Lonely Boy

by todo-mahem

A/N: Hobey Ho, here we go with another story! Aiming for more chapters than any I've done before (good luck with that!).

Dedicated to the lovely S-I-L-E-N-C-E IS B-E-A-U-T-Y who I've been pm'ing for a while now.
They've made me feel like writing, just by talking about writing!

- Konoha Gakuen like setting.
- They're all about 16 or 17.
- OOC for safety's sake, don't complain.
- Possible/probably Yaoi.
- Definate Shonen ai.
- NaruSasu/SasuNaru Pairing!!!!! You've been warned.

Rated T for future chapters.

Disclaimer; I do nawt own Naruto. I do own this story though.

---

Naruto slammed his head once more onto the desk, wincing slightly at the pain it caused but enjoying it none the less. He heard Shikamaru sigh with annoyance beside him and grinned with satisfaction.

Raising his head again Naruto prepared himself for the next assault but was surprisingly stopped when Shikamaru's hand flicked out, grabbing a fistful of his hair and yanking it back.

"OUCH!" Naruto yelled, causing those who hadn't already been watching the blonde while he banged his head on the desk to look up and stare.

"Let go!" Naruto whined.

Slowly letting go of the blonde's hair, Shikamaru went back to staring with a lacklustre expression towards the front of the room.

Glaring at the boy with annoyance Naruto picked up his pen from beside his book and proceeded to draw swirls all over Shikamaru's arm, who chose to ignore him.

Truth be told, Naruto was bored. As was most of the class since their teacher was somewhat, uncharacteristically late.

Even Sasuke Uchiha was starting to drum his fingers against his desk in annoyance.

At the front of the room Sakura, Ino and Tenten, watched warily by Hinata were applying their make-up, a daily routine, Neji had his head in a book, and Rock Lee beside him was staring in horror at the rip he had somehow managed to acquire in his shockingly green jumper.

Kiba, on the other side of Naruto was shooting spit balls at the white board. Shino and Choji beside him were watching.

Quite generally, no one was amused.

Except maybe Naruto, who'd just drawn an incredibly dirty picture on Shikamaru's arm.

Everyone in the room looked up as the door banged open and Kakashi, their teacher, barged in, knocking over the skeleton by the door in the process. Indicating for Ino to pick it up he marched over to his desk, dumping a pile of papers onto it before turning towards the class.

"Morning class, I'd say I'm sorry that I'm late but that would be a lie because I was at the climax of the book and let me tell you," He raised his eyebrows suggestively towards the girls in the front row. "It was VERY good."

A few of the boys laughed while the girls, Hinata especially, blushed. Though a few glares were received, and ignored.

"Ok," Kakashi leaned back on his desk, fixing up the white mask across his face as he did. "Not one to delay on a good thing, I'm going to be giving you this terms assignment, putting you into your groups and then sending you to the library to work on them so I can read."

More glares, once again, ignored.

"Emotions are a wonderful thing. They inspire many things, courage, revenge, love, hate, loneliness, you name it, they're behind it. In history, they've caused wars, deaths, life and they still continue to do so. But do you, really understand them?"

Kakashi paused dramatically before continuing.

"For your assignment, I'm going to give you an emotion, and as a group I'd like you to research that emotion through history, try to understand it, relate to it." Reaching behind him, Kakashi picked up a folder and opened it, looking down at the list. "The rest will be explained in your task sheet which you can pick up as you leave with your group."

"So without further prolonging the anticipation...or dread," Almost all of the students leaned forward anxiously at that point. "Here are the groups!"

From the back of the room Naruto watched as names were called, hoping that he'd be with at least one of his friends.

To his horror though, this happened:

Hinata, Shino and Kiba.
Choji, Shikamaru and Ino.
Lee, Neji and Tenten.

Which left...

Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto.

Naruto blanched.

Sasuke glared.

Sakura was stuck somewhere between horror and ecstasy.

With an angry scowl Naruto turned to glare at Sasuke, the boy who had hated him since they first met, way back in the first grade. Sasuke whole heartedly returned the look, though became distracted when Sakura bounced towards him, huge smile on her face. At this point, he directed his glare towards her.

Groaning Naruto turned back to his desk and proceeded to bang his head against the surface. This time, Shikamaru didn't stop him.

---

When the two had met, barely old enough to comprehend their hate let alone express it, Naruto and Sasuke had defied such rules of society and proceeded to wage a war.

Thinking back, Naruto can conceed that it was probably, maybe his fault. Maybe.

'Hi.' Naruto had said to the little boy with dark hair and equally dark eyes. He was sitting in in the corner of the room, staring around at the other children with a somewhat nervous look.

Shocked at the voice, Sasuke had looked up into the light blue eyes before him.

After a moment he replied. 'Hello.'

Sitting down beside him, Naruto casually reached out and grabbed the other boys hand and held it in his lap.

'What are you doing?' Sasuke asked, but didn't break the contact.

'You looked lonely.' Naruto replied. 'Iruka says that when I'm lonely, go to him and he'll be with me and hold my hand.'

Naruto grinned at Sasuke who stared back, surprised for the most part.

'I'm not lonely.' Sasuke said after he'd recovered.

'If you say so.' Naruto smiled again.

Wrenching his hand from the other boys, Sasuke stood up and walked away, an angry glare on his face.

Baffled, Naruto watched him go.

'Then why did you look lonely...' He had mused to himself.

From that point on, Sasuke had hated Naruto with such eagerness that Naruto could do nothing more than respond with his own hatred. After the years, the reasons were deserted.

The hate just 'was'.

Naruto couldn't help but feel that it was pointless. On more than one occassion he'd tried, somewhat, to make nice with Sasuke, to no avail though.

Glancing back at Sasuke as they walked to the library, and earning a heated glare for it, Naruto couldn't help but think that some how, still written on his face was the same expression as before, only now it was concealed.

---

"Loneliness!?" Naruto blanched at Sakura. "THAT is our emotion?"

With a condesending glance at Naruto, the girl sighed.

"Yes, Naruto. Now get over it and start looking for books."

Glaring at the girls back as she marched away, Naruto slumped into a chair at table accross from Sasuke.

"How the hell am I meant to know what means?" Naruto whined to himself.

Sasuke snorted a low laugh.

Giving him an incredulous look, Naruto leaned forward, slamming his hand on the table in the proccess.

Sasuke wasn't moved.

"What's your problem, Teme?" Naruto growled.

"You, obviously." Sasuke hissed back at him.

The two glared at each other for a moment more before huffing and staring away from each other.

After a while Sasuke spoke, causing Naruto to jump slightly.

"You should know what it means." He said, still not looking at Naruto.

Frowning slightly, Naruto asked, "What?"

Sighing, Sasuke turned to face Naruto. "Lonliness, Dobe."

Ignorning Naruto's glare, Sasuke continued.

"Think about it, you've got no one, no family, friends who hardly put up with you, let alone 'like' you. Heck, the girl you like won't even consider you." Sasuke said this all as if it wasn't anything unusual, a calm observation. "Even people you've never met look at you as if your rubbish, trash even. You of all people should know what it means."

Naruto didn't move. He couldn't.

In his mind the words kept repeating themselves, bashing against his mind, making themselves heard.

"I'm...lonely?" Naruto murmered.

Rolling his eyes Sasuke stood from his seat and walked away, leaving Naruto by himself.

Naruto felt his stomach clench, a warm sting in his eyes as his body began to shake.

Taking in a few deep breaths the blonde placed his head against the table and tried to calm himself, watching the scenery outside the window.

Nothing could clear the words from his head.

'I'm lonely.' Echoed through his mind.

---

Sasuke leaned against the bookshelf, covering his mouth with his hands and clenching his eyes shut.

He tried to remove the image of Naruto's broken face, but it remained there alongside the heavy guilt.

'He deserved it.' Sasuke whispered to himself.

But no consolation came with the words.

---

xxTo be Continuedxx

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A/N: Please Review!!!!!!! *pelts with cookies of love*