Dependency

When Suigetsu and Sasuke made it to the abandoned house, Sasuke prepared himself for some teasing from Karin too. They wouldn't like to admit it but Suigetsu and Karin often had similar thoughts on things.

Suigetsu knocked on the door and Karin swung it open. "Guess what, guys? Sasuke's gonna try smoking," Suigetsu announced excitedly and walked in the house. Karin turned to Sasuke with an excited look on her face.

Sasuke wished they would stop acting as if he was walking for the first time ever. Sasuke closed the door behind him and sat on Jugo's left side. Jugo gave him a concerned look but didn't say anything.

Karin took her bag and sat to Jugo's right while Suigetsu sat to Sasuke's left. She pulled out a pack of Marlboro Reds. "Okay," said Karin, pushing herself to be in front of Sasuke, "here. We'll show you how to do it."

Karin took out a cigarette and held it in front of Sasuke while pointing to the orange part of the cigarette. "This is where you put your mouth and also where you hold it. When lighting the cigarette, suck on it like a straw rather than breating in. Do you get it?"

Sasuke nodded. "If you need help, tell us." Another nod. "Okay," said Karin, handing him the cigarette and a lighter. "Here you go." Suigetsu turned to him. "Also, Karin forgot to say this, but you're probably gonna cough pretty bad so be careful not to burn yourself."

"Hn," Sasuke replied. His hands were a little shaky and he thought about how shitty life was, which pushed him to not care about any bad outcome that could come out of smoking.

His hands were no longer shaky and he brought the orange part of the cigarette to his his mouth. Then, Sasuke flicked the lighter and hovered the fire over the cigarette. Putting it closer, he sucked on the cigarette as smoke was coming from the end of it.

He removed his thumb from the lighter and tried breathing the smoke he sucked in out of his mouth. Without realizing there was still some smoke in his mouth, he breathed in and coughed. It felt like he had a cold. "Are you okay," Suigetsu asked, patting Sasuke's back.

Sasuke didn't answer and kept clearing his throat. All he could think was that his lungs were irritated and his lungs were no longer clean. He didn't know if he should stop smoking to stop coughing or if he should keep smoking to get his lungs used to the smoke.

Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo weren't freaking out so he figured his life wasn't in danger. Plus, Suigetsu told him he would cough. Decision made, Sasuke put the cigarette up to his mouth again and breathed in.

He coughed even harder this time and a good feeling hit him with it. So, he continued. Suigetsu patted his back whenever he coughed and Jugo held onto his shoulder. After a few more puffs, Sasuke didn't cough anymore and was able to gauge how deep of a breath he could take without coughing.

Then, the cigarette was finished. And, he felt...good. Good. "So, how was it?" Asked Karin. Sasuke nodded. "Hn." Suigetsu got up and looked at him. "I know, right? Just wait till you try weed. If you think cigarettes are great.."

Sasuke wasn't sure if he wanted to smoke marijuana yet. He just smoked a cigarette for the first time and he wasn't sure how helpful they'd be in the long run. Maybe cigarettes would be enough. "Okay," said Karin. "We should head to class."

On the way to class, Karin sprayed perfume on all of them. They were having P.E. next, which didn't make Sasuke very happy but he had more energy after smoking so he figured he'd just deal with it. Besides, at least they didn't have to wear stupid P.E. uniforms.

Since P.E. was outside, they decided to just meet the rest of the class at the field. When they got there and Mr.Gai asked why they weren't in the classroom, they said they thought it would be okay to meet the class in the field.

Mr.Gai let it go with a warning. For P.E., they had to get into teams of four sorted by Mr. Gai. Sasuke got stuck with Suigetsu, Naruto, Shikamaru. They were supposed to do a series of racing back and forth, 10 jumping Jack's, 10 burpees, and army crawling back and forth once.

The team who finished first would win. Kiba's team won, not that anyone really cared. When they finished, they had free time for the rest of the class. Before Sasuke could go hang out with Suigetsu, Jugo, and Karin, Naruto ran up to him.

"Hey. You didn't hang out with us before, jerk. Hang out with us now." Sasuke wanted to argue but knew Naruto would keep bothering him if he didn't go with him. "Fine," said Sasuke.

Naruto grinned and grabbed Sasuke's arm to hurry him along. Sasuke quickly retaliated, remembering the cuts. Naruto looked concerned and let go of his arm. "What's wrong?" Sasuke tried to pretend nothing was wrong and shook his head.

He felt dumb when looking at Naruto because of fucking course he wouldn't let it go without an explanation. Sasuke quickly came up with a reply to avoid any further suspicion. "I just don't want you to drag me across the field. I don't have as much energy as you, you know."

It wasn't the best excuse but Naruto decided to let it go for now and 'for now' was good enough for the time being. "Dude. Come look at this. Gaara's fucking crazy," said Kiba as Naruto and Sasuke walked up to the group.

Choji was holding a phone and replayed the video they were watching. In the video, Gaara was arguing with a teacher. Then, he got up, pulled his desk up and onto his shoulder.

"Aw, shit," said Naruto, knowing the telltale signs of when an argument goes wrong. Then, Gaara walked over to a window and threw the desk into it, shattering glass. Everyone in the classroom got up from their desks and those who were near the window ran from it.

"After that, I told Gaara," said Choji after grabbing a potato chip, "you're not you when you're hungry. And he almost punched me." Shikamaru, putting two and two together, said, "So, he's going to go here now, huh?"

"Yeah," said Kiba. Naruto smiled. "Can't wait to see him again." Shikamaru nodded. "Temari and Kankuro will probably purposely get expelled so they can be with him." Naruto looked at Shikamaru as if he was Einstein.

"Oh. Yeah. That's right. They follow him everywhere. I wouldn't put it past them to get purposely expelled to be with him either." There was a yell behind them and they all turned around to see Mr.Gai. "What did he say?" Asked Ino.

"I don't know. I couldn't hear him," replied Sakura. "P.E. is probably over," said Shino. "Awe. Okay," Naruto said, clearly disappointed. They started walking back, passing Neji who sat against the fence with Hinata and Rock Lee who was still exercising.

The last classes passed by fine and when school was over, Sasuke decided to just wait for Kakashi at his car instead of going to his classroom. To make sure Kakashi knew where he was, he sent a quick message and waited for him.

Kakashi met Sasuke and unlocked the car. While driving to his house, he asked Sasuke how school was. "It wasn't too bad," said Sasuke. Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Hmmm. 'Wasn't too bad.' What happened for today to be so good?" Sometimes, Sasuke wished Kakashi didn't know him so well.

If Sasuke kept talking, Kakashi would get more suspicious as he'd recognize it as an excuse. Kakashi and Naruto were different in those ways.

When Naruto was suspicious of something happening, he'd listen to Sasuke's excuses and let the issue slide until more and more suspicious things happened. Then and only then, Naruto would confront Sasuke and ask what was up.

When Kakashi was suspicious of something happening with Sasuke, he'd use the implied evidence that Sasuke unknowingly gave and would confront him with it. He knew him too well and although Naruto knew him well too, Kakashi would confront Sasuke the second he thought something was up.

The less Sasuke talked, the less information Kakashi could use against him. He already messed up with talking too much about school, which was out of character. Both he and Kakashi knew Sasuke never said something as positive as "wasn't too bad" about school.

So, Sasuke looked out his window and kept his mouth shut. "Hmmm. You're being awfully quiet now." Sasuke wouldn't budge. "Are you dating someone?" Sasuke was caught in a death trap.

If he denied it, Kakashi might catch onto something else.

If he remained quiet, Kakashi would bother him by constantly asking him who he was dating. Sasuke thought about the best away out of both situations and decided that saying "no" wouldn't do any harm.

"No," replied Sasuke, hoping he'd let it go. "Hmmm. Okay," said Kakashi. Sasuke felt victorious. He knew this wasn't the end of it but if he kept quiet whenever Kakashi tried to pry, he might eventually give up.

When they got to the house, Sasuke went straight to his room. Looking at his bed honestly hurt a little bit because he could no longer trust sleep. He didn't know what to do. He was starting to feel like crap again. If only he had a cigarette. Smoking would help.

Sasuke had some money that he'd saved from his last birthday. He'd probably ask Karin if he could get a pack of of cigarettes tomorrow. That would be good. It would get him through the month. And the times he couldn't smoke, he could cut himself.

Now was one of those times. He took the biggest razor blade he'd brought and went to the bathroom. He sat against the door after locking it and thought about where to cut. Naruto was getting suspicious and he needed to make sure that if Naruto checked his arms, he'd be clean from any cuts.

Sasuke still wanted to cut on his arm though. He compromised by cutting on his shoulder. If Naruto or anyone else checked his arms, they likely wouldn't try checking his shoulders. Sasuke rolled his left sleeve all the way up. It helped that his sleeves were quite loose.

Sasuke held the blade up to his skin and tried to find a spot without scars but at this point, 80% of his arms were covered in scars. He gave up and started going on a cutting frenzy all over his shoulder. The cuts bled in clusters as he tried covering his shoulder with cuts.

He wanted to bleed. Sometimes, he felt more like hurting than bleeding. Right now, he wanted to bleed more than to hurt. Then, he felt even more stressed while thinking about Itachi, his parents, and school. Now, he wanted to hurt.

Sasuke took the blade, tilted it to it's edge and pressed it into his skin as hard as he could. Then, he drug it slowly. Sasuke saw red. When he lifted the blade from his skin, he knew it would take a long time for the cut to heal.

The cut was gushing out blood and looked huge. If he'd gone to the doctor, Sasuke would've had to get at least 7 stitches from it. Of course, though, he would never go to the doctor for cutting.

He'd had cuts worse than this and definitely wouldn't die. The only problem was how long it would take for it to heal. On the bright side, he felt a lot better now. After flushing the toilet to make it seem like he went to the bathroom, Sasuke laid on his bed and listened to music.

After a couple of hours of listening to music, Kakashi texted him that dinner was ready. Sasuke smelled steak and felt his stomach growl. Sighing, he went to the kitchen. Kakashi did cook steak. He also cooked baked potatoes.

They got their dinner and sat down together. "So, Itachi texted and said that he'll be gone for at least a few months. They still don't know how long all the meetings, building, etc. will be." Sasuke was shocked. Itachi had never left him alone for that long before.

Sasuke didn't want to look like some over emotional bitch so he pretended that it was fine. He finished his dinner and went to his room, wanting to cut even more. He really need to get a pack of cigarettes so he wouldn't cut as much.

Sasuke didn't want to end up cutting twice in a day. If he did then it would turn to three times a day and so on. Then, he would be covered in cuts. He would definitely get caught if he had cuts everywhere. This was why he needed cigarettes.

Sasuke listened to music for a couple more hours and then took some sleeping pills. He didn't want to sleep but he knew he'd feel terrible without it. He fell asleep an hour after taking sleeping pills and dreamt of blades and cigarettes.