Where Have you Been

Chapter 4

I had followed Sasuke off of school grounds. I wasn't sure if this was legal, to just walk off school property without permission. Technically, Tsunade had given us permission. That didn't exactly mean it was legal, though. But at the moment, I couldn't care if this was legal or not. The first thought that always came to my mind when I thought of the reason as to why I didnt care if this was legal or not was because of Sasuke. In the span of a few hours he'd become more important than anyone else in my life, other than Kiba. And I'm okay with admitting those two were tied for first place. Fucking hell, Kiba had to worm his way through the walls around my heart, but Sasuke took a bulldozer to them all, somehow. I don't even know how, perhaps it was just that he was my kajinari or maybe it was something else. I couldn't tell which it was, but I felt like it was something else because just a while ago I hated the fact he was my kajinari. Maybe my brain is so high on the feeling of being loved that it can't tell right from wrong, up from down, that it can't find a plausible reason as to why Sasuke was so important to me.

Sasuke was holding my hand. It was like taking a rotten banana out of the trash and eating it. Because I was trash. Yet I felt like Sasuke was devouring me whole, taking my everything while I just stood there and let him consume everything I had. His hand was too warm. I hated it. I wanted him to let him go. I wanted everything I had back. But he held on greedily. He took everything I had and he never let go of it. Yet, even though he has everything, he wants more. He wants everything I can and can't give him. He wants it all. He wants my world, and he's taking it. He's so greedy. He already had everything. All those other people who had given him everything, who had acted as if they lived for him, lived for the day he blessed them with his presence. They lived for him. Yet that wasn't what he wanted. That wasn't enough for him.

He wanted me alive.

He wasn't Kiba. He wasn't Kiba in ways different than what everyone would say if I said so. 'Of course he isn't Kiba, they act completely different and they don't look similar at all!' Is what they would say. But he's different from Kiba in a way only my drugged-out mind would notice. I offered Kiba my everything. I gave him everything I could. Yet he didn't want that. All he wanted was love. He took all my problems and solved them, only if they were gone for just a moment. He took everything wrong with me and made it better with his dumb humor. He gave me everything he had and, in turn, took everything I had. It was an exchange that could last for moments at a time or for full-blown minutes.

But Sasuke was different. He took everything from me and gave nothing in return. He kept it all. And this exchange lasted forever. I didn't know what he truly wanted. Maybe he was trying to figure out why I was such trash. Why my life is a flaming heap of garbage. Why eating warm bile is better than living the life I am. No, I'm not living. I'm already dead. I died with my mother. I'm just surviving. I'm just existing as an empty body in the endless suffering of life. Why do people want to live? Why do they persist on surviving, on retrying, on persevering? Perseverance never got me anywhere.

Because life is a sweet lie and death is the painful truth.

"Naruto?" Sasuke asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. I turned and saw my favorite ramen stand, Ichiraku. Teuchi was the man who ran the restaurant, and he was truly a pure soul. His restaurant's slogan was "Ramen good enough for both worlds!", meaning he made ramen that both humans and kajinari's would enjoy, and he was right. He actually did make different types of ramen for different types of kajinaris, and if he met a new type of kajinari, he'd invent a new recipe just for them. I liked to think of him as my second father, my first being a man named Iruka. I didn't consider my actual father my father. And Tsunade was my second mother, my first being my real mom. I liked to call Ayame, Teuchi's daughter, my big sis. I wonder if Sasuke knew I loved this place, or if he just wanted to bring me here.