Title: Simulacra
Pairing: NarutoxNeji (or NejixNaruto, either works for me)
Rating: G, PG at most
Comments: Angst, angst, and more angst. XD. Sorry, folks. Minor spoilers up to the current manga.

—

Naruto stood balanced on the balls of his feet, the straight line of his body facing westward. He stood at the very tip of a tall pine, the canopy of the forest fanned out before him. The sun was a sliver on the horizon as a purple and blue bruise spread across the darkening sky.

He wasn’t sure what it was about the sunset that fascinated him. Perhaps it was the hush that descended at the end of an otherwise industrious day, or the quiet elegance of emerging starlight. But once the sun faded out of sight, he turned away.

He glanced sideways and for a moment, he thought he saw a small dark figure poised atop the next tree over, arms crossed, and that painfully familiar smirk that hid a reluctant measure of respect. He blinked and the memory was gone.

Naruto didn’t like the night time. He wasn’t sure when he’d come to this conclusion. As a child, loneliness was a constant, even during the day. But it was so much easier to ignore when the sun was so bright, and the silence of singularity was broken by the laughter and calls of other children. He supposed it ought to have been more apparent how alone he was when surrounded by so many of his peers. But it was during the stillness of the dark and the deafening silence of night when his loneliness stood out in stark relief. At night, he really was alone.

As a ninja, he not only understood the importance of darkness, he valued its protective cover.

Sasuke had left at night.

Naruto lifted a wistful smile into the warm air, and stepped off his perch.

***

“What kind of mission is it?”

Naruto grinned through a mouthful of ramen at the woman who sat beside him and opened his mouth to speak.

“Swallow your food first!” she chided with a laugh, her green eyes glittering with amusement.

He swallowed thickly and snatched up his napkin to wipe his mouth of dribbling broth. “Sorry about that.” He grinned sheepishly. “Gaara just wants us to help out with a matter concerning the hidden Stone village. It’s not like Gaara can’t scare them all shitless by himself,” he said with a impish chuckle, “but there’ve been some minor skirmishes between the two villages and Gaara wants to point out to the Tsuchikage that going against Sand will also mean going against Leaf.”

“I see. So nothing dangerous?” Sakura asked, watching as her companion breathed down another heaping of noodles.

“Nope. Just boring politics. I wouldn’t even go if Gaara hadn’t asked.”

“Does Neji have to go too?

Naruto nodded through another mouthful of ramen. Since he was outranked at the time, he had been assigned to be Neji’s subordinate after he’d returned from his long period of training with Jiraiya. Naruto had quickly risen to chuunin status and, with additional guidance from Neji, to jounin soon after. Now the two men were often paired together on missions, for no other reason than the fact that they worked so well together.

He set down his chopsticks, thanked the old man who ran Ichiraku for the free meal, and stood from his stool. “I have training with Neji and Shikamaru today. See you later, Sakura.”

He waved, that infectiously charming grin flashing across his face before he turned and strolled away.

Sakura smiled fondly at the back of his head.

When Naruto neared the field where he and Neji trained, he could already feel the thin streams of chakra that cooled the air whenever Neji was sparring. Neji’s chakra licked at his skin, breathed goosebumps down his arms, made the fox inside him rumble in appreciation at the power.

Not quite as defined was Shikamaru’s chakra which slipped quietly through the veins of Neji’s chakra, unobtrusive and languid, much like the ninja himself.

The two men had become his sparring partners since his return to the village. Sometimes he would catch a spark of Neji’s chakra flaring in the man’s pale hands and he’d look up and be surprised to see milky white eyes staring back at him instead of charcoal black ones. And then he’d smile and shake off the nerves, reminding himself that Sasuke and his chidori were miles and years away from him.

“Oi! Naruto!”

Naruto waved cheerfully to Shikamaru, who promptly dropped and sprawled on his back over the grass, glad for the interruption in their spar. Neji crossed his arms, looking amused. Shikamaru had become jounin the year before but in a one-on-one match with Neji, the outcome was always the same. Shikamaru was an intellectual genius but he was lacking in the more physical aspects of being a ninja, aspects which he needed in order to actually defeat the Hyuuga prodigy.

“Shikamaru, you should go to Sand with us. I bet Temari will be glad to see you.” He bent over Shikamaru and leered, his eyebrows waggling obscenely.

Shikamaru, disgruntled with having his view of the sky obstructed by an annoying blonde head, turned to his side, away from Naruto.

“No thanks. She’s scarier than her brother.”

Naruto, however, hadn’t missed the blush tinting the man’s cheeks and snorted in laughter.

Dimly, he felt the cool brush of Neji’s chakra against his back.

***

The two men walked side-by-side away from the hokage’s tower, having just returned from their mission to Sand. It was well after sunset, the moon luminous and high overhead.

At the rim of his vision, pale skin and dark hair shifted in the night and if he squinted just a little, for just a second, Naruto allowed himself to imagine that ambiguous figure to belong to another man, or a boy, really, as the last image of Sasuke that Naruto had was the boy he had fought at the Valley of the End. The illusion broke when Neji straightened his shoulders, his long hair rippling down his back.

They reached Naruto’s apartment first, as his home was closer. “Why don’t you crash here tonight? It’s late.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Neji had spent the night in his apartment after returning late from a long mission so the suggestion was not unusual.

Neji smiled appreciatively. “Sure. It’s been a long day.”

They entered Naruto’s small apartment quietly so the neighbors wouldn’t be disturbed, Naruto’s hand searching along the wall for the light switch.

“I got first dibs on the shower,” Naruto called as he disappeared into his room, tugging his dark shirt over his head.

Neji followed him into the bedroom, ignoring the undressing blonde as he grabbed a pillow from the bed and returned to the living room where a sunken couch was the room’s main piece of furniture. He shrugged out of his shirt and pants, spreading his long body across the damaged springs of the old couch and stared at the ceiling, listening to the drone of the shower.

He frowned, wondering when Naruto would stop trying to see in him someone the blonde had lost a long time ago. He had known years before that pairing up with Naruto was a bad idea, considering the similarities between himself and the Uchiha. He had never questioned the Hokage’s reasoning, however. For all he knew, it was because of those similarities that they had been paired in the first place.

It seemed unfair that the person responsible for freeing Neji from his past was now lost in his own. Neji mulled over the irony, knowing he had to stop relying on time to wear away Naruto’s memories of Sasuke. The years could only do so much to blur the edges. Neji knew this perfectly well.

He closed his eyes, a light crease forming between his brows.

A few minutes later, the door to the bathroom opened. Naruto stepped out, drying his hair with a thin towel, a pair of sweats hanging low off his hips.

“Ok, Neji, your turn…” He trailed off, spying Neji already asleep on his horribly worn couch. The man looked uncomfortable, his back bowing down into the sunken cushions.

From his angle, he couldn’t see Neji’s face. Just the curve of a pale cheek and dark hair spilling over the edge of the pillow he’d stolen from Naruto’s bed. His hands dropped to his sides, the towel slipping from his fingers to lie forgotten on the floor. He took a few steps forward until he could see Neji’s face.

He shook his head, feeling the self-pity welling up low in his belly. Smiling ruefully, he sank to his knees beside the sleeping man. Neji’s eyebrows were drawn into a small frown, his sleep seemingly disturbed by whatever secrets lay behind those enigmatic white eyes. Naruto sighed, reaching out a hand to smooth away the frown.

A hand shot up, grabbing Naruto’s wrist before his fingers could make contact with Neji’s skin. White eyes were watching him from behind lowered eyelids and dark lashes. Naruto, only because he had known the man for so long, could see the curiosity in his otherwise unreadable eyes.

Naruto pulled his hand away, frowning when Neji refused to release his wrist. “Sorry,” Naruto mumbled, growing uneasy at the simple contact. “You looked…uncomfortable.”

Neji searched his face for several more seconds as Naruto grew increasingly more unsettled with the intense gaze. “Who did you expect to see?”

Naruto, who had been staring at the floor, met Neji’s gaze with surprise. “What?”

“I wasn’t asleep, Naruto. You moved to look at me closer. Who were you expecting to see?” he asked, his voice low and soft in the quiet room.

Naruto quickly wiped the surprise from his face and smiled good-naturedly. “What are you talking about, Neji? You must really be tired. Maybe you should just sleep and shower tomorrow morning.”

“I’m not him, Naruto.”

The smile faded from his face, along with all color. Then, just as quickly, the color returned to his cheeks, his face turning bright red as he wrenched his hand from Neji’s grasp.

“I know that! I…” Naruto’s gaze fell away. “I know.”

“Look at me, Naruto.”

Neji’s gentle command was enough to urge Naruto’s gaze upward. When Neji remained silent, Naruto felt compelled to fill the awkward silence. Awkward silences were not common between them.

“Look, Neji. Sometimes…sometimes you remind me of him and I can’t help…just for that moment…seeing…” He shook his head, a sad smile curling his lips. “But it’s not like I don’t see you.”

He punctuated this fact by staring intently into Neji’s face, well familiar with the large pale eyes, the strong jaw, the high cheekbones that spoke of his noble lineage despite being a branch family member. He had looked at this face for so long and he realized now how utterly different it was from Sasuke’s.

As the years had passed, Neji’s smile had grown more open, his eyes less wary. Sasuke had never smiled at him that way. Sasuke had never trusted him fully despite having been his closest friend. He swallowed the lump in his throat as Neji met his stare, pale eyes seemingly peering right into his thoughts.

This was Neji, he thought. Neji, whose friendship and loyalty he had never doubted. And Neji was here now with him. Outside, the sky was dark and village slept, but Neji wouldn’t leave. Tonight, he wasn’t alone.

His eyes widened when he realized he was staring at Neji’s lips. He turned away.

“Naruto.”

The blonde turned back to find Neji’s face closing in on his. He blinked, his eyes impossibly wide when he realized Neji was kissing him. He felt the thin tendrils of Neji’s chakra sliding up his arms. The cool sensation breathed across his neck, down his bare back, soothing the tense muscles.

This is Neji, he thought, and the reminder reassured him enough to relax into the kiss, his eyes closing until all he could feel was Neji’s soft lips sliding and moving against his.

After a moment, he felt Neji pull away and he opened his eyes.

Neji smiled, amused to see that Naruto was looking at him with an almost bemused expression.

As if realizing he was staring, Naruto started, a dark flush rising on his cheeks making his tanned skin look ruddy. “I-er, Neji-”

Neji silence him with another kiss, not wanting to hear any awkward questions about the moment that had just passed between them. He had acted on an impulse. There was no need for explanations.

Naruto seemed to come to this conclusion as well, because when Neji pulled back, the blond ruffled his still damp hair and stood with an uncertain grin. “Er, good-night.” What else could he say?

The corner of Neji’s lips quirked, and he watched as Naruto swallowed nervously under his steady gaze. “Good-night, Naruto.”

The blonde turned away and Neji closed his eyes, pleased with himself.

His eyes cracked open when he heard Naruto pause at his bedroom door. Naruto’s low voice hummed across the room. “Thanks, Neji. For being you.”

The End

Note: Resurgence takes place a few years after this story.