Chapter Text
Ever since Obito's a kid he's aware that maybe, just maybe, there's something wrong with him.
Often, Obito catches himself being… disconnected and removed from the world, like he's just- there. Watching things play out like he's not the one in his own body, like somebody else is taking control while he just... floats around in the haze.
So weird and surreal Obito can't explain it, struggling to find the right words when asked.
It's an annoying feeling niggling in the back of his mind always warning him that something isn't right, but what's wrong exactly?
Obito doesn't know. He tries asking, kids often call him names and make fun of him and they get confused too so Obito goes straight to the adults.
They're way scarier, but they're mostly nicer than kids. At least they don't talk bad about him directly to his face.
Most brush him off, while some tell him nothing's wrong, he's overthinking it, that it's all in his imagination and he'll grow out of it soon enough-
And you should stop bothering people Obito. They don't have time for you and they don't like you.
Obito learns to stop asking when people get super annoyed by his questions. He learns to keep it to himself, to go look for answers himself than ask for help.
It's fine. It's okay.
Obito's parents left him one day. He's barely five as he stands in front of their funerals. Their faces are blurry in his head, but startlingly clear in white and black pictures.
Grandma’s receiving guests. Obito watches as she exchanges condolences and pleasantries. Both of them are dressed in plain black kimonos.
Mourning clothes, she told him.
Grandma didn't mince her words when she broke the news last night, telling him that he won't be seeing Mother and Father ever again, because they're never coming back Obito. They're dead.
She tells him it's going to be just the two of them from now on.
Should he be crying?
Memories of his parents are hazy at most, there's nothing for him to cry about.
So he stares. Stares at everyone.
He doesn't know any of these people.
But they're family. Distantly related as they all are, they are part of the clan. Part of the family.
Family. Obito doesn't know why the word bothers him so much. Family. He hates it, despises it, fears it and so much more.
Family. The word echoes. Don't you love your family?
Obito can't remember who asked him that, but he can't imagine he'd give them a positive answer. Because love? What is love? How do you define love? How does it feel to love?
What does family even mean?
What makes a family?
Obito doesn't understand. He’d go around asking people and among all the answers he’d get there’s not one he can really resonate with.
It frustrates him so bad-
Don't you love your family? Love feels just like that.
Obito wanted to yell back that he doesn't get it!
The voices aren't always like this.
Sometimes, it can be useful. Obito can be standing in the kitchen at night hungry but unwilling to disturb Grandma, and his head would be flooded with instructions on how to put together the easiest meal imaginable with what's left in the fridge.
Other times, it’s a huge bother. Setting him apart from other kids because of his ‘weirdness’ and disturbing adults by questioning their way of thinking.
This time is one of those.
The innocent voice whispering "don’t you love your family?" over and over again. It's asked in a soft, innocent voice as if the answer is supposed to be obvious.
As if it's simple and easy to understand.
As if they can't comprehend why he'd even need to ask about it in the first place.
It's infuriating, that's what it was.
Obito kneels in front of his parents' unsmiling pictures, legs numb and tingling. There's flowers everywhere, white chrysanthemums they're called.
Obito doesn't like flowers. They're beautiful, but they wither too easily no matter how good you take care of them.
They smell like earwax too. Why would anyone like that?
He gets up and leaves. Somewhere quiet. He needs somewhere alone. Quiet. Away from people.
No one bothers him. Grandma is busy. No one cares. He breathes a little easy.
Still, whispers follow where he hides away, huddled behind huge hashirama trees. They don't see him, they don't care if they did. Their voices unabashed and uncaring.
Obito hides away from everything. He picks up on their conversations about 'family disgrace and curses' but willfully ignores it.
Your family loves you, of course they do.
Don't you love your family?
‘I don't know.’ Is all Obito can repeat to the voice of a girl asking him. She could've been a friend, a cousin, a stranger for all he knew, but the question kept creeping up so many times the voice became morbidly distorted.
The tone remains. Innocent, bewildered, stated with conviction, asked with the assumption that the answer can't possibly be anything other than a resounding ‘yes’.
It feels mocking. He feels alienated. Humiliated. Frustrated that he just doesn't get it.
Obito keeps his face blank. Too numb and tired to feel anything more than mildly annoyed.
He doesn't like his so-called 'family'. These people have never been in his life before.
They have no right to come up to him lamenting how much he'd grown compared to when they last saw him.
They have no right to be acting so familiar with him.
He doesn't know them. They're not family.
The clan is family, they say, but is it really?
Can these people who Obito never even met before in his life be considered family? Can these people who jeer at his dead parents be considered family? These people who look at Grandma and him like they're inferior?
‘Hah.’ Obito scoffs, don’t make him laugh. Disdain is all he has in his tiny soul.
His feelings don't matter however. The funeral carries on and the people are still there. No matter how much Obito wants to scream and curl up in a corner away from everyone, he’s still here. Still attending a funeral of two familial strangers among dozens of unfamiliar faces coming up to him and telling him they’re so sorry for his loss.
Obito would take the empty condolences with a plastic smile and an even emptier ‘thank you’ wondering when can all of them stop pretending to care.
These people, these so-called ‘family’ weren’t here for him. They’re here for her, for Grandma and for his parents. Not Obito. Obito just happens to be related to them.
Obito watches distantly as Grandma gives her eulogy, idly fiddling his black kimono to keep the tingling nerves at bay.
Grandma ends her sentence with a toast to the crowd, eyes glazed over yet firm and graceful as she downs the shot in one go.
The crowd follows suit. Then the fire dance commences. It's a tradition to learn upon being of age, as celebration for reaching adulthood but what most outsiders don't know is that it's also a way to send off the dead.
The dance is a symbol, signifying the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. Powerful, is a way to describe it.
Obito doesn't understand it. He doesn't get the feverish reverence and respect the Uchiha hold for it.
Obito has very little beliefs in traditions and symbolisms. He looks at everything with nothing in his heart, all this ceremonial stuff will probably be gone from his mind after a few days.
He grew up never believing in any sort of deities or mystical legends. Anything can be explained with science and factual reasoning.
Still he stands there among the kids that were forced to come with their parents. Obito stands there and says nothing as the kids whisper and complain about having to stand next to a freak like him.
‘I’m tired.’ Obito stares blankly as they lower white cloth covering two dead bodies down on the wooden pyre. ‘When can we go home?’
“Obito!” He snaps his head in her direction. Grandma signals him over with a wave of her hand. “Get over here boy!”
Finally, Obito dislodges himself from the gathering of kids that clearly don't like him to join her at the front.
As one of the deceased's next of kin, Obito gets front row seat to the cremation process.
As the only son, he also should’ve been the one to light the fire but Grandma had put her foot down and accepted no criticisms.
“He’s five!” She glowers at them, daring anyone to object, Obito swears her eyes glint. No one says anything. She would be the one lighting it and that was final.
Obito is oddly detached, glad he’s not the one doing it, but he has a feeling he won’t feel anything either even if he were the one to set the corpses on fire.
And so, it drags on.
The pyres are burned with the Uchiha's great fireball jutsu. Another tradition.
"Don't you look away, boy." Obito has his head forcefully turned to the burning pile, bile churning in his guts at the sight but the hand on the back of his neck lays heavily, chaining him to their ways. "It's disrespectful for you to not send them off properly as their one and only child."
'And what good will that do?' That changes absolutely nothing. That won't change the fact that they're dead. That won't change the fact that they're so far away their death doesn't even affect him.
Still, Obito bites his tongue, feet forcefully rooted in place as he gives the dead their due respect as is expected from society.
'Why should we respect the dead?'
Because they're dead, girl, show some respect.
Why aren't the living been given that same level of respect?
What did the dead ever do to earn that?
What did Obito's parents ever do to deserve his respect?
If it wasn't because of those pictures in black and white, Obito wouldn't have remembered he had parents at all.
He doesn't have many memories of them together. They were never there.
It has only been Obito and Grandma. It had always been.
Family. Don't you love your family? They were his parents. They gave birth to him. Without them, he wouldn't exist.
Without them, he wouldn't have existed-
"Watch and learn, Obito," Grandma's hands on his shoulders feel like a warning, her eyes hardened. His lips sting with blood, "One day, you will be in my place and I, in theirs."
It feels like a threat and a promise.
The image of white chrysanthemum petals and burning wood as strangers stood watching- the crackling sound of fire and mourning music and skulls exploding as pieces of white splintered and landed on solid ground- the smell of ash and smoke, of sweet perfume and burned hair, of seared meat and burnt wood- is forever seared into his brain.
Six hours. His legs were numb after standing watch for so long. Six fucking hours.
Finally, the funeral ended.
Obito gets back to their house, head full of thoughts and emotions too much to bear but too tired to have it in him to care.
Obito doesn't care, he doesn't give a fuck about his dead parents, he doesn't give a fuck about the funeral, he doesn't give a flying fuck about the people attending.
Besides Grandma, he doesn't care at all.
The house is quieter than usual, hammering home the fact that this time, his parents are never ever coming back.
They're dead, Obito. They're gone. They're gone and they're never coming back.
It's just him and Grandma now. As it’s always been. As it always will be.
"Go to your room and get some sleep, boy. You need it." Grandma says with finality.
Obito nods, not bothering to give her a response. He walks up to his room and shuts the door numbly. Dragging his feet over to the bath, filling it up.
Obito watches the water flow blankly. He quickly turns the tap off and strips. The water comes up to his nose even when he sits upright.
Obito stares at the water and for a moment he thinks he should be taller than this. The water shouldn't be touching his nose and his hands should be larger, rougher than this.
His skin shouldn't be this clean, unmarred, thinks that maybe, just maybe, his chest should be slightly bigger, lumpier.
Obito breathes and settles his head on the edge of the bathtub so the water won't clog his nostrils or choke him.
It's warm. Obito still feels cold.
He drains the bath 15 minutes later.
Obito should sleep. He'll figure out what's wrong another day.
"—we're getting out of here, Linda!" Mom yelled, voice a high-pitched shrill. Grating on her ears despite the loud vibrating speakers and hundreds other voices nearly drowning hers out.
"Follow me!" Mom shouted, holding onto Rui's forearm in a death grip, with the other hand hugging little Yuu close to her chest.
"W-What's going on, mom?" Rui seemed terrified. Yuu was wailing, he was still so little, he didn't know what was happening.
"Just shut your mouth and follow me out, do you want to die?" Mom had a scary expression on her face.
Lin hated that look.
Mom dragged them away as quickly as possible, their frames gradually disappeared under the throng of people.
She found herself hyperventilating.
What if they leave her here and never come back?
They'd always joked that they'd abandon her somewhere and drove off, letting her find the way back home on her own.
They never actually did it. But what if they did this time?
Irrational fear slowly creeped up the longer these people kept screaming. Her throat closed up, lungs suddenly forgot how to work.
“Linda get out! Why aren't you moving? Are you fucking stupid?”
The voice was just barely loud enough to hear but the crowd was swallowing her up.
Pain shot through her body.
Lin looked around frantically but she couldn't see Mom. Lin anxiously tiptoed to search for her Mom, her Dad, her siblings, for any familiar faces, anyone-
“Linda!”
She couldn't find anyone. Someone shoved their hand in her face, her glasses flew off. She couldn't breathe. She was slightly taller than average, but here it didn't matter. The crowd pushed and squeezed together until she could feel herself falling under their weight.
“Linda-!”
She couldn't see shit. Things were dark. The only light source available were club lights. They flickered and dashed around in mind-numbing patterns.
“Lind-”
People were ruthless in their fear.
“Lin-?!”
Their frantic hands grabbing her down with them, and the others rushing from behind continued to step on people to get out.
She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. There was someone crushed beneath her, she could feel them hyperventilating too. Hot air brushed against her face. Smoke was rising.
The boy under her was terrified too.
There were still people above her.
The crowd wasn't stopping, they stepped on people and trampled some to death but nobody was stopping.
The boy's eyes abruptly rolled back and he stopped struggling. The people above her were crying, her back was wet. She was crying too.
She was so angry. Lin was so angry.
She was terrified. She was scared.
Lin hated this. She didn't even want to be here.
They were at a convention celebrating the new years festival. It started out okay, but things went to shit when they were watching a stage performance in an enclosed area.
A fire broke out from fireworks mid performance. Someone must've snuck those shit past security. It caught on one of the audience and the person screeched, knocking into people who weren't fast enough to make way and it dissolved from there.
The fire caught onto one of the large curtains that was next to the food stalls containing gas tanks used for cooking, and the news that it was going to explode spread so quickly before they knew it, everyone was screaming and fighting their way out.
Lin was caught in the pit.
The boy was foaming at the mouth, his body pressed against her as the person above weighed her down. The boy was convulsing, she could feel people stepping on her, kicking her, bruising her sides in a frantic attempt to get out.
Why was it so difficult to breathe?
Pain flared everywhere. Nobody stopped. They kept coming. The crowd got crowder and crowder.
The screaming was never ending.
Lin felt so tired. She couldn't muster up the energy to keep her eyes open. They were drooping.
The boy went slack.
Blargh. Cough cough.
A metallic taste on her tongue. She was burning up, sweating profusely, pupils constricting in the dizzying flickers of multi-colored lights.
The pain was fading. She couldn't breathe.
‘I really hope they'll play my mixtape at the funeral.’
Lin blacked out.
Obito wakes up with a scream stuck in his throat, gasping when there isn't enough air in his lungs. There's a terribly tight, searing pain swirling in his chest and he remembers.
Shit, he remembers. It's bad, it's awful, it's hell but he remembers.
Remembers being a 16 year old teenager and a 5 year old boy. Remembers having a 'family' and being recently made an orphan.
Remembers dying and being born.
Into the world of Naruto. Into a world where the 16 year old teenager believes is entirely fictional, where his 5 year old self knows nothing more of the world beyond the confines of the Uchiha District within the hidden village of leaves.
Breathe.
The voice he'd been hearing all this time had been his voice. His own inner voice subconsciously telling him what to do in what situation. It had all been him. All the other voices beside that have been from a memory of Lin, but it's still his.
Because Lin is Obito and Obito is Lin.
‘Or is it?’ Obito is shaking, staring at a blank space as his breathing sped up uncontrollably. ‘How do I know if this is real?’
The room is silent. The only thing he can hear is his rapid heartbeat and haggard intakes of air.
How would he know? Is the teenager real or is it just a fragment of Obito's fucked up imagination?
On the flip side, is Obito just a made up hallucination on Lin's side? After all, Lin knows him as a fictional character.
Uchiha Obito is a fictional character.
He shouldn't have existed. Not really, not in the realest sense. He shouldn't.
Lin clenches her fists, hating how useless her lungs are, how she can't breathe enough air.
Lin and Obito. Obito and Lin. Things are so messy. Their heads are all jumbled and confusing right now. Memories and sensations clashing horribly as Lin- Obito?- tries to- to block everything out and calm the fuck down. Trying not to think about how his entire life could be a lie, or how equally likely that this could've been real and Lin’s life was the lie.
Obito. It's easier to focus as Obito. His surroundings make it easier to think that his reality is the real one.
Obito feels like crying, hands fisting his own chest just so it'll stop fucking hurting so much. Hitting his chest like it'll make him breathe again.
'God, what do I do now?'
Inhale, exhale.
'What's gonna happen now?'
Obito hugs his legs in fear. His chest is getting tighter, tighter, tighter and he wants to grab the erratic beating organ out.
How can- How can Obito survive?
How is Obito going to okay this off?
What is Obito supposed to do?
Obito realizes in muted panic that his eyes are bleeding when red spills on his hands. Things look so painfully sharp and clear but also so blurry and out-of-focus.
It hurts. His eyes hurt, his head hurts, his chest hurts, everything hurts and he can't breathe.
Obito stumbles his way to the bathroom sink. Shakily climbing up the chair to puke his guts out.
As he finishes purging out the last of his dinner, he splashes cold water on his face, only to stare at the mirror in apprehension.
‘What the fuck?’
His reflection shows one tomoe in each eye, lazily spinning as he gapes at the mirror like he'd just seen a ghost. At this point, he might as well be. Exhaustion and fatigue starts creeping up on him.
‘Turn it off.’ He stares at the stubborn spinning pinwheels as it stares back. ‘Turn the sharingan off.’
Blood steadily drips down his face. ‘Turn that thing off.’ A head-splitting migraine starts assaulting his head. ‘Why won’t it turn off?’
It's absurd. This is beyond absurd! Obito bites his lips as hysterical giggles threaten to burst out. Oh, how absurd this shit is! Just what the fuck is this?
Lin still remembers the taste of bile, blood and salt on her tongue. Lin still remembers the tingling sensation of being crushed and suffocated under the mass of panicked civilians.
Lin can still feel the hot humid air ghosting over her skin, the lick of flames dancing higher, higher, higher. The smoke, the ash, the blinding disco lights, the heart thudding music over all the harrowing screams, the nauseating smell of burnt cloth and gas leaks.
Inhale. Exhale.
Her hands are shaking. Lin looks at the mirror, staring and staring and willing it to change, to see long swavy hair and honey tanned skin instead of short buzz and sickly pale palette. Willing the pinwheels to turn into black pupils and to stop spinning and spinning and spinning.
Has she developed a severe form of maladaptive daydreaming?
Has she been on drugs?
Has she gotten into a coma?
Lin staggers as tiny hands come into focus. Hands that belong to a child. Tiny and chubby and soft. Obito's hands.
Lin staggers and Obito stifles a scream.
Is this real?
Is he real?
What even is real anymore?
Obito wants to laugh so badly he cries. Tears mixed with blood as the pinwheels keep on spinning and spinning and it drives him insane.
‘Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn it off-’
He wipes away the bloody waterworks as it doesn't stop, dripping. Blood on his hands, his pajamas, his sink, blood everywhere.
He leaves the tap running as he tries to wash away the blood that drips out. His eyeballs itch, the veins burst one by one until the red flood his sight.
‘What should I do?’ Obito stares at the mirror and- laughs. He can’t help it. It's ugly and hysterical, coming out in painful wheezes as laughing is the only thing he can do. ‘God, what am I supposed to do?’
Black spots take over his vision unprompted, and suddenly the world spins. Before he knows it he hits the ground with a sharp thud and then black is all he can see.
Lin wasn't mad. Not anymore. She didn't care. She just did not care.
Lin wasn't quick to anger anymore. She wasn't quick to express any emotions.
Lin was blank. She was blank and she was hard to read.
Her parents swore up and down that she wasn't like that when she was younger.
They said she wouldn't shut up about anything even when nobody wanted her to talk. They said she was always joking around and laughing and smiling like a fucking idiot. They said she was lively and full of energy and ate like a black hole.
They were right, but she didn't care.
“How did you turn out like this?”
‘Where did we go wrong?’ was all she heard. She wondered if there was something wrong with her too.
But then things got tiring. Things got tiring and she didn't care. She was tired of it.
She didn't care that her mom insulted her every chance she got for always ‘looking like someone fed you a pile of shit’ because she didn't have a smile on her face 24/7.
She didn't care that her grades went down the trash, didn't care that she looked like shit, didn't care that she sold her already shitty health to junk food.
She didn't care at all.
Time flowed fast yet it felt as if Lin was frozen in a world where everyone was moving.
It felt like she was pointlessly struggling to do things other people did without even having to think about it.
‘What was the point?’
Over and over and over. She looked at them and she wondered.
‘What was the fucking point?’
“Life is beautiful, isn't it?” They'd say carelessly. Wistfully. Full of hope. Full of wonder. Full of life.
‘What’s the point?’
“Well, don't you want to have a job, get married, get a house and have kids in the future?”
‘We’ll all die eventually.’
“Come on, live a little. You'll find your purpose eventually!”
‘I just don't get it.’
Lin didn't understand and she was tired of trying to. She was tired of being frustrated and jealous and just-
‘I’m so tired.’
She wasn't like this before. She used to be angry at the slightest provocation. She used to get so emotional tears would come out whether she liked it or not.
She would get so angry she thought of killing everyone in that house. She would imagine her hands on a knife, imagine herself stabbing them over and over and wondering what would happen after she did.
Wonder if they would take her away. If they would lock her up inside a cell or hang her by the noose.
She eventually learned how to smother that anger until there was nothing left to feel, until she was just tired and empty all the time.
She eventually learned that silence was the greatest thing that gave her power, that gave her peace.
Her silence made things peaceful so she became silent.
“You were never this quiet when you were little, what happened?”
Lin wasn't angry. Not anymore. Lin didn't care enough to be angry, she was just tired.
She wondered when the tiredness will go away or if that will stick with her forever.
Obito flutters his eyes open to be greeted with the sight of a white ceiling. Disappointed won't even begin to describe how he's feeling at the lack of stars and moon stickers that's supposed to be there… if he was still Lin.
‘My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.’
Things are quiet. Obito feels weak. He struggles to lift his arm, it's so irritating he gives up. ‘Still a child's body alright,’ He huffs at the sight of his right arm being hooked up on an IV drip after he strains his neck to look down. The slight sting and restrictive bandage feel of it should be enough of a tell but Obito’s a bit slow at the moment.
‘What the hell happened?’ He passed out, then what? Obito knows he was bleeding a lot and he did hit his head when he fell, probably also has chakra exhaustion too. He still can't decide if the last one is a valid concern since the probability of this being one vivid hallucination is still surprisingly high.
The room smells sterile. It's cold too. The blanket is plain blue, Obito flexes his fingers on the bed, it feels uncomfortable and it has a protective plastic cover over it too.
Obito hears a constant beeping sound that his brain registers as white noise and he's going to assume that's coming from the heart monitor.
The room has another bed at the end of the one Obito's occupying, except that one’s laying horizontally. There's also a decorative plant at the corner of that bed.
Obito doesn't know what species that is, considering he's an idiot on all things leaf related.
Still, he's alone.
‘Am I in a hospital?’ Obito hopes not. Lin never did like hospitals all that much. Hospitals meant shit’s getting too real. Hospitals meant Lin is so fucked that professional help is the only way to cure her. The enormous medical bills only made Lin regretted ever telling anyone she's sick to begin with.
But then again, if it wasn't hurting so bad she can't even sleep right then she wouldn't even go to her parents in the first place.
Her parents. Obito lays there, numb and exhausted, he doesn't even have the strength to feel anything and he's angry he can't bring himself to cry about it.
Lin's parents. If this is real, if Lin really did die back in the stampede then Obito will never see them again. He'll never see anyone ever again. They're all… gone. Just gone. He's not Lin anymore and he never will be. He'll never be able to text his friends, to call them, talk to them, or hang out with them ever again.
That is, if this is real. If none of this isn't, if it isn't and Lin is in a coma somewhere and Obito is just an imaginary thing her mind made up- then what? What are the chances of Lin actually waking up from this? What are the chances of Obito making it to eighteen if she couldn't?
‘I’m so tired.’ Obito feels like screaming, or maybe sobbing uncontrollably. He's well and truly alone now, ‘I want to cry.’
Never has he felt so alone in his life. Sure, the periods of time when he isolated himself from everyone he did feel lonely but it never felt this permanent, it never felt this final.
‘Are we being for real?’ The monitor keeps beeping regardless of how Obito feels. It keeps beeping and Obito can't decide if it's soothing or anxiety inducing. ‘They’re fucking with me, right?’
Someone can stab him right now and he wouldn't even bat an eye. That's how hysterical he is. He's so numb all he wants to do is laugh.
Obito wants to laugh until it stops hurting so much. He wants to laugh until things start to make sense again.
He wants to laugh so bad-
It's at that moment that the door decides to swing open, Obito looks over tiredly.
“Awake? Okay, good.” Grandma looks over his IV drips as he blinks. “You’re in the clinic.”
‘Well fuck.’ Obito hoped he was at the house but well here goes his fragile bit of positivity.
“Now can you tell me what led to the life threatening chakra-exhausted child that greeted me at three in the morning?” Grandma stares him down and smiles- it didn't reach her eyes. She's furious.
For a brief moment, fear and apathy clash inside him. The fear won out.
“I- uhh-” He hadn't thought this far yet.
“Go on now.” Grandma smiles, her eyes look gentle- so gentle it's creeping him out. “Don’t let me stop you, boy. Explain yourself.”
She's even scarier than Lin's Grandma.
Lin remembered all the women in her life, the moment they gave you that look, you know you’re fucked when you all get home. If she’s only getting screamed at for an hour then she got off lightly.
Obito hopes he’s not getting screamed at though. Sometimes it’s so much easier to take a few hits than to stand there and get verbally humiliated in front of everyone.
Obito shivers, ignoring the way his stomach drops.
Grandma still waits for him expectantly so Obito forces himself to give her a response, “...I have the sharingan?”
Immediately after saying it Obito felt like that should've been a secret.
“You have a what now?”
He feels like he just made a mistake.
“A sharingan?” Obito stares at her as she stares at him, face grim.
“Turn it on then.” Grandma leans in to inspect his eyes before ultimately taking a seat next to his bed.
“What?” Obito asks weakly.
“Turn it on boy.” Grandma repeats, irritated.
“Now?” Obito just woke up in a hospital after who knows how long and she wants him to go into chakra exhaustion again?
“Oh no, I'm asking you right now so you can definitely do it next year.” Oh wow, the sarcasm. “Goodness, yes Obito, I want you to turn the sharingan on now. You'll be fine.” She waves her hand dismissively. “You're in a medical clinic, if something happens you're not going to die.”
‘Wow, like that's so reassuring.’
Obito really really doesn't want to.
He doesn't want to face it yet. He doesn’t want to pick his battles yet.
He doesn’t want to question which world is the real world. Not yet.
What if none of this is real?
‘Are you real?’ Lin wonders, back aching and arm stinging distantly as she looks up into the woman's aged eyes littered with stress lines. ‘Am I real?’
Would it really be better if things are real?
Would it be worse?
If this world is the real world, then is Lin nothing more than an illusion?
If this world isn’t the real world, then is everything created entirely from Lin’s fucked up mind?
‘Wouldn’t that make Lin a psychiatric patient?’
“Hurry up boy.”
Lin really really doesn't want to.
Obito glances at her and silently wonders, ‘would any of this matter if she is?’ Under the suffocating weight of expectations and pressure, he caves.
Obito flicks the sensation in his irises and says nothing. The room turns absurdly sharp and his eyes sting. They feel wet and itchy.
‘Real or not, does it really matter?’
What does Obito or Lin really have to lose? Neither of their lives hold much value, they’re worthless.
“Huh,” Is all Grandma says, surprised. Her expression is damn near unreadable. Obito is frustrated at the lack of reaction, from both her and from himself. “You do have one.”
Obito clamps it shut right after. It doesn't work, blood gushing out.
“That’s not how you turn off a sharingan boy.” Grandma tuts. “Cut off the chakra supply.”
‘How?!’
Although Obito silently raged in his heart, there's a small part of him that knows immediately what she's talking about. As is evidenced by him actually managing to cut off said supply.
“Hm-” Grandma holds a hand to her mouth, mumbling something he can't hear.
It goes on for a moment.
“Do not let anyone know.” She snaps suddenly, the look she gives him is a fierce enough warning of its own.
‘That totally doesn't sound ominous at all.’
Still, Obito nods obediently. Saying nothing and objecting nothing.
“Go to sleep.” Grandma finally orders, “We'll talk about it when we get home.”
The door creaking makes him cringe and then when things go dead silent he nearly begs for her to scream at him or- or anything.
Anything is better than this. This ringing silence in his head asking over and over ‘is this real?’ and ‘is anything real at all?’ and the most infuriating one yet, ‘what am I going to do now?’
Anything. Give him something.
Still, nothing. Nobody hears his silent prayers and nobody cares. Nobody cares and nothing happens.
‘Would anyone cry at my funeral?’
Obito waits a long time after she leaves before he sags. He stares at the white ceiling and wishes he can feel something other than dread.
He wished he could scream and cry his heart out.
He wished he didn't exist.
‘They better not bury my corpse.’ Obito sniffs. ‘I wanna be cremated and thrown off a cliff so nobody can deny that I fucking flew-’
Obito goes back to sleep.
Obito jerks between sleeping and being paralyzed for… for some time? He didn't bother to keep count. He'd fall asleep, dreaming the most absurd scenarios not knowing that they're dreams then he'd jerk awake so abruptly filled with fear and delirium he can't make sense of anything before sleep came for him again.
And again. And again.
Eventually, when he jerks awake the nth time it stays. Obito feels exhausted and fatigued down to his bones, but if he sleeps anymore he'd- he'd- he didn't know, but he might just commit a felony.
Then Grandma came. She came and she said something to him that he just nodded at repeatedly. She helped him up and woah- ‘I don't feel so good.’
Obito nearly passed out. Just from trying to stand. He thinks he might've vomited at some point, his vision is all black, black, black. Limbs weak and shaking, he can't hear a damn thing.
Grandma mutters something under her breath, it could've been a reprimand, a curse, whatever. She hands him a thermos, it tastes a bit salty, no solids. Obito drinks it all anyways, seeing the look she gave him after the first time he stops.
She takes the IV out and Obito barely feels a thing as she puts a bandaid on his right hand. Blood doesn't make him queasy. Not really. He'd seen it too many times and watched too many crime documentaries to be scared of something so… normal.
Grandma grabs his wrist and that's when Obito flinches and jerks away violently. He hates skin contact with- with someone he barely knows. Someone he doesn't trust. It leaves his skin tingling and crawling with every contact.
Obito ignores the little voice in his head that reminds him he knows Grandma and he trusts her. Grandma is all he's ever known, and she's the only one he's ever trusted.
Still, it's as if a slightest touch would drive him insane, his wrist still itches, and Obito is tempted to slash it until the prickling sensation goes away.
Grandma doesn't touch him again.
“Follow me.” She says stiffly, and turns on her heels. Obito has no choice but to follow.
The walk home was a blur. Obito doesn't remember the road they took or how he made it to their front door without blacking out midway. All he remembers is feeling angry and exhausted and scared as he walks. Fear was the main emotion that clings to his skin with every step he forces himself to take.
“Obito.” Grandma starts and Obito tilts his head up to see her, looking at her forehead and hoping she won't notice he's being rude. She frowns, like she wants to say something.
Obito waits.
She sighs, “Get some rest, you're exhausted, I'm exhausted.” Something in his chest loosens as she lifts her gaze away from him. “We'll talk about it tomorrow.”
Obito hums in response, it's the only sound he can bring himself to make. Anything else is just too exhausting.
“If the stairs are too much for you at the moment, you can sleep in the guest room.”
Obito can feel her watching him, watching his movements, watching his face. Watching and watching and- he breathes, hoping to get enough air in his lungs to not drown on dry land.
Obito breathes and shakes his head, hand gripping the handrails until his knuckles are white. His legs wobble and his knees are weak, he'd rather kill himself than miss the comfort of his own room. What's a set of stairs going to do? Lin has memories of living on the third floor and a measly ten? fifteen? steps isn't going to stop him.
“Alright.” Grandma simply says, “If you're hungry, heat up the porridge and eat that, and only that. After you finish it that's when you can eat normal food again. Am I clear?”
Obito slightly turns his head over his shoulder and nods.
“Good, now get out of my sight.”
That, Obito does.
The room is small. Well, smaller than Lin's room. But he has it all to himself. Unlike Lin, he doesn't have to share.
Obito is an only child.
His heart aches.
The room is both familiar and not. It feels weird stepping inside and seeing things overlap. He knows all the secret places where he shoved money, candies, and soft drinks in. He knows which drawer he keeps his clothes in and which drawer he keeps all the random accessories he has.
He knows everything about this room yet it feels as if he doesn't. It feels as if something's missing.
‘Should probably chug the lamp out.’
Still frustrating.
It's his room dammit, so why does it feel like he's intruding? Obito picked this room. Obito personally decorated and styled this room.
This room that has minimal decors and muted colors, plain white ceiling and seals painted in each corner. Wooden floors and minimal lighting, trinkets, books, and toys carelessly stuffed to the side, stacked on top of the dresser, the desk, anywhere. Clothes lazily thrown on the floor ‘dirty’, the chair ‘semi-dirty’ and the dresser itself ‘clean.’
The word ‘lazy’ is etched into this room and its aesthetic choices.
For that, Obito is relieved.
Obito doesn't think he can take it if his room, his space, the only safe haven he has looked way too clean without an ounce of disorganized chaos.
He doesn't think he can take it if things are too different.
He'd go crazy from seeing the differences and constantly questioning and overanalyzing everything.
The only reason he doesn't break too hard is because, they're similar. At the very core of it, Obito and Lin are the same. They're the same and that's- that's better than nothing. That's easy for him to fake. It's easy for Lin to pretend to be Obito and vice versa, aside from a few habits they're not so different.
So it's- it's fine. The room is trippy, and he's weirded out. But it's fine. He can deal with this. Obito can deal with this.
He collapses on the bed and doesn't think of Lin. Doesn't think of Lin’s life, Lin’s parents, Lin’s friends. Doesn't think of the way she died, surrounded by strangers yet so alone in her death.
Obito doesn't think of the years of craving and wanting that death only to have it delivered in such a cruel way. He doesn't think of the endless spirals and countless nights that 16 year old teen spent wanting and wishing to be somebody else. Only to regret that now that she is somebody else.
Now that Lin is Obito. Now that Obito had to live with the knowledge that Uchiha Obito is the one he's replacing.
He feels like an imposter. Despite being here for as long as he remembers, despite being born and raised here for all his life, it feels like he just robbed his parents of a son they would've loved, it feels like he had killed Uchiha Obito and stolen a life that wasn't his.
‘Is that why I’ve always felt disconnected to everyone?’
Obito could never fit in with these people, with their ironclad beliefs in clan matters and traditions, their fierce loyalty and tough love. He just can't understand and can't fathom how strict they adhere to rules set by those before them, how they dig their claws in refusing to consider any outside perspective.
The people here, the people of this military village, they hold Shinobi in high regards and even higher standards. Clan politics, clan techniques, clan secrets, allies and assets, loyalty and sacrifice- they take everything seriously. They had to. They're at war. Peace is fragile here. Built on shaky foundations and bloody violence.
They're at war and people are suffering.
Obito couldn't. He couldn't take things seriously and he couldn’t care less if he tried. No wonder he didn't fit. No wonder he looked at those tiny little child soldiers and couldn't help but think why would they willingly sign their life away to a dictator? The youngest couldn't be more than twelve and that's him being generous with it.
Children worship Shinobi. They looked up to Shinobi as the ultimate goal. They eagerly give themselves away to be molded into weapons and their parents would encourage them to.
Madness. They're fucking mad.
Most of those children are orphans and clan-borns, the latter were literally bred for war. A logical part of his brain argues. ‘That doesn't make it any better.’ Another snipe back.
Obito sharply inhales, trying not to think about it. About the complications that come with being aware of what's to come and him having already created a butterfly effect.
Uchiha Obito wasn't supposed to awaken the sharingan before the cave scene.
Uchiha Obito was supposed to inherit the orange goggles, a precious keepsake to him from his father.
Uchiha Obito wasn't supposed to be estranged with his parents.
Obito had received nothing but stilted conversations and awkward looks before their death. They wanted him to be a good soldier, for honor, for glory, for their clan. Whatever. At this point even if he wanted to he won't be able to ask them why.
“When we're gone you're the man of the house, so be tough and man up, do you understand me?” His rough voice told Obito nothing of his intentions. Flat. Devoid of emotions.
A woman elbowed the man, “Be a good child and listen to your Grandma, okay Obito?” She patted his head hesitantly.
Obito shrugged her off, she didn't fight him on it. He nodded. Then they were off.
That was the last time he ever saw them again.
Obito inhales, easy and refusing to acknowledge his clammy hands, ice cold and twitching uncontrollably.
He lays there tiredly and wishes, for a single moment, that someone would tell him what to do. Wishes there's someone who can hold him and let him cry into their arms. Wishes he can shake the fear and dread off his mind.
Obito lays there and wishes, hopes, begs knowing nothing will change and nobody will come.