Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Soup's On	By : OfFansAndFlames Category: Naruto AU/AR > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 1793 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters mentioned. I make no money on this fiction.

Chapter List
- 54
- 55
- 56
It occurred to Naruto that he was being irrational. After all, he’d decided for all these weeks that he was going to turn himself in. He’d made that decision in his right mind, with the input of two very intelligent and concerned people. He had told Sasuke that he would do this. They’d all agreed on it. And now, at the last minute, he decided to run.
Yet he’d made another promise much less recently. Should he return to Sasuke? Was he making the wrong decision? No… He was forgetting his promise. His first promise. He needed to remind himself. Naruto didn’t have a mirror, so he tentatively lifted his hand up and ran his palm over his cheek. They were still there.
Of course. Of course they were still there. They’d be there until the day he died, be that at the age of thirty or ninety. The jagged course left behind by his foster parent’s knife could still be felt through most any fabric. His face and clothes were still wet, along with the cement beneath him. It had been raining when he’d escaped, but the precipitation had let up for now. He shivered in the cold, watching his breath condensate and then disappear in front of him.
But there was a message being relayed through his brain, and it almost seemed as though a voice, distant and figurative but strong, was screaming at him to go back. It told him that things would be different this time, now that he had Sasuke and Itachi on his side. Yet there was another, a voice that seemed much nearer to him, so close that he could almost hear it speaking. “Remember.” As the voices in his head feuded, he sought to remember this first promise and relieve himself of this conflict. He concentrated, and the memories flooded his psyche with a crash and a bang like a tidal wave pummels a rickety lifeguard’s shack by the shore.

The old man’s kisses usually tasted like scotch. They were sloppy, his stubbly and wizened chin rough against Naruto’s soft prepubescent skin, and there was saliva on Naruto’s cheek now. Naruto wiped it away when his father wasn’t looking.
His father was a man of modest height, several inches taller than Naruto was. He was just a smidgeon overweight and had a beer belly and thick fingers. He was generally averse to wearing anything more formal than baggy and poorly fitting blue jeans and T-shirts. He tended to stare off into space and forget what he’d been talking about in the middle of sentences.
He had fat where large muscles used to be, which Naruto could tell by looking at his old pictures. At one point, he’d been a football player. He never got to try out for pro, however, because he tore his ACL during a team practice. He had several wrinkles on his face and purely grey hair, though it was still thick. He was only forty-three years old, but he looked closer to sixty. He was aware of this, and he’d told Naruto with a dry smile, “I know I don’t look my age, but hey, life’ll do that to you.” Just two years ago, he’d lost his wife to lung cancer.
Naruto’s father looked at him, his bloodshot eyes glassy and brimming with tears. He told Naruto with a slur, “You’re all I have left, d’you understand?”
Naruto didn’t like the way his dad’s kisses tasted, but he did like the way he was looking at him right now, the way his eyes cherished Naruto’s presence as if he were an angel, the last bright thing left in his dark world. It wasn’t all that bad, this new living situation. His foster father was a little cracked; there was no getting around that. But he was a good man.
Naruto’s past family had had to give him up due to money issues, though Naruto always found reasons to blame himself. He’d been with them for two years, but he’d kept himself distant. His heart was nearly unscathed. This was an acquired skill for Naruto. It was especially difficult to accomplish for a boy with a heart as large as his was, so needy of acknowledgement and love, but it was necessary. He’d been moved around a few too many times to allow himself to get attached too quickly. The family before his last got rid of him simply because they were tired of raising a child. There were no guarantees here.
But something about this man… About the way he looked at Naruto, the way he so dependently needed him… It drew Naruto close to him, because he knew he was loved and necessary. His father probably needed him more than he needed his father, and that reassured him. This was something he’d never encountered before.
And he hated the way his father cried, sounding so mortally wounded and crushed. He hated watching his suffering, because despite himself, he had become attached. He wanted to fix his father. He wanted to save him. He wanted to be important. He wanted to be loved.
“It’s okay. I’m here to stay,” Naruto answered with a grin. “You won’t ever be alone again.”
Naruto’s father began to sob, drool slipping down his chin. He was probably too drunk to stand.
“Oh thank you. Thank you, Naruto. You’re the best son I could have ever asked for.”
For the first time in years, Naruto could see a damned good reason why he was alive.

It was the day Naruto had finished middle school. It was only him and his father present. He’d allowed Naruto to go out with his boyfriend later. Naruto had feared that his father would become jealous if Naruto became romantically involved, especially in a same sex relationship, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. It wasn’t as if this relationship were all that serious, whatever the case.
His parent was holding a video camera, smiling.
“Now, open up your presents.”
Naruto grinned back at the camera, giving a peace sign. He unwrapped the shiny orange wrapping paper (his foster father had known his favorite color) to reveal a brand new PS3. Naruto’s mouth gaped open as he stared at the graduation present in awe.
“Holy crap! How’d you afford this?!”
“Graveyard shift,” the man answered with a tsk of the tongue. He was sober.
There were several other presents in front of them that he had yet to get to. This might just take a while.
“Wow, thanks, Dad!”
Yes, Naruto confirmed, he was being spoiled rotten.

“She’s dead! She’s dead! Oh, shit! I can’t live anymore! I want to die!”
The scotch was spilling onto the carpet. His father had stepped on broken glass, and he was trailing blood throughout the house while bawling deliriously. He didn’t realize he was bleeding.
“Stop!”
Naruto yanked on the man’s sleeve. Since Naruto’s body didn’t even come up to his father’s shoulders, Naruto had to pull his father downwards to peck him on the lips. He remained there for a moment, until the man stilled.
“It’s okay, Dad. It’s okay.”
The man held Naruto’s body tightly into his own, and again, he wept, sounding like an injured animal.

Eating dinner now. Rotisserie chicken from Walmart. His father wanted whiskey with that.
“Our new neighbor is watching us.”
“What?” Naruto asked, scrunching his brows. “What makes ya think that?”
“I can tell by the way that cunt smiles,” his father spat out, his eyes narrowed as he squeezed his fork in his fist.
“Ah… Okay then,” Naruto answered, not knowing how to respond. He was, truth be told, unnerved by the way his father had been acting lately. The man’s green eyes were ablaze. He wasn’t drunk enough for this sort of behavior. What was happening to him?
“She’s a fucking liar,” he shouted, the fork flipping onto the floor as he pounded his fist on the table.
Naruto swallowed hard. He didn’t want to say anything. Their new neighbor was actually very pleasant. When Naruto skateboarded outside of her house, she brought out a helmet for him to wear that had belonged to her son. But he didn’t want to defend her. He was afraid of what would happen if he disagreed with his dad when he was like this. Naruto’s hand, sweaty and a little awkward, reached for his knife, his forearm bumping the small salad plate that had been set to the side. It fell to the ground and shattered. Naruto was terrified.
“YOU.”
In a split second, his father stood up, his chair falling down behind him. He stormed towards Naruto, who suddenly felt very, very small, grabbing Naruto by the wrist and jerking up upwards.
“Look at what you did, you piece of shit!”
Naruto screamed. He’d wanted to stay silent so as not to provide any reason for conflict, but he couldn’t help it. That feeling that shot through his wrist was excruciating, panging up all the way to his upper arm. Naruto held up his hand, which torqued to the left grotesquely, the bones of his wrist unnaturally poking out. Was his wrist broken? His father stared at it, mouth open.
“Oh God, Naruto…”
Naruto was too overwhelmed with the situation to even be angry. He began to hyperventilate, taking a clumsy step away from the man.
“What have I done? Oh my God, Naruto, I’m so sorry. My poor boy…”
He reached out for Naruto, seeking to hold him. Naruto took another step back, his blue eyes widened in shock.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. We’ll go to the ER. We’ll tell them you fell.”
His father fell to his knees and wept.

Naruto’s father kissed him every night now. They always tasted of some sort of alcohol, and sometimes, even worse, of vomit. When Naruto kissed his boyfriend, he oftentimes remembered his father and imagined the taste of liquor. He would then have to stop, which Naruto always had some bullshit excuse for. His relationship with his boyfriend was a casual one anyhow, so the other male didn’t bother pushing it.
But he had heard a lot about molestation. He knew what it was. He went to the library and read some books on it. He read about the ways that molestation can affect someone throughout their life. He didn’t know if he would go so far as to call this molestation, but this was not normal. None of his other foster parents had ever done this. The other kids weren’t kissed by their parents the way his father kissed him.
Something was…wrong at home. Very wrong. His father was frightening him. Fortunately, his father hadn’t injured him again after he sent Naruto to the hospital for his wrist, but he was growing increasingly delusional and detached from reality. His comments about their neighbor were just the beginning. He was drinking more often. He told Naruto that his boss was trying to poison him, and that the doctor Naruto was going to for his wrist had implanted a tracking chip in him. He couldn’t abandon his father, not when he really needed him. Naruto suggested that he see a therapist once, and it…hadn’t ended well. Naruto’s wrist was still in a splint from the night he broke his dish.
Naruto was scared. Should he tell someone? Should he run away? But who else did his father have? His wife was dead. He’d become too reclusive to make friends, isolating himself almost completely. It was only Naruto and him. Hadn’t he told his father that he would always be there for him? He couldn’t leave. His father needed him. Still, he had to stop these strange dynamics.
He made sure that his dad was sober when he approached him. He was sitting on their couch, reading the paper.
“Dad, I have to say something to you.”
Naruto’s mouth was dry. He felt like running. He’d situated himself near a door, so that he could quickly escape if the conversation went badly. So many of his thoughts had been unspoken, but this would change tonight.
“Yes?”
“About… Us pretending and stuff…”
Naruto didn’t have to specify. They both knew what he meant. His father granted him full attention, glancing at Naruto expectantly.
“I can’t do it anymore.”
The man stood abruptly.
“What?” the man asked, as if there were a genuine misunderstanding.
Naruto had expected anger, but all he heard was shock and hurt. He wanted to help his father recover from his wife’s death, but he knew now that this “pretending” would get both of them nowhere. Naruto had used it as his own crutch, convincing himself that he could not possibly be abandoned if he meant so much to this man. Naruto even felt a little guilty about rejecting his father like this, but rationally, he knew that he was making the healthiest decision for both of them.
“You know I love you. You’re my father. But this whole… I won’t kiss you anymore. It’s… I don’t think it’s healthy.”
Naruto’s father stared back at him dumbly, as if Naruto had just struck him.
“I’m… I’m sorry…” Naruto stammered, his guilt growing stronger.
His father turned heel and wandered out of the room, now deaf to every one of Naruto’s words.
Naruto knew that this couldn’t possibly be so easy. His father’s real reaction to what he had said would come later. Something was definitely off. The hours passed, and now it was almost midnight. His father hadn’t sought him out yet, so it was probably safe to sleep. He anxiously wondered what awaited him tomorrow. After tossing and turning for a while, he drifted off.

He was rocked as his bed was indented. Hands and legs on all four sides, weight on his injured wrist. Fuck, his wrist. The pain seized his forearm. Scotch, being breathed into his face.
“Rae?”
Naruto’s eyes shot open. Rae? That was… His father’s late wife.
“Rae!” he screamed, saliva propelled into Naruto’s face. Oh God, his father was right on him. He kissed Naruto messily, shoving his tongue into his mouth. Naruto turned his face to the side, but his father was too intoxicated to notice that he was now only slobbering all over Naruto’s cheek. The taste of scotch was so strong. His hands, drunk, started feeling up his stomach under his shirt, his chest…
Naruto stared back at his father, his body quivering.
“RAE!”
His hand slid down Naruto’s sleep pants, and…fuck…fuck…
“Answer me, Rae!”
It slid lower.
“ANSWER ME!”
Fuck this. Fuck this loser. Fuck him and his issues. Was he going to let himself get raped tonight because this asshole had a pathetic excuse for a life? No. He’d dealt with enough. He would draw the line here.
Naruto scooted up on the bed, using whatever leverage he had to propel his fist directly into his father’s face. As drunk as the man was, he didn’t have quick enough reflexes to dodge, blood beginning to pour down his lips and chin. He didn’t bother to wipe it up, the drops falling onto Naruto’s chest.
“Get away from me, you fucking psycho!” Naruto roared.
His father laughed and reached into his pocket. Partially obscured by the dark, he pulled out an object, flipping it open with a quick wrist movement.
A knife.
Naruto swore he felt his heart stop. Oh God… Was he going to…
A hand on his throat.
Couldn’t breathe.
Pinned… He had to move!
Couldn’t. Couldn’t budge, smell of scotch, siren on the street, his body sweaty on the covers… The blue cotton stuck on his sweating shoulder blade.
Air… He needed air. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.
His father was so strong.
Suffocating.
Was he dying?
On his face… Pain. Searing pain. Oh God… He couldn’t scream because he couldn’t breathe, only able to emit choked gags. He was being strangled. He was being cut. Would he move? Would he fight?
Or would this man slit his throat?
Something wet poured down his face. Blood.
It happened again, just below it, Naruto screaming as he was able to get in the slightest gasp of air as he felt that pop of the knife puncturing his skin. He struggled, trying to turn his face as his father’s hand on his neck kept him steady. The blade dragged down his cheek. When Naruto cut wrapping paper last Christmas, his sharp scissors slid through it so neatly.
Another.
His face was stinging, a large mass of burning pain. He could no longer feel the individual cuts. It felt like his entire cheek was an open, bleeding wound.
“RAE IS DEAD! YOU ARE NOT RAE!”
Saliva sprayed into his eyes as his father screamed. What if he wouldn’t stop with his face? When would this end? Whenever his father lifted the knife up, Naruto feared that he would slit his throat.
A dog had barked seven times.
He turned Naruto’s head roughly, and Naruto was now able to breathe. Oh God, no… Not the other cheek…
Should he fight? Should he? No, it was better to be disfigured than to die. He wanted to live. It would only take one stroke against his throat, and even still there was no guarantee that this wouldn’t happen. He was only fourteen. He didn’t want to die.
“Stop!” Naruto choked out, panting frantically, his throat agonizingly sore. “It’s your son!”
His father didn’t hear him.
A new cut on unmarred skin, deep. Naruto wondered if the knife would go right through the flesh of his cheek, to his jaw.
“DAD! STOP! PLEASE!”
Naruto was sobbing, but it didn’t matter.
“Get off!”
As Naruto yelled, some of his blood dripped into his mouth.
Another.
“Dad…”
He wanted to disappear. Go away. Not exist. He was losing too much blood. His hands and feet were going numb. His father’s hand wasn’t even on Naruto’s throat anymore, and he still was hardly breathing. Naruto stared at the ceiling listlessly. Was he going to die?
And his father was gone. Just like that. He left the room and slammed the door behind him.
Naruto dared not make a sound. His face, the pillow… They were drenched with what Naruto could only assume to be blood. He knew he should be glad to be alive, but his chest felt so tight, like he could hardly breathe. He felt that it was too dangerous to breathe. What if his father heard the air leave and exit his body? His mind told him that his father could be anywhere.
He lay there for a while. He heard glass and porcelain breaking downstairs. He tiptoed over to his door as quietly as possible and locked it. His father had a key, but a locked door would at least buy Naruto a couple seconds so that he could barricade it. He wouldn’t do so now, as the noise of moving large objects was bound to draw attention to him. He wished he had a phone in his room.
He very tentatively made it over to the mirror by his desk. He didn’t dare to turn the light on. He deftly and silently groped for a small flashlight he kept by his bed in case of power outages, finding it a little more quickly than he would have liked. He pointed the flashlight down at the desk and turned it on, the dark brown wood pattern illuminated. Naruto stared down at it.
His heart was going berserk. He felt sick. His hands were covered in a cold sweat, trembling. He could see now that the collar of his shirt was wet with blood. His entire face seemed to sting. The pain was horrible. He touched his cheek gingerly and winced, his hand coming back blood-soaked. Yet as much as he dreaded the sight of his face, he had to see it. He just had to. He closed his eyes, then angled his face towards the mirror, keeping his eyes shut. He shined the flashlight into the mirror, opened his eyes…
He bit his tongue to avoid gasping. He felt like he was going to vomit. It was even worse than he’d suspected. It appeared that muscle had been exposed. The knife had gone straight through the dense nerve endings of the epidermis.
Was this him? His face? Was this really happening right now? It felt unreal. He’d heard people say it before, but he still found himself genuinely praying that this was some horrible nightmare. They’d pinch themselves to try to wake up. He’d had a nightmare once where both of his eyes had been gouged out, so was it really so impossible? But he knew, deep down. Very unfortunately, this was reality.
He didn’t consider himself to be particularly vain, but… Was this what his face would look like now? He momentarily humored the possibility that the scars would fade, perhaps be hardly visible someday. Seriously? He’d always been told he was an optimist, but he wasn’t delusional.
His eyes stung as they began to tear. He clenched down his teeth hard. No. He would not lose his wits now. His father was still awake, and there was a chance he’d come back for him. Naruto was still alive. He’d survived, but maybe next time, he wouldn’t be so lucky. He waited in dead silence. Usually, his father would pass out drunk at some point in the night. He prayed that tonight would not be an exception. What he wouldn’t give to see the next sunrise…
And sure enough, he heard his father’s snores as he oh so gently opened his door, a couple hours later. He grabbed some snacks in his room for sustenance, his wallet, and a thick jacket, stuffing them into his backpack. He wiped off his face the best he could, packing several more tissues for such purposes into his orange backpack. He dressed himself, using whatever pieces of clothing that needed the least rummaging. He made his way to the stairs. With every footstep, he felt his anxiety build. He felt as if he were about to hyperventilate, but he could not allow himself to be heard. Every single snore he heard from his father was a reassurance.
He skipped over the third to last step, because it creaked. His heart thudded as he reached the bottom step, then walked to the front door. The lights were on downstairs, but his father was out cold on the kitchen floor, surrounded by broken dishes. He quietly unlocked the door and walked outside. He closed the door behind him. It almost seemed too good to be true. He’d made it. God… He’d escaped! He’d lived!
He ran now. He had to run. He never wanted anything like this to happen again. He’d hide from everyone. He ran for hours, his backpack colliding into his back with each frantic stride. He ran through their town to the next. The spit dried in his mouth, the bleeding began to stop, and his chest rasped with every intake of air. He had taken the less traveled ways in the cover of night, hoping not to be spotted. What would they do if they found him? Turn him back to the very same system that did this to his face, almost killed him? Hell no.
Finally, he grew tired. He tucked himself up against a chipped old stucco wall for the night. He would rest, but he would not sleep. He remembered all too well what had happened the last time he slept. When he grew too tired, he would bite the inside of his cheeks, even though, or perhaps because, it was positively excruciating. At least the cuts had not gone all the way through. And it was then that he made a promise to himself.
“Uzumaki Naruto,” he had mumbled under his breath, knowing that no one could hear him, “Promise that you’ll never go back. You’re on your own now. If that ever gets too tough for you, remember how you feel right now.”
Tears were starting to fall from Naruto’s cheeks, the salty water stinging his wounds slightly. He had to say this aloud. A promise made in his head would never be as strong. He had to speak, addressing himself by his full name like a parent talks to a child when they’re being serious. He had to remember the sound of his voice, the way it quivered because of how hurt, terrified, and sad he was. Time could dull emotions. He might eventually wonder if going back wouldn’t be so dangerous. If he allowed time to deteriorate his resolve, something like this could happen all over again. He had to remain true to his convictions.
“Remember last night. Look in the fucking mirror if the memories get too hazy. Promise you’ll never go back. Promise you won’t forget.”
He began to cry, keeping himself silent that summer night so that he would not be heard. It took him a while until he could whisper again to himself, “I promise. I promise. I promise.”

The next day, he wandered farther. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing. After all, he’d never planned on becoming homeless. He was every bit as clueless as any other kid would be. He walked for several hours more as soon as the sun came up. He was leaving everything behind. His school, his boyfriend, his friends (which, admittedly, he didn’t have very many of)… He hadn’t been in Bakersfield long enough to settle, really.
Naruto had yet to sleep, but someone was bound to discover that he was missing. The heat of the desert’s summer sun sapped his energy from him. He drank water wherever he found it. He had to keep running, so he’d be far away by the time people started looking for him. He ran by farms, the foothills of mountains, and diners. He made it into the next town, and then the next. Soon, he would be near the county line. He was glad for that at least. All of the sweat he’d worked up running soaked into his wrist splint, causing the area to itch. He took a break to eat some dry Captain Crunch, which helped him feel somewhat rejuvenated. His face had stopped bleeding completely, but he refused to touch it. It was painful as all hell.
By evening, he ran into a small community of homeless people. The days were long this time of year, so although it was almost eight, the sky had hardly darkened. Naruto felt sick to his stomach now. He wondered if he was just hungry, or if perhaps he had drunk some bad water. As he approached the group, the air mercifully chilled, Naruto wondered if this what they called skid row. He waved his arm.
“Um… Hello?”
A few of the bums looked over at him, indubitably shocked due to the fact that he his face was covered in blood. One with long, bushy white hair moved forward, a conspicuous mole on his cheek.
“Kid, what the hell happened to your face?”
“Uh…” Naruto answered, staring at the ground.
“Never mind. You don’t gotta answer that. People tell me I have no filter, if you can believe it,” the man told him, ending his final sentence with a chuckle.
Naruto would have ordinarily laughed, but his sense of humor seemed to have dried out of him. He’d only slept about two hours in the past two days, and he’d hardly had anything to eat. He’d just almost died, for Christ’s sake. He wasn’t exactly in a laughing mood, and the white-haired man seemed to realize that.
He motioned to a few other vagrants, who brought out things like bottled water and gauze. This man seemed to be a leader of sorts.
“Name’s Jiraiya, by the way.”
Naruto nodded. Words seemed to come difficultly to him.
“What’s your name?”
“Naruto,” he stated rather emotionlessly, his ordinarily bright blue eyes seeming so dull. It wasn't often he gave himself such a lackluster introduction.
“Well, Naruto, do you mind if we clean you up?”
Naruto shook his head silently, his facial expression blank. Jiraiya doused his hands in rubbing alcohol, and then used the water to remove the dried blood from his face. The old man tilted his head off to the side and hacked, pausing his movements momentarily. Naruto wondered if it was sick, but at least he’d sterilized his hands before cleaning Naruto’s face.
“Hey,” Jiraiya spoke, gesturing to a small child, who seemed to be with them as well. “Go into that drug store and jack us some triple antibiotic ointment, would ya?”
The kid nodded, walking towards the store. Naruto would have protested to shoplifting, especially when done by a child on his account, but… Fuck, he didn’t have the energy to question any of this. Soon enough, Jiraiya placed ointment on his cheeks and gauzed them up. Naruto tried not to wince, but he did a poor job. The surrounding tissue was inflamed and angry.
Naruto was thankful, to say the least. He didn’t know what he would have done otherwise. He was honestly too dazed to even take care of himself. Or in reality, maybe he just didn’t feel like he could look at his reflection.
“I haven’t seen you around here before. Where are you from?”
“Bakersfield,” Naruto said listlessly.
“Woah, all the way out there? What made you choose this sorry excuse for a town?”
Naruto shrugged.
“I’m headed for the county line.”
Naruto sat down, slumped, and took out his large bag of Skittles, munching on a handful hungrily.
“Hey uh… Kid, I’m not meaning to pry, but you’re new to this lifestyle, aren’t you?”
“It’s that obvious?” Naruto asked, sounding rather disheartened.
“Er…” Jiraiya trailed off, glancing at the Skittles bag. “I’ll tell you what. Stay here a bit. I’ll show you the ropes. Then you can continue on your grand adventure. Sound good?”
Naruto paused to consider Jiraiya for a while. Could he really trust that guy? He was against it. After what had just happened, he wasn’t exactly comfortable around other human beings. But what other choice did he have? He couldn’t last like this for long. He wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t run into this group. At least his wounds had been tended to now.
“Okay…”
Naruto sat with the group, who chattered together vividly. Naruto was silent, staring at the ground, lost in his head. Hours passed, and there was no change.
“Poor child…” Naruto heard one of the female vagrants whisper. “He came here caked in blood… He looks like he’s been through hell.”
Jiraiya stared over at Naruto for several moments, pensively. He then noted a woman with long blond hair and a significant amount of cleavage approached them, wearing high heeled shoes, leggings, and a tank top.
“I know what’ll cheer him up.”
Jiraiya sat next to Naruto again, a cup with some change in it in hand.
“Hey, kid…”
“My name is Naruto,” Naruto corrected tiredly, beginning to get sick of the nickname.
“Yeah, whatever. Just watch the show.”
And now she was in earshot.
“Change, please! From such a beautiful girl, I would die happy!”
Naruto tried not to roll his eyes. The woman giggled, bending over and placing a quarter into Jiraiya’s cup, which he left on his lap. He didn’t seem to want to move the cup up for her. Her chest, with its all too visible cleavage, had come down to eye level with Naruto, and while the woman was fixated on donating the coin, Jiraiya quickly gestured Naruto to look.
“Thank you so much, dear. It’s always appreciated for a poor old man who’s down on his luck.”
The woman nodded, the clacking of her heels fading as she left them down the sidewalk. Jiraiya waited until she was out of earshot.
“Did you see the jugs on that one?!” Jiraiya said, quickly gesturing to the now disappearing woman.
“I beg your pardon?” Naruto asked, too stunned by Jiraiya’s comment to properly react.
“That was… A D maybe? No… No way. A double D at least. Now that’s what I call a rack!”
Naruto stared at Jiraiya vapidly for a moment.
“You know, I thought you were just some nice old man at first, but you’re actually a total pervert.”
This guy had to be in his seventies. He’d had it with creepy old men lately. However, something told him that he wouldn’t have to worry about this one. Jiraiya swatted at him.
“Feh! Come on, you’re at the age where you can appreciate something like that, right? What are you, gay?”
“Yes.”
Jiraiya blinked for a few moments, taking a while to digest that information.
“Oh, this is good. So maybe you can explain something to me. See that guy?”
Jiraiya pointed at a man getting into his parked car, farther down the block. Naruto didn’t like where this is going.
“Is he attractive to you?”
“Average.”
“And what about his ass? I mean, what exactly does a gay man look for when it comes to asses? Flat? More of a chiseled look? …Bubbly?”
Naruto stared, agape and a little horrified.
“I mean to you… What would you rate me, on a scale of one to ten?”
“I’m going now,” Naruto sighed, moving to get up.
Jiraiya quickly reached out for Naruto’s forearm. He didn’t grab it; he just rested his hand there, respectfully minding Naruto’s boundaries.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I know I’m a pervert. Trust me, when you’ve been slapped as many times as I have, you get the idea.”
“This isn’t reassuring me. At all.”
Jiraiya began to hack again, into his forearm. He put it back to his side, but Naruto swore he saw something dark in the illumination of the street lights..
“Did you just cough up blood?”
“Ah, don’t worry about that,” Jiraiya told him. “It comes and goes.”
Naruto stared at him skeptically for a while.
“That’s… Can’t you go to a doctor?” Naruto asked. Despite how overwhelmed he currently was, he couldn’t just watch someone hack up blood and not say anything about it. He could never be so calloused. “They have free clinics around here and all, don’t they?”
“Look, kid…” Jiraiya responded, his voice raspy. “We all have reasons to hide.”

Naruto stayed with Jiraiya for far longer than he had intended. He taught him many things: how to always get good drinking water, how to beg, how to know where to stake out, how to deal with other vagrants… Jiraiya was a better teacher than he could have asked for, despite his rather annoying tendency to ogle every set of tits that came their way. That change cup trick was Jiraiya’s signature among the local homeless folk. It was as if he could never get over the fact that yes, females have breasts.
The first time Naruto saw Jiraiya get slapped by a woman, about a week after he joined Jiraiya’s crew, he laughed. And so did Jiraiya, because in the whole week Naruto had been there, the boy had yet to let out so much as a chuckle. Unfortunately for Jiraiya, this resulted in him being slapped a second time. Naruto began to sleep better at night. He was getting hungrier, but he was better rested. Yet it disturbed him to be in Kern County as the weeks passed, though he was three cities away from Bakersfield. He wasn’t moving.
Jiraiya’s cough was getting worse. It was well over one month now that Naruto had lived with them. It wasn’t all horrible. Honestly, the most difficult day was probably the day they took his gauze off for good. He’d tried to avoid his own reflection for a while. It made him feel self-conscious, but even more than that, it reminded him. Naruto figured he’d just have to get used to his new face. What other choice was there?
Yet he wasn’t as uncomfortable as he’d imagined, though this was in no way easy. His skin had acquired the necessary callouses. His back was growing accustomed to sleeping on concrete. He got used to the hunger, watching the meat leave his bones. He was no longer considered a rookie amongst them. He was known. He had friends. The sunny disposition he had once been known so well for was quickly returning. He was building a life here, and that much was dangerous.
One night, Jiraiya became very ill. Naruto begged him, tears in his eyes, to go to the hospital. Jiraiya was vomiting blood, and he just couldn’t seem to stop coughing.
“It’s happened before, Naruto,” Jiraiya reassured him in a soft voice. “It’s just a spell.”
The next morning, Naruto was awakened several minutes before sunrise by a wailing woman. She was looking into Jiraiya’s tent, sobbing. Almost against his will, Naruto walked forward, glancing into the tent to see his mentor’s body, dead and still. Jiraiya was gone.
And so Naruto left. He had to pass over the county line. He walked and kept walking. He walked through Kern County. Then he walked through Los Angeles County. And finally, he approached Orange County. He hadn’t been there since he’d gone to Disneyland at the age of eight. Almost halfway through Orange County, he stumbled across a church soup kitchen in a small suburb. The staff was friendly. The food was hot. And quickly, he fit in. He was far from Bakersfield. Perhaps he could rest here, if only for a little while.
One day, he met a boy his age at the soup kitchen. He had eyes nearly as dark as his sardonic attitude and jet black hair. He told Naruto that he only volunteered there because the California legal system had forced him to for breaking someone’s nose. It was this seemingly trivial event that changed the course of Naruto’s life. And it was this seemingly trivial event that caused him to forget that important promise he had made to himself what felt like a lifetime ago.

Naruto couldn’t bring himself to remember any more. He couldn’t handle it. Sobbing in the alleyway, he fell against the wall and sunk to the floor, his back and skull smacking into the asphalt. Unseen to Naruto, a slight amount of blood budded on Naruto’s scalp at the impact. He didn’t notice. It was impossible to notice anything other than his stomach commanding him to vomit, his heart beating so frantically that he had to clutch at his chest, and his lungs exhaling and inhaling so violently that his vision began to go black, his hands and feet gone numb. His eyes peered straight up into the sky. His breath fanned out in front of him in the cold air, each exhale adding to the billowing white mist juxtaposed against the clear black.
“You’re having a panic attack. It won’t last more than a few minutes. You’ll be fine.”
This is what Sasuke had said to him when he first had a panic attack in his presence. It had been the day that he had told Sasuke why he was homeless, why he had those scars on his face, what had happened between him and his father that made him resist the foster care system so. Sasuke’s voice was so concerned and gentle. Naruto didn’t know whether that memory made him happy or sad currently, but he basked in that last sentence regardless, the words as vivid as if Sasuke were speaking to him right now. “You’ll be fine.”
And he allowed it to calm him, still lying on the cold and damp black surface as his eyes glanced up at the equally black sky. It was a clear night, though horribly windy. Naruto burrowed into his thin jacket, which used to be Sasuke’s. It still smelled like Sasuke. To distract himself, Naruto looked straight up at the stars that were right in front of his face, his misted breath slightly obscuring his view of the constellations.
Orion’s belt. He’d known of that constellation for as long as he could remember. That one was easy. He had the foggiest memory of looking out of his window at the group home as a four-year-old, trying to figure out how Orion had gotten its name. A random staff member said it was a giant’s belt, but where was the giant? People didn’t usually make much sense to Naruto, so it was only fitting that their interpretation of the stars didn’t either.
He allowed his eyes to drift over to whatever other constellation he could recognize. The Big Fox. The Little Fox. Pisces.
“It’s actually two fish, tied together by a string at the end of their tails.”
Why… Why did he keep remembering Sasuke?
“Seriously. It’s a Greek myth. Aphrodite and her son, Eros, turned themselves into fish to escape the fire god. Then the two of them were tied together to make sure they didn’t lose each other during the escape.”
How Naruto would curse Aphrodite and Eros, indelibly intertwined in the face of adversity. An unrealistic part of his mind wished that Sasuke and he could elope and hide in some godforsaken corner of a forgotten city. It wouldn’t matter if their house was a piece of shit, and they didn’t even have internet or cable television.
Naruto would be Eros. The job description of “god of desire and attraction” didn’t sound too shabby. Sasuke would definitely be Aphrodite, Naruto decided. With Sasuke’s almost feminine good looks, the title “goddess of beauty” fit him perfectly, though even Naruto would never be foolish enough to say that to Sasuke’s face.
But no, eloping would be even more selfish than what he was doing now. Itachi needed Sasuke. Sasuke had a phenomenal future in front of him and ambitious goals to achieve. Like hell would Naruto ever take that away from him.
He stared up at the sky, resentfully glaring at the Pisces constellation as if it were glaring right back at him. He remembered the excitement in Sasuke’s voice the night they first looked up at the stars together. It had been the first time he’d ever heard the chronically bored and unimpressed Uchiha Sasuke speak with passion in his voice. He remembered how differently Sasuke looked with his glasses on.
That night, Naruto realized that even though he met Sasuke through court-appointed community service he’d received for breaking a kid’s nose, Sasuke was somewhat of a nerd. And yes, he could be eager and curious and self-sacrificing and compassionate. Naruto felt fortunate to be one of the few people in this world to see this side of Sasuke. These were all things that Naruto saw because Sasuke had trusted him enough to let him see it.
Sasuke had trusted him. And now Naruto was leaving him. Naruto was always the one who believed that Sasuke would forget about him. Yet Sasuke was popular. He’d find someone new, someone smarter, someone richer, someone not covered in scars, someone without so many fucking issues and leave Naruto for them. Sasuke reassured Naruto every time he voiced these concerns, though Naruto only spoke poorly of himself rarely. Sasuke would call Naruto an idiot when he picked at the issue and tell him that his past did not dictate his worth. It was a perverse irony that Naruto would be the one to go.
Sasuke was always so afraid of losing people. He remembered the look on Sasuke’s face the day that he took him in, when he found Naruto in this sketchy part of town with his body bruised and cut up. Sasuke had tended to Naruto’s wounds gently, and this was the first time Sasuke’s lips had touched his body, even if it was a questionably platonic kiss on his shoulder. Sasuke seemed so scared of the fact that he could have lost Naruto.
How would Sasuke react to this? He remembered the way Sasuke had crumbled when he nearly lost Itachi, finding him unconscious in a pool of blood and vomit. Sasuke had been brave. He moved robotically and rationally, losing no time or energy to emotion. He kept Naruto away from him, because he knew that Naruto could force him to feel. He postponed everything. It was only after Sasuke knew that Itachi had lived that he expressed himself, thinking that he was alone.
And then, Sasuke cried. No, more accurately, Sasuke wept. He sobbed, holding nothing back as his entire body was sapped of all its energy. Before that, Naruto had Naruto never seen so much as a teary eye from Sasuke, no matter how frightening his situation became. Sasuke wasn’t the crying sort, but when he did cry, it was heartbreaking. Naruto saw Sasuke cry only once, and he didn’t know if he could bear to see it again. Naruto wondered if he’d ever heard any sound in his lifetime that caused his heart to ache the way Sasuke’s weeping did.
This was what losing people did to Sasuke. He knew that Sasuke tended to lose his cool and act irrationally when his loved ones were in danger because the thought of losing them terrified him. That was all Sasuke’s temporary stint as a drug dealer had ever been. He’d lost his parents, and now he’d even lost a few of his friends. What else was Naruto doing but confirming all of Sasuke’s fears? He tried not to remember Sasuke crying.
And even Itachi. It’s true that he’d only known Itachi for a week, but Itachi had given Naruto somewhere to stay for two months. He’d be starting school again, and Sasuke would, once again, be alone. Hadn’t he promised Itachi that he would take care of Sasuke? Would this be how he would repay the brothers’ kindness?
Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe Sasuke was still sleeping and hadn’t read the note. Wouldn’t it be different this time? Sasuke and Itachi both had his back. Maybe Naruto could slip back into the house and never tell Sasuke what he had almost done. Even if the trains had been running when he’d originally arrived at the station, Naruto wondered, would he have even had the guts to get on? He couldn’t handle imagining the sound of Sasuke’s weeping every time Naruto looked up at night and saw Pisces, wondering if Sasuke had cried just like that after he left.
No. No, no, no. The problem was not that he was being illogical and crumbling under last minute panic. The problem was that he let himself forget. He’d lived in this fairy tale existence with a man named Uchiha Sasuke. Those two months had been a dream that exceeded even his most optimistic fantasies, but all things must end. Even if he could never forgive himself for what he’d done to Sasuke, it was unfortunately just the way things had to be.
Was that really all the time it took for him to succumb to this sorry state? He had been isolated from reality, knowing only the safe and nurturing home of the Uchiha household and the demanding but rewarding tasks of the labor center. He’d forgotten what a scary, cruel, and fucked up place this world could be. It was true that he had some resources this time that he didn’t have previously, but how could he take such a risk? He’d promised himself.
His train wasn’t coming until five in the morning, and the clock inside the liquor store read that it was almost four. He would wait. Dammit, if the trains ran by the same schedule on Sundays, he’d be halfway to Modesto by now. He wouldn’t have had time to dick around in an alleyway having panic attacks and second guessing everything. It would have been done. Now he had to wait. All things must end, he told himself again.
The day they became lovers, Sasuke had mumbled with a small voice, “Naruto, if you have any choice in the matter, please don’t leave me.”
“Fuck!” Naruto shouted out as he kicked the dumpster hard, his voice and the sound of his sneaker against the flimsy metal dumpster bouncing off the alley walls.
“Fuuuck!” he yelled again, his voice echoing up and down the alley.
His face was red, veins popping out on his neck as he yelled. Naruto kicked over the nearby garbage can in his rage, even stomping on the trash and kicking it into the wall. He was beginning to feel nearly delirious. He wished that there were someone responsible for all of his problems. He wished he could beat the shit out of this person. While there were people who had wronged him, in the end, his current situation was a result of circumstance. There was no one to yell at, no bad guy to defeat. So all he could do was yell at the garbage and hope that no one would hear him. He still didn’t feel any better.
Naruto grasped at his arms tightly and clenched his teeth. He could do this. He was strong. He breathed in deeply, held his breath, and breathed out. He only had ninety more minutes. Then he’d be far away from the foster care system, hundreds of miles away where no one would be looking for him. He composed himself.
He’d return to Sasuke someday, but maybe not the day he turned eighteen. He’d wait until he had some money to his name and could afford the necessities. He wanted to be independent, not some leech. Then he’d find Sasuke. Sasuke would be in college. Maybe he’d be in love with someone else. But he just had to be in Sasuke’s life again, even if Sasuke didn’t want anything to do with him after this. It wasn’t goodbye forever, he told himself. He’d make it up to Sasuke somehow. He’d find a way; he’d do anything. Just not this.
He could hardly believe that it was just several hours ago that he’d left. He had lay down with Sasuke that night trying not to think of what the next day would bring. The past several days, he’d thought of anything but the horrible Sunday that lie ahead. Worrying about it wouldn’t change anything, so why suffer unnecessarily? Besides, he didn’t want Sasuke and maybe even Itachi to have to deal with him having an emotional breakdown. He didn’t know if he could handle this all currently. He just figured that when the time came, he’d have to nut up and go in to the station regardless. He’d deal with it then. For now, the issue could still be crammed to the back of his mind, and he’d definitely take advantage of the fact.
It was that night, lying down in the silence, that he lost control of his thoughts. He couldn’t sleep. He moved to his side, then to his stomach, then to his back, the sheets uncomfortably sticking to the cold sweat on his body. And as the hours passed, his panic grew. Was he really doing this? He couldn’t believe that after all he’d gone through over the past year just to avoid the foster care system, he was now walking into it willingly.
He knew he had to be strong, but he was starting to wonder what, exactly, that entailed. Was strength holding true to their decision? And he did mean their decision. They’d decided what he should do, and Naruto had gone along with it. After all, didn’t he owe it to Sasuke, after all he’d done for him? And it seemed like a good decision at the time. Now, however, he wondered if real strength was remaining true to the promise he’d made to himself long before he’d met Sasuke. Had time weakened his resolve? He decided that this was what he had to remain true to.
He couldn’t go back into foster care. It was entirely possible that he could die, he thought. It had nearly happened once before. Who was to say it wouldn’t happen again? He had promised himself. How could he call that promise meaningless now? He couldn’t go back on that promise… No, he just couldn’t.
So he very quietly got himself out of bed, hating himself as he wrote Sasuke a note and searched for somewhere to place it. He knew it was what he had to do, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow. He figured that the underside of Sasuke’s cell phone would be a good place for the note. It wouldn’t be obvious should Sasuke wake up in the night and glance at the bedstand, but once the morning came around, he’d find it quickly. He’d only have to check his phone.
Naruto grabbed just enough money to take a train up to northern California. It seemed to be a good climate, and he knew that at least the San Francisco area tended to be very tolerant of homeless people. According to the train schedule, the next train would leave at three. Of course, Naruto hadn’t accounted for the fact that it was a Sunday. Dammit.
He readied himself, wearing Sasuke’s clothes, which were the only garments at his disposal. He took Sasuke’s least favorite jacket. He wished he could have taken Sasuke’s photograph with him, but he had none. He stared at Sasuke as he slept, so that he would always remember what he looked like. He tried to imagine how Sasuke would change over the years, how maybe his jaw would become more pronounced, and his legs longer. This would be the Sasuke he would look for.
In the past, he had told Sasuke he wouldn’t leave him. He would come back. But not now. He sat against the liquor store wall with his knees up to his chest, draping his arms over his knees and resting his head on his forearms. He tried to tune all thought out, waiting for the sky to light up with the first traces of the sun. Despite the fact that he was placing hundreds of miles between them, he knew that he would see Sasuke again.
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