Define Love
Prologue: Of Swings and Tomato Kisses
A.N. All characters belong to Kishimoto.
Love (lŭv) n.:
A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
A feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child or friend.
Sexual passion or desire; sexual intercourse, copulation
A person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
Used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like.
Affectionate concern for the well-being of others, eg. the love of one's neighbour.
Strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything, eg. Her love of books.
A score of zero; nothing.
A word formerly used in communication to represent the letter L.
Naruto stared at the dictionary. But there were so many definitions, how was he going to choose one? Besides, he didn't even understand some of the words there, like intercourse. And copulation. And endearment. And predilection. And – well, you get the picture. He groaned as he slid down in his seat, staring at the worksheet in front of him. Why on earth Iruka would want them to find out the meanings of 5 words every day was beyond him. They were training to be ninjas in the Ninja Academy, not to be English teachers!
Losing interest in his worksheet, Naruto glanced around the classroom, trying to find something more interesting to do. Unable to do much under the scrutiny of Iruka, Naruto wound up staring out the window at the empty playground, counting down the minutes before the bell rang when they were released for twenty minutes of playtime. The swings were practically beckoning to him to come and play, as a small wind lifted a few stray leaves in a lazy spiralling dance, moving the swings ever so slightly. Ten more minutes, just ten more minu-
"Uzumaki Naruto! Are you done with your work?"
Naruto snapped out of his daydream. "Whu-?"
Iruka frowned as he began to lecture the boy. "Naruto, for the hundredth time, don't daydream if you haven't finished your work! The faster you get it done, the faster you get to play outside! How many times do you want me to repeat this same thing? By daydreaming you don't gain anything, you only lose time and effort and… time! And daydreaming will get you nowhere in life. You'll just end up a good for nothing Genin! Work hard, and it'll take you places! I feel like an old woman, nagging away…"
Naruto sighed inwardly as Iruka continued his tirade, already used to the teacher's constant rants.
"Do you hear me? One more time, I swear –"
Before Iruka could finish his threat, however, the bell went off, and the children let off a collective whoop and streamed out of the classroom for break, pushing past Iruka in their excitement. Iruka sighed and rubbed his temples, making a mental note to continue Naruto's dressing-down as the blonde in question took the opportunity to escape.
Running down towards the playground, Naruto was delighted to see that the swings were unoccupied. Well, mostly unoccupied anyways. That Uchiha asshole was there, emo-ing away by himself as usual. Hardly anyone played at the swings anymore after a girl fell and knocked out her two front teeth, something Naruto was secretly glad about. He used to hate waiting forever for his turn for a go at the swings, and then having to get off five minutes later for the next person.
Deciding to just ignore his raven-haired rival, Naruto sat himself down on the swing, kicking his short legs back and forth, swinging higher and higher with every kick. It turned out to be pretty easy to ignore Sasuke, as he just sat there, didn't even swing, and didn't make a noise. Naruto temporarily forgot that the raven was there, as he continued to swing, trying to catch the clouds with his toes. That last time was so close! I'll touch it the next time round…
Before long, the bell went, and Naruto groaned in frustration. Weighing his options out in his six-year-old mind, he decided to ignore it, and continuing to swing. Compared to playing on the swings, going back to Iruka's lectures and that tortuous worksheet, it was obvious that the former would be much more interesting and fun.
"Oi, dobe. Time to go."
Naruto turned his head sideways to look at Sasuke. Huh, he actually talked to me. "Yeah, so what?" he replied, slowing down a little. "I'm not going back."
Sasuke sighed and shook his head. "You're going to get it from Iruka. Again."
"Do I look like I care?" Naruto drawled, laughing as he soared higher with another kick. "What can Iruka do? At most, he'd only give me another lecture."
Naruto turned his head away from Sasuke to gaze at the puffy white clouds again as Sasuke huffed silently. Well, if Naruto wanted to be difficult, so be it.
One moment he was close to touching the skies, the next, he was anything but. Suddenly finding himself on his back in the dirt, it took a while for Naruto's brain to register the magnificent flip he'd just performed split seconds ago, and only then did he realise that he was grabbing onto dark blue material with a death grip with his right hand. How'd the rope supporting the swing turn into dark cloth?
The shooting pain down his spine took a while more to register, and Naruto would have yelled till kingdom come, cussing down the proud Uchiha, but something foreign at the moment was covering his lips, such that he seemed to be unable to move them. Something soft, and slightly wet that tasted faintly of… tomatoes.
It was only when Sasuke hastily pulled back, surreptitiously wiping at his mouth while trying to force down a blush, when Naruto realised what had really happened. He had engaged in… in… lip-to-lip contact with the biggest bastard on earth!
He swiped at his mouth disgustedly as well, pulling back. "What the hell, teme?! You stole my first kiss! I was going to save it for Sakura-chan!"
Sasuke looked equally chagrined. "What do you mean I stole it?! You stole mine!"
"But you were on top of me!"
"So? You pulled me down on top of yourself!"
"You were on top of me, regardless, so you were the one who kissed me!"
"Dumb shit, who'd want to kiss that loud obnoxious hole in your face?!"
"Don't ask me, ask yourself! You kissed me!"
"Omo…" a small voice peeped, interrupting the two boys' squabble. "You two… kissed?!"
The two boys snapped around at the voice, turning to see one of the girls from their class standing there.
"What the hell is your problem! You were spying on us, is that it?" Naruto demanded, annoyed. "And I didn't want to kiss him, he kissed me! Get that straight!"
The girl sputtered. "I wasn't… Iruka-sensei asked me to check on –"
"We don't need checking up on, we were just on our way," Sasuke hissed, "Until this idiot decided to do a flip in the air and kiss me!" he said, thumping Naruto's head for emphasis when he said 'idiot'.
"EXCUSE ME!" Naruto said, rubbing his head in indignation. "I did not do that flip for nothing! YOU PULLED ME OFF THE SWING! Don't push the blame, Uchiha! If you did something, man up and own up!"
"Man up? You man up! I was trying to get you back to class and this is all the thanks I get?!"
"Thanks? Who's thanking you, bastard? You caused all this trouble, why on earth should I be thanking you? Apologise to me!"
The girl stuttered as he watched the heated verbal sparring between the two boys, before running off back to class, unknown by the oblivious squabblers.
"I'm not the one who tastes of freaking tomatoes!"
"I'm not the one who goes around tasting other people's lips!"
"I'm not the one who pulls people off the freaking swing to do a freaking flip just to freaking kiss them!"
"I'm not the one who drags people down to roll in the dirt to kiss them!"
"You boys are coming with me."
Upset that their fight was interrupted for the second time, Naruto turned, expecting it to be another student. "Look, if Iruka sent you again, I don't bloody give a –"
"Don't bloody give a what, brat?" Tsunade glared, as Naruto trailed off weakly. "You should be ashamed of yourself. I'd expected better control from the both of you, especially you, Sasuke! You are young boys, and there will undoubtedly be plenty of time in the future for you to display your shows of affection –"
"Affection?! What? This dobe here pulled me down on top of him!" Sasuke protested angrily. "You've got it wrong, we hate each other's guts!"
"No, this bloody bastard is the one that forced me off the swing in a freakin' flip!" Naruto said huffily. "We don't just hate each other, we… TOTALLY hate each other!" Naruto yelled, for the lack of a better word.
"I hate you more!"
"No, I hate you more!"
"No, I hate you even more!"
"No, I hate you even MORE than more!"
"That doesn't even make sense, dobe! I hate you EVEN EVEN MORE!"
"STOP IT!" Tsunade yelled, pressing her fingers to her temples in a vain effort to lessen her headache which, no doubt, was caused by excessive drinking on top of the boys' squabbling. "You two, in my office, NOW!"
"Look what you've done now, congratulations, baka!" Naruto whispered as the trudged unwillingly the Hokage's office.
"What look at what I've done, you're the cause of all this!"
"No, you –"
"If you both don't shut up," Tsunade threatened as she turned to face the both of them, cracking her knuckles. "You will regret it."
That pretty much silenced the children for the remainder of the short walk to the Hokage's office.
Striding into the office with the two children in her wake, Tsunade picked up a near-empty sake bottle from her desk as she emptied it of its contents. Shizune, who had been filing documents of the C-rank missions that month, looked up in surprise.
"Well, what do we have here? What is it now, Hokage-sama?"
"I was passing by the school, and the kids were making a ruckus by making out in public; in the playground, no less." Tsunade said, trying her best to sound professional. "And I thought it would only be right for me, as the Hokage, to discipline them, and teach them how to control their inner urges until when they're old enough."
Shizune sighed. "Don't make such lame excuses to escape your paperwork, Hokage-sama!" Holding up her index finger to shush Tsunade, who was about to contradict, she continued, "Last month's paperwork is already overdue and this month's paperwork is piling up as well."
Tsunade frowned. "I'll get to it eventually, don't be such a nag, Shizune."
"Plus, won't the teachers be worried that they –"
Shizune barely was able to finish her sentence, when a flustered Iruka burst into the office right on cue. "Hokage, two students of mine went missing! I don't know what happened, I sent a girl out for them, but she returned and said that they were – oh, uh, well. Why are they here? Did they do something wrong?"
Tsunade frowned. "Oh, they've done something wrong alright! They were making out in the playground!"
"Bloody hell, for the last freaking time, he –"
"No we weren't! What the hell, this guy, he –"
"You were making out at the playground?!" Iruka's soft tone took the boys by surprise, cutting them off in mid-rant. "YOU WERE MAKING OUT IN THE PLAYGROUND?!" Iruka yelled, veins visibly throbbing in his forehead. He paused, taking a deep breath, a sign the boys, especially Naruto, knew to be terribly terribly dangerous. It would mean that he would…
"DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW TO MAKE OUT?! YOU ARE YOUNG BOYS, SIX-YEAR-OLD BOYS, AND YOU ARE MAKING OUT?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? DO YOU KNOW HOW THIS WOULD AFFECT THE SCHOOL'S REPUTATION, KONOHA'S REPUTATION? DO YOU KNOW –" Naruto, Sasuke, and even Tsunade and Shizune winced, gingerly covering their ears.
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS TO ME?! THIS MEANS I HAVE FAILED AS A TEACHER TO PROPERLY EDUCATE YOU YOUNG PEOPLE THE PROPER WAY OF LIFE! WHY IS THIS NEW GENERATION IS SO STUBBORN? OH I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Luckily for the four people in the room, Iruka then passed out cold.
"Oh, bother." Tsunade frowned. "Well at least that shuts him up. Shizune, I'm entrusting this to you to clean up. Now, I've some very important business to attend to…" Shizune sighed in resignation as the buxom woman made another hasty getaway, leaving her to clean up the mess.
"Boys, go home. And for goodness sakes, don't fight anymore. Or make out. Whatever." Then, she promptly threw them out of the building before they could protest.
"Why do I always end up cleaning up?" she grumbled.
Standing outside the door, slightly disorientated at being thrown out so abruptly, the boys were silent for a while.
"Well."
"Well."
"I guess we should go home then."
"Yeah."
"Okay then."
"Okay."
"Bye."
"Hn."
"… I still hate you!"
A.N. Yeahhh, new inspiration for a new story! Sorry about kind of leaving the current un-updated stories, I'll get round to them, I promise! I just HAVE to write this down before I forget! :x Yup, so anyway, look out for the next few chapters! Next up, Chapter One: Affection and Tenderness! :D I've decided to plan my story in advance this time round, instead of rambling on and on and letting the story shape-shift along the way as it progresses; hopefully this will give me more motivation to write and update? R&R! :D