Title: Cultivated Oblivion
Rated: R
Pairing: NaruSasuNaru
Comments: I am aware that this is a waaaay less-than-original story, but I’ve always wanted to write one of these JUST BECAUSE. So there. Teehee.
Summary: In which Sasuke is far from perfect and Naruto has no illusions. This is how it falls apart.

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Part I

Two days later and Naruto is still ignorant of Sasuke’s folly.

Except folly would be a mild way of saying he’d royally fucked himself over.

But Naruto is still prattling on about his day, unaware that Sasuke’s silence has more to do with nerves than a lack of anything interesting to say. Since Sasuke never offers much in the way of conversation anyway, Naruto has little reason to suspect anything is amiss.

“So when are you going to tell me about that party?”

Sasuke takes a deliberate bite of his onigiri, giving no indication of the fact that his heart is beating frantically against his chest.

“Kiba said you actually drank and talked to people like a normal person.” Naruto grins broadly, arms gesturing wildly as he talks. “I can’t believe I missed that! Ack!” His flailing arm has knocked over a picture frame set atop their end table. He shifts on the sofa to resituate it.

“You didn’t miss much,” Sasuke finally says. He congratulates himself on how steady his voice is.

“Are you kidding me? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink more than a sip of sake. And Kiba says you had almost three bottles!” Naruto is leaning over the cushions now, his hand braced on the back of the sofa. His face is close enough that Sasuke could press his mouth to Naruto’s and shut the blond up before he says anything else.

He is at least spared having to offer an excuse for his behavior. Naruto seems to have taken the news of his unusually excessive drinking in stride.

“So how come you haven’t drank like that before? Like when I’m actually there?”

Sasuke mentally sighs and retracts his previous thought. He shrugs in reply because there is little he can say that won’t sound incriminating.

“What else did Kiba say?” he asks. He takes another bite of his snack and averts his eyes as Naruto flounces back to his own end of the sofa. The drapes that he’s been meaning to put up are folded neatly on a chair beside the window. He settles his gaze on the block of sunlight that angles down through the unadorned glass.

“That’s about it. He said the rest of the night was a blur and he woke up the next morning on top of the Hokage mountain.” Naruto snickers into his hand.

“Hn.” Sasuke finishes off his snack and stands. “Let’s go see if my sword is ready.”

“Bleh. The sword smith said it wouldn’t be ready for another week. Why do you keep changing the subject when I ask you about the party? Are you that embarrassed about actually having a good time?” Naruto crosses his arms and gives Sasuke a stubborn look.

“I didn’t have a good time.” Sasuke forces his jaw to relax before calmly stating, “Sakura coerced me into going.”

Naruto looks unconvinced. Sasuke glances out the window, not wanting to look at the blond man right then. On the street below, a group of kids have gathered to play ninjas. They are selecting teams and Sasuke mentally notes that the pale-eyed child among them is likely a Hyuuga.

Unfortunately, the distraction is short-lived. Naruto stands up in a huff and throws up his arms. “Fine, play the silent game. See if I care.”

There is a knock at the door and Naruto sighs before striding across the room to answer it. Sasuke frowns lightly. The knock was gentle, almost tentative. He turns from the window just as Naruto throws the door open.

Sakura stands in the hallway, hands twisting into the fabric of her skirt. The tense lines of her shoulders are pulled in, as if she is trying to take up as little space as possible. She opens her mouth to greet Naruto but freezes when her gaze slides behind him to meet Sasuke’s.

Sasuke’s heart lodges in his throat and is disinclined to move.

“Sakura-chan! What are you doing here? Come in, come in. Did you want something to drink?” Naruto glances over his shoulder. “Oy, bastard, get her something to drink.”

“We were just leaving.” Sasuke picks up his vest from where he’d tossed it on the coffee table.

“Sasuke-kun.”

He zips his vest and quickly checks his weapons pouch. Sakura bites her lip, her eyes darting between the two men.

“Sakura, are you okay?” Naruto frowns and reaches out to rest a hand on her shoulder.

“Sasuke-kun,” she says again, her voice stronger now. It demands a reply.

Sasuke turns his back to her. His hands clench at his sides. Stop it, he thinks harshly even as his pulse races faster and his stomach turns.

“What the hell is going on here?” Naruto seems to have finally caught on.

“Leave it alone.” Sasuke turns on his heel and pins Sakura with a hard glare. His back to the window, he can feel the sun warming his shoulders, mocking the cool dread that prickles his neck. He should have put those damn drapes up the week before.

Naruto is looking at him, those blue eyes reflecting only confusion. “Leave what alone?”

“If you don’t tell him, I will.” Sakura’s eyes are fixed on his chin, but her jaw is set. She smoothes out the wrinkles of her skirt with a trembling hand.

“It’s none of your business.” Sasuke steps forward, a pulse of angry chakra resonating outward. Sakura flinches.

Naruto steps between them, arms crossed. Those blue eyes have narrowed on him, the confusion twisting into disbelief. “Someone tell me what the hell is going on here,” he demands.

Sakura’s gaze lifts, meeting his just long enough to gauge whether or not Sasuke will talk. His lips flatten. He doesn’t like feeling cornered; it makes him want to lash out, to rip his sword through the bodies in his way and escape.

But he learned a long time ago that there was no running from the consequences of his actions. Naruto would have found out eventually.

“The party,” he finally says. He forces himself to meet those searching blue eyes.

Behind Naruto, Sakura’s gaze falls away, her shoulders slumping—whether in relief or defeat, he can’t tell, but suspects it is a little of both.

“What about it?” Naruto cocks his head, one eyebrow arched in query.

“I…” He really hates it when his voice sticks like that. He swallows and lifts his head a bit. “You’d been gone for weeks. I was drunk. Something happened.”

Realization is quick to dawn. Naruto’s eyes widen and his mouth grows slack for a moment before everything seems to rebound, his entire face tightening in fury. Sasuke has to look away.

A split second later, pain explodes in his jaw and he is suddenly flying backward. The windowpane bursts at his back. He lays limp against the broken window as a whoosh of air signals Naruto’s departure. The tinkling fall of glass is an oddly fitting melody to the pieces shattering in his chest.

***

Thinking back, the people Sasuke has betrayed trail behind him like cobblestones, marking the path he has taken to reach this point.

Even so, he has never regretted betraying Konoha when he was a genin. He doesn’t regret betraying Orochimaru either. He doesn’t regret killing Juugo—Juugo had begged for death to save him from himself. He doesn’t regret blinding his brother and leaving him to die in the pit of the Akatsuki’s lair. He wishes he had stayed to watch the life ebb from him as Itachi had done to their parents, but he does not regret it.

All those un-regrets seem to hang above his head, taunting him with wisps of images frayed from neglect, as Sasuke reads the letter stating that the Hokage has approved Naruto’s request for a partner change.

***

Sasuke returns home from a mission to find the apartment they had shared is now well and truly his. Naruto’s belongings, his stacks of ramen, the pile of laundry in the corner of their bedroom—it has all been removed. Sasuke chooses to ignore this.

Naruto never bothers to find out why Sasuke did what he did, and Sasuke can only assume it is because he is either too hurt or too angry to care about the motives. What’s done is done.

He doesn’t see Naruto again until a month later. Naruto and Sai are leaving the ramen stand as Sasuke passes on his way home.

Sai smiles and waves in his deliberately vacuous manner and Naruto pauses. Sasuke braces himself for Naruto’s anger, perhaps even another jaw-breaking punch. He holds his breath, as if the moment is suspended—that second of complete stillness before the plummet. There is nothing between them now except a few meters of earth.

Naruto’s gaze passes over him, blue eyes blank as if Sasuke is nothing more than an unremarkable blemish in the road. And then that blond head is moving away, dust from the gravel kicking up in thin billows behind him.

Nothing between them except a few meters of earth and a chasm too vast to trek.

***

Sasuke finds it amusing (although in a cruel, bitter way) that shoving his hand through Naruto’s chest, slamming him head first into a solid cliff wall and stabbing him with his sword on more than one occasion had still not been incentive enough for Naruto to give up on him.

In the end, all it had taken was a few bottles of sake and a dark alley with a stranger.

All it had taken was breaking Naruto’s heart.

Sasuke never expected his own to follow suit.

Part II