Takes place on the day before Sasuke left the Leaf, after Kakashi left him by the tree, but before the Sound Four made themselves known.

Because when you only see a person's mask, it's too easy to put someone else's face on it.

Parallels

Neji finds him first, sitting by the tree he was recently tied to. Sasuke is more surprised at the fact that Neji stays than that he showed up at all. They don't talk, and that's not surprising either. Sasuke doesn't want to hear it, all that bullshit everyone puts him through, even Kakashi who (he now thinks) should know better. Neji isn't big on the giving-a-shit anyway, he's probably only here because he heard all the noise Naruto was making with his stupid new jutsu.

So instead they sit quietly, together, and Sasuke thinks and Neji stares at the stone wall across from them. Or maybe he's looking at Sasuke, or in a totally different direction. It's impossible to tell. The silence stretches, not particularly uncomfortable but strange just because of the unfamiliar company.
After a while, Sasuke wonders why he doesn't just explain everything. Tell someone who he can trust not to care too much, try too hard, steer him on the right path and the good path and the safe path that he can never believe in. He can trust Neji not to try to save him, at least. He wants to say it, for maybe a second, that he has realised that Konoha means nothing to him. He can't change that and he knows, instinctively, that Neji would understand.

The only reason that he doesn't say anything is because when he looks over at the other boy, Neji's strange eyes stop the words from forming. Sasuke never does figure out why Neji came, what he was up to, what he wanted exactly. When he looks back at those milky eyes he realizes that they are unnerving less because they are so weird and more because they give nothing away without even trying.

Hiding in plain sight is something Sasuke can never forgive in a person. He would take Kakashi's masks, Sakura's blushing avoidance, Naruto's annoying bluster over that quiet acknowledgement. Maybe those eyes remind him of his brother too much (Itachi as Sasuke remembers him best always has black eyes), that pupil-less gaze taking everything in at once, impossible to pin down, unafraid of being found out even when it's never bothered hiding. Always in plain sight but still inscrutable.

Sasuke wants to believe that. That Itachi is at the heart of all his failed opportunities, that the bridges to possible salvation were burned by Itachi before he ever had a chance. Psychological manipulation is his standard answer to everything. He knows all too well that his brother is using him for something.

But the longer he wanders, and survives, and stares in the mirror, the more Neji's naturally empty eyes remind him of his own and no one else's.

END

I was just thinking that Neji and Sasuke had similar eyes. I mean, I realise that it probably looks a little different outside a B&W cartoon, but still... anyway, the point I was trying to make is that sometimes Sasuke can get so self-centered. And with someone like Neji it's easy to put whatever face you want on him, because Sasuke barely knows him. It's obvious that Neji's eyes aren't really empty. Sasuke is just seeing his own guilt at his feelings regarding the village, and while he wants to believe that whatever he does is Itachi's fault, he can't.
I wonder if I should even explain this. A fic is supposed to give a person a chance to make their own conclusions...