I'm back? I honestly have no excuse for being away for so long other than life is a whore with abandonment issues and kept me away. I have written A LOT so updates WILL come soon, but before that I will leave this new series here to pass the time and hopefully you're all not too upset with me to read it.
Is it a song-fic? Could be; I would highly suggest listening to the song "Nothing Better" by the Postal Service seeing as how this fic is heavily influenced by it. Some of the lyrics to the song are actually used in this fic. Other than that Where Are You by Betty Steels is a really good one.
If anyone is interested I have a Tumblr and an Ao3 account, links are in my bio.
In which there is a break up, a brain trust is formed, Kiba is coming to terms with his sexuality, Neji is a kinky freak, Ino and Sakura are master minds and Naruto is wondering where his choice in friends had gone wrong.
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His heart was breaking, he could feel it slowly crack and splinter, chipping away as Sasuke's words cut deep, flaying and destroying any chance at happiness he ever had. Perhaps he thinks, perhaps he's slipped into a nightmare, that could be the only explanation he could come up with. One moment they were sitting happily across from each other, choosing their drinks and the next, Sasuke drops this nuclear bomb on him without a drip of remorse for the short and long term damage this was going to cause him.
"It's over." Sasuke says his voice tight and his lips set in a thin line as he maintained eye contact with the silent blonde across from him. The café was almost empty save for the young group of people sitting three tables away, chattering among themselves, completely unaware of the break-up currently commencing.
"I've already had my things moved from the apartment," Sasuke continues, clearing his throat in vain to gain the still silent blonde's attention, "of course not that you would notice." He says with a touch of bitterness peppering his cool tone.
Too shocked to even twitch much less respond, Naruto Uzumaki could only watch and silently scream as the love of his life attempted to end their ten-year relationship and demolish 12 years of friendship/rivalry.
Of course I noticed! Naruto screamed internally, though his face producing the same blankness that any Uchiha would be jealous of. It was true, over the past year he had noticed that slowly, Sasuke's clothes had been disappearing, his things becoming scarce in their shared apartment. Naruto had thought nothing of it though, merely thinking that Sasuke was throwing out old clothes and making room for more, throwing out or moving old accessories with the intention of getting new ones. Sasuke was rich, Naruto wasn't, and he had figured that this was what rich people did with their stuff.
Apparently not.
They had been the best of friends and rivals for 12 years, starting at the tender age of 5 until that bloomed into love when they were sixteen at the back of an alleyway nursing wounds from a recent fight with students from another school that they had won. It was like a twisted, bloody form of a fairytale love story; Naruto had been ambushed on his way home and it was in the middle of the fight when his ass decided to butt-dial his best friend. On the verge of getting his ass handed to him on a silver, albeit slightly bloodied, platter by 6 senior-high school football players, Sasuke swooped in seemingly from nowhere and delivered an ass-whooping unlike any Naruto had ever seen. And when it was all said and done, their enemies crawling away, bloody and black with the occasional broken limb, Naruto had one of the biggest epiphanies ever bestowed upon man. Sasuke almost seemed surreal to him, spitting out a mouthful of spit mixed with blood, a bruise blooming on his pale cheek, fists bloodied and bruised and lips quirked in a smug smirk as he watched the pathetic excuses for seniors crawl away.
Naruto doesn't think he's ever seen anyone else look so horrendously beautiful.
When Sasuke turned to help his friend to his feet, extending his bruised and bloodied hand, just like that Naruto took his hand and laid one right on him. Right there, all bloodied and bruised Naruto smashed his cracked lips against Sasuke and refused to let go until Sasuke kissed him back.
Which he did.
After that, walking back to Sasuke's car (which he drove far too recklessly to be legal and left running and half parked on the curb near the alley way in his haste to aid his rival turned best friend turned boyfriend.) Naruto never once took his eyes off Sasuke; Sasuke who Naruto was pretty sure had a broken knuckle, courtesy of punching one of the seniors far too hard on the jaw.
"I wore them down," Naruto had said, "You just finished them off."
Sasuke rolled his eyes and dug his fingers into one of Naruto's bruises, smirking at the high pitched screech that Naruto let out, "Whatever, loser."
Of course Naruto only fell deeper in love when he found out that Sasuke had been at a dinner party with his parents and some other business partners when he answered his phone (a call he was very near not answering as it would have been rude). When he heard the muffled fight occurring and Naruto's grunts of pain, Sasuke took off; he had opened the window and scaled the building until he made it to the ground and took off running to his car, leaving behind and infuriated father, a curious brother and an amused mother; they had been on the 6th floor.
Naruto wasn't about to lose that.
There was a frown on Sasuke's face as he sighed and began to gather his things; Naruto had taken too long to respond. His silence told Sasuke that he was completely fine and on board with this tough decision. A horrid feeling descended on his stomach as it begins to dawn on him just how little Naruto cared about him and this relationship.
"It's over, Naruto." Sasuke says solemnly around the knot that leaped into his throat, a sense of resignation washing over him.
Of course, he should have known that nothing ever goes quite as planned when it involves a certain Uzumaki.
"No." That single word rang true and Sasuke was left gaping as he saw a certain fierceness emerge seemingly out of nowhere and a fire-storm emerged in the form of two piercing blue eyes.
"…Excuse me?" Sasuke asked incredulously, perfectly shaped eyebrows arching. He tried to deny the small warm feeling that slowly began to emerge in the pit of his belly at the sight of Naruto's fierce look, he hadn't seen it for some time and seeing it now- it was like seeing the sun for the first time after being left out in the cold darkness.
Naruto folded his arms and glared down his almost-ex, jaw setting tight and voice never once wavering as he sets him straight.
"I said no, it's not over. In fact, it's not even close to being over. Wanna know why?" Naruto leans forward then, eyes narrowing just that much, "Because you and I," he gestures wildly with his hands, "are in love, one day we are going to get married and we are going to spend the rest of our lives together. I will love you until the end of our days and you are going to love me just as much no matter how much of a dick you are about it." His voice began to rise along with his determination and small spike of anger because honestly? This was bull-shit. He wasn't going to let Sasuke go so easily. "And even when you're sick of me, which I can see is happening now; you'll still love me because that's what love is all about. We bicker, we fight, people are always trying to get in between us, your father hates my guts and detests the very air I breathe. Plus he's tried to stab me on more than one occasion and I'm pretty sure your mother has tried to poison me once or twice."
"My mother would never-!"
"I was throwing up for two whole days after eating the "special ramen" she made especially for me!" Naruto screeched. "I remember quite vividly how she was adamant about you not taking a single bite! Thank god I built up an immunity to poison because of my paranoid and admittedly slightly crazy Godfather! And don't even get me started on that psychotic brother of yours!"
Naruto leans forward and grasps Sasuke's hand, trying to convey every single drop of emotion that ran ramped through his heart.
"Look, Sasuke, the world turns against us more than five times a week but at the end of the day it always just boiled down to only you and me; no one else." Naruto continues, "Now, finish your tea because we are going to go home, I'm not going to bitch slap you for being so stupid and I might even sleep on the couch so you can sulk in our bedroom for a few days while this whole situation can disappear and never ever resurface again. And once that's done we'll have lots and lots of sex and you'll realize that you still love me and all of our problems will be laid out on the table and we can talk about why the fuck you think leaving me was such a fantastic idea."
"Hold it right there!" Sasuke interjects by ripping his appendage back, slamming his hands down on the table, their cups rattling by the violent action, "that is not how it's going to go down!"
"Then tell me!" Naruto snaps, "tell me what you want! Tell me what's wrong! I'll fix it!"
"It's not that simple!"
"Why isn't it? Have I done something? Have I made you angry? Is there-!" he cuts off here, voice cracking as dread begins to fill him, "-Is there someone else?"
Absolute silence reigns over the café, the young group of teenagers stared in anticipation for Sasuke's answer, the waitress standing behind the counter, unwilling to interrupt their conversation to suggest that they take their argument outside.
At Sasuke's silence a wiry smile stretches across Naruto's slightly chapped lips, deadly and heartbreaking all at once, "There is, isn't there?"
"No," Sasuke sighs, "but there might be."
Naruto tenses at his response and his hands that were resting over his thighs tightened into white fists as anger courses through his veins like poison, setting his body on fire.
"Who is he?" Naruto growls, voice dangerously low.
"No one you kn-"
"Who is he?!" Naruto snaps, slamming his hands down on the table, tipping over his empty cup of coffee and sending it crashing to the floor as he harpooned his boyfriend with two wild, colder-than-ice blue eyes. "I'm not asking if I know him, I'm asking for a fucking name!"
"Don't shout at me!" Sasuke fires back, "I'm not some child you can scream at!"
"No- Not a child! My fucking boyfriend of ten fucking years!"
They sit like that, panting as they bear down into each other's faces, Naruto, tense with righteous fury and Sasuke with the uneasy sense of apprehension.
"Who. Is. He." Naruto asks once more, deathly calm, baby blue eyes colder than the arctic sea yet smoldering with restrained anger. Sasuke regards him warily, wondering just what purpose it would serve to fess up.
"His name," Sasuke licks his lips and clears his throat when it cracks, "his name is Suigetsu."
"I'll kill him," Naruto hisses, standing abruptly to his feet and reaching for his coat, ignoring the shocked look on Sasuke's face, "I'll fucking bash his face in and feed him to Kiba's dogs, or maybe even to Kankurou's cats, whoever's house I reach first."
"You will do no such thing!" Sasuke shoots up, swiping Naruto's keys from him before he could take them and bolt. "You are not to even go near him!"
"No, Sasuke-dear," Naruto hisses, voice dripping with venom, "you are not to go near him, because you are my boyfriend, not his. Do you fucking understand that? Sweetheart?"
Naruto throws on his fashion-murder orange coat and holds out his hand, "Now give me my fucking keys."
Sasuke throws on his body hugging black coat and shoves Naruto's keys deep into his pocket. "No."
"Sasuke, I will walk if I have to, don't you fucking doubt me for a second." Naruto hisses, glaring down his silent and frustratingly stubborn boyfriend that he refuses to let go, reminiscent of the time when Sasuke ran away from home with two guys who were more strangers than friends in a poorly misguided attempt to fix all of his problems. After obtaining information from Tayuya, who was friends with the two guys Sasuke had ran away with, Naruto had practically walked the whole way from Florida to California, dead set on bringing his friend back from whatever bullshit he had involved himself in.
When his feet got too bloody and sore to walk he hitch-hiked, when he almost got raped by a giant trucker for accepting a ride from him he stole a bike and when the tires popped he stole a car and drove as far as he could without stopping for gas fearing that if he did a security camera would get a shot of the car and his face. He barely ate and hardly slept, when he finally hit California he wasted no time in scrounging around for information, going to the city Tayuya had promised they were hiding in (he'd never admit that he had hunted her down like a fucking hound after Sasuke left with the two idiots and broke her right hand and crushed two of her fingers on her left until she finally gave up their location. It was the first and the last time he would ever hit a woman. His mother didn't raise a monster). When he found Sasuke, he drug him back home kicking and screaming; a year after that they began dating.
Naruto shakes his head to ward off the memory to regard Sasuke, when he refuses to budge Naruto pinches the bridge of his nose and attempts to reign his anger back in, forcing himself to box it all in and throw away the key. "Look, Sasuke," Naruto sighs, moving to rub the back of his head and shuffle his feet, "I think it would be best if we went home and got some sleep, we're both tired and we obviously have a lot to talk about in the morning-"
"Naruto," Sasuke cuts him off, "I don't think you quite understand what's happening here. I'm leaving you." He tells him, his voice softening at the end. "I'm breaking up with you. There's just-it's just not working. You're not going to sleep on the couch because I'm not going to come home with you- I don't live there anymore, I'm not-" he pulls a pained face here, a horrid feeling burning away at his stomach "-I'm not going to marry you."
He looks up into Naruto's eyes and wills him to understand.
"I'm not going to spend the rest of my life with you."
Tears well up in Naruto's torn blue eyes as he reaches out to stroke Sasuke's cheek with a trembling hand, "Why are you doing this Sasuke? Please tell me what I did, I can fix it." he whispers brokenly.
"Please back away and let me go, Naruto." Sasuke begs softly.
"I can't," Naruto responds with a watery smile so bitter Sasuke was afraid his heart would break even more than it already had, "I can't just give up and let you, I love you too much to let you walk away. I love you and I will always love you, Sasuke. We can work past this; we can if we work together. Just you and me, no one else; we could do whatever we want. We have a future together, a future where you come home, and we'll continue bickering and eventually we'll get married and we'll grow old together-"
"Stop it!" Sasuke cuts him off with an exasperated shout, "Just stop it Naruto, don't you feed me lies about some idealistic future!"
"It is ideal! And I'm trying to make it a reality! If you would just-!"
"No," Sasuke shakes his head, a note of finality in his voice, "It's over, Naruto." With that Sasuke maneuvered around his frozen, now ex-boyfriend, and placed Naruto's keys on the table. With one last pained look at Naruto's face he sighed and walked toward the door, leaving the café and ripping himself out of Naruto's life, refusing to acknowledge and face the tears that ran down Naruto's face.
/./.
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Of course that would have been the case had Naruto been any other man. The fact of the matter is, was that Naruto was a one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-blue-moon kind of man; the kind of man that hid in plain sight and waited patiently for you to show your weakness so he could exploit it with a mask crafted with the most dazzling smile and heart-warming smile.
Watching the love of his life slip out the café door in his black form fitting jacket (a jacket that Naruto had bought him for Christmas last year) without a backwards glance, Naruto wiped his tears away and flipped open his cellphone, dialing a familiar number.
"…Hello?"
"Remember that favor you owed me for saving your ass?"
A beat.
A wild smile (one that sent the group of teens scrambling to leave the café in a hurry) stretched across Naruto's lips as he listened to the wary silence resounded over the phone line.
"It's time to pay up."
A sigh.
"What do you need?"
"Information."
"On what?"
Naruto's cheery smile instantly dropped and a growl emerged from deep within his throat.
"On a certain someone." Was his clipped response.
"…Please don't tell me Sasuke broke up with you for that asshole who works in HR."
"Give me his information. All of it," Naruto continues, "I want to know everything. I know you can do it, you are after all, screwing his assistant."
Without even waiting for a response Naruto hangs up. He stood there for a good five minutes before pulling his phone back out to send a quick text.
"Oh and Neji? Not a word to Sasuke."
He paused here, before putting out a mass text.
"Brain trust- assemble."
He exited the café after throwing down some bills and flashing a toothy grin at the visibly distressed waitress as he stepped out of the small coffee shop and into the cold November night.
/./.
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First chapter down, be sure to come back and watch for updates! I now have an Ao3 account, links to that and my tumblr are in my bio!