Everyone had something they enjoyed to do all the time.
For Chouji, it had been eating. For Shikamaru, it had been cloud watching. Sakura, Sasuke-hunting. Ino, Sasuke-hunting with Sakura. Kakashi, reading books. Sasuke, angsting. And Naruto? Well, Naruto liked eating peppermint candy.
He had a particular brand of peppermint candy he liked. It was the soft kind. He would put it in his mouth and let it sit for a while. Once the candy melted enough, he would crush it against the top of his mouth with his tongue and let the sweetness spread through his mouth.
And he would remember to brush afterwards as well.
Right next to eating ramen, Naruto loved peppermint candy. That’s why he had two pockets in his pants. One for keeping uneaten candy and the other one for keeping the plastic wrappers. He never really told anyone about his candy since he dreaded having to share it.
It was his condolence, reward, treat, and everything else in between.
When he was very young, only about five or four, he liked eating the candies just to taste it. He always liked sweet things. But that pepperminty fresh feeling in his mouth made him just that much happier, much to the villagers’ dismay.
If he became tired, he would eat one to get some sugar rush. It always made him feel more awake.
When he became older, he ate it when he felt lonely. When all his friends had to go home again, he would sit down by a tree and eat one, so that he would feel better. Just that familiar saccharine taste on his tongue. It always made him feel a hundred times better.
If he became sad, he would eat one to cheer up. That incredible taste was just too intoxicating to let him remain depressed for too long.
When he became a teenager, he still kept those candies in his pocket. Even on missions. Especially on dull ones. Or not-so-dull ones, for that matter. When he was bored, he would eat one. When he was in the middle of a combat, he would throw one in his mouth, just to know that he would die with a sweet taste in his mouth. Thankfully, that never happened.
If he was happy, he would eat one so he could be even happier. After all, who wouldn’t want their cup to runneth over?
Then he fell in love, and those candies didn’t seem so sweet any more. He felt as if he could thrive off that love itself. The candies were still in his pocket, just never touched that much. After all, when something much more tooth-aching already filled his mind and body, who needed candy?
And when his love stubbornly refused to admit his feelings until he finally confessed awkwardly, the candy was as good as gone. My goodness… Uzumaki Naruto had a crush, and now he had a real love. Nothing could be compared to that nectarous flavor.
But then his love left him, and he couldn’t deal with it for a long while. Until the day he stuck his hands into his pocket and his once-empty hand came out with a familiar peppermint candy, he couldn’t deal with it. Dang it, his love just left him and the most terrible aftertaste was left. The false sweetness of artificial peppermint helped.
And so, it became his anti-drug again, those candies. It was a miracle why he didn’t die from root canals, but he did. Always brushed those teeth after eating one… When he trained to bring his love back, he constantly had a candy in his mouth, this time to remind himself of how magnificent love felt. He couldn’t bear to forget that feeling.
Yet when he met his love again, he couldn’t have felt more crushed. He tried to bring his love back, but it didn’t work. It had failed. Years of training and it didn’t work. And he started to spiral downhill again. From then on, he seemed to live off peppermint candy. He kept eating one after another until he ran out. Then he would buy more. All he markets in Konoha nearly ran out of stock. It was as if he was trying to get rid of some ghastly taste in his mouth. And he was.
Right now, Naruto was exhausted. He was leaning back on a wall, his supply of candy running extremely low. In fact, he only had one left. He pulled it out of his pocket and marveled at if for several long seconds. His had leaned back on the rough wall behind him before he peeled off the plastic wrapping in a practiced move.
The candy went between his lips and to a side of his mouth while the wrapper went to his other pocket, already bursting with lots of other wrappers.
All he could hear now was silence. Silence and his breathing. Silence, his breathing, and someone else’s breathing. And so he smiled lightly and sucked on the dissolving candy. He liked that taste.
So synthetically sweet, it made his head hurt. Maybe it was something else… Oh, he really didn’t care right now… He simply closed his eyes and let that sweetness travel throughout his mouth.
When almost nothing was left, Naruto opened his mouth and spoke.
“Ne, Sasuke?”
Something which vaguely resembled “Hn?” was thrown in response.
“After all these years, I’ve discovered something,” Naruto replied, careful not to crush the candy against his teeth as he spoke. “You’re just like glass.”
The boy, no man, next to him shifted a bit. From his peripheral vision, Naruto could see him looking at him.
“All you keep trying to do is break the bonds that held you. But you can’t, because you’re just like glass. Don’t you know about those tiny, itsy bitsy molecular bonds that holds glass together? Yeah, well they’re indestructible. Nothing can break apart those bonds.”
“Hn,” was the unamused answer again.
“But no mater how strong you sound, you’re really fragile and easy to break. Don’t you know how quickly you crumble and crack under pressure, Sasuke?” Naruto chuckled a bit as he savored the last bits of his candy. “Just one drop and you’re gone. Kaput. Just like that. Into a million pieces…”
The blond sighed slightly, his ears still hearing nothing but their breathing.
“Just like glass…” he whispered. Slowly, he moved until he was facing Sasuke.
They stared at each other for a long while before Naruto leaned forward.
“Just like glass, Sasuke… You can’t break your bonds… You’ll never get rid of us… You’ll never get rid of me…” he breathed onto Sasuke’s lips. He pressed his body closer to Sasuke’s, sharing a light kiss. A small smile made his lips twitch. “Peppermint flavored glass,” he mused.
Naruto moved back to his original position, his legs in front of him and his head against the wall.
“Peppermint flavored glass…” he repeated, and closed his eyes again.
“Hn…”
Sasuke coughed slightly, blood trickling out of his mouth. It didn’t make much of a different on his face. It was already coated with blood, dried and new. Both of them were bloodied and torn.
Their clothing could no longer be judged as clothing. Their bodies could barely be called bodies. Their voices were so soft, you could not hear them. But their eyes were still bright. Dimming, but bright.
Naruto smiled and reached out his hand to the one lying right next to him. He gripped it slightly, feeling the warmth seep out from it and growing cold. Just like his own hand. Colder, colder…
He closed his eyes and waited to die with his love.
He died with a sweet taste in his mouth and his love next to him.
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Chapter notes: Fanfiction = Not my characters
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