Sasuke had to think hard about this. He did need another person on his team. Traditionally a starting ninja team had four people. Three Genin and their Jonin teacher. Right now, Sasuke's team consists of two Genin and one Jonin. His team could use another person, but he wasn't a people person. It wasn't that he was shy or anything close to that. He just sucks at starting conversations. When he tried, the conversation never lasted long. Sasuke was yet another socially awkward person.
Kurama wasn't a fan of how slowly the friendship process was going. He felt that both would be adults before they became friends. Then again, there was no saying that Naruto was actually going to stay in the village long enough to become an adult. He had to find a way to speed up the process. For example,
"Nukami, I have to leave the village for a while. I'm afraid that you won't be able to take care of yourself, so I asked Sasuke to stay at the house to look after you."
Surprisingly, Sasuke wasn't against this idea. It was the first time he was hearing of it, but he wasn't against it. Honestly, he didn't care. Nukami on the other hand. He hated the idea. Having someone in his house besides the people who reside there. It's an intrusion of personal space.
"Kurama-nii, there's no need to bother Sasuke. I can take care of myself."
Kurama just patted the kid's head, completely ignoring him.
"Sasuke, you wouldn't mind looking after him for a few days?"
Sasuke responded with a shake of the head, and Kurama smiled. They hadn't talked about this before, but the other was totally on board.
"Make sure to be kind to Sasuke while he stays at the house, okay?"
Nukami turned his head away without giving an answer, but was screaming at Kurama through their mind connection. However, Kurama ignored him too.
"And so, I've come to visit."
A man sighed, "So you're, as you put it, encouraging a relationship between him and Sasuke?"
Kurama nodded his head satisfied, "Exactly."
The man sighed again, "I know that you want the best for him, but forcing isn't going to help anything. Plus, both are...different..."
...he wasn't wrong. Those children were different from others.
Currently, things weren't going as smoothly as Kurama hoped they would. Nukami had covered his head with a blanket he found stashed in his bedroom. He had pulled the blanket over his body and wasn't moving. Sasuke had tried talking to him a few times, but he only got ignored. Sasuke didn't want to know how to start a conversation, but he did know how to lure out an animal. Of course, Nukami wasn't an animal. Well, technically speaking...humans were considered human...That's not the point! The point was that Sasuke had a plan to lure Nukami out of the blanket.
Sasuke's plan required the use of a kitchen. That's right! He was planning to cook something and place it right next to the blanket. He was going to lure him out of the blanket with food. The good aroma of food. After all, one can't stay cooped under a blanket with no nutrients. One might think that a 12 year old kid wouldn't be able to make good dishes, but that was wrong. This kid had lived on his own for six years, and he ate more than instant foods. He went to the grocery store, and made his own food. Today was the day to show off his skills.
First, Sasuke had to go through the fridge. Surprisingly, there was a lot in there. There was enough to make any dish in his arsenal. There was also a note on the side of the fridge.
'A meat dish is the best choice.'
It seemed that Kurama had expected such a situation and stocked the fridge before leaving. He also saved time from choosing what dish to make. He wanted something that had a light aroma that made one's mouth water, and he had the perfect dish in mind. However, before he did anything else, Sasuke had to navigate his way through the kitchen. He had to find where everything in the kitchen was.
Under the blanket, Naruto could hear every sound. He knew every movement Sasuke was making. Steps to the kitchen, opening the fridge, looking around the kitchen, the movement of pots. Naruto didn't take long to figure out that the other kid was planning to cook food.
Twenty minutes. That was how long it took for a pleasant smell to hit Naruto's nose. It wasn't overly strong that it made him noxious. It was light and pleasant. It made his stomach growl for a taste of what was being cooked. However, his mind was thinking something else. This may be his residence but there was someone other than Kurama cooking. There was no chance that someone would give him something beneficial to him. The only thing people gave him caused his suffering.
Another ten minutes, and the sound of something hitting the floor next to him entered Naruto's ears. He still didn't move. The nice scent had gotten closer, but he believed that it was only because Sasuke was going to eat the food in front of him. There was no way Sasuke made two servings.
"Nukami, time to eat."
No, it was only time for Sasuke to eat and for him to starve. It's happened multiple times. Someone would purposely eat nice smelling food in front of him while they knew he was starved. If Kurama was there, then he wouldn't be hesitant about poking his head out of the blanket, but he wasn't. There was only a small thread connecting the two.
Sasuke felt this situation as a mother trying to lure out her child from their room with good food. It reminded him of his own mother because she would do the same thing. When he would coop himself up in his room to practice and not come out, she would start cooking tomato dishes—Sasuke's favorite food. Without fail, the child would leave his room to eat the dish his mother made.
Those times are long gone.
With his mother dead, such a thing will never happen again.
"Your food will get cold if you don't come out."
Sasuke saw a little movement under the blanket. It only took a few moments for him to spot Nukami's blonde hair sticking out from the blanket. His hair then his bright sapphire eyes.
Right now, the blonde was acting like a scared animal. Looking over the food for anything dangerous or suspicious. To ease his suspicion, Sasuke took his own utensils and ate the dish he made for himself. He did that to show that nothing was poisonous.
Why am I doing this?
Seeing as Sasuke took a bite of his own food and not the one he laid on the floor, Nukami confirmed that this wasn't like the previous situations. The food in front of him was for him to eat and not for someone else to eat in front of him. Nukami sat up with the blanket over his shoulders. He picked up the plate of food in one hand and chopsticks in the left.
At first, there was no emotion on his face, but as soon as he took a bite you could see his eyes light up. His eating pace sped up, and the dish was gone in an instant. Sasuke was only half way done with his food, when Nukami looked up at him with sparkling eyes. Sasuke just ignored his stares and continued to eat his food. After every bite Sasuke took, the shine in Nukami's eyes slowly faded while he slowly resided back into the blanket.
"Manners."
Manners? Nukami heard of those. Kurama and the Hokage had mentioned those to him, but never explained what they were. Sometimes, it was infuriating when someone said that to him. It was like they all expected him to know what that was. There might have been someone looking after him, but it wasn't like Kurama taught him every little thing. Plus, Kurama wasn't exactly human so he lacked human knowledge himself. If Sasuke wanted whatever manners were, Nukami was only going back into his blanket, irritated. When seeing this, Sasuke picked up the plate left on the floor and decided that it was time to clean up.
Night had fallen, and Nukami didn't show a piece of his name or his face. He just stuffed himself back under the blanket. Sasuke occasionally looked and spoke words to make sure he was okay, but other than that, he didn't do anything else regarding him. There was no TV to watch and there was a room lined with bookshelves filled to the brim with books. Sasuke had even taken a few off the shelves to read, and they were interesting. Almost all of the books were advanced jutsu and looked like they'd barely been touched. It was like heaven for any ninja. Books on jutsu from every kind. Sasuke couldn't look away from the many bookshelves. He was in awe at every single one of them.
Nukami stayed under his blanket trying to contact Kurama. However, Kurama cut their communication line. His mental messages weren't getting through, so he really didn't have anyone he felt comfortable talking to. Right now, under his blanket, the blonde kid felt lonely. Without Kurama, there was no one truly on his side. In times like this, Nukami truly appreciated his relationship with Kurama.
When thinking about Kurama, Nukami couldn't stay cooped up in his blanket. He had to breathe air. He needed a glass of water. He got up from under his blanket and walked to the kitchen. He may have lived in the apartment, but the kid rarely went into the kitchen. In that house, the kitchen was the older foxes territory while the bedroom was the younger's. The other rarely stepped into each other's space. If Kurama had control over the bedroom area, the walls wouldn't be lined with bookshelf after bookshelf. Which is why the first worlds that came out of his mouth when entering the kitchen was,
"Kurama, where are the...cups...again?"
As soon as half of the sentence came out of his mouth, he remembered that Kurama was no longer in the house. He had decided to go on a trip and cut off all communication.
"Is everything alright?"
It seemed that Nukami had made enough sound for Sasuke to crawl out from whereever in the apartment he was in.
"I'm fine."
Sasuke didn't leave it at that. He continued to ask multiple times if he was really alright.
"Are you sure-"
"Shut up and leave me alone!"
Immediately afterwards, Nukami covered his mouth. He covered his mouth with his hand and turned his head. Not only that, he had slowly started cowering in the corner of the kitchen. Sasuke might have never been in such situations, but Sasuke knew how this reaction came to be. This was the reaction of someone who was a street rat, hated by everyone.
Sasuke, himself, didn't know how this happened, but he slowly wrapped his arms around the cowering figure. He wrapped his arms around him, and comforted him.
For Nukami, this was unfamiliar. Not completely, but unfamiliar. No one else had shown him such affection except Kurama. He didn't know how to respond when someone else...hugged him. It was unnatural. It was weird. It was different. Different, but not hated.
Sasuke felt a pair of arms wrapped around his back and a head drop into his shoulders. Slowly, he felt his shoulder starting to get damp as tears left the other's eyes.
"I miss Kurama..."
That's when something dawned on Sasuke. Nukami was grown, mature, and moody, but when Kurama left him alone, he was nothing but a scared child. A child that trusted only trusted the one that raised him. You could say that he was a bird that never wanted to leave the nest, but was kicked out by the parent bird. Right now, Nukami was in the being kicked out faze of the idiom.
"Kurama's...Kurama is...the only one left...by my side..."
Nukami clutched onto the back of Sasuke's clothes, "He's the only one who hasn't...left me..."
Sasuke didn't say anything to the words coming out of the other's mouth. The only thing he did was start petting the back of his head to comfort him. Sasuke knew no other way to comfort a crying person.
"I'm scared..."
"Hey, you can't be stuck under a blanket forever."
Day three of Sasuke having to watch Nukami, and he was finally making an approach besides food. He decided to just convince him to come out from under the blanket. The little crying incident they had the night before, didn't really bring them together. It did, but Nukami wanted to act as if nothing had happened. He wanted to act as if he hadn't shown a moment of weakness.
"I know that you're not particularly comfortable with me being in your space, and you probably want me to get out, but I don't want to."
Sasuke took a deep breath, so he could prepare for what he was about to do.
"Nukami, I...I want to be your friend."
Oh, now that was some bullshit! No way that Sasuke, THE Sasuke Uchiha, wanted to be friends with Nukami. There was just no possibility. He was bullshitting himself.
He probably only said that to get me on his team...
Exactly, so there was no fucking way Sasuke didn't have an ulterior motive when saying those words. There was just no way he wanted to just be casual friends because that was just the type of person he is.
"...leave me alone."
"Want to take a walk after breakfast?"
"No."
"Are you hungry?"
"Sure."
"You've been inside all day. Let's go to the lake."
"...no."
"Wake me up if you need anything. Good night."
"Night."
The two of them communicated regularly, but Nukami stayed under the blanket. At one point, Sasuke had the mind to wonder if Nukami ever showered or washed the blanket. That thought was quickly shaken from his head, when he remembered that he wasn't in the apartment all the time. Sasuke was a ninja after all. He couldn't spend all day looking after a kid under a blanket. His team did still have missions to go on.
There was one day when Sasuke had got back to the apartment when Nukami was having a one sided argument with the washing machine.
"What do you mean there are different modes? Why are you so damn complicated!?"
Thank god, Sasuke came in at the exact moment or Nukami was about to destroy the washer.
"Fine, since you don't want to be corporate, I'll just kill you and get a more corporate washing machine."
So, out of anger, he infused his fists with chakra and was about to hit the machine. Sasuke stopped him in his tracks by grabbing Nukami's waist and pulling him back.
"I'll do it. Just sit at the table and wait for dinner."
"...fine."
Nukami sat at the dining table watching Sasuke do all of the house chores. In terms of stuff like this, Sasuke really reminded him of Kurama.
...friends huh?
Maybe Sasuke wasn't really the type to make friends because he needed something from them. Of course, it was just a suspicion. Nothing concrete.
After finishing the laundry, Sasuke decided to start on dinner. He put an apron on, and looked at Nukami who was leisurely reading a book.
"What do you want for dinner?"
Nukami flipped page after page, just skimming the words.
"Meat."
Sasuke whispered under his breath on how vague his response was. He didn't openly complain. He just continued on to make dinner.
"Dinner is served."
Sasuke placed a plate of food in front of Nukami, and he just started eating. Sasuke stared at him, "You really don't use your manners."
Nukami's brows furrowed, Again with his manners thing?
Right now, he was slowly starting to hate that word 'manners.' He hated how they all expected him to know what that was. How was he supposed to know what those were when no one ever taught him what the hell they were. Obviously, he had looked through books trying to find out what that word meant, but the most he came up with was something like "polite social behavior." What the hell was he supposed to get from that?
"...everyone acts like I know what that is..."
"You don't know what manners are?"
Nukami looked away. He thought he had said those words in his head. In truth, he actually whispered those words. Whispered, but just loud enough that it reached Sasuke's ears.
"Your brother never taught you manners?"
Again, Kurama didn't take any parenting lessons or have anyone to get advice from, so he didn't teach the kid everything.
"No, he didn't."
This was amazingly, surprisingly unbelievable. How could one not know what manners are? Isn't that basic social understanding?
"So you know nothing about manners?"
Nukami stopped eating and put the chopsticks down.
"Manners this and manners that. Everyone expects me to know what those things are!"
Looks like Sasuke had hit a button. A button they shouldn't be pushed when only being acquainted for a few weeks. Sasuke didn't know how to calm him down, but he wanted to try. Well, he felt that he should before the whole apartment complex collapsed.
"I'll teach you. I'll teach you about manners and everything else you haven't learned yet."
Nukami looked at him with surprise. Teach him? No one has ever offered that. If he wanted to learn something, he would pick up a book, or experience it himself. There was no such thing as a teacher in his life. Still, this was the first time someone offered to be his teacher.
"Okay then."
From then on, Nukami kept his blanket around, but he wasn't always in contact with it at all times like before. It would just be laying around the house while he took a walk outside, reading a book, being taught, watching as chores were being done, or just laying around. He no longer felt the need to hide under a piece of cloth. There were times where he even got scolded for laying around too much.
Sasuke and Nukami were laying at the side of the lake. Both were leisurely laying on the grass as they watched the sky grow dark. Sasuke had always had questions when coming to the Namikaze household. For one thing, the brother's didn't look anything alike. There was also the fact that beauties such as themselves weren't even known in the village.
"It's probably rude for me to ask, but what happened to your parents?"
This wasn't a sensitive question for Nukami to answer. After all, he didn't personally know them. Everything he knew about them came from the stories Kurama told him.
"I was just a new born baby, but Kurama-nii told me that my parents were ninjas. They were deployed to protect the village from the nine tailed fox. Actually, they were the reason this village is still standing. Unfortunately, while subduing the fox both of them were killed. It was after that, that I met Kurama-nii."
It was just as Sasuke thought. The two weren't actually related. They acted like siblings, but they had no blood relations to each other. They treated each other, and were attached to, and cared for each other like true siblings. It was remarkable.
"Kurama-nii took care of me, raised me, and did everything to fill the role of parent. He changed his last name so people wouldn't make fun of me for being all alone. Kurama-nii saved me."
Sasuke, now, truly understood the relationship between the two. They had a strong bond. Nukami looked at Kurama as a savior, a brother, and a parent. Kurama looked to Nukami as his child and his brother. They both used each other to fill the void of family in their hearts.
"You must feel uneasy when he's not with you."
Nukami shifted around in the grass, "Yeah...But you're here so it's not so bad."
Sasuke turned his head to see Nukami's face. The unfazed look as he stared at the dawning sky and said those words.
Those words showed that Nukami was opening up to other people. He was starting to understand that not all people were bad. There were some that were bad, but there were some that were a tad better. If put in the right circumstance, maybe he could make friends with other people. Sasuke was in the tad better category of people. If Sasuke was the one to introduce him to other people—to show him that there were other good people to make friends with—and show him different, fun, experiences. Nukami might actually accept the fact that he could have a fun childhood surrounded by friends like everyone else.
"Nukami, how about you join me on the ninja path?"
"You just want to fill that empty spot on your team."
Sasuke sat up and looked at the lake, now a pool reflecting the starry sky.
"That is true, but I could ask anyone to fill that spot. I want you. I want us to experience the journey together—to get stronger together. Plus, there are many other beautiful places than this lake."
Nukami sat up as well. He saw the beauty of the mirroring star lake.
"What can hold more beauty than this tranquil lake that reflects the sky?"
This time Sasuke stood up and walked in front of Nukami, covering the lake. He put a hand out to the blonde, "How about we travel and find those places ourselves? I'm sure it'll be fun."
Nukami looked away, but still took Sasuke's hand.
"Since we're friends...I guess it wouldn't be so bad..."
He quickly looked at Sasuke again to confirm something.
"I'll go only if you have to make me food. All three meals. Everyday."
A small smile graced Sasuke's face and a little chuckle came from his stomach.
"Sure, but you'll have to learn how to do some chores."