Illuminating Heaven
folder
Naruto › Yaoi - Male/Male › Kakashi/Sasuke
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
13
Views:
1,425
Reviews:
21
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Naruto › Yaoi - Male/Male › Kakashi/Sasuke
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
13
Views:
1,425
Reviews:
21
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Naruto, and I do not make any money from these writings.
Hope
Title: Illuminating Heaven / 天照 / Amaterasu
Pairing: Kakashi/Sasuke
Rating: NC-17
Beta Editor: ka0richan
Summary: Kakashi'd wondered when and if he'd ever encounter his prodigal former student again, but never expected it to be quite like this. Set in Post-canon.
This Chapter: "The people in this village smile because they dream with open eyes."
Chapter 12: Hope
Freedom. It's something people dream about and never really think possible. The kind of thing that feels like flying. Birds take to the sky in flocks and leave behind the earth. Sometimes I wonder how something like that feels. When not even gravity can hold you down and bind you. Just an expanse of sky that stretches further than the eye can see and nothing to drag you back down and claim you as part of the world.
I'm trapped here in this cage too. Looking out between the cracks of light that spill through the bars. They say everyone lives like this, tethered to the ground. The world holds you in place the moment you are born into the mold you will become. They say there is no escape from the mud you find yourself rooted in, where your seeds are first sown.
But at night when they think no one's listening and everything is sleeping, I can hear their freedom. It's the kind that only takes place behind locked doors. Secretive, because it only belongs to them. Sometimes it's quiet like the southern breeze that rustles through the trees in leaf whispers. Other times it sounds more violent, trunks groaning and straining against hurricane winds. It's brutal sometimes, that freedom. Like a war.
Everyone talks about them when they have their backs turned. It's never about missions or the battlefield. I like to watch them, figuring out how they work. I think I know everything about them, but I could be wrong. I've spent this entire time sitting here, trying to understand how they tick. What it is about them that makes them so compelling that everyone can only find themselves drawn in, moths to flame. Maybe it's the tragic quality of it all. How it takes being broken to become whole.
I read them front to back, and turn them page by page. They never seem to notice, or they just don't care. Too wrapped up in each other to pay attention to the rest of the world that goes on around them, envious of what they have. Always looking in on them, when they never once look back.
I think they've found a way to uproot themselves from the mud they were born in. Maybe it's because of the freedom they have at night when they think no one's listening. Or maybe it's in the way they speak, while being completely silent.
In another version of the story, the power wasn't in his hands, but in his eyes. In what he saw whenever he looked at the boy, or maybe it was that the boy was always looking at him. No one was ever really sure who was doing the looking or being watched, or what the world looked like through their matching eyes. They could only ever guess and wonder when each version of the truth always changed. Just like the people in them.
Sometimes it was a story about a pair of ninja who brought the world down with their eyes. Other times it was about a student and teacher whose bond was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Some believed the truth was the kind that could never be spoken. Truth that was as intimate as the way they met each other's gaze.
They're standing there quietly, framed by light. It's blinding trying to watch them now. Like looking right at the sun. One of them reaches up and pulls down a mask, then brushes his fingers against the side of a face. The other one is smiling, a little surprised. He's never seen this before. It's the first time.
A smile stretches wider than the sky, brighter than the light behind his back.
It's too beautiful. Illuminating heaven.
The End
A/N: Continue on to read the Afterword, if you would like.
Pairing: Kakashi/Sasuke
Rating: NC-17
Beta Editor: ka0richan
Summary: Kakashi'd wondered when and if he'd ever encounter his prodigal former student again, but never expected it to be quite like this. Set in Post-canon.
This Chapter: "The people in this village smile because they dream with open eyes."
Chapter 12: Hope
Freedom. It's something people dream about and never really think possible. The kind of thing that feels like flying. Birds take to the sky in flocks and leave behind the earth. Sometimes I wonder how something like that feels. When not even gravity can hold you down and bind you. Just an expanse of sky that stretches further than the eye can see and nothing to drag you back down and claim you as part of the world.
I'm trapped here in this cage too. Looking out between the cracks of light that spill through the bars. They say everyone lives like this, tethered to the ground. The world holds you in place the moment you are born into the mold you will become. They say there is no escape from the mud you find yourself rooted in, where your seeds are first sown.
But at night when they think no one's listening and everything is sleeping, I can hear their freedom. It's the kind that only takes place behind locked doors. Secretive, because it only belongs to them. Sometimes it's quiet like the southern breeze that rustles through the trees in leaf whispers. Other times it sounds more violent, trunks groaning and straining against hurricane winds. It's brutal sometimes, that freedom. Like a war.
Everyone talks about them when they have their backs turned. It's never about missions or the battlefield. I like to watch them, figuring out how they work. I think I know everything about them, but I could be wrong. I've spent this entire time sitting here, trying to understand how they tick. What it is about them that makes them so compelling that everyone can only find themselves drawn in, moths to flame. Maybe it's the tragic quality of it all. How it takes being broken to become whole.
I read them front to back, and turn them page by page. They never seem to notice, or they just don't care. Too wrapped up in each other to pay attention to the rest of the world that goes on around them, envious of what they have. Always looking in on them, when they never once look back.
I think they've found a way to uproot themselves from the mud they were born in. Maybe it's because of the freedom they have at night when they think no one's listening. Or maybe it's in the way they speak, while being completely silent.
~
It took twelve months for the battle to be won.
Twelve months where they fought and bled, always standing side by side. Never too far out of sight, they watched each other with careful eyes. No one ever knew what it was they saw, two men who watched each other across the battlefield, communicating in red and black. Matching eyes that no one else had or really could understand.
There were whispers of blindness and the loss of eyes, but rumors were only just that. Gossip ran in rivulets through halls and barracks in hums that reached even the frontline camps. Rumors of missions across enemy lines, rumors of a compound burnt to dust, rumors of a crystal that made a boy's eyes so strong, the enemy issued orders to flee on sight. But some said that wasn't the story. It wasn't the crystal, but the man, who did it. The legend with the mismatched gaze, whose name everyone knew even if they never saw his face. They said he held power in his hands. The kind that could change fate.
Twelve months where they fought and bled, always standing side by side. Never too far out of sight, they watched each other with careful eyes. No one ever knew what it was they saw, two men who watched each other across the battlefield, communicating in red and black. Matching eyes that no one else had or really could understand.
There were whispers of blindness and the loss of eyes, but rumors were only just that. Gossip ran in rivulets through halls and barracks in hums that reached even the frontline camps. Rumors of missions across enemy lines, rumors of a compound burnt to dust, rumors of a crystal that made a boy's eyes so strong, the enemy issued orders to flee on sight. But some said that wasn't the story. It wasn't the crystal, but the man, who did it. The legend with the mismatched gaze, whose name everyone knew even if they never saw his face. They said he held power in his hands. The kind that could change fate.
In another version of the story, the power wasn't in his hands, but in his eyes. In what he saw whenever he looked at the boy, or maybe it was that the boy was always looking at him. No one was ever really sure who was doing the looking or being watched, or what the world looked like through their matching eyes. They could only ever guess and wonder when each version of the truth always changed. Just like the people in them.
Sometimes it was a story about a pair of ninja who brought the world down with their eyes. Other times it was about a student and teacher whose bond was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Some believed the truth was the kind that could never be spoken. Truth that was as intimate as the way they met each other's gaze.
~
He returned to Konoha as a hero, decorated. They had heard stories of his conquests and battles in the war that cleaved a country. There were rumors, too, about a boy who had gone missing so long ago. But whenever they asked him about those whispers, he only gave a little shrug and smile, then continued on in his unaffected way with his usual routine.
He walked down the smooth dirt-packed roads of the village he called home, one hand in the pocket of his pants and the other holding open a book. Even though he only looked at the world with half a gaze, he still kept on reading in his usual way as he wandered down the streets, breathing in the scents and all the memories that carried in the wind.
I like to watch him carefully whenever he passes by. He seems to have a different composure to him, but it's easily missed. There's a long distance look in his eyes now that never used to be there before, and sometimes when he thinks no one's looking, his expression grows so very soft. I wonder what he's thinking at those moments under the tree, when he sits with one eye opened looking out and seeing in.
He spends a lot of time talking with ghosts. It's like he thinks they can hear him when he speaks to names carved in stone. I never know what he's saying, because he speaks in silent words. Words that are loud in his head but no one ever hears. They can hear him, though, because of their very absence. It's the space they leave in his life that give them that ability to hear what he never says out loud in perfect clarity. I wonder what his voice sounds like to their absent ears. Or if the missing one he sometimes talks to can also hear.
He walked down the smooth dirt-packed roads of the village he called home, one hand in the pocket of his pants and the other holding open a book. Even though he only looked at the world with half a gaze, he still kept on reading in his usual way as he wandered down the streets, breathing in the scents and all the memories that carried in the wind.
I like to watch him carefully whenever he passes by. He seems to have a different composure to him, but it's easily missed. There's a long distance look in his eyes now that never used to be there before, and sometimes when he thinks no one's looking, his expression grows so very soft. I wonder what he's thinking at those moments under the tree, when he sits with one eye opened looking out and seeing in.
He spends a lot of time talking with ghosts. It's like he thinks they can hear him when he speaks to names carved in stone. I never know what he's saying, because he speaks in silent words. Words that are loud in his head but no one ever hears. They can hear him, though, because of their very absence. It's the space they leave in his life that give them that ability to hear what he never says out loud in perfect clarity. I wonder what his voice sounds like to their absent ears. Or if the missing one he sometimes talks to can also hear.
~
The people in this village smile because they dream with open eyes.
They believe if they keep them closed, they might just miss the sunrise. And to them, the sunrise means everything.
There is nothing old in this village anymore, and there hasn't been for years. Even the buildings that once carried ghosts, venerated through time, have been rebuilt with stronger materials made out of younger trees. The old wood of the past had been cracking all those years, and it took being destroyed and broken down to understand the risks of timber too petrified to bend and flex the way trees do in the wind.
Hope. There is so much of it here. Swimming in the sun-spackled rivers with little laughs that soak up the smiles of parents sitting on banks, watching their children splash and wade through currents that ebb and flow around their sleek little bodies. Whistling between the trees in summer winds that always travel with and not against the many running through the forests with fluid, steady steps. They know where they are going.
I see it in the sweat and the strain of young boys and girls training under the summer sun, flying through graceful formations. Their eyes are eager and bright, like the couple sitting on the bench under the shade of the sycamore tree, sharing dango and tea, and the old couple sitting on their front porch watching them. It's in the back-and-forth rocking of their chairs as they creak over floorboards much younger than them, talking about what will be, while fondly remembering what was. No one notices how they hold hands. Both gentle and firm. Like the wind that carries the scent of laughter and moist earth over fields of green where the strength of the village lies, one arm folded under his head. His eyes are bluer than the sky and his hair is bright like sun. He's wondering what to say and if it's time. The young woman sitting next to him looks up at the same sky. She knows just what he's thinking even though he hasn't said a word. It's in the way her shoulders set, steady and strong. And how she clenches a fist around a single blade of grass.
I wonder if they ever noticed it in his eyes. Even if all they could ever see was only just one. I can see it lightening the shades of grey, watching quietly from where he stands. His body cuts a silhouette against the setting sun, and his posture is as it always is, relaxed and calm. I'm not sure how he can just stand there in such an unaffected way, one hand in his pocket, the other sliding his book away. He's looking down the hill at a young man who looks right back. His eyes are both dark and bright as he walks up in steady steps.
I always thought I knew how this would end. Feeling that I knew them better than they knew themselves. Watching them so carefully and analyzing every step, trying to figure out what made them them. Trying to explain all the things I saw. Loving them and chasing them this entire time. But they're not so easy to understand or to figure out. Even if I memorize their skin and count the bones that make up their spines. I wonder if they know, or if they'll ever say the words. Maybe they'll never say it aloud because it won't mean as much. Or maybe they'll say it just to hear it once. Or maybe they don't even realize the words are even there. But they don't have to say it, because it's already so loud, ringing and ringing like the echoes of steps back home.
They believe if they keep them closed, they might just miss the sunrise. And to them, the sunrise means everything.
There is nothing old in this village anymore, and there hasn't been for years. Even the buildings that once carried ghosts, venerated through time, have been rebuilt with stronger materials made out of younger trees. The old wood of the past had been cracking all those years, and it took being destroyed and broken down to understand the risks of timber too petrified to bend and flex the way trees do in the wind.
Hope. There is so much of it here. Swimming in the sun-spackled rivers with little laughs that soak up the smiles of parents sitting on banks, watching their children splash and wade through currents that ebb and flow around their sleek little bodies. Whistling between the trees in summer winds that always travel with and not against the many running through the forests with fluid, steady steps. They know where they are going.
I see it in the sweat and the strain of young boys and girls training under the summer sun, flying through graceful formations. Their eyes are eager and bright, like the couple sitting on the bench under the shade of the sycamore tree, sharing dango and tea, and the old couple sitting on their front porch watching them. It's in the back-and-forth rocking of their chairs as they creak over floorboards much younger than them, talking about what will be, while fondly remembering what was. No one notices how they hold hands. Both gentle and firm. Like the wind that carries the scent of laughter and moist earth over fields of green where the strength of the village lies, one arm folded under his head. His eyes are bluer than the sky and his hair is bright like sun. He's wondering what to say and if it's time. The young woman sitting next to him looks up at the same sky. She knows just what he's thinking even though he hasn't said a word. It's in the way her shoulders set, steady and strong. And how she clenches a fist around a single blade of grass.
I wonder if they ever noticed it in his eyes. Even if all they could ever see was only just one. I can see it lightening the shades of grey, watching quietly from where he stands. His body cuts a silhouette against the setting sun, and his posture is as it always is, relaxed and calm. I'm not sure how he can just stand there in such an unaffected way, one hand in his pocket, the other sliding his book away. He's looking down the hill at a young man who looks right back. His eyes are both dark and bright as he walks up in steady steps.
I always thought I knew how this would end. Feeling that I knew them better than they knew themselves. Watching them so carefully and analyzing every step, trying to figure out what made them them. Trying to explain all the things I saw. Loving them and chasing them this entire time. But they're not so easy to understand or to figure out. Even if I memorize their skin and count the bones that make up their spines. I wonder if they know, or if they'll ever say the words. Maybe they'll never say it aloud because it won't mean as much. Or maybe they'll say it just to hear it once. Or maybe they don't even realize the words are even there. But they don't have to say it, because it's already so loud, ringing and ringing like the echoes of steps back home.
They're standing there quietly, framed by light. It's blinding trying to watch them now. Like looking right at the sun. One of them reaches up and pulls down a mask, then brushes his fingers against the side of a face. The other one is smiling, a little surprised. He's never seen this before. It's the first time.
A smile stretches wider than the sky, brighter than the light behind his back.
It's too beautiful. Illuminating heaven.
The End
A/N: Continue on to read the Afterword, if you would like.