I'm not gay. Really! I'm not! But when someone, even someone of your own sex, confesses his love to you, it's a little hard not to be flattered.

The flattery doubles when you've had the life I've had.

Then, it triples when the guy confessing to you is teen heart-throb Uchiha Sasuke.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let me back up a little. Well, a lot. To be precise, it's a seventeen year regression; back to the day I was born.

I was born in an accident. My dad was driving my mother to the hospital during her contractions, and some asshole ran a red light, totalling both his and my parents' car. My dad died straight away, and my mom made it to the hospital, gave birth to me, and died with me in her arms. Pretty shitty, I know, but trust me: it gets worse from here.

My life wasn't pretty, actually. My mom and dad didn't have any live relatives, and my dad's mentor, the one I would have technically gone to to be cared for, was outside the country for years, so I had to be bounced back and forth from foster homes. They weren't all that bad, not really, but since I moved around a lot, I kept changing schools; I never managed to make any long-term friends. Actually, I didn't really get to make friends at all; turns out that in public elementary school, there aren't many kids who are sympathetic to the whole "no parents" thing. I guess I can't blame them, since they weren't used to that sort of thing in the small town that I grew up.

Anyway, when I was about nine or ten, I moved into a foster home that actually had those kind of bad "only for the government money" foster parents like in the movies. But they weren't quite as bad as in the movies, either, they were just not the most attentive. I was lucky to be as old as I was when I went to them, since I could pretty much take care of myself. At that time, I was going to a school that was especially rough on me because of the bullying, but at least there was a teacher there, called Umino Iruka, to whom I could talk, though I never really did; at that point, I had become a prankster and slacker. I may have started the melodramatic stage of my life a couple of years too soon.

Then came the first day of a four-day weekend. I wasn't your usual kid; it was actually a pretty crappy event for me, because I didn't have any friends or family to play with, especially since the parents I was staying with would always go on their own little vacation. On those days, though, I actually tried to cheer myself up by making myself home-made ramen. It takes a lot more work, but it took my mind off things and tasted SO much better. Of course, I wasn't just gonna make a little bit! So naturally, I made this huge-ass bowl. Now, put together a 10-year-old, a heavy ceramic bowl, boiling ramen broth, and socks on laminate flooring. Yup, you guessed it; I slipped and broke the bowl, soaking myself in boiling broth and breaking the bowl. As it happens, the shards had a really cool and devastating effect all at the same time, scarring my cheeks with cat-like whiskers. Those sure provided fun for my classmates. . .

Well, I was a ten-year-old boy, and I had been in pretty decent homes up until then, so of course I had no clue of how I should go about treating the wounds. At the very least, there was a first aid kit in the house, so I tried my best at healing myself. It didn't work out as planned. On Tuesday, when I got to school, the wounds were infected and my skin was red and blotchy. Remember the teacher I mentioned before? He got what happened out of me one way or another, and he was absolutely furious! He filed a legal suit against my foster parents and won, and was decreed my guardian until my dad's friend returned from an undisclosed location.

So I moved in with Iruka, and to my surprise his wife wasn't exactly. . . a wife. In fact, it wasn't a woman at all. His partner's name was- and is to this day- Hatake Kakashi, who just so happened to be the vice-principal of our school. He's a perverted and slightly morbid man, but he's kind to me and shows me tough love. In my childhood, I had been a bit skeptical about the whole homosexuality issue, since my foster parents had always had different views, but Iruka and Kakashi made up my mind. I have never seen a couple so different and so perfect. Anyway, now you know that I don't have any aversion to homosexuality for sure. But I digress. Jiraiya, my dad's friend, showed up one day and had a long talk with Iruka and Kakashi. Finally, it was decided that I would stay to live with Iruka, but to this day I go camping or overseas with Jiraiya for vacation (sadly, I'm often caught up in his perverted research).

I was finally able to live a relatively normal life. For the first time, I was able to stay in the same school and try to make friends. Soon enough, everyone forgot about the marks on my body, though I was still a social pariah for some reason that my classmates weren't even able to remember. Since I was there to stay, I figured I would start taking an interest in my classmates. That's when I got the biggest crush I have ever had on anyone. Ever. Her name was Sakura; she had the prettiest, silkiest pink hair, brightest green eyes, and softest-looking skin I had ever seen. Her voice, was absolutely angelical. . .

That is, when she wasn't talking to me. Truth be told (and don't tell her I said this), she was a total bitch to me when I liked her. I don't even know why I liked her. She, on the other hand, was in love with tall, dark, and emo Uchiha Sasuke. Yep, the same guy that's confessing to me now.

At the time, though, I hated that guy. Whereas I was the loser kid that nobody liked, Sasuke had it all. Money, looks, brains, brawn, and that shitty stoic attitude that pissed me off but made most girls fall at his feet. Even at the age of 10, that was the way things went. We got into a lot of fights, actually, Sasuke and I. Truth be told. . . I always wanted Sasuke to acknowledge me. It wasn't like I had a crush on him like all the girls, but he didn't really bask in all that glory. He actually seemed to hate the attention, which always pissed me off since it was what I wanted, but I figured that someone who didn't really acknowledge anyone would consider someone really special if he did grant that honour. And truth be told, I always looked for any similarities between us; one day when I went home angry at Sasuke's stand-off ish attitude, Iruka explained to me that Sasuke had become cold because he had been witness to his parents' murder, and now lived with his brother. It was then that I thought that maybe I didn't have it the worst after all. I tried to be friendly to him the next day of school, but he ended up pissing me off, and that was the end of my attempts at friendship.

Eventually, though, things got better. It wasn't a secret that I got into a lot of fights, and it wasn't long before I got into it with one of the scary kids- Sabaku Gaara. I can't for my life remember what it was about, actually, just that at the end, when we were beaten and bloody in the principal's office, we somehow became good friends. I was happy that I had finally made a friend, but I thought that hanging out with Gaara would drive kids even further away, though it might have stopped the bullying. The funniest thing happened, though- the fight earned me respect. It wasn't long before I was hanging out with the coolest group of bastards I ever met: Inuzuka Kiba, who's more of a dog than his own puppy Akamaru, Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Chouji, Sloth and Gluttony incarnate, and Aburame Shino, the silent and creepy bug type. With Shikamaru and Gaara's help, I started getting my grades up slightly, and uncovered a hidden potential for creative arts- painting, drawing, baking, and writing among other things. Later, I met a new guy named Sai who helped me develop my talents further. Sai, incidentally, has made me have sharper reflexes to help me avoid his sexual harassment. I even started to hang out with Sakura occasionally, but soon my crush turned into a really cherished friendship.

Sasuke, however, didn't talk to me for any reason other than fighting for a long time. It happened on my 14th birthday, actually. The anniversary of my parents' death. I went to the graveyard to pay my respects, and had just finished cleaning the grave when I saw Sasuke sitting by a grave. I considered just leaving without saying anything, but the look on his face told me that he was in as much need of someone to talk to as I was, so I went over to talk to him. It turned out that every Sunday he would visit his parents' grave, and I commented how it was my parents' death anniversary, as well as my birthday. He didn't say much to me, so we just sat there until the sun set, said we'd see each other at school, and parted ways like that. I think that must have been the first time I felt a comfortable silence with anyone.

The next day, the weirdest thing happened. I was sitting at my desk drawing on my sketchpad when Sasuke came up to me and placed a box on my desk, before taking the seat beside me.

"What's this?" I blinked as I picked up the box and examined it carefully.

"Yesterday was your birthday, right?"

"Yeeeeeeeeessss?" I was a bit confused about what was going on.

"Everyone should get something special on his birthday, not just have to go clean a grave."

". . . yeeeeeeeesssss?" I have to admit, the situation didn't exactly give me the clearest mind.

I clearly remember Sasuke's annoyed expression. It was somewhere between exasperation and embarrassment. "I'm giving that to you for your birthday, idiot."

I was almost moved to tears. If it hadn't been because the teacher started the class, I would have probably burst out crying. Was that the acknowledgement I had been waiting for?

Well, I guess now I know that the confession is the acknowledgement. At the time, though, it seemed like a good start.

I bet you're dying to know what he got me for my birthday. Actually, it wasn't a secret that I liked ramen. So later that night when I opened the box, I found the cutest chibi-style ramen bowl phone charm ever, eyes and everything. When I inspected it, I noticed that the Uchiha family crest was imprinted on the bottom. When I asked him about it, he said that his brother made those as a hobby, and he'd asked him to make it for him.

A year passed and the relationship between us changed a bit. At that point, every time we talked wasn't necessarily to fight. Instead of hating him and trying to force acknowledgement out of him, I started to develop a weird sort of respect. I guess he felt the same way, because at one point, he let me drag him to sit with us. At the school there was now a big, weird, and noisy group composed of the social outcasts like Chouji and I, the geniuses like Shikamaru and Sakura, the scary kids like Sasuke and Gaara, and the rest of my friends and people who tagged along because of Sakura or Sasuke, such as Lee or Ino. Soon enough half the classroom would drag the tables together at lunch time so we could all eat together.

One day Sasuke and I were arguing over something, and I saw a sleek black car park by us. Sasuke froze, and I didn't realize who it was until I saw the man get out of the driver's seat. He was pretty much an older version of Sasuke, with long hair, sharper features, and pronounced laugh lines (which strikes me as odd, since he doesn't really smile that much). Begrudgingly, Sasuke introduced him as his brother.

His brother, however, wasn't what I had expected. Sure, he was a cold bastard, but he also seemed to like to make Sasuke's life hard with his teasing. Itachi, who immediately knew who I was, invited me over to the house against Sasuke's wishes. There, Itachi showed me his clay and polymer creations station, which reminded me of the brithday present that Sasuke had given me. I found it weird that I saw Sasuke tense up and twitch when I brought it up, but Itachi told me the reason when I complimented his worksmanship.

As it turned out, Sasuke had asked Itachi to teach him how to work with the materials, and he had actually made it himself. I felt like crying all over again. And that's the story of how I ended up crying quietly in Sasuke's bathroom.

Over the last three years, I've been forming the strongest bond I ever had with anyone, even with Iruka and Kakashi. It's not really a friendship, to be honest, but more of a friendly rivalry. Mutual respect, but we always want to surpass each other. Sasuke, being stoic and disinterested as he seems, never seemed like the kind of person to be sexually oriented in any way, so I guess you could say that calling his confession shocking is an understatement.

I guess you want to know how Sasuke confessed to me, then. Well, it was in a very Sasuke-like way, but I'll be damned if the guy doesn't know what I consider romantic.

Actually, we started taking taijutsu classes together a couple of years back, so he invited me to spar like we always do. He pinned me and soon the taijutsu turned into wrestling, but I was having an especially hard time going against him today. It was freaking weird, to tell the truth, when he had me bound arms and legs, his face a frog's hair away from mine. Don't think that I'm not good at wrestling though! I just had a really weird muscle day, and to tell the truth the way he looked at me froze me in place. It was. . . like his eyes were moist, but not crying moist. Almost glisteny. I started to feel super self-conscious under his gaze, something that never happened with him before, but I guess it didn't help that we were both sweaty and shirtless and he was basically lying on top of me. I know what you're thinking, you pervert. And no, he didn't lean in to kiss and ravage me.

Actually, he did the opposite. He got off me and offered that we go into his house for a drink. I was relieved, of course, and followed him, and then the weirdest thing happened. I got to see his room for the first time, a privilege I don't think anybody has had before. It was as you would expect: neat and without too many embellishments, though clearly it was a rich guy's room. On the stereo, soft jazz was playing (who'd have thought he liked jazz?), the dark blue curtains were closed, and the only light in the room came from a couple of dimmed light bulbs that were lined around the ceiling of the big room. Sasuke stalked (I don't think "walking" can describe the strange way he was moving in, almost like a cat) to a mini fridge beside his desk and took out a bottle of water and an energy drink brand which I love (and he hates). I ignored the fact and sat on his bed, complimenting his room as he sat on a chair at his desk.

"Naruto. . . " he told me, his voice was, I'm sorry to admit, husky (be thankful that I'm giving you all the dirty details). "I wanted to. . . say something." I noticed that he kept looking at a piece of paper with his hand-writing on it.

I kept looking at him, and when he didn't respond, I spoke. "What's up?"

"I. . . What I meant to say is. . . This is pretty fucked up, but. . . the thing is. . . " Let this be known as the day that Uchiha Sasuke blubbered and stumbled upon his words. "Fuck, I guess I have to do this after all." He muttered and shoved the piece of paper in my face, his face inexplicably (at the time) red. I blinked a few times before reading the contents, written in his fancy, florid writing:

Naruto:

The first time I saw you, I hated you. You were obnoxious and stupid, you were loud and uncontrollable, you constantly got in my face about everything and never let me have a peaceful day.

I stopped reading the letter and twitched, "Is this all going to tell me about how much you hated me?"

"Just keep reading." He growled at me, snapping me back to the letter.

And then one day you showed up with your scars and burn marks, and I just ignored it. I wasn't about to get involved with an emotional wreck. I didn't need to deal with your emotions if I had my own to contend with. When you healed, I saw that the scars on your cheeks didn't go away, and I thought you looked like a cat. I like cats.

You must know that at this point I was really confused. What was with that passive aggressive crap? I looked at him and saw him looking right back at me, his expression serious and calculating. I kept reading, feeling his gaze on me.

I tried ignoring you as much as possible, but I always found my eyes being drawn back to you. Did you know how you light up a room? It used to piss me off. I was used to the darkness for so long that I forgot what it was like to walk in the light. The day we met at the graveyard was the day I remembered.

That's about the time I felt myself going red.

I was happy, and I hated myself, when I accepted to sit with you and your annoying group of friends. At first I just thought that it was alright as something to do until I found something more interesting. And indeed, something caught my interest- someone, really. I found myself more and more curious about you. I found myself looking at you, studying your movements, wondering what you would do this evening or what you thought about that event. When you told me about your taijutsu classes, I felt like it would be a good way to spend more time hanging out with you. I really started to consider you a true friend.

I got choked up a little, but I kept going.

I don't know when it was, but before I knew it I found myself falling. It wasn't like I ever would have thought. I think that saying the phrase "fall in love" is wrong. It feels more like you're floating, I think, even if the person you're in love with is your best friend and rejection is imminent. I've always known that I was gay, but I never thought that being around you would hit me this hard, this quickly.

I'm not asking you to love me back. I'm not going to stop any time soon, though, and I don't think I want to. I just hope that it's alright that your friend is in love with you.

U. Sasuke.

And that pretty much brings you up to speed. You can just imagine the kinds of feelings surging through me right now. Flattery. Confusion. Ecstasy. Awkwardness. Joy. Fear. As a matter of fact, I am afraid of looking up from the paper at him.

Just to make sure that I read that right, I read it two, three more times. The content remains the same. Sasuke is in love with me. Slowly, I look up to meet his gaze. His demeanor, I notice, is the same as always. His eyes, though, seem restless. . . almost afraid. Does he think I'll lash out? Is he afraid of rejection? He must know I am going to reject him. He has to know that I'm going to say we can stay friends. I can't return his feelings. I'm not-

But the look in his eyes freezes my train of thought. He knows all of this. He has already resigned to the fact that I won't return his feelings.

"Sasuke, I. . . I'm not gay." I manage to croak out.

He freezes, then takes a sip of his drink as he turns his gaze towards the window, swallowing harder than he needs to.

"But. . . " Like hell I'm going to be predictable to this bastard. "I guess I could give it a shot."

HA! How's that for surprises? I'm not going to be up-staged today. It takes him a while to answer. "What?"

"I could-" I swallow, suddenly feeling really shy. "I mean, if you wanted to, I could give it a shot. . . the idea isn't really repulsive, either. . ."

There's a long silence, and I begin to speak again. "You know, if you-" I'm cut off by Sasuke's proximity. He gets as close to me as we were when he had me pinned down.

"May I, then?" he purrs, his voice and breath on my lips making my limbs become jell-o. Thank god I'm sitting down.

I chuckle nervously. "S-Seal the deal with a kiss?" Without another word, his lips press against mine. I feel my heart race and close my eyes, letting the feeling of the kiss wash over me for inspection.

Alright, maybe I'll be able to get used to this.

Author notes: Alright, so this was a little attempt at a different, first-person kind of story. Did you like it? Let me know if you want to see more stuff like this.

Also, let me know whether you'd like a multi-chaptered, third person version of this story, with more points of view than just Naruto's.

FYI, I'm in the process of writing another, multi-chaptered SasuNaru story called "Snobs VS Geeks." I probably won't publish anything until I've finished at least the 10th chapter (I'm on the 6th), but stay tuned!

EDIT: FUUUUUUUUUUU- I re-read it and realized I made Sakura have blue eyes. I welcome the lashes of your most painful insults. The mistake has now been corrected- they are now their usual golden brown.

I'm just messing with you, they're green :P