Back at his apartment, Naruto paced between islands of paper and the foam archipelago of discarded ramen cups, each step landing with the practiced hesitation of a man rehearsing for a crime he hadn't yet committed. He'd tried to sit, but the couch was a disaster zone of half-done manuscripts and laundry, and his office chair looked like it was just waiting to betray his posture to his enemies. The ambient glow outside—the city at blue hour—filtered through dirty blinds, painting shadows on the wall that shifted every time he spun on his heel.
He picked up his phone, thumbed it to the home screen, then set it down again. He did this seven times in three minutes. On the eighth, he pulled up his mom's contact and hovered his finger over the green call icon, as if by willpower alone he could summon an answer without ever pressing it.
"Fucking coward," he muttered, but even in an empty room the words barely made it over the white noise of his own pulse.
He imagined it: Kushina picking up, her voice bright and unguarded, asking how the writing was going, how his job was treating him, if he was eating enough protein, if he was seeing anyone, if he was happy. He could almost hear the way she said his name—"Naru-to," each syllable punctuated, a loving jab that was also a warning not to bullshit her. He paced three more circuits around the living room, then stopped, braced his elbow on the windowsill, and pressed the call button before he could think himself out of it.
The phone rang. And rang. And then—
"Naruto!" Kushina's voice came through, not just warm but sizzling with the kind of energy that made it impossible to remember he'd ever been afraid to talk to her. "What's wrong, honey? The sky fall? It's not even Sunday!"
Naruto almost bailed, right there. He considered hanging up and blaming it on cell tower interference. Instead, he said, "Hey, Mom." His voice didn't crack, but it had a hairline fracture running through it.
She didn't miss a beat. "You sound tired. Not sleeping again?"
He swallowed. "Something like that."
A beat of silence, then the familiar click of her tongue, a warning shot over the bow. "Spit it out, Naruto. I know when something's eating you."
He stared at his reflection in the window—a smudge of pale skin, wild yellow hair, blue eyes rimmed with fatigue—and tried to imagine how a normal person would approach this. With caution, maybe. With a story to soften the blow.
Instead, Naruto said, "Did Sasuke ever come looking for me? After graduation, I mean. The day after."
The silence on the line stretched so long he thought the call had dropped.
When his mother's voice came back, it was quieter, softer, almost—almost—scared. "Why are you asking about that now, sweetheart?"
Naruto's knuckles whitened around the phone. "Just tell me, Mom. Did he?"
Another long pause. He could hear her breathing, the familiar slow inhale she used when he was one traffic violation away from losing his license. "Naruto," she said, voice low, "why are you thinking about that old pain? That boy—he—" She stopped. Sighed. "I always knew this would come back to bite me."
He pressed his forehead to the cold glass, willing the words to come through the line before he had to say them again.
"Mom," he said, "please. Just tell me the truth."
The sigh on the other end was so deep he could practically feel it ruffle his own hair. "Yes," she said finally. "Yes, he did."
A weird pressure built in his chest, and suddenly he couldn't get enough air. He opened his mouth but couldn't manage a sound.
"He showed up early," Kushina said, her words gaining speed as she went, "like, six in the morning, before I'd even had my first cup of coffee. He was pale as a ghost, dark circles under his eyes. Wouldn't come inside, just stood on the porch and asked if he could talk to you. But you were gone. I told him you needed space. Told him I'd let you know he came by, that you'd call him if you wanted to."
Naruto's knees wobbled. He slumped against the wall, sliding down to the cold laminate, hand still clamped around the phone. He tried to picture Sasuke, standing on the porch, and his stomach twisted hard enough he thought he might puke.
Naruto couldn't think, couldn't breathe. "Why—" The word stuck in his throat, sharp as a fishhook. "Why didn't you tell me?"
She hesitated, and he imagined her standing at the kitchen window, one hand pressed to the glass, the other wrapped tight around the phone. "Because I thought it was best," she said, and her voice was already breaking. "You came home that night like someone had cut out your heart, Naruto. I didn't want him to hurt you again."
"Best for who?" He could feel the anger rising, quicksilver under his skin. "For me, or for you?"
Kushina made a sound—a soft, wounded animal noise—and for a moment he wanted to take it back, to let her off the hook. But the years of silence and confusion surged up in his throat, drowning out everything but the need for answers.
"You were so heartbroken Naruto." Her voice broke. "After the party. I heard you crying for hours. I heard what he said to you—every cruel word. And I couldn't... I couldn't let him near you again."
Naruto laughed, but it was an ugly, brittle sound. "I spent five years thinking I was the only one who cared. That I was the idiot for not moving on."
"I'm so sorry," she said, and this time she was crying in earnest. "I wanted you to go to school. I was terrified you'd stay, that you'd throw away your whole future for a boy who didn't even—" She stopped, tried to compose herself, failed. "I just wanted you to be happy, Naruto. Is that so wrong?"
He pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes, hard enough to see stars. The anger was still there, but it was tangled now with something sadder, a sense of futility that drained his energy in waves.
"That wasn't your choice to make," he said, and his voice was quieter now, but every word landed heavy as stone.
There was a long, hollow silence. In the background, he heard the familiar hum of the kitchen lights, the faint whine of a radiator that always ran too hot.
"You are my child, Naruto," she said finally, her voice hardening. "My eighteen-year-old son. I did what any mother would do—I protected you from someone who hurt you. That's what mothers are supposed to do."
He let the silence hang between them until it started to feel like forgiveness, or at least a truce. Then he drew a shaky breath and said, "Goodbye, Mom."
He ended the call before she could answer.
The phone vibrated almost instantly: Mom, incoming call. He hit decline. Again. Again. The fifth time, he just let it ring, watching the screen strobe with her name until the battery warning cut everything off at once.
Naruto set the phone on the floor, careful this time, and let his head fall back against the wall. The city outside kept right on burning, but inside, nothing moved. He stared at the crack running up the drywall, followed it until it vanished into shadow.
So Sasuke had come looking for him. And then what? Would an apology have changed anything? The words would still have been said, hanging between them like a curtain neither could push through. Naruto pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, hard enough to hurt. Even if Sasuke had found him that morning, even if they'd talked—would Naruto have believed him? Or would he have spent these five years chasing after Sasuke anyway, always wondering if the next cruel word was just waiting behind a smile?
The phone vibrated on the floor. Then again. His mother's name flashed across the screen. He didn't pick it up.
What was he supposed to do with this information now? The revelation didn't give him Sasuke; it just took away the clean edges of his anger. Now he had nothing but questions with nowhere to put them. Would they have found their way back to each other? Or would they have crashed and burned all over again, two kids too scared to say what they meant?
At some point, the city outside went dark. Naruto sat perfectly still, hands over his face, letting the silence push in on all sides. The truth changed nothing and everything at once.
When the sun rose, it found him the same way it had left him: alone in the dark, wide awake, with no clearer path forward than he'd had before.