Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
If you ask Team Seven what love means to them, their answers might surprise you.
Naruto. Bright, sunny Naruto. Naruto who never left a friend behind, who turned enemies into comrades, the lonely orphan that became Konohaâs most loved Hokage. If you ask Naruto what love means, heâll tell you itâs anger.
Anger, he says, is an artifact of love. Anger comes from being let down, anger is born when someone disappoints your expectations, and, well, you donât just expect things from strangers do you? To the sad, lonely boy who grew up with no one, anger is an entitlement that could only come from believing in someone and that, he says, is love.
He is angry when the boy he thought was his best friend, his brother, leaves everything behind to walk a solitary path. He is angry because he knows they are friends, and friends donât abandon friends, not unless theyâre worse than scum. He is angry at his parents for dying before he met them, because kids who love their parents expect to see them standing in the doorway on their first day of class, cheering from the crowds on graduation day, scolding them for being reckless and irresponsible, and dammit, he got none of that. Anger is a luxury, this he knows.
So when Iruka scolds him over the years for not taking his classes seriously, for the expired milk cartons in his fridge, for not taking care of Hinata like he should, he grins because he knows itâs love. When Sakura yells at him for stumbling into her apartment in the middle of the night with a bloody nose and several broken bones, he smiles through his swollen face and hugs her as she yells even louderâ something about broken ribs puncturing his lungsâ and he knows this is love. When Sasuke with his crazed, manic eyes screams at him and tells him he doesnât know him and that their bonds are irreversibly broken, everyone says he is too far gone, but Naruto knows his friend is still there, and there is still love.
Sakuraâ the greatest medical ninja in generations, the one who fixes broken bones with the slightest caress of her magical green hands, the one who can breathe life into those at the cusp of dying, the one who redefined being a ninja to mean saving lives rather than prying it out of ribcagesâ if you ask her what love is, she will tell you through a sad, mangled smile that love is death.
Love, she says, is running to wedge yourself between the crackle of the chidori and the whoosh of the rasengan on a hospital rooftop because youâd rather die than let the boys you love kill each other. Love is the disgusting stench of lifeless corpses (fishes, rabbits, deer, men) that lay around you as you practice the same procedure over and over, failing as many times as it takes, because one day when your boys finally return home with their inevitably wrecked and disfigured bodies, you will not fail. Love is a woman fighting her own flesh and blood, and then sacrificing her life to revive the fallen Kazekage, so he may lead the village she calls her home. Love is the resolve to put a kunai through the heart of the man you have loved since you were a girl, knowing you will never love another, just to save him from himself.
She smiles as she remembers. Love is a twelve year old boy in the land of mist who abandons the burden of his lifeâs mission to stand between his teammates and the death that rushes towards them, twice. Love is crying on the chest of his still body riddled with needles because you think death has staked its claim.
Uchiha Sasuke, once a prolific international criminal with a bounty bigger than his dead clanâs fortune, the keeper of the Sharingan and the Rinnegan, the one whose name keeps Konoha safe even when heâs away, the little boy who lost everything he loved in a single night⌠well, youâd have to be pretty brave to ask a man like that what he thinks love is.
Lucky for you, I know two idiots who are.
Sasuke stares at his shitfaced best friend and his shitfaced girlfriend all but passed out on his kitchen floor, keeping themselves awake just to hear the answer to the question dangling between them.
Maybe heâs had more rice wine than he anticipated, because he is actually thinking about the answer.
He thinks of his mother laughing in the kitchen, pinching his puffed cheeks and promising that âthis time I made dangos, but next time Iâll make your favorite onigiri for sureâ. He remembers his father watching him with folded hands as he summons a fireball bigger than any of his cousins but still a meager fraction of the one his father demonstrated, and the vow he makes to make the biggest Katon anyone has seen the next time they practice. He thinks about Itachi⌠and then files it away, some things are still too painful to think about.
He thinks about standing in Narutoâs office as he tells him that he is about to depart, and though Naruto is adorning his usual good natured grin when he asks him how long he will be gone this time, Sasuke doesnât miss the worry in his eyes. He wonders if he should tell him about the house he is thinking of buying near the village periphery, the one he saw Sakura eying on one of their strolls, and if that will quell his silent fears. He refrains, deciding instead to tell him the next time he is in the village to finalize the deal. He thinks about Sakura, five days overdue from her missionâs expected return date, and the fear and panic that twirls in the recesses of his mind at the thought of never seeing her again. He recalls the feeling of growing wings when she finally walks in through the village gates, eight days after she was supposed to, with fire raging in her green eyes and arms dragging the corpse of the most wanted sex trafficker in the Land of Fire.
His mouth parts as he draws in a long breath, and the haziness in Naruto and Sakuraâs eyes dissipates just a little as they anticipate his answer, but he simply lets out a sigh and gets up. Walking towards his room to call it a night and leaving his best friends to pay for their reckless drinking on the kitchen floor, he pauses to look back with the ghost of a smile.
Naruto and Sakura stare at his retreating back, and then each other, suddenly more sober than they were just seconds ago. They smile at each other.
Maybe thatâs love, the promises of a next time strung together to make up a lifetime.
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