So you remember that there was this one story that I made far too long ago that may or may not have the same kind of dialog or story flow like this. This is, um, another take on how that sort of story could have gone if it was in an altogether different place.
(Please feel free to shoot me if you find anything wrong. Comments are much loved because even though I don't reply most of the time, I still read them and feel that they help me improve. Even if I don't improve quickly. -- I am a sad, sad person.)
Thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to read something like this.
The world, Naruto began to believe, was lodged in his throat in such an uncomfortable manner that he squirmed more than what was appropriate for the moment and let out a few more beads of cold sweat grace his body with their presence. He gulped, hoping that whatever humongous thing that was stuck in his throat would go away.
For the first time in ages, he was quiet. Quiet and nervous and surprised and not really knowing what the hell he should do.
For the first time in ages, he was quiet and the rest of the world seemed so noisy. So alive.
He could hear everything. From that crying baby a few tables down to that old man taking a drag. From that insanely chatty preteen girl to that overly mushy couple whispering sweet nothings. From his thunderous heartbeat--and this was something he supposed that everyone could hear--to Sasuke's calm breathing pattern.
Sasuke, he decided then and there, was utterly unfair.
Naruto would end up being tongue-tied whenever he would spread his loving feelings on the table to the girl that he liked the most. Then again, to Sasuke's defense, Naruto was a boy, not a girl. So it was only somewhat right that Sasuke wouldn't get all nervous and shit because he was confessing to a guy.
But that didn't really make a lot of sense because wasn't confessing to a guy more nerve-wrecking than confessing to a girl if you were a guy?
Naruto licked his suddenly dry lips some more. He gulped yet again for extra measure. He wiped his moist hands on his denim pants. He then proceeded to nervously laugh and make even more of a fool out of himself. This all had to be some horrible joke. Or a stupid dream.
"I like you also," he said after a minute or two of not-hesitating. Not-hesitating because he didn't do the whole hesitating thing. And he was rambling, wasn't he? (He was doomed.)
Sasuke frowned. "I said that I loved you," he retorted.
Naruto was speechless yet again.
The world was getting far too noisy for his tastes. The cries of the baby were escalating. The old man was sipping a cup of coffee now. The preteen girl was squealing and shrieking. The overly mushy couple was kissing and moaning.
And his heart was about to break out of his ribcage.
"If this is your idea of a joke--" Naruto said, his tone full of messed-up laughter and all-around nervousness.
"Could you stop being in denial for a second?" Sasuke asked.
That was rich, coming from someone like Sasuke who seemed to like running away from issues he didn't like. Really rich. Naruto decided to voice out his opinion only to have Sasuke's frown turn into a scowl.
"This is a joke," Naruto continued, "and I am not getting tricked by it." It almost seemed as if he was trying to convince himself rather than Sasuke.
There was no way that this was a confession of true love. No way. It was too serious. It was too out of his league in a way. There was too much of that Sasuke element in the atmosphere that he felt out of place. That he felt as if he couldn't possibly be the person Sasuke was saying "I love you," or some warped, fucked-up version of it because it was Sasuke doing the confessing.
"You are an idiot," Sasuke concluded after a while.
Naruto grinned. He knew that this was a joke. It had to be a joke. Sasuke was a frigid, asexual bastard. He wasn't some love machine like Naruto.
"So who made you do it then?" Naruto asked. "Kiba? Because there's no way you could ever think of doing this without some outside help."
"I'm beneath following orders," Sasuke said. "I just love you."
The whole world was thrown out of balance yet again.
"Stop it, okay? It's not funny anymore," Naruto said.
Sasuke scowled some more. Naruto started to meld his eyebrows into one angry line.
Naruto, frankly, liked girls. He liked them a lot.
He liked the way they went about with their hair. He liked their soft curves. He liked their not-too-gruff voices. He liked their long fingers and their somewhat plushy palms. He liked the way they would tread carefully around him. He, when very desperate, sometimes liked the way they played hard-to-get. Or the way they bestowed him with gifts of the painfully physical kind.
He also liked other girls who didn't fit into those categories. Boyish girls, serious girls.
He liked girls and the way they would be girls even though most of them wanted to be different. But they really couldn't be different because there was an unavoidable pattern most of the time.
He also liked Sasuke even if Sasuke was probably the greatest bastard on the face of the earth and was totally not pretty. But this was because they were best friends and rivals and some other stuff Naruto couldn't be bothered to mention since it was a confusing guy-friendship-thing.
And then they kissed, or Sasuke kissed Naruto. Because Naruto was a visual learner and this was something Sasuke knew ever since the day they started squabbling.
Naruto reckoned that the whole world had stopped moving. It was either that or everyone was just so cantankerously clamorous that they faded into white noise or that they exploded his eardrums.
Naruto found himself not caring at all.
When they finished, Naruto licked his lips that weren't as dry as they had been before.
"You suck," he said.
"You wish," Sasuke replied.