Chapter Text
If there was an easy way to describe how awful Naruto was feeling right now, he would probably express it, but there wasn't a single word. He was all alone, shivering in the darkness as he felt a hot puddle of his blood pool around him.
The edge of his shirt felt heavy from this metallic liquid and the scent of it was making him nauseous. Could you imagine that a ninja who would one day have to kill felt sick at the mere scent of blood?
He felt silly, and then that silliness turned into a self-deprivating sickness that burned at the edges of his eyes. There was no point in crying right now, and he knew that he couldn't wipe his tears away either.
His arms felt so heavy. Naruto couldn't remember what happened exactly but he was walking home. Alone as always, but with hope that sooner or later, he'd get the all-clear from Tsunade to leave the village and find Sasuke.
Right, Sasuke. That's what he wanted to do and that's why he was walking home. With that cold wind blowing into his face and wetting his eyes. Sasuke who abandoned him after the first exam to disappear into an obsolete corner of a world that Naruto would never understand.
Naruto was walking home, alone and tired, and wanted to eat something hot. He wanted to lay his head down and dream of a world where things were better. Where he didn't have to fight to be seen and heard everyday.
He took a shortcut that night and a man stabbed him in an instant. Maybe that man was following him the whole time. Perhaps this was one of those "freak incidents" that Kiba talked about.
But he dragged himself home anyhow. Because Naruto was alone all his life and to die in an alleyway like a sick dog was too much. It would be too dramatic and too sad.
"Here lies the unfortunate orphan Naruto Uzumaki. Born and died to circumstances beyond his control."
Holding himself against walls and crawling against the stairs up to his apartment, he somehow opened the door with a painful strain that made him bleed against it.
And now, he was simply bleeding out on the floor with a gash that burned so brutally that Naruto wanted to throw up. He tried to think of the afterlife and could not shake his thoughts away from Sasuke.
Thick raven hair that was silky straight. He never smiled in class but one time, a very special moment in Naruto's memory, he saw Sasuke smile at a stray cat while walking home. It was a small and delicate smile, something passing so quickly like the spring flowers in the trees.
He hated to think about it too much. He loved Sasuke and he understood why everyone looked at him so different because of this love.
Naruto loved Sasuke in a way that broke down their rivalry to a love affair so potent that it made onlookers sick. Naruto loved everything about Sasuke including his heinous heart that only thought of protecting himself.
As he slowly died, Naruto wanted to consider himself not as the victim of a broken world or a self-proclaimed martyr for the nation, but as yet another boy who died. Nobody truly outstanding or special, no one who would be remembered six months from now.
He could feel his fingertips slowly growing cold and the involuntary twitches of his feet. His breath was shuddering against his will and though he tried to take deep breaths, everything pained immeasurably.
"Sasuke... will you come back once I've died?", he asked to darkness of his room, "Will you please come back?"
But nobody answered and that finally broke him. He slowly turned himself onto his side, until he was laying on his stomach and let himself sink.
Into the blood pool, the hardwood ridges, and the fading heat of his own body against the icy floor.
When Naruto opened his eyes, he winced at the sharp pain emanating from the corners of his eyes.
"Oh thank goodness you're awake!" Pink hair flashed before him as he got used to the brightness.
It was Sakura and she looked as pale as the walls around them. He became too conscious at once, immediately aware that he had left his room somehow and was transported to the Konoha medical centre.
Tsunade and several medical-nin appeared from behind a curtain and they swarmed him with wires, tissues and documents. His hearing felt fuzzy as the sound of rustling papers and voices faded into one.
At the recesses of his mind, he saw a gleaming red iris watching him. It swirled within its own pool of blood-red ruby shine and then disappeared into the shadows.
"You have no idea the scare you gave me when Sakura came to my office, kid," Tsunade grumbled.
Her clear voice stood out amongst all the warbling of the atmosphere. Naruto wanted to raise his hand to touch her thin wrist but he felt restrained.
"You have a lot of explaining to do! I mean-"
"Tsunade-sama, the patient should rest," one of the medical-nin jumped in.
His hair was black and his skin was alabaster pale, but he was nothing like Sasuke. But who was Sasuke after all? The type of bastard to leave Naruto in the dust, that's all.
"We'll be right outside, Naruto... please recover soon," Sakura gave a small smile and stumbled her way out of the room with the others.
Tsunade remained a little longer and brushed his hair away from his forehead.
"You showed up at the centre somehow, covered from head to toe in your own blood. You scared everyone thoroughly... Sakura found you waiting outside first...." she sighed.
But how could that be? He had resolved himself to die in his apartment and yet somehow had moved all the way, several streets away, to the medical centre. He didn't have any strength and hardly had any blood.
Tsunade looked like she wanted to say more but left it at that, leaving quietly. He was alone in the room and felt that sinking silence settle into him.
It didn't matter how he got here, somehow Naruto was alive. It felt like such a strange thing to have given up on living any more than this, only to have found himself alive after all.
He was never good at doing anything correctly, and it seemed that even dying correctly had its own difficulties for him.