My Lover's Keeper

22. What Happened

There was a loud ringing in his ears. The earth lurched beneath him and he held on to the pillar in front of him in hopes of remaining balanced.

Shikamaru rushed after his friend as the bell rang and the hallways emptied.
He found him outside, his heavy laboured breathing could be heard from a distance.
"Naruto!"

The Nara already knew what the video was and he couldn't bring himself to watch more than the first two seconds of it.
"I can't-..." Naruto heaved feeling his stomach in knots. He'd been trying to forget about that incident since it had happened.

He had seen a psychiatrist. He had gotten all the 'help' that could be provided to a person in such a situation and he delt with it just fine. But now seeing how it was being twisted by someone for the sake of rumours, it just made his heart ache.

Shikamaru called Kakashi as he stayed with his friend outside trying to calm him down. When the adult came out, his son was sitting against the wall, legs against his chest and his breath breaking every time he tried to take inhale deeply.
"What happened?"

The question only seemed to throw Naruto into another fit of hysterical cries. Shikamaru pulled his teacher to the side. "There's a video of Naruto being-.... currently-....exchanged between students...Kakashi sensei-..." Shikamaru lowered his voice further "it was of that pedophile...and he was..." Even the Nara teen could not bring himself to utter the words.

Kakashi got the jest of it. "Hand me your phone" he ordered "and take him home. I'll handle it here"

Shikamaru gave him the accursed piece of technology before he went to his friend and helped him calm down again.
He didn't take him home, opting to take him to his favourite place in Konoha.

It was really a rarity for Naruto to break down in front of people. He was usually calm and collected, always had a smile on his face and never cared one bit what anyone thought of him.

Naruto just looked at the city. It always looked harmless from afar. It was like fire, warm and loving but if you get too close it bites back and burns you with its hatred.

His hand had reached to his neck with a scrubbing motion more than once as if trying to erase the memory of the hickeys that were left on his neck that night. He knew they weren't there anymore but he often had nightmares where he couldn't breathe.

That was how he felt the night of his assault and it always manifested in a form of a nightmare where he was being strangled by the man named Orochimaru.

But when he raised his hand for the umpteenth time in the last five minutes, Shikamaru stopped it. "You irritated your skin" he informed as he stared at the big patch of red.

Naruto struggled to get his hand lowered as it really was a compulsive gesture to rub that area of his neck. He didn't really care what they were saying about him, but just that they saw something so confidential.

Shikamaru was really good at giving the teen time to process things.
They have been there for hours. It was sunset and only his phone ring stopped his sobbing.

Naruto saw the name and picture of his boyfriend and took a deep breath answering.
But before he even said hi. Sasuke's voice came though sounding grave and sad.

"Naruto, we need to talk. Can you come over?"

"Yeah...yeah...I'll be there in half an hour"

"Okay" Sasuke hung up right after.

🍜🍙🍜🍙🍜

In his hospital room, was one perky pink haired girl, who came visiting him. It wasn't unusual, she often did visit him. He wondered if he stalked him as she always was conveniently there when Naruto wasn't. He just never really enjoyed her company. She came off as a bit too pretentious for his taste.