I've wanted to publish a Naruto fanfic for so long! I hope this is okay. It's been in my computer since, like, 2012. I should really get around to finishing something sometime soon, though...well, hope you enjoy!
I tried to make it noticeable when timespans and settings have shifted with page breaks, but let me know if it's confusing and I'll think of a method (open to suggestions!) that's less so.
"Oh."
It's a simple word, two letters. One syllable. And it can break a whole seven years' worth of hard work, determination and love.
Sasuke knows because he's seen it happen. Because it's happened to him.
-.-.-.-.-.-
"Hey, Sasuke!"
Sasuke turns at the voice, but it isn't as if he doesn't already know who it is. Naruto's running after him-the only person who could ever catch up with Sasuke so quickly after the bell's rung for the end of the school day.
"You always do that, dammit! I said to wait for me after class!"
Sasuke makes a show of rolling his eyes, though he feels a brief flutter in his chest; a link on the chain tightly wound around his heart has snapped, as it often does in the presence of this blond. "Why would I?"
Naruto furrows his eyebrows. "Because we're friends, idiot!" He shakes his head then. "I wonder who the genius here really is!"
Sasuke wonders, also. He's a genius in all things physical: school work, athletics...even his fighting style is superb. He always scores top marks, besting even the brilliant (yet lazy) Shikamaru. Everything he could ever want is within his grasp. He knows this, knows he exells and should be somewhere better. Somewhere like top-notch school, with a tuition higher than the sky.
But a genius wouldn't turn down full ride scholarships to renowned private academies just to see the face of a smiling blond every other day.
So yes, Sasuke also wonders who, between the two of them, the genius must be.
"I'm serious, wait for me next time..." Naruto huffs and looks away.
Sasuke can't help but chuckle. "Fine, whatever. Don't keep me waiting tomorrow, then."
Naruto grins, nodding. "Make sure you remember!"
-.-.-.-.-.-
"Sasuke...is that all you have to say?"
Naruto's voice is distant to Sasuke's ears. He only stares, shocked behind a mask of indifference. The mask seems plastered to his face, stuck with crazy glue. He can't even will himself to blink. It's as if he has no control over himself; a prisoner within his own mind, looking out from behind window eyes.
He wants to speak so badly. He wants to say something, anything, but not a single word escapes him.
"W-well? That's...really it?"
He still can't speak. Naruto's shoulders are shaking, his head lowered. He looks as if he's given up. On what, Sasuke doesn't want to know.
"Fine." Naruto turns on heel and walks off. When Sasuke finds his voice, the blond is out of sight. When he can move his feet again, the sun is setting.
-.-.-.-.-.-
"Have you even thought about college yet, Naruto? The world is more than troublemaking and high school!"
Sasuke can hear Iruka's stern voice. It's another lecture about college and making something of life. It's the third one Naruto's gotten this week.
"But-! It's not worth anything to go anyway, right? I'll just flunk out and-ow! What the heck!"
Sasuke smirks; he knows Iruka hates when Naruto takes an attitude like that. He can hear the man set his hardcover teaching book back down.
"Don't say that. When you say things like that, you're insulting all of your teachers that took the time to teach you, including me."
"...Sorry. I don't mean it like that, Iruka, I just...I can't do college. I won't be good at it. What's the point? I don't wanna give anyone else a reason to laugh at me. I'll just...do what I do best."
Iruka sighed. "Alright...but Naruto, I'm proud of you. Be happy, no matter what you do."
... ... ...
"You haven't thought about it yet, have you?"
Sasuke frowns at Naruto's uncharacteristic silence. He'd posed the question moments earlier, after his and Naruto's chucklings had died down after a joke. He thought that would have been the best time, when the blond was happier.
It seemed he was wrong.
"Well? Did you think about what I said?"
"Sasuke, I...I can't let you pay me in. Do you know how much Konoha University is? A billion dollars!"
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Sixty thousand is hardly a billion."
"Says billionaire playboy, Sasuke Uchiha." Naruto scowls, folding his arms and sinking deeper into the chair.
"Finish your ice cream." Sasuke rolls his eyes again, finishing up his parfait. He doesn't like sweets, but Naruto chose the ice cream parlour this time and Sasuke was too happy about him picking anything besides Ramen to really say much in argument.
"Sasuke...why do you do all this? For me, I mean. For Sakura, yeah. Ino, sure. But me?"
The question stuns Sasuke into a temporary silence. Why Naruto, indeed. He has to come up with something fast. "It's not like I'm doing anything else with the money, why not use it for someone that needs it."
"But Sasuke...if that was true, you could be buying all these people so many things!"
"That's a waste. An education is more valuable than any jewelry or bouquet."
The smile that graces Naruto's face is bright and glows beautifully. "Thank you, Sasuke... I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Not go to college," Sasuke smirks, and Naruto laughs.
-.-.-.-.-.-
Four years, and Naruto's barely changed.
He's gained a few inches, and probably stands as tall as Sasuke now. He's sun-kissed and gorgeous, with his tousled blonde hair and those sapphire eyes. Sasuke can't look away. Naruto's wearing a white button-up and black pants, his standard-issue waiter's outfit. Everyone's wearing one, but he looks the best.
Naturally.
He's talking to someone else, taking their order. The girl at the table blushes and hides her smile. Her boyfriend glares a little and orders their food.
And then Naruto moves to him.
His eyes are on the notepad in his hands. "Welcome to Konoha Diner, what will you be having today?" When Sasuke doesn't respond, Naruto looks up. "I said, what...what...what... ...S-Sasuke?"
Naruto drops the notepad. His eyes flash, and Sasuke can see a lifetime of sadness, a bit of happiness, and a quick flare of anger.
"Naruto," Sasuke's voice doesn't feel like his own. His throat feels tight. "I'll have today's special."
"You..." Naruto looks confused, and soon he's glaring. "Fuck you."
It's not a response Sasuke didn't expect. It still hurts, still sends a jolt of pain into his chest. Instead of an apology, Sasuke smirks and closes his eyes against the burning threat of tears. "That's not nice, is it?"
He doesn't know why he can't just apologize. Naruto deserves it, he deserves more than that, but...he just can't bring himself to do it.
Naruto turns away and storms off as Sasuke takes nonchalant sips of lukewarm coffee. He has to put the cup down after a moment, his hands trembling too hard to hold it well.
-.-.-.-.-.-
"Hey, Sasuke?"
Sasuke looks up from his homework. Naruto's homework is long forgotten, thrown off to the side of Sasuke's room. "Why don't you date anyone?"
It's an odd question, indeed. "Why are you asking? You should worry about your school work."
"I mean...the ladies are all over you! Especially Sakura...and, don't get me wrong, I don't want you datin' her, but..what's stopping you?"
"I don't like her. Or any of them," Sasuke replies shortly, turning away from curious blue eyes.
"Why not? She seems to like you well enough for yourself and not just your money."
Sasuke grits his teeth. He loves-likes-tolerates Naruto just fine, until he gets like this. "Stop asking, dobe."
Naruto pouts. Sasuke can't see it, but he hears it. "Jeez, teme. I was just asking! Why're you always so rude?"
He can feel his eyebrow twitch. "Because you always push people."
Naruto rolls his eyes. "I do not!"
... ... ...
There's furious pounding on Sasuke's front door, at 7:57am on a Saturday. His house is huge, so he only knows this from a timid maid that shakes him awake and informs him of the visitor. A blonde boy with strange marks on his cheeks.
And blood on his face.
Sasuke hops up immediately, not bothering to pull on a shirt. He runs down the steps, and pulls the door open the second his hand touches the knob.
Naruto laughs a bit. "I guess you were right...about last night."
Sasuke pulls Naruto in by a wrist he doesn't realize is bruised until the blonde hisses and yanks it back. "What happened?" He asks, voice steely.
"I pushed someone too far. I guess," Naruto's voice quivers too much to be as nonchalant as his words.
"How?" Sasuke has an idea of what Naruto might say, and he hopes he's wrong.
"Being myself. You know...being cursed."
Sasuke almost flinches from how stiffly Naruto says it. "Shut up. You know that's stupid."
"You asked!"
Sasuke berates himself silently-he did ask, and the answer being unpleasant is no reason to snap at Naruto. "Come on. There are bandages with your name on them."
About ten minutes later finds Naruto on sitting on the edge of the bathtub, with Sasuke between his legs as he bandages an already healing stomach wound.
He pretends not to notice.
"Sasuke..."
"What?" Sasuke doesn't look up, instead studying a purplish bruise. The healing is so fast, but too slow to visibly detect. He wonders if it's like watching a pot on the stove-however that saying went.
"...Do you think they're right?"
"About what?"
"...That I killed my parents."
"...No. That's stupid. You were only a baby, so how could you?"
Naruto smiles. It's a strange mix of emotions; there's a doubt, but there's something else. He's never seen this emotion before.
He doesn't remember very much after hugging Naruto against his chest, but he wakes up in his own bed, alone, with a spot of dry blood and the streak of a dry tear on his shoulder.
-.-.-.-.-.-
"It's just...why is he back now? After all these years? After what he said and did to me? Why did he come back now? I was over him, Sakura, I swear I was..."
Sasuke knows he probably shouldn't be eavesdropping like this, but he can't help himself. He'd been escorted out after Naruto's sudden tantrum, by two hulking bodyguards that gave him glares of death for bothering the little blond.
Times certainly had changed, it seemed.
He peeked through the cracked door. He could see a familiar female rubbing Naruto's back. She tucked a few strands of cotton candy pink behind her ear. "C'mon, Naruto...it's alright. He's a jerk, right? You know that. But...I'm sure he came back because he really wanted to tell you something. Maybe he really missed you."
Sasuke bit back a scoff.
"Yeah, right. You know as well as I do that he either came back to laugh in my face some more, bring up old memories, or just be a douchebag and rile me up. He's doing a good job of it, too." Naruto sighed again.
Not everything revolves around you, Sasuke wanted to snap. But if he said that, he'd have been lying. If he were to be brutally honest with himself, for once, he'd admit that mostly every waking thought he's had has revolved around Naruto, in some way or another. Almost every thought, for seven years, was about Naruto, of all people.
Sasuke stumbled back into the wall, not caring if he alerted the room's occupants of his presence. He turned abruptly and stormed out.
-.-.-.-.-.-
"Sasuke...I love you. ...Sasuke?"
"...Oh."
Hopefully the next chapter won't be so confusing!