Author:Uchiha Yumi

Title: My Imperfect Fairytale

Genre: General, Angst, AU

Summary: Not all fairytales come with a happy ending [AU Fiction, TattooArtist-Sasuke x NurseStudent-Naruto, Yaoi, Shonen Ai, Angsty

Rating: T

Parings: SasuNaru

Main Characters: Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke.

Disclaimer: I don't own them…But I'm working to sweet-talk Sasuke into coming at mine's.

Special thanks: A special thank to Lilya-chan and FunnyNeko, for reading and correcting all of my nasty stuff.

A/N: English is not my native tongue. Please, tell me about my mistakes and I'll try to fix them.

Okaaaaay! Funny history of this one: I arranged it from an original story, so it might not be perfect and sparkling. Please, don't be too mean!
Oh, and it's my official return to writing, too. And to the Naruto fandom - after one year of nothingness...Also...a trial of a new style I had never used. Uh-oh.

Many kisses
Yumi

I found you here, now please just stay for a while
I can move on with you around
I hand you my mortal life, but will it be forever?

"Seize the Day" by Avenged Sevenfold

My Imperfect Fairytale


The chapter where our roads unexpectedly met starts in a rainy night of early November.

Our first encounter surely complies with what people commonly define as "fortuitous coincidence" – a happy trail of events maybe led by an invisible and magnanimous karma that brought a homeless student to bump into a cleaned out man in desperate need of a roommate.

November, 6th. The crowded trains connecting Tokyo to its outskirts were busier than usual with all those University students coming and going from old ryokans in search of a dignified place to live in during the school year. The sky growled fiercely and the pouring water restlessly washed over that indistinct bunch of nervous little rookies, drenching their neat uniforms and expensive books. Good thing I had decided high school was enough for a man to call himself "taught".

The train station was a fine place to think in – at least when you had no money and a lot of time on your hands: things that, at the time – practically jobless and with a sort of artistic vein that still made me believe I was gonna make a living out of tattooing people – I surely didn't lack. And then it was raining and the stuffed halls were still better than the flood.

Honestly, I can't even remember how he approached me – probably I was too busy trying to light up a damp cigarette to really notice, but I'll never forget the way his brilliant, blue eyes stared into my black ones when our gazes met.

"Would you be kind enough to help me?"

He had to repeat the question at least twice as my mind was too congested perceiving the depth of those irises to focus on words vanquishing in an ocean of noises.

"Would you be kind enough to help me? I think I've lost myself"

He needed a map. He had intention to visit a couple of motels in Shinjuku, to check if they still had spare rooms. I remember myself wondering what kind of boy would ever live in such a place if not a hedonistic, bohemian jester – which he did not seem. I looked for the politest way I knew to tell him that he had probably gone in the wrong direction, since we were just a few blocks away from Akiahabara. He looked dazed, his hand nervously going through his messy hair. Then, he apologized a couple of times and asked if I could help him find the right train.

"If you're looking for a place to stay, we could live together. I've got a spare bed"

Guess I didn't even realize I was inviting a complete stranger to live in with me – and I guess he didn't realize either he was accepting right on the spot, without doubting me for a single moment.

He could have been a psychotic murderer – I could have been a psychotic murderer.

This just enforces the theory of the lucky trail of events and karma stuff.

"Thank you very much! I'll do my best!"

That's how I met that extraordinary Kyoto-freak named Uzumaki Naruto.

Until that day I had never figured out how a single event could condition a man's life – how a single personcould, actually. He was a 18-year-old orphan who was going to take up the suicidal Major in Nursing and Physiotherapy the Todai gladly offered to the bravest students. And I?

I was 23, penniless and with an abnormal passion for tattoos.

He wanted to save people and I wanted to paint them. He often joked about the fact needles were involved in both cases. Truth to be told, Naruto joked pretty often and about the most various topics – he was so spontaneous, natural and extroverted while I was more inclined to silence and introspection. He also was the sportive type of guy – he loved basket and swimming and didn't miss a chance to take advantage of the University facilities. On my hand, the only sport I had ever practiced – with poor results – was baseball, back in middle school – and tons of videogames, which, fortunately, he liked as well. We had even saved up to buy a Play Station – one of the best investments of my life, indeed. Curious thing was that he looked interested in my "job" too, from time to time.

"But I'm too scared of needles to actually undergo such a torture"

I reminded him that a wannabe-nurse couldn't be afraid of shots and suchlike. As usual, he just laughed.

Of course, I already knew I was bisexual even before meeting him. What I still didn't know was how subtle hormones could actually be and what kind of bad tricks they could play.

I didn't think I would like him. I usually loved slim, feminine boys with slutty attitudes and a good control of their mouth – if you know what I mean. And, as much as I squinted, Naruto wasn't slim – his abs would surely win a competition! – and was all but feminine. And then, one day, no matter how far it actually was, he would just graduate and go back to his wonderful Kyoto-life, leaving me here, starving for attentions.

Moreover, he was also heterosexual – or maybe asexual. No porn magazines in his stuff ( it wasn't like I had rummaged in his private things, it was just that living together… – right, I had rummaged in his private things…), no dirty talks about girls, no masturbation (at least as far as I noticed) – just a curious, worn out pink bra packed in a green envelope.

And then, worst thing ever, he was naïve.

Too naïve. He could easily undress in front of my eyes, stroll around in his tight briefs, take showers without locking the bathroom. And I had told him – about my sexuality I mean.

He said it was probably good liking both men and women – though I still have a doubt he didn't fully understand what it implied. He was…absolutely unable to consider himself the object of one's desire. He probably didn't even know how it worked – the whole excitement-erection-relief process, I mean. Quite a problem, considering that I was a sex-starved, horny boy caught in a sort of post-adolescence crisis. The more time passed, the more I thought that maybe – just maybe – I could make him develop some interest towards me, some curiosity, some …well, some rightful doubts, at least. All good, I could still be a gentleman and wait, couldn't I? "Time will tell", they say.

And time told.

Approaching Naruto's "B-Side" had turned out to be much more difficult than what I had expected. His extreme and total extroversion, truth to be told, was a useful way to disguise the utmost embarrassment he felt whenever the sex-topic was brought up. I was right: from the little I could gather, he was still a virgin. Virgin, naïve, absolutely adorable. And the attraction grew stronger – as the months flew by, it became harder and harder to ignore the stinging feeling I got whenever he was around, whenever his smile met my embarrassed eyes or our bodies got in touch.

Was I the only one masturbating over him? That thought hunted me in the day and materialized during the night; I could perfectly picture myself on top of him, my mouth taunting his tanned skin and pert nipples, my hand feeling up his perfect abs and smooth sides until it dipped into his sweated underwear and I could hear him pant and moan. But then, usually, I woke up to discover I was the one all sweated and panting and that he was still fast asleep in his bed. It was maddening.

Anything would have been better than that mean torture – even a blunt refusal. Even the dumbest chat about porn actresses. Everything.

"…well…I don't think this is one of my priorities" his words made no sense to my flustered ego and burning desire. Priority? Do you have to define priorities when sex and relief and pleasure are included? Wasn't it logical and normal? Still, it was him – did logic and normality still apply?

"I'm here to study. There's nothing else…"

Probably I was the one who needed to define his own "priorities", in the end. But in my list of important things, the first and last and every position tended to coincide: Uzumaki Naruto was taking over my whole existence.

The topic was forgotten for the time being and life went on as busy as ever. Naruto's career as a student was absolutely brilliant, of course – high grades, wonderful matches. Even his principals at the restaurant thought he was the best young, part-time-waiter they'd had in a while.

"It's no big deal, I've got a little experience"

And if you didn't fully know him, you would have thought he was just faking modesty. But he wasn't the type to fake – Hell, he wasn't able to tell a lie to save his own life.

He was exactly like that – spontaneous, natural, lovely and, in general, totally different from gloomy and dark me. But we were friends – well, somewhat. It was a one-way friendship, though. The fact I decided not to bring up the argument didn't mean I wasn't still hoping to get into his pants, did it? But I could put that aside for a little longer. And focus on something else.

My job for example. Making tattoos usually made me happy to the point of forgetting I could never make a living out of it. I loved the idea of carving an image into a body, the idea of consecrating something to eternity, might that be a girl, an event, or an emotion. Yes, definitely tattooing was the right way to get my mind out of that vicious Naruto-cycle. Perfect. That was probably the first moment I ever thought I could convince him to have a tattoo done despite his antipathy for needles – it was just a curious fantasy in the beginning, but, when bringing it up by chance the gorgeous boy just told me it was alright to celebrate his Tokyo-experience with some "permanent drawing"…

It had to be a perfect masterpiece.

I spent the next few days trying to find a good design. I had considered all sorts of things (animals, writings, dragons) and all sort of places (hip, shoulder-blade, wrist, ankle), but nothing seemed to be enough memorable. Because that's what I wanted – maybe I could not have him physically, but I had the chance to make him remember me forever. And I didn't want to spoil it for the whole world.

"I don't mind what you draw – you choose, I trust your taste"

With such a responsibility, how could I let him down? A few days of absolute concentration and attentive observation of Naruto's body led me to the conclusion that a tribal line would be the best. As for the place, as much as I craved to see him naked and mark him so privately, I had come to realize it would show better on his limbs. And since ankles were often exposed to traumas in basketball, his wrist – right one to be exact – was going to be the target place.

"Alright, I like it. It's gonna be cool!"

Cool for him, maybe. I knew that experience was going to set me on fire – both physically and psychologically.

The design I had chosen looked wonderful on him and for the first few days I couldn't get my eyes off of his wrist – which meant a lot, considering all the interesting spots on Naruto's Special Anatomy I could – and usually would – focus onto.

His smile for example, was one of those – he looked absolutely enthusiastic of the result and that probably made me the happiest man walking on Earth. Uzumaki Naruto was beaming beautifully and that was partly due to me. It's still one of the best sensations I've ever felt. I would watch him hop and swirl and look at it and declare how much he loved it despite being skeptical in the very beginning. He was so adorable I could almost define him ravishable.

And, in fact, this whole satisfaction-smugness thing didn't help a bit with my hormones. Quite the contrary. It's not like I thought he hated me, or I actually wanted him to just to forget the fact I wanted to jump him first thing in the morning and last in the evening, but the awareness of being the source of his joy surely made another little piece of my willpower pitifully snap. I had imagined that managing to get a little bit closer to him would help quenching my flames, but it turned out it had just opened another crack in my resolve and self-control. If I had reached that far, I could go a bit farther still, couldn't I? But how far could I really get? What kind of bond was it reasonable for me to hope for? Was I still being reasonable in first place? Considering that I had never been the thoughtful kind of guy, those musings were driving me insane.

And Naruto was starting to loosen up. I still remember the first time I heard him saying something the slightest bit sexually-oriented. It was some remark about the boobies of an actress in a cheap sit-com. He had blushed cutely, his tongue slipping a few times about the obviously hard topic.

Talking about hard things, that simple and quite innocent sentence had been enough to double my wet-dreams and obscene fantasies. Until I came to a point where I couldn't take it any more.

I was going to give it a try. I didn't care if I was to be rejected mercilessly or if I was risking to shock him out of any possible relationship – I had come to the conclusion I simply had to. It was a sort of duty towards myself, so to say.

The perfect occasion showed up a few weeks after the tattoo-thing. Naruto had just gotten a great mark for his Compared Anatomy exam and the twentieth bank I had asked money to, finally seemed to be willing to help me open my own tattoo parlor. Definitely a good chance to go out and celebrate. We usually weren't much the hangover type of guys, but the heck – this was a pretty special situation and we both thought some booze would just add to the general euphoria. And so it did. By the time we got home we were both as smashed as monkeys and we could barely walk straight. As soon as we entered the house, clothes started flying across the rooms – was it the alcohol or the fact we were in July? I never knew. We showered together, I suppose – my memories of the first part of that evening are quite hazed. The only thing I can still easily recall is the fact we ended up all wet and naked on the living room couch, laughing like crazy and probably without any reason.

"The ceiling is spinning" Naruto said with an unusually slurred tone which I remember finding absolutely adorable. I asked if it really was so and leaned onto him to have a better view of the spot he was staring at. He turned around and looked at me. I guess this is where things started falling downhill.

The moment his lips touched my own, all my drunkenness seemed to magically fade away.

I don't remember how it went, or why I was hugging his shoulders in a way he would have never allowed me to when sober, but it had happened. We were kissing and I was realizing it. It might seem absolutely pointless to mark this fact, but if I hadn't been actually aware of what I was doing, I could have pretended it had been because of all the alcohol we had gulped down that night. I was very well conscious of what I was doing – from the very beginning to the very end. I was aiming to make him mine. I thought he would protest when my tongue pushed past the barrier of his lips to explore his lemon-scented mouth, but he just lightly whimpered and actually tried to clumsily kiss back. The hoarse taste of my whiskey clashed with the faint flavor of his cocktail and that was evidently sending chills down my spine as I found myself moving closer and closer to Naruto's bare chest, until our bodies were totally in contact and we were forced to stop and breathe.

The expression on his face was puzzled, but I luckily didn't spot that kind of look that, I had promised to myself, would have induced me to stop right away. He didn't seem upset or sad. Surprised, maybe, but definitely not traumatized or whatever. So I thought it was rightful for me to go on. I delicately made my hands roam about his body, sensing that tanned skin and toned muscles I had so often wet-dreamed about: they felt exactly as I thought they would, soft and yet firm. If I hadn't been so determined to get the maximum from that experience, I guess that just this fact – combined with the hangover – would have been enough to make me come. His gaze was following me curiously, but he didn't stop me and I happily didn't comply to that inexistent order.

As my fingers still danced and taunted those unknown lands, my lips joined that sort of ritual, feeling the salty taste of his skin mixed up with traces of his Black Tea soap. I looked up at him and he just looked back. Our gazes locked for a little while. Words were unnecessary, I suppose, and that made me terribly glad – I would have probably fucked it all up if I was to talk.

Without being aware of it, we had ended up laying on top of each other.

His abs seemed to be the weakest spot, as every time my fingertips brushed against them, a little moan would pry from his rosy lips and a long shiver would make his body tremble. The small lumps and indents they created soon provided my tongue with a fine path to follow and my brain with one more reason to be electrified. He had never pleasured himself before – if I still held some doubts, his little cries and the cutest blush ever painting his face were a dead give away of his absolute virginity. I couldn't pry my gaze from his beautiful face: his eyes were mesmerizing – tightly squeezed in shame one moment and shot wide open in surprise the following one and his lips…oh, his lips. Swollen and parted, his tongue occasionally darting out to wet them. He was almost too much to handle as his expressions were totally monopolizing my attention – enough to make the turgid erection pressing against my stomach go unnoticed for quite some time. I know it might look indelicate of me, or a great turn off for the romance in this tale, but the only thought that crossed my mind back then revolved around the impressive size of what I was looking at. I clearly remember myself swallowing hard as my eyes just stared.

"Don't watch…please…"

His voice came for the first time since the senseless laughs of some moments before. It was a strangled whisper and it definitely sent long shivers down my back and up to my aching front – as if the sight of such a hard and pulsing member hadn't been enough to wake up my own nether regions. I averted my eyes from him, even if…even if I had never felt that much in need of some…special attentions, so to say. I could almost feel my hips buck forwards on their own, but… I somewhat feared Naruto couldn't quite agree on this, or wasn't ready or…well, could ask me to stop. Gawd, I could have died from such a refusal. And then…then the unexpected actually happened. I felt cold and shaky fingers trace the sweaty curve of my thighs, linger doubtfully about the fold of my groin and then reach for my own manhood – I almost thought I could see heaven. His virginal touch was the highest bliss I had ever sensed on my skin, its indecisiveness making it even more pleasurable than way more skilled ones I had experienced. This was setting things differently – it wasn't a one-player game anymore.

We were becoming partners in this delightful crime.

My own body promptly replied to such a nicely delivered invitation and my hands moved to wrap around him as well. This seemed to trouble him for a second, as his motions paused and he took a deep breath – then the whole dance started again, his motions becoming easier and more natural as he seemed to get used to the feeling. I don't know how I found myself trying to figure out what in Naruto's head had actually changed to cause such an unusual reaction – maybe he was just riding the effects of all that booze, or…well, he didn't think mutual masturbation was something so compromising. Or maybe…no, he wasn't in love with me. It was too much to ask – too much to deceive my heart with. As a sense of void seemed to devour me at the mere idea of that situation being so illusory, I tightly closed my eyes and plunged into the sensation of the boy I actually loved stroking my most sensitive parts, the great feeling of it all flowing into me and washing away those awful thoughts. Ride the wave as long as it lasts – I wasn't gonna waste a single second.

My hand seemed to slowly regain the awareness of the hot and delicate thing it was holding and my fingertips started tracing patterns, eliciting little, chaste moans. I bent my knee to part his legs a little and get more room for my ministrations and he arched his back – I leaned in and kissed his mouth. It felt colder now, his constant gasping cooling down the saliva he wetted his lips with from time to time. I shivered. I wanted it all. I wanted him. I wanted to take in as much of that emotion as I could. I wanted to savor and devour it all. My tongue trailed down his chin, hungrily, teased his throat as I groaned and, in the blink of an eye, I was again on his stomach and heading lower still.

The most vivid thing I can still recall to my mind was the rising urge to feel him in my mouth and his voice whispering nonsense as he unconsciously spread his legs under my touch – everything else is a hazed fog, until the moment his whole length slipped down my throat and all I could think of was how incredibly good it felt.

"Sasuke…"

It probably was about the first and only time he would say my entire name, forgoing his usual, stupidly cute nicknames – and surely the last one I would hear him use such a lost and insecure tone to call it. That sent me over the edge of reason – I rolled us over and pinned him on all fours against the armrest.

And, as rapidly as it had started, it ended. I had promised. The moment that look – the "Please, I'm not ready, I don't want it" kind of look – should flash through Naruto's eyes, I'd stop. It did – when I thought I couldn't keep myself together anymore, he turned around and I spotted it. He was scared and his lips were sealed in a sort of pained expression – so different than the swollen, juicy lumps of flesh they had been just mere seconds before. He was panting lightly and if my foggy eyes weren't deceiving me, his body was lightly shaking too. I blabbered something – I don't even know what.

"S-sorry…I…we can't…"

He was still apologizing. I had just realized I had almost forced myself upon him and he was apologizing.

"Fuck off"

I can still hear myself voice out those two words clearly – as clearly as very few memories in my whole life. Oh no, I wasn't angry with him. No one could ever be angry with the likes of Uzumaki Naruto – it was against the natural order of things. If there really was something to blame for that surreal situation – aside from alcohol – that something was me. What was I thinking? That he had turned gay or bisexual or whatever in 5 minutes? Was I really picturing a happy, pain-free ending when I had started it? Shit, I was a fucking idiot. Anger soon pervaded me, erasing whatever other feeling. I stomped off the room, slamming the door.

"I want to ask her to marry me"

Next morning we were sitting again on the couch. Our clothes were on and there was no booze or senseless giggling or whatever. Naruto was resting his elbows on his knees, head hanging down as I attentively stared at a picture he had just handed me. It had been taken at Kyoto's Central Station, a couple of years before. There was him in the photograph, all dressed up and surrounded by his luggage, ready to leave for his "Tokyo-adventure". Next to him was a girl loosely hugging his waist and leaning against him. Her expression obviously told she wasn't used to such closeness, but she looked happy anyway, though maybe a little worried. She looked like the perfect ordinary girl, one you wouldn't quite notice until you bump into her – exactly the kind of woman you would expect someone like Naruto to fall for. She might have been his same age, maybe a couple of years older, shoulder-length pinkish hair and green eyes.

I was told her name was Sakura and she was the daughter of the man who was renting him a flat, down in Kyoto.

So he did think about women, in the end. I couldn't help a smirk. I handed back the picture after a few minutes and asked him about that weird bra I had found centuries before and yes, it was hers and yes, he had stolen it and was terribly embarrassed, but still couldn't give it up. The thought of asking him if he had masturbated on it too flashed through my mind, but I quickly dusted it off. It was still painful – too painful. Instead, I just looked at him in the eye, watching his lips curl into a smile from time to time as he told me the little tale of how he and that girl had grown up together and how she had been like a sister and more to him.

He did think about women and in an incestuous way, too – nah, it was just me being stupid. But it was all good, in the end, as long as I wouldn't have to dwell in the memories of the previous night.

So he wanted to get married – he had tried to come to Tokyo to forget about her and had just found out he couldn't live without her and that he wanted to be her husband more than everything else in the world. I should have been happy – yeah, I really should have been, Naruto deserved it. And then it was polite to be happy. Sure. But then why could I just feel apathetic towards it all?

I faked the best smile I could muster in that moment and wished him the best of luck, told him how wonderful it was for him to hold such a deep desire and that if he loved her that much, she couldn't be but the right girl who would return all his feelings.

I wasn't even surprised when that flood of lies – or half-truths, maybe – poured from my mouth. What really stunned was the fact I had never desired so strongly that the day of Naruto's graduation would come as quickly as possible.

Four years have now passed from then. Four years since that chapter of my life seemed to come to its rightful and maybe most obvious end. Since Uzumaki Naruto graduated on that 7th of December, I haven't heard much from him – at first we used to e-mail each other a lot, or make some phone calls, but then, everything seemed to fade into nothing. Nothingness we are and to nothingness we return – it's so pathetically true.

But, in the meanwhile, life's a bitch. You never know when and where she'll hit next.

I hold another green envelope, now, but this time it doesn't contain any weird bra or whatever. It's from Naruto. He says he's been missing me recently. His life is going great in Kyoto. He works in a hospital, he's quite well-paid. He's managed to become Sakura's boyfriend and now they live together. They've even got a son now – he's almost 2, they named him Korin and he's soooo intelligent and cute. Like his father, he says. I have never had doubts on his cuteness, that's for sure.

I keep reading further through that 6-page-long letter and I can almost feel Naruto close to me again, as in the times we used to live together. Four years and his life has changed so much – and I? I still have the same address as four years ago. Lucky him, yeah – but I guess it wouldn't be like Naruto at all to wonder if I could have moved. Did he think I would be here forever to wait for him? Did he think I wouldn't move because I couldn't move on? I smile. No, those are thoughts he could never be capable of. Naruto isn't mean – he isn't even malicious enough to regret, or hold any grudge. He's simply Uzumaki Naruto. And Uzumaki Naruto is beyond words.

By the time I reach the last few lines, I can practically hear his quiet and funny voice

"So, all of this is to ask you – will you be my best man?"

I smile again. That boy's never gonna change, now is he? I discard the letter on the table and walk to the window, almost expecting the skies to pour down water as in the day we met. Instead the sun shines high and bright and there's not even the faintest trace of a cloud – ironical, isn't it? I sigh.

Naruto, Naruto…

This is probably the sweetest unintentional cruelty a heart could ever receive.

Owari

What do you think? Liked it? Hated it? Let me know!