Work Text:
Naruto doesn’t know what he was expecting, really.
“I didn’t realize you’d see me off,” Sasuke says, neutral expression and long black coat draped over his shoulders. The cloth was feathery, light; it swayed in the wind with the leaves as he stood there across from him, the sound of the fabric whipping around loud against the silence that persisted between them.
“I just came to give you something of yours,” he says simply, thrusting the hitai-ate out towards him, trying his best to keep his hand steady.
The scratch across the metal carved deep like an ugly scar, a bitter reminder of Konoha’s grievances. Looking at Sasuke’s expression, Naruto knows he must be thinking the same, remembering all the nightmares that this village holds for him. The sigil of the Hidden Leaf must mean nothing but pain for Sasuke, after all.
But he accepts it anyway. “I’ll take this with me, then.”
“Alright,” Naruto says awkwardly, taking a step back as Sasuke lifts the headband out of his palm gingerly. “Off you go, then, on your mystical journey of self-discovery. You gonna shack up with monks or something?”
A snort. “Don’t be daft. I’ll go wherever my feet take me.”
“That’s very spiritualistic of you.”
“Idiot,” Sasuke mutters, and ties the hitai-ate around the loop of his belt, lifting his coat to do so.
The breeze howls through the branches of the trees that surrounds them and Naruto is again reminded of the terseness that still hangs between them, even after all this time — especially all this time. They nearly killed each other; it’s bound to be awkward.
“So,” Naruto starts, trailing off and hating himself a little bit, “... how long are you going to be away for?”
“Well, who knows?” Sasuke shifts his gaze, then, looking up and away from his own eyes. Naruto follows his line of sight, lifting his head to the forest ceiling where the sunlight broke and fell upon them between the fluttering leaves. “Whenever I feel like I’ve properly discovered myself, I guess.”
That’s just about the best thing he’s going to get out of the stoic little fucker, so Naruto takes a deep breath and steps back, resigning and steeling himself all at once. “Well, if you ever get bored of travelling the world or if no one wants to shack up with your dirty ass, you know where to find me.”
Sasuke just huffs a bit of laughter through his teeth. “Later, idiot.”
“Bastard,” Naruto calls out as he watches Sasuke’s back as he walks off, one step at a time, and somehow he can’t help but feel like the earth was being ripped out from under him.
But he shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath, and heads back to the village.
What was he expecting, anyway? Of course Sasuke is going to leave.
There’s nothing in Konoha he can call home, anyway.
-
So it’s back to this — a fraction of Team Seven, scurrying around Konoha like restless madmen searching for things to do and things to break. Really all of them are just anxious, so used to fighting a war that rested on their shoulders and ready to jump straight into action in the middle of the night. Out of all of them, Kakashi seems the most well-adjusted, having had fought in the Third War as well. But even he whips around, ready to attack, at the sound of papers falling or the drop of a pencil on the ground.
Like terrified wolves, the three of them. Fight or flight. They’ve been stuck on fight for so long they don’t know how to exist in the space in between.
“You know, I get it,” Sakura says one day over tea. The two of them have taken to meeting up quietly like this in Sakura’s home. War-stricken soldiers can only find comfort in each other, after all, and Sakura helps him with the physical therapy that he needs for his missing arm.
“Get what,” Naruto responds, words muffled by the fat piece of dango he currently has in his mouth. At his friend’s disdainful look, he chews and swallows. “What are you on about now?”
“Sasuke,” Sakura clarifies, looking down at the steaming cup of genmaicha in her hands. “Why he left.”
Naruto’s hand stills as he reaches for another piece of dango, before he settles it on the table. “What do you mean?”
“The war is over, and I’m glad, you know?” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and sighs. “Of course I am. We — you two, specifically — saved the world. But it’s not just the war, I guess. Just overall, battles and conflict and being so damn restless all the time. And then I was so tired of watching people get hurt, and then failing to save them when their injuries were beyond my medic capabilities.”
Sakura looks at Naruto’s missing limb and her voice cracks. Naruto’s heart cracks a little with it. “Sakura—”
“That’s not my point, though,” she cuts off, clearing her throat. “Anyways, I get why Sasuke went on his quest for personal peace. I still feel so unsettled all the time, I can’t imagine what it’s like for him. Or you.”
Naruto doesn’t say anything for a bit and just reaches for another piece of rice cake, because Sakura’s right. They all know it, too; Naruto without a battle to fight is like a fish out of water, flapping and helpless. He’s easily the most fidgety of them all. He trains, even though there’s no Akatsuki to defeat, or a Sasuke to bring back.
Sasuke. Right.
“You know, I asked to go with him,” Sakura says casually.
Naruto chokes on his dango. No matter how much Sakura loves Sasuke, he really can’t imagine her going all sage-like to travel the world for the sake of atoning mistakes. “You what?”
“When he left. He told me his sins had nothing to do with me.” Sakura looks irritated now, eyebrows furrowed together and heat rising to her cheeks. But she takes a deep breath and looks up and directly into Naruto’s eyes. “And maybe he’s right. But they had to do with you."
The ghost of his right hand throbs in agreement.
“I couldn’t have left with him,” Naruto says quietly. And then, louder. “I have to become Hokage, after all.”
“Right,” Sakura laughs. “Of course you do.”
The two of them sip at their tea in silence. After a few beats, Sakura follows with, “But you thought about it, didn’t you? Going with him.”
Again, Naruto doesn’t say anything, because Sakura’s right.
-
Actually, not only did Naruto think about going with Sasuke on his journey for inner peace, Sasuke offered.
It went like this: the two of them in the hospital ward, practically mummified in bandages, and Sasuke drops the bomb: “I’m leaving after I’m healed.”
“You’re what?” Naruto shrieks, hair rising on the back of his neck. He tried to sit up in his bed but a yank on his IV drip reminds him that wasn’t the best idea when he’s hooked up to six different things. “Why? After all I did to drag your sorry ass back to Konoha?”
“I didn’t mean permanently, you idiot,” Sasuke hisses, the usual snap back in his voice. “Just for a bit. I want to see the world when I’m not, you know.”
Naruto does know. “You mean you want to see the world when you’re not hellbent on destroying it.”
“I was never hellbent on destroying the world, ” Sasuke says indignantly, fighting over semantics like the fucker usually does. “Just Konoha.”
And Itachi was left unsaid. Naruto hears it anyway.
But he sighs, and leans back into the cotton of the hospital sheets. “Damn, don’t you ever take a break?”
“As if you do?” Sasuke snorts. But he too settles back into the bed, relaxing. “Anyways, do you know what you’re going to do, then?”
“Did you forget I’m going to be the Hokage?”
“Better get your stupid ass back in school, then.”
“Fuck off,” Naruto sighs with no bite. Kakashi and Iruka have already bombarded him with textbooks on political economy and transnational relations, complete with essays and research papers that he needs to do. It was like the academy all over again, except this time he actually had to study with his life’s dream being so close in his reach. “I already am.”
“Maybe private tutoring can get you to learn something for once.”
But Sasuke stops bitching and the room goes quiet, the only sound the beeping of their monitors, syncopated. Naruto glances over to see Sasuke looking up at the ceiling, face clouded with an unreadable expression on his face that only means that he’s thinking about saying something he might regret.
Naruto opens his mouth, about to say just spit it out before Sasuke interrupts him: “You want to come?”
“What?” Naruto says dumbly.
“No one’s going to fault you if you decide to go on a trip after saving the world,” Sasuke mutters. But he clears his throat, and loudly, he declares, “You know what, nevermind. Forget I said anything.”
“I just told you,” Naruto says quietly, “I have to become Hokage,” and it sounds an awful lot like my dreams are here.
“Right,” Sasuke says, and Naruto doesn’t know if he’s hallucinating but he sounds bitter, of all things. “Hokage,” and it sounds an awful lot like seems like your dreams were more important than me, after all.
And that was that.
Well, Naruto regrets not going with him, now.
-
But life goes on, you see. Naruto gets a new arm; it feels weird, but he gets used to it, and eventually warms up to throwing punches and conjuring rasengans just like he used to. He learns about clan politics and and the economies of the different lands. Kakashi busts his ass like always, only this time he brutalizes him on his test scores and essay feedback rather than on the training grounds. Ichiraku adds a new type of kimchi based ramen to its menu because Teuchi brought back some foreign delicacies from his trip out west. Shikamaru and Temari start bumping uglies, to no one’s surprise, and Choji loses some weight.
Sasuke comes back on a sunny Saturday in the spring.
The forecast is warm with a slight breeze. The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping. Naruto just about shits himself when he opens his door at two in the afternoon to find his rogue-gone-hippie traveler best friend standing on his porch.
“Can you give me a fucking heads up next time,” Naruto grumbles as he lets Sasuke in.
“I brought you souvenirs,” Sasuke says, as if that solves anything.
It does. Sasuke brings back some kind of brown sugar mochi from a village in the Land of Snow, and some barley tea to pair with it. Clearly all these years of friendship have taught Sasuke that the number one way to get Naruto to shut the fuck up for five seconds is through his stomach, so the two of them sit at his table munching away at the sweet rice cake.
“Why’re you back?” Naruto says eventually. Then, in efforts to lighten the mood before the inevitable, he says, “Don’t tell me you actually couldn’t find anyone to house your dirty ass.”
“Shut up, bitch,” Sasuke snarks, cupping his tea in his hand. “It was too cold up north. Fucking freezing, and I don’t have nearly as much body warmth as I used to with the one less limb.” He pauses. “Nice arm, by the way.”
Naruto instinctively stretches his fingers out on his prosthetic, still in admiration at it. “Thanks.” He hesitates, before blurting out, “You could have one too, you know. Tsunade—”
“—already prepared one for me. I know. I don’t want it.”
“And why not?” Naruto snaps, already feeling irritation bubbling in his chest. “It would make your life easier, wouldn’t it? Just accept it.”
“It’s not about making my life easier, dimwit,” Sasuke hisses back, “that’s the whole damn point. I deserve to have my arm gone. You—”
“Oh, come on, Sasuke,” he groans, “we both went into that fight equally deserving of having our arms fucking blown off. We knew each other’s moves like the back of our hands. If I’m getting an arm, you’re getting one too.”
Sasuke looks deadly, now, eyebrows furrowing and teeth snarling. “Don’t you get it, Naruto? This is my penance. This is my punishment, for all the wrongs I have done.”
“Fuck off, don’t you get that we’ve already forgiven you? That I’ve forgiven you? You don’t need to suffer under some stupid sense of self-pity anymore just to make yourself feel bad!”
“You might have forgiven me,” Sasuke sighs, and his voice is softening, now, “but I haven’t forgiven myself.”
Naruto stills.
Because that’s it, isn’t it?
With Sasuke’s whole pilgrimage to find inner peace. At the end of the day, Sasuke is just so utterly consumed by guilt that he can’t even think about taking care of himself. The empty sleeve on his left side says so, and the downward curve of his mouth tells him that he’s searching, searching, searching for something that may never come.
Naruto shuts his eyes. “How long are you back for?”
“A few days.”
“Did you say hi to Sakura and Kakashi yet?”
“Did that before I came here.”
“Shikamaru and Temari are fucking.”
“Are they finally? Good for them. It was about time he got his act together.”
“Where are you going next?”
“Going west sounds nice right now. Probably going to visit Sunagakure and the smaller villages nearby.”
“Say hi to Gaara for me.” Naruto opens his eyes and cracks a tiny smile. “And bring back souvenirs, okay?”
-
Here’s the situation: you spend four years of your life chasing after your best friend, following him to the ends of the earth to save him from his own hatred. You do this; you save him, god, you save him. He’s good now, smiling again, and you bring him home.
He doesn’t want to stay.
What do you do? There’s no more lost boy to find, no more open wounds to soothe. You loved him. You love him. You still love him. You love him more than anything you’ve ever loved in your life and it still isn’t enough for him to come home to you.
There’s a saying that Jiraiya told him, once, when he was in some fit of sentimentality. It’s from some old book that he picked up somewhere, and it goes: if you love something, set it free; if it comes back it was meant to be, and if it doesn’t, it never was.
Naruto sets Sasuke free.
Sasuke comes back. Sasuke leaves again.
So Naruto waits.
-
And waits.
In the middle of their history lesson, Naruto asks Kakashi, “Do you think Sasuke’s ever going to come back to Konoha for real?”
Kakashi lowers his chalk and turns back around. His eyes are half-lidded and expressionless, as they always are, but he blinks once and says, “Do you think Sasuke’s ever going to come back for real?”
“I don’t know,” Naruto admits petulantly, “that’s why I’m asking you.”
“You’re his best friend, aren’t you? What do you think?”
“I sure hope he will,” Naruto grumbles, jabbing his pencil into the desk. “I want him to see how well I run this village when I’m Hokage.”
“Right,” Kakashi says good-naturedly. “Hokage.”
“I mean, I don’t get it, you know? If he can’t forgive himself for his mistakes now, what makes him think that travelling around the world will help him at all? Why can’t he just—”
come home, Naruto thinks, snapping his jaw shut and biting his tongue before he exposes himself to his teacher, if only for the sake of his own pride. Kakashi, the bastard, probably already knows exactly what he was going to say anyway.
“Why don’t you go after him and figure out?” he says as if he isn’t asking the future Hokage to up and leave his studies to chase his best friend around the globe again.
“It’s not that simple,” Naruto protests while looking at his giant stack of textbooks that were currently blocking his path to his dreams.
“Isn’t it?” Kakashi murmurs. “That’s never been a problem for you before.”
Naruto pauses, because Kakashi’s… right.
But.
“What will Konoha do without me,” Naruto says, frowning, “and what about being Hokage?”
Kakashi snorts. “You little brat. Konoha will be fine without you. In fact, without you around to stir up trouble, Konoha will be better off than ever. Being Hokage can wait.” A dangerous twinkle in his eye. “Or are you telling me you don’t trust your former sensei with the job?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Naruto grumbles, clutching his pencil hard enough to leave marks on his palm. He remembers the familiar feeling of a metal hitai-ate digging into hand on that windy day in the forest, and thinks.
Besides, Naruto has never been good at sitting around, has he.
-
On that Saturday in the spring, Naruto kisses Sasuke. It’s not their first kiss — that was at the Academy, and it was entirely awful in every single possible way — but it’s their first one since the war. Naruto cradles Sasuke’s face with his hands and it feels like he’s holding his own heart, beating and alive. Sasuke’s lips are soft and sticky with brown sugar, and they part like waves; gentle and undulating, pliant between his own as Naruto takes Sasuke’s bottom lip between his teeth.
When they break apart, Naruto asks, “But when will you be back,” and knows Sasuke can hear the difference.
And Sasuke murmurs, the barest of smiles on his lips, “When the wind is warm and the crows sing at dawn. I will find you.”
-
So Naruto waits for a little longer, until a rainy summer night brings Sasuke back on his doorstep. He’s dripping wet and a little worse for wear, but the breeze sings I’m home and the pitter-patter of the warm storm whispers welcome back.
Naruto runs his fingers through Sasuke’s hair and says, “No one’s going to fault me if I decide to go on a trip after saving the world, right?”
“If they do, tell them to fuck off,” Sasuke grumbles. There’s a smile on his lips and it sounds like leaves scattering in the wind and promises and lands far, far away, waiting to be traveled.
And so they go.