The bridge I crossed
The Fifth
I wasn't in a good mood, and I think that my face showed it in the way the UB kept smirking at me from time to time. He looked amused at my discomfort and anger, the typical symptoms of a sadist. I rolled my eyes and looked away, forcing myself to concentrate on the passing shops and traffic lights of Tokyo. I'd had woken up that morning, acutely aware of the hunger gnawing at the insides of my stomach, and by the time I had been dressed and ready to eat, he had come knocking at my door. Or at least, his driver did. The driver had kindly informed me with a pitying look on his face that I was not to waste any time, and when I suggested that I get my breakfast with me, he had shook his head 'no.' I had asked why.
I wrinkled my nose in anger when I recalled the answer he had given me. "Master Sasuke does not permit food in his cars."
It was worth it, though, because when I showed up with a bagel, a cup of coffee and an orange, the Uchiha gave me blank look before looking away. By the set of his shoulders, I could tell that he was annoyed. It wasn't until I nearly spilt the coffee that he snapped and offered to hold the food while I ate it. he looked pained when I dropped a napkin onto the leather seating.
He was dressed as usual, with the suit, tie and pants all contrasting with his white skin. The streets were unusually silent, since it was only six thirty, and I felt sleep tugging at my eyelids again as the car gunned down the highway.
The driver maneuvered the car around the curve of the ramp with practiced ease towards a massive structure which I recognized with a jolt of panic and dread as the airport. The windows gleamed at us, winking in the light of the rising sun, and I looked away from it to shield my eyes. My dread and panic began to heighten with each passing minute as I imagined never-ending trip to the other end of the world, perhaps to a Nowheresville in Nebraska, USA. I let my finger wander over the girth of the seat-belt, feeling the silky material under my finger and trying to derive comfort from it.
The driver didn't pull up at the front, but continued to drive around the building until we reached a gate that separated us from the runways. He opened the window and flashed something at the person at the gate before continuing to drive down the tar-seas. I sat up straighter, my full attention now on the near future.
I had gotten on a plane twice in my life before, and the first time had been something close to a nightmare with Zabuza and Haku assuring me that the plane would not drop down to our deaths. The second time had been a sheer act of will and courage that I had managed to muster so that I could get away from Zabuza and Haku and start a new life. Both trips had been short distances going from one end of the island of Japan to the other, and I hadn't needed to hold myself together for long, but now...Where were we going? I didn't even know where the Uchiha was having his vacation, and I wasn't sure that it was even in the same country, yet alone in the same hemisphere of the globe.
"Where are we going?" I winced at my slightly shaky voice.
The Uchiha was silent before answering. "Jixi."
Jixi. I'd never heard of the place, but I'd gotten myself into this mess by volunteering to be his personal aide for the weekend. Brilliant. "How long is the trip?"
"Four and a half hours."
I almost gagged when I heard the time, and felt my hands start to sweat. I opened my mouth again, and before I could say anything, the Uchiha cut in. "Why? Afraid to go too far from home?" I stiffened in anger, and managed to glare at him before looking out the window and watching the car run smoothly over the runways towards some airplane that would carry me for four and a half hours. Me, a person afraid of flying.
"Look--" I rummaged through my vocabulary and began to put words in sequence so that I didn't sound too scared. "I--I don't really want to come."
There was utter silence, and I felt myself burning in shame at having to say what I did. Then, "Why?" There was not a lot of curiosity in that question. There wasn't even any hurt at my rejection of his offer.
I remained silent for a while, wondering how I could answer him. "Look--"
"You said you didn't want to be stuck with office work, so you'll be my body man for the weekend." He looked away before adding, "It's not a lot of work. You just have to be on hand. Usually, the secretaries think of it as a paid break."
Was he trying to convince me to come? I couldn't tell by his dead-pan voice. "That's not it." I glanced at him, and saw that he had already been looking at me the entire time. Another silence passed as we stared at each other. I started to blush again, forgetting for a moment all my fear of having to ride the plane. I knew how his skin felt, I knew how those lips felt, I knew how his hands felt around my waist. I knew too much. And the gods only knew what would happen to my hormones during our vacation. I looked away before admitting, "I can't."
"Why?" His voice oddly neutral. Most people wouldn't be pressing me this much, would understand that this was a personal issue and let the topic drop. But the Uchiha was bereft of most social skills, except when he was in a board room. He didn't know how to make small talk or engage in a conversation with someone who wasn't trying to close a multimillion dollar deal with him. His curiosity wasn't a lack of manners, it was just the way he operated.
"Because. I--I just can't." In th silence of the car, I could hear the muffled roaring of the plane engines. The sound made my stomach flip over, and I took in a shaky breath, closing my eyes against vivid images of the plane toppling to the Earth mid-air.
"You're afraid of heights."
"Not heights." I corrected him a little too fast.
"Of flying."
I didn't say anything, just gave him a quick glance. He was one of the few people who knew that I had a fear of flying. Haku knew, and so did Zabuza. Kiba and Shikamaru took my dislike for travel as an aftermath of my previous life, not my own internal fear. But here was the UB witness to one of my secrets. He had an amused smirk on his face that made the blood rush up to my cheeks again.
The driver had stopped by a flight of steps that led to the mouth of a small, domestic plane, and was waiting silently for us to get out.
"Fine, then. I'll have Natsumi drop you off at home. Call Ino and tell her I need a body man for the trip. Anyone will do, really."
I watched, my eyes slightly wide as he got out of the car, not bothering to look over and began to walk up the stairs towards the plane. How dare he? I felt unexplained anger overwhelm all sense of reason in me, and I wrenched the door of the car open and stepped out. The wind hit me with full force once I was outside, and the noise had tripled. I winced at my decision, wondering why I had bowed down to pressure.
Four and a half hours. One hour for eating. One our for sleeping. That left two and a half hours that I would have to sit out. Two and a half hours of repressing my fear of flights. I could do it. Of course I could do it. I could do anything that I set my mind to.
I began to stomp up the stairs, each step a reiteration of my decision. Screw the Uchiha. I'll do things my way, and he was not going to ruin my chance for a good vacation.
When I got in the plane, a few seconds after the Uchiha did, I felt my jaw slightly drop at what I saw. It wasn't the usual row of seats, but was entirely furnished, and looked somewhat cozy. There was a wine rack, along with a table that was bolted to the floor and a flat-screen TV at one end of the plane. There were seats by the table, and there were a few other seats with the usual seat belt and hand rests.
I watched the Uchiha as he sat down in one of the seats and buckled himself, picking up a magazine next to him and flipping through it nonchalantly, as if he was not aware of my presence. I took a deep breath and sat down as well, two seats away from him and buckled up in turn, closing my eyes against morbid ideas of death.
I heard the door behind us click shut, and a woman with a tight skirt and high heels, walked past us, bowing to the UB before going through an adjacent door to, where I thought was, the cockpit of the plane.
There were a few moments of utter silence in the plane interrupted by the sound of paper being turned, and then the plane started to move. I felt my stomach jolt in fear, and I took in deep breath before looking towards the Uchiha. He was still reading, his chin now resting in his upturned palm. I watched in uninterrupted fascination, forgetting my fear for a brief moment, as he rubbed the line of his jaw thoughtfully at what he read. I'd seen that look on his face before, when he was thinking really hard before he said or did something.
There was a slight stubble, barley there but noticeable enough for me to want to rub my hands against his cheeks. I slapped him on that cheek, I realized. And he hadn't said anything about it yet. And neither would I. He had been at fault, not me.
I wondered what I would have done in case of his absence in my life. Would I have been having a fun weekend, a break from some dreary job that I found? Would I have ever even met Orochimaru? I started at the name. The Uchiha had invaded my life, my thoughts, and now, even my relationships. And once I started to analyze something, I usually ended up destroying it. That was what had happened with Haku, hadn't it? I had thought too much of our relationship, and then I had turned around and ruined it for both of us. My hand wandered over to my stomach where the scar was and I looked down at the skin on my hand, tanned by the summer sun. What was Haku doing now? And Zabuza? Were they even alive?
My eyes started to close again, lulled by the repetitive noise of the plane engine. I could sleep for an an hour or so. It was still six-thirty after all. I let sleep drag me down, knowing full well that if I were to stay awake, I would be doing either of two things. Throwing up in my fear, or staring at the Uchiha.
*
There was the smell of skin burning, and there were muffled screams accompanied by erratic gunshots. There was Zabuza laughing, and there was Haku, looking at me with his pained, hazel eyes. And there was someone else.
Haku opened his mouth, and with that same look of deep hurt and grief, whispered a name, "Bridge Burner." I twisted against something as pain shot through the skin on my stomach and buried itself into my skin. I was being held down, and all I wanted to do was wrench away from that pain, away from Haku's face as he looked down at me with concerned, and angry eyes.
"I hate you," Haku said, and we were in the apartment now, alone. And in my dream, I watched a younger me sneer at that, as if it didn't matter what Haku felt for me.
"I love you," I whispered, older, taller than Haku now, because at sixteen, I was so blind, so idiotic--"I love you. So very much, Haku."
But in this dream, I was a mute, speaking, pleading, begging, and I knew Haku couldn't hear. And distantly, I knew that he was dying. He was dying and it was my fault because I did something to--"I'm sorry, so very, very sorry..." I felt something wet trickle down my chin, and I was back at the tattoo parlor, held down, skin burning. The grip on my shoulder and wrists tightened.
Haku's eyes narrowed, and I saw his face twist into something like pain. There was more pain, and I screamed out as the smell of burnt skin invaded the air around me again. They were burning off my tattoo, or were they burning it on?
"Bridge Burner."
"I'm not!" My voice was strained and taut with distress. I looked around, squinting as I saw a silhouette that was standing away from Zabuza and Haku. I tried to go towards it, desperate now for refuge. It was the Uchiha.
"Sasuke! I'm not!" He was silent, and in the background, I could hear the gunshot again, loud and clear in the scorching silence after my denial. Haku, dying, against the smell of burning skin.
"Bridge Burner." Haku's voice again, piercing the rest of the noise, my own screams and someone else's voice saying my name, "Naruto." There was a crescendo in the person's voice, and again, "Naruto."
"I'm sorry, Haku? Haku--I'm--"
"Naruto!"
Another wave of pain, and I shot up, my restraints breaking and I struggled free of my nightmare.
*
I blinked back tears, feeling my throat clamp up again. The Uchiha's face was close to mine, eyes slightly narrowed. It was a moment before I realized that he was kneeling by my seat, one hand cradling the back of my neck and the other covering my hand. "What?" he was asking, I realized. "Should I tell them to land?"
I shook my head no, about to tell him to go away, leave me alone, but the man kept talking. "It's safe. This is a safe plane. The pilot is an ex-air force pilot. Nothing will happen. It was just a dream, Naruto--"
"I didn't dream about--" I stopped, abrupt. I could almost smell my skin burning again, and I wrinkled my nose, feeling a familiar sting in my eyes.
When the UB tilted my head towards his, pulling our faces even closer together, I thought I should say something and move away. But it felt nice to be close to him. His hands were big and warm against my skin, anchoring me to that moment. But Haku was dying, a voice in my mind repeated. You did something. What did you do-- "What did you dream about?"
My eyes stung with the tears, and I swallowed down on the urge to let out a sob. A distant part of my mind told me, It was a dream, but I could still hear the resounding gunshot in my years, like an echo. Vaguely, I felt a hand on my cheek, tilting my face up to face the UB. "Haku, and--and Zabuza shot that man--" But that was Yakuza, wasn't it? A body count, and I was too stupid and young to realize it any sooner than I did.
"Who's Zabuza?"
"Shut up," I muttered, and pulled back roughly.
He sat down in the seat next to mine. "Did he actually kill someone or was that a--"
"I said, shut up," I hissed, meeting his eyes now. He looked at me, eyes blank before saying, quiet now, "I can tell them to land the plane."
"No. It's fine."
Naruto," he began again. "Look at me--"
I made eye contact, and he stopped suddenly. He must have realized something because oddly, he muttered, "Fine then." He looked looked as if he'd been caught watching me undressing. We stared at each other for a moment, and then, slowly, carefully, he asked, "Are you--"
"I'm fine," I snapped, and was about to dismiss the entire affair when he asked another question.
"Who's Haku?"
I was about to hit him, punch him, maybe, but all I could do was lean back heavily in my chair. When I didn't offer an answer, he went back to his magazine. "A friend," I said, finally. I owed him an explanation, after what I put him through. "Haku was a friend. From Nagoya."
The UB stilled. "Was?"
"I--I don't know if he's alive or not."
I reclined my seat, and closed my eyes, feeling a headache coming.
"You cared about him."
I turned to stare at the Uchiha and saw that he was regarding me, perfectly serious. "Yes. I did." As a friend, as a companion, I wanted to add, as everything worthwhile in my life, until I ruined it all. I looked away from the Uchiha and closed my eyes.
He was silent for a long time, and against the silence, I felt my throat tighten with angry tears. I had never told Haku that, never told anyone this and here was the UB, witness again to another one of my secrets. I didn't want the UB to know. Didn't want him to know anything about me. And even if he did know something about me, I barely knew anything about him.
"So this Zabuza, did he actually--"
"That's enough," I snapped, giving him a warning punch in the arm and leaning my head back into the chair. He was still for a long time, and then I heard the flip of a page. The Uchiha was warm next to me, a solid presence, comforting in his own way. I wondered maybe I should move over a seat to give him space, but decided against it when he went back to reading his magazine. If he was fine with it, then I would be too.
I reclined my seat a little, settling down for a nap. The last thing I remembered before drifting off was the feeling of our elbows touching on the handrest.
*
When I woke up, I was in a bed, under a light cotton blanket with a breeze floating around me. I sighed, stretching until my bones cracked in relief, and then sat upright, looking around through groggy, sleep heavy eyes. I was in a room with a wonderful TV screen to one side. There a low table with seating mats around it in in front of the TV, but I could see the screen with perfect visibility from my position in the bed. I smiled at that. He might be a bastard, but at least he has good tastes for suites.
I saw another door that most likely led to the bathrooms, and another smaller door for the wardrobes. I pushed aside my blankets and got up, the hardwood warm and smooth under my feet. I trudged over to the bathroom, attended to nature's call and mentally praised the designer's good taste of bathroom decoration.
It was a mostly white, and maroon-red motif with thick, and soft turkey towels hanging elegantly over silver rods. The tub was excellent, and probably the best I had ever seen in the entirety of my life. There was a cabinet with glass doors and when I moved closer to examine the contents of the cabinet, I felt a thrill when I saw that there were at least twenty selections of different herbal treatments for baths.
I scanned the options until my eyes rested on a 'Lavender' that was placed next to an 'Aromatic Mint' and next to that was a 'Jasmine'. I grinned from ear to ear. I was definitely going to enjoy this vacation.
The bathroom had a shower as well, and when I slid open the thick glass door, I saw a row of body washes and shampoos.
I walked out of the bathroom, still delighted about the possible, and near-future spas that I would have. This, I thought to myself, opening the door to my room, was the best vacation I ever had.
*
I opened the shoji style doors, expecting a spectacular view of a garden filled with aromatic flowers. I imagined flowers of all colors in the garden--yellow, red, pink, white, violet--and I knew that they would be arranged in the most precise way to accentuate nature's beauty. I imagined myself bending over one of the flowers, inhaling deeply with a dreamy smile on my face.
What I got, though, was completely different. The minute I slid the door open, a gaunt man, apparently waiting for me to awaken out of my slumber, stood up and thrust his face towards mine. It took all my effort to stop myself from visibly recoiling. One of his eyes was jerking about his socket, while one was pointedly looking at me. His lips were bared--a smile, I realized--to reveal his crooked, yellow teeth. His gums, I noticed with a wince, were a dark brown, and his skin was tight around his face, making it look as if he had a layer of plastic stretched over his twitching facial muscles. It was as if every second of his existence, he was having a seizure of the most horrible kind.
He wasn't hideous, not in the conventional sense. He was just...odd. The kind of odd, I knew, that would haunt me for many, many years to come, so that when I was seventy-two years old, I would wake up with his face plastered to the back of my eyelids.
He grinned, a contortion of his face that made me shiver slightly. I attempted to grin back at him, but I could tell from the way his face fell that my attempts looked more like a grimace. "Er...Hi. How--c--can I help you?" I reconsidered, and then, "Help you in any way." He looked puzzled, so I finally said, "Can I help you in any way?"
He shook his head, pointed at himself and then pointed at me. "You want to help me?" He nodded vigorously at this and stepped aside to grant me an exit from my room. I took it, grateful to be out of his overwhelming presence. When I turned to face him again, he was looking at me intently, a strange smile on his face, as if suggesting, I know where you live. I shivered again, and then jerked my thumb over my shoulder.
"Well, thank you. I appreciate your offer, but I should be going. It was...nice meeting you."
I turned around, the desire to get away from the man greater than ever, but then came to a standstill when I saw him looking at me again. I looked over my shoulder where he had been standing a few milli-seconds ago, and then looked back, feeling the sweat collecting on my palms. This wasn't normal. This wasn't human.
"How--what?"
He smiled, and then slowly, oh so slowly, he licked his lips with the rough bulk of his tongue that was not pink even in the remotest sense. It was in that moment that his second eyeball fixated itself on me, and then a brief flash went through both of his murky brown eyes. It resembled Zabuza's slow, deliberate smile in some ways--that consideration, evaluation, and then, finally, an execution of judgment.
There was a moment of silence where I shivered visibly in my clothes, and the Man considered me. Then, as if things couldn't get any worse, he opened his mouth and grunted, "I am at your service, Master Naruto."
I ran.
I ran in the opposite direction, feeling scared because this was a dream, a continuation of that horrible dream in the plane. Maybe--I turned a sharp corner--he was one of Zabuza's men coming after me. I pushed down a whimper, and then kept running, my feet making soft noises against the expensive wood. There were endless numbers of corridors, and after a while, the corridors became more and more shadowed, secretive almost. The gardens that I passed became more elaborate, as if they were touched by personal tastes of the people who lived in the rooms. Some, I noticed in the back of my mind, were filled with flowers, while others were composed mostly of water.
I stopped after a while, and began to walk, gasping for air. I realized, with a start, that maybe the man had been following me for some time. Kiba and Shikamaru, during our university years, had reassured me that there was absolutely no reason to keep looking over my shoulder. I was safe, they said, so I had no reason to worry. I scrunched up my face, wondering if I had reserved the right to say, "I told you so." I shivered, and realized that every evening, when I walked back home from a nearby restaurant or pub, the Man was probably following me, quiet and light-footed.
I was running out of breath, and assuring myself that I had a head-start on him, I stopped walking, looking around for any clues as to where I could find an exit. The corridor that I was standing in was completely, and utterly deserted. There was not another breathing human except for me; there wasn't another sound except for the harsh, guttural rhythm of my heart in its rib cage and the distant lapping of a fountain.
The building I was in was a typical Japanese style mansion--wooden corridors with open sides and a garden or open area in the middle. The doors all along the corridor were shoji screen doors, slightly opaque, but transparent enough to outline silhouettes of the inhabitants.
I looked fearfully into the room I was standing in front of, fearing that maybe--just maybe--the Man was waiting in the depths of the room, concealed, ready to leap out at me when my guard was lowered. I could imagine his maniacal grin, the slow, lazy smile of a predator who had, after thoughtful planning, cornered his prey. I began to walk again, and I heard--I didn't know if it was just my imagination--an echo to my footsteps. Soft, but not completely solid. I took a few more steps, and immediately, I heard the ghost whisper back at me.
I felt my heart thunder in my rib cage, and realized that if even if did manage to escape from this endless corridor and return to Japan, I would return home to find the Man in my living room. I began to take small steps, and heard the echo behind me, but I dared not look back. I quickened my pace, and the echoes did the same, mimicking my moves, mocking me with my vulnerability.
Even if I did escape--he would be there, ever ready, always with the upper hand. Because I knew too much, I realized. I had all the names, the dates, the places of Zabuza's jobs etched into the back of my mind. It was natural for him to want me dead, and now was the perfect time--after so many years without any worries, he could catch me off-guard.
I felt my mind completely let go of reality, and took off again in a wild sprint towards sanctuary, which, I knew, I would not find. Because this was one of my dreams, the nightmares I woke gasping from. And never, never in any of my dreams did I find a safe haven. I took another sharp corner, and noticed distantly the smell of jasmine, the lap of water, and soothing music from somewhere. The sounds did nothing to comfort me because, overpowering all those soft noises, was the echo of my own heavy footsteps.
I took another corner, and noticed too late that I had reached a dead end. This was the end of the wing, and there was only one door. I looked at the shoji screen, and heard the echo of my footsteps, catching up, catching up, catching up. I panicked, and felt my body shiver in anticipation.
I was going to die. And even if I did escape...I knew, deep down inside, that the Man would be waiting in my living room, with a knife, ready to kill me, in the silence of my apartment.
Zabuza, a voice told me. You should have killed him when you could.
I knew, deep down inside, that when he killed me, that I would scream, and that I would die hearing the horrible echo of my footsteps, that he would mock me even at my death and mimic my scream--echo it like he echoed everything else I did.
Because this was Zabuza, and this was how Zabuza killed. This was how Zabuza took care of problems, these were the kind of men Zabuza hired, I knew because I'd seen them before. I knew, I knew--
There was the sound of a screen door opening, the quickening of the footsteps, and I turned around, seeing, vaguely, a thin, dark outline.
Then, I fainted.
End of the Fifth