[week 33, day 2 | accidental voice]
[Sasuke opens his eyes. The rain has stopped. He had thought the hollow patter of drops on the rocks-on his skin, in the scattered puddles of blood-would be the last sounds he ever heard. And yet, tragically, his eyes are open and he finds himself staring at nothing. Blurs. He blinks rapidly. Leaves. Sky. Blue.
Other senses awaken. Birdsong and the ( Read more... )
Even then he still doesn't know how to look at Sasuke, or what to think of him, still torn between what his mind dictates is right and what his heart dictates is right.
But there has to be something there, right? For Naruto to keep wanting to wrap his fingers around? For Sakura too, when she still is able to form tears for him. And Kakashi as well, when he wastes no time to go to his former student who probably - likely? - doesn't even consider him as a teacher anymore.
Just like how he doesn't consider Konoha his home anymore.
After all, how can one still think that way and leave their teammate for dead with a hole so big in his chest, the edges seared and cooked to black from all the rage of a lightning storm?]
Sasuke...?
[Iruka is outside when he speaks, away from his room and when the name rolls out of his tongue, it freezes after the syllables. Because what else do you say? What else can one say, even? Except for a name because you can only wonder what can be said, what should have been said.
But Iruka knows that acknowledgment is important and has a lot of value. And perhaps saying the boys name is an offer of an olive branch, an act of faith maybe. Iruka's confidence in his actions is about as consistent between the leaping images behind his eyelids of a small boy sitting by himself in his classroom despite all the crowd that flocks around him and the young man who had been on his knees earlier, all sharp and jagged like the anger he holds under his ribcage.]
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He hadn't been asleep, only lying in the darkness staring at the ceiling, when he'd heard his name spoken, tentatively, from the void.
Now he craddles the hitomi in the palms of his (bloodied, scarred, burnt) hands. The face filling the screen is one he hasn't seen--hasn't thought about--in years. He hadn't known Iruka was trapped here, as well. What motives could Kakashi have had for omitting this information?
Apparently, nothing changes.
And yet, time has left its mark on his former sensei's face. The fine creases around his lips, the smile lines, they are all deeper than he remembers (but how often had he really taken the time to look). And his eyes seem older, smaller, as if the years spent training little boys to die have finally started to catch up to him.
The corner of Sasuke's mouth tilts into a halfway frown. He thinks how strange it is that children are born into the world with eyes so wide and naive they see everything, yet cannot understand. They spend all of their lives slowly closing their eyes, tighter and tighter. When old age arrives, they are blind and squinting, unable to see.
Is this the lesson of wisdom? To close your eyes to the world around you? To those things you cannot abide, until they blink out of existence?
It is the wisdom of fools, Sasuke thinks. But he remembers the brush of phantom fingers, the smear of blood across his forehead and admits that it is also tempting.
His features pinch slightly, a look of faint disgust that quickly appears and vanishes. He shakes his head lightly, and then gazes down into the hitomi, his face illuminated only by the moonlight and the glare of the artificial screen. ]
Iruka.
[ Truly, he only deigns to reply for one reason and one alone.
Iruka was the only person in all of the Hidden Leaf (aside from one other, but tonight is not the night) who never condescended to treat him like a victim. Who never quoted platitudes or offered hollow condolences.
For this, Iruka has earned a small measure of respect from the boy who had only wanted to learn, grow, and become stronger. ]
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And with that dawning realization Iruka can only nod slowly, unsure, eyes wide and open and letting the world see just how surprised he is. Of all the things he had expected from that tiny slip of three short syllables, an acknowledging reply hadn't been one of them, and most certainly not one of recognition.
But even back then, despite all his arrogance and aloofness, Sasuke always had manners and maybe that's what makes the lines in the corners of Iruka's eyes soften and become more visible even if his mouth doesn't move with the smile that remains under the surface of his skin. Sasuke's three syllables for Iruka's three, they're enough to remind Iruka of the little boy all those years ago, who had clutched a test paper marked with stars of excellence and had excused himself in the most polite way as social decorum would have expected and all but ran out the door.
(Happier days, those ones. Before blood soaked in between tatami floors and the grain of wood.)
Perhaps it had been a little unfair on Iruka's side of things to think that Sasuke wouldn't remember, wouldn't answer. Just because Sasuke has become a model example to him now, the kind that he uses when he looks around his classroom to see if he's going to get another Sasuke-case, if there's a prodigy that has an insatiable thirst to be the best, the strongest, for power.
In a way, the boy has always been on his mind, a constant worry. A quiet thought that doesn't get much of voice.]
You've grown...
[The words are soft, in awe of something that he didn't think - didn't even dream - of witnessing. When Sasuke had turned his back to Konoha all those years ago, Iruka didn't think he'd see him again. Not this soon at least. Because there is a part of him that believed if there is anybody who can bring this boy home, it'd be Naruto.
But to see Sasuke again?
Iruka didn't even dare think about it.]
You look very strong, Sasuke...
[And it comes out like an honest praise, because he does look strong, he does look scary even had Iruka not known what he had looked like as a child. And really, all Iruka can do is just look at him and drink in the sight of him because for him, it is a reward enough to see the boy who has always been a wonder.]
You've been working hard, haven't you...
[All Iruka can do is watch and stare, like how he always has from afar when everyone's backs are facing him and they're walking towards something bigger than the small world he can offer with his own hands.]
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