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day 2 - happy ending
“So we get a happy ending after all,” Iruka tells him. Most people have left by now. Iruka places the Hokage’s hat on his head and looks at him for a bit. Naruto feels endlessly proud — proud to have Iruka looking at him like he succeeded — and somehow sad at the same time. Empty, maybe. “The boy who promised he’d make it to Hokage finally did it. Even though nobody believed him.”
Ah. He had promised that.
It sounds like a happy ending.
He doesn’t feel like this is his happy ending, somehow. It’s a happy moment, sure, but it doesn’t feel like his goal is reached. It feels off.
“Thank you, Iruka.”
Iruka smiles, suddenly something sad about his look as well. “Do you want me to go home with you?”
He knows him well, Iruka. Naruto feels almost overwhelmed by what being known means. It means that Iruka knows that this isn’t what his happy ending was supposed to be like. Iruka knows, without asking, that his heart is still gaping — still a mess. That he’s still lonely. Not as lonely as he’d been when Iruka tied his headband around his forehead for the first time, but lonely nonetheless.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Okay. Take it all in, Naruto. Slowly. You deserve it.”
He nods. “Yeah. Thanks, ‘Ruka, will do.”
Iruka and him part ways. Naruto takes the Hokage hat off, walking towards his apartment. The streets are quiet by now, luckily. All day there were kids wanting hugs, people congratulating him, giving him presents. There’s a nice kind of quiet now.
Naruto loves the village. In spite of it all.
In spite of what it has done to him.
In spite of what it has done to — well — the person he loves most.
A happy ending. Right.
Naruto walks up the stairs to his apartment with heavy feet. He feels like he’ll collapse on his mattress as soon as he’ll set his eyes on it. He longs for sleeping in tomorrow. Feels for a second like, maybe, he wants nothing more.
He gets proven wrong a second later; in front of his door lingers a shadow.
Naruto allows his heart to skip a beat.
“Hey, deadlast.”
Naruto watches him. He doesn’t move, at first, as if any move can scare Sasuke away again. As if he isn’t real, as if it’s a fantasy Naruto wants to live in just a little longer. How long has it been? How long has he missed him? They’ve written letters. Letters that became more honest with every word. In which they finally admitted to missing each other. Admitted to feeling for each other.
“Are you going to let me in?” Sasuke asks, when he realises Naruto is not about to reply.
“You — Were you not still travelling?”
Sasuke shrugs. “This is my last stop. My travels end here.”
Naruto breathes in sharply. “Oh. Oh. Yeah, come in.”
They awkwardly linger. Naruto opens the door for the both of them, closes it behind him. Sasuke throws his bag on the floor, then turns to him. He corners Naruto against the door and — and for a little while they just watch each other. They watch each other because they have changed. God, they’ve changed so much. Sasuke’s hair is longer, his face looks slimmer. He looks better. He looks beautiful.
Naruto — well — Naruto is wearing his Hokage’s cloak now. Trying to grow out his hair until he looks like his dad a little bit more, though he’d never tell anyone. The cloak fits. He still feels small in it.
“Congratulations,” Sasuke says. It’s barely louder than a whisper.
Naruto feels his chest implode. He feels himself grow.
It’s not that other’s congratulating him hadn’t meant anything. He’d felt proud at Iruka’s words, or at Sakura’s. Kakashi had smiled a little brighter, more genuine, than he’d ever seen him do. Tsunade had cried. It all meant something.
It hadn’t felt like this, though.
“Thank you,” Naruto mumbles. He laces his fingers in Sasuke’s shirt, wanting to keep him close. Sasuke, in return, grabs a hold of the Hokage’s cloak. Sasuke still hates the village, Naruto knows it. He can’t blame him. Still, he’s here. He really, really hopes it’s because he’ll love Naruto in spite of.
“You make this ugly thing look pretty okay,” Sasuke says.
Naruto laughs. It sounds like a breath. Like a finally. “Yeah?”
Sasuke rolls his eyes, then moves in a little closer. Naruto jokingly places the Hokage hat on top of the other’s head. “Idiot,” Sasuke mumbles.
“That’s Hokage-sama, these days.”
“Yeah, sure. Not to me though.” Sasuke smiles. Naruto can almost feel it on his skin. He can definitely feel it inside of his chest; erupting, setting him on fire, getting rid of a cold he had barely registered before.
Ah. He knew, somewhere, what being happy feels like. It’s Sasuke making fun of him. The closeness of their bodies. His heart calming down a little.
Naruto presses his lips to Sasuke’s briefly. A promise for more.
He grins when they pull back, lays his hand in Sasuke’s neck, caresses his ear softly. Okay, he thinks as he looks at the other. Just to reassure himself. Okay, maybe this is it.
“Hm?” Sasuke pulls his cloak a little.
“Nothing. I was just thinking of something Iruka said earlier.”