Chapter Text
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04 September 1973
It was starting to get cold in the old town of Macon Georgia, the rough smell of leather and hot pavement filled the breeze accompanied with the singing of cicadas. His look turned up to the red neon signs of the city. He brought a cigarette to his lips and lit it up, it was his white Marlboro, never red ones. He likes the smoother taste, it's a cleaner burn, less harsh on the throat. The smoke filled his lungs, it didn't help with the headache that accompanied him.
This night the air was stronger that many others, the sky seemed darker and the whole day grey clouds filled the horizon. He had woken up with this horrible headache, sweat dripping from his forehead, his usual black shirt was wet and the moon lighted his dark black hair, in this light it seemed more like a very dark soul blue.
Yes, he could spend his life this way. Smoking cigarettes on a dark night in town, outside a bar with guitars fuming around in the back. He was recharging in the dirty wall outside the same place they always had practice. The door beside him opened, a red headed girl came along with it.
“Sasuke…we're starting. We need you in 5”
He had met her at school not so long ago, he knew she had a fat crush on the dark haired boy, but he just found her annoying much like everything else that surrounded him.
Sasuke has been living in Macon ever since he was a kid, he didn't know that many people and was used to always being alone, well ever since he was 8.
Before…
Sasuke slammed his cigarette to the floor, smashed it with his black boots. He walked through the back door of the place to go inside. What a way to interrupt his thoughts.
So he entered the old garage, the same stupid disgusting garage they have been practising for over 6 months. They have done some shows at pubs, but Sasuke will be lying if he said he enjoyed it.
When they started with this band thing he never thought these idiots would be so insufferable. To share something so personal as his music with lazy asses like them, no, he wouldn't want to, not with these lunatics and not with the world.
But the euphoria a stage can surround you with is one of a kind, the rush of your ears ringing, your throat burning while screaming the lyrics, your fingers bleeding by strumming the guitar a little too hard. It doesn't compare with the uneasy feeling afterwards, awkward, disgusting. He can't keep doing this. What was he actually going with?, was this… really…it?.
Inside the place there was Jugo sitting in the drums, Karin in the bass, Suigetsu in his guitar and there was his stupidly tall microphone stand, the one he loved so much to yell at. That crappy vibe was what made them all Taka.
“Let's start with this,” Said sasuke as he placed his deep blue telecaster in his hands and stood behind the microphone. Jugo counted them in.
“3..2..1..”
And so the guitar slammed hard into an E chord, shaking the whole room. Then Sasuke with his raspy deep voice started yelling the words.
Ohhhh…
Friends say it's fine
Friends say it's good
Everybody says it's just like Robin Hood
Well it's plain to see
You were meant for me
Yeah, I'm your boy
Your 20th century toy
Karin was doing the backing vocals, she had a good enough voice for that, but was bad enough to not sing a word.
A sharp sound invaded his ears and he clocked a judging look to Suigetsu. What was this idiot doing? Its always the same, he fucks every song with his stupid slippery fingers, how many times did Sasuke had to tell him to keep up with the right tempo?
20th century toy
I want to be your boy
20th century toy
I want to be your boy
20th century toy
I want to be your boy
20th century toy
I want to be your boy
There it was again. Sasuke's whole body had chills of anger, from his toes to his head. He was fuming. So he froze.
Sasuke made sure to steady the microphone in its stand, then turned towards Suigetsu with a pissed off glare.
The smash of the blue sharp metal guitar banging against the stone hard floor was heard all around the rusty garage. Pieces of the instrument went flying full force into fragments, startling the group of people inside the room. Everyone stopped their moves.
Sasuke smashed it again.
The silence that followed the action shortly after was deadly, and the black haired man was inhaling and exhaling sharply with exertion.
The black haired man was sick of the group’s whole bullshit, and if they wouldn’t put any effort into their plays and leave them all penny-less then where did their success come in? When do they start sleeping on the smelly sidewalks of Georgia? When they don’t have enough for Motels to shower in no more?
If Sasuke is anything, he is greedy for success. And right now, Taka isn’t giving any.
“S-Sasuke let's think this through-“ Karin was the first one to speak up after a few seconds, her nicely manicured hand reaching up to try and touch the heaving man’s shoulder.
Sasuke slaps her away, then sighs in a low grumble that leaves the whole crowd stunned into a trance of quiet.
“This isn’t easy for me…” he is rightful enough to admit, and Jugo ends up looking at him with wide stunned eyes. Sasuke was…
“- but I think we’re better off goin’ our separate ways” … leaving?
That instant, Suigetsu comes up front, boldly unlike Karin, grabbing his shoulders and setting him up right. The white haired boy has unshed tears behind his eyes as he shakes Sasuke to what he thinks is the right mindset. His hands tremble and his grip is tight, not in anger but in desperation.
“I thought we were groovin’ man!” He yells loudly, and the black haired man cringes at the pain buried deep inside his voice. “Thought you were- we were solid, but you just tuck your tail and run all the time!” Suigetsu gets restrained by Jugo and Karin right then, who are sharply grabbing onto the boy’s arms.
“Let him go.”
Sasuke’s dark bangs cover his soulless black pitch eyes, and he is glad they had grown to that length right then to cover the emotions threatening to spill out. His hands turn into fists, nails digging into pale palms. There is blood rising under his skin, not from the guitar or the shouting but from an inside war.
After his brother left, Taka was the only group of people who had supported and impulsed him to his best all those years, but destiny rips you apart and tears you to shreds. If Sasuke continues to be a part of this band of culprits he’s going to end up buckless for good.
And he can’t go back to where he came from, owning nothing. Not a pebble, not a grain of dust to his name. His pockets are raw and empty.
“You’re making our band fall apart-“ the white boy insists in desperation, clutching his chest in the whiplash of betrayal. He’s hurt.
“Wake up, Suigetsu. The band has been falling apart from way back, you’re just too blinded by delusion to see it.” Sasuke barks back at him. The bile rises to his throat at Jugo’s disappointed stare.
Suigetsu was Sasuke’s closest pal on the scene, and now he was spitting and snapping at him without holding back. That was something he thought he would never have to do. But he was pissed at him, how come he can't even play a stupid guitar? They have been practising so long for… only this?
The shark-like guy’s eyes sharpened and went small, pointy teeth clenching. “Fine.” Suigetsu stepped back, Karin failing to hold him in place. “If you’re leaving then be damned.”
Sasuke tsk’d. Suigetsu walked over to the cables that attached to his guitar and snapped the plug off the wall, throwing it on the smooth stone ground with force. Black wires were flung and hit strongly next to Sasuke’s leather boots.
“Take your rotten guitar and stupid sissy ass out of this garage. We don’t even want you here” Suigetsu insisted, but at the end of his insistence his voice cracked with emotion.
Betrayal and remorse. Emotions Sasuke knows very well.
Like old pals, like whispers of ghosts from his past.
Karin looked stunned with debate into comforting Suigetsu or going after Sasuke when the black haired edgy cowboy bit his lip and grabbed his destroyed instrument to walk out. Jugo stepped forward.
“Sasuke…” his voice was low, almost reluctant. There was so much weight and begging in such a simple word.
“Don’t follow.”
Suigetsu walked to the other side of the dark cheap room and stared at the wall in anger and sternness as Sasuke walked out of a small metal door on the side.
He made sure to bang it hard on his way out. The sound of the slamming door echoed like a gunshot through the narrow hall, rattling tools on the wall silencing whatever else might’ve been said.
Outside the garage, Sasuke moved towards his motorcycle, a sleek, matte black café racer bike. Its extended fuel tank is sculpted like a bullet, with subtle silver pinstriping along the sides and a hand-painted white snake on the rear hump seat that referenced the thick tattoo on his neck. He grabbed his glossy black helmet, slipping it on, his fingers moving with the silence of the night. The door slammed again behind him, in the corner of his eye he could catch some flashes of red burning in the dim.
Karin.
She went running towards him. “Sasuke what the fuck. What are you thinking”
His jaw tensed. “Leave it Karin”. He growled it like a warning, twisting on the seat, one leg slung over the bike, his shoulders hunched with the weight of too many unspoken things.
“Are you seriously going to run away?. Face the fucking problem Sasuke”. The red haired girl says as she snaps her arms with each word. “You built this, this was what you wanted, we just followed you along because we believed in you. We are your friends dammit! Now you’re turnin’ on us?”
His eyes met hers, cold and flat.
“You and I have nothing in common”. His voice was a knife to the girl's heart. “Go back”
As he started to run the motor of the bike, Karin got closer to him. The engine was filling the scene with its loud noise. “Sasuke… please, I know we sound like shit but at least we try”. She sounded desperate in the man's ears.
Their eyes locked again. She could see beneath the helmet that unique, one of a kind fairfull look she thought she once knew. They were just staring at each other for some time, it was a silent war. But destiny drives you apart if you just aren’t meant to be. Right then , the motor cracked and Sasuke was already gone on the dark Macon streets, like a shadow with no purpose. As he was driving he heard Karing yelling in the background.
She screamed at him in a curse “Fuck you Sasuke! Let's see how you build your own fame alone, asshole!”
And with that, her words were swallowed by the roar of the bike, the wind tearing past his ears, the city lights warping into streaks behind him. His jacket flapped violently in the wind, hair whipping around his face.Sasuke was heading away, far away, with no money, no place to go, with no one besides him but the sound of the engine and the night.
The streets were empty, his mind was empty. But his heart was dying from passion to find a way of living. He was gone. Not the way he had expected or wanted, but he was willing to fill that uncertainty of searching himself.
No matter what.
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The soap filled water flows over the vehicle as a ripped and old yellow rag cleans the surface of it. The piece of fabric is dipped inside a big wide blue bucket, and when the blond’s hand takes it out again, it fastly drips with excess water.
“I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it…” Naruto hums softly as he cleans the rusty red truck, and a smile shows on his face when he sees his own reflection on the paint.
“Take another little piece of my heart now, baby…” he grins, then hits the front of the car twice, resulting in some water droplets flinging about.
Naruto turns around grabbing onto a dry rag that rests not very far from his standing point. It’s green, and at least this one looks better than the rugged yellow one. “Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah…” the blond cowboy sings as he turns towards his old machine friend.
Sure it’s a bit antique and barely turns on anymore, but it’s his and it has pushed Naruto out of too many bad situations to leave the pile of junk behind. “Well, you know you got it, if it makes you feel good…”
Naruto swipes down with the rag, cleaning up the front plate so it’s nice and shiny.
The water and soap from it disperses, and Naruto feels pride as the plate of the car reads in bold big letters a bright ‘Kur4m4-9’. Hey, if Naruto personalized his plate and named his car after a Texan legend, so what?
That happened years ago anyways, he wasn’t changing it now. Besides, the name Kurama is stuck in his head. He won’t call the pickup anything else.
The blond man wipes his hands on the rusty rags clean as he reviews Kurama’s glass windows to make sure they lack water.
In that same instant, the radio coming from the vehicle gives a small pop, making the track from the song discontinue and fail to make much more than a series of broken sounds.
“You're out on the streets looking- oh, come on!” Naruto rushes inside Kurama’s driver door and leans in, a big tan hand swiping at the busted radio and hitting it once to see if it would suddenly come back to life.
“Damn it, Kurama!” He cusses, then rushing to the other side where the access of the cables is located, somewhere Naruto can tinker the issue at hand. “I fix something on you and you suddenly bust once again” he tongues his right fang and shakes his hand in disagreement “can’t believe it.”
The hot boiling air from the border on Texas and Louisiana were almost able to fry a whole egg on the hard black asphalt roads. The weather on this part of the state was no joke, and even if Naruto stopped under an abandoned Gas Station to give his big ol’ trunk some love, the heat was definitely making his eyes twitch in annoyance.
Naruto wanted to start heading to the coast that instant, but it seemed his reliable truck had other plans. Kurama has maintenance issues almost every day, for absolutely no reason.
Then again, not only Naruto refuses to get rid of him but also it’s not like he could afford a new one. Making bucks around this side of the south borders when you ain’t got nothing extra and not much time to be running around is harsh. Not that looks and hard work mattered around Naruto, he had both, and people appreciated his company at working spaces.
His main issue was everything else… along with rushing around the country trying not to get caught bloody.
Naruto wipes at his moist forehead, then grabbing one of the cleaner rags and through the driver door shoving it in the middle compartments so he can use it later. It would only get hotter from here, but hopefully with upcoming autumn and the soft South Carolina breeze, a glimpse of freshness could find its way through soon.
The blond headed man grabs onto the red bucket with two big hands, then tipping it into an antique drainage not far from his feet where all the water was already flowing into. He sighs as the weight falls off his shoulders, then takes the bucket behind his truck to the back and just flings it inside. It cackles with the edges of the truck bed.
Naruto jumps into the driver side and shuts the door with a hard slam. The whole car rattles with the force, and he soon shoves the key to turn it on.
The motor is harsh and the vehicle bounces a few times as it starts. Naruto plays with the gear shift and with speed in reverse drives backwards out of the gas station before giving the wheel a smooth turn over and shooting off straight.
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