Chapter Text
He holds an invitation in his hand, smoothing the top right corner that had been crumpled during the mailing commute. His shoes are neatly placed at the doorway and work bag hung from its hook on the hall tree. The apartment is quiet until a distant thump sounds from another room, and then he’s joined at the kitchen counter by a plump housecat.
Immediately, the cat bumps the hand holding the envelope and cardstock invitation and lets out a manipulative little cry.
“Is it past your dinner time?” he asks, losing his preoccupation with the invitation and shifting his attention to spare a few pets.
The cat runs its fluffy tail under his chin as he walks around on the counter in a few circles.
“You know you’re not supposed to be on the counter.” His tone is chiding, but he scoops the big cat up in his arms and scratches him lovingly under the chin. When the cat relaxes, eyes closed and purring audible, he can’t resist a soft smile. “You must have had such a long day.”
As he’s feeding his spoiled house demon, his phone buzzes on the counter with an incoming call. He lets out a long-suffering sigh when he sees the contact name and the most unflattering photo of his brother he could find.
“What.”
“Sasuke.” His brother’s voice is patient, yet slightly patronizing. “I can tell you’re in a lovely mood.”
He holds the phone between his ear and shoulder as he starts rifling through his fridge and brainstorming dinner ideas. He only has so many options with the sparse groceries he has available, even less as he starts checking expiration dates. “My social battery is dead.”
“How was work?” Itachi asks.
“Same as always,” he answers on autopilot as he locates a bottle of cheap merlot and digs around in a junk drawer for a corkscrew.
“Still having issues with your boss? What’s-his-name. Oromimaru?”
“Orochimaru,” Sasuke corrects. Dinner figuratively moved to the backburner, he takes the bottle of wine and an empty glass to the living room and takes a seat on the couch. He waives his self-imposed rules about bringing food and drinks into the living room on nights when alcohol is necessary to recover from his day at work.
“Right. How is the situation with him?”
“Nothing new. He’s an ass.” The situation is the same every time they talk. It’s become a redundant line of questioning. He goes to his job, his boss makes him uncomfortable and demands the impossible, and then he comes home to his cat. Many nights look identical to this one: Sasuke sitting alone in his living room, struggling with a corkscrew, and then pouring himself a lukewarm glass of cheap red.
“You could always move back in. Get your old job back. I bet you’d be happier.”
“No,” Sasuke answers, far too quickly.
His brother divests some sort of information from his response and hums curiously. “You never did tell me the whole story about why you up and left.”
“It doesn’t matter.” It does, but there are things he can’t speak aloud to himself, much less tell his brother about.
“Well, I guess you’ll be visiting soon enough. I take it you also received an invitation.”
“Yeah, it came in the mail today,” Sasuke answers and glances at the pale blue card and pristine white envelope he’d left on the counter. As innocuous as it looks, he’s filled with dread at the inevitable future that little square of paper forebodes.
Itachi waits expectantly for a response to the first half of his last statement until he realizes he’s not getting one. “You are planning to go, aren’t you?”
A sigh. “I don’t feel like I have much of a choice. They’re like family.”
Itachi hums his agreement. “It’ll be nice. You could use some nostalgia.”
“I hate nostalgia.”
“It’ll get you out of the house.”
“I get out plenty.” If he counts supervising after-school detention. He takes a gulp of his wine and hopes he doesn’t need to elaborate.
“Work things don’t count as ‘getting out’ things.”
While he could easily argue how working 60 hours per week doesn’t exactly leave him a lot of spare time, the point is moot and his brother is a shitbag. “Did you call me just to rag on me about my social life?”
“More like a lack thereof.” He hears a barely audible sniff of amusement from over the line and suddenly remembers why he never calls his brother.
“Alright, I gotta go. Talk to you later.” He almost gets to the end call button in time, but his brother is quicker.
“Sasuke.”
“What.”
“I already booked you a flight and told Iruka and Kakashi you’ll be there.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?” Sasuke flops backward and presses an irritated hand over his eyes, leaning his head back on the couch cushion. He rubs at the headache starting in his temples. He looks mournfully at the newly open bottle of wine. He’d hoped it would last a few days, but it looks like it might not make it through tonight.
“Because you need to be there,” Itachi stated. “And I haven’t seen you in years. You’ve become a recluse.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been too busy with my career to come ride golf carts and go crab hunting with you.”
“You’re a teacher. You have off the entire summer.”
“Yes, I’m a teacher. I have so much spare time and expendable income to blow. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have about 80 assignments to grade tonight before I take my private jet to Thailand for my private spa day tomorrow.”
“I’ve offered to pay for your plane tickets. I’m also aware of exactly how much money you receive from your trust payments every month. You’re not hurting for cash, Uchiha.”
“It’s a hassle. Why can’t you come here instead? The road goes both ways, Uchiha.”
“I don’t have 3 months off during the summers to spend in your cubbyhole of an apartment. Need I remind you, the last 2 times we’ve seen each other was when I did fly out to see you?”
“For business trips,” Sasuke grumbles. “What do you want from me, Itachi?”
“School is out in a few weeks. Pack up yourself and my nephew and stay here for the summer. It’ll be good for you.”
“Manda hates traveling,” Sasuke counters. The cat pops up onto the couch next to him and starts demanding pets as if summoned.
“Ask your vet for some medications so he’ll be calm on the plane ride.”
Sasuke pauses, narrowing his eyes at Manda as if he were staring at his brother’s infuriating face instead. “Did you look that up before you called me?”
“Whatever excuse you come up with next, I assure you I can counter it. Now start ordering some swim suits online and get yourself a bigger suitcase.”
Without a gap for rebuttal, the calls ends. Sasuke sits for a while, not even bothering to swat at Manda’s paws as he makes biscuits on his thigh and pokes holes in his slacks.
Sasuke does not have a problem with his hometown. In fact, he had loved it enough to return there to teach right after he finished university and secured his teaching certifications. He doesn’t have a problem with his family’s old home or the quaint beachside neighborhood where he spent more than half his childhood and knew all his neighbors like distant kin. And he doesn’t even necessarily have a problem with his brother, as pushy and excruciating as Itachi can be. It’s not the school district there, either, because he hasn’t found a better work environment since leaving his job at Hidden Leaf High School.
No, none of that was the problem. Or even contributed to the problem, really. He wasn’t entirely sure if his problem was still there or had moved on to bigger things in life by now. He has avoided his problem at any and all costs for the last 7 years since he up and left his entire life. He doesn’t keep contact with any of his former coworkers or students. He doesn’t have any social media except an outdated professional networking profile he doesn’t keep up with. He hasn’t stepped foot on Konoha Island since he loaded up his Honda Accord with all the belongings he could fit and drove 17 hours to take the first teaching job he could get.
His reluctance to attend the wedding of two close friends he easily considers family is because he can be one-hundred percent certain his problem will make an appearance.
*
[then]
Two weeks into his first year of high school, the principal and guidance counselor had interrupted class to make an announcement. With grave looks on their faces, they had stood at the front of his AP biology class to tell everyone that one of the teachers from the school district had died in an accident.
“Mr. Namikaze and his wife were both in a very bad accident this morning on their way to school,” the principal had said, shifting his eyes over to cue the counselor.
The counselor had explained much more, but the only words he could recall after that were something to the effect of: “Unfortunately, they didn’t survive.”
As he walks home from school, several meters behind a group of his classmates, they all hang their heads and shuffle along silently. A few say their goodbyes as they turn off into their neighborhoods, but Sasuke has the longest walk back home.
When he makes it to his street, he sees several cars and people out front in his neighbor’s yard. His brother, Itachi, is standing near the divide between Iruka’s yard and theirs. He parts ways as soon as he sees Sasuke to meet him on the sidewalk.
“What’s going on?” Sasuke asks as soon as his brother is in earshot.
“Someone is coming to live with Mr. Umino next door,” Itachi says, taking Sasuke by the forearm and gently guiding him toward their front door.
“Who’s that?” Sasuke asks, resisting his brother’s pull as he cranes to look at a woman with a badge talking to his neighbor on the front porch.
“She’s a caseworker,” is all Itachi says.
“Not her,” Sasuke says, shucking off his brother’s insistent hand from his arm. “Him.”
He points in the caseworker’s direction, but his attention is on the tiny person holding her hand at her side. The boy looks no older than 7, all messy blonde hair and a too-large backpack on his shoulders. In his other hand, the tail of a well-loved stuffed fox toy sweeps the ground. He can hear bits and pieces of the information as she converses with Mr. Umino. Placement - return to school - therapy . He lingers at his front door step as Itachi gives up ushering him inside and lets him watch the scene unfold.
“Who is he?” Sasuke asks again.
“His name is Naruto,” Itachi finally answers.
For some reason, the name rings a bell in his distant memory. He somehow pieces all the information together, and by the time Itachi explains further, he already understands what’s happening.
“Something happened to his parents, so Mr. Umino is going to take care of him for a while.”
“Is that Mr. Namikaze’s son?” he asks, staring as the caseworker gives the boy a few pats on his unruly hair.
“Yes,” Itachi answers before they head inside.
*
“He’s making a run for it again!”
The shout comes from down the street as Sasuke walks the length of road on his way home after soccer practice. He’s sweaty from the early summer heat, backpack full of textbooks and his equipment bag heavy on his shoulders. He spots a bright orange and yellow blur booking it down the road straight toward him. He drops everything he’s carrying and takes a wide, defensive stance to block the sidewalk.
“Naruto!” he and Iruka both scream, voices overlapping over the sound of the boy’s raucous laughter.
“No - not the street - ” Sasuke shouts as Naruto swerves and takes off across the street, speeding up even faster now that he’s caught sight of Sasuke.
Sasuke turns heel and takes off to intercept him, quickly gaining. Naruto screams and runs as fast as his short legs can take him.
“Stop, Naruto!” Iruka shouts from behind them. “Narutooo!!”
“You little shit,” Sasuke hisses as he closes the distance between them, hoping the look on his face might be enough to scare Naruto into stopping. It doesn’t work. It never does.
Naruto makes a sharp turn onto the greenbelt right at the end of their block, beelining it toward the park. It only throws Sasuke off for a few moments before he’s catching up again, arm outstretched to make a grab.
Sasuke launches with his full weight and tackles Naruto, taking them both down to the ground to roll around in the grass. Naruto kicks and screams, knocking Sasuke in the nose with an elbow and nearly breaking a few teeth as he headbutts Sasuke’s chin with his thick skull.
“Naruto - Naruto!” he shouts, wrenching his arms around the squirming little kid until he finally simmers down and stops fighting. “Why are you running away again?”
“Leave me alone, Sasuke, you bastard!” Naruto shrieks. Sasuke braces for him to start fighting again, but Naruto slumps down on his chest instead.
“You’re not allowed to say bad words,” Sasuke chides as Naruto shoves away to sit on the grass next to him. He keeps a firm grip on Naruto’s ankle just in case he gets any bright ideas.
“Oh, thank god. Thank you, Sasuke,” Iruka huffs as he catches up to them. His words override whatever Naruto grumbles, although it definitely sounds like he called Sasuke a bastard again. “Naruto, what were you thinking? You could have been hit by a car!”
“Or kidnapped by a serial killer,” Sasuke adds with a looming, dark look at Naruto.
“Shut up,” Naruto snaps and kicks at Sasuke’s hand. “I don’t want to live here anymore. I want to go home.”
Iruka sighs and comes up beside them to sit cross-legged on the grass. He looks at Naruto for a while, observing the boy’s pout on his lips and the way his grubby fingers pluck at blades of grass. He tries to meet Naruto’s eyes, but the boy won’t raise his chin to look at either of them. “Naruto, I’m so sorry. You live here now. This is your home.”
“I hate it here. I want to go home.”
“Why do you hate it here so much?” Sasuke asks when Iruka falters. “It’s not even that bad. You have a cool room and a racecar bed and you even got to paint the walls orange. What’s not to like?”
Suddenly, Naruto is staring at Sasuke with huge blue eyes and a deepening frown. His tiny face crumples as tears spill and he whines. “I want my mom ,” he cries, but it’s muffled against Sasuke’s shoulder as he’s already scooped the boy up to hold him.
“I’m sorry,” Iruka keeps saying with a thick voice and tears in his own eyes.
This is not the first time this has happened, and certainly wouldn’t be the last. Sasuke has grown accustomed to helping Iruka apprehend his new neighbor. He’s starting to learn Naruto’s patterns and escape routes. The boy has only been here for about six months and only knows how to get to the small park a few blocks away. Sasuke has found him there on the swingset a few times, kicking dirt to cover the teardrops under his feet.
“Why don’t we go home and we can have some ice cream?” Iruka bargains. “You don’t have to eat what I cooked. We can make you some ramen. How does that sound?”
Naruto wails a long, drawn out no and buries himself into Sasuke.
With a sigh, Sasuke gives Naruto a squeeze. “Do you want to come hang out with me and play Mario Kart?”
Naruto sniffles but lifts his chin slightly with some hope. He nods. “Y-yeah.” He turns his watery eyes onto Iruka. “Can I go?”
Iruka looks between the two boys and then nods. “You can go. But you have to be a big boy and behave yourself.”
“I will,” Naruto says, a near whisper.
“Alright. I’ll see you back home.”
After Iruka leaves, Sasuke sets Naruto down but stays next to him.
“You have to stop running,” Sasuke says, looking Naruto squarely in the eyes.
Naruto rattles his head up and down, frowning like he’s worried Sasuke won’t believe him.
“Promise me.” Sasuke presents his hand, two fingers held out.
Naruto loops his same two tiny fingers around Sasuke’s. “I promise.”
It’s the last time Naruto tries to run.