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Kakashi leans against the tall wooden fence and prepares to crack open the latest volume of Make-Out Paradise. He’s read this one before, but it’s been a bit and there’s nothing Kakashi loves more than a little consistency. Speaking of, Team Seven should be arriving any minute now. He checks his watch.
Usually Sasuke is the first to show, but this time it’s Sakura. She strolls down Konoha’s streets, her pink hair bouncing and her packed lunch in her hands.
“Kakashi-sensei! You’re early for once! Where’s Sasuke?”
He shrugs. “I dunno.”
“Well, can you tell me anything about our mission today? Is it here in the Leaf Village, or somewhere else?” Her jade eyes sparkle.
“I think it might be best to wait until the rest of your team gets here to discuss confidential details,” Kakashi says, barely looking up from his book.
Sakura hangs her head. “Oh, okay Kakashi-sensei. If you say so.” But of course, sometimes the things Sakura actually says and the things she wants to say are wildly different. Oh, come on, Kakashi-sensei! I’m your best, most responsible student! Surely I can be trusted with the details of the mission over those two stupid boys! Shannaro!
As the morning turns pleasantly warm, Sakura leans on the wooden fence next to Kakashi. He’s still nose-deep in that kissing book. Sakura rolls her eyes.
“Kakashi-sensei? I know Naruto is always late, but Sasuke never is. Do you think something’s wrong?”
Kakashi looks up, as if remembering where he is and what he’s supposed to be doing. “It’s only been fifteen minutes. We’ll deal with that when Naruto shows up.”
Speak of the devil, the yellow-haired boy comes running through the dirt paths. “Hey hey hey sorry I’m late guys!!! First my froggy alarm clock didn’t go off, then I didn’t have any ramen at my place and then—“
SMACK!
Sakura brings her fist down on top of Naruto’s head. He falls chin-first onto the ground. “Oi, Sakura. Don’t you think it’s a little early for….”
Sakura harrumphs and crosses her arms.
“Alright you two. That’s enough,” Kakashi says. “Have either of you seen or heard from Sasuke yet today?”
“No sir!” Sakura says. Naruto groans from his place on the ground.
Kakashi smiles underneath his mask. “Well, it seems that our first order of business as a team is to find the remaining member of our team. Let’s head to Sasuke’s place.”
Fifteen minutes later, Kakashi, Sakura, and Naruto crouch outside Sasuke’s house in the abandoned Uchiha compound. All the shades are closed, and in the daylight, neither of them can tell if any lights are on, either.
“What do we do? Knock on the front door?” Sakura asks.
“We could,” Kakashi says. “Or you guys could use your ninja techniques to figure out what’s going on in there.”
“Hmmmmm,” Naruto says. “Oh! I know, I know! I could transform one of my shadow clones into a pizza delivery guy, then knock on the door and see if Sasuke’s home! Who doesn’t open the door for pizza?”
“Stupid!” Sakura exclaims. “What if he’s not even home?”
“Oh, I think he is,” Kakashi says. “Look at his door. All of his shoes are on the rack outside. Ninja always use all five of their senses to assess a situation.”
“Right! I knew that!” Sakura exclaims. Dammit, Sakura! You should have known better!
“Any other bright ideas?”
Sakura taps her chin. “Hmmm. Ino’s been teaching me some chakra control. What if I enhanced my hearing to see if I can hear Sasuke inside?”
“Wow Sakura, that’s brilliant!” Naruto exclaims.
Kakashi raises an eyebrow. “Well, doesn’t hurt to try.”
Sakura takes a deep, clarifying breath. She feels the chakra pool inside of her, clear and cool, and directs the flow towards her ears. She turns, pressing her left ear to the wall closest to Sasuke’s window.
At first she doesn’t hear anything except the amplified sounds of Naruto and Kakashi breathing next to her. With a frustrated grunt, she plugs her other ear. She internally berates herself. Gotta get better, gotta get stronger for my teammates!
But eventually she hears it: Sasuke, inside his room. He coughs one, twice. Then the emphatic sound of him blowing his nose.
Sakura pulls away, letting her chakra flow return to normal. “Sounds like Sasuke-kun is sick.”
“ What? How could Sasuke do this to us? Mr. I’m-So-Tough, gets knocked out by the flu! Well, I’ll surpass him soon if that’s the case!”
“Shut up !” Sakura hisses. “Kakashi-sensei, what should we do?”
Kakashi rubs his chin. “Well, I suppose our mission for today can wait. I’ll let Lord Hokage know. In the meantime, this would be a great opportunity to practice our teamwork skills. Naruto, Sakura, your mission has changed. Your new mission is to take care of your teammate.”
“You mean I gotta spend the whole day with Naruto?!” Sakura bemoans. Oh hell yeah, a whole day spent inside Sasuke’s house! Ino will be soooo jealous!
“Sakura, Naruto’s your teammate. You already spend most days with him,” Kakashi says.
Sakura frowns.
“Alright, Sakura-chan! Let’s go! New mission: take care of Sasuke and make sure Team Seven stays together and healthy!” Naruto pumps his fist in the air. “Wait, if we hang out with sick Sasuke all day, doesn’t that mean we’ll get sick, too? Kakashi-sensei, you really didn’t think this one through!”
Sakura groans, slapping her palm to her forehead. Kakashi just smiles, although none of them can see it.
“Well, are you gonna knock on the door?” Sakura asks.
“Are you?”
“Nuh-uh, you first.”
“Why me first?”
“The door’s not gonna bite you, Naruto.”
“Man, but what if he comes and is mad that we—”
Rolling her eyes, Sakura knocks on Sasuke’s door. Once, then twice. The stretch of silence is so long that Sakura almost knocks again.
“Go away!” The Uchiha sounds hoarse.
She glances at Naruto, who just shrugs his shoulders. “Um, Sasuke-kun? It’s your teammates, Sakura and Naruto. We—well, um, we were supposed to go on a mission today, but you never showed up. So we thought, um, we thought we’d come and check on you!”
The other side of the door is silent for a second too long. Then, there’s a metallic click of a lock, and the door opens a crack.
“Did Kakashi send you?” Sakura’s never seen Sasuke look so terrible. He’s usually so well-groomed that the sight of him in his pajamas with uncombed hair is like seeing Iruka-sensei at the grocery store.
“Yes!” Naruto says. “He says it’s our mission as Team Seven to take care of you today, Sasuke!”
“I don’t need any help,” he replies, then goes to shut the door.
Naruto sticks his foot in the slit just before it closes. “Nice try, baka ! I never back down from a mission, this one included! That’s my ninja way!”
Sasuke pauses in the entryway, his face unreadable. He coughs twice, sniffles once, then opens the door.
Naruto’s not stupid. Okay, yes he is, and he knows it. But despite how stupid Naruto might be, he knows what happened to the Uchiha clan. What happened to Sasuke. So when Naruto and Sakura enter Sasuke’s house in the abandoned Uchiha compound, both genin fall silent.
Everything is so dusty. Familiar paths worn in the floor now collect dust bunnies. Pictures are so hazy that Naruto can barely make out who or what’s in them. Shoes—obviously not Sasuke’s—have been strewn about and left in one place for so long that when Naruto trips over one of them, a clean patch of carpet reveals itself.
All the doors are closed, some locked tight. All the lights are off.
The kitchen’s even spookier. The sink is full of dishes. A woman’s apron sits on the counter, as if it was left there mid-meal. A pencil and pad of paper sit untouched. As they’re following Sasuke through his house, Naruto peeks at the pad of paper. A grocery list, yellowed and warped by time. Not Sasuke’s handwriting either.
Sasuke’s house is full of ghosts, and he seems quite content living with them. Naruto keeps his big fat mouth shut.
As they approach Sasuke’s room, he seems unsteady on his feet. His pale face has gone paler. “It’s not much.” His hazy eyes darken, watching his teammates as they watch his haunted house.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Sasuke-kun! We’re just happy to be here!” Sakura says. Her tone is far too peppy for the dim, dusty house, and it seems that even she knows it.
Inside, however, Sasuke’s room is unbelievably tidy—even during illness. The only thing that’s remotely messy is his bed, the sheets wrinkled and the blanket pulled back. As they enter, Sasuke immediately rolls back into bed, tucking the covers up to his chin and turning away from his two teammates.
“How are you feeling, Sasuke?” Sakura asks, sitting on his bed. She twiddles her thumbs, resisting the urge to fawn over him.
“How did you guys know I was sick?” He blows his nose with an obnoxious honk.
“Well first, you didn’t show up to the mission! You’re never late, so that was our first clue! We thought, Sasuke, how could you be late? Something must be wrong! So me, Kakashi, and Sakura came here, and then Sakura used a cool new chakra-control ability to eavesdrop—”
“Naruto! I was not eavesdropping! It was part of the mission, Kakashi-sensei told me to—”
“I know, I know, Sakura-chan! Can’t a guy just try to tell a story?”
The two’s bickering is interrupted by Sasuke’s cough.
“Damn, Sasuke. That sounds nasty, cover your mouth,” Naruto says.
Sasuke sits up and sends daggers at Naruto through his eyes.
“Alright, alright,” Sakura says. “Boys, please! Naruto, get it together! Sasuke-kun, what do you need?”
He grunts and turns over. “Some peace and quiet.”
“Okay, Naruto, you hear that? Sasuke needs some peace and quiet right now, okay?”
Naruto huffs and puffs and eventually sits cross-legged on the carpet. “Okay.”
Sasuke naps for a bit while Naruto and Sakura try—and fail—to keep quiet.
“We’re stuck babysitting again,” Naruto whispers.
“Not like we haven’t done it before. Pretty much all of our missions have been escorting someone here, protecting someone there . . .”
“Pretty lame, huh?” Naruto says, leaning back on the floor and crossing his arms beneath his head.
Sakura smiles and looks out the window onto Sasuke’s balcony. There’s nothing out there. No chairs, not even a half-dead plant. “Yeah, pretty lame.”
Suddenly, Naruto’s stomach growls, and somehow it fills the whole room. Sakura shoots him a look and puts her finger over her lips. Naruto puts up his hands and shrugs.
Sakura gets up, tiptoeing over to where she set down her lunch. She opens the sack. She had to pack her own lunch today—every day, actually. Her mom has refused to pack it ever since Sakura became a genin. Her parents aren’t thrilled she’s decided to become a shinobi, but what choice did she have?
Inside are a few salmon onigiri, a bruised, overripe plum, and an ice pack. Not nearly enough for the three of them to eat all day. Surely, Sasuke’s got something in the kitchen.
“Naruto,” Sakura whispers. “Can you cook?”
He cocks his head at her. “What do you think? Of course not!”
“Shhhh!” she hisses. “Fine, then, follow me.”
Sasuke awakens to the sound of the fire alarm going off. Groggy, he rubs his eyes, but he can’t seem to wipe the fog from his brain. When he awakens, he coughs repeatedly—so hard that a stitch forms in his side. His mouth is sticky and tastes horrible: sour and stale. Naruto and Sakura . . . they’re gone. For a second, he panics, and then the fire alarm pisses him off again.
Sakura opens his door, so hard that it smacks the adjacent wall. “Sasuke-kun! You’re awake! So sorry about this! Haha, please—please stay in bed, Naruto and I have it covered, no problem!”
“ SAKURAAAAA !”
Both genin wince at Naruto’s hollering. Sakura gives him a pathetic smile. “Really, Sasuke, don’t worry about it!”
He rolls his eyes and flops back down into bed.
A few minutes later, the fire alarm stops. A few more minutes later, Naruto and Sakura push open his bedroom door again. The sweet and savory aroma of . . . something wafts into his room, along with the thick, starchy scent of freshly-cooked rice.
“Ta-da!” Naruto exclaims. “We made food, and only set fire to something once!”
“It’s tomato curry!” Sakura says. “With beef, potatoes, carrots, and extra tomatoes! Your favorite!” The two stroll in, carrying large pots of food in with oven mitts.
“But for some reason we couldn’t find any other utensils? Just one plate, one fork, one cup. We were able to clean some of the pots in the sink to make the food in the first place. What the heck’s up with that? Haha, sounds like my house!”
“So we might have to take turns and share as we eat. I hope that’s okay with you, Sasuke-kun!”
Naruto and Sakura sit down on either side of Sasuke’s bed, facing him. Sakura carries the tomato curry, Naruto carries the rice. They stare at him with flushed, expectant faces.
Sasuke looks back and forth between Naruto and Sakura. His eyes burn something fierce. “You didn’t—”
“Of course we did!” Sakura exclaims. “You were trying to sleep and this idiot’s stomach wouldn’t stop grumbling.”
Sasuke swallows. For some reason, it’s five times harder than it normally is. He covers up his struggle with another round of hearty coughing.
“Sheesh, Sasuke. Have you taken anything for that?” Naruto asks.
Sasuke shakes his head. This makes it throb so badly he has to sit back on the headboard and close his eyes.
“Well, after food, that seems like the next order of business, right?” Sakura says. He nods.
Team Seven takes turns passing around the giant pots of curry and rice. Naruto protests at first because clearly Sakura and Sasuke have major cooties, but the whale-like noises of his stomach eventually win out. They eat to their heart’s content, until Naruto’s stomach bulges out comically and Sakura’s got orange curry on her chin.
“Here,” Sasuke says. He holds out a clean tissue.
“Hm?” Sakura says, sitting up.
“For your chin.”
“Oh. Thank you, Sasuke-kun.” Sakura blushes hard. Goddammit, Sakura! Can’t keep the food in your mouth! How embarrassing!
Later, Sakura and Naruto raid the bathroom for any medicine. They don’t find much, but Sakura finds a fever-reducer and Naruto finds some cold medicine.
Coaxing it into Sasuke is another matter. Naruto, stubborn? Nothing compared to the fight Sasuke puts up. Sakura can’t understand why he’s so insistent on suffering. Naruto makes three shadow clones and holds down Sasuke’s limbs while Sakura grabs his chin and forces the syrupy stuff down his throat. Eventually, though, they get him to swallow.
Sasuke leans back into his pillow and closes his eyes. “You guys . . . you guys are so . . .”
Naruto smirks at Sakura. “Too tired to tell us we’re annoying, huh?”
Sasuke just scoffs.
The warm afternoon lingers like an old friend. The food and medicine revive Sasuke a bit, enough so that he can sit up and hold a conversation with them. They play a few rounds of Sudoku and Go. Sakura even convinces Sasuke to step outside on the balcony and get some fresh air.
“There’s no chairs,” Sasuke says. His face is still a sickly pale, and he leans back against the wall, while Naruto and Sakura sit on either side of him, cross-legged in the dappled sunlight.
“That’s okay,” Naruto says. “I don’t got any chairs, either.”
They sit and watch the breeze come in through the leaves, warm and pleasant and steady. The Uchiha compound is markedly quieter than the rest of the Leaf Village, but they can still hear the faint sounds of gravel crunching underfoot, vendors calling out prices, and schoolchildren playing at a nearby park. The sun is golden, kissing the tops of their hands and their cheeks as it peeks through the leaves. The tissue box and a pile of used tissues sit at Sasuke’s feet.
“It’s nice out today,” Sakura says. She looks out into the Uchiha courtyard, wind blowing through her pink hair.
“I wonder what our mission was gonna be. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow,” Naruto says. He’s almost sleepy now from all the food.
“How come you don’t have any chairs, Sasuke?” Sakura asks.
Sasuke broods even harder at that question. Naruto and Sakura didn’t think that was possible.
“I’m sorry, I—“
“After it happened . . .” The words sound painful coming out. “They impounded and confiscated most of the stuff here.”
“Why?” Sakura asks.
“Itachi was a criminal, that’s why! My whole neighborhood is a crime scene!” Sasuke shouts—and then doubles over into a coughing fit.
Sakura gives Naruto a pained look. He gets up and grabs a glass of water.
Sasuke downs the whole thing in two gulps. He clenches his jaw and leans back onto the wall, eyes closed. “You guys should leave.”
“We quite literally cannot,” Sakura says.
“Yeah, we’d get into major trouble with Kakashi-sensei! You remember what Kakashi said! ‘Those who abandon their friends are worse than scum!’ Do you wanna fail our mission and be scum?”
The corners of Sasuke’s mouth twitch. “So I’m your mission, eh?”
“Yeah you are, dummy,” Naruto says, socking Sasuke on the arm.
This elicits a rare smile from Sasuke. On any other day, Sasuke would punch back, starting up a fresh round of competition between the two. But he seems to let it go with a sigh that turns into another cough.
Sakura freezes when Sasuke’s head sinks down to rest on her shoulder. Naruto gapes down in awe when Sasuke’s fingers lace together with his.
Sakura and Naruto make hesitant eye contact with one another. Sakura’s face is nearly the color of her hair.
“We tell no one about this,” Naruto mouths to her.
Eyes wide, Sakura nods back.
Afraid they’ll startle Sasuke like a wild animal, the two stay perfectly still until he awakens again.
Sasuke’s fever gets worse as the evening encroaches. The medicine’s not doing much anymore. Sakura pulls the one chair in the room next to Sasuke’s bed, holding a cool, damp cloth to his forehead. Naruto sits on the edge of the bed, wringing his hands.
“Do you think we should get Kakashi-sensei?”
Sakura’s brows are knitted together in concentration. “Maybe. I don’t know. Why would he put two kids in charge of another kid? I think Kakashi-sensei just doesn’t wanna do his job.”
Sasuke shivers under the covers, murmuring. Naruto scratches his nose. “He said we were supposed to be practicing teamwork.”
“We did! We made the curry together. Which, by the way, we still have to clean up the kitchen. Not it!”
“Nuh-uh! I don’t wanna go back into that scary kitchen alone!”
“Well, somebody’s gotta stay with Sasuke, and it’s gonna be me!”
Naruto bares his teeth at her. Sakura sticks out her tongue at him.
“Please,” Sasuke mumbles. Pain crawls along the lines of his face.
That’s enough to get them to knock it off. They look at one another with guilt. Sakura averts her eyes. Naruto looks at the floor. Sasuke keeps shivering, half-conscious.
“We could have done better,” Sakura says, squeezing out the cloth and placing it back on Sasuke’s forehead.
“We did our best,” Naruto says, shrugging.
The sun slips away quickly, and soon enough, all that’s left is the navy sky and a smattering of stars. It’s a clear, beautiful night, too.
“Do you think we’re gonna be allowed to go home?” Sakura asks. “My mom is gonna be so mad.”
Naruto gives her the stink-eye.
“Sorry,” she says. “I guess I’d rather be here anyway. I’m just tired.”
“I think it’s time we get Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto says. He springs up from the bed, so forcefully that even the delirious Sasuke flinches. His dark eyes flutter open.
“Oh . . . it’s just you, usuratonkachi ,” he says, lazily rolling back over.
“Are you okay if I stay here? I do have more medical experience,” Sakura says.
Naruto gives her a big thumbs-up. “Now that’s teamwork, Sakura-chan!”
Late that night, Naruto brings Kakashi back with him. He stands, arms crossed, in the center of the room.
“I’m here now, Sasuke. Can you hear me?”
Sasuke groans.
“Good. I’m sorry to hear you’re not feeling well. Naruto and Sakura, I’m impressed you lasted this long.”
“Of course I wasn’t gonna give up! That’s my ninja way!” Naruto exclaims.
“Hey, you were the one who suggested we get Kakashi-sensei!” Sakura says.
Naruto growls like a dog, but before he can go off on Sakura, Kakashi grabs him by the back of his collar. “How was your teamwork?”
Sakura looks away. Naruto scratches the back of his head.
“It coulda been better,” Sakura says. “We started a bit of a fire in the kitchen.”
“And . . . we fought a lot. Probably annoyed the hell out of Sasuke. Heh.”
“Do you think the mission was a success?” Kakashi asks.
Naruto and Sakura make sheepish eye contact with one another. They shake their heads.
“No,” Sakura says. “Sasuke’s still sick.”
“I didn’t ask you to cure him. I asked you to work together in taking care of him. Did you do that?”
The two are silent. The silence shatters when Sasuke speaks up.
He struggles to sit up and wipe the fog from his eyes. Sakura removes the cloth from his sweaty hair and he grabs onto her arm to brace himself. “They’re lying,” he begins, clearing his throat. “They made me food. They gave me medicine. We played some games. They took me outside . . . to see the sun.”
Tears well up in Sakura’s eyes. “Oh, Sasuke-kun! You really think we did a good job?” She throws her arms around his neck.
He frowns, coughs, then speaks. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m just telling the truth.”
Naruto can’t see Kakashi’s smile, but he can tell that their sensei is proud nonetheless by the way Kakashi changes his posture. “Good work, Team Seven. You’re dismissed.”
“Boooo! I don’t wanna go home!” Naruto complains. “I was hoping we could all have a sleepover! Sleep-o-ver! Sleep-o-ver! Sleep-o-ver!” Naruto chants.
He glances at Sakura, who joins in. “Sleep-o-ver! Sleep-o-ver! Sleep-o-ver!”
“What do you think, Sasuke?” Kakashi asks.
Sasuke doesn’t even bother to open his eyes. “Whatever. Just make them be quiet.”
After Kakashi goes home, Naruto lies flat on his stomach on the floor, snoring softly, using one of Sasuke’s balled-up shirts as a pillow. Sakura curls up at the foot of Sasuke’s bed like a cat, using his only chair as a footrest. That can’t be comfortable , he thinks about both of them. Not only does he feel sick, but he also feels bad that his teammates don’t have anything comfortable to sleep on. Hell, their traveling gear they use when they go on multi-day missions has got to be more comfortable than this.
Sasuke’s eyes burn again with that strange sensation. He looks away from Naruto and Sakura and out the big, rectangular window. It hurts to breathe, but he can’t tell if that’s from illness or from something else.
His room is dark save for the thin, cool light streaming in from outside. The stars sing, and the moon leads a quiet chorus. The photo of Team Seven on his nightstand gathers new dust.
A few days later, when Sasuke begins to feel better, he goes out and buys two more of everything: two more mugs, two more plates, two more blankets, two more chairs, two more pillows. All for his two friends, in the hopes they might come by his house more often.