Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Best Days ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2

 

Tap, tap, tap, tap… taptaptap, taptaptap, tap, tap tap, taptaptap… Sasuke's right eye twitched. Of all the guards in the entire village, he had to have Naruto.

 

Naruto, it seemed, had not managed to learn patience in the time Sasuke had been gone. The blond young man had begun by pacing loudly outside the sliding panel that separated Sasuke's room from the rest of the house, muttering angrily all the while and effectively disturbing his charge's peace. After a while the pacing had stopped, but the muttering had continued. Then, after about half an hour of blessed near inactivity, his guard's attention span had apparently been exhausted, and now he was tapping on Sasuke's wall, experimenting with different rhythms. None of them were good.

 

Sasuke, finally unable to take it anymore, got up and slammed open the door. “Naruto,” he said, his voice dangerously calm, “stop.” He felt his eyebrow twitch in annoyance. Naruto looked like he was going to protest, but wisely refrained.

 

“Fine,” he snapped instead, sounding and looking like a petulant child with his arms crossed and head turned away from Sasuke.

 

“Fine!” Sasuke snapped back, and slammed the door. It was satisfyingly loud in the suddenly quiet house.

 

Two hours later, Naruto still had not made a peep, and it was throwing Sasuke off his game. Somehow, this quiet was more annoying than when the dead last was being loud. He kept getting distracted from his thoughts by images of Naruto's tongue rebelling from lack of exercise and attempting to choke its owner. Sasuke didn't want a dead body sitting right outside his door. That was a little more disturbing than even he could stand. He went over to the door again and opened it slowly. It creaked. He made a mental note to fix that later.

 

Naruto was sitting outside, perfectly calm, studying something or other. Sasuke tried to make the words Naruto and studying in the same sentence without a not in between them fit into his world view and failed.

 

Naruto looked up, putting the book on the unswept floor, front cover down, as he did so. “You hungry?”

 

“No.” Sasuke went to close the door. He was stopped from doing so by Naruto's foot. Sasuke blinked. Naruto had gotten faster.

 

“You don't understand. I can't eat until you do, and I'm starving. You hungry?”

 

“No,” Sasuke repeated. “Move, moron.”

 

Naruto moved his foot, glaring. Sasuke shut the door in his guard's face and threw himself gracelessly onto his bed, his stomach rumbling. Damn Naruto, now he was thinking about it. Konoha used to have the best fried squid stall just two streets over. He wondered if it was still there. Orochimaru hadn't believed in things like fried squid. Although Kabuto had been an awful cook anyway. He made the crap Sasuke ate when he was on the run for two years after leaving Sound look like a gourmet feast. This of course reminded him of that restaurant across town… His stomach rumbled again.

 

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto suddenly shouted, interrupting his thoughts. He heard Naruto's footsteps recede, then return a few minutes later, now accompanied by another set of (much lighter) footsteps. “But can't I just have one?” the dead last was complaining.

 

“No, Naruto. It's not my fault you didn't think to pack anything to eat. These are for Sasuke.”

 

“You brought him something to eat and you didn't think to bring something for me? I thought you were trying to fatten me up!”

 

“I'm not trying to `fatten you up'! I'm trying to get you to eat a balanced diet!”

 

“Same thing… ow!” Then the door opened, and Sasuke had a glimpse of Naruto cradling his wrist to his chest as though it had just gotten slapped, before Sakura walked in and shut the door behind her. The now-familiar sound of Naruto muttering angrily came, muffled, from behind the door. Sasuke lay back on his bed and pointedly stared at the ceiling.

 

“Hi, Sasuke,” she said. Sasuke noted off-handedly that she'd left of the honorific. “I thought you might be hungry…”

 

“He's not!” came the shout through the door.

 

“AND,” Sakura continued as though Naruto hadn't interrupted, “I brought you something to eat.” She presented him with a small brown box.

 

Sasuke didn't respond, relying on his stony silence to gain the upper hand. Somehow, this didn't faze Sakura as it had his Sound-ninja subordinates. She merely continued cheerfully, when it became clear that he wasn't going to participate in the conversation. “They're rice balls. I made them myself. I wasn't sure what you liked in them, so I put a little fish and some pickled plums. There should be enough to last you until dinner.” She walked over to a table and placed the box on top of it. Then, she turned back to Sasuke and looked at him expectantly. “So, how have you been? You know, since coming home and all?”

 

Sasuke finally sat up and turned to her, raising an eyebrow. Sakura sighed. “I'll be outside if you need me then.” She turned and left the room.

 

“Ok, Naruto,” Sasuke heard through the door. “I'll watch him. You have an hour to go eat.”

 

“Thank you, Sakura-chan! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”

 

“Eat some vegetables!” Sasuke heard her call after the sounds of Naruto's fast retreat out of the house. The front door closed with a snap.

 

When he was fairly sure Naruto was far enough away to not know what he was doing, he went over to the box and picked up a rice ball. One bite told him he was really hungry. The second told him the food was good. Very good. He ate another. And another after that. Five minutes later, he was looking at an empty box, and feeling slightly disappointed (and very full). Oh well. He licked his fingers, and lay down spread-eagled on the floor, once again staring at the ceiling. For lack of something better to do, he gave himself a goal: memorize every inch of the dirty, plain expanse above him without sharingan by the end of the day.

 

He must've fallen asleep, because next thing he knew, he heard Naruto's footsteps coming down the hall. Judging by the vibrations he felt through the floorboards, Naruto had gained about 7 pounds with his meal. The footsteps stopped in front of the door and something hit the ground with a thud.

 

“Naruto!” he heard Sakura exclaim. “That's two month's worth of ration bars in your backpack.”

 

“Yes, Sakura. Yes it is.”

 

“But, but, where, who…Why?”

 

“That pathetic piece of work in there hasn't eaten for two weeks. I talked to the ANBU who were guarding his door, so don't tell me I'm exaggerating. I've decided I'm not going to wait on him to eat. I'll eat when I am hungry.”

 

“First of all, if you subsist on ration bars, you'll never live to see Hokage. Second of all, we're a team, and I wouldn't just leave you here to starve. Give me those bars, and I'll bring you a healthy, balanced meal three times a day, ok?”

 

“No.”

 

“Naruto…”

 

“No, Sakura. I'm seventeen. I can take care of myself. Besides, I lived on Ramen until I was fifteen. Ration bars are much healthier than that.”

 

“Fine, but I'll still bring you food, so don't get too full. I'm going to go say bye to Sasuke now.” Sasuke wondered why they assumed he couldn't hear them through the door. It was made primarily of rice paper, after all. While he was pondering this, the door slid open. Sakura took in Sasuke lying on the floor, with the now-empty box still sitting exactly where she had left it.

 

“Well, I'm leaving now Sasuke,” she told him cheerfully, walking over to get to the box as she did so. “I'll be back later with some more food. I hear that they might let you out to start some minor training soon, and you'll need a little energy for that.” She smiled at him brightly, and left again.

 

I'll see you later, Naruto,” she told Sasuke's guard. Presumably, Naruto made some motion meant to say goodbye, because he heard her footsteps walk away from the room and leave through the front door. He sighed, and rolled over onto his side, closing his eyes again. He was asleep a few minutes later.

 

* * *

 

The days flowed together, as days do when one has nowhere to go and nothing in particular to look forward to. Sasuke stayed in his room, despite several gentle reminders from Sakura that being under house arrest meant he had to stay in the house, not the bed. Naruto had actually been surprisingly silent on the matter, though from the way he'd been acting towards Sasuke, the Uchiha thought this may have had more to do with not wanting to interact with his charge than any real understanding of why Sasuke didn't seem to want to move.

 

He was sleeping in a guest room. He'd chosen it because it was relatively clean, had no windows, and he couldn't remember spending much time in it as a child, something that wasn't so for the rest of the rest of the house. There were ghosts in the rest of the house. Sasuke knew this, because he'd been haunted by them for nearly five years before leaving to get stronger. His father's study. The kitchen, where his mother waited for him to come home every day. The dojo. His old bedroom. Itachi's old bedroom. Even the front hallway wasn't free of memories.

 

He hated this house. Hated it, not because it held some of his worst memories, but because it held some of his best. He hated thinking about that time before Itachi massacred everything Sasuke loved, because if he allowed himself to remember, he'd begin to think about the questions he had no answers to.

 

Why?

 

When did you change?

 

How did I miss it?

 

Did you ever love me?

 

Sasuke used to spend hours mulling over these questions, taking out each and every memory and examining it, as though it were a complex jutsu he could master if only he broke it down to its key elements. Of course, he had never found answers. The only person who had had answers was Itachi, and that man hadn't been there. It was useless, useless to spend time and energy that would be better spent training on pointless, answerless questions.

 

With this conclusion firmly in mind, he'd gone to Sound. To become stronger, and to kill his brother. Now, he'd killed his brother, had no distractions from the questions, and still didn't have any answers. He'd have laughed, or cried, but that would have meant actually feeling something other than the emptiness he'd cultivated like a shield over the past five years to protect him from the painful memories licking at the back of his mind like the tide.

 

No way in hell. Not if he had anything to say about it. He'd stay in this bleak, achingly empty house and rot first.

 

And so a week passed.

 

* * *

 

Sasuke was asleep when the summons from the Hokage arrived for Naruto. Surprisingly, or perhaps not-so-surprisingly considering that Sasuke was a criminal under house arrest and Naruto was his guard, it was delivered in the form of a messenger rather than by eagle as summons were usually. Unfortunately, this meant Sasuke wasn't expecting the foreign presence that let itself into his house via the front door. This did not stop him from managing to be as far away from the door as possible, crouching with his back to the wall, reaching for a kunai that wasn't at his belt by the time it closed completely.

 

“Yeah?” Naruto addressed the nearing footsteps, standing up and turning towards what Sasuke presumed was the intruder (Sasuke could tell by the shadow of his guard through the rice paper wall).

 

“Uzumaki-san, the Hokage wishes you to meet with her about a matter concerning your charge.” Sasuke forced himself to relax, sitting down on the floor with his back to the wall.

 

“You here to cover for me?” Naruto responded while bending down to pick something off the floor just as a new shadow came into view.

 

“Yes,” the intruder answered.

 

“Humph. Don't know why the old hag thinks she needs to send an ANBU to guard someone who hasn't left his room for eight days…” Naruto muttered, straightening. “Right, I'll let him know about the change of guard, then.” Footsteps towards, the door, and then Naruto was poking his head into the room. His eyes took in Sasuke's position as far from the door as possible, but in a show of tact of which Sasuke hadn't thought him capable, didn't comment on it. He also didn't bother to inform Sasuke why he was leaving (Sasuke had made it quite clear to both Naruto and Sakura that he could hear everything they said on the other side of the door two days ago, when he'd opened a door and thrown a pillow at Naruto for complaining too loudly about his `mission' while Sasuke was trying to sleep).

 

“You need anything while I'm out?” Sasuke gave the blond young man in front of him his best apathetic face. Naruto shrugged, though his eyes did narrow a bit in a show of annoyance. Sasuke noted it as odd (Naruto had seemed to be making a point of not caring what Sasuke did or did not do this past week), and filed it in the back of his head as something to think about when he ran out of other mindless distractions. “Fine, no skin off my back,” Naruto declared before closing the door. Sasuke listened to his footsteps recede and tried to shake the tense feeling from himself as his blond guard got further away from Sasuke and the ANBU member. Tensing up in the absence of the blond young man would imply Sasuke felt safer if Naruto was here to watch his back while he lay around and did nothing, and that was frankly ridiculous. The Uchiha stoically ignored the little voice in the back of his head that pointed out, barring the two days he was practically passed out upon first returning, he hadn't done more than doze for a few hours at a stretch until being placed here under house arrest, and the new ability to sleep likely had little to do with the change in scenery and everything to do with the fact that he had never been able to stop trusting his current guard.

 

For whatever reason, Sasuke spent the next five hours (twenty-seven minutes and eighteen seconds; his internal clock was apparently back with a vengeance) tauter than stretched ninja wire and denying it with all his might. It didn't help that the shadow that was his ANBU guard didn't seem to even be breathing through the wall. Sasuke had become used to the constant murmur of noise that even now Naruto seemed incapable of silencing. He did eventually move back to the bed, but even he had to admit that was more because he could tie a sheet around an enemy's and pull in lieu of a weapon than anything else.

 

It was a long five-and-a-half hours.

 

It was with extremely reluctant relief that he finally heard the front door slam open and (a much more exuberant) Naruto re-enter the house. He tromped back to the door to Sasuke's room, practically exuding cheerfulness with every step, and threw open the door. “Thanks for spelling me!” he called over his shoulder at the ANBU standing rigid near Sasuke's wall, and closed the door behind him with a much firmer snap than Sasuke thought strictly necessary. He waited semi-patiently for the guard to exit the premises before turning to Sasuke and giving the darker young man a fox-like grin. “Good news! Sakura's a mother hen!”

 

Sasuke blinked, and then manfully resisted the urge to say something to the affect of “Whu…?” From the widening grin on Naruto's face, it was a wasted effort. He needed to work on his emotional transparency. He seemed to be slipping.

 

“She's worried that you sit in here on your ass all day and stare at the ceiling, so she pestered the old hag into allowing you access to the entire Uchiha compound. Including,” Naruto paused for dramatic effect, “the training grounds!” He waited for several seconds, presumably to allow Sasuke to jump for joy and/or have ecstatic seizures. When Sasuke failed to do either, the grin melted into a now much-more-familiar scowl. “So that's it, then. You're just going to sit in here and let dust settle until you either can't move or die?” In answer, Sasuke lay down on the bed and rolled over. He could feel the glare attempting to drill holes through his back.

 

“That is it!” Naruto snapped, slamming Sasuke's door open and stomping out. “I'm sick and tired of this! I don't care what the book says, it's not healthy for you to stay in a room with no windows all day and not do as much as leave it for a shower!” Sasuke was unable to resist looking at his guard incredulously at this.

 

“Book?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Shut up, bastard. I've had enough of this. You're going to move if I have to fucking pick you up to make it happen!” With that, Naruto walked out the door (not bothering to close it again), marched out of the house, and was gone. About thirty seconds later, an ANBU slipped in the front door and took up position by it, not giving any indication that this was out of the ordinary. Sasuke's eyes narrowed, and he got up to close the door to his room himself. He enlisted the help of denial again to ignore the excitement threatening to show itself on his face in the form of a smirk. Naruto would be back, and if past experience was any indication, he'd bring Hell on earth with him.