Almost Sucks

Almost Sucks
by Mashiro

Naruto fandom, series, no spoilers
AU, BOYS LOVE: Naruto x Sasuke, Kakashi x Iruka, Lee x Gaara

first version: March 23rd 2007, Friday
second version: November 28th 2008, Friday

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DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the rights to the Naruto series or characters and I make no money writing this. I’m just a fan. This is fan fiction.

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54: Not my fault

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The first part of the plan had been easy. ‘Get on the bus that arrives at the station at 14:06.’ Oh, no, wait... That had been the second part of the plan. The first part of the plan had been ‘Leave a note for Kakashi and your dad that says you and Sasuke have gone to have a sleepover at Shikamaru’s place. Tell them not to worry.’ But that one had been easy too, as soon as Shikamaru had convinced Naruto that it wasn’t a lie. They would have a sleepover at his place as soon as this was all over.

Those words had almost made Naruto cry again. He hadn’t but almost. His eyes had hurt and he had blinked a lot. It wasn’t crying because it was sad but crying because it was... a relief. Just to hear that this would be over eventually, and that things would be able to happen afterwards. No matter how life consuming and important and huge this thing seemed, it had an end and the world could move on after that end. There was a light after the darkness, dawn after the night, and all that stuff.

When Shikamaru had hung up, Naruto had gone to pack a bag. He had taken out and packed a change of clothes from the bag Sasuke had brought with him; he had packed their toothbrushes and second set clothes for himself, like you would at a sleepover. He had let the key to Sasuke’s house stay in his pocket and had dropped in his wallet and the key to his house to keep it company.

When the bag was packed Naruto had gone back to the kitchen and called Lee’s house. No one had answered but he had left a message on the machine saying he was sorry that he and Sasuke hadn’t shown up for the contest. They would definitely be there for the next one. Then Naruto had been torn for a moment, hesitating and thinking about whether or not to call Gaara and let his friends know that he was leaving and where he was going. He couldn’t leave a message like that on Lee’s answering machine because if Gai heard he might call Iruka and Naruto definitely didn’t want that.

In the end he hadn’t called. This wasn’t their thing. If he told them what was wrong then he had to also tell them why it was wrong and that was not their business. At least not today. One day, hopefully, but not now. He hoped Gaara and Lee wouldn’t be too worried if they came over and no one was home, or if they called and no one answered.

‘To Iruka and Kakashi-san. We’re not here because we’re having a sleepover at Shikamaru’s house. Because he invited us. Don’t worry! We’ll be back soon. Naruto.’

Naruto hoped that Kakashi knew who Shikamaru was. The guy had said he would and Shikamaru didn’t seem like a liar, but... Iruka would be so mad if Kakashi didn’t know. Well, Iruka would probably be really mad either way, with them going off to the city without permission. He had specifically said that no one was supposed to be missing when they came back. And that they should eat the food. And not have sex. Iruka probably wouldn’t let them stay home alone again until they were forty or something.

When he had left the note on the table and taken some money from the emergency stash, Naruto had put on his shoes and his jacket, stepped out and locked the door. Then he had left the porch and the house for the road and had walked away.

There was something in Naruto’s stomach that seemed to think that this would never be over. Sasuke would never come back and he would never be okay. They would never be okay. The fact that things had seemed okay before the visit to the mental hospital was because... well... Whatever the reason, it had been a lie because things weren’t okay. At least that was what that part of Naruto’s stomach seemed to think. Sasuke would never be okay. He may have said that he was better now, that first time he had let Naruto hold him after he had passed out in the hall and Naruto had thought he would die. But he wasn’t okay. He would never be okay.

Naruto didn’t like that depressed part of his stomach.

The other parts of Naruto tried not to think about things so much. They tried to be optimistic and look forward and hold on to his belief that if you worked hard enough you could manage anything. Maybe Sasuke just needed more time. Some more time to figure things out and... and stuff. He was still young. He had said that it had happened when he was five and a half, which meant he had only had ten years or so to heal and feel better. When you thought about it, that wasn’t a very long time, considering what had happened. Sasuke just needed some more time.

Besides, Shikamaru had said it would be fine. Or, well... He had said that this happened when you were with Sasuke, that it wasn’t Naruto’s fault. If this happened then it couldn’t be the end of the world, could it? If it happened then it had happened before and things must have gone back to normal afterwards because... Because things had been normal a week ago, right? That depressed part of his stomach was just being depressed with its ‘things have never been okay and never will be’.

Naruto tried to be optimistic and ignore the depressed part of himself. He didn’t need it now. He had made up his mind. Naruto was going to find Sasuke and then they were going to go home together. No depressing thoughts were needed to accomplish that, so he ignored them.

The bus had arrived at the station at 14:10; if the clock on the wall hadn’t been wrong.

The first and the second part of the plan had been easy. Now Naruto was waiting to see if the third part would be the same or require more effort. ‘Get off at the city central station. Follow the green signs.’ It sounded simple enough but you never knew. Maybe they had switched the green signs for yellow signs overnight and Shikamaru didn’t know. (At least that was what the depressed part of Naruto’s stomach thought.)

Naruto watched as the world outside the bus passed by. The town, houses, stores, people walking, cars and streetlights that were turned off because it was day; signs for the cars and bikes and people walking that said stop, walk here, don’t park cars here, this way to the city hall. The city hall was small and barely even there at all; Naruto knew because he had been there several times with school.

This was not how Naruto had thought his first real relationship would turn out. This wasn’t very normal, was it? Following your boyfriend when he runs away because you had sex. It was one of those things that only happened in overdramatic movies, where the guys and girls were extra beautiful and extra special and extra rich; or something like that. Stuff happened to those guys and girls that didn’t happen to normal teenagers.

Naruto was thinking that this was like one of those things. He felt like he had gotten stuck in a movie for special teenagers, only he wasn’t a special teenager, he was just Naruto. Maybe Sasuke was special. Of course, Sasuke was special, but... Maybe he was special in that movie way. He was extra beautiful. He did have a fan club and that wasn’t entirely normal. His family wasn’t rich, but he did have a... Naruto squeezed his eyes shut before his train of thought had reached the station.

‘He did have a tragic past and brother locked up in a mental institution.’

You couldn’t use that as a reason to call him special. That was awful. And this wasn’t a movie anyway, this was life.

-

I never knew my mother or my father. I thought about them a lot though, when I was a kid, and wondered what they were like. Were they beautiful or ugly? Rich or poor? Famous or unknown? Did they love me at some point? Maybe my father didn’t know I existed; it was possible since he was the father. My mother must have known that much at least.

Sometimes I wondered if what the other kids said were true; that I was a monster and I didn’t have any mother or father because I had been spawned from the evil of the earth. I never seriously thought it were true because, come on. But I wondered a little. Thought about things like ‘no smoke without fire,’ because I was a kid and kids think about stupid things sometimes.

Is it more painful to lose a family or to have never known a family at all?

But I have known family. I know family now. Iruka became my family. And then came friends; Lee and Gai; and all those half-friend/acquaintances at school and life that you know and talk to but still can’t count as real friends, like classmates and teachers and Yumi and the Hag. Then came Gaara, and Temari and Kankuro came with him. And now there is Sasuke and Kakashi-san. I know family.

It was such a wondrous thing when I came to live with Iruka. Well, as soon as the trouble with his girlfriend was over. She never liked me. No matter how hard she tried to hide it and pretend, the look in her eyes always reminded me of the kids at the orphanage that screamed ‘monster!’

I was scared at first when she left; scared that Iruka would hate me because I made his girlfriend leave and send me back. But he didn’t. He said it wasn’t my fault.

‘What grown-ups fail to do will never be your fault, Naruto.’

I remember I got angry and screamed at him. I told him that he was a stupid idiot that didn’t get it. I threw as many of his things as I could get my hands on to the floor. Plates and glasses and vases and photographs broke around me. Chairs were felled. I clawed long marks on his wallpaper. At the end I managed to push the small aquarium down from its table.

Maybe it was the water that cooled me down, maybe the fishes jumping around on the floor. I don’t remember how long I stood there watching them, but when I snapped out of it and in panic yelled ‘the fishes!’ Iruka was already there. He put the bowl we used for salad, already filled with water, on the floor and quickly but gently began picking the fishes from the floor. I began picking as well.

Afterwards, for a long time, we just sat on the floor and watched the fishes swim around in the bowl. I had picked up some of the sand and plants and rocks from the floor as well and made some hasty decorations in the salad bowl. Iruka hadn’t objected even though the sand and rocks must have made scrapes in the glass.

‘I’m sorry,’ I had mumbled eventually, when the silence became too much. Iruka had wrapped strong arms around me and pulled me to him.

‘It’s not your fault, Naruto,’ he had said again and for the first time in a very long time, I cried.

After that things were wondrous. I had someone that smiled at me, talked to me about silly things that didn’t really matter but mattered anyway and yelled at me when I took my games too far (that happened often).

It wasn’t just about my survival; the ladies looking after us at the orphanage hadn’t had time for anything besides making sure we ate our food and got dressed and went to bed and brushed our teeth. They hadn’t been bad, had meant well, but the place had been so big and the kids so many and the grown-ups so few.

I was not a monster anymore. Not all of the kids had been directly cruel, but none of them had wanted to be around me; none of them had really wanted to see me. I had promised myself when I was a child, before Iruka, that one day they would. One day they would see me; I would make them.

When I came to live with Iruka it was like I had suddenly arrived at that place. He saw me. Me. Not just because of what I did, the troubles or good times I caused, but simply because I was me, because I breathed and was there. He saw me no matter what I did or didn’t do. It was more precious to me than anything had ever been.

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The town, houses, stores and cars became fields and forests, fewer cars, farms and country side houses. Country side houses stand further apart than the houses in a town, but other than that they are pretty much the same. It was the same with the cars. They were there but they were further apart, and they went faster. There were much fewer people to be seen, although you did get more animals; cows and horses and sheep.

The bus stopped here and there, by stops along the road and in smaller, medium-sized and larger towns that it passed on the way to the city. Now and then it stopped and stayed for a while at stations, but not very often.

There had been almost no one on the bus when Naruto got on, but the closer the city came the more people wandered in to crowd it. The seat next to Naruto was empty for a long time, but eventually a guy in a suit with a laptop sat down. He paid no attention to anything except the stuff on the screen; his fingers rushing over the letters. It made Naruto wonder what Sasuke’s fingers were up to.

Naruto both wanted to sleep and didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to because then the trip would be over in a flash and Sasuke so much closer. He didn’t want to because it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right sleeping when the world wasn’t alright, when Sasuke wasn’t where he should be.

Naruto didn’t know what part four of the plan was; Shikamaru hadn’t said much. He had said that he had some ideas about where Sasuke could have gone but that he needed to check around before he knew for sure. He was in the city though, certainly, and Shikamaru had said that it might be a good idea if Naruto came too.

As if Naruto would have stayed home if Shikamaru told him to. He couldn’t bring Sasuke back home if he didn’t first go to where Sasuke was, and he definitely was going to bring him home. He had never said that he would sit in the kitchen or in front of the TV or something and wait for Sasuke to come home on his own.

But Shikamaru hadn’t mentioned what was going to happen once Naruto arrived at the station and had finished following the green signs. Somehow the guy had managed to make it feel like it would be fine without really mentioning any how or when. Maybe it was the fact that Shikamaru had known Sasuke longer than Naruto had. He didn’t know how long the two had been friends, but it felt like it had been long enough for Shikamaru to know what he was talking about when he said that it happened and it wasn’t Naruto’s fault.

Shikamaru would probably get along very well with Iruka. Maybe they could invite him to stay over some time once this was all over? They could have a sleepover at Naruto’s place to make up for the sleepover at Shikamaru’s place. Naruto was sure that Iruka would like that. He would be angry at Naruto and Sasuke for going off without permission but he wouldn’t be angry at Shikamaru for inviting them.

This would be over eventually and things would be able to happen afterwards.

The bus was so full when they arrived at the city central station that they probably would have had trouble pushing just one more passenger aboard. Naruto was happy that he had a window seat and could wait until the worst rush of up and out and away was over. He actually waited until he was the only one there, the last one to get off; hesitating, like his feet got stuck on each of the steps down to the asphalt.

He recognized the smell. There was such a special smell here. Naruto had been to the city before, with Iruka, and he had noticed the smell immediately. The city smelled in a very particular way. He didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t exactly the people, or the cars or the waves of scents coming from the restaurants and coffee shops being scattered all over the place. It was not the asphalt. Maybe it was all those things mixed together and spread out to cover everything.

He had noticed that smell when he’d been here with Iruka and knew that the city had a special smell; but it wasn’t until he came here with Sasuke that he realized that... Sasuke had grown up in that smell. That smell was home for him, just like the smell of newly cut grass in summer and snow piled up beside the sidewalk in winter was home to Naruto. It had hit him hard that time. He and Sasuke had grown up in different smells. Different homes. It hit him hard today as well. Sasuke must have felt like he came home when he got here. Had he walked this path when he came here?

Naruto felt lost as he followed the green signs. It had taken some looking around before he found the first one, but once he had, it was no trouble finding the second or third. It wasn’t because he didn’t know where he was going that he felt lost. It sort of felt like he wasn’t connected to himself. He was walking, following the signs, but at the same time he was somewhere else, watching himself. It was a strange feeling. He wasn’t really there it felt like. This whole situation felt unreal. Sort of like a dream.

This place was so crowded and so bustling. There were people everywhere. Sitting, walking, talking in cell phones, running, begging, sitting on the floor singing, carrying bags, giving flyers to people passing by. For some reason Naruto hadn’t noticed that it was so bustling when he had been there with Sasuke. It was like... sort of like a ball of yarn that had been messed up, except it seemed to be still working.

Naruto wondered how many times Sasuke had walked through these corridors. Maybe he had passed some of the same people Naruto passed now; it had only been a few months since he moved. The thought was scary. It was like Naruto had to breathe the air and see if Sasuke’s smell was still there. Maybe Naruto would pass a corner, any corner, in his following the signs and Sasuke would be there. Just stand there looking cool and unbothered by the bustling around him. That would be such a Sasuke-thing to do. Standing in the middle of a crowd like this and not see it, not let it get to him.

How come he had let Naruto get to him?

Shikamaru seemed to appear out of nowhere. Suddenly he was just there, his hands were stuffed in his pockets and looking bored. He reminded Naruto so much of that almost hope of finding Sasuke in the crowd that his heart jumped. They must have been good friends; were hopefully still good friends.

“Yo,” Shikamaru said when Naruto came closer.

“Hey,” Naruto said and stopped in front of him. “I found the signs.”

“Evidently.”

Naruto gave half a smile and scratched his head. They stood there for a moment. The world rushed around them but they stood still as if they had found the one calm spot in the whole city central station. It was a rest of a sort and for a while it felt nice. One moment later Naruto started itching.

“So where is he?”

Shikamaru’s frown deepened slightly, slightly and he looked in the direction that Naruto had come from; as if that was where Sasuke was. Naruto had to look. But there was no one.

“I don’t know,” Shikamaru sighed.

Naruto’s eyes snapped back to the bored looking guy.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You don’t know?”

“No,” Shikamaru said. “I’ve got to check some things first.”

“You... You didn’t do that while I was on the bus?” Naruto asked; starting to get a bad feeling about the whole thing. Shikamaru suddenly started walking and Naruto followed. The guy said something as he turned, but Naruto must have misheard it. He laughed a little, nervously.

“You didn’t say you were sleeping, did you?”

Shikamaru kept walking.

“You... You were sleeping. You were sleeping!? Your friend is scared and missing and you’re sleeping!?”

Naruto threw out his arms and almost hit an old lady in the head. He had to put his rant on hold for a second or two while he apologized and the old lady looked at him like he was crazy. His seconds spent being polite meant Shikamaru had time to get too far ahead and Naruto had to hurry to catch up with him.

“I think better when I’ve slept,” Shikamaru said once they were close to each other again, before the rant could be continued. “And when I don’t have a headache, so stop shouting, will you?”

Naruto sighed loudly but Shikamaru didn’t seem to listen.

“You’re supposed to be his friend!” he almost shouted. Almost shouting didn’t count, right? But Shikamaru didn’t seem to listen.

“Hey!”

The bored looking guy just kept going. Naruto sighed loudly again and kept following.

“So where are we going now?” he muttered when they got outside, where it was less crowded and they could walk side by side. “More sleeping?”

The sun was shining. It didn’t seem to care that Sasuke was missing and his friend seemed more interested in sleeping than finding him. Stupid sun. Stupid Shikamaru and stupid, stupid Sasuke.

“We’re going to see a friend of mine,” Shikamaru said. “Hyuuga.”

“What? His bed is extra-comfortable?”

Shikamaru made a sound that could have been a snicker, but it was over so quickly that Naruto couldn’t tell. Yes. Sasuke had to get along great with this guy.

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