Uchiha's Slave [SasuNaru]

Ch.12 Light within Darkness

[Sasuke's POV]

We all sat on the floor in a circle, a random assortment of pictures and trinkets scattered between us all, the order went clockwise, starting with me, Shikamaru directly on my left, then Neji, Gaara, Kiba and Naruto on my right. Kiba has his arm slung over Naruto's shoulder as he explained who the other people in the pictures are and said blonde seeming as if he wasn't actually here, so to speak. I mean like... he's here but his mind is off some place else, some place that none of us will ever be able to reach.

And the thought of that angers me somewhat.

It must be so painful for him, being surrounded by unfamiliar faces who were actually his closest friends in the world. The look on his face when I let him see the box with proof of our past together almost broke me. I always hated seeing him upset and cry but this.... this was so much worse.... because now, I have no idea how to console him.

The kid I once knew was always such an idiot, a crybaby, a goofball, a prankster, an actor, a fighter, an idealist, an optimist and always.... always, so damn innocent.

Now that I think about it, I can remember every moment of my life that I've spent with him - Fact is, there isn't a single childhood memory that didn't include him in some way.

It nearly crushed me when he suddenly moved away like that, none of us were expecting it, not even his own parents. Then everyone saw on the news.... that the Namikaze family was found brutally murdered, course, I didn't hear this on the t.v. I remember, my parents and Itachi had sat me down and told me about it.

That day was probably the saddest as far as I knew, he was my best friend in the whole world, the first, the closest.... and something more.... with him around, it almost felt like I had a second brother. Someone my age who I could pick on just as easily as Itachi has always done to me, someone I could share things with, argue with and just simply be myself with.

I'm not sure when it started but even that feeling of brotherly affection shifted into something more, something deeper than we could of ever imagined, what we were too young to comprehend at the time.... Love. Real Love. Nothing parental or brotherly about it at all.

I remember the looks on my parents faces, Father tried to hold strong but I knew he was upset, Mother was silently crying with her eyes closed and unable to actually look any of us in the eye.... and Itachi..... he just looked angry. That day, there was such unspoken rage in his eyes, his fists were clenched at his sides and he trembled if only slightly - I don't know what sort of thoughts were running through his mind at the time but he suddenly took off the next day and didn't return for two straight weeks, he was completely MIA. Then when he came back, he somehow seemed colder than he usually was and it scared me.

During those weeks of his absence, I was so upset and so hurt that I did everything in my power to forget about the blonde, blocking out my thoughts of him and suppressing my emotions. In my moment of weakness, I stuffed everything that reminded me about him into that damned box, shoved it into some corner of my room and then left it there until I forgot about it.

Now that I know he's actually alive, I feel horrible. Even if I was depressed, sad and angry, I shouldn't of done that, I shouldn't of tried to forget about him. Not ever. If I'm not careful, I think that this guilt is going to eat me alive... but then I think about it rationally, like any good Uchiha would, how can anyone be expected to grieve over the loss of a loved one without a single shred of emotion? Its impossible isn't it? It creeps up on you and then takes over. I let my emotions rule me back then and sometimes I still do.

I'm sure that if Naruto still had his memories, and I explained all this to him, he'd tell me something like: 'You idiot. Its okay to be sad when you loose someone you love. Its normal. Besides, its not like you're alone right? You've still got me, we can figure this all out together.'