stone walls, but occasionally there would be a building he recognised.

He stopped to buy some tea cakes from a kindly looking woman carrying a baby wrapped in a sling. The baby wiggled its fat little fingers at Sasuke, staring at him with bright, wide eyes. He wiggled his fingers back. The baby giggled wetly. 

After walking for some time. Guruko finally stopped. The road here sloped to the left, opening up into a tree-lined avenue, surrounded on its sides by thick, majestic oaks. He woofed gently and nudged Sasuke with his nose, urging him onto the gravel-filled path. 

“Thank you,” said Sasuke, reaching out a hand. Guruko bumped his head into it, tail wagging, before disappearing into a puff of smoke. 

The road led to an intricate wrought-iron gate. Behind it, an old house, all wood and shogi doors, raised off the floor by posts. His heart leapt into his throat; it stayed there as he crunched his way to the gate, the leaves casting thick green shadows onto his skin. 

As he neared, he saw that his eyes hadn’t deceived him. Though it lacked the exterior walls, it was unmistakably built in the style of the old Uchiha mansions, with all its details. That same raised timber veranda where he used to spend hot summers lying about with his brother, latticed windows he’d broken once while trying to climb, cats crouching beneath the structure, seeking respite from the bright sun. 

He had thought everything the Uchiha had ever owned would have been purged or destroyed, but here this relic was—his eyes slid over the restored wood and the carefully maintained garden. Keeping it trim and proper was a full-time job, but it was perfect in its appearance. Someone cared for it here. His ears picked up the sound of laughing children coming from the interior courtyard. His heart writhed with emotion, nostalgia and loss fighting a lose-lose battle. 

He raised a hand to ring the bell, but the sliding doors were pushed open by themselves. Standing in the genkan was a shock of pink hair and a tired smile. 

“Sasuke,” called Sakura, holding a hand up in welcome. She was just as beautiful and young as the day Sasuke had left, it unnerved him to see her be so untouched by the careless brush of time. He knew that Tsunade had taught her some sort of youthful ninjutsu, but seeing the effect on her firsthand was startling—she didn’t look a day over twenty. 

“Sakura,” said Sasuke. “Hello.” 

She hurried over to the gate, undoing the lock and letting him in. “Kakashi-sensei said you’d be coming.” Her eyes flicked down to the pretty paper bag clutched in his hands. “Are these for me?” 

Sasuke nodded, holding out the bag. 

“You shouldn’t have,” she said, sounding touched. “Come in, come in. Welcome to the orphanage.” 

When Naruto had written to tell him that Sakura was finally starting up that orphanage she’d been prattling on about for years, he hadn’t the faintest idea it’d be here, so out of the way and deep in old Uchiha territory. It was with some element of shock that he followed her into the building and looked on with detached interest as she showed him the classrooms and communal facilities. 

“The dorms,” she explained, “are further out back, past the inner courtyard. We’re not a very big orphanage, but we’re looking to expand once we get some government funding. Naruto’s working on it.” 

Naruto’s working on it? Sasuke’s mouth opened and closed with all the questions he wanted to ask her but didn’t.

“Sakura-sensei,” a child came up to them and tugged on her white pants plaintively. She left a child-sized handprint of green finger paint on them, not that Sakura seemed to notice. “Who is that?”

“That’s Sasuke-san.” Sakura knelt to look at her properly. “Sa-su-ke-san. He’s my old friend. Sasuke, this is Mori-chan. We found her in the forest,” she confessed in a whisper.

“Hello, Mori-chan,” said Sasuke robotically. 

The child stared up at him rather judgmentally for her age. Just as Sasuke began to feel like she was seeing past his skin and so deep into his soul she was reaching war crime territory, she burst into a smile and patted his knee gently. Then she turned and left. Sasuke felt inexplicably exhausted and looked at Sakura helplessly. He now had a matching green smudge on his travelling pants. 

“You get used to it,” she said, hiding a laugh. She led him to the inner courtyard, where there was a small bench that overlooked the playground which had been constructed in the centre. Several children were playing on the swings, overlooked by a matronly looking staff member, her thick brown hair curled into a tight bun. 

They sat down together. Sakura put the tea cakes down on a small side table, where there was already a pot of tea waiting for them. Kakashi must have thought to warn her of his arrival ahead of time. It explained the meandering route that Guruko had taken, not that he particularly minded.

“So,” she said, once she’d poured out a cup for Sasuke and pressed it into his hands. “You’re back.” Despite her smile, she didn’t sound particularly excited. It was only to be expected. 

He nodded. “Just checking in.”

Sakura raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “It’s been eight years. Bit late, for a check in.” 

Sasuke floundered. He had no idea what to say, because it was true. 

“You missed Kakashi-sensei’s wedding. We were all hoping you’d come.” 

Sasuke winced in spite of himself. “I apologised when I saw him,” he said. “I was in an out-of-the-way place and didn’t get the invite until the day had long passed. The ninken was beside himself. I felt bad.” 

Sakura’s hand paused while lifting the cup to her mouth. “You apologised?”

“I didn’t mean to miss it,” Sasuke said honestly. “I would have come.” 

A small hmm. He bristled, the hair on his arms rising. “Do you not believe me?” It came out more accusatory than he had wanted, he could see the irritation flash across Sakura’s face. She had no reason to believe him. He hadn’t exactly been the most trustworthy when they were children, and he certainly hadn’t made any attempts to rectify that in his adulthood.

She took a long time putting the cup down.  “I believe you,” she replied wearily. “So why come back now?”

Sasuke frowned. He wasn’t sure, to be honest. He had been walking aimlessly, without a destination in mind, and somehow his feet had taken him here. It was only when he had felt the presence of the Anbu around him had he realised where he had strayed, and yet, he hadn’t wanted to leave. 

The city called for him. She had sung so sweetly, promised him a shock of yellow hair, bright like an angel’s halo, eyes azure like clear skies. If you don’t have anywhere to go, she said in a siren’s voice. You can always come back to me. 

The full-body shudder that had consumed him when he stepped through the main gates was a sensation he was unlikely to ever forget. 

“I don’t know,” he said. 

A tired silence. Sakura exhaled slowly, playing aimlessly with a jade bracelet that wrapped her wrist. Her shoulders were slumped, the bags under her eyes large and distinct. Sasuke wondered what a day in her life looked like. Research. The hospital. The orphanage, the children, her patients, her missions. 

Help her, said the part of Sasuke he’d been desperately trying to nurture for the past eight years . His eyes watched what she was looking at—the children. Soft bellies and uncalloused palms, faces creased in joy as they pushed each other on the swings. One demanded to go higher and higher, fearless in the face of flying and falling. He leapt from the apex of the swing and hit the grass in a roll, before jumping to his feet with both hands raised upwards. The children cheered, rushing him. Their caretaker rolled her eyes, amused, both chastising and congratulating him in one breath. 

These children had once known fear, but no longer. They will never have to labour or beg a day in their lives just to scrape out a meagre survival. They will not be forced to become soldiers because no better option awaited them. It was a small drop in the ocean of hurt, but it was something . 

The Uchiha house groaned at the sound of their laughter. Its walls had once echoed with this kind of cheer, before it was tainted with blood and went bone-chillingly silent. Now, it only knew green finger paint and charcoal, mud and grass and dirt tracked in from a day spent at play. 

“You’ve done an incredible thing here,” said Sasuke. He wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, just that they needed to be said.

Sakura’s head whipped around to look at him. “You think so?” Her eyes shone and she reached out to hold onto his arm tightly. “Oh,” she said, with so much palpable relief. “I had been so worried. I thought you might find it distasteful, to do this to the house. I, I had to gut it, and it’s barely recognisable, and Naruto said it’d be okay, and he’s like, the expert on you, but I was so—I wanted to be respectful—” 

“Sakura,” interrupted Sasuke gently, before she could talk herself into asphyxiation. She snapped her mouth shut with a click and released him, looking properly mollified. It was an expression he was unused to seeing on her face. “I don’t mind. The house doesn’t mind..” 

Her breath audibly left her lungs in one short, swift exhale. She offered him another smile, a different one, more open and less guarded. “Honestly, getting the permits to use this place was a nightmare. You won’t believe what the elders wanted to do to it. It was awful.” 

Sasuke found he could believe it, actually. Konoha had an immense propensity for violence, no matter how gently the city tried to welcome him now. 

“But that’s been sorted,” she gave him a conspiring look. “Naruto and Kakashi-sensei won, you know.” 

“Naruto always wins.” 

Sakura laughed. “You’re right, he does,” she hummed. “I’d never want to be his enemy. I start off swinging fists and end up bowing down to his will and starting a vegetable patch. Sometimes I feel like I did. You picture twelve-year-old me doing this? Without meeting him, I don’t think I would’ve, honestly.” 

Interestingly, Sasuke had once started a vegetable garden too. He felt appalled and his ears burned red. 

“What I mean to say is, they finally won against the elders. They ousted them. It was a very public trial.” 

A public trial. Sasuke’s eyebrows leapt into his hairline. “They put the elders on trial? ” 

“It was very thrilling,” Sakura agreed. “How else do you think so much could change around here? Naruto was all up in arms about it. Spent months campaigning, if you could call it that. Why do these hags get to make the decisions just because they’re old?! Konoha is so different now. It’s–it’s not the same place I grew up in.” 

He felt faint. “He really won?” 

Sakura nodded coyly. He could tell that she enjoyed being the one to tell him, a delight present on her face. The years have only made her love Naruto and his way of life more. Her pride was contagious; Sasuke’s heart swelled too. 

“You should go see him.”

“He’s not here,” replied Sasuke. He didn’t intend to sound so melancholy. 

“Oh,” she waved her hand. “Just go. The villagers won’t mind. And he’d love to see you. He’d be inconsolable if he finds out he missed you.” 

“He’ll be fine. It’s only been a few years.” 

“To him, it feels like a lifetime.” Sakura caught his hand and pressed this urgency onto him.

It had felt like a lifetime to Sasuke too, but that was different. Naruto was all he knew. Sasuke wasn’t all he had, not anymore.

As if on cue, and he knew it had been, that conniving woman, Sakura’s eyes started to fill with tears. Her emerald eyes swam like green pools and her full bottom lip quivered. “Sasuke-kun,” she whispered, clutching his hands even tighter. “You’ll go, won’t you?”

What a woman, Sasuke thought admiringly. He indulged her act a little more before sighing gently. “Fine,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll try.” Sakura beamed at him, all white teeth. “Before you go,” she said, dropping his hands and clapping hers together. “We should have dinner! Won’t you come over? Ino’s cooking.” 

Sasuke's hands suddenly felt cold. “Well, since you’re not the one cooking—” The cheeky rebuke earned him a sharp knock on the head. His brain jiggled about his skull, swimming in fluid, and the world spun. He felt rather set to rights after it, like he’d been desperately waiting to feel this sensation again.

Sakura sent him off at the gate bright and early the next morning. As she waved, her jade bracelet caught the sun, lighting up a soft, luminescent green much like her eyes. She’d given him detailed directions to Rice Village, even offered an escort, but Sasuke had declined. The thought that with every intentional step he edged closer to Naruto was already overwhelming enough.

The village was out of the way by at least a week, nestled quite aptly in the middle of nowhere. The children went to school in a neighbouring town, and the village itself subsisted on crop harvests, mainly rice. During the down season, they traded in embroidery and other handmade wares. 

Sasuke had no problem with the countryside and simple living, but he was surprised Naruto could manage it. He had thought it’d bore his mind stiff, a mission like this—just hanging out, cutting rice stalks, surrounded by mud, and water, and more rice. 

During the journey, he thought thrice about giving up and more about the look on Naruto’s face when he saw him again. Would he cry? Would he hit him? Would he ignore him, hands folded over his chest, and tell him he was too late? The last straw was Kakashi-sensei’s wedding, he’d say. How dare you not come back for it? 

Still, for all the doom-and-gloom scenarios his mind was irritatingly adept at conjuring, his feet didn’t stray from the path he was meant to take. Like a homing pigeon zooming in on its goal, he found himself walking faster and faster the closer he got to the village, until he’d broken out into a straight sprint. The trip that was supposed to take a week ended up taking only three days in total, a fact which mortified Sasuke and one he tried not to dwell on. 

Before even he himself knew it, he was standing breathless and dust-covered in front of that same village sign from the picture. The faded characters had been freshly painted over in white, they gleamed in the setting sun. He could scarcely recall the journey he took to get here. 

Behind the bamboo fence, the traditional minka stood proud, weathered by time and age. Most were squat, L-shaped buildings, but others had impressive, triangular roofs that added almost sixty centimetres to the overall height of the structure. The traditional farmhouses were always a joy to look at, and a favourite of Sasuke’s when he stopped by rural villages. 

The smell of wood, thatch and tatami had been the scent of his childhood, he found that no matter how hard he tried to divest himself from his past it always caught up to him in the most insignificant ways. Taking a deep breath, he walked up to the main gate and put one foot over the threshold. In the early evening, many of the village’s residents were out and about, walking back down to their houses, horses trotting behind them. 

A little girl was the first to spot him; she pointed with a short, stubby finger. Sasuke stopped where he was, folding his arms subserviently across his front. He was aware he cut an imposing figure, with his long hair and dark eye-patch. It would be best not to get on the villagers’ bad side before Naruto could vouch for his character. 

The girl stared at him, drinking in his visage. Then, in a loud, shrill voice she shouted, “Sasuke-oniichan?!” Sasuke felt his heart leap into his throat so fast he almost threw up. It was nice to know that despite seeing all the horrors of the world, he could still be completely and utterly blindsided. At once, everyone turned to look at him.

“Yes,” he wheezed, sounding like he’d been gutpunched. “I’m—” 

The girl did not wait to hear him out. She took off at once, dropping her woven basket, and started howling through the streets, “NARUTO ONII-CHAN, SASUKE ONII-CHAN IS HERE!” 

The village, before sleepy and cosy, suddenly came alive. There were other excited shouts, the sound of doors banging open, footsteps on the dirt like the sound of pounding mochi. 

An old woman, with surprising strength, gripped his wrist and hauled him within the confines of the village. The villagers babbled over him, some overjoyed to see him, some sceptical. 

“This is Sasuke?” Said one, wrinkling his nose. “But he’s so….” 

“Let me go,” said Sasuke, but the old woman’s grip was like iron. Not wanting to hurt her, he quickly changed tactics. “ Please let me go.” 

She did not. Sasuke’s wrist ached as she held him firmly in place, eyes on the horizon, like she was so certain he’d up and disappear if she so much so as relaxed. She wasn’t wrong—already he’d been considering the use of the Rinnegan to extricate himself from this extremely uncomfortable situation. But the fact that she knew his character so accurately mollified him, and he found himself obediently following her as she walked through the pounded-earth streets, bringing him to where the mountain started to climb. 

He felt it there. That twinge in his body when he looked to the where the first hill crested, like a lodestone pointing north. His feet rooted to the floor, but the old woman didn’t try to tug him forward anymore. She released him and stepped back. 

Naruto was so fast that Sasuke barely even saw him before he felt him. A force akin to a runaway train smacked into him, toppling the surrounding villagers who hadn’t moved out of the way like dominos. Sasuke swayed where he stood, his chin smarting from the impact. On instinct, his arm reached up to grip him, pulling him hard against his own body. Naruto. God, it’s Naruto. He almost fell against him like a puppet who’d had his string cut, but his training kicked in at the very last second and saved his dignity.

“Sasuke,” came a deep voice in his ear, teary and hoarse. “You’re home.” 

“Naruto,” replied Sasuke stiffly. “Let go of me.” 

All at once and all too soon, Naruto released him. The villagers had scattered at the behest of the old woman, who was herding them away like a diligent sheepdog. Sasuke’s attention was solely on Naruto, though. Tears were already spilling from his baby blues, trickling down his cheeks and over the whisker-lines on his face that Sasuke was so endeared by. 

He tilted his head back to take him in fully. He. He had to tilt his head? He tilted his head upwards and looked at him. Sasuke’s hand reached up, gripping onto his shoulder, the curve of his neck, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. To say Naruto had grown was an understatement. 

He was tall, taller than Sasuke by at least several inches. And he was wide, broad and wide like a bull, shoulders muscular and arms well-defined in that bright orange tank-top he wore. Sasuke’s throat seized up as his fingers traced over corded muscle down the length of his arm before he remembered where he was and who he was and snatched his hand back. 

“You’ve gotten tall,” said Sasuke, stupidly. It was the only thing he could think of to say. 

Naruto nodded, head bobbing like a puppy. He would agree with anything I said at this moment, Sasuke thought, amused. “Sasuke grew too. Oh,” Naruto threw his arms around him again and tucked him into the crook of his neck. He smelled like citrus and grass. Sasuke could feel the strength in his arms as he held him tightly, it made him feel woozy. “I can’t believe you’re here.” 

Even his voice had deepened squarely into the cadence of a man’s, a pleasant baritone that Sasuke longed to hear more of. Eight years on and Naruto had grown. It was to be expected, but it was so jarring Sasuke felt adrift upon the sea of endless time, and didn’t quite know what to make of the emotions swirling about in his mind. 

As if he knew that Sasuke was about to start spiralling, a strong hand, veined and calloused, shot out to grip his arm. “Hey,” Naruto said. “C’mere, let’s go to my house.” 

Sasuke stumbled over his feet yet followed him nonetheless. 

“Naruto!” The villagers, now sure that they’d let them have their moment, immediately swarmed them as they started walking. “This is him, yeah? The Sasuke you talk about?”

Interestingly, Naruto’s ears burned a bright red. 

“You talk about me?”

Naruto mumbled, “in passing.” He looked at Sasuke then away at the ground, squeezing his arm in a familiar gesture.

“I don’t mind.” More than that, he was flattered, really. Naruto still considered him important enough to tell strangers about; it was gratifying to know he hadn’t been the only one. 

Naruto let out a relieved exhale and offered him a small smile. They started up the hill that Naruto had run down from, the villagers following a little ways off, ogling him and whispering amongst themselves. 

Sasuke had been fully prepared to indulge them, even answer a few of their questions if they got brave enough, but they hadn’t walked more than a few metres before there was an authoritative bark from behind. 

“And just where do ya think yer going?” 

The villagers stopped dead mid-step. One wobbled and almost fell over. The old woman from before stood at the base of the hill, hands on her hips. “Leave Naruto and his guest be.” 

“Yes, obaa-san,” came the answering chorus. It seemed she ran most of the show here, and Sasuke could see why. Whether it was her ramrod straight back, her viciously tight bun, or the stern way she carried herself, this grandma was not and had never been one to trifle with. 

“Thanks, obaa-chan,” Naruto waved, giving her a big grin. She seemed to soften marginally under his gaze, though the change was almost imperceptible. She made a shoo-ing gesture and Naruto saluted, hand sliding down to grip Sasuke’s and pull him forward faster. 

His palm was calloused, his fingers long and wide. After being alone for so long, the sudden human connection was jarring, making his brain do circles. All his nerves sang a happy little song as his body churned out dopamine like an industrial factory. 

Naruto’s house was almost the very top of the hill, situated just off the side of the road in a little clearing that had clearly been cut out for the purpose of the hut. It was another minka, a square building with the entrance on the non-gabled side of the roof. It was raised off the ground by several centimetres, and rough-cut stone steps had been placed to allow entry. 

“It’s a bit old,” Naruto warned as he slid open the door, ushering Sasuke into the genkan. He carefully toed off his shoes and stuck his feet into the slippers Naruto offered, before following him into the minka proper. 

“Here’s where I do most of the cooking,” Naruto swung easily into giving him a little tour of the first room, the doma. He swept his arm over the pounded-earth floor, which had been dug into the floor and thus required one to step down, and the clay cooking stove. Here, the rafters to the roof were exposed, allowing smoke from the woodfire to escape up and away from the living quarters. In the corner, a bottle of convenience-store green tea was sitting next to a neatly-bagged pile of combustibles. In a bag next to them, he spotted through the translucent  plastic the distinct logo of cup ramen. Never mind that, Naruto recycled. 

“And behind the shogi doors are the tatami room and the bathroom. The bathroom’s more modern. I swear. But there’s no hot water. So I guess it’s not that modern after all. And this place used to be bigger, we had three more raised-floor rooms I never used, but there was this typhoon, and most of it was destroyed—” 

Sasuke listened to him ramble as he quickly slid open the door to the multi-use tatami room. They left their slippers at the door and stepped in. Sasuke’s eyes slid over Naruto’s home away from home, taking in everything all at once like he might gain insights as to how the years had treated him. 

His futon hadn’t been put away, and on top of it lay scattered clothes, but they looked clean. There was also a little sitting table with two cushions, on this were papers and scattered letters. A framed picture of Team 7 as children winked at him, not letting him pass over it as nonchalantly he’d like. 

It was a little messy, and a little chaotic, but it was nothing like the pigsty that Naruto called home as a child. This room was simply lived in. It smelt of Naruto, of oranges, of tatami and wood, clean air and the vague hint of far-off stables. Sasuke took a deep breath and suddenly felt all the weariness of his life hit him at once, as though he had spent years running here.

Naruto ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up in all directions. “Sorry about earlier,” he said. “They’re excited to meet you. I haven’t brought anyone here before.” 

“They really like you.” 

Naruto blushed. “I like them too.” He looked at Sasuke shyly, an expression he wasn’t used to seeing on his face. “They’re a good bunch. I can’t believe they recognised you, though. I talk!” He suddenly chirped, rattling off words at a million miles an hour. “A lot! About you! But only because they keep asking me for details about the war! I—I don’t,” he trailed off. “You…yeah. You look different. From before.” 

“Have I changed so much?” Sasuke asked, amused. He gestured at Naruto. In a too-calm voice he managed to say, “you’re the one who’s suddenly twice his size.” 

“I really shot up, didn’t I?” Naruto ambled over to him and stood up as straight as he could. When he did, Sasuke only came up to his nose. Naruto put a hand on his head and laughed. “Oh, younger you would’ve been furious.” 

“Who’s to say I’m not now?” 

Naruto grinned at him. “I dunno. A hunch.” 

A hunch. Naruto operated solely on hunches, so something like this wasn’t a surprise, but Sasuke often felt like he had a kind of supernatural, other-worldly Sasuke-sense that guided all his decisions in his life. The famously stony-faced, emotionless Uchiha Sasuke was an open book for Naruto, even after all these years. 

“Sit, sit.” Naruto gestured grandly to the floor cushions. Sasuke arranged himself seiza, Naruto dropped to the floor with one leg propped up and the hole of his shorts riding low down on his muscled thighs. Sasuke stared at the swell of his calves, head curiously empty. 

“I like your hair, by the way,” Naruto said, propping one hand up on the low table. “It suits you.” 

Sasuke resisted the urge to fly his hand up to his hair and start fussing over it. Though he had usually made a point about cutting his hair regularly, for some reason he’d let it slide the past year. It had grown long, down to his shoulders. When he was feeling braver, he acknowledged how alike it made him seem to his brother. Most of the time, he kept it tied back with a piece of red ribbon he’d found on the ground. “I didn’t get a chance to cut it.” 

Naruto smiled like he didn’t believe him but was giving him the dignity of not calling him out. He summoned a shadow clone—for a moment both Narutos looked at him with twin smiles—then the clone darted out of the room and into the doma. “He’ll make some tea. So! So, tell me, why are you here? How did you know about this place?” 

Sasuke’s hand twitched in an effort not to start wringing his hands together. “I passed by Konoha and they told me you were here.” 

“And you came all this way?”

“I…Sakura said you’d cry if you found out you missed me.”

Naruto paused to consider this. “I would,” he said, very seriously. Then his face cracked into a smile. Sasuke loved it when Naruto was smiling, but he loved it more in the moments building up to it—when the smile bloomed across his face, his cheeks stretching, his eyes lighting up. Naruto was never more beautiful than when he was gearing up for a grin. 

“How’s Sakura-chan doing?” Naruto asked, reaching across the table to take his hand. He played aimlessly with one of Sasuke’s fingers, scratching a blunt thumbnail against the pad of his index. 

Sasuke was so flabbergasted at this blatant display of casual intimacy his throat closed up and he could not say much at all. “She was good,” he said, barely avoiding a stutter. “Ino cooked hamburg steaks. They have a cat. It was nice.” 

“Did you see the orphanage?” This question was phrased in a coolly nonchalant tone, which signified it meant a great deal to Naruto. 

“I did.” 

Naruto’s eyes flicked up towards him, darted to their hands, then went back up to his face. “You—” 

“I liked it,” Sasuke interrupted. “Sakura told me you fought for it. Thank you.” 

The breath left Naruto’s lungs in a quick exhale. “Gold plaque marked and everything,” Naruto told him slowly, deliberately. “It’s historical. They couldn’t tear it down even if they were to somehow claw their way back into power,” he snorted. “Not that they could. I made it very clear what would happen if they did.” 

Sasuke’s fingers twitched. He leaned forward. “And what would you do?”

Naruto gave him a dark smile that made him shiver. It was such an alien expression on his face that something akin to lust curled itself quite viciously around his heart. Sasuke had always thought that if Naruto ever faced enemies he couldn’t talk down, that he would be the one to cut them down. Now he realised Naruto had more weapons at his disposal than he had previously thought. Sasuke opened his mouth to reply, but the moment was shattered by the clone re-entering the room, carrying a little tray with two mugs of hot tea and a plate of steaming buns. 

“Oh.” Sasuke blinked at the dishes in surprise. “You did say you cooked now.” 

“I do,” Naruto grinned, happy Sasuke caught on. “I can make most dishes without burning things down. You can thank Grandma for it, though she went through hell for it, believe me.” 

“I believe you,” Sasuke said mildly. The clone set the dishes down on the table. “Thanks.” 

The clone beamed at him. It disappeared with a poof of happy smoke. 

“I’m pretty good at tomato-and-egg,” Naruto continued, reaching for a bun with his free hand. “And my onigiris are very triangular.” 

Sasuke paused to consider this, tilting his head. His hair swung into his face. “That they are my favourites isn’t a coincidence, is it?” 

Again that damned smile on Naruto’s face, so pleased and satisfied, like a dog who has learnt a new trick. He looked at Sasuke with his lips curling, sharp teeth glinting. “You got it,” he laughed, and pushed the tray closer to Sasuke. “Eat, eat.” 

While Sasuke nursed his bun, Naruto entertained him with stories of the village. He spoke of them with such great fondness that Sasuke almost felt envious—while during his travels there had been occasions where he had been received warmly, there was nothing like this. No sense of community nor family. 

“I came back earlier to attend Yuki-chan’s wedding,” Naruto explained. “I taught her to throw kunai, you know? And now she’s grown enough to be married. Everyone’s getting married these days. Even Kakashi-sensei. I genuinely thought he’d die a bachelor.” 

There was no mention of Sasuke’s failure to turn up. Naruto did not ask why he hadn’t been there, and Sasuke did not offer the reason. He was relieved to escape that judgement. 

“Are you getting married?” Sasuke asked, one eyebrow raised. He gripped his bun so tight the filling started to leak out of the sides. 

“Me?” Naruto choked on a laugh. “No!” 

“Do you want to get married?” 

Naruto hummed. “Some day,” he replied vaguely, and that was that. He launched instead into a spiel about how drunk Rock Lee had gotten during the wedding that he’d nearly destroyed the flower arch with the force of his sobs. 

Listening to him ramble was so nostalgic and comforting that Sasuke slipped easily into the rhythm of it. He offered his one-worded opinion where he felt it apt. Naruto took it and ran with it until he was breathless and tired. When they finally paused for a break, it had already long since fallen dark outside. Naruto glanced out the shutters and leapt to his feet. 

“Fuck,” he said, scrambling. “I didn’t realise it had gotten so late! You—ah, you,” he froze comically mid-step towards Sasuke. He looked between him and the door. “You, you are…” he couldn’t bring himself to ask the question and end the night. Sasuke watched him flounder, amused. “It’s dark outside,” Naruto eventually said, lamely. 

“So it seems,” Sasuke agreed mildly. 

“You don’t know your way around these parts.” 

“It’s my first time here.”

“The woods are dangerous,” Naruto added, then scrunched his nose as if to ask himself, what could possibly be too much for Sasuke to handle? Still, he stuck with it, chin jutting out resolutely. 

Sasuke’s mouth twitched upwards into the semblance of a half-smile. “They could be.” 

“You should stay,” Naruto finished, sounding desperate. A short moment of silence as Sasuke weighed his options, but he hadn’t a single thought of leaving. The idea of extricating himself from Naruto so quickly after he’d walked so far and so long to get here was so absurd that it hadn’t even crossed his mind. Still, he liked to make Naruto squirm, and squirm he did. 

With the air of a martyr Sasuke replied, “I’ll stay.” 

Naruto’s shoulders visibly sagged with relief. “You should stay forever.” He sounded like he was joking, but they both knew he was serious. Sasuke nodded slowly. Naruto squinted his eyes at him, but refrained from questioning him further. 

“You want to take a shower?” Naruto asked, rooting around inside his closets. He pulled out a fresh towel, green with orange stripes, and waved it around enticingly in the air. “Well,” he amended. “I say shower, but it’s just cold water. A splash of cold water from the well. You know what, I’ll heat up some water for you.” 

“I’m okay with a cold shower,” said Sasuke amiably. He’d taken a plunge in a tundra once. That was not fun. 

“And I’m not okay with it,” replied Naruto crossly. “It’s fine for me, not for you. You had a long day. A hot shower it is!” Still clutching the towel, he slid the door open and disappeared out into the kitchen.

Sasuke watched him go, visibly endeared. 

“Ah! The towel,” came Naruto’s voice from outside. A few seconds later, he stepped back in and offered it to Sasuke with an abashed look on his face. “Take it. I’m getting the fire started.” 

“I’ll help.” He took the towel from Naruto and set it on the table, then hurried out after him. 

It was just a fire jutsu party trick, but the kindling caught instantly and went up in a blaze. Naruto clapped, still easily impressed. Sasuke held the Rinnegan and summoned giant avatars ten, twenty times his size, but producing a few sparks was what really made Naruto's eyes sparkle, cheeks straining from his smile. 

Naruto set a pot of fresh water onto the claytop and squatted to look at the fire crackling in the pit. “I never got the hang of fire jutsu,” said Naruto regretfully, propping his chin on his hand. 

It’s a surprising admission. “The great Naruto-sama can’t do a single katon-no-jutsu?”

He laughed and rolled his eyes. “The great Naruto-sama can do many katon-no-jutsus,” he parroted Sasuke’s voice irritatingly well. “He just can’t make it not so big.” 

“Not so big?” Sasuke’s eyebrows threatened to start inching up his forehead. 

Naruto pointed at himself. “If you ever need a football field razed to the ground, I’m your man.” 

It’s incredible how Naruto, a man who had the capacity for immense love and overwhelming forgiveness, who always strove to be kind in everything he had ever done, was also incredibly inapt at being gentle. He never did anything by halves, Naruto threw his entire self into it. Even into conjuring great gusts of fire, it seems. 

“And here I thought your chakra control had only improved.” 

Naruto shrugged. “I’m good at everything else. I mean, I’ll never be Sakura-chan, but it’s really only fire style that gets me every time.” 

“And why is that?”

“I dunno. Maybe it’s because I think of you every time I try to use it.” 

Sasuke could not tell if it was because of the orange-yellow light of the fire and flickering lanterns that Naruto had turned a little red, or if it was because it had been a confession he hadn’t been ready to say yet, but all the same he was glad Naruto wasn’t looking at him. 

The pot began to steam. Sasuke left to strip down to the basics, just a dark t-shirt and his trousers. Normally even when bathing he took his small pouch of weapons with him, this time he left it carefully and prominently on the low table, as if he had wanted Naruto to notice it. 

I trust you. The bag sat there slouched and heavy from its contents. Come save me. 

When the water was hot enough, Naruto poured it into a small pail and offered it to Sasuke, who took it and the ghastly towel down the hall to the washing up area. It seemed to be the newest part of the house, despite lacking hot water. Pipes had been rigged up to allow for a functioning toilet, drainage, a showerhead-hose-bucket situation and a small basin.

Sasuke mixed the hot water and the well water in small amounts then dumped it unceremoniously over his head. Naruto was right, the warm water delivered even in this way was soothing on his skin. He’d been travelling more or less non-stop to get here so quickly that his muscles quite ached, a realisation that only started to hit him now that it was relatively quiet and the only sound that filtered into the bathroom was the drone of insects outside. 

He emerged from the shower still dripping, towel wrapped around his waist. He’d forgotten to bring spare clothes with him to the bathroom, a folly which he had already spent a good three minutes cursing himself out for. He thought of putting on his old clothes, but they were clearly mudstained and he was loath to dirty himself again after just getting clean. The Uchihas did not run from their mistakes. No, they faced it head on. Head on. Head on! 

The door slid open with a bang, startling Naruto. He was on his knees, fluffing out the futon. 

“Fuck me,” wheezed Naruto, hand over his heart. “I live alone Sasuke, take it easy.” He turned to look at him, and Sasuke saw the split second in which it registered that he was practically naked—he turned a very interesting shade of bright pink and whipped his head back so fast he might’ve gotten whiplash. 

“Clothes?!” Naruto’s voice cracked at the end. 

“In my bag.”

Naruto shuffled across the room and dug through his pack, pausing after a moment. “These all look quite rough.”

“They’re meant for the outdoors.” Sasuke fidgeted with his towel. His skin prickled in the night air. He had the sudden, overwhelming urge to see Naruto without that tank top on. 

“You’re not outdoors right now,” said Naruto, with an air of finality. He crossed the room instead and dug through his closet once more, producing a large t-shirt bearing the faded logo of Ichiraku Ramen on the front and a pair of loose, striped shorts. “My comfiest shirt,” he whispered as he passed it to Sasuke without looking at him. “Enjoy.” 

The shirt sagged in his hands. Sasuke brought it up to his face; it smelled like oranges and tatami. When he put it on, the collar and sleeves were much too big for him.

Naruto smiled at him when he was fully dressed, eyes crinkling. “Looks good on you,” he said, reaching out to fiddle with the collar. “A bit big,” he said, reflectively. “Ah, but the shorts are small. I—” The implication set in and his face bloomed pink once more, Sasuke watched it happen intently. 

“I’ll just—it’s my turn, yeah?” Naruto fled carrying his bundle of clothes and towel before Sasuke could even offer to draw the hot water for him too. He left it outside the bathroom door instead. A wet hand shot around the corner to snatch it into the room. 

Sasuke sat in Naruto’s clothes, on Naruto’s floor, in Naruto’s house, all alone. Dazedly, he lifted the shirt once more to his nose. He had missed him something awful. He knew that he missed him, but he didn’t know he missed him this much. Just by being here, surrounded by things of Naruto’s—the letters on the desk written in his chicken scratch, the picture of Team 7 glinting at him in the lantern light, he felt more sure of himself than in the years he’d spent wandering. 

The shower Naruto took was quick and he was back before Sasuke had the chance to sort through his feelings. His shirt was damp and stuck to him in places that left nothing to the imagination. He busied himself with drawing his bedroll and mat from his pack instead. 

“You don’t think you’re sleeping on those, do you?” Naruto chided, turning to look at him disapprovingly after he set down the table in a corner. 

Sasuke’s hands froze. 

“You’re taking the futon, silly,” Naruto shook his head and crossed the room, snatching the two items from Sasuke. “Gimme. Mine now.” 

“The futon is yours,” said Sasuke lamely. 

“The futon is mine, thank you, which means it’s also mine to offer,” Naruto laid the mat down at the end of the futon. “Or force upon you, I suppose.” He laughed gaily. 

Sasuke stared at the fluffy futon, then back at Naruto, who looked at him like he was…it was an indescribable emotion. Sasuke felt himself flush all the way down to his toes. 

“Okay.” He climbed into the futon and laid down in it; it felt so warm and secure and smelt so much of Naruto that he immediately began to feel extremely dizzy. His heart pounded in his chest, reminding him that Naruto made him just a man. 

“Good,” mumbled Naruto. Sasuke’s heart throbbed. The sound of him vigorously towel-drying his hair filled the room. 

He blinked at the ceiling, head painfully empty. 

“Gonna turn out the lights now, ‘kay? Sorry, but I gotta get up early tomorrow for the harvest. You can sleep in, though!” Naruto suddenly appeared in his line of vision, his still damp hair sticking up like spikes from his head. If Sasuke sat up and tilted his head just so, he could kiss him. Could press his lips to Naruto’s warm ones, wrap his hand around his neck, pull him down on top of him. 

Naruto would let him, he knew. Naruto would let him get away with anything. 

But what right did he have to him? He left him for eight years. He made him chase after him like a lost dog. Naruto was going to be the Hokage. The Hokage! What right did he have to step back into his life, show up unannounced, and claim him and his dreams?

“Sasuke?”

Sasuke violently snapped back into the present. “Okay.” 

Naruto smiled at him. He made a jaunty little trip to the lanterns and blew them out with an exaggerated puff. The room immediately plunged into shadow, lit only by the sliver of moonlight outside the rice-paper windows. 

“Goodnight, Sasuke.” Naruto chirped from the foot of the futon. 

“Goodnight. Sweet dreams.” 

Naruto wiggled happily in bed. He could hear the material of the bedroll move with him. Then—silence. 

Sasuke counted his breaths until he fell into sleep. Then he watched the light move over the windows until he remembered nothing at all. 

When Sasuke woke, the first thing he did was sit bolt upright. Naruto’s house was silent but for the chirping of birds outside the window. His bedroll and mat were nicely made up and pushed to the side. Sasuke stood there in disbelief for a moment before he noticed a square piece of parchment lying on the tatami floor where the bedroll used to be. 

It read: Sasuke, out for the harvest. Come see me! Please! Pretty please! 

Underneath the text was a crudely drawn map that did manage to convey its intended meaning. Sasuke sat back down on the tatami, desperately trying to calm his racing heart. He had no idea why he had panicked like that— he was the one who left people behind, not Naruto. Never Naruto. 

He didn’t pass by anyone as he followed the map down the dirt path. The air was crisp and cool, though the morning sun had already begun to heat up. It was a pleasant walk, nicely shaded by the leaves of thick trees. After a short while, the path began to curve around the mountain and that’s where the world dropped away. 

Stretching out beneath him were hundreds of terraces, overlapping each other like grand stairs. Encased within them were thousands upon thousands of tall golden stalks that swayed in the warm, gentle breeze. Like spun cloth, the sky at sunrise, Naruto’s hair, Sasuke thought. He scanned the fields and found him, in bright orange, bent at the waist with his shorts rolled up. Well, found him and hundreds more, all his clones bent at the waist in the muddy paddies.

As if sensing his gaze, a Naruto clone looked up at the mountain. They locked eyes and he smiled, a flash of bright blue and white amongst the golden grains. Sasuke found himself nearly tripping in his haste to descend, scrambling down rock and plant and racing nimbly down the paddies. 

Searching among the clones, he quickly found the original. This Naruto had already put down the stalks he was carrying and was rushing to climb out of the paddy and stand next to him. 

“Sasuke!” Naruto said, as if his presence was still something he was surprised by. 

“Naruto,” said Sasuke, just for the joy of saying his name. 

Naruto blushed. Sasuke looked down at his feet, embarrassed. He changed the subject. “How long have you been here?”

“Since before the sunrise.” Naruto wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a streak of mud across his skin. “We usually stop by the afternoon since it gets too hot.” 

Sasuke nodded. He glanced at the farmers at work, all bent at the waist, harvesting the stalks with quick flicks of their wrist. It felt like a motion that he should be competent with, but being one arm down did have its disadvantages. 

As if noticing his dilemma, Naruto offered him a small smile. “Just rest.” With a dripping hand, he pointed to the shade of a straw umbrella, its bamboo pole stuck firmly in the ground. “You had a long day yesterday.” 

Sasuke stared, baffled, at the arrangement—which included floor cushions, by the way, and a rug, as if the set up wasn’t luxurious enough. “Usuratonkachi,” he said, with a long-suffering air that Naruto no doubt has trauma about, “what is this?”

“Shelter,” Naruto said, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. 

“I don’t need all this.” He looked in disbelief between the luxurious accommodations and Naruto’s tilted head.

“Why not?” Naruto asked quizzically. “Just because you’re used to worse?” 

Sasuke slowly nodded. 

Naruto shook his head firmly. “Not on my watch. Not when I can do better. Sit, sit. Oh, I asked around and got you some local snacks and a couple of books to read, too.” 

In a daze, Sasuke stepped under the umbrella and sat. Naruto disappeared up the slopes for a moment, then returned with a wicker basket in his arms. He sat with him on the banks, minding the edge of the blanket as though afraid he’d get it muddy, and offered it to him. 

Sasuke took the basket from him, flipping the lid open and withdrawing its contents: a couple of books and a platter of snacks: a mix of sunflower and pumpkin seeds, burnt rice treats and other simple wares were artfully arranged in a serving dish. As for the books, the topmost one seemed to have been written by a local author, detailing the history and evolution of shinobi jutsu in the area. 

“I saw that book in the old chief’s house,” Naruto said, noting the way Sasuke’s eyes had lit up. “Figured it’d be something you liked, so I asked for it.” 

Sasuke wondered when Naruto had started paying so much attention to him. Sasuke wondered if Naruto had ever stopped paying so much attention to him. He offered him some scorched rice as a mediocre thank you. Naruto took it gingerly, popping it into his mouth with a flash of a pink tongue. 

“I’ll get back to it,” Naruto jerked his head at the fields, giving him a small smile. “Don’t wander off too far, okay?”

“What would you do if I did?” Sasuke asked, purely to be contrarian. 

Naruto seemed to give it decent thought. Then he solemnly replied, “I’d cry.” 

Sasuke blinked at him. He thought of those baby blues welling with tears. “You’re pretty when you cry. Wouldn’t work.” 

“Ah,” tutted Naruto, wagging a finger at him. “But you’d have to be here to see it, wouldn’t you?” 

A rebuke failed him. “I suppose I’ll stay here, then.” 

Naruto laughed, raising a hand in farewell before stepping back out into that wicked sun. With a hundred of his clones working in tandem, the work went so quickly and smoothly it was almost hypnotic to watch. Occasionally, a clone would swing by, stop and kneel by Sasuke’s side, either chattering away or sitting so quietly and still it unnerved him slightly. 

Sasuke didn’t notice the time pass until the sun was a bright bead in the sky, beating down mercilessly. Naruto, now far off from where he had begun, wiped the back of his hands on his face and left another streak of mud on his cheek. Noticing that the other farmers were already starting to head back, Sasuke called, “Naruto.” 

All the clones in the vicinity immediately perked up like puppies, heads whipping over to him. Sasuke found the original in a heartbeat and crooked his fingers in a come-hither motion. This Naruto dumped a big basket of stalks onto his clone, who blustered and whined, before bounding up the slopes.

“You called?” Naruto asked, still chirpy as ever despite working for hours. At some point, he’d ditched his tank-top and his naked skin was on full display, just begging to be touched. Sweat trickled down his defined, freckled chest, skin clear and beautiful—the Nine-Tails’ chakra and healing abilities ensured that nothing Naruto ever suffered left scars, not even something simple like a sunburn. His right arm, at first awkwardly white and thoroughly bandaged, had also regained its colour, leaving barely any sign it was a prosthetic. 

Using the corner of his shirt, he wiped at the streak of mud on Naruto’s face. “Are you almost done?”

Naruto nodded, blue eyes staring at him adoringly. “We’ll continue again in the late afternoon, then break for dinner. I usually have lunch with Grandma, but we can do whatever you like! You’re more than welcome,” he added, sensing Sasuke’s apprehension. “I’m sure she’d love to meet you.” 

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Sasuke began. He thought of that formidable woman and baulked slightly.

Naruto made an aborted move—like he was going to reach out to Sasuke, then stopped suddenly. He glanced at his hands, caked in mud and clay, wet from the rice, and sighed. “You won’t impose.” He sounded so sure of himself that Sasuke was immediately semi-convinced. “Let’s head back? I’ll wash up real quick, and you can think about it.” 

It’s an unexpectedly kind offer from Naruto, to let Sasuke dwell on things. After everything that had happened and all the decisions he’d had to make, Sasuke particularly liked having the time to really think things through. It was something of a luxury. He nodded in agreement. One by one, the clones began to bound over to them, saying his name and waving at him. One wiped his palms on the back of another clone, then grabbed at his hands, holding them tightly and grinning at him. He gave them a small smile, but Naruto abruptly dispelled the jutsu, turning them into a small cloud of smoke quickly blown away by the breeze. 

“If the clones say anything inappropriate to you,” Naruto grumbled, starting up the slope with a dirty look at the empty field. He had put his tank top back on, much to Sasuke’s chagrin. Somehow it felt even more lewd when all he had was his memory and imagination. “You let me know. I’ll give them a proper beating.” 

Sasuke was already accustomed to how, despite being clones of Naruto, each one adopted certain aspects of his personality more than others. “I don’t mind. I don’t think you’d ever say something inappropriate to me.” If anything, he thought it would be amusing to hear something out of the left field from Naruto again. He kind of missed it.

Naruto stilled, ears pinking. “You never know,” he replied airily. “Maybe I accidentally push one of Sasuke’s many buttons.” 

“You’ve become quite adept at knowing my buttons.”

Naruto gave him a small, indulgent smile. “Even after all these years?”

“Every year you get better,” Sasuke replied honestly. Naruto laughed, joyful and carefree. Sasuke wanted to bottle it and take it with him wherever he went. 

The walk back to the house was too short. Sasuke perched himself on the step in the genkan, hemming and hawing about the lunch situation. Eventually, he decided that he should go and see who had been taking care of Naruto all the years he’s been away. The one who taught him to cook, to clean, to live by himself, surely. Clearly, she also fed him like prize cattle, or he wouldn’t look like this now, would he.

“Sasuke,” said the voice of his wet dreams, right next to his ear. Sasuke resolutely did not flinch, but he gave Naruto such a stern glare he seemed to wilt underneath it. 

“Sorry.” Naruto rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. He’d changed into a fresh t-shirt, but it was still much too tight. Sasuke scowled harder. “Did you think about lunch?”

“If you think she’s made enough—” 

“She has.” 

Sasuke sighed. “Alright then. It would be impolite of me to refuse, anyway.” 

Naruto grinned at him, all teeth. He took a step back then reached for the door, holding it open for him. As they started on their walk down to the town square, Naruto said, “I’m glad you can meet her. She’s a proper old woman that one, a real matriarch.” 

“We have experience dealing with matriarchs,” Sasuke replied mildly.

“That we do,” Naruto laughed. He looked down at Sasuke, hair shining in the afternoon sun. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, suddenly so sincere it made Sasuke’s teeth ache. 

“It’s great to see you again,” said Sasuke, because spitting in the face of his love made him feel like the worst person on the planet. Ten years ago he might have rolled his eyes, said something snarky. Now, the knowledge that his bond with Naruto is the most precious thing he has was his one guiding principle in life. It’s funny, the way these things work out. 

Naruto beamed at him, then carried on walking. Sasuke traced a vein down his biceps and forearms, to the undisguised strength in his calloused hands. Sasuke was strong too, of course. Strong as him, stronger maybe even in certain aspects. Even if this new, improved Naruto and him had to go head-to-head again, he’s not sure who would win. 

Knowing that he was strong enough to take Naruto and knowing Naruto was strong enough to take him made him feel secure. He couldn’t possibly break him. He’d tried his damndest, and look at him now. Like cutting the top of a sapling off to ensure it grew thick and sturdy. 

A fingertip brushed his hand, then another, Naruto’s good hand slid into his, curling around his fingers and gripping him tight. His palm was warm and worn. Sasuke stared at their joined hands in a mixture of heartbreak and longing. Naruto’s ears were pink. 

“If you don’t want to,” he began to mumble, eyes fixed on the horizon. Sasuke’s hand tightened once on his and Naruto didn’t finish the rest of his sentence. 

Holding hands with Naruto. He was holding hands, Naruto was holding his hand, he was holding Naruto’s, how lucky was he that he got to hold Naruto’s hand and be held by his? Sasuke could feel his pulse thrumming beneath his skin. Their arms swung as they walked. The sun was hot, which was why he felt faint. 

He’d been gone eight years, once the spring had set on and the winter thaw all but melted. Naruto had stood at the gates fresh-faced and young at eighteen, a forced expression of nonchalance on his face. What they were in those two years he’d spend recovering in a small hut on the outskirts of Konoha haunted him all these years. Even then, Naruto still—they still—like nothing had ever changed and like everything had. 

It didn’t take them too long to reach the chief’s house. It was situated very close to the town square, a grander, longer building than the rest by far. Attached to the side of the house was a stables, inside was a beautiful chestnut-coloured Japanese draft horse. Its head hung out, chewing thoughtfully on whatever food was inside its bucket. 

Naruto opened the yard gate and let them in, closing it with a click behind him. Wasting no time,he raced up the stone path to knock on the shogi door. 

“Comin’!” An old voice barked. 

The door swung open, and standing there was that formidable old woman he’d seen yesterday, the one who’d given all the orders and called all the shots. Sasuke did not feel like trifling with her, not today or any other day. 

She looked up, hard gaze softening when she saw Naruto, then a fierce light burning when her eyes fell on Sasuke. 

“Grandma,” Naruto chirped, smiling. He pushed Sasuke unceremoniously to the front, clapping him hard on the back. “Look! It’s Sasuke, the one from yesterday!” 

“Yes, I know,” she muttered under her breath. “You talk about him every time I see ya. Come in, come in, close the door ‘fore the bugs get ideas.” 

Sasuke was hustled inside. Naruto closed the screen, then the front door. Toeing off their shoes, they put on the provided slippers and padded through the house, towards the raised sitting area. Though the place was cluttered and filled with what looked like antique junk, each odd piece of trash seemed to take up a very deliberate and decided place, making the chaos look rather organised. 

On top of the table were three plates of food covered with pink plastic food covers.

“My husband ain’t here,” she said dismissively. “‘’N I don’t know what he’s been doing.”

 Naruto said, “he told me he was taking the kids for a hike today.”

“He tells you more than he does me,” she gave Sasuke a look. “Sixty years of marriage. You look forward to it, now, ya hear me?”

Sasuke nodded, unsure what else to do. He thought of being married to Naruto for sixty years. Griping about him when a stranger came through the door to their house, which had accumulated all the junk that came with being alive for so long: old newspapers and chipped pottery, picture frames from when they both had more hair.  

Sasuke hadn’t given much thought to the idea of home before, because he knew imagining anything without Naruto in it would be a waste of his time. Now he thought about it all the time. What would their house look like? They’d have a tatami room, of course. And a nice kitchen. A big bed for the two of them to sleep together.

“Sit,” she told Sasuke. Sasuke sat. “Sit,” she barked at Naruto, who was attempting to help by digging through the shelves for mismatched cutlery. Naruto put both his hands up and sat too, shrugging helplessly at Sasuke. His shoulder bumped Sasuke’s, their thighs pressing against each other. Sasuke was ashamed to say he took full advantage of the situation and pressed harder against him. 

Chopsticks and spoons were handed out, passed around, and after five minutes Naruto successfully cajoled Grandma into coming to sit down at the table, insisting that he’d help her clean up after, so she didn’t have to do it now. 

The plastic covers were lifted. The spread was simple and clean, pickled fresh mushrooms, stewed cabbage and meatballs, rice and miso soup that tasted so eerily familiar to the one his mother used to make he had to put it down and eat some rice to regain control of himself once more. 

“Obaa-chan, you’ve outdone yourself today,” Naruto said, in between scarfing down rice and cabbage. “This is so good!” 

She rolled her eyes, giving Sasuke a look. “He says that every time.” 

“And every time it’s true!” His chopsticks flashed across the table as he picked up food and, for some inexplicable reason, kept dumping them onto Sasuke’s plate. “Eat more, Sasuke. It’s good.” 

“It’s very nice, thank you,” added Sasuke politely. 

“So, been gone eight years?” Grandma narrowed her eyes in suspicion at Sasuke from across the table. Naruto certainly was keeping her updated.  “What’ve you been doin’ all this time?” 

“Mostly wandering,” Sasuke said, aware that this was, on some level, a parental interrogation. Pretty much the only parental interrogation he was ever going to get. It made him feel disgustingly warm and fuzzy. “I take odd jobs in each city, and when I have enough to continue travelling, I keep going.” 

“What’s the longest you’ve stayed in one place?” Naruto asked. 

Sasuke thought about it. “I spent a year in Ryuuchi Cave,” he said. Naruto promptly choked on his rice. 

“Eat slower,” both Sasuke and Grandma chastised. 

“Ryuuchi Cave?” Naruto asked hoarsely, once he was done hacking out his lungs. “You went to that godforsaken—” 

“That’s not very nice,” he said, miffed. 

“The snakes eat you!” Naruto blubbered, gesticulating wildly with his chopsticks. “You could have been eaten!” 

“If I failed,” he countered. “Which I didn’t.” 

Naruto gave him a teary-eyed look. “You spent a year in Ryuuchi Cave and didn’t tell me?”

“I told you I would be uncontactable for a while.” 

“You’re always uncontactable!” Naruto blustered. He shovelled more rice into his mouth, as if it could plug this wound Sasuke had insensitively inflicted. “Wait, is that why you didn’t make it to Kakashi-sensei’s wedding?” 

Sasuke’s chopsticks froze, but there was no accusation in his tone, just genuine curiosity. “Yes,” he admitted. “The ninken couldn’t enter the cave. And he was right not to, the snakes would most definitely have eaten him.”

“You could have just said you were in Ryuuchi Cave, you know. I thought you were dead for a bit.” 

He looked down at his food. “I didn’t want you all to worry.” He also felt like saying sorry, I was knee-deep in a snake pit seemed like a rather flimsy excuse, even to his ears. He wouldn’t believe it himself.

“Well! I’m worrying now!” Naruto sulked. Sasuke was surprised he wasn’t making a bigger deal out of this, then felt immeasurably grateful yet again. With a sigh Naruto asked, “did you at least master senjutsu?”

“No.” Naruto blinked in surprise; clearly he hadn’t imagined there was something Sasuke couldn’t do. “I didn’t go to learn senjutsu. The natural world isn’t…” he trailed off. “Sage Mode is your thing.” 

“Then why did you—” 

“Tourism.”

Naruto stared at him. Grandma burst into laughter, a loud, raucous cackle that echoed off the old wood. “I like him, Naruto. Ya should’ve told me he was funny.” 

“He never was before!” Naruto whined. “Grandma, don’t indulge him!” 

“It was rather interesting. I spoke with the Great Snake Sage. She’s quite the character.” 

“How did you spend a whole year there?” 

“I like snakes.” 

“Too much,” Naruto bit back. They both stared at each other again; Sasuke was first to break, lip quirking up into a smile. Naruto shoved him with his shoulder, still pouting. 

The conversation devolved into Naruto’s escapades. He regaled them with a tale of a mission going completely awry (nice to know that still happened to a shinobi of Naruto’s calibre), and Sasuke told them about the time he’d been given a mission to safeguard a very pampered poodle halfway across the continent. 

“Are ya getting married soon?” Grandma asked, when the meal was close to finishing. She picked up the empty plates, pouring the leftover gravy and sauces into one communal dish. “Been trying to convince Naruto to bring home someone, but yer the first.”

Naruto choked yet again, this time on his soup. Sasuke arranged his cutlery on the rim of his bowl. “No,” he said delicately. “I wasn’t looking.” 

Grandma made a face, tutting under her breath. “Y’know, Yuki-chan’s wedding was last week, wasn’t it something special?” 

“It was,” Naruto gulped down barley tea, his eyes watering. “So beautiful.” 

“Naruto cried,” Grandma stage-whispered conspiratorially. “Everyone saw him.” 

“He is the sentimental type,” Sasuke agreed fondly. He thought of walking with Naruto down the aisle. Naruto would start crying the second his feet hit the carpet, no, he’d have started crying even before then, big blue eyes watering like a fresh spring. During their vows he would have to dry his face with his sleeve, but his voice was strong when he said, “I do.”, and when he kissed him—

Sasuke’s ears burned. He stared down at his lap, frustrated with his own fantasies. 

“Ya could have a wedding like that too,” Grandma brought the dishes to a basin in the doma and left the screen door open so that they could still hear each other. At once, Naruto leapt out of his chair to help, but she smacked him away with a wet dishcloth. “I don’t like the way you wash my dishes! Get out!” 

Naruto whimpered at the whip and stepped back, rubbing his wrist. Sasuke busied himself bussing the plates over to any available counter space and scraping down the food into a small plastic bag. 

“See? He knows how to be useful the right way,” Grandma turned around to scold Naruto, who was sitting on the chair again, meek and mollified. In spite of himself, a part of Sasuke preened at the praise. 

“Don’t look so smug,” said Naruto sulkily. 

“I’m not looking like anything,” Sasuke retorted. 

They’re bundled out of the house shortly after, but not without a basket of fruit and orders to come back tomorrow. Naruto carried the basket in his right hand and took Sasuke’s hand again with his left. 

They walked in this uncertainty back to his house, where they spent the afternoon in a hazy, heat-fuelled daze. Naruto sat on the floor, fanning himself and Sasuke in alternation with a crude, homemade uchiwa fan. Sasuke wrote in his journals, listening to Naruto chatter once more.

In the early evening he and Naruto went back out to the fields. This time, a clone kept him company, sitting on the floor beside Sasuke, head on his shoulder. At some point, the clone fell asleep, so Sasuke arranged him on his lap and continued to read. 

When the sun had almost dipped below the horizon, and dusk had spread its blue-and-purple fingers across the sky, the real Naruto appeared next to him. 

“Lucky bastard,” he laughed, looking at the clone asleep on Sasuke’s thighs. “You’re too nice to him.” 

“I’m too nice to you,” Sasuke corrected, running his hands through the clone’s hair. Naruto scowled, folding his arms across his chest. The clone disappeared with a disgruntled poof. 

“I’m doing tomorrow solo,” he declared, and Sasuke rolled his eyes in amusement. The look on Naruto’s face lightened, and he offered him his hand. “Let’s go home?”

Home. “Mn.” Graciously, Sasuke allowed him to pull him to his feet. 

For dinner they had a simple meal of some preserved meat, rice and eggs that Sasuke cooked up while Naruto showered, and they ate in comfortable silence. Naruto brought out some sake afterwards and they each had a tokkuri. It was strange, drinking with Naruto. Sasuke had left before they were both legal, and watching Naruto’s face go red from the alcohol was such a novel experience that it endeared him significantly.

He brushed his fingers against his cheek, noting how warm it was. 

“It’s not fair,” Naruto whined, head on the table. “You’re not red at all. What is this?” 

“Talent,” Sasuke suggested. 

“You all and your–superior bloodline,” Naruto waved his hand irritably. “Not only do you get the Sharingan, but you’re pretty and tall and this!” He shot Sasuke a wounded look. “Share some with us lesser beings, Uchiha-sama.” 

Sasuke’s brain had short circuited out. He stared so intently at the table that even Naruto paused to peer at the spot he was looking at, before continuing to talk at length about his proposed plans for an entertainment sector in Konoha (involving a massive, and unrealistic, waterpark.) 

When it was finally time for them to go to bed, Naruto immediately gravitated towards the little mat. He already had his shoulders up, which meant he was preparing for an argument. Sasuke could already see them squabbling over the mat and who was going to make the sacrifice this time. Well, joke’s on him. Sasuke was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.

He waited until Naruto had sat his ass firmly down on the mat, before he said, sounding so pleasant and mild-mannered it scared himself, “come share the futon.” 

Naruto went stock-still so fast he almost toppled over. When he looked at Sasuke, it was with a hint of coquettish shyness that very nearly made his self-imposed resolve crumble into ash. It was only years of practised regulation that kept him from stuttering. “The mat isn’t particularly comfortable. I would know, since it’s mine,” he reasoned. “You’ve been working hard all day. I won’t take up too much space. The futon is rather large.” 

“Take up all the space you need,” Naruto said, breathless. “I want you to take up all the space in my life.” 

The admission sat heavily in the air. Sasuke cleared his throat, red all over. He patted the bed, and Naruto didn’t need to be told thrice. Clambering ungracefully into the futon, he almost fell on top of Sasuke in his haste. 

Their faces were centimetres away. 

Naruto turned away first, falling face down into the pillows. They stayed there for a moment, recovering, before Naruto rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. 

“Someone needs to blow out the lanterns,” Sasuke said.

Naruto put his fingers together and summoned a shadow clone. 

“Noooooooo,” whined the clone. “I want to lie down with Sasuke too!” 

Sasuke sat up, took his hand, and looked at him beseechingly. “Please?” 

The clone blinked at him, wide-eyed like a deer in the headlights. Then he scrambled up off the floor and blew out the lantern. Darkness settled upon them like an old friend. 

A small bubble of laughter escaped Sasuke’s mouth. “Remember when you couldn’t even make one to save your life?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Naruto complained. “I failed three exams in a row. Three! And they knew all along that it was because I was a jinchuuriki. Couldn’t they have started me on chakra control a little earlier? Assholes.” 

“They were terrible to you,” Sasuke agreed faintly. I was terrible to you. “Don’t you resent them for it? Even just a little?” 

A moment’s silence. Then, “I do. Or, I did, anyway. It was a whole—it was a whole thing. I had to fight myself physically. In my head. It was crazy. I had these—these black eyes—” realising he wasn’t making much sense, Naruto snapped his mouth shut. Then, “do you know what my dream is, Sasuke?”

“To become the Hokage.” 

“Once upon a time,” Naruto laughed. Having adjusted to the shadow, the thin slivers of moonlight breaking through the wooden slats and shoddy curtains were enough to illuminate the room. 

Sasuke glanced at him. His gaze was steady, his lips set in a firm line. 

“What’s your dream?” Naruto asked him.

Sasuke blanked on the question. Seeing him at a loss, Naruto reached out an arm, brushing it gently against Sasuke’s. “You’ve travelled far, haven’t you?” He prompted. “Did you find what you were looking for?” 

As a matter of fact, no. Sasuke hadn’t found what he was looking for, because he didn’t know what it really was. He had hiked across rugged mountains, resided in huts beside gushing springs. He had lived in cities, and woken up to the bustle of the morning commute, wagons and carts pulled by snorting mules, hundreds of voices and myriads of dialects. He had stayed with children, with misers, with the poor and the widowed, with the gone-ahead, the left-behind, spinsters and old bachelors. He’d broken bread with criminals, eaten at the table of priests, feasted with kings.

And despite it all, all the people he had gotten to know and the things he’d seen, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t right. The future he chased, the man he wanted to be, eluded him. In the end he said, “I want to be content.” 

“Content,” Naruto echoed. “I like that.” 

Silence once more. Sasuke studied his face, the weariness in his eyes. Eventually Naruto admitted, “the whole Hokage business was really more…well. They wouldn’t let the Hokage sleep beside a shop stove because he doesn’t have money for heating.” 

Sasuke made a face. He’d seen Naruto there at Ichiraku’s after dark and he hadn’t said anything else. It was one of his life’s biggest regrets.

“But now, things are different. Konoha already respects me,” he wondered aloud. “I have people who love me, for me. The people here,” he spread his arms wide, looking at the ceiling. “Obaa-chan. I have people I’m proud to call my friends, my family. I don’t hold what Konoha did against them, but I find it so—” 

He struggled to find the words and looked at Sasuke for help. 

“Sad.” Sasuke suggested. “And pathetic.” 

“Sure was,” Naruto agreed. “So the Hokage…the whole thing…I still want to be the Hokage, don’t get me wrong, but not in the same way.” With renewed determination, he reached over and clasped Sasuke’s hand. “No more kids like us. No such pain and suffering. We gotta learn something from all that, right?” 

“That’s a big job for a one man army.” 

“I can do it,” said Naruto, unwavering. “I will do it.” 

There it was again, that overwhelming spirit of his. The resilience to put his mind to a task and stop at nothing to achieve it. Whether it was bringing Sasuke home, protecting that which he wanted to protect and now, rebuilding Konoha from the ground up, Naruto threw himself wholeheartedly into everything he did. 

His determination was inspiring. Sasuke recalled the Konoha he’d seen as he walked through it, clean streets free from gutter rats and piling trash, fat happy children, eclectic houses built to individual taste. It was a little ramshackle, and a little haphazardly put together, but music had played from balconies and laundry flapped on lines. 

The city told him a story he so desperately wanted to believe. Shared evenings on a small balcony, flower boxes lining the iron railing. There’s the sound of a distant radio, someone laughing, another doing their washing. An open book, scattered papers, orange throw pillows on a squishy sofa. The world theirs for the taking, theirs for the remaking. In the far distance, an old house made new gleamed with a shiny gold plaque. Its kids are asleep. It’s preparing for the arrival of a group of students for a history lesson tomorrow.

“A simple life, with those you love,” Naruto continued. Sasuke snapped back to himself. “What more could I want? What more do you need to be content?” 

A long time ago, he might have said power, but then he realised with a jolt that he had it. He had the power to lead a simple life with those he loved. He had reached the top of the shinobi world such that aliens had to be the one to challenge him. And even then he’d won. And now he was lying in bed with Naruto, his hand holding his. 

He could have this every day because he had already fought for it. This war, his war. His quest for strength had brought him right back to where he fled from—being meek and gentle. 

Sasuke rolled over and exposed everything about him that could give soft—his belly, his chest, his eyes and his hand. He’s not sure what he expected Naruto to do with all of it but he wanted Naruto to have it all the same. This is all I am. Everything that makes me move is unshielded and unguarded, presented to you like a chicken on a butcher’s table. I can’t reach my weapons from here. I am wearing your clothes.

Naruto drank him in for a long, tender moment. Then he rolled into Sasuke’s chest and buried his face in his shoulder. Sasuke’s hand slid up his back and curled around the nape of his neck, waiting for a noise of protest, but none came. Naruto had his teeth next to his carotid artery; Sasuke pressed his thumb into the jut of his spine. Neither of them seemed to mind. 

Just when Sasuke had thought he’d fallen asleep, Naruto said, “I missed you. I missed you so much it hurt. Every time we went out on missions, I looked for traces of you. And sometimes I did find them. I still can’t decide if that made it easier or harder.” 

He was not the only one. Sasuke had looked for him too, seen him in everything. Naruto’s glory was widespread and far-known, a legend that would never stop being told. Tumbled down in tales of oral storytellers in remote villages. Written in books and diaries, spread out across the world. 

“I heard about you all the time,” Sasuke whispered. “Your name was on everyone’s lips. I could never escape you.” 

“Good,” Naruto said firmly. “I never want you to go so far that I cannot reach you.” 

Sasuke had been to the very edge of the world, where the known continents dropped away into the endless ocean. Even there he had heard Naruto’s name, seen the touch of his influence on the people who lived there. But as he looked out over the horizon, the wider world called to him. You could leave, it said. Take a boat and go where no one knows your name and where you don’t know anyone’s. There is no strife here and nothing to run away from. There is only everything that is new.  

Instead of excitement, he had felt dread. The one thing left in this world that truly terrified him was to be so far away from Naruto that he could no longer turn in the direction of Konoha and feel the wind carry his name through branch and tree, rock and brick. 

“I won’t.”

He felt him smile against his skin. 

Naruto fell into sleep first, his breaths evening out, body relaxing into the futon. Sasuke held him and when he woke they had shifted positions, but their hands were loosely clasped in one another’s. 

Naruto was making such short work of the fields thanks to the three hundred men he brought with him by virtue of being well, himself, that Sasuke began to worry about how much time they had left to be here. In just two days, they had cleared out over half the terraces. The end was already in sight; Sasuke began to grieve it prematurely. 

There was nothing Sasuke could do about it, so he did what he did best and tried not to think about it. On this day, he was ripped from his time spent ogling hot-and-sweaty Narutos to take care of their more domestic matters—laundry. 

Life was just endless laundry. Even if their time here were up and Sasuke were to never see Naruto again, he’d still have bloody laundry. The ladies of the village had invited him to come with them, so he gladly followed them to the river to wash their clothes in the bubbling water.

First, they gave thanks to the river god, then they got to work, scrubbing the clothes with designated rocks, smoothed and flattened from years of use. Some were washing their silk kimonos that they wore during Yuki’s wedding, these they unstitched into long, rectangular pieces of beautiful cloth, before washing them separately in bamboo tubs.

Before coming down here, Sasuke had remembered to bring his sewing kit—he’d noticed that there were several holes in Naruto’s clothes. Naruto was a sentimental, no-nonsense kind of guy when it came to his clothing, most of them were old and weathered, rubbed down to their bare threads from years of use. He set these ones aside to darn and sew up. 

Today was a warm, sunny day. It wasn’t as humid as yesterday, and the breeze that filtered through the leaves, carrying the scent of late-blooming flowers and the trill of wild birds, was pleasant on his face. As everything he owned was currently air-drying by the river, and Naruto wasn’t one to overpack, he was wearing out of pure necessity the last of Naruto’s orange tank tops. Apparently, he’d gotten it in bulk and on sale, and so he owned an ungodly amount of them. 

Although he’d long since come to terms with his stump, it still felt quite awkward to have it so exposed. No one blinked an eye, so Sasuke tried to tamp down the unease.

The women chattered, the sound of scrubbing and splashing rhythmic and soothing. Once they were done, they set the laundered clothes out to dry in the sun on flat rocks, then sat in the shade drinking barley tea and eating packed onigiris. 

Kindly, they had brought enough for him. Sasuke nibbled on one stuffed with umeboshi, content to listen to them speak. The conversations were fast and varied: transitioning to bigger yokes for fast-growing steers, squeezing in a quick harvest of corn before the encroaching winter. When he’d finished eating, Sasuke picked up the set-aside clothes, stuck the needle in the dirt, and threaded it with his one hand. 

“You’re pretty good at that, aren’tcha?” One of the ladies leaned in, watching him work. 

“I lived by myself,” Sasuke said, stretching the fabric between his stump and his foot. 

“Naruto-kun also lost an arm,” she said, as the needle began to move in and out of the t-shirt. “He used to be so clumsy with that prosthetic! Always banging it into things and dropping anything he was given. Not so much, anymore. You didn’t get one?” 

“Didn’t want one.” 

She nodded. “Getting by just fine, eh? I did too, but when I asked for it Naruto-kun helped me get mine. The waiting lists at the community hospitals are outrageous.” 

Sasuke glanced briefly at her. “You mean for your leg?” 

Immediately, he thought he might have overstepped. There was a pause as she took in his words. Her mouth opened in a slight o, but her eyes were light with amusement. “Cheeky bugger,” she laughed, swatting at him with her free hand. “You ninjas are way too observant. Yes, for my leg.” She pulled up her kimono to reveal a polished prosthetic that seemed to attach to her knee. “Farm accident when I was a kid,” she explained. “But a lot of others around the town have some kind of missing thing or the other. We were one of the civilian villages drafted into the War.” 

Sasuke's eyes slid back down to his work. “Was it that obvious?” He asked. He wondered when he became so transparent that even his discomfort at displaying his disability could be picked up on by a girl he did not know. 

“It was,” she said amiably. “But don’t worry. If you ask me, I’d say orange is your colour. For sure.” 

A small smile ghosted his face. “Yes, the problem was with the colour. Don’t you think it’s washing me out?” 

“Washing you out?” The lady put both her hands over her mouth. Then— “No! Orange is made for you.” 

Sasuke scowled goodnaturedly at her. She laughed again, a giggle that sounded like the water rushing past them. 

“I’m Yuki,” she said, wiggling her fingers. Something about her reminded him of Naruto, but he wondered where the resemblance was—in those glimmering eyes and big smile, or simply her personality? 

“Uchiha Sasuke. Congratulations on your wedding.”

“Ah, so Naruto-kun told you all about it, has he?” She smiled, sitting next to him. Quick as a flash, she nicked one of Naruto’s socks and from her sleeves pulled out her own sewing kit. “He’s always been there for me, y’know. The big brother I never had. And—” she threaded the needle and started doing up his sock. “It’s his birthday soon. Soonish. The village is weaving him a set of formal kimono to wear. I was wondering if you wanted to help with the embroidery?”

Embroidery. While there were times that Sasuke had been apprenticed in artisan villages for the lack of anything better to do, he couldn’t say the finer details in life were his forte. Summoning a clone to assist him drained his energy, not to mention that it peeved him to know that he would never be as in sync with his clones as Naruto was with his. Even Sasuke couldn’t get along with Sasuke. 

“We know what the Uzumaki crest is supposed to look like, of course,” she continued blithely. “But you’d know best. And it’d be very meaningful to Naruto-kun, if his crest came from you.” 

“I wouldn’t want to take away from your—” 

“Nonsense. You won’t be taking away from anything. You’ll be adding. You’ve drank our water and eaten our food, you’re one of us now.” 

Sasuke blinked at her. “Is it that easy?”

“Well, Naruto loves you. So there’s that, too.” She said this as if it were a perfectly ordinary observation, like how the sun is bright or the sky is blue or Naruto loves you. Sasuke pricked himself with the needle and a small bead of red blood welled up. He wiped it against his leg and kept going. 

A few minutes passed. Yuki finished the sock. “I’m still a beginner,” he began. 

“We’ll teach you,” she encouraged. Then, with a curious twinkle in her eyes that reminded him all too much of Sakura, and instinctively made him afraid, “I’ll make you a fast learner.” 

And so she did. Their first lesson began almost immediately. As soon as their clothes had dried enough to take home and hang on lines, she whisked him off to her marital home on the village outskirts. Her new husband, Takeshi, was a childhood friend who, at sixteen, had been drafted to mind the horses during the War. It was a bit of a miracle, but he’d come back alive and with everything still attached to him. 

“Of course, if it were up to me, we’d have gotten married the second he stepped back over the village threshold,” she remarked offhandedly while they worked. A second Sasuke was helping him to hold down the cloth, they both looked up and at each other as she said this. “I’d waited so long for him to come back. I thought he’d died! And he’s the type to go running off, chasing down some humanitarian effort or a rare horse he’d spotted out in the plains. But he wanted to make sure that the ranch was stable enough to provide first. I told him I didn’t care about all those sorts of things, but he absolutely insisted.” 

The second Sasuke shot him a look to tell him he was doing it wrong. Sasuke glared at him, because he was doing it perfectly fine. “I heard Naruto cried,” he said, determined to distract both of themselves from each other. 

Yuki flashed him a grin. “I think he started crying when I told him I was engaged and he didn’t stop. He loved planning the wedding. I think he got a few ideas himself, you know. You’re welcome.” 

The second Sasuke gripped the cloth so tight it almost tore, while the original stabbed himself with the needle again. “I’m welcome?” He echoed, but Yuki just gave him an inscrutable grin. 

Did the villagers think they were lovers? Is that how Naruto spoke of him, the impression that they gave off? He opened his mouth to rebuke her, then shut it again. What would he even say? No, we’re not lovers. We’re something much much worse. We’re enemies turned friends turned enemies turned friends turned long-distance best friends who hold hands and sleep together. 

It was too horrifying to admit. He scowled and went back to his embroidery, conscious of the weight of the other Sasuke’s eyes on his. 

Unfortunately, his skills were definitely not up to par. Sasuke now spent his afternoons with the women, snipping thread with his teeth and trying to get his fingers, still so practised to throwing kunai, to perform the careful, mindful stitches that belonged on the montsuki—nothing but the best for Naruto, not if he could help it. 

While he worked, the other women gathered around Yuki’s house, teaching him folk songs, local legends, and customs. They told him about watching Naruto grow up tall, like a young sapling, from that forlorn boy eight years ago to a man who will face his future, confident and self-assured. In turn, he told them about the true horror that was Naruto as a child: bratty, impolite, rambunctious and stinky, but so overwhelmingly kind it was impossible to resist growing to love him. 

He learned that more than one mother had lost children during the Great War, another’s twin daughters only made it back because Naruto’s chakra had saved their lives. 

These two twin daughters smiled at him. They were too far away from the frontline fighting to know the role he played in it, and as he looked upon their faces, he found he didn’t know what to say to them. He could only force his lips upwards in a disappointing semblance of something that was not a grimace, and look back down at the crest he was stitching. 

Stark against the black fabric, the symbol of the Uzumaki clan spiralled on and on, endless, eternal, and everlasting. It was strange to think that such a cycle of death and rebirth could end here, in his generation—Karin had already made her thoughts on childbirth clear, and Naruto seemed to have no desire to continue the bloodline either. And with it, the last of the Uchihas would go out too, not in a grand explosion of rebellion and fury but gently, like a dandelion blown about by the wind. 

The Nine-Tails would finally be free of the only two clans capable of controlling it. Sasuke could almost feel his ancestors rolling in their graves, shaking their rotten fists at the sky. But he couldn’t bring himself to mind. 

It felt like it was their time. Their way of violence should not be that of the future. 

He could tell that Naruto was restless when he got back late one night, a crick in his neck and his fingers aching. He hadn’t even gotten to start on the real thing yet, just on scraps of cloth. Yuki said his progress was excellent for just three days, but Sasuke didn’t like not being able to do things immediately. Did she know he was a prodigy in his youth? Did she?!

It was very polite of Naruto, though, to wait until Sasuke was done washing up before he cornered him with his questions. It was only after Sasuke finally settled himself onto the futon, towel draped across his shoulders, that he sidled up to him and asked, “is it so interesting?” 

Only one lantern in the tatami room had been lit, it washed the walls with a faint, sultry glow. 

“No. I’m just not very good at it.” He wiggled his stump as if it proved something, it didn’t, and Naruto knew it. 

“Sewing can’t be that hard,” he huffed. “Even I can sew!” 

“Being able to sew and being good at sewing are two very different things.” Sasuke admonished, fussing with his wet hair. Naruto crawled towards him on all fours and took the towel from him, gently drying the ends of his hair. “It was very kind of Yuki to offer to teach me.” 

“Yeaaaah,” Naruto whined, in a tone that said you’re right, but I hate it. It hadn’t changed since they were kids. “But the harvest is practically done. Which means I won’t be staying here much longer.” 

Which means you won’t be staying with me for much longer. 

The despair at their inevitable parting resurfaced. Sasuke had been able to bury it with his work and the nights he spent lying with Naruto, talking and sleeping, but it had always lingered, tainting every moment he spent here. He turned his head to look out of the shutters, staring into the far distance, into the direction that he knew, if he walked for a week (or ran, for three days), would lead back to Konoha. 

The city that had stolen everything from him. The city that had given everything to him. Naruto’s fingers tickled the back of his neck as he rubbed his wet strands between the fluffy towel. He could begrudge Konoha the past all he wanted and he knew the city wouldn’t hold it against him. Even if he never went back the city would continue growing, layer by layer, until she burst the banks of her crater and spilled onto the outside. A different city to the one he grew up in, a kinder city, a more beautiful city. She would blossom with or without him.

“Naruto,” he said, head still cocked to the left. “What are your plans for when you become Hokage?” 

“Not if?” Naruto asked teasingly. 

Sasuke shook his head. “When,” he said, quite firmly. “Will you…how different will Konoha be?”

With Naruto to his back, he couldn’t see the expression he was making. After a moment, Naruto said, “Konoha’s in a really special place now, y’know. Everything you see was built in the last ten years or so. And so many died during the War that we don’t even have the numbers to sustain her. It’s still—’cause of the crater, sometimes the power goes out, or the districts flood, or there’s landslides. Weather’s bad. Storms gather in the centre. It’s not very nice.” His hands slid down from his hair to his shoulders, digging his thumb into the knots in his muscles. Sasuke started to sag. 

He continued, “but nobody wants her to go back to the way things were. I didn’t realise it at the time but so many felt the way I did about her. That I loved her because she was my home, but I hated what she had done, what she was doing. I can’t promise that Konoha will always continue down this path, but we…everyone...is doing their best. I swear to you. 

Sasuke’s skin prickled. It was like he could hear those unrecognisable streets of Konoha wrapping around him again. The radio playing, the children playing tag. Sizzling food, a baby giggling. He tore his eyes away from her and turned instead to look at Naruto, who was gazing at him with round, sincere eyes. Naruto folded the towel, put it on his lap, then reached for his face. His warm hands cupped Sasuke’s cheeks, thumb rubbing the jut of his cheekbones. 

“And what if, when you’re gone, she rots?” Sasuke whispered. To serve a city that would eventually fall to ruin—when Naruto’s long since buried and his headstone forgotten and ivy-covered, when she falls back into her trappings, that violence she cannot seem to shake, what then? 

“Then she rots,” Naruto said, quite simply, quite matter-of-factly. “I can only do what I can when I am alive. If without my name as a levee she breaks her banks and floods, then she does. That’s for someone else to try and fix. I want to focus on the things I can do right now. ” 

Naruto’s worldview crashed into his, smothering his simmering resentment in its wake. He didn’t grieve for the future the way Sasuke did, always seeing the end of the road, never the path he was walking. Even when he had gone out soul-searching, it had always been to see who he would become at the end of it, rather than the man he was becoming during it. But Naruto was, as usual, right. What could happen in the future was for the future to mourn, not him, not them.

Naruto released him to grip the back of his neck tightly, then pulled him forward. Their foreheads knocked together. For a moment Naruto stayed there, taking a deep, shaking breath, then he stood up and stretched leisurely. “I’m going to turn off the lantern.”

Sasuke nodded, feeling dazed. He suddenly realised that he had just been the victim of one of Naruto’s many passionate speeches that had turned villains far worse than him to the light. During his glory days, it had been his most effective weapon, and it hadn’t dulled one bit. The room dropped into stifling darkness, but then Naruto was sliding back into the futon, and he reached up to pull Sasuke down and into his embrace.

“Whatever you decide,” Naruto told him, one hand around his waist, the other acting as a pillow for Sasuke’s head. “I will always be here.” 

“You can’t keep waiting for me.” 

“I can,” said Naruto. “I have. I will.” 

They didn’t speak again for the rest of the night. When Sasuke awoke, Naruto had stayed home from the morning harvest. For the first time since he arrived, he gazed at Naruto’s face, young and charming in the morning sun, face gentle in sleep. He tried to think about the present, the now, but all that came to mind was that Naruto was very beautiful. When Sasuke shook him gently awake, his eyes cracked open, irises that eerie shade of blue the world took on just before dawn. 

Then he yawned, great sharp teeth showing, reached up, and placed his hand against the side of Sasuke’s face. His thumb swept over his cheekbone. 

“Good morning,” he said. 

His first smile of the day. Sasuke wanted to always be the only person who would receive it.

After another two days, his embroidery finally started to pick up, and so did Naruto’s curiosity. With more free time from the dwindling harvest, he kept trying to pop in and both times his Rinnegan had saved him. It amused Sasuke to no end to use a world-ending power for such a triviality as hiding a surprise, and somehow he felt the obscene power within him delighted in the mundanity of the action. 

To throw him off the scent and give his fingers a much-needed break, he suggested a trip to the river. Naruto had leapt at the opportunity. 

The heat was stifling, bearing down on them oppressively. Even through the shade of the trees—brown camphor and cedar, silvery beech and oak, the sun was bright enough to blind, and cast everything in a light so viciously green it felt unnatural, unreal. But there was a strong breeze going, rustling the leaves of the trees and the undergrowth, keeping Sasuke’s hair from sticking to his neck. 

On a blanket by the banks, Naruto sat obediently as Sasuke rubbed sunblock onto his back and shoulders, skilled fingers kneading into tired, overworked muscles. He sighed contentedly, in pitch with the whistling of the wind.

“You need to stretch more,” Sasuke tutted, finding himself working on a particularly tough knot. Naruto mhmm-ed in acknowledgment, a lazy drawl. His skin was warm, warm as the air outside, the sunblock a slippery smooth feeling beneath his hands. His tanned skin grew red under his ministrations, until finally Sasuke tore his hands away from his skin, heart pounding. Naruto rolled his shoulders, the movement fluid, muscles beneath his back rippling, then gestured for him to turn around. 

The sensation of Naruto’s roughened palms on the bare skin of his back was overwhelming. Everywhere Naruto’s fingers went sparks zinged up his spine, making his toes curl and teeth ache. Naruto moved his low braid out of the way, digging his thumbs into the back of his neck and he bit down on his lip so as not to yelp, shaky and trembling, like a newborn colt finding its feet. 

“Sasuke also needs to stretch,” said Naruto teasingly. “Or maybe he just needs to loosen up.” 

Sasuke rolled his eyes, a movement Naruto did not see but surely could sense. His fingers danced upon his skin, reverent and worshipping, never lingering, yet at the same time staying too long. Sasuke indulged them both; he allowed Naruto’s hands to wander, slipping from his back to down his arms, in-between his fingers, kneading the palm of his hand. 

Too soon, Naruto patted his shoulder. “All done,” he chirped. “Though you might want to put some more on later. Sasuke looks like he burns.” 

Sasuke made a rude noise, because he was right. Naruto laughed like the gurgle of the water on the rocks, then took off at a sprint, sinking into the water with sure feet. Dunking his hands beneath the surface of the water, he began grabbing poor, unsuspecting river denizens out of the water with triumphant little yells. 

“Look,” Naruto sloshed his way over to where Sasuke sat on the banks, only allowing the water to come as close as brushing his toes. He opened his hands to reveal a very disgruntled toad. It surveyed Sasuke, unimpressed, before leaping soundlessly from Naruto’s palms and waddling away pompously into the undergrowth. 

Sasuke nodded politely and adjusted his sunglasses. His eyes were looking at a faint thatch of fine blonde hair that trailed from Naruto’s belly button and disappeared below the waistband of his shorts. “Very nice.” 

Naruto had already gone back out into the water. “Sasuke likes fish?” He called, questioning. 

“Small ones,” Sasuke hastened to add. Three minutes later, Naruto was back in front of him, a small, creamy-white fish just bigger than his fingernail swimming about in his hands. 

“Fish,” said Naruto, presenting it to him like it was his finest catch of the day. 

“A rice fish. Endemic to the Land of Fire. Popular in aquariums.” 

Naruto ooh-ed in interest, staring at it in wonder. He let the fish go and it swam away, then he disappeared for a third time. He came back with an even bigger fish, and held this one out for Sasuke’s inspection.

“Pale chub,” Sasuke said, after studying its wiggling for a moment. “A big one, too. They don’t normally get to this size.” 

Naruto beamed. “Had a good eye for it, what can I say,” he laughed and let it go. “You sure know a lot about fish.” 

Sasuke didn’t have the heart to tell him that he had cheated by using the Sharingan to memorise a flora and fauna compendium so that he’d not have to worry about food poisoning in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. He entertained Naruto further by announcing the names of the fish he brought to him—loach, minnow, carp, Naruto that is a salamander —before Naruto grew tired of this game of his and started cajoling Sasuke to enter the water with him. 

“There’s a deeper area up ahead,” Naruto said, blinking at him pleadingly. “You can have a nice swim! The water there is fresh, I promise, it’s not slimy like here.” 

Sasuke did not move.

“Sasukeeeeee,” Naruto whimpered like a forlorn puppy. “We’ve never gone swimming together.” He finished this with a sort of petulant tone, like a disagreeable child kicking at rocks. 

“That’s low.”

Naruto stared at him. “I wonder whose fault that is.” 

Sasuke bristled. Naruto looked at him, blue eyes huge and round, like the sky reflected in the clear, gushing water beneath his feet. It had been years since Sasuke had been treated to a full-frontal of Naruto’s puppy eyes, this particular look of his having convinced mass murders, genocidal maniacs, and genuine terrorists to lay down their weapons and put their faith in love.

Sasuke was only human, and worse still, Naruto was naked and now attempting to climb into his lap, whinging and whining, hair flat and sticking to his face, curling enticingly around his temples. It was no surprise, therefore, that Sasuke blinked and found himself floating on his back in the cool water.

Wizened trees crowded the banks of the spring like dedicated sentinels, standing watch over the two of them, lost to everyone and the wider world. Sasuke floated hazily, as if in a dream—his hair spreading out behind him, a dark splotch in an otherwise vibrant scene. All the colours of the world were screaming at him, green and blue, orange and white, the scent of moss and dirt hanging low in the air. Birds he couldn’t identify twittered in the canopy, the sound of cicadas kept a constant, monotonous drone, like the ticking of a metronome. 

A leaf floated down on a gentle breeze and caressed his cheek, then replacing its touch were equally gentle fingers. Sasuke’s eyes flitted to the side to see Naruto, leaning on a rock with his chin propped up, gazing at him with such reverence he felt awed. The sun illuminated him from behind, like a halo, setting the golden tips of his hair alight.

“Sasuke,” said Naruto, with a smile. Oh, how much he liked to hear his name said with that amiable uplift, curled with the natural cadence of his voice, that rough-and-tumble way of speaking he never managed to lose. Surrounded by the reflection of the water, Naruto looked dreamlike and ethereal, a hazy quality to his features that made him blur in with his surroundings. 

A sharp corner of Naruto’s dog teeth revealed itself, making him look quite boyish. Sasuke’s heart lurched in his chest, a red flush overcoming his features. He suddenly realised how content he felt. Time could stretch on here for hours, days, and he wouldn’t mind. 

He had said that he didn’t know how he ended up in Konoha again, that he hadn’t meant to, that the city had called him back. But it hadn’t been her, had it? It was you. It was always you, saying my name like that. Like it mattered. 

Although now he had floated too far away, Sasuke reached out a trembling hand. But Naruto met him in the middle, took his hand, and pulled himself out to where he was, treading water in the deep pool. Their fingers laced, Sasuke took a deep, stuttering breath and promptly sunk. 

He could still hear Naruto laugh from under the water.

The next day, he left his embroidery to come to Grandma’s for lunch early, Naruto having agreed to take the kids out for a fishing trip with the chief. She huffed as she shook the wrapping cloth out, the washi paper it was kept in discarded on the table. “Yer sure? Cloth’s old,” she said sceptically, holding up the square piece of silk to the light. It smelled faintly of mothballs and incense, as well as a woody fragrance from being kept in the cupboard for so long. 

“It’s beautiful,” said Sasuke honestly, admiring the way the yellow cloth, so much like Naruto’s hair, rippled with the motion. It was embroidered with a pattern of swooping and sweeping clouds in a faint blue thread, and it seemed to give the motion of endlessly freefalling. 

“Sweet talker,” scoffed Grandma. She wrapped the cloth back up in the paper and presented it unceremoniously to Sasuke. “Since you like it so much, have it. My grandma, if you believe it, made it. But it’s just rottin’ in the cupboard now, for the bugs to eat. Surprised ya even noticed it, bein’ all wrapped up.” 

Sasuke took the package, tucking it gingerly into his little pack he carried with him. He’d spotted it the first day he was here, shining in the darkness of the entryway cupboard. “The glint of yellow was hard to miss.” 

Grandma eyed him owlishly. “You like yellow?” 

“As much as the next person.”. Okay, maybe a little more than that, but that was between him and his heart. “Thank you, obaa-san.” 

She waved a grumpy hand. “No need. Give Naruto something pretty.” 

This came at such a shock he felt his heart stutter in his chest. Grandma gave him an all-knowing, insufferable smirk, and Sasuke’s words of rebuttal or disagreement failed him. 

“Yes,” he replied meekly, wishing for the ground to swallow him whole or Naruto to arrive quicker, whichever was faster. 

“You take good care of him.” Sasuke began to wish more fervently for the hole in the ground. Any time now. She came and sat down at the table, pouring herself a steaming cup of green tea. The floral scent wafted in the air, mixing with the wood of the house and the smell of tatami. It reminded him of mornings with his mother, sitting at a table too big for him, listening to the kettle whistling on the stove. 

After a moment’s consideration Grandma began to speak, voice heavy with uncharacteristic emotion. She chose her words with careful deliberation, each syllable enunciated to its fullest, so that Sasuke would not lose any of her intended meaning. “When I first saw him all those years ago, he was a scrawny, misbehaved thing. Like a stray dog,” she spat the words with vehemence, like she hated to remember it. “Only thought with his teeth and his fists. Took care of a gang of hooligans that’d been hassling us for protection money without us even asking, but ask him to do what he came here for—the rice—naw, he wouldn’t have it. Didn’t know how to stand still. Went looking for trouble all over. He found it, he handled it, and then there was none.” 

She spread her palms wide, weathered eyes staring straight at Sasuke. “He’d done it all. Shooed out every bandit, every rogue ninja, every do-badder in a hundred miles. And when he realised this he came back, and he sat down right where you are, and he cried. A dog bred for war doesn’t know how to lie in laps and whine for food. He said he didn’t know how to be a person.” 

Sasuke pursed his lips, looking down at the grain of the wooden table, hiding his shaking hand beneath it. He couldn’t meet her knowing gaze, so layered with understanding. Just like Naruto, he’d left Konoha in search of that answer—how to live with just himself. No revenge, no one to hate, nothing left. No longer a soldier. No battle to be fought. 

He’d tried and he’d failed to find the answer by himself. And just when he was on the verge of giving up, he had heard the city, and he came back to him. His Naruto, who loved the present, who always had his face turned towards the sun. 

The shadow he cast behind was never dark nor scary. It was a place of refuge from the heat, from the light, until you were rested enough to come out and stand next to him. 

Without war, in spite of war and even after war, life went on. He knew now that he could thrive in the present too. 

“It took him years. We drilled that boy harder than any of your shinobi instructors. Table manners and farming. Horse riding. Cooking. Sewing. Cleaning up after yourself. Sitting in silence. What to say, when to say it. Sleeping through the night. We spoke often of the future, of the person he’d love and marry. Oh, we begged him, really, but he always shook his head. Then a few years ago, he came up to the village and the first thing he said was that he appreciated our earlier efforts, but that he was waiting for someone. That was when he really changed.” 

Sasuke’s eyes flicked up toward her, and she gave him such a hard, meaningful stare Sasuke almost flinched. Despite everything he’d seen, and all the battles he’d fought and the evil he’d stared down, the beady gaze of this stern old woman was too much for him. Then softly, and with no small amount of love, she said, “I don’t know how you came to be who you are, and I don’t really know who you were. But all the same, you must be just as tired as he was and is. Drink.” 

She pushed the tea over to Sasuke. When he cupped his hands over the ceramic, he still felt the warmth heat him from deep in his bones. Then she stood from the table and crossed in sure strides to the kitchen counter, and began to cut slices of ruby-red apples. With each slice of the knife, Sasuke felt himself get lighter and lighter like a kite soaring away, but the lingering tartness of apple in his mouth was a sturdy rope that kept him tethered solidly to the ground. 

Lying next to Naruto that night was difficult. He felt him snuffle, turn in his sleep, felt his cheek press up against his shoulder, his warmth immediately bleeding into his skin. When he looked down at him, his eyes were closed in a serene expression Sasuke rarely saw on his face, eyes and forehead smooth from laughter or anger. He thought of him wrinkled and old, podgy, deep lines set in on his face. Swinging his fist at his neighbour’s kids who won’t listen to him, his cane dangling from the strap around his wrist. Naruto ojii-san, they’d call him. Naruto ojii-san, where’s Sasuke ojii-san? 

Sasuke had already missed his teenage years, and half of his twenties. He never got to see Naruto as his voice was breaking, the squeaks and cracks that’d emerge. Or witnessed his steady growth, not noticing or registering the creep of his shoulders, until one day he had to duck to enter Ichiraku, and then all the passage of time would hit at once.

The thought of missing more of Naruto’s life suddenly hit him all at once. I don’t have all the time in the world. As though feeling the sudden racing of his heart, Naruto wrapped his hand around his arm in his sleep.

“Sasuke?” He murmured, cracking a muddy eye open. “You good?”

“Go back to sleep.”

Naruto snuffled, rubbing his nose against his shoulder. “‘Kay. You too.”  

“Yes,” Sasuke assured him gently, trying his best to comply. But his thoughts swirled like a whirlpool, and sleep evaded him until the early hours of the morning.

The next day, they finished the montsuki. It was a beautiful, glorious thing, and the thought of seeing Naruto in it made him feel ill. It was a regal set, fit for a king, or for a proper Hokage. Yuki had proudly folded it in the yellow wrapping cloth from Grandma and given him strict instructions on its care, emphasising each point with a tap to his shoulders. 

Why bother telling him all this? Sasuke had wanted to ask, then realised it was pointless. Everyone knew, or assumed, that Sasuke was going back to Konoha with Naruto, and he found himself in no haste to correct them. They stored the montsuki in the village hall, then everyone dispersed.

It was Naruto’s final day of the harvest, helping to finalise the details regarding its storage and processing. Soon, their idyllic, country lifestyle would come to an end, but he no longer grieved it. They were still here, after all. And there would be many more opportunities. Trips to onsen villages,holidays in the mountains, the harvest next year. 

What would Naruto’s home back in Konoha look like? Did Ichiraku’s still taste the same? Where was the best supermarket, the nicest minimart, Naruto’s favourite street for an after-dinner walk? Maybe even that stinky boy he barely remembered would give him a pup to train, he’d like that. 

By the time he arrived home, the sun was dipping below the mountains. Naruto still hadn’t come back, so he set about preparing dinner, hauling out a soup pot to place on the claytop. He was mid-stir when Naruto stepped through the threshold, his hair slicked back with sweat, tanktop damp and muddy. The tiredness on his face seemed to vanish when he saw Sasuke, instead he grinned as though this—coming home to him—was the highlight of his day. 

“Sasuke,” he greeted happily, eyes creasing endearingly at the corners. Sasuke could picture him as an old man, wrinkled and aged, deep-set laugh lines bellying a life spent smiling. “I’m home.”

You can’t keep waiting for me. 

I can. I have. I will. 

Forget all the things he’d do back in Konoha. Right now, what could he…right now, he–

Two steps to stand in front of him. One step to cup his face in his hand. Sasuke kissed him as if he’d done it everyday, as if he already knew the shape of Naruto’s lips, the feeling of them, soft, pliant and smooth.

Naruto’s hands held his waist, pulling him against his body, head tilted downwards in so practised a motion it felt surreal. 

The kiss didn’t last very long, but it had been lifetimes in the making. 

Naruto blinked down at him, dazed, his pupils blown out wide. His lips were pink, throat bobbing as he swallowed.

Sasuke had thought he would feel fear when he finally did this. Fear of what he’d done, of the death of their friendship and the birth of something new, of the life he would never, not again, be able to extricate from the threads of Naruto’s soul. But he didn’t. The only thing he felt was an overwhelming sense of contentment and satisfaction.

He went boneless in his arms, but Naruto supported him easily, grip tightening on his waist. 

He pushed Sasuke two, three steps into the room, then picked him up with one arm to carry him across the threshold to the tatami room. He slid the sliding door open so hard the rafters rattled, then dipped his head to kiss him again.

Sasuke kissed him back just as fiercely. Now that—now that this was happening, now that he could touch, touch all he wanted, god, his hands slid across his body, taut and tight and lean, up beneath his shirt, tracing each bump and ridge with reverence. 

Their kiss deepened, Naruto’s tongue licking at his bottom lip until Sasuke felt bold enough to part his mouth. They stumbled further into the tatami room and fell ungracefully onto the futon.

His back hitting the ground made him jump, and he pulled away from Naruto, panting. “Wait,” he said. “The soup. The stove—” 

Naruto didn’t even bother lifting both his hands from Sasuke’s body. With just one finger, his shadow clone appeared, rushed to put out the fire, then immediately disappeared. Sasuke rolled his eyes at him. He could do one-handed signs too! Actually, he could only do one-handed signs. 

“Show off,” he accused. 

Naruto laughed. “In front of you, always.” He kissed him again, and again, and a third time for good luck. He held him down, covering him with his bulk and surrounding him with his scent, kissing his way down his neck, licking across his collarbones, then back up to the corner of his lips. Everywhere he could reach he peppered with kisses, soft like a gentle rain, leaving tingling sensations wherever he went. His body was firm and taut with need, every muscle on alert. Sasuke dug his nails into his back and pressed him impossibly close, as though he was trying to climb inside his skin and make a home for himself amidst his bones.  

It was only once the soup was thoroughly cold that Naruto temporarily sated—not that Sasuke fared any better, though the marks he left on his skin would probably fade in the hour. Naruto kissed Sasuke’s cheek, where they lay tangled in the bed, clothes in various stages of half-undress and disarray. Naruto’s shirt had somehow found its way onto the rafters. Sasuke’s dangled, chucked and abandoned, from the corner of the low table.

Sasuke stared at the ceiling, breathless and winded. 

“You kissed me,” said Naruto, the first real thing he’d said all night. “You, kissed me.” 

“Please don’t rub it in,” grumbled Sasuke, already embarrassed. What the fuck was he thinking? He wasn’t thinking at all, actually! Not even in the slightest! Naruto had come back, told him “I’m home,” with that expression on his face and—

“Sasuke kissed me,” continued Naruto, and a dumb, goofy grin spread across his face. “Oh my god. The Sasuke kissed me.” 

“I’m right here, usuratonkachi,” Sasuke smacked him across the chest, and his pecs bounced from the force. It filled Sasuke with such an indiscriminate rage that he hauled himself up onto his lap and kissed him again, hand kneading at his body until he was sore and aching in his pants, and Naruto had such a blissful, fucked-out look in his eyes it nearly tipped Sasuke over the edge. 

Naruto’s eyes lazily roved over his body, then flitted back up to his face. His fingers on his waist rubbed soothing circles into his hip. He titled his head at him, eyes softening. “Why now? He asked in a neutral tone, as though he was afraid he’d spook him. “I said I’d wait. I would have, you know. I’d have waited forever.” 

Sasuke stared at him, dumbfounded. Naruto returned his gaze guilelessly, as though completely and utterly blind to his own strengths, to his own lovability, to the gravity of his person. Sasuke was neither educated nor eloquent enough to put it into words, in the end he simply said, “I realised contentment was what I made of it.”

Naruto pinked all over. He looked at Sasuke shyly, then leaned in to say, “we start counting anniversaries now, right?”

Sasuke chewed on his swollen lips, looking down at the masterwork beneath him. Every step and journey, every choice he had made, every attempt he performed to try and run away, and still, life led him back here. The one constant in his life. A magnet for his soul, his Naruto, his north star.

“If first kisses count as anniversaries, we’re in our fourteenth year.” 

Naruto’s eyes widened as he recalled that day back in the Academy, then he burst into laughter, shoulders shaking. “You’re right,” he wondered, so fond it made Sasuke’s teeth ache. “God, I remember that. I hated it. It was so,” he hesitated. “Dry.” 

“You tasted like miso soup. It was so off-putting I thought about it every time I wanted to kiss you.”

“How many times have you wanted to kiss me?” Naruto asked, the greedy bastard. Sasuke realised his folly and absolutely refused to answer, no matter how many times Naruto cajoled him. A man must have his secrets, even when they’re kept from the love of all his lives. 

Reluctantly, they eventually disentangled themselves. Naruto stripped the bed then went to wash up, Sasuke wore down his thoughts by focusing too hard on heating up the soup and nearly burned the fish. When Sasuke handed him his plate, Naruto pulled his face up and thanked him with a kiss, and they almost let the food go cold again. 

As they ate, Naruto said, “come back with me.” 

“Okay.” 

Naruto blinked, as if he hadn’t expected such a placid response. “I mean Konoha,” he emphasised, giving Sasuke a suspicious side-eye. 

“I know.” Seeing Naruto at a loss was nostalgic, so Sasuke let him flounder in the emotion for a little before he stepped in. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not fond of the place.” 

Naruto nodded seriously.

“But what you said all those nights ago was right. You changed my life,” Sasuke looked at him, uncharacteristically honest. “I think you can change Konoha too. Even more, I’d like to see it happen.” 

His sentence hung in the air. Naruto gaped like a fish, and Sasuke could almost see the gears turning in his pathetic brain. “Will you be living with me?” He asked, voice simultaneously both full of hope and self-deprecation. “I’m, I’m not the neatest, and I don’t cook the best, and I’m not the quietest and—” 

“Yes,” Sasuke said firmly. There was no point in beating around the bush.

Naruto clicked his mouth shut. He took a bite of his fish, chewed, swallowed. “I’m hard work.” 

“Haven’t you worked very hard for me?”

Another bite of his fish. Naruto said, “I love you.” 

There’s nothing else attached to those three letters. No baggage or expectations. If Sasuke never returned the sentiment, he thought Naruto would keep it inside him forever, harbouring it like a precious jewel, polishing it in his heart until it shone for everyone else to look at. Sasuke knew better than to ask, why me. There was no explanation from Naruto that would even begin to satisfy him, just as he had none to offer Naruto.

Sasuke took a breath. “And I, you,” he said, whiteknuckling his chopsticks.

Naruto beamed at him. All at once and quite suddenly, he started to cry. Sasuke rose from his seat and wiped his tears. Naruto pulled him into his lap and clutched onto him, hiding his muffled gasps and sobs into his neck. He held him like a lifeline, like without him he’d drift away, lost and alone in a wine-dark sea. 

When he finally calmed down, he did the dishes while Sasuke washed up, and then they fell into bed together. 

Naruto kissed him good night. 

Sasuke kissed him good morning. 

Grandma knew instantly. The second they walked into her kitchen the next afternoon she’d clocked them. It was a funny little dance—Sasuke knew she knew, and she knew Sasuke knew that she knew. It was a very awkward lunch where they avoided the topic for the entire meal—come to think of it, Sasuke wasn’t sure if Naruto knew that she knew, but he blathered on almost single-handedly about the reproductive habits of the Pygmy Seahorse. It felt like it was just a touch too forced for Naruto to have been ignorant of the silent showdown happening between Grandma and Sasuke, but at the same time, it was such a Naruto thing to do. 

When they were finally gearing to leave, Sasuke all but dying inside, Grandma thrust a box into his arm. 

“What’s that?” Naruto peered over his shoulder, hand snaking to grip his waist. Sasuke flushed as red as the box and tried not to look Grandma in the eye, lest he instantly drop dead. 

“Just a gift,” Grandma stared at him unflinchingly. “The old man and I got it many years ago. Suits ya both better now.” 

Naruto frowned, puzzled. “But—” 

“Thank you,” interrupted Sasuke, elbowing him in the ribs.

 Naruto oof- ed. He winced out a, “yeah, thanks, obaa-chan.” 

“You boys,” she muttered under her breath. “Go on, get. It’s yer last day tomorrow, Naruto, I expect that house spick and span, ya hear me?” 

Naruto blanched and began whistling. Sasuke bowed his head in a sorry about my boyfriend way, then hustled him out of the house, pushing at his back with the box until they stumbled into the streets, bright with the afternoon sun. 

Naruto lasted all of three seconds before whisking the box from Sasuke’s arm and opening it right there and then on the street. The lid lifted to reveal a bed of black silk. Resting gently in a divot were three well-preserved sake cups in ascending size—small, medium and large, and done up in a beautiful red lacquer. 

Sasuke’s jaw threatened to drop and he immediately started to sweat. Naruto froze in position. He looked down at the cups, then at Sasuke, then back at the cups. 

“Her wedding cups?!” Naruto’s voice broke on a squeak. He slammed the lid back on surprisingly gently and cast a look around as though someone would save him from the emotions running rampant through his mind. “How did she—but I— when —” 

Ah, so he didn’t know. Sasuke wondered where the hell he’d learned about Pygmy Seahorses in such detail. Gingerly, he took the box from Naruto lest he drop it in his panic. “We’ll use it someday,” he said. 

Naruto bloomed a brighter red. Steam practically began to pour from his ears. “Right,” he blinked wildly. “I mean, of course.” 

“You need to pack,” Sasuke reminded. 

Naruto bobbed his head up and down like a lure on a fishing line. “Mhmm, yup. Let’s, let’s go.”

“And thank Grandma properly when you see her at the farewell.” 

More frantic nods. “Yes yes,” he agreed. “Now gimme that,” he took the box back from Sasuke and tucked it under his arm. “I wanna hold your hand.” 

The two of them gaped at each other. Even though they’d held hands plenty before—before last night, and before that even, ten years ago lying across from each other on hospital beds, desperately trying to reassure each other that their nightmares weren’t real, and they hadn’t killed each other, it felt different now.

Naruto couldn’t get redder. He waved his hand impatiently and Sasuke took it after a moment. The walk back to the house was humiliating. Though surprisingly satisfying. 

Once they were back, they set to work readying the house for his departure. Sasuke sweeped while Naruto bustled about packing things away with  newfound military precision and dusting the rafters. At around six, they washed up and walked hand-in-hand down to the town square for Naruto’s farewell ceremony.

The village had gone all out for it, treating it as some sort of unique holiday—they slaughtered fine, fat cows and served the best cuts to Naruto, who always found some clever way to pass it around the communal tables instead. There was music, the children did a little dance they’d learned in school. The chief ensured that their cups never went empty, so by the end of it Naruto was flushed and his pupils dilated, the top few buttons of his only nice shirt undone and his sleeves rolled up to expose his strong forearms. 

His hand gripped Sasuke’s thigh under the big banquet table, thumb rubbing over his knee reassuringly. 

Sasuke watched him amusedly, sipping idly from his cup. As though feeling his stare, Naruto leaned in to ask, his eyebrows furrowed in concern, “too noisy?” 

Sasuke shook his head, it was unpleasant but he had now learned the art of bearing it. Not of grinning, though, his mouth was an impassive, flat line. Still, said line softened as he turned to Naruto. “Don’t worry about it. Enjoy your day, you’ve worked hard.” 

Naruto beamed at him. “We’ll leave soon,” he promised. “Someone needs to take the chief to bed, and it looks like Grandma’s over this already.” 

Grandma had already slowly started edging her way to her house, and she stood at the far end of the plaza, fading gently into the darkness. The chief, meanwhile, was dancing around the tables, his geta tied to his obi and clanking whenever he jumped. Sasuke had a sudden, vivid premonition of the future that awaited him. Live in the present. Live in the present! 

“Naruto-kun!” There was suddenly a chorus from the women, and Yuki was pushed up to the middle of the event square, everyone’s eyes on her. She bowed to Grandma—though she could barely be seen, her presence was keenly felt—and the chief, before sinking into low one for Naruto. 

Naruto blushed. “Yuki-chan,” he said, placating, already moving to stand. 

She gave him no time for pleasantries. She raised a hand and the entire square immediately quietened to the crackle of the fire in the barbecue pits. In a loud, proud voice, she said, “Naruto-kun, it’s almost your birthday.” 

Naruto blinked at her in surprise. From behind her back, she produced the beautiful yellow-wrapped bundle. “This is from all of us.” 

“Oh,” said Naruto, in evident astonishment. “Oh!” He said, when Sasuke gave him a gentle nudge with his shoulder, ushering him around the banquet table and to the middle. “Thank you!” He jogged the last few steps, reaching out to take it from her. “Can I open it now?” He addressed this to the crowd, and the crowd cheered wildly back. 

Sasuke didn’t think he’d ever felt this nervous giving someone a present before—not that he has much experience in the area—and waited with bated breath as he carefully undid the knot. The wrapping cloth gave way in a flourish, revealing its contents—the stark black montsuki, beautifully crafted, the silk luminescent in the firelight. 

Naruto stared at it. With his good hand, he ran his fingertips over the stitching of the Uzumaki crest, the spiral that went round and round and round. Deep and everlasting. Everything Sasuke loved about Naruto, he’d tried to put it here.  He turned around to look at Sasuke, eyes bellying his question. The ensuing nod made him almost flinch, mouth opening soundlessly.

Turning back to Yuki, he said, “thank you.” Then, louder, for the crowd, “thank you!” 

The crowd cheered back, speaking over themselves in their haste. The rest of the women rushed up to Naruto, holding the montsuki and hakama up to Naruto to check the tailoring, the size—Sasuke had used a genjutsu to stand in for Naruto, and he’s pleased to see his reimagining was perfect. 

Naruto threw his arms around them, gushing and praising, thanking them so profusely and vigorously Sasuke could hear him over the din of everyone else, drunk and celebrating. Still, he waited patiently and quietly, until at last Naruto extricated himself from his gaggle of admirers and returned to his side, winded and sober. 

“Sasuke,” said Naruto, the one word hiding so many things he wanted to say. Sasuke bowed his head in deference, waiting. He could feel the weight of Naruto’s eyes on him, but in the end all he said was, “wanna go home?”

Sasuke did, so they left, slipping out into the night. Once they’d moved even a few houses down from the plaza, the noise of the party shrank significantly until the sound of the crickets was the loudest thing around. It was a clear, balmy night. In the sky above, there were hundreds, thousands of stars. The wind blew Sasuke’s hair back from his face and rustled Naruto’s clothes.

“You sewed the crest?” Naruto asked quietly. reaching out to take his hand. 

“Mmn. The ladies were very helpful, it’s really mostly them. All the weaving was done by hand, you know. This is an exquisite gift.”  

Naruto looked back down at the bundle tucked beneath his other arm in a pensive, reflective silence. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never had anything like it. I’ll—I’ll wear this at our wedding,” Naruto promised. “And we’ll have the cups,” he stopped suddenly for a moment, the bundle cradled in his other arm as though it were a child. “We have so many people to invite,” he said, now horrified. 

“You have so many people to invite.” Sasuke had…about three. They all would come. And mock him mercilessly for it, no doubt. He could already see the I told you so come pouring out of Suigetsu’s mouth. 

A pause. Naruto seemed to be coming to the realisation that he had a great many friends. “I’m sorry.” 

“We’ll get a wedding planner,” Sasuke comforted. “It’ll be okay.” 

“Wedding planners are expensive.” Naruto still sounded winded. “Oh god, I need to start saving now. And you’ll need a set of these,” his gaze flicked down at the bundle. “And you—I’ll get Yuki-chan to teach me to sew the Uchiha crest on yours, okay?” 

The image of Naruto, bent over his montsuki, sewing in the beautiful red and white of the Uchiha crest made Sasuke’s heart palpitate. “I’d like that,” he managed. 

Naruto squeezed his hand tight and pulled Sasuke around until he stood in front of him. Behind him, the moon was huge and high in the sky, round like a mirror. He was beautiful even under its cold glare, blue eyes crisp like glacial pools, hair so bright it was almost white. 

I love you, Sasuke thought. 

Naruto kissed him. He tasted laughably like miso.