Short stories of just about anything

rain and darkness

Really quickly: Modern AU, and I apologize if anyone is a bit out of character. 

The last thing that I had expected this evening- make that night, rather- was to have my phone ring at ten o'clock. The surprise wasn't appreciated either.

I looked at the screen, which cast a bright light across my face and the ceiling that it stared up at. I squinted my eyes trying to read the caller ID, the letters slightly blurred with my eyes being slightly unfocused from just being woken from a light sleep.

Naruto.

Now, why the heck would he be calling this late at night?

I debated about whether to even answer at all, the rain outside was heavy anyway, so it's not like I'd be going anywhere to help the dobe.

I pressed the green answer button, deciding that there wasn't much to lose at the act, before bringing the small device to my ear.

"Dobe." I unceremoniously greeted the male on the other end of the phone.

"Sasuke! It's bad, it's really bad..." the blonde said.

Vague.

But his voice sounded different than its normal annoying sound; it sounded rough and slightly hoarse.

"What?" I said, too tired to formulate more of a sentence, but still needing more information if I wasn't going to just hang up.

"Have you not looked outside your window anytime recently?!?!?" he frantically said, well, more like shouted, causing me to move the phone away from my ear for a brief second.

Truth was, I hadn't looked outside anytime recently, but I suppose I could hear the rain, and there had been a bit of thunder a little while ago, but I could sleep through all these sounds, so I hadn't looked outside the window at all lately, nor did I particularly care.

"Rain. What more of it?" I, again, shortly asked.

There was a long pause from the other side of the line, a silence in which I heard nothing; I was about to think that the idiot had muted the phone either on purpose or accident, but then I heard a small, ragged gasp from his end. Almost as if he was holding his breath and finally drew another one in.

"What more? Rain can't be what's so terribly bad Naruto; what else is happening?" I once again tried, but I was most definitely more awake now than I was previously, hence my speaking of more than a few words.

Another pause.

"Naruto, please answer or I'm going back to bed."

"I'm sorry, it's late and I shouldn't have called and I know that I'm just annoying to you and I know that you don't like me at allbutIdon'thaveanyoneelse."

What?

He spoke ridiculously fast and just sped up as he went on so that his words didn't even sound like words, and they were all connected into one big jumble of letters and sounds.

"Dobe, I can't understand you when you talk so stupidly fast."

"Sorry, I just said that it's nothing and that I probably shouldn't have called," Naruto said, slower this time, but his voice broke at the end a bit.

Then it hit me.

The dobe was crying.

Wonderful.

"Naruto, I'm being serious, what's wrong?"

I was now sitting up and preparing to get out of bed.

He still hadn't said anything.