Chapter Text
It was almost midnight when the phone rang. Naruto fumbled to reach his buzzing cell phone from the night stand and, after dropping it several consecutive times, managed to groggily answer it.
"Hello?" the blondie mumbled, half-asleep.
"They found Sasuke" a female voice announced from the other end of the line. It was more than enough to shock Naruto awake. He clumsily threw his bedsheets across the matress and sat up on his side of the bed, his heart beating like a racing stallion.
Naruto scrambled to ask the million questions he had for Sakura, who had just called him in the dead of night to tell him the news, but the words got tangled with each other and, in such a state, he only managed to cohesively ask the single most important one:
"Is he... alive?" Sakura could barely make out Naruto's voice. He'd wanted to ask this loud and clear, but the words came out like a trembling whisper; as if saying it out loud, or even thinking it, could summon the possibility of it coming true. Of Sasuke being...
"Yes"
A sigh of relief. There was a brief moment of silence between them,- Naruto was too shaken up to speak-, before Sakura continued:
"We'll go see him tomorrow."
"Wait! Please, don't hang up, I have so many questions to ask you." Naruto clutched the phone like it was gonna fall apart if he loosened his grip on it. His mind was scrambled and a million thoughts raced across his mind at exactly the same speed of a billion miles per hour. The possibility of composing any semblance of a coherent sentence at that moment was very slim.
Sasuke Uchiha had been missing since they were twelve years old. After Sasuke's older brother Itachi had shot their parents in cold blood and later killed himself awaiting trial, Sasuke had understandably never been the same. He'd been living with an estranged aunt and uncle when he ran away, never to be seen or heard from again. Everyone in Konoha, their sweet little hometown, had taken him for dead.
Not Naruto, though. Sasuke had been one of his bestest friends, if not THE best, in the whole wide world. They used to be thick as thieves, even though they were at each other's throats half of the time. Even ten years later, long after having moved from Konoha to the big city, deep down he still harbored hope that Sasuke would someday turn up alive and well, and everything would be the same way it once had been.
He hadn't actually expected it to come true, though.
Naruto was terrified that Sakura was gonna hang up on him and leave him alone with his racing mind. He knew he wasn't going back to sleep that night.
"You can get your answers from the man himself tomorrow" the pink-haired beauty teased.
"But where is he? Is it far from here? What time can we go see him? A-and for how long? I-"
"He's in the hospital across the street from your apartment and NO you can not go over there right now." Naruto had practically teleported to the other side of the room and was already fumbling for his jacket before she finished the sentence. He pouted and defeatedly sat back down on his bed.
"Boo you"
"It's not visiting hours and NO they won't make an exception for you."
"But I'm his bestest friend in the whole wide world!" Naruto pouted "...or at least I hope I still am, y'know."
"I promise you I'll be at your house first thing in the morning and we'll go see him together, alright?" Sakura said, and Naruto could feel her smiling through the phone the way she always did when she made him a promise.
"But do you pinky promise, Saku?" he said playfully, and Sakura giggled at Naruto's ever-childish nature.
"I pinky promise you that I'll be at your house first thing in the morning and we'll go see Sasuke together, alright?" she assured him. There was another silence between them before Sakura added:
"I'm gonna hang up now, okay? I'll be at your apartment at seven sharp, so PLEASE be ready by then."
"WAIT! Don't hang up yet." Sakura was starting to get pissed.
"What now, Naruto? You can ask me all the questions you want tomorrow!"
"Is Sasuke alright? Why's he in a hospital?" his voice changed from his playful tone to a more solemn, concerned one. Sakura noticed this shift and tried to reassure him.
"They didn't let me see him, but from what I was told he was in, uh, 'stable' condition." There was a brief pause. Naruto's breath was audible through the phone. "If they're letting us see him then he can't be in that bad of a shape, right?" Sakura half-assedly reassured her best friend, "...right?"
"I guess..." Naruto didn't sound too convinced himself either, "well, I'm gonna head back to bed now and try to get some sleep. See you in the morning, Sakura."
"Goodnight, Naruto" she said as she blew little kisses into the phone, a cute little gesture they'd taken to with each other many years ago. Naruto reciprocated and promptly hung up, placing his phone back down on the nightstand and laying his head on his pillow. But he knew getting any more sleep was out of the question.
After rolling around in bed for hours in a futile attempt to fall asleep, Naruto turned his eyes towards the window on the side of his bed. He rolled off of the king-sized bed that took up most of his bedroom and dragged his feet over to said window and looked up at the moon. Mindlessly resting his head on his hand, he thought of Sasuke. The sight of a full moon always brought Sasuke to mind. Namely, a particular memory he shared with Sasuke.
Naruto buried his face in his hands and squealed like a schoolgirl. He hadn't thought about that in years, at least not thoroughly. It sporadically swam up to his stream of consciousness and tied his stomach in knots, made him feel flushed and anxious like nothing else could. The feeling was ambivalent; the memory was both dreadful and cherished to him, because it was one of the last times he'd seen Sasuke before he disappeared, and he wasn't sure if Sasuke would remember.
He wasn't sure if he wanted him to remember.
-
Sasuke had never once stopped thinking about the past: his friends, his family, his life in the quiet residential town of Konoha. What most occupied his thoughts, though, was a particular reckless blondie who'd gathered himself quite the reputation for his rowdiness. Sasuke was a polar opposite of Naruto, no doubt, which is why they complemented each other like day and night. It's what made their bond special, he guessed.
Like the sun and the moon.
Defeated, Naruto slumped back into his bed face-first and tried to drift off to sleep. Somewhere not far from him, a certain raven-haired fellow did just the same: lay back down on his too-stiff pillow and try to get some rest before more healthcare professionals barged in on him first thing in the morning to badger him with questionnaire after questionnaire. It's not like he had the energy or patience to deal with them when he was well-rested, either.