The Blessed Realm

Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Seven: Living Wood

The woman suggested they'd take a look around the manufactory, and when the boys agreed she showed them around and let them have a look at the various instruments and showed them how they were made. She not only made them look, but also listen: she was able to play almost all the instruments her family produced, not like a virtuoso of course, but she was able to play a small melody on each of them.

She let the boys have a try too, and they discovered that it was quite difficult even to play a single note, even though the woman did her best to explain them how to do it. Naruto felt hurt that Sasuke was better at it, even though he didn't care about music.

“I care about music too,” Sasuke replied. “It's just that most music is too loud. One instrument at a time is okay, however.”

“But playing with others is the soul of music,” the woman said. They walked on, and finally, when they came to the clarinets, Naruto was able to play some notes that sounded as if they might be turned into music. Sasuke failed completely.

“You want to learn how to move your fingers?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” Naruto replied, and she showed him how to play a scale. The highest notes sounded like a cat squeaking in pain, but the woman smiled at him all the same and told him that he did extremely well, given that he was holding a clarinet in his hands for the first time in his life.

She took the instrument and played herself again, improvising some strange melody.

“It sounds like a person singing,” Naruto said. “And then the person is laughing, and crying, or simply talking, and then again singing. With the other instruments it's just notes.”

“Don't tell my brother. He's a wonderful oboist. But this is what I meant when I told you that our instruments are alive. Of course it also takes a good musician to make other people hear that they're alive. You want to have another go?”

Naruto tried again, and imitating the woman he made the notes sound like music, turning the scale into a simple melody.

“You have talent,” the woman said. “You're a real Uzumaki.”

She beamed, and Naruto smiled. He felt a bit weird, but he liked the instrument.

“I might suggest it to my band,” he said.

“You play in a band? I know, that's what young people do nowadays. They no longer take any interest in more traditional musical formations. I'll show you an instrument that's better suited to a band than a clarinet.”

She took an alto saxophone from the wall. “It's not made of wood, but it still sounds as if it was alive.”

She played, and with astonishment Naruto heard that the saxophone was even more expressive than the clarinet.

“I used to be able to play the bigger ones too,” she said. “But now I am too old for that. You want to give it a try?”

Naruto tried, but the note he managed to play sounded as if someone was burping.

“You'll learn it quickly when you've mastered the clarinet,” the woman said. “Just take your time.”

Sasuke did not even try the saxophone. He watched Naruto's fascination with the instrument and was happy seeing that Naruto was happy.

They moved on, and the woman showed them more instruments: trumpets and trombones. She could not play them, so she had to use a CD to show the boys how they sounded. In the last room there there were instruments that were not played by blowing into them. One of them had the form of a triangle, and a lot of strings. Carefully the woman plucked them, and Sasuke and Naruto did the same.

Producing nice sounds was much easier with this instrument than with wind instruments, but of course this was no music yet. In order to produce music you needed to practice hard, same as with every other instrument. So in order to show the boys how the instrument sounded when played by an expert the woman again had to take recourse to a CD.

“I like that,” Sasuke said. “It sounds like rain and like wind and sometimes like a thunderstorm.”

“It sounds random,” Naruto replied.

“I like it,” Sasuke repeated. “I don't want music to sound like a human being. Do you sell the CD here? I've never heard anything like this in town.”

“You can hear it every time the rain hits our window panes,” Naruto said.

“It's not the same. There's patterns: I can hear them. I can't hear any patterns in music that's just loud. May I at least write down the title of the CD so that I can buy it in town? I'd really like to, because at the moment it's only Naruto who owns all the CDs at home, and it's only him who decides which kind of music we hear.”

“It's not my fault you don't even care what music we are dancing to. But there's enough rain in Music Town, if that's what you prefer.”

“You may take the CD as a present,” the woman said. “We'll buy a new one.”

She turned to Naruto again. “We can have another look at the clarinet,” she said.

This time Naruto managed to play a full scale, and the notes began to sound good.

“Now you really show that you're one of us,” the woman said again.

Naruto smiled.

He was deeply in thoughts when they walked home. Sasuke, however, felt light-hearted: because the excursion had turned out really well, and because he had finally found some music he enjoyed.

“Did you plan all this?” Naruto asked when the first houses of Music Town appeared.



Sasuke shook his head. “Not in detail. I planned the visit to the village, but I had no idea what might happen there.”

In the evening they stood again in front of the shrine Sasuke had built, looking at his family's photo. This time however Naruto did not lean against him, but just held his hand.

“I have grandparents who are still alive,” he said. “They'd probably be happy to hear of my existence. and they were probably sad when they heard that their daughter had died.”

“I guess so,” Sasuke said.

“They would not have wanted her sacrificed, nor me,” Naruto continued.

Sasuke felt weird. He had always felt generous towards Naruto, letting him share those moments when he thought of his family, knowing that Naruto had even less than himself: no photos, no memories. Now it had turned out that Naruto had actually more: He had family who were still alive. He could contact them.

“Maybe your father's parents are still alive too,” he said. “You should ask Sakura to inquire after them.”

He still had something Naruto did not have and never would have: Conscious memories of his parents when they were still alive.

So now Naruto knew what Sasuke had wanted to discuss with the head of the police without him, Naruto, listening, but he still had no idea what he had bought when he had been shopping on his own, and why he kept doing things on his own, refusing to tell him, Naruto. By now Naruto somehow trusted him that he was not going to attack anyone, or form an alliance with some criminal rogue nin, but some other, more civilian suspicion crept up in his mind.

“The guy from Earth Country saw you with his husband,” he said when again Sasuke had announced that he wanted to go shopping, and that he did not want Naruto to join him.

“He helps me with my shopping,” Sasuke explained.

“Why him? Why not me?”

“You'll understand in a few days. Just have some patience.”

“So in a few days you will tell me that you're going to leave me and live with him instead.”

“What?”

“You'll tell me that you're no longer in love with me, but with him. You like him, don't you?”

“He's a good friend of mine. He's a good friend of yours, too. But I am not in love with him.”

“The guy from Earth Country says you are having sex with him.”

“What?”

Naruto shrugged.

“We go shopping, but we don't have sex. Why should I have sex with him when every evening I have sex with you?”

“The guy from Earth Country told me that his husband is always beaming when he returns from your so-called shopping tour. He looks content and relaxed in those moments, quite different from this usual behaviour when the two of them are together nowadays.”

“If his husband enjoys going shopping with me more than having sex with him it's their problem, not ours. Really, you may trust me: I don't plan to leave you. My thoughts are always with you, even when my body is not.”

“I wished your body was with me all the time too.”

“You'll understand soon. Just wait for a few days, then everything will be revealed.”



He kissed Naruto: not just on his lips, but making certain that their tongues met too. He caressed Naruto's lips and shoulderblades, and both of them got a bit aroused. Sasuke broke off the kiss.

“I need to go now. I have an appointment. In two hours I'll be back.”

He kissed Naruto again, but only his lips.

“Then go shopping, if going shopping with someone else is more fun than kissing me.”

Sasuke looked hurt, but he did not answer. He was really late by now.

Naruto stayed behind. He knew he was acting irrationally – he knew that the rational thing to do was to wait for a couple of days, and then to remind Sasuke of his promise that everything would be in the open by then. He just could not wait: he was not used any more to Sasuke not being at his side.

He tried to read, but he could not focus on his books. His thoughts kept returning to Sasuke, checking whether there were any signs that he was really in love with someone else, that he really had ceased to love Naruto as he used to love him. There were of course these shopping-tours, but there was also their love-making in the evenings, their were all those small signs of affection when they had breakfast or when they went to the training center, and then there was their dancing. Sasuke had become more extroverted now, he was more playful and even flirted with Naruto, knowing that his secretiveness irritated him, and making fun of him because of this, but even though he made fun of him, it still seemed that he loved him. His dancing was better than ever, only that Naruto was not as good as usual because he kept thinking what Sasuke did when he pretended to go shopping.

Naruto returned to his book: It was an interpretation of the Rikudo's ideas on peace, which he had got in the library. Naruto found the book difficult to read: his eyes moved along the lines, the words formed sounds in his head, but he did not manage to make them form sentences, and even if the did, the sentences did not make sense, both because the text was difficult and because Naruto was not able to focus properly on that day.

When he looked up there was Fukasaku sitting on the window-sill.

“You are still lingering around in this place,” he said. “You are still wasting your time.”

Naruto did not have an answer. “You're sitting here, reading and dreaming when you should act.”

“I read about the Rikudo,” Naruto replied.

“You don't need to know his writings in all detail. It's more important that you make his dream come true.”

“I may still learn from him. I'm supposed to follow his path, aren't I?”

“You're supposed to find your own path towards peace. You're the child of destiny after all. You have the capacity to do it. It's your duty to do it. But you won't do it while you are wasting your time in Music Town.”

Naruto did not answer. Suddenly what he did in Music Twon and what he learnt in Music Town seemed all shale and hollow to him.

“Sasuke needs me,” he said. “He likes this place. He learns to be a policeman in order to continue his family's tradition. It's his way of taking revenge.”

“It's his tradition, not yours,” Fukasaku replied. “You have no business with the police.”

Naruto knew that this was true. He liked going on patrol and part of what he learnt was interesting, but his heart was not in it, not as Sasuke's was.

“Your destiny is not to be a policeman. Your destiny is to bring peace to the world.”

Again Naruto did not answer.

“You waste your time learning stuff you don't need to know.”

“Sasuke needs me,” Naruto said again. “If it had not been for me he would have left Music Town just a day after his arrival, or even on the day of his arrival. He would have continued this search for a place that does not exist, and when he had finally admitted to himself that his search was futile he would have turned against Konoha to avenge his family. He has found peace in Music Town.”

“He may have found peace, but you haven't. The peace Music Town offers to your cannot satisfy you. You need to bring peace to the whole world.”

“But Sasuke needs be here,” Naruto repeated now for the third time.

“He does not need you. He has gone shopping without you. He has found friends of his own here. He's planning his career as a policeman. He does not need you: if you leave him now in order to fulfill your destiny and create peace between the ninja countries he won't leave and take revenge against Konoha: he will stay in Music Town, he'll continue his training, he will let his new friends comfort him, and with time, he will find a new lover.”



Naruto had to admit to himself that this was probably true. Maybe Sasuke had already found himself a new lover. Maybe having to stick with each other while Madara (or the man who had pretended to be Madara) had been around had been too much for Sasuke. Maybe he had had too much of him, Naruto, during that time.

 

“Sasuke does not need you. He has found peace in Music Town, and a career that means a lot to him, and also a bunch of new friends. The world needs you, however: the world is not at peace.”

Naruto considered it. Probably Fukasaku was correct: Sasuke could do without him, but the world still needed to be saved. Maybe he was really wasting his time. Coming to think of it, none of his activities in Music Town gave him much satisfaction.

The door bell rang. Naruto wondered who it might be.

 

A/N: Thanks again for your reviews and your plusses! You can find my answers at http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/14965-blessed-realm/ .It is now possible to access the thread without registration at the forums.