I do not like to express my thoughts aloud.

I dislike people who are too talkative and energetic.

I do not appreciate nor respect those who cannot bother to finish their stories.

You can only hate with the same amount of capacity to love. Where is the fine line between the two?

Two paths, too far apart to be absolute destiny, yet close enough that it can only be fate.

"Sasuke…"

With one word… in one name. Everything could have been surmised and encompassed in it. Because there were no mere words to illustrate the frustration, the determination- the very damnation that came with that name and those feelings.

With just knowing him.

And it was damnation. A very intricate kind of Hell where the person he cared about the most- loved, respected, revered above all else and others- had been lost to him.

Not merely lost.

He had been lost in darkness, in his vengeful path. Sasuke had turned his back to everything that had meant anything to him. Turned his back to him, leaving him with that unfathomable feeling of abandonment.

Abandoned.

Naruto had been left with words that cut through him with the ease and precision of a scalpel- far deadlier than Sasuke's Chidori could become, curse seal or not. A handful of the people he had come to care about had been left for dead in their struggle to help him preserve his dream.

Sasuke left him for dead- his closest friend- for power. He abandoned him to join a demented freak; a traitor; a murderer.

The one who had placed a curse on his best friend's body and mind, who had killed the Sadaime and almost destroyed their home - that was the Devil in Naruto's little Hell. The Snake that tempted his precious friend out of Eden, to his fall.

And yet the only thing on Naruto's mind, the fear that laced and choked his heart, was that the Devil would claim his due; claim Sasuke's body. The thought made Naruto shiver as a dozen implications hit him full force against his will.

But what made the blood in his veins run cold, was Sasuke's willingness to provide.

For power.

As long as he could succeed in his goal for revenge, the Snake could have "his life and afterlife for that matter". That's what he had said. Those words echoed in Naruto's hell.

"Sasuke…"

He realized- in a place so deep inside he could almost silence- that through his actions Sasuke had become a monster himself.

It was there last time.

Sasuke's dark, charcoal eyes were dim and bottomless, holding very little of what was once so familiar. There was no life there- barely recognition. The same recognition that they'd hold for an insect that neither bothered nor intrigued him with it its existence.

Detached; dispassionate; alien.

Not him.

Sasuke had never been the poster boy for bright moods and sunshiny smiles, but he had always alive. Passionate, with a fiery temper much like the element his family used in those remarkable jutsus.

He had never been like this. The intensity was still there, but instead of making the air around him explode, it was stagnant and calm, emanating in waves that might roll and choke anyone around him.

Naruto's heart skipped a bit as he realized that Sasuke had a lot in common with a snake- not cold, but lacking any sort of heat, predatory, patient… lethal- and he hated it. Because snakes would always remind him of Orochimaru- that freak, that traitor, that murderer- and he liked to pretend that Sasuke was- still- anything but.

And- still- in spite of all he's done to him- and every and any thing Naruto's ever cared about- he went after him, hell-bent on retrieving him and bringing him home. Hell-bent on protecting him from anyone who thinks otherwise. Hell-bent on making the villagers understand and embrace him again as their favored boy-genius that Sasuke had always been to them. All of Sasuke's life. And all of Naruto's life.

And everything would be as it should be; as it used to be.

Another voice inside him- this one, he irreverently ignored- had always laughed at those notions. It mocked his resolve, pointing out that his reason for wanting to bring Sasuke back was not just to save his precious friend. He wanted him back so that Konoha would feel like home again.

He was bringing Sasuke back- not to the village, not to the villagers or the Godaime, not even to Sakura. He was bringing Sasuke back to him.

And that was his Hell.

Chasing after the ghost of Times Past, in a race against Time- against the Odds- for Sasuke. Sasuke, who didn't want to be saved and would rather kill before he allowed anyone to stop him. Chasing after the ghost of a feeling that might very well be the death of him, allowing it to overwhelm any other dream or goal for the sake of that insane need to lie next to his best friend, under the stars on the moist grass, and exchange their patented insults. Give it all up to experience that unique feeling of belonging, just once more.

He sometimes wondered why he didn't simply replace him (as if he could simply replace the "great Uchiha Sasuke"). He had friends- people he cared about immensely. Somehow none of them had managed to tap into that obsessive/compulsive- sick - vein that Sasuke had, with his superior attitude and cool smirk.

Naruto had to chuckle at a new thought that sidetracked his mind. The people who understood him the best had tried to kill him at least once. Neji did; Gaara did. His fights with them forced him to grow. But Sasuke… Sasuke had almost succeeded at the task. And his fight with him has left him beaten and almost- almost- broken. He did another thing no-one else could do… Only Sasuke could come so close to breaking him. Not Neji; not Gaara; not Orochimaru.

And not Itachi. Not Sasuke's Devil in Sasuke's Hell. He wondered just how pissed Sasuke would be to know that.

No, it wasn't that that he couldn't replace Sasuke, if he wanted to. It's that he wouldn't. He didn't want to. He refused to give up on him.

So really, how could he use words to describe this cancerous bond that anyone with half a brain shell would cut and spare themselves the agony? How does he explain hope against all evidence- real, tangible evidence- to the contrary? How did he surrender his dreams to the person who would plummet them?

His only answer was "For Sasuke". And he could explain no more, because to him that single name meant more- enveloped more- than any other word he could use. More than "friendship", more than "betrayal", more than "pain", more than "love"- and all those at once- was "Sasuke".

And that's the only word he could let past his lip, roll in his mouth like velvet and broken glass, when the old ghosts crept up on him. Not "where", not "how", not "why"… But that one words that uttered his question and answer to everything.

Sasuke.

Quoted by Marcab

The world flashes red hot, and soon settles down with a murmur into everlasting darkness.

But before I blackout, I see the fuzzy image of a pale hand held out towards me, the tips of its fingers painted crimson.

I reach for it.

Itachi, I…

Quoted by x0SilverFeathersx0

Most things in life are there for people to watch, not to experience. That was a lesson hard to stomach. Life was- thankfully, frightfully- too short for someone to experience everything. That was another lesson, one's reaction to which depended on personal experience. Because the idea that one cannot have what another has or not- looks, wealth, health, opportunities- was a fountain of emotions for most people. Because humans would always want to be participants in what's good and spectators in what's tragic- gravitating between the former and the latter throughout their lives. And yet there were some rare cases that one might choose to watch- choose the part of the spectator. Most times it was the easy choice- because it was difficult to be in the spotlight, unable to stand the lights' glare- but it had often seemed like the only one.

It wasn't cowardice that put someone in the role of the watcher, inadvertently shaping their attitude towards things in life and life itself. It was their nature- quiet and accepting.

I spy with my little eye…

Quoted by Marcab

What they didn't understand was that one's perception of another being says a lot more about who they are than who the person in question is. A suspicious person will see hidden agendas where there are none, just as a naïve person will assume the best of both worlds where there is nothing but rot. If one is a hammer, everything else is nails. Most people had insatiable appetites- for power, for recognition, for love- that no amount of food could ever sate, so he considered himself fortunate that his own was that simple.

Quoted by Marcab

When it came to life-altering events, the steps that led up from the moment of transition to a moment of revelation would always hide in little things. Reality was shaped by what most consideredunforeseen events, but people like him- people who experienced life and change like moths struggling their way out of the cocoon- knew that there was no such thing as unpredictability. It's not randomness, but rather the complexity of the equations of existence that the human mind was unable to solve. To solve would suggest that one could take into account all the unique variables of the equation- and that was simply impossible. No one knew another human, another thing or another event in its required depth. No one could. It would be unnatural and all things- small and big- were subjects to their nature.

Quoted by Marcab

The word "house" was not a definitive term.

Sure, the first thing that came to anyone's mind would be an actual residence, but that was not all that a house could be. Literally, it described the tangible walls and roof that made up a structure, a place where one found solace or one that some might seek solace from. If a house was where the heart was and one sought to return there, it was called home. Figuratively, a house included one's important people and was not limited to bonds of blood or matrimony. It was born in the heart and mind of a person and it existed in them, wherever their lives might bring their physical body. That allegorical house, much like a true-life one, might fall or stand depending on what it was made of.

Sometimes a house was made of cards, yielding to the winds of life and fate.

Quoted by Marcab

When one was so complicated, so intricately refined, they could no longer grasp the simple workings a mind like his. And that was fine, because, in his simple, little world, he was truly happy.

Quoted by Marcab

For just about any being there existed a glass wall- that invisible obstacle that rose between oneself and their true desire. It was cruel- an inhuman ploy really- because the glass, whether clear or blurry, would always be translucent enough to let one see what could have been- what wouldn't be. What there was no way of knowing that it was meant to be, even if that wall had never been there.

Quoted by Marcab

The world was a puzzle, but not the kind that people thought- not a question wrapped in a riddle, thrown in a box, locked and the key thrown in the bottom of the ocean. It wasn't a matter of the Divine or origins or physics. The world was not a puzzle to be put together, but one to be taken apart and appreciated for its individual components- smell, touch, taste, hearing, sight and all the fine lines that interwove them.

Quoted by Marcab

There were two inescapable truths in his world.

One was that his brother would die by his hand.

The other was that they would follow him.

He could not stop them, and he could not discourage them - and he did not want to. The safest place for them was at his side; it was where they belonged.

He could not stop them, and they would only need the barest encouragement - not a word necessary, just a short pause in his steps - and...

Two sets of footsteps. Memories of laughter. Warmth. Acceptance. Belonging.

He paused, head tilted, not turning back.

See? I'm waiting for you.

I'm waiting.

Quoted by Asuka Kureru