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Sasuke wakes up to whining in his ear, the impatient voice of his best friend calling his name painfully close to his eardrums making it hard to just ignore it and go back to sleep. In a halfhearted attempt, knowing that he’s up already, he bats away the source of the noise without opening his eyes. Naruto squeals in response, crying out indignantly. "Sas! You hit my face!”
"Your fault,” the boy mumbles in reply, turning his back to his friend.
"Come ooooonnn,” Naruto whines again, grabbing Sasuke's shoulder and rocking him back and forth. Sasuke growls, but his voice is free of malice as he huffs out a slightly amused, “So, what’s so important that you needed to wake me up at-'' he glances at the clock. “-two in the morning on a Sunday.”
Naruto pouts, mumbling something that sounds like, “ths’nrise.”
The other eight-year-old flicks his friend on the nose, rolling his eyes and chuckling as he says, “I can’t understand you usuratonkachi. Speak up or let me sleep, Naru.”
“Fine, idiot! I just…” He looks down, cheeks flushing pink. “Doyouwanttowatchthesunrise?” he asks quickly, refusing to meet Sasuke’s eyes. Sasuke smiles in response, shrugging and replying with a relaxed, “Sure.” He hops off his bed onto Naruto’s futon. He’s about to grab some clothes to change into when Naruto grabs his hands, starting to tug him over to his bedroom door.
“Naru, let go! I need to get clothes on!” he says, fighting his way back to his dresser. Naruto makes a noncommittal noise of half-affirmation, shrugging and letting him pull a shirt on before grabbing his wrist again and pulling again. Sasuke just lets himself be dragged, two sets of bare feet pounding on nice wood flooring as they run past his parent’s room and though the office - Itachi is asleep in his chair, head resting on his laptop’s keyboard (Sasuke really has to remind his parents to force Sasuke to go to bed. He's going to mess up his back if he keeps falling asleep like that) - and they make their way out his back door.
It's not a new experience for him to run through the narrow strip of forested land behind their houses barefoot, but it's different to weave through between the trees with barely enough light to see by but still know exactly where the trails and shortcuts are, the morning dew coating his feet and soaking through the fringes at the bottom of his pajama pants and leaving the the air heavy with humidity. It's a vague kind of surrealism his eight-year-old mind can only classify as dreamlike, and that description only multiplies as a Naruto pushes through the last line of brush, bringing himself and Sasuke to a wall of rocks jutting out of a steep hillside, the top framed with purple-y light. It’s familiar, a common meeting place for the two of them, but it’s different in the early morning, the light at the top casting strange shadows and shafts of light that wouldn’t exist at any other time of day.
“Come on!” Naruto urges, tugging on the hem of Sasuke’s shirt. “We’ll miss it!” Naruto starts up the incline, and Sasuke quickly follows, clambering up the slope behind him. His feet find grips without him even needing to look, and Sasuke realizes, toes curling over time-worn, eroded rock, that the places they’re mindlessly bracing their feet on are free of the grass-and-wildflower tufts growing everywhere else they can, the dirt packed from years of constant use from Sasuke, Naruto, and Itachi and Shisui before them. The final handholds are two age-old roots from the tree at the top that sometimes seeks infinitely older than Konoha itself, and Sasuke scrambled up onto the top of the hill in time for the first ray of dawn to break through the horizon, cutting in sharp rays over the infinite forest around them and illuminating Naruto’s back and hair in brilliant flames of fiery orange. (It’s all Sasuke can do not to fall down the incline in awe.)
The blonde boy turns around and grins. "Cool, huh?” he laughs, and he grins, and all Sasuke can do is stare at him - missing front tooth, band-aids dotting his arms and face from his own recklessness, ramen-themed pajamas scuffed with dirt, and freckles dotting his tanned skin - and just think, “Oh. It's going to be you. Someday, it's going to be me and you and nothing else.”
What comes out of his mouth is, “Yeah, it's pretty cool I guess, usuratonkachi.”