Chapter Text

I - You’re not Naruto.

Sakura should never have trusted one of Naruto’s vague directions and her own hazy memories from the night before. Especially when said memories had taken place at four in the morning under the excessive influence of passion-fruit vodka.

The evening had been memorable and absurd, as it often was when her coworker was involved.

A masterful blend of watermelon shooters, a customer who had sobbed on a barstool for forty minutes because his ex had subscribed to a terrifying number of porn memberships using his email address and credit card, and the end of a shift where she had put glasses away while wondering whether medicine was really worth that many years of studying, three burnouts, and instant noodles five nights a week. Not to mention that student job, obviously.

After that, things had turned anarchic. She had ended up in some club deep in Konoha’s wealthy district, and everything had become pleasantly blurry.

And yet, at one forty-seven in the afternoon, the previous night still seemed to be pounding in her temples as she stepped off the bus, empty satchel over one shoulder, sunglasses on her nose, grimacing in horror at the sunlight. She dreamed of her bed, of dying slowly in it while swearing to herself that this was the last time she let herself get dragged into this kind of nonsense, but since that was not an option… she straightened with the wildly misplaced confidence of a woman convinced she could find an apartment she had only entered while drunk.

Naruto had replied to her message with his usual level of uselessness.

“Drop by whenever. I’m gonna crash. I’ll leave it open.”

That was it. And naturally, he had left her on read afterward.

No address. No name on the buzzer. No “the building with the wisteria,” “the wrought-iron gate,” or “the lobby with the marble walls.” Nothing.

He had assumed that her brief late-night incursions into his apartment made it an obvious place. He was vastly overestimating the young woman’s sense of direction, which might have been flattering if she had not been quite so frustrated and lost.

Standing in the blazing sun, her migraine beating a drum rhythm inside her skull and her eyes narrowed behind her tinted glasses, she inspected the surroundings in despair.

Her meager memories of the neighborhood and the few landmarks she possessed were, apparently, completely useless.

White buildings: all of them.

Large ornate doors: almost all of them.

Near a crosswalk: a full collection.

No visible numbers: of course.

“Fantastic,” she muttered to herself, forcing herself to remain calm.

She could do this, she encouraged herself.

She could find the place where the taxi had dropped them off the night before. It was not complicated. It had only been a few hours ago.

Think.

She crossed once, turned around, studied the façades, walked up the street, came back. After five minutes, she developed the absolute certainty that all the architects in this neighborhood had once gathered around a table and decided it would be funny to build twenty variations of the same building just to humiliate visitors.

Then she saw one.

White. Ornate door. Entrance set slightly back. Right beside a crosswalk.

A parking meter sign decorated the sidewalk, and she had a brief flash of Ino twirling around the pole with the grace of a panda.

A choreography that someone had filmed and reposted in their work group chat at an ungodly hour.

Before it was deleted immediately afterward by their boss — which would certainly generate a particularly long and awkward team lecture. Gai Maito was known for his tendency toward excess.

She approached cautiously and noticed, with a sigh, that the front door was ajar.

“Bingo,” she breathed, with a level of confidence in her own abilities as poorly placed as a revolver in a nursery.

The lobby looked vaguely familiar, which confirmed that she was not the hopeless case her friends believed her to be.

In truth, the place mostly smelled of polished wood, lilies, and money. A setting that did not particularly match Naruto at first glance, but it seemed his social background was in total contradiction with his exuberant personality and his tendency to end up in the wrong kind of trouble.

Sakura’s memories from the night before were about as reliable as testimony given under ketamine, so she decided she was doing admirably well. She took the elevator with confidence, went up to the top floor, and when the doors opened, she did indeed find two apartment doors.

Naruto’s was the one facing the elevator.

Perfect.

She went straight to the door and found it unlocked. She smiled and entered without knocking, crossed the vestibule in the same momentum… Then immediately understood that she had just made an error of spectacular proportions when she reached the living room and finally looked around.

The apartment was silent.

Huge.

Half-empty.

No questionable couch covered in jackets thrown anywhere. No abandoned sneakers. No paused video game. No smell of cold pizza or masculine odor whose origin one did not wish to know.

Everything was white, sober, almost too neat, as though it were a show apartment. The few scattered pieces of furniture did not give the impression that the place was inhabited.

At the far end, the large glass doors opening onto a balcony let in the bright afternoon light. And in front of them, with his back to her, a man stood motionless on the parquet floor.

Tall. Slim. Long black hair, tied low. Dark shirt, sleeves rolled up with that minimum of effort which, paradoxically, revealed an elegance no stranger viewed from behind had any right to possess. One hand on the frame of the glass door, the other holding a cup.

He turned around slowly as she slid as discreetly as possible toward the hallway in a rather ineffective attempt to flee.

His black eyes met hers, and she froze like a deer caught in headlights. Busted.

Sakura, who nevertheless had a respectable vocabulary, said with the tragic clarity of people already digging themselves deeper:

“Uh… Hi! I’ll just go, since it appears you are not Naruto.”

The silence that followed her tirade deserved a place of honor among her most embarrassing moments.

The man stared at her for one second, then another. He did not seem hostile, nor panicked, which was strange given the context. Rather… surprised, yes, but with astonishing calm.

He was probably one of those people too well-bred to make you feel as miserable as you were. Which Sakura, objectively, was.

She grimaced as she realized she was still wearing her skirt from the night before, her pajama top, and that beneath the sunglasses she had not removed, she had not taken off her makeup. Facing her, the stranger clearly belonged to that social stratum that had manifestly never chased after a bus while eating a brioche and checking the amount of their overdraft on a secondhand phone with a cracked screen.

“It would appear not,” he finally replied in a smooth voice. “And you are manifestly not a burglar, which reassures me halfway.”

Sakura felt heat rise all the way to her ears. Wonderful, she had to be red as a tomato by now.

“Halfway?” she heard herself ask in a high-pitched voice while glancing toward the door behind her.

“The possibility that you are deranged remains,” the man stated simply, and Sakura stopped staring at the exit.

The realization that she could be mistaken for a patient escaped from an asylum hit her.

She turned her full attention back to him and raised her hands in a sign of peace. “I can explain everything.”

“Please do. I am curious to hear the methodology behind entering a stranger’s home in broad daylight with the confidence of its owner.”

Distinguished even in the way he speaks, the intruder noted, realizing this fact added itself to the list of reasons she felt stupid in front of him.

A feeling that was growing by the second.

“When you put it that way, it’s already off to a bad start…” Sakura grimaced, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “To be honest, I am here on the basis of blurry memories, an after-party at Naruto Uzumaki’s, and an atrocious hangover.”

At the mention of the name, something passed through the man’s gaze. Not exactly a smile, but the shadow of amusement that suggested recognition of the calamity her friend was. Or maybe she was extrapolating because she desperately wanted to find a way out of this situation, and he was simply making fun of her.

“I see. I imagine that already explains part of the disaster,” the man commented quietly, lifting his cup of coffee to his lips.

She was convinced it was coffee.

The scene looked far too much like a George Clooney commercial.

“Disaster? That feels like a rather hasty judgment.” Sakura retorted, struggling to look away from the sight of this man, his silhouette cut out by the rays of sunlight and his features so delicate they could have been feminine.

“Hasty is not the adjective I would use.” A long, pale finger tapped the rim of the porcelain. “I have known him since childhood.”

“Of course you know Naruto.” Sakura briefly closed her eyes behind the shelter of her tinted glasses. “Good. Then you surely see the kind of problem he causes around him.”

Using her friend’s reputation as a walking catastrophe to justify this scene felt unfair, but she did it anyway.

Mainly because it was an emergency exit, and she wanted to extract herself from this situation as quickly as possible.

“I can imagine without difficulty.”

The certainty in the man’s voice made Sakura twitch. She considered defending her coworker’s reputation, a little and on principle, then decided she had already said enough stupid things for one day and took a step back.

“I’ll leave you, then. Immediately.” She took her leave without grace. “Possibly change my name, too.”

“That is probably unnecessary. I do not know it,” the man pointed out in that calm, polite tone that made the entire situation even more surreal than it should have been. “The building you are looking for is number twenty-two. It is directly across the street.”

She blinked, looked through the glass doors, and easily spotted the messy balcony of the penthouse — where a gigantic orange hammock, a few abandoned bottles, and a potted palm tree were enthroned. The palm tree Kiba had pissed in the night before.

“Directly across the street,” the young woman murmured. Her eloquence intact.

“As you can see.”

“Because here…”

“Is not number twenty-two.”

“… Obviously.” She realized slowly. She very seriously considered throwing herself off the balcony. “This is humiliating,” she finally said gravely.

“A little.”

“You are a great help. Therapist, I assume?” the young woman shot back, stung and recovering some of her usual bite.

Although she still felt deeply miserable beneath the stranger’s black, attentive gaze.

“I do not have the impression that you came here seeking psychological help. Or else the reason for your visit to Naruto is rather… original.”

His bearing and his tone were impeccable. Dryly polite.

Sakura truly looked at him for the second time.

If the first impression had been that of an actor, the second was less pleasant.

He had the kind of attitude that brought out all of his interlocutor’s flaws and made one want to become immediately more intelligent. Because he seemed a touch arrogant, not quite in an irritating way, and because he looked like someone used to being listened to. Added to that was the fact that he appeared observant.

And in the fog that was this hungover afternoon, Sakura wanted absolutely anything except to be noticed.

She let out a heavy sigh, allowing her gaze to drift over the man’s attractive appearance for a few seconds. His hands, especially, struck her. Long, fine fingers, neat nails. Hands capable of strangling a man with distinction, making a woman come, or playing a piano piece, with no possible middle ground.

It was a completely inappropriate thought.

She filed it away in the mental drawer reserved for deranged fantasies.

Fantasizing about the owner of the apartment she had, admittedly by mistake, violated did not seem like a priority.

“Well…” she finally said, trying to get herself out of this mess. “I am going to pretend this scene never existed. And I strongly encourage you to do the same and forget my existence.”

“I fear it is too late on both counts,” he refuted pensively, tilting his head.

She noticed that his long black ponytail swayed with the movement and remained hypnotized for an instant before pressing her lips together. “Are you always like this?”

“I adapt to the level of chaos presented at my door.”

“I haven’t even introduced myself,” the young woman realized aloud, stunned that this conversation was dragging on while her brain was screaming at her to leave the room. Her legs, however, seemed unwilling to follow the order.

“I was waiting to see if you intended to run away first.”

She crossed her arms, rolled her eyes behind her frames, and snapped a very aggressive, “Sakura.”

“Charmed, I suppose.” A pause. “Itachi Uchiha.”

Uchiha.

The name meant something to her, but her brain took a frankly scandalous amount of time to connect the threads.

Sasuke.

Sasuke Uchiha.

Naruto’s friend. The family tragedy that had made the front pages. The vague stories the blond had mentioned one evening between two drinks, with that particular horror of people who had grown up next to a sordid news story and never knew quite how to speak of it.

“Oh, Sasuke’s brother,” she blurted before she could hold her tongue. “I thought you were already neighbors. Naruto always talks about you as people from the neighborhood.”

She let her gaze wander across the empty room, the bare walls, the sheet thrown over a sideboard, the sounds echoing through the large empty space, the absence of… everything.

“Not quite yet. The boxes are arriving tomorrow.”

She continued looking around because it was apparently easier than looking at the man.

“Hm. I should have guessed. There are so few objects that it looks like a luxury cell. Or a monk’s room.”

“I will take that as a compliment. Most objects are useless,” her interlocutor immediately retorted, and Sakura could not tell whether he was joking.

“You do not seem like someone who gets attached to things,” she mused aloud.

She knew nothing about it, just a simple intuition. And a way to keep the conversation going before an awkward silence settled again between the walls of the room.

“I have never understood the concept of sentimental objects,” he admitted without difficulty. “To my mind, it is primarily a by-product of our consumer society.”

Sakura blinked behind her tinted lenses, wondering whether she was truly launching into a sociological debate with this stranger in the middle of his living room while her hair still smelled of alcohol from the night before.

But she was more talkative and curious than embarrassed. So she fed the debate instead of doing the only intelligent thing: fleeing.

“Mm, you underestimate emotional support objects. Everyone needs to cling to something to get through it, and sometimes people choose something from their childhood or something soft, you know what I mean.” The woman brushed the idea aside with a small wave of her hand.

“I am not entirely sure what kind of object we are discussing,” the man replied, one fine black brow rising. Everything about him was fine.

And… he was clearly taking the piss out of her, wasn’t he?

“A plush toy… or a blanket, for example,” she elaborated anyway, because she was in his home and did not feel comfortable enough to tell him to fuck off despite her growing certainty that he was having fun at her expense.

“Why do I have the feeling you are talking about yourself?” he answered in a suave tone.

There.

Taking the piss.

“That is not the case. And do not pretend not to understand. Everyone has an object that keeps them from collapsing.” She breathed in deeply, wondering what she was still doing there, standing on this old-fashioned parquet floor. “Something you take out in times of crisis.”

“And yours is a blanket?” the stranger persisted.

“It was an example.”

“So, yes.”

“I never confirmed that information.”

He stared at her for another second. This time, the corner of his mouth truly moved.

Shit.

The man sketched an ironic smile, one that softened his features in an obvious way and made him, if that was even possible, more attractive.

Sakura finally stepped back, as if that could help her recover decent brain function.

“I am going to leave before I humiliate myself any further.”

“A reasonable decision.”

“You are going to tell your brother, aren’t you?” she realized afterward. The connection with Sasuke, though established a few minutes earlier, only struck her then.

In reality, if she had had her eyes properly open, the physical similarities should have hit her. Now that she knew they were related, it was obvious.

“Most certainly.”

“If I beg you not to, will that change anything?” Sakura attempted with a desperate pout that did not seem to affect her interlocutor.

And indeed: “You may try, but there is little chance you will succeed.”

“It would be really nice of you,” the young woman insisted, lowering her head and giving him a piercing look over the top of her sunglasses.

He tilted his head and smiled at her. “I do not consider myself a nice person.”

“Great. So you are an asshole and you are going to use all of this crap against me,” the student summarized soberly, clicking her tongue in defeat.

The Uchiha gave a discreet breath that sounded like a laugh, then calmly answered the insult:

“Your judgment is premature. You lack evidence.”

“I am convinced I would find more if I replayed this conversation.”

“I do not doubt it.”

She shot him a dark look, spun around with all the dignity one can preserve after entering a stranger’s apartment like a particularly inbred and confused pigeon, and disappeared while calling over her shoulder, “Hopefully never again!”

.

Thirty seconds later, in the building across the street, she crossed Naruto’s threshold with the aura of a serial killer. Or chewing gum melted in the sun.

The blond was apparently waiting for her, in his boxers, his hair sticking out in every direction, a pillow mark on his cheek and the serene expression of a man who had no idea of the chaos he had just accidentally orchestrated.

“Saku-chan. You took your time.”

She looked at him the way one looks at a particularly repulsive insect while wondering whether it is better to crush it or put it outside.

“I ended up in a stranger’s apartment.”

Naruto yawned, stretched, and leaned casually against the doorframe between the entrance hall — a mess — and the living room — no better. The appalling state of his home mortified Sakura: how had she not realized her mistake sooner?

“Ah. True, you were pretty drunk…”

She remained frozen for a second, not immediately understanding what her friend had just said.

“Excuse me?” Then it hit her. “Not last night, idiot. Now.” The student lamented, passing a tired hand over her face to push her sunglasses up onto her forehead.

He met her eyes, lingered on her face for a brief instant, and must have read something there because he moved aside to let her into the main room without saying another word.

They collapsed without ceremony onto the beige couch, and Sakura wrinkled her nose at the full ashtray on the coffee table, the remnants of last night’s pizza, and a few beer bottles standing here and there.

Naruto grabbed his controller, tossed the second one onto the empty cushion between them, and started a game of Street Fighter without a word.

Between two rounds, Sakura summarized her address mistake, her accidental meeting with the eldest Uchiha, and the fact that she wished to be buried in a hole so deep that even her existence would be forgotten.

“Yeah, Sasuke told me his brother was moving into the apartment across the street today. Well, technically the family apartment, but it had been empty since… you know.”

His tone had vaguely flattened at the end of the sentence. No details were necessary; she understood. She had read the articles like everyone else at the time. The tragic deaths of the figureheads of Uchiha society. That explained a little the strange atmosphere of the apartment, the untouched rooms, the gravity of its occupant. She felt even worse — if that was still possible at this point.

Then Naruto resumed, with the elegance of a drum thrown down a staircase:

“I can’t believe it… You really went into his place?”

“Yes.”

“Without knocking?”

“Yes.”

“Like you do here? Slamming the door and yelling?”

“I am going to bite you.”

He collapsed with laughter on his couch, his uncontrollable spasms making him lose the current match without his caring in the slightest. Finally, when his fit of laughter seemed to subside, he straightened and gave her one of those typical optimistic smiles of his.

“Sakura, this is insane. Did you say something stupid to him? Please tell me you said something stupid.”

She slowly pressed her hand to her forehead, afflicted, and almost despite herself articulated, “Look at the state of me, moron! Of course I said something stupid.” She dropped back against the orange cushions and sighed. “I said something like: ‘You’re not Naruto.’”

Naruto fell backward too, almost curling in on himself, both hands on his stomach. His hysterics started all over again, and Sakura watched him with dead eyes as he fought back tears.

“Oh, that’s brilliant.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“No but… Saku… You looked at Itachi Uchiha, who has basically been some kind of perfection since I was little, and you said to him: ‘You’re not Naruto’? To him?”

… Perfection? She blinked a few times under the impact of that description, then conceded that the man had seemed almost unreal.

Before he opened his mouth and became unpleasant.

In any case, Naruto was a known exaggerator with a tendency to inflate the smallest fact, so she could not rely on his judgment.

“You mistook me for Itachi Uchiha. That’s the greatest compliment you could have given me,” the blond continued, delighted.

“For fuck’s sake, Naruto. It was a mistake, and there was zero confusion.” She threw one of those hideous cushions at him. “I didn’t really think. I was caught off guard, remember.” The young woman sighed, holding her head in both hands.

“This is incredible. I have to call Sasuke.”

“Give me my bag before I rip out one of your organs.”

He handed her the pink bag she had forgotten the night before, the original cause of her visit, then continued laughing like a lunatic.

The young woman’s migraine kindly reminded her of its existence, and she clenched her teeth while checking the contents of her pouch with a critical eye, more to avoid giving in to her urge to strangle him than out of necessity.

Notebook. Pencil case. Charger. Cardholder. Red evening lipstick. Everything was there.

“Good,” she said. “Now I’m going home, taking a shower, revising endocrinology, and forgetting this day ever existed.”

“You could also let me have my rematch,” Naruto bounced, waving his controller, visibly disappointed that she was already leaving. “Or have a coffee on the balcony. The weather’s amazing.”

The hopeful and slightly pleading blue gaze caught her and refused to let go.

She knew, before even starting the fight, that she had already lost: she was going to give in.

Because Naruto hated loneliness, that was a known fact, and Sakura had pieced it together in fragments, from little late-night confidences, veiled allusions, a few barbed exchanges with his group of friends.

Apparently, the Uzumaki couple were constantly abroad, handling their affairs, and the blond’s youth had been shaped by family reunions and repeated goodbyes.

“No way am I setting foot on your balcony. Because with my luck, I will probably see your damn neighbor, and I am clearly not ready for that.”

Naruto adopted a falsely solemn expression. “I wouldn’t want to crush your hopes, but chances are you’re going to run into him again sooner or later.”

She grabbed a cushion and threw it at his head. He snickered and tossed her the spare controller without losing his good mood.

By the end of the evening, she was still sprawled on his couch, the unpleasant neighbor nothing more than a distant memory.