The Lima Syndrome

By Nocena T. Calamus

Chapter One: Of family and strangers

The clouds that day were so thick that almost no light managed to break through. It was midday, but it was dark enough out there to make any internal clock think it was eight in the evening of a dreary winter day. Darkness and sleepiness didn't contribute to staying alert very long, and an eleven-year-old Sasuke Uchiha was only too aware of that fact. Humidity hung densely in the air, pushing his usually rebellious hair into a droopy fashion; droopy like his very own eyelids in the damp, dark and dreary day...

He caught himself and sat up, thanking his good luck the teacher hadn't noticed his thoughts wandering; it was bad enough that he had only achieved an A in the last assignment, Father would skin him alive if he got word of his son not paying attention. Sasuke tried to at least appear attentive, knowing inside that he would have to revise this lesson from the textbook, perhaps on a sunnier day, because he simply could not help it.

Yeah, he wanted to go home and do nothing productive for a whole day, instead of being in school pretending to listen to an old woman whose name he didn't care to know go on and on about a subject he would probably learn more about when he read the textbook. Days like these were made for staying at home, watching reruns of old shows first aired in the seventies and drinking hot chocolate milk while Mother, seated beside him, explained the show and told nostalgic stories about her childhood; or playing cards with Father and Brother, sitting by the fireplace, listening to Brother’s tales about life at university while Father patted their heads proudly and said how much he loved the both of them…

The bell killed the small smile that had been present upon his face unnoticed while he was daydreaming, reminding him that the cab Father hired for him on rainy days would be waiting outside the school to take him home. That thought brought on a frown as he packed everything into his rucksack. Home... Hn, what a joke. That place was anything but like his romantic delusions: Mother didn't seem to have the time to sit with him and chat anymore, always so busy with work, while Brother wouldn't stand seeing his or Father’s face long enough to play a game of cards. And Father? That man would never tell him how much he loved him for the simple reason that he didn’t.

As his luck would have it, no sooner had he set foot outside the school than it started raining. Desperate for shelter, he searched the street for the cab, but it wasn't there. Perhaps Father has forgotten to send it today? Or perhaps he had forgotten to notice that he had an eleven-year-old son who would be counting on him for shelter. Sasuke’s eyes stung like they usually did when he thought about Father, but he fought the tears. He felt angry enough to throw caution to the wind and decided to walk home in the rain. If he was lucky, he would catch a cold -or better yet, pneumonia- and then maybe Father would notice to remember that he had a younger son and that he was sick because of him.

More that a storm, it seemed he was in the middle of a solar eclipse, and the world looked unusually grey as he started his two-kilometre-long trek home. He lived in a somewhat lowly populated city -was it even big enough to be called a city?- that was more long than wide, so he had to walk for the better part of his journey along the central road. He saw various people trying to hitch a ride and succeeding, since most cars travelled along that road.

Sasuke kept walking, ignoring them, afraid he would he tempted to loose his resolve and ask for a ride like a common peasant. Depending on others to do something that was perfectly within your capabilities was so beneath his upbringing that he didn't even want to imagine what Father would say if he found out. He counted his steps while walking both to keep his mind from thinking and as a way of measuring the distance.

About half-an-hour into his journey, in which he had covered an embarrassingly short seven-hundred metres, he was startled out of his counting by a car honk. He looked around, curious, and found a red jeep with a blond man behind the wheel sitting about a metre or two away. He walked over, mildly annoyed, and was about to ask what the hell he wanted when the other beat him to it.

“Hey, kiddo, want a ride? Nobody should be crazy enough to walk in this maelstrom,” he offered, friendly.

Sasuke stared at him, expressionless, trying not to stare at the odd marks on the man's face and debating whether he was or not cold and wet enough to accept a ride. He wasn’t.

“No, thank you,” he deadpanned, and resumed walking.

Well, he was drenched to the bone and trembling with enough hypothermia to look as if he was having seizures, but walking home in the rain had become a matter of pride, a battle of wills between him and Mother Nature.

He soon heard the wet grinding sound of gravel being driven on, but it continued longer that expected, and he deduced that the jeep had not got on the road. Was it following him? It was, he realised, his annoyance growing. He walked some more and the jeep followed him; his irritation grew proportionately.

“Kiddo,” the man shouted through the open window into the rain. “You sure you don't want a ride?”

Sasuke ignored him and kept walking, his irritation starting to reach boiling point. The sound of a moving car ceased, but then came the noise of a door being slammed closed and footsteps in the gravel.

“Yo, Uchiha! Get in the car, damnit!”

That was it.

Sasuke turned around, gathering air in his lungs to give the idiot of the jeep a piece of his mind, but once again he was beaten to it. The man sounded as angry as he felt.

“You could have made my job easy, but no! Ever the true Uchiha, you just have to be a pain in the ass. Now I'm all wet because of you!”

His job? Sasuke's eyes widened as he was stricken with sudden clarity on the precariousness of his position. He was wet, cold, hungry and eleven, being tailed and confronted by a fully grown man whose job was to get him inside the jeep, to do who-knows-what to him once he had him... He tossed his backpack at the stranger to distract him and started running.

The man caught it, surprised; then he looked up, saw Sasuke fleeing, cursed and ran after him, throwing the backpack to the side. Sasuke, now not caring how cold or wet he was, ran and ran like the devil was behind him, adrenaline fuelling his uncooperative muscles. He wasn't stupid enough to think he could reach his house before the man; what's more, the man probably had accomplices waiting for him there. He spotted a small forest a bit further down the road, probably only fifty metres away. He didn't have time to consider it twice; it was definitely the best option. He ran off to the side of the road and into the woods, desperately hoping to loose the man.

It was weird how it was so dark, especially once under the canopy of the trees, but he only thought about it enough to know that it would help him hide all the better. He ran and ran, but suddenly, the floor under his right foot betrayed him and he fell into the muddy ground. He tried to get up and continue fleeing, but that fall was all his pursuer needed to catch up with him and tackle him face first into the mud, grabbing him by his shoulders and sitting on him.

Sasuke struggled to get free, but realised it was futile and sat still, his heart beating like crazy.

“Well, damn. You needn’t have done that, kiddo,” said the man, all traces of friendliness gone, as soon as he had stopped struggling.

Sasuke took a shaky breath, still scared nearly to death.

“Who are you? What do you want with me?” His voice was so strangled that it was barely past a whisper.

The man laughed, and got off him, still holding one of his wrists.

“What do you think, you idiot? I’m going to take you home!” When Sasuke relaxed, he let go of his arm. “Sorry for scaring you like that, your dad didn’t tell me you were such a scaredy-cat.”

The man offered his hand to help Sasuke up.

Sasuke, who had finally calmed down, was feeling stupid for assuming that the man was out to kidnap him, of all things, but also somewhat happy at the man’s words. So Father hadn’t forgotten to send a car after all! He ignored the man’s offered hand and tried to get up by himself, but as soon as he stepped onto his right foot, he fell again in pain.

“Here kiddo, lemme help you,” the man said, kneeling on the mud with his back to Sasuke, who stared at it for a while before understanding what exactly the man was expecting him to do.

Sasuke blushed, embarrassed that his pride had been wounded and would be again, but he managed to push that aside long enough to climb onto the stranger’s back as he had seen children do with their parents so many times. Father had never given him a piggy-back ride, so the experience was new to him.

Sasuke put his arms around the blond man’s neck as best he could and held on tightly as his ride stood up. He slipped a little; his carrier put his own hands under his bottom to hold him in position and then started walking. Sasuke was rocked with each step; his front, bum and inner thighs were warm from the man’s body warmth. He had never quite understood why children liked being carried like this -it looked so undignified!- but now he could see why. It was very comfortable and warm, and he could only wish it was Father this broad and muscled back belonged to and not a stranger. He felt the urge to cry again, and laid his head on the man’s shoulder.

“So, why were you walking in the rain?” said the man, and Sasuke heard more the reverberation of the words inside his chest that the actual words.

“I wanted to show Father I could do it, so he would be proud of me,” he answered somewhat sleepily.

The man hummed noncommitantly and kept walking. They hadn’t run far into the forest, so the road was close. Sasuke waited for the man to say something, but he kept quiet, so he decided to speak himself.

“What’s your name?”

The man stood still for a second, and then kept walking, now along the road and towards the red jeep. Once out of the canopy of the forest, rain poured thickly on them, but Sasuke still warm and comfortable and fast approaching sleep.

“There’s no need for you to know,” said the man, softly. “You will forget it by tomorrow, just like you dad did.”

Sasuke did not answer, sleepy as he was. The world tilted and he opened his eyes to see that they had reached the red vehicle and that the man was waiting for him to get off him and inside it. Sasuke didn’t want to leave the warmth he was emitting and protested, but the man took him from his back and placed him carefully on the passenger seat, placing the seatbelt around him. He closed the door, picked up Sasuke’s discarded backpack and got inside the jeep too, throwing it onto the backseat.

Then he started the jeep and got it on the road. Sasuke was fully awake now, and trembling. It was chilly inside the car, so he asked the man to start the heating. Apparently, it was broken, because he only chuckled, reached back into the backseat, dragged out a heavy coat and put it on Sasuke. They drove in silence, chilled and wet.

The coat was dusty, and it made Sasuke sneeze. The man beside him sighed and shook his head sadly.

“Something must be very wrong with the world if a child needs to walk two kilometres in the rain to make his father proud of him.”

Sasuke’s eyes stung again and he looked out the window so the man wouldn’t see. He sat up straighter when he didn’t recognise the scenery.

“This is not the way to my house,” he informed the driver calmly.

The man smirked and the marks on his cheeks deepened, giving him a feral look. Sasuke’s earlier panic returned, and his heart beat fast as the man looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

“And what made you think I was really taking you home? Didn’t your mom teach you not to trust strangers?”

Sasuke looked down into his lap and contemplated jumping out of the car while it was moving, trying to calculate whether he would or not remain living after hitting the floor. He was reaching for the seatbelt lock when a hand grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t,” the man said, his voice both a threat and a warning, without taking his eyes off the road.

Sasuke relented, biding his time, and as soon as the man let go of his arm, he resumed trying to free the seatbelt while opening the door. The man stopped the car in the middle of the road and grabbed his throat with his hand, putting pressure on it.

“Don’t even think about it,” he whispered ferally into his ear, all traces of friendliness gone.

The hand that wasn’t around his neck shifted and covered his mouth and nose, pushing until the back of his head hit the windowpane. Sasuke tried to breathe, but his mouth and nose were covered by what felt like raw meat – impossible to breath around. He tried to push his head to the side, but the man's grip was unrelenting. He was suffocating; he needed to get loose soon or else... He struggled, moving as much and as unpredictably as he could in the man’s hold, but the weight pushing him down was huge and heavy and immovable, and he was feeling light-headed. His eyes had stopped working and he stopped fighting to get free, realising it was futile. All he could think about as he lost consciousness was how happy Brother would be and how Father would not care at all about his death… And then he fainted.

End of Chapter One.

The Lima Syndrome
Chapter Two
Of Shackles Concrete and Abstract


Sasuke woke and it was dark.

Not pitch-black, thankfully, and if he strained his eyes he could make out some silhouettes. Curves, globes, a straight line here or there. There was a small, almost invisible, gleam to them, and then he discovered reason: light from another room penetrated through the spaces between the door that led to wherever he was and its frame.

He was resting uncomfortably on a tiled surface, and no sooner had he shifted to gain a more comfortable position than he regretted it. His head swam and he had the overwhelming need to hold on to the floor although he was already lying on it, because it really felt like he was falling. Once his balance settled, he tried to sit up again, this time striving to move his head as little as possible.

He managed to prop himself up against a nearby wall, also tiled; but his left arm seemed to be tied down, and the binding was cutting into his flesh. He turned his head carefully, and looked at it. It glinted in the scant light, and when he felt it with his right hand, which was trembling for some reason, he discovered it to be a bracelet of some kind, metallic, attached to a chain. Handcuff, his mind supplied bemusedly. Wanting to know what it was linked to, he moved his hand further along it, and the world tilted.

When the feeling of falling ceased, there was a dull ache in his left temple, and Sasuke found out he had indeed fallen sideways and hit his head on a hard but not sharp edge. A harsh shiver wracked his body, but he ignored it in favour of continuing the investigation and discovered that the other end of the handcuff was around a metallic cylinder, which came out of the wall horizontally and went into whatever he was leaning on.

Sasuke felt the object tentatively, his head still resting on its edge. Its top surface was a two-centimetre-thick oval lying on another, bigger, oval; and then, over the edge, it was a globe that curved outward and then inward. It was a weird object, and for his life he couldn’t fathom what it could possibly be. When he was drawing his hand to himself, it hit something near his leg. It felt like a three dimensional rectangle, tiled like the floor. Curious, he followed it up with his hand until it joined the wall, and down with his leg as far as it would go. It wasn’t tall, barely as tall as his leg was thick. A miniature barrier?

He shivered again, and for the first time noticed that his teeth were chattering wildly and that he was cold, very much so. His clothes and hair were still wet from the rain. It looked liked the pneumonia he had wished for before was becoming a very likely outcome. Ha, thankfully Father would never learn of his son’s stroll in the storm, which was a pretty stupid course of action, in hindsight…

Sasuke hugged his knees to his chest and laid his head carefully on them, trying to gain some warmth. He would never return home, never make Father proud; and Mother would be so sad. Brother would probably make his room into a gym or a study, and throw away all his comics and his trading cards... He would never sleep in his comfy bed again, or watch the posters of his favourite band he had pinned up on his white walls, or wear his clothes clean and toasty, just out of the drier…

He hid his face in his knees and sobbed freely, his hot tears warming his knees. What was the man going to do with him? Was he going to rape him –not that he knew what that was, but he had heard it was terrible–, or kill him, or both? Maybe he was going to torture him, or use him as a slave, or cut him up into tiny pieces and flush him down the drain, or… or cook him in the oven and eat him with his psycho pals! Who knew what sort of psycho had taken him...! Besides, Father would kill him if he let himself be eaten by this man. That was it. He had to get away.

Drying his face from tears and snot, he tugged at the handcuff with determination. Predictably, it was futile, so he pulled with both hands now. It didn’t work and, panicking mildly, he turned bodily –his head swam but he ignored it–, braced his feet against the mini-wall and pushed with his legs while he pulled with his hands. Unfortunately, there was still no result, but at the prospect of what awaited him if he didn’t get free, he kept on yanking hysterically at the chain, half-sobbing and half-hyperventilating. The handcuff was cutting through the skin of his wrist but he didn’t notice, so focused was he on escaping.

Suddenly, the resistance died. Sasuke stumbled backwards and fell on his ass, hitting his head on another wall. He waited in a foetal position for the world to stop spinning, eyes scrunched shut and hands cradling the bump on his head, calmed his breathing and checked his wrist. The skin was badly torn and blood was flowing freely from the wound. No metal ring was in sight, and he realised that, instead of breaking the chain as he had stupidly meant to, his forceful yanking had made the ring cut into his skin and his left hand had slipped through the ring of metal, lubricated by his blood.

He stood up shakily, using the wall as support. Pain shot through his right leg as soon as he put pressure on it, and his muddled mind recalled that he had twisted his ankle while running away from the man. He succeeded in standing on his left leg, his head swimming olympically and his whole body shaking violently. He got his bearings and hopped on one foot to where he knew the door was, even though he couldn’t see it. The reason for that became apparent when, on his second step, he walked blindly right into some kind of fabric hanging from the ceiling and, in his momentum, went crashing into the floor in a mess of flesh and fabric.

He stayed on the floor, the cloth lying below him, waiting until the pain dulled somewhat. He had fallen sideways, and hit his left hip, shoulder and head, again, on his left temple. This time he didn’t even bother standing up –it was clearly not the cleverest option– and instead rolled over until he was face down. He stood on all fours and, ignoring the killer ache in his knees, crawled towards the exit, all the while thinking that Father would flay him alive if he saw him like this.

After what felt like a kilometre of crawling, Sasuke reached the door, relief flooding him as he put a hand on the doorknob. He was about to turn it when it did all by itself and the door opened inwards, almost hitting him. He scooted backwards, crouching, and looked up, blinking in the sudden brightness. Light flooded in from the other room, and, silhouetted against it, was his kidnapper.

Sasuke’s breath hitched, and he trembled in fear, eyes wide and heart beating unbelievably fast. He swallowed, wondering what the man would do to him when he learned that he had been trying to escape. He couldn’t see his face, and therefore didn’t know if he was angry or just pissed –or livid. He was scared stiff.

Then the man reached out a hand towards him and Sasuke reacted, falling on his butt and crawling backwards, trying to put as much distance as he could between him and the hand. Soon he was trembling against a wall, hyperventilating, tears streaming down his face. He raised his arms as a shield and shut his eyes fearfully at the inexorable approach of the hand. What was the man going to do with him!

Sasuke gasped as he felt the man grabbing his left wrist.

“You are such an idiot,” he said, and his voice was weird, like he was bitter about something but trying not to show it.

The man held his hand forcefully as he examined it and then he let go, standing up. There was a rustling sound, and Sasuke opened his eyes a sliver to investigate, heart still racing. The man was crouched beside a cabinet, rummaging through the contents.

Sasuke took the chance to look around and found himself in a bathroom. The cloth he had walked into had once been the shower curtain; he had been lying inside the shower, which had no tub but a tiny wall to keep the water from spreading, and handcuffed to, he blanched in disgust at the discovery, a tube that came out of a wall and went into the water closet. To think he had laid his head on it! Ew!

Suddenly the man let out a soft ‘Aha!’, having found what he had apparently been looking for, and then turned around to look at him. Sasuke gasped again.

“Stand up and take your clothes off,” barked the man.

Sasuke flinched and sat still, wondering for the tenth time what the man was going to do to him, horrible scenarios going through his mind.

“What, are you deaf as well as stupid?” the man demanded, and Sasuke winced at the tone of voice, trying to make himself as small as possible.

Tired of not being obeyed, the man strode over to the child, grabbed an arm –not the injured one– and pulled him up. Sasuke complied with a sob and stood on his good leg, trembling and looking down, arms as close as possible to his body and shoulders touching his jaw.

The man stood before him, took his hands and put them up over Sasuke’s head. As soon as he let go, Sasuke put them back down and tightly around his body, sobbing. Angry, the man grabbed his head by the hair and forced him to look into his eyes, blue and forceful and glaring and dominant and just-dare-and-you’ll-wish-you’d-never-been-born. Sasuke submitted with a sob and let the man put his hands up again.

His kidnapper grabbed the hem of Sasuke’s wet uniform sweater and pulled it up and off brusquely; the sobbing kid let him. Afterwards, he lowered Sasuke’s arms and crouched in front of him. Sasuke, cheeks wet with tears, refused to look at anything but the floor as two big tanned hands with yellow hair unbuttoned his wet shirt. Sasuke sobbed louder and scrunched his eyes shut as it was peeled off, the man’s hands grazing his upper chest, sliding across his shoulders and slithering down his arms and back.

He knew what came next: the pants and underwear, and he didn’t feel like being naked in front of this man at all. Crying, he held onto the fly of his pants with both hands, trying to prevent the inevitable. The man huffed, annoyed, tore his hands off to the side and made short work of the belt, button and fly. Sasuke cried out hysterically when the man peeled down his pants and boxers with a sudden movement. The man paused when he had uncovered skin down to the child’s knee, and then raised the kid’s right foot and took off the muddy leather shoe –which came off with a disgusting squelch– and the sock. That done, he grabbed the left foot, firmly planted on the ground, and pulled it forward to do the same, causing Sasuke to loose his balance and fall, nearly naked, into his arms. The sudden increase in weight unbalanced the crouching man, throwing him backwards on his rear, legs parted. Sasuke landed between them, arms around the man's chest.

For a moment, neither reacted. Sasuke was scared out of his wits –Father would beat him to death if he dared to touch him like this, why should this stranger be any different?– and whined softly, awaiting punishment. He could feel the man’s tension in the muscles of his chest, which he was up against. Then, out of the blue, the same tanned, hairy arms closed around him and manoeuvred him so that he was sitting sideways on the man’s crossed legs, cradled in his arms. The man proceeded to take off the other shoe and sock and finish peeling off the pants, dropping them to the side.

They remained in that position, Sasuke still frightened but much more calm – the only proof of his state being the shaky breaths and the tears streaming down his face. After a few minutes, he took his face from where it was pressed against the chest and dared to shyly look, really look for the first time, at the man’s face.

The first thing Sasuke noticed was the strange lines on his cheeks, which he had thought strange markings when they had met initially. There were three parallel lines on each cheek, running diagonally down from mid-cheek to jaw, and looking like the whiskers a five-year-old would put on a cat he was drawing. Then there was the skin, which was a wonder in its own. It was brownish, but with a golden sheen; a much nicer tan than the artificial ones he had seen on Mother’s friends. To his surprise, there were wrinkles; barely noticeable lines at either side of his mouth, in the corner of his eyes and on his forehead. It gave him an air of having lived through great joy and great pain. And then, of course, there were the eyes, no longer icy and threatening, but as blue and calm as the Caribbean seas he had seen in the wallpaper of Brother’s laptop.

He realised he had been staring when the man suddenly returned the stare with his weirdly impassive blue eyes, and Sasuke looked away, heart racing in a way that had nothing to do with fear. Unable to stop himself, he peeked through his lashes to see if the man was still looking at him, and yelped when he discovered that he was watching him with a soft, nostalgic smile, like he had seen Father wearing when he looked at pictures of Grandfather in the old family albums. His face felt hot.

“You alright now, kid?” asked the man, his voice surprisingly soft.

Sasuke nodded, cautiously. The man eyed him and his face burned harder.

“Awesome. Now stand up.”

The child complied as best he could, and stood on his left foot. A shiver wracked his body, and he suddenly realised how toasty-warm he had felt in the man’s arms.

Said man had already stood up himself and was picking up the fallen shower curtain. He put it back in place with some effort and a few curse words, and turned a knob. Immediately, water came out of the showerhead. The man kept his hand under the rain, and when steam started to come out from behind the curtain, he fiddled with the knobs.

Sasuke was still shivering, looking at the steam with longing; the promise of warm water was getting the better of him. Finally, the man stepped aside and motioned for him to get in, which Sasuke did readily, back facing the stream. The water was heaven to his chilled skin, and he rubbed it all over his arms and back, relishing in it, enjoying a shower for what felt like the first time in his life. Then he turned around to present his chest to the hot water, happy hands rubbing his chest and stomach eagerly. His right wrist stung like hell, but he ignored it as he closed his eyes and let the water warm his chilled cheeks, cleverly breathing through his mouth to avoid drowning.

When he turned around again, warm enough to start the shower proper, he bumped into something and opened his eyes. His kidnapper had got in the shower with him, wearing only his boxers – and those only for Sasuke’s benefit, he realised. The man took one of the bottles that sat on a shelf, probably shampoo, and came closer to him.

Sasuke stood with his eyes closed and his head bowed under the warm rain of water as the man washed his hair. He didn’t remember ever having someone else’s hands on his head – he had been washing himself since he could remember and Father had never ruffled his hair with fatherly pride like he had seen parents do to their children. The hands were heavy, but comfortably so, stroking his head with just the right amount of force for it to feel good and be effective at the same time. Not at all like how he himself did it; he usually scrubbed furiously at his hair, washing it as fast as possible.

The hands left his head and Sasuke rinsed his hair quickly. Before he had finished, he felt slippery hands rubbing his chest, and a smell of some kind of flowers wafted over to his nose. He blushed – the man was washing him carefully, rubbing circles on his chest and stomach and legs and shoulders. The hands turned him around and proceeded to wash his arms –taking special care of his still bleeding wrist- and his back. Suddenly, the big hands grabbed and kneaded his butt-cheeks, spreading them and washing up and down the crack in the middle, thick soapy fingers ghosting over his asshole. Then they travelled back up and around his waist to his groin, and rubbed soap along his man things. The touch was professional and impersonal, and he thought nothing of it, only that he felt the weird urge to pee every time he felt the fingers around him. He tried to pee when the hands left, but nothing came out and he didn’t understand why.

Then the hands were slipping down his legs and rubbing away the few spots of mud that stubbornly clung on. Sasuke braced himself on the wall and lifted the foot he could when necessary, then sat facing the man and offered his good leg up for cleaning, sincerely enjoying being pampered like that.

The man’s fringe hung wetly in front on his eyes, so Sasuke couldn’t see them. Instead, he seized the shampoo bottle that had been discarded earlier, squeezed a dollop onto one hand and rubbed both of them together.

His kidnapper had finished soaping him up and was about to stand when Sasuke put his hands full of shampoo into his hair and started rubbing. Startled, the man sat down again and let him do what he wanted. The yellow hair felt coarse even wet and slippery with shampoo – Sasuke had to wonder if this man even knew of conditioner. It almost felt like petting Mother’s Angora cat, only it was yellow and human. Sasuke blushed for no reason, and suddenly the man laughed.

“You are one-of-a-kind, kid, did you know that?”

Surprised, Sasuke snatched his hands away, and the man took it to mean he had finished. He put his head close to Sasuke, over whom the water was spraying, and rinsed his hair, suds falling on the child’s shoulder and trailing along his arm.

“What do you mean, sir?” said Sasuke in a small voice.

The man laughed again and looked at him, grinning in a way that made the lines on his cheeks stand out and the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes crinkle up.

“Exactly” He said, and Sasuke cocked his head to the side in confusion. The man made circular motions with his hand, in a way that said he felt like it didn’t need explaining. “You go around calling me ‘sir’ and repaying favours, and that makes me think that either I got the wrong kid and you’re not an Uchiha or you don’t spend much time with your dad, ‘cause proper Uchihas don’t respect people and they certainly don’t repay favours. I should know.” His voice had changed through his rant, from laughing to bitter, blue eyes loosing all mirth and becoming icy again as they scanned Sasuke’s.

Sasuke looked down. It was totally true, he realised, downright to his not spending time with Father at all. Hearing a total stranger say it like it was a given made him somewhat ashamed of being his father’s son.

The mood of intimacy and warmth was broken, and it was back to kidnapper and hostage with them. The man stood up with a sigh and turned off the water, both of them sufficiently rinsed from having sat under the spray. Then he reached out and his hand came back with two towels. He handed one to Sasuke, who had been staring off into space with half-lidded eyes and only snapped out of it when the towel was thrown on his head.

Sasuke gathered it onto one hand and stared up at the man. Their gazes met, and he could see bitterness and regret swimming in the Caribbean seas. Then the man looked away, towel on his shoulders, and held out a hand. The child accepted it, an acid knot in his throat and his eyes stinging, and he was pulled up. He shivered, suddenly chilly again, and wrapped himself in the towel big enough to be worn as a cape and still reach his knees.

He stepped out of the shower and dried himself. When he finished, he hung the towel on a hook on the wall. While he did this, Sasuke discovered, the man had disappeared from the bathroom. Sasuke examined the box that had been taken from the cabinet while he waited, and found it to be a first aid kit. The man returned with clothes. As he put them on –boxer shorts and an oversized t-shirt– he chanced a look at the blond and saw that his eyes were slightly red, so respecting his privacy he went back to the task, pretending not to have noticed. He knew that his own eyes were equally reddish, and that the man was doing the same for him.

Then he sat on the toilet and let the man tend to his wounds. The touch was soft, not in a tender way but in a hesitant one. However, it was experienced, and his wrist was disinfected and bandaged in no time. The man put some kind of elastic band around his twisted ankle, which was now the spectacular size of an orange, and explained it was supposed to compress it to help his lymphatic system drain it or something like that.

The kit was put away in silence, and then man stood up and went out of the bathroom. As he closed the door, he paused to say “Oh, by the way, my name is Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki.”

Then the door was shut, dividing more than just space, and Sasuke heard when Mr. Uzumaki locked it, leaving him prisoner in the humid bathroom.

Sasuke hugged his knees to his chest, still sitting on the toilet as if was bound again to it, and let himself cry.


End of Chapter Two.

The Lima Syndrome
By Nocena T. Calamus
Chapter Three: Of What Speaks the Loudest.


Once Sasuke had started crying, he’d found it impossible to stop. It was as if every tear that he had bottled up for eleven years wanted out at the same time, and he was too busy sobbing and wailing to try to stop them. When finished, he washed the leftover tears and snot off his face on the sink and returned to sitting on the closed toilet.

He was still sitting there, minutes later, curled up on himself and hugging his knees in complete silence. He was bored out of his mind. He’d sat there for what felt like hours, thinking up games to amuse himself, or, at least, kill some time. It failed, so he fell back on ‘meditating’ – Mother called it ‘contemplating his place in the Universe’, Father called it ‘To you room without supper! You need discipline!’ – like he usually did when the hours were long and the company short.

His stomach growled quietly after a while, startling him. Bah, of course he was hungry! When was the last time he had eaten? Breakfast, this morning – or was it yesterday’s morning? What time was it anyway? He hoped Mr. Uzumaki would remember to feed him. He yawned. Yeah, and that he brings some painkillers. My ankle is killing me. My wrist too. And my hip. Everything hurt, actually.

Sasuke yawned again. Realising he was falling asleep, as it often happened when he ‘meditated’, he moved to the bathroom floor and lay down. It was hard and cold and it made him shiver, so he sat up again, laid the still-moist towel on the floor and lay back down. It was impossible to find a comfortable position, but he was so sleepy he didn’t mind. His last thought before his eyes closed was wishing he was in his bed.

He woke up warm and comfy and in a bed, and for a second, before he opened his eyes, he thought it had all been just a bad dream. Upon opening them he confirmed that, indeed, his life sucked: he had found an unfamiliar ceiling with, of all things, glowing plastic stars stuck on it – the same kind Mother had refused to let him have because they ruined the décor.

Now that he recalled, he’d had a pretty wild and awesome dream that had nothing to do with being kidnapped. He’d been a ninja, jumping from roof to roof getting his friends free cable and even stealing a random woman’s bra in the confusion of a smoke bomb, which she didn’t even notice. Sasuke snickered slightly. I really have some crazy dreams. But sometimes reality is crazier, he thought, sobering up.

He looked around, studying his surroundings like a true ninja. The room he was in, as far as he could gather in the semi-darkness, was the kind of room that could well belong to a little boy. There were small chairs and a low table, fitted for children, and the walls were full of toys on shelves. The bedspread and furniture were all in various shades of pastel blue and yellow. The door was halfway open and a little light came in; the heavy blue curtains were drawn shut. He could see, along their edges, a stripe of sunlight about a centimetre or two thick. So, it was daytime.

Suddenly, he realised he could smell food. Meat, to be more precise. He sat up, or at least tried to, because he was stopped short through a very painful tug in his left arm. His vision went white for a second or two, and he lay back down on the bed gasping out a sharp “haa--!”. He stayed as still as he could, urging the pain to stop with his face scrunched up and breathing through his mouth, and then turned his head to where, he discovered, his wrist was attached to the headboard – by a handcuff. Groaning, he sat up again, this time carefully moving his butt up the bed so he ended up sitting with his back resting on the headboard.

Sasuke looked at the handcuff again and had to stop himself from either screaming in frustration or wailing in despair. One of the rings was brownish, and in his movement some of the brown stuff rubbed off on the pillowcase as if it was rust. My blood, he realised, disgusted. So it was the same set as before. The idiot kidnapper hadn’t even washed the stupid thing and had put it around his injured wrist. Damnit, hadn’t he made it clear already that he wasn’t going anywhere?

He was still glaring sullenly at the handcuff and insulting his kidnapper under his breath when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The door was fully open, and the blond man –who else’s head would have a spiky silhouette?– came in bearing a tray. He set it on a creamy-yellow dresser, strode to the curtains and drew them open briskly.

Mr. Uzumaki – who, now that Sasuke could see, was wearing an orange apron that made him look completely silly and domestic – stopped in his tracks upon spotting the child sitting up.

The man blinked owlishly at him; his blue eyes, which were more sky-blue than Caribbean-seas-blue today, were pinning him to the bed. Sasuke didn’t dare speak, didn’t dare move, didn’t dare blink. There was a long pause while they looked at each other.

“You are up,” the man commented, relaxing.

Sasuke drew his knees to his chest and his free arm hugged them subconsciously. He didn’t know how to answer, or if he had to answer, so he just nodded warily, never taking his eyes away from the blue ones.

The man tilted his head slightly to the left, looking somewhat bemused. More silence ensued; then, slowly, “You haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday. I brought you food.”

Sasuke blinked and turned his head towards the tray on the dresser, then back to the man, who stared right back. Suddenly, his stomach growled. He blushed and hid his face in his knees, curling tighter into himself. Stupid stomach, he berated internally, announcing your hunger like that. So undignified! When he allowed himself to look up through his fringe, he saw that Mr. Uzumaki was sporting a rather small smile. He couldn’t see them from this distance, but he knew the funny wrinkles in the corner of his eyes had crinkled up.

Sasuke’s stomach growled again. Mortified, and quite sure his face was redder than raw meat, he pressed his forehead into his knees and raised his shoulders so that the man couldn’t see. He heard him walking towards the bed, shoes scraping on carpet. Was the man going to hit him? Father certainly had, and probably would again. “Look at yourself, displaying such weakness,” he had said. “Shame on you! And you call yourself my son.” Then, he had backhanded him.

The sudden darkness indicated that the man was beside him, and Sasuke flinched, preparing himself for the pain. But all he felt was a weight, warm, on his head. It ruffled his hair almost affectionately. Startled, Sasuke looked at him and saw the small smile up close. The sigh of relief practically took his breath away with it.

Then the man leaned closer. The bed dipped: he was resting his knee on the mattress. Closer and closer he came, until Sasuke could feel hot air on the left side of his face and neck. What’s going on? he wondered, his heart beating fast. Is… is he going to kiss me? The man reached around him with his right arm, practically hugging him. Sasuke lifted his head. But, he’s old... and we’re both male. No, he won’t kiss me, don’t be unreasonable. He felt fingers graze his cuffed hand and arm, and a blush spread over his cheeks. The man suddenly looked at him with his weird tiny smile and winked. He will. Oh my God, he’s going to kiss me! My first kiss will be with an adult? What if he has cooties? No! Sasuke swallowed and scrunched his eyes shut, his heart running a marathon and his breath uneven. The fingers on his wrist made soft circular motions. Was he trying to reassure Sasuke? No! I don’t want him to kiss me! I don’t, I don’t, I don’t! The hand on his head ran through his hair, the foreign breath on his face came closer, Sasuke held his breath while a mantra of nononononoran through his head…

Click. Sasuke opened his eyes. What?

“There you go,” said the man before sitting back, a small silver key in his hand. “Tricky business, handcuffs, eh, kiddo?”

Sasuke could only blink. He’s not going to kiss me?

The man stood up and off the bed, his left hand lingering on the child’s head.

He’s not going to kiss me, was all that Sasuke’s brain could process. …Why not?

Mr. Uzumaki retrieved the tray from the dresser and brought it to Sasuke, who was still in shock. He cleared his throat, waking up the child, who lowered and crossed his legs to use them as a temporary table, and laid there the tray laden with food. Then, the man then grabbed a chair – one of the blue kiddy chairs that only reached his knee – and sat down on it next to the bed. He ended up eye-level with Sasuke’s shoulder and looked at the child.

Sasuke for some reason that escaped him couldn’t stand his gaze and looked down again to avoid it. He stared at the plate of meat and mashed potatoes that lay on the tray. He vaguely noticed that the meat was cut in pieces so that he would only have to spear it with the fork to eat it though, he was too busy thinking, why on Earth did I think he was going to kiss me?

“You… don’t like meat?” Mr. Uzumaki’s voice came soft and uncertain through his daze, startling Sasuke, who turned his eyes to him and discovered the man’s mouth. “Well,” he continued, in a much stronger voice this time, “you are just staring at it. Well, excuse me, Mr. Almighty Uchiha, but I didn’t think it was necessary to research your preferences when it comes to food before kidnapping you and, besides…”

The man rambled on and Sasuke just watched his lips move, not hearing a word he said. Seriously, why would he want to kiss me? … Argh, why am I still thinking about it?

He shook his head to clear it and chose to look at the food. It looked pretty tasty, even all cut up as if intended for a little kid that couldn’t use a knife. Sasuke took his fork, sunk it into a square of meat – with little resistance, it was really tender – and raised it to his mouth. It wasn’t hot anymore, maybe lukewarm at best, but it was really good. There was a lot of green stuff floating around in the gravy, which was kind of yellow and transparent. The meat was not overcooked like that which they fed him at home; instead, it was still pinkish in some parts. It was rather chewy, but still tastier than anything he had ever tasted before.

The second piece of meat came soaked in mashed potatoes, which were really creamy. He only ever had mashed potatoes when he didn’t eat at home, which wasn’t often, and he hadn’t liked them much, but these… these were awesome. It could quickly become his new favourite food.

“What brand is this?” he asked the man, who had stopped ranting as soon as he has picked the fork.

“What?”

“The mashed potatoes. What brand of instant mashed potatoes are these?”

The man looked confused for a second, then, “They come in instant versions? Wow, times have really changed.”

Sasuke blinked. “You mean, you made this from scratch?” He was disbelieving. There was no way a man could make something this good from just the raw materials.

The man nodded. “Yeah, it’s one of the easiest things to make. I used my mom’s recipe.”

Sasuke stared at his plate with newfound awe, and then back at Mr. Uzumaki. “Then you cooked the meat yourself too? You didn’t have it delivered?”

The man laughed, and his eyes twinkled. “No, no. I made it myself. Why, does it taste bad?”

Sasuke uttered a low “Wow”, blinking at the plate. Suddenly, eating this food was… different. Knowing who had cooked it and that they had actually made an effort and that they were watching him eat it… Sasuke shoved two whole pieces of meat into his mouth, chewed a bit and then said, with his mouth full, “No, this is really good. Your family must be very happy if you always cook like this for them.”

The blue eyes suddenly lost their sparkle. The echo of a smile on Mr. Uzumaki’s face seemed frozen, artificial, even as it disappeared. Just like when the man had mentioned Father in the shower.

I screwed up, thought Sasuke.

The man stood up from his too-small chair and strode out of the room, not even bothering to close the door. Sasuke’s eyes stung fiercely.

I’m such an idiot! Why did I have to go and ruin it? It’s the only thing I good at doing: ruining things.

The lukewarm half-chewed meat was still in his mouth, and he swallowed it with difficulty. It seemed his throat had constricted and it was hard to even get food through it. He rubbed at his eyes furiously with both hands, refusing to cry.

Both hands?

Indeed, he had forgotten his left hand was free. Why, why did his kidnapper free his hand? It’s not like he needed it to eat, since the contents of the tray could perfectly well be consumed with only his right hand. And since he was on that subject, why had he cooked the food when he could have just ordered food or, better yet just not feed him at all?

Now that he thought about it, he had woken up in a comfy bed. Why had Mr. Uzumaki moved him to a bed and not just let him sleep on a wet towel on the bathroom floor? For that matter, why had he bothered to bath Sasuke to make him warm and why had he patched him up when he could have just let Sasuke stay wet and cold and in pain, like kidnappers where supposed to?

And then, he couldn’t help but think about his family. Of the time when he had been bedridden with chickenpox and had had to walk down two flights of stairs to get a glass of water, and then back up, because Brother had been too busy studying and had said “if you are so thirsty, then get it yourself”. Of the time when he had fallen asleep out in the garden one afternoon and he had woken there at half-past three in the morning because Mother had been working late and had gone straight to her bed without checking if he was in his. Of the time during that ski trip when he had forgotten his coat and Father had refused to lend him even his scarf because he said Sasuke needed to learn to be more responsible.

And suddenly there was this complete stranger with no obligation towards him, or perhaps even obligation against him, taking care of him as if he cared, as if Sasuke deserved to be cared for… And he couldn’t help but cry again; big, fat drops of water were running down his face and falling into the plate with cold food, and his lungs kept chocking in huge gasps of air.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Mr. Uzumaki was there, by his side when he needed him, again.

“Here” said the man.

Sasuke looked down and saw a big, tanned hand offering him a handkerchief. He took it and dried his face – in vane, because more tears made it wet again in seconds – and blew his nose. He pressed the wet cloth to his mouth and cried into it. The man took the tray from his legs and put it on the bedside table. The he moved his chair closer to the bed. Sasuke cried on.

The warm hand never left his shoulder.

When he calmed down a few minutes later, he chanced a look at his kidnapper. The man was smiling bitterly. Sasuke sniffled.

“Sorry.” His voice was small and broken.

“It’s ok.” Mr. Uzumaki’s was also small, but soft instead of broken. The man was looking at him.

Sasuke turned to examine the food, subconsciously avoiding his eyes. “It’s cold now. I ruined it.” He spoke quietly to hide the wavering tones.

“It’s ok.” Mr Uzumaki repeated.

The hand on Sasuke’s shoulder was rubbing comfortingly. Sasuke looked at it. Its weight was surprisingly comfortable.

Then Sasuke’s stomach growled again and he burst out laughing.

The man smiled, the lines in his cheeks becoming deep grooves, and laughed too. “I guess I should re-heat it?” he asked afterwards in a normal voice.

Sasuke nodded happily. “Yes, please!”

“Or should I make something else? If it tasted so bad it made you cry…” Sasuke heard the teasing in his voice and could hardly believe it.

“May I come to the kitchen, Mr. Uzumaki?” he asked, suddenly full of energy. He couldn’t stop grinning.

The man stood up and took the tray. “Ok. But only if you call me ‘Naruto’. When you say ‘Mr. Uzumaki’ you remind me of being scolded by my teachers”. Then he looked at Sasuke and grinned back.

Sasuke’s heart beat faster, and he limped after Mr. Uzu – no, Naruto, out of the blue and yellow children’s room. Immediately outside was a corridor, full of hung up frames. Maybe there were some pictures of the family it upset Naruto so much to talk about? When he turned to approach one, Naruto casually looked at him and cleared his throat, and then turned and walked faster. Sasuke got the hint and reigned in his curiosity, limping as fast as his ankle allowed.

They were both smiling.

End of Chapter Three