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"One thing I do," Yukiko told Sasuke shortly before the first anniversary, "is keep one memento for each person. I never got around to setting up a shrine, but I think I prefer them in a box. That way I can take out my precious memories when I want, but they're not always in my face like an accusation."
She paused, walked across the hall into her apartment, and returned with a small wooden box decorated with a faded hollyhock pattern. "The keepsakes don't have to be anything important, just something to remind you," she said. She unlatched the box and pulled out a shuriken, its edges nicked and dull, one blade slightly warped. "This belonged to my teammate, Ame. She was going to get it reforged, but I lent her one of my shuriken instead. I never got around to dealing with this, and when she died..."
Yukiko shrugged, and put the shuriken back into the box. "Little things. You might try it."
Sasuke thought about it.
That evening, he went back to the Uchiha district. A few of the outermost properties had been sold, and there were signs of construction and change -- ill-fated houses torn down to make way for new homes without ghosts. Sasuke walked past the changeling houses as quickly as he could, into more familiar streets. The heart of the compound was still deserted, home to nothing but wind and dust and encroaching wildlife. He could almost pretend nothing had changed, that everyone was simply inside for the moment and he could open any door and find aunts and uncles and distant cousins sitting down to eat.
Sasuke wasted a minute sitting on the back steps of his house, wishing. Then he went inside and found two of Mother's empty shopping bags.
Sasuke gathered scores of the flat, polished stones that lined the pond, one for every relative he'd lost. He hadn't known everyone well enough to find a personal memento for each person, and it felt wrong to favor some people over others when they were all equal in death. He took the stones home in the canvas bags, stopping every few blocks to rest. He hauled the bags up the stairs one at a time, careful not to make too much noise and attract Naruto's attention. The idiot wouldn't understand. He'd never had anything to lose.
In his apartment, Sasuke stacked the stones on his windowsill, higher and higher, until he had to stand on a chair to place the last rows. They blocked the dying light and were impossible to overlook.
Memory wasn't a gift, to pick up and put away at whim. Memory was a duty.
On the anniversary, he didn't go to school. When Yukiko came into his apartment to check on him, her eyes skipped to the wall of stones. Sasuke had a dozen challenges lined up, ready to snap back when she called him stupid. But she just shook her head with a rueful smile.
"I'll get you an end table," she said, "so they won't fall out the window. You never know when you might want some light in the room."
She brought the table upstairs and tucked it into the corner. Then she pulled two stones from the top of the wall, letting in a sliver of morning sun. She turned and handed them to Sasuke. "I can reach higher than you, so let me do this. Arrange them on the table however you want."
They took down the wall together.