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The thread appears suddenly and without warning.
Naruto is fourteen years old and he feels the sudden pressure around his right wrist, notices the loops of red thread around it. It doesn’t come off no matter how much he yanks, and the thread disappears into the horizon, as if leading him towards something.
The thread feels tight and Naruto scratches his wrist so much he breaks the skin, and then he goes to his father, panic stuck in his throat.
“Thread? What thread?” Minato asks, confused. Naruto shows his wrist, angrily red from scratching and a bit bloody, the thread still there.
“There is no thread, Naruto,” Minato says gently. “Have you remembered to take your meds?”
Of course, it is always about the meds. Naruto was diagnosed with ADHD and depression when he was around ten. At the time, he didn’t really even know what any of that meant. Now he knows that his difficulties with school and concentration are caused by a difference in his brain. He’s learned to live with that.
The depression part is harder. Naruto has always been prone to lose his temper quickly, and sometimes he’s too exhausted to leave his bed. Despite being so young, Naruto doesn’t feel right. He has never felt right. And all the professional offered was depression.
Naruto isn’t depressed. He doesn’t feel like he is. And the thread is real, he’s not imagining it. He can feel it. He tries to prove it to his father by grabbing the part of the thread that falls from his wrist, and ties Minato’s ankles with it.
Minato walks right through them, a worried look in his eyes.
Naruto decides it’s wiser not to talk about it, because he doesn’t want to be taken back to the hospital. He’s seen them enough. He’s still forced to see a counselor, but even there, he doesn’t mention the thread. The counselor talks with him about the death of his mother, how that and the subsequent bullying triggered Naruto’s depression.
He doesn’t bother to object to it. No one listens to him anyway. He isn’t eating the meds, though. He takes the pill his father gives him, but instead of swallowing it, he spits it out the second Minato looks away. At fourteen, though, Minato trusts him enough to take the meds by himself, and Naruto always takes the pill and flushes it down the toilet or the kitchen sink.
He doesn’t like the way the meds make him feel.
The thread stays around his wrist and it is often tight and uncomfortable. But it’s not the worst of it. No, the worst is the pull.
The first time it happens, Naruto ignores it, but starts to happen more and more, until the pull is constant and daily. He sees the thread disappear into the distance, and he wonders where it wants to lead him. He knows the legend about the red thread of fate, and he wonders if it’s related to that. He asks about the legend from his grandmother.
“The red thread of fate connects you to your soul mate,” she says softly.
“It would… lead me to a friend?” Naruto asks uncertainly. “Are you sure?”
“It’s deeper than a friend,” his grandmother says. “It’s a person you love more than anything. The person you’re fated to love.”
After that, Naruto looks at the red thread differently. It can’t be anything else, can it? At least he doesn’t think so. So for the next five years, Naruto follows the thread around Uzushio, his home city, in the hopes of finding the other end of it. He never does—and he doesn’t find the end in nearby villages either, if he goes on a vacation with his father.
When Naruto is nineteen years old, the thread is still as tight as it had always been, the pull of it never-ending. It’s driving him mad, so much so that his friends also notice it, but he hasn’t said anything about the thread since he was fourteen. He doesn’t use meds for depression anymore, because he’s old enough to decide that for himself, and they never helped him enough. Minato, to his credit, didn’t oppose the decision.
On top of the constant anxiety over the goddamn thread, Naruto has been plagued by vague dreams, memories of something he knew he didn’t live. He supposes it’s partly because of his obsession over the shinobi of old—Naruto knows he’s named after a legendary shinobi that lived a long time ago, his own ancestor, which is the reason he got obsessed with shinobi in the first place. He’s seen old pictures of him, whose name had also been Uzumaki Naruto, and they look the same; the only difference is that Naruto doesn’t have the whisker marks on his cheeks. Back when there still had been shinobi in the world, he had been a Hokage in Konoha, the city where Minato grew up.
A lot of people are named after their shinobi ancestors, so Naruto’s case isn’t that different.
Still, he can’t shake off the feeling that something is missing, and his dreams and the thread don’t help matters. He knows there’s only one thing he can do.
“I’ll be leaving,” Naruto announces to his father a while after graduating from high school. He didn’t apply to any universities because of this plan. He’s of age, so he can decide that for himself, even if Minato would oppose it. He also has his share of his mother’s inheritance, and he will use that to survive.
“I was thinking you might,” Minato says and lowers his chopsticks. “You’ve always been so restless. Maybe seeing the world is something you need to see.”
“I thought so too,” Naruto mutters. They look at each other and silence is awkward—their relationship has always been distant, and it hadn’t gotten better after Kushina had died. They share blond hair and blue eyes, but they don’t have a lot in common otherwise. Besides, Minato is really busy with his work as the modern Uzukage.
Naruto doesn’t bother telling Minato about the thread and how it still exists and keeps pulling at him. Minato didn’t understand then, he wouldn’t understand now.
So a few days later Naruto packs his backpack with clothes and some of the more essential items he’ll need on his journey—along with his wallet and a comprehensive map of their world with the main cities and villages.
Minato and Naruto’s best friends—Sakura, Ino, and Kiba—come to see him off at the train station.
“Keep in contact,” Minato says. “Promise me, Naruto.”
“I will,” Naruto vows.
“I hope you’ll find what you’re looking for,” Sakura says and hugs him. She knows best how Naruto often feels, even though she doesn’t know about the thread.
Naruto says goodbyes to them all and steps onto the train.
“Okay,” he mutters. “Tell me where to go.”
As if hearing his words, the thread pulls again, and Naruto decides to follow it, no matter how far he would have to travel.
Naruto doesn’t have a clear itinerary for his trip—he just decided to follow the thread’s pull and see where it would take him. He’s not surprised that his first stop is the city of Konoha, the biggest of the five cities.
He’s been there before, but as he steps out from the train station, the size still takes his breath away. And the people. There is traffic everywhere, the buzz of cars, trams and people milling around is a lot to take in.
Still, despite that, Naruto only focuses on the tug of the thread and starts walking.
Naruto walks by a restaurant and a flashback hits him so fast that he doesn’t have time to react.
“C’mon, you promised you would pay!”
“When did I say anything like that? You earned quite a lot from this mission, Naruto, you can pay for yourself.”
“Kakashi-senseiiiii!”
“Shut up, dumbass.”
“Huh?! You wanna fight?”
“Naruto, stop that!”
Naruto gasps for breath, bends over to lean against his thighs, scattered images flashing in his mind too fast to catch up. One of those voices had definitely been Sakura’s, but he didn’t recognize the other two, and he couldn't catch their appearances from the images. And who the hell is Kakashi?
“Hey, are you okay?” Naruto raises his head to see an older man in a cook’s attire stepping outside of the restaurant. Now that Naruto looks up, he sees the words Ichiraku ramen on top of the doors.
“I, uh,” Naruto stammers. He’s not about to tell a stranger he started to hallucinate. Is he actually mentally just as sick as his father and the doctors had thought? Had it been a mistake to stop taking the meds? “I just feel a bit dizzy. I… just arrived from Uzushio and I haven’t eaten for a while.”
The cook watches him for a while. “Say, you don’t happen to be the Seventh Hokage’s descendant?” he asks.
Naruto straightens his back. “Is it really that obvious?” he asks with a laugh. “Yeah, I am. My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I was born and raised in Uzushio.”
“I’m Teuchi, this is my restaurant,” the cook says and points over his shoulder. “All Uzumakis eat for free here. You like ramen too?”
“Yeah, I do share that trait with my ancestor,” Naruto says. He feels extremely awkward, but his stomach lets out a loud rumble, and he sheepishly follows Teuchi inside the restaurant.
Another wave of images washes over him, but now he has enough time to catch glimpses of a black-haired boy, then a young man, and the word dumbass echoes in his head—
“You should really check out the Shinobi Museum while you’re here,” Teuchi says as he gets started with the dish; he doesn’t even ask what Naruto wants, he seems to be sure that Naruto’s taste is the same as his ancestor’s.
Naruto has a lot of things in common with the Seventh Hokage. He rubs at his temples, thinking about the images he saw. They’re similar to the dreams he’s had for years, and considering the fact that the thread around his wrist is very much real (albeit not visible to anyone else than him), he wouldn’t be surprised if the images he sees are actual memories.
What if he isn’t just the Seventh Hokage’s descendant?
Naruto wants to ask about the black-haired young man, but he can’t find a way to ask about it casually. He focuses on eating his ramen and it’s the best he’s ever eaten.
Another image slams into his mind, followed by a throbbing pain in his right arm and a jumble of dialogue.
“I can’t eat with my left hand! I can’t use chopsticks with it!”
“You’re such a moron—”
“Wait—are you gonna feed me?! You don’t need to, Sasuke, I’ll figure it out—”
“Just shut up and let me help you!”
Sasuke. Sasuke. Why does that name feel so familiar? Naruto has never heard it before, yet it grips his heart in a way it almost hurts. Why does it hurt so much?
The thread tugs at him so powerfully he almost loses his balance on the stool. Naruto glances over his shoulder to the window—and sees it. Only a fraction of a second.
A young man with black hair.
“Thanks for the food,” Naruto says hastily, gathers his belongings and bursts back to the street, heart pounding in his throat. The thread is pulling him so hard his wrist hurts and he lets it lead him. The thread doesn’t disappear, this time—it wraps around the black-haired man’s left wrist. How he doesn’t notice it?
Naruto wants to call out, but he can’t be sure he’s right, even though his heart knows. More images, memories, pour into him and he understands everything now, and he chokes a sob.
He isn’t just a Seventh Hokage’s descendant. He is the reincarnation of him. He is, and isn’t, the same person.
And now he remembers Sasuke and everything hurts and the desperation makes him yell anyway. “Sasuke!”
The black-haired man doesn’t turn, he keeps walking, but somehow Naruto knows he’d heard. Naruto follows him through the modern-day Konoha, the buildings soon changing to residential buildings, and he sees the Hokage Monuments in the distance. There are only seven faces carved into the rock—if they’d carved every single Hokage since the founding, there wouldn’t be enough space. Somehow it doesn’t surprise Naruto that his likeness is the last one there.
Sasuke—it has to be Sasuke, has to be—keeps walking until they reach a more secluded part of the city. Naruto sees a lake and his stomach flips when he understands where they’re going.
The pier. Their pier. Sasuke descends the stairs and Naruto follows, the red thread pooling from their wrists around them, it settles on Naruto’s shoulders, on his body, and does the same for Sasuke. The thread connects them, and as they reach the end of the pier, Sasuke stops. He’s wearing an orange hoodie and jeans.
Naruto knows why he’s wearing an orange hoodie, and he sobs again.
Sasuke’s shoulders shake as he slowly turns around, and seeing his face hits Naruto like a freight train.
He looks just like Naruto remembers now, the pale skin, dark, obsidian eyes, black hair that falls on his face. Just like Naruto, he also has tears on his cheeks, but unlike Naruto, he’s a lot better at containing his emotions.
Naruto isn’t quite sure he can hold on for long. Their past selves had lived over two hundred years ago. Now they’re here again—and they’re not even shinobi. They really are just Naruto and Sasuke.
“It’s—been a while, hasn’t it?” Naruto says because he needs to say something. He’s feeling too much to properly process it all, let alone grasp all the memories that are raging through him.
“Dumbass,” Sasuke replies and chokes. “I was going crazy because of the damn thread.”
Naruto steps closer. “How old were you when it appeared on you?” he asks.
Sasuke wipes his eyes angrily to his sleeve, but they keep falling. “Fourteen,” he mutters. “I was fourteen. My brother… Itachi was the only one I said anything about. I don’t know if he ever believed me.”
“He’s doing good?” Naruto says. “And your family?”
“All there,” Sasuke says quietly. “My dad is a detective in Konoha. Not surprising, all things considered. Itachi, well… he focuses on saving people. He’s a doctor.”
“I’m really glad,” Naruto whispers. “Really glad to hear that, Sasuke.”
Sasuke slips his hands into his pockets and doesn’t bother to wipe the tears away. “What about you?”
“I have my Pa,” Naruto says and smiles sadly. “Ma died when I was ten. She got really sick.”
“Oh,” Sasuke says flatly. “I’m… sorry?”
“It’s fine, really,” Naruto says and blows out a breath. “It’s been nine years—sure, sometimes I get sad, but I still have Pa and my granny—and I have so many other Uzumaki relatives.”
“That’s good, at least,” Sasuke says quietly. They stare at each other, not quite sure how to proceed from there. From the jumble of memories Naruto has managed to figure out that he did marry and have children, as did Sasuke, but they also… spend a lot of time together. And they had been very close.
That probably explains why Naruto had identified as bisexual ever since he’d known the meaning of the word.
The thread still pulls, so Naruto steps forward again, until he’s close enough to see the tears stuck in Sasuke’s stupidly long eyelashes. The thread pulls Naruto’s wrist and he lifts it, at the same time as Sasuke raises his own left hand.
They press their palms together.
The thread binds their hands together tightly, so tightly they can’t separate, and as they watch, the thread sinks into their skin and then inside their hands. When they can move their hands again, Naruto looks at the palm of his right hand, already knowing what he’ll see there—and sure enough, the sun tattoo is there again. When he looks at Sasuke, he shows his palm and the crescent moon on it.
Naruto can’t take it anymore. Another sob tears through him and then they’re hugging, squeezing each other so tightly it hurts, but it's a good kind of pain.
Then Sasuke’s lips find his and he doesn’t even think about anything else as he returns the kiss. It’s not Naruto’s first kiss, but he knows it’s the kiss he’s been waiting for the past two hundred years to experience again. That’s all they need—they’re just continuing where they left off.
“I missed you so much,” Naruto says and his voice cracks. “I missed you without even realizing I missed you.”
“I have no idea how this is even possible, but I sure as hell I’m glad it happened,” Sasuke admits and Naruto tastes the salt of the tears as they kiss again.
They have so much catching up to do, and Naruto can’t wait for them to get started. They sit down at the end of the pier, their feet brushing the water’s surface, and they talk for hours, hand in hand. Sometimes they take breaks to kiss.
Naruto meets Sasuke’s family two weeks later. He and Itachi get along instantly.
Two months later Naruto takes Sasuke to Uzushio to meet his father and his grandmother.
“I’m happy you found each other,” his grandmother says quietly when Sasuke is preoccupied with a bombardment of questions from Naruto’s friends (friends that Sasuke now remembers from a past life). “It took a while, didn’t it?”
“It did,” Naruto sighs. “Thanks, Granny.” He’s not surprised that his grandmother knew more than she showed on the surface.
In the evening Naruto and Sasuke walk along the beach, their fingers intertwined. Stars dot the sky above them, and the moon gives them enough light to see properly.
Naruto takes them to a special cove not many know about, and they make love with the stars and the moon as their only witnesses.