Bruises & Bitemarks (SasuNaru)

30.

I meet Sasuke at the door of the cafeteria.

"It's too cold to wait outside," he explains as we head out for a walk. "What did Kiba want to talk to you about?"

I don't answer his question directly. Instead I ask him one. "You talked with Kiba, the day you came back from the hospital, right?"

Sasuke notices the way I edged around his question, but he humours me. "Yes."

"Does he love me?"

He doesn't seem taken aback at my abruptness, but he certainly didn't anticipate my words, and he considers for a moment.

"Yes."

Before I can get over my surprise, he continues, "Not in the way I love you."

Somehow that calms me. I gaze out to the grounds. I can make out a bridge ahead, crossing over the river, still running despite the cold.

"Kiba loves you like a brother," Sasuke says. "Older or younger, I don't know. Maybe like a twin. You two are very similar. You look out for each other. You've shared every moment since you met. No," he goes on, "I think he sees himself as the older brother. You – Naruto, when you met him, you were the one who needed support. And he supported you, and now you've come to show that you no longer need that support. You have someone else for you – a partner. It's time for your brother to step back."

We've come to the river. I stop walking and lean on the side of the bridge, staring into the clear, crisp water.

"I don't want to lose my brother," I say. Because every word of Sasuke's explanation is true. I never knew, because I didn't know what it was like to have a brother. Now I do, and it's like I don't have one anymore.

"Then go back to him," says Sasuke.

"And forget you?"

He shakes his head. "I'll be waiting." With a smile, he takes my hand. "Remember, we still live in the same room."

I return a small smile of my own. "True."

We stand in silence for a moment, then Sasuke lets go of my hand. "I'm going to the bathroom before classes start."

"I think I'll stay here a while," I say, and watch him go. As he makes his way down the path, I notice two guys coming the opposite way, running. They spot Sasuke and duck their heads as they pass him. He turns to watch them hurry away, then casts this aside and continues walking.

I watch, expecting the two to pass me, but instead they stop in front of me, panting. I don't recognize them, but they look like first years. As soon as he regains enough breath to speak, the taller one, with straight brown hair to his shoulders and a hard determination in his pale grey eyes, slams his fist down on the handrail of the bridge.

"Naruto-sempai!"

His words startle me. Sempai? I mean, yeah, if they're first years, that makes me their senior by a year, but no one's ever called me sempai before.

"Uh... who are you?" I ask.

The one who spoke looks as though he thinks his own business is more important than answering my question, but the other steps up next to him. He looks a little quieter, despite the brightly dyed coppery bangs brushing his forehead and the short, spiky black fuzz on the rest of his head. His black eyes are obscured behind the reflection of his glasses. I notice him put his hand out ever so slightly, and the other boy takes it as though he knows this routine, and at that moment I have an inkling of what they're here for.

"I'm Morimoto Takeda," he says, "and this is my... boyfriend, Takahashi Hiro."

I don't miss the way he hesitates at the word "boyfriend." And I know why. We have a lot in common, these two and me and Sasuke.