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The sand of Suna had a specific quality that Sasuke had learned to hate over the last two years. It wasn't the texture, although it seeped into every fold of his clothes with irritating persistence. It wasn't the heat, although the desert sun had a cruel way of making even a trained shinobi question their clothing choices. Not even the howling wind between the rock formations, creating a sound that reminded him of appropriate laments.
What Sasuke hated about Suna was a single person.
Well, that wasn't entirely true. He didn't hate Gaara. Such a feeling would require a level of emotional involvement that Sasuke refused to admit he possessed. What he felt was a deep, philosophical irritation. A fundamental disagreement with the universe for placing that man exactly where he shouldn't be.
In recent years, that irritation had transformed into something darker. Sasuke recognized that with shame every time he saw the Kazekage looking at Naruto, and it happened frequently because Naruto made a point of having him present at every possible Summit, even when Sasuke would rather be thousands of kilometers away.
At each of these meetings, Sasuke watched.
He watched how Gaara looked at Naruto when the blond wasn't paying attention. How his green eyes softened until they became almost liquid. How his lips, which rarely curved into any expression other than neutrality, lifted at the corners when Naruto said something particularly excited. How he leaned his entire body toward Naruto during a conversation, as if the Kazekage were a flower turning toward the sun.
And Naruto, the damned, blessed, cursed Naruto, didn't seem to notice.
Or perhaps he noticed and simply didn't care. Perhaps he liked the attention. Perhaps he liked Gaara. Perhaps, in the years Sasuke had been away, traveling to atone for sins that would never be forgiven, the two had grown close in a way Sasuke couldn't compete with.
The thought made his blood boil.
Not that he had any right to jealousy. He had left the village. Chosen the journey of redemption instead of staying. Refused the arm transplant, keeping his left shoulder empty as a constant reminder of what he had done, what he had lost, the price of his choices.
But the heart, or perhaps just the ego, didn't care about what the mind considered rational.
And now, once again, Sasuke was in Suna. Once again, sitting in Gaara's office, trying not to activate his Sharingan to set the Kazekage's face on fire.
"Sasuke-kun."
The voice came from behind a dark wooden desk, polished until it shone like a mirror. Gaara maintained an upright posture of someone who had never needed to learn etiquette; he simply possessed it, as an extension of his bones. He was wearing traditional robes today, the dark blue and black that made his red hair look almost like a flame against the fabric.
"The Hokage sends his regards."
Sasuke tilted his head slightly. His black poncho covered his empty left shoulder but didn't completely hide the bandage that went up his neck. He preferred it that way; it made clear what he had lost. What he had chosen to lose.
"Kakashi is well," he replied, and his own voice sounded strange after days of traveling alone. He used it so rarely that sometimes he forgot how it sounded. Deep, yes, but with a roughness that hadn't existed before. Perhaps it was the desert dust. "He asked me to check the report on the remnants of Otogakure."
"It's already ready." Gaara slid a scroll across the table. "The intelligence from your last mission was enlightening. We have much to thank you for."
"I don't do it for thanks."
"I know." Gaara didn't smile. He almost never smiled, at least in front of Sasuke. There was an economy to his expressions that the Uchiha understood, recognized as if looking into a mirror with a different surface. Two men who had learned emptiness too early, who had transformed pain into armor. The difference, Sasuke supposed, was that Gaara had found something to fill the empty space inside himself.
Naruto.
The thought came without warning, like a kunai thrown from the shadows. Sasuke felt his facial muscles lock before he could control the reaction.
It was ridiculous. Absurd. It had only been six months since his last visit to Konoha, and every time he left, it was painful, always traveling through lands where the name Uzumaki Naruto was whispered with reverence, where stories about the Hero of the War were told around campfires like ancient legends. Sasuke had heard, in a tavern in the Land of Fire, a drunk man swear that Naruto had knocked down a mountain with a single punch (exaggeration), that he could teleport (lie), that he was the most powerful shinobi who had ever existed (debatable), although Sasuke hated to admit how close that came to the truth.
In none of those moments had Sasuke felt what he felt upon entering Gaara's office today. It was just another meeting, the third that year. Kakashi insisted that he attend the Kage Summits whenever possible to maintain international cooperation, the man behind the mask said, but Sasuke knew it was also a pretext to bring him back, to remind him that there was still a place for him.
And Naruto was always there.
Naruto at the Summits was different from the boy Sasuke had left at the Valley of the End, covered in blood, tears, and promises neither of them was sure they could keep. He still didn't wear the white and red cloak — Kakashi would keep the hat for a few more years, claiming Naruto needed "diplomatic experience" before taking office, the flimsiest excuse Sasuke had ever heard. But everyone in the room knew. The Seventh had already been chosen, even if not officially. It was a matter of time.
And Gaara, the Fifth Kazekage, treated Naruto as if he were already the leader everyone knew he would become.
"You look tired," Gaara said, jolting Sasuke back to the present. His green eyes watched him, seeming to see through layers the Uchiha preferred to keep closed. "Was the journey difficult?"
"No more than usual."
"The routes through the Demon Desert have been dangerous lately." Gaara paused, and something almost human crossed his face. "Naruto mentioned you should have arrived three days ago."
The tightness in Sasuke's chest intensified.
The phrase echoed like an insult. Why did Gaara know Naruto was worried? Since when did they talk with that intimacy? Why did Naruto talk about Sasuke with him?
"He mentioned it?"
"He was worried." Gaara said that as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if worrying about Sasuke was something Naruto simply did, like breathing, eating, or irritating everyone around him with inexhaustible energy. There was something in the way the Kazekage spoke, a softness in his voice, a gleam in his eyes that suggested to Sasuke it wasn't just concern. Gaara was sharing something. He was saying: I know something about Naruto that you don't. We talk. He trusts me. "I suggested sending a search squad, but he insisted you were fine. Said he would feel it if something had happened."
There was the reason Sasuke hated Suna.
Not Gaara himself, but the way Gaara knew things about Naruto that Sasuke no longer knew. The way he could casually mention conversations with the blond, as if it were the most basic right in the world while Sasuke spent months without seeing him, feeding on short letters and evasive answers when he asked about life in the village.
Jealousy burned in his chest like acid.
Sasuke didn't answer. He just took the scroll with fingers that didn't tremble and turned to leave.
"Sasuke."
He stopped. Didn't turn around.
"Rest tonight," Gaara said behind him, and the Kazekage's voice was so soft it seemed almost like a touch. "You'll need energy for tomorrow."
Tomorrow Naruto would be there, and Sasuke would have to watch once again the man he loved looking at someone else as if that person were the most precious thing in the world. Or perhaps — a dangerous voice whispered in the back of his mind — perhaps tomorrow Sasuke would do something about it.
He squeezed the scroll until the wooden cylinder groaned under his fingers, jealousy setting his chest on fire like a flame no desert sand could extinguish.
"Do you and Naruto talk often?"
The question escaped before he could trap it, and he hated it immediately. It sounded small and envious. As if he were sixteen again, watching Naruto grow close to everyone who wasn't him.
Gaara tilted his head with deliberate slowness, processing not just the question but everything behind it.
"Whenever possible." A pause. Then, as if deciding to share a secret: "He sends me letters every week, even when he's busy. He says he wants to make sure I'm okay."
Every week.
The words hit Sasuke like a punch to the stomach. Naruto sent letters to Gaara weekly. While he barely received one a month, and that was if he was lucky, when the blond wasn't busy saving the world or being the hero everyone expected.
"He is important to me," Gaara said, and there was a tenderness in his voice that Sasuke had never heard before. His green eyes seemed distant, as if seeing something the Uchiha could not reach. "More than important. He saved me. He continues saving me every time he writes, every time he visits, every time he smiles that way... I remember that there is something good in the world. Something worth continuing for."
Sasuke's compartment of emotions, built so carefully over the years, brick by brick, with blood, guilt, and purpose, developed a thin crack.
And then another.
And another.
Because he understood. He understood perfectly what Gaara was saying, because he felt the same thing. Naruto had saved him too, not once, but repeatedly, tirelessly, even when Sasuke did everything to push him away. Naruto had crossed oceans of hatred and darkness just to reach his hand and declare I won't give up on you. Now Gaara was there saying the same words, feeling the same things, and Sasuke wanted to tear out his own eyes so he wouldn't have to see the expression on the Kazekage's face.
"I understand," he replied, and his voice came out perfectly flat. Neutral. Proudly empty. Because if he let any emotion escape, it would be poison. "The scroll, then. I need to review it before returning to Konoha."
"Stay for dinner."
The invitation was so unexpected that Sasuke blinked.
"What?"
"Stay for dinner," Gaara repeated, and now there was something different in his expression. Not a smile, not exactly, but a relaxation of the muscles around his eyes that made him look almost human. Almost friendly. "You traveled for days. It would be inhumane to send you back without a hot meal. Besides..." He hesitated. "Naruto will arrive tomorrow for the meeting about the trade routes. I thought perhaps you would like to stay until then."
Sasuke's heart leaped so violently that he was certain, for one absurd moment, that Gaara could hear it.
Naruto would be there. He would see Naruto after six months.
But at the same time that excitement overwhelmed him, jealousy returned with double force. Gaara knew about the arrival. Gaara had probably planned something special, a dinner, a walk through the village, something more intimate that Sasuke didn't want to imagine.
He imagined it anyway.
Gaara and Naruto walking together under the moon of Suna, the Kazekage's robes swaying in the wind, their hands brushing against each other accidentally or perhaps not so accidentally. He imagined Gaara smiling at Naruto, that small, intimate smile Sasuke had seen only a few times, always directed at the blond. And Naruto smiling back, leaning a little closer, allowing the Kazekage to approach in a way Sasuke would never allow.
The thought made his nails dig into his palms.
"I'll stay," he heard himself say, and the word echoed in the silence of the office. "To review the scroll and for the meeting."
And to make sure Gaara doesn't get a chance to be alone with Naruto. He didn't say the last part out loud, but it pulsed beneath his skin like a second truth.
Gaara nodded, and there was something in his gaze, a gleam of understanding, perhaps, or worse, of sympathy, that made Sasuke want to activate his Amaterasu to burn that expression off the Kazekage's face.
"Great. I'll have a room prepared."
"Not necessary," Sasuke cut in, faster than he intended. Then, more controlled: "I won't stay long. Just enough for the meeting."
Gaara raised an eyebrow but didn't comment.
"But I'll order it anyway. I want you to rest with at least some good comfort. You've been traveling a lot, and rest is necessary for your journey."
Sasuke said nothing, just nodded once and turned to leave and wait outside until the room was ready.
The room Gaara offered was modest but comfortable. A low bed of dark wood. A window overlooking the inner courtyard, where dwarf palms struggled to survive the hostile climate. A table where Sasuke could spread out the scroll and his own maps.
He didn't spread them out. Instead, he sat on the floor, his back against the wall, his left shoulder propped against the rough plaster, and let himself think. He closed his eyes and saw, with painful clarity, the last Summit he had attended, six months ago in Konoha. Naruto was radiant, something different about him, something more confident, something that made everyone's eyes in the room turn to him when he spoke.
Including Gaara's eyes.
Sasuke remembered watching the Kazekage throughout the entire meeting, unable to look away. Gaara sat to Naruto's right — not by chance, Sasuke suspected — and whenever Naruto said something particularly insightful, the Kazekage would tilt his head and gaze at him with an expression that could only be described as devotion.
It wasn't professional admiration. It wasn't respect between leaders. It was something deeper, more personal. The expression of someone who had found the reason for their existence and didn't intend to let it escape.
And Naruto? Naruto simply smiled. Touched Gaara's shoulder occasionally, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if he didn't know that each of his touches was an ember falling on dry skin.
Or perhaps he knew. Perhaps he liked it.
The thought made Sasuke clench his jaw so hard his teeth ground together.
Two years traveling alone, sleeping in cheap inns and makeshift camps, thinking about Naruto every night, while touching himself with an urgency that shamed him. And every three or six months, he imagined what he would say when he saw the blond again, how he would act, whether he would finally have the courage to do something.
Now Gaara was there, with his weekly letters, his planned dinners, his green eyes full of devotion. And Sasuke realized he could no longer wait.
He could no longer stand still, watching from afar, convincing himself he deserved nothing beyond the distance he himself had created. Because if he did nothing — if he kept traveling, punishing himself, letting Naruto wait — Gaara would seize the opportunity.
Gaara would occupy the empty space Sasuke had left.
Gaara would touch Naruto the way Sasuke wanted to touch him.
Gaara would kiss Naruto the way Sasuke dreamed of kissing him.
Sasuke opened his eyes, and something in his gaze had changed. Something darker. More determined.
No.
He hadn't spent the last two years tormenting himself with desire just to let the Kazekage take home what was his.
Naruto was his. It didn't matter how many letters Gaara received, how many dinners they shared, how many times the Kazekage looked at the blond with devotion. Naruto had chosen him. Naruto had fought for him. Naruto had said, in front of all the Kage, that if Sasuke were arrested, he would stop acting as a shinobi and turn against the village.
No Kazekage could compete with that.
Sasuke just needed to remind Naruto of that. And he knew exactly how.
The sun of Suna rose like a cracked egg, spilling orange and pink across the horizon.
Sasuke didn't sleep. He rarely rested well in foreign territory, and the prospect of seeing Naruto and putting his plan into action had kept him awake with a nervous energy he hadn't experienced since the days before the Chunin Exams. He reviewed Gaara's scroll three times, made notes on his own maps, checked his weapons, and still, time dragged like honey on a cold day.
He wasn't just waiting. He was preparing.
Sasuke spent more time than he cared to admit in front of the small cracked mirror hanging on the wall of the room. His hair fell over his face in a way he knew was attractive. He wasn't modest about his appearance; years of unwanted attention from girls and some boys in Konoha had taught him that he possessed a beauty few could ignore.
The notification that Naruto had arrived came around midday, brought by a silver-haired jōnin Sasuke recognized from the days of the war. The man informed him that the Hokage had sent Naruto as a representative for the meeting, since the matter directly involved the security of the routes crossing the Wind Country.
Sasuke didn't hear half of what the jōnin said.
He only heard Naruto's name and the sound of his own footsteps echoing in the stone corridor as he made his way to the main courtyard, where Gaara would certainly already be receiving the blond with his eyes full of devotion and his voice soft as quicksand.
This time, Sasuke wasn't going to just watch.
But today he didn't just want to be handsome. He wanted to be irresistible.
The black poncho that usually covered his empty shoulder remained folded on the bed. In its place, he put on a dark gray long-sleeved shirt, tight enough to outline the contours of his lean but muscular torso. His right arm remained covered, but his left shoulder was exposed. Sasuke no longer tried to hide that absence. The scar had become part of his identity, a silent declaration: I survived, I paid, and I am still here.
He tied his hair with a simple clip, leaving a few strands falling over his face, just enough to look intentional, but not so much as to suggest effort. He adjusted the sword on his hip, checked the summoning seals, and finally, faced his own reflection in the cracked mirror. He felt beautiful, ready to claim what was his.
And today, he would do it. He would show everyone that Naruto was his.
When the sun reached its highest point, Sasuke was already in the central courtyard.
Not because he was waiting, but because the room had become too small to contain his restlessness. Gaara found him there, standing under the sparse shade of one of the dwarf palms. Sasuke noticed, with a pang of satisfaction, that the Kazekage's eyes ran over his figure briefly before returning to his face.
Unlike the previous day, Gaara was not wearing his formal robes. Instead, he wore a light blue tunic that made his eyes look almost too green, too human. His red hair was slightly more tidy than usual, and a pinkish tone tinged his cheeks — something Sasuke had never witnessed.
Someone was getting ready for Naruto's arrival.
Jealousy burned again, but this time, Sasuke transformed it into fuel.
"He should arrive within an hour," Gaara said, maintaining a respectful distance. Always so careful with other people's space. Sasuke hated that too, but today that hatred was colder, more calculated. "You look different."
"Different how?"
Gaara hesitated, choosing his words carefully.
"More present. Normally you seem like only your body is here. Today it seems like you really are."
Sasuke almost smiled. Almost.
"Maybe I am."
The Kazekage watched him for a long moment, his green eyes scanning Sasuke's face as if searching for something between the lines. Finally, he said:
"Naruto will like seeing you."
Jealousy intensified to the point where Sasuke wanted to laugh.
"Naruto will like seeing you." As if Gaara knew what Naruto liked. As if he had authority over that.
"I know," Sasuke replied, and there was an explicit challenge in his voice. "He always does."
Gaara didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked away toward the horizon, where a small spot was beginning to form in the sky — the silhouette of something large approaching.
"He's arriving," Gaara said, and his voice softened in a way that made Sasuke's teeth grind. "I went to get him myself. He asked me to."
He asked.
Gaara had gone to fetch Naruto personally, with a sand technique that required significant concentration and chakra. He had done it because Naruto had asked — and Gaara would do anything Naruto asked.
Sasuke knew, because he would also do anything Naruto asked.
But the difference was that Sasuke didn't need Naruto to ask. He simply acted. He was there, wasn't he? In Suna, the village he hated, just because he knew Naruto would come. He had manipulated Kakashi with arguments about "international cooperation" and "critical intelligence," when the truth was much simpler and much more pathetic.
He wanted to see Naruto.
He wanted Naruto to see him.
He wanted Gaara to see Naruto seeing him.
The silhouette on the horizon grew, and soon Sasuke could distinguish the shape of a giant bird sculpted entirely from sand. Gaara's technique was impressive — he admitted it, reluctantly — and the creature moved with a grace that seemed almost alive.
When the descent began, Sasuke felt his heart race.
Naruto was there.
A few meters away, descending from the sand bird with a leap that was pure energy. His feet hit the courtyard floor with a thud that echoed in the silence.
Then he stood up.
And Sasuke forgot how to breathe.
The blond was taller now, almost Sasuke's height, a cosmic injustice considering where he had started. His hair had darkened slightly, from childhood light-blond to a more golden tone, and he wore it shorter: shaved on the sides and slightly longer on top. A change Sasuke noticed with such precise details that they shamed his self-proclaimed indifference.
Sasuke felt the ground move beneath his feet.
Naruto wore his black jacket with orange details, the fabric tough and worn from use, but well cared for. The blue headband had disappeared, replaced by a black elastic band that kept the hair out of his eyes — eyes that were still the most ridiculous blue Sasuke had ever seen, so bright they seemed to contain a piece of the sky within them.
Naruto's arms were moving as he stretched, extending his arms above his head in a movement that pulled his jacket up, revealing a strip of tanned skin on his abdomen.
Sasuke was not looking. He was definitely not looking.
"Naruto-kun" — Gaara approached, and there was something in his voice, a warmth Sasuke had never heard before, a sweetness that made the Uchiha clench his fist so hard that his nails left crescent moons in his palm. Gaara didn't just approach; he practically floated toward Naruto, his green eyes shining with a devotion so intense it seemed to burn. "Was the journey good?"
"It was great!" — Naruto smiled, and that smile hit Sasuke like a punch to the chest. But the smile wasn't for him; it was for Gaara, who was there near Naruto, receiving that smile as if he were the most natural recipient in the world. "But wow, I missed this heat! In Konoha it's starting to get cold, you know? And I forgot my jacket, and Sakura-chan said I was going to catch a cold, and I said I wasn't, and then she..."
"Naruto-kun."
Gaara interrupted the stream of words with a calmness, and then, to Sasuke's horror, the Kazekage smiled.
It wasn't a big or obvious smile. It was small, intimate, just a gentle curve of his lips that made his green eyes shine with a warmth Sasuke had never seen in any other situation. It was the kind of smile you give to someone you love. The kind of smile that says I know you, I understand you, you are special to me.
Then Gaara did something that made Sasuke's blood boil.
He touched Naruto's face.
It was quick, his pale fingers brushing the blond's cheek, as if he were brushing away an imaginary strand of hair. But the touch was so gentle, so affectionate, that Sasuke felt his stomach turn as if he had been kicked.
"You have sand on your face," Gaara said, and his voice was so soft it sounded like a whisper. "Let me..." He pulled his hand away, but his eyes remained fixed on Naruto, as if he couldn't bear to look away.
Naruto blinked, slightly confused, but smiled again, that open, radiant smile that made everything seem fine, and said:
"Thank you, Gaara-san! You're always so thoughtful!"
The words echoed in Sasuke's mind like a death sentence.
Gaara was thoughtful. Gaara was there. Gaara touched Naruto as if he had the right to do so, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and Naruto simply... accepted. He didn't pull away. He didn't say stop. He showed no sign of discomfort.
Sasuke felt something break inside him.
It wasn't just jealousy now. It was possession. It was a primitive, animalistic instinct that screamed mine so loudly he could almost hear the echo in his own ears.
Naruto was his.
Sasuke had bled for Naruto. Had fought Naruto. Had nearly died for Naruto. He had spent years trying to cut the bonds that united them, and Naruto had refused to let him go, had held his bloody hand in the Valley of the End and said he would suffer with him and for him.
No one, not Gaara, not anyone else, had the right to touch Naruto that way.
No one.
Naruto, apparently oblivious to the storm forming in Sasuke's chest, seemed to finally realize he wasn't alone with Gaara. His blue eyes found Sasuke's again, his smile changed and became softer, more hesitant, as if he wasn't sure how Sasuke would react.
"Sasuke," he said again, and it was just his name, just two syllables, but the way Naruto pronounced them, as if he were exhaling after holding his breath for months, as if Sasuke's name were the only thing he needed to say to make everything alright, made something break inside the Uchiha's chest.
He didn't move.
He couldn't move.
If he moved, if he took a single step toward Naruto, he wouldn't be able to stop. He would cross the courtyard, grab the blond by the collar, and...
And what?
Kiss him? Shout at him? Fall to his knees and beg forgiveness for all the lost years, for all the unwritten letters, for all the moments Sasuke had chosen silence over truth?
Naruto, on the other hand, had no such inhibitions.
He was moving before Sasuke could process it, his steps fast and determined, and suddenly, he was there right in front of Sasuke, so close that Sasuke could feel the heat radiating from his body, could smell him, cheap soap and something deeper, something that was just Naruto, something that made Sasuke's brain go static.
"Are you okay?" Naruto asked, his hands found Sasuke's shoulders, the first the right one, and then with a hesitation that broke Sasuke's heart, the left one, where the sleeve of the gray shirt hung empty. "I... Gaara-senpai said you were here, that you would stay for the meeting, and I thought maybe you would have left before I arrived, because you always do that, you always-"
"Naruto," Sasuke interrupted, and his voice came out softer than he intended. Softer than he wanted. "I'm okay."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
Naruto looked at him for a long moment, his blue eyes scanning Sasuke's face as if searching for lies, and Sasuke strained to keep his expression neutral. It wasn't difficult — he had years of practice, after all — but there was something in the way Naruto looked at him that made all his defenses seem fragile, made of paper.
"Your hair grew," Naruto said finally, his hands still on Sasuke's shoulders, and Sasuke didn't know if he wanted him to take them off or if he wanted him to move them somewhere else, anywhere else. "And you're thinner. Are you eating? Sleeping? It doesn't look like you're sleeping. You have deep dark circles."
"I've always had dark circles."
"Not that dark."
"It's dark here. The lighting is different."
"Sasuke."
"Naruto."
They stared at each other, and for the first time in a long time, Sasuke felt the curve of a smile trying to form on his lips. Not a sarcastic or ironic smile, but something genuine, something he couldn't control, something that only Naruto seemed able to draw out of him.
"You're an idiot," Sasuke said, but there was no poison in the words. There never was, not when it came to Naruto.
"I know," Naruto replied, and he laughed, the sound so familiar it hurt. "But I'm your idiot, you know."
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken meaning.
Sasuke felt the blood rise to his cheeks — he, Sasuke Uchiha, blushing like a maiden from a fairy tale — and looked away, searching for Gaara, for any distraction that would pull him from the intensity of the moment.
Gaara was a few steps away, watching them with an expression Sasuke couldn't fully decipher. There was something there that suggested the Kazekage wasn't as indifferent as he appeared.
Of course he wasn't.
Why would he be?
Naruto had that effect on people. He would enter a room, and suddenly, everyone wanted to be near him, wanted to be noticed by him, wanted to be the recipient of that smile. And Gaara, who had been saved by Naruto in a way few understood, who had found in the blond a reason to keep living when all he wanted was to disappear — Gaara felt something for Naruto. Something that went beyond friendship. Something that Sasuke recognized well, because it was the same something that he himself felt, even if he never admitted it.
Jealousy tightened again, stronger than ever.
"We should —" Sasuke began, but he didn't know how to finish the sentence. Should we go to the meeting? Should we talk in private? Should we do something about this tension that is so thick it could be cut with a kunai?
"Oh, right!" Naruto let go of Sasuke's shoulders and turned to Gaara. "We have the meeting, right? About the routes? And about the task force? Kakashi-sensei said you already had some ideas, Gaara-san, and I really wanted to hear them, because, you know, I think Suna and Konoha could do so many things together, like, if we combined our forces-"
"Naruto," Gaara interrupted, and there was a note of affection in his voice that made Sasuke clench his teeth. "The meeting won't start until sunset. You have time."
"Oh." Naruto seemed surprised, as if he had completely forgotten what time it was. "That's right. Okay. So..." He looked from Gaara to Sasuke and back to Gaara, and Sasuke saw the moment a decision was made. "So I'll show Sasuke the village! He's never really seen Suna properly, right? He always stays in the office or the room. That's not healthy!"
Sasuke felt a wave of triumph.
He had never properly seen Suna, and Naruto had noticed. Naruto had noticed that Sasuke always stayed secluded, that he never explored the places he passed through. And more importantly, Naruto wanted to change that. Naruto wanted to spend time with him.
"I don't need a tour guide, Naruto," Sasuke began, but it was a lie, everyone knew it. His voice had no conviction.
"Come on!" Naruto was already grabbing his wrist, pulling him toward the main gate. "I know a place that sells the best yakitori in the entire desert. Well, it's the only place that sells yakitori in the desert, but it's still really good!"
"Naruto, I don't-"
"You don't eat properly, I know, because you always look like you're about to faint when I see you, so today you're going to eat properly with me, understood?"
Sasuke should resist. He should pull his wrist back, say he had work to do, that he wasn't here to stroll around, that the last thing he wanted was to spend time alone with Naruto in a foreign village, where no one knew them and where they could...
Where they could do anything.
The thought hit Sasuke like a thunderbolt; he stumbled over his own feet. Naruto held him by the elbow, stopping him from falling.
"Are you okay?" The blond frowned, and there was genuine concern in his eyes. "You look pale. More than usual, I mean. You're always kind of pale, but now you look like you've seen a ghost."
"I'm fine," Sasuke repeated, for the third time, and this time it was almost true. Almost, because he wasn't fine, he was everything but fine, he was about to have a breakdown, because Naruto was holding him, the heat of that hand was traveling up his arm and spreading across his chest like fire.
But he didn't mind.
He wanted this. He wanted Naruto's hands on his body, wanted Naruto's warmth against his skin, wanted everything he had denied himself for years.
Naruto seemed about to say something more, but then his eyes drifted to something behind Sasuke, and his smile softened even more.
"Gaara-san," he called, and Sasuke turned to see the Kazekage still standing in the courtyard, his green eyes fixed on them, with an expression Sasuke couldn't fully read. "We'll see you at the meeting, right?"
Gaara nodded slowly. His eyes moved from Naruto to Sasuke; for a moment, Sasuke saw something cross his face. Something that looked like... resignation and sadness.
"Have fun," Gaara said, and his voice was calm, but there was a fragility in it that Sasuke had never heard before. "Sasuke-kun... I hope you like Suna."
Sasuke didn't answer. Instead, he allowed Naruto to pull him out of the courtyard, feeling Gaara's eyes burning on his back until they turned the corner and disappeared from view.
And then, finally, Sasuke smiled.
It was a small smile, sharp, full of unspoken promises.
"You can have your weekly letters," Sasuke thought, as he followed Naruto through the sandy streets of Suna. "You can touch his face. You can smile at him with your love-filled eyes. But he is with me now, and I won't let him go."
The streets of Suna stretched before them like veins of hard-packed earth and wind-sculpted stone. Sasuke walked beside Naruto, their shoulders almost touching, and each step in the loose sand made their footwear sink slightly. The heat of the desert, which had previously seemed suffocating, now felt bearable, or perhaps it was just the presence of the blond beside him, radiating a temperature of his own that surpassed any sun.
"You've never walked around here, have you?" Naruto asked, slipping a little on a steeper slope. His hand found Sasuke's arm for a second, seeking balance, and the Uchiha felt the touch like an electric shock. "Every time you've come to Suna, you've stayed locked in your room or in Gaara's office. That's no way to travel."
"I'm not here for tourism."
"You should be." Naruto released his arm but remained close, so close that Sasuke could feel the heat of his body through the layers of fabric. "Traveling isn't just about missions, Sasuke. It's about... you know, seeing places. Meeting people. Eating different foods. Living a little."
Sasuke almost laughed.
Living a little.
He had spent the last two years traveling alone across the world, sleeping in cheap inns and makeshift camps, fighting bandits and investigating threats few knew existed. He had seen landscapes that would take anyone's breath away, mountains that touched the sky, oceans so blue they looked painted, forests where sunlight filtered green and gold through the leaves. But he had never lived any of them. He had only crossed them like a ghost in foreign territory, always with one foot out the door, always ready to move on.
"Maybe," Sasuke said finally, and it was the closest thing to a concession he could offer.
Naruto looked at him sideways, his blue eyes shining with something that looked like hope.
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe I should live more."
The smile that bloomed on the blond's face was as radiant as the desert sun. Sasuke had to look away.