Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

Lady winter was especially generous in this village. The snow piled high against cathedrals and smothered the world in death; the children were happy as they frolicked, for their innocent minds made positive of even the white poison upon the ground. Puffs of air exhaled from their flush faces as they clustered together in the village square, mesmerized by the scent of purity in the air.

A black sheep stood among them, his charcoal eyes fixated on the ground, nose buried within a light-blue scarf—presumably, by its size, his mother's. He had alabaster skin and rosy cheeks, hardly the kind of child that would spark fear into any person. The boy's hair collected white upon its surface to resemble the night sky, dripping through with ivory flakes; balls of light cascading down from the darkness. His eyelashes closed over his irises; oh! Those irises that saw deep into that helpless being below, into the soul that was pure as the driven snow.

The black sheep was always visible at this time of year, so the teachers allowed him the grace to wander away from the herd. There was a swing the boy would always lounge upon, a place where he'd watch the others play. And it never really occurred to him that the crazy actions before him might have been fun...then again, he was a child of curious behavior and never did consider anything beyond what was required of him.

And his fingers wrapped about the ice-cold ropes, hands too thick with mitten fabric to feel the rough texture. His weight fell upon the rickety, old plank that suspended itself by the ropes. It was in this instance that he stared upon the frozen wonderland and saw how broken and over taken it was. The leaves were stripped from every tree, white fluff even piling up on the rooftops, leaving icicles to frame the village square where the fountain had chinks of ice in its water. Since when did any part of this cold death become appealing to his family? He himself could not fathom moving to a place where snow fell relentlessly and time never moved to the next season. Just miles away was the village of spring, where harvest was so bountiful year-round that they always had excess to gift the village of winter. Few things puzzled this boy—for he did not linger on many—but he wondered if perhaps his parents were sane. He hated the cold, hated the snow, hated the village inhabitants who looked at him like an exotic animal, hair all dark and eyes all large like that.

It bugged him how time had stopped for this place, though he didn't know why considering his previous residence was also a time-stopped village: the village of autumn. Perhaps it was the citizens that made this place seem stationary...How the days were always the same: being loved as a forbidden-exile by the young girls and, in the same spirit, being beaten alive by testosterone crazed boys. On occasion, even adults would venture a whack or two at his parents and at himself. No one ever noticing that the black sheep was a person himself; that perhaps a foreigner was not his identity, but a title.

The snow crunched as he pushed himself up into the air, the smell of the cathedral's smoke drifting up after him. Directly across from him was the Gothic centerpiece, the reason all flocked to the village of winter when Christmas came about. He swung back, the sweet smoke of the furnace warming his innards and strangling them in the suffocating betrayal of dust. He coughed and swung his feet forward with the rising air current pulling him up. In his opinion, only this swing was still under the effects of time; the act of it pushing and pulling, stirring the air and lifting to the heavens, that was something no one had the grace for in this city. It reminded him of a bird, but birds didn't exist here.

The steady giggles of far off children wrapped the snow in a musical happiness, though the black sheep merely thought his fellow classmates stupid for attempting to make this place pleasant.

"Hey, you!"

The black sheep continued to swing, darting his eyes to the source of the sound. A huddle of older boys crowded about him like a pack of wolves, infiltrating the herd.

"You're that foreign kid aren't you? Tell me Ochibi-san, is everyone this small in the outside world?" the same voice that called out to him. A bigger boy...maybe 14 or so.

"Do you really think it takes a team of people to bully one kid?" the black sheep smirked and caught a glimpse of their snarls as he propelled upward in another swing.

"Fine then," the older boy began as the black sheep came down from the sky and swung back upward, "If you don't want to play along, we'll skip to the best part."

As the swing met its peak at the highest point, the black sheep heard a snap. And all at once he came plummeting to the ground, his bird, his wings forever snatched away from him.

"Oh shit, he's bleeding...Let's go!" The older boys scurried off now, leaving the black sheep to stare, hand at the bruised deltoid, at what had broken his fall.

The pieces of the swing had descended this way and that, taking the black sheep's scarf with it. One of the miscellaneous pieces had struck what he'd landed on, and he sat up to find it a boy, knocked unconscious from the impact, a steady trickle of blood from his blonde tufts of hair that stuck out messily from his scalp. His skin was tan, the mark of someone from the summer village and his button nose was framed by three streaks, bushing out from either cheek like whiskers. He'd make a cute girl.

The black sheep lifted himself off the boy and found his scarf in the snow, proceeding to wrap it about the boy's wound, it's soft, light-blue fabric infected by red.

Suddenly, the boy's eyes flickered open, the purest ocean blue, and he shot up abruptly and smashed his head into the black sheep's. They both whined a put their hands to their heads before the newly-conscious boy exclaimed,

"I'll catch you! Don't worr-" but then his eyes glanced over to the infuriated soul beside him, cold gloves trying to chill away the mark on his forehead. The boy's face brightened enthusiastically, "Oh wow, wow, wow! You're from the village of autumn, right? The transfer student, Sasuke Uchifa?"

"It's Uchiha." he growled back, now frustrated that his nose was becoming cold and he'd helped save a retard who'd most-likely be more trouble than he was worth.

The boy's silly, bubbly smile seemed to warm everything as his breath puffed out words excitedly, "My name's Naruto Uzumaki. I'm a transfer student too."

"I can tell." Sasuke added.

"I like ramen—"

"That's on your introduction forms."

"Oh! So you read, Sas—"

"Yes."

Naruto threw his hands up in the air, face flush from either the cold or the heat of irritation, "Would you let me finish my own sentence! Geez, no wonder no one gets along with you."

"You know why they don't get along with me and it's not because of my attitude. We both know full well the terrible things people will do when they're threatened by an unknown. I'm not the only one with the scars." Sasuke's stare was piercing and merciless, shocking his companion for an instance long enough to allow Sasuke right to stand and pass by the blonde boy beside him, eyes set on the ground in the horror of the truth that had been the unspoken landmine.

"So quit smiling and get a clue, we're alone in this village and there's no one who's going to pity us." The snow crunched and the smoke from the cathedral subsided with its bell that rang long for the day's end. Sasuke was satisfied with no one near him, no one to see the shame beyond his callused facade. For the night drizzled on with frozen dreams and his afternoons were never born without hardship and suffering, his tears were frozen inside of him until the rain were to again fall from the sky.

But then he stopped as he heard a pace behind his own, the boy, following after him. He quickened his step.

"You know, it surprised me—because you always have this scarf around you—but you look really cute...Are you sure you're not a girl?" Naruto asked, Sasuke blushed by the insult.

"What the hell are you? Stupid? Get that creepy face away from me!" he sped up more so that Naruto trailed behind him now.

Suddenly, his wrist was seized and he spun around to gaze the boy before him in the eye. That light blue gaze was dead serious now, an odd look for a boy who just displayed himself as an air-headed fool.

"I don't pay attention to this stuff a lot, but something just bugged me about this...I have an aunt from the autumn village...She has red hair and green eyes."

The world seemed to tilt as Sasuke's eyes widened and he snatched his hand away from Naruto's grip. Everyone knew the trademark identification for foreigners: their hair and eye color were always the same shades as what was universal in their home village. But Sasuke was a bright person. If the hair and eyes were typically red and green in the autumn village, then Sasuke—black hair and black eyed—obviously wasn't from that village. But he recalled memories and structures and temperatures and feelings...No. It was a farce. So why did the idea seem so possible to him?

"You're crazy. I know where I'm from." But the memories kept flashing and changing before Sasuke's eyes. The times he smiled with his friends in a colorful world changed to a scene in a cold, stone castle. Things were confusing. Like he was scared to recall...Like having someone near to him was dangerous for this reason. He staggered back and fell, eyes unfocused and breath becoming heavy and hot, despite being against cold, wet sheets of white.

"Oi! What's wrong~" Naruto began, appearing over him.

It was like Sasuke was half himself and half another. His heart thumped hard in his chest and his eyes narrowed in on the smallest details of the boy before him. How his blonde eye lashes were short and thin...How his tongue made the slightest appearance behind his loosely-parted lips. Those rosy lips.

Suddenly, he snatched the front of the boy's jacket and seized him in. His eyes wide, Naruto searched for some sign of consciousness in Sasuke's unfocused eyes. Cheek flush and mouth watering, one might easily mistake the look of the ill for the look of the seduced. Which one Sasuke was became increasingly harder to discern as he drew inches away from Naruto, eyes still unfocused, intoxicated by the boy's caramel breath.

A young girl wailed shrill and powerful, shocking whatever possessed Sasuke so that he'd stop only decimeters away from brushing his lips against Naruto's. Both boys turned in the most awkward of positions and stared at the girl, her tiny white eyes bulging behind ivory bangs.

In an instant, Sasuke shoved Naruto off of him and the boy scrambled away in shock.

"Sasuke-kun~ why didn't you tell me and the others you were gay?" the girl asked, revealing herself as one of his fangirls...She spoke "gay" as though it were an infectious disease.

He took this as an opportunity to lose another pesky follower, "Betsuni, I just didn't think it was important."

"Wah!" Naruto exclaimed, "You're not denying it?" Sasuke's eyes were the same stationary, indifferent black they'd always been, screaming with empty darkness. He did not reply, why did anyone but he need to know the reasons behind his actions? Things were confusing enough without annoying second and third parties. At least now he'd have one of those fangirls off his—but it was too early to believe that.

The girl jumped for joy and cried loudly, "Oh, I LOVE shounen-ai~ "

Sasuke froze, a frown plastered on his face. In the bare cold, the only other annoyances to be added were confusion(check), an androgynous boy now questioning his gender preference(check), and a yaoi fangirl(check). Could the universe quit slamming his head up against a brick wall for once?

"So you really are gay? Maybe I shouldn't've talked to you then..." Naruto confessed as the girl rambled on her experiences with boy love.

"Just shut up and leave me alone..." Sasuke sighed.

"Leave you alone! Shut up!~ How dare you when you're the one you just tried to kiss me~" he threw his hands in the air childishly and vented in such a loud tone that he might've shaken the snow from the trees had his statement not been cut off by a lady of black approaching from the rear. The black sheep looked like her.

"Momma?" Sasuke asked strangely.

Her smile was lovely and genuine as she began softly, as sweet voice escaping from her lips, "Now what do we have here, a little get together?"

Naruto and the girl blushed by how gorgeous the lady was, her charcoal hair falling charmingly about her smooth, milk-white skin. The small girl was the first to speak.

"Wow! You must be Sasuke-kun's mommy!" she rushed up to the woman and enthusiastically balled her hands into fists, eyes wide in wonder.

Sasuke's mother grinned, "Sasuke has to come home now. Why don't you run along before you're parents get worried?"

The little girl's gazed shifted back to Sasuke and Naruto for a moment. But she obliged weakly, "Yes 'mam." the little girl scurried off, never forgetting the past occurrence for a long while to come.

But Sasuke's mother turned to him gently, "Why don't you invite your friend to have diner?"

Sasuke did not answer, half expecting Naruto to decline immediately and run off, being as confused as Sasuke was about the past events. But the boy exploded into a sudden rush of dialog, as if finally out of a trance of obsession with her beauty.

"Of course! I'd love to have Sasuke's mom's cooking!"

She giggled, but Sasuke was unamused.

"Can't you just go back home to your parents or something?" Sasuke argued.

"I don't have parents."

Then again, something was oddly unexpected about all of this, as if perspective of everything hatched away and demented into fantasy whenever around Naruto, the world continuing to tilt. Who was to have guessed someone could be more alone than Sasuke and for that person to have been a goofy boy with an honest heart. How he smiled and wounded himself with that nonchalant declaration, as if it was okay that he was alone in this village of death. It made Sasuke hide his surprise by looking away.

"They died before I could remember." Naruto added, but there need be no more convincing. Sasuke grabbed his mother's hand and pulled her off, the woman first surprised, but a warm smile soon coming over her features as she noticed her boy's expression was flush. He had been embarrassed to be wrong, to be so intrigued.

She led the two boys into a warm cabin where the air smelled of stew and a fire burned at the -place in the common room. The atmosphere was thick with the scent of cedar, the sharp air of the outside snow only a memory reflected in the windows outside. Furniture was place about the flickering fire where the two boys sat and hot chocolate was served to them in porcelain cups, glossy even in the dim lit room.

"So who's your new friend?" Sasuke's mother began.

"-Not a friend." Sasuke commented.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki and I think your son is gay." his blue eyes were serious and stern. Way to be subtle.

After a few moments, Sasuke's mother cracked up laughing. It was sweet and whimsical, a melody fit for the choir of angels.

"I heard you two talking about kissing and I thought it might be time to inform you, Sasuke." His mother giggled a little more and then turned to him seriously.

It was quiet.

"Sasuke, you suffer from reverse Snow White Syndrome, a disease that makes you attempt to kiss any and all that you're sexually attracted to in the slightest. But if you succeed at kissing anyone, your life will be lost."

There was a pause. The mother was serious, often times getting things out and never pacing. But, for a second, no one knew how to react to anything. And the ripples of the hot chocolate on the table subsided from their being lifted into the hands of the young. Outside, the wind beat on the snow-covered panes. Inside, only wide eyes remained.

What was this mess of information so recklessly thrown before the black sheep? Wasn't a secret supposed to slowly reveal itself? For now, he questioned everything: how did he get the disease? What if it encompassed to change more than expected in his near days? Just what else was kept secret about his life? If it was true, so many things flashed before him, but one thing was certain: they had to have moved to this god-forsaken village for the purpose of keeping something secret...This thing triggered by attraction-

Wait...Attraction! His eyes darted over to the shocked blonde that had been pulled into this mess—he also realizing the gravity of the woman's words. And the boys took care to not keep their eyes off each other as they scrambled to the opposite sides of the room in horror. The firewood snapped and the angels' choir chimed through the house, a rather charming match-maker grin on the woman's face, not at all disturbed by her son's attractions, her giggle a prelude to the uplifting tale to come.

Author's Notes:

Hey! So ehm...*Cough Cough* Hello there! This is RukiaRocks back from an excruciatingly long absence. And again, she returns with more Shounen-ai! (You fans of mine, still hanging from my HitsuKarin days, I hear your "Boo!"s.) I apologize for my long absence, but I've been planning on releasing around 3 stories together, my writing style, I hope, improving quite a bit since my earlier days on this account.

I've heard a good deal about SasuNaru and how it seems to be even a liked pairing by those who do not support Shounen-ai or Yaoi(I ship them like hell now, even though I used to dislike it with a passion). I figured I'd see what all the hullabaloo was about and watched a few doushinji on youtube. Then, I suppose I always liked shota, so I decided to give it a crack at shrinking Naruto and Sasuke to see how you all would react. Hopefully I don't get flamed for making them slightly more small and innocent.

Please review; without at least 7 reviews I don't continue any stories! Thanks so much and I really hope you enjoyed the story! I hope to see you in another update!~

~*RukiaRocks*~

PS) my laptop keeps making this weird chinky noise and it's freaking me out! :O it might have computer cancer! Noooooo!~~~...:P Go yaoi!