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“You can’t leave me alone for more than five fucking seconds, can you?!” Sasuke’s voice cuts through the dark forest, his cold glare sending accusing daggers straight into him.
Naruto grits his teeth in frustration. “Sasuke, I can’t just let you destroy yourself like this! We both know that revenge won’t get you anywhere!” He shouts back, chest tight with barely contained emotion.
Sasuke laughs, a sharp, bitter thing that cracks like glass in Naruto’s chest. He steps closer, shadowed eyes glinting in the pale moonlight. “I don’t know why I let you live that day. I should have finished you off long ago.”
“But you didn’t. Because we’re friends, Sasuke.” Naruto’s fists clench tighter, nails digging into his palms. The memory of their battle at the Valley of the End, all those years ago, was so vivid in his mind it was as if it had happened yesterday. Sasuke had every chance to kill him there, as he lay unconscious and vulnerable in the pouring rain. Yet he didn’t. He had left without a second glance, and Naruto had felt the emptiness ever since.
Sasuke groans, dragging a hand down his face. “Here we go again. You harping on about all your friendship bullshit like I haven’t heard it all before-”
“Well, clearly, you aren’t getting it, Sasuke! That’s why I have to keep repeating myself!” Naruto’s voice rises with exasperation, his eyes flaring. He feels the shadows of the forest close in around them, heavy and dark, matching the weight of his frustration.
“I’m the one not getting it?! Fucking hell- Just listen to yourself! Friends. After vowing to die together, after chasing me to the ends of the earth- That’s all you have to say.” Sasuke snaps, every word charging the air between them with tension, tangling with the anger that already thrummed through Naruto’s veins.
“I- What? Sasuke-” Naruto’s brow furrows, confusion clouding his vision. He barely realises it until he feels the air being forced from his lungs and tree bark scraping against his skin as Sasuke shoves him against it roughly.
Naruto gasps, dazed, the cry of a thousand birds ringing deafeningly in his ears. Flickering, jagged sparks of electricity dance in the corner of his vision.
“It’s unfathomable that someone as stupid as you has survived for this long,” Sasuke snarls, the light of Chidori illuminating his dark eyes, furious and raw with anger and frustration and something else that Naruto doesn’t recognise. The unfamiliarity of his gaze twists Naruto’s stomach into knots.
He doesn’t let himself dwell on it. He lashes out, sending a kick into Sasuke’s ribs. “Bastard- Then tell me! What exactly don’t I get?! If not friends, then close friends! Best friends! You, of all people, should know what I mean!”
Sasuke stumbles back a step, clutching his ribs. He barks out a mocking laugh, devoid of mirth. He doesn’t answer him. Not with words. They clash again, chakra lighting up the forest and feeding the shadows of the trees. They shove and stumble, too close, too fast, too much. Yet not enough. Not enough to get to Sasuke. Dirt and rocks scatter beneath their feet. Naruto’s breath is loud and erratic in his ears. “Sasuke, I said-”
He doesn’t have time to finish as Sasuke lunges forward, forcing his weight down. They crash into the forest floor, and before Naruto can roll away, Sasuke is on top of him, straddling him, bracketing him in with his knees. He holds Naruto’s shoulder down with one hand, the other pinning his wrist.
Naruto curses, struggles, but Sasuke squeezes his wrist tighter, unyielding, a dull pain echoing down his arm. “Stop.” He spits out lowly, the tomoe in his crimson eyes spinning.
Naruto stops.
Sasuke edges closer, eyes boring into his. “Naruto. Don’t you get it? More than friends. More than close friends. More than best friends.”
Naruto swallows the growing lump in his throat, his thoughts tripping over one another. His previous anger has long subsided, replaced by an intensity so dense it seizes him. “Get… what? Sasuke, I-”
Sasuke leans in dangerously close, cocking his head. “Tell me, Naruto,” he murmurs, irises dark like the void. “What do you think I want?”
Naruto’s breath catches in his throat as it tightens around his voice. “I don’t- I don’t know,” he whispers thickly. “I don’t know what you want.” He chokes out, the words wrapping around his heart, clutching his insides with a pain he didn’t know existed.
The air between them pulls taut. Naruto shivers, panic sparking inside him alongside another feeling he dares not name. Close. Too close.
He wants to reach out, wants to pull Sasuke in, wants to push Sasuke away. He doesn’t know what he wants, and his limbs don’t either, as they stay paralysed on the ground despite Naruto’s internal pleas.
Sasuke stops just short of brushing their mouths. His exhaling breath ghosts over Naruto’s parted lips like a truth better left untold.
Oh.
Naruto’s chest flutters, his heart hammering painfully as the truth crashes down on him and lights his nerves on fire. More than friends. More than close friends. More than best friends. Sasuke’s words echo in his head like a mantra, relentless and loud and impossible to ignore.
A hand rises shakily from the dirt, almost instinctively. Trembling fingers brush Sasuke’s bangs out of his face - a fleeting whisper of contact. Naruto feels his heart jump.
Sasuke stiffens. A shadow of hesitation crosses his face, and he recoils like he’s been scalded, eyes flaring back to blood red.
He rises abruptly, slamming a door on the fragile vulnerability he had let slip from the shadows.
“...Forget it,” he says flatly, and stalks into the darkness.
Naruto doesn’t move.
He lies there, staring at Sasuke’s retreating back, mind still reeling. The shadows of the clearing loom over him, but it’s nothing compared to the ache in his hollow chest.
Sasuke.
Sasuke had wanted him.
Forget it, Sasuke had said.
Naruto grips his heart.
How could he?