After

Twenty-two

Silence. Then havoc. Silence again. With every breath his mind turned down. Another blink and thoughts, random and scattered, attacked him relentlessly. If his hand wasn't on Naruto's shirt, if he didn't glance at him, he probably would have noticed Shikamaru's stare at Ino. He would have even heard him asking what was that she had done.
"What the hell?" Naruto still had that scared tone that painted his eyes, mixed with surprise.
He tried to push him away, but he didn't put enough force and he just grabbed his shirt tighter.
"We need to talk." He replied and his voice, even and deadly made his friend startled for a moment. He quickly regained his composure, his hand removing Sasuke's away.
He didn't stop him. He turned and started to walk towards the exit, knowing by instinct that Naruto would follow.
He didn't stop when the door behind him closed. He kept walking even when the sounds around him became less. He didn't know where he was going, only that he needed quietness, privacy. His feet halted when the only noise he could trace was the other set of feet on the ground, behind him.
"Are you drunk?" Naruto asked, annoyed and loud.
"Hey I am talking to you." He approached him, Sasuke could feel him standing just behind his back.
"What was the reason of your fight?" He said without turning.
"With whom?" He touched his shoulder. "Sasuke are you okay?"
"That night. Before she.." He stopped and breathed. "Why did you fight?" The palm that was on him a moment ago, retreated.
Silence followed and Sasuke turned around.
He looked at Naruto seriously and the man returned his stare, only for his eyes to drop and shed the seriousness away on the next blink.
"What's gotten into you?" He scratched his head.
"Was it about me?" Sasuke insisted.
"What are you talking about?" He replied with a fake surprise. Yet Sasuke remained unmoved. Then as if the night replayed on his head, the blue eyes narrowed.
"Did Ino say something to you?"
No answer came.
"I don't know what she told you, what Hinata told her but..."
"So it's not true?"
Before his friend answered, before he did it foolishly, he spoke to prevent him from doing so.
"Who lied? Yamanaka? Or perhaps Hinata?"
"I didn't say that anyone.."
"So it's true."
Naruto left a cry of frustration.
"Stop talking for a second." He put his hands inside his pockets.
"It is irrelevant, what happened that night."
"You didn't answer my question."
"Because it has nothing to do with you." He yelled.
"Does it not Naruto? How would you feel if you learnt that the person you are meeting with every day, sees you and recalls one of the most awful times of their life. That you unknowingly had a part in it." He raised his voice.
"You didn't play a part in it." Naruto yelled again.
"For you maybe. You are ready to forgive anything I do."
The face across him made a move back, as if he had just been hit. For a second it seemed that he would not speak again, but his eyes narrowed.
"How the hell would I know that you would suddenly decide to become friends. You had barely spoken before. How should I suppose to know?"
"This has nothing to do..."
"Does it not?" Naruto made a step forward. "Because your only concern right now is how she sees you. Do you like her or something?"
"You are evading again." Sasuke accused him, as if he hadn't done the same.
He could trace the rough shape the man's face had transformed into. "You seem to do that a lot recently. What are you hiding?"
Naruto watched him too, until he pushed him back, turning his head to the side.
"Do you think of the accident when you see me?" Sasuke asked, and while his voice was not soft, it wasn't cruel either.
"No, no of course not. I...You are making a big deal out of it."
"You are always saying that we are brothers. What happened? Are we not anymore?"
"Really? That is low Sasuke." He got angry again.
"You are lying about something. So what is it?"
"We did fight about you. It wasn't even about you. It was...I don't know."
"You don't know? What are you, a child, not thinking about anything?"
"Shut up." He said harshly, angrily as if he had just heard the most hideous curse.
He brushed his hair with his fingers with force, leaving a growl behind.
"Hinata was irritated that I was going to meet with you. I had just came back from a long trip and I was to leave for another one. It was around that time that you were taking missions in the country. You had come back for a day and we had agreed to meet up. She wanted me to stay." He raised his gaze again. "That was all."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow.
"Don't look at me like that. We just fought. You happened to be the excuse. It could be about anything. Hinata isn't the type of person that gets angry with these kinds of things. I don't know what had gotten into her that night. Perhaps it was the pregnancy. She wasn't been herself. She had never been demanding, or angry for a reason like that."
He breathed heavily.
"Yet...No matter how I was looking forward to see you, or how odd her behaviour was, I should had stayed. It was my fault. That's why I tried desperately to fix it. That is why I got angry when she didn't want to. I felt like she was doing it to punish me."
"Do you believe it's something that she would do?" He genuinely asked.
"No.." He smiled sadly. "But I wasn't myself back then."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You have a habit of blaming yourself." Naruto replied with the same sad smile. "I wanted to avoid that."
"You are an idiot. And you made me seem like one."
"It's...So Hinata didn't tell you." He confirmed a thought he probably had for a while.
"No." Sasuke said coldly.
"I'm sorry you caught up into this." Naruto looked at the ground. "I wouldn't have told you. But..Now that you know...Maybe it's best if you keep some distance."
He wanted to say that now was already late. That he should have mentioned something at the beginning, that he should have never made him meet her on that first day.
"Why?" He asked instead.
"Sasuke..Hinata is not well. You saw her. I don't think seeing you every day makes her feel any better."
"That's for her to decide." He answered coldly.
Naruto scratched his head.
"Yeah you are right."
"You had your chance." He continued. He warned or informed him, he wasn't sure. But Naruto misunderstood. His next statement showed it.
"Looking at it now, I should have told you."
His head rose to the sky.
"I guess I got scared."
"Why?" Sasuke asked but Naruto didn't lower hsi gaze.
"Who knows?" He let a little laugh. "Maybe I am truly an idiot."