Sometimes, as he stared at the plain, plaster walls of the apartment he's been temporarily allowed residence in, Sasuke felt like ripping his heart out and painting these gypsums a familiar shade of red.

Wait. He forgot he's already done that ripping thing; when Itachi killed everyone, when he killed Itachi, when he left the village and a certain blonde.

Blonde.

He's been seeing that a lot recently – for a lot of days, or even a lot of times in a day. Blonde was always parading around the little space he called his house. Blonde was always smiling at him, trying to get a smile out of him too. Blonde occasionally came with pink who still shied away from him even after all her bravado in the war.

Blonde, who called out from the kitchen, asking him how he liked his ramen.

As if there was a billion different ways to cook instant noodles. And anyway, who gave him permission to use Sasuke's kitchen again?

"With tomatoes," Sasuke said, voice not rising above a whisper.

"Haaah?"

"To-ma-toes," he repeated.

"Right," Naruto grumbled. "You and your weird tomato fetish."

Sasuke wanted to retort, wanted to tell Naruto it wasn't a fetish – tomatoes were just really plump and juicy and one of the better things in life – but his open mouth wouldn't let anything except silence out. He sighed.

It's really been too long since he's associated himself with idiots (or vice versa – Sasuke was sure Naruto was the one associating with him). If it were up to him, he wouldn't start again, but unfortunately the blonde was persistent. Sasuke told himself he would soon get used to idiotic tendencies once more.

It was a survival skill one developed around Naruto.

"Teme," came Naruto's voice, sounding slightly muffled, "where do you keep your tomatoes?"

Sasuke guessed that he was probably digging inside the cabinets. Dumbass. Who would store tomatoes in such a dark, dank place?

"Fridge."

There was the sound of the refrigerator being opened, and Sasuke thought of how the suction being torn apart from the frame must've felt like a heart being ripped out of one's chest.

"Found it!" Naruto exclaimed before going back to work.

As he chopped the tomatoes up smoothly, he realized that there must be a serious problem with him if he didn't know what Sasuke liked with his ramen. He's never been very observant before, but was there really a person in Konoha who wasn't aware of Sasuke's tomato fetish?

Sasuke agreed that there was a problem, although Naruto's ignorance (stupidity, he preferred) wasn't it.

The problem laid 90% in the fact that he didn't know how to get rid of the blonde sweeping around his place with his sunlit grins, as if he trusted this shabby 15x5 to contain such illumination.

The other 10%, which might have made Sasuke's lips quirk up – just slightly, and only when he was alone – was that he was frustrated about the blonde hair littered all over his flat, along with his black ones.

Naruto came out carrying two steaming cups of noodles just as Sasuke was mindlessly toeing strands of blonde. He managed to maintain a poker face as he kicked it to the bottom of his armchair before Naruto noticed anything.

Not that he would, but Sasuke didn't like to take chances.

"Two bowls of the Bestest Naruto Ramen, coming right up!"

Sasuke eyed the unhealthy abominations Naruto was holding. First of all, they weren't even bowls – they were Styrofoam cups. Second, it wasn't ramen, it was instant noodles. Did he have to go out of his way to act stupid every damn time?

Sasuke huffed out a breath and shook his head. "Usuratonkachi," he muttered.

"Oi! Teme! Who are you calling an usuratonkachi?" Naruto cried, half jokingly, fully indignantly.

He didn't know why he wasn't angry. Sasuke found it strange, too – ever since he came back, he needed more effort than usual to rile up the blonde. It was as if a part of Naruto understood innately that insults, coming from Sasuke, were the closest thing to affection he was capable of.

He was wrong, of course. It was affection disguised as insults, but Sasuke had always thought Naruto too stupid to see through that. Guess he was the one at fault.

"Tch."

Naruto placed the food he cooked for the both of them gently on Sasuke's dining table. It was a cheap piece of table, as bad as the whole house. Sasuke missed his home.

"Eat up, Sas'ke!" Naruto said, patting the raven heartily on the back before plopping himself down on a cheap chair to go along with the cheap table and pulling his chopsticks apart.

He didn't know why Naruto said his name that way. Sakura pronounced his name as, very clearly, 'Sa-su-ke-kun'. And so did everybody else. But Naruto – that dumbass couldn't even put in marginal effort to spell the second syllable correctly.

Su.

Su.

Naruto looked up from his noodles and blinked at Sasuke's stare.

Shit. The blonde caught him looking.

"What?" Naruto asked with noodles still hanging out of his mouth.

Sasuke cringed. "Don't talk with your mouth full, idiot."

"Shut up!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. There were too many things he didn't know – all of them related to Naruto – and if he was really honest with himself, he would admit that was the actual problem.

But, honesty – well, he was always more acquainted with death and revenge than honesty.

"Aren't you gonna eat?" Naruto asked, again through mouthfuls of yellow, just like his hair. "It's mine if you don't."

The blonde was threatening him. How scary.

Sighing, Sasuke stood up and crossed over to where Naruto was and sat down beside him. He grabbed the other cup, plucked his chopsticks apart, and dug in.

For a few seconds, there was silence. There was bliss. There was Sasuke enjoying a cup of ramen alongside Naruto.

He tried to kill the blonde once, Sasuke recalled. Yet they're sitting side by side now, eating dinner together. He closed his eyes. How strange. Life was strange. Naruto was strange. Who would cook dinner for someone who'd try to kill him?

Not Sasuke, that's for sure.

Then, Naruto was slurping really loudly and breaking what semblance of peace they had, and Sasuke opened his eyes.

His chest felt as light as golden hair.