DISCLAIMER: If we owned Naruto, we would so not be writing fanfiction.

A/N: This is a story co-written by me (Kiera) and my friend Miya. So we'll be writing the chaps alternately. I'm starting the 1st chap. Hope you guys like it.

Chapter 1. An Unpleasant Start

Silence prevailed in the grand, majestic stone mansion. The shutters of the windows were tightly drawn, the imposing front door was closed. It seemed as if even air had been forbidden entry in the dark home. A bare cherry blossom tree stood in the grounds, buffeted by icy winds. Autumn was in the offing.

The dining room, like the rest of the house, was silent even though it was inhabited by people. Robes rustled as servants entered the room, to place the steaming food on the polished low mahogany table. Three people were seated in lotus-positions on fine-quality mats placed on the floor, solemnly partaking of the food. Everything about the scene signified sobriety and aristocracy. But the silence wasn't going to last long.

'I have read the reports sent by your teachers, Sasuke, and I must say that I am not pleased, not pleased at all.' The raven-haired man seated at the head of the table looked at his fifteen-yr old son. The man shook his hair back slightly, the brown tints to his hair contrasting greatly with his cold onyx eyes.

The teenager looked up slowly at his father, his blackish-blue bangs framing the sides of his carved pale face, 'I am afraid I do not understand, Tou-san.'

'Oh, you don't?' Fugaku coldly regarded his youngest son. His voice took on a sarcastic, lightly taunting note. 'But surely Uchiha Sasuke, the son of Uchiha Fugaku and brother of Uchiha Itachi, is intelligent enough to understand what his father is referring to? Or maybe you're simply too indifferent to care?'

Sasuke lowered his eyes to the food in front of him with a non-existent appetite. The woman next to him who greatly resembled him, spoke in a hesitant voice, 'B..But Sasuke…..has been doing extraordinarily well in his studies so far.'

'Oh, he has been doing 'extraordinarily well' indeed.' Fugaku's piercing gaze never wavered from his son. 'And he's deluded himself to believe that 'extraordinarily well' is enough for the name of Uchiha.'

Sasuke tightened in his seat. His voice was as level as possible though the coldness of it wasn't entirely lost, 'I am sorry Tou-san...if you've been disappointed…..'

'Disappointed? Disappointed?' the ever-prominent creases under Fugaku's eyes deepened as he questioned his son. 'That's a rather relative term, isn't it Sasuke?'

'Sasuke…really is trying his best.' Mikoto looked almost entreatingly at her husband. 'He's getting top marks in all his subjects and….' Mikoto's hesitant defense of her son was stopped by Fugaku's silencing look.

Fugaku turned his attention back to Sasuke, 'If this is your best, then I wonder how you were even born with that last name. An unfortunate accident maybe?'

Sasuke's hands clenched the side of the mat. He looked directly into his father's eyes with a calm, almost challenging stare, onyx meeting onyx. 'I assure you, Father. One day I shall prove to be worthy of the Uchiha name.'

'I recall you saying that a countless times, Sasuke.' Fugaku's eyes flashed. 'But you're yet to come up on anyone's expectations, least of all mine.' Fugaku leant slowly forwards, thinly veiled anger flickering in his eyes, 'Sometimes I wonder how you came to be Itachi's younger brother. You're not even worthy of being my son.'

Sasuke slammed the table forwards and stood up, hands clenched at his sides. His voice was icy to the core, even though he was addressing his mother, 'Kaa-san, I'm getting late. I need to go to the academy.' Without another word, Sasuke walked out of the room leaving an enraged Fugaku and a pained Mikoto behind. Slipping on his shoes, Sasuke swung his shoulder-bag on with unnecessary force as it crashed into an ornate porcelain vase which instantly fell to the floor and smashed into pieces. Paying no heed to the mess, Sasuke proceeded to storm out of the house when a woman's call stopped him.

'Sasuke, please wait.' Sasuke turned to see Mikoto standing near the door, her bluish-black locks waving in the wind, a hurt expression on her face. Not in the mood to hear his mother's pleas to calm down, Sasuke turned his face again and pushed open the door.

'Sasuke, please.' A soft hand took hold of Sasuke's wrist. Having no choice, Sasuke cast a glance at Mikoto's tear-stained face. 'Please…..please listen to me.'

Something softened in Sasuke's eyes. He turned fully and gazed at his mother, who couldn't help but smile lightly at this, 'Sasuke….your father…he doesn't really mean it….'

'Mother, I don't want to talk about him.' Sasuke's tone allowed no arguments. His eyes turned ice-cold again. Unable to see her son's bitterness, Mikoto pulled Sasuke into an embrace.

Sasuke was stiff at first. Relentless, Mikoto clung on to him, refusing to let go of her youngest son. Gradually, Sasuke's shoulders sagged and he gave in to his mother's embrace, 'Kaa-san, I know why Father hates me.'

Mikoto looked her son worriedly in the eye, 'That's not true, Sasuke! Your father loves you.' Her tone entreated Sasuke to believe her and just let go, but Sasuke had had enough. 'No Kaa–san, Father hates me. No matter how much you deny it, it's true. He does hate me and I know the reason for his hatred.'

Mikoto looked into Sasuke's face again. His face was wrought with something akin to pain, his eyes overflowing with angst. A tiny pearl-drop rolled down his pale cheeks and dropped off his chin. Sasuke's voice broke as he spoke:

'I never meant to kill her Kaa –san…I am so sorry… I never meant to kill her…..

'Good morning, Sasuke.'

'Good morning, Iruka-sensei.'

Iruka looked worriedly at the raven-haired boy whose eyes were way too old for his age. His tone was polite enough but his face told an entirely different story. 'Is there something wrong, Sasuke?'

Sasuke looked directly at his teacher with a blank face. 'Of course not Sensei. Everything is perfectly alright.' Iruka probed his eyes for a sign of grief but Sasuke did not betray any visible emotion.

Iruka sighed resignedly, 'Very well. What I wanted to inform you about was that a new student, Uzumaki Naruto will be joining us shortly. I wanted you to guide him for a bit, since he shall be totally unfamiliar with the school and the classes.'

Sasuke's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, 'With all due respect, Iruka-sensei, why me?' There was an innate suspicion to his voice.

'Well it is quite sad really, but unfortunately the boy does not have a mother.' Iruka looked intently at Sasuke, waiting for any sign of emotion to slip through his face. 'I thought that you would be able to empathize best with the boy and help him through school.'

The double-meaning to the sentence did not go unnoticed by Sasuke. Iruka relentlessly strove on 'Will you help him, Sasuke?'

'Of course sensei, whatever you say.' His affirmation was delivered in a flat tone of voice. 'With your permission Sensei, I'm getting late for class.'

Iruka gazed at the back of Sasuke as he walked down the hallway. The boy was outstanding in his studies, extraordinarily polite but never said a word beyond what was necessary. And then again, there were his eyes which permanently had a haunted look to them. Sasuke would forever mystify those around him who wished to know the secret behind his dark emotionless eyes.

Sasuke calmly walked down the corridor, pacing towards his next class. He passed by a group of girls huddled together outside the door who broke out in a burst of giggles the moment they caught sight of him. A few of them looked appreciatively at his tall, defined form and his stylishly messy jet-black hair with dark blue tints to them. Sasuke ignored them as usual. He entered the classroom and was going to sit in his customary seat right at the back, when he saw an unpleasantly familiar blonde sitting next to his seat. With a mental groan, he sat without saying a single word, but the girl next to him did not follow his lead and began talking the moment she spotted him.

'Sasuke-kun! I was waiting for you for ages.' Ino could have burst with happiness. She was sitting next to the Uchiha Sasuke! She could feel the other girls' jealous stares till here.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. In a voice that could not completely disguise his irritation, he said, 'I wasn't aware that this was your seat.'

'Well….um…..' Ino blushed. 'Actually….I….I…need your help! Yes I need your help. In my um…..studies! Can you please help me?'

'I think the person you sit with will be more than capable of helping you.' Sasuke commented in the most offhanded tone possible.

'You mean Shikamaru? Well yeah….. he's smart but he gets a zero all the time …..' Ino trailed off, trying to find an excuse to get Sasuke to help her. 'But….I'm sure you'd be a much better teacher! I mean if you could tutor me and…..'

'Ino, I'm busy. Can I talk to you later?' Sasuke cut Ino off in the middle of her sentence in what was plainly a clear dismissal. His politeness was waning the moment Ino spoke in her annoying voice, and now he did not have time to listen to her nonsense.

'Um…ok.' Ino blushed again, this time out of embarrassment. She shuffled quickly to her seat and sat down, clutching her hands. Her neighbor sitting behind poked her sharply on the shoulder.

'Ino-chan, when will you ever give up?' Sakura pulled at a strand of her short pink hair between her fingers. 'Why do you waste all your time chasing after him anyway?'

'God Sakura, he is the Uchiha Sasuke! All the girls are crazy after him!' Her momentary embarrassment forgotten, Ino chattered excitedly to her best friend. 'There's no way I'm giving up! Not unless someone else gets him, that is. But I'm not gonna let it happen.'

Sakura sighed, 'It's useless arguing with you. Heaven knows what you and all the other girls see in that rude guy anyway.'

'Rude!' Ino looked as if Sakura had plunged a kunai through her heart. 'He's always so polite to everyone Sakura! The teachers, students everyone! And of course, the most important thing: he's so damn hot!' Ino sighed dreamily.

'Yeah he may be polite but that doesn't mean he's nice.' Sakura cast a gaze behind her at the dark-haired, impassive Uchiha. His dark orbs glared a hole into the desk. 'And he may be hot, but that's not the only thing which matters.'

'God, you nerds! Always so fixed on character and everything.' Ino blew a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes. 'But I thought you were different Sakura! I mean, you like bad boys, don't you?'

'Yes, but there's something different about this one.' Sakura thought about all those times she had pondered on the weird emotions she had glimpsed in his eyes. 'His eyes, they're so….'

'Dreamy, right?' Ino looked like she was in a dream herself.

'No, you idiot.' Sakura rapped at her irritatingly. 'His eyes are so…haunted.'

'Haunted?' repeated Ino incredulously. 'You know, I can say loads of things about Sasuke's eyes but haunted won't be one of them. How can someone's eyes be haunted anyway? I've only heard of haunted houses or trees. Is he supposed to have ghosts inside his eyes?'

Sakura groaned, 'I didn't mean that. I meant that his eyes looked as though he has faced a lot of sorrow and pain in his life.'

'Well Sakura, all I can say is that you've read way too many ghost stories lately.' Ino turned in front. 'Now that all your theorizing about Uchiha Sasuke's anguished past is done, I need to get some homework done.' Ino briskly grabbed Sakura's papers from her desk.

'When will you stop copying your homework from me, Ino-chan?' Sakura wearily commented.

'The day you admit that Sasuke's the hottest guy on the planet.' Ino winked at her.

Snorting at Ino's last comment, Sakura couldn't help but gaze backwards again at the subject of their recent topic of conversation. He looked the same as he always had: quiet and unusually cold.

Cold yet hot at the same time…

'Shut up, Inner Sakura.' Sakura muttered. The guy sitting two seats away from her looked quizzically at her, clearly wierded out by what she had just said. Sakura simply smiled cordially at him and started flipping through her book. But her thoughts were buzzing somewhere else.

Is he hiding a secret?

Sasuke sat on the floor, leaning against the cold, hard stone wall. He closed his eyes wearily. But those images flashed in front of his eyes again and he opened them quickly, trying to stifle those images with the sights and sounds of his surroundings.

The recent clash with his father had again brought those memories to the forefront of his mind, the memories which he tried so hard to avoid. But memories just like thoughts could not be banished so easily, by simply trying not to think about them. The more one tried, the more desperately he would fail, and now Sasuke was going through the same ordeal. He tried, he tried so hard to forget it, to follow his mother's advice, but it was proving to be impossible.

Sasuke struck the stone wall with his fist in frustration. The wall did not break, but there was a very audible crack from his knuckles. Sasuke groaned, the physical pain now added to the mental one he was already feeling. He leant fully against the wall and closed his eyes again, admitting defeat to the memories who claimed him as he lay there against the wall:

'Sasuke, calm down your anger. You brother didn't do it purposely.' Mikoto genially entreated her eight-yr old son who was currently throwing a tantrum. She looked tired and wan as she had been persuading him for a long time and her swollen stomach was taking a toll on her.

'No, he did do it purposely. I hate Itachi! ' Sasuke sulked, folding his arms tightly as he refused to look anywhere near his mother's face.

Mikoto sighed, 'Sasuke, you shouldn't say things like that about your big brother. He's five years elder to you.'

'So?' Sasuke demanded, finally looking into his mother's face. 'That doesn't mean he has the right to do whatever he wants! I hate him!'

'What's going on here? Sasuke, don't speak ill of your big brother.' Fugaku entered the room, the creases underneath his eyes deepening as he looked sternly at Sasuke.

'But Tou-san…..' Sasuke lowered his eyes as he spotted Fugaku's stern face. 'Itachi broke my video game!'

'And he shall apologise for it.' Fugaku amended. But he continued in a severe voice, 'But you will show respect towards your elder brother and not speak ill of him. Is that clear?'

'No! I won't forgive Itachi! Never!' the rebellious spirit had struck Sasuke and he ran out of the room, pursued by his parents. Mikoto managed to block him as he prepared to sprint down the staircases. 'Sasuke, Itachi didn't mean to do it. And he's truly sorry for it. Now, please forgive him.' Mikoto stretched her arms towards Sasuke to embrace him and finally tame his stubborn will.

'No!' Sasuke pushed an approaching Mikoto backwards who bending forward to hug him, could not retain her balance. She was standing on the precipice of the landing right on the edge of the staircase and as Sasuke pushed her, she stumbled backwards and her feet could find no stable footing. As Fugaku raced forwards to grab the hand of his flailing wife, it fell short by an inch and Mikoto fell backwards off the steep staircase.

'MOTHER!'

A/N: If you liked it, please, please, please review!