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The Hokage's office was never quiet, not really. Even now, long after the sun had dipped below the rooftops of Konoha, the gentle scratch of paper, the faint humming of lamps, and the distant sounds of village life kept the silence from settling in. Naruto Uzumaki leaned over his desk, fingers stiff around a pen he hadn’t moved in five minutes.
He hadn’t noticed the ink bleeding into the page.
His eyes were somewhere else.
Somewhere years ago.
“You’re doing it again,” Shikamaru muttered without looking up from his own pile of scrolls. “Staring into the void like it’s going to finish your paperwork for you.”
Naruto blinked and sat up straighter. “Sorry. Long day.”
“They’re all long, Boss.” Shikamaru stood, gathering his things. “Go home. You’ve got a wife and a kid who barely see you. The village will still be here tomorrow.”
That hit. Naruto offered a tired smile. “Yeah. You’re right.”
But he didn’t go home. Not right away.
He found himself walking the edge of the village, past the training fields, past Ichiraku’s—closed for the night—until his legs moved on instinct alone. Past memories. Past regrets.
That’s when he felt it—chakra, familiar and sharp, like steel wrapped in flame. A presence he hadn’t felt in weeks. Maybe months.
“Sasuke.”
The Uchiha stepped out from the trees, moonlight catching the edge of his cloak. One arm still missing, eyes unreadable.
“I heard the Hokage doesn’t sleep,” Sasuke said simply.
Naruto gave a soft laugh. “Can’t. Too much to do.”
There was a long pause between them, stretching over years of battles, letters unsent, apologies half-offered. They didn’t speak for a moment. They just stood , as if caught in a place that was both now and long ago.
“You weren’t supposed to be back until next month.”
“I wasn’t supposed to come back at all.” Sasuke’s voice was low. Honest. “But something pulled me here.”
Naruto didn’t ask what. He didn’t have to.
They walked without direction, side by side but not touching. The wind moved softly through the trees, stirring old leaves and older memories.
“I saw the ruins of an old outpost,” Sasuke said after a while. “Near the border of the Land of Rivers. Bandits had set up shop. Dealt with it.”
Naruto glanced at him. “You always show up after cleaning up someone else’s mess.”
Sasuke’s mouth twitched—maybe a smile, maybe not. “And you keep trying to fix a village that doesn’t want to be fixed.”
Naruto stopped walking. “That what you think I’m doing?”
“I think you’re trying to carry something no one asked you to.”
Naruto turned, eyes tired but sharp. “They did ask me. Everyone did.”
“No,” Sasuke said, stepping closer, voice quieter. “They asked for peace. You gave them you .”
That landed hard—because it was true. Naruto had poured everything into Konoha. He gave them his time, his strength, his name. There was barely anything left for himself, or for the people who loved him.
Like Hinata.
And somehow, that realization made his chest tighten, not with guilt—but with something colder. Emptier.
He looked at Sasuke then, really looked. “Why are you here?”
Sasuke met his gaze. “Because I thought maybe you needed someone who sees you.”
For a second, neither of them breathed.
Then Naruto turned away first.
He came home quietly. Hinata was asleep on the couch again, Boruto’s blanket folded neatly in her lap. She always waited up—even when she didn’t mean to. Even when he was hours late.
Naruto stood in the doorway, watching her, heart aching with a kind of sadness he couldn’t name. She looked peaceful, soft. Everything he thought he wanted. Everything he promised he would protect.
He crossed the room, knelt beside her, and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek.
She stirred, smiling faintly in her sleep. “...Naruto-kun?”
He didn’t answer. He just kissed her forehead, whispered, “I’m sorry,” and sat back, hands trembling.
Hinata woke before the sun. She always did, these days.
The house was quiet, the kind of quiet that didn’t feel peaceful. It felt paused —like something was waiting to break.
She moved through the morning motions like muscle memory: making tea, folding laundry, checking on Boruto before he stirred in his sleep. And when she passed the living room, she saw it—
Naruto’s coat, draped carelessly over the arm of the couch.
He’d come home late again. Or early, depending on how you counted.
Hinata’s hands paused over the fabric. It still held the scent of the wind, of smoke, of somewhere else . Somewhere not here.
Her heart didn’t clench. It didn’t need to. She’d grown used to this feeling: soft, persistent, like water wearing down stone.
She knew Naruto was slipping away. Not out of cruelty—not even out of disinterest. He was just... stretched thin. Thinner than even he realized.
And somewhere, she feared, someone else was holding the pieces she no longer could.
She didn’t ask questions when he came to breakfast an hour later. Hair damp from a quick shower. Smile worn at the edges.
“Sleep okay?” he asked, like nothing was wrong.
Hinata nodded gently, setting a cup of tea in front of him. “You were out late.”
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Work stuff.”
A pause.
She looked at him then, really looked—at the way his eyes didn’t meet hers, at the way his hand tightened around the cup.
She didn’t press. She never did. But in that silence, something passed between them. Not a confrontation.
A knowing.
Later that day, when she passed by the edge of the village, she saw him.
Sasuke.
He stood in the shade of a tall pine, speaking with Shikamaru. Distant. Alone.
But when Hinata looked at him—really looked —he wasn’t watching Shikamaru.
He was watching the Hokage tower.
She looked away.
And for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel gentle.
She felt afraid.
It started with silence.
Not the heavy kind that hangs over a room like fog, but the soft kind—familiar, fragile. Like the air before a storm.
Naruto met Sasuke again, two nights later. Not planned. Not really.
He’d finished late again—too many scrolls, too many missions, too many people calling his name like it belonged to everyone but him.
He found Sasuke at the old training field near the edge of town. Alone. Like always.
"You always come back to this place," Naruto said, stepping into the grass, the moon catching his blond hair in fragments.
Sasuke didn’t look at him right away. “So do you.”
They didn’t spar. Not this time. They just stood in the dark, the space between them thin and humming with things neither of them had said.
"You ever think about it?" Naruto asked, not sure why the words came out. "What things could’ve been, if everything was different?"
Sasuke turned then, slowly. His voice was quiet, low. “I think about you .”
It knocked the air out of Naruto. A simple sentence. Heavy as a blade.
“I’m married.” It was the only thing he could think to say.
“I know.” Sasuke’s eyes were steady. “So are your lies.”
Naruto looked down. “I don’t know how to stop.”
“Then don’t.”
That’s when it happened—barely a touch. Just Sasuke’s fingers, brushing his wrist. Nothing more. But it burned.
Not a kiss. Not yet. That would come later. This was worse. Slower.
This was two men standing on the edge of a cliff, not sure if the fall would kill them—or save them.
Naruto came home late again. Hinata was in bed this time, turned on her side, her back to him.
He undressed quietly. Slipped beneath the sheets. She didn’t move.
He reached for her—just a touch on her shoulder.
Her voice was soft, but not warm.
“Do you still love me?”
Naruto froze.
A beat.
Then another.
“Of course I do,” he said.
Hinata didn’t say anything else.
She just closed her eyes.
The rain came without warning—sudden, loud, washing the village in silver. The kind of storm that drowns thought. Maybe that’s why Naruto didn’t go home.
Maybe that’s why Sasuke didn’t tell him to leave.
They were in a borrowed shelter just outside the village—an old watchpoint from the war, long since abandoned. The windows were broken, the lanterns old, but the roof held.
Naruto stood by the open window, soaked to the bone, steam rising faint from his skin. He didn’t shake off the rain. He didn’t care to.
Sasuke sat against the wall, watching him. Not like a friend. Not like a rival. Like someone seeing something for the last time.
“You’re going to catch cold,” Sasuke said quietly.
Naruto turned, eyes tired and shining. “Maybe that’s what I need.”
Sasuke stood. “Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?” Naruto’s voice cracked, too low. “Why not, Sasuke? I’m the hero, right? The husband. The father. The Hokage. Everyone gets what they need from me. Everyone but me.”
He swallowed hard. “But when I’m with you… I don’t have to be anything.”
Sasuke was already in front of him by then.
He didn’t ask.
He didn’t speak.
He just reached out and cupped the back of Naruto’s neck, fingers trembling—and Naruto let him.
The kiss was quiet. It wasn’t fireworks. It was years of ache, grief, need, and understanding crashing down in the shape of a single breath.
Naruto clung to him like a man drowning.
Sasuke kissed him like he’d been waiting a lifetime.
And when they broke apart, foreheads pressed, breaths shaky—
Neither of them apologized.
Because there was no going back.
Only down.
Naruto didn’t go home that night.
He told himself it was the rain. The storm. The mission he could lie about later.
But really—it was the weight of what he’d done. The warmth of Sasuke’s skin still on his. The echo of a kiss he couldn’t stop tasting.
They didn’t speak after. They just sat side by side, backs against the stone wall, hands barely touching. There was nothing to say—not yet.
When dawn broke, pale and cold, Naruto stood.
“I should go.”
Sasuke didn’t stop him. “You always do.”
Naruto paused in the doorway, rain-damp cloak clinging to his shoulders. He didn’t look back.
Because if he did—he might stay.
Hinata felt it the second he walked through the door.
She was feeding Himawari, soft humming under her breath, a normal morning on the outside. But Naruto's presence was different. Off-balance. Like something had shifted in his center and hadn't settled yet.
He kissed her cheek automatically. Too fast. Too light.
And when she looked at him—really looked—he avoided her eyes.
That was new.
"Everything alright?" she asked.
He smiled. “Yeah. Just tired.”
Hinata didn’t press. She simply nodded and turned back to their daughter. But her hands trembled when she picked up the spoon.
She didn’t believe him.
Not anymore.
They didn’t speak of it. Not Naruto and Sasuke. Not Hinata and Naruto. Everyone played their part.
But things changed in the quiet.
Sasuke lingered longer when he came to report to the Hokage. No one questioned it—he’d always been an outlier. A ghost who showed up when he felt like it.
But now he sat in Naruto’s office too long. Stood too close. Said too little.
Naruto started sleeping with his back to Hinata.
And Hinata started watching his reflection in windows when he thought she wasn’t looking.
She wasn’t angry.
Not yet.
But she was aware .
They met again. A rooftop this time. No words.
Naruto reached for Sasuke like it hurt not to.
And Sasuke didn’t resist.
Their second kiss was harder. Rougher. Less hesitation. More want .
But it still carried the ache of something broken.
Afterward, Naruto stared at the stars and whispered, “I don’t know who I am when I’m with you.”
Sasuke replied, “You’re you . That’s the difference.”
Naruto closed his eyes.
And for the first time in weeks—
He wished he’d never become Hokage.
Hinata didn’t say anything when Naruto missed dinner. Again.
She just set his plate aside, covered it neatly, and tucked the children into bed. Her hands moved like a well-practiced jutsu—measured, gentle, always quiet. But inside, her mind screamed.
When Naruto returned that night—late, smelling of rain and something not home —she was sitting at the table in the dark.
He stopped in the doorway.
“You didn’t have to wait up.”
“I wasn’t.”
She didn’t look at him.
He walked past her, slow and heavy. And when she finally turned to look, she saw it in his shoulders—guilt wrapped in exhaustion, shame woven into silence.
Hinata didn’t speak. But that night, she cried alone in the kitchen, her forehead pressed to her folded arms, as the tea grew cold beside her.
Naruto didn’t sleep.
He stood outside on the balcony until the stars blurred into dawn. He thought of Hinata’s eyes—kind, knowing, wounded. Thought of Boruto’s laugh, the way Himawari curled into his chest like it was her whole world.
He thought of Sasuke’s mouth. His hands. His silence.
And how it made him feel alive and wrong at the same time.
The door behind him slid open.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” Hinata’s voice was soft.
Naruto nodded but didn’t turn.
Hinata stepped beside him. Not close. Just near enough.
“You’re not here, even when you are.”
He flinched.
She didn’t push. She just stood beside him, in the early light, heart breaking quietly.
Sasuke didn’t ask him to come. But Naruto did.
They didn’t talk much anymore. They didn’t need to.
It had become a pattern. A rhythm.
A sin they wore like second skin.
But this time—after—Sasuke pulled away first. Breathing heavy, face tight.
“This isn’t sustainable.”
Naruto didn’t answer.
“Do you love her?” Sasuke asked, eyes dark.
Naruto’s voice cracked. “Yes.”
“But you love me too.”
Silence.
Then: “Yeah.”
Sasuke looked away. “Then we’re already at war.”
Sasuke didn’t dream much.
When he did, it was usually the same: red sky, falling ash, his brother’s face. That old guilt had become familiar, manageable. Something he knew how to carry.
But lately, when he closed his eyes, it wasn’t blood he saw.
It was blond hair tangled in his fingers. A name whispered like prayer. Hands that held him like they needed something only he could give.
Naruto.
And that guilt felt different.
Because this wasn’t about revenge. Or penance.
It was about want.
He hadn’t meant for it to go this far.
At first, it was just a fracture—something in Naruto’s voice, a quiet desperation when they talked late at night. Sasuke had leaned in, thinking he could be a place for him to fall without consequences.
But then came the touches. The kiss.
And now—
Now he was checking rooftops at night, waiting for chakra signatures like a boy instead of a man who’d burned villages to the ground.
Pathetic.
He told himself to leave.
He even packed once.
Stood at the edge of the village for an entire hour, cloak fluttering in the wind, looking back at the Hokage tower like it was a goddamn flame and he was still too stupid to stop reaching for it.
But he didn’t leave.
Because Naruto needed him.
And Sasuke—Sasuke, who had sworn to walk alone, who had promised himself never again—
He needed Naruto too.
Sasuke sat alone at the base of a tree outside the village. Rain had just ended. The air was cold, clean.
He stared at the hilt of his sword, unmoving.
Footsteps approached.
He didn’t need to turn. “You’re late.”
Naruto sat beside him, soaked, silent.
“You shouldn’t keep coming,” Sasuke said without heat.
“I know.”
They sat in silence.
Then Naruto spoke, voice low. “I think she knows.”
Sasuke’s hands tightened around his knee.
“I’m not good at lying,” Naruto added.
“You’re not lying. You’re just breaking.”
Naruto looked at him then. “And what are you?”
Sasuke didn’t answer.
Because he didn’t know.
Hinata folded Naruto’s laundry with practiced hands.
His cloak smelled like pine and wet stone. Not like their home. Not like her.
She paused, fingers tightening on the fabric.
There was a time she used to bury her face in these clothes—hold them close while he was away on missions. The scent had comforted her, made her feel close to him even when he was gone.
Now it only reminded her of how far he was, even when he was standing in the same room.
He was quieter now.
Overly polite. Careful with his words. Gentle in ways that felt rehearsed.
He held her like someone trying to remember how. Like someone who knew what guilt tasted like and didn’t want her to notice it on his tongue.
But she did.
She noticed everything.
The late nights. The hollow silences. The way he stared out the window with his jaw clenched like he was bracing for war.
And once—only once—she saw it in his eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking.
Longing.
Not for her.
But for him .
She hadn’t meant to follow.
But when Naruto left again that night, claiming another emergency at the tower, she waited a few minutes before stepping into her sandals and pulling on her cloak.
She moved like a shadow. A habit from a life before motherhood. Before marriage.
She didn’t go to the tower.
She went to the training fields. The old ones.
The ones no one used anymore except—
There.
Two figures in the dark.
Close.
Too close.
Hinata didn’t breathe.
She watched them like ghosts, half-hidden behind the trees. She didn’t see the kiss.
But she didn’t need to.
She saw Naruto’s hand brush Sasuke’s shoulder. Saw Sasuke step forward—into him, not just toward him. Saw the look on her husband’s face. One he hadn’t given her in years.
Hinata stepped back into the night like she was walking through water.
She didn’t cry.
Not yet.
When she returned home, she sat on the edge of their bed in silence.
Her heart was steady.
Her mind was not.
And somewhere deep inside her, a new version of herself began to take shape.
One that did not wait.
One that did not whisper.
One that would not be quiet for much longer.
The house was quiet when Naruto returned. Late again. Hair damp from the night air. He looked tired—too tired to lie well.
Hinata sat at the kitchen table, a single lamp casting gold across her face. She didn’t speak when he entered.
He froze in the doorway, sensing something different in the air.
She looked up. Calm. Steady.
“Sit.”
Naruto hesitated—then obeyed. He lowered himself into the chair across from her like a man stepping into judgment.
Hinata folded her hands on the table.
“I want you to tell me the truth,” she said, voice quiet. “Just once. No excuses. No pretending.”
Naruto’s throat tightened. “Hinata…”
“Are you in love with Sasuke?”
The silence that followed felt like a blade pressed between them.
Naruto looked down at his hands. He could lie. He could deflect. He could say nothing.
But then—
“Yes.”
Hinata didn’t flinch.
She didn’t cry.
She just nodded once. Slow. Controlled.
“How long?”
“A few months.”
“Did you try to stop?”
His voice cracked. “Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
She closed her eyes. Let the answer sit in her bones.
“I knew,” she said softly. “Not at first. But I felt it. I felt you leaving me.”
“I didn’t want to,” he whispered.
“But you did.”
That silence was the loudest of all.
Hinata stood.
Naruto followed her with his eyes but didn’t move.
She turned her back to him.
“I’m not going to scream. I’m not going to make this a scene,” she said. “But I want you to understand something.”
She turned her head slightly, voice even.
“I loved you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I gave you a family. A home. Myself.”
A pause.
“And you gave yourself to someone else.”
Naruto’s breath hitched.
“I’m not angry,” she continued. “Not yet. But I’m no longer blind.”
She stepped out of the room.
Left him sitting there with the weight of her words—and the silence that followed.
Sasuke didn’t sleep.
He sat beneath a half-dead tree just beyond the village walls, sword beside him, cloak wrapped tight, and the weight of what he’d done pressing hard against his chest.
He told himself it was inevitable. That their connection had always been a slow-burning thing, too heavy, too consuming to be anything but eventual.
But knowing that didn’t make him feel better.
It only made it worse.
Because he knew Hinata .
Knew the way she loved quietly, fiercely. The way her strength lived in silence and small gestures. And he had taken the one thing she had wrapped her entire life around.
And Naruto—Naruto was unraveling.
He saw it in the way his voice shook when he said her name. The way his smile never reached his eyes anymore. Sasuke had lit a match, and now the fire was crawling through a house with no doors.
He didn’t regret loving him.
But he regretted everything else.
That Morning
Naruto found him at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the valley. The sky was overcast, grey light spilling across the trees.
Sasuke didn’t turn around. “She knows.”
Naruto nodded, throat tight. “I told her.”
Sasuke exhaled through his nose. “What did she say?”
“She didn’t yell. She didn’t cry.”
“That’s worse.”
Naruto’s voice cracked. “I know.”
They stood in silence, the wind catching at their cloaks, the air between them colder than usual.
“I thought I could live with it,” Sasuke said finally. “Being the one in the shadows. The mistake.”
“You’re not a mistake,” Naruto snapped, voice low but fierce.
Sasuke turned, expression hard. “Then what am?”
Naruto had no answer.
Not one that wouldn’t hurt someone.
There was a moment—months ago, before this all began—where it could’ve gone differently.
They’d been walking home from a patrol. The village quiet, the streets glowing soft with lanterns. Naruto had bumped Sasuke’s shoulder, smiling, stupid, golden.
“You ever think about it?” he’d asked.
Sasuke had glanced at him. “Think about what?”
“If we hadn’t had to fight. If none of that happened. What we would’ve been.”
Sasuke had stopped walking. Looked at him too long.
And Naruto—Naruto had looked back .
That moment stretched like wire between them. Tight. Dangerous.
Sasuke could’ve walked away.
But he didn’t.
Now, standing on the cliff, he turned his back to Naruto.
“I think I have to leave.”
Naruto stepped forward. “Sasuke—”
“I should’ve never touched you.”
Naruto's voice broke. “But I wanted you to.”
“I know,” Sasuke said, eyes closed. “And that’s why I have to go.”
Naruto didn’t chase Sasuke.
Not right away.
He stood there on the cliff, wind dragging through his hair, the valley stretching out in silence beneath him. Sasuke’s words rang in his ears like an echo that wouldn’t die.
“I should’ve never touched you.”
But that wasn’t true.
The truth was—they both touched something they shouldn’t have. Something they couldn’t unfeel.
He clenched his fists.
He could save a village.
He could carry the dreams of the dead.
He could smile through blood and grief and loss.
But he couldn't hold onto the two people who mattered most—without destroying them in the process.
He went home as the sun broke the horizon.
The house was still. Empty-feeling, even with his children asleep inside.
Hinata’s cloak was gone from the hook.
Her pillow was missing from the bed.
She hadn’t left a note.
She didn’t need to.
Naruto sat down on the floor beside the bed, legs folding beneath him like a child, head in his hands.
He didn’t cry.
Not at first.
Not until he saw one of Himawari’s drawings on the nightstand. A messy scrawl of their family. Four stick figures.
Two of them holding hands.
The other one standing apart, face shaded blue.
He wasn’t sure which one he was supposed to be anymore.
Later that day, he showed up at the edge of the village.
The same tree Sasuke used to wait under.
He stood there for hours.
Waiting.
Hoping.
But Sasuke didn’t come.
Because this time, he meant it.
Naruto sat on the Hokage roof that night, legs dangling over the edge like he used to do when he was younger—when things were simpler, when loneliness didn’t come with faces attached.
The village below flickered with lanterns and life.
He couldn’t feel it anymore.
It all looked like something far away.
He hadn’t told anyone.
Not about Sasuke. Not about Hinata leaving. Not about the guilt carving holes in his chest like a slow, dull blade.
He still smiled in the tower.
Still signed papers, nodded through meetings, patted Genin on the head like everything was fine.
But inside, he felt hollow. Like something had been cut out of him.
Not his power.
Not his pride.
Just his home .
The door behind him creaked open.
Kakashi.
Of course it was Kakashi.
He walked toward him slowly, hands in his pockets, mask pulled down for once. He didn’t say anything. Just sat beside him, quiet, watching the stars.
“I messed up,” Naruto said, voice flat.
“I know,” Kakashi replied.
Naruto laughed, but it sounded like it hurt. “You’re not even gonna ask what I did?”
“I don’t need to.” Kakashi looked at him, soft. “I’ve been there.”
Naruto turned his head, brow furrowed. “You ever hurt someone like that? Someone who didn’t deserve it?”
“Yes.” Kakashi looked down. “And I never stopped regretting it.”
A pause. Then—
“Do you love them both?”
Naruto swallowed. “Yeah.”
“Then you’ll never stop hurting. No matter what you choose.”
Naruto closed his eyes.
He already knew that.
Later that night, he stood outside his house, staring at the door like it didn’t belong to him anymore.
He didn’t go in.
He just sat on the steps and waited for the light to change.
Like maybe, if he sat still long enough, something would go back to the way it was.
But nothing ever did.
The rain had stopped by the time Sasuke crossed the border.
He didn’t look back.
Not because he didn’t want to.
Because if he did—he might turn around.
And if he turned around, he knew he wouldn’t leave again.
Days passed in fragments.
He walked through unfamiliar forests, quiet towns, broken roads. He helped where he could, fought when he had to. Slipped through shadows like he was made of them.
It should’ve been familiar.
It should’ve been enough.
But this time, he didn’t feel like a wanderer.
He felt like a coward.
Because for all the missions, for all the times he told himself he was doing this to protect Naruto from the mess they’d made—he knew the truth:
He left because staying meant wanting more.
And there was no version of that story that ended without wreckage.
He found shelter in an old inn one night, deep in the mountains. Alone. No battles. No village needing saving. Just silence and a cracked mirror above the sink.
He stared into it too long.
His own reflection didn’t look right.
Too human. Too tired. Too much like someone who had once been held by someone who said his name like it meant something sacred.
He touched the glass.
“Usuratonkachi.”
The word came out broken.
A whisper. A memory. A wound.
He dreamed of Naruto that night.
Not the man.
The boy —loud and bright and golden. The boy who chased him down. The boy who fought through hell to bring him back.
And in the dream, Sasuke let himself fall into him.
No guilt. No war. No village. No Hinata.
Just them.
Just peace .
He woke with a sharp breath.
Rain on the roof.
The kind that always felt like Konoha.
He pressed his hand to his chest and tried not to call it regret.
Sasuke didn’t mean to write it.
He wasn’t the kind of man who spilled his heart on paper. He had too many secrets, too much silence. But one night—long after the fire burned out and the shadows had stretched too long—he found himself at a desk, ink-stained fingers, words bleeding onto the page.
Naruto,
I told myself leaving was the right thing.
I thought I could tear myself away before we ruined everything completely. Before your home collapsed. Before your children looked at you and saw only what you’d lost.
But I think we were already past saving.
And I think we knew it.
I didn’t love you to hurt her. I didn’t love you to destroy what you built.
I just—
I loved you because I couldn’t not.
I loved you in the way only a broken thing can love another—like it was survival.
And maybe that was the real sin.
You once said I was your closest bond.
But I think, maybe, you were mine too. And that’s why it had to end.
Because if I stayed, I wouldn’t have let go.
And neither would you.
Take care of them. Of her. Of yourself, if you can.
This letter won’t reach you. I won’t let it. Some things aren’t meant to be answers.
Some things are meant to stay unfinished.
—S
He folded it neatly.
Tucked it into his cloak.
And walked into the morning like the words never existed.
But they would always live inside him.
Quiet.
Burning.
Forever unsent.
Naruto didn’t remember falling asleep. But he remembered waking up—cold, curled on the wooden floor of a house that didn’t feel like his anymore.
The walls were too quiet.
The light too sharp.
And the ache in his chest wasn’t something that came from outside—it was inside him , like a second heartbeat made of guilt and memory.
He moved through the house like a stranger. Dishes untouched in the sink. Himawari’s drawing still crooked on the fridge. A scarf Hinata once made him, folded too neatly.
It smelled like her.
He didn’t touch it.
Couldn’t.
At the table, he found himself staring at nothing. Hands clenched. Jaw tight. Eyes burning.
And then—finally—his chest cracked open.
Not loud.
Not violent.
Just quiet sobs pulled from somewhere deep, raw, childlike. The kind of crying that doesn’t ask for comfort—just release.
He pressed a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound.
There was no one left to hear it anyway.
He’d always been afraid of being alone.
That little boy inside him—the one with no parents, no warmth, no hand to hold—he was still there. And for years, Naruto thought he’d buried him.
But now, with Hinata gone, with Sasuke vanished like a ghost— he was back .
Alone again.
But this time, it wasn’t the world’s fault.
It was his .
He looked out the window, eyes unfocused, whispering a truth he hadn’t been able to face until now.
“I broke everything I love.”
It sat heavy in the air.
No jutsu could fix it.
No speech could undo it.
No one was coming back.
Later that night, he lit a candle for Jiraiya. For his father. For the pieces of himself that had died in silence.
He didn’t say a prayer.
Just sat with it.
The loss. The weight.
The cost of being needed by everyone—and loved too deeply by the wrong people, at the wrong time.
When dawn finally crept over the village, he was still sitting there.
Alone.
Unmoving.
But not numb.
Just… wrecked .
And maybe that was the closest thing he would ever get to peace.