Chapter Text
Listen, I am here to
Remember. I need
To...remember. I have
This grief and I don't
Know why.
-Sarah Kane: Complete Plays:
"Crave"
ᕙ[･･]ᕗ
Sasuke Uchiha wakes up to a world engulfed in white.
He immediately squints his eyes, bringing his hand up to block most of the light - only to have his arm tugged back down.
Sasuke blinks.
He can't move.
His arms are strapped down to the the bed he lays on; it rubs his skin raw, and Sasuke has this sudden, overwhelming urge that he needs to escape.
He begins tugging at his restraints, his ankles are also strapped onto the bed, causing him to flop around. He probably looks ridiculous - he feels ridiculous - but that doesn't stop him from tugging harder.
Tug, tug, tug, tug, tug - he completely ignores the incessant beeping happening beside him. He almost missed the door opening, but luckily it was right in his line of sight.
He stops tugging when a nurse comes in (which must mean he's in the hospital) and raises a brow at him. Sasuke sheepishly smiles, suddenly embarrassed.
She looks down at her chart, probably checking who he is, before her bemused smile drops and her eyes widen in horror. Sasuke can only stare, with his limited vision from laying down, as she suddenly pushes over and un-dues his straps - talking so fast Sasuke isn't even sure what she's exactly saying.
However, he was able to catch a few pieces here and there. Active sleeper. Traumatic. Danger to self. Hurt. Yelling. Screams.
Brother.
Yeah, Sasuke didn't really understand much either.
Speaking of brother.
Sasuke quickly sits up with the help of the nurse, muscles suddenly lethargic.
"That's it, deary," she says. "Take it easy."
Where's my brother?
She barrels on before Sasuke could get a word in. "Now, what you went through was quite traumatic, we'll need to set you up with some supplements-"
Where's my brother?
"-and we'll need to set up some physical therapy appointment in order to get your muscles back up to working order-"
Where's my brother?
"-and of course we'll need to set up some additional appointments with a Yamanaka in order to ensure there was limited brain trauma as a genjustsu, especially one so severe, can do some nasty work-"
"Where's my brother?"
He tightens his grip on the blanket. Sasuke knows, with all the conviction an eight-year-old can have, that unless Itachi was on deaths door, he would have been here when Sasuke woke up. Probably would have found a way to his side regardless.
Sasuke once had a really bad cold when he was five - he was burning up, coughing up things that should not have been in his lungs, and had been sleeping for near two days in a row - when Itachi had come back from a mission. He was drenched, weary, yet still had that soft smile on his face when he had said 'i'm home!" - only to freeze at the door when he noticed Sasuke curled up in a fetal position, his Mother trying desperately to wipe the sweat off his forehead with a damp cloth.
Now, Sasuke doesn't remember much of those days sick. However, later, in the privacy of their kitchen, his mother had smiled warmly at him when he asked if Itachi had visited him. If he had taken care of him.
"He never left your side." She had said.
So, where was he now?
Where. Was. His. Brother?
The nurse falters at his tone. It’s sharper than she expects from a boy who’s just woken up, still thin and shaking from weeks of disuse. Her lips part, close, then purse like she’s deciding whether or not to lie.
“Your brother…” She hesitates, fingers tightening around the clipboard. “…he isn’t here, Sasuke-kun.”
That’s not an answer.
“That’s not true.” His voice cracks, but he doesn’t care. “He wouldn’t leave me.”
He tries to swing his legs off the bed, but the moment his feet touch the cold tile, his knees buckle. His body is uncooperative, fragile. The nurse is quick to steady him, but he shoves her hand away, glaring. He doesn’t want comfort. He wants Itachi.
“Where is he?”
The question is sharper this time, closer to a demand than a plea. He wants her to flinch. He wants her to say his brother is down the hall, buying him dango like he always promised after the hospital checkups, or that he’s training in the courtyard and will be back any moment.
But she doesn’t.
Her eyes flicker, once, toward the door. Then she pastes on a professional smile that fools no one. “You should rest. I’ll call the doctor.”
Rest. Like he hasn’t just woken up from gods-know-how-long. Like rest will make the absence of his brother make sense.
As she scurries out, Sasuke clenches the thin blanket in his fists until the fabric cuts into his skin. He refuses to cry.
Because this is wrong.
He can still feel Itachi. The press of a fingertip to his forehead, the dry humor in his voice when he said, you’re too slow, little brother.
That’s the truth.
Not the silence of this hospital room. Not the nurse’s trembling voice.
Itachi loved him. Itachi always came back.
So where is he now?
Sasuke stares at the open doorway, his chest rising and falling too fast. He tells himself the only thing he knows how to believe:
Any minute now, his brother will walk through it.
It's not long until someone else walks through the door, though, they're significantly older than who he had hoped would walked through it.
The Third Hokage.
His robes seem to swallow the small hospital room, his presence heavy and slow, with the weight of someone powerful. Sasuke stiffens. This isn’t the person he asked for. This isn’t his brother.
Hiruzen looks at him with those tired, soft eyes that make Sasuke bristle. Pity. Sasuke doesn’t want pity. He wants answers.
“Uchiha Sasuke,” the Hokage says quietly, almost like a prayer. “You’re awake.”
Sasuke doesn’t bow. Doesn’t even move. His fists twist the blanket tighter around his lap. “Where’s my brother?”
The Hokage stops mid-step. For a fraction of a second, the old man looks… older. His lips press into a line, his gaze shifting just slightly toward the floor before returning to Sasuke’s face.
And Sasuke hates it.
That silence. That pause. That look.
“Where is he?” Sasuke demands, sharper this time, because the longer no one answers him, the more wrong this whole thing feels.
Hiruzen sighs and slumps. Looking suddenly exhausted. “Sasuke… you’ve been through something very painful.”
“I didn’t ask that.” His voice trembles, but the words come out steady. “Where. Is. He?”
The Hokage’s eyes close for a long, steadying moment, and Sasuke’s heart pounds so loud he can hear it in his ears. The answer is coming. Any second now, Hiruzen will tell him what hospital room his brother is in, what mission delayed him, what excuse kept him away from Sasuke’s bedside.
But when the Hokage opens his eyes again, there’s only grief in them.
Sasuke’s stomach lurches.
“No,” he blurts, before Hiruzen can even speak. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Because he knows that look. He’s seen it on villagers when they pass his compound gate. He’s seen it on his mother’s face when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. That look that says something is already gone.
But Itachi isn’t gone. He can’t be.
The Hokage finally speaks, voice quiet, careful, like one wrong word might break Sasuke apart.
“Your brother… isn’t here anymore.”
The world tilts.
“No,” Sasuke says again, harsher this time, shaking his head so hard his vision blurs. “That’s not true. He wouldn’t leave me.”
But the Hokage doesn’t argue. Doesn’t reassure. Just stands there with that unbearable sadness in his eyes, and Sasuke’s chest constricts like he’s drowning.
Because suddenly, he can’t decide what terrifies him more - the possibility that Hiruzen is lying… or that he’s telling the truth.
“Your brother… isn’t here anymore.”
Sasuke’s breath stutters. At first, he doesn’t even realize what’s happening - his lungs just won’t pull in enough air. The room tilts sideways, the white walls bending in strange angles. His fingers claw at the blanket, nails digging crescents into the fabric.
No. No, he can’t breathe.
Each inhale scrapes sharp in his throat, too shallow, too fast. He gasps again, but the air doesn’t reach where it should, like there’s something heavy sitting on his chest. His vision tunnels, narrowing down to the old man’s lined face, and suddenly Sasuke can’t hear anything but the thunder of his own heartbeat.
Not true. Not true. Itachi can’t be-
“Sasuke!” The Hokage’s voice cuts through, sharp with urgency. The old man steps closer, hands half-lifted as if unsure whether to steady him or not. For a moment, he looks at the boy - small, trembling, trying desperately to breathe - and something flickers in his expression. A pause.
Lie. Or truth.
What will save him?
Hiruzen exhales, long and quiet, the decision made. He crouches down to Sasuke’s level, his voice soft, steady, carrying the weight of authority that demands belief.
“Sasuke-kun,” he says. “Your brother… is alive.”
Sasuke jerks his head up, eyes wide, chest still hitching with uneven breaths.
“He’s on a very long mission. Far away. That’s why he isn’t here now. But he’s alive. Do you understand?”
The panic eases - not gone, not really, but loosening just enough for air to slip through. Sasuke drags in a shaky inhale, then another, lungs burning but finally filling. His shoulders quake, and he wipes furiously at his damp eyes with the back of his hand before the Hokage can notice.
Alive.
Of course. That makes sense. Itachi wouldn’t just leave. He’s away, working, doing something important. He always comes back. Always.
Sasuke swallows hard, his voice a hoarse whisper. “…Then where are my parents?”
The Hokage’s silence stretches too long.
And this time, Sasuke knows the answer won’t be so easily softened.
...
“The boy does not remember.” The old man rasps; they’re on the rooftop of the hospital, and the blond-haired man next to him only sighs.
“The brain…” Inoichi Yamanaka huffs, rolling the cigar between his teeth before pulling in another drag. “…is tricky like that. Often trauma affects us in many different ways. And with what that boy went through-?”
He exhales toward the tree line, where four ANBU keep their silent vigil. Smoke curls up into the air, thin and gray, before the wind pulls it apart.
“-Well, let’s just say I’m surprised it stopped at amnesia.”
The Hokage doesn’t respond at once. He leans against his cane, gaze fixed on the village sprawled below, rooftops bathed in fading afternoon light. His silence is heavy. Deliberate.
Inoichi narrows his eyes, recognizing the weight of it. “You lied to him.”
The Hokage finally turns, his expression unreadable. “I spared him.”
Inoichi snorts, though there’s no humor in it. “Spared, hm? Tell me, Lord Third… when it comes to Uchiha Sasuke, are we sparing him? Or are we planting a time bomb and waiting for it to go off?”
He can still see the boy’s face when he was carried in - bloodless, unconscious, half-dead. He remembers the way his chakra felt, fractured and flickering, like one small nudge will cause him to fall apart. And now? Awake, but fragile. A child whose mind had locked away horror so completely it left only love behind.
Dangerous, that. More dangerous, Inoichi thinks, than the truth.
“He asked for his brother first.” Hiruzen’s voice is soft, but there’s no mistaking the grief in it. “Not his mother. Not his father. His brother.”
Inoichi’s mouth tightens. “And you told him Itachi’s alive. Away. On a mission.”
A long silence stretches between them.
Finally, Inoichi sighs, running a hand through his pale hair. “I’ll do what I can. Monitor him, guide him where possible. But I won’t promise a miracle. Minds like his…” He shakes his head. “Once they start to crack, it’s not a matter of if they’ll break, but when.”
The Hokage grips his staff tighter, the wood creaking faintly beneath his hand. “Then we must ensure he does not break alone.”
Below, the boy lies in a hospital bed, waiting for answers he isn’t ready to hear.
And above, two men stand in the dusk, already shaping the lies that will hold his world together.