Sasuke scowled at the blushing girls as he continued down the street, having just finished buying groceries. Couldn't they see that they were too weak for him? He shuffled the bags in his hands again and paused, looking over at the drunk men surrounding something. He turned to leave when he heard one of them shouting.
"This is what you get for being born!" Alarmed, Sasuke dropped his bags and headed over, keeping to the shadows just in case one of them happened to be a ninja. They soon left, and Sasuke stepped closer to the lump on the ground, and looked closely at it.Sasuke didn't step closer to the moving mass, blinking when it started to sit up.
Sasuke stepped forward when he saw blond hair that was only on one person in Konoha, and moved to go closer when he saw the boy was crying. Not knowing what to do, Sasuke stood there, unsure of what to do as the boy struggled to sit in an upright position.
"Just a three more years. I can do that. Three more, and then I can go," Sasuke stared at the boy, trying to figure out what he meant. This boy, who was known to be a stupidly happy and never anything else, was crying and talking about going somewhere. He could excuse the crying, seeing as the boy had just been beaten by what looked like two or three full grown men. Making up his mind to assist the boy, Sasuke looked over to where the boy had been, only to discover that he wasn't there, having run when Sasuke was making up his mind. He looked around for the blond haired boy, only to notice that he was nowhere in sight.
Sighing, Sasuke went back to where he left the bags and picked them up. He could just ask the Iruka where Naruto lived tomorrow and talk to him then. With his mind made up, Sasuke headed to the compound and put his food down in the fridge, scowling at the mass of presents blocking the view of his window. He'd just burn those whenever he had the time. There was no need for him to have so many presents. Christmas was next week, after all.
Naruto gritted his teeth as he limped home, wondering what he had done to deserve this attention. He just wanted to be acknowledged in a nice way, not in a bad way or at all! Finally making it to his apartment, Naruto shut the door as best as it would shut and limped over to the bed and collapsed on it. All he had to do was wait a few more years, get on a team, and 'die' on a mission. He had no clue how he was going to do the 'die' part without getting found out, though. Naruto sat up and looked at his leg, seeing the once large gash had now turned into a simple cut on his leg. At least he didn't have to go to the hospital for it. Ignoring his stomach, he closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come. He could just eat in the morning.
The next day, Sasuke gleefully burned all the flowers and clothes that showed up on his doorstep, and sorted through anything that might be relevant for being a ninja, and was glad to be finished with the annoying gifts. After finishing that, he headed towards the academy, and pulled out a scroll, reading the first lines of the jutsu before suddenly Naruto came in, reminding Sasuke of what happened the night before. He'd have to ask Iruka after class about it.
Class went on as usual. Naruto loudly doing things, Iruka shouting at the class, and so on. Sasuke didn't really pay much attention to what was happening, having already learned it from scrolls in his house. He watched Naruto, instead. Discreetly, of course. No way was he going to stare at the loud boy for any reason other than irritation.
The boy seemed to be acting as he usually did, loud and stupid. Sasuke doubted himself for only a moment before he scowled and shook off the doubt. There was no doubt that the blond child had been Naruto, there was no other person in all of Konoha with that shade of yellow. It had to have been Naruto. But with the way the boy acted as if nothing bothered him made Sasuke curious. Clearly being beaten would leave some sort of affect on the boy.
He'd have to read the psychology books whenever he went home. Perhaps an answer would be in there.
The lessons went by as usual, Sasuke succeeding in everything he did and glaring at the annoying girls whenever they came close. As his observations continued, Sasuke realized that Naruto wasn't being treated like the other students were. If Iruka was there, he'd be treated mostly like the others, but as soon as he left the teachers would ignore Naruto, sometimes even sending him out of class for reasons unknown to Sasuke. He would report it to Iruka whenever he asked for the blond's address. At one point he noticed that while they were training in Tai jutsu, the teachers were intentionally messing up the boy's stance. Yet another problem he would report. No one else seemed to pay attention to it, and it struck Sasuke as odd. Were the other teachers in on it as well?
The day went by quickly enough, and Naruto was the first out the door. Sasuke stayed until after the class left, watching Iruka shuffle papers around on his desk and putting others into files.
"Is there something I can help you with, Sasuke?" Sasuke blinked, surprised, and nodded. Iruka looked up at him and smiled, gesturing for the boy to come over. Sasuke edged closer, staring at the man for a few seconds before he asked.
"Where does Naruto Uzumaki live?" An almost bitter look came over Iruka's face and Sasuke wondered if all the adults in Konoha truly disliked the boy. Iruka had seemed like a kind person, and Sasuke hadn't expected such a look to come from the man.
"Why do you want to know? Besides, I can't share personal information like that." Sasuke almost frowned at that and ran through ideas in his head before deciding on one.
"We were going to train together to improve our weaknesses, but he left before we could." That seemed plausible. Iruka seemed to think so as well. Iruka smile at Sasuke, and began leafing through some documents, pulling one out and giving him the address.
"Please don't do anything stupid. This is in one of the bad parts of Konoha," Iruka insisted, and Sasuke nodded. He remembered when his father would come home after patrolling through those parts of Konoha, and he often drank for the rest of the night during those times. Iruka smiled and sent him away, leaving him to do whatever he wished.
Naruto pulled the grey hood over his head and applied the makeup to his cheeks, making sure the scars weren't visible as he stepped away from one of his hiding spots. The seedy part of Konoha was much worse about upholding the law than the rest, and Naruto knew that they'd do much worse things than ignore him like the other villagers. It would be best to simply hide who he was. If he had some hair gel and a wig, it would be much easier to hide than with just a hooded jacket and makeup, but he would do with what he had.
Walking through the streets, Naruto kept his valuables, which was a wallet with all the money he had, slipped into a bandage wrapped around his stomach. The bandages weren't from any attacks, as he had figured out how to hide quite well recently, but were there to hide his possessions and keep from getting pickpocketed. He felt many hands slide by the pockets on his pants, only pulling back when they realized that he had nothing, and Naruto returning the favor, stuffing many different things into the sleeves of his jacket, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets to keep the stuff from falling out.
Once he got to the red light district, which was just as bad as the place he had actually just went through, Naruto kept his eyes open for a red haired woman, dressed in more jewelry than actual clothes. The women usually didn't have business this early, so when they came out this early it was for other seedy things. Usually killing someone was something they did every once in a while, among other things. They did it for much cheaper than ninjas did, anyway.
The girl he was looking for, Aika, had been giving him lessons cheap, and he finally had the money for this week's and next week's lessons. Aika had been giving flexibility lessons and seduction techniques as well, using his Orioke no Jutsu and what he looked like now, aged forward a few years with a variation of Orioke. Apparently there was a surprising amount of people that liked blond hair and blue eyes, regardless of gender.
When he asked how Aika knew how to seduce people as a male, she told him that she apparently used to be one. After a lot of confusion about puberty and lessons from Aika, he finally understood what she meant. It wasn't weird to him that people could change genders outside of using Jutsu, especially considering his Orioke was a solid henge, physically changing how he looked.
He continued walking, not paying attention to anyone without the red hair, only to be snatched into an alley, hearing the clacking of jewelry. Turning around, he smiled and laughed.
"Aika! I got the money if you want it right now. I mean, I could put it into the safe point but I didn't know if you needed the money right now or not and-" Cutting himself off, he realized that Aika had been laughing at him. Naruto laughed along with her, noticing that she was dressed in regular clothes now.
"Silly Naru! I told you not to walk down our street! You look so out of place and so innocent," She teased, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close. Grinning, Naruto wrapped his arms around her as well. "Well I didn't wanna dress up weird again," He whined, pouting as he looked up at her.
"That's the norm around here, silly. You have to or people will be suspicious. You could always do the businessman look," She looked at him with a strange face and Naruto held back a laugh. She really did look like the customers that came here. They sobered up after a second and she pulled him through the alley, before they reached a door and went through it.
Naruto knew it was the back door to a strip club, and they continued maneuvering through it until they reached another side door, stepping out and into yet another alley, which led to her lessons room.
"So, three years left, huh?" Naruto nodded and reached under his shirt, pulling out the wallet.
"Yeah, but you said after you get enough money, you'll be leaving, too. Right?" She nodded and Naruto grinned. At least he wouldn't have to worry about her. He walked over and grabbed onto one of the poles, leaning away from it as he looked at her.
Dark red hair and light blue eyes, and Naruto had once thought that they could have been related. Unfortunately, she had come from someplace called the Land of Water after some man had bought some places around though the island. He didn't really remember the whole story but that was fine, especially since she was here now. He remembered why he had came so early and sighed.
"I won't be able to do lessons next month. The Old Man is sending someone to keep an eye on me for some reason so I gotta stay clear of here." Aika frowned but nodded. It wasn't anything new to her, since Naruto had to occasionally miss for these kinds of reasons.
"Alright, little Naru. Just head on home for now. Our next lesson is tomorrow." Naruto handed her the money and quickly left through a window, hanging on to the clothesline many people used and stood carefully on it, making use of the balancing techniques Aika had shown him and quickly jumped onto a pile of dry clothes, laughing as he ran away from the irate person.
He was leaving the district and going toward his home when he heard people whispering about a black haired boy who didn't know where he was and Naruto hoped he didn't know the kid, not wanting to get involved. It was probably someone who had just moved in. He saw a glimpse of the kid and sighed.
Of course it was that bastard Sasuke. Stepping forward and quickly wiping the makeup off so he'd be more identifiable to the raven, Naruto made his way towards him. Stepping right up to the boy, he glared at him and yanked him into an alleyway, and shoved him up a ladder, which lead to his apartment.
"Why are you here?" He was a blunt person. Might as well not try and avoid anything.
"Why were you being beat up the other day?" Naruto winced. Maybe he would try and avoid that. Wouldn't want to have to deal with the boy trying anything.
"Who says it was me getting beat up? Maybe those Uchiha eyes aren't so great after all," He smirked, watching the boy become angry. Perhaps he'd just start insulting people to avoid subjects. It worked well on the raven haired boy in front of him anyway. The Uchiha opened his mouth to say something when he paused and took a breath, calming down. Naruto frowned. Damn, it had been working well.
And considering he had been acting like an ass to him already, Naruto couldn't try the nice person act. Or the stupid act. He was in the red light district, after all. It'd be almost impossible to be stupid here unless you were just that lucky.
"Why were they beating you up? And what were you talking about 'three more years'?" Naruto felt his blood run cold. He knew Sasuke was just as stubborn as him when he got curious, and he had no doubt that the Uchiha would go to the Hokage if he needed to in order to get the answers he wanted. And if he did that, there was no telling how much surveillance he would be under. Damn it!He'd have to try and convince the boy not to rat him out to anyone. How was he going to do that?
Pride.
The Uchiha clan had been a prideful one before they had been killed off by their prodigy, and Naruto knew just how to play that.
"What does it matter to you? You're just gonna run off and tell the Hokage like a little baby," He sneered at him. He'd have to make this seem like it was the Uchiha's idea if he wanted the boy to go along with it. The boy glared at him and gritted his teeth.
"I am not a tattle tale." He growled from between gritted teeth. Huh. Naruto would have gone with the word 'snitch,' but that just showed the differences in how they were raised.
He scoffed, "as if I'd believe that. You're the village favorite! Being handed things left and right. You'd just blab off to the whole village like Ino would. There's no way I'd believe you unless you gave me something back. And there's nothing you could give me that I would want." He watched as the raven turned from angry to thoughtful, to determined. He had him hooked. There was no way the boy wouldn't do like Naruto wanted.
"I promise on my pride as an Uchiha, and a ninja, that I won't tell anyone what you tell me tonight." Naruto blinked, mildly surprised. He had expected the boy to simply give up, if he was being honest. He shrugged. Uchiha in general quite prideful people. The only way Sasuke would ever give up his own pride for something was if he got his ass thoroughly kicked. Hopefully that would only happen after he left. Might as well give him an altered version of the truth.
"So you know how the Kyuubi attacked, right?" Sasuke nodded. "Well, I was born on that day, and since I was, like, the only baby who survived the attack, they think that I'm the Kyuubi reincarnated or some crap. And it doesn't help that one of my parents had a great healing bloodline, so they took that as proof." Sasuke frowned at this answer. It was just stupid to beat up a kid because of when he was born.
"And the other thing?" Naruto had hoped he would at least forget about that part. He sighed.
"I'm planning on leaving Konoha after I graduate from the academy. Don't forget that you promised not to tell anyone." Sasuke frowned again, but nodded.
"Why are you leaving Konoha? I mean, besides the villagers hating you," Sasuke asked, wondering why the boy was leaving when he could simply run from the villagers.
"Well, almost everyone else here is treated well. I want to find somewhere where people won't intentionally screw me over and try to stop me from growing. I want to be strong enough that no one could try to hurt me or anyone I might care for in the future." It was a solid answer, and should be good enough to convince the boy to leave him alone. He should go ahead and send him home.
He glanced out the window and sighed. It was dark. Never a good time for anyone to be out. The other boy would have to stay the night.
"Okay, so you might be ready to go home right now, but it's really not a good idea. It's dark out and it's usually worse at night. As in, someone would kidnap you and sell you off for several reasons, most of them being sexual," Sasuke paled at that, "or simply separate you into little pieces and sell you off in the black market, and dump the rest of you that they couldn't sell into some dumpster. You should probably stay the night. No one will bother you as long as you stay hidden for the night. They usually don't try anything on Mondays. They're usually too hungover from Sunday." Sasuke grunted and turned to inspect the place. It was actually very clean, with very few personal things. It wouldn't have looked like someone lived there, except for the ramen cup that was sitting on the counter.
"There's a couple of things in the fridge to eat, but be careful. I was gonna go shopping when I saw you bumbling around." Sasuke rolled his eyes and walked over to the couch.
"What are you doing?" Sasuke turned to look at Naruto, who looked irritated.
'I'm going to sleep on the couch."
"No, you're not. You're gonna sleep on the bed, and I'll take the couch."
"Hn. I'm taking the couch."
This argument went on for a while before they both gave up and laid in the bed beside each other.
"We will never speak of this again," Naruto mumbled, sleep pulling his eyes shut even as he said this.
"Agreed."