Archive of Our Own

(Two weeks ago)

" Heart in lavender is a comforting place. It is surrounded by a large jungle that extends all the way to the shiny sea that is warm and extremely soothing for swimmers. It is built on a enormous hill that is as green as the heart of the jungle. Multiple houses are comfotrtablly resting on top of it as they lead all the way down to the lower parts where the cattle with kind-hearted animals are along with the farms of corn.  The village is full of aesthetic environment and trees so tall it makes the village completely hidden from the prying eyes of whoever was to look at it from above. The jungle that the village is surrounded with, could not be declared as small. It has plethora of trees that had been stuck together from decades ago and the great mountains that rule over the environment, their watchful eyes never leaving the ground as the sound of the happy waves of the sea gently ruffles the ears of the villagers even though they are three miles away from it. The setting sun is another amazing natural beauty of the Heart in the lavender that shines above the wolf filled mountain. The village is called the Heart in the lavender because it had fields above fields of lavender flowers...."

The girl was spitting bullshit on top of bullshit to the audience that were gathered around her. She was standing on top of the old bus as she throw the mouthful of lies at the tourists who had never really lived in the supposed heaven of the Heart in the lavender.

The village was not sunny and it was rainy all the time so the chance of seeing any setting sun ( or seeing sun in general ) was extremely low. The hill that the houses were crushing didn't look okay in any sense it more looked like it was slowly dying by the weight of the said houses. It wasn't even green to begin with. It had a geryish tone like a bad salad that tased as bad as it looked. The jungle was not to be gone to at all because of the several rumors of the villagers that has claimed they had heard voices and had seen the things that no human eyes should look at. The jungle wasn't filled with humourous laughter, it was dark and looked like it would only be the reason for nightmares. It actually was. Many children were afraid of it only because their parents had told them that the jungle was filled with trolls and ghosts and monsters and if they stood outside in the dark, they will come to the village and if they see anyone in the streets, they will take them back to the jungle where there's no way back.

Children were horrified by the tall trees and many even claimed they had seen someone with watchful eyes on one of the many branches. Poor things hadn't been able to stop trembling when the sky went dark. His own guardian ( he didn't really have a family, mainly because they were all dead and Iruka was the only one family member he got and possibly the only kind person in the village ) had told him the same stories to keep him indoors when he was a child as well, meaning that he had also been the victim of this cruelty.

And the sea ?

Every single year another body was found there.  Many of the young ones in the village couldn't handle the pressure of the horrible people of the village or were just too abused to even begin the story; so they took the simple way of the sea and drowned themselves.

Such a lovely village.

The cattles were filled with dirty rags and angry animals and the farms of corns could only be described as tremendous. The tall scarecrows only looked like dark figures that were haunted by the ghosts of the earlier villagers who no longer existed.

And the lavender field was long since burnt, and the remaining flowers that had somehow survived were lonely as they waited for the ever loved death to come and consume them.

A drop of cold wet hit his face as he looked up at the swollen sky witch showed that the clouds were sick and tired of carrying frowny faces and it was time for them to cry and get heavier again.

Because the clouds in the Heart in the lavender was never light and always, ALWAYS heavy with rain that only seemed to get colder the more it came to wet their already tear straked faces.

Rubbing his hands together, he rolled his eyes and looked back to the pink haired girl who was sugarcoating every single thing that has ever happened in the village and of course, she kept her big mouth shut about the telltale of the rumors about the ghosts and the trolls and the scary face that was hidden in the jungle and of course she would never mention the teny, tiny fact about the sea where the dead bodies still swam underneath the dark waves.

" And look at the blessing my friends ! Rain ! , It has not been raining for about a month ! Even our lord loves our lovely village and has blessed us with the prescious rain to keep the ground from being dry !.."

Was she even hearing herself ?

Grimacing at the cheesiness, he frowned his brows and glanced away from the nerve-wracking girl to the other side where the remaining stores were struggling to open their markets on their own. They were all short houses and buildings that were filled with wooden doors and walls, some being bakings others a bookstore plus the other markets.

Looking back to the audience, the rain suddenly took a turn and started to be a bit like the sky had been broken and basically was a broken record as the people who were gathered around Sakura started screaming for a shelter only to be glared at by the villagers who didn't do anything or simply move to help the outsiders.

Because the villagers only give help to their own.

And that was it.

Laughing at the people who looked like they were headless chickens, he turned around to go back inside the market he had been leaning on. He turned the knob down before stepping inside the warmth of the bar and closed the door behind him as the wood gave a shrinking noise. It was built probably in seventeenth century so it was okay for the poor thing to be old enough and moan when it moved. The village in general was decades old.

Going over to the stand, he nodded at the men who called over his name before stepping behind the counter and using the old ( they looked like they were hanging on the walls for dear life ) stairs and going up to the house where Iruka and him stayed.

Going up the stairs he stopped behind another door before opening it and stepping inside the now coldenss of the house. Iruka always forgot to lit the fire so the house would be warm witch only made Naruto do the work around. Sighing, he stepped further to reach the fire. It looked fragile and dying. Biting his inner cheek, he picked up the stick and pokes it a couple of times before gathering bunch of nicely cut branches and throwing them inside the dancing flames as they swallowed the sticks and created a symphony of tik taks as the dancing flames ate away the dead trees.

Looking away, he stood up and moved over to go to his room. It wasn't really away, in fact he was standing right in front of the broken door as he stepped around it and walked to his bed before sitting on it. The place was small and mostly filled with his half painted canvases and the plethora of his paintbrushes that either looked old and in rags or new but dirty with dried paint. His pallets were all over the place along with the sketchbook he had spread on his wooden floor where he had spread an orange carpet.

His curtains were the same happy color as his carpet, orange and filled with a happiness that Naruto had stopped feeling.
It had been buried beneath all the layers he put to cover his smiles and his loud laugh that people often called annoying.so he stopped doing them all and instead focused on painting and drawing his smiles instead of showing them.

The rain had become deadly as it roared at whoever that was stupid enough to stay under it. The roof was moaning at the wet arrows struck it but he sighed and stood up to go over to his window. Taking a hold of his curtain, he pushed it aside to look at the broken village that was the Heart in lavender.

The hill that had the houses to carry had slowly become like an old man who had a curvy back and a thin torso. The different roofs of the multiple houses his clothing and all the   chimney of the said houses were the noise and the cigarettes he smoked.

The cattles were a brownish color with the yellow and red trees around it that belonged to the cursed jungle. There was no animal in sight and even the scarecrows that were just a salutes from the distance he could make them up, looked lonely.

Looking at the left and narrowing his eyes, he let his gaze lean on the house that had been abounded for the past 10 years.

It wasn't so big and it looked like only two people could live there not four as they family was. It was a nice yellow color with a blue rooftop even though it had gotten extremely old due to not being cleaned and constantly being alone. The roses and the multiple flowers that used to be fresh and lovely on the small garden of the house were all gone and on their places only dirty mud remained.

It was located on the entering area of the hill where the sun really shone but not anymore.

The Uchihas used to live there. A family of four. A father, a mother and two sons.

They were all alike. All four with unusual pale skin and dark hair with the most beautiful faces that Naruto had ever seen.  Their eyes was actually the thing that people mostly talked about though.Their eyes were big and a very dark onyx color with long lashes and they had the shape of a cat's eye.

People called them the nicknames of dark people, or the dark family. Only because they didn't have much social behavior and mostly kept to themselves. The only interaction would probably be from the father who was the only doctor of the village and the mother who had a baking shop that made the best cookies and the most delicious kinds of bread. The sons didn't come out.  in phrase, at all. Only to go to school or to buy the things, their parents had told them to buy witch wasn't much often neither.

To people, they were just dark and kept to themselves.

To Naruto who had been seven when he actually met them, they all looked like clones and different versions of each other.

Mikoto was a baker and she was a happy woman who cared very deeply for her family. She was one of the kindest people he had seen. She had invited  him inside because she was baking her boys some apple pie and he could have some as well.

Fugaku was a doctor who only looked stoick but he had come home that day to see Naruto sitting on his spot on the couch. But instead of getting angry and throwing Naruto out, had just chuckled as he ruffle his blond hair before muttering something about his own kids not being brave enough to sit on his spots. He had checked Naruto's wounded knee later as they ate the pie before ruffling his head again.

Itachi was the oldest son. And he was the absolute best big brother of the history and no one could ever change his mind. He was brilliant and full of ideas as he came up with multiple story lines and plans to make something or create something out of the simplest things. He had made a toy car for Naruto once with only plastic ( he still kept it securely in one of his drawers ). He had been the only protector Naruto had at school when the older boys teased him or poked him. Itachi had always been bruised somewhere. It was mostly his legs or hips when he bummed into the objects. He had been clumsy like that. He had been unnaturally thin with bird boned wrists as he told him all the different stories when Naruto stayed over at them.  He had been the one person that Naruto looked up to and saw as a hero.

The youngest son ?

He had been his best friend ( only friend). Sasuke wasn't in any sense nice like his mother or caring like his brother or even half as warm looking at his father.

He was something else.  He was arrogant but in a nice way, like he shut people up when necessary and ignored them on accessions. He didn't show much of his feelings but had been the only person who had wiped his tears away when one of the shop keepers had seen him stealing one of the breads. Had been the one to hold him when news came that his only alive relative had finally been found dead. Sasuke had been the only one who ran after him when he was challenged to run all the way into the cursed jungle to the dark sea.

Sasuke had been the one that pulled him away from the heavy wave that he was trying to drown himself with.

But Sasuke was a horrible swimmer and he was scared of the sea.

Yet...he had been the one to jump into the water after him to stop him from killing himself.

Sasuke was something else.

Because he had been the only one who accepted him the way he was. Who didn't mock him because he liked painting and didn't call his painting a girl thing to do but a talent.

Itachi and Sasuke were the only brother pair that got along as good as they did. They barely fought and even if they did, it would only last for a couple of hours. And they looked like twins.

They both looked sick and so thin like a simple wind was going to push them to their knees. And they were small.

But Naruto loved them all the way even though other people stayed away. Because they were the only thing like a family that he had.

At least untill, Mikoto got sick. It was probably after it that the sky started to show less sun to the village. She had become unconditionally weak and fragile to the point that she needed to stay in bed all day.

After that, their house started to lose it's color. And Naruto started to miss the familiar smell of the apple pie that was almost aways there.

Naruto started to miss the way Fugaku ruffled his hair.

The way Itachi only looked happy but Naruto had heard him sobbing in his room where he didn't really let Naruto stay in anymore. The way the stories he told him were becoming duller and duller until he repeated the stories of before untill he completely stopped telling him stories as he shut everyone up and stayed in his room for hours and hours.

Then, Itachi stopped coming to school and he stopped making him toys. Witch left Naruto alone with the mean older boys in school who knew that Naruto was alone and the scary Uchiha wouldn't come to save him.

Naruto had missed Sasuke's voice. Because the youngest stopped talking when his mother didn't have the strength to spoil him. Naruto missed the way Sasuke used to give orders and how arrogant he sounded.

Because the youngest raven was slowly losing the light in his onyx eyes that everyone loved. Because Sasuke stopped going to his brother for comfort and only looked out of the window of his room, where Naruto had painted a rainy sky for him only because Sasuke loved stormy weather.

But then.

Mikoto finally lost her battle to cancer.

And the smell of apple pie was permanently wiped away.

The sun stopped shining all together and the village took a weird silence.

Itachi's last shred broke and he stopped responding.

Sasuke locked himself up and finally the light left his dark eyes.

And fugaku became an alcoholic before he finally decided to come out of his house and ruffle Naruto's blond hair and bandage his wounded knee before he took the way to the jungle and never returned.

At least until his dead body was found, drowned in the cursed sea.

Itachi and Sasuke became orphans in a matter of four months.  Everyone kept giving them pitting looks as they slowly lost the battle as their uncle came to the village only to take them away from the Heart in lavender to a city that people said was extremely expensive.

and that was the last ever time he had heard or seen the Uchihas.

Looking At the house a little more, he felt the familiar sensation in his throat as it was closing off. The burning in his eyes and the aches in his heart before a sob finally tore him in half as he bent over and let his heavy heart burn with the feeling he had been feeling to the past ten years.

Because he missed the sweet apple pies, he missed the man who bandaged his wounded knee, he missed the boy who told him stories about a boy who lived by the stars and looked up to them all only to reason that he dreamed.

He missed the boy who had been terrified of the sea but had risked it all just to save him.

Sakura was a liar...

Because the Heart in lavender wasn't a nice, shiny place. But a deep pit that only had water pour into it.

                                                    _____

Money was like custard. It was fragile but it looked so good that made people do almost anything to keep it the way it was.

Absolutely perfect.

The villagers weren't completely poor but they weren't rich either. It was just like a line that was built in order to prevent them from either succeing or to keep them from falling all the way down.

Naruto was the one who was just on the edge of falling off.

He was a painter in a village filled with ugly people with even uglier hearts. He lived in a place full of rumors that people always believed and made it bigger and bigger untill it was a titan that no one could really deal with. So they left that rumor and moved on to another one to make as the last was taking it's last ever breaths.

Naruto loved to draw scenes. Small cities with beautiful environment, shores with calm ocean. Mountains that were covers on the dawn or the set of the sun.

But he also drew people.

People with empty faces. Iruka called them scary but to Naruto, they just looked like they needed a place and no one would accept them. Because everyone looked at what was on the surface instead what was on the deep inside.

So he drew them faceless. So that others wouldn't judge his characters that didn't belong to any realm only the empty, rainy streets that he painted them on. He liked them just the way they were.

Leaning away from the new piece he had created, he smiled ( a real, tiny one ) before standing up from his previous sitting position as he looked at it fully.

It was just a jungle with a simple wooden house inside it.

He liked it and it calmed him.

Rubbing his painted fingers together, Naruto yawned and took a sip from the mug of coffee he had placed on his nightstand before lowering the mug as he grabbed the apple pie he had placed on the table before taking a bite from it.

It didn't taste even a little like how Mikoto's used to do but it would do.

Looking at his clock, he sighed as his gaze found the item that read 2:59 am

So he had a new record for his not so there, sleeping schedule. But at least he finished the drawing witch meant he could perhaps ( hopefully ) sell it tomorrow for a few dollars.

He looked over to his bed, before sighing as he sat on it.

Iruka had left for a trip to the city and he wouldn't be back for at least another week witch meant that Naruto had literally no one to yell at him because he wasn't taking care of himself and he wasn't sleeping.

Iruka was a lovely person and he was almost constantly worried about him but Naruto tried his best to sooth the man's anxious heart, it just didn't work.

So scratching the back of his neck, he leaned back and layed on his bed as he desperately tried to ignore the loud music from the bar below him.

Tsunade was the owner of the bar, an old lady who looked younger than most of the girls with a killer stare. Iruka had once made her laugh and that was what took her to let them stay at the house above her bar, although they payed her it wasn't that big of a deal since Tsunade liked them so much.

But the music was so loud and his head was starting to hurt.

Part of him wanted to go outside on the empty ,wet streets of the Heart in lavender and breath a sigh because life felt much lighter at nights , but the other part of him was scared of the stories that he had been told to as a child.

Even though he was nineteen years old and had never really believed that trolls or any of the made up monsters were real, he couldn't help it, it was something like a reflex for him.

But the music was too loud.

He turned around in his bed and pulled his pillow over his ear to block the blast of orchestra that made the high notes.  It didn't work.

It usually didn't.

But it made him less on edge, so that was a progress.

It was mid fall and the weather had gone even colder than before and since pumkings were rare, many farmers were slowly killing away the corns to replace them with pumpkins. He felt a little bad for the scarecrow that looked drop dead terrifying at nights because they were going to be alone for a while before the pumpkins grew in size.

It was a little insane to feel bad for objects but scarecrows were the ghosts of the earlier farmer whose farm fields had been destroyed...

So maybe it wasn't THAT bad to feel bad about them..

Except, Naruto felt bad for all the objects. Like the house where the Uchihas used to stay. Like their garden that was filled with dead flowers where it used to be full of life.

Sighing, he ignored the pain in his chest and closed his eyes all the while pressing the pillow harsher to avoid the noises before letting the tight sleep consume him...

                                                  *******

The rain had gotten better over the hours and as the sun raised from behind of the angry, frowny clouds. The village was still in deep sleep even with the chickens and roasters making noises to gain the attention of the farmers.

Naruto was wide awake though. It had been a few hours since he had woken up and by the deadly silence of the sky, it was obvious they were waiting for a storm to break through the fences of the village and make the dark ocean even angrier.

It was just the calm before the disaster.

Sighing, he turned to his broken mirror and looked at his appearance once and twice as he turned to look at his back as well. Just a simple blue shirt that he loved and jeans that were comfortable enough for him.

He looked okay  to himself. Not that he was trying to impress anyone, it was probably better for everyone ( himself ) that he stayed away from the heavy ( crushing ) attention of the ugly people of the village.

He liked to be faceless anyways.

Itachi had been one of those faceless people. The ones that minded their own business and didn't bother anyone plus giving them comfort.  He had made Naruto feel the warmest.

Sasuke had been a bit of both.

Cruel but also unnaturally kind. ( Like jumping in a stormy ocean to save his best friend kind. The ones that didn't give a fuck about themselves but would and could murder others to keep their loved ones safe. )

Shaking his head, he moved towards his canvas that he had finally finished last night before grimacing at the small details he had missed. It looked dull in the morning light. Like a house in jungle that had no emotion to it, just like the lifeless house of the Uchihas that was begging all the watchful eyes to come live in it.

Like it was begging for the apple pie smell to return to it, for someone to come and fix the broken areas of it. Waiting for someone to tell stories inside it, to look at the folk in the stars and dream again..

Like it was waiting for someone to come and look out of it's shady windows to the stormy weather that they loved.

Just like Naruto...

                                                   *****

The storm didn't start the moment he stepped out of the bar witch was a news to him. Sighing and possibly being a little hopeful of his day, he moved over to the streets where people were slowly starting the day. Some opening the markets, some spreading their handmade jewelry,

others takingng their

To sell for inhuman prizes.

Cracking his knuckles, he looked up at the sky that still looked okay for a quick run over to the paint market. he gave a tiny smile as he took a turn and moved further into the hill that looked old and in pain. The people weren't so cold and emotionless in mornings, in fact they looked quite happy and welcoming. Or maybe he was just in a good mood today so he saw the same things in a better vision.

Maybe the village was in fact beautiful and he just hated it with all his guts and that was the only reason why he saw everything in a horrible way. But he doubted, because the broken village could never really be good in any perspective. Iruka once said that if something is broken, it's broken and the pretty glues and advertising stickers will not fix it.

Shaking his head, he moved through the cows that were walking in the street to reach the cattles before nuzzling a newborn's head as it wobbled after it's mother before smiling and looking up at the hill that he had yet to climb untill he reached his paint market.  The market wasn't so big but it was quite the size and was big enough for six tall walls of paint and canvases that the old lady sold.

She was about the great age of seventy but still was on her feet as she ran her market plus the small cattle she had in the back of her house that was filled with sheeps. Half of them were black and the other half were a clean yellow color.
He used to come and play with them, specially the lambs who looked like a soft bottle of cotton that had big eyes and make cute, adorable sounds.

He and Sasuke used to get paints and play with the animals untill sundown but after they left...

Well, Naruto didn't really play with them anymore.

What a shame.

Sighing, he rubbed his elbow. It had been hurting for some time now, Iruka said that it was only because he slept in a abnormal way, witch meant he slept on the inner side of his elbow instead of his pillow where his head was supposed to be. It wasn't always like that, sometimes he would wake up from the pain in his arm only to see his head on top of it.

He would curse himself in those moments, saying all the unmentionables to himself only because he was mad and maybe something more. He hated himself for a reason after all.

Sasuke had hated himself as well. Naruto could remember how he used to skip meal after meal only to look at his bony figure in the mirror and see all the nonexistent fats. Naruto had seen it himself, how Sasuke would pinch his skin and imagine it as a fat that was leaking with sweat.

But it was blood. Because he had finally made himself sick.

The Uchihas had so much problems that he actually thought about it.  Itachi hated the thought of being bare in any part other than his neck with a passion . He would always wear long sleeved shirts or a basic hoody that covered his entire body down to his knees.

He had seen him come out of shower once when the water had run cold, and Naruto had choked a sob when his eyes found the faint scars all over the pale, thin skin.

He shook his head to clear the dark thoughts to make his trash of brain cells to make them better. So he pushed on with his long walk to the hill as the small drops of soft rain started to paint the sky. It made the air clear and fresh. That cold freshness that only appeared on winters.

He despised the village...but not the weather.

                                               " Better if we do this on our own."

                VvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvV

So painting needed skill and he had messed up so many expensive canvases plus the so called awesome paint to get to the level that he was. Those sleepless nights that he stayed up just to fix the misplaced redness on the autumn leaves or the backaches he had to endure and desperately try to hide from Iruka because after Fugaku Uchiha, there was no more doctor in the village and sick people had to drive a four hour ride to the city to do a check up.

Naruto had not been to a doctor's office in what felt like six years.( Because not a single one of them is going to give him a fatherly smile and ruffle his head as they kneeled down to bandage his wounded knee )

He simply hadn't been sick.

The weather was still horrible ( rainy. Good for Naruto. Bad for the others ).

Dragging the tip of the pencil across the brown page of his sketchbook, he drew a line that was connected to a deeper part of the drawing that reached the broken heart of the main picture. He had this idea in one of the nights, where Tsunade was too drunk to stay as the bartender. That he was to be that instead of her.

He didn't really drink anyways.

Because Mikoto hated the smell of alcohol..

Because alcohol was what made Fugaku die...

He had drawn a body that was faceless but in a busy street full of cars and difference of society, he had drawn a man that didn't have a face so people wouldn't judge it...
But the heart was shattered as the pieces fell away...

Rain knocked on his window that he had been looking out of. Back then, he never really understood why Sasuke loved to do this, but now that he traced the wet circles of the droplets of the rain with a soft tip of his index, he understood. He understood the feeling of calm and the peace that rain brought; even the storms where it felt like the ground will tear apart, felt calming and relaxing.

His pencil broke. No. Just the  tip of it.

                                               _______

The jungle had always been a mystery to all of the villagers. No one dared to cross it and the ones who did dare, people used themselves when they were about to do it.

But Naruto liked to climb over the fences that separated the jungle with the village and walk over the streets that seemed like tall rulers who had so many leaves as eyes and were judging everyone that passed by. He liked to bring his sketchbook and paint bag with him as he walked all the way to the forbidden sea that had so many corpses inside of it and sit by the sandy shore as he drew the lonely people that were under the dark waves.

Drew them as they climbed out of their tomb that was the moving sea as they smiled and told him all about the stories they had before they decided that life wasn't really worth it.

He laid by the shore and listened to the stormy waves as the wind picked up and rain flattened on top of him. Because he liked it.

He liked to watch the sea that he had been close to becoming. 

The sea that Sasuke had risked his own life to save him from only to tell at his face that he had to hate and love and breath and LIVE...

All the things that Sasuke wasn't able to do...

Naruto still wanted to ask him why he couldn't..

Itachi had once told him a story about the sea. Or...more about the waves.

He had sat him down along with Sasuke ( who always complained about not being a child but stil coming along to listen ) as they prepared to go to bed. Then, he would give them about the waves, that they were all the lost souls of the corpses of the dark sea. The soul of the corpses that were still underneath the sea, swimming forever and never stopping. His eyes used to be so bright when he talked about the freedom of going with the waves.

Like he was trapped and he needed freedom...

Sasuke used to sleep right away the story got to the best part. But Itachi and Naruto stayed awake all night as Naruto listened and Itachi dreamed with Sasuke who had been awake the whole time but didn't say a thing because Itachi dreamed too much and Sasuke never dreamed at all.

Naruto only listened.

It didn't matter if Sasuke was dark like the sea that was singing the lyrics of the lullaby to it's corpses as they slept inside it, and it didn't matter if Itachi was bright as he looked at the dark sky and came up with stories and theories that was both fascinating and extremely scray.

Because Sasuke was dark and beautiful and he didn't hide it unlike Itachi who was the darkest but hid it behind his warm smile and sleepy voice.

                                                 __"_"

Eating apple pie was something close to a hobby for him that he often did only in the afternoons. ( Because Mikoto said to eat them only after lunch )

His sketchbook was open again as he gazed at the face he had drawn. He had been drawing faceless people for so long.

But he couldn't eat the apple pie anymore...

Because the face he had unknowingly drawn looked a little too comfortable.

There were lines of darkness over the top of the head to create the salute of black, soft hair with two pair of gorgeous dark eyes of the woman who had invited him inside her hours with a loving smile, stared back at him.

Funny how he had forgotten how ger children looked but stil could draw her like she was right in front of him, bringing him her very special apple pie that smelled heavenly and tasted just as good.

The apple pie that he could never really recreate.

                                              ________

He had managed to sell three of his canvases to a popular paint company.

How ?

Well, he put his art work on websites all the time with all the ingredients he used to make that canvas and the paints that he kept getting from the only art market in the village was one and the only brand he ever used.

So the company had liked his stuff and decided to contact him.

He was officially a painter now.

Now he had an actual job.

The one he had always wanted.

And his job was online.

So he stayed in the broken village of the Heart in the lavender.

                                   " Affet bu gece ölmek istedim, pembe bir mezarlık olmak istedim. Karanlığı elimde bölmek istedim. Seni çok özledim. Çok istedim bu gece kendimi asmak, ellerimle kendi mezarımı kazmak, elinden gelen oturup evimde sana şarkılar yazmak. " Pembe mezarlik_ model.

" Forgive me I wanted to die tonight. I wanted to become a pink graveyard. I wanted to break the darkness with my hands because I missed you so much. I wanted so much to hang myself, wanted to dig my own grave but all I can do is sitting in my house and writing song for you. " Pink graveyard_ model.

                                                     ____

So Naruto wasn't exactly living his best life but it had gotten better.

He sold more of his art and the company paid him well enough to give the rent for both his and Iruka's place witch was a great thing and he was extremely glad about that because his old man didn't need to work to do all the work.

His days in the horrible of the Heart in the lavender wasn't great but it was something like the weather of the village. Soothing yet stormy.

He had wanted to move for a while before he realized that all of his inspirations came from the deadly jungle, the graveyard sea and the lonely scarecrows.

His faceless people were the heart broken villagers who had at least lost a loved one to the calming and sometimes downright terrifying sea that was far away but could still be heard. It was like it was giving them all a warning that it maybe away...but the presence remains.

The gape that loved one left behind will always remain.

At least to Naruto.

Because Fugaku's body was still not found.

Sometimes he slept with the damaging thought of the dead doctor to come back from the sea, to come and tell him that everything was going to be okay as he ruffled his hair and bandage his knee again .

But he wouldn't and that thought broke him in more ways than he wanted to admit. He wasn't sure why that made him angry.

Maybe because people passed from the house that had once belonged to Uchihas as if they never existed.

Like a woman with a kind smile and amazing apple pies didn't use to live there.

Like a man who cared deeply but never showed it, didn't use to live there.

Like a boy who had dreams and ideas better than the entire empty village didn't use to live there.

Like a boy that has the darkest eyes out of all the Uchihas, like the boy who saved but he was dying himself didn't use to live there.

Like people didn't know that Naruto saw Mikoto as a mother and Fugaku as a father and Itachi as a brother but Sasuke was the one he was in love with.

And he couldn't forget the dark eyes and the soft smile he gave when Naruto managed to make a good painting ( even though it was Itachi who did most of it )

He couldn't forget Sasuke because when he was going into the jungle that all the other boys were afraid to go, Sasuke followed him.

Sasuke was the one terrified of the sea, yet he was the one to jump and save him from the death's grip.

But people didn't know that and it angered him more than he let on.          
           
                                             ________

Fall hadn't ended yet when the house where the Uchihas used to live was broken into.

Words came through street to street that there were two people inside it and they were moving things around.

And Naruto hadn't run that fast in his LIFE as he ran to get those thieves away from his childhood place. Because the world had taken his family away he wasn't going to let some mundanes take the last thing left for him away.

So Naruto yelled the lovely phrase of "fuck you ! " To anyone who tried to stop him as he shoved them to the ground before running up the hill to get to ( his ) house.

His heart was hammering in his chest like it wanted to come out and personally deal with whoever has dared to taint his house that he has tried desperately to keep to himself.

There were three trucks full of different furnitures. one had a fridge inside of it and the other ones were full of coaches and different house stuff that were only needed if someone was moving into somewhere.

Meaning that they were people moving into his house.

But he hadn't sold it . How still slept there as he remembered Itachi's stories and Mikoto's smiling face. He still pretended that Fugaku checked up on him before going to sleep himself.

He still remembered Sasuke's dark, dark eyes as they slowly slit shut as the raven fell sleep next to him.

Panting and fearing he might be in a nightmare, he ran all the way to the front door and yanked it open only to see two tall figures standing in a few meters away from each other with their backs to him. Witch didn't last long as they turned and Naruto felt his breath leave him at once.

Because they were movers.

Witch only meant that they were people who were going to move into his house.

He didn't know what he did next but all he was seeing was red as he screamed at them something that he wasn't sure if they were even less than all the curse words that he knew. His heart was shattering as he punched and kicked anyone who came his way to get.them.out.

Get. Them. Out.

Out.                       

                      " Yüksek, yüksek tepelere ev kurmasınlar. "

                       " Dont build a house on top of the high, high hills."

                                     -------------------------------------
(Now.)

Crying had always helped him to become calmer.

But not today.

Because he's sitting inside a cold prison and every single drop of tear that fell from his eyes, feels more like it's falling onto his already heavy heart instead of the floor. He wanted to scream again and again but his throat is sore. ( He hadn't stopped screaming when the police came to get him)

He knows how he looks as well. Sullen and dull.

His head is half empty as he recalls the lovely house that doesn't have a owner anymore.

He wonders how Sasuke and Itachi are doing. Do they know that their house is being owned ?

Frowning, he thinks deep about it. Sasuke would be his own age. He would be twenty as well. Itachi would be twenty three.

And they didn't need to stay with their uncle anymore, they were old enough to take care of themselves.

And the titleholder of the house would be them.

Wait.

He felt his heart stop. Did that mean_

       
...that meant that they had probably sold it themselves.

And they always had the ability to come back...

He never thought about it like that but it just started to make sense to him .

Sasuke wouldn't be a ten years old boy who hid behind people because he was to shy to even look at anyone straight in the eye.

Itachi wouldn't be the same little thirteen years old who had a childish face and a lovely smile that told him stories about the boy who lived on the stars.

Those two had lived in a expensive city that he had heard and he known was Newyork. Itachi was probably a lawyer or something with that brilliant mind of his.

And Sasuke was definitely studying in the best universities, maybe they were both even out of country...

His mind shattered when he realized that he has been imagining them as a ten and a thirteen years old all these years.

His world crumbled as more tears fell off his face..

" Kayığa da binsam götürü, hey canım hey."
" Even if I get on a boat, it will take me. Hey, my life, hey. "

**********

Iruka yelled at him. He usually did whenever he did something stupid with included his latest drama that was attacking the poor movers who hadn't done anything wrong and we're just doing their job.

He wasn't talking to him and Naruto had tried everything that usually worked on him but nope, Iruka was immovable this time.

He tried bringing him his favorite tea and baked the apple pie that Naruto made to comfort himself. He even cleaned his room.

But Iruka did not eased the broken bridge of his eyebrows.

So Naruto stayed in his room and drew the things that came to his mind .

Now that he knew ( painfully realized ) that Itachi and Sasuke were older; he started to think about how they would look.

Would Itachi still have his hair long ? Was he still lanky ? Did he still tell stories ?

Did he still cried himself to sleep ?...

Would Sasuke still look at himself in the mirror and pinch his nonexistent fat ? Would he still have his dark hair short ? Was he still in love with the stormy weather ?

Did he still looked out of the window to sleep peacefully ?

Did they stil remember him just like him ? "

He drew them. He drew Itachi with his long hair and dreamy, cat like dark eyes. Tall but so thin.

He drew Sasuke smaller than Itachi. They were always like that. He drew Sasuke with his spikey hair and his dark, sleepy eyes. But so, so thin.

He drew them with different looks. With short and long hair, with different types of shirts and jeans...

Untill he fell sleep.

----------------_----------_----

He looked out of his window to his favorite house in the entire village. He didn't look at the lonely scarecrows anymore ( he was lonelier anyways ) he didn't spare a look at the cursed jungle and blocked his ears of the loud moans of the graveyard sea.

Because he could just see the movers as they placed stuff into the lovely house and he could only hear the sound of them as each item was rested on the ground where all the four members used to sleep.

He could only blink as he rested his heavy head on his arms and blink as the sound filled him...

From what Tsunade said, the new owners of the the ( his ) house would come there tonight.

" Ecel geldi erkenden, hey canım, hey. "
" Death came sooner, hey my life, hey."

_____________________________

Taking steps after step, he moved along the empty streets of the Heart in the lavender as he walked further in the dead silence of the night.

Mosnters and trolls could come to get him...

He wasn't afraid no more.

His destination was a lot better anyways.

The jungle wasn't even that scary anyways as he pushed aside the enormous leaves before stepping inside the jungle to go over to the actual heart of the lavender.

The jungle was even calm in night. It was sleepy and made lullabies as the moaning sea sang them all with a rhyme.

His mind was used to that sound though...

It wasn't the first time he had been there except, there was no one to come after him this time.

Stepping further inside, he moved untill the soft glow of moonlight, caressed his face with a soft pattern as of it was saying goodbye. Looking at the deep, dark sea, he sighed as he sat on the cool sand before resting his head on arms.

" Deniz üstü köpürür hey canım rinna nay rinna rinna nay
Kayığa da binsem götürür hey canım hey
Benim de şu cihana gelişim hey canım rinna nay rinna rinna nay
Bir güzelden ötürü hey canım hey
Deniz üstü yelkenden hey canım rinna nay rinna rinna nay
Ecel geldi erkenden hey canım hey
Denizin ortasında hey canım rinna nay rinna rinna nay
Mum yanar sofrasında hey canım hey
Benim de şu cihandan gidişim hey canım rinna nay rinna rinna nay
Memleket sevdasından hey canım hey

Benim de bu cihandan gidişim hey canım rinna nay rinna rinna nay
Memleket sevdasından
Memleket sevdasından
Memleket sevdasından
Memleket sevdasından
Hey canım hey
Hey hey. " _ tinay.

" The sea is foaming hey dear rinna nay rinna rinna nay

Even if I get on the boat, it will take me, hey dear hey

Oh my dear rinna nay rinna rinna nay

Because of a beautiful hey dear hey
From sailing above sea hey dear rinna nay rinna rinna nay

Death came early hey dear hey

In the middle of the sea hey dear rinna nay rinna rinna nay

Candle burns on your table hey dear hey

My departure from this world has come hey dear rinna nay rinna rinna nay

From the love of the country hey dear hey

My departure from this world hey dear rinna nay rinna rinna nay

From the love of the country

From the love of the country

From the love of the country

From the love of the country

hey dear hey

hey hey . " tinay.

He sang it as tears fell from his eyes.

Mikoto used to sing it to them as they fell sleep ...

Well he was going to sleep anyways.

Moving towards the dark waves, he smiled at the coldenss of the sea touched him.

Graves had always been cold anyways...

.Farewell.

____________________

He was sorrouded with waves as they attacked him from everywhere but he closed his eyes and kept imagining Mikoto's and Fugaku's smiling face.

He kept remembering the sweet taste of apple pie and the lovely pain on his wound as it was bandaged by the carful hands of the doctor.

" Uçan da kışlalara salık olsun, ben annemi özledim."
" I swear on the flying birds that I miss my mother."

" Hem annemi hem babamı, ben köyümü özledim."
" My mum and my dad, I missed them. I missed my village."

He was in a spell and his lungs were begging him to get his head up and breath but he was denying it.

He wouldn't.

But a hand did.

It yanked him up and pressed him close to a thin and panting chest. The chest was clothed as wetness clinged to it but he felt somewhat relived.

His chest was screaming but his mind screamed at him to look up.

And that he did.

But his breath left him all together.

Because that dark, wet hair that clinged to the pale forehead and those two dark, frightened eyes and those plum, panting lips.

" Did I die ?...."

Naruto didn't know why but the man that was in water with him let out a heart wretching sob as he held him and cried desperately in his shoulder.

" Shut up ! Shut it ! Fuck you ! Fuck! You ! How dare you !?why ?! We were going to surprise you ! And this ! Do you like giving me heart attacks ?! "

Even the voice was same...just slightly older...

" S_...Sasuke ?..."

He didn't get a response but a tightening of the bony arms around him.

But he remembered the smell...he rememberd the dark gaze, the bony arms and the similar situation from years ago ...

It WAS Sasuke....

He was here....

He didn't know what came over him but he had wrapped the boy in his arms in no time as he squeezed him to his chest before letting all the sorrow come undone.

Crying desperately in the panting chest, Naruto screamed and screamed and yelled and cried and slapped the same sea that had taken the lives of almost everyone in the village...

Because he came back...

Sasuke was back....

He laughed and smiled and cried untill everything went dark.

Dark like the eyes of his savior.

__________________

He feel light in his eyes as he opened his eyes to gaze at the familiar face that had told him all the stories he knew.

He felt his heart skip a beat." I... itachi ? "

Smiling, the older boy over him caressed his hair before shaking his head.

" You gave us quite a scare you know ?...what were you thinking Naruto ? "

Blinking back his tears even though some fell on the pillow he had placed his head on, he sniffed. " I....I'm sorry Itachi..."

Sobbing and not being able to hold it back in any way, he held Itachi's arm firmly before sobbing even harder when he realized that it was a solid hand and he wasn't dreaming.

The older boy sighed and propped him before gathering his broken figure as Naruto gripped his bony shoulders and cried his heart out. He couldn't stop it, he had missed him so, so much. His heart hurt and his body was screaming at him to pinch himself to believe that Itachi was really there and not going to leave.

He felt another person come near as he looked up to see another pair of dark eyes that were filled with worry.

But Sauce smiled and Naruto sobbed even harder.