Uzumaki Naruto squinted against the sunlight, or more specifically, he squinted in thought, something the blond didn't do often. He was normally spontaneous - he never made a habit of thinking through his actions.
But his raven haired teammate always had of way of sparking Naruto's thought process. For instance, Naruto always wondered how his teammate could be such an ass.
The conundrum on the blonde's mind at the moment was why, why on earth, would the dark, broody, and frustrating Uchiha Sasuke want to meet him alone at the training grounds where Team Seven had become genin?
Unable to throw off his curiosity, the blond trudged wearily to the training grounds, using every ounce of his brain power to try to find the meaning behind Sasuke's unusual actions.
And suddenly, the time to think was over as the training grounds came into view, and with them, Sasuke. The blond paused, for some reason extremely nervous. He took a tentative step forward, wondering if he should just bolt like a frightened deer.
He tensed as the Uchiha turned to look directly at him, and in that moment Naruto felt as if the raven could see right through him. It was not a comfortable feeling. The blond was about two inches from running away when Sasuke raised his hand and motioned for Naruto to come towards him.
Naruto took one heavy step forward and then another, finally stopping feet away from the Uchiha. He swallowed thickly and summoned his voice.
"What do you want, teme?" It wasn't said as loudly as he would have liked, but his voice didn't waver, and for that he was grateful.
For a long moment Sasuke was silent before he turned to face Naruto.
"I want to tell you something, dobe." Naruto felt anger begin to bubble up at the familiar nickname, but before he could yell at the Uchiha, he was interrupted.
"It probably doesn't mean anything, but I want to tell you how I really feel." The blond paused and felt confusion take the place of his anger. Uchiha Sasuke? Discussing his emotions? Was that possible? Naruto felt his head begin to hurt.
"Just what are you trying to say, teme?" The suspicion mixed with confusion was beginning to make him paranoid. The Uchiha looked away, his gaze fixed on the trees around them that swayed in the breeze.
"I'm trying to say... that I like you. Probably since our mission in the Land of Waves." He said all this without once looking at the person he was confessing his feelings to.
Was that... was that a blush on the raven's pale features?! Naruto stared. And stared. And stared some more. Then, he burst into laughter.
Suddenly it made sense to him. On the way out of his home he had caught sight of the calendar. It was April first. The teme was just playing a joke on him!
Sasuke watched incredulously as the blond bent over laughing, tears in the corners of his eyes.
"What's so funny, dobe?" Sasuke growled with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"Ah hehe! You're- you're kidding, r-right?" The blond managed to get out between bursts of laughter. As Naruto continued to laugh, the Uchiha resigned himself to the decision that would keep his pride in tact.
In a bastardly manner, he scoffed, smirked, and said, "Of course. April Fools, dobe. As if anyone could like you." And he began to walk away, the indignant screams scratching against the side of his brain.
"Dobe," he muttered as he shoved his hands into his pockets. Why couldn't he have fallen in love with someone even a little bit smarter?
Back in the training grounds Naruto huffed and crossed his arms.
"Plenty of people could like me. Granted, Sakura-chan doesn't, but... Ugh!" Naruto groaned and glared in the direction Sasuke had walked off, wondering why something about being told it was an April Fools joke bothered him.
"Stupid teme." He sighed and ruffled his hair with his hand.
"Whatever, I need ramen!" And with the incident beginning to weigh heavily on the corners of his mind he set off for Ichiraku's ramen shop.
What was with the teme? Playing a stupid joke like that. It wasn't like him, if the blond was going to be honest with himself.
"Hey Naruto! Long time no see!" A voice yanked him out of his thoughts and he realized that he'd already reached Ichiraku's.
"Eh?" He let out a noise of confusion.
"Naruto!" The familiar voice called him again and he finally located the source of it.
"Tenten!" He yelled and ran over to the ramen stand with an enormous grin on his face.
"What's wrong?" Tenten asked as her empty bowl was taken away and Naruto finished ordering.
"What do you mean what's wrong?" Naruto squinted at her, but stopped quickly once ramen was placed in front of him.
Tenten sighed and crossed her arms and rested them on the table, but her lips wore a small smile at the obvious obliviousness of the blond. She knew better than to try to talk while he was inhaling his ramen, so she waited until his bowl was taken away to be replaced with another.
"I mean, you were actually thinking when you walked up. And you looked like something was wrong, mijikai." Naruto's eye twitched over the second bowl of ramen that was placed in front of him.
"Tenten!" He wailed.
"I thought you were on my side! I'm not short!" The brunette snickered as the blond pouted, but quickly forgot about that once the ramen claimed his attention.
"The point is, mijikai," she said, unwilling to let go of the nickname, "there's something on your mind for once. What happened?"
Naruto scowled into his ramen.
"It's the stupid teme," he relented. Mere seconds after this statement, his mouth was filled with ramen again rendering anything he might have said unintelligible. Tenten sighed, it was no secret to her, hell all of Konoha knew of the rivalry between the two.
"What did he do this time?" she asked, knowing from experience that it was best to agree with Naruto until after he had finished his ramen. He was usually - 99.9 of the time - happier after finishing his ramen.
"You'll never believe it, Tenten! He said he liked me!" Naruto nearly shouted, eyes wide and chopsticks flailing. Tenten couldn't keep her own brown eyes from widening, but before she could say anything the blond was off again.
"Then he called it April Fools and said nobody could like me!" The blond returned to inhaling his ramen, a look of utter annoyance on his face. The brunette beside him was silent, thinking. The Uchiha didn't seem like one to have a sense of humor, and if he was going to play a prank on Naruto, why something like that?
"Naruto," Tenten started slowly, "What if he wasn't joking?" Naruto's eyes widened to their full extent before he began choking on his ramen.
"Oh kuso, mijikai!" Tenten shouted, exasperated as she thumped him on his orange clad back. Ignoring her use of the word 'short', Naruto began to speak, his voice slightly raspy from nearly having choked.
"Are you serious, Tenten? Please tell me this is April Fools!" The brunette rubbed her temples - sometimes the blond was even more exhausting than Rock Lee.
"Just think about it, mijikai." With that she hopped off her chair and walked away, hoping the headache at the corners of her mind would disappear.
Naruto stared after her, and then looked down at his ramen.
"If it wasn't a joke..." His chopsticks hovered above his miso ramen and then were roughly slammed down onto the counter. He pulled out one of his many coupons for free ramen and then rushed away from the ramen stand.
"Damn teme."
Sasuke lay with his hands resting behind his head, wondering. He turned his gaze from the ceiling of his room to the window, where the sky was blue as...
He whipped his hands out from behind his head and clenched his fists as he sat up.
"Damn dobe," he muttered to himself as he stole out the window and let his feet carry him to the training grounds. Why was he heading back there?
The answer didn't matter as he came to a stop in the center of the training grounds. He stared at the three log stumps, more specifically the middle one. As he sighed and walked forward, towards the middle stump, the wind picked up and lifted his hair.
He lifted up his hand and reached out, the wood centimeters away from his flesh. It hovered there for a moment before he pulled it back and sat himself in front of the stump to the left of the middle. The dobe shouldn't matter to him.
But try as he might, the last Uchiha in Konoha could find no reason for that. Because the facts were, he cared for the dobe, more than he would like to, and the dobe obviously didn't feel the same way.
The raven scowled and closed his eyes, clenching them tightly shut and trying to block out the world. But that one voice, that loud, obnoxious, but welcome voice, always found a way of breaking through his walls.
"You're stupid, you know that, teme?" Sasuke's eyes snapped open to see the face of Uzumaki Naruto, the face he loved, and the face that annoyed him to no end. Now that face was set in a serious look that didn't suit his tan features.
"How so, dobe?" He asked wearily, obsidian and cerulean clashing.
"You lied." The blond answered simply, his fists clenched at his side. The Uchiha raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, silently asking the blond to elaborate.
"About what, dobe?" Naruto stood there, fidgeting for an excruciatingly long period of time before he finally responded. But he didn't respond by speaking, no words left his lips. Instead he moved forward, to the Uchiha's side and kneeled down.
"That was a really lame April Fools joke." And before Sasuke could reply his lips were taken captive, and his thoughts all centered around one thing. Naruto, yes, that Naruto was kissing Sasuke. And that Sasuke, yes, that Sasuke loved every minute of it.
"Okay, so I did lie," Sasuke breathed out when the two pulled apart for air. Naruto's lips didn't have time to curl up into his foxy grin before he was pulled against the Uchiha and into a passionate kiss.